Wrong For You (Before You Series Book 3) (8 page)

Chapter Eleven

Frustrated. Relieved. Those were the only two words he could find to describe the emotions rolling through him as he turned the corner of Violet’s house to the entrance of his temporary basement apartment and that’s when he saw her.
Fucking hell.
His day just got a thousand times worse.

“Alec,” the woman said, her voice gravelly and hoarse from years of smoking and hard living.

“Cecilia.”

“You can call me mom. It wouldn’t kill you to acknowledge me, or are you too big and famous for your poor, old mom?”

Mom. Now she wanted him to call her mom. She never did after his dad died. In fact, she barely wanted to acknowledge that she knew him, especially when she was too busy accusing him of ruining her life. “How did you find me?”

“Was it supposed to be a secret?”

He folded his arms across his chest and raised one eyebrow.

She sighed. “One of my friends saw you walking into the Foundation. I asked him to follow you.”

“What do you want?”

“Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

He didn’t want to, but he also didn’t want to have a confrontation with his mom on the side of Violet’s house. Knowing his mom, this visit could turn really ugly fast and he didn’t want Violet to witness the ugliness in his life and realize he was tainted by association. He brushed by her and unlocked the door. He didn’t bother to see if his mom followed. She’d do what she wanted. She always did. When he heard the door slam behind him, he sat on the couch and turned on the television.

“Your dad wants to see you,” his mom said, breaking the silence swirling in the room.

“My dad is dead, or have you drank too much and fucked too many men that you can’t remember him anymore?” He didn’t turn to look at her, but he landed a direct hit, judging from her swift intake of air.

“You know what I mean.”

“No. I don’t.” His voice was dead and void of emotion.

“Your biological dad, not Jim.” She touched his shoulder lightly, trying to get his attention, but it only made the anger simmering inside him overflow. He wanted nothing to do with that bastard.

“Not interested,” he said, flipping through the channels, barely registering the pictures and commercials as they flipped on and off the small screen.

“I think you owe him a couple minutes of your time. He’s your father.”

“He’s the man you had an affair with, the man who ruined our family. He’s your dead husband’s brother and my inconvenient sperm donor. Beyond that, Brad doesn’t mean anything to me.” Alec stood up, his heart jackhammering against his chest as memories best forgotten rushed to the surface. He didn’t want to talk about his past, ever. There wasn’t any reason to. It was better relegated to the dustbins of history. “Is Brad the only reason you’re here? You want to plead his case? What the fuck has he ever done for us, for me?”

“He wants to change that,” she said hurriedly, wringing her chapped hands together. 

“What’s in it for you?” There had to be something because his mom didn’t do things out the kindness of her heart—she didn’t have one. Her heart had shriveled up long ago. She had an affair with her husband’s brother and lied about it for ten years, and then she had the nerve to blame everything on her son. For eight fucking years, she reminded him how much better her life would be if he were never born, that she should have had an abortion when she had the chance. That Jim, the man he thought was his dad, would still be alive if she had aborted him. Not exactly the type of information that made a child feel warm and fuzzy.

His mom’s eyes bounced all over the room. She looked like shit. Her dark shiny hair that used to look like black silk was threaded liberally with gray. Her dark blue eyes, so like his and Taylor’s, were foggy and surrounded by heavy wrinkles. Time hadn’t been kind to her and he didn’t even feel a twinge of sympathy for her plight. The evil in her soul finally seeped out and destroyed all her superficial beauty. It was about time karma kicked her ass. She was only fifty, but she was the poster child for what fifty years of hard living looked like and it wasn’t pretty.

“I’m sick. I have cancer,” she blurted out.

“And…?” he prompted, not showing any hint of compassion. Sure, his stomach twisted a bit with that announcement. After all, she was his mother, but she had shoveled so much shit on him his entire childhood that he couldn’t say he would miss her or spend a single sleepless night cataloging the ‘what ifs’ in their relationship because there weren’t any. She was a pathetic excuse for a mother, and no matter what he did differently; it wouldn’t have altered her choices.

