Harder (Stark Ink Book 1) (20 page)

After dinner, Jonah cleared most of the plates and took them to the kitchen.

“I’m not doing those!” Ava shouted after him.

Before Jonah could reply, Adam said, “I’ll do them. Tomorrow.”

Ava grunted in agreement. “Okay. It’s bad enough I had to make dinner.”

Despite Ava’s indignation, Calla smiled at her. “It was very good. Thank you, Ava.”

Ava was trying to remain stoic, but Adam could see the slight smile she was trying to downplay. “You’re welcome,” she said tightly.

Pop set his glass of water down on the table and looked at Calla. “Schoolteacher,” he said. “Don’t see it.”

“Actually, Mr. Stark, I’m a guidance counselor.”

The old man leaned back in his chair to consider this. “Guidance counselor,” he said quietly. “Haven’t known many. Adam’s guidance counselor told him he wouldn’t amount to anything without college.”

Adam grimaced. “He was right.”

Pop bristled. “The hell he was!” He turned to Calla. “My son’s a good man.”

Calla smiled. “I know it.”

“Well,” Pop added, “even with the long hair. How do you stand it?”

Calla laughed. “I’ve always had a thing for rock stars,” she replied with a shrug.

Pop looked back at Adam. “Rock star? Hell, son, you told her about that guitar?”

Adam sat up straighter. “No! No, I did not!”

“What guitar?” Calla asked.

Adam shook his head vehemently. “Don’t you even!” he cried, pointing at the old man.

Pop cackled. “Oh, girly. One year Adam got it in his head he was going to be a musician. Begged and begged and begged for a guitar. Till his mama bought one for him for Christmas.”

“Oh, God,” Adam groaned.

“She made him practice in the garage. He wasn’t old enough to send far enough away to spare ourselves. Howling,” Pop continued. “Just straight-up
howling
. The worst howling you ever heard in your life.”

“He was that bad?” Calla asked.

Pop shook his head. “Not him! The neighbor’s dog! Had a beagle, I think it was. Howled at everything. But good Lord that dog set about raising holy hell every time that boy picked up that guitar.”

Adam glowered. “He was singing along with me. The dog had better taste in music than you.”

“Son, that dog chased cars all day and wet himself every time the mailman came around. That dog was trying to drown out your caterwauling.”

Calla burst out laughing.

“This is all lies,” Adam told her, which only made her laugh harder.

“He tried for a while,” Pop told Calla. “I think he learned about three chords.”

Adam’s chin jutted up indignantly. “Four! I learned four! And you only need three for a hit song!”

Pop locked eyes with him from across the table. “Did you write a hit song?”

“I wrote
a
song,” Adam replied quietly.

“Can I hear it?” Calla asked.

“Do you have earplugs?” Pop replied.

“I don’t sing, okay?!” Adam shouted. “I’m not a singer! Lots of guitarists don’t sing.”

“But you don’t play all that well, either,” Pop pointed out. “What kind of rock star can’t sing and can’t play?”

“Well, there’s Nickelback,” Jonah chimed in. “You liked them.”

Calla turned to Adam, mouth agape.

“It was a phase!” he told her. “I wasn’t a fan!”

“Think I broke that tape,” Pop mused.

“It was a CD,” Adam corrected.

Jonah scoffed. “He calls everything tapes.”

Pop shrugged.

“Enough!” Adam declared, standing up. He grabbed Calla’s hand and pulled her to her feet. “No more of this character assassination!” He pulled her away from the dining room table and into the living room. He took a sharp turn at the hallway.

“Ask him how he broke his arm!” Pop called after them.

Calla looked at him quizzically. Adam shook his head vehemently. “Nope, not going there,” he told her. He pulled her into Jonah’s room and shut the door behind them. He hit the dial on the light switch. “Ah, silence.”

Calla looked around at the dog-eared paperbacks and piles of clothes. “Where are we?”

“Jonah’s room. My old room. My
new
room.”

She gave the tiny room another once-over. “Huh. Did you bring a lot of girls here?”

He shook his head and slid his hands around her waist. “Nah, baby. You’re the first.”

She grinned. “Oh, really? I feel special.”

“You
are
special.” He meant it, of course, though this room was a disaster. It wasn’t good enough for her. He sighed. “This is it, Calla. This is me. Got no bike. Gave up my bachelor pad. I sleep on a twin bed. Somewhere underneath that wallpaper, Slash is looking down on us. You sure you want to keep dating a loser like me?”

She laughed. “Well, I have dated a lot of losers.”

Adam frowned. “That’s comforting.”

She looked up at him. “But you’re not one of them. You’re not a loser, Adam.”

“Did you take a look around? Possibly I dimmed the lights too much. Maybe if I turned them up—”

“I’m serious, Adam. You are
not
a loser.”

