by Jo Raven
“Um. Some shots?”
“You’re a fucking lightweight. I worry about you.”
I worry about me, too. Especially with this business with Jarett. Because he did take out those thugs, chased them away, and I’d feel much better knowing Sydney has his protection. Who else would have kept her safe?
I saw him take the thugs down, watched the end of the fight from the door, frozen, not sure what to do. Jarett unleashing violence on those douchebags was beautiful to watch. He moved like a dancer, every movement sleek and smooth, power uncoiling with every strike, every punch connecting.
Brutal.
Lethal.
Hot.
“You seem to be seeing Jarett everywhere you go lately,” Merc mutters, swirling his drink in his glass.
I open my mouth to deny that, but nothing comes out. Crap, Merc is right. Jarett was there every time Sydney was in trouble these past couple of weeks.
Why?
“Look, I don’t like you seeing him,” Merc says, glancing sideways at me, worry lines creasing his forehead. “I was hoping you’d get over him. In fact, I thought you had by now.”
“Why?”
“Because last I heard, he’d been hanging out with a gang, and you don’t want to be around guys like that, trust me.”
“Gang?” I roll the word in my mind. I don’t understand… “Jarett’s in a gang?”
“That’s what I heard. Happened to overhear a girl talk about him at work. She, uh, was interested in him—”
“She wanted into his pants.”
“Well, she was talking about the size of his dick, so—”
“She slept with him?”
Merc winces. “I guess.”
“That bitch.”
He snorts and shakes his head, grinning. “You’ve got it bad, Gigi.”
I don’t. I don’t give a damn about Jarett and his conquests, or his dick.
Seriously.
The dick I held in my hand tonight, that I stroked and squeezed until Jarett shook against me and came, his cum scalding hot, his face tight with pleasure.
I did that to him. He was hard because he wanted me, and God… I wanted him, too.
“I’m going to bed,” I declare to the living room and Merc, and get unsteadily to my feet. “Good night.”
“Need help to go up?”
“I’m good,” I mutter, and drag myself upstairs. “I’m done.”
Please dear God, let this be over. If Jarett breaks my heart, without even knowing he has that power, that’d be too much.
It’s not until I’m up in my room that I realize Merc never did tell me what he was really doing in the dark, what girl he was thinking about and what the problem is.
Crap.
Alone in bed, I listen to some music, but I yank the earphones out before the song is over. My head is pounding. I squirm under the covers, in my soft cotton jammies, and grab a book to read from my nightstand, a sci-fi classic Merc has been pestering me to read for a while.
But the words swim on the page. I rub at my eyes and reread the same paragraph, but it’s no use. Who cares about alien spaceships and distant planets when my brain is busy replaying the evening in every tiny detail, from the fear of not finding Sydney, to the worry at seeing Jarett’s bruised face, and then the toe-curling sensation of his mouth on mine, and then…
I push the book off the bed, letting it drop to the floor.
My body is thrumming with arousal. I can’t sleep, and I can’t listen to music, or read, caught in this web of desire.
Jarett, Jarett. Shit, how do I fight this attraction? How can I stop thinking about him?
My hand dips down, between my legs. I don’t often pleasure myself, and that’s not because I don’t enjoy it. Orgasm without the complications of being with a guy, of safety precautions and the puzzle of trying to fit together and get enough stimulation to come before he comes and loses interest in the proceedings… it’s all good.
But sleeping with a guy—with Jarett—would be different. And I’ve slept with guys, though I can count the ones I let close enough to me on one hand. It just never clicked. I never wanted them enough. There was never enough interest.
Just because boys are attracted to me, Octavia thinks I sleep with all of them. She thinks I don’t feel much.
Funny how that works. I mean, boys are the ones chasing after me, not the other way around. And sure, having all that attention feels nice. It feels good, no denying that. But it doesn’t mean I’ll sleep with them all. Or with any.
But I would with Jarett. I totally would.
Shit. No, I wouldn’t. I shouldn’t. He’s a bad guy. Part of a gang, if Merc is right. A total dick.
I have to stop thinking, imagining, fantasizing about him—but my hand has taken a life of its own, and it slips inside my jammies, under my panties.
Oh God, I’m soaking wet, and so sensitive. So excited as I rub my fingers over my clit.
The tactile memory of my hand around his hard-on is driving me crazy. Before, my fantasies of him were abstract. His eyes, his mouth, his shoulders, and then I’d imagine him kissing me, touching me.
But now I’ve kissed him, touched him, made him come, and I have to bite the inside of my cheek not to moan out loud as I relive it all, my fingers rubbing harder, then pushing into me.
Not me. It’s not me doing it. In my mind, it’s him.
I can see him. Jarett. He’s on his knees in front of me, those pretty cat-like eyes trained on me. He’s stroking me, smirking down at me as he ratchets up the pressure in my belly, in my pussy, as he stretches me and prepares me for his cock. As he prepares to fuck me into the mattress, and I’d let him.
Hell, I’d beg for it. Beg him to shove that thick, hard cock into me, to fuck me so hard the bed will bang against the wall, that he’d have to put his hand over my mouth to drown out my cries as I came apart.
