Holy shit.
My body felt completely out of control- shaking, trembling, my breath coming out in erratic, unsettling strobe-like huffs.
“Fuck,” Shane growled, his hand slipping out of my hair and folding around my chest above my breasts, holding me against him.
Fuck.
My sentiments exactly.
Feeling slowly came back to my body from the bottom up- my feet, legs, torso, arms. I pressed my heels harder into the ground, trying to hold up some of my own weight as the aftershocks subsided. Shane’s hands released my chest and stomach then I completely lost them. I heard a zipper. Then I heard footsteps. I craned my neck over my shoulder and saw him walking over to one of those ancient garbage barrels in the parking lot and disposing of the condom. He moved back toward me quickly, purposefully.
Meanwhile, I was still a puddle of spent desire.
He came up behind me, hands going around my waist and yanking my skirt back into place. “Ready?” he asked, his voice a little distant.
Ready?
Ready?
Seriously?
That was how he wanted to play it?
Dinner, quick fuck, home by ten?
Well, fine.
If that was how the game was going to go, I was going to fucking win.
“Yep,” I said, adopting my most breezy tone and reaching to snatch my panties off the ground, balling them into a fist, and reaching for my door. I didn’t know if he offered me a hand because I didn’t look for it. I hauled myself up, stuffed my panties into my purse that wouldn’t close with the added contents, and reached for my belt. Shane swung up into his seat, turned on the engine, and jerked the truck into a stomach-dropping turn to head back toward the main drag.
I kept my eyes out the windshield and my hands curled around my purse, trying my best to not do what I really wanted.
Because what I really wanted to do was wait for us to stop at a light, lean over, punch him square in the balls, then hop out and haul it home on foot. Quite frankly, I’d rather get mugged than spend another second in his company.
Which wasn’t exactly fair of me. He had, back at the restaurant, given me a chance to have more than a quick fuck. I had sort-of turned that down. It was my own fault. I had no one to blame but myself that he was being all cold and detached.
That being said, there was no denying the rush of rejection I felt flooding my system. It was silly and unlike me, but it was there in the sour feeling in my stomach, in the way my eyes stung a bit like I was going to tear up, and in the way my heart seemed to be pounding harder than it had been when we were having sex.
The truck barely made it to a complete stop in the lot behind my apartment building when I wrenched the door open. “Thanks for dinner. Feel free to never contact me again.”
I dropped down gracelessly and tried like hell to keep my pace deliberate and not like I was running away. I refused to look back and felt my throat constrict at the idea that he was following me as I stabbed the key into the lock and opened the back door. When I went inside and turned, though, his truck was already gone.
So, yeah.
That was apparently that.
And as I let myself into my apartment, I tried like hell to convince myself that it was for the best.
But there was no denying the weird, swirling feeling in my stomach as I roughly wiped off my makeup, peeled off my clothes, threw on a tee, cleared the contents of my bed onto the floor, and curled in under the covers.
That swirling feeling?
It felt a hell of a lot like disappointment.
NINE
Shane
Let’s just say it wasn’t a real great first date. And considering I hadn’t had a real first date in, say, ever, I wasn’t exactly a happy camper for the week that followed. Now, that was great for business because we had several guys welshing on their financial agreements and I really enjoyed having the outlet for my anger. Healthy? No. But I sure as fuck felt a little better after my fists collided with things.
I was sitting in Chaz’s, my dad’s bar, nursing my beer because I knew getting drunk would only get me in an even shittier mood. Beside that fact, there was a literal hurricane going on outside. The last thing I needed was to drive home without all my wits about me when tree branches were flying everywhere and the rain and wind made vision more of a wish than an actuality. I probably should have headed home when the weatherman finally got his head out of his ass and gave us a definitive answer about how severe we would be hit. But, then again, I wasn’t the only one at Chaz’s who wasn’t worried about the commute. It was actually decently busy, considering.
“So you fucked it up with Lea, huh?” Mark asked, sidling into the stool to my right. “Explains the sour as fuck mood you’ve been in all week.”
“Don’t want to talk about this, Mark,” I warned, my mood already too dark.
“I think I’d be pretty pissy too if I fucked it up with a chick like that. I mean she blows most of the girls around here out of the water. What’d you do to send her away?”
I heard myself snort as I shook my head, looking at my reflection in the mirror sunken into the back bar. That was the problem, really. I could have accepted it easier if I knew I had just been my usual dick self and ran her off. But I had taken her out on a date for fuck’s sake. I actually stopped to buy her effing flowers before I manned up and realized that was way too cheesy. I put some effort in. Why? I couldn’t tell you. There was just something about Lea. There was something in the way she carried herself, the way she tried and failed to repress herself, in her hardass attitude that it was painfully clear was there to keep you from seeing what was really underneath. Because if there was one thing I knew about women, it was that no matter how hard and thick that outer shell might be, there was always some softness underneath. And for reasons I couldn’t even begin to understand, I wanted to see her softness.
“Bet you didn’t even get any before she tossed you,” Mark said, always wholly unconcerned about poking sleeping bears.
Yeah, the sex, that was another thing.
