And I wanted the past to remain where it belonged.
Behind us.
“We should take this somewhere a little quieter.” Dennis’ husky voice danced over my skin as his hands skated down my stomach to the waistband of my shorts.
My eyes fluttered shut but soon flew open when a voice called from across the beach. “Cassie? We didn’t know you were back.”
Elena broke out of Tyson’s hold and came over to me, pulling me into a hug, completely unaffected by the way Dennis and I were standing.
“We just got back this morning,” I said.
After spending some time with my parents, Dennis drove us to the coast where we spent two blissful weeks soaking up the sun and getting to know one another intimately.
“You look so good.” Elena held me at arm’s length. “And you’re not looking so bad yourself, big guy.” She winked at Dennis, who dropped a kiss on the top of my head and went to greet Tyson. The guys chatted while Elena filled me in on her summer. She and Tyson had spent time with Ana and Jackson in Tijuana. Hearing her talk about them made my heart ache, but it also filled me with a strange sense of hope. Because if they’d escaped this life then maybe, just maybe, one day Dennis could too.
“So …” Elena glanced over at the guys. “How are things?”
I raked my eyes over Dennis. He was leaner after a summer at the beach, but it suited him. His usually dark hair that he kept buzzed had grown out some too. But the changes in him were more than just physical.
“Things are … good.” I beamed at my friend. “Things are really good.”
Elena pulled me in for another hug. “Eek, I’m so happy for you. You deserve this, Cass.”
“Hmm, baby, what’s with all the hugging?” Tyson looped his arm around Elena and pulled her back into his chest. She craned her neck and met him in a passionate kiss that had me blushing and bowing my head. But then Dennis’ sneakers came into view and he tilted my head up, a smirk tugging at his mouth. He’d gotten good at reading my mind.
“I love you, Cass,” he said.
“I love you too, Dennis.”
Dennis
Life was good.
In fact, life was damn near perfect.
The only thing missing was my best friend. I missed Jackson something fierce, but I was happy he and Ana had found their happy ending. With the disappearance of Marcus Donohue business calmed down. Maconey took over things and while me and the other guys helped run things on campus, he called the shots. And things went back to some kind of normal.
Dad was pissed. He’d wanted nothing more than to seal a deal with Marcus but that ship had sailed and Maconey wasn’t looking to expand, especially not with the likes of Miller Hayes. So, while he regrouped, I took advantage. I played ball. Studied hard. And spent as much time with Cassie as I could. Because I was that guy now.
A guy in love with a girl.
And while I wasn’t naïve enough to think the road ahead would be simple, I intended on holding onto her for as long as I could.
I hope you enjoyed this novella. If you’re interested in finding out more about the Chastity Falls world follow this link.
Also By
Fate’s Love Series
Fate’s Love
Love’s Spark
Love Collides
Chastity Falls Series
Loyalty and Lies
Salvation and Secrets
Tribulation and Truths
Redemption and Regrets
Penance and Promises
Liar Liar Duet
Liar Liar
Truth or Dare
The Austin Brothers Series
The First Time is the Hardest
Standalones
Lucky Penny
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About the Author
Author of mature young adult and new adult novels, L A is happiest writing the kind of books she loves to read: addictive stories full of teenage angst, tension, twists and turns.
Home is a small town in the middle of England where she currently juggles being a full-time writer with being a mother/referee to two little people. In her spare time (and when she’s not camped out in front of the laptop) you’ll most likely find L A immersed in a book, escaping the chaos that is life.
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To Be Common Like You
by Michelle Irwin
Copyright © 2017 by Michelle Irwin
First Edition
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to an actual person, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental. The following story is set in Australia and therefore has been written in UK/Australian English. The spelling and usage reflect that.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and for all other inquiries, contact:
Michelle Irwin P O Box 671 MORAYFIELD QLD 4506 AUSTRALIA
www.michelle-irwin.com
[email protected]
Created with Vellum
Chapter 1
PEOPLE HUDDLED TOGETHER for shouted conversations in the booths that lined the nightclub. Pockets of dancers filled the space on the dancefloor, their sweaty bodies gyrating together, moving in time to the too-loud music.
Since I’d completed my duty for the night by ensuring the event kicked off with a bang, I focused on the rum and Coke in front of me, drinking down a mouthful as my gaze scanned the crowd hoping to find someone to have some fun with. Unfortunately, I came up lacking. The few who did catch my eye were grinding against other people and I wasn’t in the mood for a fight.
The night was exactly the same as it had been the previous semester and the one before that. Why I continued to sign-up for the university’s welcoming committee for international students was beyond me. Every foreigner who’d enrolled was given an invitation to this welcoming party.
