by Smoke , Lucy
I take a step back when the door to the cage opens, and there he is, waiting with his arms crossed over his massive chest. A chest I'd once licked and touched and rubbed against as he'd fucked me into oblivion. Now, though, all I want to do is push it back and go back to my dorm and crash. Exhaustion crawls over my shoulders as I step out. Someone slaps a stack of bills in my hand. Bills that I hand to the guy who steps into the cage to gather the girl.
"Here," I say. "Give her this from me. Tell her it was a good fight."
His eyes widen, but he takes one look at me and the man who growls at him to move, and takes the money before skedaddling back towards the unconscious chick I've left behind. Someone hands me a towel, and I use it to mop up the worst of the sweat and blood that feels an inch thick on my skin as I bypass Dean's cold glare and head for the exit. Normally, people give a few pats or backslaps to the winners as they have every night I've been here this week, but it's not surprising that they don't tonight. Even without his reputation, Dean is scary looking enough right now to frighten even some of the braver audience members.
I hit the exit and let myself out into the warm spring air. Sweat sticks to my skin, quickly drying. I spot Dean's two ride-alongs not far away, leaning against the trunk of a familiar red Mustang. Brax lifts a hand and waves. I huff out a breath and head over.
"Alright," I say when I get there, turning back to the man behind me who is hovering like a domineering demon, waiting for his moment to strike. "Say what you're gonna say."
Dean doesn't hesitate. "I thought we told you that you weren't doing this shit anymore."
"Maybe." I shrug as I pull my hair out of its ponytail and fluff it around my shoulders, gently massaging the sting left behind by how tight it'd been with my dull nails. "Never said anything about doing what you told me to, though." I point to Brax. "Next."
"I don't see a problem with it," he admits. I pause in my massage, slightly surprised. Then in the next moment, he ruins it. "But we'd feel more comfortable if you had one of us with you."
I scowl. "I don't need a fucking babysitter."
"That's not what we're saying," Abel jumps in.
"No?" I turn on him. "Then please explain, because it sounds like the three of you—or rather one of you in particular—" I stop and glare at Dean pointedly, but he merely crosses his arms over his chest and glares right back. Unapologetic. "Want to follow me around like bodyguards. I'm not down. We have nothing to do with each other, so my vote is for the three of you to leave me the fuck alone."
I finish mopping up the sweat with the towel I'd been handed, and I toss it in Dean's face as I turn and stomp past him. Not two seconds pass before his hand closes around my arm and pulls me up short. An insidious emotion warps my mind. Like the business end of a blade cutting through everything else into the heart of me, it controls my actions. I whip around, yanking my arm out of his grasp and stop. I just stop.
My next action would've been to pulverize his face, and even though I stand there—the seconds dragging on—I can't seem to dampen that desire. But that feeling isn’t in charge here. I am. So, even though I want to break Dean’s nose with my knuckles, I control myself and hold back.
"Ava..." Abel is the one to speak first as Dean just stands there, watching me with a careful expression. As if he knows, as if he understands. Fuck him. Whether he realizes the twisted desires that have surfaced in me these last few weeks or not, he has no right to my demons anymore. They're mine.
Abel slides around Dean just as Brax gently touches his shoulder, easing him back. It almost surprises me how they're the two who seem most capable in handling our beasts, and they hardly know me. "Ava, as your friend, I think—"
"Friend?" I stop him with a snort as I take a breath and release the tension swimming in my veins, keeping my muscles locked tight. "We're not fucking friends, Abel. I'm the girl you couldn't control. Calling yourself my friend doesn't give you any more right than it does if you were my enemy."
"We're not your enemies." This from Brax.
I look up and meet his stare. "Well, you're not my allies either."
"Enemies. Friends. Allies. It doesn't fucking matter," Dean growls in either frustration or fury—I can’t fucking tell anymore when it comes to him.
"Dean." Abel's warning is clear in his tone, but I smile, knowing the big man. Yeah, he doesn't fucking listen to warnings.
Dean shoves away from Brax and stomps towards me. "You're fucking insane if you think you get to walk away from me, Ava."
