Collision Read online

  “So there it is. My mom is suing me for custody of my brother. According to the paperwork, I took him without permission.” He slapped the paper that lay on the table in front of them.

  “Which isn’t exactly a lie,” Tyler Blackfoot, the big Native American Vice President of the club said as he stood up to his full height and started pacing. “What we need to do is get some legal counsel on this. We need to find out where you stand. Would it be best to countersue her? We need to find out the answers to these questions before we can move ahead. Was Remy awake when you were served?”

  “No.” Cash rubbed the beard growing on his jawline. “He’d already gone to bed. Right now he has no idea what’s going on.”

  “Then I think we should keep that as much of a secret as possible,” Layne said from where he sat. “Especially with his asthma. Let’s see where we are before we drop a bombshell on him like that. The last thing you need is for him to go into an attack, be worried, and have more medical bills than you know what to do with.” As someone who had been in the position of being placed with another family, he wanted to offer his input.

  Cash agreed. “I don’t want him upset.”

  “How are you?” Liam asked, looking closely at the younger man.

  “Numb. Angry. Pissed.” There was no other way to put it. It was almost as if the minute the summons had been put in his hand, he’d stopped feeling any emotion. Now he was feeling them all, but he couldn’t put them into words or show anyone with his actions what was going on. Harper had tried to get him to talk about how he felt, but he was so angry he couldn’t.

  Liam walked over and clapped him on the shoulders. “You’re gonna have to feel something sooner or later, my man. You’re gonna have to let go of that iron grip you have on your emotions, because if you don’t, you’ll push everybody away.”

  That was the last thing he needed, the last thing he wanted to do. If he let his grip go, he’d show them all exactly how close to the edge he was. What he really needed was a race. He needed that adrenaline-fueled release of endorphins. He needed to skirt the edge between life and death, between on the edge of out of control and barely keeping it together. Sometimes it was the only thing that made him feel alive.

  “Don’t do anything stupid,” Liam warned. If this kid was anything like the rest of them when they had been his age, they were dealing with a live wire. They had to cut it before it ignited.

  “I’m not going to, but I have to do what I have to do in order to keep my family together.” It was as simple as that. If he didn’t have money to keep a roof over their heads, then he had no shot at keeping Remy. Racing, now more than ever, mattered in the grand scheme of things.

  “That’s not only your worry anymore; we’re here to help you,” Liam told him again.

  In that instant, Cash snapped.

  *

  Help him? Nobody had ever wanted to help him before, not without needing something in return. If they didn’t want something in return, then they wanted a photo opportunity. Someone wanted to get in the paper for helping the “underprivileged kid”. He’d hated that label back then; he really hated the fucker now. “You want to help me? What do you want me to do for that help? Throw a race? That’s sure as shit is not happening.”

  “Stop,” Jagger told his friend, trying to speak to him calmly. “Stop and take a second before you get yourself into some shit.”

  “Take a second?” Cash turned around and punched the wall in frustration, slumping against it, turning his body into himself. “She’s taken my whole life. She’s never been clean for a full year…never a full year. I could never count on her; I would let myself halfway do it, but never fully.”

  The group was quiet as he kept talking. It was as if no one wanted to startle him now that he’d gotten going. They wanted to make sure they got the whole story, and only he could tell that story.

  “I don’t want him to be like I was as a kid. Stealing for food, wondering where it was gonna come from when I got home from school. I just want better for him. I need it to be better for him.”

  Layne stepped forward, his big frame filling the room. “Look at me.”

  The words were so quiet that Cash wasn’t sure he’d actually heard them. When he lifted his head up, he and Layne met eyes.

  “I was taken from my mother.” Layne licked his lips and had a seat next to Cash on the floor. “I had family. A grandmother and a grandfather, but that was it. I was a lot like you…scared of what was going to happen to me when I got older. But look at me now. I may deal with my demons in ways that scare others—when I get inside that boxing ring I beat the shit out of people—but I go home to an amazing woman every night who allows me to sleep. She is my peace, she is my quiet, and if I hadn’t had the love for my grandmother and grandfather, I wouldn’t know what that peace and quiet is.”

  He stopped for a moment and let that sink in. If Cash would only pay attention, he’d realize that they were two of a kind, and that no matter what issues he had, Layne was a productive member of society now. He no longer lived in absolute fear. They could be different than their upbringings.

  “You be that peace and quiet for Remy. Let us and Harper be your peace and quiet, and let us all nail that bitch to the wall.”

  No one had ever stood up for him this way, no one had ever cared one way or the other what his situation was like. These men, this family, cared. “I still need to race. I have to put food on the table, and I won’t let Harper shoulder that alone.”

  “Then let us help you take care of the legal issues,” Tyler told him. “Meredith knows a lot of lawyers that do pro bono work through CRISIS. You have friends, you have family here. Let us help you.”

  After everything he’d gone through in his life, he knew he could handle it. He knew he could handle anything anyone wanted to throw at him. Especially with these guys at his back, with Harper at his side, and with his brother firmly in his arms. It was going to get messy, it was going to get dirty, and he knew that not all of them would come through on the other side of this unscathed. He knew he had nothing to hide, and if it wasn’t balls to the wall, then he wanted nothing to do with it.

