Out Bad (18 page)

Joe stared out the window at the bright morning that stole
his dream before it could even really get started.  His eyes burned as his
brain tried to kick into gear.  He'd struggled to sleep through the almost
constant lightening of last night's storms.  They finally gave way, just
in time for the sun to come up.  He needed blinds.

With a frustrated groan, he shoved his tired body up off the
bed.  He was exhausted.  Thank God he didn’t have any work lined up
for the day.  Gwen told him she was going to be working extra this week
and as much as he hated not being able to see her, he needed the time.

Seeing Gwen in his house Saturday just made it clear how
very much he’d neglected to do.  He wanted her to feel comfortable here
and right now that was probably not even close to happening.  Luckily he
had all day to get as much done as he could.

The first thing on his list was to put up some blinds.

Grabbing a pair of jeans from the closet, he pulled them
on.  The air inside the house was already starting to get warm so he
decided to skip the shirt for now. 

Shuffling downstairs, he started a pot of coffee brewing
while he collected what he needed on the kitchen table.  Ten minutes later
he had a hot cup of coffee perched on the windowsill as he measured inside of
the frame.

After measuring the windows in his bedroom, the downstairs
bathroom and the living room, he sat down at his computer.  Three hundred
bucks later, custom blinds were set to be delivered in a week. 

Gulping down the last bit of coffee in his cup, he went to
the kitchen for a refill.  Leaning back against the counter, he looked
around.  He’d been so focused on the big things he wanted to do that he’d
turned a blind eye to some of the other things the house was lacking. 
Things like more than one chair at the kitchen table, towels in the bathroom
that still have their hemmed edging, and a bed with more than a fitted
sheet.  He didn't just need a house anymore.

He needed a home. 

Taking his fresh cup of coffee, he went back to his computer
and started shopping.  Living like a bachelor was fine for him, but Gwen
deserved a place with more than the bare essentials, even if she was only there
to visit, for now.  Hell, he would enjoy a towel with some nap left on it…
and maybe a new set of sheets.

He was scrolling down a page filled with bed covers, looking
for something without lace that didn't look like it belonged in a log cabin
either, when his phone started ringing from the kitchen counter.

He looked at the clock.  It was already
lunchtime.  He jumped up and hurried to grab his phone.

“Hi sweetheart.  How’s your day going?”

Gwen sighed into the phone.  “Just long.  I can’t
believe it’s only Thursday.”

“Do you want me to come take you to lunch?”  Joe ran
his hands through his loose hair, a tiny bit of dampness still lingering from
his shower late last night or early this morning depending on how you looked at
things.  He’d been up late installing a small window air-conditioner in his
bedroom. 

“I do, but I’m going to lunch with a couple of the people
here.”

He was disappointed, but reminded himself she would be all
his for the whole weekend starting tomorrow night and he was working his butt
off to make sure it was as perfect as he could make it.

“Well in that case, I hope you have fun.”

“We’ll see I guess.”  She sounded hesitant and more
than a little unsure.  “Is it okay if I call you tonight when I get home?”

“Of course.”  Their hour long conversations each night
had been the best part of his week.

He hung up with Gwen and dialed Heath.

“Hello.”  His friend’s voice was raspy.

Joe laughed.

“Hey.  What’s going on?”  Heath yawned into the
phone, the sound of little girl chatter loud in the background.

“Just working on getting this house together.”  He
heard Heath yawn again and chuckled.  “Those girls wearing you out
already?”

“I might be a little hung over.”

That might be the understatement of the year.  Joe
watched the girls last night while his friends enjoyed an evening out. 
Gabbi pretty much had to haul his ass into the house when they got home. 
Joe helped her dump him on the bed and he was asleep before they got out of the
room. 

“Sad thing is it probably didn’t take you too much to get
there.”  It was true.  There comes a point in a man’s life where he
just can’t hang like he used to.  That point seems to follow the arrival
of a job and a wife and children.  Hopefully that would be a club he
joined in the near future.

“I didn’t even expect it man.  Gabbi got me to drink a
couple of those damn mixed drinks she likes.  Those bastards pack a
punch.”

Joe laughed out loud this time.  The thought of his cop
buddy sipping some pink fruity liquid out of a stemmed glass was funny enough,
but the fact that it knocked him on his ass was hilarious.  “I’ll try to
remember that the next time we have a girl's night.”

“Real
fuckin
’ funny.”