I tilt my head back, letting it hang on my shoulders and neck as I grin up at him, knowing that what I'm about to say will surely piss him off. "Call me crazy then, because you don't fucking own me, Dean Carter. You're the one who fucked up. Not me. Just because I let you stick your dick in me doesn't mean you get to claim ownership."
"Let's just fucking take a breath," Abel curses, stepping between us and putting a hand up, specifically to stop Dean’s forward movement. Abel looks at me. "We're worried about you, Goddamnit. We get it. Bad shit went down, but you haven't agreed to shit. No therapy. No hospital. Not shit. You aren't answering our calls." He huffs out a frustrated breath, reaching up and grabbing a chunk of the top of his white blond hair and yanking it in frustration as his gaze bounces from me to the ground to Dean and back again.
"You think a hospital would've been able to do anything?" I argue. My hands clench, hating the memories. I got tested—I wasn’t completely stupid. One stop shop at the campus clinic. Considering these assholes knew everything, they had to know I was clean. I didn’t need to know anything else. I didn’t want to know anything else. "It’s done. It's over. I've moved on. You should do the same.”
He gives me a look that pierces me right through. A sour disgusting feeling enters my stomach, and though the sweat from the fight had previously dried, I feel a new layer of it across the back of my neck. I hate that look. It knows too much. The three of them—they know too much. They're too close. I take a step back before I can think, and Dean's eyes track the movement like a hungry monster. His upper lip curls back.
"Avalon..." Abel keeps his gaze steady on me.
"What the fuck do you want to know?" I demand. Little tiny fire ants dance beneath my skin. They're not there—not really—but I feel them as if they're as real as my own body. It feels like hundreds of stinging venom-laced bites are crunching into my flesh. "You want to know if I'm okay? Yeah? I'm fucking fine. I survived. I'm not so fucking weak that I let some piece of shit, small-town drug dealer like Roger-fucking-Murphy get to me."
"Avalon, we're not—"
I don't let him finish. I don't want to hear it. "You're not what?" I demand. "You're not thinking it? Bullshit. You know you are. All of you are." I encompass the three of them in my vicious glare. "If you're going to fucking lie to me, at least make it believable."
All I've thought about, all I can fucking dream about for the last two weeks have been that bloody night, but not for what they think. I don't remember Roger fucking me against the shitty vinyl kitchen floor of my mother's trailer. I do, but I don't. It's a nonsensical blur—lights, feelings, vomit. That's about what I remember. And strangely, it doesn't get to me the way something else does.
His death. Roger's murder at my hands. That's what I remember in clear monochrome sharpened detail. Every twitch of his face as I pressed the barrel of Dean's gun against his forehead and then the resistance against my finger as I squeezed the trigger. In real time, the memory makes my thighs tighten and my face flushes as my breath rolls in just a little bit faster.
And this … this is what it does to me. If I ever thought I could be more fucked up, killing Roger only proves it.
"What are you thinking right now, Ava?" Dean's voice draws me out of my thoughts, and I jerk, realizing that Abel's taken a step back to allow him forward.
I scowl, pressing my thighs together even harder as he advances. "It's none of your fucking business."
Abel and Brax fall away—I know they're there, that
they're watching the two of us, but my mind no longer registers their existence. Why is it always like this with him? He's not even touching me, but I can feel the brush of his gaze, of his attention like a physical caress. And as much as I hate it, as much as I won't admit it—I like it. I want more of it.
"The fuck it's not," he growls.
I suck in a breath, taking in the night air, both loving and hating the fact that I can smell him. My tongue feels numb as I speak. It's a fucking mystery how my words come out at all, considering they’re poisoned with lies. "I'm none of your business anymore," I say. "Whatever we were—whatever fucked up thing you were trying to use me for—it's over. We're over. I'm not your girlfriend. I'm not even your friend. If enemy is the closest thing we are, then so be it, but from where I'm standing, we're nothing to each other. I have absolutely no feelings for you."
