Unattainable (Undeniable, #3)(24)

Cage glared at him, torn between feeling like the piece of shit his father was treating him like and punching the son of a bitch in his big fat mouth.

“My problem,” he continued, “is your worthless f*ckin’ ass ain’t downstairs at the motherf*ckin’—”

Cage shut it out. Just shut down, shut it out, shoved his father out of his way, and headed down the stairs.

Family f*cking dinners, his ass.

? ? ?

This was the very worst part of coming home. Deuce and Eva and their stupid family dinners and…seeing Cage.

Everything had been fine up until five minutes ago when I’d exited the upstairs bathroom and ran smack into the *.

It didn’t even matter that Miles City was a small town full of small-minded religious freaks who took one look, a second, a third, and a fourth at my colorfully tattooed body, numerous body piercings, my dreadlocks, and instantly decided I was a freak of nature.

And maybe I was. But that was beside the point.

Even Danny, with her perfect body, her perfect hair, her perfect face—she probably turned girls into lesbians, she was so damn perfect—I was actually getting along with for a change. True, I had to shade my eyes against her ridiculously bright blaring pink getup, but still.

And then I’d gone to pee and…Cage.

Boom.

Every single time, without fail, one look and I was a teenager again, feeling awkward and insignificant. And now I was praying to keep my sanity.

But sanity and Miles City, Montana, were not friendly neighbors. In fact, I was pretty sure they lived on opposite ends of the universe.

Bad mood, here I come.

CHAPTER SEVEN


From her seat on his sofa, curled up in one corner, her knees pulled to her chest, Ellie watched from across two rooms as Dirty popped open his microwave door and pulled out a partially blackened bag of popcorn, waving away the smoke that followed it.

If she weren’t so terrified of what the future held, she would have laughed at how ridiculous he looked. It was his third attempt at making her something to eat; his third failed attempt. The first had been microwavable macaroni and cheese, which he also burned, the second had been two slices of bread, which the toaster had burned, and now the popcorn had burned.

No bones about it, Dirty was no chef. Not that it mattered, she was too wound up and too sick to her stomach with nerves to ingest anything without it coming right back up.

Deuce had come by yesterday, taken one look at her battered face, and started cursing up a storm. Then he’d taken Dirty into the bedroom and closed the door behind them. They were in there for nearly forty-five minutes, quiet for the most part, but she managed to catch a few words here and there.

Drop off.

Deal gone bad.

We need him.

She had no idea what was going on except that something important was going to happen and Daniel Mooresville was involved, and quite frankly it made her even more afraid. Deuce might love his family and his club, but she was neither. If a man like Deuce considered her nothing more than collateral damage, then things didn’t bode well for her.

She’d been so consumed by her foreboding thoughts that she hadn’t even heard them exit the bedroom, didn’t know they were standing right in front of her until Deuce cleared his throat. Startled, she screamed, nearly fell off the couch, and embarrassingly enough when Deuce had reached for her to help her up, she’d scrambled away from him and burst into tears.

He’d immediately retreated, his hands in the air and looked to Dirty, as if seeking help from him. It wasn’t as if Dirty was going to be much help; the poor man looked as terrified as she felt.

Really, the entire scene would have been quite laughable if she hadn’t been so scared out of her mind.

Then Deuce had hesitantly suggested she come to the club until he was able to “figure out” what he was going to do about the situation. Ellie didn’t want to know what he meant by that and therefore didn’t ask, but she wasn’t exactly thrilled about staying at the club with a group of men who’d never been very good at keeping it in their pants. In fact, the very last place she wanted to be was around anyone with a penis and a blatant disregard for the law. She’d vowed never to set foot inside of the club again after she’d learned of the shooting that had happened a few years earlier. The last thing she wanted to get caught in the middle of was some cheating biker and his enraged old lady.

Her ideal would be to hightail it out of Miles City, back to her apartment in her city, and forget that this had ever happened. Only, judging by the look on Deuce’s face, it didn’t appear that would be happening anytime soon.

But she was most definitely not going to that clubhouse. She didn’t care how much security it had. So, where did that leave her?

She glanced at Dirty, who shifted from foot to foot, looking like he might bolt from the room at any second. He also refused to look at her.

He might be a filthy mess of a man, he certainly didn’t smell very good, but his apartment was clean to the point of overkill and he seemed more than happy to continue keeping his distance from her.

“I’ll just stay here,” she said to Deuce, then glanced at Dirty. “If that’s okay with you?”

Dirty’s reaction was unexpected, to say the least. His head shot up and his dark, bewildered gaze met hers.

“No!”

Her mouth fell open. He’d saved her life, brought her to his place, had called Deuce over to help with her situation, but was telling her she couldn’t stay at his place?