by Coralee June
I would have thrown my head back and laughed, but the wall and his grip were keeping me still. “You sure do have a good poker face. You had me convinced you were excited to see me.”
“I can be pissed off and still excited. Why are you here?”
“I need your help,” I replied, the words tasting bitter on my tongue. Admitting I needed help was like a kick to the metaphoric balls. I’d needed a lot of help lately. Help getting out of a court-ordered institution. Help ending Samuel. Fuck, I even needed help getting Noah off my back.
No. More.
“With what?” he asked, his lips so close to mine I could pucker and brush against him.
“Tell Nathaniel Youngblood what happened that night. He doesn’t believe me, and I need help proving that Samuel is an asshat.”
“Samuel is an asshat. Doesn’t require much convincing. And you want me to admit to Mr. Golden Boy that I dealt some bad drugs so he can turn me into the cops? No, thank you. And even if I didn’t think he’d turn me in, I still wouldn’t say shit.”
I jerked my hips forward, colliding with the hard erection pressing through his jeans. Oh yeah, this little interaction was turning him on. “Why?”
“Because Samuel owes me a fuck ton of money. If he goes to jail, then I won’t get it.” That was interesting. I knew Samuel owed him, but I didn’t know the specifics.
“How much does he owe you?” I could feel his fingers tighten on my throat, so I jolted my hips up just to show him that if he wanted to terrify me, he’d lose. I watched as his green eyes flared with a heat I could feel burning me up from the inside out. When his intimidation tactic didn’t work, I sensed that he was about to pull away, so I wrapped my leg around his hips, holding him right where I wanted him. Or at least right where I thought I wanted him. My wants and needs and repulsions were a red hot mess lately.
“He owes me enough, Octavia. Enough that I’m not really keen on helping you.”
I smiled. Oh, he was keen enough. The evidence was pressed against my stomach. I bet if I pulled him into one of these spare rooms, he’d keen all over my stomach in hot, sticky spurts.
Oh hello, libido, my long lost friend. How’s it hanging?
“Why are you smiling?”
“ ’Cause I want to fuck you.”
I’ve always heard people describe sex like an inferno. And yeah, it could be hot. But Renon was like ice, making shivers travel up and down my spine. It was like chipping away at his cool facade, and the bastard returned my eager grin.
“Of course you want to fuck me. Who wouldn’t? I’d say get in line, but I’m not interested.”
I didn’t bother to look around, I simply slipped my hand behind the waistband of his jeans, then dragged my nails along his cock in a way that could only be interpreted as predatory. “Not interested, huh?” I asked.
He winced but didn’t move. I had the narcissistic drug dealer literally by the balls, and the crazy in my eyes made the ice in his stare melt. “Let go,” he growled.
“Help me,” I replied before wrapping my nimble fingers around him with a scowl. Renon needed a new nickname. Ice Man.
“Get me my money, and I will.”
I had something better than money. I had shame. I was going to shame Samuel Smith and get Renon his cash. I’d have my proof, then Nathaniel could have his rose-colored glasses removed. “I know how to get your money,” I said with a grin before removing my hand and dragging my index finger back up his chest. I could hear hoots and hollers. So what if they saw me with my hand down his pants? A little PDA and dick groping never hurt nobody.
“How?”
I leaned forward and bit the lip he was chewing on, tugging on the sumptuous skin like it was mine for the taking. He had the typical response. A grunt. A curse. He gave in easier than I would have liked, but he gave in all the same. I hid behind our kiss for a minute before pulling away. “Blackmail.”
He palmed my breast like he had a right to. “Talking dirty? I might have to put you at the front of the line, crazy girl.”
I reached up and gave him one more kiss for good measure. It was one of those sweeping, lingering kisses that branded me good and well on his self-absorbed brain. “Call me,” I said before pulling a slip of paper out of my bra with my number on it and sliding it into his pocket.
