“Go play with your friends. Be men or whatever that means, and I’ll go back to my yoga.” I was going to need it after this.
He groans and drops his head back, his hint of an Adam’s Apple bobbing down the column of his neck, begging for my tongue to taste him there. “Did you have to bring that back to mind?”
I grin. “What? Me all hot and sweaty in contorted positions? Do you like that?”
He groans, and one side of his mouth slants up. “I have things to do and don’t need no-named neighbors distracting me.”
A truce. Of sorts. I’d live with that for now. I wink at him and shut the door for the second time. The noise down the hall dies down to the slight scuff of shoes on carpet and the occasional opening and closing of Seth’s door. To his credit, they are much more careful. I grin. I’m not sure what to make of him yet. He’s quiet, but talks more when he’s drinking. He’s sad, but when he laughs, it's like laudanum to my aching soul.
After that last encounter with him, I can’t find anything in the condo that compares with teasing him. I wonder to the back of our apartment to my study. Large windows cast the afternoon sun on draped canvases. My fingers itch to pull away the covers. The smell of oil-based paints and turpentine still scent the air, even though I haven’t touched anything in weeks. Molly is right. I need to create, or sing, or write, or do something to let out all of this energy. There is only one other thing that will satisfy, and I’m immediately reminded of the four hot men moving heavy equipment next door. Somehow, I didn’t see them as being the kind of guys who would get me off without any retribution.
I sit upon the floor and tug an abandoned sketch pad on my lap. Flipping through the sheets, I smile at each picture of Molly’s sweet face. I’d almost lost her. She’s the only family I have left. The only one I knew loved me for me—swearing and all.
And in one careless dare, I’d managed to almost destroy the dearest thing in my life.
THREE MONTHS EARLIER…
“MOLLY, JUST DO IT.”
She flips around, inches away from the edge. “It’s too high.”
One of the guys we’d tagged along with runs past her and jumps. His body flexes,
dips, and he disappears over the edge. She leans over and watches. I wait for the splash and laugh when his, “Fucking, cold-ass water,” rushes up to us.
“See, it’s safe.”
I can almost bet that she’s going to chicken out. Molly will follow me just about anywhere, but she stays in the plane when I jump, she stays on the bridge when I bungee, and she definitely won’t do karaoke with me, even though she sings almost as well as I do. Molly is a sweet mouse. Not daring, and definitely not a risk taker.
She twists her strawberry blonde hair around her hand. “Why do we need to do this again?”
“Because it’s fun.” I grip her shoulders and spin her around. There’s only one way to get her off this rock. “I dare you.”
“No…you wouldn’t. Take that back right now, Alice Harrison.”
As children, when we were allowed to see each other, Molly always shied away from anything extreme, unless I dared her. She couldn’t help herself. She claimed it as her one true vice.
“Double dare you.”
Wrinkles form around her eyes when she squints them against the sun. Her nose scrunches up at the cringe. “Alice. Please. Don’t.”
I step around her. “Come on.” Without another glance back, I rush the edge and jump for the second time. The wind catches in my hair, rips at my T-shirt, and I fight to keep my feet together on the dive down.
Cold water swallows me, spanks me with shards of broken, ice-cold waves. My breath finds my stomach and rushes back up as I cut through the surface. “Holy shit, that’s cold.” I tread water and wave up at her. “Come on. I double dog dare you.”
“Alice, you are such a brat—”
The last word ends on a scream as she steps over the edge. My heart clenches, she’s messed up and not jumped out far enough.
“Shit.”
Before she makes it to the water, I’m already fighting the waves, stroking as fast as my arms will go to get to her before she goes under. Bo and some of the other guys shout and jump back into the water. We make it to her prone body at the same time. They flip her over, and I scream. “Mole, please wake up. Molly! Wake up!”
She’s listless in Bo’s arms. I keep her head out of the water while we tug her to the shore. I pray, and I haven’t prayed since I was six. However, for Molly, I say every Hail Mary I can remember and then start again.
