by Joanna Wylde
Too bad I couldn’t convince Mom to join me. Whenever we talked, she insisted Teeny was better than he used to be. I didn’t believe it for a minute. He still used her to get drugs, she still used him to get drugs, and they always needed “just another fifty bucks, baby” to make it through.
Whatever. She was old enough to make her own choices and I couldn’t let her drag me down, too.
The blinking of the message light on my old-school answering machine caught my attention. Just one of the valley’s many weird quirks was the fact that less than two miles off the interstate, we lost all cell service. I still had a cell phone, of course—every time I drove to Coeur d’Alene it would spring to life with random messages and texts that’d been locked in a holding pattern since the last time I’d come into range.
Then I’d drive home again and return those calls from my landline, which created all kinds of confusion on people’s caller ID. It was inconvenient, but also kind of funny. I hit play on the message and Danielle’s voice spilled out, full of excitement.
“Hey, Becca! We’ll be over by six. I have great news!”
I looked at the clock—5:55 p.m. Well, crap. I ducked into the bathroom and gave myself a quick once-over. Not too bad, considering how fucked up my day had been. One of the best parts of beauty school was learning how to really take care of my appearance and I liked to keep myself together. Polished.
A quick run of the brush through my hair and a touch of lip gloss fixed me right up. I heard Danielle and Blake pounding on the apartment door and I opened it to find them wearing triumphant expressions. Blake held up two bottles, one of whiskey and the other of cheap red wine.
“So what’s the news?” I asked, eyes darting between them.
“We’ve got jobs!” Danielle said. “Starting tomorrow! They even said they’d work around your school schedule.”
I cocked my head.
“That was easy,” I said slowly. “What’s the catch?”
Danielle’s smile faded, and Blake shrugged.
“It’s down at the Bitter Moose.” I opened my mouth to protest, but Danielle held up a hand, her face uncharacteristically serious.
“Don’t get your panties in a knot,” she said. “I know you don’t like bars, but get over it. There’s nowhere else to work around here and we all know it. Unless you want to work on the other side of the pass? I hear that new strip club is hiring in Post Falls . . .”
Ignoring the strip-club crack, I shook my head. Much as I hated to admit it, Danielle was probably right. There truly wasn’t anywhere else to work near Callup—not for someone with my limited skill set.
Great.
I sighed and Danielle rolled her eyes unsympathetically.
“Look on the positive side,” Blake said. “What are the odds a fight will start at the Bitter Moose on any given night?”
“There’s a fight out there every night.”
“Exactly. It’s perfect, because they can’t fire you or blame you when it happens,” he said reasonably. “You can do this—I saw you throw yourself into the action this morning. Hell, you stay tough like that, you’ll make a fortune in tips.”
“Ooo, do you think we should sign up for the mud-wrestling championships?” Danielle asked, her voice excited.
“They have mud wrestling there?” I asked, my voice rising. Danielle laughed.
“No, you dork,” she replied. “See what a civilized place it is? They’re way too fancy for mud wrestling . . . Well, either that or they haven’t thought of it. Now get your ass into the kitchen and start cooking some noodles. I’ll open the wine. Blake, I expect you to entertain me.”
“How am I supposed to do that?”
“Strip,” Danielle demanded.
I snorted back a laugh at Blake’s expression, holding up a hand.
“For the record, I’m broke,” I told him. “If you start stripping, Danielle has to pay you.”
“That should work out fine,” he replied, waggling his eyebrows at her.
“Give me the wine,” I demanded, deciding I might as well let go for the night and enjoy—Danielle wanted to party, and after everything that’d happened today, I was more than ready to join her.
Hell, I’d already blown classy for the day.
Might as well have some fun.
—
It was the smack on the ass that tipped me off Blake was drunk.
He’d snapped me with a towel at the diner plenty of times, but swatting my butt with his hand was a new level for us, one that probably would’ve bothered me if I wasn’t feeling pretty festive myself.
