Craving Constellations by Nicole Jacquelyn Page B

could, and his shoulders rocked back. As soon as I tried to scramble away, he wrapped both arms around me and leaned his chest into mine. My arms were completely immobile, and he dropped his head, so our faces were less than an inch apart.
    “You don’t need to worry about Kendra. I’ll worry about that. Hear me?”
    I glared back at him, not willing to have this conversation.
    “You hear me, Brenna? That’s none of your business.”
    His arms gave me a little shake, so I nodded, still refusing to say anything.
    “You say you got no man?” He waited a minute for an answer, but I didn’t say anything. “You just crawl in any man’s lap and bawl your eyes out? Huh? You just let any man crawl in bed with you and my daughter, curled up like a bunch of puppies?”
    I gasped at what he was insinuating. “Of course not! She didn’t even sleep with Tony and me!” Then, I realized the trap I’d walked right into.
    “You got any other man’s name tattooed on your belly?” he asked quietly.
    “It’s not your name.” I clenched my jaw tightly.
    “You have Draco tattooed on your belly,” he reminded me as if I didn’t know exactly what was written there.
    “Yes.” I nodded. “That’s not your name.”
    “We just pretending we don’t know what Draco means?” he asked incredulously.
    “I told you. It’s not for you.” I was beginning to panic at the direction this conversation was going.
    “Yeah, okay, Brenna. You wanna pretend like you and me aren’t what we are, that’s fine. I’m not gonna pretend. I’m not takin’ your bullshit either. Baby, I’ve been waitin’ five years for you. That shit’s never gone away. So, you can bitch and moan and make your own life miserable, or you can suck it the fuck up and get on the same page with me. I’m not goin’ anywhere.”
    I opened my mouth to argue that he was wrong, but Trix slammed open the door and jumped up onto the bed.
    “Hi, Mama! Whatcha doin’?” She looked back and forth between Dragon and me curiously.
    I was trying to inconspicuously pull myself out of his arms, but he wasn’t letting go.
    “Morning, baby girl. You hungry?” I asked her, trying to act like I wasn’t lying under a man she’d met just two weeks ago.
    She’d never seen anything even remotely like this when we lived with Tony. She had known not to come into our bedroom.
    “Yeah, can I have yogurt for breakfast? We have the good kind in the fridge. I checked!” She started squirming like she was in a hurry.
    “Sure. You remember where the spoons are? Next to the fridge in the drawer,” I answered her as she climbed back off the bed. “Sit up at the table!” I called, but she had already run down the small hallway, leaving my bedroom door wide open.
    “I think she just wanted to see what we were doin’ in here,” Dragon said with a smile.
    “Get off me! What the hell is a matter with you? She’s four! She doesn’t need to see some strange man in my bed, lying on top of me.”
    I finally slid away from him and crawled to the edge of the bed, climbing down and spinning around to send a glare his way. I expected him to laugh at me or be pissed. I figured with his hot and cold personality, it could really go either way at this point. What I didn’t expect was for him to stand up and pull on his jeans with a completely blank expression on his face. I stood there stupidly, trying to figure out where his head was at, as he pulled on his T-shirt, and I caught another glimpse of the tattoos covering his torso. They looked like little dots all over his skin. I couldn’t see them very well, but it looked like they covered his whole chest and stomach. When he finished dressing, he walked around the bed and stood, looking down at me. I was frozen to the spot by his complete lack of expression.
    “I’m not a stranger. I’m her dad. She knows I’m her dad. Don’t know who fuckin’ told her. I’m just glad I didn’t have to explain it. She’ll get used to me