Holy fuck, I killed her. The only thing good and sweet in my life, and I just destroyed it with my need for the rush. My need to feel alive. I am the toxins of the world. The silent deadly kind that creep in and kill you slowly—like carbon dioxide poisoning or polluted water. They don’t see me coming until it’s too late.
PRESENT
“ALICE? ARE YOU IN HERE?”Molly’s cane taps down the hall, drawing closer to me with each click. I toss the book across the room and wipe at any remaining evidence of my sorrow. “Uh, yeah.”
She edges around the door frame. “Hey, you. I’m hungry. Want to go out?”
“Out?” She hasn’t asked to leave the house yet, so this is improvement. “Uh, sure.”
It takes us an hour to get her ready and me into a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt. “Ready? Let’s go.”
As my hand poises over the door handle, a familiar knock freezes me. Rowena. She has this dainty little three tap beat she uses when knocking, and I hate that Molly has heard it too. If she hadn’t, I would have pretended we weren’t home.
“Mom?” Molly shrugs and fumbles with the handle. She pulls the door open, and I move back. Way out of Row’s path.
She steps in, kissing Molly on each cheek and then forcing her to an arm's length. With a cold, grey gaze, she inspects her daughter for any flaw that I may have caused. “You look well, darling. Were you going out?”
Molly plays with the tassel on her cane. “Well, yeah. We were going to get dinner.”
“Oh, good. I have the driver waiting downstairs. I’m sure Alice can manage without you.”
“Wait. Mother, we were going together. I can’t just leave Al.” Molly reaches back, her hand searching for me. “Come on. You can come with us.”
Oh hell no. That will never happen. Rowena enjoys taunting me. I squeeze Molly’s grip. “You know what? I think you should go with your mom. I’ll run across the street and get a sandwich, and then I’m going to do laundry. You guys have fun.”
She grips me tighter. It was a plea. Since the accident, Rowena has managed to push her only daughter, and really the only person who loves her, away. Her awkward mothering skills drove a mile of distance between them on each visit. “Are you sure?”
Sure that I will not spend one minute longer than I have to with Rowena. “Yeah. Have fun.”
Rowena nods at me before tucking Molly’s hand in the crook of her arm. “Come along. Alice will be fine on her own. I want to take you to eat, and then some shopping at the Domain. If you’re up to it.”
“Yes, Mother.”
I close the door on them and suck in a few deep breaths. With Molly out of the house, I can take a real shower—one that lasts longer than two minutes. And, maybe if I’m lucky, I can run down to the cemetery and add fresh flowers to Mom’s grave before it gets dark. I don’t do that often, but I think it’s important that someone remembers her.
I strip on the way to the shower, enjoying the freedom of letting my clothes slip to the floor without worrying about them. I’d of course clean them before Alice got back, but for now, they make great floor décor. A quick scrub down with my favorite shower head does the trick in more ways than one and when I towel off, I notice the rosy glow to my always tanned flesh, a by-product of my half-Latina blood.
I wrap up in a ridiculously large terry cloth towel, and twist a smaller one into my hair. Someone’s knocks pound over the last few drips of the faucet in the bathtub. Crap. R
owena was usually the only visitor we had, and I couldn’t take another round with Seth right now.
I hurry to the front door in time for a second pounding and mumble, “Hold your ass.” I swing the door in and jump when I find my father on the other side. “What are you doing here?”
Dark eyes, blue like Molly’s, but deeper, glare at me. He rakes a hungry gaze down my still damp shoulders, eyes catching on the scars lining my skin. Lust of the flesh wasn’t his objective. His vice is the pain.
I step out into the hall and make sure that he doesn’t see my clothes scattered across the floor inside. Years ago, I made him stop punishing me, but I still carried the old fears.
“What are you doing here?”
He brushes an imaginary piece of lint from his expensive suit jacket, but it’s a guise to control the anger that passes through his jaw. “Alice. Of course you would answer the door naked. You always have been quite the tramp.”
So we aren’t holding punches today. “Well, Daddy, I learned it all from you.”
“Don’t you dare call me that.”
