Yearn (Revenge Book 4)

by Burns, Trevion

  Stephanie had slithered her perfect body into a sparkly red Jessica Rabbit dress and slapped a fire-red wig on her previously blonde head. A pair of lavender latex gloves came all the way up to her elbows, and she’d appeared to have painted her full lips with the reddest red she could find at the drugstore. Veda knew the slit in that dress, hidden behind the bar, left zero of Stephanie’s skyscraper, Gisele Bundchen legs to the imagination.

  Veda also didn’t miss the way every XY chromosome had stopped what he was doing to check Stephanie out.

  Even Veda’s eyes ran her body, stomach going a little sicker every second. Even her unborn baby seemed to understand that a showstopper had just approached that bar, rolling in her belly, silently reminding mommy that she needed to step her game up.

  “Stephanie.” Veda swallowed thickly, approaching her.

  “Hi, gorgeous.” Stephanie smiled, proving that she was a quick study with a keen understanding of the fact that, the more she called Veda flattering names, the faster her drink would come.

  “Hey, gorgeous yourself.” Veda laid a napkin down, eyes moving over Stephanie’s shoulder and locking onto Gage.

  Opting out of a costume, he wore all black, leaning on one of the many cocktail tables situated in the jam-packed bar, looking right back at her.

  Butterflies exploded in Veda’s stomach.

  Gage’s chest swelled, and he straightened from where he had one elbow leaning on the table. His eyes shrank as their gazes remained locked, but he didn’t break the stare, a new wave of emotion crossing his face every second.

  Veda was the first the break her eyes away, unable to stand the feeling of her insides being torn to shreds.

  Stephanie leaned deep into the bar, making her ample bosom more prominent. “I wanted to thank you… For giving me the green light to ask Gage out. I hope it’s not too weird for you that we’re here.”

  Veda nibbled her bottom lip, preparing the two drinks Stephanie had ordered, one of which Veda had already known—because Gage always drank the same thing. She tried to take a deep breath but found it impossible. When she snuck another look at Gage over Stephanie’s shoulder and saw that his eyes were still riveted to her, the miracle of breathing escaped Veda completely.

  “Not at all,” Veda managed to croak, setting the drinks in front of Stephanie. “On the house. I hope you guys have fun.” And I hope you die a violent, fiery death. I hope your breath smells like The Hulk farted. I hope your pussy has fangs. I hope you’re terrible in bed.

  Stephanie took the drinks. “Thanks, gorgeous. You’re the best.”

  Just go. Veda sighed when Stephanie finally turned and walked away. She could only pray that Stephanie did all the ordering tonight. If Veda had to interact with Gage, on any level, she couldn’t promise drama wouldn’t ensue.

  “Veda!” The Joker at the other end of the bar, otherwise known as Dante, called out to her. “Take ten, baby.”

  “Take ten?” a customer cried.

  “Take ten from what? Not doing shit?”

  “Giving her friends free drinks?”

  “Being the worst bartender in history?”

  Veda’s eyes widened at the verbal abuse hurled at her from every patron as she left the bar, begging Dante for the millionth time not to fire her as she moved past him.

  “Bring ice on your way back!” Dante beamed after her.

  Veda raised her hand to show that she’d received his message while craning her body to get through the thick crowd, already mentally preparing herself for the three hours she still had left to go before that nightmare shift was over.

  ——

  Her ten-minute break flew by in a flash, and Veda found herself wrestling with dread as she prepared to return to the bar. She didn’t dread the abusive customers, but having to witness Gage and Stephanie on a date. A part of her was convinced Gage wasn’t yet done torturing her. That he hadn’t chosen a cocktail table in the direct sight of the bar by accident. No. He wanted her to see them together. He wanted to hurt her. A part of him was still so decimated that he couldn’t help but try to destroy her in the same way. It killed Veda that he was succeeding. That she was considering walking out on her short-lived career as the worst barback in history.

  But Veda knew she couldn’t walk out. Not after Dante had been kind enough to give her the job without even requesting an interview. Not after he’d been so patient with her after she’d proven herself incompetent on every conceivable level.

