Draw (Gentry Boys #1)(31)

“Why do you do it?”

“Because it pays better than minimum wage and I’m damn f*cking good at it.”

She looked out the window and played with a piece of her hair. Her voice was small, sad. “You used to fight a lot.”

“Used to? You mean back in Emblem? I thought we already had a history lesson. You going to rehash every bullshit thing I ever did?”

“You and your brothers were terrible. You beat the crap out of Brayden more than once, just for existing. He wasn’t the only one.”

“Is he still pissed about that?”

“No.”

“Then the hell why are you bringing it up?”

She made a face. “That’s how I remembered you, all of you. Hit first, ask questions later.”

“So that’s it, huh, Saylor? I can’t win with you. No matter what I say, no matter what I do, you’ll see me as the trashy kid who likes to pick a fight.”

“Cord.” Her lip trembled a little, but she stayed on the other side of the cab.

“No, the hell with that. We’re just the tacky Gentrys. Good for nothing but f*cking and fighting, isn’t that what all you clean living folks always said? Well, now you’ve had the privilege of witnessing both of my talents.” I rubbed my crotch, being purposely crude. “You want another demonstration, Say? We could make some time here right on the side of the road.”

She turned away in disgust. “Stop it.”

I grabbed her hand and started to press it against my dick. “Come on, Saylor. I’ve seen you looking. I know what you want.”

Her face lost all color. I released her hand and opened the window, pushing my head out into the heat and breathing deeply. What the hell was wrong with me?

“You’ve conquered nothing,” she said in a voice full of loathing, flinging open the door and jumping out onto the side of the road.

“Hey!” I called to her. She ignored me, walking determinedly on the shoulder of the road in the direction of a derelict gas station.

I pulled the truck directly in her path. “Saylor!”

“Fuck off, Cord!”

Shit, I couldn’t just drive away and leave her here in the middle of nowhere. “Look, I’m not gonna touch you again, okay? I swear on the lives of my brothers. Just get in the truck and let me drive you back to the valley.”

She looked away, shaking her head and biting her lip. But she also stopped walking. I turned the engine off, intending to sit there as long as it took her. She looked me in the eye and I could read how much she despised me. But she still pulled the door open and got in.

I restarted the engine and rolled the truck back to the freeway. I could have told her there would never be anything for her to worry about. She’d defeated the most hardboiled place in my heart. I would rather slice the skin off my palms one millimeter at a time than do anything to hurt her. But f*ck it. If she hadn’t figured any of that out by now I wasn’t going to hold her hand and beg for her to see me for who I was.

The fury which had overcome me earlier hadn’t left. In a sudden fit of wrath I punched the steering wheel. Saylor gasped and then glared at me, finally facing away to scowl out the window.

For the rest of the drive back to Phoenix, there was nothing else to talk about.

Icy silence still reigned when we reached Tempe. I pulled up to Brayden’s apartment, unloaded Saylor’s boxes and left them in front of the door. She stood a few feet away, watching me in silence.

Her face wore so much misery that for a split second I wanted to go to her.

“That’s everything,” I said curtly.

“It is, isn’t it?” She wasn’t just talking about the boxes.

“Bye, Saylor.”

She didn’t come after me. I wasn’t sure I even wanted her to. Maybe Saylor McCann was too enveloped in the news of the past. I’d already gone as far as I was willing to go to redeem myself with her. Likely she would run off with another rich f*cker who treated her like used furniture.

As I took the handful of sharp turns through the parking lot and back to my apartment I knew I wasn’t done tonight. The most vicious part of me, the piece which originated with Benton Gentry, demanded satisfaction. I tore into the apartment, hunting for my brothers. If the fight was still on I wanted to take it. I needed to take it.





CHAPTER ELEVEN


SAYLOR



I kicked my boxes through the front door and then ran out of energy. So I sat on the couch and cried. It wasn’t a redeeming, cleansing cry. It was the sort of gasping, heaving ugliness which bubbles out of a dark place and refuses to be contained. It was the cry of heartbreak and despair.

Since Cord Gentry had returned to my life, I’d thought about him more than he ever could have guessed. The sight of him was initially a reminder of everything I’d disdained as a kid growing up in Emblem. I don’t recall the moment I figured out that the world was bigger than the dust and trailer parks of my hometown but it seemed I’d always wanted out of there.

There was also the matter of how intertwined people were with memories. I couldn’t think of Cord without remembering the stink of the Gentry name in Emblem. Even as they were scoffed at they were still feared. Cord was at the center of that malevolent aura.

But the Cord I’d remembered was a world away from the one who had chastely covered me with his bed quilt and choked out his painful memories. That was the man I now grieved for. When he broke Devin’s door down he didn’t even see me. He was a machine of incoherent rage. If I hadn’t stopped him he might have kept hitting Devin until there was nothing left to hit.