We’re being watched, by Havoc’s crew.
“How many people do you have working for you?” I ask, thinking of Halloween and the dozens of skeleton-masked boys—and interestingly enough, girls—that appeared from the crowd. Aaron smirks slightly, eyes focused on the old-fashioned soda fountain down the block. It was built in 1915 and used to be a popular Fuller High hangout before Havoc kicked their asses across the railroad tracks. They still serve malts and Shirley Temples and all that old-timey shit in there.
“Even I don’t know the answer to that.” Aaron pushes the door open, bells tinkling in our wake, and I swear to fuck, every face in that room turns to watch us with wary eyes. Where Havoc goes, trouble follows. “Only Vic and Oscar do,” he adds as we head up to the counter and several students clear the red-leather stools to make room for us. “I could ask if I wanted, but I don’t.”
Aaron orders two chocolate shakes for us and then parks his chin in his hand, elbow resting against the cracked old countertops.
“I can’t believe they fire-bombed my van today,” he says absently, tapping his fingers against the side of his face. The car is trashed, by the way, a burnt shell of its former self, and yet another flame-washed memory of his mother. We told the cops it seemed like a random act of violence; they didn’t believe us for shit. I’m sure the news of today’s incident has already made its way back to the Thing.
“Are you going to get another car?” I ask, thinking of the two grand I buried in the backyard. That’s enough for a shitty clunker. Maybe I should buy one? I don’t have a license, but frankly I need to get on that shit. Having a car and being able to drive it, that’s a tool I need in my arsenal.
“Havoc will get me another car,” Aaron replies smoothly, sitting up as our milkshakes are slid across the counter to us. He stirs his with a metal straw as I cock a brow in question.
“Aaron, you are a part of Havoc. You’re the fucking A in the equation. How much money do you guys have squirreled away?” It’s difficult for me to gauge what the guys have going on finance wise. They all still live in relative dumps, Oscar and Callum don’t have rides, and yet, Vic gave me two thousand bucks and told me I have twenty grand to plan our wedding.
Our wedding …
Shit.
Just thinking about it gives me the chills.
“About fifty thousand,” he says, lifting those beautiful eyes of his to mine. They’re mosaics of color, like some wicked god dropped to earth for an afternoon to play with gold and green tiles. A lot of care was put into those irises of his. “We’d have more, but Victor likes to reinvest. We pay all our guys, too.” He shrugs his big shoulders and gives a caustic laugh. “Once he gets his inheritance, everything will be different.”
I exhale and take a sip of my drink, just to give myself a moment.
“Do you have any idea how much is on the line?” I ask, looking down at the ring on my finger. The temptation to run is still there. I think it’ll always be there, this sweet far-off promise of a life without worries, without bloodshed and pain. But I’ve made my bed here, and I plan to sleep in it—even if it’s a forever sort of sleep.
“Millions,” Aaron says, looking up at me. He leans close, one of his legs going between my own. I swallow hard, but I don’t say anything as his knee brushes up against the crotch of my pants. “So much money that it’s hard for me to hate the idea of you marrying Vic.” Aaron reaches out and slides his warm hand over the top of mine.
“Hard for you to hate it, but you still do?” I ask, and he smiles. This time, it’s a real smile, one that’s painted in shadows and darkness. He isn’t pretending to be the old Aaron, all soft fluffy clouds and sunshine. This time, he’s letting me see a little piece of who he’s become over the last few years.
“I hate it so much that it keeps me up at night,” he tells me, shifting his knee so that it rubs against me in a tantalizing sort of way. There’s a dam between us, one that’s going to come tumbling down. As soon as it does, I won’t be able to resist the flood. It’s going to sweep me away and drown me. “You as his wife, Bernie?” he says with another low laugh. His eyes meet mine, and a zing shoots through me, like a bullet pinging around inside my body, making me bleed, causing internal damage. Might be sort of fucked that that’s the analogy I go straight to, but I can’t help it. Aaron … he’s painful to look at sometimes, a reminder of things that could’ve been. “You were meant to be mine.”
