by Evelyn Kiss
Dear Lord. His voice is liquid, pouring into my heart as if it were a cup and filling it to maximum capacity. I’m grateful for the space between our bodies because if he touches me right now, the liquid will spill over and flow into every single piece of me, dulling my senses.
That can’t happen. I need my tongue to be sharp, so it could cut right through his bullshit. I tilt my head to the side, distancing myself from his lips and his raspy voice.
He picks up on my brusque movement and stands up straighter, tightening his shoulders. I fix him with a hard stare, conveying how unwelcome his comments are. Now that I have his attention, I set his pretentious ass in place. “I don’t normally repeat mistakes.”
His brow raises, and then he glances over his shoulders, checking for Dax and Ace. They are both watching us, but Teagan has disappeared, which leaves me even more on edge. Being alone with these three isn’t conducive to my “try and stay calm” philosophy. The more nervous I get, the less of a filter I have.
I scrape my hands down my jeans, rubbing away the dampness. They are definitely working my nerves by staring at me, waiting for me to say something. I gently fist my hands and release them again in attempts to stop the tingling sensation in my fingertips.
Santiago smirks as he studies my actions. I hate that he can pick up on my body language, so I relax and start to pack up my things.
“You don’t have to leave because of me.” How the hell does he manage to meld his pretentious attitude with that sexy voice and still use enough infliction to tell me I’m not worthy of being in his presence?
I roll my eyes. He doesn’t need to say much for me to get what he’s saying. I throw my bag over my shoulder and glare at him. “I think I should. Your ego is crowding the room.”
I glance over at Dax and Ace, making sure they know my comment is meant for the three of them and then fixate on Santiago again. “I get that you’re in a band, and you obviously think every girl’s heart beats just for you, but it wouldn’t kill you to stick your ego up your asshole.”
Teagan picks that exact moment to emerge from the bathroom. “What did you guys do?” Her eyes glance over me, taking in the tension in the air.
“Nothing, Tee.” I walk past Santiago, ignoring the way his eyes are glued to me. Thankfully, Dax and Ace are no longer paying attention, and I make it to the doorway without passing out from the rapid heartbeat. “Thanks for helping me today. See you in class on Monday.”
Teagan nods, frowning as her eyes bounce between the three guys in the room. “See you.”
8
Demands
Santiago.
“Bet it’s been a while since someone called you out on your shit, Chains.” Aysen pats me on the back as he makes his way over to the couch. He nods toward Dax. “Lock the door before she decides to come back and teach Chains a lesson.”
I didn’t want to bring Lexi into this. My brother’s already shitting himself over the meeting being postponed, and I didn’t want the society holding her over my head. But she was real nice to look at, naked. And after the images of Hannah with all those guys, I couldn’t wait to bury myself in pussy again. Wouldn’t mind it being hers. “She can teach me a lesson any day. I might not remember much about last night, but the way she rode me is very fresh on my mind.”
Dax locks the door, comes over, and sits on the opposite end of the couch. I sit in Lexi’s spot and wait for Teagan to join us again.
Aysen chuckles. “Got to love a girl who isn’t afraid of taking the top.”
Dax’s eyes wander over to Teagan, lingering on her backside then runs his hands down his junk before focusing back on us. “Maybe we should get down to business.”
Hmm.
Teagan joins us, carrying three beers in her hands. She shoves one in my face, stunning me. My eyes shoot up to hers, and she looks pissed. “Lexi is not a toy, Santiago.”
“Come on, Tee.” I smile. “I didn’t know she was your friend. Or that she went to school here.”
Well, maybe I did know she went to Vonwest, but I’m going to stick with that little white lie.
She sits between both guys and smiles. “Well, now you know. Keep her out of society business and your permanent Hannah hangover.”
Hannah. Gunner and Maddox’s words come rushing back to me.
