“Who the fuck are you?” I growl.
He smirks, the irritation of being held with his toes barely touching the ground completely gone. “She ain’t told you about me?” he asks.
“No,” Exeter whimpers from behind me.
“Fuck,” I hiss. I know who he is. His blue eyes flash, and something that her cousin Emily said pops into my head. “Her father.”
“Bingo.”
“You’re a sick motherfucker,” I grind out.
My entire body is shaking with my anger. I don’t know what to do. Instinctually, I want to kill him, and I think I might anyway. He’s hurt her, he’s been hurting her.
This is why she doesn’t talk to me.
This is why we only fuck. Why she looks like she’s waiting for me to turn my back on her at any moment.
This right here.
This sick piece of shit.
Releasing his shirt with my right hand, I reach behind me and slam my fist into the side of his head. He lets out a wail at the same time Exeter screams. Reaching back again, I hit him a second time, then a third. His body goes limp, but I can’t stop. I hold him up with one hand and pummel him with the other.
That is until I feel Exeter behind me. Her arms slide around my waist, her body presses against my back and only then do I pause. I blink. Looking at the man in front of me, his head lolling to the side, blood pouring from his head, from his mouth and his cheek.
“He’s not going anywhere now, Wyatt,” she whispers.
“He ain’t dead,” I state, still holding him, rage still coursing through my body.
She hums. “He’s not. But he won’t be bothering anyone tonight,” she points out.
I jerk his limp body forward, reaching behind him to unlock the door. Then like a fucking ragdoll, I shove his body out of the front door and slam it closed, locking it behind me.
Spinning around, I focus my eyes on Exeter. Gone is the dazed glazed over look on her face, thank fuck, but the apprehension that I see makes my stomach twist. She looks scared—of me. “Exeter…”
“He didn’t do anything. He couldn’t get it up,” she states, turning her head to the side.
I clear my throat. “Sugar, I’m gonna need a whole hell of a lot more than that.”
She takes a step back, clasping her hands in front of her and looks down at the ground. Her hair is down and hangs over her face, reminding me of the way it was when she rode me just a few days ago. She inhales so deeply that I can hear it from where I stay standing, waiting, excruciatingly waiting, for her to speak.
When she slowly lifts her eyes to mine, they’re filled with wet tears. Her lips are trembling, and her body shakes as well. I watch as she wraps her arms around her waist and it kills me not to grab her and hold her, but she needs to tell me what the fuck is going on.
EXETER
He’s watching me—waiting. He doesn’t look disgusted, yet. He will, no doubt about it. I lick my lips, tasting the salt from the tears that have started to fall down my cheeks. I don’t ask him to sit down, this isn’t a gentle conversation, this is raw and disgusting.
“That was my father. I have been able to steer clear of him for a while, several years actually,” I begin. “I saw him at MawMaw’s the other day. He was his normal foul self, but with only his words, to me at least. I asked MawMaw what he wanted, but she wouldn’t tell me why he was there, she looked upset though. I think it was to shake some money out of her. He’s been able to strong-arm her for years.”
“Fuck,” Wyatt hisses.
I don’t allow him to say anything else before I continue. “He abused me my entire life, Wyatt. Emily’s father is his brother and he did the same to her, too. It’s like they were born that way,” I state.
Wyatt grunts. “Not born, sugar, molded. They were probably abused too, don’t make it right, nothing could ever make that right.”
“I know,” I whisper with a nod. “I got away from him when I was sixteen, moved in with MawMaw and I think she paid him to stay away. She was always so strong, she never admitted it, but after the other day, and I remember him coming to the door when I lived there a couple times a month, it would make sense.”
“She was tryin’ to protect you,” he offers.
Gulping, I lift my chin up to him. “She tried to help Emily too, but they aren’t blood-related. MawMaw is my mother’s mom.”
“Where’s your mama?”
My eyes close and a few more tears escape and trickle down my cheek. “She died when I was ten,” I whisper.
Memories of my mother are painful, mostly because I don’t remember her very well. She’s this hazy thing in my distant memory banks, this dark-haired beauty that doesn’t seem quite real most of the time.
Wyatt’s feet move, they stomp toward me and he gathers me in his arms. “I shouldn’t be touching you, I have shit on my clothes, but fuck, sugar.”
Lifting my head, I tilt it all the way back and look into his eyes, watching him. Waiting for him to release me and walk away. “Is there any way he hurt your mama too?” he asks.
My body jerks. The thought had never crossed my mind, not once. “I don’t know,” I admit on a wheeze.
“Fuck,” he hisses. “I’m going to go and kill him,” he grinds out.
I lift my hands, fisting his shirt and pulling him against me. “No,” I state. “I don’t know why he was here, I don’t know what possessed him to show up, but this is the first time since I left that house that he’s tried anything. I just want to forget it happened.”
Wyatt shakes his head. “He’ll be back, sugar. He’ll be fuckin’ back.”
Rising to my feet, I press my lips against his, closing my eyes, I inhale his spicy scent, wondering if this will be the last time that I ever have him right here in front of me. His hands wrap around my waist and he tugs me closer to him, my body crashes against his and as much as I shouldn’t be, I’m immediately turned on.
“Wyatt, please,” I beg.
He grunts, resting his forehead against mine. “Exeter,” he breathes. “You gotta tell me everything, sugar. I need to know if I’m going to hurt you.”
My heart fills, it fills so full that I think momentarily that it might explode. This man, this man is beautiful. He’s a hero, my hero.
“You haven’t and you couldn’t hurt me, Wyatt. Not ever. You won’t want me anymore, though. That’s going to kill me,” I breathe.
He snorts, bending his knees slightly, and then against gravity and all odds, he lifts me off of the ground. He carries me as if I weigh absolutely nothing and walks toward the bedroom. He’s done this once, but this time, it feels more—bigger.
Setting me down on the bed, I bend my knees and look up at him. I watch in awe as he strips himself from his clothes. His work clothes are dirty, stained and tarnished from the long day out on the job he’s had.
Reaching up, I begin to unbutton his shirt, revealing the tight dark gray shirt he’s wearing beneath. It fits him like a second skin, showing me his muscles beneath, hugging him every delicious way possible. I watch as he shrugs the over shirt off then he lifts his hand, tugging his gray shirt off from behind his neck.