by Melody Anne
“You’re so fucking beautiful.” His lips brushed over mine, and a new wash of goose bumps rippled over my skin.
A deep moan echoed in my chest and filled his truck. Seth swore and dug his fingers into my hair, holding my head still while I rocked my hips against him. Pure pleasure made every inch of my body tight with awareness.
Seth dipped his head and flicked his tongue over first one nipple, then the other. I arched off the seat, a strangled cry falling from my lips. I would say or do anything right that second to make him never stop what he was doing.
“Baby,” he whispered, dropping kisses from my chest to my ear and along my jaw, “do one thing for me and then I promise I’ll make you scream my name until you beg me to stop.”
Air lodged in my chest and his words ratcheted the need in my blood to inferno level. No one had ever said anything so dirty to me before. If he touched me again, I was going to implode into myself.
“Anything,” I moaned. “Anything you want.” And at that moment, I would give it to him. Anything. As long as he kept doing whatever this was he did to make my body so wild. So needy and desperate for release.
None of this was me, and I loved it. Wanted to shout to the world that I was getting my world rocked in a pickup truck in a bar parking lot. Me. Avery Hartley.
Seth kissed over to my lips and took them in another deep kiss, rendering me mindless. When he pulled back, he was breathing hard and his eyes were so black with hunger, he looked inhuman in the shadowed light.
“I just want one thing, sweetheart.”
His gaze kept me prisoner. I couldn’t look away. Couldn’t speak. So I nodded.
“Tell me what your name really is.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Seth
I had officially lost my fucking mind.
I had the legs of a hot chick wrapped around my waist while she begged me to fuck her right there in the parking lot, and I stopped.
To get her real name.
What. The. Fuck.
I don’t remember most of the names of the girls I’ve had sex with, so it really shouldn’t matter about one more. If she said her name was Fancy, then Fancy she was. Or so I thought. It had been over twelve months since I’d been inside a woman, and I’m pretty sure I could crack walnuts with the hard-on in my jeans.
I watched her eyes widen and her hands fell from around my neck.
It was like watching a switch flick from on to off.
Shit.
She pushed back onto her elbows. I left my hands there on either side of her hips, trying to catch my breath. Apparently I had a latent sadistic streak inside me. Why else would I have done something so fucking stupid?
I started to apologize, to tell her it didn’t really matter because she smelled so good and her body fit mine too perfectly, but she was already readjusting her clothing.
“Look, this was a mistake.” Fancy nudged my arm, and when I moved it, she slid out of the truck. Her breathing still sounded ragged, and passion made her face red, but her eyes were wide. “I’m sorry. This isn’t really me. I’ve never done this kind of thing before.”
She slipped into a good-girl routine too quickly for it to be real. God, of course I had to end up with one of those chicks who couldn’t take responsibility for their own desires.
“Bullshit.” I called her out and waited for the coy look. It had been a shit long time since I’d played games, but if that’s what turned her on, I could do it. She looked like she might be worth a little extra effort.
She whirled around, blond braid swinging behind her back. “Excuse me? I am not some kind of bar slut!”
“Yeah, neither you nor your friend are, right? I get it, you’re really a nice girl and you don’t pick up random guys at a bar to screw in the parking lot.” I let my gaze roam over her body. “Except you’re a stripper and, dressed like that, we both know what you wanted tonight.”
Now her eyes were narrowed dangerously. Jesus, she was at least six inches shorter than me and it still felt like she was looking down her nose.
She put her hands on her hips and glared at me. Christ, she looked hot as hell all flushed and wound up like that. My dick jumped back to life, and I tried to backtrack and start over. “Let’s just cut to the chase. You want me and I want you. Forget I asked what your name is. Momentary lapse in judgment. I really don’t care if you name is Winnie the fucking Pooh.”
Emotion flashed in her eyes. My gut tightened. Now I’d hurt her? Fuck. I started to apologize for being an asshole, but then I saw the anger burning there now. It was like watching a steel rod suddenly slide into place the way she stood up straight and threw her shoulders back.
