"Yes. Friend. We work together as well." The need to explain herself to this girl was firmly rooted in the memory of enduring her mother'sfriends.
In that moment Alyssa vowed to make sure this girl—her sister—wouldn't relive her own teen years. From this point on, she'd give her everything she needed, everything she'd never had but wanted. Safety, food, a roof over her head and someone in her life that gave a shit about what happened to her.
She didn't know where their mother was and didn't give a fuck. As soon as she got some food into the skinny teenager's belly, she'd find out what the hell had brought her here.
Then figure out how to keep her.
1
May—Three months later
Staring across the room watching Lys grind her body against some random yahoo, Jack curled his free hand into a fist and the knuckles of the other turned white around his beer. He wanted to storm over there and rip her away from the guy, slam his clenched hand in the fucker's face.
He had no right. She'd made that perfectly clear over the last three months. But he'd be fucked if her declaration had changed the way he felt.
Nothing changed the way he felt.
Not her resistance.
Not her fear.
Not her distance.
And definitely not the teenager she was now responsible for.
Drawing in a deep breath, he relaxed his hands and came to a decision that had been weeks in the making.
She could fight him all she wanted. It wouldn't do her any good. Starting tonight, whatever it took, he would do it to convince her he—they—were worth holding on to.
He didn't expect it to be easy. Nothing about Alyssa Drummond was easy and she'd only gotten more difficult since her sister had shown up on her doorstep.
Lys might have the opinion that people—men—didn't stick around or care enough to do the hard work, and really, who could blame her for that attitude when it was all she'd known?
Before now.
It was all she'd knownbefore now.
Before him.
Now there was him. And he intended to prove to her—and Penny—he could not only stick but wanted to.
The yahoo's hands drifted lower on Lys's back, his soon to be broken fingers skimming the top of her ass, and Jack was done.
Done!
Muttering, "Fuck this bullshit," he slammed his drink on a table on his way across the room. Dodging around everyone else, he aimed right for the woman he'd been in love with from the moment he'd set eyes on her.
He might not have realized the depth of his feelings when she'd pushed him away back in February, but weeks—months—of craving her, of missing her, of not being able to be with her, betherefor her, had solidified the chaos inside him when it came to Alyssa Drummond.
He loved her.
Bone deep, soul imprinted, never going away, loved her.
The yahoo saw him coming, and the look on Jack's face must have clued the guy in because he abruptly let her go and stepped back, hands up in an attempt to convey his innocence. Smiling what had to be a feral smirk, Jack slipped his arms around Lys's waist and tugged her against his chest.
There were no words to describe the sensations that flowed through him when she leaned her head back, lifted one arm, curled it around his neck, and rubbed her ass into his groin. His cock was hard. It was always hard around her.
Hell, it was hard when he wasn't around her, but with the excuse for a dress she had on and the moves she'd been making on the dance floor for hours, his poor dick had been hard as granite all damn night.