“I joined Alcoholics Anonymous because I can’t drink anymore. As part of the program, I need to make amends to people I’ve wronged.”

A dark, bitter laugh escaped his mouth. “Save your breath with me. I’m not interested.” And he wasn’t. Nothing she could do or say would change what she put Taylor and him through. Now that her mortality was shoved in her face, she wanted to say sorry. Fuck that. She was a decade or two late for that shit.

“I owe Brad, too.”

“That sounds great. Go seek your forgiveness from Brad because you aren’t going to find it with me.” He walked toward the door, his eyebrows lifted in disdain. “Are we done?”

“No.” Her lips thinned into a straight line. “I need your help and I’m not leaving until you agree to give it to me.”

“In that case, I hope you enjoy the couch, because you’ll be here a long time.” Alec raked his hands through his hair. “Or I could call the police and have you removed.”

Her eyes narrowed and he could see fire raging behind her eyes. “Why are you such a bastard?”

“I can’t help it. You spread your legs and fucked your brother-in-law and I’m the result. By definition that makes me a bastard. What can I say? I’m acting accordingly.” Her hands fisted next to her legs. Based on her past behavior, it’d only be few seconds before she had a full-blown tantrum. He’d seen enough of those in his life. He didn’t need to witness another. He opened the door. “Leave.”

“I’ll call Taylor. Maybe she’ll help me.”

His hands curled into fists at his sides as his blood pumped wildly through his eardrums. “I will never send you another penny if I hear you contacted Taylor.”

“Why can’t you help me?” Her voice broke on the last word.

His jaw clenched so tightly he felt as if his teeth might shatter. She actually had the nerve to ask why he wouldn't help her. His mother had a seriously twisted perception of her actions. Everything was always somebody else’s fault. “So many reasons, so little time, but let me give you a taste of why I don’t feel compelled to help you with your apology tour. You lied to me about my father for the first ten years of my life. You blamed me for your indiscretions. You were a shitty mother who didn’t care if her kids had food to put their mouths, and I don’t even know the extent of what you did to Taylor, but I have a feeling if I knew I’d be tempted to do you bodily harm despite the fact that you’re a woman and you’re my mother.”

She cradled her face in her hands and instead of feeling pity or sympathy, he felt strangely detached as he watched his mom’s worn face crumble in front of his eyes. “I need to make this right between you and Brad,” she mumbled as she covered her face with her hands.

“Make what right? He wasn’t interested in me when I was a kid or as a teenager and if he’s changed his mind recently; it probably has to do with my band, not me. Leave it alone. I don’t want him in my life.” On his fifteenth birthday, he had taken the bus to Brad’s house to beg for his help. His mom had been gone for a week and he and Taylor didn’t have any food in the house and less than three dollars in change. He used all of it on the bus ride. His wife slammed the door in his face after she not so politely informed him that he wasn’t welcome in their home or their life. All his calls went unanswered and eventually he accepted that Brad didn’t want to be his dad or even his friend.

Tears streamed down his mom’s face unchecked when she dropped her hands from her face. “That was my fault.” The words were so soft he could barely hear them.

“At least you admit that you had some fault in the mess you created. That’s a start.” He waved toward the still open door. “Good luck with everything, Cecilia. Have a nice life.” He didn’t plan to see her ever again. There wasn’t anything to say. She’d made it clear many times that she didn’t want him. He had no intention of letting her crawl back into his life because she needed to complete her twelve-step plan. An apology wouldn’t heal their relationship. There was too much bad blood.

She started walking toward the opened door, only stopping when she came within inches of him. “He couldn’t be part of your life because I got a restraining order against him after your dad died. I felt like he stole my husband from me. I didn’t want him to take you, too.” She forced a piece of yellow paper into his hand. “Here’s his phone number. Call him. He’s always wanted you. That’s why he was at the house that day when you overheard our conversation. He planned to fight for custody, but I couldn’t let him do it. Your dad didn’t know you weren’t his.” She wiped her face and then a smile full of bitterness and anger spread across her face. “Well, not until you questioned him about our conversation, and you know what happened after that.”