She just… gave me everything. There was usually at least a small amount of restraint in most women I had known- an unwillingness to let themselves be too loud, to curse, to demand things, to get fully and completely wrapped up in the moment without even a thought to restraint or insecurity.
And the thing was, it was just a quick fuck in a parking lot. I didn’t even get to drag it out, completely torture her with the promise of release before I snatched it away again, over and over until she couldn’t take it anymore and I finally gave it to her. I wanted to see and feel and hear that. I wanted more.
She sure as hell made it clear that she didn’t.
“Mark, enough,” I snapped, feeling the familiar heating in my blood, the urge to start throwing punches. It wouldn’t take much to push me over the edge.
“Since you struck out, and she obviously likes the look of us,” he went on and I knew where he was heading and, well, there would be repercussions. “Maybe I will try my luck with her. Give her some real Mallick charm…”
He lost the rest of his sentence because he suddenly found my fist colliding with the side of his face. The crunch radiated up my arm in a familiar way as his body, unprepared for impact, flew off the stool. He landed on the ground hard, his air knocked out of him. But that didn’t stop him from smiling up at me, blood trickling from his lip. “Oh, it’s on, mother fucker. I’ve owed you an ass kicking since you convinced Izzy to call me Miss Markie.”
With that, he flew up off the ground and rammed his shoulder into my stomach, sending us both flying. Then, it was just fighting. Fists, knees, curses. There was nothing like a fight with your brother. You knew each others’ weak spots, where to strike, when to feint. It was full of half-buried hatchets and old grudges. If there was ever a challenging fight to be had- fuck taking on a boxer or a UFC guy or a street gang member, take on your own God damn sibling.
“Fucking seriously?” a deep voic
e said, all gravel, as a hand grabbed the back of Mark’s shirt and yanked backward hard enough to send him flying a few feet away, his back crashing into the bar.
And there was Reign, hair dripping down onto his leather cut, likely because the crazy fuck was riding his motorcycle out in the storm. One dark brow was raised and his lips quirked up at the side. “Brothers fighting… must be over a woman,” he said, extending a hand to help me onto my feet. I took it and wiped the blood from my lip where I had bitten into my cheek.
“Fuck you doing here in a hurricane?” I asked, nodding toward the bar and he stopped to grab the stool I had overturned and sat down on it, accepting when I ordered him a beer.
“Needed out of the compound for a while. Can’t shake the feeling that Mo wasn’t the only rat.”
“Got reason to suspect another or just paranoid now?” I reasoned, tipping my beer at him before taking a swig.
“Fuck if I know. Looking at everyone twice now,” he admitted, rolling his neck as if to relieve tension. “What’s going on with you and your brother?”
I shook my head. “All of us are always getting into a fight over some petty shit. It’s nothing new.”
Reign nodded. “It’s like that with all the guys at the club too. Always fucking going at one another like wild animals over dumb shit. But, usually…”
“Women,” I acknowledged.
“Got yourself pussy-whipped, Mallick? Never thought I’d see the day.”
“Never met a chick like her around here. But it didn’t work out. Mark was ribbing me about it. I didn’t react well.”
“Gotta have thicker skin than that, man,” he said, reaching inside his cut and producing a slightly wet bulging envelope. I didn’t have to ask to know what it was. “For Mo’s sins.”
“Appreciate you making it right,” I said, turning over my shoulder to where Mark was holding the side of his bottle against his cheek. “Yo, give this to Pops for me. It’s from Reign,” I added and Mark nodded, taking it. There were no hurt feelings or any need to talk shit out. We got it out of our systems already.
“So what…” Reign started, but then the lights cut off. We waited a beat, figuring it was just flickering like it had been doing on and off for hours. But it was a complete black out. A tree must have fallen down on the lines with all the wind. “Great,” Reign grumbled. “All these fucks will be out on the street driving like morons without streetlights to guide them. I’m out,” he said, standing. I could hear him chugging back his beer then he clamped a hand on my shoulder. “See you around, Shane.”
With that, I heard him make his way to the door. Not more than a couple seconds later, his bike roared to life and he took off.
“Alright, we are closing up. Your last round is on us,” Ryan declared, showing up out of nowhere. I swear to fuck, he was always just there when there was some kind of business problem going on. The guy had a sixth sense or something. “Get it going. Get home safely.” His voice was getting closer and I could feel him move into my side, leaning up against the bar. “If the cleaning crew has to mop up any more of you assholes’ blood again, they’re not going to be happy. They’re going to start demanding extra for that hazmat shit.”
“Mark needs to learn to keep his mouth shut.”
To that, Ryan laughed. “Come on now, it’s Mark we’re talking about here. You couldn’t shut him up with duct tape.”
“Could muffle him a little though,” I grumbled, watching as Mark and the bartender found the flashlights and walked around to make sure everyone was clearing out.
“You’ve had a shit week,” Ryan said, though I hadn’t told him anything. That was another nifty trick of his; he just knew shit. “Go home. The power will be out until morning probably. Get some rest. Sleep off the shit mood.”
“You know, sometimes you’re more mom-like than Mom is,” I said, just to goad him. “Nurturing and all that shit.”
