by Ash Johnson
I give her a small smirk that women have told me is sexy, hoping it works on her too, and move to her with my arms open wide. She steps toward me without a second thought, and I wrap my arms around her, pulling her small body into mine. She fits against me perfectly. I’ve never felt another woman fit against me so flawlessly, and I realize that Harlow could be the one that I’ve been searching for.
She could be the one that’s meant for me. I just need to see more of her to make sure that’s the case. I’m terrified she may not feel the same, but I have to block those thoughts out and tell myself that she is my end game. She makes everything in my life feel brighter somehow; makes me feel like I’m living instead of just existing.
As if she just comprehended that we’re hugging, she puts her hands on my pecs and gives me a light push as she steps back, but she doesn’t move far enough away that I have to drop my arms from around her body. They now rest lightly on her voluptuous hips. Just the feel of her slight curves makes blood rush from every other extremity straight toward my dick.
Dr. Tim’s eyes narrow at me, and I raise one brow at him, wondering if he’s going to make things fucking difficult for me or not. Either way, he doesn’t matter. I could break his twig body in half without using all of my strength.
I focus on Harlow’s beautiful light blue eyes in an effort to block the handsy doctor from my thoughts and I forget all about him. I’m going to try my damndest to make something happen between the two of us. There’s no way I’ll let her end up with a guy like Captain Douche, who is still standing frozen behind her.
“Well, I know you told me not to, but I brought the car over for you to use and forgot that I didn’t have a way to get home, so I need you to give me a lift.”
She glances from me to the white SUV a few feet from us and then back to me, only her beautiful blues are double the size they were before they left my face a few seconds ago.
“Blake, you want me to drive a BMW?” she squeaks.
I furrow my brow, wondering why it would matter if it was a BMW or a Mazda. “Uh, yeah, I want you to drive it.”
She sputters out a strangled sound but doesn’t say anything, making me chuckle. “Come on, take me home so you can get some sleep before work.”
Before she leaves my arms, I bend down a place a kiss along the bridge of her nose, where the small cluster of freckles is the most noticeable, and then give her a gentle push toward the vehicle. Once she’s sitting in the driver’s seat, I shut the door and move around the front of the car.
“Have a good day, Dr. Tim,” I tease the lanky goon still glaring at me from the sidewalk. I thought for sure that once she got in my car he’d realize that I’ve won and would leave in a hurry. I guessed wrong.
Once I’m in, I notice that Harlow looks totally freaked out. Her hands are frozen a few inches above the steering wheel and she’s investigating around at every inch of the interior, but not touching it.
“Come on, babe, it’s just a car,” I tell her, trying to get her to move. She seems to be just a bit scared.
“This isn’t just a car, Blake. This is a brand new BMW. I couldn’t afford a car like this if I worked seven jobs.”
“First off, this isn’t a brand new car. It’s a 2013. And second, of course you could. You could probably afford it now with the three jobs you have, but for some reason that you don’t want to talk about, you don’t have the money for it.”
She shuts down. Understandable. We don’t know each other well enough yet to be talking about things like that, but I’ll get there at some point. Soon, she’ll confide in me about the family matters that keep her from finishing school and where all of her money is going.
“Come on, woman. Start her up and take me home.” I point out the window, wondering why this is such a huge deal.
After she takes forever to adjust the seat so her feet reach the pedals, she then holds her hand out to me, palm up in the air. I have no idea what she’s doing so I slap her hand, thinking she wants a high five. She giggles; her dimples make an appearance and tamp down the nerves I didn’t know were eating at me. I thought for a minute she would be pissed at me for bringing the car over since she was opposed to it last night, but that giggle quieted those thoughts quickly.
“I need the keys, goofy.” She giggles again, and then I realize why she had her hand outstretched to me. I reach into the pocket of my gym shorts and pull the key fob out, placing it in the cup holder.
“You don’t need to put the key in anywhere. It just has to be in the car when you push that start button by the steering wheel. It will start the engine.”
Harlow’s eyes are now the size of basketballs. “Are you joking me?” she asks, her voice a tone higher than normal.
I shake my head and smile. “Nope, I’m not joking. So start her up, and I’ll program the GPS to go to my house so I don’t have to give you instructions. That way when you want to come to my house during your almost nonexistent free time, you’ll know how to get there.”
“This thing is so much nicer than my Hyundai. I didn’t know that a car could have two different sets of air conditioners. And the GPS screen-thingy is so freaking cool.” I chuckle at her enthusiasm, show her how to work the GPS and we’re finally on the road.
Harlow is fucking terrified while she drives, peering at the rearview mirror for someone to hit us and driving ten miles under the speed limit. “So, how much does a car like this cost?” she asks when we’re halfway home and she’s calmed down a bit.
“Endless months of tolerating my mother and her yearly change in husbands and Christmas without an incident where my father’s flavor of the month comes onto me,” I tell her, not even bothering to hide the bitterness in my voice. She’ll find out sooner or later that my parents aren’t my favorite people.
