by Jessie Evans
Bad girls are one of my favorite things and—despite what I know of Caitlin’s past—every second of that dance assured me she’s my kind of woman. I’m the one pursuing her across the dance floor now, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find myself handcuffed to her headboard by the end of the night.
In fact, I’d enjoy it.
CHAPTER THREE
Caitlin
“It’s the first drop that destroys you, there’s no harm at all in the last.” –Irish proverb
Sherry is grinning as she leans into the bar—granting the bartender, who brought her band aids for her blisters, a better view of her cleavage—but her smile vanishes the moment she sees my face, confirming I must look as shaken as I feel.
“What’s wrong?” she shouts, plunking back onto her stool hard enough to make her breasts threaten to bounce out of her top.
“Nothing.” I shake my head. “I just want to get out of here.”
“What?” Sherry squints, as if that will help her hear me.
It’s quieter by the circular bar than out on the dance floor, but still way too loud. Every thump of the bass rips through my head, pounding what’s left of my brain, after I realized I was dirty dancing with Gabriel Alexander, to mush.
Fucking Gorgeous Gabe, one of the many privileged assholes I wasn’t sorry to see the last of when I dropped out of Christoph Academy, kissing my scholarship goodbye. As far as actions went, Gabe wasn’t particularly memorable. Sure he was spoiled, entitled, goofed off during study hall, and had no clue how hard most people have to work to scrape by, but he wasn’t any more obnoxious than the other private school twerps.
No, what made Gabe stand out was how damned, crazy, stupid beautiful he was. The boy has cheekbones that would make a super model jealous, jagged brown hair that falls in edgy waves over his forehead, and piercing blue eyes so pale they seemed to glow, to burn with an icy fire that promises wicked and delightful things. And the rest of him is nothing to sneeze at either. Even back in high school, he had a body that inspired giddy, heart-littered graffiti in the girls’ bathroom, but now…
Now, he is sex in two-hundred dollar blue jeans. He is built like an athlete and moves like an animal, so completely uninhibited it makes even me feel reserved in comparison. Me, who doesn’t have a shy bone in her body when it comes time to hit the dance floor.
I never feel more alive than when I’m dancing. If I weren’t juggling two jobs and have kids to take care of, I’d be at a club every night. Dancing is my drug, my rush, the only thing that takes me out of my head and connects me to that deep, primal part of myself I keep locked away most of the time.
And, up until tonight, it was something I preferred to do alone. Sure, I’ll dance with a guy now and then, but nothing like what happened with Gabe. That dance was soul-shaking, panty-melting, so damned sexy my skin is still buzzing and my heart racing and my stomach feels like it’s turning inside out. I can’t remember the last time I felt this way—if I’ve ever felt this way—or wanted someone the way I want Gabe.
If I don’t get out of the club ASAP, I know I’ll do something I’ll regret.
Going home with a guy isn’t on the agenda, but especially not a guy like Gabe. I don’t have room in my life for a smug, privileged asshole who probably spends more money per month on carwashes than I do on groceries to feed a family of six. Not now, when everything at home is falling apart and I’m feeling the difference between a person like me and a person like Gabe more keenly than I ever have before.
“Come on.” I tug on Sherry’s arm, pulling her off her stool. “Let’s go.”
She nods and holds up one finger before leaning over the bar to say goodbye to the bartender she’s been flirting with all night. I turn, scanning the club for six feet of walking sex appeal, but thankfully, Gabe is nowhere to be seen. Sherry and I make it up the stairs and through the front lobby into the street without running into any trouble, and my chest loosens in relief.
“Let me go get the car,” I say, holding out my hand for her keys as she limps to the curb beside me. “That way you won’t make your blisters any worse.”
“Uh-uh,” Sherry says. “You’ve been drinking. I’ll take my shoes off and go barefoot.”