  So, instead of walking, Veda found herself waist deep in the bar’s industrial ice machine with a large stainless steel scoop in her hand, slowly working to fill the giant ice bin that sat on the floor between her feet. The door to the bar’s walk-in refrigerator was vacuum-sealed, but the thump of the hip hop music was still loud enough to permeate it, albeit very faintly.

  So when the blare of the music was suddenly so loud it split her ears, along with the conversation and laughter of the party-goers Veda’s body flew out of the ice machine, and she stood tall with a gasp, her gaze zooming to the refrigerator door.

  Brock Nailer smiled from the door, stepping inside the freezer and letting it seal shut once more. He wore charcoal slacks and a charcoal vest atop a white button-down shirt. He’d made his face up to look like his skin had been unzipped, revealing the bloody, connective tissue underneath.

  But it wasn’t the gory make-up that shook Veda to her core. It was his presence. It was the ‘5’ tattooed on his wrist. It was being trapped behind a vacuum-sealed door with her number four. It was the struggle not to become a slave to every bone in her body that begged her to send the metal scoop in her hand flying at his head.

  “Veda,” Brock purred.

  “Brock.” Veda made a fist around the handle of the ice scoop. Her eyes fell to his leg, noting that his healing had progressed quickly. He no longer required a cane to stay upright.

  “Gage is here with Stephanie Cochran,” Brock chortled. “Really going out of his way to put on a show for you, huh?”

  “I guess,” Veda mumbled, hitting her maximum. The maximum amount of conversation she could stand to have with Brock fucking Nailer. The maximum amount of time she could endure the gentle smile on his face without emptying her stomach.

  “A flapper, huh…” His brown eyes ran her body as he sank his hands into his slacks. “You look breathtaking.”

  Veda’s stomach curled. She turned her body away so her ass wouldn’t be jutting out at him as she bent down to lift the ice bin. It wasn’t until she had the handles in her grip that it occurred to her. Her ass was out of sight, but her breasts were in full view, one false move from spilling out of the neckline of her dress.

  From the corner of her eye, she watched Brock move to the opposite side of the fridge to grab a few cartons of milk. He stopped halfway, however, when he saw her struggling to lift the bin that she’d filled a little too high.

  “I got it,” Veda insisted when he set down the milk and approached her.

  “Let me help you,” he laughed. “My leg has healed tremendously, and it’s high time I show a little chivalry to my morphine angel.”

  Veda’s breathing grew clipped when he circled around behind her. So close she felt the hardness of his thighs brushing against hers, his chest against her back, and his breath on her neck. She flashed back to the night he’d helped steal her soul with such ferocity it almost brought her to her knees. It froze her in place, even as every inch of her body screamed to run. She tried to step away, but he clapped his hands on either side of the bucket, trapping her in.

  “You really are…” His voice lowered to a whisper, singeing her ear. “Breathtakingly beautiful, Veda.”

  She clenched her teeth. “Get off of me.”

  She snapped her head to the side when his tongue wet her earlobe, and in a flash, the hands he’d had on either side of the bucket were on her breasts, squeezing, and then around her waist. He snatched her body back, locking it to his, sealing her back to his chest as he lifted her feet clear off t
he floor and moved her to the ice freezer.

  Veda screamed as he used his weight and strength to slam her against the large machine, her cheek smashing against its freezing steel body, so bitterly cold that it actually made her skin feel like it was on fire. She thrashed as he trapped her under his weight, his fierce hold around her waist making it impossible to escape as his hardness came between the folds of her ass.

  “Come on, Veda…” he growled into her ear as she fought and thrashed, her screams moving to whimpers, cries, begs. “I see the way you look at me. From the moment I first saw you. I know you want it as badly as I do.”

  “Get. The. Fuck. Off. Of. Me.” In her struggle, her feather headband fell from her head and tumbled into the drain on the floor. She gasped when he took the back of her beaded necklace and pulled it taut around her throat, choking her as his hand went under her dress. The pads of his fingers felt like they were melting her skin from the bone as he tucked his fingers into her panties, trying to yank them down. She kicked violently, screaming at the top of her lungs. “Brock, please don’t! Please stop, oh, Jesus!”

