Mess Me Up

by Vale, Lani Lynn

  I’d walked into his bathroom, unprepared to find almost a full body’s worth of hair on the bathroom floor, counter, and on the rug. Hell, it was even in the sink.

  But these were only just a few of the things that grossed me out.

  Speaking of grossing me out, my phone vibrated with a text, and I pulled it out to see that Rome had finally replied to the text I’d sent him.

  Rome: that better not fuckin’ be pubes.

  Grinning, I replied with a GIF and shoved the phone back into my pocket, getting back to work.

  My phone vibrated almost immediately, and I stopped only having taken one more sweep to pull it out and look at it.

  Rome: I’m having lunch with Bayou. He said to sweep it all up and put it in the air vent in his car. That way when he starts it up later, it blows in his face. What a fucker.

  I grinned and typed out a message.

  Me: Don’t get me started. That’s just a little taste of what I have to deal with here. I think he thinks I speak only Spanish. He talks to me like my IQ is low. Oh, and he points and gestures a lot.

  Rome sent back a barfing emoticon, and I gave an inadvertent giggle before shoving my phone back into my bra and getting back to work.

  The next text message that came I didn’t bother to answer.

  Not when I had places to be, people to see, and things to do.

  All of those things centered around a tall biker with a really great ass.

  Luckily, we were both working today, or I’d probably be getting a whole lot less work done.

  Rome and I had turned into quite the Chatty Cathys lately, not that I was complaining or anything.

  I was actually quite relieved.

  Having him actually going out of his way to talk to me was so much more than I ever expected. Especially since he’d spent six months doing everything he could to avoid me.

  But, I wasn’t going to complain.

  My grandmother had been one of my only support systems for too long.

  I missed having companionship with people my own age.

  Even more, I’d missed Rome.

  I missed everything about him and didn’t realize how much until he’d literally come out of his cave these past few weeks.

  But, as much as I wanted to pull my phone out and continue to have a conversation with him, I had work to do.

  And once I was done with the floor, I moved back to the baseboards, and then began dusting.

  It was when I was pulling the drawers out of the TV cabinet in the living room to get that line of dust on top of the drawer itself that my eyes lit on something inside the drawers.

  What I saw made me slam the drawer shut, and my heart skip a beat.

  My heart was slamming a hundred miles an hour in my chest, and my jaw was likely on the floor.

  I moved hastily to the blinds in the living room and looked out at the pool, wincing when I saw Mr. Antilles swimming his laps—slowly.

  I hurried back to the drawer, and then opened it up like what I’d seen would strike out and bite me.

  The photos did none of those things—at least not physically. Emotionally, I was scarred for life.

  I stared at the first photo, and then moved the photo over with the tip of my fingernail, staring with disgust at the next photo.

  The third and fourth photo were more of the same, but it was the fifth that had my entire heart not just skipping a beat but stopping entirely.

  It wasn’t because of the girl in the photo, but the man in the photo.

  My ex.

  Oh, holy shit.

  I licked my lips hastily and swallowed hard at what I saw, wondering if there was a way to move the photos back to where they needed to be to act like I hadn’t seen what I saw.

  My stomach was rolling, and I wanted nothing more than to run out of the house and take off down the street as fast as my feet could take me.

  But with this client being one of my best paying clients, and him also having quite a bit of influence in the community, I was hesitant to go.

  If I lost him, I’d lose about two hundred dollars of my weekly income, and that wasn’t including the other clients that he likely would convey my lack of professionalism to.

  I bit my lip, and then looked at my phone.

  I had to take a picture of the photos. Then, once I had them, I’d take the phone to Rome after I was done here and ask him what he would do.

  Normally I would’ve called my brother, but I hadn’t been able to do that in a long time. And Rome? Well, Rome had become one of the best friends I could ever ask for.

  After getting the pictures and trying to put them back into place without looking like I’d been in there, I finished my work at record speed.

  And, since I normally didn’t announce when I left because he was in his office working, I hurried the fuck out of there, collecting what was likely my final check from the refrigerator as I hauled ass as fast as I could move it without looking like I was escaping.

  My walk turned into a run, and the moment the bar Rome said he’d be at came into view, I felt something settle in my stomach.

  It wasn’t completely better, but it was a hell of a lot better than it had been over the last couple of hours.

  I pulled the heavy oak door of the bar, Bear Bottom Bar, open and glanced around.

  I found him immediately.

  He was at the bar, his back to the door, talking to Wade—who was in his Bear Bottom Police uniform.

  I swallowed, suddenly feeling like I was walking into a viper’s den and trudged forward even though I wanted to turn around and walk back out and forget this day had ever happened.

  But…I couldn’t.

  Not with what was in those pictures.

  I owed it to the victims.

  “…Not sure that I want to be here that long, man,” I heard Rome say to Wade.

  “We haven’t seen you in months, Rome. You’ve missed six meetings. I’m pretty sure that Izzy won’t mind if you hang out here and fulfill some obligations you have to the club while she cools her jets.”

