Page 86 of Preacher Man

Lawless couldn't explain. The ball in his gut was on fire.

"Schoolwork is important. Tell the kid to stop being a little brat and get on with it."

He'd hacked the school records. No big deal, it was a thing he could do. As well as build computers when he was bored. He'd seen she was doing good in some classes but others, total ass-clown. He strode off. "And I'm gonna send some physics books to your place, for Zara to give to her."

He didn't see his brothers gaping at his back when he walked out with the chick.

Angela had an incentive now to stop acting the fool in school and not allow last year’s trauma to ruin her whole fucking life. So, what if he felt sorry for her, he’d literally dragged her out of hell and dealt with her clinging to him for hours. Maybe he felt responsible.

He didn’t.

There was no explanation Lawless wanted to dig into.

He had a place to take this chick. Not to his flop at the club, or his apartment in town.

Nah this was private, out of the way. Secluded. Paid for on a month to month basis. No one knew. He was a private guy and didn’t like to advertise.

Somewhere someone could scream. if they wanted to.

Lawless wanted her to. Needed her to.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

“Secrets and lies are not what gets you off, beautiful. - Preacher.

“W-what---?”

“I love you, too, Sebastian.”

Though Preacher had his fingers embedded inside her most intimate channel, his dark shadowed voice caused her to ripple with a flash of trepidation as though he was holding onto his control by repeating what she’d said back to her in a tone she hadn’t heard from him before. It was ambiguous and sent a shiver of coldness across her chest.

He’d heard her phone call?Shut up, Ruby. Of course, he had. Where else would he have heard Sebastian’s name from? He didn’t pluck it from thin air. The desire evaporated instantly like smoke and she shoved his hand away, lifted her leg over his head so she could roll away, grabbing the towel, exposed, dodging his eyes and his question she tied it around herself, taking a long breath. Avoiding.

“It’s bad-manners to listen in to someone’s private conversation.”

“Private? This is our room,” he laughed humorlessly. “C’mon, Ruby. Who is it? It’s someone special, or are you telling the desk-clerk you love him now?”

“It’s none of your business, can we drop this, please?”

“I’d like to. I really would. All I wanna do is get back to what I was doing.”

“Then let’s do that.” She made to walk across to him, her heart in her throat, her emotions were private, they made her vulnerable if exposed and she wasn’t doing that for anyone, it had taken shitty parents, absent siblings and a lot of stupid boyfriends to teach her that lesson; don’t give anyone your playing cards or watch them Gin Rummy you time and again like a cutthroat motherfucker.

“I love you, Sebastian,” he repeated harsher the second time. Tightening her jaw, she stared just as he did.

“What’s happening here, Preacher? Are you passing up sex … for a conversation? Will the real Preacher man please stand up.” Fuck her he did stand up. From on his knees, he rose like a titan. In the small motel room, he was a fucking god of a man almost scraping the ceiling with his stubbed ponytail. No less intimidating than he usually was, but standing with his hands hanging loosely at his sides, thick ropey forearms, with protruding veins, attached to a massive inflating chest, and those watchful eyes she almost shrank back from him.

“C’mon, baby. It’s a simple question.”

Defensive and gaspy, feeling like she was treading underwater, she rounded on Preacher and found him almost brushing against her chest, the electricity sizzled between them, a valid crack of static heat in the air, his head cranked down to look at her, he was undeniably handsome in his worn face.

And she thought both of them were fucked up in their own small ways, strange they’d gravitated towards each other then. She’d seen some of his tonight with that big idiot guy. She couldn’t guess what kind of hate-on he had for Preacher, she’d only seen the tip of that iceberg, so shoot her but she didn’t really want to add her own crapola into their mix. This was meant to be a sex weekend (mid-week) and it was slowly, surely, turning to cat-turd.

Nope. Ruby wasn’t having it. She came for sex and sex she would get for Christ sake. A sex weekend with no sex was just… a weekend. And she could have plenty of those at home where she was swamped in responsibilities until she felt as though she would drown. She was so fucking turned around by this fast one eighty she couldn’t find her equilibrium. Hot, bothered and defensive. With the kind of hormones still effervescing in her blood stream she was liking to still lunge at him.

“I don’t want a conversation, Preacher. I want kissing and fucking.”

She’d startled him. He blinked, one long covering of eyelids over his emerald stare. With bold fingers, she slid her hand around his butt and down into the back pocket of his jeans, giving a little “ah ha,” as her fingers came upon a square of plastic, she grasped and pulled out two condoms.