And I do come apart as the fantasy plays out in my mind, my fingers buried inside me, my hips rocking and my heart hammering. The pleasure drowns me, and I sink into the mattress, into the possibilities and another fantasy where this could really happen, where Jarett would want more from me than this.
Where he’d care for me, want to be with me, where he wouldn’t pretend not to know me in front of his friends, where he’d ask me to be his girlfriend.
My head falls back on the pillow, and I close my eyes, shivers running through my body.
Crazy.
Chapter Ten
Jarett
It’s late morning when Sebastian stumbles into the kitchen and starts banging through the cupboards, then the fridge, cursing under his breath.
I watch him from my chair at the table, lowering the ice pack from my swollen jaw, the noises he’s making going like spikes through my pounding head.
He slams the fridge door shut, and then gasps when he sees me. He lifts the last bottle of beer I had inside, as if to hit me with it.
I stare at him stonily, waiting to see what he’ll do—yell at me for no reason, break things, or ignore me and stomp off.
It’s a toss-up these days. Living with a guy hooked on drugs is like living with a live grenade. You never know when he might go off.
“Whatcha doing here?” he mutters.
“I live here, fucker. Like you.”
He just shakes his head, like he can’t believe his bad luck in finding me in front of him, and takes his beer and foul mood out of the kitchen.
“Hey! You got money for the rent this time?” I call after him.
He doesn’t reply.
Dammit. Bracing on the table, I get up, take a tentative step and swallow down a curse. Icing my knee didn’t do much good. It’s fucked ten ways to Sunday, and it’s a goddamn miracle I made it home on my feet last night. I was still high on adrenaline.
And pleasure.
Was it worth it, getting into a brawl for the sake of Gigi’s friend?
For the sake of Gigi. Cuz she asked for it.
As I limp out of the
kitchen, I’m still debating that. If I should ignore Sydney next time I see her—because I have no doubt our paths will cross again, if her mutinous look at Gigi as she dragged her indoors last night was any indication about her intentions—and if having Gigi touch me again, even for the wrong reasons, is even a possibility…
Goddammit, Jarett.
Angry at myself, I hobble across to Seb’s bedroom and slam my fist on the door. “Hey! Open up. You can’t keep taking my money and never pay anything. I can’t pay the fucking rent on my own, man.”
But no reply comes through, so I turn the handle and open the door.
He’s not there. The room’s empty. Fuck. He snuck out as I was busy trying to get up, that fucking jackass.
I drop down on his bed and shove my fingers through my hair. What am I doing here? Renting this place when he almost never pays his part, never wants to work, only thinking he’ll be the next mafia boss or something and swim in dollars. I feed him and protect his sorry ass—for what?
For a promise. Yeah, I did swear to protect him, ever since he started hanging out with the gang, getting deeper. The stupid shit doesn’t have a clue what he’s gotten himself into. He thinks he’s invincible.
That’s the guy I’m trying to save.
Most of the time I wanna kill him myself, save anyone else the trouble.
I scrub at my scalp, in the vague hope that it will ease the headache, ease the burden of this impossible task I’ve undertaken.
But of course, for that, too, like with everything else, it’s too damn late.
“Christ, what happened to your face?” Suzie stops and stares as she gets ready to leave the bar. We swapped shifts, and hers is ending as mine is starting. “Did you get into another fight?”
I shrug. “Got in the middle of one.”
Indecision flickers over her face. “Want to talk about it? I have…” She checks the time on her phone. “Five minutes before my friend picks me up.”
“It’s okay,” I tell her gently, cuz she still has a crush on me, and I don’t want her thinking I feel the same way, even if it feels good to have someone care enough to ask. “Go on, go meet your friend. David and me, we’ll hold the fort.”
David gives her a thumbs-up from behind the bar.
She nods uncertainly and steps out into the drizzle.
“Before I forget,” David tells me as I tie on the black apron with the bar’s logo, “a girl came asking about you the other day. I’ve been meaning to tell you about it.”
I shoot him a surprised look. Many girls ask for me here, and David has long since stopped giving me their messages. “Go on. What did she do? Was it bad?”
There was one girl who left me her phone number—written in permanent marker on her unwashed panties.
And then there was that girl who made a video of herself getting nailed in the ass by an older guy and asked for my phone number to send it to me.
I stopped giving girls my number after that. It was the last drop in an ocean of craziness. I don’t need this shit.
Sure, I like watching a pretty girl getting off as much as the next guy, and flirting and fucking gets my mind off the shitty reality that is my life on most days, but this… it’s too much.
“She was… different.” David finishes polishing a shot glass and places it carefully in a row of many other small shot glasses. He verges on OCD sometimes, and also sometimes I wonder if he’s into both girls and boys. There’s something in the way he looks at me.
Like now.
“Different, how?” I turn away, busy myself with checking the alcohol we have behind the bar, to see if anything needs restocking.
“Well, for starters she didn’t leave you her panties or bra, or even her number.”
“True, that is different,” I concede.
“She also didn’t ask if you have a girlfriend, although she seemed glad when I said you don’t.”
“And how do you know I don’t, huh?”
