by Angel Lawson
If I thought that wild, feral, hungry thing in my chest had abated since that day in the treehouse, then I was so fucking wrong. If anything, it’s just worse, this aching rawness that keeps wanting and wanting.
I help her shimmy her shorts and panties down her legs, baring all of her body to me. My hands can’t find one place to settle. They keep making confused circuits over her thighs, tits, neck, the smooth skin of her back, down to her ass.
When she shoves my underwear far enough down my thighs to feel me against her wet heat, I break away from her eager mouth, panting.
“Wait, I don’t have anything.”
She rests her forehead against mine, chest heaving. “It doesn’t matter, I’m on the—I’m on birth control.” She’s rubbing against me as she explains this, and my cock, throbbing hard, is trapped between my belly and all that hot slickness.
“Shit,” I hiss, mindlessly grinding up into her, and maybe it’s a mistake. Maybe I need to be heeding the hell out of my dad’s ‘rubber’ advice right now. Maybe Vandy needs to wait and see that goddamned video so she knows, for sure, that me and Sydney never happened.
But when things sort of… slot into place, and she sinks down, I just grab her hips and hold on.
“Oh my fucking god…” I grind my head back into the pillow, eyes sliding closed at the feel of it. She’s so wet and tight, skin to skin, pushing down onto me, my face screws up in pure pleasure.
“Reyn,” she gasps, rocking down, taking me in slowly. “Is this…?”
I wrench my eyes open to look at her, taking in the crease between her brows, the way her eyelids are low and heavy, how her pink tongue looks when it swipes out to wet her lips.
I grab her hips and roll us over. It’s not incredibly smooth and I have to shoot a hand out to catch us before we fall off the bed. She barks a mirthful laugh that she seems surprised by, but it cracks through the intensity and tension. The charged air between us grows as soft and warm as the light coming in through the window.
I bracket her face with my arm and brush the hair out of her eyes. She’s looking up at me so happily—so hopefully. “I love you, you know that?”
The mirth in her eyes shifts to something focused and acute. “I know,” she replies, running a warm palm up my back. “I love you, too.”
I kiss the words away, planting a hand into the mattress for leverage as I rock into her. She whimpers into my mouth, thighs clamping around my hips, nails digging into my shoulder. It’s slow and quiet, the way I move in her, hips meeting her body in long, unhurried thrusts. There’s a muted, barely-there squeak to her mattress, and everything feels so sharply real. The way her blue eyes watch me, the taste of mint on her tongue, the sound of her hitched breaths, the way that ray of sunlight catches on the fan of her lashes, fluttering against her cheek.
She moves with me, meeting my rhythm, teeth sinking into her lip when she finds just the right way to grind up against me.
I breathe a low, “That’s it,” watching my girl discovering what feels good like this—with me—against me. My jaw’s already tightening under the strain of holding on, fist curling into the sheets beneath my hand. I press a slow, tugging kiss to her lip. “Can you come like this, baby?”
That little divot between her eyebrows is growing deeper and deeper. She nods, eyes glazing over, planting her feet on the bed to rock up against me harder.
It’s hard, holding on. I’ve never done it like this before—without something between my dick and her. It’s so good that my legs are trembling with the strain of not just fucking senselessly, rabidly, into her. But fuck, I want to feel her come around me.
It isn’t long before her jaw begins dropping, head thrown back into the pillow, eyes slammed shut as she climbs. I suck a kiss into her neck, twisting my hips forward and forward, and I can feel it before she shudders, the tight clench of her pussy around me, thighs clamping hard around my hips.
She releases this sound—this maddening little cry—that completely breaks me. I slam forward and back mindlessly, grunts trapped in the back of my throat, and come with a hard punch of breath.
She sucks in a soft gasp at the feel of it, but cards her fingers through my hair as I come down, heels sliding lazily down my thighs.
“Fuck, that’s,” I pant, lungs burning. “That’s the best sex I’ve ever had.” I regret saying it as soon as it emerges. Not because it isn’t completely true—because it is. But because this wasn’t just about the sex.
Vandy is fucking beaming, though. “For me, too.”
