Torch (Great Wolves MC) - Jayne Blue Page 0,8

my skin already. I didn’t know when. I didn’t know how. But my gut told me something about that girl would spell trouble for me. Only I wasn’t sure I minded.

Chapter Five

Sydney

“Sydney.”

His smoky voice sent goosebumps down my spine. His deep, sultry laughter held a promise of something dark. Something delicious.

He hovered over me, his rippled, tattooed arms forming a cage around me as his kisses licked at my ear. He smelled so good. Leather. Musk. Danger.

A sharp, shrill siren cut through the air. I woke up tangled in the bedsheets, covered in sweat. I pulsed with need as I shook off the last vestiges of the dream I’d been having.

Torch.

Oh God. Torch. I wondered how close reality would come to that dream if I ever let him touch me.

I reached for my phone, but only accomplished knocking it off its charger. It landed face up, and a picture of my father’s smiling face stared up at me. It was an old one, taken on a vacation to the Bahamas when I was thirteen years old.

I pulled my tee-shirt down over my ass, scrambled out of bed, and picked up my phone one ring before it went to voicemail.

“Hi, Daddy,” I said. I clicked on the speakerphone as I checked the time: 8:27. I had to be at Uncle George’s office by nine.

“You don’t answer your phone when I call?” he asked.

“I mean ... I just did.”

“I called you twice last night.”

I checked. Two missed calls coming in at 1:00 a.m., then 2:30 a.m. So he wasn’t sleeping again. The rest of us were expected to adapt.

“Did you tell her?” I heard screaming in the background. Lord. My mother was with him. That couldn’t be good. Gavin and Paulette Bailey did far better on different coasts. She was supposed to be at the big house in Monterey Bay.

“What’s going on?” I asked and instantly regretted it.

“Sydney,” my father said. I could pretty much guess at the expression on his face. Stern disappointment. And about a minute from now, he’d take on that hunched shoulder posture that made it look like he was carrying the weight of the world on his back. Well, not the whole world. Just that special brand of oppression only Paulette Bailey could bring him.

“Let me talk to her!” my mother yelled.

“Paulette,” he said. “I’m talking to our daughter. It’s what you wanted.”

I was already feeling a headache coming on. “Daddy,” I said. “I’m going to be late for work.”

He laughed. “Work? You mean with my loser brother? What’s he paying you? Minimum wage?”

“I’m fine,” I said. “I’m learning a lot.”

“You’re learning how to sin,” my mother yelled. There was so much vitriol in her tone.

“I’ve booked you a flight,” my father said. “Tomorrow morning. Can you find a way to get to Detroit?”

“You hear that?” my mother yelled. “You’re flying commercial.”

“What’s going on?” I asked. “Are you sick? Is there an emergency?”

“The emergency is,” my mother said. She’d obviously grabbed the phone from my dad. “Your little temper tantrum is over as of now.”

“This isn’t a tantrum,” I said. “I’m taking control of my own life.”

“You are a selfish, ungrateful girl, Sydney,” she said. “After everything I’ve done for you.”

“Mama,” I cut her off. “You’re mad at me because I left school. That was my choice.”

“Do you have any idea how embarrassing this had been for your father and me? The Stevensons called in big favors to get your internship at the governor’s office. You would have been able to write your own ticket after that.”

“Mom,” I said. “I appreciate all of that. I really do. I’ve said that a million times. I just needed some time.”

“Time for what?”

I’d told her that a million times too. “Time to figure out what I want for my future. You and Daddy have just assumed everything for me. I’m twenty years old now. It’s time for me to make my own decisions.”

It went so much deeper than that, but my head was starting to really pound now. I had about a five-minute window of time to take one of my pills before this thing had me vomiting and curled in a fetal position for the better part of the day.

“Paulette,” my father said. “Let me finish my conversation with my own daughter.”

“Fine!” she said. “But not until I say what you haven’t had the nerve to say. Are you listening, Sydney?”

“I’m listening.”

“This is done. It’s been three weeks. That’s about twenty days longer than this should have gone on.