Chrome: With a Heart Forged in Steele (Carolina Bad #4) (3 page)

What used to be white metal siding was dark red and brown with rust and age. The steps looked moldy. Not shades or curtains but what appeared to be bedsheets hung over the windows from the inside.

It hurt my fucking heart to think of Rayce living here.

Walking up the steps, I tried to soften my footfalls. I knocked on the door of the ramshackle trailer.

“Rayce, get the fucking door!”
filtered out from the inside.

My jaw tensed.

I heard some sort of muffled reply. Followed by heavy stomping feet.

The door was yanked open, and a man stood there, glaring at me. “What the fuck you want at this hour of the morning?”

Dickhead Dad

THE MAN WAS TALL. Not as tall as my six-foot-five, though. He was broad. Not as broad as me. He looked like he could’ve been a boxer back in his heyday. Now his body tended toward flab whereas I was worked out every day of the week. I easily outweighed him pound for pound by sheer muscle mass alone.

The hair at the back of my neck rose. I felt like a fucking alpha dog, protective urges for Rayce prickling all over my body.

I towered in front of him, and he wobbled back a little.

Alcohol fumes rose off of him like steam from the frost-covered ground when the sun rose on a winter’s day.

He squinted at me through pink-rimmed piggy eyes. “You one of them deaf-mutes or what? I said what the fuck do you want?”

It took a major effort to remain civil. “Mr—”

“Lafayette, shit-for-brains. Leroy Lafayette. As in
Le-roi
,
French for the king
.
”

I didn’t know what he thought he was the king of. Bullshit, maybe.

“What. Do. You. Want?” Foaming spittle formed in the corners of his slug-like lips.

“Mr. Lafayette. I’m Boomer Steele. Came to pick up Rayce for work.” I held out my hand.

He spat on the top step, narrowly missing my boot.

I glared, just about ready to take out the redneck in the stained wife-beater with my fist in his fucking butt-ugly face.

“Hey, Rayce!” he shouted back into the trailer. “Got you a guy here, you little whore-slut.”

And that was it.

I yanked the white trash to me with both fists gripping his tank top. “That’s how you talk to your own daughter? The woman who takes care of you?”

Just one more insult, one more push, and I’d have him head first through the dry-rot, fake-wood paneling.

Daddy dick-face rolled bleary eyes up to mine. “She owes me. She knows it too. Keeps her in her place. A woman gets too high-and-mighty and there’s no controllin’ her.”

Disgusted, I let him go. It felt like his filth still clung to my fingers. “You’re a worthless slob.”

“Yeah?” Leroy sneered. “Good luck with the little bitch. Spreads her legs for anyone she can. Wouldn’t be surprised if you’re her pimp.”

He laughed, and the sound had a maniacal edge to it.

My fist hammered into his face before I knew I’d reacted. The fast strike sent the asshole spinning before he hit the ground.

Rayce appeared. “Boomer? What did you—”

“Exactly what he deserves. And I ain’t done yet.”

Fuck it. Speak about a woman like that in my presence? I’d beaten up guys for my sister. I wouldn’t hesitate to send this shitheel to the hospital on behalf of Rayce.

I peeled the scumbag off the floor, my fist primed to do more damage.

Rayce grabbed my hard-flexing bicep. “Don’t! Boomer! Please. Leave him alone!”

Reining in the rage, I breathed in and out like a bull about to go full stampede.

One breath.

Two.

Three more.

I unclenched my hand.

Rayce’s dad staggered against the nearest wall.

The whole goddamn trailer shook.

He opened his mouth, no doubt to rail more abuse.

I jabbed a finger against his chest. Good thing I didn’t have a gun on me. I’d never felt such undiluted anger. “Don’t. You. Open. Your. Trap.”

Jab. Jab. Jab. Jab. Jab.

“Boomer.” Rayce pulled on my hand. “C’mon.”

I left, walking backward, my stare never leaving her dad’s.

