by Molly Mirren
She needed to stop wondering about Panhead, though, because she had no intention of ever meeting him in person. She thought about the dev that Panhead was interested in and what he'd said, that he'd almost kissed her—just like when Jay had almost kissed Erin. The bottom fell out of her stomach for an instant. It was a weird coincidence, but it wasn't possible Jay could be Panhead. Was it?
No. That was ridiculous. There was no way Panhead could be Jay. For one thing, Panhead thought his dev was beautiful. There was no way Jay would think she was beautiful.
Besides, Jay was too much of a guy. He was into working on his motorcycle, fixing things around the house, his IT job, and other man stuff—except that the guy could also cook like freakin' Julia Child. Erin had been sorely tempted by the aromas that wafted from the kitchen more than once but had always resisted the temptation to join him when he offered.
Still, Jay wouldn't take the time to pose as a wheeler on the dev website just to talk to her. What would be the point? Erin couldn't picture him doing that at all. He'd made it clear what he thought about devs, and his comment about her getting horny because his back hurt was proof he was still leery of her, even if there was some physical attraction thrown into the mix.
No. There were things that were similar between Jay and Panhead, but they weren't one and the same. Even the remote possibility curdled her blood, so she quickly dismissed it. She'd already told Panhead things about herself no one else knew, and she'd just sent him her novel. She would be mortified if she found out it was really Jay.
Just stop it, she told herself. Sometimes, she had a tendency to come up with worst-case scenarios until she had herself completely freaked out over nothing. Panhead wasn't Jay. That was crazy. And it was nice to have someone she could confide in, someone she could be herself with—even if he only existed in cyberspace.
Chapter 15
“Hey, babe. Want a hit?” asked Duncan, Erin's latest bad idea, as he held out a joint. He was leaning against the beat-up eighties Mercedes station wagon he drove to haul around his instruments and stage equipment. The rest of his bandmates were inside Lars Bar getting things ready for their set while Duncan took a smoke break.
Erin had just stepped into the alley behind the bar to join him. She let the heavy steel back door shut behind her and slid down to the low doorstep, bringing her knees up and resting her elbows on them, careful not to spill the ice-cold Dos Equis longneck in her hand. Her ankle was aching, so she was taking a quick break from waiting tables before the bar got really busy. It felt good to take a load off her feet.
Her low-rise skinny jeans were tight and her underwear was probably showing above her waistband in the back. Good thing her back was to the door—not that she really cared if anyone saw her underwear, as long as she wasn't sporting a plumber's crack. She set her beer down for a second and redid her ponytail, which was getting too loose, then picked her beer up again to take a sip.
Spring had been getting steadily hotter, with temperatures up in the nineties, and the May evening was muggy. The heavy air surrounded her, making her wish for a breeze. It would be another scorching San Antonio summer, if the weather so far was any indication.
Erin studied Duncan's pale hand offering her the joint—so different from Jay's strong, masculine, bronze-skinned hands.
Oh, for the love of God! Stop thinking about Jay! she admonished herself.
Duncan was hot, too, but in a totally different way. In fact, he was more the type of guy Erin was usually attracted to, minus the wheelchair. Of average height, he dressed like her brother, which meant his attire of choice was a concert T-shirt and skinny jeans. He had a charming boyish grin, full sensuous lips, a lean, sinewy, rock-star body covered with cool tattoos, and messy, longish dark hair. However, the term “boyish” was apt. At the ripe young age of twenty-one, he was five years younger than she was.
Still, Duncan had charisma, and he could make her laugh. Plus, Erin was a sucker for musicians, and Duncan was the bass player and occasional lead singer for The Poonmatics, a band that frequently opened for her brother's band, Silver.
She wouldn't really call what she was doing with him “dating.” She'd seen him hanging around the bar with his band for a couple of years, had been acquainted with him and occasionally spoken to him in passing, but last week (the night after she'd almost kissed Jay and made an ass of herself, to be exact) they’d started talking one-on-one. He asked about her ankle, one thing led to another, and she ended up going home with him. It seemed like a better idea than going home and possibly running into Jay, who was becoming an insomniac and might be awake when she got home. She'd been crashing at Duncan's house since, engaging in sessions of heavy kissing and petting, but she hadn't let things go any further.