I shake my head. “There’s broken glass and cigarette butts and a hundred other nasty things between here and where we’re parked. I had my second whiskey sour two hours ago; I’m fine to drive. Hand over the keys, I don’t want you getting hurt.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Sherry rolls her eyes as she drops the keys in my hand. “You’re such a mom, sometimes.”
“All the time,” I counter with a grin. “Be right back.”
You weren’t acting like a mom ten minutes ago, I think, as I turn to go, my gold, high-heeled sandals clicking on the sidewalk.
No, I wasn’t, and that scares me as much as the fluttery feeling still filling my chest. I can’t afford to lose control, even for a night. I’m all my brothers and Emmie have left. I can’t let them down. I don’t have time for distractions like Gorgeous Gabe. Between working five lunch shifts a week at Harry’s and almost every Friday and Saturday night at the movie theater, I barely have time to make sure the kids are fed, bathed, homework done, doctor appointments kept, Danny’s latest school crisis averted, and a couple of loads of laundry done per week.
I don’t have room in my life for a boyfriend and I don’t do one-night stands. Before my big sister skipped town, she made sure the name “Cooney” was synonymous with “easy lay”—I’ve been called a slut behind my back since long before I ever kissed a guy—but despite the gossip around the neighborhood, this Cooney sister isn’t into casual hook-ups. Not that I think they’re wrong, or that I wouldn’t enjoy making out with one of Isaac’s beefy football player friends or the notoriously hot Lombardi boys down the street.
My problem is that I’m pretty sure I’d enjoy it too much. It would be so easy to get addicted to a feeling as electric as what I felt in Gabe’s arms, so easy to forget all the lives depending on me and get lost in that hunger, lost in him.
“Don’t think about it,” I say aloud, earning myself a sideways glance from the two college boys in brightly colored polo-shirts walking in the opposite direction, making me realize how long it’s been since I’ve stepped out of my routine.
At home and at both of my jobs, everyone knows I talk to myself. It’s something that’s taken for granted, as much a part of me as my green eyes or the scattering of freckles across my nose. No one bats an eye when I walk around the restaurant mumbling my to-do list, but in the real world, people think girls who talk to themselves are crazy.
And maybe I am crazy, because when I pull up in front of the club and see Gabe standing next to Sherry—nodding seriously as my best friend talks a mile a minute—a shockwave of pleasure shoots through me.
I’m happy to see him. Very happy.
Which is bad, so bad, and likely to get worse if the determined look in Gabe’s piercing blue eyes is anything to judge by.
I swallow, ignoring the way my heart beats in my throat as I roll down the passenger’s window and call for Sherry to get in.
“Hey.” She leans down, a guilty-excited look on her face that makes me even more uneasy. “I’ve decided to take a cab. I should get home and put some medicine on my blisters, but you and Gabe can have the car.”
My brows draw together so swiftly my head jerks. “What?”
“We’re taking the car,” Gabe says as he eases around Sherry.
Before I can hit the lock button, he’s inside the vehicle, settling into the seat next to me, filling the cab of Sherry’s VW Bug with that clean-dirty smell of his. Clean, because the soapy scent that clings to his skin speaks of long showers and luxury bath products and other sensual things; dirty, because the base note of man and spice and sex that hovers around Gabe is enough to make my mouth water, to make me want to give in the way I gave in on the dance floor and let him take control.
“Get out,” I mutter through gritted teeth
, shooting him my most serious glare, the one that makes Danny jump up from his video games and set the table without a hint of backtalk.
I need Gabe out of this car—now.
“No,” he says, making my jaw clench harder. “I’m going to help you get what you need.”
“I don’t need your help,” I say with a huff, insulted that he’s reduced sleeping with me to an act of pity. “I’m not anyone’s charity case, certainly not yours.”
“I know that.” Gabe nods, but makes no move to exit the car. “That’s why I’m going to help you get what you need, instead of giving it to you. Charity can be insulting, no matter how well-intentioned, and I think we’ll both have more fun this way.”
“What are you talking about?” I ask, no longer certain this conversation is about sex.