Thoughts of the meagre paycheque I’d been promised at the end of the weekend crossed my mind and reminded me why I continued to sign up. It might’ve only been a hundred dollars, but if I was lucky, it might give me enough to fill my tank and have a meal. Maybe a couple if I stuck to noodles or tins of beans and spaghetti.
Despite the high-class nightclub, with its pricey drinks, fancy booths, and decorative curtains strung around to offer the pretence of privacy, the whole event was little more than an expensive kegger. The whole event was inane. Too much booze. Too loud music.
And too many regrets in the morning that followed as I’d learned in previous years.
It did nothing but perpetuate the stereotype that Aussies were little more than drunken yobbos. Welcome to Australia. Here, have a drink.
I’d just taken another swig of my drink when everything in the place seemed to stop all at once. A hush fell over the crowd, and almost everyone turned to the entrance. It was as if body snatchers had overtaken them all at once. Despite the deafening music, the silence that had fallen was overwhelming.
Louder than the music, the click of heels against the marble floor echoed around us. A raven haired beauty walked in as if she owned the place. As she moved, her waist-length locks swished in time with her swaying hips. An almost violet hue shimmered in her luscious hair. It added a new dimension to the strands which were a shade or two darker than my own almost black crop and at least five times as shiny.
Bold black and white geometric lines covered the dress that hugged her
body from her shoulders to her knees. The excesses of the club were designed to welcome the occasional Australian celebrity, but I doubted anyone of her calibre had ever graced the place before. Her black heels tapped in Morse code, sending messages designed to make every cock within hearing distance stand at attention. Every pair of eyes controlled by said cocks turned to follow her path.
Mine followed too, but only for a second.
Women like her earned little more than a cursory glance from me. She was way out of my league, draped as she was in designer wear and diamonds. Not to mention equipped with heels so pointed they were basically lethal weapons. Her type had made it more than clear to me in the past that I was beneath them. Worth far less than a piece of gum that might dare to blemish the soles of their Manolo Blahniks.
“A bottle of Cristal.” A loud female voice issued from the slender thing who oozed expense. The sound was thick with a brash American accent that reminded me of summer Godfather marathons. Instead of ordering from the bar herself, she’d demanded the menial task be completed by the lump of a servant boy dressed in a monkey suit who trailed behind her.
I should’ve guessed the designer queen would order Cristal. It was the best the club served, after all. And women like her accepted nothing but the best.
With a diamond the size of a die on each ear, and a twisted gold chain around her neck that was at least as thick as my pinky, everything about her screamed high maintenance and entitlement. From the layers of make-up defining and highlighting every feature on her heart-shaped face to the pristinely painted nails on her fingers.
I wondered how much she might’ve been worth. At a guess, it had to be well into the millions at least. Her outfit alone was probably worth more than my dad’s house.
The next question was an obvious one. Was she born into wealth or had she married into it? She seemed a little young for marriage, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t schemed her way into a billionaire’s heart. It certainly wouldn’t have been the first time some young thing claimed a sugar daddy. One thing I knew for certain—there was no way she was self-made. No one that young with tastes that expensive could have pulled themselves up by the bootstraps enough to be draped in riches the way she was.
Her voice filled the air again as she greeted some other people in the bar. I had no idea if she knew them or was just filled with an unshakable confidence, but either way, I tuned out the words and watched her as I waited for her voice to blend into the background noise.
I took the time to assess her better. Everything on her seemed to be either designer or tailored to fit her body to precision—perhaps both. Her make-up was heavy, especially the thick smoky stuff around her hazel eyes, but it gave her the appearance of having walked in from a movie set rather than from a street corner. The contours of her face were exaggerated, but it was clear her cheekbones were naturally high and defined. Her little upturned nose had such a perfect shape I had to wonder if she’d had a cosmetic make-over in the past.
Then again, her lips were full without looking like she’d borrowed them from a trout, so it was possible she was just genetically blessed. At the thought, my gaze dropped lower to assess her rack. It had a soft roundness that indicated she was either naturally endowed or had a fantastic surgeon with a deft hand at balancing the enhancements with her existing assets.
What would it be like to fuck a woman like that? I’d never had the opportunity to find out because I’d never been close enough to someone with that much wealth. Usually, one look at the filth on my hands, the no-brand shirt on my broad shoulders, and the copper tones of my skin was all it took to turn them in the opposite direction. I was a guy their daddies warned them about; someone they didn’t want to meet in a dark alley.
I assumed there would only be two possible outcomes with getting her in the sack. She’d either be some complete freak between the sheets or else she’d be a pillow princess. Would it matter which she was though? An image of her pretty face with my cock between her lips. That would be worth a little bit of work.
As soon as the thought crossed my mind, I pushed it away. It wouldn’t pay to linger on those images—at least not until I got home and could add her into the database of my mental spank bank. I was sure we could have some fun there.