Truth be told, Erin was using Duncan, trying to get Jay out of her system. It might seem coldhearted and selfish, but that was the advantage of messing around with a twenty-one-year-old. He wasn't looking for a serious relationship, so she didn't have to worry about hurting him.
Too bad her plan wasn't working. As bad-boy hot as Duncan was, being around him did nothing to relieve Erin's fever for Jay. Even worse, it was only a matter of time before Duncan expected more from her than she was willing to give, since the old Erin Silver hadn't exactly had a reputation for celibacy. When it got to the point where sex was an issue, they would go their separate ways, because at least for right now, there was only one guy who could scratch Erin's itch.
Until then, Duncan was an amusing diversion. And when she was at his house, she didn't have to worry about her body pulling a horny zombie and ending up in Jay's bed.
She took a swig of her Dos Equis, savoring the tang of the lime she'd squeezed into the the bottle. Then, looking up at Duncan and eyeing the home-rolled cigarette he was still offering, she said, “What is it?” It smelled off, not like a normal joint.
One side of Duncan's mouth curled lazily upward, and his brown eyes were glassy and constricted. “It's an A-bomb.”
An A-bomb was a joint with heroin mixed in. Erin shook her head. “Uh-uh. You know I don't do that shit.”
“It won't hurt you. When you smoke heroin like this, in a fatty, it's not nearly as potent. Just gives the weed a little kick.” He shrugged. “Hardcore users say it wastes too much boy, but it's a common method of administration in Asia and Afghanistan.”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, thank you for that enlightening information, Professor Burner. That totally makes it okay.”
He chuckled.
She took another swig of beer, then pressed the cold green bottle against her neck, relishing its coolness. “I have to go back to work. I can't be fucked up.” Or, well, she shouldn't be.
“It won't fuck you up,” Duncan said, leaning forward off the station wagon and shoving his hand closer to her. “Come on. You'll hardly feel it. It'll just help you relax.” He nodded toward the brace on her ankle, barely visible as a bulge under her skinny jeans and black Chucks. “I saw you limping. This will take some of the pain away, get you through the night.”
“Or I could just take a Motrin,” she said dryly.
He gave her his boyish grin, his eyes hooded and sexy. “Yeah, but where's the fun in that?”
“No, thanks.”
He let it go and changed the subject. “You coming home with me tonight?”
“Maybe.” She thought about Jay. If she went to her house, she ran the risk of jumping Jay's bones—or onto his lap. Her pulse surged and she got a lilt in her stomach as she visualized it, sitting on his paralyzed legs and wrapping her arms around his neck, burying her head in the curve of his shoulder and inhaling his clean, spicy male scent, feeling his arms envelop her, the peaks of her breasts rubbing against his hard chest, and all the things that could lead to.
Stop! God, it was depressing and exhausting and futile, trying to get him off her mind.
Duncan raised his brows at her vague answer. She smiled ruefully and revised it: “Probably.”
“Good,” he sai
d with a grin. He held the joint between his thumb and index finger and put it to his lips. When he took a drag, the tip lit up, then he held the smoke in for a few seconds before slowly exhaling it out. Despite her earlier protests, Erin found herself tempted. Suddenly the idea of getting totally fucked up was appealing. Maybe it meant she could get rid of this constant, relentless longing for Jay.
Duncan must have sensed her wavering, because he smiled and heaved himself away from the car, then squeezed in next to her on the doorstep and put his arm around her shoulders, sticking the joint in her face. “Come on, babe,” he said. His sweetly pungent breath wafted toward her, along with the smoke from the joint. “I swear it won't hurt you, and it's your first time. It'll be fucking amazing.”
And it was her first time, at least for heroin. She gave him a skeptical look. “I thought you said I'd hardly feel anything.”