  Once I was close enough, I reached out and touched my fingertips to Rome’s back, words on his tongue to whatever he was about to reply to Wade was lost.

  His muscles tightened, and he turned around, his face impassive.

  The moment he saw it was me, his face broke out into a grin. That grin slowly fell when he saw the look on my face.

  Wade, who was also turned, went on alert.

  “Iz.” Rome reached for me, his large fingers curling around my upper arm almost completely. “What is it?”

  I licked my dry lips, then decided to just go for it.

  Pulling out my phone, I started explaining. “I was cleaning Senator Antilles’ house today and found something.”

  I handed the phone to him with the pictures pulled up.

  He saw them and stiffened.

  I knew what he saw.

  The first photo I took was of some man getting a blow job from a teenager.

  The second one was of some other man I didn’t recognize, this man on his knees getting butt fucked by another teenager wearing a strap-on, but she didn’t look like she wanted to be doing what she was doing. The tears running down her cheeks attested to that.

  Then the last photo was the one of my ex.

  “The last one is my ex,” I whispered. “He’s a lawyer. His name is Rodrigo Bernaldez. The girl that he’s with? That girl is the same girl that I saw at the grocery store with him. The mom was the new woman that I assumed he got pregnant. Remember that letter?”

  I remembered that day as if it’d happened just yesterday.

  Rome had given me the confidence to be strong. That day, I’d gone into the fireworks store for sparklers. When I’d turned the corner to get them, the first thing I spotted was Rodrigo. The second was the pregnant woman, and a girl that had to be about sixteen or seventeen standing as far away as she could be but still be with the
group.

  My eyes had been so focused on Rodrigo that I hadn’t given the other two more than a passing glance.

  And I hadn’t hung around long.

  I’d gotten my sparklers and hurried out, not stopping to see if they’d noticed me or anything else.

  It might seem like I’d run, but technically I’d gotten what I’d gone in there to get. Before Rome had instilled confidence in me, I would’ve straight up left never to return.

  Somewhere that Rodrigo frequented was not a place that I wanted to be.

  “Holy fuck,” Rome whispered, tilting the phone to Wade, who took it.

  He went through the photos around ten times before he said anything more.

  His eyes were lit with an inner fire that looked like he was about to start spewing venom any minute.

  “Did he catch you?”

  I shook my head and leaned into Rome when he pulled me under his arm.

  “He was outside swimming laps in his Speedo,” I muttered darkly. “Unless he has cameras set up in his house—which wouldn’t surprise me because he’s paranoid—then I think I’m in the clear.”

  Both men tensed.

  “How do you mean he’s paranoid?” Wade was the one to ask.

  I sighed and stood up straighter, turning so that my back was to the bar, and I was wedged in between the two men. I was touching from armpit to thigh with Rome. Wade was a few inches away from me, but I could still feel his heat.

  I scooted closer to Rome, who twisted on his bar stool so that I was now in between his thighs. His arm was around my waist, and one large hand was spread out along my thigh. I would not think too hard about how close his hand was to my unmentionables, either.

  “Well,” I said, wiggling slightly so that I could find a more comfortable position—one which Rome accommodated by moving the hand on my thigh and wrapping it around my waist and pulling me even tighter into him. “He won’t let me go into his office unless he’s there with me, watching my every move. And the minute that I’m done, and he’s not going to work in there, he locks it up. I’m also to keep all the doors to the house locked while I’m there. And if his wife is the only one home on the days that I clean, then I’m not allowed to clean his office at all.”

  Wade hummed.

  Rome snorted. “I wouldn’t have thought too much into that. There are things that I wouldn’t want you to see on my home computer—like my vast porn collection or my bank work—but he is a US senator. He might very well have sensitive documents in his office…which begs me to question, why weren’t these in his office, or better hidden? It’s like he wanted you to find them.”

  I shivered.

  I sure hoped that wasn’t the case.

  Why would he want me to find them?

  “I clean everything. And those weren’t there last week when I cleaned, I would know. I pull that same drawer out every week to clean. It has this weird lip on it that collects dust, and if you don’t pull it out to clean along the top, the crease gets this grayish tint to it and Senator Antilles’s wife complains about it.”

  “That all seems very convenient to me,” Rome admitted.

  Wade grunted in agreement. “I agree.”

  “Think maybe you should do some quiet digging, Wade,” Rome admitted. “I’m not sure where this is going, or why she’s involved in whatever she’s found herself involved in, but it’s more than obvious that he wanted her to find those.”

  Wade grunted. “I know a guy.”

  “Anyway, do I quit or keep doing the job?” I asked hesitantly.

  I was praying that he said keep the job.

  I’d been looking at cars over the last week. I couldn’t afford one if I didn’t have that money from cleaning his house once a week. And furthermore, according to the driving school that I’d looked up online, I had to have a vehicle of my own to drive at the school because the student cars with the dual brake pedals on the driver side and passenger side were a thing of the past—at least in this county.

  Though I guess technically I could just pick up a few extra jobs, but then that’d take away from my Rome time, and I wasn’t really looking forward to that.

