But all too soon I feel that pull deep inside that signals my release, and too soon I watch his teeth gnash as he pulls me down harder and yells his own release as he tenses and spills into me.
When it’s done and I’m riding high on this thing called foolish love I feel him kiss my hair so softly it makes my heart sing before he lifts me off and sits me beside him on the seat, his hands working furiously to right his pants before he pulls my skirt down and sits back, eyes closed.
It’s only when I hear a soft snore that I realize he’s passed out, and it’s only when a throat clears that I realize the driver is waiting at the open door.
I get out in a daze and stumble out a few steps before turning back again to see half-closed green eyes staring at me from the darkness of the interior.
I sure don’t know what that was, but I do know is that I just got used.
I vow to never let him use me again.
~~~
INDIE
Chapter One
“Hey, don’t knock masturbation. It’s sex with someone I love.” –Alvy Singer
Indie
Most people don’t know this about me, but I love movies. Old, new, bad, good, teary, blood and guts, and rom coms. I love all movies because inevitably there will be a one-liner hidden inside there somewhere that’s just a nugget of gold.
I like the obvious ones everyone uses, and I even love the ones from movies most people don’t know even exist. Admittedly, my all-time favorite has to be “yippee ki-yay motherfuckers.”
I’m the spit-in-your-eye, chew-your-balls type of girl, and odds are I’ll die wheezing those words even when I’m ninety and liver spotted.
What I also love is cutting loose and getting out of my head long enough not to hate the world. Or myself. But mostly the world because if there’s one thing life has taught me, it’s that the world is filled with all sorts and those sorts just happen to be ones I don’t like.
“Indie, you gonna get rolling on those macaroons or what?” Luci yells from her place at the other work station where she’s elbow deep in what looks like pig slop but will eventually be something edible.
I guess.
Whatever. I’m in a funk, and despite my usually sunny disposition, I’m not in the freaking mood to do a damn thing but sit alone in the dark with a crate of beers and brood about what I can and will do to Brentwood Jones. Eventually. When I stop feeling like I want to leak all over the place and wail like a bitch. You know, the one who lives inside me, in the steel cage I shoved her into when I caught on that she’s nothing but a weakness.
“Indie!”
“What? I already made the maca-fucking-roons and boxed them and everything, Luci!” I yell back, glaring out of the window with enough heat, I think the glass should melt.
Why? Because I’m pissed and I want to hurt someone.
I went on down to the bar last week, got shitfaced drunk, and then accepted a ride home with my secret crush Woody Jones in his limo—yeah, he’s rich. Bastard.
You know how this equation goes. Hot girl, hot guy, both drunk and lonely. I ended up having smoking hot sex in the back of that limo and rode Woody like a rodeo queen.
Best orgasm of my miserable life, I’ll tell you that much. But after…well after I had a crash landing when the asshole started snoring, pretending to be asleep of all things.
That hurt a lot and I lost a lot of self-respect banging a guy who hasn’t so much as looked my way since we all met when Callie and Jack first got together.
Woody has a truckload of older sisters, a mother I would kill to kidnap and keep with me because she is that awesome, and a dad who just makes me think of hugs and belly laughs.
Growing up with all that female influence and a father who is a feminist with a dick has formed a man who loves all things woman. He’s sensitive, kind, smart, sweet, and above all else he will get violent if he so much as catches on to some asshole making a woman sniffle.
I loved that about him from the start, because being a rebel and someone most people sneer at I thought I actually stood a fighting chance with a man like him; that he’d look at me and just see the beauty that he sees in all women, and that my tattoos and attitude wouldn’t be a turn-off like it is with most straitlaced men.
Imagine my surprise when the guy who would kill to make a woman smile just took one look at me and started treating me like I don’t exist. Oh, not right from the beginning. I mean the guy was nice from the start, for about five fucking seconds before he started treating me like I carry the Bubonic plague.