“What’s funny is Gabbi leaving you hung over and watching
the princesses of chaos.”  He could only imagine the copious amounts of
coffee and ibuprofen it was taking to keep Heath functioning under those
conditions.

“I think she did it on purpose man.”  Cassie’s voice
chirped in the background.  “Daddy will get it in just a minute.”

“I was calling to see what you were up to, but you have your
hands full so I’ll let you get back to it.”

“Maybe go out for a ride this weekend?”

Joe rinsed his coffee cup out in the kitchen sink. 
“Can’t.  My weekend’s booked.  It’s supposed to rain anyway.”

Heath sighed into the phone.  “I remember when my
weekends were booked like that.  Be careful, those weekends are what
produced the little monsters running wild through my house right now.”

“I’ll try to remember that.”  Hell, he was counting on
it.

Making his way back upstairs he grabbed a shirt out of his
closet and pulled it over his head as he headed back down the stairs.  It
was time to get moving on his day.

Stuffing his feet in his boots by the door, he grabbed his
keys and headed out.  His first stop was the mall.  Normally one of
his least favorite places on earth, but today the idea of shopping didn’t seem
so unappealing.  Mostly because it felt a little like he was planning for
a new life.  A life with Gwen.

The mall parking lot was empty and he pulled his van into a
front spot then headed inside.

As he wandered the aisles of one of the end cap department
stores, a little overwhelmed by the sheer number of choices just in sheets, a
very young woman came bounding up to his side.

“Can I help you with anything?”  Her smile was huge,
probably excited to show off her straight teeth after getting her braces off.

“I’m just looking, thanks.”  Her intensity level was a
little much for him so whether he needed her help or not, she would need to
find another victim.

“Are you looking for something specific?”  Her big blue
eyes stared right up at him never seeming to blink. 

Joe raised an eyebrow at her.  He was not usually the
guy anyone wanted to approach, let alone some girl fresh out of high school,
making her persistence more than a little baffling.

“Nope.  Just looking.”  He turned his attention
away from her and back to the wall of packaged sheets that extended three feet
above his head. 

He thought she’d gotten the hint and took off, but instead,
she stepped directly in front of him, that damn smile still plastered on her
face.

“Need some new sheets?”

“Yup.”  He sidestepped away from her, continuing to do
his best to ignore her as he tried to make sense of the differences between
five-hundred and six-hundred thread count, besides twenty bucks.

“For your bed?”  The way she dropped her voice and let
the words slip slowly out of her mouth, had him looking down at her in
shock.  She still had a smile on her face but it had changed
dramatically.  “Maybe I could help you put them on.”

“What in the hell is wrong with you?”

Her eyes went wide as the smile on her face finally
disappeared.  “I just thought—"

“You thought maybe you’d like to proposition a strange man
almost twice your age and risk him being some sort of deviant who would kidnap
you and do who knows what to you?” 

Tears brimmed at the corners of her eyes as her mouth hung
open in shock.  This probably wasn’t a reaction she was used to. 
Boys her own age were probably terrified of her.  He had news for
her.  Grown ass men wouldn’t react the same way.

“Do you have any idea what you could have gotten yourself
into?”  He’d seen girls like her, clueless to the way the world worked,
living their lives in a safe little bubble, completely unaware of the kind of
people that were out there, just waiting.

Tears began to fall down her cheeks as she shook her head,
blinking hard, wiping her cheeks with the back of her hand.  He scared
her.  Good.  She needed to be scared.

“I do.”  Unfortunately he knew all too well what could
happen when girls like her thought they could control what happened and what
didn’t.  “And you don’t want to find out.” 

He stood staring at her considering finding a way to let her
parents know just how naive of a daughter they’d raised.  He studied her
carefully. 

Hunting down her parents would do more harm than good and
the terrified girl in front of him was a far cry from the seductress she was
trying to be less than two minutes ago.

“Please don’t do something like that again.”  There was
always the chance his warning fell on deaf ears, but he prayed it didn't.

She nodded quickly before scurrying off and was out of sight
within seconds. 

This day was getting real heavy real fast.  Grabbing a
set of beige-y sheets and a blue comforter with the same color as a swirly
thing in the pattern, he headed to a register.  On the way, a soft looking
blanket in the same shade caught his eye.  It reminded him of the blanket
Gwen kept on her couch.  The blanket he’d piled over her sleeping body on
the evenings when she fell asleep while they watched television together.