“I think we’re done here,” she said coolly. “I’d say we both had a momentary lapse in judgment tonight, and thank God we stopped before something else happened.” She waved her hand toward the truck and exaggerated a shudder.
I fought the urge to step closer and shake her. This chick had just pulled the ultimate cock tease, but my conscience still wanted to do the right thing.
“Look, I told your friend I’d get you home, so I’ll drive you.”
She snorted, and her gaze swung from me to my truck. I swear she wrinkled her nose. “That’s okay. I have Uber.” She pulled a sleek iPhone from her pocket and hit a button. She took several steps away, and her fingers flew over the keyboard. “Three minutes,” she said, shoving her phone back into her pocket. “You don’t need to wait,” she said over her shoulder. “Go ahead back in and have another Bud, or whatever swill it was you were drinking.”
Was that a dig at my choice of beer?
“What’s your problem anyway? Five minutes ago you were humping my leg with a room full of people watching.”
Her mouth opened and closed like the fat guppy my sister had when she was five.
“Guess I was drunker than I thought. So sue me.” Her dismissive shrug dug under my skin. “And I’m pretty sure you were ready to go right there too. Unless that was your wallet in your pocket, which”—her gaze roamed over me—“is highly unlikely.”
I clenched my hands into fists. I’d been working on my temper in group therapy, another condition of my early release, but I wasn’t to the point where I could just rein it in. Especially when it felt like someone thought she was better than me.
Not after the bullshit with Melissa, an ex from high school who showed me what a bitch really was.
I took a step closer to her and narrowed my eyes. My gaze dropped down over her, and I pretended that her body had no effect on me. I shrugged. “I’m a guy. Any port in a storm works for me, sweetheart.”
“You’re an asshole,” she snapped. Her heels clicked on the pavement as she stormed away from me. The lights of a cab bobbed down the street. When it reached her, she yanked the door open and disappeared inside.
The window of the cab rolled down as it drove past me. A blond head leaned out. “The thing is, sweetheart, this”—she waved her hand at me, at the bar—“is just a distracting game to me. I have a feeling, though, that this is right where you belong.”
Then she was gone.
I swallowed the rage and slammed my fist into the side of the truck as soon as it was within reach. Pain exploded up my arm, but I didn’t care. It would be so easy to go back inside, pick a fight with some bruiser who would make me work for it.
I grabbed a fistful of hair and slid down to the cold ground. And if I did that, it would be an automatic ticket back to prison. I might not be able to get near Sara out here, but I could damned well keep an eye on her.
If I went back to prison, I couldn’t do that.
And I’d be damned if some fake-named chick was the one who pushed me over the edge. Not after everything I’d done. I inhaled and exhaled, counting to ten each time like the prison shrink taught me.
When I felt calm enough to stand, I climbed into the truck. The envelope Arnold gave me was still on the seat. A little wrinkled now where Fancy’s hot ass had been sitting on it. It all seeme
d a little too ironic.
The engine jumped to life when I turned the key. Inside the envelope was the address to where I should go. Should. Arnold told me I had to stay five hundred feet from Sara, but he didn’t say anything about driving by her house. My old home.
I pulled out into nonexistent traffic.
It was a stupid-ass idea, but I still made the turn onto Miller, and then again onto Maple, slowing down when the sign for Garden Grove Estates came into view. The gold paint was faded and peeling, and weeds grew up all around the ridiculous name. Like a fucking trailer park was some kind of classy country club.
I rolled to a stop and stared at the dirt road that would lead me right to Sara. Tenth trailer on the left. I could find my way there drunk, in the middle of a moonless night. I didn’t make the turn, even though every fiber in my body screamed at me to do it.
Davis knew what my truck looked like. If he saw me behind the wheel, he’d call the cops. I had no doubt about that. The warden told me that he and Sara had been notified that I’d been let out early, so I knew he’d be watching for me.