He smiled crookedly. “Maybe you'll feel it more than someone like me, since you're not used to it.”
Just say no, Erin's brain urged primly. She felt like she was in one of those antidrug commercials from the nineties and Duncan was the seedy druggie in every suburban mom's nightmare. But Erin didn't have a mother, and she was twenty-six years old. She was old enough to know better—or to do whatever the hell she wanted.
She grabbed the joint from Duncan, tired of overthinking it, and took a huge hit. The smoke she inhaled seared her throat and lungs, and the bitter taste was awful. She tried not to waste it, tried to hold it in, but she started coughing violently.
Duncan snickered. His eyes still hooded, he drawled, “Easy, Groper Girl. Don't take such a big hit next time.”
Once her coughing fit was over, Erin gingerly took a few smaller, more successful puffs. She didn't feel much at first, but then, after a few minutes, it hit her. The rush was like having sunshine in her veins, slowly spreading warmth and a sense of profound well-being throughout her entire body. She leaned her head back against the door and grinned like a lunatic.
Duncan laughed. “Told ya.”
Still grinning and too overwhelmed to speak, Erin met his eyes. He took it as an invitation and kissed her, probing her mouth with his tongue. His smoky, weedy taste was surprisingly pleasant, but, then, she didn't think there could be anything bad in her world ever again.
That was one of the last things she remembered until some hours later, when she woke up to someone trying to unbutton her jeans.
She opened her eyes to the harsh light of the bedside lamp in the sparsely furnished bedroom of Duncan's seventies ranch-style house. His glassy, red-rimmed, black eyes peeked down at her through several errant, dark locks of his messy long hair, a stuporous, lascivious grin on his face. He was on top of her, stark naked, his penis hard, and he was fiddling with the button and zipper of her jeans.
Heart racing and head pounding—symptoms of withdrawal from whatever the hell Erin had put into her body earlier in the evening—she reached up to push Duncan off. Her hands were shaky against his pale skin. “Get the fuck off me,” she managed to slur. Her voice was scratchy, and her throat burned with the effort of speaking.
Duncan bent down and smashed his lips to her mouth. She turned her head away, only to feel him slobbering all over her neck.
“Stop. Stop it!” she rasped, fighting him harder, bucking her hips to try to throw him off. Unfortunately, that just seemed to excite him further. He was sinewy and more powerful than he looked, and she was no match for him, even if she'd been remotely coordinated in her movements. When he pinned her wrists down on either side of her head, she could barely move.
He laughed at her pathetic efforts to twist out from under him. “Come on, babe. That feels so good. You know you want it. I've been so patient. Don't you think I deserve a little reward?”
Anger, fear, and confusion pulsed through her. She was panting. How could this be happening? She'd woken up many times in guys' beds before, just like this, but this was the first time she'd failed to get one off of her. She could feel her face heating up, could feel hot tears running out of the corners of her eyes. “L't—” She stopped and started again, trying to command her mouth and tongue to work right, to form the words she wanted. “Let me go, Duncan. I'm—I'm g'na puke.” It was the truth. Her stomach churned.
He let go of one of her wrists and moved his hand to her breast, twisting her nipple. It didn't really hurt, but it was humiliating. “I love it when you play hard to get,” he said with a leer. This was a game to him, and he thought she was playing.
Enraged, she wrapped her free hand clumsily around his forearm, trying to wrench his hand from her breast. “Stop, Duncan!” she cried out. “I'm not kidding!”
“Stop, stop,” Duncan mocked. He leaned down, getting in her face, his stale breath making her gag. “Don't worry, babe. You're gonna love every fucking minute of it.”
A desperate sob escaped her, and she would have given up her very soul at that moment to be home safe with Jay instead of staring rape in the face.
Duncan started to pull her T-shirt up along her torso, trying to get it off, and Erin fought him harder, scratching his bare skin anywhere she could get in a good one-handed swipe. She kicked and writhed frantically, but the more she fought, the more he laughed and the rougher he got. He was tripping completely out of his mind.
