Unattainable (10 page)

He gave the trio of boys a quick chin
lift, Harley a hair ruffle and a kiss, then headed through the
foyer and into the kitchen area. His father was leaning back
against the kitchen counter, a beer in one hand, his other arm
wrapped around Eva with his free hand resting on the slight bulge
of her stomach. Her long brown hair was piled messily on top of her
head, and she was wearing an old pair of sweats and one of his old
man’s tees.

She was four months along in another
high-risk pregnancy that his idiot father had insisted on. Because
for some reason three kids weren’t enough for the asshole, he
wanted another, for reasons God only knew why. To make sure the
world knew he still had swimmers? Cage would never understand that
man.

Cox and Kami were opposite them, Cox
sitting on top of the counter, Kami standing between his legs, both
drinking beers.

“
Yo,” he said, giving a
halfhearted wave.

Cox nodded his way, Kami gave him a
wave and a smile, but it was Eva who pulled away from Deuce and
came at him with her arms wide open. As he folded his arms around
her, he locked eyes over her shoulder with his father who, instead
of saying hello, grunted something incoherent and turned back to
Cox.

Ass. Hole.

“
What’s little Kelley
doin’ here?” he asked, referring to Christopher.

“
Hawk’s on his way,” Eva
said as she pulled away from him and gave him another genuine
smile. Reaching up, she tugged on a lock of his hair that had
pulled free of his rubber band.

“
God,” she whispered, her
big gray eyes sparkling. “You look just like your dad when he was
your age.”

He started to smile at her despite her
comparing him to his old man, because, fuck, how could you not
smile at someone who loved as hard as this woman did?

“
He looks like his fuckin’
mother.”

Cage lost his smile.

His mother might be a club rat turned
deadbeat and she might love drinking more than she loved her own
kids, but she was still his mother, and half of what had happened
to her had been his old man’s fault in the first place.

“
Ignore him,” Eva
whispered. “And go say hi to your sisters.”

“
Speaking of, where’s the
brat?” he asked, referring to Danny.

Eva smiled and pointed
upstairs.

Looping back around, Cage headed for
the stairs, taking them two at a time until he was standing outside
his sister’s old bedroom. Without bothering to knock, he turned the
knob and pushed open the door.

“
Jesus fuck!” he yelled,
slamming the door closed.

“
Knock much?” Danny
screamed from inside her room, where he’d just seen her naked, on
her knees, getting nailed by her husband.

Fucking hell.

It wasn’t the first time he’d
accidentally walked in on them, either. Those two idiots couldn’t
keep their hands off each other. Bathrooms, bedrooms, kitchen
pantries, didn’t matter where they were. Their home, someone else’s
home, the clubhouse, a restaurant, the two of them were always all
up in each other’s shit, all the motherfucking time.

The door flew open and Danny, looking
disheveled but thankfully clothed, stormed into the hallway. “What
the fuck!” she yelled.

He rolled his eyes. “Was comin’ in to
say hi, you fuckin’ brat.”

The corner of her mouth curved and a
dimple appeared. The next thing he knew she was lunging, wrapping
her arms around him and squeezing.

“
Get the fuck off me!” he
bellowed, shoving her backward into Ripper’s arms, who was also now
thankfully clothed. “You fuckin’ smell like Ripper,” he said,
feigning disgust.

Ripper, laughing, swung one of his arms
around Danny and held out his fist. Cage eyed it warily before
fist-bumping him quickly.

“
Don’t know where that
shit has been,” he said.

“
Fuck off,” Ripper said.
“You just get back?”

“
Yeah.”

“
How’d that shit go
down?”

“
Wham bam,” Cage told him.
“In and out. Spent the night at Preacher’s, shot the shit with the
Demons for a few, did what I had to do, then took the scenic route
home.”

“
Nice,” Ripper said.
“Prez’ll be happy.”

Yeah right, he thought, scoffing
internally. Prez, his never-happy-with-him father, was just that.
Never happy with him.