“There’s a reason I came over early.” I don’t mention that I just met with Dax, Ace, and the Council to discuss Rosalie. The less Teagan knows about the hunt, the better. Though, Dax and Ace did mention Teagan knows the secret about Hannah is out. She has no clue about the envelope; she just thinks Gunner confessed.
“What is it?” Dax asks in a serious tone.
“What do you think it’s about?” Aysen sips his beer. “Hannah was a whore, and Chains just got the revelation.” It amazes me how easily it is for them to admit. I guess it was a good thing Rosalie resurfaced, or I would never know the truth.
“Yeah.” I lock eyes with Teagan, remembering what she said the night Hannah died. Dax and Aysen wouldn’t have told me, but Tee. That one hurt a little bit.
“I’m sorry,” she says, but there is no excuse for not telling me. She could have saved me the agony of the last year. I’ve been going out of my mind, missing her, mourning her loss, only to find out she never really loved me like I loved her. What a fucking waste of time.
“You knew?” I confirm, even though it isn’t necessary.
“Everyone knew, man.” Dax grabs Teagan’s hand and intertwines their fingers, reassuring her.
“It wasn’t our place to say anything.” Teagan’s voice is silky soft, making it hard for me to be angry at her.
“Hannah would have castrated anyone who mentioned it.” Aysen leans against the armrest, bored with the situation.
The corners of my mouth twitch as I watch their dynamic. Aysen doesn’t seem to mind where Dax’s hands are, or how comfortable the two of them seem. Perhaps, I was wrong about my initial assumption, and it isn’t Teagan and Aysen, but Teagan and Daxton.
I lean back on the couch. It’s not like I could say anything. They were all above me, and they held the reigns. So, I shut my mouth and change the subject. “So, what do you need me to do?”
“There’s a big distributor on campus, but we have no idea who it is.”
Big distributor. “Is he the recruit?”
“Yes,” Tegan lets me in.
“Flushing him out isn’t going to be easy. He probably has runners and minors doing the dirty work.”
Dax shakes his head in agreement. “We have a lead on one of the minors.”
“A theater major,” Aysen says between sips. “He just offered me uppers.”
I lean forward, resting my elbows on my thighs. “Okay. So, how is it going down?”
“We are having a party!” Aysen grins goofily. “Might as well embrace the college life since we are forced to be here.”
“Yes,” Teagan interjects. “But I don’t know how you plan on mixing everyone. Vonwest is a small school, not many theater majors chill with athletes.”
I groan. “This sounds like high school all over again.”
Dax releases Teagan’s hand and runs his palms over his face before releasing a frustrated grumble that sounds like, “Don’t remind me.” But no one seems to care, or they are used to him complaining about attending.
“Tee, you are overthinking this. We are all in different social circles; it will be fine. Everyone loves a party.” Aysen stretches his feet out to rest on the coffee table, placing his shoes on top of her notebook.
She knocks them off the table with her shoe.
“True, and with enough booze, you don’t really care about the people you’re slamming down shots with.” Teagan still seems doubtful, but I think she’s just nervous.
“So, what am I supposed to do?”
Daxton answers, “We’ll spread the word on you dealing. Finn will be here. He isn’t the confrontation type of guy, but he will report back to his supplier. We need to flush him out, or ge
t him to react so we can trace him.”
“Then, we convince him to take his business elsewhere.” Aysen likes that idea a little too much.
Teagan waits for him to finish then adds. “You’ll probably have to send us a schedule so we can plan things when you’re free.”
I didn’t expect her to accommodate the music. “Thanks, Tee.”
She shrugs a shoulder, then lowers her voice so dangerously low that it catches me off guard. “But Lexi?”
I get the message. “Best behavior with her.”
“Don’t promise things you don’t plan on doing,” Aysen jokes. “Our little Teagan is becoming vicious.”
“I’m not vicious,” she sulks. “It’s called shielding my friends from my world because I care about them.”
“Jonah too?” Aysen jabs back at her.
She lunges for him, but Daxton catches her by the waist and sits her on his lap, placing a soft kiss to her shoulder.