No one spoke to or about my woman like that.

No one.

Harnessing my wrath, I helped Rayce into the truck. I stood against the hood, gulping one more deep breath. Rolling my neck. Trying to pop the tension out of my body.

By the time I got behind the wheel, Rayce was already buckled in. But she wouldn’t look at me.

She sat beside me, trembling.

I hit the engine and blasted the heat.

I was shaking, too. Shaking with the undiluted need to commit violence.

Gunning it out of the place, I glanced back in the rearview. If her dick of a dad thought about coming after us, I’d be a-okay leaping out and pounding him some more.

By the time we got halfway down the deserted dirt road, I pulled over and stopped.

“You okay?” I asked, draping an arm across the back of Rayce’s seat.

“I wish you hadn’t seen that.” She stared straight ahead. Her voice was wooden, hollow.

“You gonna look at me?” Turning in my seat, I lifted my hand to her face.

I touched her gently.

“I can’t.” She blinked her eyes slowly. “What he said. It’s not true, you know. I’m not . . . I’m not a slut.”

Heart-fucking-breaking.

I pulled her into my arms.

She folded into my embrace, and I nuzzled her cheek, her hair, letting my warmth steal into her cold loneliness. I wished I could take away every moment of pain, every put-down, every word that man had probably said to make her feel small.

Her fingers clung to my shoulders, my back. Her body shook as if she was sobbing, but no sounds came out.

I closed my eyes, breathing in her scent—one of the first things about her that had enticed me. Feminine and exotic almost, leather, and beneath it, the hint of motor oil because she was a hardcore grease monkey after all.

Stroking her back, I held her close, taking her silent pain as mine loosened from my chest. I murmured words that meant nothing and everything all at once.

In time, I became aware of how she rested against me with her breasts against my chest. Her hot breaths fanned the hollow of my neck.

That was when my cock decided to get in the game.

I wanted to strangle that untamed beast.

Rayce must’ve sensed the rise in—
ahem
—temperature because she slowly shifted away. She peered up at me with big sparkly eyes—part mossy green, part liquid gold.

“Much as I like holding you like this, I do
not
like seein’ you like this.” I cupped her cheeks.

“Oh. You want me to go back to trash-talkin’ you?” A naughty grin floated across her pouty mouth.

Aaaand
old Rayce was back. Racy Rayce.

I dragged her palms up my chest. “Wouldn’t mind you dirty talkin’ to me, princess.”

“In your dreams.” She flipped her flirty eyelashes at me.

“You got that right.” I put the truck into gear.

“Oh
reeeallly
?”

“Babe. The things you do to me in my dreams should be illegal.”

“Wow.” Her breath rushed in and out. Her tits lifted hard and fast.

Fuck
.

Her breasts were big and round on such a small firm body . . .

“Wonder if I could live up to that,” Rayce said.

Cutting a glance at her, I slid my gaze all up and down her figure. “Don’t think my dreams would even compare to you in the flesh.”

The sexual tension thickened between us during the drive into Mt. Pleasant. It’d been growing for months. To the point I thought of no other woman but her.

Rayce finally pulled her gaze away to watch the landscape zoom past. “Why did you pick me up, Boomer?”

“Your bike’s at JB’s right?”

She nodded.

“Not like I’m gonna leave you stranded. Wanted to make sure you got to work okay.”

Except I didn’t stop at Stone’s Garage. Instead I headed across the nearby bridge to Isle of Palms.

When I parked outside Acme Cantina, Rayce asked, “And what are we doing here?”

“Breakfast.”

“I thought you were taking me to work.”

“I am.” I hopped out and then opened her door. “After breakfast.”

“I already ate.” She crossed her arms over her more-than-generous tits.

I tried not to stare. “I didn’t.”

“Boomer—”

“Easy, princess. It’s just breakfast. Can’t even be classified as a date.” Taking her hand, I helped her out.