“Your friend told me about the property taxes,” he says. “I know where we can get the money.”
My mouth falls open, but before I can recover Sherry breaks in.
“Okay, well you two have fun.” She wiggles her fingers as she backs away from the car, the giddy look on her face making it clear she thinks she’s doing me a favor by throwing me to the wolves.
To one wolf, anyway, one who watches me with cool blue eyes that make my lips prickle as his gaze lingers on my face.
“I’ll swing by your place tomorrow morning and pick up the car,” Sherry continues as she hops back onto the sidewalk to await her taxi. “Do all the things I wish I was doing tonight. At least twice!”
“I’m going to kill you,” I say, ignoring the heat that flushes my face.
“Sounds good.” She giggles, obviously not taking my threat seriously.
But she’s right, of course. I’m not going to kill her, or even hold a grudge for more than a day. I can’t stay mad at Sherry. She’s impulsive and crazy and runs her mouth when she shouldn’t, but she’s been my friend since third grade.
She and Isaac were the only friends who didn’t lose interest when I got an academic scholarship to Christoph Academy and switched high schools. They were also the only ones who came by to visit me when I quit the academy to stay home with Emmie.
Sherry was my rock, stopping by the store for more diapers when Emmie was too sick for me to take her out and keeping me company when the stress of caring for an infant and three wild boys threatened to unravel what was left of my sanity. Back then, I’d been so overwhelmed I couldn’t have imagined things getting any harder, but they had. And I had survived, the way I always do—on my own, without any handouts or knights in shining BMWs.
I have no idea what kind of “help” Gabe plans on shelling out, but I know I want no part of it.
“Should I drop you off at your car?” I ask as I pull back onto the road. “Or do you need a ride home?”
“We’re going to the corner of Grant and Hawthorne,” Gabe says. “Do you know where that is?”
I grunt beneath my breath. “That’s my side of town.”
“Is it?” he asks, as if he doesn’t know I live on the wrong side of the tracks—both sets of them. “Then I assume you know how to get there.”
“I do, but—”
“Good, but don’t drive past the pawnshop on the corner,” he interrupts. “You’ll want to park before we get there, preferably on a side street.” He reaches down, releasing the seat handle and scooting back to make more room for his long legs—his thickly muscled, long legs, one of which was between my thighs less than an hour ago when we were grinding on the dance floor.
I take a deep breath in and let it out slowly through my nose, fighting the memory and the sizzle of awareness it generates.
“Listen, I appreciate that you’d like to help,” I say. “But I don’t have anything worth pawning and I don’t want your money.”
“I’m not giving you my money, and we won’t be pawning anything,” he says, his voice low, silky smooth, and as ridiculously sexy as everything else about the man Gabe’s become. “The shop is closed. The owner’s spending some time in the hospital after being hit in the head with a baseball bat.”
“Crap,” I say, forehead wrinkling. “Poor guy.”
“Don’t waste your pity.” Gabe leans back in his seat as I guide the bug down Limestone Avenue and take a right near the courthouse. “Mr. Purdue broke his wife’s arm in three places and cracked two of her ribs before his daughter hit him with the baseball bat, knocking him out long enough to get her mother out of the house alive.”
My eyes go round and my stomach lurches. “How do you know that?”
“My father is Mr. Purdue’s defense attorney,” he says. “I’m working at the office while I’m taking a semester off. I read the case file. It had all the gory details.”
I peek at him, dividing my attention between him and the road. “You’re kidding right?”
“I’m not.” Gabe sighs and for the first time I see a crack in his cool, confident exterior. I can tell he hates that his dad is representing a man who would beat his wife. “But Dad will defend any scumbag with enough cash to pay his retainer, and he’s the best, so there’s a good chance Mr. Purdue will get off. Assuming his wife’s courage holds, of course, and she doesn’t change her mind and refuse to testify the way she did last time.”
I shake my head, not knowing what to say. “Well, I guess everyone has the right to an attorney.”
