Wild Ones (The Lane)

by Wyllys, Kristine

  I could feel myself grinning, all cat-who-caught-the-canary-like. Stretching my arms up over my head, I made a show of working out kinks in my back that weren’t really there. I climbed off the bed and, with deliberate slowness, pulled on my panties then the boxers he’d tossed to me. When I was done, I straightened and feigned looking for my bra.

  “Sugar.” It was a low threat, a warning, and I grinned wider, not bothering to hide it.

  “You’re the devil,” he muttered, stepping forward to close the space between us. Without my heels, I was eye level with his chest. A patchwork of various-sized scars marred the otherwise smooth flesh and I frowned, reaching out to trace a particularly jagged one that zigzagged across his left pec.

  “Occupational hazard,” he grunted before jerking a wifebeater over my head, effectively breaking the contact between my fingers and his skin.

  My eyes flashed up to his as I slipped my arms through the holes of the tank, scowling at him.

  “Boxing?” I asked and disgust laced the question.

  “Yup.” It was a challenge, a dare, a push to charge if that was what I was going to do.

  My nose wrinkled with distaste but I said nothing. We were a pair of untamed alpha wolves who banded together in the same den for a night. Guarded, tasting the slight hostility in the air, waiting for the other to make the first move, to attack now that the night was over and the sun was shining.

  When I didn’t start chucking anything within reaching distance at his head, he switched gears.

  “You work tonight?”

  I stared at him blankly for a minute while his question sank in, then nodded.

  “Okay,” he said.

  “Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  I was still staring up at him and realized how close we were standing. Practically flush. I frowned, thinking of the night before and how we had subconsciously drifted down the darkened hallway at Fury’s. Every encounter I’d had with this boy, as few as there had been, this had happened. Like two magnets, we seemed to keep finding ourselves drawn to each other, responding to some unseen pull.

  But hell if I was stepping back or away. Whatever it was about him that spoke to something in me, I wasn’t gonna fight it. Even if it was a sirenlike call, if sirens were hard-bodied, messy-haired men who reeked of sin and dangerous promises, leading me headfirst into a lake of fire.

  “I gotta go. Training.” His voice was low and husky, his eyes dark. “Want a ride to your car?”

  “Wasn’t planning on walking.” God, my voice was just as thick.

  He grinned at me and it was a shock to my system, a bolt of electricity that traveled along my bones. The underlying aggression was still dancing between us, the lust, and that Machiavellian smile on his face. The combination was just as lethal as he was. It excited me.

  I knew I should get the fuck away from him. Run to his truck, throw myself in and demand he break every traffic law until I was safely tucked behind the wheel of my own car. I needed to go because I still wanted him. The sex, yes, but specifically him. This boy I allowed to kiss me and take me back to his house. This boy who was what I hated but couldn’t seem to say no to.

  Instead of fleeing like I should have, I stretched up on my toes, laced my fingers behind his neck and crashed my mouth onto his. It was a brutal assault, punishing in its force.

  His hands shot out to grip my waist and against my lips I could feel, rather than hear, him mumble, “Fuck it. I’ll be late.”

  * * *

  We both ended up late, him more so than me. He was grumbling something about extra rounds in the ring when he dropped me off. He didn’t ask me out to dinner and I didn’t say I had a good time last night. He merely gave me a nod and a “See ya around,” and I told him, “if you’re lucky,” then I climbed into my car, threw my heels, dress and purse in the backseat and sped home. It was the drive of shame, if I had any shame to drive.

  Jax was already gone when I got there and I flew through my shower, dressed and did my hair and makeup in record time. It was still fifteen minutes past the time I was supposed to be there when I walked into the back door of Duke’s, and despite just opening for the night, we were packed. It was usually that way on Mondays. Folks coming in for the hair of the dog that bit them over the weekend or because they had a case of the Mondays. Some didn’t even need a reason. It was just what they did.

  I was halfway through the night when Miranda sidled up to me.

  “Back eleven,” she said, referring to the table closest to the stairs, tucked into the corner. “That guy is back. Asking for you.”

