Tainted Romance

by Simone Elise

  “I told them it was more my fault than yours.” Taylor shoved his hands in his jeans pockets. “I couldn’t even look you in the eye today, Allie. I had to tell them the truth.”

  He hadn’t acknowledged me today because he felt bad?

  I wondered if Taylor had been hanging around the door waiting to enter or if he had just been eavesdropping.

  “So, you’re kicking me out.” I looked at mom, then to Alpha Harris. “And you're expecting me to move in here.” Then I twisted to look at Taylor. “And you ignored me because you felt bad. So, did one of you ever think about what I might want?”

  I didn’t want to move into the pack house. I didn’t want to be thrown out of my home, and I really didn’t like being treated like an invisible blob by Taylor.

  “Allie, I can’t have you staying with me anymore. What you did has embarrassed me within the pack and affected my friendships. I need you to move out.” Mom finally met my eye.

  “So, you aren’t just throwing me out of home, you are also disowning me?”

  “It isn’t like that,” Alpha Harris spoke up. “Allie, it will give your mom and you a break, not to mention everyone loves living at the pack house.” He smiled kindly.

  “Well, I’m not everyone, am I?” I crossed my arms and swung around. They could say what they wanted, but the real reason I didn’t want to move into the pack house was because the thought of living with Zane literally killed me inside.

  “Allie, before you walk out that door, I am going to tell you nicely, you can either move in here willingly, or I will have to order you to.”

  My grip on the doorknob tightened, and I wished I was of age already and could leave this pack and all the people behind.

  “Well, then I guess I don’t have a choice.” I pulled the door open, and I knew it was immature, but I slammed the door behind me anyway.

  Just be polite, Allie. I gritted my teeth, and no matter how many times I repeated it to myself, I still was struggling not to say something smart ass back at Alpha Harris as he showed me around the pack house.

  It wasn’t like I hadn’t been here before, but he was taking it upon himself to bore me with every little detail of the house.

  “So, any questions?” he asked as we came to a stop outside my new room.

  “No, thank you.” I politely smiled and twisted the doorknob to my new prison cell.

  “I’ll see you tonight then at the dinner.” He shot me a smile before walking away.

  Alpha Harris was a nice guy, and I knew there was only one real reason I couldn’t like him, and that was because he reminded me too much of Zane.

  Speaking of Zane, I hadn’t seen or stumbled across him yet. Thank God for that.

  Moving in here was embarrassing enough, let alone Zane watching me do it. I didn’t know what he would think about me now living in the same house as him. Maybe he would think I was stalking him or something.

  The last thing I needed was Zane thinking I was following him around. I closed my bedroom door and began to unpack.

  I can’t believe mom threw me out, or as she says, ‘asked me to leave.' How could she do that to her own daughter?

  Opening a box, the first thing I pulled out was a picture of dad and me. Immediately, my heart filled with sadness. If dad was here, this wouldn’t be happening. The tears started to roll down my cheeks, and once they started, they didn’t want to stop.

  Hours passed and, instead of unpacking or doing anything productive, I just laid on my bed feeling hollow. I never really got upset, but today I was just a wreck. My heart had been frozen, bitten by all the memories that passed through my mind.

  All those memories floating around dad.

  There was a knock on my door, and before I could sit up and wipe my eyes, the door flung open.

  “I thought you were here,” Zane’s voice cut through the air.

  “What the hell are you doing in here?” The words tumbled out all jumbled together.

  “I live here.” He flicked on the lights, and I automatically shielded my eyes. “The real question is why the fuck are you here depressing up my house?”

  “Depressing?”

  “I’ve felt sad for no reason all afternoon, and for some darn reason, this depression wouldn’t go away. It wasn’t until I walked past the door and picked up on your scent that all my questions were answered.”

  “So, you’ve come in here to yell at me for making you sad?” I scoffed and sat up. “You really are cold-hearted.”

  Zane’s eyes ran across my face, and I could feel a shift in his attitude. “You really are upset?”

