“Done,” I say. “Plus, I'll give you 10% of whatever your girls make.”
Margaret shakes her head and wags her finger at me. “I’ll take 15% and ask that you do right by them. Any of my girls step out of line, you come to me first.”
“That's fair,” I say. I look to Marco. "And you?"
Marco leans forward with his elbows on the table. "I don't give a shit what happens in your territory. Do whatever tickles your dicks.” He glares at me. “But you ain’t taking girls from Los Muertos.”
A vein in his neck pulses, and there's nothing I'd like more than to reach into my jacket, grab my blade, and slice it the fuck open. But in this situation, I have to remind myself of what Belly would do.
“That's fair.” I stand to leave. I glance between Margaret and Marco. "Anything else?"
"Yeah," Marco sneers. "I don’t want my bitches tainted by Bedlam bullshit. Do you understand me? Steer clear, or you’ll end up with more bullets in your body.”
“Noted,” I say when all I really want to reply with is a knife in his fucking skull.
“My girls are special to me. They’re all off limits to you, but understand I got one that you don’t fuck with. Ever. You don’t talk to. You don’t look in her fucking direction. It’s that fucking simple,” he threatens with a sneer.
I slap the table. “Marco, you sly dog. Did you go out and get yourself an old lady?” I ask sarcastically. "You can threaten me all you want. Your jealousy for someone I’ve never met is fucking adorable.”
“Blanquita, get in here!” Marco shouts without taking his eyes off mine. “I want you to meet her so you know who to stay clear of.”
Margaret’s eyes grow wide, and she cringes like she knows what’s coming.
The door slowly creaks open. My legs grow weak, and my blood runs cold as a girl steps into the room with her eyes down to the floor. I immediately feel the need to sit or lie the fuck down, or better yet, shoot bullets into Marco’s head one after the other until there’s nothing left of it.
“I want you to meet my future queen,” he announces victoriously. Marco’s trying to gauge my expression, which I keep wiped from my face although my insides feel like they’re being beaten with a sledgehammer.
Why? Because the sad-looking girl who walks through the door, sits on Marco's lap, and allows Marco to kiss her on the cheek all the while avoiding eye contact with me, is none other than Emma Jean Parish.
Tricks.
MY Tricks.
Nineteen
“Get a fucking hold of yourself, man!” Sandy’s standing next to me in the garage. As I take weapons from my duffle bag to load them, he’s shoving them back in. “I’m all for a fucking shoot out, but this ain’t just about you. You got other people to worry about.”
“The only thing I’m worried about is killing Marco,” I grate.
Haze comes into the garage. “It’s Tricks,” Sandy begins to tell him, and I think I’m going to be sick before he’s even said the words out loud. “She’s with Marco.”
“Holy fucking shit. How did—never mind.” He shakes his head. “What do we gotta do?” He comes up to the table and eyes the weapons. “You gonna kill Marco or Tricks?”
“I haven’t decided,” I say, knowing that’s bullshit. “I gotta…I just…FUUUUCCCKKKKK!” I roar, throwing a handgun at the wall.
“Grim, no matter who you kill, it ain’t gonna make that feeling go away. Trust me on this one,” he says, his words heavy with regret.
Haze and Sandy remain calm. “How about we kill later and get fucked up now?” Haze suggests. “Might take the edge off.”
Several hours have passed and I’ve drank enough whiskey and smoked enough weed to render me stupid. Yet the murderous feeling lingers even through the haze. Tricks is one of them. She’s with him. When she told me I was the only man she’d ever kissed, it was another fucking lie I fell for.
Along with the fucking rest of it.
I once told Tricks in one of my letters that I don’t really get sad. I guess that was a lie, too. What I’m feeling now is deeper than sadness. It’s more like rage and despair are hate-fucking in my heart. And Sandy’s right. No matter who I kill, it’s not going to go away.
I’m still not sure I believe him.
