Provoking the Enemy

by M. E. Clayton

  I thought I had been saved.

  I thought her walking in on us had been a Godsend. I thought she was going to save me and destroy the enemy.

  Instead, she had taken me aside, and while she asked all the right questions, it hadn’t been because she was going to throw the bastard in jail.

  No.

  It had been to protect herself and Peter from possible unflattering accusations on my part.

  The only thing that had changed after that day was that Peter had been banned from our house. But she had still continued to date him and had promised him I wouldn’t say a word. And even if I had, no one would have believed me if my own mother hadn’t believed my claims.

  It was the day my had soul died.

  I could tell you the exact date, time, and place when my soul had died, and it’s been dead.

  “What do you want, Mom?” I asked because it was pointless to point out what a worthless human being she was.

  “What I want is for you not to ruin things like you always do, Ava,” she retorted. “Greg needs our help with his son and that’s what he’s going to get. I don’t need you running off another great guy because you’re ugly and ungrateful on the inside.”

  I laughed. “Who cares if Greg comes to his senses and runs off?” I challenged. “You’ll just have another guy in your bed before he clears the goddamn sidewalk. You think I’m the reason you can’t keep a man?” I shook my head. “Have you ever thought it might be because you can’t keep your legs closed?”

  I didn’t see the slap coming, but I was braced for it, anyway. That was Elise’s standard way to win an argument. Eyes that matched mine burned into my face. “Don’t think that just because I’m not home much, I don’t know all about you Ava. You’re the last person who should be mentioning opened legs.”

  Not home much? How about never home. I shrugged a shoulder appearing unaffected when I really wanted to punch her in the face. “Well, what can I say, Mother. I got an early start and developed a taste for getting fucked. Nothing like a man’s cock buried deep inside a warm, tight, young pussy. Right, Mom?” Her face was so red, all the blood vessels in her face were in real danger of bursting open. After a few seconds, she turned around and stormed out of my room.

  I stood staring, and as my mother rushed out in such a rage, she hadn’t noticed a very stoic-looking Ace McIntire standing to the left of the door’s threshold. I lifted my chin, daring him to say something, and we stayed like that for an entire minute before he turned on his heels and walked away.

  It was going to be a long summer.

  Chapter 4

  Ace~

  I wasn’t happy to be here, and I wasn’t going to pretend otherwise for my father, for Elise, or for Ava. The only reason I was here was because it was one thing to have a juvenile criminal record, it was another thing to have an adult criminal record. My mother couldn’t handle me anymore, and while my father has been a nonfactor growing up, he still sent a check every month and Hs paid enough attorneys that I’ve never spent longer than a week in jail.

  While my mother didn’t care about appearances, my father did. If he could have kept me a secret, I was sure he would have, but he couldn’t. He’d had actually been married to my mother, and for the first few years of my life, we had been one big happy family. That had come to a crashing halt, though, when my father had decided to cash my mother in for newer, hotter, younger model.

  He had met some woman on a business trip, and it hadn’t been long before he was always away on business. My mother had found out, divorced him, and had used me as a leveraging chip to make him miserable. Only it hadn’t worked. My father had been so enrapt with his new girlfriend, he hadn’t cared if he saw me or not. He hadn’t cared about anything but making money and that woman’s pussy. It’s funny, though. She helped break up my parents’ marriage, but I couldn’t remember her name for shit. Hell, there have been so many women in between her and Elise, I had doubts my dad even remembers her name.

  So, in a quest to prove she didn’t need my father, my mother had gone on a partying binge that had put 80s rock bands to shame. She drank, smoked, did drugs, fucked every guy with a hard cock…you name it, she had done it. And, lucky me, I had been there to witness it all.

  And while my father was as absent as you could get, all his colleagues, friends, our family, they all knew I existed, so it wouldn’t look good for him to have a son in jail. My boundaries were far and wide, but I fucked up when I crossed them.

  I had managed to escape a manslaughter charge legally, but morally, the weight was like an albatross around my neck. The courts had viewed it as self-defense, but I knew better. I knew the second Jerry Tremble had had enough. I knew the second I had made my point, and he had been done for.