“We’ll talk about that later,” he whispers, subduing her and Aysen.
“So, are all the other girls off limits?” I try to alleviate the tension between them. “I think a little flirting will help push the product.”
“Whatever,” she says, standing up. “Just stay away from my friends. I’ll make sure you know who they are at the party.”
“Put an X on the guys. We’ll make sure they don’t bother you again.” Aysen is dead serious. “No more impromptu study dates.”
Daxton holds my gaze for a minute before he intervenes in a low, authoritative command. “Shut up about Jonah. We need to discuss other things.”
“Fine,” Aysen agrees as he gets up and stalks toward her. Daxton leans back, spreading his legs and making himself comfortable.
“The interception?” I ask.
Daxton and Aysen react exactly the same way: flared nostrils and a whole lot of pissed off. Tegan rolls her eyes. “We leave Sunday night.”
“I’m sorry, we?” Aysen grabs her shoulder and forces her to look at him. “That wasn’t the deal. No fucking way you’re going.”
“So, you want me to stay behind?” She curls her finger around his hand and shoves it off her. “She’s my cousin. You aren’t going anywhere without me.” Teagan swivels her hand toward Daxton. “Neither of you. We all go, let’s make it a bike run or something.”
Daxton speaks up. “You don’t just bike run into Old Ridge, babe.”
Babe? So, it is her and Daxton, which would explain why Aysen is so pissed.
“The Mafia isn’t like us. They shoot first and ask questions later.” He looks to me for help, but I have nothing to offer. “What about flying into Chicago?”
“How do we hide that from the Council?” I ask, as I remember what Gunner and Maddox told me. “Hannah used to go to Chicago, to some club. Unita.”
Teagan’s eyes pop up at the mention of the name. “Isabella mentioned it. It’s some kind of sex club.”
Daxton gets up and points at Tegan before bending down to grab something from his gym bag. “I don’t want you going anywhere near there. We aren’t doing a bike run to Unita. We shouldn’t even be doing this.”
Finally, someone with a brain.
“No, we should do a bike run.” Aysen nods, causing Daxton’s body to ripple in angry waves. “It’s a great idea. We aren’t a motorcycle club, just college kids on bikes getting away for a weekend. We call it in, saying we are passing through.”
Daxton eases up at Aysen’s comment. “Fine. East Coast to Chicago.”
I’m not exactly sure what just happened, but I don’t care. I want to get into that fucking club and find out what my ex was up to. “I’ll get my bike checked. We leave Sunday night?”
“No, you and Daxton leave Sunday night. Me and Tee, don’t ride bitch.” Aysen shoots Teagan a wide grin. “You can’t get mad, baby. It was your idea. You forgot you didn’t have a bike.”
Baby? Oh shit. Majority rules. “You three are together?”
All of them cut their gaze to me, but it’s Teagan who pleads with me not to push. But I have to because this is why they want to start new. Founding families can’t cross once on the Council. Under any circumstance. Doing so relinquishes the right to the seat.
“We know.” Aysen drags his hands down his face.
Daxton threatens, “And you need to shut your mouth about it.”
9
Commonalities
Lexi
There is not enough tea in the world to calm me down. My mind is all over the place and Teagan grilling me about Santiago wasn’t helping the nervous jitters.
Geez. How the hell was I supposed to know Santiago was friends with her and that I would be forced to see him at this stupid party tonight? Actually, sounds like I am going to be seeing a lot of him. Teagan just finished telling me about how close they were and how he will probably be stopping by a lot.
Funny, because I never heard her mention his name before.
On the other hand, I haven’t stopped thinking about that shit head since I met him. He has an air of mystery to him that keeps my curiosity piqued. I thought after all his asshole comments, it would dwindle, but I was dead wrong. I spent most of the night remembering how he moved inside me.
I have had plenty one night stands since Steve, but none like that. Orgasms I was familiar with, but orgasms that made my vision go white and my whole-body pulse… those I want more of.