Grabbing it he quickly checked out and headed home ready to
put this place and the memories it was stirring, behind him.

Thirty minutes later, Joe pulled up to his house, damp tire
lines coming out of his driveway.  The pitted gravel held onto quite a bit
of water and after a rain like last night, there would still be puddles for a
couple days. 

The air lodged in his lungs.  Someone had been at his
house.  Recently. 

He forced himself to start breathing.  He was
overreacting.  More than likely someone just used his house to turn
around.  Addresses weren’t marked well out here and it was easy to pass
what you were looking for. 

He pushed the thought to the back of his mind as he carried
his stuff in and started pulling it from the packaging to load it into the
washer.  Rummaging through the fridge as he waited for the first load to
cycle through, he couldn’t get the way the girl at the store acted out of his
mind.  He knew he wanted a family, but things like that scared the shit
out of him. 

If he had daughters they would grow up in a world where they
had to be careful.  Careful with how they dressed, how they talked, how
they acted.  It shouldn’t be that way, but it was.

It tore open the painful memories of a battle he’d wanted so
much to fight, but one he had no choice but to walk away from.  That walk
is what landed him in jail eight years ago and ultimately changed his life for
the better.  But he would never find a way to be grateful for the
situation that saved his life. 

How could you be grateful for what was happening to innocent
girls all over the world?  Girls like the one he met today being forced to
do things they didn’t want to do. 

Gwen hit enter, sending the last e-mail of a week that
seemed to both drag on forever and go too quickly. Grabbing her purse out of
the drawer, she dropped her phone in and dug her keys out.  She walked out
of her office and into the parking lot, hopping in her car and turning on the
air. 

She’d spent the beginning of the week having meetings with
each of her team members, going over what they liked, what they didn’t. 
What she felt their strengths were and how she planned to put them to
use.  She was exhausted, and stressed and burnt out.  It was time she
started delegating and taking some of the load off herself.

She’d expected some resistance, but so far everyone seemed
really excited to have a little more freedom and to get to spread their wings
so to speak.  Hopefully that mindset would continue, because she had no
intentions of putting all the pressure back on herself.

Richard in particular had been very excited.  Thank God
since she had decided to promote him to essentially be an assistant CFO. 
She needed help.  She couldn’t do it all.  She’d tried, but it was
more than she could handle.  More than she wanted to handle.

Hopefully over the coming weeks and months, she could start
to live a more balanced life.  A more normal life.  If she could
figure out what that meant to her. 

She loved her job, but that’s what it needed to be.  A
job.  For so long, she’d worked like it was her life and unfortunately, it
was.  Now that she thought about it, it was depressing what she’d allowed
herself to become.

Not all of what she’d become was bad though.  That was
one of the best revelations that came out of her meetings with
Jarod
Harvel
. 

 It shocked her at first when he suggested there was
any good to be found, but slowly, she began to see it was there.  She was
hard-working, to a fault but she was tackling that now, and a good boss. 
She was no nonsense, but fair.  It was a trait society made her feel a
little bad about.  Women were supposed to be warm and fuzzy all the time
and if they weren’t, well, they were called bitchy. 

After some unbiased opinions from
Jarod
,
she realized it was nothing to apologize for.  She was not a bitch, she
was simply the boss, making sure what needed to be done got done.  If
people chose to think of her as a bitch, that was their problem.  Not
hers.

It was amazing how productive therapy could be if you wanted
it to.

She pulled into her garage and headed inside to shower and
change.  Tonight was a big night.  It was the first time she was
going out with Joe.  Into the world.  Maybe if she was lucky they’d
have another first.

Gwen was tugging the low-cut,
flowy
dress she’d ordered over her head when her phone started to ring.  She
checked the height of the slit in the mirror as she answered.

“Hey.  I’m almost ready.”  Hopefully there wasn’t
a strong breeze or anyone within eye shot would see her panties.  She
intended for them to be seen tonight so at least they were pretty.

“Do I have to wait on the porch until then?”

What time was it?  She scrambled into her bedroom to
check the clock.  Shit.

“Sorry.  I’m not sure what happened.”  She ran
down the stairs, stumbling on the last two steps as she tried not to end up
tangled in her dress.  Thank God she had a grip on the hand rail or she
would have ended up in a pile on the floor.

She took a breath, trying to slow the adrenaline from her
near spill, before unlocking and pulling open the door to a smiling Joe. 