  I knew who she was talking about immediately. Of course, if I was honest with myself, I had kinda been expecting him to show up all night. Still my pulse quickened slightly and I wondered if this was how the still-MIA Preach felt when he could afford his dealer.

  I felt eyes on me and I glanced toward the bar, catching Jax watching me. His mouth was set in a grim line and his gaze was full of something that looked like disappointment. I knew he had spotted Luke too and, for whatever reason, he wasn’t happy about it. I shot him a thumbs-up, smiling brightly. He returned a half-assed, generic version of it, more of a brief spasm of his lips than anything, then he turned away, fetching beers from the cooler, his movements stiff.

  I was frowning when I turned toward Luke, who’d been watching the entire exchange. I didn’t know how I knew that, but I did. Lounging back in his chair, arm hung over the back and drinking a beer, he looked both relaxed and feral, a predator posed to attack at any moment. Maybe it was the hardness in his eyes. Maybe it was the black hoodie and dark jeans he was wearing. The backward hat. The boots only half-laced. It was like looking at a modern-day mixture of James Dean and Marlon Brando with an even sharper edge.

  I made my way toward him and for the first time since I hit puberty, I was hyper-aware of my every movement. The subtle, natural sway of my hips, the teasing brushes of my hair against my spine, the barely there muscles in my right biceps, where my tray was tucked under my arm. There was me and there was him and we were more than the others somehow and it didn’t make sense, yet I’d never been so sure of something in my life.

  I slipped into the chair across from him, laying my tray on the table next to me. His eyes never flickered, they remained locked on mine even as he sat forward, putting his beer down in front of him. I was leaning forward too, responding to that undeniable pull I felt whenever I was near him.

  Magnets.

  “You stalking me, Turner?” I asked, my voice low, a purr. It was silk with sandpaper lining.

  “You wanting me to?” he drawled back.

  “Depends. Am I gonna have to worry about you sneaking into my bathroom while I’m in the shower?”

  “Depends. You inviting me?”

  “If you play your cards right, maybe.”

  He laughed that dark chuckle of his that made me realize how painfully turned on I was again. Either by his presence or the almost-flirty bantering, I didn’t know.

  “Never been much of a gambler,” he told me. “Like being sure of my odds.”

  “Well, if you’re wanting to know if I’m easy, I guess it’ll depend on who you ask.” I winked at him, knowing how ridiculous I looked when I did it. Like a seizing emu, Jax once told me, which was probably the best description I’d ever heard.

  Luke’s eyes suddenly hardened and narrowed to slits. The hand that had only a second ago been holding his bottle of beer loosely was now gripping it so tightly that I was kinda worried it would shatter under the pressure.

  Just as abruptly his mood shifted back, so fluidly that I wondered if I had imagined the whole thing.

  “You get a break anytime soon?” If he noticed the baffled look on my face, he pretended not to as he waited for me to answer.

  I glanced back over my shoulder at the
floor, deciding to ignore the weird moment if he was going to. We were still busy and technically this would be considered my break, but I thought I could get away with a cigarette. I stood and motioned for him to follow me.

  I retrieved my cigarettes from my purse in the office while Luke waited near the stairs. Mike narrowed his eyes at us as I led Luke toward the back door and I smiled my most charming smile at him. He wasn’t happy about it, I could tell, but he granted me a terse nod and I knew he was gonna let it slide just that once.

  Luke glanced around once we got outside before giving me a speculative look. “Am I supposed to be out here?”

  “Not at all.” I moved around him to plop down on the steps and light up. His eyes immediately went to my legs and I bit back a smirk. I always liked knowing the effect I had on the male population. I found that I especially liked knowing the effect I had on this male in particular. There was power in it and I liked feeling powerful, especially when I felt the opposite for so much of my life.

  Luke cleared his throat and jerked his gaze up. It lingered on my chest for a minute before finally coming to rest on my face.

  “Needed to talk to you about something.”