Blake smacked me again. What the hell? I spun on him, then realized I was blocking the window and he wanted to go outside . . . Oopsie.
One of the best things about my apartment was the fact that the building next door was only one story—that meant I was able to use the roof as my own personal patio for important things like watching the sunset over the mountains. We’d already feasted like kings (well, more like two queens and a king, but you get the picture) and now it was time for lounging on the “veranda” to enjoy our after-dinner drinks.
Not that I needed more to drink . . .
“Get out here, slacker!” Danielle shouted at me, giggling when I stopped to glare at Blake.
“He copped a feel!” I accused loudly.
“I’m trying to go outside while I’m still young,” he grumbled. “Christ, do we need to have a conference about this here, or you think maybe we can move it along before it gets dark?”
“Asshole,” Danielle muttered, although her voice was anything but annoyed. Obviously she found Blake smacking me funny. I felt a twinge of jealousy—she had this laid back confidence around men, completely comfortable in her own attractions and more than ready to move on if it didn’t work out. So far as I could tell, she was just using him for sex.
Wish I could do that. I’d probably gone out with three guys in the last two years, but they either made me anxious or left me cold. Even if things went well and we started making out, I’d flash back to Teeny and it was all over.
Reaching out, Danielle caught my hand and jerked me forward. I fell out onto the roof, landing on my face. This was apparently extremely funny—Blake couldn’t stop laughing as I tried to right myself. Danielle joined him. Traitor.
“Laugh away, jerks,” I muttered, holding up my wine bottle triumphantly. “You almost made me spill alcohol. That’s a grave offense against the gods.”
They sobered instantly.
“I forgot you were holding the wine,” Danielle said, her voice serious. “I wouldn’t have done that if I’d known the risk.”
We pondered the severity of the situation before she started giggling again, which got me going. Life might be fucked up, but I had damned fine friends despite it all. Five minutes later we sat in a row on the roof’s incline, feet braced on the low false front that someone thought would make the building look more impressive, once upon a time. It’d been a doctor’s office back when Callup still had a doctor. His sign still sat out front, right next to the broken barber pole on the building next door.
“Your apartment used to be part of a whorehouse,” Danielle said casually.
“I know. Regina told me about it.”
“Did you know the girls liked to come out here to eat their meals? They wouldn’t let them out to walk around town or anything.”
“Really?” I asked, intrigued. “I thought it was anything goes back in the mining days. Seems weird that the hookers wouldn’t be allowed outside.”
Blake snorted.
“It didn’t shut down until 1988,” he said. My eyes widened.
“Seriously?”
He nodded, taking a swig from his bottle.
“Yup, my dad used to come here,” he said. “Mom dumped his ass over it, I shit you not. There was one in the building on the other side, too.”
I glanced over toward the three-story building rising above us, across the roof from my apartment. You’d be able to crawl
out onto the roof from there, too, although I’d never seen anyone do it. That one just had one big apartment filling the whole second floor. Until recently, an old logger lived there. Six months ago he’d retired and gone south to move in with his daughter. Sooner or later someone else would rent it, but for now I had the roof to myself.
That’s when I saw the flicker of a light inside.
“What’s that?” I asked, my voice a loud whisper.
“What’s what?”
“There’s a light in the window over there,” I said. “Or I think there is. They’re so damned dirty it’s hard to tell.”
“Probably a ghost,” Danielle replied, her voice sage. “You know, Wyatt Earp came through here, back during the gold rush. I’ll bet he shot some prostitute in there, and now she’s just waiting around to have her revenge on all men. You better watch out, Blake. She’ll steal your dick and then you’ll be no good to me.”
“Fuck off,” he said, his voice happy. The shadows had grown longer and the sun was already down below the ridgeline. Night fell fast here in the deep mountain valleys.
“You wish,” she replied, crawling over me to lie down on top of him. I rolled my eyes.
“You guys are disgusting.”