Then I pulled away. If disappointment had a sound, it was the grunt in his chest and the music playing on the speakers. It would be a needy sound, the soundtrack to my fucking life. “Where are you going?” he asked
“To find Nathaniel and fuck him,” I replied, wishing it were true. Who knew? Stranger things had happened—like William dying and taking a bit of my fire with him. Now I was nothing but cold.
Chapter 6
I did not fuck Nathaniel Youngblood. We went home early. My job was done.
Young looked at my smeared lipstick and wrinkled dress as we drove home. He was white-knuckling the steering wheel like it held all the answers to sexual tension.
Even though Renon didn’t outright agree to help me, I knew it would only be a matter of time. Narcissistic people liked to know everything. They liked to dip their greedy little fingers into everyone else’s frosting and swipe a taste. He wanted me. He wanted his money. He wanted to fuck with Samuel as much as I did. I gave it two days.
“I take it you saw Renon?” Young finally asked through clenched teeth. He resembled the murderer I once accused him of being. Pursed lips. Dipped brow. He looked angry enough to fuck. For a moment, I almost forgot that I couldn’t have him.
“Saw him. Felt him. Kissed him. Your dick is bigger, by the way. Not by much. Maybe a millimeter. Does that make you feel good?”
He went from murderous to deadly. One more tick on his anger meter, and I’d be sitting next to the devil. “No. Why the fuck do you know how big his dick was?” Young asked. It was rare that I got to see this side of him. I’d placed him in that little box of helpless widower, and he punched holes through the cardboard. Once a calm steady presence of confidence and grief, Young looked like the rose growing in concrete he once so fondly described me as.
“I had to get his attention somehow,” I replied with a wave of my hand. “I bet he calls. He’s gonna help me prove it to you.”
Young let out a sigh, a bit of the tension in his shoulders fading. “I hate to break it to you, but I doubt his word means much.”
“Is there something else I don’t know? Why don’t you like him? I happen to think he’s incredibly likable.” Or at least his body was.
“I don’t like that he was friends with William. He had a piece of my boyfriend I knew nothing about, and it’s bugging the shit out of me,” Young replied in an ominous tone worthy of a soap opera. What was with all the theatrics? Why couldn’t people just spit out whatever the fuck they needed to say? Young needed to air out his wounds and show the world he survived.
“I have pieces of William you know nothing about, and yet you seem attached to me. Maybe you could learn.”
“I don’t want to learn, Octavia. I’m starting to want to move on.”
No. No. No.
There wasn’t moving on. There was moving forward. There was moving away. Moving towards. Moving on meant forgetting, and I wasn’t willing to forget William ever, and neither should Young. I hated that phrase; it was something Noah used to discuss during his drunken therapy sessions. Moving on was out of the question, and fuck Nathaniel Youngblood for even suggesting it.
“For someone who wants to move on, you have a shitty way of showing it,” I said before biting my lip. I was trying to push him, anger him. “You and I both know that you’ll be stuck on William till the day you die; it’s why you and I won’t ever happen.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah,” I lied.
Young grunted. “I thought you were chronically honest, Tav. You and I both know that this thing between us is inevitable.” This conversation wasn’t going the way I thought it would, and I wasn’t sure if I liked that or not.
&n
bsp; “Yeah, well, we also both know that the only reason I’m here is because you want William back so badly that you’d put up with his insane sister. Noah thinks that you’re addicted to me, but I know the truth. You’re addicted to William. Or at least the idea of him.”
We kept driving through the night, weaving in and out of the late night traffic of New York with a vengeance. He drove as if he could work through how pissed off he was on the pavement. “Did you fuck him?” Young finally asked out of the blue.
“Who? Renon? Would you care if I did? And don’t feed me some line about how you feel responsible for me because I’m William’s sister. Tell me the truth, and I might reward you for it,” I said just as he pulled down a dark alley and kicked the car into park. I didn’t even have a second to orient myself before he was unbuckling me and yanking me over the center console onto his lap. I whimpered as my dress got caught on the gear shift, but Young’s determination wasn’t deterred.
I had no idea how the fuck I went from taunting Young to straddling him in the front seat of his BMW. I pushed up on my knees to give us space, and he quickly unzipped his pants and pulled out his hard cock, the only thing between us was my thin black thong.