“Well, yeah,” I laugh breathlessly, rolling off of her. “Since it probably didn’t hurt this time.” And then I turn to her, worried. “It didn’t, right?”
She curls into my side, fingers grazing over my tattoo. “It didn’t hurt.”
We lay there for a few minutes, catching our breath, but it grows weird really quickly being naked like this in Vandy’s room. Too exposed here, in a place I’m not supposed to be.
“I hate that my brother messed up your pretty face,” she says, reaching up to gently graze my bruised cheek.
“Aubrey’s probably thinking the same thing, but…” In all the panic and grief of last night, I’d completely forgotten to tell her. “We might have worked things out.”
She gets her elbow beneath her and jerks up, eyes wide. “You did?!”
“Might have,” I stress.
She doesn’t look any less buoyed, dropping onto my chest with a big grin. “That’s amazing, Reyn!”
I run my hand down her back. “I need to get home, though. Take a shower. Ice my nose. Find some rice.”
“You’re hungry,” she guesses as I rise, tugging on my shorts.
I give her a look. “For my phone. The video, remember?”
Her face falls. “Reyn, I don’t need to see it. It doesn’t matter, because I believe you.”
I roll my eyes, because as nice as that is to hear... “Look, for once I have some proof that I’m not a fuck-up, and you’re going to watch it.”
The sounds of her protest are lost behind me as I get my damp suit from the bathroom, grimacing as I pull it on. It’s still bloody, only now it’s wrinkled and smells like sweat and old water.
“Talk to Em today, okay?”
She wrinkles her nose distastefully but says, “I will.”
“I’ll call you later,” I say, throwing on my jacket and heading to the window. I push open the frame and sling a leg out, giving her one last look. She’s adorable wrapped up in her blankets, cheeks still flushed from us being together. Seriously, I’d give just about anything to crawl back into bed with her, but the last thing we need is for someone to walk in on us, or for my dad to notice me missing—if he hasn’t already.
I shut the window and look up at the sky, it’s pinkish purple, the sun rising over the lake. I get to the edge and turn, placing my hands on the rooftop. The fall is easy and I land with a quiet thud.
“Don’t move,” someone barks. “Put your hands up, boy.”
The voice rattles me, surprises me, yet at the same time doesn’t. Fuckin’ Jerry. Right on schedule.
“Which is it?” I ask with a snort. “Put my hands up or don’t move. I can’t do both.”
“Goddamn smart-ass mouth,” he sneers, and a moment later his hand flattens against my back, slamming me against the house. My face hits the siding, banging against my lip, reopening the cut. Blood pours hot and bitter against my tongue. He barks some fast orders into his walkie-talkie before breathing down my neck. “I knew I’d catch you. I knew if I kept watching, you’d finally trip up.” His hands are on me, frisking down my sides. As if he has the right to pat me down.
“Get your hands off me, Jerry.” I glance toward the house. Dad’s car is in the driveway. “I want to talk to my Dad.”
“Sure, once the cops get here, you can talk to him all you want. Down at the Sheriff’s station.”
He digs in the front pocket of my pants and pulls out my roll of picks. Shit.
Then h
e goes for my jacket pocket and I twist sharply away. “Get your hands off of me,” I seethe. “You have no right to search me. None. You’re a security guard, not a fucking cop.”
He lunges forward once again and I turn away, but not before he grabs my pocket. Vandy’s pills fall to the ground like confetti, dozens of white circles dotting the ground.
Fucking Jerry crouches down to pluck one up, looking like he’s about to cream his pants with glee.
“Jerry? What’s all this ruckus out here?” a woman’s voice calls. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Mr and Mrs. Hall emerge from behind the browning hydrangea bush, both disheveled from sleep. Mrs. Halls’ eyes flick between us, the scene registering on her face. Mr. Halls’ eyes dart to the second floor. I’m bloody and standing beneath their daughter’s bedroom window, dropping pills all over the ground. I look away, unable to bear their accusatory expressions.
“Reyn,” Mr. Hall says, “what’s going on here?”