I swallow the lump in my throat and turn back to my shake. Screw you for making me feel fifteen again, I think as I put my lips around the end of the straw. For some stupid reason, I turn my eyes to his just as I take the damn thing in my mouth.
“If you wanted me to be yours, why do you let Vic push you around? Stand up for me, Aaron.” I suck on the straw, and his eyes flash. Aaron reaches out, grabbing me by the elbow and yanking me off of the stool.
“I let him push me around because I feel like I don’t deserve you, Bernie. I let you go once; how can I ask you to come back?” He smirks at me, pulling me up against his chest. It’s impossible for me to miss the hard bulge pressing into my stomach. Aaron has a huge dick; there’s no hiding that. “But maybe you’re right? Maybe I’m thinking about this in the wrong way? I’m not the good guy anymore, and I can never be that person again. So, maybe …” He leans down and licks a bit of chocolate from my lower lip. “I just take what I want, regardless of whether I deserve it or not?”
“I’m not sure that I’d say no to that,” I whisper, my voice hoarse and low, like I’m in a bedroom, naked and wet, and not standing in a buzzing restaurant surrounded by my peers—most of whom I dislike with a passion.
“What if I were to tell you to get in the fucking bathroom?” Aaron asks, and I swear to god, something breaks inside of me. My numbness, my shields … the final piece shatters, and I’m left feeling like I’m floating. All of a sudden, I don’t know who I am anymore. I feel both vindicated and vulnerable, all at the same time.
“Sounds like you’re still asking,” I manage to choke out. Aaron wraps an arm around my waist and scoops the other underneath my knees, lifting me up into his arms like I weigh nothing at all. My breath escapes in a rush as I weave my arms around his neck.
“Stay out of the bathroom for a while,” he announces, loudly enough that everyone in that room hears him. “And if you think you can quite literally catch me with my pants down, I’m packing a .22 in my boot.” Aaron sweeps me toward the bathroom, kicking the swinging door in and setting me down on the counter.
My heart throbs painfully in my chest as he sweeps the stalls, checking to see if there’s anyone else in here besides us.
There’s not.
And there’s no lock on the door, but you’d have to be a total idiot to disobey a direct order from Havoc. You know, like Kali Rose or something. Queen of the morons.
“Do you have a condom?” I ask, and Aaron shakes his head.
“Luckily, we’re not far from South Prescott,” he teases, grinning at me and running his hand over his beautiful chestnut hair. “No condoms on me—I’m not goddamn Hael or anything—but I do have quarters.” He reaches into his back pocket, pulling out his faded leather wallet and dumping several quarters into his palm. Aaron puts them into the dispenser on the wall, twisting the knob until a single condom falls out into the tray. Usually, you only see this sort of shit at, like, truck stops in the middle of nowhere or something, but like Aaron said: we’re close to South Prescott, the worst neighborhood in the city of Springfield, Oregon.
For once, I’m a little excited about that.
“If you really are pregnant,” Aaron says, pausing in front of me and leaning forward to put his face near mine. He puts a hand on either side of me, pressing our foreheads together, just like we did the other day, just like we did when we were kids … just like we did when we fucked in tenth grade that one time. “Then we’ll take care of you. I’ll take care of you, if that’s what you want.”
“You’d raise another man’s
kid?” I ask, certain that I’d visit a Planned Parenthood before I’d become a teen mom, but still …
“Well, this wouldn’t be another man’s kid,” Aaron says with a cocksure smirk. “It’d be a Havoc kid.” He kisses me hard on the mouth and I spread my legs to welcome him close. We press our bodies together, and this surge of need takes over me. It clings to my skin, heavy and sticky, as I frantically tear at Aaron’s shirt, trying to get it over his head. “Bern,” he groans, biting my lower lip and reaching over his shoulder with one hand. Aaron grabs the white tee in his fingers, breaking our kiss just long enough to rip it off and toss it aside.
My fingers play with his belt as our tongues slide together, like two slashes of heat, probing, digging, trying to stir up memories and create new ones, all at the same time.