He ignores my protest. “She said she only wanted to see the place where you work.”
“That’s fucking weird, if you ask me.”
“She said she wanted to see if the rumors are true.”
“What rumors?”
“She never said. But she did say you were old friends.”
I still, my breath going out, because it can’t be. No fucking way.
Why would she come here, asking about me? I turn slowly back around to face him. “Did she say her name?”
“Maybe.” He shrugs, eyes fucking twinkling.
“David.”
“Okay, okay, I remember now. Gigi. Unusual name.”
It sure is. “It’s short for Augusta.”
“Heh. She didn’t tell me that.”
A grin spreads over my face, for some reason glad for that, and I rub at my mouth to hide it. “So she said we’re old friends, huh?”
“Ah-huh.”
“What else?”
“Nothing much. Oh wait, she did ask if you sleep with all the girls who come looking for you.”
I choke. “And what the hell did you say?”
He laughs at whatever it is he sees on my face. “What was I supposed to say? Wait…” He takes a step back, lifting his hands when I glare at him. “Hey, relax. I said no, okay? I swear.”
What does this all mean? Why did she come here? What rumors did she want to verify—that I fuck around? Well, screw that. I do whatever the hell I please.
It’s not like I have any reason to keep my dick in my pants. Any reason to behave, or be responsible, with no real family to hold me accountable and no girlfriend to wake up to in the mornings, no friends.
And yet I’m responsible for more people than I can handle. Isn’t that a fucking joke? When I can barely look after my own damn self.
Chapter Eleven
Gigi
“You want to go out. On Saturday night. Really.” I look across the small table at the coffee shop at Sydney who’s fidgeting with the sleeves of her green sweater, avoiding my gaze.
She called me, said she wanted to meet up, and this is the first thing she has to ask me?
She gives me an uncertain smile. “Yes. It’s another party. It will be fun.”
Fun. When every time she leaves me alone to go buy drugs, like I assume she does, and I have to go looking for her.
“Please, Gigi. I need you there. You don’t know…” She swallows hard. “Please. I promise we will have fun.”
“Syd, look…”
And I stop.
I really look at her. She has dark circles under her eyes. She looks like crap. She looks desperate, and honestly, I don’t know what to do about her.
She’s scaring me. Worry is eating at my stomach like acid. I should talk to her parents, only they haven’t been around in a long while.
I should talk to her friends.
She’s been my friend for so long, the person I told everything. She knows about my fears, about my nightmares. Something’s going on with her, and she’s not ready to talk. And she puts herself in danger, and that really sucks, but if I don’t go with her, I’m sure she’ll still go. Without me.
Without anyone to have her back. If anything happens to her, it’s on me.
Also going with her I may have a chance to figure out what’s going on, and to get her to open up and talk to me. Plus, if her boy harem is around, I could talk to them as well. That’d be a bonus.
And if Jarett is around…
No. I have to stop expecting that. What are the odds that he’ll be there every single time Syd and I go out? After all, I hadn’t seen him in years, and it’s not like I stayed at home and said my prayers at night until then.
Then again, a little voice points out in my mind, you only started seeing him the moment Sydney started taking you out to places where she met with drug dealers and gangsters.
Gangsters.
A gang.
Oh my God.
“Gigi? Will you go with me?” Sydney is staring at me, a pleadin
g look in her eyes.
Pushing back my chair, I grab my jacket, and mutter something about having to go and calling her later.
She’s distraught, and I barely notice because right now I’m kind of distraught, too.
I have to talk to my brother.
Merc doesn’t answer his phone. The phone at home rings and rings, and nobody picks up.
On a hunch, I head to Mancave, the garage my brother-in-law and his brother have opened on the outskirts of town. Merc likes to hang out there and tinker with engines.
Not that he’s a good mechanic. But I think he likes hanging out with the guys, Matt and Kaden, and shoot the shit with them. My brother-in-law, Matt, seems to be a good influence on him. Calm and measured, he’s much older than my sister, and is like a cross between a father and a brother to me and Merc. At least that’s how he acts, and my brother likes it.
As for me, sometimes I want to roll my eyes so hard. I don’t need a father. I did fine without one all my life. But I do appreciate how Matt helped us move out of Destiny, helped Mom pay her debts and got us into college. I’ll never forget his kindness when we most needed it, and how he did his best to take care of all of us.
And I’m glad Merc has someone older and trustworthy to talk to, since he won’t talk to me about this girl trouble he’s in. Hopefully Matt gives him good advice. God knows I’m no expert on matters of the heart.
I gave my heart away long ago, to Jarett, and I have little hope of ever getting it back.
Shaking off the morose thoughts, I climb off the bus and walk briskly across the street and into the dim interior of the workshop. It’s a familiar place for me these days—the gutted cars, the shelves overflowing with car parts and tools, the smell of oil and gasoline.
I don’t see anyone around, not even my sister who sometimes helps out with the paperwork. The small office is empty, the computer screen dark.
I enter the second bay, and there they are, huddled around an exposed car engine, three heads bent together, one dark and two blond. The dark one is Matt, the one with the ponytail is Kaden, his brother, and the other is Merc.