I stared up the dark road for a few more seconds, the anger inside building. When the tension reached a breaking point, I shoved down on the gas and fishtailed away in a spray of gravel.
I needed to get this shit out of my head.
I needed to forget.
I swung the truck back toward the bar. There were plenty of willing women there. I didn’t need some stick-up-her-ass bitch ruining my first night on the outside. I’d go back, get drunk, find a willing piece of ass, and celebrate that fact that bars no longer defined who I was.
CHAPTER FIVE
Avery
“What time did you get in?” Shari asked me when she stumbled into the kitchen the next morning. She looked like a raccoon as she made her way to the coffeepot.
“I was home before you, you slut.”
She flipped me off, then sat across from me at the table.
It had taken an hour, a bottle of wine, and a long hot shower before I’d calmed down from the exchange with Seth. I almost asked the cabdriver to turn around so I could apologize, but then the anger would come racing back and I’d be pissed off all over again.
What the hell right did he have to ask me my name right in the middle of that? It was supposed to be a one-night thing. Even though I’d never done that before, I was pretty sure the details weren’t all that important.
I’d wanted to forget Grant last night, and Seth had been doing a fine job of helping me too, right up until he changed directions on me. Shari never mentioned the possibility of rejection midhookup.
Instead of a hot breakfast of screw-you-Grant, I was floating in a bowl of cold, lumpy oatmeal.
“What are you so grumpy about this morning, anyways? Mr. Tall, Dark, and Brooding didn’t live up to your expectations? Seth looked like he’d be good for more than a couple of minutes,” Shari said, interrupting my train of thought. “Guess I picked the right boy to go home with, then.” Her grin widened and she winked at me. “How was Ryan, you ask?”
I cringed because Shari had no filter when it came to talking about her one-night stands. She really had no filter when talking about anything at all. Ironically, my father loved Shari, said she was a perfect example of poise and composure. If he knew what a filthy-talking enabler she really was, he’d probably keel over from a heart attack.
I jammed my hands over my ears like a five-year-old. She reached over and pulled them away.
“His tongue was like a fucking machine. I didn’t know I could come that many times.”
“Oh, my God, stop! There is a line.” I drew an imaginary line on the table. “You. Crossed. It! I don’t need to know how many orgasms you had!”
“Oh, man.” She pulled my hand into hers and stroked along the back of it. “Poor Avery. He finished and didn’t take care of you? What a selfish prick.”
“What? No. We never even made it to his place.”
Her eyes got round and a grin pulled her lips up in the corners. “You nasty girl. Did you do him in his truck?”
Heat blazed up my neck. Technically no, because nothing happened. But I would have. If he hadn’t acted like a complete asshat.
“You did!” Shari screamed. “You rode that ride right in the parking lot, you bitch.”
I stood up and pushed my chair in. “I can’t handle unfiltered Shari this early in the morning. I need to take a shower.” I looked over my shoulder right before I left the kitchen. “And for the record, nothing happened. He was a jerk and I called a cab.”
Her face fell. “Oh, honey. I’m sorry.”
It was real pain I saw in her eyes.
“No biggie. Not like I’ll ever see his face again.”
She closed her eyes. “It was a pretty nice face, you have to admit.”
I grumbled and headed to my bathroom. It had been a damned fine face. Then he went and ruined it all by opening his mouth. How pathetic was I that I couldn’t even go out and have a one-nighter with some stranger?
I stripped down and stepped into the hot spray of water, hoping to wash away some of the failure clinging to my skin.
I wonder what my father would do if I became a lesbian.
I pulled into the parking lot of the Public Works building at exactly 5:55 A.M. Monday morning. There weren’t designated parking spots, and half the lot was taken up by big green garbage trucks, so I slid my Beemer into a spot marked VISITORS.
Last night I’d made Shari help me figure out what the heck I was supposed to wear for community service. We were both stumped. I even Googled it, but there wasn’t anything helpful there either.