  “No, I’m crying because I enjoy it.” I wiped my eyes. “What do you want, Zane?”

  He went to say something, then stopped himself. The door was still open, and he looked over his shoulder. Frowning, he closed the door.

  “Sorry, Allie. I didn’t know you were really upset.”

  “Yeah well, you don’t know shit.”

  “Look tea has just been served and, well, did you want to come down for something to eat?” Zane was trying to be nice. I knew that because, well, Zane wasn’t a nice person.

  “I’m not hungry.” I crossed my eyes.

  His eyes twinkled with amusement, and he slowly raised his eyebrows not buying it at all. “Come on, Allie. I promise I won’t say anything mean. Heck, I won’t even speak one word.”

  I chewed my bottom lip. I was hungry, but I really wasn’t keen on dining with him.

  “Come on, Allie,” he groaned. “Dad will be disappointed if you don’t come down.”

  He just had to throw in the guilt card, didn’t he? “Fine, I’ll come but don’t expect me to speak to you.”

  “Fine by me.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Ebony and I are heading out anyway.”

  “So, you are inviting me down to tea, but you aren’t hanging around.” Was he really that dumb? Did he really just do that? No, he couldn’t, he hadn’t, had he?

  “So?” He frowned. “You didn’t actually think I was hanging around for tea, did you?” He looked genuinely surprised.

  I shook my head and walked across the room and grabbed the door handle. “No, Zane, I didn’t.” I walked out past him.

  I had a choice - stay in the room and deal with Zane the dipstick or go downstairs and eat with a bunch of strangers. Well, as I walked down the stairs, I think I made the right decision.

  Chapter Eighteen

  At the pack house, we are all expected to pull our weight. Something I really didn’t fully understand until Alpha Harris asked if I wouldn’t mind helping Cassie in the kitchen with the dishes after tea.

  Of course, I minded. I wasn’t a fucking dish pig, but, instead of telling the truth, I plastered on a fake smile and agreed.

  Twenty-eight people had been at dinner so there was a hell of a lot of dishes, and we had just finished loading the sixth dishwasher with dishes. The only good thing that came out of this experience was I met Cassie.

  She was two years older than me, and she lived here because she had nowhere else to be. She told me all about how she stumbled into town four years ago and Alpha Harris accepted her into the pack.

  She was nice, sweet, and everything I wasn’t.

  “Trust me, you will get used to living here.” Cassie smiled.

  “Thanks.” I put the dishcloth down.

  “So, you go to school with Zane, right?”

  Zane, such a simple name for such a complicated person. “Yep.”

  “He’s a good kid.”

  He’s a pain in my ass. “Sure, he is.”

  “Have you met his brother?”

  My ears picked up on that. “He has a brother?”

  She laughed and nodded her head. “Yeah, he keeps a low profile.” She looked over her shoulder and then lowered her voice. “He comes and goes. He doesn’t really have anything to do with the pack or the ‘rules.' I once heard Alpha Harris wanted to disown him but Beth, Zane’s mom, wo
uldn’t let him so he turns up every once in a while, makes a mess, and once he has enough money he hits the road again.”

  I never knew any of this! I guess I never really took much interest in the personal lives of the pack families.

  “But don’t get me wrong, he’s a great guy though.” She flashed me a pearly smile.

  “What’s his name?”

  “Ryder. There was a point to me asking if you knew him or not, that being…” She grinned. “I’m going to catch up with him now and a few of our other friends and I wanted to know if you would like to come?”

  “Will Zane be there?”

  Her smile falters. “No, sorry.”

  “Then I’m in.”

  Her face lit up. “Great, well let’s go then.”

  “Where are you all meeting up?”

  “Ryder’s place or, well, really it is the house down by the creek. His parents don’t like him in the house so he stays down at the boathouse and, oh my God, it is beautiful.” Cassie continued to list numerous features of this ‘amazing place.’

  I was really interested in meeting Zane’s brother, but I wasn’t sure why. I think it was because I wanted to see if Zane and Ryder were anything alike. Surely it is impossible to have two boys that were insufferable.

