AllFreeNovel
Share Us
An emotion he didn’t quite recognize flashed across her face so quickly he wondered if he imagined it. Lifting herself, she kissed him with such tenderness that it made his chest ache. That’s when it hit him. This feeling in his chest was the bittersweet feeling of falling in love. It had simply never happened to him before, but it couldn’t be mistaken for anything else. It made him feel vulnerable and exposed. Having known the cloying sweetness of her company, going back to being alone would be pure hell.
Tearing himself away from her, he stalked to the bathroom and started a shower. Standing with his hands against the wall, as the warm water fell over his massive shoulders, he tried to chase away all the images of their lovemaking.
Beautiful doctors with everything in the world going for them didn’t stay with scarred-up, uneducated ex-convicts. That was a simple fact of life that everyone knew. His twisted mind immediately began churning up a plan to keep her at arm’s length emotionally, even as he drew her closer physically. He’d been stupid to share his feelings and talk about his seriously shitty childhood. Those kinds of conversations were too intimate.
The answer was simple. He would shut his stupid pie hole and let her ride his dick as often as she liked. Then when she walked out, he would hurt a hell of a lot less. Feeling a small measure of calm replace the panic, he dried himself off and got dressed in clean clothing as she sat in the bed staring at him. To her credit, she didn’t say a damn word.
He barely looked at her as he said, “You can sleep in or come on down for breakfast. I’m sure they saved us some food.”
Nodding, she responded evenly. “I’ll be right down.”
Forcing himself to turn and walk out the door was almost physically painful. Ace felt the ground underneath his feet shift one more time with each and every step he took away from the woman he was falling in love with. Images of her fat with his child gnawed at his determination to protect his heart from her. Hell, he was the kind of person women and judges kicked right out of a kid’s life.
“Hey, dude, you finished having hot sex with our teacher?”
Barely slowing his pace, Ace nailed Jack across the face as he walked past, knocking the mouthy man to the ground. What he really needed was a nice strong cup of coffee to start the day.
Three whores were in the kitchen when he barreled into the room. One look at his ugly mug and they scrambled away like cockroaches. Heading for the coffeepot, he didn’t give their behavior a second thought. It didn’t bother him ‘cause he was all too used to being treated like the fuckin’ plague. Damn, smelling the scent of fresh coffee and having none in his mouth felt like a particularly cruel punishment from the java gods.
Picking up the pot, he was disappointed to discover it was empty. That’s it, he was cursed above all the men who walked the earth with cups of coffee in their hands.
Jerking out the basket, he dumped it, slammed in another filter, and was heavy handed with the scooper. He needed strong black coffee like he needed his next breath. Once it began dripping, he realized he could swap out the pot for his cup. Smiling like a crazy fool, he waited for his cup to fill.
In the quiet of the morning, he could hear Tiffany talking to the glorious Stuart on speaker phone in the next room. He wished like hell that he could unhear most of what that man said.
Remember when I used to poke you with a pencil when we were kids?
I sure the heck do. I clearly remember that it hurt.
You taught me to poke you gently with the eraser side.
Well, you weren’t about to stop poking me, so getting jabbed with the soft tip was preferable. Are you going somewhere in particular with this little trip down memory lane, Stuart?
Did you ever wonder why I did that?
No, after watching you do nonsensical things all the time, I finally gave up on trying to figure out what motivated you to do crap like that.
I poked you because you jumped every single time.
You liked seeing the cause and effect?
At home nothing I said or did made a difference. My father ignored me, and my mother was so worried about keeping him happy, she overlooked me most of the time as well. I guess doing stupid shit like that made me feel like I mattered.
You always mattered to me, Stuart.
You were my best friend when I had nobody, and look how I repaid your kindness.
Unless your treatment team wrote a healthy dose of self-loathing into your treatment plan, I don’t see how this line of thought is helpful.
They changed my medications. It calmed my brain down and gave me a chance to think of a lot of shit that I’ve been avoiding.
That’s actually a good thing. You’re supposed to talk that stuff over with your…
Grabbing his cup of coffee, Ace made a run for the back door. He just couldn’t do Stuart this early in the freaking morning, especially when he had a double dose of his own issues to deal with. Sitting in a rocking chair, like one of the old-timers, Ace sipped his strong black coffee and thought long and hard about his situation.
A few minutes later, the door opened, and he watched Tiffany walk out. She must have finished her conversation with her ape-shit crazy ex.
“Hey you, did you have a nice night with your lady? Everybody’s talking about what a good catch she is.”