“And what makes you think I wouldn’t go out on a date with you, old man?” Her feet hit the pavement, and she smiled sweetly.

A huge laugh busted out of me. “I’ll keep that under advisement.”

****

Breakfast was an eye opener. Despite Rayce’s protests, she ordered a glass of OJ, a cup of coffee, a Mexican omelet with a side of bacon.

I just dittoed that, times two.

As beach tunes pumped in from the bar and perky waiters and waitresses shuttled food back and forth, Rayce sat across from me, nursing her java.

Ten minutes later, breakfast arrived. She dug in with gusto, the choppy lengths of her blue-streaked hair hitting the high curves of her cheeks.

She ate greedily.

It was sexy.

I bet she fucked the same way, too.

After wiping her lips—moist and pink—with a napkin, she winked at me. “Done staring yet?”

My plate was virtually untouched. “Can’t help it. You seem to like things in your mouth.”

“You know it.” She grinned.

“I’d like to.”

“Boom, what if I reached across the table right now and”—her hand opened toward me—“touched”—her fingers stretched. “Your.” My hips involuntarily kicked up. “Bacon!”

She nabbed a crispy piece and chomped it between her teeth.

“Princess, you can snatch my meat anytime you want.”

The air got sucked out of the room just like that as she studied me with intense eyes.

I leaned toward her. “Ain’t it a shame you gotta get to work?”

“Yes,” she breathed out. In the next instant she scowled. “No.”

“Yes? No?” I took a long gulp of coffee. “You’re just all kinds of conundrums. But that’s okay. I got time.”

“And I’m almost late for work.”

“I told Josh you might be.”

“What?” Her chair screeched back.

“Easy now. After last night . . .” I shook my head. “Wanted to make sure you’d be okay. You know, about JB and everything going down.”

She shifted toward me. “
What
? Why?”

“Are you really that blind, Rayce? I like you. You try to make it damn difficult, but whatever the fuck.” I shoveled food into my mouth so I wouldn’t say anything else, well aware my swarthy skin heated from the inside out.

“Okay,” she said.

“Okay?”

“
Mm hmm
.”

“About damn time.”

****

Seven in the a.m., and the forecourt of Stone’s garage hummed with customers, mechanics, and cars.

As usual, Ray—Josh’s second-in-command—stuck his head out the door. Proceeded by his big blond beard.

“Damn, Ray. You ever gonna trim that thing or what?” I asked.

“The missus likes it.”

“He’s lumbersexual,” Rayce added, her husky voice short-circuiting all my brain matter.

I stared at her ass as she walked into one of the open bays.

I hope she’s limber-sexual.
I planned on finding out very soon
.

I fucking trotted right after her.

“Big Man Boom in the house!” Gerald blasted out, his huge hands cupped around his mouth.

Rayce—who had removed her leather jacket—rolled her eyes as she unlocked her tool chest. She quickly switched on the air compressors, doing her best to ignore me.

Mick gave me a knuckle bump. Javier dipped his toothpick in my direction with a wink and a waggle of his black eyebrows as he scanned between Rayce and me.

No way was I saying a damn word about
us
—not with her standing right there and this bunch of grease monkeys who were even bigger gossip whores than my MC tribe.

Also, there wasn’t exactly a
Rayce and me
.

Yet.

Stone burst through the door from the reception area with a baby in his arms and a preschooler skipping beside him.

He shifted baby Jolie to his shoulder and high-fived Rayce. “Glad you made it in okay, girl. Got a ton of work lined up for you today. Don’t trust any of these other bozos to handle it.”

“Dat ain’t fair,
jefe
. We got seniority,” Javier complained.

“Yeah. Seniority. What about that? Huh?” Mick echoed, slapping his well-creased baseball cap against his thigh.

“Seniority?” Josh’s eyebrows shot sky high. “
Shee-it
. Only person with seniority around here is me. Don’t you forget it.”

Just then a high-pitched hiccupping sound escalated from somewhere in Josh’s vicinity.