I push against his chest, wanting to be put back on my feet, but his hands on me tighten, and I can’t get away from his kisses.
“Decon, stop,” I say against his lips that are still moving quickly against mine.
I hear his zipper get pulled down, and a sudden rush of panic overwhelms me. I said stop, and he’s not stopping. If I don’t allow this, he will take what he wants.
“Owe,” I cry out loud when he rips my panties from my body.
But he doesn’t stop. Then a figure of a man steps into the alley.
“Hey!” he screams, causing us both to freeze and look his way.
4
Callan
I’m walking through the club when I see Val’s little girlfriend. In all the years I’ve known them, they’re always together. But now, she’s grinding against some guy on the dance floor, and Val is nowhere to be found. I know that if she kept up drinking the way she was, she’s beyond trashed right now.
I pull her friend, whose name I can’t remember, off to the side. “Where’s Val?” I ask loudly, above the music.
“She’s in the booth over there with Decon. Hopefully getting laid by now.” She smiles before rushing back to the guy she’s with.
I shake my head, anger surging through my body. I swear, if I find her getting fucked in a club, I’m going to whip her ass and then tell her brother so he can ground her or some shit. I head back in the direction I was pointed to. The booth is empty.
“Fuck,” I mumble, turning around. I walk through the club, and when I come back empty-handed, I walk outside.
The street is quiet, all but the busy traffic. I hear a woman yell, and I follow the sound around the corner. In the darkness, I can see two people against the building, and I immediately know it’s her.
“Hey!” I yell, causing them both to freeze.
I start walking down the dark alley.
“What the fuck do you want?” a guy yells as I draw closer.
“Valerie, let’s go,” I demand.
“Hey, dickwad. I don’t think she gives a shit what you have to say.” He sets her down and fastens his belt while she stumbles forward, trying to right her dress. “Why don’t you run along so we can get back to doing what we were doing before you interrupted,” he says, walking closer.
Valerie pisses me off more than I can explain, but I know Bennet would kick my ass if I left her drunk in a dark alley to get treated like a hooker.
I don’t say anything as we both walk closer to one another, but the second he’s within reach, I swing, landing a solid hit to his jaw. It stuns him for a second, but then he jumps toward me, trying to take me to the ground, and I spin around, throwing my elbow down on his spine. He calls out in pain as he crumbles to the ground. I pull my foot back and land a kick to his stomach, making sure he stays down.
I hold out my hand. “Now, Valerie.” I look into her eyes and can see she’s fucked up. It’s almost like she doesn’t even recognize me. Her eyes are wide with fear as she shakes her head and takes a step back. Her ankle rolls in those shoes and she tumbles back on her ass.
“Damnit, Valerie. Get up and come with me now or I’ll pick your ass up and carry you.”
“Fuck you, Callan. You don’t get to tell me what to do.” She sounds like a spoiled teenager right now. So she does know who I am.
I let out a deep breath, then bend down and haul her ass over my shoulder. She smacks my back. “Put me down, Callan!” she yells as I walk down the alley with her, but I don’t. No fucking way I’m leaving her drunk ass alone in this alley with that guy.
I walk her out of the alley and to my car before I set her on her feet. The second she’s standing on her own, she stumbles and topples over. Luckily for her, I reach out and catch her.
“Whoa, you alright?” I ask, steadying her.
She smacks my hand away as she leans against my car. Her face is suddenly void of emotion.
“Val, are you okay? Did he slip you something?” I ask, but it seems like her eyes aren’t focusing on me.
Suddenly, she bends over and empties her stomach all over my shoes.
“Goddamn it!” I yell, opening the car door for her. I place my hands on her shoulders and gently move her over to the seat. She sits down, hanging her head between her legs while she finishes emptying her stomach. Finally, she leans back, and I pick up her feet, putting them into the floorboard. I close the door between us and kick the fucking tire.
So much for my threesome I had lined up.