“Are you saying your parents bought you this in exchange for you tolerating them and their new significant others?”
“That is exactly what I’m saying.” I survey the scenery out of the passenger window not wanting to see the judgment that I’ve seen from other people. Just because my parents are rich doesn’t mean that they are saints or have been good parents to my sisters and me. Since they have money, other people think that I should just shut my mouth and tolerate the things that have been said and done my whole life.”
“I’m sorry that you have to deal with that,” she tells me, but her voice is lacking the bitter, sarcastic tone that I’ve heard from others countless times before.
I glance back to her beautiful face to find unexpected sympathy.
“Thanks. They think that buying expensive gifts will keep me in their good graces so I won’t cause a scene in front of the country club members or, even better that I’ll give up physical therapy and go to law school like my father wanted. Things could always be worse though, I guess.”
“Yes, things could always be worse,” she whispers.
Then I try and push my luck, hoping I can get something out of her. “Can you tell me about your parents?”
I take a deep breath as she stares out the windshield, a blank expression on her face. I’m about ready to tell her that she doesn’t have to worry about not wanting to say anything, but this time the waiting game pays off. She takes a deep breath and purses her lips as she lets the air out. My dick twitches as the thought of her lips wrapped around my length pops into my head.
Focus, asshole.
“My mom died seven months after I was born. She had to have a C-section when she had me. She got a terrible infection, but it wasn’t discovered until after she died that the cause was gauze that the doctors had forgotten to remove before they stitched her up.”
Oh God, that’s awful. I can’t offer her anything other than the generic “I’m sorry,” so I say anything at all.
She takes another deep breath and continues on. “My dad was working for a major car manufacturer and had a good job, but when she died, he kind of crawled into himself and ended up getting fired. We moved into my dad’s parents’ ho
use so they could help raise me while dad worked out his grief. Nine years later he seemed to have his act together and was bringing in a paycheck again. I never knew what he did, he just told us he was going to the ‘office’ a few hours a day and then came home early to help around the house.
“Then one day, when I’m almost ten, he brings home a baby girl and tells me that she’s my new sister. Apparently, he got another woman pregnant, but she was just eighteen and didn’t want the responsibility of a newborn, so she gave her to my dad and told him to take care of her. Dad talked to my grandparents about giving her up for adoption because he couldn’t afford another baby, but my grandma wouldn’t hear of it. Grandma and I named her Alexis Ann. She is now a fourteen-year-old bratty, entitled little shit who thinks I owe her the world, but I’m hoping she grows out of that phase soon.”
I chuckle at her description of her sister. I remember my older sisters at that age, and they were the exact same way.
“So where’s your dad now?” I ask her.
She bites that delectable lip, causing another twitch in my cock, and then gives me an answer that deflates any thought I had of her sucking on it. “Prison.”
Chapter 11
Harlow
Oh shit. Why did I have to say that out loud? I’ve been trying to get Blake to like me, and then I go and blurt everything out. He’s just so hot and sweet that I can’t stop myself from wanting to rub up against him like a kitten seeking attention, and it makes all rational thoughts, like censoring my words, flee.
I’m guessing that telling him my father is in prison will get him to stop coming around rather quickly, and then maybe I can quit thinking of him all the time and pay attention to what I should be focusing on—keeping Alex and me alive until everything is paid off. The thought of Blake leaving my life, though, makes a spot in my heart begin to ache. He hasn’t been around for a long time, but his presence has become comforting, and the idea of losing that comfort scares the hell out of me.
“What happened?” he asks; but lucky for me, I pull into the driveway of a large, split-level home as soon as the question leaves his mouth. I don’t have the energy to open that enormous can of worms at the moment.
I busy myself with surveying his house instead of answering him right away. It’s very big with a large archway covering the front door. The tan stucco and red-clay roof match that of the other homes around us, but this home appears to be bigger than those. There are large windows on each level of the house that would let in a lot of natural light, and a three-car garage sits to the right of the home, its doors the same color as the darker stucco trim around the windows. The front yard has a few shrubs and small cactus plants but is mostly covered with red lava rocks.
“Nothing I want to get into right now if you don’t mind.” Blake nods and then opens his door. Before getting out, he begins to speak, but the ringing of his cell phone cuts him off. He pulls his phone out of his pocket and scowls at it, like it should be ashamed of itself for ruining some sort of moment, before rejecting the call and spinning back to me.
“I’ll let you go, but can I call you later?” he asks.
I nod. “I may not be able to answer, but I’ll call you back as soon as I can. Thank you a million times over for letting me borrow your car, Blake. I promise I’ll take good care of it.” I should be mad that he didn’t respect my wishes to not let me borrow it, but knowing I have a way to get Alex to school and that I don’t have to ride that damn bus any longer is a huge weight off my shoulders.
He shrugs like he couldn’t care less what happens to this forty-thousand-dollar piece of machinery, winks at me, and then gets out of the car. As soon as he makes it to his door, he blows me a kiss and heads inside, leaving me feeling like a puddle of goo sitting in the BMW in his large driveway.