“They shouldn’t,” Gabe says, his voice hard. “Evil people have too much protection under the law. It’s the innocent who suffer while they try to prove they’ve been victimized. If you play by the rules, you get screwed. Every time.”
I chew the corner of my lip, wishing I could disagree with him. But the system popped my optimistic cherry a long time ago, the year I spent three months in a foster home. The place was ten times worse than the house my caseworker plucked me out of, and I was stuck there for months while Chuck and my scatterbrained mom tried to follow all the rules to reestablish custody.
There had been three other foster kids in the house, and we’d passed around lice so many times I had to have my head shaved to get rid of it. Our foster mom gave me the crew cut herself. She couldn’t be bothered to do all the washing and cleaning to get rid of the infestation, and I think a part of the sadistic bitch had enjoyed shaving off my waist-length hair. It had been so beautiful and healthy and shiny, the only part of my appearance I took pride in back when I was so skinny the kids at school made fun of the way my knobby elbows and knees stuck out from the rest of me.
I’d gone back home looking like a cancer patient. The moment my mom saw me, she’d burst into tears and run to her room, refusing to come out for the “welcome home” burgers and fries my dad had sprung for from McDonald’s.
I should have known right then she wasn’t in the motherhood game for the long haul. There is nothing that would keep me from hugging one of my kids if they’d been gone for three months. Nothing.
“That’s why sometimes rules need to be broken,” Gabe continues, pulling me from my thoughts. “Sometimes you have to take justice into your own hands.”
I brake behind a row of cars already stopped at a red light and turn to face him, grateful for the chance to look him in the eyes. “Where are we going?” I ask, stomach gurgling with nerves. “What is this?”
His focus slides my way, the intensity in his expression enough to make me shiver. “We’re going to get the money you need to keep your home and take care of your family.”
“How?” I ask.
“You’ve already sacrificed your life on the altar of sisterly duty,” he says, ignoring my question. “I’d hate to think all of that was for nothing.”
“Keep your smartass comments to yourself,” I say, gripping the steering wheel so tight my knuckles start to ache. “Or you can get out right here.”
“I’m not being a smartass,” he says, a gentle note in his voice that’s almost as unnerving as his penetrating stare. “I heard the gossip after you left school. You dropped out to take care of your brothers and niece because your dad’
s an alcoholic and your sister bailed on her kid, right?”
“Yeah. So?” I turn my attention to the road as the cars begin to move, grateful for an excuse to break the eye contact that’s making my skin feel too tight.
“Well, it isn’t hard to read the writing on that wall,” he says. “With four kids to feed, no diploma, no time or money for your own education, and no support from your family, there’s no way you’re getting out. Unless you dump the dead weight and let the state take the children, but you don’t seem like the type.” He pauses, cranking his window down a few inches, letting cool air and the smell of the honeysuckle starting to bloom beside the road rush into the car. “Unless something changes, you’re headed down a long, hard road, with your chances of creeping above the poverty line ranging from slim to none.”
I swallow, ignoring the lump in my throat, hating his prophecy, hating even more that it’s already coming true. I haven’t even had time to get my GED, let alone start college. I’ll never make my dreams of getting a degree a reality, not when I have to work fifty hours a week just to keep food on the table.
“It’s not your fault,” he says, again in that kind way that sort of makes me want to punch him. “Like I said, the system is rigged. America isn’t the land of opportunity, not anymore. It’s a place where the rich get richer, and the poor get to watch reality television on increasingly affordable electronics.”
“You think you’re pretty clever, don’t you?”
“I’m not clever, I’m realistic,” he says. “I give my share to charity, but even if I gave my trust fund away, it wouldn’t change a flawed system. Facts are facts, and the only way that certain people can break out is to stop playing by the rules and start playing to win.”
He lifts a hand, pointing to the next turn onto Orchard Street. “Pull over up here and go around the block. We can park at the end of the street and sneak in through the back.”