It was the belly button bar in her navel and what looked like a tattoo on the edge of her hip.
I’d just caught my breath when a motorcycle sped down the road adjacent to the house and stopped outside it.
As Aria practically flew up to the cyclist—a guy with a leather jacket—he took off his helmet, revealing dark blond hair, ruffled with spikes.
A breath escaped my lips and my hand gripped the gun in my holster when I saw this person take hold of my baby girl and assault her lips with what was supposed to be a kiss.
I got out of my car, gun at the ready, and growled.
Of course they couldn’t hear me because they were too busy sucking face to give a crap that a man with a fucking gun—AKA me—was walking up to them.
I was too slow; the shock slowed me down.
Aria stopped kissing the guy, took his helmet, and set it on her head.
“Aria!” I called out when she jumped on the back of the bike.
I was sure she heard me; I wasn’t that far away.
“Aria!” I cried again, now running.
Fuck, why didn’t I run before?
I stopped, getting ready to turn back, but then I saw an old car swerving down the road. It was really old, like something out ofThe Beverly Hillbillies.
Aria and spiky-hair boy were heading the same way. I could see the catastrophe that was about to happen so I started running toward them again.
I could see it: Aria would crash with this idiot on a motorcycle, into this idiot who was coming down the road in whatever the hell kind of vehicle that was.
Fuck!
Spiky-hair boy pulled some stunt and missed the car then sped up way too fast, zipping down the road like a demon from hell.
But…the car was still coming…right atme.
I had to jump out of the road to get out of its way. It got as far as the railing, where the driver screeched to a stop and jumped out.
The driver was a striking blonde with long hair that glistened as she moved. She wore a blue strapless sundress that showed off the definition in her toned, graceful arms.
“Fucking piece of shit,” she cursed, glaring at the vehicle.
I’d stopped in my tracks to watch her. I had been about to give her a piece of my mind, but seeing her threw me off kilter.
She kicked the car, and dammit to hell, something snapped and thefucking piece of shitstarted moving again.
With no driver inside.
Jesus Christ.
“No!” she yelped, now running after it.
On instinct, I ran too, because I saw danger. There was a driverless car going full speed ahead down the road, and there could be people in its path.
“My things!” The woman cried.
The car headed straight to the edge of the pier. The woman only stopped when she saw that, hair billowing out into the wind in wild tendrils. Her hands flew up to her cheeks.
I stopped too when I saw what was about to happen. It was like something from one of those crazy films—not the blow ’em up, edge of your seat, theatrical Michael Bay movies but the other kind where everything that happens is just far-fetched and ridiculous.
Except this was real.
The piece-of-shit clunker went up and over the green, rolled along full force, knocking over the community notice board, then it crashed through the barrier that separated the sea from the dock and went in head first, straight into the water.
Fuck.
I hated Fridays.