It takes me a few minutes to program my apartment complex into the GPS like Blake showed me, but I get it eventually and pull away from his enormous house. I make it home before Alex can leave for school, happy that I can offer her a ride for the first time in a month. What I find when I move through the door immediately dissolves any happy vibes I was feeling from Blake.
Alex comes out of her room in jean shorts that are smaller than the cotton bikini-cut underwear I’m wearing and a bright red halter top that could double as a bra. She has a white bandanna on her forehead, holding her mess of Kool-Aid red hair out of her face.
“Turn your ass around and change into something appropriate to wear to school right now, Alex.” She must not have been expecting me to be home this early, because she flinches back at the sound of my voice. Once she realizes that it’s me, the sassy attitude she’s used with me since we moved out to Arizona returns.
Hand on her jutting hip, she sneers, “No, I’m wearing this to school.”
“The hell you are. Put on something that doesn’t look like you’re going to work the closest street corner after you leave school grounds. You know they have a dress code at school, Alex. I don’t want you to get into trouble because you can’t follow them.”
She rolls her eyes at me and marches back toward her room. I swear she mumbles something to the effect of “fuck school” under her breath, but I choose to ignore it.
Fifteen minutes later she is wearing a white t-shirt that impressively covers everything and a pair of shorts that reach her knees. I’m surprised she put something that decent on, but I’m not going to comment on it.
I tell her that I’m going to give her a ride to school today, and we shuffle down the stairs together. She gawks at Blake’s car, asking who I had to kill to get a ride like that. I laugh at her stunned expression but don’t answer, because I have a feeling telling her about Blake will somehow end up in a fight, just like every other conversation we have.
I expect her to bombard me with questions about how I got a BMW, but she doesn’t say a word. She must still be pissed that I made her change her clothes and think that the cold shoulder act will make me change my mind. It won’t happen, but I’ll let her think she has the upper hand on this one. On the way to Alex’s school, we’re both quiet for so long that things become a bit awkward, so I break the silence.
“Listen, Alex, I know that things aren’t easy right now with me not being around and working so much to fix dad’s debt, but I appreciate you focusing on school and making things easier on that front. We still need to focus on you not having parties and the noise levels, because we got our final warning from the landlord about that, but it makes things easier when I don’t have to worry about how your homework is going because you’re handling it all on your own.”
She remains quiet after my speech, only mumbling a “see ya” once we make it to the drop-off zone at her middle school. I drive away, so focused on heading home and getting a few hours of sleep that I don’t notice Alex and two other girls crossing the street in the opposite direction of the school in my rearview mirror.
Chapter 12
Blake
My cell rings once again; the vibrations send it skittering across the kitchen island when I can’t handle it ringing anymore. I accept the call feeling nervous and also a bit pissed off.
“Hello, Heaven,” I grit out.
“Hey, baby, I’ve been trying to call you. What are you doing?” she asks in a voice that sounds like she’s been sucking on a helium balloon. She made the same annoying sounds in bed, and after ten minutes of her high pitched shrill, I thought about faking my orgasm just to get out of there quicker.
I got drunk and hooked up with Heaven one time three months ago. She seemed like an easy lay, more than eager to leave the club. She kept pushing the idea of us going to my place, but even drunk, I knew better than that. All it took was for me to tell her that we would hook up at her place or it wouldn’t happen. She yelled her address to the cab driver so loud I’m almost positive his ears are still ringing and hiked her leather mini skirt up high enough to straddle me in the back seat.
I don’t remember a thing about her house, because she wouldn�
�t let go of my face. She kept pulling on my hair to move me from her lips to her tits. I think she was almost completely naked before we even made it through her front door. She didn’t even have the patience to move us to a bedroom. We fucked on her old-ass couch, which smelled like raisins and mildew.
When we were finished, trying to leave her house was torture. I’ve never seen a woman cling to someone so hard. Since then, she’s stalked me, asked my friends for my phone number, and somehow found out where I lived. I can’t shake her.
Her name certainly doesn’t suit her. She’d be more acceptable as a Damien or Lucifer; Heaven is not even close to what I think of when it comes to this woman.
Everything about this chick grates on my nerves.
“None of your business. What do you want?” I’m sure my tone sounds harsh, but subtle and obvious hints to get her to leave me alone haven’t worked. So far, harsh words haven’t done a damn thing for me either.
“Aw, now is that any way to talk about the mother of your child?”
All of the blood leaves my face. No, she can’t be.
My stomach sinks for a second. A flash of being linked to this woman for the rest of my life about sends me to my knees, but then I remember who I’m talking to. She’s more than likely making the entire thing up or pregnant by some other guy and is trying to get me to take responsibility for someone else’s kid. Please let her be faking it.
“Bullshit.”
“Why would I lie to you about this Blake? The condom must have broken when we had sex last.”
“You mean the only time we had sex. That was over three months ago. Why haven’t you come to me before now to tell me you were pregnant, Heaven? You would have known long before now that you were knocked up.”