“What? Are you fucking kidding me?”
I sighed. “I wish, Puck. I tried to squeeze past him, brush it off as just . . . a drunk thing. He . . . um—yeah. You know.”
“No.” Puck’s voice was hard. “Hell no.”
I nodded. “Yep. On the stairs.” I swallowed hard again. “I went to the police, filed a report, had the whole rape kit thing done. Tammy visited me in the hospital . . .” I trailed off, finding it hard to finish.
“And blamed it on you,” Puck filled in.
“Got it in one.” I ran my hands through my hair, an agitated gesture. “So I had nowhere to go. Seventeen, an orphan, two months shy of my diploma, no work experience, nowhere to live, and no one to trust. I checked out of the hospital with the clothes on my back, not a cent to my name, not even a backpack.”
“Fucking hell.” Puck squeezed my hand, and this time he didn’t let up. “What’d you do?”
“I was homeless. I lived in a homeless shelter, showered in the gym showers before school started, stole some clothes from a Goodwill store, got free lunch and breakfast at school . . . it worked out. I graduated high school with a 3.9 GPA. The second I had my diploma, I started hitchhiking north. I don’t know why, I just figured New York was the place to be for a homeless girl.”
“Damn. 3.9 GPA and you were fucking homeless?”
I shrugged. “I’d done well in school, and then when the accident happened, all I had to focus on was school. It was all I had, so I dug in hard, I guess.”
“How’d you go from homeless to where you are now?” Puck asked.
“That’s . . . not an easy story to tell, nor a short one.”
“SparkNotes?”
I shook my head. “Wouldn’t do it justice.”
“Come on, Colbie, you gotta give me something.”
“You told me a lot, so I kinda have to, don’t I?”
Puck blew a raspberry. “You don’t have to tell me shit, Colbie. But I’m interested.”
“I got hooked on heroin.” I blurted it out, a dirty secret known only to me, till now.
“What? How?”
“I got a job as a parking lot attendant. Had a spot in a homeless community, under an overpass, near some people who’d look out for me at night. Thought I could save money, you know? Get an apartment, make ends meet, figure things out. Build a life. Well . . . I made friends with some people, a couple girls who were in a gang. They looked out for me, protected me, got me a better job at a Footlocker . . . and they also pressured me into trying heroin. It was the thing, you know? What they did. They sold it, as distributors for another guy. And I got hooked. It nearly killed me. I OD’d once, got arrested a few times, started living for the next hit, that whole cliché.”
“Goddamn.” His gaze was sharp as it swiveled to mine. “How’d you get clean?”
“A counselor at a homeless facility. After the OD, I went there because I knew my friends in the gang wouldn’t help me get clean, and if I went back to them, I’d keep shooting up. The counselor, Miss Lewis . . . she took an interest in me. Somehow, she found out that I’d done well in high school, and as a way to keep me busy, convinced me to study for the SAT. So I lived in the homeless shelter and studied at the library, took the SAT, aced it.” I smiled at the memory. “Miss Lewis then convinced me to apply to a bunch of universities, just for fun, she said. What if, you know? Like, what did I have to lose? So I applied to like twenty universities, Ivy League places and state colleges all over the country. And then Miss Lewis talked me into applying for grants and scholarships, had me write a million essays about why I wanted to go to college and whatever. For me, it was about not being homeless anymore, it was about the idea of a future. When I OD’d, I realized that . . . I had two paths in front of me—death or jail with my friends from the gang, or something else, a path that led to a future, a path that led to me being something, being someone . . . worthwhile.”
“So you got into a college?”
I grinned. “I got into Harvard. And I got a scholarship, not a full ride, but a pretty big one. And Miss Lewis showed me how to take out school loans, and I got a job to cover the rest.”
Puck stared at me. “Harvard?” He sounded suitably impressed. “You went to Harvard?”
I nodded, still grinning. “Sure did. Got a masters from the Harvard Business School with a double minor in Chinese and Russian.”
“After being a homeless heroin addict.”
