Wanting More (2 page)

I grabbed an apple and leaned against the counter. Miranda’s friend, Amy, was a hottie. Her hair was dyed red and even though it was up in some kind of messy bun, it looked sexy. She had a face full of tears, but I couldn’t stop staring at her.

Ty walked into the kitchen and saw what I was looking at. “Dude, don’t even think about it. Not only is she married, but the guy is a complete drunk. Just stay away from that shit, man.”

“Why doesn’t she just leave? Obviously, she ain’t happy.”

“Look, she is your sister’s best friend here. Please just stay away from Amy. I see you looking. You need to stop focusing on pussy and concentrate on getting yourself straight. I had to fight your sister to get you to stay here. Please, Conner, just kick the habit. She loves you so much.”

I kept looking over at Amy. From the angle that she sat, she couldn’t see me watching her. Ty kicked me in the back of the leg. “Dude, she’s like thirty and not your type. She doesn’t want anything to do with guys like you. Don’t bother.”

“Guys like me?”
“I guess you’re forgetting the day you met her? She thinks you are a cocky son of a bitch with a hair up his ass. You don’t have a damn chance in hell, so just give up!”

I gave him a dirty look and walked away. I didn’t care how old the chick was, she was hot and the fact that she was off limits made it even better. I loved a challenge and I already knew how I was going to get a little closer to a piece of that pie.

Chapter 2

Amy

It had become apparent that all men were total douche bags. I’d spent the past seven years with a man who had gone from perfect to The-Incredible-Scum-of-the-World-Hulk. My husband, Rick, drove a truck for a living and was only home three to four days a week. When he wasn’t home, I had to take care of his seventeen year old daughter, who wasn’t exactly a peach to be around. Aside from running my own beauty salon, taking care of a house and a moody teenager, I didn’t really have much time for anything else.

Miranda was pretty much my only friend, with the exception of a few close clients, and even she didn’t know the whole truth about my marriage. The first year was great. Rick and I did a lot together. He helped me start up the salon and even fronted me all the money for it. At the time, he worked for a big mill right outside of town, but layoffs started happening and the next thing we knew, he was out of work. To bide his time, he turned to alcohol. It would have been nice for him to pick up the house or make a few meals, but instead he laid around on the couch until I would get home and bitch that dinner wasn’t ready at five.

I felt bad for his daughter. She was innocent in the beginning, and at first, I really tried to keep the problems away from her, but as time passed, he became more addicted to the binge drinking and there was no way to shield anyone from his wrath.

I tried to leave him once a few years back and that is when the physical abuse happened for the first time. You see, I was used to him verbally abusing me; in fact, he often did it. It made him proud to be able to talk to me like I was a piece of shit. It used to hurt me so much, to a point where I truly believed that I was worthless. It pushed me to work harder, in hopes that someday I would be able to have his love again.

I don’t know how many nights I laid in my bed praying that he would stop drinking. When he was sober, he was the nicest guy. I tried to explain to him one night how he got and he brushed it off, saying I was exaggerating. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to leave, but knew his name was on my salon. I knew if I tried to leave him, I would lose everything. It was easier for me to just learn to obey him, just so I didn’t have to hear him bitch at me.

For a while, things were better. He’d slowed his drinking down and even went out and took the test to drive tractor trailers. He even seemed excited and promised that our lives were going to be different. At first they were. In fact, for the first six months, he was a changed man. When he went out on the road, he would bring me home flowers and take me out places. Our sex life became so much better and I fell back in love with him completely.

That was until one afternoon when he’d asked me to help him clean out his truck.

His favorite football team had lost to their rivals and he’d drank himself into a stupor. To avoid him being angry at me later, I decided to go ahead and clean his truck without his help. I figured that he would praise me and be grateful for me doing something like that for him. I had no idea there were things he was keeping from me.

The first pair of panties were a shocker, but after I’d found two more, I couldn’t contain the hurt I felt. I’d never been betrayed like that. I don’t know how long I sat out in the cabin of that truck crying. To make matters worse, I also found an entire box of porno tapes and several used condoms that were wrapped in tissues. 

