Keeping Her (Savage Brothers Second Generation 2)

“When it’s important, I can talk and this bullshit? It’s bad, Jonesy. I’ve got this sinking, fucking feeling in my gut that it’s worse than we know. I just think we need to be cautious.”

“Okay, we’ll scope it out and report back, but you need to know, Grunt. We’re not going to stop this. There’s no way in fucking hell that Ford is going to let this slide.”

“Yeah,” I admit, knowing he’s telling the truth.

“Well let’s go meet this little Gabby chick and see how she likes a real man.”

“Man, she’s like Lyla’s twin. Please tell me you’re not going to flirt with her. Lyla’s like our kid,” I growl.

“She’s not Lyla,” he shrugs, like that makes it alright.

There’s nothing I can say in response to that, so I do what I’m famous for.

I grunt my disapproval, then I follow the asshole over to where the girl is. As we get closer, I’m still amazed at how much this Gabby looks like Lyla. But, it’s the girl that’s with her that catches most of my attention. She’s got this flaming red hair, pale, almost ivory skin that has a sprinkle of freckles over her body. She’s wearing a leather jacket, jeans and a red shirt that shows more cleavage than is decent, but fuck if I’m not enjoying it.

And so is my dick.2Jasmine“Gabby, you have to snap yourself out of it,” I grumble, taking a drink of my vanilla milkshake. My thighs don’t need the shake, but my sanity does.

“I just can’t believe Dom ended things like this.”

“Maybe after things die down—”

“Don’t you dare suggest I wait around for Dom to get his head out of his ass, Jasmine Blake, because if you do—so help me!”

“Cool your tits, chick. I just thought if you love him—”

“I do, but if this is how he wants to treat me, I don’t need him,” she huffs, taking a large, loud, slurp of her coconut milkshake. I wrinkle my nose up at the thought of the taste. I’m a purist when it comes to my ice cream. Give me vanilla, and an occasional chocolate, and I’m good. Every now and then, when I get a wild hair, strawberry is good—but that’s it. It’s boring, but if my family knew how truly boring I was, they’d all have heart attacks. I give them hell; I know I do. I can’t seem to stop myself. It’s not that I don’t love them, it’s not even that they don’t love me. They love me, just as much as I do them. The truth is… just complicated.

“Then get back up on the horse again.”

“The horse? Ever since you dated that cop-slash-cowboy, I don’t understand half of what you say,” Gabby complains.

I shake my head.

“I don’t think you can call what we did dating and in the end, he fucked me over epically—so…”

“Yeah, did you ever tell your parents the real reason you had all those fines and tickets?”

“It wouldn’t have helped matters,” I mutter, not looking her in the eye, choosing instead to stare down at my milkshake. “They have come to expect the worst from me. It’s easier to just let them believe it.”

“Still, he was an asshole. If you told Uncle—”

“Can we let it drop? I get my license back in a couple of months and my community service is almost over. Once all of that is done, Dewayne Lagger will just be a bad decision in a series of bad decisions.”

“I still think you’re letting him off easy,” Gabby mutters and we share a smile.

She’s the only person outside my brother Hawk who truly understands me. There are times that I think I would go insane without her. She and Hawk have always been in my corner when no one else was. Admittedly, a lot of those people I’ve pushed away, but I’ve tried pushing away Gabby, too.

She just refused to let me.

I’m damaged. I admit it freely. There’s something inside of me that just pushes and pushes. I don’t know how to stop it.

I never have.

“He’ll crash and burn one day,” I tell her, and I figure he will. Hopefully when he does, it won’t be because my father found out and killed him.

“Hey there.”

I look up to see this hot guy, staring down at Gabby and standing beside our table. He’s covered in tatts and wearing a plain white t-shirt, faded blue jeans, and jet-black hair with not exactly a beard, but definitely a day to two of stubble.

I could almost laugh. Gabby has that effect on guys. She always has. She got the best of both worlds. She somehow managed to get her mother’s blonde hair with her father’s dark coloring. She’s got her dad’s full lips and though my Aunt Beth is gorgeous, she doesn’t have Gabby’s curves. Gabby had to get all of those from her dad’s family and she works them.