Scarred: A New Adult Romance (The Anderson Brothers Series Book 1)

Sometimes, love comes with a price…

The
past is always gonna try and bring you down, but you gotta fight. Fight hard
for what you love. Fight to win
is what twenty-two-year-old
Dominick Anderson believes, but his life is a struggle. Growing up with an abusive
father has made Dominick slow to love and trust, and he relies on his brother
Kevin to keep him on a straight path. Dominick fights his demons every day,
every night. Now a sophomore at the University of Washington and working a
steady job at a mechanic’s shop, Dominick wants to create a better life and
find the future his father never wanted him to have.

Dominick suppresses his identity and feelings until he meets Denise Ramsey. Smart, stunningly gorgeous, and sharing his love for motorcycles, Denise is everything Dominick longs for in a girl but knows he can never have. When a past love threatens her life and brings out Dominick’s dark side, he must decide if she’s worth the risk.

To all of my male friends and colleagues who let me pick your brains in helping me make this my best book ever.
You rock!

Chapter 1

I can’t concentrate. Even the
whirring of air wrenches and the buzzing of shop gossip is drowned out by that voice
in my head again.

His
voice
: “Boy, sit the fuck down now!”

I cringe.

“Don’t move or say a
fucking word, understand?”

I bite my lip. He sounds so close.

Something hits me on the forehead, snapping me back to
reality. I hiss and blink a few times and stare up at the underside of a
car—the chassis of a sedan, to be exact. Damn, I zoned out again. Tumbled into
memories I’ve been trying to bury for years.

Fuck him. Fuck the world.

The wheels of the hardwood dolly squeak as I roll out from
under the car and stand. I toss my wrench in the open toolbox and wipe my dirty
hands on a towel. Dabbing away the sweat from my forehead, I frown. That sweat certainly
wasn’t from my hard work. I glance at the car next to mine and watch Samuel
doing some wiring under the hood.

He stops for a moment, rummages through our toolbox, and
pulls out a set of pliers. Instead of returning to work, he furrows his
eyebrows at me. “Everything all right, man?”

I nod. “Yeah, fine. Just so damn tired today.” It’s mostly
true, and I emphasize the point with a deep yawn.

Samuel smirks. “Heh. Yeah. Glad tomorrow’s Friday. Got a
date with this honey I’ve been dying to go out with. Name’s Mona. Always wears
these short-shorts over that big—no,
huge
—round
ass of hers. God bless A
mer
ica!”

I roll my eyes. Tomorrow, Mona is his booty call. After that,
who knows who he’ll be in the mood for? I don’t understand why the chicks he
dates even give him the time of day.

I haven’t had a date in months, much less a girlfriend. But
then again, I’d stopped trying after the last girl. I was apparently cramping
her style because I wanted to get to know her a bit more rather than fuck her
the very same night I met her. Why the hell is that so wrong? I wanna be with a
girl who knows how much she’s worth instead of how much of the goods she has to
show so I’ll jump in bed with her.

Samuel waves a hand in front of my face. “Yo, Dom!”

I blink back to reality again.

“What the hell, man? You look like shit.”

Frowning, I shove Samuel’s hand away and head toward the
main office. “I told you I’m fine. It’s time for me to clock out. Can you
finish getting this catalytic converter installed?”

“Yeah, sure.” Samuel shrugs. “Oh, by the way… ”

I stop short of the office’s glass door and look back.

“Better talk to Frank before you go. He was asking about you
earlier.”

I look through the glass door and see Frank, our boss, leaning
back in his swivel chair with his feet propped up on his paper-filled desk.
He’s yapping away on the phone while he plays with the tangled cord.

I look back at Samuel. “Asking about me for what?”

Samuel shrugs again then sticks his head back under the hood
and resumes wiring. “I dunno. You were taking a piss when he came looking for
you. Told me to tell you to go see him before you clock out.”

I blink. “And you’re just telling me now?”

“Sorry, man. I forgot.”

Shit.
A meeting
with the boss is never a good sign. Then again, everything else in my life
always seems to go to shit, so why not my only means of income? Sighing, I
enter the office. It’s big enough to accommodate a grungy, magazine-ridden
couch and a desk. The room feels nice and cool after working on cars all day.

Waiting for the boss to hang up, I check my cell for missed
calls. No one—not even my roommate, Chris—left any messages.

Probably too busy
fucking.
I dream of the day when I can finally get a place of my own. But this
job, especially with my college expenses, doesn’t pay enough to make Seattle
rent on my own.

Frank hangs up the phone. Without taking his feet off the
desk, he folds his dirty hands over his large belly, which pokes out slightly
between the buttons of his oil-smeared blue shirt. He rocks back in his chair,
making it squeak, and looks at me. “Dominick. I’ll make this quick.”

I suck in my breath and start anticipating where this little
talk is headed—and how much money I have saved, which garages might be hiring
…

“There’re going to be some changes around here,” Frank says
in his deep voice. “Money’s getting tight, and I’ve been receiving a few
customer complaints lately.”

I blink.
Complaints?
Not from
my
work, I hope. I know cars
like the back of my hand. Been working on them since I was seven. “What—what
kind of complaints?”