I didn’t know what to say. He’d been drinking and I didn’t want the old Rick to come back. Of course, once he woke up, I couldn’t hold in my anger. I brought him the pile of things I found in his truck and he went off on me. The first slap caught me off guard and sent me falling into a chair. As I held my hand over my stinging face, he came at me again, this time grabbing me by the wrist and throwing me down on the ground. The pain of him doing that couldn’t compare to the things he was saying. “Poor little Amy. What did you think? Did you think I was just going to turn down the pussy? Did you think that I was actually missing you when I was on the road for days at a time? Fuck you, you little worthless piece of trailer trash. Without me you have nothing.”

He went on and on until I grabbed my keys and went running out of the house. He was right about one thing, I had nothing without him. Before meeting Rick, I’d run my credit through the mud and was left with not being able to finance anything. My company was in his name as well as my bank accounts. There was no way for me to get out from under him without sneaking around.

My drive to Miranda’s seemed to take forever, but once I got there, I finally felt like I was safe. She met me at the door and wrapped her arms around me. “Are you okay?”

“I’m better now.”

She sat me down on the couch and got me some tissues. “You want to talk about it?”

I noticed Ty and Bella were running around playing and had to smile at them. I’d wanted kids ever since I was little, but it never happened for Rick and I, even after years of trying. He never seemed to mind since he already had a daughter, but it never filled that void for me.

Shelby was a cute girl, but she had little respect for adults. Miranda had let her babysit once and Bella had drawn all over their walls. I felt horrible over it.  Much to my surprise, they laughed it off.

They were good people like that. I admired their relationship so much. The love that Ty felt for Miranda was something I longed to feel. He did little things for her all of the time and always put her on a pedestal. Our town was small and everyone knew everyone, in fact, I’d been cutting Savanna’s and Ty’s mother’s hair since the salon opened. She’d told me all about the breakup and how her daughter had moved to Kentucky to marry Ty’s cousin. It sounded crazy until I met all of them. Those four were so close, it was almost unbelievable. They were a strong family with huge hearts and I admired them so much.

Growing up, I had one brother and a sister. They were both more than five years older than me. My parents divorced when I turned thirteen and it led to a downward spiral. I started sneaking out and hanging out with the older crowds. I lost my virginity at fourteen to a guy that was twenty one. I’d put on makeup and lowered my shirt just enough to fool everyone into thinking I was eighteen. It was stupid and at first I regretted it, but as the time passed, I found that the parties kept my mind away from my shitty home life.

My parents went from being madly in love, to hating each other. My mother turned around and got married one month after her divorce was finalized, while my father reverted to sleeping with girls that weren’t much older than me. Since he owned the local hardware store a town over, I knew I had to get the hell out of dodge if I ever wanted to feel free. When I turned seventeen, I ran off to Vegas with this guy I barely knew. He was twenty three and running from the law.

I didn’t know it at the time, but he had been in a bar fight and was wanted for stabbing someone in the parking lot and robbing them. Once we were out of the state, I had no idea it ever happened until I came back.

When we first got to Vegas it was amazing. We found a little motel to live out of and both of us found jobs. Since I was too young to gamble, I managed to save most of what I made, but my boyfriend, Chase, turned to spending his money on drugs and then finally hookers. I will never forget the night he brought one back to our hotel. He was stoned out of his mind and pulled a knife on me. I was so astonished that I couldn’t believe it was really happening.

His breath smelled of liquor and vomit as he shoved his face against mine and told me I had to take my clothes off and be with the dirty half-dressed skank standing across from me. I did what I had to do to survive.

That next morning, I was on a bus on my way home. Since I wasn’t in love with Chase, it really didn’t hurt me at all. I was more angry at myself than anything.

My mother disowned me for what I’d done, but my father was more forgiving. In that year, he had settled down with a woman who was in her thirties and they were expecting a child together. He seemed happy and I just wanted something solid in my life, so it was easy to accept her.