"Bullshit!" he shouts, catching the attention of several people from the warehouse as they push through the doors, heading back to their cars. They jump and look our way with wide eyes, but as soon as they see who it is, their heads dip back down, and they hurry on.
He reaches for me, and a coldness washes over my system. "I would be very careful if I were you, Dean," I say, stopping him. Dark soil-rich eyes flicker from my face down to where his hand hangs, suspended in the air halfway to me. "Touch me, and you may very well find out just how insane I can be."
Maybe someone else would feel fear. Maybe I should feel afraid, but I don't. Not because I think Dean's incapable of hurting me. No. It's just because I don't care anymore if someone tries. Hurt, I can take. Rape. Damage. Torture. It happens. It happened. What else can get to me now? Still, that doesn't mean I'll let him try without taking a chunk out of his hide myself.
"You're making a big mistake, Ava." Dean lets his hand fall to his side but keeps his eyes glued to my face. Carefully, oh so fucking carefully, he takes steps towards me until his chest is a hair's breadth from mine. He doesn't reach for me again. He doesn't even allow contact. Just as I'd warned him not to. The closeness without the touch is almost worse than the actual brush of his skin against mine. His voice drops so only I can hear. "You can say what you want. Spew those pretty little lies. Deceive yourself for as long as you need to. But you and I both know the truth."
It takes a moment for me to respond. “What truth is that?” I ask.
My body seizes, freezing as his hand lifts, and he watches me with deliberate consideration as he lifts a single strand of my nearly black hair between two of his fingers. He makes sure not to touch my skin as he brings the end up to his full, masculine lips and presses it against them. “You loved it,” he whispers. “You loved every filthy minute, every inch of my cock in your pussy, baby. And I know you want it again. You need time, I get that, and I will wait—no matter that it kills me. But make no mistake, Avalon. You are mine. Regardless of what’s happened, nothing changes that.”
My mind is full of him, of his nearness, his threatening presence. Even that turns me on. Dampens my panties just as much if not more than the thought of murdering Roger Murphy. I recognize how fucked that makes me. Dean’s right, I am insane. Abso-fucking-lutely psychotic. But that, too, comes with freedom and power.
Because it doesn’t matter what my body wants, what it craves, my mind is in charge. I have the control. Leaning up on my toes, I press my breasts against him and watch as his pupils dilate. I let my breath wash over his face as I speak. “Then tell me something, Dean,” I say. “Since I’m yours, does that make you mine, too?”
He drops my hair and stares into my eyes. “Yes.”
“Well then, there’s really only one thing you can do to convince me of that,” I say.
A frown turns the corners of his mouth down. “What’s that?”
“You know my deepest darkest secret,” I whisper. “What’s yours?” Dean’s whole body grows stiff, and he pulls away. A laugh bubbles into my throat. “That’s what I thought.” I turn away before he can say anything else. I force the smirk to stay on my lips because now that I’m no longer consumed by him, I recognize that we’re not alone. I don’t want to show how his reaction has affected me. How the unintentional denial sits in my stomach with a violent pain worse than if someone were sticking me with a knife and swirling it around in my guts.
“Where are you going?” Abel calls as I start walking.
I’m fucking tired, I think. Finally. As I continue, I answer with one word. “Home.” As much as a shared room in a dorm could ever be.
3
Dean
I let her walk away, knowing she needs the feeling of being in control. That ass of hers sways from side to side, enticing me. If she thinks this whole fucked up situation might have cooled my need for her, she's wrong. It might be giving me pause right now because she needs that space, but nothing, I’m finding, will change how I see her. I don't think there's anything on this godforsaken planet that could make me not want her as violently as I do. It's practically a fucking disease—my desire for her.
My whole body feels tight, like every inch of my skin has been drawn taut over my bones. I want to chase her down, slam her on the ground, and fuck that attitude right out of her. I imagine if I even tried, she'd skin me alive, but it'd be worth it for a woman like Avalon Manning.