“Aaron …” His name slips from my lips without my even meaning it to. Tears sting my eyes, and I do my best to swipe them away before he can see. Aaron stops me by grabbing my arm with gentle fingers. With his other hand, he reaches up to swipe away a single teardrop with his thumb. “Cut the sentimental crap,” I snap, but … that’s because my anger is a defense mechanism.
We all have them, me and the Havoc Boys.
“I can’t decide if I’d rather taste your cunt or look into your eyes,” he murmurs, putting his forehead to mine. It’s a racy statement, but it’s said with such affection that I’m not really sure what to do. “I could spend all day worshipping your body, Bern. I want to get to know you all over again, search you until I could map every inch, every tattoo, every scar.”
I suck in a sharp breath as he drops his hands to my jeans, popping the button and unzipping the fly.
“I’d like that,” I start, feeling that strange rawness in my soul again. Aaron is like an antidote for bullshit. He looks at me like I’m not wearing a leather jacket, like I’m not tattooed, like my tough-as-nails persona isn’t a shield against him the way it is for everyone else. He can see past it all, right into the soul of his first love, his first time, his … girl. “Just maybe not in a public restroom, okay?”
Aaron laughs, and the sound is easily the most genuine of all the boys. His girls have given him that gift, allowed him to keep true joy in his heart somewhere. It might be just a pinprick in the black cavern that makes up his chest, but it’s there nonetheless.
“Mm, fair point.” He curls his fingertips under the waistband of my jeans and kisses me at the same time, savoring the moment, dragging it out until I’m squirming and he’s chuckling against my lips. “Okay, okay, I get it. You want my dick.”
“Keep talking like that, and there is no reunion of bodies, Aaron Fadler.” I’m soaked in sweat already, my heart pounding so loud that I can’t hear the chattering of students in the dining room anymore. No, it’s just me and Aaron now, just the two of us, like it used to be.
He slides my jeans down my hips, knocking one of my boots off so he can slip my right leg out. He doesn’t bother to remove my pants entirely, not here, not with graffiti on the walls and flickering fluorescent lights above us.
Still, even with the less than perfect surroundings, I’m not sure that Aaron’s ever looked more beautiful to me. He shoves my jeans out of his way and then steps up close to me again, undoing his own pants. When he takes that beautiful inked cock of his into his hand, my lips part and my eyes flick from his dick to his face.
I almost tell him not to use the condom; I want us skin to skin. But at some point, I need to start taking responsibility for myself, for the possibility of a future beyond the immediacy of my own base needs.
Aaron puts the condom on, slicking it over his cock and then grabbing me by the ass. He holds me easily in his big hands, lifting me up off the counter and then slamming us into the wall next to the bathroom door.
My fingers dig into the back of his hair as he thrusts in, hard and deep, filling me up in one go. For a split-second, neither of us moves, readjusting to each other, letting muscle memory remind us that we were once lovers.
Then Aaron starts to fuck me.
I’m surprised by the wild rapidity of his thrusts, by how desperately he holds me, clings to me. I start to get lightheaded, my breathing shallow, like I can’t possibly take in too much air or there won’t be room for Aaron. He’s inside of me in more ways than one, taking over me, diving deep.
My eyes close and I groan, the sound echoing around the room. Outside the door, I can faintly hear the other Prescott students laughing. Maybe at us, I don’t know, but it doesn’t matter. Not like they’re going to anything to my face.
Aaron is driving into me so hard that I ache in the best possible way. There isn’t an inch of me that he doesn’t rub against, brush against, touch. He’s rubbing against me at the same time he’s thrusting, nuzzling my neck, kissing me, making sure I’m really here, that he’s really inside of me, that we’re really together.
“Oh, Bernie, I missed you,” he murmurs, slowing down. Aaron leans back to look into my eyes, slowing the movement of his hips slightly. In and out, in and out. There’s a tenderness in his eyes, a desperate sort of affection that I want to see him fight for. But later. Later. Right now, I just want him to touch me, press his body to mine, crawl inside my soul.