Even as I tried not to think about her, I wondered what her story was. Early that day, I’d been warned there was a minor celebrity making an appearance as part of her honorary inclusion in the international student program, but not any specific details so that nothing could be leaked to the press early. Apparently, she was undertaking a business degree—like I was, but she was a year behind.
It was a spot she’d likely accepted with no real intention of following through—why would she need to slum it in some tiny Queensland university when she could have any educational institution in the world at her beck and call? Surely, a sugar daddy wouldn’t let his princess travel this far away. At least, not alone. It put more credence to the thought that she was born into money.
The woman’s heavily mascaraed eyes turned to me, catching the direction of my gaze. I dropped my attention back to the glass in front of me which was surrounded by my filthy hands. I wasn’t unclean or deliberately dirty, but an entire summer’s worth of helping in Dad’s garage had left my hands almost permanently stained. If experience from the past few years had taught me anything, it was that the stain would finally start to lift in around two to three weeks of scrubbing with my cheap, no brand soap.
When the feeling of being watched refused to shift, I risked a quick glance back in the direction of the woman. Her gaze was still locked on me, and an amused smirk crossed her bright red lips.
I met her eyes for a moment with a dead-eyed glare, intending to force her attention away from me, before tossing my drink back when she obligingly dropped her gaze. I didn’t have time for the sort of trouble a woman like that would cause—not while I was working three jobs just to pay the rent on my shitty one bedroom apartment.
In reality, I probably didn’t need to live in the city, but the alternative of moving back in with Dad wasn’t much better. I would need to spend the equivalent of my weekly rent in public transportation costs or petrol and parking for both uni and work. Plus the commute from the Southside of town sucked.
It simply wasn’t worth the hassle. My apartment might’ve been a shithole, but it included a parking space that was worth the price alone. Besides, my neighbours were friendly, in a keep an eye out for each other even if it borders on nosy kind of way, which helped.
With a plan to make my escape as soon as possible, I left the booth and headed to the men’s room. On the way, I passed the giant man in the gorilla suit—who seemed at least three times larger up close and personal—standing to one side of the door to the ladies’ restroom.
I had to laugh to myself as I used the urinal. I might’ve had to work a number of jobs, I might’ve even had to put up with arsehole customers, but I would never again complain about the crap I had to do. Nothing could be worse than having to be a rich bitch’s minder. To stand next to the bathroom door while waiting for her to go tinkle. And it could only be a tinkle because women like her never shit—they couldn’t because otherwise they’d have nowhere for the sun to shine from.
As I slipped back into my booth, I lamented that I hadn’t already received my paycheque for the night. If I had, I could’ve blown some of it on another drink. Because of the limited reach of my budget though, I’d have to go for virgin rum and Cokes until I left. At least those were covered by the tab the uni had running for the party.
While I was contemplating whether to go for the plain Coke or just switch to beer, the slender figure covered in patterned black and white took a seat in the booth across from me.
“You don’t like me much, do you?” she asked in a bold Yank accent.
After casting my gaze over her again, I gave a dismissive shrug. “I don’t know you, so I can’t not like you.”
“You don’t know who I am?” She laughe
d as if the mere idea was inconceivable. It confirmed every thought I’d had about her. The pretentiousness that lived in her every action. I could practically see her in my head, hands on hips and brows furrowed hard as she gave some poor shmuck salesman a dressing down for not recognising her on sight.
I concentrated on the empty glass in front of me. “Nope. Don’t care to either.”
Her laughter cut off and she leaned forward to force herself into my line of sight. Her eyes were narrowed, and the hazel depths were like laser pointers on my face—as if she had some sort of lie detector built into the sparkling orbs. “Really?”
“Look, lady, I don’t know what to tell you.” My gaze travelled the length of her face and down onto her rack again. “Clearly I don’t run in your circles.”
“Yeah. You definitely don’t.” She gave an almost wistful sigh as her gaze trailed a similar path over my body.
I drew back, feeling awkward under the warmth of her unrelenting gaze.
“Are we done?” I wasn’t intentionally trying to be rude, but it was hard to stomach being next to her when any single piece of her jewellery would probably pay my rent for months. That amount of wealth was nothing short of obscene.
“I really didn’t mean to offend you,” she said.
“No offence taken. I just want to be left alone.”
“I was told you’re the host of this soiree.” She gave an amused smirk. “You don’t seem very eager to please your guests.”
The way her lips surrounded her words sent a spark to my brain that then travelled down the length of my spine and straight to my cock. I shifted in my seat to allow room for growth. It gave her an extra account in my spank bank. I would be extremely eager to please her—if she offered the same services in return.
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