Craving Kara (The Aces' Sons 7)

“It wasn’t fuckin’ okay,” Draco replied, “or you wouldn’t have tore him a new one yesterday. What the fuck did they say to you?”

“It was years ago,” I sidestepped. “I don’t even remember.”

“Bullshit.”

“Can you just drop it?” I asked, getting angry. “Why are we even talking about this? It’s over. You’re home. I’m sitting on your fucking lap, for God’s sake.”

“Tell me,” he ordered. When I moved to climb off his lap, he stopped me.

“It wasn’t some big thing,” I said defensively, through my teeth.

“Tell me.”

“Curtis said that it didn’t matter how much I wanted to suck his dick, he wasn’t going to fuckin’ prison for me,” I ground out between my teeth.

Draco moved so fast, standing from the couch and setting me on my feet, that I almost didn’t catch him before he was out the front door.

“He was drunk,” I said desperately, locking my arms around Draco’s waist, my body between him and the door. “It was right after you left and he was a mess.”

“There’s no excuse for that shit,” he replied in disbelief.

He was practically vibrating with rage, but his hands were still gentle as they pulled at my arms. Unfortunately for him, he wasn’t succeeding because I wasn’t being gentle, and I wasn’t going to let him leave my house.

“Charlie hear him say that?” Draco asked.

“Of course not,” I replied automatically. Charlie would’ve ripped him apart.

Draco let out a long breath. “What about my mom?” he asked.

I tilted my head like I wasn’t sure what he was talking about.

“What did she say to you?”

“Why are you doing this?” I asked. “Just leave it.”

“What did she say to you?” he asked again, tenderly wrapping his hand around my jaw.

“She said that I’d already gotten one son locked up, so to stay away from her other one,” I replied in defeat.

“Jesus Christ,” he said with a huff of disbelief.

“It’s okay,” I replied, loosening my grip on his waist. “Really. It was a long time ago.”

“You don’t get it,” he said, dropping his head back to look at the ceiling as he shook it slowly from side to side.

“Then explain it to me,” I replied. “Come away from the door.”

“I spent every day inside worryin’ about you,” he said, not moving, his head still tilted back. “I knew that Curtis and Charlie were gettin’ hassled a bit at school because of all that shit, but they were takin’ care of it.” He finally looked at me. “But you stopped comin’ to see me, so I couldn’t get a read on you. So I’m askin’ ’em, right? How’s she doin’? Is anyone botherin’ her? You’ll take care of it, right? And the whole time, they’re sayin’ that they’ve got it covered. That you’re fine. That they haven’t noticed you gettin’ messed with. Seems like everyone’s leavin’ you alone.”

I nodded. He leaned forward so our faces were inches apart.

“But they weren’t takin’ care of it, were they?”

“I had Charles,” I replied quietly. “She’s like a one man army.”

“Charlie’s five feet tall and a hundred pounds soakin’ wet,” he replied just as quietly.

“I’m okay,” I said, lifting my arms out to my sides. “You’re looking at me. I’m fine.”

Draco stared at me.

“Sweetheart, when did they say all that shit to you?”

I didn’t answer, because we both knew. It was right before I’d stopped going to see him.

“You can’t really blame them,” I said reasonably, giving him a small smile. “I was the reason you went to prison. If he hadn’t taken that video of me, you wouldn’t have beat him up.”

“You take your top off on purpose?”

“You know I didn’t.”

“You take a video of it?”

“No,” I snapped.

“You send it to the whole school?”

I didn’t reply.

“You ask me to beat his ass? You force me to grab that bat?”

“You did it for me,” I said, pushing at his chest.

“I did it because I fuckin’ love you and that motherfucker deserved everythin’ he got,” Draco shot back.

“Then maybe you shouldn’t have loved me,” I yelled.

“It’s not exactly somethin’ I could fuckin’ control,” he yelled back.

“Then you could’ve controlled yourself, at least!” I shouted, immediately slapping my hand over my mouth in horror.

“You angry about that?” he asked, no longer yelling.

“No.”

“Sounds like you are,” he replied.

I took a step backward.

“Don’t walk away from me.”

I paused.

“You angry that I beat that little piece of shit?”

“Of course not,” I replied, crossing my arms. What exactly did he expect me to say?

I was expected to feel thankful for what he’d done. Everyone we knew felt like the fact that he’d stuck up for me and damned the consequences was some kind of declaration of love or something. So how was I supposed to explain how fucking guilty I’d felt? How was I supposed to tell him that I was angry at the decision he’d made that had changed all of our lives forever—especially when I hadn’t stopped him from beating Travis Sholes up in the first place?