Stand: A Bleeding Stars Stand-Alone Novel

by A. L. Jackson

  I forced out the raspy words. “Before we move any further, I need to know one thing. Tell me this isn’t cheating.”

  His strong jaw trembled. “No.”

  Relief. It hit me on all sides.

  Should I feel it?

  I didn’t know. Because something about his response and reservations felt off. Wrong. While everything else felt perfectly right. This road ours. Purposed.

  I cupped his face, forcing him to look at me when I kissed him softly. Reverently.

  Before I took a leap of faith because I’d always believed faith would catch me. “Then I don’t care what’s standing between us as long as we have right now.”

  He roughed his hands up the outside of my thighs, his heart slamming at his ribs as his fingers sank into the soft flesh of my ass, pulling me closer to his straining body.

  He groaned, and I swore his eyes rolled back in his head. “Fuck…you feel so good. Too good.”

  The softest giggle rolled up my throat, something awed and confused and elated. My voice was a trembling, breathy mess of lust and emotion. “You’re barely touching me.”

  Somehow, that felt like a lie. I could feel him everywhere.

  Low laughter rumbled in his chest, and there was something dark about it, something both regretful and amazed when he buried his face in my neck and murmured the words, “You have no idea, Lex. No idea what just touching you like this does to me. I could die a happy man right now…but we need to stop.”

  The frenzy had worn off, and my senses slowly came back into focus. I chewed at my lip, finding restraint in a moment I wanted to let go most. “You’re probably right. We should slow down. I’m not exactly a one-night stand kind of girl.”

  And I was sure once I gave that part of myself to him, I’d never fully recover when he was gone.

  Guess I had a little self-preservation, after all.

  Chuckling, he ran a knuckle down the side of my cheek. “No?”

  My head shook, and I could feel the soft smile playing around my mouth. “No.”

  “That’s good, because I’m not much of a one-night stand kind of guy.”

  I looked up at his stunning face, my insides trembling with the need to know him.

  Would he ever let me?

  “What kind of guy are you?”

  His teeth ground, hands tensing on my hip, as if warring over what to give. Slowly he lowered me to my feet, his touch so tender as he helped to resituate my clothing. He peeked up at me as he straightened my blouse back onto my shoulder.

  “If I could be, I’d be a forever kind of guy. But I gave up my forever a long time ago.”

  Affection brimmed inside me, all tangled with hurt and worry for this broken boy. Wishing there was a way to fix it, whatever it was.

  I cleared my throat and stepped away from him. “I should probably get going. It’s late.”

  He stepped back to put more distance between us. “You probably should or I might not let you leave.”

  I headed for my bag, peering back at the man who watched me softly as I went. I could feel his eyes tracing me, caressing me just as sure as his hands. Remnants of desire trembled beneath the surface of my skin.

  My body already hooked.

  Needy for his touch.

  I nearly jumped out of my skin when my phone started ringing from my bag. “Oh…crap…I didn’t even realize I’d left it.”

  I guess that’s what happened when you got wrapped up in a hypnotizing boy—you forget yourself.

  I fumbled through my bag to find my phone. It glowed where it sat on the bottom, and all that desire I’d been feeling scattered in a bluster of wind like the last of autumn’s fallen leaves.

  Avril.

  I swallowed hard in attempt to steel myself for her call. I never knew what was going to be waiting for me on the other end. What I did know was it never was good.

  Hands shaking, I accepted the call and pushed it to my ear, turning away from Zee because somehow I couldn’t stand to see him watching me as I took this call.

  “Avril,” I said, voice low.

  Sobs echoed on the other end. “I need you.”

  Of course she did.

  “I told you, you need to stop doing this.” I’d been telling her for years.

  “I just need something to eat.”

  My head dropped, fingers on my temples, knowing her excuse amounted to nothing but a lie. “At one in the morning?”

  “Please.”

  “Damn it, Avril.” It was a sigh of surrender. She knew it well.

  She started to ramble. “Thank you so much, Alexis. After this time, I won’t ask you anymore. I promise. I just…need something to get me through the night.”

  Agony clutched every cell in my body.

  I knew what she meant. Where she’d slipped. What it was she really was needing.

  Guilt locked in my chest when I told her to meet me at the same intersection I’d met her at the last time—the day Zee had followed me and somehow set all this in motion.

  I ended the call.

  Silence swamped the open space, filling it like black waters that lapped and churned and raged.

  Goose bumps lifted at my nape when I felt the puff of air exhaled at the back of my neck, blowing through the matted strands of my hair as his rage trickled down my spine like a warning.

  “That was your sister?”

  Shivers rushed.

  I should feel fear. But the only thing I felt was safety in his anger. Comfort in his dread.

  “She needs me,” I whispered, hating that I sounded so helpless. But in this situation, that was exactly what I was.

  He snaked an arm around my waist so his hand was against my stomach as he yanked me back against the hard planes of his chest.

  His mouth was at my cheek. “And what if I need you? What if I need you safe? What if I need you to stay out of that side of town so I don’t end up in prison?”

  I felt the truth of his threat.

