by K. L. Jessop
With a heavy sigh, I scrub the remains of my cigar out on the wall and flick it from my fingers over the edge of the stone balcony, disliking every step I take into my house while the fragrance of Pepper’s perfume fills my senses like it’s a new kind of air. I stop in my tracks when I hear her laugh at whatever shit Emmet is doing because it’s the most beautiful sound I’ve heard. It makes my stomach tighten, and I envision eliciting that reaction from her, imagining her face lighting up as much, seeing sparkles in her eyes. Then it hits home that she’ll never get that reaction from me: I’m not that sort of person. I don’t know how to be around others because others don’t care to be around me. And why would they?
“What is she doing here?” The sound of my voice startles Pepper, who immediately turns to face me. Her eyes are wide and the look on her face is one of apology as her cheeks flush, a reaction I’ve not yet seen from her.
“Dexter. I… erm. I saw—"
I don’t think I’ve seen this girl speechless, and although her fire sparks something inside of me, this version of her is fuckable, too. She looks nervous, That could be because she knows she’s in a place I’ve never welcomed her in, or because I’m standing here without a shirt on.
“I saw Pepper on my way over to your place. I thought it might be nice if she joined us for some food.”
“I made him stop so I could get us all some macaroons,” she says softly, like I’m supposed to be grateful or something.
My eyes move from Emmet to hers. She looks different. She’s changed out of the clothes she’d been wearing earlier—now in skinny black jeans and a grey T-shirt that says something across the breast that I’m unable to read because she’s smothered in a big black fluffy jacket—but that’s not what’s different. There’s a look in her eye that I don’t like, and I could be wrong, but I’d say she’s been crying.
However, the voice in the back of my head tells me this isn’t my problem, and I ignore them both, walking past them and heading further into my poor excuse for a living room to collect the only thing that is likely to get me through these hours of sexual torture the longer she’s here: JD.
“You not eating, Dexter?” she says as I feel her eyes burn into me without even having to turn and look at her. “We’ve got plenty of pizza.”
“Not hungry.”
As I turn back around, her eyes land on the bottle before they come back to mine, a straight smile forms on her face. I know what she is thinking, but she couldn’t be further from the truth. I’m not an addict. It helps numb the ache.
“Well, there’s plenty for when you are.”
We hold each other’s gaze for longer than we should, and as her eyes slowly drop to my torso, those damn cheeks of her glow once more.
“Just leave him to mope for a minute, Pepper. He doesn’t like change much.”
“Fuck you,” I spit, taking a gulp of alcohol. It’s not that I don’t like change: it’s who is doing the changing that’s causing me to act the way I do. I’ve always thought I’d had some sort of control over my life, but the woman standing a few feet away is proving that I couldn’t be more wrong because when she’s around, I’m riddled with even more confusion and I really. Fucking. Hate. It.
“You have a nice place, Dexter. It’s so big,” she says, now walking around the open space of the living room while holding a slice of pizza. “Have you been here long?”
“A few years.”
“Did you get it because of the gallery being part of it?”
“I bought it for him on impulse. It was run down and going cheap,” Emmet comments over his shoulder, still in the kitchen. Emmet and his generosity that no one can say no to because he gives it before you even have a chance to turn it down.
Pepper’s eyes widen. “Oh wow, really? That’s some act of impulse.”
“Like I said the day we first met: I like to give back what I can.”
“Why are you not married or have streams of women around you?” she laughs. I watch the two of them having their little conversation as though I’m not even in the room, and I question how they make it look so easy.
She takes another bite of her pizza and the way she licks at the string of cheese that’s caught her off guard has me swallowing because my dick liked every fucking second of seeing her tongue dart out to wet her lips. The filthy thoughts that have now engulfed my mind have me adjusting my sitting position to fight down what wants to come up. She can't be in my space. I don't want her in my space because she looks too damn fucking good in it.
“Go check out the balcony,” Emmet suggests. “You can see the lock and everything.”
She turns in my direction, a soft smile on her face. “Is it okay for me to go out and look?” She breathes, seeking permission. I nod, knowing I can’t say no, and watch her walk out of the door. Her eyes scan below the balcony wall and my own scan from her backside down to her ankles. Only her ankles are hidden in those fucking glitter boots again.
Frustrations of wanting to hate her but knowing I’m failing have me heading into the kitchen to let my temper out on someone else.
I place the JD bottle down on the worktop a little harder than intended, and it has Emmet turning to look at me.
“What the fuck is she doing here?” I hiss. “It’s one thing agreeing to work with her, it’s another having her here in my fucking house.”
“She's come for pizza.”
“On whose invitation?”
“Mine.”
“Why the hell would you invite her for?”
“To piss you off.” That shit-eating grin is on his face again, and how I don’t knock the fucker out is beyond me. He’s playing games and loving it. “Anyone can see she's getting under your skin, Dex.”
My jaw tightens and the words come out through the grit of my teeth. “Because she is annoying.”
“Because you like her.”
“I do not fucking like her.”