He snaked his fingers into her tangled hair and yanked, pulling her head down so that she was forced to bare her throat to him. “I'm gonna drain you like a vamp,” he grated, then began to lick her neck.
It was too much—the sour heat of his breath and his wet spit on her neck—and just as he started biting her, her stomach heaved, and bile rose and spewed from her mouth. She vomited all over him and herself. It was abundant, profuse, and disgusting, and, thank God, it had the desired effect.
“Gah! Holy shit!” Duncan jumped off her and stood, arms spread wide as he looked down at himself. Erin's fetid, lumpy, brown-and-beige barf dripped from his shoulder down onto his bare chest, and his dick began to deflate. “Goddammit!” he yelled. “What the fuck!”
Erin's heart jackhammered against her ribs, like it was buried alive and wanted to escape from this horrible situation as badly as she did. She scrambled off the bed and ran through the long hallway that led to the living room and kitchen, not caring that her Lars Bar T-shirt was now soaked in vomit.
She dodged passed-out human forms on the living room floor and crunched through fast-food wrappers, used-up joints, and other drug paraphernalia in her bare feet. She didn't know where her Chucks or her ankle brace were and didn't care. She just wanted to get the fuck out of there.
She'd never been so scared in her life, but to her relief, Duncan didn't seem to be following her. She heard no footsteps behind her, and she thought she heard the vague sound of water running somewhere in the house. As she stumbled toward the front door, she found her purse lying on the sticky brown carpet near a ratty sofa. Her wallet and lipstick and the other contents were strewn about, and she had enough presence of mind to gather them up as best she could and throw them in her bag before staggering out into the dark night.
She knew vaguely where she was—the blue-collar neighborhood behind North Star Mall—because, for God's sake, she'd been practically living there for the last week, but she was disoriented, terrified, and unable to think properly. She chose a random direction, thinking she would soon find a major street and would know where to go, but the farther she got from Duncan's, the fuzzier things got, the more her head hurt, and the more her stomach bucked and rolled. She threw up again.
When she stepped on a particularly sharp rock with her bare foot, the pain knifed through her, and she wondered why someone was trying to hurt her, maybe even kill her. She didn't know why she thought that, but she couldn't shake the terrifying feeling and started to shiver and cry, even as she kept bumbling her way along the sidewalk. Her heart wouldn't stop hammering, and she started to think maybe she'd die of a heart attack instead of being murdered. Either prospect fueled the fear that consumed her
, making it harder and harder to think.
It seemed the longer she walked, the more lost she got. The neighborhood was a maze of pink-brick ranch-styles from the sixties and seventies. They all looked the same, all with the same watery porch lights and garages that had been enclosed to make extra rooms.
Where was the fucking mall? Surely she should have found it by now. She dug around in her purse like there was something in there that might help her.
She came out with her wallet. Her credit cards and any tip money she'd made that night (and she couldn't remember how much there'd been) were gone, but she wasn't about to go back to Duncan's and demand that whoever took them give them back. She couldn’t find her way back to Duncan's anyway.
Then she thought maybe she was already dead and this was her version of hell, doomed forever to wander the lonely streets of this strange, dark neighborhood where she'd died. Another step on a sharp rock jolted her, and she sucked in a quick breath, telling herself she was still alive. Still alive. Still alive.
Was she talking to herself, muttering like some homeless person, somebody with schizophrenia? She thought maybe she was.
She felt something in her hand and looked down at the wallet in it. Oh, yeah. Her purse. She had her purse. She rubbed her forehead with the fingertips of her free hand, trying to soothe the achy sludge in her head enough that she could reason. She stuck the wallet back in the depths of her purse. This time, when she pulled her hand back out, she had her cell phone.
Maybe she should call a taxi? But she had no money. Maybe she could knock on the door of one of the houses and ask for help. She turned in a circle, assessing the sinister-looking homes surrounding her, but the movement made her so dizzy she had to plop down on a patch of damp, thick-bladed grass instead. The whole world was spinning now, and she felt sick again. She laid her head down on the grass and curled into a ball, then remembered the phone in her hand.