And his sense of right and wrong.
And my loyalty to William.
And the whole goddamn world.
Within seconds, I had my thong shifted to the side and he was sliding into me with a loud grunt. The concrete jungle surrounded us, my heel was caught on the steering wheel, and every time I lifted up to slide right back down, my head bumped on the roof of the car. It was an uncoordinated clusterfuck that I couldn’t really feel because orgasms were for girls not on antidepressants and mood stabilizers. But sometimes sex wasn’t about getting off. Sometimes it was about proving to yourself that something other than loss and hate could fill you up.
“Did you fuck him?” Young asked as he palmed my breast, squeezing so tightly that it hurt. I looked in his dark eyes and observed the shadows on his sharp face. I arched my back, hitting the horn on the steering wheel while reaching for the radio to turn up the music so I wouldn’t have to hear about how he didn’t want me, he wanted something Renon wanted. All these fucked up men in my life with their fucked up baggage. Young turned it back down.
“Are you fucking me so you can brag about it to Renon later?” I asked with a gasp. He was bumping that special spot and jerking his hips up to meet each of my strides. I wrapped my hands around the headrest, caging him in and forcing him to look into my haunted eyes. ’Cause if he was going to use me, he would be regretting it later.
He tried not to see me. He avoided my gaze, but I kept steady. Riding his cock in a crowded luxury car, parked in an abandoned alley with nothing but rock music and our words to make it feel like something other than a meaningless fuck.
“No,” Young finally answered. “I’m doing this because…” He broke off mid sentence to lean forward and turn the rock music completely off, during an epic guitar rift. “I’m doing this because I couldn’t go another minute without being inside of you,” he growled as I propped my foot up on the edge of his seat to take him deeper. My other foot was still on the wheel. I felt like a contortionist, and pretty soon my feet would fall asleep, but I didn’t dare give up. “Why are you doing this?” he asked before moving his hands down to grip my hips, where my black dress was bunched up. He clenched the fabric and my hip bones, digging his nails into whatever inch of skin he could get his greedy hands on.
“I don’t need a reason, Young,” I replied in a breathy tone while increasing my pace. I knew he was close, could sense it in the way he was twitching. Each muscle in his torso seemed tense and ready to uncoil.
“But you have one,” he grunted in response. He was almost there. I kissed him so he wouldn’t force the truth out of me. My reasons were my own. Momentarily distracted, Young dipped his tongue in my mouth, invading me with his taste before biting my lips. It was a reckless sort of kiss and echoed the brutal fuck we were in the middle of. I scratched and clawed my way through his consciousness, hoping he would forget his question, but he didn’t.
I tossed my head back as he sank his teeth into my neck, sucking and tugging at my erratic pulse. I moaned with each lift of my pelvis. He stopped to ask me again, though. “Tell me your reason. You have one, I know you do.”
“Yeah,” I began with a smile while fucking him without mercy. “My reason is I do whatever the fuck I want. And right now, I want you.”
He came like it was something he’d been holding onto for hours. It was loud and reckless, and I watched in appreciation as his entire body melted in the driver’s seat of his fancy BMW. I owned his body and every bit of his self-loathing. I owned his misery. I owned how he missed William, and took whatever bits of jealousy and confusion he had to offer, knowing that there was no going back.
Nathaniel Youngblood was mine, for now.
Chapter 7
The next morning, I snuck out of Young’s bed. We’d raced home and enjoyed three more rounds of furious fucking. It was wonderful, until I’d woken up.
It wasn’t the sex that bothered me. No, I’d been liberal with my body ever since I learned the power it had over people. Fucking was just souls bringing each other a sense of relief. I’d never feared an orgasm, nor had I ever shied away from the judgment associated with having no conscience.
It wasn’t the sex that fucked me.
It was the way Young held me that night. He cradled my head like I was something worth treasuring. It really got to me, made me want to vomit in his bed and run as far away as I could. Intimacy was a weakness of mine. Everyone I ever trusted to love me failed me in one way or another, and I knew that Young would never truly love me, at least not as much as he loved William.