“And you're a shit liar.” He chuckles, placing a hand on my shoulder and lowers his voice. “It’s okay to like someone, Dex.” With that, he pushes past me, laughing to himself as he heads out to where Pepper is.
He is wrong.
This can’t be what he thinks. And it can’t be what I want.
There have been women—not many I can assure you, having been out in the cold for years on end. The only true sexual relationship I’ve had has been with my right hand. Women only participated more frequently once I’d freshened up and when Emmet took me in, but that need is back, and it’s growing thick and fast whenever she’s around. As much as I can’t have her, I don’t know if I can hold back.
Trying to push my irrational thoughts aside, I, without looking, grab a slice of pizza and take a bite only for it to have me screw my face up and curse at the horrid taste that’s filled my mouth. “Who the fuck puts pineapple on pizza?” I grumble with a mouthful, trying to swallow it down quickly.
A soft giggle has me looking around to find Pepper leaning against the corner of the wall watching me. “You should have had the macaroons instead.”
“No shit.”
“Sorry. I’m a freak of nature when it comes to pineapple on pizza. It’s my favourite.”
I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. “Well find a new favourite because that’s fucking vile.”
“I can think of worse.” She holds my stare and bites down on her lip, and I’m unsure if her statement is referring to the tropical fruit or me. After the way I’ve behaved, I can’t fault her.
Wanting to try and smooth things over between us but not knowing how, I hook my thumb over my shoulder and refer to the food. “Pineapple does not belong on pizza.”
She folds her arms like always, only this time the conflict between us is more playful. She knows this because she’s trying her hardest not to laugh. “I can assure you it does.”
“It’s a damn fruit.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Would you eat a pizza with a banana on it?”
&
nbsp; She screws her face up. “God, no.”
“So why pineapple?”
She presses her lips together, a grin spreading faster than ever before she answers. “Because I hate bananas.”
I roll my eyes. “Well, I should have known you’d come back with some cocky statement.”
“And that’s a bad thing?” Her big crystal-blue eyes hold me captive, the space between us getting smaller as she slowly draws herself closer towards me. Whatever mood had been in the air just a few moments ago has now turned to something more. It’s not seductive, at least I don’t want to believe it is, but the rush of need and the tightness in my trousers with her proximity is enough to cause my back to straighten.
“I never know when you’re around.”
She’s too close. Her scent and the warmth of her body is ricocheting all over me, causing my breathing to shallow. I want her. But it can never happen.
Her head drops a little before her eyes flick up to mine, and she looks at me with uncertainty from under her lashes. “I’m sorry, Dexter,” she murmurs. “I know we haven’t got off to a good start, but what I said to you today in the Gallery, I—”
“Forget it.” My response is curt. What she’d said in the gallery today had been spot on. My warped personality is who I am, but for some reason, hearing the words leave her lips had hurt more than from anyone else.
Her fingers brush lightly over my arm, causing chills to creep across my skin as my body roars from her contact. Her body faces the counter, but her eyes are solely on mine as she continues to dance her touch over my skin. Big blue iris with flecks of white take me prisoner more rapidly than any illness that’s laced my blood, and it shakes me to my core. My grip on the JD bottle gets harder, my knuckles no doubt white with the need to hold it together. She’s making me want to run because this is all so foreign to me, but I’m unable to move.
This is fucking torture.
And as if she know’s what she is doing to me, she murmurs the words I’ve been wanting to hear her say since she arrived but find once they leave her mouth, they’re not what I want at all.
“I can go if you don’t want me here.”
I want to touch her. I want to kiss that sassy mouth and devour her taste before I bend her over the wall of my balcony and take her from behind until dawn, pushing so deep inside of her that she’ll never look at another man again without wanting it to be me. I want to fuck her hard as a punishment for making me feel the way I do right this second.
I want to violate this perfect body of hers in every possible way.
And that’s why she has to go.
But my reply is cut short when that fucking boomerang comes back inside and interrupts my attempts to make her leave.
“Alright guys, any pizza left?”
Chapter Eleven
Pepper
We hold each other’s heated gaze as Emmet fusses around in the kitchen, having no clue about the sudden sexual tension that has filtered between myself and Dexter. The deep look of need in Dexter’s eyes that I’ve never seen before does nothing to tamper my own desires that are burning thick and fast for him as we stand so close, his perfect body that has had every nerve ending in mine on red alert from the second I saw him on full show.
He’s an arsehole, and I still stand by that, but I can’t deny this growing need that’s between us, and in all honesty, I don’t think I want to.
Regardless of what I now know of his Bipolar and the way he has treated me since day one, I can’t stand here and say his presence isn’t making me wet. The pull between us is very much there, and it now makes me question whether his behaviours towards me are because he’s fighting them as much as I’m pushing him.
“Pepper, you okay?” Emmet questions, concern in his voice, looking between me and Dexter. I blink fast, smiling at him in the hope that it doesn’t give away the visions I’m currently having of jumping on his friend and crying his name.
I know he doesn’t want me here—I can see it in his eyes, along with that darkness that always lines them—but at the same time, I need him to know that I’m not the enemy. I shouldn’t have to leave just because he clearly doesn’t like women—or me—crowding his space.
