Page 7 of The Healing Touch (Manwhore #3)

CHAPTER FIVE

Two hours later, she found herself packed and on the road to Charleston, South Carolina, in Dimitri’s new Jeep Grand Cherokee.

It was a fourteen-hour drive. Why the hell hadn’t she at least attempted the airport?

Because her anxiety rose to almost epic heights at the mere thought of a crowded airport.

Not happening today. She was already at her breaking point.

When he said he needed to make a pit stop, she assumed he meant to get snacks for the road, but no.

His pit stop was the dealership. He decided he needed something more comfortable than his rental.

Plus, he couldn’t take the rental all the way to South Carolina and back anyway. So, he bought himself a new car.

Crazy man. Who went out and bought a new car on the spur of the moment? She knew his books sold well, but she had no idea they sold that well.

“If you turn the radio channel one more time, I swear by all that’s holy, I will tie your hands behind your back the rest of the trip!”

She snatched her hand back. They’d been fighting over the radio since they got into the car. She usually won simply because she ignored him, but he sounded testy. What put a bee in his bonnet?

Dimitri knew he was being a little bitch, but being this close to her was slowly driving him insane.

His patience was at an end. Her scent kept wafting over to him.

He’d even rolled down the fucking window, and it still wasn’t helping.

This was a mistake, a very big mistake. There was no way he was keeping his hands off her if she was in close proximity to him for weeks. Weeks!

His babushka once told him God would send a temptation he must resist. Damned if she wasn’t right.

His temptation sat looking at him, slightly vexed and more than a little hurt.

The very last thing he wanted, but every time she leaned forward and her scent hit him, it was all he could do to keep from hauling her across the seat.

Damn, damn, and double damn.

He needed a distraction. “Why didn’t you ever tell me your dad was a biker?”

“It never came up.”

“Details, Rebecca, I want details. There’s a whole side of you I know nothing about. We’re stuck in here for the next fourteen hours, so why not talk?”

“I left all that behind when I moved out after graduation.” She shifted, and he almost groaned. Why couldn’t she sit still? “I don’t like talking about my family.”

“Why?” Come to think of it, he knew next to nothing about her family. He didn’t even know if she had any brothers or sisters. She may have mentioned it before and he just didn’t remember.

“My mom was a junkie, and my dad was a criminal who served time. Would you want to talk about them?”

Hostility rolled off her in waves, but he ignored it. Something nagged at him, but he couldn’t say what. “Your parents were shits. I get that, but was it all bad? I mean, it sounded like your dad looked out for you at least a little.”

She laughed, the sound bitter. “My dad only paid attention to me when he needed something, like his dinner or patching him or his boys up. I was never important to him. Not like my brother.”

“Your brother?”

She nodded, staring out the window. “Jackson. He’s older than me by a few years. Dad groomed him from birth to be in that damned club of his.”

“Jackson ignore you too?” His poor girl. If he’d only known. Why hadn’t he taken the time to ask these questions before? Because he was an ass.

“No. Jackson always looked out for me. Made sure I got fed and bathed when I was little. Took the brunt of our mom’s abuse.

Which pissed my dad off. He never hit either of us.

Said his old man beat the shit out of him on a daily basis, and he wouldn’t put his kids through that.

Mom more than made up for it, though. Especially when it came to Jackson.

I think she was jealous of how much time Dad spent with him. ”

He stayed quiet and let her have her space. She’d continue when she was ready. Getting anything out of her was hard, but he’d learned how to do it over the years. Patience was the key with Becca.

They rode in silence for a good hour before she started to speak again.

“Things got bad right before I moved out. Dad and Jackson were arrested for running drugs. My dad’s MC, it was into all kinds of illegal activities.

It wasn’t the first time Jackson had been picked up either.

He had a juvie record, thanks to my dad and his brothers, as he called the other patched members.

” She spit the word out like it was the foulest-tasting thing she’d ever put in her mouth.

“He gets out this October. I’m hoping Jackson will finally walk away from all it, get his life together.