Now he just seems to see right through me. I hate that. The only thing worse than being despised in my book is being overlooked. Seriously, just look at me! I have blond hair that I keep ass long because guys dig it, body art and ear piercings, my clothes scream rebel, and my mouth can be sugar sweet or truck-stop dirty.
I am the antithesis of a wallflower, and I’ve purposely made myself that way because I want them all to see me and know that I’m awesome, different, and one hundred percent unique.
No one will ever ignore me or forget me, I can guarantee it. Except Woody, which is ironic since I am completely ass over heart for the man. He’s the first man I have ever looked at and wanted right off the bat. More than sexually.
He’s literally the only man I have ever looked at and felt my heart and vagina start yodelling at the same time.
So yeah, I am more than angry right now that he finally looked at me and blew my world apart, only to find me lacking and kick my ass to the curb, where I stood watching his limo disappear into the dark morning mist.
That moment right there broke what was left of me, but unlike most people, I am okay. See, I may get angry and plot revenge—you bet your ass I’m revenging the fuck out of him, I have pride—but I am also more in touch with the gentler emotions, and I think, more evolved.
What happens when you break a priceless vase? You superglue the hell out of it. It may be a little changed and parts of it may be misaligned but that vase will still be beautiful if a little different.
So what if I’m a bit shattered? I’m me, Indiana Harrison McGee, the girl who never quits. I can take a lesson from this experience and move on—wiser, stronger, and hopefully better for the knocks I’ve taken lately.
“Whoa! What happened to Indie? Has she started brooding and taking shit seriously?” Callie laughs as she traipses into work, blissfully free of her little tykes for once this week.
“Dunno. She’s been glaring at that window for the better part of forty some odd minutes, and for a second I was terrified she’d do something out of character like cry. Or something.”
That has us all cracking up because everyone knows I couldn’t shed a tear if they held me down and squeezed onions into my eyes.
What use is crying? Crying does nothing but give me a headache, ruined makeup, and a dose of self-hatred for being that weak.
Plus, I’m into the whole brooding and plotting thing.
So yeah. We’re all hosing ourselves and I’m feeling a return of my humor and twitchy eye as I contemplate Woody and what I will do to him to show my displeasure. It’s inevitable seeing as how I’ve never been repressed and don’t believe in losing as epically as I have.
“Seriously, Ind, what the hell is up with you?” Callie giggles, her eyes twinkling when I let my mouth curve into a dark smile that just tells the whole story.
“Once upon a time…”
“Oh here we go.”
“She must be pissed off if she’s doing the whole intro.”
“There was this rocking hot girl who worked in the kitchens at the big, fancy schmancy castle where all the hobnobbing elites would go to show off their diamonds and swords…”
I like to make an entrance, and I love it when people pay attention to what I’m saying. May as well make it entertaining.
“Who’s the rocking hot girl?” Luci teases.
“Shut up and listen. Anyway, this poor hot, smart, and totally perfect though rebellious girl tak
es one look at the prince of the castle and her hoo-hoo goes marshmallow fluff.”
“Ohhh, I smell a subplot,” Callie says, rubbing her hands together and sitting across from me at the table I’m “working” at.
Luci grabs us all a coffee and shoves chocolate at me too.
“So she’s obviously been abusing the reefer, I mean the wood’s mushrooms,” I say tongue in cheek. “And we all know it, if she’s looking at the prince and thinking she’ll get anywhere with his pompous ass right, but look she does. And dream. And maybe she masturbates to thoughts of him occasionally.”
Luci waggles her brows and I see Callie grin at my airy tone while she nods enthusiastically.
“Nothing wrong with a little tickle of the pickle. Unless you’ve been Sahara dry for months. Then it’s just sad. What happened?”
I’ve been Gobi dry for months but like no one needs to know that.
“Tell us, we neeeeed to know if the prince dies!”
Good girls, they already know this ain’t no tale for the fairies.
