“You have three bums ready to sign on as your personal chauffeurs.” Evan smirked and added, “Then we can get a good look at that pervert who thinks he’s going to make you his mistress.”
She swallowed stiffly. She should’ve known they’d find out. The rumors were all over school.
“I’m eighteen years old. I can do what I want when I want.”
“Not while you’re living here,” Braden said. “You’re seeing a married man, Peyton.”
Kane’s jaw muscles tensed and he clenched his fist. “She’s what?”
“Tell him, Peyton,” Braden encouraged. “It’s out all over town. You’ll hear about it Kane, trust me. Everybody but the man’s wife knows it.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Peyton said. And they really didn’t. She’d decided not to sleep with that guy anyway, because he did have a wife. In fact, in recent days, she’d decided she might die a virgin.
“Oh I think we do,” Evan said.
“That boy down there doesn’t know anything about me,” she informed.
“He knew enough to have your little pointed teeth bite him right above the belt. I’m willing to bet he knows what it feels like to have your lips on his, your bare breasts against his chest…” Kane shifted in the chair and she saw the raw hunger, almost heard it in his voice before he allowed her to see the bulge in between his legs, and he let her see. He splayed his legs and they fell right open encouraging her to look, never mind want.
“I’m not worried about a kid. I’m more worried about the family she’s setting out to destroy,” Braden said.
For a second Peyton wondered if he was talking about the married guy again-David Taylor’s family-or the family she disrupted when she moved in with them.
“The man has a wife, Peyton.” Braden said. She didn’t want to look at him. She felt his gaze burning through her. “A wife and two kids.”
She shrugged. “Maybe he’s tired of her.”
“Shit, I’m not going to listen to this,” Evan said, “Peyton, if you want to whore yourself out to a married man then you go right at it, but the sad thing is David Taylor is…was a good man. He’s never had the first bit of trouble making his ends meet, raising his family, and taking care of his pretty little wife. You’re starting trouble with a married man who doesn’t need it. Walk the fuck away. Be decent for a change. You used to have some decency in you before the…”
“Say it,” she mumbled.
“I don’t need to say it. You were there. You know…”
“I want you to say it! I want you to say it so I can hear it! I want to know I made it out of there. I want someone to tell me how lucky I was to make it out alive but only after I remember everything I can remember about that day. I’m tired of everyone tiptoeing around it, afraid to tell me how horrible and awful it was. I know how horrific it was but I…want…you…to…say…it!”
By the time she’d screamed her head off, she stood in front of Evan with her hands nothing more than tight fists. She stretched up on her tiptoes and for a minute, she thought she might swing at him, fight out her anger regardless of where she displaced it.
“You wanna know?” Braden’s shock made her feel pathetic. “Then I’ll let you see. I’ll show it to you. My camera captured it all.”
“No,” Kane warned.
“Yeah, it’s time. She’s right. We’ve tried to protect her and instead of helping her, we drove her away, into her own world and the guilt-the package you shouldn’t even think about carrying, Peyton- is tearing her apart. I’ll be right back.” Braden disappeared into the hallway after he agreed to show her the footage.
“And don’t you ever call me a whore.” She glared at Evan and then at Kane. “I would’ve gladly been your whore or yours,” she looked back to Evan again, “but I wasn’t woman enough for a Cartwell man.”
Evan’s voice softened but Kane shook his head and looked down at his hands. “Peyton, that’s not true.”
“What a sorry bastard,” she said turning to Kane. “You’re not going to admit it or deny it.” She wasn’t good enough. His actions spoke louder than words anyway. At one time, she thought he wanted her, but now everything she thought they shared seemed like a distant dream.
Braden came back with the DVD in hand. He turned on the DVD player and her television and then settled on the bed next to her. He tossed the remote to Evan who hit play.
Peyton took a deep breath and watched as the events Braden captured on camera told several tales of one blood spilling afternoon.
“I hope you’re happy.” Kane’s accusatory tone of superiority often pissed them off. He hoped it made them fighting mad. He was pissed now and they caused it.
“She wanted it over, behind her.” Braden grabbed a beer from the fridge.
“So you had to show her the way it all happened?” Kane’s face tensed as he relived the memory of watching her glance over at him throughout the recorded footage. His voice rang out over everyone else’s that day. It wasn’t until then, until he watched everything Braden’s camera captured, that he realized he carried something deep for Peyton. Something so deep, it terrified him. He not only dodged bullets for her, he ran in front of them and barely missed life-threatening shots fired.
“She’s going to move on, now. You’ll see.”
“You still need to ground her ass,” Evan said as he ran his hand over the front of his pants. “Imagine her out there at the boathouse with the guy she met online. She met him online and took him to our boathouse. I’d like to swat her little tail again and again for the stunt. I can’t even think about what he did to her, his mouth doing things to her that I…”
“That you what?” Braden pointed out the window. “She’s over there by the fence, by the way.”
“Never mind,” Evan said.
“I’m not grounding her. I can’t take away her car. It’s the only thing she feels like truly belongs to her.”
Kane understood but he still thought she needed some discipline. The kind he wanted to give her wasn’t anything these two would agree to at all so why ask. “Ground her for tomorrow. I’ll take her to school. I have to go into town early anyway.”
“You’re going to see David Taylor,” Evan said.
“I thought about it.”
“Peyton had little to do going after him.” Braden shook his head. “Damn pretty wife he has too.”
“Is she fucking him?” Kane asked like he didn’t care one way or the other but he did. He wanted to snap the man’s neck for looking at her. When he thought about another man handling her with nothing but sexing her little body crazy on his mind, he wanted to kill. It wasn’t normal. It wasn’t rational but who cared? His thoughts in regards to Peyton were his to own.
“Don’t know. I imagine she is.” Braden said. “Seems everyone in town thinks so.”
“Then, I’m going to go pay him a visit and ask,” Kane said and before he walked out he added, “And if he is, somebody better call him and tell him to run like hell.”
Chapter 11
Kane pulled up to the traffic light and waited for the elementary school children to pass at the crosswalk. He glanced over at his passenger. She looked like an angel in her snug jeans and open blouse. And he felt like the devil for craving her, for wanting to strip off those brand name clothes and snack on her all morning long. One day soon, he might.
She took a deep breath, released it, and pretended he bored her. She then pulled out some perfume. It was some kind of expensive new body spray she wanted for her birthday and someone, Vicky maybe, gave it to her. The container resembled a Vicky kind-of-gift- girly and pink.
She hit the button, the window dropped as she leaned back in the truck, unzipped her jeans and wiggled them over her hips. Dramatically, she pressed down on the cap and the mist covered her in a place designed to rip through a man’s senses and grab him by the balls.
He looked down in time to see the dark purple panties folded over at the band. “What are you doing?” His dick stood ready now, no thanks to her. All he wanted to do was drive her to school, and she just had to yank down her pants. Damn it, if she wanted to keep him on a short leash, she restrained him with an unusual form of control.