Unattainable (31 page)

Hooking a hand beneath her knee, he
yanked her leg up and situated it over his hip. Grabbing his cock,
he pushed up against her already wet pussy and Tegen’s body
trembled in response. Satisfaction roared through him. She wanted
him. She still fucking wanted him. He’d been right.

With her hair wound tightly around his
hand, he yanked her head forward, bringing them nose to
nose.

“
You’ll always be my
Teacup,” he growled.

“
Shut…up,” she whimpered
breathlessly, trying to turn away from him but his grip on her hair
allowed her no movement.

“
Just say it,” he
muttered. “Tell me the fuckin’ truth for once. Tell me you fuckin’
love me, babe.”

Her lips parted and knowing her,
knowing she was seconds away from telling him to go fuck himself,
he jammed his tongue inside and put an instant stop to her
bullshit.

• • •

“
Oh God,” I murmured, my
hands flying to his face, frantically gripping his hair, kissing
him harder, trying to crawl up his body to get even closer. “I
missed you.”

“
Me too,” he whispered.
“Me too, babe.”

This wasn’t supposed to happen. He
wasn’t supposed to follow me back to California. He was supposed to
be home, in Miles City, doing his thing. Fucking women, engaging in
criminal activity, yada, yada, yada.

And I was supposed to be continuing on
my path to self-destruction because…

Because fucking why? I couldn’t
remember anymore.

“
Say it,” he growled,
gripping my head and pushing me off him. “Tell me you love
me.”

Trembling, I could only stare at him.
The feelings were all there, the need, the ache, but the words
wouldn’t come. I couldn’t say it.

“
Fucking shit, Tegen!”
Cage yelled, backing away from me. “What do I gotta do?”

His arms dropped to his sides and his
fists clenched into tight balls. Our eyes met and his nostrils
began flaring. There was no doubt in my mind in that moment; he was
truly his father’s son.

And I was my mother’s daughter. Weak.
Desperate. In love with the
wrong
man.

“
Try. This. Shit. With.
Me,” he said, growling through his clenched teeth.

Ohh.
My heart broke. It took all
of my willpower not to run to him. He knew everything about ZZ and
yet he was back, had literally beat down my door and shot up my
apartment to get to me. This is what I’d always wanted, right? My
dream come true, my every fantasy.

“
I don’t want to be like
my mother!” I screamed.

“
Good!” he bellowed.
“’Cause I ain’t in fuckin’ love with your damn mother!”

My chest heaving, my heart exploding, I
pointed at him with a shaking finger. “You’re a fucking whore,
Cage! You’re not going to change!”

“
FUCK YOU!” he bellowed.
“I know I haven’t given you a goddamn reason to trust me, but FUCK
YOU, BITCH, you haven’t given me a fuckin’ chance to give you a
fuckin’ reason!”

“
You’re going to hurt me
again!” I screamed. “You’re going to make me say it and then you’re
going to say it back to me and I’m going to do whatever you want me
to do and in the end you’re going to fuck me over. AGAIN! And I’m
going to be pathetic and stupid, watching you hook up with girls
ten times more beautiful than I will ever be! AGAIN!”

Cage’s eyes darkened and the muscles in
his arms began to twitch and jump under his skin.

“
Bitch,” he hissed. “What
the fuck do you want to hear? I ain’t gonna tell you that I’m not
gonna fuck up and I ain’t gonna tell you that you’re the most
beautiful fuckin’ woman in the entire world! Yeah, you’re too
fuckin’ skinny, you ain’t got shit for tits, and you look like a
goddamn motherfuckin’ hippie!”

My lower lip started to tremble as I
fought back my blossoming tears. Seeing this, Cage closed his eyes
and let out a long, frustrated sigh.

“
Tegen,” he said and took
a long step forward. Wrapping his hands around my upper arms, he
bent his head, bringing us face-to-face.

“
But, babe, you’re the
most beautiful woman in the whole goddamn world, to me. You’re all
I fuckin’ want, Teacup. You got the hottest pair of eyes I’ve ever
fuckin’ seen and your tattoos, babe, they’re sexy as all hell, and
your goddamn hipbones, fuckin’ shit, me grabbin’ on to them,
fuckin’ you slow, drives me straight-up crazy.”