“Yes. Yes, I’m good thank you,” I reassure, stepping around Dexter towards the boxes of remaining pizza that’re on the counter.
This time, I go for a slice of pepperoni and step back, looking around the rooftop apartment once more. The large open space is bleak and bare, consisting of only a kitchen table with two old chairs and a battered-out leather sofa in the middle of the room that’s seen better days. At one end of the room, there is a pile of spray paint cans and a couple of canvases on the floor untouched, right next to a closed door that has a key in the lock. It’s obvious it’s not the bathroom as I can see a glimpse of that behind an door that sits ajar at the other end of the building, and it’s certainly not his bedroom because in the opposite corner to the bathroom lies a mattress on the floor. He doesn’t have a bedroom.
The place is a mixture of faint paint fumes, old brick and mystery.
When I’d first arrived and let my eyes travel around, sorrow had hit my stomach at the soullessness of what I could see, making me question who it is behind the man that lives in this home of nothing but bricks and wooden floorboards. The nerves that hit me when I’d stepped further into his space had been all over the place, causing Emmet to sense the vibe of my anxiety levels and tell me to relax. But I’ve been nothing but relaxed since I saw Dexter step in from outside in only a pair of jeans.
My breath had caught the second I saw him. His hair is now up and combed back into a messy man-bun. His beard is trimmed and tamed making him look completely different to the beautiful mess he has been. His thick shoulders and washboard body are killer, finishing off what a masterpiece he really is.
The man is a mystery of fire and ice and he’s not making this easy for me.
“Why have you not painted a design on your wall?” I ask, trying to break this sudden silence that has crept over us.
“Because I don’t know what to do. And I spray paint. I don’t paint.”
Which is bullshit because he’s already let slip that he does watercolour—a style I’m wanting to see from him. The grit in his voice is back, but I take no notice, taking another bite of my pizza. There is so much potential to this place and so much he could do with the space. It’s the same with the gallery—those walls that I’m desperate with to furnish with his work if only he’d give in and provide the art that he says he’s holding.
I turn around, having an idea.
My nipples harden against the fabric of my bra when I find eyes of inferno already on me, only it’s not from rage. They scan my body so slowly that I feel every inch of him everywhere.
“You could do a spray painting on the gallery wall. No one said it has to be all canvases. You can showcase your work the way any street artist would do on the street.”
“That’s a really good idea, Pepper. Don’t you think, Dex?”
His eyes lock on mine. “I’ve already thought of doing that given the space I have. I need to know what I’m going to put on there.”
“I’m sure we can think of something.”
“We really need to make a start on that gallery, Dex,” Emmet chirps through a mouthful of pizza, and I’m glad he’s brought the subject up. “We’ve got less than six months to get the facilities sorted. We can’t push it back any longer. The money won’t come from anywhere else.”
“I’m very aware of that, Emmet; you don’t have to keep reminding me,” he sighs, and I decide to stay out of this conversation because I can sense the frustration in Dexter’s voice. It’s like getting blood from a stone. It has taken him a week to let me sort a social media page, and now I’ve been given the go ahead to build a website. No money is coming in that I’m aware of, and the gallery is as colourless as when I arrived. I don’t understand why he’s not wanting to show off his work and let the world know who he is when i
t comes to art. Is it failure? Does he not think he’s good enough? Is being known to the public not the status he is after? I’m unsure, but there’s something not right, and I fear it goes a lot deeper.
Feeling a little hot, I take off my big fluffy jacket and place it on the sofa before heading back towards the box of macaroons that have been teasing my taste buds since I collected them from the bakery. I pick out my favourite and devour the raspberry confectionary.
“I think we all need to sit down and discuss what you want to achieve. Or at the very least you two. Do you think that’s a good idea, Pepper?”
“I’ll do whatever Dexter is happy for me to do,” I say, turning to face them both. Dexter’s eyes fall to my chest and I see his brown hues read the words on my top: Smile it confuses people. It’s one of the many things Malcolm has bought me, and I love the reaction I get from people when I wear it. Most people smile because they know it’s true or they find it funny. However, Dexter’s expression confuses me. He doesn’t smile. His jaw muscle flex and his eyes burn into mine as he grumbles out, “Whatever,” in reply.
My phone signals a text message has come through, and taking it out of my back pocket I see it’s from Malcolm, asking me where I am as his date is over for the night and do I want to hit the clubs. After my emotional outburst earlier, clubbing is not something I’m in the mood for, and knowing Mum and Dad are on their way to Florida, I know I won’t be great company.
Texting him an apology, I put my phone back in my pocket. Until my birthday is over, I don’t think I’d be much fun at all, and with each day it gets closer, the pain gets harder to bear. Why does it hurt more than others sometimes? Why is life so cruel that it takes the ones that bring so much light into your life? Persie had had a smile that would light up a room on the darkest of days, and I miss hearing her giggle.
“Pepper?” Emmet’s hand startles me when it touches my arm and I look up to find both men looking at me.
“What?”
“I asked if everything was alright?” The concern in his eyes is genuine.