Indulgence (291 page)

“All I said was asshole,” he admitted.

Pointing a finger at him, she bossed him, “Don’t say it
again. I’m gonna start charging you, I think.” Giving me her attention, she
said, “Thank you for this afternoon. I really appreciate it.”

I grimaced. “We had a visitor while you were asleep,” I
admitted, not wanting to have to tell her.

At her frown, Kick stepped in with an explanation. “Dave
came over. He was drunk again and bashing on the front door to be let in, so
Evie called me and I came and took care of him.”

“Thank you,” she said, her voice full of exhaustion. “How
did you get him to leave?”

“Let’s just say we had words.” Kick’s face had that
closed-off look I knew well; he had no intention of telling her what those
words had been.

“Did you guys get in a fight?” Lina asked, knowing her
brother well.

“No, but I’m telling you, Lina, that if he keeps turning up
like he did today, we
will
be having more than words.”

She opened her mouth to say something but a knock at the
door interrupted us.

Shit, who was it now?

“Wait here,” Kick said as he strode to the front door and
opened it. “Fuck,” he muttered, and I wondered who the hell it was, “what are
you doing here?”

A voice I hadn’t heard in years sounded, and my stomach
dropped. “Well, that’s a lovely way to greet your mother, Kick.”

Kick

Fuck, could this day get any worse?

I stepped aside and let my mother enter. Actually, I had no
choice, because she barged her way in before I could stop her. I closed the
door after her and turned to see Evie’s face had paled. She looked like she’d
seen a ghost, and I guessed she had.

My mother.

The reason for so much of her heartache growing up.

“Mum,” Lina said, sounding anything but pleased to see her,
“what are you doing here?”

Mum’s back stiffened. “Am I not allowed to visit my daughter
and grandchildren?”

Jesus, bring on the fucking guilt trip.

Lina scowled. “You never just drop by out of the blue. Not
unless you want something.” The unspoken accusation sat between them.

Mum’s hand went to her hip and I could just imagine the
superior look on her face. “That’s not true -” She stopped mid-sentence and her
head turned to look at Evie. “What the hell are
you
doing here? I
thought my son had seen the error of his ways years ago.” Before Evie could
respond, Mum looked at me and said, “Please don’t tell me she’s here because
you are?”

I stalked to where she stood, and, fuming, said, “You don’t
get to come here and say that shit to or about Evie.” My body buzzed with anger
at her attitude, and my breaths were coming hard and fast. “Besides, what I do
is none of your business anymore.”

“Yes, you made that perfectly clear two years ago, Kick, but
just because you stop seeing me and try to tell me what is and what isn’t my
business, doesn’t mean I’m not interested to know what’s happening in your
life.” Her eyes were still as vacant as they’d been my entire life. The words
were coming out of her mouth but she didn’t mean them.

My mother. The shallowest woman I’d ever had the misfortune
of knowing.

“You’ve never been interested in my life,” I spat. “The only
thing Veronica Hanson is interested in is Veronica Hanson.”

Her eyes flared with anger. And a tiny bit of hatred. My
mother held a lot of resentment in her soul, and her kids and husband had been
wrapped up in that resentment for years. We’d held her back; stifled her life
plans. Apparently. “How the hell did you come from me?” she demanded to know.

“That’s a really good fuckin’ question.”

“Kick!” Lina interjected, her eyes glaring at me.

Fuck, the fuckin’ swearwords.

I quickly glanced at the kids who were busy watching
television. Thank fuck, they didn’t need to be involved in this shit. I turned
back to my mother. “I don’t know how the hell any of your kids turned out okay
after being subjected to your nastiness and bitchiness while we were growing
up, but you did manage to screw Evie up, so there
is
that.”

Evie caught my attention when she took a step in my
direction, a distraught look on her face. She found my eyes and whatever she
saw there stopped her. “Kick . . .” she began, but I cut her off.