I walk around the car, sit in the driver's seat, and then look at my shoes that are covered in vomit. Deciding to say fuck it, I kick them off and leave them laying in the street, driving home in my bare feet.
Valerie sleeps the entire way, and she doesn’t stir when I try waking her. I end up having to carry her into the house. I cradle her against my chest and carry her upstairs. Her head rolls from one side to the other, but she doesn’t wake up.
I lay her in the bed in the guest room and remove her shoes. I can’t imagine keeping my feet squeezed into such impossible shoes all night. When I step back and look down at her, I see the front of her dress covered in vomit.
“What the fuck, Val?” I whisper, shaking my head.
I quickly grab a large t-shirt out of my room and walk back to get her changed. I roll her to the side and unzip her dress. I’ve only got the zipper down a couple of inches, but already I can tell she isn’t wearing a bra. I close my eyes and take a deep breath.
I step back, wondering how in the hell I can get her changed without seeming like a creep that’s stripping the drunk girl. In the end, I pull her arms out of the sleeves of the dress but leave the material up over her chest before pulling on the t-shirt. After working the shirt down over her body, I pull the dress out from underneath. Finally, I pull the blankets up her body. As I turn to leave, I hear her gag in her sleep, and I rush back to roll her onto her side. It seems she has nothing left to kick out of her body, but she’s still dry heaving.
Once I’m sure she’s done and back asleep, I leave the room. I go into my room next door and strip down to my boxers. Then decide I should bring in a trash can and a bottle of water. I run down to the kitchen and get both before taking them back to her room. Finally, I’m able to lay down, but I can’t fall asleep. I’m too worried. What if she gets sick in her sleep and chokes? God, I’d never hear the end of it from Bennet.
“Motherfucker, goddamn, son of a bitch,” I curse as I nearly stomp back to her room. I get in the bed beside her, so I’ll wake if something happens. I scoot to the furthest edge of the bed, not wanting any confusion in the morning.
I hear a gasp, and my eyes pop open. My arm is under her neck, her knee against my morning wood.
“What the fuck, Callan?” she squeals, pulling away from me.
I shoot up into an upright position, darting out of bed. Her eyes take me in, in nothing but my boxers.
Her eyes grow wide as she shakes her head. “No. No, no, no, no, no.” She looks down to find herself in nothing but a t-shirt.
Suddenly, I’m panicked. My head is shaking, and my hands are waving back and forth. “No, Val. Nothing happened. Fuck no,” I tell her.
She freezes. “No-nothing happened?” she asks, eyes filled with fear.
I fall onto the bed in a sitting position. “If you call getting slipped the date rape drug and being taken out to an alley nothing, then yeah. Nothing happened.”
“What?” she asks, confused.
“What do you remember about last night?” I ask her.
She thinks for a moment. “I remember going to the club, seeing you, hanging out with Decon. We got a little too close in the club, and I remember going outside. But that’s it.”
“You don’t remember me stopping you from getting fucked in an alley?”
Her head falls forward, and her shoulders slump. “No,” she admits.
“You don’t remember puking all over your dress and my shoes?”
She shakes her head. “H
ow did I get in this shirt, anyway?”
“I put it on you.”
“You what?” she yells, pulling the blanket up over her shoulders.
“Don’t worry. I didn’t see anything. I was a complete gentleman.”
She snorts. “I find that hard to believe.”
“Me too, but I was. I swear. I know we both hate each other, but you’re my best friend’s sister. I don’t want to see you hurt, okay?”
She offers up a small smile and nods. “God, my fucking head hurts.” She massages her temples.
“Yeah, I’ve heard drugs do that to you. You should probably take a test to see what exactly you were spiked with.”
She lays back down. “Do you care if I just sleep it off a little while?”
I stand. “Sure. I’ll call Bennet and let him know that you’re here.” I head for the door.
She shoots up. “No, Callan, please don’t tell him.”
