Sunday Morning (Damaged #7.5)(2)

His pain made me angrier. The guy deserved a million beatings. A billion! He might never get the others, so I planned to make mine count.

I wailed on him, swinging until my arms hurt. The blows made cracking sounds against his head and back. When he tried to stand, I beat his legs. When he reached for me, I aimed for his arms. His hollering got the attention of my neighbors, but they only hid. Retribution was coming for me, and they didn’t plan to get in the way.

The bat was high in the air when a hand stopped its momentum. I turned to find another biker behind me. This one was f*cking gorgeous, but I still wanted to beat the shit out of him.

“Enough of that,” he said, yanking the bat away from me.

The woman inside me didn’t know how to respond after hearing such a perfectly rumbly voice. He was watching me with dark eyes I wanted to disappear into, and his sexy lips hinted at a smile. The biker took my breath away, yet the pissed teenager in me didn’t care.

Turning away from the sexy beast, I kicked the guy still on the ground. “Stupid f*cker.”

The second biker wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me off of the ground. I kicked and screamed about how I wasn’t done. The rumbly biker laughed at my rage, making me want to kick his ass next.

“Drag his ass to the bar,” he said to two other bikers standing in the road. “I’ll deal with this spitfire.”

“I’m not done!” I yelled again while my feet swung helplessly a foot from the ground.

I watched while the laughing bikers dragged their buddy to safety. I hated them. If I had my bat back, I bet I could make them stop laughing.

“Time of the month?” the rumbly biker asked, setting me down on my porch.

Turning to him, I balled up my fists and prepared to attack. I planned to mess up his brilliantly f*cking handsome face.

“Cigarette?” he asked, lighting one.

His voice soothed my rage. The anger faded as curiosity took its place. Would this sexy biker kill me now? Could I punch him the face before he ended my life? Did I forget to turn on the coffee pot? My thoughts were all over the damn place.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Yeah about the cig or your period?”

“He puked on my f*cking porch.”

“I see that.”

He handed me his already lit cigarette before lighting a new one. I took a hit from his leftover and thought about our lips meeting in this indirect way.

“Are you gonna kill me?” I asked defiantly since my rage hadn’t disappeared completely.

“For what?”

Unsure now, I realized I was wearing my pink flannel pajamas in front of this sexy man. I might hate bikers, but this one was appealing enough for me to let things slide.

“Is that guy gonna kick my ass later?” I asked, not wanting him to leave yet.

“No.”

“He seemed mad.”

“A little girl beat the shit out of him with a bat. That’s not going to make him happy.”

Taking a hit on the cigarette, I thought to complain about the “little girl” part of his comment. I kept my mouth shut because the reality of dying before eighteen had set in.

“I’m not a morning person,” I finally said after he stared at me for too long.

The guy laughed in his rough voice. “No kidding.”

“Jodi?” my mom said from the trailer.

Hearing my mother’s half-asleep voice and thinking about her getting hurt because of me, I became fully aware of my temper’s bad decision making.

I opened the door and told my mom everything was fine. She turned over on the couch and returned to sleep. After I shut the door and focused on the biker, I found his dark eyes still watching me. He was older than the other bikers, yet a million times better looking.

“I’m sorry I busted up your friend.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Well he had it coming, so no, I’m really not.”

“Jodi what?”

“Why?”

“Don’t give me shit, kid. Just tell me your last name.”

“No, and don’t call me kid. And what’s your name? Can I have your social security number while we’re at it?”

The guy grinned. “Your mama did a f*cked up job raising you.”

“And your mama was such a f*cking prize?”

“No, she’s a doormat married to a wife beater.”

“Sorry.”

The guy shrugged. “You didn’t introduce them.”

“I might have. I’m a busy person.”

He grinned really nice at me. I suspected this was the same smile he used on people he planned to kill. I bet he told them it wouldn’t hurt too much. Did he have them close their eyes and think of Jesus too?

“Jodi Sears,” I said, giving him a little with the hope he didn’t take everything.

“I’m Kirk Johansson,” he said, handing me a card with only a phone number on it. “That’s my beeper number. Next time you have issues with those guys, you contact me. No more vigilante shit, okay, kid?”

“Not if you keep calling me ‘kid’ when I asked you to stop.”

“You didn’t ask, kid. You told me what the f*ck to say, and I don’t get bossed around by bitchy women.”

I glared at him again. “Give me back my bat.”