“Well, she looks at him, but he’s all wrapped up in the other chicks with their sparkling gowns and fucked-up hair and overpowdered faces. So the hot girl feels shitty because damn, she’s hot, what’s not to like?”
Seriously! What is not to like on this hot mama? I have ink, yeah, but I look fucking fabulous and I have a belly, ass, and tits you could bounce quarters off.
“Nothing! She’s perfect and magnificent and should have been Miss USA! Those others are all just hags and empty-headed crones,” Callie says.
“He doesn’t see her and she starts to wonder what it is about her that’s not cool enough for him. Seriously? The guy is clean cut and boring as all get out and she’s like steampunk sassy and all kinds of great, but she wants him and he doesn’t want her. She decides, screw it! She’s going to the tavern for some ale and a good time every day of the week because she’s hot and awesome and she don’t need to be eyeballing no fool when fools eyeball her.”
“You go, girl! Tell him how you feel.”
Ah, Luci, I do love ya.
“She doesn’t, though. I mean she’s cool and worthwhile, why should she fall at his feet like some weak-minded woman with no pride? Why should she humble herself when he’d just ignore her anyway? But poor hot girl, she goes and gets herself into trouble with the ale, and before she knows it she’s weak kneed and stumbling all over the place, looking for a carriage at that ungodly hour and stranded miles from her gingerbread cottage.”
“Oh no! What happened? Did the dwarfs get her? See! I keep telling people those assholes framed the witch because Snow wouldn’t sleep with them and they put her in that coffin! I mean come on, read between the lines already. One chick, seven men, and nobody wants to play slam the quam?” Callie huffs, making me bust a gut.
“No, she would have been so much better off having an orgy with seven hot dudes with beards and beer bellies. I mean we all know those pick-swinging bastards were tatted and badass, right? Alas, on that crisp and completely carriage-less night, who should stumble out of the very same tavern and offer our hot heroine a lift on his horse?”
“Noooo!”
“Not the prince!”
“Indeed,” I say gravely, my mouth curling. “That golden asshat chose that very night when our poor defenceless, totally awesome but inebriated girl had her lack of defences and newly awakened vulnerable side on full display. So she looks at him and makes the ultimate mistake, the Tyson of ear-biting episodes, and gets on the back of his horse.”
Callie looks rapt and Luci’s completely wide-eyed by now, just how I want them.
“Please tell me she does not have sex on that horse!”
“Tell me she did! That sounds so awesome and adventurous. Besides, I want the mechanics.” Callie laughs, making me grin.
“She did indeed have sex on that horse when that no-good knave of a prince seduced her and crept under her guards.”
And broke her heart into confetti shreds.
“Which was good—really, really, really good... Now poor girl, she was on cloud nine and still shaking from the taking when the prince suddenly lost his shine and passed out cold on her.”
“No!”
“That lazy prick.”
“So true. So what’s a girl to do when the horse stops in front of her gingerbread cottage? There’s nothing to do. No way will that spoiled man be coming into her cottage, She’s waaaay too good for that slimy ass! So, she gets off the horse and does the worst thing—the one thing no girl with any self-respect should do.”
“She let him keep her bloomers?”
“She gave him her pigeon’s number?”
“Nope. She looked back.”
“Mistake!”
“Disaster.”
“Humiliation,” I say softly, swallowing the clog in my throat. “See, she should have known the dude was not out. He was just pretending to be passed out so that he could boot her to the curb and ride off into the night in search of his next poor village ho.”
This is the end of my tale and as I close my eyes and breathe past the anger bubbling deep within, I wait for the crickets to stop chirping. It doesn’t take long.
“That rat bastard!”
“That—”
“Blind fool.”
The deep voice has us all turning to the door and I feel my cheeks heat and stain red when Jack and Freddie walk in, stopping to kiss their wives before turning to me with steely looks and jaws hard enough to crack granite.
“He did that to you?”