  ***

  Ryder wasn’t Zane; like they were nothing alike. Hell, I wouldn’t even pin them as brothers, or cousins - heck, it would be stretching it to think they could be friends. They were just that opposite.

  “Hand it over, Allie, you’re killing us.” Ryder reached for the controller, which I was quick to make sure was out of his reach.

  “I’ve got this, really.” I had my eyes on the screen. I wouldn’t lie to myself, I was losing.

  When we came down here, we found the boys playing the Xbox, so naturally, we joined and then paired up.

  Ryder and I against Jake and Cassie. Ryder had got us ahead, but I was currently killing all his good work.

  It took, I think, a total of ten minutes before I felt relaxed around Ryder. He was easy going and we sort of just clicked, so right now as he was threatening to kill me, I didn’t take it personally.

  “ALLIE, you aren’t even paying attention!” He cringed, with his eyes on the screen, then dropped his head into his hands as I lost yet another life.

  While Cassie and Jake celebrated, I couldn’t help but laugh at Ryder’s gutted reaction.

  “Come on, Ryder, it is only a game.” I patted him on the back, not able to contain my grin.

  “Doesn’t matter, Allie. Ryder hates losing, period.” Jake chuckled and seemed really happy to rub in the loss with a victory dance.

  “You know what this means.” Jake shot Cassie a wink; which I didn’t miss.

  Cassie’s face lit up.

  Ryder’s head snapped up. “Fuck no.”

  “Ok, I’m missing something,” I piped up, my amusement drying up when I see the glimpse of happiness in Jake’s eyes.

  It was that sort of happiness you just knew was caused by someone else’s embarrassment.

  “Dunk Of Shame.” Jake grinned evilly.

  “The what of shame?”

  Ryder stood up, looking genuinely pissed off.

  “It’s called the Dunk Of Shame.” He gestured a hand down to me which I took, and he pulled me up off the couch.

  “So why am I getting the feeling this isn’t something I’m going to like?”

  “Well, we’d had a few too many to drink one night, and well, you see, Jake lost at poker to Ryder, and as punishment, he had to jump in the creek so we called it the Dunk Of Shame, and now whenever one of us loses, we take the Dunk Of Shame.”

  “That is cruel!” I exclaimed, and then threw a hand into Ryder’s chest. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me we had to jump into a freezing cold creek if we lost? I would have handed that controller over!”

  “I told you we couldn’t lose.” The corner of his lips twitched up into this kind of adorable and alluring smirk; and there it goes, I skip a heartbeat.

  I groaned when Cassie grabbed my hand, slid the porch door open, and dragged me down to the creek, while Jake was taunting Ryder the entire time about how cold the water was and how ‘unimpressed’ I was going to be when he got out. Boys - so vain.

  While you might think a man that takes a video game seriously wouldn’t be attractive, you would be wrong when it came to Ryder Harris.

  He was tall, but aren’t all the attractive males?

  He had styled midnight brown hair with a bit of a side fringe. He looked like a member of a boy band, and boy did he dress good.

  I was paying attention to his choice of wardrobe as he slowly undressed. Darn, I gulped twice and was sure my cheeks flushed red. Thank God for the night sky.

  “So, are you going in dressed?” Cassie nudged my shoulder. “Trust me; it is harder to climb back up with wet clothes on.”

  I looked down at the creek. There was a drop of a few meters. The water looked as cold as the air and was a deep black color.

  I glanced at Ryder; he was currently pulling his pants off while Jake was nattering on about the water.

  I wasn’t embarrassed about my body. I took great pride in it. I worked hard and worked out harder. While I might not be embarrassed about my body, that didn’t mean I liked showing it off or revealing it in general. I liked being covered; what was wrong with that?

  So right now, as I reached for the hem of my jumper and pulled it off, it was a big thing. My heartbeat increased dramatically as I pushed my jeans down.

  Ryder was standing there in his boxers.

  I had just pulled my t-shirt off when I finally had the guts to look at him. To my utter surprise, his eyes weren’t running up and down me. Instead, they were planted solely on my eyes.