Before I can even attempt to get out of this shitshow, Jerry jumps in. “What’s going on here, Mr. and Mrs. Hall, is that I caught this delinquent crawling out of your upstairs window. In his pocket, I confiscated a set of lock-picking paraphernalia, and—as you can plainly see—he’s also in possession of a large quantity of drugs—from the looks of it, prescription painkillers.” He plants his hand into the middle of my back, forcing me against the house again. “Where did you get the drugs, boy? Steal those, too?”
“Steal?” Mrs. Hall asks, her face suddenly cast in the flashing lights of the police cruiser screeching to a halt on the street in front of our houses. Her eyes hold mine and I think for a moment she’s going to put two-plus-two together and connect that the drugs came from Vandy. The flicker of awareness vanishes as quickly as it came. “I had no idea you were struggling like this, Reynolds.”
I swallow back any urge to defend myself. Instead, I say nothing as two deputies approach the scene. Everything that happens next is like sand, slipping through my fingers. Cuffed. Sat on the curb. Asked questions.
I’m not an idiot. I keep my mouth shut. I don’t even nod or shake my head, I just look straight forward.
“This one’s been in trouble before,” Jerry’s saying to one of the deputies. “It was only a matter of time before he reoffended. I’ve been keeping my eye on him. It’s my job,” he boasts, “to keep this community safe.”
Thirty minutes of this bullshit before I’m shoved into the cruiser, ducking to not hit my head. All I want is to get out of here, to get away before Vandy realizes what’s happening and tries to intervene. I led her into trouble once before, I won’t do it again, even if it means I have to take the fall for something I didn’t do.
37
Vandy
A sharp rap on my bedroom door jolts me awake. In a panic, I reach for Reyn, but remember that he’s gone, having snuck out the window approximately—I glance at my clock—an hour ago.
“Vandy, open up,” Dad calls.
“One sec,” I call, scrambling out of bed. I grab a sweatshirt and pull it hastily over my pajamas. I take a quick, nervous glance around the room to see if anything is out of place. Nothing seems to overtly say ‘your daughter got high on painkillers last night, had a boy sleeping in her bed, and then had amazing sex with him’, but I do another circuit, just in case.
Smoothing down my hair, I yank open the door. My father’s standing in the hall, and behind him are two uniformed officers.
I peer at them with wide eyes. “What’s going on?” My mind is instantly a rush of presumptions. Did they find out about the prank? That we broke into the school and did all those things? That we ruined the dance and the fundraiser? Dad’s expression is more concerned than angry, but that’s a weak comfort. I glance down the hall. Emory’s door is still closed. “Dad?”
“These two deputies need to check your room.” He steps aside and lets the two officers enter, so I’m guessing I don’t have a say. Again, my eyes skim the room, differently this time. Did I leave my bra on the back of my desk chair? What about my dirty laundry? Then, I’m seized by a totally different realization.
The pills.
My eyes jump frantically over my bed, but I don’t see them. They were gone last night, when I slid beneath the covers with Reyn. Had he taken them? Had he flushed them? God, did he just stash them somewhere? Will these guys find them?
My heart pounds erratically.
The deputies casually inspect my room, static from their radios echoing harshly off my walls. They note my laptop on my desk, the jewelry scattered on top of my dresser. My phone is charging next to the bed. “Miss? Have you noticed anything missing or out of place?” one of them asks.
The other man walks over to the window, and I watch him fretfully. “N-no.” He lifts the shade and opens the window, eyeing the latch carefully. I turn to my dad. “Did something happen?”
He opens his mouth to speak but then looks down the hall. Emory comes into view, his hair sticking up from sleep and a dark, violet bruise swelling under his eye. Dad’s jaw drops. “What happened to your face?” he asks at the same time Emory says, “What’s going on here?”
“Pick-up game got rowdy,” Emory says first, waving it off. Our eyes meet. It wasn’t a pick-up game and we both know it.
Dad, distracted by the police, nods in blind acceptance before saying, “Reyn was caught this morning outside our house. Jerry says he was climbing off the roof outside Vandy’s window.”