With that bomb, she turned and walked out his door. After he shut the door, he slammed his fist into the wall repeatedly until his knuckles were bloodied and swollen. Times like this reminded him why he started playing his drums. It gave him something to hit without inflicting more pain and destruction on everything around him, including himself. No such luck tonight. His drum kit was in his music room in his house in LA.

“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” He never should have come back to Missoula. He didn’t need this drama in his life. Nothing good ever happened when he came here. His mom always sucked him into her chaos. He needed to leave this town where it belonged—in his past.

His mom came seeking forgiveness, trying to make amends, but all she did was twist the knife she planted in his gut years ago a little harder and a whole lot deeper. Brad always wanted to be part of his life. He didn’t know what to do with that information.

Chapter Twelve

From the swing on her front porch, Violet watched an older woman walk out of Alec’s apartment, around the side of the house, and get in the car and then all hell broke loose.

For twenty minutes, she listened to the destruction in her basement apartment. The next ten minutes she repeatedly told herself to mind her own business while she mentally catalogued all the reasons she shouldn’t interfere. Five minutes later, she ignored everything. Without thinking, Violet grabbed her keychain, which included a spare key to the basement apartment, and she ran down her front steps, directly to the door of his apartment.

“Alec,” she yelled, knocking on the door. He didn’t answer, but she knew he was there. She could hear loud music screaming through the door.

Her palm open against the heavy wooden door, she banged on the door three more times. “Open the door.” Nothing. No response. Just loud, obnoxious music flooding through the door. So much for the nice, quiet tenant she had hoped for when she offered the place to Alec. She’d never sleep tonight if this continued.

Twirling the spare key on her finger, the dark brown ‘M’ for Missoula on her key chain danced around and around in circles as she contemplated her next move. Screw it. She was going in. It was her house and she needed to see the damage and stop any more from happening, or at least that’s what she convinced herself.

Sliding the key into the lock, she twisted it until she felt the familiar click. Afraid of what she might find, she took a deep breath before pushing the door open.

A version of Alec only hinted at before that moment sat at the kitchen table. Other than the faint flicker of the fluorescent light above the table, the apartment was dark. Alec had discarded his t-shirt, leaving the black tattoos on his arms fully exposed. A bottle of amber whiskey was in one hand, his other hand banged against the table in time with the music. His dark hair was messier than an hour ago and he looked like a darker, meaner, barely recognizable version of the playful man who kissed her in her kitchen after dinner.

Uncomfortable taking one more step into the apartment, a shiver raced down her spine. “Hi,” she said, the word catching in her suddenly constricted throat. “I heard a lot of noise and I wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

“I’m fine.” He waved his hand toward the wall behind her. She peered over her shoulder. “I’ll fix the walls tomorrow.”

Her eyes traveled the length of the wall adjacent to the sitting area. Four fist size holes decorated the previously sparse white wall. “You’re bleeding. Is your hand okay?” she asked, looking at his bruised and bloody knuckles circling the half empty whiskey bottle.

He shrugged, his chair scraping against the tile as he stood up. “I’ll be fine.” Her eyes dropped to the muscles in his arms. The way they flexed when he moved made her heart leap in her chest, both out of fear and desire. “Do you want to watch a movie?” She didn’t want to leave him alone with that strange blank look on his face, almost zombie-like. “I could make us popcorn and—”

“Violet,” he interrupted, his voice rough and soulless, his eyes bracketed with deep lines of pain and disgust. “Now’s not a good time.”

“I saw that woman leave. Do you want to talk about it?” She placed her hand on his shoulder and he flinched as though physical contact hurt him.

“Alec,” she pleaded, circling her arms around his waist. “You can talk to me. I won’t judge you.”

He scoffed. “Well, that makes one of us.”

“Talk to me.”

He tilted his head down, his eyes finally making contact with hers and a shudder of unease skated down her spine. The carefree Alec from dinner was nowhere to be found.

“That woman was my mom.”

She nodded. “What did she want?”

His hands curled in the sides of her shirt and his eyes floated away again. She didn’t think he would answer, but he surprised her.

