Unbeautifully(15)

It wasn’t any secret Tegen had a serious crush on Cage; she’d never hidden it and in my opinion, her following him around like a sad little puppy dog all the time was just sad. But more so embarrassing. For me.

“Baby?” Dorothy gave her a shake.

Tegen glanced up. “What?”

“Your news,” Dorothy repeated. “Tell everyone.”

Tegen’s cheeks turned pink. “Mom,” she muttered. “Really? It’s not that important.”

Dorothy gaped at her. “Your story was published in a national newspaper and it’s not important?”

Eva tugged on Tegen’s hair and grinned. “That’s so awesome, baby. I’m proud of you.”

Rolling her eyes, Tegen shrugged. “It was just some stupid contest,” she said and went back to not-so-secretly eyeing my brother. Dorothy and Eva continued their conversation and I went back to my cold sweat, because Ripper was still stare-glaring at me.



“Baby,” Nikki cooed, running her hand up Ripper’s thigh. “What is wrong with you?”

What was wrong with him? He was still waiting to die, that’s what was wrong with him.

Motherfuck, he was a mess. He hadn’t slept in almost a week, unless you counted passing out cold from alcohol poisoning.

Goddamn, what had she said to him?

Ripper, you’re still beautiful. So you’ve got some scars. So what?

She’d fucked him, both literally and figuratively. He’d been done for the moment she’d called him beautiful.

Jesus, he was only human.

With twitching hands, Ripper grabbed his pack of smokes off the picnic table in front of him, shook one out and, as he brought it to his mouth, turned his gaze across the lawn.

What the fuck was her game?

She hated him. She had to. She wanted him to die.

But why would she hate him? He’d never done shit to her. He’d barely had anything to do with her.

Until now.

She hadn’t told on him either.

But why would she? She’d been wholeheartedly into it, if memory served.

Ripper closed his eyes and saw Danny splashing naked in the lake, the water only reaching her waist, her long blonde hair wet and plastered to her body, beads of water clinging to her eyelashes, lips, and breasts.

“Oh my God.” She laughed. “I’m so drunk!”

Yeah, and he had a hard-on from hell that was making it hard to think about anything but grabbing her, throwing her down, and fucking the shit out of her.

“What’s wrong, Mr. Grumpy?” She giggled, slinging her arms around his neck, pressing her tits up against his abdomen and her stomach into his erection. He held his breath, kept his hands fisted at his sides. He wasn’t going to touch her. He was not going to touch her . . .

“Ripper?”

He glanced down and found her peeking up at him through wet eyelashes. Jesus.

“Yeah?”

“Thank you for dancing with me,” she said softly, almost shyly. “And for not taking me home.”

“Yeah,” he said tightly. “Ain’t no big deal.”

Her hand slid from his neck to his chest and he closed his eyes as she traced one of the many scars there. “It was to me,” she murmured.

“Danny,” he growled, refusing to look at her. “You keep touchin’ me like that and I ain’t gonna be responsible for what I end up doin’.”

Then he felt it. Her lips pressed a soft kiss on the center of his chest, over the worst of the scars and lingered there, softly kissing.

And then he heard it. Five little words that shut off his brain and spurred his body into action. “Ripper,” she whispered against his ruined skin. “Make my prom night perfect.”

She’d wham, bam, thank you for your services, Ripper, and they’d gone their separate ways. No need to tell anyone; no need to do it again.

Which brought up another question. Why the fuck had she done it in the first place?

Because she was drunk? To give her father a secret fuck-you?

Between Deuce and Cage constantly breathing down her neck, the girl hadn’t had a whole lot of freedom to do as she pleased. So he supposed in a way it made sense that she’d ended up in bed with a brother, the only human beings with dicks that Deuce had willingly let her associate with.

But lately Deuce had been absent from the world, and Cage was usually buried in women.

If she’d just wanted a fuck, there were other brothers, younger, a lot less fucked-up looking.

Holy shit . . . had she been a virgin?

Oh God, he was going to throw up.

Why had she done this to him? What the fuck had he ever done to her?

“Hello?” Nikki snapped her fingers in front of his face. “This is a party, remember? Loosen up.”

Yeah. Whatever. There was always a party. Between the club members and their families, it was always someone’s birthday, a wedding, a baby being born. He froze. Birthdays. Holy fuck, how old was Danny?