He’s young. He doesn’t have to end up like the rest of them. ”

“But you don’t think he will?” Dimitri glanced her way when she snorted.

“Not likely. My brother was born and raised into that damn club. He’ll end up dead or in jail again before it’s all said and done. If they’d get out of all the illegal shit, maybe he would stand a chance, but the money’s too good. They’ll never vote out running drugs and guns.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry about. I’ve tried to talk him out of the club, but he’s a lifer. I just hope he doesn’t die before he turns thirty.”

What could a person say to that? She knew her brother better than he did.

“Jack used to call me ‘little bird.’ Said I was as fragile as a dove. Dad picked up on the nickname when I was five or six. It’s the only thing he ever called me after that.”

“Did he hit your mom a lot?”

“Only when she hit me or Jack. He always told Jack to never hit a woman unless it’s in defense of a child. His only redeeming moral quality. He despised anyone who hit a kid.”

“I’m sorry you grew up with that, babe.”

She shrugged. Dimitri had no idea how truly awful her life had been. She’d grown up in the worst environment with an apathetic father and an abusive, junkie mother. Hard didn’t even begin to describe her and Jackson’s life.

She’d talked to her psychiatrist about it.

She’d never thought she deserved it or that it was right in any way, shape, or form.

Her feelings had surprised the good doctor.

She said most victims of abusive homes grew up thinking it was normal or they deserved it.

They didn’t have a big brother who continually told them otherwise or treated them with the respect their parents never gave them.

She loved her brother so much and thanked God for him daily.

Her home life had contributed to her anxiety, though.

How could it not? She never knew what to expect from her mother from one day to the next.

She learned to be small, invisible. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t.

Most days, it didn’t. Her dread at what each day would bring, what each small mistake would cost, made her anxiety grow exponentially.

She thought it would get better when she left home, but that wasn’t the case. It got worse.

Thoughts of her anxiety brought her back to Southern Book Bash hosted in Charleston, South Carolina.

How the hell was she going to get through that?

All those people…and so many of them had come specifically to see Dimitri.

There were over a hundred and sixty pre-orders.

Hell, maybe it was a good thing she’d come with him.

There was no way he’d manage to put all those bags together on his own, especially since he’d pitched a tantrum about her not going.

That man. Only Dimitri could look adorable while throwing an all-out fit that would make a three-year-old proud.

Stubborn. But then, so was she. They’d had some epic fights over the years.

She laughed out loud thinking of the great war of 2013, as she called it.

He’d been insistent that Italian food was better than Chinese, which she adored.

She still couldn’t remember how it escalated to them not speaking for a whole month.

Aside from short emails with information she needed to do his promos, they’d completely gone dark on the communication front.

Dimitri folded first. It was around the time when he thought he might have found a girl who would last longer than five minutes.

What was her name…Julie, Jane? Becca could never keep them straight.

He’d called her at four in the morning. Even back then, he’d had no sense of time zones.

They’d talked for a good six hours. He’d barely talked about what’s-her-name.

Their conversations usually steered away from his women and toward things that mattered to them.

She’d fallen in love with him when she was in high school, and that only grew stronger every year.

It was easy to love someone from afar, but not so easy to hide feelings when they were less than two feet away.

How was she going to get through weeks with him and not end up getting hurt?

She knew how he felt about relationships.

Hell, all his brothers did, for the most part.

Well, not Viktor. Out of all six Kincaid brothers, Viktor treated women well and was always looking for his special someone.

She doubted Dimitri would ever look at her as anything other than a little sister, though.

He’d called her his adopted sister for years.

She wasn’t his type either. He preferred women who were a little more on the daring side, women who dressed seductively, not ones who were more at home in a pair of sweats and a ragged t-shirt.

“What’s so funny?”

His deep voice startled her out of her own internal musings. “I was thinking about the great war of 2013.”

His laughter filled the small enclosure, and she shivered. God, she loved the sound of his voice, his laugh, everything. It hurt to think about how much she loved him when she knew he’d never return the feelings.