  The words were thick. “I feel her, Zee. When she hurts, I do, too, and I know exactly what it is she’s feeling. I can’t ignore that. Not for me. Not for you.”

  Torment. I felt it. His and mine. As if he somehow could understand what it was like to be in this position, he tightened his hold, every inch of him still hard, maybe harder as his muscles bristled with this barely contained storm that threatened to spin out of control.

  “I won’t let him hurt you. Told you that night. Not ever again.” His second hand wound around me, belted around my waist. “You know I’m coming with you.”

  There was no question behind it.

  And I think I knew right then—If Zee made a promise, he was going to keep it.

  Chapter Twenty

  Zee

  I pried the keys out of her trembling hands. Shocked, she looked up at me. Anguish swam in the deep wells of blue that were normally so bright.

  I opened the passenger door. “Get in.”

  “I can drive.”

  I grabbed her hand, pressed it flat across my chest where it vibrated and quaked. “No way, Alexis. You actually think I’m going to let you get behind the wheel when you’re in this state?”

  Problem was, I’d put down bets she’d done it a hundred times before. All that time, this girl hadn’t had someone to stand by her side.

  Her gaze swept over me as she edged forward, and she nodded slow as she folded herself in the passenger seat. I leaned in, buckling her seatbelt as this insane sense of protectiveness swelled.

  A storm building in the distance. Ready to consume.

  Every inch of me tightened, my jaw clenching as I started to lean back out and instead got tripped up on her gorgeous, trusting face.

  I cupped her cheek. “You really think I’m gonna let you go out there alone?”

  Her head shook. “No.”

  “I just…I’m not normally like this when she calls. So shook up. I…” She trailed off, her gaze dropping to her lap.

  “You what?”

  Her
eyes fluttered back up. “After that night—”

  She swallowed, her confession raw. “It changed me, Zee. He made me fear things I’d never stopped long enough to fear before. I hate feeling this way.”

  Anger bristled and burned and twisted my guts. I wanted to hunt the fucker down. Take him out. Wipe his stain from the earth.

  I hated for even a second he’d held power over her belief and faith.

  I framed her sweet face in my hands, my mouth an inch from hers, our stares locked. “No fear. Just life.”

  A single tear slid from the corner of her eye. “You’re the one who gave it back to me. Ensured I didn’t lose it at the risk of your own. Words don’t contain the power to describe what that means to me. How it affected me.”

  She grappled for my hand and set it over the thunder of her heart. “How you marked me right here.”

  My spirit thrashed the lyrics of her song. One that was hard and confused and so utterly soft. Where the words held too much power and said all the things I’d never be allowed to say.

  “I know, Lex. I know. That night changed me, too.”

  And there was no chance in hell I’d ever let something like that happen again. Not to her.

  Not ever.

  I rounded the back of her car and hopped in the driver’s seat, turned over the ignition, and took to the street. Darkness blew passed the windows like the rush of a nightmare as we headed in the direction of what had gone down that night.

  Memories of my brother inundated my mind, slamming me with a violence strong enough to cut me in two. Part of me had hated him for what he’d put me through. For the worry and the sleepless nights and the betrayals that I’d taken like a personal insult.

  Funny how, in the end, my treacheries had been so much greater than his.

  There’d been no time for apologies. No time for explanations. No time to tell him I’d take it all back.

  Because all his time was gone. Just like time was fleeting for me and Alexis.

  I fought against the onslaught of it all, knuckles white where I death-gripped the wheel, teeth grinding so hard I was sure they’d be nothing but powder.

  A soft hand touched my forearm. “Don’t blame her.”

  How could Alexis know? Could she feel that I wanted to shake her? Scream at her that it was no fucking use and tell her never to give up in the same breath?

  Did she know?

  Every nerve in my body was on edge when I jerked her car into a parking lot in front of a shitty 24-hour convenience store. It sat like some kind of twisted portal into a pit filled with nothing but the vile.

  God knew I’d been down there too many times.

  That possessiveness and protectiveness lapped into a flame as I thought of how many times this girl had traipsed down to this side of town in the middle of the night.

  She clicked open her door. My hand shot to her arm. “Don’t move.”

  I got out and went to her side. My attention was sharp, darting around the area, calculating every face and every intention.

  It finally landed on the worn-down girl huddled against the wall of a building across the street, her silhouette just outside the reach of the streetlamp.

  She stepped from the shadows, and I tried to rein in the anger I felt that Alexis had to deal with this bullshit, too.

  When Alexis saw her sister, she unlatched her door, and I held it open while she stumbled out.

  Avril crossed the street with her hands stuffed in her pockets. “You came.”

  Grief shivered through Alexis. Palpable and ripe. “One day I won’t. But the fact that I’m here means I haven’t given up on you.”

  Avril’s chin quivered. “I don’t know what will happen to me that day. When you give up on me. Stop loving me.”

  Emotion charged between them.

  God. This was brutal.

  Alexis fisted her hand over her chest. “You know I won’t ever stop loving you. But I don’t know how much longer I can keep doing this. Every time I see you, you take a little piece of me with you. I can’t keep going until there’s nothing left. I can’t keep putting myself in danger just because that’s where you are.”

