by A. L. Woods
I never did find out who she was. Suddenly, our gossip-driven neighborhood clammed up. No one said a damn word. Wouldn’t even tell me the size of the bitch’s hoop earrings or what color her hair was.
That had been one of the worst days of my life, but compared to what else had happened, it felt like a small scratch on my broken heart. I hadn’t hesitated ending it with him. He never would confirm what he had done or with whom, but I saw it. That guilt of his betrayal etched into the planes of his face every time he stole furtive glances at me. He offered me his friendship after everything went down between us, and against Penelope’s advice, I accepted.
I needed the familiar company, and at that point, didn’t really give a shit if he fucked a rock or the exhaust of his Mercedes. Cash was only good for two things: drugs or sex. And I was only periodically interested in either/or.
The tips of my fingers found my lower lip, my tongue poking out just a little, the traces of Sean’s kiss setting off a low tingle in my lower belly that momentarily transported me someplace other than this disgusting car.
I was torn between wanting to stay away from him and wanting to give in to my body’s carnal demands, even if just for one night. If for even a moment, I could be that princess and him that knight, then maybe that would be all the saving I would ever need.
The continued chorus of laughter behind me had me twisting my body in the passenger seat, glowering at the two blundering idiots in the back with a pointed finger. “You two ruined my night.”
“You better put that hand away, sweetheart, unless you want to put it to work,” Dom purred, cupping himself through his jeans, a mischievous look filtering through his onyx-colored eyes. “That’s one way to improve your night.”
“You’re disgusting, Dominic,” I snarled.
Dom’s smile was unruly. His lips parted when he rocked his hips, the outline of his growing erection tenting his pants. He released a low groan that made my shoulders punch up to my ears and my insides twist with discomfort.
He was crude by design, and vulgar by nature.
“He’s just playing,” Terry said, looking out the window. From his profile, I caught the boredom that was blooming on his face as the passing streetlights cast soft orange shadows against the curvature of his pretty boy mug. Terry’s mother and Cash’s father had been siblings, and the only genetic similarities they appeared to share was the family nose, slim and slightly turned up at the tip; everything else about them couldn’t have been more different. Where Cash ran hot and was susceptible to emotional outbursts, Terry was calm and collected. Perhaps that was why he seemed unbothered by Dom’s antics, no more than he would have been had a piece of lint landed on his pants. “Relax, Cherry.”
I flustered, my face growing ruddy as I sunk back in my seat.
Cherry.
No matter how many years went by, I couldn’t shed the moniker.
I hated Cash for boasting that he had popped my cherry that day. It had been the last rumor I needed circulating at the heels of my sister’s death. In some sick way, I thought Cash couldn’t handle not being the center of attention for once. It was deplorable, but that’s Cash. Another tick inside a box of a questionnaire titled ‘Is Your Ex a Bad Person?’ So far, he was 8/10 for yeses.
The silence over Chamillionaire’s “Ridin’” was too much for Dom, whose stare met mine in the side mirror.
“Your fuck boy seemed smitten,” Dom said in what I viewed as an attempt to provoke me.
I promised myself that I wouldn’t strike when I saw that smarmy smile on his face and the crazed look in his eyes, no matter what he said or did. That would only serve Dominic’s twisted desires, and I had no interest in being one of his playthings or another social experiment for him to get off on.
His head lolled to the right, the shadow of his dark eyelashes soft against his bronzed skin under the tawny streetlights. If I didn’t know what a sinister piece of shit he was, I would have thought he looked almost angelic.
Too bad it was the Devil himself who reigned supreme in Dominic’s soul.
“Did you get down on your knees and suck him off in the bathroom?” he pressed, a twisted sycophantic smile teasing the corners of his mouth, though his eyes remained closed.
My chest squeezed as anger started to sputter in the depths of my belly. I wasn’t humoring him with a response, I just needed to get home. I glanced at Cash, who shot Dom a wasted dark look from the driver’s seat, but I heard his unspoken crass thoughts.