  But what had I done?

  I had kept right on hitting that fucker because I was angry and needed to purge the hate in my heart. Sadly enough, it hadn’t worked. I was still angry and still had a tremendous amount of hate in my heart.

  The only thing that had saved me, besides Dad’s expensive-as-fuck attorney, were the numerous amount of witnesses who had testified that Jerry had come after me. And while that was true, the part that wasn’t was what really had gotten me off.

  Dad had paid Erica Leeds to testify that I’d had been trying to help her to safety when Jerry had attacked me, and no one had disputed that fact. And because Erica had been the girl I had caught Jerry raping, the jury had viewed me as a hero. I knew Erica would have testified for me anyway, but the cash my dad had given her had turned her statement into fact.

  The truth was that I wasn’t a hero. Yeah, I grabbed that motherfucker off her, but I hadn’t done it only to save her. I had done it with the full intent on killing him. Rapists and pedophiles were the scourge of the earth, and I had been on a mission to rid the world of one more. No matter what the justice system had decided, I knew the truth. The only problem?

  I would do it again.

  I would do it in a heartbeat if I ever stumbled upon the same scene I had that night. I wasn’t sorry for my actions, much to Greg’s dismay. However, he hadn’t wasted the opportunity to boast about his son, the hero. I wasn’t confused, though. I knew he didn’t want to deal with me because, at any given moment, I could blow his cover. And I had no problem doing so if it served my purpose.

  The only reason I had agreed to come with him was because I had crossed the line of morality and had killed someone, and I knew something had to give. My mother’s corrupt lifestyle had shaped me into an unconscionable human being, so it was time to give my father’s neglect a chance. After all, it was only for three months. I could do anything for three months.

  Or, at least, I had thought so until I laid eyes on Ava Hill. Having her body pressed up against me had fucked with me something serious.

  My dick had been hard ever since she opened her mouth, but when she had threatened to murder me for grabbing her ass, I had wanted to drag her down on the pavement by the pool and fuck her like a filthy whore. I had wanted to ram my cock into every hole until she passed out from pleasure or pain. I had wanted her like I’ve never wanted anything in my life.

  The only problem was that it appeared that Ava Hill might be harboring just as much hate in her soul as I was. From the second she first opened her mouth, you could hear her contempt for life drip from every word she spoke. She was full of so many tangled emotions that, from the little that I had overheard, she was trying to fuck those emotions under control.

  I had originally gone upstairs just to harass her a little, but I hadn’t counted on Elise being in her room. I figured since Greg and Elise had left us standing outside together, they were wherever they were together. I had stood outside Ava’s bedroom, and not even trying to hide or pretend I wasn’t eavesdropping, overheard what sounded like a fight between two teenage girls. Elise had been just as snide and catting as Ava had been. They fought almost as if they were sisters who had hard dirt on one another.

  I had overheard Ava admitti
ng she was a slut, and I wondered if that was her only vice. Did she drink? Smoke? Do drugs? Did she fight? Did she have any friends? I was hard pressed to believe she had any friends if she slept around as loosely as she had claimed. Girls were funny that way. They had no problem vying for the affections of a guy who fucked everything that moved, but they were downright vicious towards girls who did the same damn thing.

  “You’re going to stay away from Ava, Ace,” my father’s voice said, breaching the silence in the kitchen. I had come in here to grab something to drink, but it was mostly just to do something with myself. I wasn’t ready to unpack, but I needed to find something to do before I stormed into Ava’s room, locking us both behind the door.

  I turned around to face him. “Make up your mind, Dad,” I said, cocking my head. “Either you want her to make me feel at home here, making her have to spend time with me, or you want me to stay away from her. Which is it?”

  He crossed his arms over his chest, and just for the pettiness of it, I liked how I filled out more than he did. I could kick his ass if it came down to it. “Look,” he started, “regardless of the outcome of the trial, we both know you should be rotting in Hell right now, Ace. Don’t stomp on my good graces, son. It won’t turn out in your favor.”

