Page 21

SIXTEEN

DAYNA

“If I’d known you look so damn fine wearing that little belt thing, I would’ve asked you to fix something sooner.”

My gaze lingers on the tool belt around his waist before my eyes drift along the muscles of his abdomen to the tattoos covering his chest.

The man is fine… with a capital F.

I don’t focus on the strips covering his head wound. I can’t without spiralling into panic.

He’s okay. I’m okay.

Breathe.

Even though it’s been a few days since he was in the hospital, the fear still skitters through me every time I think about what could have happened.

He glances at me, smirking. “I don’t need to fix something to wear this.”

I wiggle my eyebrows. “Kinky. What about if I wear it? Just that?”

His hand freezes, his knuckles tight around the screwdriver he’s holding. “We’re definitely trying that later.”

I laugh, though he looks far better in it than I ever could.

I don’t know what is wrong with my body, but since Dash got hurt, I’ve felt wrong. Weird.

It’s probably stress.

I’ve been permanently bloated, and everything is turning my stomach.

He could have died.

But he didn’t. And that’s not why I’m bloated.

Maybe I need to cut carbs out of my diet again…

The thought makes me want to drown myself in the shower. Carbs make me happy, even if my hips don’t like them.

“You okay?”

I snap my gaze to him, blinking. “Yeah. Just thinking about carbs.”

He frowns at me. “Okay… why?”

He’s not ready for the explanation of what insanity just went through my head. “Trust me, you don’t want to know.”

Straightening his back, he comes to stand in front of me, pressing me back against the doorjamb. One hand goes over my head, the other rests on my hip, and I let out a giddy laugh. Holy hotness.

“I’m pretty sure I’ve seen movies that start this way. Are you going to fix my pipes next?”

He shakes his head at my ridiculousness. Then he tilts his head, giving me a look that makes my spine tingle and my thighs clench. “If I didn’t have a screwdriver in my hand and a half-installed deadbolt, I’d show you exactly what else I can fix.”

Oh, that tingle turns into a full-blooded, hot shiver. I place my hands on his chest, his skin as heated as mine.

I roll to my toes and kiss him. It’s wet and warm, soft and hard. Him and me.

“Babe, you keep kissing me like this and this lock isn’t getting done.”

My sigh is dramatic. “Fine. Do your work. I’ll quit distracting you.”

I watch him, his jaw flexing as if he’s not sure whether he wants to kiss me again or throw me over his shoulder. I really like how that makes me feel. To be wanted by someone like him isn’t something I thought would ever happen.

Men like Dash don’t fall for girls like me.

I’m so busy ogling him that I don’t see the danger before it’s too late. She comes out of nowhere, like a fucking demon crawling out of the shadows. And I don’t have time or chance to defend the most important thing in my life from the one thing guaranteed to destroy it.

“Darling, if you needed something fixed, I could have asked George.” Her voice crawls down my spine like a threat. She looks Dash up and down like he’s a piece of shit on her shoe, and my stomach twists. “Are shirts optional in your workplace?”

My mother’s nose is so high in the air, I don’t know how she’s not hurting her neck. She eyes his tattooed chest like it offends her, and it probably does.

Evelyn fucking Harrington thinks only thugs and criminals have tattoos.

She nearly called the police when I even suggested getting a tattoo when I was sixteen.

Dash straightens, sliding his screwdriver into his tool belt. His eyes are sharp as he takes in my mother with one sweeping glance that would have anyone else trying to become one with the wall.

Evelyn doesn’t so much as flinch.

“I’m not at work,” he says, meeting her judgment and passive aggressive disapproval toe to toe.

She clutches her overpriced designer handbag, like she’s afraid he might snatch it out of her hands.

My brain is short-circuiting. I mean, I knew at some point Dash would meet my mother, but I figured it would be on neutral ground, and in the year never .

My breath rushes out of me in panicked pants as I slide between the man who holds my heart in his hand and the woman who will crush it.

“What did I say about calling before you turn up?” My tone is harsher than I mean it to be.

I try to push her back towards the stairwell, but she digs her heels in. “I was in the area. I’ll call George. He can finish fixing whatever that is.”

I bristle. “I don’t want you to call George. I don’t like George. The man has wandering hands and gives off weird uncle vibes. Dash is fixing my door. And we’re in the middle of something, so I’ll call you later.”

“Darling, are you that hard up that you can’t afford a contractor who doesn’t look like he’s been in jail?”

That is the final fucking straw. “He’s not a contractor or a handyman or whatever the fuck else you’ve decided he is in your judgmental brain. He’s my boyfriend.”

My mother recoils as if I’ve told her I’m joining a cult that worships earthworms. The silence that falls is thick enough to cut with the screwdriver in Dash’s hand.

My lungs feel tight, like nothing is getting past the knot in my throat. I don’t dare look at Dash to see if he’s pissed. If he’s debating leaving and never looking back.

I wouldn’t blame him. I don’t even want to deal with my mother, and I have no choice.

“Dayna. No.” She looks at him again like she’s evaluating what species he is.

I risk glancing over my shoulder. I need to know if he’s done. If she’s ruined this for me.

But Dash… is smirking.

What the fuck?

He wipes the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand deliberately, as if he’s trying to pour accelerant on the fire already burning beneath him.

My mother’s eye twitches, and that gives me strength. For the first time in my life, I don’t flinch. I don’t apologise and I don’t shrink.

Instead, I hook my fingers into his tool belt and pull him towards me, possessively.

“Seriously, did you need something because we’re kind of busy?”

Evelyn’s face contorts into an ugly mask.