  ‡

  Chapter Three

  Harper sat outside on the steps of Walker’s Wheels biting her nails. It was a bad habit, one she only gave into when she was extremely nervous. She hadn’t been invited to the meeting Cash was having with the guys, and she hated it. Not that she thought she was the most important thing in his life, but whatever happened in there affected her too. The door she rested her back on was the only thing that kept them apart. More than once, she’d thought about saying “fuck it” and walking in there, if only to hold Cash’s hand. Asking for help was hard on him, and she knew it.

  Blowing out a deep breath, she hoped this was over soon. There were many questions she wanted to ask, and she wasn’t sure if there would be immediate answers to them. Some of those answers would take time, she knew that, but there were some that were pertinent to how they would be living their lives. Running a hand through her long hair, she realized with great clarity how much her life had changed in such a short amount of time.

  Months ago, the only thing she had been worried about was getting her degree, and now she felt responsible for a family.

  Beside her, her cell phone rang.

  “What the fuck does she want?” She fumed when she saw that it was Cara.

  Still pissed at her aunt, she sent it straight to voicemail. This was the first time she’d even gotten a phone call from the woman who had raised her. It still hurt that she was second best. That was a wound she couldn’t open today. Just as she was about to give up on waiting and march herself on in to be with Cash, the door opened, and she stood up quickly as the guys started filing out.

  Her eyes immediately went to Cash. He was guarded, but for the most part, she could read his moods. The change was significant. His face was no longer drawn with what looked like pain, his eyes were clearer, and the set of his shoulders wa
sn’t hunched. There were so many questions she wanted to ask, but before she could formulate any of them, he held out his hand for her and pulled her towards the car.

  Obliviously he wanted to have this conversation in private.

  “Let’s go, we need to talk,” he told her as he opened up the passenger-side door for her and then got behind the wheel. “Jagger and B are going to watch Remy until we get back.” He started the car and pulled out of the parking lot at Walker’s Wheel’s.

  *

  As they drove out to Richardsville, he purposely kept his eyes on the road and his hands on the wheel. Cash knew he had to get his shit together and keep it together. He was teetering on an edge, and he was afraid something might push him over.

  To Harper’s credit, she didn’t badger him, she didn’t ask him any questions. If her imagination was as overactive as his was, then he could only guess at her thoughts. Parking the car, he took the keys out of the ignition and very quietly said, “C’mon.”

  They walked to the small house and entered. He’d had this thought that once there it would be easier to spill his guts. It wasn’t. He’d hoped it would give him a false sense of security and loosen his tongue, but maybe he’d been stupid to think that.

  “Are you okay?” she asked as she had a seat on the bed and watched as he paced the small space back and forth.

  He stopped and glanced over at her. He could read the emotions on her face, read the sympathy there, and instead of making him angry like it had always done, it made him feel better. It made him feel like she was in this with him, like he wasn’t alone. Wasn’t that what people were always preaching to him? He wasn’t alone. Finally, for one of the first times in his life, he felt like he was part of a team.

  “No,” he ground out against a throat that felt tight. “I’m not okay. I’m pissed. I feel helpless, and I’d like to beat both my mom and his dad until they can’t get up and defend themselves ever again. I don’t understand how they can do this. I don’t think I’ll ever understand their thought process, for as long as I live.”

  “It’s because it’s not yours, Cash.” She reached out for his hand, but he didn’t allow her to grab it. “Their process is to hurt people. Your process is to act like nothing hurts you. It’s your reaction to their action.”

  While the words she spoke made sense, he had a hard time wrapping his mind around them. Nobody had ever tried to psychoanalyze him and gotten it right before. The doctors he’d been sent to as a young kid (who kept diagnosing him with ADHD) always told him he needed to focus. His problem was that he focused too much—he obsessed over things that were out of his control. He looked at everything from all angles, trying to figure out how the outcome could have been different. He always reacted to others actions.

  “You’re right, but that doesn’t change anything, Harper. I’m still in the same situation I was in this morning.”

  “No, you’re not,” she argued as she grabbed his hand and pulled him to the bed to sit beside her. “You have a plan now. You’re not a scared little kid like you were when your mom used to bully you. Now you’re a bad ass who knows how to protect not only himself but everyone else too. You’re not going to let anything happen to Remy.”

  “Or you,” he voiced the thought that kept creeping into his mind. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you either.”

  *

  Harper gasped. “Nothing is going to happen to me. I don’t even know why you think it might.”

  She watched as he appeared to struggle with the words.

  “Because they want to hurt anything that means something to me. They’ve always been like that.”

  Harper felt her heart hammer in her chest. “Don’t worry about me, Cash.” She reached up and put her arm behind his neck, pulling him closer to her. “I can take care of myself.”

  “Not with Remy’s dad you can’t. He’s a sadistic bastard, and while I’m scared he’s going to get to Remy, I’m fucking terrified he’s going to get to you.”

  “I’m an adult,” she argued. “I know how to take care of myself.”