  A flash of anxiety ran through me. Nothing good ever accompanied those words and especially not when they were spoken with that tone of voice.

  Quickly I wiped any emotion that might have been showing on my face, arranging my features into a mask of cool indifference. Never let em see you sweat, kid. Only worthwhile advice my da ever gave me. Except, of course, to not even think of speaking to him before four beers or after nine of them.

  “Shoot.” I took a drag from my cigarette, then tipped my head back to blow it toward the stars.

  “The fight? On Friday?”

  My jaw clenched but I was fairly confident it was my only outward reaction. I nodded and took another long pull, the tip of my cigarette glowing bright amber in the gloom of the stairwell.

  “Don’t talk about it.”

  I looked sharply at him.

  “And?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay?” he echoed.

  “Yeah. Okay.”

  He eyed me suspiciously. “I’m serious. This isn’t a fucking joke.”

  “Okay.” I raised my eyebrows at him. “That it?”

  “Damn it, Bri,” he growled, stepping forward until he was towering over me where I sat. “I mean it.”

  I gave him a droll stare and took another long drag, blowing it toward him on my exhale. “I get that,” I told him coldly. “And I said okay.”

  “If you talk about it, you could get hurt,” he exploded, grabbing my arms with a crushing grip, yanking me up and causing me to drop my cigarette.

  Now I was pissed.

  “You threatening me, Charming?” The words burst out of my mouth in a snarl.

  “It’s a fucking warning. Nicky shouldn’t have said anything.”

  “It doesn’t matter what he said,” I snapped. I attempted to jerk my arms out of that ironlike grasp and failed, but I wouldn’t allow it to deter me. “I’m not gonna say shit about your fight. Or did you forget—I. Don’t. Like. Boxers. Which means I don’t give a shit about what you do.”

  “Wasn’t your attitude last night.”

  “I was horny.” Which was true, if only partially.

  “I’ll remember that,” he shot back in an ominous vow. “Don’t think I fucking won’t.”

  “You go right on ahead.”

  We were glaring at each other, at eye level thanks to my heels and the step I was standing on. I could feel my palm throbbing, desperate to wipe that look off his face. I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to fuck him. I wanted to merge the two acts and judging by the way he was looking at me and the hard bulge I could feel against the place begging for him, he felt the same.

  “You’re such a bitch,” he fumed, and I grinned because damn if I didn’t like being called that.

  “Likewise, Turner. Now why don’t you run along and fuck another beer wench. Try threatening her. See how far it gets you.”

  “I’ll do that.” He shook me slightly before letting me go and pushing past me to stride up the stairs.

  “Let me know how it works out for you,” I called after him. His only response was to throw up his middle finger, which I could barely see the farther he retreated into the shadows.

  Fuck. I was turned on.

  “Go after him!” a voice in my head screamed, and it sounded like my ma. It made it easy to ignore. Any advice she gave me, real or imagined, was nothing short of disastrous.

  My cigarette had burned out at my feet and I gave it a baleful look, then kicked it for good measure before heading back inside.

  Duke’s was even busier somehow, just in the short amount of time I had been gone. I hurried to retrieve my tray and take a couple of orders, then rushed to the bar in order to catch up. Jax was keeping tabs on me the entire time he was mixing drinks and I waited impatiently for him to finish.

  “One Long Island, three Jäger Bombs, two Buds, one Bud Light, and a shot of Patron. Yes. The Patron’s for me.”

  He didn’t move, just stared at me, an unreadable expression tightening his face.

  I sighed.

  “What, Jax?”

  “Remember that time we went to that club? In Monroe?” His eyes took on a faraway look.

  “Sure. Mayhem, wasn’t it?” My memory wasn’t that good, but that was the only club we ever went to when we ventured away from the Lane. I wondered where this was going but mostly I wanted him to hurry this along and get my drinks. Especially the Patron. I didn’t even really care about the others, so long as I got my shot.

  “Yeah. And you were at the bar. Getting us refills.”

  “Okay.” I still wasn’t getting it.

  “And I was a little ways behind you. We were gonna run the game.”