“Just for that, I am telling Hunt and Fee that you are, in fact, free on Saturday to help them move furniture. I originally told them you had shit to do so you wouldn’t have to deal with Fee grilling you. But now you’re fucked.” With that, he walked away and I made my way to the door feeling marginally better.
There was nothing like family sometimes.
I hopped in my truck and headed out. But I didn’t take the turn toward my place. I took the turn toward Fee’s office building.
And I think we all know why the fuck I did that shit.
Even though she told me to take a hike.
I was just doing a drive-by, though, I comforted myself as I switched the wipers on full blast even though it made no difference. I just wanted to make sure she was home and not stranded in the storm.
That was all.
Bullshit.
That was all bullshit.
TEN
Lea
Okay, so if the office was kinda creepy on a normal night, it was downright horror movie-worthy during a storm. Seriously, with the power flickering in and out, I was starting to expect someone to jump out at me with a knife and slit my throat then play with my body afterward.
I got a bit morbid when I was scared.
Really, when they were predicting a hurricane on the news, I kind-of figured it was like how they predicted massive flooding from the last thunderstorm… and it didn’t even drizzle. Alarmists, the lot of them. So I packed my bag and headed to work figuring there would be even more business with people warned to stay inside. I wasn’t exactly wrong there, but it was really hard to work up a convincing fake orgasm when the entire building sounded like it was seconds away from ripping off its foundation. I swear when the wind really gusted, the panes of glass seemed to wobble a little in their frames. I couldn’t see much, the windows being up high, but it sounded like the weather man was right when he said it was going to be the storm of a decade. Not being familiar with the weather patterns in the area, I had to take him at his word.
“Oh, yes! Oh!” I groaned, standing and craning my neck to look out the glass front door. “Oh, ow. That hurts. Your dick is too big!”
Yeah, that shit didn’t happen in real life.
Especially seeing as most guys who wanted you to tell them that their dick was too big tended to have genuine reason to worry about their size.
Above me, the rain pounded down on the roof, an unending impossible amount of it.
“Oh, yes. Give it to me!”
Really, I wasn’t exactly sure it would be any safer at my apartment building since I was pretty convinced that when the wind blew gently, the entire building did a wave, but still, I was kind-of starting to regret coming into the office. “Oh. Yes. Yes. Yes!”
Some of the guys made really hysterical noises when they came. I was convinced if they ever had managed to get a real woman into bed, and made those noises, yeah… she would laugh right in their face.
But I wasn’t in a laughing mood as I hung up the phone and ran across the office to really get a look outside. The streetlights out front were unreliable in the best of times, and of course they chose that night to be on strike. Something blew across the street and slammed into a car parked a few over from mine, making the alarm start blaring and my heart fly into my throat.
“Shit,” I hissed as the phone rang on the main desk behind me and I ran to grab it. “For A Good Time, Call… Inc. Lea speaking.”
“Lea, what the hell are you doing there?” Fee’s voice shrieked at me through the phone. The sound of her voice somehow managed to calm me down a bit.
“Working.”
“Jesus,” she said and I could hear the noise of the kids quiet down as she, I assumed, moved away from them. “Are you out of your mind? There is literally a hurricane going on right now. They already evacuated everyone down by the water. That building has way too much glass. You need to get out of there before it all crashes in on you.”
Right. Well, when the boss told you it was time to leave work early, you didn’t argue. I walked with the cordless phone over to my desk,
stashing my supplies back into my bag. And just then, of course, the power cut out. “Lovely,” I grumbled.
“Becca, quit being so dramatic,” Fee said, sounding amused as her daughter let out an Academy Award-worthy scream. “Are you going?” she asked me.
“Yes, I’m just looking for my keys before I head out into that mess,” I said, my hand closing around them and I swung my bag over my shoulder.
“Call me when you get home so I know you’re not, quite literally, dead in a ditch somewhere.”
“You’re so comforting, Fee,” I laughed. “I’ll call you.”
“Okay. Go.”
With that, I hung up the phone and all but ran across the office to the front door. The second I pushed it open, the wind took control of it and it literally took all the strength I had to prevent it from hitting the wall and likely shattering. I slammed it closed, pushing my shoulder into it as I locked it. The rain pelted down on me, soaking me through before I could even turn toward my car. I got inside, slamming the door, my heart still a frantic bass beat in my chest. I stuck in the key and turned and… you guessed it… nothing.
There wasn’t even a flicker of life.
Not even a click.
It was the deadest kind of dead.
That was just great. Just wonderful. Really, the cherry on the pie of my week.
I sat there for a minute as the world threw a fit around me, trying to consider my options. I could go back into the office. It was right there. Maybe I could even lock myself up in a back room away from the windows or something. But the power was out. It was going to get cold sooner or later. I didn’t know how long I would be stuck there, how long hurricanes blew for. Really, it wasn’t that far home. If I did it at a dead run, which, well, was the only way to do it even in good weather, it would take me less than ten minutes. Then I could be locked up with warm, dry clothes and cabinets full of food.
Shane (The Mallick Brothers Book 1) Page 11