“No, Evie, she needs to hear this. So her husband screwed
around on her and then took it one step further and slept with her best friend.
It doesn’t give her the right to take that shit out on the kids in her life,
one of them being you. Just because her husband slept with your mother doesn’t
give her the fuckin’ right to label
you
. . . a fuckin’ innocent
teenager in all that . . . a slut, and spread nasty rumours about you.” My
heart pumped furiously in my chest as years of hurt and anger roared to the
surface. I jabbed my finger at my mother. “
That shit ain’t fuckin’ right
!”

Jesus
!

I began pacing in the small space I occupied, fully aware I
was close to losing my shit completely. Evie and Lina stared at me in horror.
None of this had ever been confronted. Our families had splintered apart after
Evie’s sister died, and we’d shattered completely after Dad slept with Loretta
six months later. As far as I was concerned, this conversation was about
eighteen years too late.

“You’ve got no idea what I went through! What your father
did to me!” my mother screamed at me, the vacant look in her eyes long gone,
replaced with bitterness and pure hatred.

“I don’t give a
shit
what my father did to you! You
should have been more concerned about your children but instead,
I
spent
my whole life chasing your affection . . . chasing your love.
You
were
more concerned with trying to make yourself look good so that people would think
you were this amazing mother and amazing person when that was so damn far from
the truth.”

She stared wildly at me, her chest heaving, and her face
flushed with anger. “You’ve grown into an asshole, Kick. That club is obviously
no good for you but that’s what you get for abandoning your family as soon as
you could.”

Was she for fucking real
?

Funny how someone’s memories of how something went down can
be so wrong.

I jabbed my finger at her again, the adrenaline coursing
through my veins needing an outlet, and a finger jab seemed like a much better
option than the punch I wanted to throw. I’d never punch a woman, but the wall
was looking more and more attractive. The kids were the only thing holding me
back at this point. “I joined Storm because they were more of a family to me
than you and Dad ever were,” I fumed. “You can’t abandon something that isn’t
there in the first place. Dad was long gone, and you were never there. And I
never fuckin’ abandoned Lina or Braden.”

The rage circling the room threatened to choke me.

I need to get out of here
.

Without another glance at my mother, I turned and stalked
out of the house. Once I’d made it to the footpath, I placed my hands behind my
head to grip the back of my neck. “Fuck!” I roared into the air, pushing a chunk
of pent up frustration out.

I paced the footpath for a few minutes until Mum came
storming out of the house towards her car. “Don’t ever talk to me again, Kick.
I don’t want anything to do with you ever again!” she yelled as she threw her
bag in the car.

“Consider it done!” I thundered, and turned my back as she
backed out of the driveway and sped off. “Fuck!” I yelled again, desperately
trying to get the rage out that was trapped in my body.

Evie came running out of the house, towards me. I held my hand
up, signalling for her to stop, to not come anywhere near me, because I
couldn’t be sure of my actions at the moment.

She slowed her advance but didn’t stop, her eyes pleading
with me to let her close.

To let her in
.

“No, Evie, don’t come any closer!” I yelled, hating the
words as they left my lips but unable to stop them from falling out. I needed
to keep her safe and
I
wasn’t safe.

She didn’t fucking stop.

She came right up to me and a moment later, her hand landed
on my arm. “Kick,” she said, her voice calm.

Full of love.

My mind flickered with a chaotic mess of thoughts.

So jumbled.

So confused.

I tried to claw through them but instead I was drowning in
them.

I was drowning in my life.

A childhood of abandonment, an adolescence of hurt and
grief, a life of regret.

Her arms circled me. “Kick,” she soothed me as she pulled me
close.

Love.

Evie’s love clawed through the thoughts.

It pushed the pain aside as it reached for my heart.

For my soul.

Home.

Family.

Evie is my family
.

I took a deep breath and put my arms around her. “Evie,” I
whispered, “I love you.”

Her hand ran up and down my neck, in and out of my hair. “I
love you, too, baby,” she whispered.

I clung to her for a long time, allowing the anger and hurt
to seep out of me. Eventually, I pulled away from Evie and asked, “How did you
know?”