“What am I supposed to tell him then? How can I explain you staying the night? I’d rather have him thinking that I rescued you than slept with you.”
One of her brows lifts. “Okay, just, let him know that I’m fine. I’ll deal with him later.”
She lays back down, and I leave the room, ready to shower and maybe catch another couple hours of sleep.
“Hello?” Bennet answers.
“Hey, man,” I say, pouring a glass of water.
“What’s up?”
“I just wanted to give you a call and fill you in on the recent turn of events.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah, I, ugh…went to the club last night and ran into your sister. She was with some asshole, and I think he slipped her something. I caught him in the alley with her, and she doesn’t remember any of it. She got really sick, so I brought her back to my place. She’s fine, but she’s not feeling well, and she’s sleeping it off. I just didn’t want you or your mom to worry.”
He lets out a deep breath. “Fuck,” he breathes out. “Thanks, Cal. I owe you one.”
“Yeah, you do,” I agree. “A new pair of shoes, preferably like the ones she puked on.”
“Seriously, I don’t know what my mom would do if anything happened to her. She’s the baby, you know?”
I nod. “Yeah, well, she’s fine. You know she drives me crazy, but I’d never turn my back on her, or you.”
“Should I come get her?” he asks.
“Nah, she’s asleep. Just let her sleep it off, and I’ll take her home later.”
“Alright. Thanks again.”
“No problem,” I say, hanging up the phone and tossing it onto the empty bed.
I take a nap, shower, dress, and head downstairs to try and find a late lunch. I make a big sandwich with ham, turkey, cheese, lettuce, tomato, and mustard. I grab a bag of chips and a jar of pickles before heading back to the dining room table. I’ve just taken a bite out of the sandwich when Val walks into the room. She looks rough as hell. Her hair is a tangled mess, she has dark circles under her eyes, and her skin is pale. She collapses into the chair next to me.
“Feeling okay?” I ask, picking up half the sandwich and sliding the plate her way.
She looks at the plate and then at me. “Why are you being so nice to me?”
I shrug and take a bite of my sandwich. “I figure you’ve had enough shit to deal with, and even more coming your way with your mom and brother.”
She picks up the other half of my sandwich and takes a bite. Her eyes close as her head leans back. “This is so good.”
“Are you sure you’re feeling good? It’s just a sandwich, nothing special.”
“My head is still pounding. And I feel weird. It’s like, I keep trying to remember something that I never knew to begin with.”
“I don’t think you want to remember anything from last night.”
“That bad? I didn’t flash anyone, right?”
I laugh and shrug. “No idea what you did before I found you in that alley. Who the fuck was the guy you were with? He needs to be straightened out.”
“It’s this guy I met working at the art gallery. His name is Decon James. I can’t believe he’d drug me. We’ve known one another for almost a year.”
“And by known, you mean…?”
She moves her head from side to side. “We make-out, flirt, hang. We’ve never slept together.”
“I’d say Decon figured if he couldn’t seal the deal himself, he was going to bring backup.”
“I feel so stupid,” she breathes out. “And embarrassed.”
“It’s nothing to be embarrassed about. You didn’t take the drug willingly, did you?”
She frowns at me. “No way. I don’t do drugs. Never have.”
I nod. “That’s all I needed to know.” Already, I’m picturing tracking this guy down and beating his fucking brains out for pulling that shit. And it’s not just over Val. It’s the fact that he’s probably done this to many girls and has gotten away with it. I can’t wait to run into Decon James again. I can’t help the smile that appears on my face.
5
Valerie
Looking at Callan right now, something feels different. He no longer pisses me off just by looking at me. His voice is suddenly tolerable. He doesn’t even appear the same. That smug, cocky look I usually see when I glance at him is gone. Maybe last night was what we needed to be able to work together. Maybe it’s the start of our friendship.