“Just a few things—little things that I take very seriously.
Like, one customer complained that his radio was tuned to some rock station
when he got his car back after an oil change. He’s a religious man and was
offended by the—and I quote—“devil music” coming from his own radio. There’s no
fucking reason to be touching the radio if you’re doing an oil change.”

“I didn’t mess with the radio, man,” I say, shaking my head.
I don’t even listen to rock.

Frank stiffens and glares. “Did I say you did? Is there
something you’re not telling me?”

“No. Sorry for interrupting.”

His face relaxes. “Had another complaint two days ago that a
customer’s warning lights were still on after she had her engine serviced. She
thought there was still something wrong with the car, and after she brought the
car back to have it re-inspected, Paul discovered that the warning lights just
weren’t manually turned off. Careless shit like that is something I can’t
stand. Time is money. If you’re going to work for me, then put a little pride
in your fucking work, right?”

I nod again, more stiffly this time. What’s he hinting at?
There are only five employees at Frank’s Garage, but as far as I know, we all
get along, work hard, and don’t cause problems.

Frank pulls his feet off the table, straightens in his
chair, and looks at me carefully. He places both hands on the desk. “Time is
money, and all these kinds of complaints are bad for business—bad for
my
reputation. I’m letting Sam go today,
so that means work’s gonna get crazy for a while with just the four of you. But
I know you guys can do it.”

Samuel?
I know
he’s always talking about how much he loves ass and tits, but I never thought
he’d be the one to cause problems for the shop. Without Samuel, we’re going to
be short-staffed, and that’s totally going to up the workload. Boy, Thursday’s
really turned to shit.

I leave the office in silence and walk around back, where my
red sport bike is parked. After slipping on my helmet, jacket, and gloves, I
kick the bike awake and zip toward the south side of Montlake as fast as I can,
taking alternate routes in order to bypass the evening rush-hour traffic. When I
arrive at the two-bedroom duplex at Springview Commons, I park my bike behind a
tall wooden fence around the side. I pull off my helmet and pat my jeans
pockets for my key. Going in through the door into the kitchen, I listen for
sounds of my roommate, but hear no one. Either Chris is really gone for a
change or he’s asleep. Curiosity gets the best of me, so I creep through the
hallway to his bedroom door, which is cracked open slightly, revealing some of
the large posters of pin-up girls and his favorite pro football players
plastered on the walls. I get a whiff of sex and booze tainting the room’s
stale air. Not needing to see any more to know what he’s been up to, I climb
the stairs to my room and shut the door. I strip out of my work clothes and
plop down in bed in my boxers. Heaving a deep sigh, I close my eyes and try to
relax after a long day.

The visions return.

I see
him
again.

“You want it? You
gotta beg.”

“But Pop—”

“What did I fucking
say?”

I shudder and open my eyes. “
What did I fucking say?”
I repeat in a quivering whisper.

Chapter 2

Friday morning, my phone alarm goes
off, blasting the song, “1st of tha Month”. I wake up at my desk with my face
smushed onto the open pages of my engineering textbook. Groaning, I grope for
the phone and disable the alarm. Morning light filters through the closed
blinds on my window. I also hear rain.
Damn.
Hope the weather lets up before I leave.
I drag my ass out of my room and
to the half-bath to take a piss, but I find the door locked.
What the fuck?
I pound on the door.

“Just a minute!” A woman yells.

I seethe.
This is
ridiculous.
I can’t even use my own damn bathroom when I want to! Another
reason why I desperately need to get my own place.

Two flushes later she exits, decked out in one of Chris’s
oversized football jerseys. It reaches down to the middle of her thighs, the
kind of thighs I like—well defined, like she works out. She’s surprisingly cute
with a naturally full body that some skinny, flat-chested chicks would pay
thousands for. She scans me up and down with her deep brown eyes lingering
below my waist for a couple seconds too long. She smirks. “Oh, hi. You must be
Dominick.”

I nod. “Yup.” Her nipples harden beneath the shirt. Her tits
are perky, and part of me wants to have some fun with her, but I know better.
Despite the tightness in my boxers, I tear my gaze away from her and look
beyond her to the bathroom. “You done in there?”

“Uh, sure.” She sounds surprised as she steps aside. “You
doing anything tonight?”

I try not to laugh, because her question sounds so pathetic,
so desperate. And I hate a desperate woman. My own mother was desperate, and
she got hurt. Bad.

This girl would probably love it if I got rough with her.
Even more if I hurt her like the “bad boy” she probably thinks I am. But I’m
better than that. I’m not some horny punk like the guys she’s probably had
before me. I’m not playing that game. Not even batting an eye, I pass her by.
“Dunno.” I shut the door in her face.

Sure as hell ain’t
going down
that
road again.

* * *

By the time I head out, the rain’s
let up. It’s Friday, my light class-load day. Physics lab, electromagnetics,
and then off to work. I’m a routine guy. Doesn’t take much to make me happy.
Maybe that’s why I was never desperate for a girl, unlike most of my friends.

After my last class, I head out of the engineering building
and to the parking lot, where my bike is parked. I don my gear and rev the
engine, garnering a few admiring glances from both male and female students
walking by. Others scowl at me or hold their ears, but I don’t care. My pipes are
pretty loud and can be heard almost a quarter of a mile away. I head downtown.