Behind him, two doors down, Cage heard
the toilet flush from inside the bathroom. The faucet turned on,
then off, then—

The door swung open and all heads
swiveled just in time to see Tegen walk out into the hall, wiping
her wet hands off on her long white linen skirt.

Glancing up, her cat-like green eyes
locked on him and she froze midstep. He was about to say hello when
suddenly her small, slightly pointed nose wrinkled up and her mouth
flattened with obvious disgust.

“
By the way,” Danny said
cheekily. “Tegen’s here.”

Cage felt his already pissed-off mood
worsen because, Jesus Christ, every time he saw the bitch, it was
more than obvious she still had a stick up her ass about what had
happened one drunken night, seemingly forever ago. A night he
didn’t even remember.

Holding his throbbing head,
Cage gingerly rolled from his side onto his back and cracked an
eyelid to check out the warm body he felt lying beside
him.

The first thing he saw was
a big mess of orange-red frizzy hair, and being that his brain was
bogged down with the aftereffects of too much whiskey, it took him
a moment to process where he knew that hair from. When he did, when
he knew exactly who that hair belonged to, he shot up into a
sitting position, cursing when his head vehemently protested the
movement.

Maybe it wasn’t her. Maybe
someone else in Miles City had ridiculously frizzy carrot-colored
hair, a stick for a body, and freckles everywhere. Feeling sick, he
glanced over his shoulder. Jesus fucking shit, motherfucker, fuck
his life and everything in it.

God, what the fuck was
wrong with him?

Worse, he didn’t even
remember doing it. A sliver of hope lit inside of him. Maybe he
didn’t fuck her? But then why was she naked? Still gripping his
throbbing skull, he turned away from her and dropped his
head.

Then his jaw
dropped.

No.

His leathers were still on
but his goddamn dick was hanging out covered in a light sheen of
dried blood. Great. He’d taken her virginity. Worse yet, he didn’t
even remember doing it.

That had been one of the worst mornings
of his life. Actually, the entire day had sucked balls.

Not knowing what to do, he
hightailed it into the shower, hoping she’d wake up and get the
fuck out of his room before he got out.

No dice.

She was still there, in his
bed, still naked but now awake and covering herself with his sheet,
holding his cell phone in her hand. “It wouldn’t stop ringing,” she
said softly, unable to look him in the eye, her pale skin flushing.
“So I answered it.”

He stared down at her, not
really paying attention to what she was saying, trying to figure
out what the fuck he was going to do with her. Seriously, what the
fuck was he supposed to do with some awkward, dorky, titless
teenager?

“
Uh, listen, Teacup,” he
said, shifting uncomfortably as he reached up and began rubbing the
back of his neck. “I’m not really sure what the fuck to say here,
but last night… Are you okay? Does, uh, did you…” He trailed off,
not knowing what the fuck he’d been trying to say in the first
place and feeling like a jackass.

“
I’m fine,” she whispered.
“I’m glad it was you.”

He continued staring at
her, his mind blank.

“
It was Ellie who called,”
she continued softly.

Ellie? Why the fuck would
Ellie call him?

“
She, um, she’s really
upset…” Tegen hesitated. “She said Danny is, uh, on her way to an
abortion clinic.”

What? Danny. Abortion
clinic? Cage snapped the fuck out of it. His little sister had
gotten herself into trouble and he needed to find her. Right. Now.
Everything else, everyone else could go fuck themselves.

“
I gotta go,” he said
hurriedly, glancing around for his clothing. He zeroed in on his
leathers and snatched them off the ground. When he was fully
dressed, he crossed the room and grabbed hold of the doorknob. Then
he paused and glanced over his shoulder.

“
Don’t say anything to
anyone,” he demanded.

Tegen’s green eyes went
wide and she shook her head. “I won’t,” she said. “I
promise.”

Nodding, he pulled open the
door.

“
Cage?”