How they know I’ve been talking about Woody is beyond me, but from the looks of them they are not happy. At all.
“He did indeed. And then he came to the bar the next night, sat at my table, and pretended I didn’t exist while flirting with Thursday’s cousin. I had to hit on Wednesday to save face. I kissed him. And he’s not gay like Percy thinks. And he gets handsy now that Percy isn’t available anymore! And he kept flirting with that perfectly innocent slag!”
Who I cannot, in all good conscience, even hate.
That was the last straw, the thing that killed the camel and had me burning with white-hot rage. I could have faked it till I got over feeling this way, I’m good at that, and eventually moved on to the point where I do not see him anymore.
But that shit? That’s like spitting in my eye and yanking my tail all at the same time. I mean I didn’t even get the obligatory “good sex, baby” compliment.
All I got was “hey lady, that was shitty. Look, I got a better model!.”
“I’ll kill that little shit.”
“Now, Jack baby, don’t go having a stroke about it. It’s all cool,” I soothe.
But it isn’t, at least not to them as I see both his and Freddie’s eyes narrow and their jaws grind harder.
“He spent weeks giving me lectures and telling me what a pig I am, and this is okay to him? What the hell happened to treating all women with respect and showing them kindness? Shit! He still sends his old flings Christmas cards!”
Wow. Now I am crushed.
“He almost beat the shit out of Paul for hurting Dot’s feelings! But he does this to you?” Freddie grates, making me feel all squishy inside.
And lacking for some really messed-up reason that I will not examine but rather lock away.
I have to diffuse this situation before these two bruisers go off and beat him to hell and back. Can’t have that before I get my pound of flesh, now can I?
“I told you not to worry about it, guys. Trust me, by the time I’m done getting one over on old Wood he’ll wish he dipped his stick in a pox-infested hooker,” I vow.
Freddie’s face goes blank before a smile blooms there and Jack outright laughs and rubs his hands together gleefully—now I know where Callie got that sinister move from.
“We’re in.”
Chapter Two
“Time wounds all heels.” –Groucho Marx
Indie
The thing about a good revenge plot
is not planning things to death, it’s getting the mission statement straight. So yeah, for me right now, on this lovely Thursday night as Gruffy putters around the kitchen and I nurse a glass of wine while helping her with the mash potatoes, I feel alive and excited.
“This just makes me so mad I could cut his baw bag straight off and feed it to him,” she growls in her fake Scottish accent.
Listen, don’t think poorly of me. It’s not like I’m running around tattling on the man…maybe just a little but whatever.
This is my family and this is where I come when I need love and help and encouragement. Gruffy is also one of my bests, even at her age and as gross she is about the recounting of her sex fling with Gramps Levin.
I tell her almost everything, and I say almost because I mean I am no fool. If she knew half the shit I get up to she’d keel haul me and shank me in my sleep. I am so okay with her getting angry at Woody, though.
Which in and of itself is a crock since the old ass loves him more than life. Seriously, he’s like one of her favorite people ever. Ever.
“Let’s not say things we know you do not mean, old goat.” I laugh, enjoying her sheepish giggle as I sip my wine and think about what’s to come in the following weeks.
“Sorry, dearest, I just can’t help loving that boy, no matter how bad he is.” She sighs.
I can’t really blame her. Woody is one of the best guys I have ever met, he just isn’t all that good to me. So as much as I am okay with her not taking sides this time, I won’t just walk away from this either.
No. I want him to feel it all. First I am going to return the favor and ignore him. Gone will be the cool yet totally slobbering asshole who used to stare at him like a creeper.
I’m going to make him feel as invisible as I did in the last few months. No eye contact unless it’s the most cursory of meetings. No sitting around with the Days just waiting for him to amble over and join the conversation just because hearing his voice is enough.
No more smiling at him and feeling like hell because instead of smiling back, he mostly just pretended he didn’t see me.
THE NAUGHTY ONES: The Complete 5-Books Series Page 49