Distraction isn’t working well for me, either. I’m on my back on my bed. Two naked girls are kissing one another over me. I have no idea how they got here. They rub each other’s tits and finger each other’s pussies, but I don’t feel anything that stirs my dick even the slightest.
It’s probably just all the weed I smoked.
Or because the girl who once shattered through my barriers has broken me in a different way, pulverizing a heart I didn’t even know I had.
The window slides open, and the last person in the world I want to see leaps into the room. She pulls a gun from her backpack and aims at the two girls on my bed.
“Get the fuck out,” she demands in a calm, confident voice. If I didn’t hate her so much, I’d almost be proud of the way she’s handling herself.
But I do. So, I’m not.
I open my mouth to say something, but nothing comes out. It’s still hazy. The girls scramble for their clothes and dart out the door.
I sit up. Tricks approaches the bed, setting the gun in her pocket.
“Nice gun,” I say sarcastically.
“Thanks, I borrowed it. Without asking.”
“You should go bring it back to whoever you stole it from before I get mine. If I can find where Sandy and Haze hid them…”
“Kiss me,” she blurts.
“Kiss you?” I laugh through my returning rage. The absurdity of her demand rendering me sober. “I just found out not three hours ago that you’re with MARCO of all fucking people and now you want me to kiss you?” I pull at my hair. “You’re with the fucking enemy. YOU ARE the fucking enemy!”
“Then kill me,” she responds with a desperation in her voice that cuts my chest wide open. She grabs her gun and holds it out to me.
I stand from the bed and take it from her. I press it to the side of her head. My hand shakes for the first time ever while holding a weapon.
“Do it! Shoot me, or fuck me. If it’s not you who’s going to take my body, it’s going to be him. I just want it to be you…” Her voice grows as shaky as my hand. “It’s selfish of me, but it has to be you, Grim. It has to be you.”
I press the gun harder and grit my teeth.
Tricks closes her eyes. “I’m biding my fucking time. I’ve bought two bus tickets out of town. One for me and one for Gabby. We’ll be gone soon. I don’t want to belong to Marco, because…because I already belong to someone else. I always have.”
I ball my fists and grit my teeth. “Is that something you tell yourself while Marco’s fucking you? Or did you come back to make sure you fucked everything in my life up before you disappeared on me again.”
She has the audacity to roll her eyes. “Did those girls clog your senses with all that fucking perfume? I told you. No one but you. Marco hasn’t fucking touched me! Not so much as a kiss. You’ve got to believe me, Grim. I don’t want any of this. I never did. I just want to explain before I go. I never wanted—”
“Then, what do you want?” I grind. Trailing my gun from her head, dragging it down the side of her neck. Her act is good, but I’m not falling for it. Not this time.
She lifts her eyes to mine. “You.”
Emma Jean
Grim lifts me in his arms and presses me against the wall. “Please, Grim.” I don’t even know what I’m begging for. Him. Another life. Just one more kiss.
His gun is at my throat.
“You want me to risk my life and the lives of my brothers for some pussy?” He asks, cupping between my legs. He has a disgusted look marring his beautiful face. I gasp at the sensation of his fingers in my most intimate place and hate it all at the same time. I feel vulnerable and angry and hurt. Not just for me.
For Grim.
“I don’
t want to risk anyone’s life, but I don’t know what else to do,” I tell him.
“Coming here was the worst thing you could do.”
“No, it’s not. I know it’s not.” I shake my head. “It can’t be.”
“You lied to me!” he accuses. The anger and hurt in his words sits on my already heavy heart like an anvil. His hand shakes, his finger massages the trigger.
“I did, but I told you I’m a liar. I didn’t want to. You have to believe me.”
His other hand moves to my throat. His knees spreading my legs. “I don’t have to believe shit.”
It’s a battle of wills. Whoever makes the first move loses. Or wins. However, you want to look at it. But hate or not, the connection between us is tangible. A magnet pulling two people together from opposite sides of town.
White trash Romeo and Juliet.
I'm not weak, but when it comes to Grim, I lose my edge. My mask. Everything I've built up over the years to protect myself from the outside world. But he needs to see it. He needs to see me. My hunger for him. My fear. All of it.