“Damn straight,” I said, with no small amount of pride in my voice; I figured I’d earned the right to be proud of that.
He shook his head. “Colbie, that is impressive as hell. For real. You deserve major fuckin’ props for that shit.”
“Wanna know how I supplemented my spending cash when I was at Harvard?” I asked.
“How?”
“Poker.”
Puck gaped at me. “The hell you say.”
I shrugged, and then winked at him. “I’ve always had a head for numbers. Some friends from my dorm talked me into playing poker one day, and I discovered I had a talent for it.” I hesitated, because this was another little thing nobody knew. “And, um, I also figured out that I could keep track of who had which cards. Made it easy to make sure I won.”
Puck’s eyes narrowed as he cut a glance at me. “You count cards?”
I bobbled my head side to side. “Yeah?”
He was quiet for a minute. “Hmm. Did you cheat a lot?”
I shook my head. “That’s how you get caught, doing it all the time. The trick to getting away with it is to make sure you lose frequently enough that no one suspects you. If you win every hand, they’ll figure it out pretty quick. I only really counted the cards when the stakes were high enough that I couldn’t afford to lose.”
“So if we played poker…”
I laughed. “It would depend on the stakes. I don’t gamble anymore, but—”
“Bullshit,” Puck interrupted.
“What?”
“I said, bullshit. You don’t just stop, not when you play poker the way we do.”
“I’m not a gambling addict, Puck,” I said, feeling defensive and a little angry.
He raised both hands. “Neither am I. But there’s no rush in the world like a high-stakes poker game.”
I sighed. “True enough. I still play now and again. Some of the guys at work play every Friday, and I’ll cash in sometimes. They’re my friends and coworkers though, so I don’t take too much of their money. I don’t play high-stakes games anymore.” I shrugged. “No need, and the risk isn’t worth the reward. In college, I played for spending cash. I had a job that helped pay for books and offset the cost of tuition and whatever, but I put all of it into keeping my debt down. Poker was so I’d have money for the club and new shoes and whatever. If I lost too much, it wouldn’t ruin me. Nowadays, I have rent and bills, and if I gamble away my paycheck, I’m fucked. Even counting cards, you can still lose, and those high-stakes games are closely watched, especially in New York. And besides, that’s how you piss off the wrong people, cheating at high-stakes poker in New York City.”
Puck laughed. “Ain’t that the truth.”
The rundown urban sprawl had become a fairly nice-looking downtown area with the occasional five- or six-story apartment building, shops, cafes, and restaurants.
Layla poked her head between the front seats. “The troops are getting restless back here, Puck. We need to stretch our legs if possible.”
“I was just thinking it was about time to stop.” He pointed at a park on our right and pulled the van to a stop at the curb beside it. “How about this?”
The park wasn’t much more than an open area with some trees and benches and an aging, rusting playset covered in graffiti, but it was back from the main road quite a way and had lots of trees to shield us from prying eyes, at least a little bit. There were buildings on three sides, so the only place anyone could approach us was from the street, which Puck was positioned to keep watch on.
We unlo
aded from the van and spread out into the park. The group of rescued women naturally split off into pairs and groups according to shared language, and Lola, Kyrie, Temple, and Layla clustered together on one bench, discussing something that involved a lot of giggles and glances at Puck and me, alone together on our own bench.
Puck looked over at the group of gossips, and then at me. “Wonder what them biddies are gigglin’ about? I’ll give you three guesses, and the first two don’t count.”
I snorted. “No kidding.” I sighed at them. “They seem so relaxed about this whole thing. It’s taking everything I’ve got to stay calm, and they’re sitting there giggling like schoolgirls.”
“This is old news for them. And, like you, they’re probably doing a lot of pretending they’re less affected than they might really be, deep down.” He shifted so he was a little closer to me, his thigh brushing up against mine; I didn’t move away from his touch. “Does that bug you? That my friends are talking about us?”
I shrugged. “Not really. What are they saying, you think?”