“What? Daddy?”
He steps forward. I stumble back until my hips meet the doorknob. The metal digs into my flesh despite the thick towel circling my body.
He takes another step forward. I can’t stop the involuntary shiver that snakes down my arms. I wrap them across my chest, clutching my fingers around my elbows.
“There’s no one home is there?” A half grin slips down into a frown. “Where is Molly?”
“I think you know.”
He laughs that loud laugh that cuts down into my stomach and vibrates my breakfast to the surface. “Of course. I haven’t seen you in quite some time and thought I’d pay my baby daughter a visit. Did you get my letter?”
I can’t help the tremble that takes root in my chin and bleeds up into my tear ducts. I fight the well of salt water. Seth was right. They were a weakness to him, and he’d feed on them. “You need to go.”
“I’ll go when I’m ready. I think you should remember whose roof you’re living under and be more gracious.”
The door across the hall opens, and I meet Seth James’ bold stare over my father’s shoulder. God no. Please, don’t watch this.
He leaves the door open and steps closer. “Everything okay?”
My father lurches back and clears his throat. “Everything’s fine.” He spins and thrust out his hand, all politician’s smiles and his kissing baby’s grin on his face. “E. Harrison, and you are?”
“Neighbor. Seth James.”
I grip my towel tighter, but Seth’s eyes never stray from Dad’s. He was so wrong about being a hero. He’d just saved me from pure evil. The two men stand taller. My father is forbidding in his expensive threads. He has years of cut muscles beneath that have kept him from sagging like most men his age. Seth, on the other hand, has youth on his side. He’s all hard ridges and full of territorial male dominance.
With a deep sigh that relaxes all those tightened nerves, I ask, “Father, did you need something?”
“I came by to speak to you about something, but, perhaps another time would be better suited.” He glances back at me and sneers, but returns to sleazy smiles before he gives a nod to Seth. “Mr. James, a pleasure. I’ll be on my way.”
Seth puts a hand out and catches my father’s shoulder. “Mr. Harrison, as the owner of this condo, I feel that I should warn you against making my tenants uncomfortable.” Seth steps across the hall and drops an arm around my scarred shoulder. His thumb soothes away the shiver chasing over my collar bone. “I’m not sure of your welcome here, so please correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t want to see either of these girls come to harm.”
I gasp. He spoke so eloquently. Bold and rich. I’d have never thought he had it in him if I hadn’t just witnessed it. And no one has ever come to my defense. Never. Seth James was ten feet tall and made of blue bubble gum right now. I’d chew him, blow him, and make him pop. Vulgar, I know, but there it is.
My father straightens his jacket. “Do you know who I am?”
“I do, but obviously you do not know who I am or what I’m capable of.” Seth tucks me even closer. If he’s noticed the scars stretching across my shoulders, he’s too polite to even give them a second glance, and for that, I’ll forever be indebted to him. “Don’t fuck with Alice again.”
He knows my name. And he just cussed my dad.
Harrison squints at us, and turns, clicking his heels together before stalking to the elevator. As much as I love seeing someone put him in his place, Seth James had just built me a coffin.
Fucking great. As soon as the sliding doors close on Dad, I shove Seth away from me. He’s too much right now. Everything is too much.
His brow wrinkles. “What?”
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
He steps back and glances at the floor before smirking up at me. “Being your hero.”
I laugh, but it’s a mirthless noise. He must be a mind reader too. “What? Are you serious? Heroes don’t exist. People sometimes get lucky and happen to be at the right place at the right time, but that’s all it is. Blind luck.”
He scratches the scruff along his chin. “What about this morning? It sounded like you believed in heroes then.” He glanced back at the elevators that had carried my father away. “So what’s your story with him?”
“This morning, I was fucking with you because it’s fun for me and there’s no story.”
“I know men like that, and there’s always a story.” He crosses to his door. “You know what, never mind.” His eyes travel from the tips of my unpainted toenails and up, finally landing back on my eyes. “Get inside and get dressed. You’ll catch a cold.”