We both sit quietly and eat the sandwich and chips. He reaches over and pops the top of the pickle jar. He takes one and shoves the whole spear into his mouth before sliding it to me. I smile, take one, and do the same. His eyes double in size and the corners of his mouth turn up.
I slide the jar back to him, and he repeats the process, and so do I. We do this back and forth until the entire jar is gone.
“Thanks for lunch,” I say, standing. “You mind if I shower? I don’t want to give my mom a heart attack walking back in the house looking like this.”
He lets out a laugh. “No, go ahead. I’ll dig you out some clothes and leave them on the bed for you. I highly doubt you will ever want to wear that dress again.”
My face scrunches up, and I feel the heat suddenly radiating off it.
He chuckles. “Are you embarrassed?”
“Well, yeah! Wouldn’t you be?” I ask as he stands and picks up the plate to put it away.
He places his hand on my bicep. “At this point, I think you should just be thankful to be alive.” He smiles kindly and walks away, leaving me staring after him.
On my walk up the stairs, I think about the way he’s suddenly acting toward me. It’s nice and all, but it’s weird, and it makes me leery of when he’s going to go back to the old Callan, the one that lived to torture me. I brush the thoughts off, telling myself that he’ll probably rear his ugly head first thing Monday morning to welcome me back.
A part of me wonders if he’s worried about me. He seems that way. Like he’s scared to push my buttons in fear I may break open at any moment. I guess what I’ve gone through is a traumatic experience, but truthfully, I don’t remember any of it. I’m just glad Callan was there to save me. I don’t know what I would’ve done had I woken up in that alley alone this morning, missing my clothing. Just thinking of it makes me shudder.
I take a long hot shower, and when I get out, I find fresh clothing for me folded up on the bed. I pull on the pair of baggy basketball shorts and the t-shirt. Then I begin to look around for my clutch. Callan taps on the door before opening it.
“Are you ready for a ride home?”
I spin around. “Where’s my purse?”
His mouth opens, but no words come out.
“Fuck, I lost my purse?”
“I…I don’t…I didn’t see a purse.” He walks deeper into the room, eyes full of regret.
“Can you take me back to the club? Maybe someone turned it in?”
He nods. “Yeah, okay.”
We load up into his car, and he parks out front. I look over
at him and he looks over at me.
“Are you going to run in?” he asks.
“Looking like this?” I motion down my body. “I don’t even have shoes.”
He lets out a deep breath. “Okay,” he says, climbing out and walking into the building.
I sit waiting, my legs bouncing the whole time. Finally, he walks out, and I catch a glimpse of my red clutch under his arm. It feels like my heart starts beating again.
He slides into the car and passes it over. I take it and immediately start looking through it.
The only things inside are my I.D. and lipstick. “Fuck,” I breathe out, slumping into my seat.
“What?” he asks, pulling back out into traffic.
“My phone and money are gone,” I tell him.
“How much money?”
I wave it off. “Not enough to worry about. Luckily, I didn’t bring my entire wallet that has my debit card and credit cards. But my phone? I need my phone.”
“I’ll just swing in someplace. We’ll get you another one, and you can just download everything from the cloud.”
“I can’t afford a new phone,” I cry out. “I can’t even afford toilet paper.”
He laughs. “Don’t worry about it, Val. We’ll write it off for work. I like my assistants to have phones so I can bug them anytime I need to.”
I look over at him. “Thank you, Callan.”
He waves his hand through the air. “It’s nothing. Thank your brother if you’re going to thank anyone.” He laughs.
Unfortunately, I have to go into the phone store so I can authorize everything, but an hour later, we’re back in the car with my new phone—a phone much nicer than the one I had. While everything downloads, I look over at him.
“So, does everything go back to normal on Monday?”
He glances at me from the corner of his eye. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, when I go into the office on Monday, will I see this Callan or the Callan I’ve known my whole life?”
My Boss’s Sister: Make Her Mine Series-Book 3 Page 3