Unfortunately, after giving birth to their son, and being married for only two years, she died of breast cancer. My father told me she was one of those people that just refused to go to the doctors. By the time she found the lump, it had spread throughout her body.

With a small boy to raise by himself, my father went looking for a new wife immediately. This time around, he settled for a woman from church that he’d already known for a while. She had a boy the same age and together they made things work. I’m still not really sure if they are actually in love with each other, but they make each other happy.

Following my move home, my father made me work in the hardware store. He agreed to pay for cosmetology school if I promised to stick with it. I felt so bad for being irresponsible that I put all of my focus on getting my license. I’ll never forget the day I graduated. It was pouring down rain, like the kind of rain where you have to pull over your car because visibility is so bad. My hard headed father had insisted on keeping the store open until the last minute and then coming to my ceremony. He showed up a half hour after I got my certificate completely drenched and looking like a wet dog, with a hand full of flowers. My father was a hard man. He didn’t offer hugs or supportive talks, but I knew somewhere inside of that armor, he loved me very much.

Unfortunately, his attitude toward me after I got my license to cut hair never changed. I’d gotten a job at a hair salon outside of town right away, but wasn’t making very much money. When I got home at night, he would expect me to still help out. I didn’t like answering to his new wife and helping watch my little half-brother or her son. I should have just listened and did my share, but I was rebellious and wouldn’t let either of them get the final word in. I started going out after work and only going home once I knew he was in bed.

My little plan worked for a while, except after time, I began to party a bit too much. Several times I woke up and didn’t know how I got where I was, or even where I was at all. That’s when I met Rick. He was older by six years, but didn’t look it. I think I fell in love with him the first time I saw him. He had blonde hair and blue eyes, was around six foot three and had huge muscular arms.

We met at a bar that was doing line dancing. He watched me from across the room for over an hour before speaking to me, and when he finally did, I couldn’t control my lust for him. For someone that was trying to be responsible, I’d done the opposite and ended up sleeping with him in the back of his truck outside of the bar.

We were hot and heavy for the next six months until my furious father demanded that I be more responsible. He hated Rick and begged me to stay away from him.

That just pushed me right into his arms faster. Without my father’s blessing, I ran off and married Rick the next week.

After that my father disowned me.

So here I was, sitting on Miranda and Ty’s couch, with bruises all over my body, just hoping they didn’t notice. After begging me to tell her what happened and feeling like I wanted to just walk out the door, in comes the hottest thing I had ever seen in my entire life. The man that walked in was wearing a backwards hat with a freaking tractor on it, no shirt and a dirty pair of jeans. A six pack wouldn’t have even begun to describe this man’s chiseled body. It was more like a twelve pack that I couldn’t help but want to touch. His skin was tan with random tattoos all over it, and as he got closer, I saw the most beautiful light colored eyes I’d ever seen. I knew who this guy was. She’d talked about him from the first day I’d met her, but I had no idea he looked the way he did. I had to focus to try not to let him see me drooling over him.

With a straw half chewed hanging out of his mouth, he approached us. Miranda cleared her throat and looked worried, but smiled anyway. “Oh, this is him now. Conner, this is my boss and my friend Amy.”

“Nice to meet you.”
Oh my God!

It was hard to not hyperventilate. I felt like I was meeting a celebrity instead of a normal person. His southern drawl made me want to scream like a girl seeing a boy band. “Love the accent. Your sister tells me you’re like a real cowboy.”

He cocked his eyebrow and looked at Miranda then finally back to me. “Let me know if you ever wanna ride.”

I just sat there stunned that he’d said something like that to me. He had to know I was married. Who says something like that when you first meet someone?

Miranda started screaming at her brother, enough for him to leave the room. I left a short while afterwards for several reasons. The first being that I thought her brother was the biggest asshole I had ever met in my life and also because I was worried Rick would come looking for me. I knew they offered to hide my car, but I was still too scared to involve them.