He dug his cigar out of his pocket, blew lint off the ash end and a loose thread off the mouth end, lit it, puffing until it was trickling thick, gray tendrils. “Probably whether we’ll shack up, when, and if it’ll stick.”
“What do you mean, if it’ll stick?”
He blew a cloud of smoke away from me. “These bother you?” he asked, lifting the cigar in gesture.
I shook my head negative. “Nah. Cigars and cigarettes are kind of unavoidable when you play poker with a bunch of serious poker bros.”
“You smoke?”
I shook my head. “Nope. I did, for a while. While I was trying to kick heroin, I sort of replaced the smack with Newports.”
He chuckled. “Oh man, Newports. I almost miss those fuckers.”
“You smoked Newports?”
He nodded. “In the Army. The whole ‘smoke ’em if you got ’em’ thing was usually the only break you got. My buddy Dante was the one who got me into Newports.”
I gauged his suddenly closed expression, the quietness of his voice. “Something tells me Dante is the reason for the M16 and helmet tattoo.”
He nodded again, staring down between his feet. “IED.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Me too. And thanks, Colbie.”
“Most people, when you say you’re sorry for their loss, they say something like what are you sorry for.”
He leaned back against the bench, eyeing the cherry of his cigar. “I’ve always thought that was a bullshit answer. Disingenuous at best, off-puttingly dickish at worst.” He put the cigar to his lips and his cheeks hollowed, and then he blew out a series of concentrically smaller smoke rings, shooting one ring through the next. “Folks tell you’re they’re sorry when you’re talking about someone you lost, they’re just expressing sympathy, not offering an apology. That shit is obvious enough, right? So why be a dick about it? Just say thanks for the sympathy and move on.”
I bumped his knee with mine. “You never answered what you meant about Layla and the others wondering if it’ll stick between us.”
He let his head hang backward with a groaning chuckle. “You really don’t let shit go, do you?”
“Nope. I’m a bulldog about getting what I want.”
He sat up again, extending his arm along the back of the bench, behind me; his arm wasn’t touching me, so it didn’t precisely count as being around me, but it was close enough that my heart pitter-pattered, which was stupid and ridiculous. “Well, you see, the company I work for, Alpha One Security, or as we call it, A-One-S—we started out as six confirmed bachelors. Then Harris and Layla hooked up during that Brazil snafu and just sort of stayed together. Then Thresh went and snagged himself Lola, and now it seems Duke has somehow managed to score himself a fuckin’ celebrity girlfriend, because of course that pretty fuck would end up dating a hot famous chick. So the going theory is that by the time shit finally settles down, all of us will be paired off. And those girls are figuring I’m next, with you.”
“And what are you thinking?”
He let out a long breath and tapped his cigar to knock loose a chunk of ash. “I don’t know yet. A bit soon to be putting labels on our shit when I ain’t even kissed you yet.”
“You know what I can’t figure out?”
He eyed me. “Whassat?”
“Sometimes you talk exactly like a man with a PhD, and sometimes you talk like a foul-mouthed redneck.”
Puck’s laugh was a loud, genuine bark of amusement. “That’s ’cuz I’m one hundred percent both, sweetheart.”
“Oh. I guess that would explain it.”
He grinned at me around his cigar. “That’s me, Puck Lawson, a remarkably well-educated redneck with a potty mouth.”
“Is your given name really Puck?” I asked.
I wasn’t ready to ask him why he’d said he hadn’t kissed me yet—mostly because I knew the answer, and I wasn’t ready for him to kiss me—and I also wasn’t ready to know how he’d managed to bang a virgin, nor was I ready to share any part of my sexual history with him.
He grinned. “Colbie-baby, the answer to that is something I have never revealed to anyone. Nor will I.”
I frowned. “Why?”
A shrug. “Personal choice. Puck’s my name, and that’s all anyone needs to know.”
“Does the military know your given name?”
Puck’s grin was mischievous, his eyes twinkling. “Handy part of working with one of the world’s most skilled hackers is that he can take care of pesky things like records.”