He caught a lock of her hair in his fingers and pushed it back. “Glad you feel that way,” he said quietly.

Calla leaned in for a kiss. Just as the tip of her tongue touched his, the sound of Ava’s bedroom door shutting jerked them out of it.

Adam groaned. “This is going to kill me,” he whispered to the ceiling. To Calla, he said, “How quiet can you be?” Before she could answer, he shook his head. “Never mind. I’ve caught that show.”

She smacked his arm in faux outrage.

“Come on,” he said, sliding out from under her and pulling her up off the bed. “Let’s go somewhere we can be alone.”

“We can go to my place,” she offered as she followed him down the hall.

Adam shook his head. “I know some place better.”

“What’s better than my house?”

When they reached the front door, he turned to her and grinned. “Somewhere you can be as loud as you want.”

Adam took them out of the city, past the haze of the lights and to the edge of the Hills. He’d have preferred to be on the Harley, though. Calla had the windows down. Her wild hair was at the mercy of the night breeze. Outside the city limits, he turned down a road as familiar as the street he grew up on. He followed the winding, dirt path through the trees to the empty parking lot. He parked the Charger and killed the headlights. The nearly full moon overhead was reflected on the still water below.

“It’s beautiful,” she told him.

Somewhere a nightbird agreed with her.

“Let’s go,” he told her. “The water will be warm all night.”

Calla stared at him. “Are you serious? We’re not even staying in the car?”

Adam grinned at her. “Nope. Come on.”

She hesitated.

“There’s one way in and one way out and there’s no one around here for miles—no campgrounds, even. And despite all evidence to the contrary,” he said while tapping his forehead, “I
can
protect you. I’m a Stark. We all got boxing lessons at the dinner table.”

“Really?”

“Yep. Totally true. Even Ava.”

Calla gaped at him. “Ava, too?”

“Well, Pop wasn’t about to let her alligator-mouth overload her canary ass.”

“Her… what?”

He shrugged. “It’s a Pop-ism. He’s got a lot of them. That one even makes sense.” He grinned. “My personal favorite is, ‘If you don’t knock it off, I’m going to tear off your arm and beat you to death with the bloody stump.’ He never actually hit any of us, by the way.”

Calla took a moment to mull this over. “The stump isn’t the arm,” she finally said. “It’s impossible to beat someone with the stump.”

“Bingo. But that’s not the kind of thing you point out to a man after you backed his car too fast out of the driveway and ran over the garbage cans.”

“No, I guess not,” she agreed.

“He learned a lot of it in the Marines. You don’t want to know what he calls chipped beef on toast.”

“I’ve heard that one.”

“Stop trying to distract me, Calla.”

She glanced over her shoulder to the access road behind them. “Are you sure?”

“I’ve been coming here my whole life.”

She turned back to him. “So, how many girls have you brought
here
?”

He grinned. “Another first.”

They got out of the car and headed down toward the beach. Even though the sun had gone down hours ago, it was still warm.

“You first,” Calla ordered.

Adam complied. He gripped the hem of his shirt and lifted it. Then he tossed it onto the sand and waited.

Calla took one last look at the parking lot, then slowly unbuttoned her blouse. Adam didn’t rush her as she took her time. Each button popped, one by one, and she slid it down her arms. Her black bra stood out against her skin.

Adam kicked off his boots, shed his socks, and unzipped his jeans. Calla looked the way he felt— hungry. He stripped down to his boxer briefs and let her have her turn. Calla slipped off her sandals and wiggled out of her shorts, grinning at him. Down to their underwear, they stood at arm’s length.

“We’re going all the way, Calla.”

She giggled. He thought that he’d have to coax her into it, but she reached behind herself and unclasped her bra. He considered Calla Winslow’s tits in the moonlight among the wonders of the world. He mirrored her hands as she tugged down her panties. His own briefs found their way to the sand at his feet.

She took a step but Adam dashed forward. Grabbing her around the waist, he lifted her, and charged toward the water. She shrieked as they both took the plunge. She came up spluttering, hair plastered to her shoulders. “You!” she cried and splashed him in the face. Adam ducked his head to the side but came at her again. He caught her around the waist and pulled her to him. His kiss was hard and insistent. Calla relaxed against him almost immediately.

Her pebbled nipples pressed against his own chest. He lifted her thigh to his hip. Taking his cue, she wrapped her arms around his shoulders first, then her legs around his waist. His lips brushed against hers. “Is this a first?” he whispered.

She nodded.

“Good.” He slid into her slowly. She parted for him, took all of him in. After all, she’d been doing it since the day they’d met.

Adam fucked her slowly, building her orgasm, savoring the sweet stretch of her pussy. Her hands were in his hair, her lips covered his. He took her mouth with his tongue. She even tasted like a warm summer night. He suddenly wanted to fill every part of her.