He wanted to know, too.
Cash rolled his lower lip between his teeth, stewing, even though he said nothing. I could feel it pouring off him like the suffocating waves of a tide, the violence of it threatening to pull me away from the safety of the shoreline if I let it.
Well, fuck him, too. It was none of his damn business.
I crossed my arms around my chest, tilting my head toward the window. I pegged Dom with a contemptuous stare in the mirror, my molars connecting as he feigned sleep.
I had never liked that fucker, and nothing had changed since the first time Cash had brought him around to my house, promising that he had the best Kush he’d ever smoked in his life. I regretted taking a hit. If I had declined, maybe none of this ever would have happened.
Maybe Holly Jane never would have met him.
“Ah, that’s right,” Dom chuckled with his eyes still closed, his voice sending the hairs on my arms upright in warning. It was as if my body knew before my mind did that whatever he said next was going to steal my breath away. “That isn’t your style; you’re too vanilla. Your baby sister, on the other hand...mmm…that girl was better than candy. Just as sweet, too.”
The levy inside of me snapped, a rushing sound akin to water filling my ears. My heartbeat fell in time with the bass of the song, its steady pulse sounding off in my mind as my hands fought the seatbelt, struggling with the button until the buckle sprung free.
How dare he bring her up?
Turning in my seat, I climbed over the center console. Cash made an inhuman sound, recognizing what I was about to do. His hand caught the back of my knee, attempting to pull me back in the seat while keeping his concentration on the road. I struggled out of his grasp, my body outstretched, struggling to get to my victim.
“What the fuck!” Cash barked, the car swerving as he grappled with keeping me in place with one free arm. I heard him bite out another curse, his grip on me loosening as he fought to keep the car straight. I kicked out of his hold, my leg thrashing wildly, my right foot catching him square in the jaw.
“Fuck, Raquel!”
His sharp hiss fell on deaf ears. My lust for vengeance was too strong as my heart rate surged and my blood pumped harder, my adrenaline kicking into overdrive.
I was going to kill that sonofabitch if it was the last fucking thing I did; I didn’t give a rat’s ass if Cash did end up totaling the C-Class beyond recognition. At least I would go to my death satisfied that I had extracted my revenge on Dominic Espinosa.
If Dom felt even a morsel of what I had felt these last few years at his hands, I would spend the rest of my life rotting gleefully in purgatory right alongside with him.
I vaulted myself at him with full force, springing at him like an errant cat from the top branch of a tree, albeit with a little less finesse. I hated that his surprise had already worn off, that now he licked his lips as if he was about to enjoy whatever I was about to unload on him. When I got a solid right hook to his jaw, he let out a sharp and grating laugh, the pain in my hand barely registering as it competed with the rhapsody that swept over me from making contact with that stupid face of his.
My fist swung back, preparing to strike him again, but the satisfaction of my retribution was cut short. Dom strong-armed me and had my ass in his lap in a matter of seconds, his chest crushed against my back, his arms apprehending my own.
The more I struggled, the tighter he held me. I screeched out a cry of frustration, hating that he had stolen yet another thing from me.
It felt like I was playing on the losing team tonight.
His breath was hot in my ear, making, an eruption of chills break out up and down my spine. My lungs struggled for air, anxiety gripping me as he dragged his open mouth across the stretch of skin under my jaw before bringing his mouth back to my ear—the same one Sean had spoken into. He bit down hard on my earlobe, and I swallowed the blinding pain that ebbed at the surface of my sanity.
“Your precious baby sister was a good fuck,” he ground out against my ear as his hand found my crotch, squeezing painfully. “And it’s too bad her body burned in that car accident, ’cause I’m sure her corpse would still be a better fuck than you.”
Tears sprung to my eyes, and I despised myself for letting him arouse the follies and recklessness that existed within me at all.
He wasn’t worth my tears, my frustration, my irrationality. But God, did it feel good to invest all my rage into someone corporeal. Someone who wasn’t a ghost. Someone who didn’t deserve it.