One taste, that’s all I’d needed to become addicted. One delicious night and day of her in my arms, in my bed, and I was hooked. Then, it’d all gotten fucked up. I can’t touch her now—not the way I want to. I’ve held off because of what happened, but two weeks without her feels like fucking eternity, and I don’t know how much longer we can go on like this. Not with her acting as if it didn’t happen. Maybe it’s a psychological quirk of her personality, but it’s not good. My mind says she needs to deal, but her actions, her words, and my fucking body say that nothing would help her deal more than just giving over to me.
I’ve never been afraid of anything in my life, aside from losing Abel and Braxton, but one little, dark-haired, foul-mouthed woman frightens me.
She hates me. I get that. Fuck, I hate myself a little bit too. Because I’m the one that fucked up. I got too close too fast. I misjudged, and I let my jealousy cloud my brain and my emotions run freely. I squeeze my hand into a fist and resist the urge to pound something. Had I not been so quick to think she was fucking Luc Kincaid, she’d no doubt be coming home with me tonight. She’d be in my house, in my fucking bed. Right where she belonged. And I have no one to blame but myself.
Braxton waits until she's out of earshot before turning to me. “Fix it,” he orders. “I don’t care what you did. I don’t care what she did. Fucking fix it.”
“I’m working on it,” I snap. My eyes stay trained on where Avalon disappeared around the corner.
“Not goddamn hard enough,” he replies, pointing in the same direction. “You haven’t told her shit, but if you don’t figure something out soon, I will.”
That catches my attention. I turn my shocked gaze to him. “You’d fucking betray me for her?” I ask.
Braxton’s eyes flash. “You know it’s not a fucking betrayal; don’t make it one.” His arm drops to his side, and he steps up, his chest brushing mine as he glares down at me. I don’t give a fuck how tall the motherfucker is, he should know that I’d take him down as I would anyone else. “And don’t you act like you didn’t put a claim on her ass. She’s one of us now. Unless you think you can walk away.” The bastard arches a single brow, knowing exactly what he’s doing. “In that case, I’m sure she wouldn’t mind trading you in for a bigger model.”
I shove his chest back and point at him. “I swear to fuck, Brax. I love you like a brother, but if you so much as fucking touch her, I’ll rip your throat out with my own teeth.”
“Alright, that’s enough.” Abel steps between us and curses a blue streak. “The fuck’s wrong with you both?”
Brax shrugs, quirking a smile as he reaches back and folds his hands behind his head. “Just pointing out that if Dean doesn’t get his ass in ge
ar, his girl might just get snatched up.”
“Not by you,” I growl.
Braxton’s smile dips and his arms drop back to his sides. “Of course not, but that doesn’t mean you won’t lose your chance with her unless you get your head out of your ass. She’s not like other bitches. Avalon’s not going to wait around for you.”
I hate that he’s right. A curse slips from between my lips as I continue to glare at him.
“We didn’t come here to fight with each other,” Abel says.
I don’t comment. Instead, I turn away from them both and glare in the general direction that Avalon had gone. Tonight had not gone how I’d planned. As it stands, I’m going to have to use the trump card I was really fucking hoping to keep on the back burner.
“Have you heard back from the old men, yet?" Abel asks, drawing my attention back to them.
"Not yet," I admit. "Dad's avoiding my calls. Won't pick up and doesn't allow me into his office when I know he's on campus. I only managed to get through last night. I’ve got a meeting with him coming up.”
"When?" Abel asks.
"Wednesday was the earliest he would allow." And it still fucking burns my guts to know I have to make an appointment to speak with my own father. The self-important prick.
For the moment, both of them are silent. But I can almost guess what they’re thinking. Fact is, I’m thinking it too. Ever since that night two weeks ago, I’d been asking myself the very same question Brax voices a moment later. “You think her mother sold her out for drugs or something?” Brax grits it out as if it pains him to do so. I glance his way, noting the strain in his expression and his hands balled into fists at his side.
“Wouldn’t surprise me," I say, feeling acid in my throat. "From what I know of Patricia Manning, she'll never be mother of the year." If there was ever a parent worse than our own, it’s Patricia Manning.
"That's for fucking sure," Abel agrees with a low grunt.