“She wanted forgiveness,” he answered, his voice so thick she was surprised the words actually made it out of his mouth.

“For what?” she asked, searching his face.

“For everything. For nothing. I don’t know.” He slid his hands under her shirt, his rough fingertips sliding against her skin. She didn’t know if he realized what he was doing to her. He seemed caught up in his own world, but with every touch, small shocks detonated under his fingertips.

“Do you want to give it to her?”

“She’s sick. She has cancer,” he said. The words didn’t sound right, almost fuzzy, but he probably had a lot to drink, more than a shot or two in the thirty minutes since his mom walked out the door.

“Are you sad?”

His eyes sought hers again, driving into her, piercing her with his anger and the heated turbulence bubbling under the surface. “No. I don’t really give a fuck and I think that kind of makes me evil, maybe even eviler than
her
. Any compassion I had for her died years ago and I can’t find it in my heart to care whether she’s sick, lonely, afraid, or hurting. She never cared about my sister or me.”

“It doesn’t make you evil. It makes you human. You’re hurt and angry.” She sighed. “I don’t know what happened, but maybe she doesn’t deserve your forgiveness. Sometimes a person’s sins are so bad, forgiveness has to be earned, and until she’s succeeded, you need to give yourself a break. Don’t feel obligated to forgive her and invite her into your life just because she asked.”

He dropped his chin on top of her head. His breathing was thick and labored and coated with the smoky, sweet scent of whiskey. It swirled around her with every shared inhalation and exhalation. “Maybe you’re right.” His hands whispered along her exposed waist and around to her back, idly drawing circles. His thick silver rings were cold against her skin and she shivered as goose bumps blossomed under his fingertips. “I’m just so damn sick of all the darkness in my life and just when I think I can escape it, she pulls me back into hell with her.”

Her hands slid up his chest, exploring every detail. She’d been scared to be with Alec before and part of her still was, but something about seeing Alec broken and exposed made her want to put him back together; that was a dangerous thought for any woman to have.

It had been too long, if ever, since she’d done anything out of character and reckless, and maybe she wanted to steal a piece of life. So instead of listening to her lingering doubts and all that common sense her mom pounded into her on a daily basis as a child, she rose up on her tip-toes and pulled his mouth on hers.

When her lips met his, his grip tightened around her torso, his lips claiming hers with bruising force, the metal of his lip ring searing her with a possessive pressure that was almost brutal. It wasn’t a simple, vanilla kiss, but Alec didn’t seem like a simple, vanilla man. He devoured her with open-mouthed, biting kisses, dominating her in ways she didn’t realize existed. He kissed her like he may never get another chance. She could feel his conflicted emotions bleeding out of him with every stroke of his tongue—anger, confusion, disappointment, all swirling together in a tornado of lust and sin. She could kiss him all night.

He lifted her legs, wrapping them around his waist, walking her toward the bed. Lowering her onto her back, her legs brushing against the scratchy navy quilt, he pulled her t-shirt over her head, tossing it across the room. She still hadn’t put on her bra after their encounter in her kitchen and she felt bare and a little wild as his feral, dark gaze lowered. His eyes raked over her breasts as his thumbs strummed along her taut nipples and a primal fire raced down her spine like nothing she had ever felt before.

“Violet,” he whispered, his voice rough as it scraped against his whiskey-burned throat. “I know I’m wrong for you and I don’t deserve someone like you, but tonight…” He shook his head. “I really need you. Let me have you, baby,” he pleaded, sounding as though he bared his soul to her.

She trembled, seeing the darkness simmering beneath his eyes.
Walk away
, she told herself, but her mouth had a mind of its own. “Yes.” She swallowed. “I want you, too.” Freedom came from those simple words. Freedom from the pressures of the Foundation, her parents, and herself.

Not waiting one second, he growled a primitive sound as he yanked her panties and skirt down her legs, leaving her exposed, wanting, and a little nervous. He ran his finger along her entrance, toying with her until she wiggled closer to him. Her breath hitched as he slid his finger inside, both their eyes consumed by the slip and slide back and forth, in and out.