  Avril shrank into herself, voice small. “You know I don’t want to be this person.”

  Alexis took a pleading step toward her. “Then don’t be. Come with us. Right now. We’ll get you out of here, and you don’t ever have to come back.”

  Jerking like she was struck with a sudden bolt of fear, Avril peered over her shoulder, into the shadows she’d stepped from before she turned back to Alexis.

  Nervously, she whispered even lower than she had before. “You know it’s not as simple as that. He’ll find me.”

  Rage punched me in the gut.

  It was that moment when I finally realized what Avril was saying. How abhorrently tied she was to this piece of shit.

  Dread sank to the pit of my stomach.

  Is that why that scumbag had Alexis pinned against that grimy wall in the first place? Thinking he might be able to draw her into that life. Or was he simply willing to guard his possessions, at any cost, thinking his best bet was getting Alexis out of his way?

  I gripped two handfuls of hair, trying to keep it in check when I turned to look over my shoulder. Searching and seeking.

  A breeze rustled through. A beer can clattered as it rolled along the deserted lot across the street, the only sound breaking up the thick haze of silence.

  I looked back to see Alexis grip Avril by the forearm. “He doesn’t own you.”

  Sadness spun across Avril’s features. “That’s where you’re wrong.”

  Avril swallowed hard and held out her hand, palm up.

  Sorrow filtered out with Alexis’s resigned sigh before she turned and sifted through her bag and came back out with a wad of cash. She set it in Avril’s hand but didn’t let go.

  Motherfuck.

  This was too much.

  “I love you,” Alexis finally said before she released her hold and Avril took a step back.

  “I know. I love you, too.”

  Avril took two more steps backward, eyes locked on the girl who sank deeper and deeper into my spirit with every selfless piece she revealed.

  This gorgeous girl who allowed herself to be used up just like her sister, though in an entirely different way.

  I couldn’t stomach it. Not for a second longer. I took a step toward Avril, my voice low and urgent. “Come with us. I’ll take care of you. Protect you. I won’t let that bastard touch you. Not ever again.”

  Avril finally looked up at me, like she just realized I was there. I was just another inconsequential face in the many that passed her by in her quest to survive. She laughed. Cold and hollow. “That’s not how it works.”

  She turned away, quickly looked both ways, and darted across the street.

  We watched her in silence until she disappeared. The second she did, I rushed for Alexis, held her up when she slumped in my hold. She clung to my shirt, tears seeping into the fabric. “It hurts, Zee. It hurts so bad.”

  I ran my hand down the back of her head. “I know, baby, I know.”

  My attention moved around the lot, back to the store. There was a tweaked-out guy hanging out against the hood of his car, watching us with too much interest. “Come on, let’s get you out of here. You don’t belong down here.”

  “Neither does she.”

  “No,” I agreed. But right then, it didn’t seem to be anything Avril was willing to change.

  Alexis let me help her back into the car, and I quickly shut her door and rounded to my side. I hopped in and turned over the ignition.

  Putting it in gear, I flipped the car around. Our headlights sprayed out ahead of us, tossing light on the shadows where Avril had disappeared.

  A damned spotlight that sent a scatter of rats running from the sewer.

  Two men took off one direction, while three women cowered against the wall.

  Avril was in the middle of them.

  Rage
burned hot when my sight landed on the bastard standing off to the side of them, eyes lit up like a demon in the flash that cut through the night. My muscles ticked and jerked, ready for a fight, my foot itching to slam on the gas.

  He was right fucking there.

  Alexis set her hand on my forearm, fear clogging her voice. “Don’t. He’s not worth it.”

  I squeezed the steering wheel tighter, trying to contain the violence spinning the axis of my world. The instinct to protect.

  The asshole lifted his chin and an arrogant smirk took hold of his mouth.

  Sickness clawed at my senses.

  Because the bastard knew. He knew Alexis. He knew her car. He knew she’d come.

  And without a doubt, he knew it wouldn’t be the last time she came running back.

  Nausea spun when I realized what it was he really wanted from her.

  He wanted to bind her and tie her. Make her a pawn in his sick, twisted world. Use up her body while men slowly killed her spirit and mind.

  That was how these assholes worked. They saw someone who was vulnerable and innocent and viewed them as an opportunity.

  I tore my attention from the piece of shit across the street and turned it on Alexis.

  She stared back at me, blue eyes wide and frantic, an overpowering collision of sea and sky. Her hair was a mess from my fingers, her cheeks pink and stained with her tears.

  “He might not be, but you are.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Alexis

  Zee pulled my car into my narrow driveway. He’d brought me straight home, telling me he’d figure out how to get himself home.

  I’d wanted to tell him I would drop him off. That after what he’d done for me, it was the least I could do. But how did you repay someone when you owed them your life?

  Besides, right then, he didn’t exactly seem like a man to be argued with.

  He put the car in park and cut the engine. A hushed quiet filled the atmosphere. Darkness swept in. I was sure the tension bounding between us had become more powerful than it’d ever been.

  Savage and stormy and somehow sweet.

  He cut his eye toward me.