Air exploded from my lungs in the form
of a whimper and my body, suddenly exhausted, slumped forward
against Cage’s. I couldn’t hold back my tears now; they were
streaming freely down my cheeks.

“
You know what else I
fuckin’ love?” he asked in a growling whisper. “I love your dirty
fuckin’ mouth. I love the fact that you don’t hold back, that
you’re tough as fuckin’ nails on the outside, but on the inside
you’re still my Teacup.”

“
St-stop,” I whispered,
unable to contain all the emotion welling up inside of
me.

“
No,” he growled. “You
need to hear this shit. You need to fuckin’ get it through your
thick fuckin’ skull that I want those skinny-ass legs wrapped
around me, I want your tiny fuckin’ tits in my hands and in my
goddamn mouth, and I don’t give a fuck what you’re lookin’ like as
long as you’re lookin’ like it by my fuckin’ side.”

Then Cage tilted my head back and
grinned down at me. “You fuckin’ feel me, babe?” he said, mimicking
his father.

I stopped crying and started glaring.
“Don’t you dare act like your father!”

Cage crushed me to him and burst out
laughing. “Reel it in, Teacup. Reel it the fuck in.”

• • •

Cage held Tegen tightly to him and
breathed out a sigh of relief.

She was a hot fucking mess. She was
crying, trembling in his arms, yet still glaring up at him with the
combined anger of a thousand spurned women alight in her eyes. But
he didn’t care. She was his hot mess.

“
Jesus fuckin’ Christ, I’m
on the road for a fuckin’ month and this is what I’m comin’ home
to?”

Tegen froze in his arms and he glanced
over his shoulder. The man standing less than fifteen feet away, a
man he’d known his entire life, was almost unrecognizable to him.
His dark hair was much longer than it had ever been, greasy, pulled
back in a ponytail, and he’d aged a good ten years in the few he’d
been gone. He looked tired, beaten down, and extremely
angry.

“
This what you been doin’
on your trips home, Tegen?” ZZ said, lifting his chin in Cage’s
direction. “Fuckin’ brothers?”

Cage released Tegen and turned around.
Keeping his eye on ZZ, he wasn’t feeling the guy’s body language,
so he bent down and grabbed Tegen’s clothing off the
floor.

“
Get dressed,” he said,
shoving the clothes in her direction.

ZZ’s mouth curved into a cruel grin.
“You’re kiddin’ me, right? Been up inside that more times than I
can count. Bitch is in my fuckin’ bed. Or didn’t you know
that?”

Cage’s already tense body tightened
further. “Yeah, I fuckin’ knew. And she ain’t in your bed no
more.”

ZZ’s grin only grew. “Yeah? She in
yours now?”

“
Z,” Tegen said, tripping
over her jeans as she awkwardly tried to get dressed. “I tried to
call you a million times.”

ZZ’s eyes shot to Tegen and he lost his
grin. “You tryin’ to tell me somethin’?” he asked
darkly.

Cage stepped in front of Tegen before
she could answer. “I’m tryin’ to tell you somethin’,” he said.
“Don’t fuckin’ look at her.”

“
Shut up, Cage,” Tegen
said, pushing out from behind him. Fully dressed, she stepped
forward. “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “This was not how this was
supposed to happen.”

Cage watched as his old friend’s eyes
grew hard, cold, and unfocused. “You’re one dumb bitch,” ZZ spat
and Cage went rigid. “If you’re thinkin’ he gives two fucks about
you. Fucker is just like his sister and they’re both just like
their old man.”

“
Don’t bring my sister
into this shit,” Cage gritted out.

ZZ laughed coldly. “Your fuckin’ whore
of a sister tossed my ass to the curb like I was week-old garbage
she couldn’t get rid of quick enough.

“
And you,” he said,
turning back to Tegen. “So that’s fuckin’ it? Me and you, these
past years, it meant jack-fuckin’-shit to you?”