“Good thing you caught yourself or I would have had to knock
the door down to get to you.”  His eyes widened.  “You look
beautiful.”

“Thank you.”  She looked at her door as she closed it
behind him, trying to see through the window that took up the top half. 
She’d always been so certain the etched glass offered privacy.  Apparently
not.

“You can see right through it.  Blurry, but you can
see.  Probably even better at night.”

“That sucks.”

“Only if you run around naked.”

She felt heat rush up her neck and onto her cheeks.

Joe’s eyes got wide.  “I was just teasing.  You
can’t see that much.”

Little did he know the flush of her cheeks wasn’t from
embarrassment.  All it took to get her blood pumping was the word naked
coming out of Joe Parker’s mouth. 

A mouth that she had spent more than a little bit of time
thinking about this week.  Remembering when he would hold her in his arms
and crush that very same mouth hard against hers.  She was going to need
to figure out how to get that to happen again.  Might as well start now.

“Maybe we should check and see.”  She stepped close to
his side, barely letting the tips of her breast brush against his
tricep
. 

“You go back outside and tell me what you can see.” 
She started to slip the shoulder of her dress to one side.

One hand quickly shot out to slam the door closed as the
other yanked the fabric back in place.  Joe’s eyes darkened to almost
black as they stared down into hers. 

Sometimes the man was impossible to read.  Probably
from years of practice.  This, however was not one of those times.

The heat in his eyes was unmistakable.  He wanted to
touch her just as much as she wanted him to, but was holding back. 

He took a step back from her.  She followed him. 
Maybe it wasn't only concern for her that was causing him pause.  No,
there was definitely something else and lucky for her, it was written all over
his face. 

This big, intimidating, bad-assed biker was scared of her.

 She smiled as she stepped even closer.  Maybe it
was justified.  If there was something she wanted, Gwen was more than
happy to put in the work to get it, and right now, she wanted Joe Parker.

****

He was screwed.

The struggle to keep his hands mostly to himself until now
had been monumental, but it was clear it was the right thing for him to
do.  She was broken and a little lost and needed to recover without adding
in the emotions that came with getting physical.  It would just take time.

Unfortunately, now that he’d decided tonight might be that
time, his body was doing its best to move the schedule up even
further.  

Gwen took another step toward him.  He put his hand out
to stop her before she did something like rub her perfect breasts against
him.  Again. 

Until now he was sure he could wait as long as he needed for
it to be the right time.  Suddenly, he wasn’t so sure.  Last weekend,
he’d done so well.  He’d had his hands all over, and even in, Gwen’s
beautiful body.  Now the rest of him wanted their turn. 

She stopped.  For a second, as relief flooded his body,
he thought maybe he would still be in control of this situation.  Then he
realized where his hand was.

Yanking it off her left breast, he shoved it in his pocket
rubbing it against the rough denim trying to remove the memory of the softness
of her beneath his palm.  He scooted out from in front of her before she
could advance on him again. 

They needed to get out of here before they didn’t make it to
dinner.  Before he pulled the hem of that sexy dress up and buried himself
deep inside her over and over again. 

He yanked the door open wide.  “We have to go.”

He expected to see disappointment on her face, instead she looked
a little satisfied, smiling coyly as she passed him, running her index finger
across his chest as she went.  His breath stuck in his chest as her finger
brushed his nipple, sending a jolt of sensation straight to his already
overexcited groin.

This was how he was going to die.  Self
deprivation.  All the blood was going to leave the rest of his body in
favor of a more southern climate.

“Are you coming?”

The woman was wicked.  The smile in her voice. 
The giggle at the end of her question.  She knew exactly what she was
doing to him.

He was definitely going to die, but it would be a murder.

He pulled the door closed and made it to the van just in
time to open her door.  He walked the long way around, going behind the
vehicle so he had the opportunity to adjust his jeans.  This was going to
be a long dinner.

They were halfway to the restaurant when his phone started
to ring from the console between them. He’d forgotten to turn off the damn
ringer.  “Sorry.”  He reached to silence it and caught the look on
Gwen’s face as she stared at the screen.  It was Cynthia, her name spelled
out in big black letters.  Damn.  This was a really bad time.

“You can answer that.”  Her voice sounded calm, but the
look on her face was a different story.

He had to answer it.  Whether she liked it or
not.  “Hey.”

“Hey Joe.  Sorry to call on a Friday night, but it’s
not something that could wait until Monday.”