  I was still confused, though I knew what the game was—even though we never officially called it that—without needing him to elaborate. We did it whenever we started to get low on money. I’d go up to the bar by myself and wait for a guy to chat me up. When he offered to buy my drink, he unknowingly ended up purchasing both mine and Jax’s. At which point Jax would miraculously appear, playing the part of my boyfriend, and I’d gush about the nice man who insisted on paying. The Nice Man always ended up mumbling a quick, “No problem” before slinking away. It might have been a dirty trick but I looked at it as payback. They were only trying to liquor up an unsuspecting girl to try to take her home. If she wasn’t willing to go home with them sober, getting her drunk to agree to it was foul in my book. Jax had once called me a drunken Robin Hood upon hearing my justifications for it. I kinda liked it.

  “I caught that guy signaling to the bartender,” he continued. “And the bartender put the drinks in front of him.” He shook his head in disgust and I remembered.

  “The guy slipped something into my drink,” I finished for him and he nodded.

  “I was so fucking angry,” he said and the ghost of that anger was on his face now. “I socked the fucker.”

  “Broke his nose,” I added.

  “And you were so pissed at me. Even after I explained.”

  “Because you should have told me,” I said, repeating the exact words I had said that night.

  “I couldn’t. I couldn’t think. Someone was gonna hurt you and I had to act.” This, too, was a repeat.

  “I can take care of myself, Jax.”

  His eyes cleared, looking at this Bri and not the Bri from that night in that bar, about to be taken advantage of, but at the same time, I wasn’t sure he could fully differentiate the two.

  “I know,” he told me. “Fuck, I know, Bri. But you’re my best friend, and sometimes I can’t help stepping in if
I think you’re in trouble.” He paused and I couldn’t help but feel as if we were starring in a Lifetime movie. “I feel like it’s that night all over again. That I’m standing back, too many bodies between us, and I’m watching your drink bubble. I don’t know about that Turner dude. There’s something about him that I don’t trust. Something that sets off warning bells.” He shrugged and gave me an apologetic smile.

  “Well, you don’t have to break anyone’s nose this time,” I said, winking my seizing-emu wink. “I got it covered.”

  I think he tried to smile back at me, a full-on Jax grin, the one he knew I loved, but it was so strained and full of doubt that it looked more like he was constipated. I didn’t say anything more to reassure him. I didn’t tell him I ran Luke off. I didn’t do these things not because I didn’t care, but because I knew Jax was gonna worry regardless. I wouldn’t fill his ears with pretty words to lull his anxiety, rock it to sleep. We were not that type of person, the type who talked just to hear ourselves, just because it was expected. Besides, if not Luke, there would be something else that put that look in Jax’s eyes. There always was.

  He got me my orders and our night slipped by, a blur of faces, nonstop movement, countless drinks and aching feet. When it was finally over and we locked up with two days of freedom ahead of us, the nights Duke’s was closed, I half expected Luke to be waiting by my car. He wasn’t and I didn’t know if it was because I, for once, had parked in the employee lot after running late or because he was just not around. I resisted the urge to drive past the public lot to see if he was there. I refused to be that girl, the kind who chased around a man. No matter how good the sex might have been.

  Tuesday and Wednesday crawled by. I filled the time with a trip to the Lane with Jax and Aaron, where we got unforgivably trashed and acted like complete idiots; laundry done in the Laundromat that smelled heavily of fried onions and falafels; and grocery shopping for beer, ramen noodles and bread, our apartment staples. Through all of it, there was no Luke. Anywhere. It was as though he didn’t exist, as if he had been an idea and not an actual solid thing. Part of me knew that was how it should have been. Another part of me, a part that was already substantial and rapidly growing, which I had a feeling I inherited from my ma and da, ached for his presence, like a junkie jonesing for a fix. By the time Thursday night rolled around and I was well into the second part of my double, that latter part of me decided we were going to be well and truly pissed. Which really wasn’t too much of a surprise, considering I was so often treading that line anyway.