“She’s not with you because she wants you,” she says to Dash.

He stiffens at my side. “She’s only doing this to get back at me.

My daughter has always been rebellious. And she knows I would find this,” she waves a hand in his direction, her mouth turned down at the corners, “disappointing.”

I snap. I feel the moment it happens. It’s as if all that tightness in my chest is released.

“Do you know what’s disappointing? Having a mother more concerned with appearances than her daughter’s happiness.”

His fingers flex on my waist in silent approval.

Her expression is sour. “Who knows about this? Maybe I can do some damage control before James finds out?—”

“Who the fuck is James?” Dash cuts her off.

“A polyester polo shirt wearing snob,” I say to him, my gaze locked on Evelyn. “And I don’t know how many ways I can tell you I am not interested in James fucking Critchlow. I’m not interested in any of it. I moved out on my own because I was so sick of you trying to make me be someone I’m not.”

She tosses her head like a prized fucking horse. “You’re being ridiculous.”

Of course, she would say that rather than actually listen to the words coming out of my mouth.

“Do you know what is ridiculous, Evelyn? Thinking you can control my life just because you’re my mother.

” I lean into Dash’s side, my hand resting on his chest. “This is Dash—Rhys. He’s my boyfriend and has been for a while now.

He treats me like I matter. He takes care of me when I can’t care for myself.

He adores me for who I am, not who he wants me to be. Which is more than you’ve ever done.”

She splutters, as if I’ve offended her so deeply, she’ll never recover. Her hand presses to her chest like she’s trying to hold her heart behind her ribs. “After everything I’ve done for you?—”

“Don’t!” I snap. “Don’t you dare stand there and say I need to give up the things that are important to me because of what you’ve done for me.

You’re my parent. You’re supposed to do things for me.

It doesn’t mean you get to come into my life and insult the one good thing I’ve got.

So, unless you have something nice to say, something, I don’t know, congratulatory, you can show yourself out. ”

I walk into my flat, my heart thundering so fast I feel lightheaded. I head straight for the bathroom, my stomach twisting.

I’ve never stood up to her like that before. I’ve pushed back, sure, but that was a full-frontal assault.

I lock the bathroom door, leaning on the sink and sucking in breaths that don’t quite reach my lungs.

After a moment, there is a soft knock on the door. “Dayna?”

I close my eyes, not sure I want to open it and face him. At the moment, things between us are fine, normal, but if I open that door, I know what I’m going to see.

Regret.

Disappointment.

The look that says he’s got one foot out the door already.

“Babe?” He knocks again.

I straighten, squaring my shoulders. Whatever happens, I can deal with it. I will deal with it. I don’t have a choice.

Ignoring the nausea coating my throat, I pull the lock back and open the door.

He’s leaning his forearms over his head, the move so sexy I almost combust.

If I wasn’t standing on the edge of a cliff, hanging on by my fingertips, I might have thrown myself into his arms and on to his mercy.

But instead, I wrap my arms around my stomach, trying to stop the relentless churning.

“So, you met my mother,” I say in a small voice. “I guess now you understand why I’m the way I am. That was the roadmap I had to follow.” I duck around him, and he lets me go, though he follows me as I move into the kitchen.

Suddenly, my flat is too small. There’s nowhere to escape him, to escape the weight of this.

“You don’t have to stay,” I throw casually over my shoulder, even though my heart is shattering. “She’s right. George can fix the lock. And you survived a round with Evelyn. I can’t ask more than that.”

He doesn’t move, doesn’t let a single emotion slide onto his face as he hooks his thumbs into the tool belt.

“And I’m sorry for everything I said. It was the only way to shut her up.

Don’t read into it. I mean, I know we’re not really together together .

Fucking isn’t really dating, is it? But she was just being a bitch, and she’s right when she says I’ve always been rebellious.

” I trail off, my heart in my throat. He’s not saying anything, and that has my nerves snapping.

“Anyway,” I continue, fighting back my tears, “it’s been fun, but I don’t expect you to stick around and deal with her. I don’t want to deal with her and, unfortunately, we share DNA.”

“You done?” he asks, his voice gruff and low.

“I mean?—”

He cuts me off before I can say another word. “Your mother is a bitch.”

“Understatement,” I mutter.

“But I’m not your mother’s boyfriend.” I cringe until he cups my jaw. “I’m yours. Watching you out there was hot as fuck.”

I blink. Then I blink again. “Has that tool belt done something to your brain?” I whisper.

His smile is ruinous. Both disarming and so sinful, it makes my thighs clench.

“Remind me to never piss you off.” He presses me back against the wall, lifting my hands over my head and holding them so I can’t move. Oh, fuck. Am I panting?

Then he kisses me like he’s branding me with every brush of his lips.

“I’m not letting you go because your mother is a cunt,” he murmurs in my ear.

“Right.” I sound breathy.

My hips lift towards him, trying to find him, to release the ache building between my legs.

“Phew, because I might have turned into some kind of crazy stalker if you left me.”

He lets go of me so he can slide his hand under my waistband and into my leggings. The minute he touches me, I let out a disgustingly feral sound.

His other hand grips my face, turning my head to the side so he can trail kisses down my jaw.

“No one has ever stamped their mark on me quite as thoroughly as you did just now,” he growls against my skin. “Your mother is lucky she didn’t have a front-row seat to the things I wanted to do to you.”

I gasp as he thrusts his fingers inside me.

“Dash…” I gasp as he hits that spot deep inside me that makes my thighs tremble.

“Scream for me, baby.”

And then I ride him shamelessly, the memory of my mother fading like an old picture left out in the sun too long, before he has me screaming.