She frowned. “How did I know what?”

“That I needed you. That it would be okay to ignore me and
come to me even when I told you not to,” I said, not letting her eyes go,
needing them to stay with me and silently tell me the secrets of her heart that
her words couldn’t.

And they did. The love shone from them as she said, “I knew,
because I know you would never hurt me, Kick. You’ve
always
made sure I
was okay, made sure no one else was hurting me. I know deep in my bones that
there will
never
come a day that you hurt me.”

I gently placed my hand against her cheek. “You never gave
up on me, did you?” I whispered.

She shook her head. “No.”

I bent my face and kissed her.

Deep and searching.

I’d had her words and I’d had her eyes. Now I needed her
body to tell me how much she loved me. When her hands slid over my back and her
lips blessed mine with a kiss that reached right into my soul, I knew she was
completely in.

I knew Evie would love me forever.

Just like I’d loved her forever.

Evie

“Shit,” I muttered as I turned the mower off and collapsed
onto the newly mowed grass. I ran my forearm across my sweaty forehead, trying
to stop the drops of sweat falling into my eyes.

Why did I have the bright idea to mow this afternoon?

On one of the hottest days of the year so far.

At least it had taken my mind off the huge blow-up between
Kick and his mother a couple of days ago. I’d never seen him lose it like that
at his family before, but he’d definitely needed to get it out because I’d
noticed a change in him since. He didn’t seem as angry or hard as he had been
for years.

I couldn’t deny I’d loved how he defended me, too. Veronica
had been awful to me after my mother slept with her husband, and a lot of my problems
in my last two years of school had been as a direct result of her
vindictiveness. Kick had clearly recognised that and held onto his anger over
it for all these years.

I sighed and lay back on the grass. Closing my eyes, I
thought about where he and I were at now. We were together in a way we’d never
been together. He’d opened himself up to me completely, and I felt safe in the
haven our relationship had become.

A low whistle sounded from behind me, and I opened my eyes
and sat up to find Kick walking towards me with a grin on his face. My body
thrummed with desire. This man just had to catch my attention and I was gone.
When he stepped into my view looking the way he did this afternoon, I knew it
would be hard not to jump him and demand sex. Between the muscles his jeans and
white t-shirt barely contained, his confident swagger, and the ruggedly
handsome face I’d memorised deep in my heart, I didn’t have a hope in hell of
not throwing myself at him. Oh, and add to all of that the beard he’d grown, and
I was going down.

Happily.

“Why are you mowing?” he asked as he sat next to me,
stretching his legs out in front of him and his arms out behind him, leaning
back on his hands.

“Because, funnily enough, the grass grew,” I answered him
with the smart mouth I knew he loved.

“Smartass,” he muttered, the grin not leaving his face.
“Leave it for me in the future, okay?”

I raised my brows. “Is that an ‘okay’ type statement or a
‘we clear’ type statement?” I couldn’t resist, and waited to see what he’d do
next. My body kinda hoped he’d attack it.

He didn’t disappoint, and a moment later, I was lying back
on the grass with Kick on top of me. Bending his face close to mine, he
growled, “It’s a ‘we clear’ statement, baby, but perhaps you need to be
reminded who wears the pants in this relationship.”

Oh god, yes, I do
.

I bit my lip and stared at him, willing him to keep going.

To show me who wore the pants.

His eyes searched mine, questioning. “Yeah?” he asked.

I decided to push him, just to make sure he pursued this. “I
think we know who wears the pants when all is said and done,” I said in my
sweetest voice. “You might think it’s you, but it’s not.”

Heat flashed in those beautiful green eyes of his and he
reared up, ripping his shirt off. Next his hands went to my shorts, which he
stripped off, along with my panties. He bent his face back to mine and claimed
my lips in a rough kiss before saying, “I’m not seeing any pants on you, baby.”

Sitting back up to straddle me, he undid his jeans and
pulled his cock out. He wrapped his hand around it and stroked it a couple of
times, his gaze never leaving mine, except to take in my tongue licking my
lips.