“Jealous?” Blake asked. “You’re totally welcome to join in.”
I flipped him off, then looked back toward the empty apartment across from mine. There was definitely a light in there, I decided. Between the dirt and the dark curtains it was hard to see, but apparently I had a new neighbor.
“Hope whoever moved in isn’t an asshole.”
Danielle and Blake didn’t reply, and I looked over to find them swapping spit as his hand slipped up her shirt. Great.
“You know, you’re hurting my feelings,” I muttered. “Seems like just a little while ago your hands were all over me. What’s a girl to think?”
They ignored me, and I giggled at my own little joke. Then I saw a shadow pass across the window.
Alcohol is fully to blame for what I did next.
Booze and that unpleasant, impulsive streak I’d inherited from Mom . . .
Setting down my bottle carefully, I crept across the roof on my hands and knees in full stealth mode. This wasn’t exactly an impressive feat, given how old and soft the shingles were, but I still felt very sneaky and special when I reached the far window and tried to peek inside.
The grime blocked everything, so I spat on my finger and wiped off a little peephole. It worked surprisingly well but when I put my face up to it to look through, I was rewarded with a sight that shocked me. Oh wow.
It was an ass. A bare ass, with tight, sculpted muscles and thick, firm thighs. It’d been five years, but I recognized those thighs all too well. Even if I hadn’t, the little tingle of arousal would’ve been a dead giveaway.
What in the name of hell was Puck Redhouse doing in the building across from mine? And where the fuck were his clothes?
I gasped as he slowly turned, revealing that it wasn’t just his butt that was naked. Nope, that was a penis and it was every bit as big and hard as I remembered it being. I’d felt that thing push deep inside and it’d felt good. Total understatement. It’d been fantastic.
Well, fantastic until the pain, the beating, and the endless ride across the desert wondering whether my mom was still alive.
You’d think the memory of the bad would wipe out the good, but it didn’t. In my head they were almost two separate incidents, unrelated. Regina told me once that we do whatever we have to when it comes to survival, including allowing our bodies to feel pleasure at the strangest of times. She said I shouldn’t worry about judging my sexual responses, even if they were kind of fucked up.
This was easier in theory than practice.
I really, really didn’t want to be attracted to Puck.
God obviously has a vicious sense of humor. Here I was, a walking, talking portrait of sexual dysfunction, and the only guy who really got me going happened to be the scariest biker I’d ever met. The motorcycle club was supposed to be a deal breaker. It wasn’t personal—more of a “been there, done that, got my lifetime supply of psychological trauma” kind of thing.
Puck was exactly the opposite of what I wanted and needed, yet my stupid body just wasn’t getting the message.
Unacceptable.
Then he reached down and caught that big cock in his hand, giving it a stroke. I stopped thinking and settled in for the show, figuring if God was going to betray me by creating a body that only responded to Puck, I might as well enjoy it. It didn’t occur to me that maybe I shouldn’t be spying on him. Not even a little. Of course, nothing good ever happens when you spy on someone.
Sometimes you get caught.
Sometimes you see horrible, horrible things . . . like Carlie Gifford stepping into view and dropping to her knees in front of the guy you absolutely don’t want anything to do with under any circumstances—not even a little—and sucking his dick deep into her mouth.
I’d never been under any illusions about Puck. The night I’d met him, he’d fucked me harder than most women experience in their entire lives . . . but I knew I wasn’t anything special in his world. Hell, he’d brought women to breakfast at the diner regularly whenever he was in town. Guess that made him a gentleman, because at least he fed them after a night spent hot and heavy under the sheets.
Still, knowing he was fucking around and seeing it in living color right in front of you are two very different things.
This was where I should’ve backed away. Scuttled off like a good girl, gone back into my apartment and gone to bed. Definitely the smart thing to do.
But when her mouth wrapped around him tight and he dug his fingers deep into her hair?