I tilted my head. “Who do you know that’s a hacker?”
“One of the guys on the team. His name is Lear Winter.”
“And he can erase military records?”
Puck snorted. “He wanted a job with NSA when he graduated from MIT, so he hacked into the director’s private computer and left his résumé.”
“Holy shit.” I eyed Puck. “So if I wanted my vagrancy and possession arrests to go away . . .”
“Shit, I could do that,” Puck said. “Those give you problems at work?”
I shrugged. “It has in the past, yes. I love my current job, but I would like to advance, and having a police record is troublesome, as you might imagine. I can usually explain the arrests, but it’s annoying. You live homeless as long as I did, you’re pretty much going to get arrested for vagrancy at least once.”
Puck chewed on his cigar as he eyed me. “I can take care of that for you when we get back to the States.”
“Really?”
He nodded. “Easy as pie.” He smirked at me. “It’ll cost you, though.”
I sighed and rolled my eyes. “Figures.” I gave him a sarcastic, sidelong stare. “Let me guess—you’ll want a blowjob or something.”
Puck’s expression seemed genuinely disconcerted as he dropped the cigar butt on the ground and crushed it with his boot heel. “What kind of douchebag do I seem like? Jesus. No, I was gonna say a date.” He was irritated, but then he turned his serious, heated gaze on me. “When I get a blowjob outta you, it’ll be done of your own volition, because you wanted to give it to me.”
I felt a little faint, a little irritated at his presumptuousness, and a lot turned on. “Oh.” I sounded breathy and stupid, so I tried again. “Oh really.” There, that was better—sarcastic, caustic, disbelieving.
He leaned close, and his nose brushed the side of my neck, and then his lips brushed my ear—I shivered, and felt my nipples harden. “Yes, really. You’ll beg to put those beautiful lips of yours around my cock.”
“I have never begged anyone for fucking anything in my life,” I hiss. “And I’m not about to start, not even for you, Puck Lawson.”
His laugh was a low rumble. “You’ll beg, Colbie.” His teeth nipped my earlobe, and I gasped. “And I’ll oblige you willingly.”
“What makes you so sure?” I managed to sound fairly in control of my voice, so kudos to me for that little victory.
>
“Because all I’m doing is talking, and you’ve got headlights poking through your shirt and bra.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “I bet you’ve got beautiful nipples, Colbie. Thick and plump and pink, with nice big dark areolae. Don’t you?”
I glanced down and saw that he was right: my nipples were prominently on display. “Maybe they’re small and flat and ugly, with no areolae at all,” I whispered back.
I flinched and my gasp was squeaky and breathy when he pinched my nipple, a quick, sharp bite of sudden stinging pleasure that I felt in my pussy even with two layers of fabric between my flesh and his finger and thumb.
He laughed. “No way. You’re too responsive.”
“Stop, Puck,” I breathed. “Everyone’s watching.”
“Who cares?”
I leaned away from him. “I care.”
He let me put a little distance between us. “Now imagine what I’ll make you feel when I get you alone and in private.”
I was breathing a little heavily, my thighs were pressed together, my nipples were throbbing and erect, and my pussy was aching and wet. He’d gotten me this hot and bothered in public with a few words and one quick pinch. Jesus, maybe he was right about everything he said he could do.
5: Shitshow
Holy. Shit.
This chick.
This chick, man. She didn’t give an inch. She gave nothing away for free. She was into me, I could tell that much, don’t get me wrong, but goddamn . . . she was not making that shit easy.
I liked it. I liked it a lot. If I wanted to make her gasp, I’d have to work for it. If I wanted to see her writhe and squirm because she was so turned on she couldn’t help it, but didn’t want to be turned on by me, then I’d have to fuckin’ put an effort into it.
Getting a kiss from her was going to require patience and skill and honesty and all the game I had; getting her naked and riding my cock? Ohh man . . . that might very well be the greatest challenge of my life.
Puck: Alpha One Security Book 4 Page 8