  “Ready to jump, Miss Won’t Back Down.” He extended a hand to me.

  “Sure.” I grabbed his hand and looked down at the creek.

  “Well, we’re in this together.”

  How could such a simple sentence like that cause every vessel within me to twist and curve? I gulped and nodded my head. “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “Ok, on the count of three.”

  “Don’t freeze to death, you two.” Jake chuckled behind us.

  “One.” Ryder and I moved closer to the edge.

  “Two.” He smiled at me, then we both bent our knees.

  “Don’t let go.” My eyes widened and darted to Ryder’s. He nodded his head.

  “Three.”

  Our hands didn’t break. Not when we were in the air and not when we hit the water. His hand tightened around mine as the freezing water engulfed my body.

  Before I went any deeper into the water, I felt an arm snake around my body and force me back up to the surface.

  I gulped in the air as soon as my head popped above the surface.

  “It’s FR…EE…ZZINGGG…” I stuttered.

  Ryder’s arm was still wrapped around me, and he was supporting my full weight in the water.

  His hair was wet and clinging to his forehead. “God, you’re like a koala!” He chuckled in my ear while swimming us back to the bank.

  Even with his remark, I didn’t make a move to unwrap my body around him; my arms were tight around his neck, and my legs were wrapped around his chest.

  “You know, Allie, I think I like this.” He paused, and we floated in the water.

  “Whaatt?”

  “You wrapped around me.” He winked.

  “P..Perv,” I stuttered at him.

  Once we hit the bank, he helped push me up on it. Shaking and wearing barely anything, I started to climb up the bank. Ryder was right behind me, and every time I stumbled, he was there to catch me and every time he did, my skin burnt with his touch.

  “If I look back and you’re staring at my ass, I will punch you,” I threatened then grinned over my shoulder.

  Ryder smirked widely at me and raised his hands. “Wouldn’t dream
of it, koala. “

  “So, how was the dip, you two?” Jake’s amused smile was beaming. "Bit cold?"

  It was Jake's taunting grin that had me wanting to throw him into the darn creek.

  “WHAT…THE…FUCK!”

  Jake and Cassie spun around, and my eyes landed on a pair of eyes that sent chills through me. Standing behind them was Zane. Zane bloody Harris.

  He wasn’t mad, he was furious.

  Our deadlock was broken when Ryder stepped in front of me, and now all I could see was his bare back.

  “What do you want, little brother?” Ryder handed a towel to me which I was quick to wrap around me.

  Zane’s breathing was hard and sure it was quiet, but I knew I was more focused on it than anyone else would be.

  “I came looking for Allie.”

  My ears perked up. Ryder stepped out of my way and ran a towel over his head. “Well, here she is.” He shot me a lopsided grin.

  My eyes drifted to Zane’s, and the coldness of the water was nothing compared to the ice in his eyes right now.

  ‘You’re naked with my brother.’ His voice filled my mind.

  ‘Leave me alone.’ I tightened the towel around me. ‘And I’m not naked.’

  “So, are you going to say something, little brother, or just keep staring at her?” Ryder piped up and looked between us.

  Zane grunted. “Dad just sent me to make sure she didn’t run away.” Zane’s cold glare locked with mine again. “Clearly she hasn’t.”

  “Well, now that your detective career is over, you can piss off now.”

  Zane turned around and stormed away. I could feel the anger radiating from him. I knew I could feel it more because of my connection with him, but still, I hoped no one else picked up on it.

  “So, how about we warm up, you coming, Allie?” Ryder asked, and the other two were already walking back to the house talking amongst themselves. They didn't seem confused by Zane's appearance or snappy attitude.

  “Sure.” I smiled at him and, while it was only half a smile and forced, it was still a smile. Trust Zane to ruin a night that was going so well.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Ryder never mentioned Zane’s reaction; in fact, he didn’t mention Zane once. It is funny how sometimes conversation just flows without really having a purpose, yet it feels like the best conversation you’ve ever had.