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“Why?” She looked genuinely perplexed, and I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling.
“Honey, I’m forty. You’re twenty. My father wasn’t much older than me when he started fuckin’ Deb. She wasn’t much older than you.”
Her eyes widened and her lips parted in a silent “O” as the implication hit her. A becoming blush spread over her cheeks. “I hadn’t thought of that.” Her gaze snapped to mine. “Doesn’t matter, though. You’re a good man, Virgil. You have been as long as I’ve known you. You just didn’t seem to like me.”
“I did, baby. God help me, I do! I didn’t want you or my brother to see it. Mainly because I knew my brother would fuck up eventually. Surprised it took this long.” I raised an eyebrow at her. “Which brings us to why you dropped your baby on my club’s doorstep for me to take care of.”
“I know,” she said softly. “Will you tell me why you stayed with your stepmother first? Then I promise I’ll tell you everything I know.”
“OK. I can give you that.” I sighed. “I stayed with her and Dustin because neither of them were ready to take care of themselves. It wasn’t their fault my dad was a shit. So I stayed to take care of them until Dustin was ready to be on his own and Deb had her feet under her. Dad passed when Dustin was seventeen. Not even a year before the first time Dustin brought you home.”
This was the really hard part. “I’ll never forget the day you stepped into that fuckin’ house, Pepper. You wore a pale blue sundress. The evening sun was bright behind your silhouette as you stepped through the door. All I could see was a golden halo around your head where all the bright light concentrated. When Dustin shut the door, I could see your hair was light brown, but… honey, you were an angel to me.” I tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear, remembering how I’d wanted to run my fingers through it four years ago. “I knew then you’d be mine. I just didn’t know when or how or who I’d have to kill to make it so, but you were mine from that moment forward.”
Her breath caught, and another tear escaped from her left eye. “All this time…”
“Yeah, baby. All this time. It’s been you. Ain’t sayin’ I’ve been a saint since then. I’ve had my share of women. More than my share. But it was just a way to get release when I got tired of jackin’ off to the image of all that honey-colored hair of yours wrapped around my dick while I stroked my cock.” I let that sink in. Her face grew redder, but her breathing quickened, and I saw her nipples tighten beneath her thin T-shirt and whatever bra she had on. “I went to Deb and Dustin because I felt sorry for them. But I stayed to protect you.”
Her lower lip trembled, and more of those fuckin’ tears leaked from her eyes. It gutted me, but she had to get all this emotion out. We were in for a hell of a time, and I needed her to be as honest with me as she could be in every respect. If that meant she gave me her tears, I’d take them and protect her heart when she did.
I let her cry for a while. She wrapped her arms around my neck and cried into my chest, clinging to me so sweetly. My Pepper. My woman.
After her tears eased, I tilted her head back and kissed her lips gently once more. God, I could lose myself in her! Wanted to do that very thing. Kiss her until she begged me to strip her bare. Then I’d feast on her body until she begged me to fuck her. Once I’d done that, I’d never let her go.
“Now. Your turn. Tell me what’s going on.”
Chapter Four
Pepper
“You won’t believe me.” I sounded small and afraid. I knew I did. How could he believe me over his brother? Especially something like this.
“Try me.”
I took a deep breath and began. “Dustin works for some industrial law firm. Brooks and Hadley, maybe? I don’t know. He changes jobs every few months, it seems. Anyway, I overheard a conversation between him and a man I didn’t recognize. They were in his study, and it sounded to me like he was telling Dustin he had to embezzle from the company. Showed him exactly how to do it so neither of them would get caught. He also told Dustin he better follow the plan to the letter if he valued his life.”
“Why would he agree to do that in the first place?”
“I don’t know. All I know is it sounded like Dustin owed this man money. I guess it seems like I’m pretty stupid not to know what was going on under my own nose, but Dustin never let me know what was going on with his work. I was never given a way to contact him at his job other than his personal cell. He said it was none of my business. I basically went to my own job and kept out of his way.”
