Page 10 of No Mercy

I just stared at her for a second. A minute was all she’d get. I turned on my heel and slammed the door shut behind me. It was enough to know that Tom would know the reason for Allie’s messed-up condition. Any man would recognize the signs of a woman who’d just been freshly kissed, if not fucked. Especially one he had an attachment to. The look in Tom’s eyes revealed that he wanted Allie, but was he willing to fight for her? He looked a little soft.

A minute later the door opened and Allie walked in. Slamming the door, she narrowed her eyes on me. “You’re a bastard, Rock, a real bastard. You only kissed me to give Tom the wrong impression.”

I grinned. “And you liked every fucking second of it.”

“Fuck you!” she said, losing control. “I like Tom. He’s good with Sam.”

That remark rubbed me the wrong fucking way. I didn’t want to know about another man being good with my son when I hadn’t even met him yet. “What else is he good at? Have you fucked him yet?” Her jaw dropped. I shrugged. “You said you like him.”

“Unlike you, I don’t fuck everyone that I like,” she seethed. “And I’m not having this conversation with you. It’s none of your business anyway.” She turned to go into the kitchen.

I wasn’t satisfied with her response. I shouldn’t care who Allie had slept with, but I did. I still thought of her as mine. The kiss we’d shared, and her reaction to it, revealed that she’d been into it, too. She’d melted against me like ice cream on a hot sidewalk, giving as much as taking. I bet if we hadn’t been interrupted I could have lowered her to the floor and fucked her brains out. I followed her into the small space.

“Have you fucked him?” I snarled, moving up behind her.

She swung around against the refrigerator door. “How many, Rock?” she snapped between those pretty, plump lips. “How many women have there been since me? Huh?” She crossed her arms and stared up at me.

“Too many to count,” I lied, watching the hurt fill her eyes. Sure, I’d fucked a few women, club whores only, and they’d meant nothing more to me than a temporary relief. The woman I wanted, and had always wanted, was standing right there in front of me. Seven years hadn’t done a damn thing to diminish my hunger for her.

She took a deep breath and lowered her arms. “That’s what I thought,” she said in a resigned tone, before turning and opening the fridge door. “I’m going to make dinner.” I clenched my jaw. “You can stay if you want, and we can talk about Sam.” She shot me a look over her shoulder. “And that’s all we’ll be doing.”

Sure, if that’s what she wanted to believe.

Chapter 6

Allie

Damn him! He had a lot of nerve questioning me about how many men I’d slept with when we both know that he was a man-whore. He had been one when we’d first met, and I was certain that he’d fallen right back into his old fucking patterns as soon as I’d left. I felt a tight squeeze around my heart, and tried to ignore what it meant. Rock didn’t matter to me anymore.

Yeah, that was a lie.

When you loved an outlaw like Rock, time didn’t weaken that feeling. It had intensified it for me, and the thought of him with one other woman, let alone more women than I could count, was crushing. It literally hurt. I hadn’t wanted anyone but him, I hadn’t thought about being with anyone but him since then. Tom may have had the chance of moving up from friend to lover in time, and if Rock hadn’t shown up. Now that wasn’t even a possibility.

Seeing Rock again only confirmed for me that no one could take his place.

I remained quiet as I made a pepperoni and mushroom pizza for our dinner, keenly aware of Rock’s presence the entire time. He had at least gone to sit down in the living room and was scanning channels on the TV for something to watch. Once in a while I’d glance up to where he was sitting, taking in the subtle changes in him since I’d last seen him.

He was still a magnificent specimen, dripping danger and raw masculinity that promised anyone who came up against it immense pain. He was drop-dead handsome in a rugged, unkempt kind of way, with his hair worn a little long and his hard, square jaw that seemed to always be set in uncompromising stone. The extra pounds of muscle he’d packed on revealed a mature man who was solid and powerful.

When Rock had pushed me up against the door I’d felt the hard shape of his muscles--and one in particular between his legs. He’d been rock hard and that, coupled with his savage kiss, had primed me for a good fuck in record time. It had always been like that between us. Fast, intense, and consuming, only back then we wouldn’t have stopped with a kiss. He would have torn my clothes from me and fucked me hard right where we were.

Seeing Tom standing on the other side of the door had changed everything. Rock had only kissed me for effect, and not because he’d wanted me. He’d wanted Tom to see me with my lips swollen and my hair a mess so that he would get the wrong idea. And he had. The accusing hurt in his eyes had torn through me. I would never purposely hurt him. Once Rock had gone back inside and given us some time alone I’d done my best to repair the damage. We’d agreed to meet for lunch the next day.

I paused from what I was doing and stared at Rock, wondering how serious he was about taking us with him back to Maine. He had a right to have Sam in his life, and, if I thought about it, Sam had a right to know his dad, but that shouldn’t mean that he had the right to disrupt my life. He couldn’t make me leave my home, my job, or the friends I’d made. But at the same time I knew that I’d never be able to let Sam go so far away without me. He was my life.

I slid the pizza into the oven, and then went to the fridge for a drink. “Would you like a beer?”

“Sounds good.”

I grabbed two and joined him in the living room, tossing one to him on my way to the couch, deciding to sit as far away from him as I could. I ignored his knowing smirk as we both flipped the top at the same time. Rock put the can to his lips and chugged half of it down. I took a sip and looked at the TV.

“So did lover boy calm down?” he asked, shooting me a look.

I could tell that he didn’t really care. “That was low, what you did, even for you.” It still hurt that he’d kissed me because he’d wanted to piss off Tom and not because he’d wanted me. “We’re meeting for lunch tomorrow.” I took a sip of my beer.

Silence and then, “Is that all?” he groused, leaning forward and setting his beer down on the coffee table.

I sensed his disapproval. Well, that was just too bad. He couldn’t come back into my life and start calling the shots as if I were still eighteen. I took a long drink, needing the liquid courage. “No. We plan to go to his place afterwards and fuck our brains out.” I don’t know what possessed me to say something like that. It wasn’t true. But I didn’t want Rock to think that I’d kept myself for him all these years, that my hymen had probably grown back from my pussy’s lack of use. He didn’t want me, so what did it matter anyway?

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