Games of the Heart Read online

  “Don’t tell me you’re sorry. Tell Reesee,” he continued. “I’m not surprised by your shit. She was let down, disappointed and upset.”

  “I already said I was sorry and it looks like you did good by her anyway.”

  “I didn’t. Dusty did,” Mike returned and she blinked.

  “Dusty, the, um…blonde? Your, uh…date?”

  “Yes on the blonde, no on the date. She’s not my date. She’s something else or she wouldn’t be in there fillin’ plastic bowls she bought with our daughter and cutting and handing out pieces of a ten layer cake she made with our daughter.”

  Something he didn’t get passed through her eyes even as she nodded then he watched her face close down as she said, “You’re moving on.”

  “Absolutely,” he replied without delay.

  She stared at him and this time he saw it. Pain slashing through her eyes.

  Fuck him.

  He didn’t need this shit either.

  “Now are we done?” he asked.

  “I just, no…we aren’t. I just want you to know I’m trying to make good changes in my life and ask you to have patience with me. Ask you to help the kids have patience with me.”

  “I’ve heard this before, Audrey,” he reminded her.

  “I know you have, Mike,” she whispered then tipped her head to the side and kept whispering, “But I had you to fall on before. I don’t have that anymore. And I…I’m sorry, I should have…before…but now I have no choice.”

  “You didn’t then either,” Mike pointed out the obvious.

  She took in yet another deep breath. Then she nodded.

  “Now are we done?” he repeated.

  “Yeah, Mike.”

  He didn’t reply.

  He walked away from her to the door. He opened it, held it for her and saw Dusty’s eyes come right to him. He shook his head at her even before she saw Audrey round the door. Dusty must have read his face because she looked away without giving him anything and thus without giving Audrey anything when her eyes went right to Dusty when she walked in.

  “Dad! Ohmigod! Look!” Clarisse shouted as he closed the door behind him. Mike looked her way and she was holding up some wide, stamped, short, tan leather strap that had a snap on it. He had no fucking clue what it was until Clarisse declared, “Isn’t it an awesome bracelet? Dusty gave it to me! With that top I wanted and the…coolest…barrette. Look!” she cried, dumping the leather thing on the coffee table and picking up a big barrette that didn’t do anything for Mike but clearly his daughter thought it was the shit. “And she got me some makeup!”

  “Great, honey,” Mike called.

  Clarisse’s happy eyes went to Dusty. “Thanks, Dusty!”

  “You’re welcome, babe.”

  “She’s, like the…freaking…coolest,” Mike heard one of Reesee’s friends whisper loudly from close to him. “She says ‘babe’ and it sounds real, not totally jacked and trying to sound cool. Did you see her boots?”

  “Yeah, Rees says she has horses. She’s totally the bomb. She dresses like a rock star,” her friend replied.

  Mike’s lips were twitching as he began to move away from the girls but as he did he noticed Audrey’s face pale and she quickly looked down to her feet. She’d heard.

  He’d never seen that kind of reaction from Audrey and that unsettled him too. Maybe she was learning. Then again, maybe she was trying to learn then she’d fail to do it. He was used to that. He just hoped his kids didn’t get chewed up in whatever she was attempting to do with her life.

  He hit Dusty and wrapped an arm around her shoulders at the exact same time No wandered into the room followed by Fin.

  Dusty straightened at his side and the vibe in the whole roomed changed.

  His daughter was beautiful, her friends pretty and his son was popular. Therefore, although this wasn’t a kegger and adults were visible, the room was packed and it included cheerleaders, basketball and football players and a spectrum of ages from freshman to junior.

  Fin clearly upped the coolness factor of the party significantly.

  Mike did not, until that moment, know The ‘Burg’s high school hierarchy. But at that moment he knew Finley Holliday, even as a junior, reigned as king.

  And his eyes going directly to Reesee then his feet taking him there meant he’d just declared in front of thirty plus kids who he intended to make his queen.