  Veda sobbed, horrified as the eighteen-year-old in her, the wide-eyed eighteen-year-old that she thought had been long dead, came blazing back to life, tears stinging her eyes as terror surged through her veins.

  She didn’t know what it was, the naked dread behind her wails, the dark honesty behind her pleas, or the fact that the heel of her trashing feet had connected to his bad leg, but in a flash, his weight left her. The beaded necklace gagging her loosened. His hardness disappeared from where it had been sealed between the globes of her ass. His muscular arms vanished from around her waist, leaving nothing to stop her from crumbling into a heap on the floor.

  Still enslaved by the adrenaline pumping through her veins as she fell to the floor, Veda’s legs continued to kick long after Brock had released her, sending her scrambling backward until she’d crashed into the metal shelves that lined the walls, making them shake under her weight. She kept kicking until she was huddled into the farthest corner, curling her trembling body as deep into that nook as she could, her every breath sharp as she sucked them in through clenched teeth.

  Her tear-filled eyes nearly blinded her as she swallowed back the sob that tried to break free from her throat, stinging it. She pulled her knees deep into her chest, her entire body trembling from head to toe as she met Brock’s eyes across the fridge.

  Brock’s gaze was as wild as hers from where he’d glued himself against the door. He looked at Veda as if she was the one that had just attacked him. As if he was the person who’d been seconds from being violated against his will. As if he’d just been rocketed back to the night that had destroyed him forever, at the hands of the person who’d helped make it happen.

  “I’m sorry,” he spoke hurriedly, his voice laced with a shocked tremble, his nails digging into the door behind him, making the ice that had accumulated in the cracks, chip off and fall to the floor. A stark silence fell, and without another word, just a slow shake of his head and an intelligible sputter, Brock turned to the door and barreled out, stumbling back into the bar.

  Veda watched him go, still gasping, knees still cradled to her chest, but eyes dry as a bone.

  The nippy air of the fridge dried the few tears that had managed to pop out of her eyes in an instant, tightening her face, making her cheeks feel like sandpaper as she glared at the door, which had sealed itself shut once more. Leaving the hip-hop music faint once again. Leaving Veda alone with nothing but her thoughts and the sound of her breathing, which, while still a raspy, horrified gasp, slowed and calmed more every second.

  She swallowed the lump in her throat, never moving her eyes from the door, and took hold of the metal shelf next to her, using it as leverage to stumble to her feet. She moved across the fridge on shaky legs, holding the shelves the entire way, just in case her wobbly knees decided to give out from under her.

  Her knees were still weak as she made her way back out into the bar, shoving past all the patrons and heading to the stairs that led to the second level, clearing them two at a time.

  She knew who she’d find on that second level, leaning on the glass barrier that overlooked the marina, with a cigarette trapped between her lips. Veda approached and took hold of that barrier under trembling fingers, thankful to have something else to hold on to to keep her steady.

  Hope cut a look at the person who’d just leaned on the railing next to her, the annoyance in her eyes illustrating that she was seconds from shutting down what was probably the millionth guy to hit on her all night.

  But when she caught sight of Veda, Hope instantly tossed her cigarette, curling her lip as her gaze ran Veda’s body. “The fuck happened to you?”

  Veda’s chest heaved, voice strained like she’d just run a marathon. “Brock just attacked me in the fridge.”

  Hope raised an eyebrow, and Veda found herself taken aback, once again, at Hope’s perpetual evenness, wondering if anything in the world could rattle her.

  Hope smirked. “Not so nice after all, huh?”

  Veda bared her teeth with a soft shake of her head. “Not so nice at all. And thank God for that.” She drew in another deep breath, exhaling in relief when she was able to complete it with ease. “He just made everything ten times easier.”

  27

  Brock Nailer attacking her really had made everything easier for Veda.

  Every thing but one.

  The next morning at the hospital, Veda found herself face to face with that one. With Penny Nailer, who smiled at Veda from the opposite end of the bustling hall. Penny waved and ended the conversation she’d been carrying with a nurse, cupping his arm in goodbye before hurrying over. She clutched the stethoscope hanging from her neck with a blinding smile.