Cage looked to Tegen who was staring
openmouthed at ZZ, her shock plain as day. “Z,” she whispered. “I
didn’t think…it wasn’t…we weren’t that…”

ZZ smiled bitterly. “Yeah,” he said
coldly. “I guess fuckin’ not. But you are so fuckin’ wrong if you
think this asshole ain’t gonna put your whorin’ ass on the curb,
just like his sister did to me.”

Cage had been feeling sort of bad for
the guy, because Danny had done him wrong. But first the fucker
called his sister a whore, then his woman, and not only that he
accused him of not really caring about Tegen…

He lost his last shred of self-control.
“Get the fuck out!” he bellowed, reaching for his gun as he stormed
forward. He wasn’t going to shoot ZZ, just scare him the fuck out
of here.

“
Cage!” Tegen shrieked
from behind him.

Cage stumbled backward as searing pain
shot through his chest. Another crack and more pain exploded
throughout his body. He stared dumbly at ZZ, at the gun still
pointed at him as he lost his footing. Then he was staring at the
floor as it came rushing up to meet his face and for a moment
everything went blurry.

“
Cage! Cage!
CAGE!”

He blinked furiously, trying to rid the
cloudiness that had overcome his vision, and could sort of make out
Tegen beside him. He could feel her gripping his arm, trying to
roll him over; he could hear her screaming, sobbing, and crying;
and off in the distance, he could hear sirens.

They weren’t going to make it in time.
He was trying to hang on but warm blood was flooding his mouth, a
stark contrast to the freezing cold taking root inside his
veins.

“
Cage,” she sobbed.
“Please wake up, Cage. Please, please, wake up!”

He couldn’t answer her. He tried but
nothing happened; nothing was working.

“
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!” she
screamed. “No! NO! Fuck! Don’t leave me! FUCK YOU, CAGE! Please
don’t leave me, you stupid fucker! I fucking love you and you can’t
leave me!”

He tried to smile; maybe he did, he
didn’t know.

Then everything went dark.

“
How many times do we have
to go over this?” I screamed.

The two police detectives, a man and a
woman both dressed in plain clothes, glanced at each other before
glancing back down at me.

“
Ms. Matthews,” the man
said calmly. “I know you’re upset, but what you’re telling us
doesn’t make any sense. Now, which one of the men are you
romantically involved with?”

Shrieking, I buried my face in my
hands.

I felt a hand on my shoulder. “Ms.
Matthews,” the woman said. “I understand how hard this is right
now, but we need to know everything that happened.”

Of course they did. They had to know
right this motherfucking second. Who cared that Cage was bleeding
out all over an operating table? Not them. They’d taken one look at
the leather cut the doctors had handed them, read the words “Hell’s
Horsemen,” and immediately thought the worst of him.

Who cared that I just watched the man I
loved get shot twice in the chest, cough and wheeze and spit blood
all over himself? Who cared that I watched as his eyes rolled back
and his body went limp, or that I had to stand by and watch as the
paramedics jammed a tube into his lungs to help him breathe, or
that he was now in surgery as trauma surgeons attempted to remove
the bullets and repair the damage to his lungs?

These fuckers didn’t care.

“
Cage,” I hissed, jerking
my head up. “I am involved with Cage.”

“
And Mr. Jeffries?” the
man asked. “What was your relationship with him?”

“
ZZ,” I said. “And he was
my roommate. And just FYI, if you go around asking about Zachary
Jeffries, no one is going to know who the fuck you are talking
about!”

“
ZZ, then,” the woman
said, squeezing my shoulder. “Were you ever involved with him? Is
that why he shot Cage?”

Embarrassed, I closed my eyes. “Yes,” I
whispered.

God, this was all my fault. All of it.
Why couldn’t I do anything right? What the fuck was so wrong with
me that I couldn’t even coexist like a normal fucking human
being?

“
Tegen!”

At the sound of my mother’s voice, my
body spurred into action. Shaking off the detective, I jumped out
of my seat and went running toward the reception area where my
mother met me halfway and threw her arms around me. Suddenly, I was
roughly yanked out of her arms and Deuce was gripping my arm
painfully tight and bearing down on me, his blue eyes burning.
“Where is he?” he growled.

“
I-I…” I swallowed hard
and tried again. “He’s in surgery,” I finished quickly.