I’d finally settled on black Diesel jeans and a soft black T-shirt cut low in the front but still tasteful. I wasn’t sure what I’d be doing exactly, so I’d decided to wear my low black Chucks instead of heels. My hair was braided, and I’d replaced the teardrop diamonds in my ears with smaller studs. All in all I felt pretty confident in my choice of outfit. I even left the house early enough to swing through Starbucks to get a grande fat-free cappuccino.
I carried my to-go cup up a set of concrete steps that led to glass-fronted double doors. A couple of guys leaned against the building, cigarettes in their hands. I ignored them behind my sunglasses.
The lobby was small but clean, and a woman sat behind a desk a little farther in. She smiled when she saw me.
“Can I help you?” she asked in a pleasant voice.
“I’m supposed to ask for a Rick Parker?”
Her demeanor changed in an instant. I swear she looked down her nose at me. “There.” She waved her hand to the left and promptly ignored me.
I looked over to find a dozen people lounging in plastic chairs, one with his back to me staring out the huge window. Most were dressed like they’d just rolled out of bed, and I only counted one other female among the group, a tiny girl who looked about twelve, with bright pink hair and about a dozen hoops running alongside her ears.
A couple of the guys stared at me with interest, and a middle-aged man openly leered at me. My skin crawled and I turned away from his gaze.
On the table in front of the group was a pile of bright orange somethings in plastic bags. What the hell were those?
“Okay, it looks like we’re all here now,” a deep voice boomed. An older man strode into the room with a clipboard in his hand. “I’ll tell you all this once, and only once. I call roll at six on the dot. You’re a minute late walking through my doors, you get marked as absent. I’m sure you all know what that means.” His gaze swept over the group, and I heard a lot of grumbling. “I want everyone to take a jumpsuit from the pile, don’t bother looking for a size, they’re one size fits all.”
I held back when everyone except the guy at the window reluctantly took one. Orange jumpsuits were what those people I saw beside the roads stabbing trash wore. I walked up to who I assumed must be Rick Parker.
“Do I need one too? I assume I’ll be working here in the office, correct?”
His amused gaze swung over to me. “And you are?”
“Avery Melrose. I’m supposed to do three hundred hours of community service. Answering the phones serves the community, if I’m not mistaken.” Several curious glances shot to me, even though I had tried to keep my voice down.
“Ah, yes, Melrose.” Rick chuckled and pretended to be checking something on his sheet. “It seems we already filled all our community service reps slots, so I’m afraid you’ll have to take one of those jumpsuits and join the rest of us today.”
A couple of snickers echoed around the lobby.
I leaned closer. “I don’t think you understand, Mr. Parker. There is no way I can work with . . . them. I’m sure you take personal safety very seriously around here.”
He took my arm and steered me away from the group. Finally, he saw the sense in my words.
“Miss Melrose, I can assure you that your personal safety is the utmost important thing to me today. In fact, when I got out of bed this morning, knowing I had to come to work and supervise a bunch of delinquents, I thought to myself, ‘Rick, you make sure that everyone feels comfortable today.’ ”
My mouth fell open.
“Little girl, I see a dozen just like you through here every year. I know who you are. I get files on every single one of you. In here, between six A.M. and two P.M., you are just like them. You aren’t any better or worse. You’re all the same to me. Now go get a jumpsuit and throw it on, because the bus is leaving just as soon as I take roll.”
Heat burned my face. My feet were rooted to the floor. Everyone else had pulled the horrific-looking jumpsuits on over their street clothes by now. It looked like a pumpkin had thrown up everywhere.
Bright orange did not look good on anyone.
Rick called out names, and less-than-enthusiastic voices answered. I grabbed a plastic bag and ripped it open. The stupid thing was polyester, for crying out loud.
“Seth Hunter.”
“Here,” a voice called out.
I froze. That voice. Shit. The universe could not possibly hate me that much. I held the jumpsuit in my hand and glanced over to where the voice came from. The guy from the window had his orange suit pulled up and secured at the waist, the top hanging down around his hips.