  I shrugged a shoulder. “Rotting in prison, maybe, but Hell? Nah, I don’t think so,” I replied. “It might not be my place to be judge, jury, and executioner, but I don’t regret what I did. He was raping her, Dad.”

  He dropped his arms and let out a sigh. “Of course, that’s not what I meant, Ace. Of course, no girl deserves to be raped or abused. But you didn’t have to kill him to make your point.”

  “Please, don’t speak to me about morals and ethics, Dad,” I laughed. “You’re the last person who should be spewing advice on how to live piously.”

  “I’ve never killed or raped anyone, Ace,” he pointed out.

  “Says you,” I chuckled. “But the sins we can prove are adultery, abandonment, neglect, greed-”

  “That’s enough,” he said, finally snapping.

  “Oh, so, it’s okay to lay out all my sins on the table, but we still have to keep a squeaky-clean image for your sugar momma?”

  “You know damn well I have my own money,” he snapped back, and I had to laugh at the fact that, out of everything I just said, that’s what he’s focusing on.

  “What do you want, Dad?” I asked. “Did you really just seek me out to tell me not to fuck Ava?” His jaw clenched, and I smirked.

  Refined people made me laugh. They tried so hard to shun crass, crude language or behaviors when they were just as bad as the rest of us in private. At least Ava and I weren’t hypocrites.

  “I am not going to have you ruining my relationship with Elise because you want to toy with Ava, Ace,” he stated.

  “What makes you think I’d be toying with her?” I countered. “How do you know it’s not love at first sight?”

  “And if I marry Elise? What then?” he asked. “Ava will be your stepsister.” Was it bad that my dick hardened behind the kitchen island at that sentence?

  “Trust me, Dad,” I said, instead of telling him how much I would love for Ava to be my naughty, little stepsister, “Ava hates me being here every bit as much as I hate being here. The last thing you’re going to see from us is a love match.”

  “Three months, Ace,” he replied. “Three months and you can go off to college and start your own life.” I didn’t comment as he turned around and walked out of the kitchen.

  Three months.

  Three months, and everyone and their mother could go fuck themselves.

  Chapter 5

  Ava~

  “Wake up, sleepyhead,” said a voice hovering over my ear.

  “No,” I mumbled back, pulling a pillow over my head.

  “Nuh uh, chick,” said that same voice I used to love. “You’re getting your ass up and telling me why you came knocking on the door at midnight, sober and pissed to hell.”

  The pillow was ripped from my face, giving me no choice but to wake up. “Goddamn it, Delaney,” I whined. “It’s like…six in the morning.”

  “Correction, it’s almost noon. And it’s time for you to get up and tell me the details of whatever led you to my doorstep last night,” she retorted.

  I sat up with the flair of a pre-teen drama queen and stink-eyed my best friend. “What kind of friend are you, waking me out of my slumber? After all I’ve done for you, too,” I mumbled.

  Delaney laughed, and I begrudgingly smiled. Delaney Martin was my best friend, and she was the only person in my life who accepted me with all my flaws. Sometimes I felt guilty for not telling her all my secrets, but I loved how she didn’t know why I was the way I was but loved me anyway. “Are you hungry? There’s some leftover breakfast.”

  “Where’s your man?” Deke and Delaney have only been dating a few months, but the guy was nuts about her. If we were all somewhere together, and she wasn’t by his side, his eyes were always tracking her. Delaney had fallen for him hard and she had moved in with him almost immediately. They adored one another, and I was truly happy for her.

  “He took off to Ramsey and Emerson’s when he realized we were going to need some private girl time,” Delaney said smiling. “So, spill because you know he can’t stay away long.”

  I felt a pang in my chest at her words. I was happy for Delaney, I really was. If anyone deserved to be happy, it was her. She was a good person, inside and out. The unfortunate part about her finding the love of her life was that I was around her new friends more than I preferred.

  It wasn’t that they treated me badly, but when you’ve never been loved before, being around relationships that defined the very existence of soulmates, well…it hurt to watch sometimes.