  “Fuck,” he muttered under his breath and heard Dusty chuckle but he didn’t take his eyes off his daughter who tipped her head back and he saw her lips form the word, “Hey,” to which Fin’s lips formed the word, “Hey,” back. Then Fin reached out and grabbed his girl’s hand for a quick squeeze before he let it go.

  Christ, no crowns were in evidence but still Mike knew Fin just performed a coronation.

  “Teenage girls down,” Dusty muttered and Mike tore his eyes from the scene to look at the girls who’d been whispering about Dusty. Their gazes were glued to Fin and Reesee, they were heated, their faces were flushed and it looked like they were only just able to stop from fanning themselves.

  “Fuck,” Mike repeated on another mutter and got another chuckle from Dusty.

  For some reason, he then glanced at Audrey to see her watching her daughter and Fin with thoughtful eyes. She didn’t look ticked. She didn’t look pleased. She didn’t look curious. She just looked reflective.

  He had no idea what that meant and luckily Merry sauntered up with Rocky and took his mind off it.

  Five minutes later, Audrey waded in to say good-bye to her kids and only glanced at Mike still holding Dusty to his side with his arm around her shoulders before she took off.

  Fifteen minutes later, Rocky and Merry took off.

  Twenty minutes later, the caravan of cars started to pick up the kids who couldn’t drive.

  Half an hour after that, the rest with cars had left except the two friends of No’s who were in his band. They were up in his room playing and because they were good, it sounded good.

  Rocky and Dusty had kept the mess to a minimum and even after Rocky left and while the kids wandered away, Dusty kept at it.

  So in the end, he had a clean house save for decorations and a serious need to vacuum. He had rock music coming from upstairs. He had his woman tucked into his side on his couch downstairs. And he had his mind on the deck where Fin and Reesee had disappeared five minutes ago wearing their jackets.

  “He’s not going to try even for first base with badass ‘Burg cop Mike Haines in the next room,” Dusty whispered in his ear and he turned his head and focused on her.

  “He better not,” Mike replied.

  “He won’t,” she told him.

  Mike sighed.

  Then they heard Fin’s deep laughter drifting in from outside and Dusty went completely still at his side.

  He stared at her face which was frozen in shock.

  “What?” he asked and her eyes drifted to him.

  “Fin doesn’t laugh all the time. But he laughs.”

  “So, he laughed,” Mike noted.

  “Fin doesn’t laugh all the time. But he laughs. And Mom told me Fin has not had a light moment, not one that she noticed before she left, since his Dad died.”

  Mike stared at her feeling this deep. He felt it as the man who tried to get Darrin Holliday’s heart pumping while his sons looked on. He felt it as a father. And he felt it as a father who was also a cop.

  “Your girl just earned herself another kickass leather bracelet,” Dusty declared.

  That was when Mike burst out laughing.

  * * * * *

  “What?” Fin, sitting out in the cold, dark night beside Clarisse on a deck chair, asked and she focused on him.

  “Dad’s laughing,” she answered.

  “What?” Fin repeated.

  “Dad’s laughing.”

  “So?”

  “Dad doesn’t laugh all the time. But he laughs.”

  “Yeah and he just laughed.”

  “Dad doesn�
��t laugh all the time,” she repeated. “But he laughs and not like that.”

  “What was that like?” Fin asked then he felt something weird in his chest when Clarisse smiled, straight out, big, right in his face and he’d always thought she wasn’t pretty.

  But he was wrong.

  She was beautiful. And it wasn’t her face made up like it was that day so she looked like an actual model.

  She was just beautiful.

  Then she answered in that kickass soft voice of hers, but this time it was different.

  It was happy.

  “Like he’s happy.”

  God, he wanted to kiss her. He really wanted to kiss her.

  And she turned fifteen yesterday. She was now totally in the zone where he could kiss her.

  He didn’t kiss her.

  Instead, he asked, “You wanna go out?”

  She tipped her head to the side, “Go out?”

