Page 34 of Jacob

The two were sharing muttered curses she couldn’t make out until her father finally shoved her to the floor. “Yes!Sua maldita piranha. I can do whatever I want.” When he got really mad, he would often slip into Brazilian-Portuguese. “I fucking made you my Ol’ Lady.” And his accent got heavier. “Which means you’remy-fucking-property.You’re mine. Yourmouth.” He crouched down to her on the floor and trailed his finger along her lips. “Yourtetas.” He brought the tip of it down her chin, between her breasts. “Yourboceta.” Down her belly, between her legs, while her mother stared him dead in the eye.

Sparrow heard her mother’s breath hitch while the two of them stared at one another.

She couldn’t see her father’s expression, but she knew his tone. It wasn’t one of affection. It was his, ‘you fucked up, and you’re in big trouble, missy’ tone. Intently, she watched her mother sit on the floor, facing the biker with his hand between her legs quietly.

“Yourbunda, all of you ismine,” he growled as he leaned toward her, blocking her face from Sparrow’s view. “Do you understand?”

She leaned over, trying to see better, and in doing so, knocked over her father’s leather jacket. The black revolver thudded on the heavy hardwood. Both of her parents’ heads snapped in her direction.

Both pairs of eyes locked on her and she felt as though she’d just been pinned in place, frozen much like a deer on a highway with a sixteen wheeler barreling toward it. Wide-eyed, she stared back, unsure what to do. Maybe, if she didn’t move, the shadowed darkness could cloak her and they wouldn’t see her.

“Menina?” her father called to her. “What are you doing up?

Hesitantly, she stepped out into the light and toed the linoleum. Holding her hands behind her, she lowered her chin, finding herself unable to look at them. “I heard you fighting.”

“We’re not fighting,” her father reassured her. “Are we,queridinha?”

“No,” her mother confirmed without hesitation.

Her father pulled his hand from between Dixie’s thighs and cupped her cheek. The pad of his thumb swiped along her bottom lip while the two of them shared an intense look Sparrow didn’t understand at the time. “I’m just remindingsua mãeof how things work, and what it means to be an Ol’ Lady to a Roughneck Rider.”

The high pitched chiming from her phone tore her from the memory. Shaking it off, she stared at it before she brought her fingers to her temples and pressed circles into the side of her head in an attempt to stave off her throbbing headache. When it didn’t work, she headed for the cabinet, yanked it open, and found it void of any of the liquor she and Pipes tended to keep there.

Next option. Tugging the fridge door open, she scanned the brightly lit shelves—not so much as a drop of stale light beer. Magnets clattered to the floor and skittered across the room as she slammed the door. She pressed her pounding head against the appliance, convinced the whole world was against her.

VRRRRRR.

“I hope you catch crabs,” she barked at the phone as she stomped past it and grabbed her purse, sifting through it for her keys. Once she found them, she glanced at the phone.

VRRRRRR.

“Gaahh!” She swiped it off the table and jammed her finger into the green button. “Stop fucking calling. I’m done for the night. You’re supposed to be on a run. You’re not supposed to call. Stop. I’m going out, so either you stop calling and I take my phone with me or you keep calling and I leave my phone here.”

“I love your fire, baby.” His slow garbled words only further served to infuriate her. “I love you.”

Somehow, she kept her temper in check and didn’t throw her phone. She really couldn’t afford a new phone. The last time she’d tossed one, it’d shattered the screen. Instead, she angrily stuffed it in her purse with a huff and shook her keys.

Did she want to drink alone or commiserate with Kimber? She’d be behind the bar, right? Mondays were her night off and it sure as shit wasn’t Monday. With a nod, Sparrow headed out the door.

Chapter 19

Jacob

Karaoke night. How was that still a thing? Ohio was officially fucking weird.

Straddling his bike, his helmet stowed away, Jacob did his best to blend in amid pickups, SUVs, and sedans jammed into the parking lot of the Broken Spoke Saloon. Thursday karaoke night was popular, he mused as he shook his head.

With the butt of his cigarette pinched between his fingers, he exhaled a line of smoke and considered his saddlebag. He hadn’t really thought that through. Granted, he hadn’t expected a parking lot this full. He definitely didn’t anticipate a packed bar. How the fuck was he going to sneak the stupid arrangement in now?

Scrubbing down his beard with his free hand, he ran his tongue along his bottom lip, finding a stray bit of tobacco. He flicked it back and forth while pondering a highly unlikely dropping from the ceiling ala Jack Reacher scenario before he spat it on the ground. He was no 007 Jack Reacher type. With his luck, he’d break his damn neck trying that shit.

So, his options were either to leave it in his saddlebag or waltz in there for all the world to see carrying a bouquet of candy. Grantedhedidn’t mind if everyone knew he got her the lollipops.Shedid. While that was a slap in the fucking face, he had to respect that.

However.

That didn’t change the fact that he knew she wanted them and that meant he felt obligated to make sure she got what she wanted.

Leaning over, he snubbed the cherry of his cigarette out on his boot. He’d smoked it near down the filter. Tucking the orange butt back into the pack before he dismounted his bike with a groan, he eyed the leather pouch on the side of his bike. Without a proper place to dispose of his smoked cigarette, he’d not disrespect the Roughneck Riders, regardless of his personal feelings toward them, by littering in their lot. As small as it may be, respect was respect. They weren’t beefing—no need to be a dick.

---