Mr. Heartbreaker: Black Mountain Academy

“I don’t think I’ve ever been called special before,” she murmurs.

I gently pull her face to mine and kiss her. This kiss has passion, but it’s more about being gentle with her and trying to show her what she means to me.

“You’re very special, Angel. Never doubt that.”

“I really love it when you show me this side, Mike,” she replies quietly, rubbing her lips together. They’re moist, red and swollen from our kiss and I’ve never seen anything more beautiful.

“I’ll make note to do it more often,” I promise. “Did you get your homeless guy and his chicken situated?” I ask and she frowns at me.

“His name is Rooster,” she corrects me, clearly not happy with the way I said it.

“Didn’t mean any offense, Angel. I was just making sure you were in bed to stay.”

“Uh…yeah. Are you spending the night?”

“Wild horses couldn’t drag me out of this bed tonight, Violet,” I half-way laugh. Then I pull her against my body and settle in for the night, thinking nothing has ever felt this good in my entire life.

Violet snuggles against me for a minute and then pulls back. “But, what about your parents?”

“It’s doubtful they’ll notice I’m not home, Vi. It’s fine. They’ll think I’m out partying. I’ll go get some clothes tomorrow or Sunday.”

“Uh…” she says again and when I open my eyes I see she’s raised up and looking down at me. “This sounds like you’re moving in.”

“That’s because that’s what I’m doing,” I inform her, my voice matter of fact. This isn’t something I’m about to budge on.

“Don’t you think this is something we should, oh, I don’t know… talk about?” she huffs, and I grin, because she’s damn cute when she gets her nose out of joint.

“We did,” I respond with a grin.

“When? I don’t remember talking about this at all,” she denies.

“I could have sworn we did,” I reply with a shrug. “It doesn’t matter, though.”

“I think it kind of does,” she argues.

“It doesn’t because I’m not leaving—”

“Mike—”

“And if you’re honest, Angel, you don’t want me to leave. You want me right where I’m at.”

She looks at me. I half expect her to deny it, but she doesn’t. She swallows nervously and then lays herself bare.

“I don’t want you to leave, Mike. I’m nineteen, and I’ve lived hard. I’m not a little girl. I know what I want, but…”

“But?”

“Despite what happened tonight, I’m not ready to… I mean, I know how it seems, but—”

“Shh…” I tell her kissing her lips just briefly. “We’ll go slow. If I move too fast and you need to slow down, you tell me. There’s no timetable on what’s between us, Violet, because I’m here for the long haul.”

“You could make me fall in love with you, Mike.”

“That’s the plan, Angel. That’s the plan,” I respond with a smile and then after a kiss, we settle down for the night. I’m not going to lie. I want to claim Violet. I want to be inside of her and taste every inch of her. Yet, when she snuggles into me and slowly drifts off to sleep, I hold her close and admit the one thing that can’t be denied—

I’ve never been more satisfied in my life…29Mike“It’s about time you drug your sorry ass back home,” Dad growls the minute I walk through the door.

I rub the side of my neck as I close the front door. I thought he would be gone. Saturdays are routinely his golfing days. I finally turn to look at him. He’s standing by the door to his office. He’s definitely not dressed for golf. He’s in a suit, without the jacket—which for my father is called casual wear most of the time. He’s staring at me and I swear, at this point, I don’t think it’s my imagination when I see the hate on his face. It’s there and directed solely at me. I know the look well, because I’m pretty sure I hated myself for way too fucking long. Meeting Violet changed everything. That sounds hokey as hell, but it’s true. She’s changed so much about me and we’ve barely begun together, but I know it’s right. I know it’s real.

Just like I can read my father’s face and know that it’s disgust that he’s feeling.

“I’m never home much on the weekends, Dad,” I mumble, turning away from him to head upstairs. I could tell him he could get used to it, that from today and every day going forward he will see less and less of me, but it’s honestly not worth it. Once he gets whatever this little confrontation is about, out of his system, he’ll go back to not knowing I’m around most of the time.

“That’s going to change,” he growls, and I turn around carefully. I’m on the fourth step up and when I turn my father is at the base of the stairs. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him look at me with so much anger—and that’s saying something. I descend down the steps so that we’re standing eye-to-eye. My father and I are practically the same height and build. I’ve tried to wear my hair close to his and carry myself like him. I did it on purpose. It sounds crazy, but I used to think that it would make a difference. That somehow, if he saw himself in me instead of Parker, we would magically grow closer.