Smoke Bomb (Smoke Series Book 3)
Smoke Bomb: Part 1 – Chapter 15

HUCK

Throwing the back door to the house open, I stalked inside, needing to get the hell away from Trinity before I slammed my dick into her and fucked her like an animal.

“You look ready to kill someone,” Blaise drawled, and my eyes locked on him, then swung to his wife, Maddy, and their one-year-old son in her arms, Cree Elias Hughes.

“Would you take a towel outside to Trinity?” I asked Maddy.

She smiled and handed Cree to his father. “Of course. I came to meet her. I’m starved for female companionship,” she said.

“I need a fucking drink,” I said to no one in particular as I went to the bar, not looking at Blaise again. He was watching me too damn closely. “Where are the others?” I asked while pouring myself a drink.

“Here. Somewhere,” Blaise replied. “They mentioned you stalked off, carrying Trinity in your arms. I replace that interesting. Care to explain?”

I slung back my glass and then looked at Blaise. “What? You want me to admit I want to fuck her?” I asked, scowling. He was my boss, but he was also my best friend. But right now, I had shit I didn’t want to talk about.

“You don’t have to admit anything,” he replied. “You’re a walking billboard.”

I poured another glass. “You saw her rap sheet, and she was going to marry my clueless brother. She was using him. And, boss, you told me not to stick my dick in her,” I said, disgusted with myself for wanting her so bad.

“I don’t think what we saw is considered a rap sheet,” Blaise replied. “That’s a little harsh.”

He knew what the fuck I meant. “I let Hayes down in life. I wasn’t around. Fuck, he died, and I hadn’t seen him in over a year. I can’t bring him back and fix that. What does it make me if I fuck the woman who was using him? Huh? I can’t do that. Not to his memory. He deserved a good girl. One worthy of him. A woman who was his equal. Who belonged by his side. Not that … that lying slut.” I realized I had been shouting.

Two things happened at once. Cree shouted the word slut, and a door slammed behind me. I turned to see Maddy glaring at me, and then beside her, Trinity was wrapped in a towel with those big brown eyes looking hurt. I stared at her, not sure what to say. She’d heard me. Fine. She’d needed to. If I had really hurt her, she’d have tears in her eyes. Women cried over that shit. She was acting the part.

“I’m sorry I talked like that in front of Cree,” I told Maddy.

Her eyes narrowed. “Are you serious right now?” Maddy snapped.

That sounded like a trick question, and my fucking stomach was in a damn knot because of the look on Trinity’s face. I tore my gaze from her and wished like hell things were different.

She ran then. I watched her go through the door. Fucking running. Good. I wanted her out of my sight. My damn dick was still throbbing after she’d squirted all over my hand.

“Huck, I could slap your face right now,” Maddy said angrily. “You might believe what all you just said, but no woman deserves to walk in and hear that about herself. You should have apologized, groveled at her feet, anything!”

Maddy walked toward me with her finger pointed at me. “Not only are you an asshole, but you are also cruel.”

“Mommy!” Cree called out. “Hut asshole!”

Maddy shook her head at me as if she was disappointed. “While y’all are gone, she’s coming back to the house with me. I am not leaving her here alone. She …” Maddy paused, and I could tell she wanted to say more and stopped herself. “She could use new scenery.”

“Mommy! Hut asshole!” Cree shouted and clapped his hands.

I turned to look at Blaise, who was grinning. He shrugged and pressed a kiss to his son’s head, then sat him down. When he stood back up, he looked at Maddy. “Have her go pack her things,” he told her. “I’ve got Cree.”

Maddy nodded and turned to follow Trinity.

Once she was gone, he looked at me. “You pissed off the queen. I’m not sure anyone can save you now.”

I scowled and poured another drink. Maddy was softhearted. She was the reason Gina was alive and living God knew where with a new identity. Blaise would have put a bullet in her head had Maddy not stopped him. She was the savior of all women, apparently.

“You know what I don’t get?” Blaise asked me.

I didn’t care at the moment, but he was going to tell me anyway.

“Why you think she’s so damn bad. Sure, she fucked a married man. We don’t know he and his wife weren’t separated. Who the fuck cares that he was fifty? She was a stripper. So? We’ve known a lot of strippers. You have a couple who visit this place frequently. As for the other shit, it was never proven. She wasn’t officially charged. They were accusations. There is no reason for you to be so hard on her. You put bullets in men. We all do.”

I downed the drink in my hand and slammed the glass on the table.

“Hayes was a good kid. He deserved a woman who was equally good. Someone who loved him. Not someone who was lying to him.”

Blaise chuckled. “Hayes was a man, not a kid. He might have been in the ministry, but he was a man with a fucking dick. She walked into his church, looking like a damn smoke bomb, and he moved in on it. He was smart. If he was going to settle down and do the church shit, at least he would have a wife with a body that knew how to dance on a pole for him. You are putting him on a pedestal that he never asked you to put him on. If he’d lived and married one of those good girls you think he deserved, do you think she’d have been fun in bed? Highly doubtful.”

I glared outside, hating that Blaise might have a point. “How likely is it that she was accused of so many things and not guilty of at least one of them? I could see it if that was a one-time thing. Maybe revenge or some shit from her stepmother. But why the hell would that other person who’d accused her of stealing make that up? She’s got enemies for a reason.”

“Roy Hayley probably did it for the same reason his mother did,” Blaise replied, sounding smug.

I turned to look back at him. “Who’s his mother?”

“Tabitha Bennett.”

Fuck. That, I hadn’t expected. “What about the grand theft auto?” I reminded him.

Maddy had made him weak. Too soft. At least with women.

“Oh, the car she supposedly stole, which belonged to Benjamin Bennett, her father? She was eighteen. It was the night of her high school graduation, and her father was out of town on business. She used his car, and when Tabitha found out she’d taken it, she called the police and claimed she’d stolen it. Benjamin had the charges dropped.”

I was going to need another fucking drink.