Rocking Kin (Lucy & Harris 3)

“I’m in my room, eating a big ol’ sandwich. The food at the party wasn’t enough to feed a starving person, let alone me.” I took another bite of my huge sandwich, piled high with lettuce, tomatoes and pickles. Jillian had made a face as I’d squeezed on the mayo and mustard earlier so it was drenched in the stuff, but I didn’t care. That was exactly how I liked it.

“I thought you were grounded,” he grumbled. “If I’d known you were going out tonight I would have gone to that damn party too.”

My brows lifted as I turned onto my stomach and kicked off the killer heels I’d been forced to wear all night. I’d been tempted to kick Georgia in the head a few times with them, hoping I would stab her in the eye with the needle-like spiked heels. “I didn’t want to be there, dummy. I told you earlier. I was there because the step-monster and my father made me go. I would’ve been happy to stay locked in this damn room all night, but I have certain benefits that Jillian likes to exploit. Like having celebrity friends and all that bullshit.”

“Harris’s stepmom had an invite to the party you were at. She’d offered it to me and Gray but there was no way I was going to that shit. If I’d known that was where you would be, though, I would’ve taken the fucking thing.” Jace let out a frustrated breath and I could imagine his nostrils flaring with his annoyance.

“I couldn’t imagine you at that party, Jace. It was totally not your scene. A mixture of greedy wealth and snarky dickheads.”

Jace let out a harsh laugh. “I’m used to those kinds of parties, babe. Alicia has forced Kas, Gray and me to attend them most of our lives. That’s what happens when your adoptive mother comes from the kind of money Alicia comes from.”

I was already half through with my sandwich. Seeing a smear of mustard on my thumb, I licked it off before answering. “Yeah, well, you’re better than that, Jace. I didn’t want you there. Besides, I liked texting you. It was fun, and it pissed Jillian off because I was ignoring the douche-buckets that she was trying to set me up with.”

“Fuck. I knew I should’ve gone over there.”

I couldn’t help but laugh at the menace in his tone. Was he jealous? The thought made me grin with pure happiness. For about ten seconds. Then I forced my face into a scowl and glared at my pillows. “It’s late, Jace. I need to get in the shower and go to bed. Carter will be here tomorrow and I want to be rested up when I see him.”

“You shower in the mornings,” he reminded me with a grumble. Of course he would remember that.

“Normally,” I agreed, an evil grin splitting my face, “but some dickhead with too much cologne made me dance with him and I have that smell all over my dress and arms. I don’t want it all over my covers.”

“Fuuuck!”

Laughing at the possessiveness I heard loud and clear in his roar, I quickly told him goodnight and turned off my phone before he could call me back. That had felt surprisingly good, to tease him like that and hear how pissed he was. How jealous. How possessive.

Jace St. Charles still felt something and it wasn’t just the lust that had nearly made us combust the first time we’d been together. No, there was something deeper there.

The only question was: Did I want to find out what that something deeper was?

I fell asleep that night without really knowing the answer.

Carter Jacobson stood as tall as his son, had the same blue eyes and blond hair as both his children, and that deceptively angelic look in his eyes that reminded me so much of Angie I wanted to laugh. Seeing him standing in Scott Montez’s living room with the twins on either side of him while Jillian and Scott stood there looking at him with narrowed eyes was beyond bizarre.

My first instinct was to run and throw my arms around him, and I’d done that as soon as the doorbell had rung not ten minutes before. Now, in a living room full of the four people I hated more than anyone else on the planet as well as three of the ones I loved more than anyone else, while I stood in the middle of what felt like no-man’s land, I just wanted him to hold me again.

For my mother, it had been love at first sight with Carter. For me? It had taken a little longer for me to love him as much as I did right then. Longer, as in a day and a half. I’d never had a father figure until Carter came into my life. Scott had long since abandoned me and my mother, but we hadn’t really needed him anyway. And it wasn’t like we had needed Carter either, really. We had wanted to need him, and that was a big difference.

Carter hadn’t said a word when he’d found out I came as part of the package that was the beautiful Abigail Montez. Hadn’t blinked when he’d had to take on one more child to pay for and play daddy to. I’d never felt right calling him ‘Dad’ in all the years I’d been a part of his life, but we both knew that I considered him as just that.

My dad.

The man who had stepped up without so much as a grumble and taken me in like I was just as much his blood as Angie and Caleb were.

“McKinley is grounded,” Jillian informed Carter now, sounding like the pretentious bitch she was. “She has been causing trouble for weeks now and I have finally reached my boiling point. I am not just going to let you come in here and take her out for a special treat like she has done nothing wrong.”

I gritted my teeth to keep from arguing. I hadn’t done a damned thing to cause trouble. All my grades were A’s and I tried to stay as far away from Jillian and her daughters as much as possible. She was just pissed I didn’t want to play with her snot-nosed little brats and give

them a ride on the coattails of new fame that I had apparently acquired as not only Scott Montez’s reclusive daughter, but as Lucy Thornton’s new best friend.

Not that I had to explain that to Carter. He’d raised me, for Pete’s sake. He knew how troublesome I could be, and what a good person I was too. He wasn’t blind to my faults, nor was he immune to my good qualities. He loved me regardless of the good or bad.

Thank God.

“From what I’ve heard, you grounded Kin because she wouldn’t play nice with the overly made-up blond kid behind you.” Carter nodded his head at Georgia who was standing with a smug expression on her face beside her mother. At his words the smugness turned into a glare and then a pout, as if she thought that look would work on my stepfather. “Your kid got in trouble and you expected Kin to lower her own morals to get her out of it. All while making sure the girl got a few minutes in the spotlight.” Always one to call any situation as he saw it, Carter had Jillian gasping in outrage within three seconds at his analysis of the situation. “Grounding Kin was uncalled for. And not to step on toes—ah, fuck, who am I kidding? I don’t really care whose toes I step on right now. But you have no say in what Kin does. The only reason she’s even here is to get to know Scott-douchebag-Montez. Abby is probably rolling over in her grave—God rest her soul—because she must see what a mistake it was to force Kin to come here and have to deal with a cunt like you.”

“What did you just call me?” Jillian shrieked. “Scott, are you just going to stand there and let him do that to me in our own home?”

Scott just shrugged. “He’s spoken no lies, Jillian. Shut up for a few minutes, would you?”