A cold? The man is crazy. But he’d put my father in his place. I think I fell a little in love—if I could love. I’d never thought of the emotion before now. And that bit about heroes, I lied. I’d never had someone rescue me before, but it’s there in his eyes. He thinks he can, but he doesn’t know me or the depths of depravity. I enjoy the pain.
“Seth.” He pauses half in his doorway. “Please, please don’t ever do that again.”
He doesn’t turn. “I don’t make promises.”
“Neither do I.”
He lowers his head and glances at me over his shoulder. “Then we understand each other.”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
I turn the knob that had no doubt left a bruise on my lower back and step backward into my apartment. Our eyes lock. I won’t lower my head or break contact first. I won’t.
Seth sighs, grins, and turns his back to me. He shuts the door, and I’m left to lick my wounds and wonder what the hell has just happened. I make sure all the locks are latched before I pick up my mess from the floor.
I find my favorite sweats and decide to clean instead of doing any of the other things I could have been doing away from the apartment. An hour later, every dish has a home. Every piece of laundry has been washed or folded. I’d vacuumed and swept. And still, I can’t chase off the nerves agitating me. Something has inspired my father to come back into my life, and for the last two years, I’d been lucky enough to keep him away. Was it retribution, vengeance, or just that he is too damn mean to stay away?
I take shower number two, this one to rinse away the light film of sweat that fear and cleaning will give you. Dressed in a pair of jeans, a pink ribbed tank layered under a fitted T-shirt, I slip on my favorite worn down Converses.
I’m not sure how much more I can take today, but I’ll be a turkey’s ass if I’m going to back down from another go with Seth. I’m hoping for another chance at him. For round three, or was it four? I’ve lost count, but the thought that I cared enough to even contemplate the number makes me smile. I’m in to Seth James. In a big way.
I CLOSE THE DOOR ANDfind three faces scowling at me. “What?”
Gabe steps forward. “Dude? What the fuck?”
He’s probably completely surp
rised that I got involved in Alice's shit, but then again, so am I. “I don't know what you're talking about.”
Deacon grins, and I want to throw something at him. Maybe a fist would wipe that shit-eating smirk off. I've spent most of my life running from relationships, and I definitely stayed away from sweet girls like Alice. Oh, she didn't think she was sweet, but deep under all the layers of dark, I saw a slice of pie. Sweet enough to eat. With more charm than whipped cream bras.
Evan punches Gabe in the arm—a rare feat, considering Gabe towers over Evan’s average six-foot height. “Don't give him shit. He'll be in a mood all night.”
Gabe rubs at the spot and shoves Evan. “I'm not giving him shit. I want to know who the douche roughing up the neighbor was. That's some weird stuff going on over there.”
For once, I have to agree with Gabe. “I'm just glad I was here.”
Deacon's grin grows until his whole face is stretched into the goofy smile. “You are?”
I scowl at him. “Shut it.”
He laughs. “What?”
“I know that look and you're wrong.”
Deacon’s face contorts, like he’s holding back his jibes, but is losing the battle. It has been some time since I'd shown any interest in a woman, and the last one turned out bad. She'd been a clingy nuisance, and after three months, I realized my mistake. Sadly, even Lilith isn't as bad as my ex.
“I'm just glad to see that there is still some sense in that head of yours.” Deacon plops down on the couch and leans back. “Since Deb finally stopped stalking you, maybe you'll be able to get on with your life.”
I shudder with the memories of her eerie phone calls and threats of suicide. That had been an unexpected bad situation, but I seemed to have that effect on the women I’ve slept with. I chased that dark and crazy vibe. It turned me on, much like the neighbor next door. But she also scared the hell out of me. I think her shit might be real, and I don't know if I'm ready for that kind of challenge. Hell, I’ve got my own dark shadows to play with.
The guys were having fun with me, and I could take a joke, but the more they talked about her, the more I thought about her. “Listen, she wasn't looking like she wanted to deal with him. So, I stopped it. End of discussion.”
Drowning (Tears of Sin Series) Page 4