So I put on his shirt like a souvenir and left for coffee the next morning, with plans not to return. Maybe if I left Young with a cold pillow, he’d remember that I wasn’t good enough for his affections.
I wandered around for a while, staring at people and shop windows until I found myself in a coffee shop bustling with people. It wasn’t until I looked around that I realized it was the place Young used to frequent with William. I figured it was my dead brother’s way of fucking with me, reminding me that he had something special with Young that I never would.
I ordered coffee that matched my soul: sickly sweet with more creamer than substance. I wasn’t a fucking cliche that liked the bitter taste of black coffee; I was something that people craved, and I sure as fuck wasn’t good for the people that ordered me.
Sitting in the same neon orange chair at the same table as before, I stared at the cheesy sign that read “Live your best life” and snorted. What a bunch of crap. There was no such thing as a best life. There was only survival.
I sipped the creamy goodness while trying to remember if I brushed my teeth that morning. I had been so desperate to get out of there that I didn’t even look in the mirror.
“Is this seat taken?” a gruff voice asked. I looked up and sneered at the person wanting to sit next to me. I’d hoped that it would be a while before I had to see Samuel Smith, but it seemed fate wanted to destroy me today.
“Do whatever you want, Samuel.” I knew he’d choose to stay. If I really wanted him gone, I’d pour my scalding coffee in his face and laugh as the police carried me away. They say it’s best to keep your enemies close, and since I once let Samuel inside of me, that meant I’d internalized his evil.
He sat down, sans coffee. I bet he didn’t drink the stuff. Samuel started his day with the blood of his enemies and went from there. “Did you get my flowers?” he asked. What an odd question to start off with.
“Yeah, they smelled like gun smoke,” I replied. I didn’t actually know if they did. I was too busy symbolically chewing on the petals and discarding them. “Did you pick them out? Or did you just order something generic to feel better about yourself?”
Samuel reached over and grabbed my coffee. He took a tentative sip, and I fleetingly
wished I could have poisoned myself and taken him down with me. “This tastes disgustingly sweet,” he said with a wince before sliding it back over to me.
That was the fucking point, Samuel Smith. Everything I did had a point. It was one of the many consequences of feeling everything and nothing. You had to act with intention and claim every last metaphor you could.
“Why are you here?” I asked with a frown. I couldn’t even finish my coffee, knowing that his lips had touched the rim of my cup. Maybe that was the real reason I couldn’t come while at the institute. My cunt had been tainted by Samuel Smith.
“Have you told anyone?” he asked.
“I’ve told everyone,” I replied before getting up to throw away my nearly full drink. When I got back to the table to sit down, Samuel was shaking in his seat with anger. “Luckily for you, everyone thinks I’m crazy. No one wants to believe a grieving sister with a history of hospitalization.”
It was so fucked up. The stigma of being out of your mind meant that anyone could hurt you and get away with it. The only proof I had was me—and everyone thought I couldn’t be trusted. Figured.
“Does it help that I hate myself?” Samuel’s question caught me off guard, and I legitimately didn’t know how to respond. Did it help? Yes. Yes, it did. But did it bring back my brother?
No. No, it did not.
“It would help if you sent yourself flowers, then choked on a thorn,” I replied in earnest. I wanted nothing more than to inflict the kind of pain Samuel inflicted on me. I didn’t understand the type of pressure he felt—didn’t know why he was so desperate to graduate that he was willing to ruin my brother. But I did know he would one day pay for what he did.
“Tell me about your parents,” I said with a frown. I guessed in some ways they were to blame, too. At the rate I was going, there was so much serendipitous chaos that brought my brother to an early grave that I didn’t know where to start. The parents who pressured Samuel. The woman who blackmailed Nathaniel Young. The drug dealer with defective drugs. Hell, even Noah was responsible. If he hadn’t intervened to get me locked up, maybe someone would have believed me when I said Samuel Smith killed my brother.