  “But Remy knows exactly what his dad can do. He knows to stay away.” He grinned slightly. “I have a feeling that with you, you’d try to protect me and Remy. With George, you never know what side of him you’re going to get. He can be extremely flattering; he’s a smooth-talker, and he might make you believe he’s not a piece of shit. Once he’s got you in his sights and in his grip, that’s when he strikes.” He stopped and took a deep breath. “I hate myself for bringing you into this.”

  “I asked to be here, Cash,” she reminded him.

  “You asked to share an apartment with me.”

  Harper took a good look at him. His dark hair was disheveled, his face was covered by days’ worth of beard growth, his eyes were tired and bloodshot, and he’d never looked better to her. The breath she took was as much cleansing as it was an admittance of what she was feeling. It was time to be honest.

  “I’m asking to share your life. Whatever that means,” she whispered, shrugging slightly. “I think it was Remy—I kinda don’t wanna leave the kid.”

  ‡

  Chapter Four

  For someone who hadn’t felt much since that summons had been placed in his hands, Cash was feeling a lot now. Hearing Harper voice her feelings meant more to him than he’d ever be able to explain. He couldn’t even form the words.

  Harper seemed to understand, because she got up from her seat on the bed and stood in front of him, twining her arms around his neck. She nudged his knees apart and leaned down, capturing her lips with his. “I want to make sure you feel,” she whispered softly before her tongue owned his. Gripping his hair in her fingers, she took control of a kiss he hadn’t been expecting. Her teeth dug into his bottom lip, and he felt the adrenaline surge through his body.

  In most sexual encounters he had ever had, he’d been the aggressor, he’d been the one to call the shots. He knew immediately that was not the case here, not this time. With a moan, she broke the kiss, and he watched, eyes half-mast, as she slid her hands down his body. They went straight to the waistband of his jeans and worked to unbuckle the belt. Once she had the belt undone, she glanced up at him, biting her lip as she grinned.

  “Wanna lift up so I can get these off you?”

  Didn’t have to tell him twice. Might make him a bastard, but he was totally on board with whatever it was she wanted to do. He went ahead and took his shirt off too before reaching down and grasping the edge of her shirt and pulling it off her body.

  He watched as she settled on her knees between his feet and waited. His breathing sped up as her eyes raked over his body. He saw the admiration as they stopped at the ink on his arm, the metal in his nipples, and then the hard length of his cock. He gripped the blanket on the bed, determined not to rush her, determined not to rush this entire experience. When her hand went straight for him, he moaned deep in his throat and threw his head back when she gripped his shaft and encompassed him inside the warmth of her mouth.

  “Fuck.” He moaned, tilting his hips towards her.

  She could undo him. He’d had plenty of women, but none of them looked like she did when she went down on him. Harper enjoyed it; he could tell by the way she licked the head like an ice cream cone. No gag reflex with his girl; she breathed through it, sucking him deeper. Threading his hands into her hair, he held her still as he pumped his hips.

  “God, Harper,” he hissed, pulling himself from her wet heat.

  Sitting up on her knees, she went back for him, but he evaded, palming the bra-covered sides of her breasts. With the tips of his fingers, he ran them along the edges of her lace-covered bra, before pulling the cups down. Her exposed flesh pebbled in the air-conditioned air, and he could no longer wait.

  Gripping her waist, he pulled her to her feet, reached behind her back, got rid of the bra, and pulled her atop him, first the left thigh and then the right thigh. Settling her over his length, he leaned his head down and circled a
nipple with his tongue.

  *

  What had started out as a way to get Cash’s mind off things had evolved into one of the hottest encounters Harper had ever had. She gripped his shoulders as his tongue went to work on the hard bead of her flesh. Grinding her hips against his, she moaned as she caught the tip of him against her clit.

  “Cash,” she gasped open-mouthed against his neck. She felt him move one of his hands down to his erection and then felt him move against her.

  “You want this?” he asked, strumming against her, back and forth. His breath was hot against her breast as he once again took it inside his mouth, swirling his tongue against the tight bud.

  “Yeah.” She moaned as she bit her lip and leaned her head back, pulling him by the neck tighter into her body.

  Using her knees, she lifted slightly and brought herself down onto his length. Both of them breathed heavily as he reached behind her and gripped her ass hard in his hands, showing her the speed he wanted her to move.

  Spreading her legs further, she fought against his aggression and revealed her own. This had been her show to start out with, and it was going to be her show to end with. Pushing him back against the comforter, she settled her hands on his chest, using her fingers to pluck at the metal there, smirking as she felt his cock jump inside her body.

  Swiveling her hips, she moved on him, up and down, before leaning back, putting her hands on his thighs. That was an invitation for him to return the favor, and he palmed her breast, pulling roughly against her nipple with one hand while the other hand went to where their bodies were joined. She hissed loudly when his thumb came into contact with her flesh. Her heartbeat roared in her ears, but she heard the question he asked.

  “You wanna come for me, Harper?”

  Was that even a question he had to ask her? “Yeah.” She licked her lips, her breathing choppy. “Yeah.”

  “Then take what you need.”