Chains knew exactly how to get me there. It’s as if our bodies communicated, and he hung on every word my body told him. I tried convincing myself it was from all the practice, a skill he mastered, but it felt like more than that.
Feeling more for a guy like Santiago is exactly what I shouldn’t be feeling. He was a one-time thing. I wanted to know what all the hype was about, and now that I know, how the hell do I block it from infiltrating every single thought that pops into my head?
Distance might help, but he is going to be around all the time. I’m going to see him, and have my lady bells jingling. Plus, he scares the hell out of me, yet exhilarates me all at the same time.
I enjoyed stepping up to him, knocking him down a peg in front of his friends. It made me feel powerful, like I held some sway over him.
I’m not delusional though. I’m fantasizing and idealizing, making something out of nothing. He’s a rebel musician with more baggage then a freight train could carry. And I have a feeling it isn’t all about Hannah. She might have messed with him, but guys like him are magnets for irrevocable occurrences — things that dig deep into the soul and bury themselves in their spirit. They eventually disintegrate, meld with the basic components of what makes them, and there is no coming back from that. Nothing can ever separate it from him again.
I should know.
Steven was the only thing constant in my life. Childhood isn’t easy when you never have a chance to be a child. I was more of an adult than my mother. While she was off, sleeping her way down my class roster, I took care of my little brother. We were only a year apart, but I was making him toast at seven years old and drinking coffee at six. I forged my mother’s signature on all his school things and made sure he kept up with everything. Ian was smart, brilliant, a full out nerd who loved baseball. He was going places, and I made sure of that. I stole money from my mom’s purse, just so I could give him that.
One day, she caught me. Smacked the shit out of me, and when he intervened, she shoved him. He fell, hit his head hard and was out of it for a few minutes. When he woke up, he pulled my mom off of me and threw her out of the house. She was spiraling on some drug, and she wouldn’t remember it in the morning. We spent the rest of the night watching television and taking turns making sure she didn’t break-in. I took the first watch because Ian had a headache and wanted to sleep.
Ian never woke up for his shift. Doctor’s said it didn’t often happen, but in some rare instances, traumatic head injury could cause brain bleeding. He slipped into a coma, and about two weeks later, my mother pulled the plug. She checked into rehab, and
I met my dad at Ian’s funeral. He and my mom had flings that resulted in two babies. He didn’t want us because he had a whole other life in Illinois, but he took me in. He even lived a few blocks from my house. He was also the pharmacist at Zoren’s. I’ve known my father all my life, and he knew I was his daughter, but my brother and I were just a secret.
If he hadn’t pretended like we didn’t exist, Ian would still be alive. If my mother wasn’t such a druggy whore, Ian would still be alive. The people who created us were the ones who destroyed us. I hated everything and everyone, except Steve. He helped me through it because he loved me more than they ever could. But he didn’t love me at all.
I might have buried a piece of myself with my brother, but Steve dragged the remaining piece through the fire and incinerated it. I lost everything, every sense of self that I clung to. I only had one choice: to start over.
I’ve tried to start over thirty-seven times. Every day it gets harder. I become emptier, and further away from the girl I need myself to be. I chose psychology to help people, but I can’t even help myself.
Santiago is the first time I felt something since Steven. The first time I actually cared. But I know, caring for him will just add to the heartbreak. His damage combined with my damage will be a catastrophe. Healing can’t be done by two broken people. That never works.
That’s why Teagan is right.
“So, I know I shouldn’t be asking this, but what’s going on between you and Santiago?” she asks. We’ve always talked about guys. Shit, I knew details about her and Jonah that not even remembers. She might have forgotten, but Jonah didn’t.
I smile softly and swallow all the hopeful thoughts that threaten to take over. “Nothing.” Even if there was something I couldn’t go there. No matter how weak he made me, or how nervous I got around him, nothing was going to happen. “We slept together, that’s it.”
Teagan pats my hand gently. “You know banging your way around town isn’t going to make Steven’s betrayal hurt any less.”