“You’re already so wet,” he murmured, adding another finger, making her moan and pivot her hips toward him. “Thank God, I can’t wait much longer.”

“No, don’t wait,” she half-groaned, half-whispered. Fire was already coalescing in her core and the idea of waiting one more minute to feel him inside of her sounded torturous.

He reached into the pocket of his jeans, pulling out a wrapped condom, and slid it into her open hand as he made quick work of unbuttoning his jeans and shoving them down his legs. Naked except for his black boxer briefs, he paused for a minute, his storm-tossed eyes following her movements as she tore open the condom package.

Sitting up, she handed him the open condom, kissing the hard, defined lines of his chest as she hooked her thumbs under the elastic of his briefs, slowly sliding them down his legs, giving her mouth time to explore as much of his chest and stomach as she could. Alec’s body mesmerized her. He looked better in all his naked glory than in any of her forbidden daydreams that had haunted her since the days she found him in the Foundation parking lot. The way the taut muscles in his arms shifted under his tattoos, giving the designs a life of their own, made her mouth water and sadly, she was pretty sure she wasn’t the first woman to react that way to him.

The minute his briefs touched the floor, he rolled on the condom and guided her backwards. When she hit the bed, his body was pressed firmly against hers with his erection positioned at her entrance, sliding back and forth, mimicking the pattern of his fingers earlier. Need licked through every nerve ending in her body and all she wanted at that moment was Alec deep inside of her, taking her places she’d never dreamed of.

Her heart thundered through her body, anticipating the moment he would slide inside, filling the growing ache. With his too blue to be real hooded eyes holding her hostage, he plunged into her, stretching her, filling her, and all the air exploded out of her lungs, leaving her gasping for breath and utterly winded, but loving every second of it.

Both of his hands cupped her hips, tilting them to the exact angle he wanted, causing pleasure to spiral through her body, and she couldn’t help thinking that he had a lot of practice. Before the thought took root in her mind, she pushed it away, concentrating on the way Alec made her body hum with desire as his mouth frantically and chaotically devoured her with every exhilarating lick of his tongue.

She moaned incoherently with each thrust, the pleasure ebbing and flowing like the ocean, pushing her so close to the tipping point before he would pull back again. This was entirely intentional. From the little she knew of Alec, he liked control and his control had slipped tonight, so he was playing with her, priming her, hinting where he planned to take her when he decided the time was right, and not any sooner. This was the Alec show and she was just along for the ride.

As much as his game made her a crazy whimpering mass of need, she absolutely loved his masterful give and take. He knew exactly how much to give to keep her riding the edge, never giving enough to give her that final surge and never giving her too little that all the sensations fizzled.

“Do you want to come? Are you ready?” he asked, thrusting hard into her and then pausing.

“Hm,” she muttered, not wanting to form a sentence. Talking was overrated. Feeling, on the other hand, was not.

“Say it, he demanded, his body still inside hers, teasing the spot burning for attention, but never quite reaching it. She ground her hips against him and his hand dug into her hips, halting her movements. “I’ll give you exactly what you want. All you have to do is ask.”

“Please, Alec. Please.”

He leaned forward and she felt his smile against her damp neck. “For you, Little Violet, I’d do almost anything.” One deep thrust perfectly orchestrated with a few strokes of his fingers against her clit and she was done for. If anybody asked, she would have sworn fireworks ignited behind her eyelids as her entire body convulsed from the orgasm rocking through her, leaving her gasping for air and completely boneless.

Within seconds, he collapsed on top of her. “It’ll be better next time. Slower. I’ll take my time with you, so can I savor every inch of your flawless skin.”

“That sounds nice, but…” she murmured, her fingers drifting over the cool, damp skin of his lower back, tracing the bumps of his spine. She couldn’t imagine it being any better. Any better and she’d probably die a quick, but pleasurable death. “I don’t know. I think I liked what we did just fine.”

His teeth scored the side of her neck. “Just fine? That’s all? I’ll have to try harder next time.”

“Okay. It was better than fine. It was pretty damn perfect, but I wouldn’t mind having a next time though,” she admitted.