“That’s okay.  What’s going on?” 

“I’ve got a lady with a clogged toilet.  She thinks one
of her kids tried to flush something down.”

“Is it a mess?” He looked down at his clothes.  He was
not dressed to be dealing in toilet water.

“She said it’s not overflowing, but it got close.  She
tried to plunge it, but it’s not moving.”  Cynthia’s voice was
apologetic.  “It’s their only toilet or I wouldn’t bother you.”

He sighed.  “Text me the address and I’ll head
over.”  He got off the highway and turned the van around to head back
home.

“Is everything okay?”

“Are you starving?” 

“I’m okay.”

He wasn’t.  This really wasn’t how he wanted to spend
his evening with Gwen, but some things were more important than what he
wanted. 

He felt Gwen staring at the side of his head waiting for an
explanation.  He was working on it.

“Where are we headed?” 

“Back to my place real quick.  I need to grab a couple
things.”  He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel trying to come up
with a good way to explain what they were going to be doing.  A way that
wouldn’t raise a lot of questions and open up another set of wounds.

He just wanted to have one normal night out with Gwen on his
arm.  Go out to dinner, see a movie.  Have an actual date.  It
seemed easy enough, but it was turning out to be next to impossible.

His frustration was making it even harder to get his brain
working.  Seconds ticked by and he still had nothing to tell her.  He
was going to have to go with the truth and deal with the fallout.  He
sighed as his hopes for a nice quiet evening ended.

“I help out sometimes when people need work done and can’t
really afford it.”

“That’s really nice of you.”  Her voice was quiet as
she watched him from her seat.  “Do you get called a lot?”

“Usually a few a month.”

They stayed silent the rest of the way to his house. 
He wasn’t sure what else to say.  How to explain what he did and why, so
he just stayed quiet and made a list of what he needed to grab.

He backed up to the sliding door of the barn and left the
van running.  “I’ll be right back.”  He started to shut the door,
then paused.  “I’m sorry about this.”  Gwen was still quiet, but gave
him a little smile.  “Do you want me to take you home?”

“No.”  She smiled, a little bigger this time. 
“It’s fine, really.”

He nodded before closing the door and heading in to get what
he needed, not sure if he believed her.  He was dropping a couple wax
rings in his work bag just in case he had to take the toilet off to get at
whatever was blocking it up, when he heard Gwen behind him.

“That’s a lot of stuff.”

She was looking at the lines of toilets and sinks in front
of shelves containing faucets of all sizes and finishes.  “Where is all
this from?”

“Different jobs.  If the people don’t want the old
stuff, I bring it here.”

“What do you do with it?”  She wandered over to an
avocado green toilet and peered inside.

“If someone needs it, I put it in for them.”

“Like the people now?”

Just like the woman now.  “Yes.”

“How do these people know to call you?”

“The shelter has a list.”

She looked up at him obviously confused.  “The homeless
shelter?”

“No.”  He turned to finish grabbing what he
needed.  “The women’s shelter.”

Soft footsteps crunched across the gravel floor.  Gwen
rested her hand on his arm and stepped close.  She’d already been this
close to him tonight, but this time was different.  She wasn’t trying to
be coy and seductive.  She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him
down.  Her lips were soft against his.  Gently and softly, her mouth
nipped at his, her tongue slowly sliding against his.

He wrapped his arms around her sighing into her open
mouth.  Why had he stopped himself from this?  She felt so good in
his arms, against his body.  Holding her fed something deep inside
him.  A starving part of him that had been neglected probably his whole
life.  He breathed in the smell of her, sweet and warm, letting it soothe
the memories brought out at the thought of the women he could help and the
woman he couldn’t.

She pulled away, just far enough to look into his eyes, her
arms still firm around his neck.  “You really are a good man.”

He wrapped his hand in her hair as he brought her mouth back
to his, her lips open to him before they even touched.  She clung to him
as he kissed her mouth, her face, her neck.  He wanted to feel all of
her.  Her smell, her taste, her touch, he couldn’t get enough.  He tried,
pulling her closer, breathing her in, covering every inch of exposed flesh with
his lips, his tongue, but it still wasn’t enough. 

He kissed her harder, groaning as she kissed him back, her
need seeming to climb as fast as his own. 

“Please.”  She tugged his shirt free from his pants and
shoved her hands inside, running her fingers over his heated skin.  “I
need you.  Please.”