  Veda tried to smile back, but couldn’t. She just wanted to castrate Brock Nailer in peace. To watch every ounce of joy slowly seep out of him in the aftermath. But some part of Veda still wasn’t ready to finish Brock Nailer. Not when his wife was smiling at her from across that hallway, so excited to see her that she actually took up a jog to get near her faster, her blue eyes gleaming with the hope she’d held onto for years. Hope for a baby that would never—

  “I’m pregnant.” Penny hopped to a stop in front of Veda, squealing those impassioned words under her breath to keep from alerting the co-workers milling around them.

  Veda’s eyes widened, mouth falling open.

  Penny nodded at each new wave of shock that showed on Veda’s face, tears gleaming in her eyes. “I’ve known for a while. About two weeks before our first appointment.”

  “We got knocked up at the same time?”

  Penny shook her head as emotion overtook her, speaking a mile a minute. “I wanted so badly to tell you, but I didn’t have the heart until I made it to twelve weeks.” She bit her bottom lip. “I think this is it, Veda. This is the one that goes all the way.”

  Veda set her hands on either side of Penny’s waist, surprised at the shot of emotion that hit her. “Penny, that’s got to be the single most excellent piece of news I’ve heard all day.”

  Penny leaped forward and wrapped her arms around Veda’s neck. “Now we can carry them to term together, and attend Mommy and Me classes together, and have Lamaze together, and have a double baby shower, and put our kids in the same pre-school. They’ll be the best of friends!”

  Veda couldn’t even be disturbed by all the syrupy words flying from Penny’s mouth because, unbeknownst to her, Penny had just placed the scalpel and syringe right back in Veda’s hand, freeing her up to utilize them with wild abandon and without a hint of guilt in her heart.

  Penny pulled back with a gasp, clutching her shoulders. “We should go baby shopping. I’m off on Sunday and Brock will be busy all weekend at the CME conference they’re holding downtown.”

  Veda’s heart leaped. “He’ll be gone… all weekend?”

  Penny nodded.

  “But he lives here,” Veda said.


  “He likes to stay at the hotel to get the full experience.”

  Veda sputtered. “Sunday it is, then.”

  That’ll give me two whole days to get to the CME conference.

  Penny grabbed her hands and clutched them in excitement.

  Veda clutched back, hardly able to believe how perfectly this was all coming together. How the mythical shackles had been unbolted from her ankles and her heart, laughing when Penny squeezed so tightly she nearly crushed bone.

  Veda’s eyes shifted over Penny’s shoulder, and a new wave of shock rolled through her at the sight that met her.

  “Speaking of the most excellent news I’ve heard all day…” Veda dragged.

  Penny followed Veda’s eyes down the hall and then chuckled. “Thank God Gage finally came to his senses. I don’t know what in the world you did to him, but I’m just happy he’s moved past it.” Penny checked her watch. “Hey, I have a patient in ten. Lunch later?”

  “Definitely,” Veda said. “Congratulations, Penny.”

  Penny blushed and hurried past her.

  Veda didn’t have time to bask in the memory of Penny’s glowing smile—the smile that would surely remain for the next six months—because she was speed-walking toward the pharmacy, eyebrows clenched.

  Surely the Gods had not made such a rapid about-face? Surely the planets weren’t aligning this beautifully? Surely Veda’s biggest goal wasn’t going to be renewed by a series of events so flawless it had to have been written in the stars?

  But as the Ez-Meds machines were slowly rolled out of the pharmacy on moving dollys, one after the other, she found herself breaking into a run, barreling into the doorway of the pharmacy.

  The sight that met her brought tears to her eyes. The pharmacy looked like it had moved back in time, back when she’d had unfiltered access to the drug she needed to reach her goal and calm her blackened heart. The old shelving had been reconstructed, already halfway filled with medications.

  On the far end of the pharmacy, her stunned eyes landed on Gage, speaking to an Ez-Meds rep, signing whatever papers he needed to release the machines.