Undeniable (Undeniable, #1)(55)
“No, Daddy, I want to talk to her.”
Sighing, Deuce set me down. I scrambled away from him, glaring. He glared right back.
“Hi,” Danny said cheerfully. “Daddy told me all about you!”
Danny grinned at me. Sheesh, she was gorgeous. She had Deuce’s eyes—icy blue and hypnotizing. But her face was her mother’s, sweetheart features, delicate, and utterly beautiful.
“I thought you would be older,” she said and giggled. “Daddy’s age or maybe my mom’s age. But you’re so young.”
“Fuck,” Deuce muttered. “She’s not that young.”
I glared at him. “I’m thirty.”
Danny burst out laughing. “She’s like closer to my age than yours, Daddy! You’re like fifty!”
Deuce looked to the sky and closed his eyes. “I’ll be on the porch,” he growled. “She runs again,” he pointed at me, “you f*ckin’ yell.”
He stalked off.
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Deuce sat on his porch steps, his elbows on his knees, and his face in his palms. He was destined for a life of crazy.
“She’s hot, Dad. Really f*ckin’ hot.”
He turned his head toward his son. “Yeah,” he muttered.
“Great f*ckin’ legs,” Cage continued. “And her tits. Jesus, no f*ckin’ bra with tits that big…f*ck me.”
He glared. If Cage didn’t shut the f*ck up, he was going to knock him out.
“You get done with her, pass her the f*ck to me.”
“Reel it in,” he growled. “Or I’m gonna knock you the f*ck out.”
Cage stared at him. “Are you serious?”
“As tequila.”
“Since when do you give a f*ck if I tap club ass?”
“Since right f*ckin’ now. And she’s not a club whore. Call her that again, and you’re gonna be pissin’ blood for a f*ckin’ minute.”
Cage burst out laughing. “Oh shit,” he gasped, holding his stomach still laughing. “You f*ckin’ like this one.”
Like? That didn’t even begin to cover how he felt about that crazy bitch.
He grabbed his whore of a son by the front of his T-shirt and yanked him across the step until they were nose to nose. “You’re f*ckin’ young. You think ridin’ and * are all that f*ckin’ matters. I get it. I’ve been there, but you’re gonna learn real f*ckin’ quick to respect women, whores, good girls, old f*ckin’ ladies—all of ’em—or I’m gonna bury you. You feel me?”
“Yeah, Dad,” he said quietly. “Sorry.”
He shoved him back and looked toward the woods. Still no sign of Eva or his daughter.
“Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“She the reason you’re pissed off all the time?”
“Yeah.”
“She the reason you left Mom?”
“Yeah.”
“You love her?”
“Yeah.”
There was a long pause.
“Cool.”
“…yeah.”
“Dad?”
“Jesus, Cage. What?”
“Does this mean I can have at Miranda?”
Christ.
“Yeah, you f*ckin’ hornball. Have at it.”
“Cool.”
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Danny and I walked back to the house—me, silent with my arms wrapped around my middle and her, a bouncing blonde ball of teenage girl, telling me all about her summer break from school. She was sixteen—the same age I was when I first kissed her father and fell hard for him—and it all felt supremely awkward.
As we reached the end of the driveway, I could see Deuce and Cage sitting on the porch steps. Cage was leaning back on the railing smoking a cigarette; Deuce was doing a face-plant in his palms. My heart clenched; he was upset.
When he spotted us, Cage kicked Deuce in the calf. Deuce’s head jerked left, his face tight with anger, and Cage reared back, pointing at me. Our eyes locked.
“Danny,” Cage yelled, getting to his feet. “Help me make dinner!”
Danny touched my arm. “You good?”
“Yeah,” I muttered.
“He would never hurt you,” she whispered.
I looked down at her. “Yeah, baby, I know.”
She grinned, and I cringed. The girl didn’t just have his eyes; she had his heart-stopping grin.
“Daddy calls me baby,” she whispered. Then, with a hop and skip, she ran off. She and Cage disappeared inside the house, leaving Deuce and me staring at each other.
Oh, Lord, help me. I couldn’t do this. And yet, I was walking straight toward him.
I stopped in front of him. “Look, I can’t do—hey! What the hell?”
Deuce grabbed my waist and pulled me on his lap. “Fuckin’ hell, bitch,” he said hoarsely. “You make me f*ckin’ insane.”
I let out a long, shuddering sigh and sank into his body. His arms tightened around me.
“You’re not leavin’, Eva.”
I was. But I didn’t tell him that. Instead, I told him how unbelievably bad he smelled.
“Yeah, babe. So do you.”
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