Stopping, he glanced back
again. “What?” he asked impatiently.

She hesitated, her skin
flushing fiercely as she peeked up at him through her
eyelashes.

“
I love you,” she
whispered.

Cage froze.

Oh, fuck. Oh,
fuck.

No. Just…no.

“
Shit,” he muttered,
suddenly unable to look at her. How the fuck had this happened? He
seriously needed to stop drinking so much.

“
Listen,” he continued
slowly. “I don’t know what the fuck you’re thinkin’ but…it just
ain’t like that for me, baby.”

He glanced up, saw the
surprise on her face, saw the hurt, saw it all.

Then he got the fuck out of
there.

He’d spent the rest of the day dealing
with his little sister’s mess. Or rather, Ripper’s mess, and hadn’t
given much thought to Tegen or what had happened until enough time
had passed and he started realizing that not only was she not
speaking to him, she wasn’t looking at him. In fact, she acted like
he didn’t even exist.

He hadn’t exactly cared at the time
unless he was confronted with it. When he’d find her scowling at
him instead of smiling, refusing to speak to him, refusing to speak
to anyone.

Watching from a distance as she grew
angrier, bitter, and eventually just outright mean.

Then she’d left for college and hadn’t
come home for any holidays. In fact, she didn’t come home again
until her mother had been shot.

He’d taken one look at her, her new
look, and he hadn’t seen the dorky little girl he used to tease
incessantly anymore, but a woman, a beautiful woman.

A beautiful woman who wanted nothing to
do with him. And maybe that’s what bothered him the most. Tegen was
a beautiful woman who’d once acted as if the sun rose and set with
him, who’d told him she loved him, yet who now wanted nothing to do
with
him
.

And every time he saw her, it felt like
she was slapping on yet another layer of attitude, each visit home
worse than the last.

One thing he knew for certain was the
woman had one damn long memory and could hold a grudge like a
motherfucker. And unfortunately for him, the more time that passed,
the more beautiful she seemed to grow. Her extremely slender figure
no longer seemed stick-like but naturally lithe, like a ballet
dancer. And her breasts, while still very small, had a more rounded
fullness to them. His eyes raked over her long copper dreadlocks,
the quarter-inch plugs in her earlobes, her slim neck, and the
colorful flower tattoos across her chest. Her bare arms were also
covered in ink from shoulder to wrist, and the inch of exposed
concave stomach between her tank top and skirt, also inked. More so
than the last time he’d seen her.

Jesus, the girl had more ink on her now
than he had, nearly as much as Cox who, aside from his face, was
tattooed from head to toe.

And it was…hot. Cage found his body
responding to his thoughts; not physical stimulation, just his
goddamn thoughts, something that only happened around Tegen and her
goddamn attitude.

Still glaring at him, she flung her
long dreads over her shoulders with a flick of her wrists and
cocked a bony hip. His fists clenched, readying himself for
whatever mud she was going to fling at him. He was not in the mood
for this shit. He’d barely been off the road five seconds and now
this?

“
No one told me that
motherfucker was going to be here,” she hissed.

Behind him Ripper snorted and Danny
sighed.

Cage’s jaw locked. His eyes darted to
the right of Tegen and he quickly calculated how much time he had
to grab her, throw her inside his old room, and fuck that attitude
straight out of her before anyone tried to stop him.

“
We’ll be downstairs,” he
heard Danny say and he could hear the damn laughter in her
voice.

“
But I wanna hear all the
fucked-up shit Tegen’s gonna say to him,” Ripper said,
laughing.

“
Don’t hold your breath,”
Tegen snapped, her eyes never once leaving Cage. “I have nothing to
say to Deuce Junior.”

His nostrils flared. No bitch ever
talked to him the way she did. In fact no one, other than his
father, had ever treated him the way she did; he didn’t allow it,
would have them eating fist before they got a second insult out.
Except Tegen. When she mouthed off, the bitch always had him either
tongue-tied or hard as a rock or both.