Where Penelope offered me security, safety, and love—these three reminded me where I came from, and what I still was at my core.
Rotten, like a piece of fruit that never made it to the produce stand.
Cash was a temperamental crutch.
Terry was ambivalent, disengaged from anything outside of his own universe, coming and going as he pleased.
Dom would always be the worst of them. He liked emotionally and mentally torturing people, including my sister when she was still alive.
From time to time, he was known to give into his desire for physicality, no doubt loving the thrill of watching people crumble as much as the next sociopath.
He never drew blood, not much, anyway.
“Just enough for a little taste.”
I blamed him for the lines of coke he supplied my younger sister with, the ones she confessed to snorting off his chest with a dollar bill, and for the harem of men she kept company with when he wasn’t available to fill her emotional void.
I blamed him for introducing her to vices that served to only mask her pain and anger at our father’s untimely death a few months before her own, instead of encouraging her to deal with it.
And I blamed him when she inevitably rolled her car on the Mass Pike while strung out on a deadly cocktail of lorazepam and cocaine, unbeknownst to anyone three months pregnant. The coroner said she felt nothing when she died, but it was hard to say for certain if it was the heart attack that killed her or the accident.
It was inconclusive.
But just like Holly Jane’s death was inconclusive, so was the extent of Dom’s role in her loss.
He hadn’t driven the car, Holly did—but he clearly didn’t give a shit that his involvement in her life meant that Holly’s blood was on his hands as much as it was on mine. The stain was an indelible mark that, although incapable of being visualized by the human eye, would always remain.
“Let her go,” Cash finally gritted out, apparently no longer able to take it.
I swallowed the sob that threatened to rob my breath. Yes, it was my fault for the predicament I now found myself in, but I didn’t regret hitting Dom—I only regretted that I hadn’t hit him hard enough for it to amount to something that hurt him.
Dom ground his pelvis into me once, letting out a salacious laugh. I felt sick that our skirmish had left him aroused, but that was typical of him. I hated that the ridge in his pants was for me, brought on by my fear and hatred for him. Bile crept up my throat, and his hold on me finally went slack. He shoved me off his lap, propelling me into the rear of the front seat.
“You’re not my type anyway, Cherry.” He punctuated the syllables in the nickname, making me want to attempt to boot him in the face with the heel of my shoe just for good measure.
I climbed back into the front passenger seat, breaths still erratic as they raked out of me.
“You have a type?” Terry questioned, breaking up the intensity of the exchange without looking up from his phone. “I was under the impression you fucked anything with legs and a pulse.”
Cash chuckled from the driver’s seat, his irritation leaving while he passed a Toyota Camry, cutting back in with just a few feet to spare. The brakes screeched behind us, but Cash just kept on going. The sound drowned out the pain from the cat o’nine tails whip that had wrapped itself around my heart and squeezed.
“Big words coming from a man whose kid sister I’m banging, too. Now, there’s a girl who’s a real fucking spinner on my dick,” Dom drawled, tucking his hands behind his head from my viewpoint of him in the side mirror.
I tore my gaze away, relief flanking me as Cash turned the car onto my street.
What sounded like the soft thump of Terry’s phone dropping to the floor filled my ears, then came the exchange of knuckles landing on skin and grunts escaping from throats. The smell of sweat mixed with cheap cologne tangoed with the musty smell the car otherwise carried.
“Don’t talk about my fucking sister like that,” Terry snarled. Dom merely laughed.
The guy was a raging fucking sadomasochist, so I was relieved when the car finally stopped in front of a streetlight that abutted my building. Now to convince my body that felt boneless to get out, for I was exhausted.
Cash seemed unfazed by the exchange of fists occurring in the back seat of his car. That was the thing about Terry and Dom, their relationship went beyond a brotherhood, it was like they were two halves of a split soul—Terry representing what was left of the good in Dominic, and Dominic a harbinger of pain and loathing, drowning in enough agony to satiate both of them.