“Jerry?” I ask in a hoarse voice. “He caught Reyn?”
Dad frowns. “He had some lockpicks and some other, uh, contraband on his person.”
Contraband.
The heavy thing that’s been wedged in my throat finally drops. I press my fists into my stomach, begging Emory with my eyes to help.
I stutter out, “Well he wasn’t in here. And I’ve certainly never seen him with drugs.” I hope my voice sounds calm, confident. “You know Jerry is obsessed with him. He stopped him that day when we had our football party. Claimed he was trespassing.”
“V’s right about that,” Emory says, surprising me. “He’s always following Reyn around, busting his balls for nothing.”
Dad makes a face at the word ‘balls’ but doesn’t argue. Jerry’s harassment of Reyn in particular is pretty well known.
“There are scratch marks on the window lock over there,” the officer says, walking over. “The kind consistent with being tampered with.” He takes a few photos with his phone and stashes it in his pocket. “You sure you haven’t noticed anything missing?”
“No.” I shake my head rapidly, stomach aflame with nerves. “Nothing.”
“Well, contact us if you can think of anything,” the deputy says, nodding at the other officer to leave.
“What’s going to happen to Reyn?” I ask. “If nothing is missing, he should be okay, right?”
He makes a sharp, amused sound. “Not with the quantity of drugs he had on him. That’ll be a possession with intent to distribute charge. That’s a felony in this state.”
“Reyn’s in a lot of trouble, sweetheart,” my dad says, wrapping his arm around me to give me a tight squeeze. I remain silent and frozen. This has to be a nightmare. “I know we all thought he’d made a lot of progress, but it doesn’t seem like it. Hopefully he can get the help he needs.” He walks the officers to the door, and I feel like a statue. Like all my blood has been drained from my body and replaced with something rigid and cold.
When I finally regain my senses—realize what I need to do—I race into the hallway. I barely get a foot out the door when Emory grabs me.
“Don’t do it, V,” he says, holding me in his arms.
“They were mine,” I gasp, struggling against his hold. “He didn’t do anything wrong! A felony? He was just…”
He was helping me.
He was saving me.
He hisses, “It’s possession, Vandy! They’re not going to give a shit why he had it on him. Just having it is enough!”
“That’s not fai
r!” I cry, jerking away.
He blocks the door, nostrils flaring. “We need to be smart about this. Think. The cops aren’t going to let him go, no matter what you tell them. We’re past that, got it?”
I press my palms to my cheeks, stunned. “I can’t just sit here while they take him to jail!” I’ve messed up a lot of things in my life, but this?
This takes the cake.
Emory waves at the window. “He doesn’t need you going out there, spouting off about shit, and probably incriminating him further in the process. Reyn’s not stupid! He knows how this works. He can plead his case in front of a judge. That’s his best bet.”
“This can’t be happening.” I pace around my room, but Emory is right. I need to think. I need to be smart about this. I need to take a deep breath and look at this objectively. I turn to Emory and tell him something else I need. “Go get your phone and call Hamilton.”
Emory looks at me like I’m an idiot. “What the fuck is Hamilton going to do? Glare the cops to death?”
“Hamilton,” I calmly explain, “is a Devil, just like Reyn, and he’s going to give me Gwen’s number.”
The call with Gwen Adams is weird and awkward, but she doesn’t hang up on me, so at least there’s that.
“Your mom,” I’m saying, “she does that kind of stuff, right?” Mrs. Adams has a reputation in the community for being both a badass lawyer and a soft heart for charity cases.
“Yes,” Gwen slowly says. “But this isn’t usually how it works. Usually there’d be a public defender, and then—” She pauses abruptly, voice changing. “You know what? It doesn’t matter. This guy is a friend, right?”
“Boyfriend.” I haven’t had many occasions to actually use that word, and it comes out stilted, unfamiliar on my tongue. My eyes lurch to Emory, who’s flopped back on my bed, grumpily prodding his bruised jaw. Upon hearing the word, his head jerks up, eyes narrowing. I narrow mine right back, and when I say, “He’s my boyfriend,” there’s nothing stilted about it.