  Shit, Clarisse Haines, totally cool. She was a freshman but she had it going on way more than any other girl, even the three seniors he’d been out with. Hanging back most of the time, making him come to her. Being all quiet and mysterious, not talking his ear off all the fucking time. Making an approach just enough times so he knew she was interested but not enough that she seemed to be gagging for it. Letting him make the moves, play his plays, giving back just enough to keep him interested but not really giving anything away.

  Except this afternoon. This afternoon she was different. Twice, she grabbed his hand and held on. It was only for a few seconds but she did it. And she was meeting his eyes when he talked like she really gave a shit what he had to say. Like it meant something to her. Like she didn’t want him to quit talking. And she talked more too, telling him about her day with his Aunt Dusty and how cool she thought she was.

  So, it was time. She was fifteen. Her Dad was seeing his aunt. She was giving him the signals.

  It was time.

  “Yeah, go out on a date.”

  She retreated physically, shifting back a few inches and other ways too, he saw it in her face.

  Shit, had he not read it right?

  “Dad says I can’t date until I’m sixteen,” she whispered and he could hear it, disappointment was in her voice.

  He was disappointed too but not surprised. Fuck, Mr. Haines was with Aunt Dusty for about ten minutes before he was all over the gig with Aunt Debbie. If he stepped up to protect Aunt Dusty like that, he’d totally be all over protecting his daughter. Rees was the only girl he knew who had to wait until she was sixteen to date. And that was another whole freaking year.

  “Maybe I can talk to Dusty about talking to him,” she suggested.

  She suggested.

  Rees.

  Fin grinned at her.

  That would totally work. Mr. Haines was into his aunt and him stepping up with the Aunt Debbie thing wasn’t the only way he knew that. There were a lot of other signs. A fuckuva lot.

  “You good to talk with her?” Fin asked.

  She nodded.

  “Awesome,” he murmured.

  She grinned then looked at the dark yard.

  Then to the yard she called, “Fin?”

  “Yeah, babe.”

  He could swear he heard a little sigh.

  Then she said, “I…” and she trailed off.

  He grabbed her hand and held it between them on the deck chairs. “What, Reesee?”

  Did he hear another little sigh?

  Then, “It was really…” she paused, “nice bein’ on Dusty’s horse with you.”

  Fuck yeah, it was.

  “Yeah,” he muttered, giving her hand a squeeze.

  “Do you think Dusty would let us do it again?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Cool,” she whispered, giving his hand a squeeze.

  She fell into silence and Fin fell into it with her.

  Then it hit him he was sitting out on a deck in a development doing nothing but holding hands with a girl, a freshman no less, while her Dad was maybe twenty-five feet away.

  And it felt nice.

  Jesus.

  Rees broke the silence, whispering, “My Dad got back really late the other night.”

  “Yeah,” Fin said through a smile, “I noticed.”

  “He was really happy the next day.”

  “Yeah,” Fin said through soft laughter. “Aunt Dusty was too.”

  Rees giggled.

  Fin squeezed her hand again.

  “We’re like…fairy godmothers or something,” she remarked and Fin burst out laughing.

  He heard Ress laugh with him.

  That felt nice too.

  Then he said, “Don’t tell any of my boys I’m a fairy godmother.”

  “My lips are sealed.”

  Fin laughed softly again and he stared into the dark yard, sitting on a deck in a development on a cold night holding a girl’s hand with her Dad twenty-five feet away and he did it thinking he wished his Dad had the chance to get to know Clarisse Haines. Being friends with Mr. Haines, his Dad knew her but he didn’t know her.

  And Fin reckoned if he’d known her, he’d have liked her.

  And then he thought, maybe she should know that. Not, like, straight out or anything.

  But she should know it.

  So holding Clarisse Haines’s hand out in the cold, Finley Holliday did something he hadn’t done in weeks. Not since that day out in the snow with his Ma being his Ma and Mr. Haines on his knees in the snow working hard to jumpstart his Dad.

  Fin talked about Darrin Holliday.

  And, her hand getting tighter and tighter in his as he spoke, he knew Reesee was listening to every word.