  “No,” Wade grunted. “But I think on top of looking into this, I still need to report it. Which I can do. I can claim I have a confidential informant. Got the email through a throwaway email address, and since you can name off one of the individuals in the pictures with the women…”

  “They’re teenagers,” I said softly. “They might have all the essentials and look grown up, but I’ve seen those girls around town. They’re still in high school. The two right here,” I pointed at the pictures. “They’re in the eleventh grade. Oscar has a son who is a football player. He played varsity this year. Those girls were on the sidelines cheering for them.”

  Neither man spoke for a long while, processing that news.

  “The other option is reporting it as an anonymous tip.”

  “And that tip will point directly toward me,” I told him honestly.

  Wade’s eyes were hard and unyielding. “Sometimes you have to do shit you don’t want to do, girl.”

  I looked away.

  I knew better than most what he was talking about. I did a lot of shit I didn’t want to do.

  Not that he’d know that.

  But when I looked up at Rome, I knew that he knew what I’d be sacrificing if I told the senator I could no longer work for him.

  “What do I do with the pictures?” I asked softly.

  Wade held out his phone. “I’ll forward them to my email. You delete them. Having child pornography on your phone is a crime in itself.”

  Kissing the dreams of driving and a car goodbye, because I knew once Wade reported my “anonymous” tip, things would blow up in my face, I proceeded to get drunk.

  Really, really drunk.

  And Rome let me.

  Chapter 13

  Not today, heifer.

  -T-shirt

  Rome

  I woke up with my arm about to fall off, and my cock as hard as a rock.

  At first, I wasn’t too sure where I was.

  Then, when I opened my eyes and saw the mass of black hair spread out over my chest, and the head resting on my bicep, I remembered exactly where I was, as well as why the beautiful Izzy was currently sleeping on me.

  After she’d shown me her pictures and asked me my advice, I’d suggested she take a shot to calm her nerves. That shot had turned into four margaritas, a shot of whiskey, two strawberry daiquiris, and a mojito.

  When she hadn’t been able to find her house keys—she said in her haste she might’ve left them at the senator’s house—I’d taken her to my place.

  From there, I’d laid her on my bed and had started to leave her…until she started to cry.

  And I’d always been a sucker for a woman in tears.

  After toeing off my shoes and shucking my shirt, I’d laid down and gathered her into my arms, listening to her cry about the car she wasn’t getting to buy now, as well as the fact that there were pieces of shit on this Earth that needed to be gelded.

  After crying her little heart out, she’d fallen asleep, and I hadn’t been far behind.

  Which led to now.

  It was three o’clock in the morning, and I was now wide awake.

  Why was I wide awake?

  Because Izzy was practically laying on top of me, and my dick liked her softness pressed into it.

  “Izzy,” I called softly, running my hand up and down her bare thigh, under the silky shorts she still had on.

  It was so soft.

  So. Fucking. Soft.

  My hand practically spanned around her entire knee, and I found myself wanting to follow the same trail I’d taken by hand with my tongue.

  I swallowed hard and started to push her off of me, but she tightened her arms around me.

  “I was sleeping really well,” she muttered darkly. “Why are you waking me?�
�

  I was never one to beat around the bush. Hesitation and indecision were not fine traits to have when you were a professional football player trying to protect your quarterback from having his teeth knocked in.

  “You’re lying on top of me, and grinding against me, and making these noises with your mouth,” I told her. “I haven’t had sex in a really long time, and I’m not a saint. My dick is about to explode.”

  She went up on a hand, which was planted in my chest, and stared at me—or at least I thought she stared at me. It was too fucking dark to know for sure without turning on a light.

  These old walls that surrounded us didn’t allow anything to penetrate their depths—even the streetlights and security lights outside.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, not moving an inch. “I didn’t mean to do those things.”

  “You’re still on top of me,” I told her, needing her to get off, and fast.

  “I never said I wanted you to be a saint.”

  Her whispered reply had me stiffening beneath her.

  I wasn’t sure if what I’d heard was acquiescence to do what I wanted to do, or her hazy reply because she was still sleepy and not firing on all cylinders.

  Or hell, she could possibly still be drunk off her ass and in no shape to be making the decision that I think she might’ve just made.

  Whatever the reason, I needed to go.

  Now.

  Because if this went any farther than this point we happened to find ourselves at, I might very well do the things I’d wanted to do to her for longer than I was comfortable admitting to.

  I shifted my weight, rolling her off of me by rolling my body over as well, and groaned when she went with me easily.

  When I went to move my hips off of her, she hastily threw her legs around my waist and said the last thing I ever thought would come out of her mouth.

  “I’m not drunk. I’m not tired. I’ve been awake for an hour, and I want you.”

  All of my concerns that I’d had as I was rolling her off of me took off like a puff of smoke on a windy day.

  “Iz,” I hesitated. “I’m not in the right place…this could turn out really bad.”

  I needed her to know that before I did anything.

  Though, I shouldn’t have bothered to tell her that.