“You’re trembling,” he remarks. “Scared?”
“Yes, but not why you think. I’m not hiding anything. Not from you. Not tonight,” I say.
“Fuuuuccckkkkk!” he roars, smashing his fist through the wall next to my head. “Another fucking lie!”
“No, you were right when you kissed me by the bay! I do feel it, this thing between us. The way the air shifts when you’re near. The way you broke through to me and can see me the way no one ever has. I can’t fake that!”
Grim’s anger stabs right through me. His pain is my pain, and it’s as real as if he’d sliced me open with a knife.
Something shifts. He tilts his head to look me over, slowly, deliberately. That makes me feel more vulnerable than I ever have. He has a smug look on his face.
The air all around us is hot, humid, but my skin prickles as if I’m in the Arctic.
“Cold?” he asks, taking notice of the hair on my arms standing on end. His pupils are large and dark. His lids hooded.
I swallow hard. “N-N-No.”
Shit. Great stutter, EJ. Why not just let him hear all your inner thoughts?
“And what might those be?” he asks, pressing his chiseled chest against mine, his lips brushing my jaw. Thoughtfully. “I’d really, really like to know.”
“What?” I ask, as though my entire body hasn't just broken out in a shivery cold sweat.
“Your inner thoughts,” he says. His voice is deep rough and touches my very core.
I gulp. “I said that out loud?”
Grim nods and bites his full bottom lip, then wets it with his tongue. He presses both lips together before flashing me a wicked, knowing smile. The move is so erotic I almost groan in agony. Or maybe I do. It seems I’m having trouble keeping things to myself.
“Well then, Tricks, tell me, if you’re not cold—” He brushes his lips against my ear. He smells clean along with the faint hint of cigarettes and whiskey. “What are you?” He rubs his index finger across the prickled skin on my forearm and locks his gaze with mine. “Beside, afraid?”
Screw it. I’ve already lost. I concede. I forfeit. I literally have nothing left to lose. I want him to know me. Feel me.
One last truth before I’m gone forever.
“I’m yours,” I blurt. Both relief and unbridled lust surge from within me. I’m breathing heavy. My breasts feel full. I’m aching all over with need. For him to touch me. To take me right here against the wall.
His nostrils flare. “Damn fuckin’ right you are.” The words are barely out of his mouth when Grim covers my lips with his. “You’re a hard one to break, Tricks,” he says against my mouth before parting my lips with his tongue and invading my every sense.
So are you, Grim.
I moan into his mouth when our tongues touch. He tightens his grip on my hair, pressing his warm hard body against me.
His hand snakes into my shorts while his lips latch on to one of my nipples through my shirt. He rubs my clit through my panties while I buck my hips against him. “Please, please, Grim. Make me yours.”
I hate the needy tone of my begging. But I can’t help it. I need him inside me. I need him. Just this once. Just one more memory to hold onto for the rest of my life.
He doesn’t give it to me. Instead, he releases his hold on me just as I’m about to come apart in his arms. Like he’s stepping away from the flames of a raging fire. His stare is hard and angry once more making me feel small. Helpless.
His stance is cold and so is the air between us now. “But you’re not mine. I won’t risk my brothers’ lives for pussy.” He opens the door and tosses my borrowed gun into the grass. “Get the fuck out, Tricks.”
I hesitate, opening my mouth to say something, but for the first time in my life, nothing comes out.
“NOW!” he roars, reaching for his own gun on the dresser and aiming it at my chest with a shaking hand. His eyes rimmed in red. The vein underneath his black rose tattoo pulsing in his throat.
I dart out the door and into the night with a broken heart, broken dreams, and the horribly timed realization that I’m desperately in love with a man who I’ll never see again…and who hates me.
And it’s all my fault.
Twenty
I stop when I see a cat prowling in the grass. “Take care of him,” I whisper to Fuzzy who I pass on my way through the yard.