  Chapter Ten

  Dirty

  I grunted, put all I had into it and got Mike to his back in his bed.

  “Ha!” I laughed in his face.

  A nanosecond later, I was on my back with all Mike’s weight on me.

  “You were saying?” he asked, grinning.

  “Ugh!” I groaned and bucked up my hips as hard as I could.

  Mike went with them. I quickly turned under him and started to scramble away.

  Mike’s arm sliced around my middle, pulled me down and his front pinned me, belly down to the bed.

  “Say it,” he ordered in my ear. “Your boot camps are shit.”

  “I’m not done kicking your ass,” I replied and, considering my position and the last fifteen minutes we’d been wrestling on his bed with me seriously losing, my words were both stubborn and ridiculous.

  He knew it, I felt and heard him chuckle and his arm gave me a squeeze.

  “Say it,” he repeated.

  “No way!” I snapped, trying to lift him off me by shoving up my hips.

  This was a tactical error seeing as this opened space for his hand to slide down and cup me between my legs.

  I stilled.

  “Say it,” he whispered in my ear and I shivered.

  I liked this new game.

  “No,” I whispered back.

  His hand shifted up and his fingers started working my belt.

  “Say it.”

  “No.”

  His fingers undid the button on my jeans then the zip went down.

  “Say it, Angel.”

  “Not on your life, babe.”

  His hand went in my jeans and my panties, his finger hitting the spot.

  I gasped.

  “You lose,” he murmured in my ear, “admit it.”

  This didn’t feel like losing. Nothing like it.

  I didn’t reply.

  His finger twitched and I replied to that but involuntarily when the mew slid out of my throat.

  His lips went to the skin below my ear and he whispered, “Give it to me.”

  I had no idea what he was referring to, my admission that he was stronger than me (which, seriously, was obvious before we even started) or something else.

  I gave him the something else.

  I lifted my ass, pressing it into his groin.
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  His teeth nipped the skin under my ear.

  Fire shot through me.

  Thus commenced me learning something new about my childhood crush, good guy, excellent father, responsible citizen, courageous cop Mike Haines.

  He could get dirty.

  I knew this not because he ground his crotch into my ass as I pressed my ass into his groin. I knew this not because he did all this with his finger making magic between my legs at the same time his mouth and tongue were doing wild and wonderful things at the skin of my neck.

  I knew this when I got seriously hot and bothered and his hand disappeared from between my legs. I made a noise of protest, twisted my neck to look at him to see his eyes sexy dark, staring down at me and to feel him plant a hand in my back.

  Then he ordered, “Do not fuckin’ move unless I move you.”

  Oh God, that was hotter than hot.

  So hot, I couldn’t speak. So I nodded.

  His hands went to my sweater, yanked it up roughly, my arms were forced up with it then it was gone. Then I felt my bra strap release, one shoulder strap was dragged down my arm, then at the other strap it was yanked away. Then with a forceful tug, my jeans were gone. Ditto my panties and suddenly I was naked on my belly in Mike’s admittedly gorgeous, scarily expensive and huge sleigh bed.

  The bed moved with him as he did something that, by the sounds of it was him taking off his clothes and, swear to God, everything that led us there, Mike’s command and listening to him get naked almost took me near the edge.

  I careened closer when I heard his voice growl, “Open your legs and tip your ass, Dusty.”

  I didn’t delay. Not a second.

  Then I felt him cover me. On a forearm in the bed on one side of me, his other hand shoving under me and honing in right on the target, his finger hit my clit as his cock drove inside me.

  “Oh my God,” I whispered, tipping my ass higher.

  “That’s my girl,” he grunted and then commenced fucking me and doing it really, really hard.

  I pretty much thought everything about Mike was awesome but this new side to Mike was beyond awesome. I didn’t even know what that was and I was too turned on to try to figure it out.

  “Harder, baby,” I begged and he gave it to me, both driving deeper, faster and pressing harder, rolling quicker. My neck arched back and more mews slid out my throat.