I couldn’t have dragged my eyes away if my life depended on it. So I watched as her cheeks hollowed and sucked him in. So wrong on so many levels, and utterly compelling. Need and desire grew between my legs as her fingers dug into his ass. I still remembered exactly how it felt when he’d come deep into my own throat all those years ago.
It was wrong.
And when his entire body tensed before he pulled free and sprayed all over her face?
That’s when I realized my fascination with Puck was deeply fucked up. I needed to meet some other man. Any other man. Maybe before I took a job down at the Bitter Moose, I should go check it out for myself. See who might be there. Somewhere in the world there had to be a guy as sexy as Puck who wasn’t a biker. I just needed to find him.
There had to be a sweet spot between lonely cat lady and full-on biker whore like my mom. Not that I had a cat—yet. But one of Regina’s was pregnant and she’d been talking about giving me a kitten.
When I got it, I’d already know how to make it sundresses . . .
No. No more cat dresses. I’d just have to suck it up and start screwing random guys until I found one that worked right.
Standing unsteadily, I backed away from the window, tripping as I knocked over the empty wine bottle with an unholy rattle of metal flashing. It startled Blake, and he sat up abruptly, rolling Danielle off to the side with a thud. She squawked in outrage. This would’ve been of far more concern to me if I wasn’t suddenly teetering toward the end of the fake roof facade, hoping rather desperately that the two-foot-high barrier would be enough to keep me from going over the edge.
“Fuck,” Blake muttered, diving for me. He caught the side of my shirt and yanked me back. Hard. The fabric tore wide open and we fell back down on the roof together with a thud.
When I caught my breath, I discovered that I was straddling Blake with both legs spread wide. His arms held my half-naked upper body against him—tight—and the tops of my breasts pressed firmly into his face.
“Are you all right?” Danielle asked, her voice short and breathy. I blinked, trying to figure that out for myself. Then Blake made a snorting noise and wiggled his head.
“Shit,” I muttered, pulling back. I’d been smothering the poor man. “Blake, I’m so sorry! T
hank you for saving me, though.”
Blake took a deep breath and coughed, then gave a slow grin.
“If you really want to thank me, shove those tits back down into my face.”
“Don’t make me use my gun,” Danielle muttered, her voice dark. I blushed fiercely, realizing that regardless of whether it was because he’d been making out with Danielle or because I was currently grinding my crotch deep into his, the man was hard as a rock.
Then Blake was rolling me to the side and I was lying on my back, wondering what the hell just happened. Shit. There was no way Puck could’ve missed all that noise outside the window.
Wasn’t that just perfect.
I considered checking his window to see if he was watching. Did I really want to know? Uh-uh. Retreat was the better part of valor under the circumstances. Not only that, despite my crash into the roof, my bits were still a little tingly from watching Carlie suck him off, which was creepy and weird. Then I remembered my idea.
“Let’s go to the Bitter Moose,” I said, sitting up. “Get dressed up, go dancing or something. If I’m going to start working there, I should see what it’s like at night. Maybe find a cute guy while we’re at it.”
“You’ve never been to the Moose at night?” Danielle asked, obviously surprised. “But you’re always going on about how much you hate bars. How do you know you hate it if you’ve never been there?”
“I’ve heard stories. It’s not my kind of place, but you know what? Maybe I need to get out more.”
“I see what’s happening here,” Blake said, his voice sly. “You got a taste of Blake, and now you’re ready to get back in the saddle, aren’t you?”
“Jesus, do you never stop trying?” Danielle asked him.
“Hey, it’s not my fault she threw herself at me,” he said. “But seriously, if you want to go out, let’s call my friend, Joe Collins. He can drive us, and he’s been asking me forever to set something up with you, Becca.”
Across the roof I caught the flare of a light. Crap. Puck had pushed open the drapes, and now I could see him all too clearly as he walked away from the window. Had he seen me spying on him? God, I hoped not. More important, what was he doing over there in the first place?