The plan is to go find Gabby and get to the bus station ASAP and see if I can change our tickets to NOW. There is no more waiting for the perfect time because there will be no perfect time. I’ve got to go, and I’ve got to go NOW. Before Marco takes what he thinks is his.
Before Grim’s rage leads to war.
My feet haven’t even hit the sidewalk yet when a voice stops me in my tracks. “Leaving so soon, Emma Jean?”
I turn to find Marci leaning up against a post at the front of the house. She looks exactly how I remember from the day I met Grim. She stubs out her cigarette. “Yeah, I know who you are. Grim told us he found you.” Her stare hardens. “And I know what you are.” She glances down to my dirty yellow Keds.
I stiffen. “He knows, too. I didn’t mean to hurt anyone. I’m just leaving,” I say. “I won’t be back. You don’t have to worry about me being around ever again.”
“Not until we have a little chat first.” She waves her hand, and I reluctantly follow her to the porch and take a seat on the step next to her, setting my backpack down at my feet.
“You plan on using that thing?” she asks, looking at the gun in my half zipped backpack.
I zip it back up. “I offered it to Grim. Gave him a chance to kill me if he wanted to.”
“I was wondering why two sets of D cups ran screaming through the yard earlier. That you, too?”
“Possibly.”
Marci sighs. “Things aren’t always what they seem. I know that. If you want a chance to unburden your soul, now is the time. I’m listening.”
“I can’t. Grim. He…he hates me.”
She nods like she understands. “When Belly and I first met, I felt something binding us together. Right then on that day. Took me a while to realize it was love. And when we were angry with each other, it’s like that connection made the anger so much worse. So much more hurtful.”
“It’s like I can feel his pain along with my own,” I admit. “I just got to get out of here.”
“Distance doesn’t crumble that kind of bond, baby. Trust me, I tried running from Belly quite a few times before I realized that. And can you blame him for being angry?”
“No, I can’t.”
“I ain’t gonna judge you, kid. No one in this town is in any place to do that. But you gotta give me something here. Free yourself of whatever burden is crushing you. I know the outline of the story, but fill in the pieces. I’m here. I ain’t going anywhere. And again, no judgments. I promise. Grim saw something in you that made him ask me to take you in, and that boy never a
sked for anything, especially back then. Make me understand why you’re messed up in all of this Marco mess.”
“Why are you doing this?” I ask, with a raspy voice.
She rests her hand over mine. “Because someone did it for me once, and sharing secrets I never wanted to repeat to myself out loud gave me a new perspective. I’d like to do the same for you.”
Something about her kind eyes and about the way she says those words, like a mother would to a child who’s done something wrong, makes the need to purge myself rise out of me like a volcano about to erupt the truth.
I take a deep shaky breath and squeeze Marci’s hand.
I tell her everything.
Twenty-One
Trick’s is wearing a white, crop-top tank, exposing a strip of skin under her pert, braless tits. Her skirt is red and reminds me of a Catholic school uniform. High-waisted and so short it barley covers her tight, round ass. Her hair is blonde again, wild and curly, cascading over her shoulders, brushing her hard nipples. Her lips are glossy pink.
FUCK ME.
The possessive feelings I’ve always had for her explode inside my gut like a grenade. The shrapnel hits my heart, and suddenly, I can’t fucking breathe.
She disappears. I look around for her, but she’s not there. I go back inside, wondering if I imagined her.
In the safety of my bathroom, I exhale and try to calm my rapid breathing. I rest both hands on the sink, shaking my head. I splash some cold water on my face and stare at my reflection as the water drips down from my jaw into the sink.
“You’re losing it, Grim. You are so very, very fucked,” I tell myself.
“Oh yeah? What’d you do now?” asks a familiar voice.
I step to the side, and Tricks’ reflection appears in the mirror. She’s behind me, pushing her white sunglasses up to her head to reveal her blue-green eyes and the small dents on each side of her nose where they’d been pressing into her skin.
The Perversion Trilogy: Perversion, Possession & Permission Page 13