“Come baby,” he whispered. “Don’t wait for me.”

She tightened up around him, squeezing him hard. This was their moment, he realized, the one he’d wanted but was too scared to pray for. To ask for Pop and Dalton and Ava and Jonah to be okay
and
be with Calla would be to tip the scales and send the whole thing crashing down. But impossibly, here they were, in the lake, under the moon, and in each other’s arms. All he could see, though, was Calla— wild hair, parted lips, eyes half closed. All he could feel was her— legs and arms holding onto him, pussy slick and hot. She smelled like night blooming jasmine and she was about to scream out her orgasm, though no one would hear. For the first time since he’d met her, the world
did
fall away. Finally.

As Adam held Calla’s hand and led her through the maze, he glanced over his shoulder at her. “Nursing home and now a cemetery,” he mused. “I think I’m oh for two in the date department.”

Calla laughed. “Well, cheer up. You still have one more chance before you strike out entirely.”

“There’s a documentary on cheese-making playing downtown,” he told her. “Could be a home run.”

Instead of recoiling, she grinned. “You and me in a darkened theater. It probably would be.”

“I’m shocked and appalled, Ms. Winslow,” he scolded. “And now I’m rethinking my interest in cheese.”

They passed the large oak, which was a nice reprieve from the summer sun. It only lasted a moment, though, before they moved past it. Adam found the stone easily. He felt like a frequent visitor at this point. He stopped at the faint outline of disturbed earth.

After a moment, Adam said, “The day of her funeral was rough. Dalton was drunk, Pop wouldn’t even go to the service. I felt like maybe she was watching over us and if she was, she would’ve been horrified.”

Calla squeezed his hand. “I’m sorry, Adam. I can’t imagine it. It must have been hard on everyone.”

“I think that’s why I keep coming back,” he confessed. “I don’t want that to be the last memory I have. Or her last memory of
us.
”

Beyond them, far past the short, brick wall surrounding the field, he could almost hear the faint sound of the highway. “It’s weird how life just keeps going,” he told Calla. “I mean, right after she died, it felt like
everything
should stop, if only for a second. Everyone should know that a person was here and then they were gone and we’re all worse off for it.”

“I know
I’m
worse off,” Calla said. “Spending time with you and Ava, there was a woman who raised you, who made you who you are. But I’ll never get to meet her or tell her what a great job she did.”

Adam hesitated. “You don’t… you don’t feel like maybe she was two for four?”

“No,” Calla said sharply. “Things happen, Adam. Things just have a way of getting off track sometimes. It happens to a lot of families. People can have a hard time finding their place in the world. That doesn’t make them bad people, or broken people. They’re just people.”

Adam felt a weight lift in his chest. He always knew, of course, that she’d answer that way. That was Calla, warm and generous, forgiving and accepting. But it still felt good hearing that she didn’t look down on his family. The pianist at the funeral home had played “Amazing Grace”. It was the only song Adam had recognized during the viewing. Remembering it now, it made a kind of sense. He definitely felt that way. Lost… and then found.

He reached up and felt the cross on the thin gold chain. It had felt too heavy in the beginning, like too much of a burden. Ironic now that he was finally comfortable wearing it, he wanted to take it off. He unfastened the clasp and took a step toward Calla.

“Adam,” she argued.

Adam shook his head. “I want you to have it.”

“Adam.”

“I am flat broke,” he admitted. “It may be a very, very long time before I’m able to take you anywhere but a drive-thru for dinner.”

She smiled. “I think I can afford more than that for us.” Her face became suddenly somber. “But your mother—”

“She would have loved you. And she would want you to have it.”

“She wanted
you
to have it.”

“Then take it as a loan,” he insisted. “Until I can get you something to replace it. The way my life is going right now, Calla, honestly? I’d feel better if you wore it. I need to know someone’s looking out for you.”

She frowned as he circled behind her and fastened the clasp. “You’re supposed to have faith.”

Turning her around by the shoulders, he lightly tapped the cross at the hollow of her throat. “I do.”

Calla reached up to touch the necklace. Her fingers brushed his. “Adam, I—”

“Don’t,” he interrupted. “Not in a cemetery. It’s bad luck. It has to be.”

She laughed. “Look who didn’t believe in anything when I met him. Now he’s superstitious.”

“Well, I believe in bad luck,” he replied. “Obviously.” He took her hand and led her through the headstones and back toward the car. “We’ll go out tonight. You can get anything you want off the dollar menu. I promise. You can say it then.”

Again she laughed and squeezed his hand. “Sounds romantic enough. But will you say it back?”

He pretended to mull it over. “Hmm. Maybe.”

“Hey!”

Now that they’d reached the car, he pulled her to him, turned her, and held her against the Charger’s passenger door with his body. “Have faith, Calla,” he whispered and pressed his lips to hers.