We stay like that for a while, stuck in an unbroken rhythm that might as well be torture for my overheated body. I’m soaking wet now, probably drenching Aaron’s thighs. Doesn’t matter though. That’s the best part, I think, the mess of it. Sex isn’t supposed to be pretty. It’s too wild, too base, but it also keeps you grounded.
We are souls having a worldly experience, but we are also human.
My body clamps around Aaron, pulsing against him, making him groan as he takes my mouth with his, murdering my inhibitions. My first orgasm is easy and slow, like a lazy star streaking across a night sky. It makes my stomach muscles clench, the pressure in my spine unfurling like a flower.
Aaron, though, he doesn’t just let me enjoy it.
No.
Something changes when he sees my face like that, my shields down, my inhibitions stripped raw. His expression shifts, old anger surging into him. Aaron moves away from the wall and drops me to my feet while I’m still shaking and struggling to catch my breath.
He spins me around and then uses a palm on my lower back to shove me over the counter.
He enters me again with a violent thrust and I bite my lower lip, fingernails digging into the countertop as he rams into me, balls slapping, the sound of it taking over the room. I’m drowning in that sound, the noise of our lust.
He made love to me … now he’s hate-fucking me.
And I love it.
Arching my back, I press into Aaron, moving my own hips so that we make a pretty little push and pull, our moans mingling together. Mostly, I keep my eyes closed. Because I want to feel Aaron, not see him. I watched him for years, dated him, lost him, watched him again. I’ve done plenty of looking and I’m sick of it.
His fingers wrap my hair and pull my head back but still, I keep my eyes closed. I can feel the fingers of his other hand grabbing my hip, bruising, squeezing. Aaron powers into me, fast and hard and furious, until his muscles clench up and I feel his body tightening behind me.
With a desperate groan of relief, he spills himself while still trapped inside of me. After a few, final thrusts, he releases my hair and I lean my cheek down against the countertop for a moment. My body is still throbbing, but I don’t care. It was so worth it.
Before I can stand up though, I feel the air shift around me as he pulls out and then crouches down behind me. The heat of his breath brushes against my pussy just before he makes contact with his lips. His hands slide up my bare thighs and he holds me in place as he dips his tongue into my sweet honey.
Shit.
Aaron is just as good as Hael, but in a different way. Hael is slick, easygoing, confident to the point of arrogance. I could feel all of that in his tongue. Aaron, though, he’s more concerned with seeking out my specific pockets of pleasure, tw
o fingers borrowing lube from my pussy to slide across my clit.
He takes his time, too, despite our current situation, working me with his mouth until I’m crying out, slamming one of my palms into the mirror and coming hard against his lips. Also, I probably soaked the shit out of his face.
We sit there for exactly six breaths before Aaron stands up, and I lift my head to stare in the mirror, my eyes locking with Aaron’s in the reflection. It’s spotty, the glass twisted and warped in spots, but I can still see what’s important: Aaron, me, and our feelings for each other.
I never fell out of love with him, that’s the truth. I just started hating him on top of it. We just made love … and then he hate-fucked me. It’s a dynamic that works. As Aaron steps back and I push up to a standing position, I wet my lips with my tongue.
He groans as he leans back against the wall, fixing his pants while he struggles to catch his breath. I love that, watching his tattooed chest rise and fall with each desperate inhale.
You’re so human, Aaron Fadler, I think, and I smile.
“Don’t lick your lips like that,” he tells me, disposing of the condom and washing his hands. I stay leaning against the counter next to him, watching him. “You’ll get me hard all over again, and the poor Prescott kids won’t get to piss for hours yet.”
“You really think you can go for hours?” I quip back with a grin. I feel weird right now, an emotion I don’t understand flickering inside of me. Since I don’t recognize it, and I don’t want to ruin the moment by trying to delve into it, I just push it aside. “That’s some serious bravado, Fadler. I’d like to see you prove it.”
He turns his head to look at me, a smug smirk taking over his lips. He might be the nicest of the Havoc Boys, but he’s still a boy and therefore, still an asshole.
“Mind if I do that sometime?” he asks, standing up and drying his hands off on his jeans. “Take you to bed and show you exactly how long I can go?”
Chaos at Prescott High Page 18