  Deke, Ramsey, and Liam have been best friends forever, and once Deke fell for Delaney, she automatically became a part of their little group. Deke loved Delaney to distraction, and he wasn’t afraid to show it. Liam loved Roselyn like she was an extension of him, and he was always with her. As for Ramsey, Ramsey and Emerson had a love story for the ages. Ramsey would rip his still-beating heart out of his chest for Emerson if that’s what she asked. So, yeah, watching that kind of devotion in action sometimes brought on unpleasant feelings. Not to mention, I’ve slept with Ramsey and Liam before, and while Emerson and Roselyn had assured me that they weren’t hung up on the past, I knew they only tolerated me for Delaney’s sake. It didn’t matter that I slept with them back in middle school and could barely remember the incidents with all the guys that have come and gone since then. I slept with the men they loved. There’s no way I’d ever really be a part of their crowd.

  Ever.

  And I got it. I really did.

  I was a slut; a proud one, at that. I couldn’t say I’d feel comfortable with the man I loved hanging around a girl who he’s fucked before and was a whore. But as long as they didn’t take Delaney away from me completely, I’d be okay.

  “Fine. But let me get to that leftover breakfast before I spill,” I grumbled. “I’m going to need sustenance.”

  We made our way to the kitchen and Delaney gave me enough time to drop my ass on the chair before she demanded I spill again. So, I told her everything. I told her how I had originally thought Ace was my mother latest dick. I told her about my mom and Greg dropping their little bomb on me. I even told her about rubbing my tits all over Ace. The only thing I had left out was the argument in my bedroom. I hoped one day I’d be able to tell Delaney my horrible secret, but I knew today wasn’t that day.

  “Holy shit, Ava,” she breathed out. “Holy shit.”

  I stabbed the waffles with my fork. “Tell me about it,” I mumbled.

  “So, you ran here last night because…?” she prompted.

  “I couldn’t be in that house with them, Delaney,” I confessed. “I hate when Elise is in town and she tries to act like my mother.” Delaney nodded silently because she understood. She was another victim of shitty par
ents. We all were. “Two weeks is two weeks too long.”

  She looked at me from across the table and asked, “Do you want to stay here until they leave?”

  My heart lurched, and once again, I was grateful for Delaney. She knew I was a whore who slept with whoever. She knew I drank like a fish and snorted coke like a rock star. She knew I was bad news, but she still trusted me to stay with her in the same house as her hot-as-fuck boyfriend. “No,” I whispered. “I don’t want to intrude, Delaney.”

  Her face softened. “Ava, Deke won’t care if-”

  “Of course, he won’t care if it’s something you want, Delaney,” I interrupted. “But I would feel uncomfortable.” She knew how I felt guilty for Ramsey and Liam, no matter what pass the girls had given me.

  “So, what are you going to do?”

  “Well, I’m going to go home as soon as your man gets back, take a nap, then shower and get ready for Christof’s party tonight,” I replied. “Are you guys going?”

  She shrugged a shoulder. “We might, but honestly, I’m not sure. Ever since Ramsey and Emerson got married, things have…changed.”

  I furrowed my brows. “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know, Ava,” she said, gnawing at her lower lip. “I know technically we’re all adults, but it feels as if Ramsey marrying Emerson has thrust us all into real, actual adulthood, you know.” She leaned closer. “Like…they’re actually married, Ava. They’re a married couple.”

  “And?” I asked. “How does that affect you?”

  “I think by the time summer’s over, Liam and Roselyn will be married next,” she blurted out. “I think Liam might not even wait until summer is over. He gets…weird every time Emerson’s rings catch his attention.”

  My eyes rounded. “Do you think…holy shit, Delaney. Do you think Deke’s going to propose?”

  She shook her head. “I honestly don’t know, Ava.”

  “What would you say if he did?” Holy crap. It never occurred to me that Deke would propose to Delaney so soon, or even Liam proposing to Roselyn. Ramsey and Emerson were different. But even knowing this, I never guessed they might be contagious, too.