His mental state would have inspired a psychiatrist, if he had one, to institutionalize himself.
“You good?” Cash said to me over the strife in the back seat.
Good? Hardly. I nodded anyway, too emotionally spent to speak. He pulled the gear shift into park, just as someone was thrown against the seat in the back with an “Oof.” I didn’t want to risk checking to see who had gotten the brunt of their exchange.
“Last chance, Cherry. I’m available to keep you company,” Dom said breathlessly.
I felt nothing but pity for any woman stupid enough to part their legs for him.
“One more fucking word out of you, and I’m going to kill you myself, Espinosa.” Spittle sprung from Cash’s mouth, his body vibrating in the driver’s seat, his gaze looming. “I fucking mean it,” Cash added.
“If you wanted to share, you only had to ask, Cash. Plenty of cherry pie to go around.” I could hear the smile in his tone.
“Terry, I swear to God, shut him up,” Cash snapped as he opened the car door and clambered out.
Terry sighed. “Shut the fuck up, will you?” he mumbled, I heard the wheel of a lighter spark as I reached for the handle of the door. “All this for a broad who doesn’t want either one of you idiots.”
He had that assessment correct.
The smell of marijuana burned my sinuses, its distinct skunky aroma wafting through the interior of the car just as I opened the car door to climb out, the smoke billowing out with me, getting swept up in the late fall air.
Dom’s window rolled down when I turned to shut my door. He wiped his busted lip with the back of his wrist, crimson smearing on his skin. I hated the lust in his eyes, almost as much as the mouthful of blood he displayed to me with a wide smile. “Promise you’ll think about me tonight, Cherry,” he called, tapping the ash of the joint he accepted from Terry to the ground, the smoke masking his cold features.
Slimy piece of shit.
Slamming the door behind me, I heard the shuffle of Cash’s footsteps against the asphalt behind me, my legs carrying me as far away from the car as possible.
“Hold on, Cherry.” He caught up to me and slid his palm against mine. The whole thing felt awkward, his fingers tangling forcibly with my own. I felt the unspoken apology in the touch, but my body was reluctant to receive it, my hand remaining stiff in his.
“I really should have taken my ch
ances walking,” I sniffed, the cool air making my nose run.
“Not sure your Romeo would have let that happen, Juliet.” His tone was clipped, but I saw the strain in his jaw as he kept his eyes directed in front of him.
He led me up the stoop steps of the building, releasing my hand so I could pull my fob and house keys out from the inside of my purse.
His comment marinated in my mind as I swiped the fob against the key reader, the door latch releasing with an audible beep. The realization that he didn’t like seeing me with another guy registered, an awareness flooding me that I didn’t give a flying fuck about his feelings. Cash and I had more or less been platonic since we broke up…save for the occasional fuck when I was an emotional wreck, like I would have been tonight had things not escalated with Sean. Otherwise, I had about as much sexual interest in him as I did in Penelope’s pregnancy.
Ugh.
I had to fix that situation with her. Not tonight, but I owed her an apology and about ten years worth of groveling. The warmth of the old building was a pleasant respite on my flushed skin, the familiar lingering scent of my neighbors’ cooking enveloping me in a kind of hug that made me feel like I was back in my own element again. Cash followed me up the two flights of stairs silently, his footsteps falling in line with mine as we came to my apartment door on the second floor.
He bowed his head, his focus trained on his shoes. “I don’t know who he was, but I don’t like the way he looked at you.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, tilting my head with the feigned ignorance of a fifteen-year-old who had just been caught sending inappropriate MSN messages to another boy by her insecure older boyfriend.
I wondered what it would have been like to watch Sean and I side by side as a spectator. Was our sexual energy as palpable and suffocating to everyone around us? It felt all-consuming, and half the time I didn’t know if I was intoxicated on the mix of whiskey and beer, or purely on the intensity of Sean’s presence. He filled every crevice of my mind and aroused the fibers of my being that had been dormant all these years.