“Duchess.” He winks, deferring to the unique moniker he’s picked out for me. “What do you say we head on up and roast the broomstick?”
“Pardon?” I squint into Grandpa Chucky a moment in an attempt to discern his words.
“Let’s go hide the bishop.” His brows tweak as if he’s just uttered something suggestive.
“I’m sorry. I don’t understand. Does this have something to do with religion? Do you need to go to Mass?” God, maybe I’m supposed to escort him to church? But what was with the broomstick? Suddenly, the night feels less like a governmental infomercial and more like a crossword puzzle. Then, just like that, it hits me.
Oh. My. Shit.
He leans in with a devil-may-care grin blooming on his lewd little bowtie lips. “I’d like to know you biblically. You know—feed the kitty.”
Oh, for fuck’s sake. I’m going to kill Caila for the fossilized coital hookup.
I swallow hard, suddenly wishing for an entire bucket of nice stiff drinks. For sure, once I get home, I’ll need an eighty proof lubrication to scour this verbal assault out of my head. I strum my jewel-tone nails over the table, trying to figure a way out of this geriatric genitalia trap and not get stiffed by way of his suddenly very hard to find wallet.
“I—uh—I can’t. Goodness, no, we can’t do that. I have vaginal candida.” It was a toss-up between that or Aunt Flo, but a freak like Grandpa Chuck here might not be too picky about which orifice I offered up tonight. When in doubt, go with the fungal. I lean in and mouth, “Yeast infection.”
“My.” His brows tick higher into his forehead, and strangely he doesn’t look any less put off by the situation. Oddly, he looks slightly aroused, and it’s only then I note the perverse way he’s studying the shape of my mouth.
Dear God! “I’m so sorry.” I pull my purse over my shoulder. “I have to leave, Monistat.”
His hand clamps over mine before I can make a run for it. “Are you sure? I think a little loving from those luscious lips of yours can do the job.”
The job! Gah!
“Yes, I’m sure.” I spike right out of my seat, only to be reeled onto the salacious Senator’s lap. And good God! Please tell me that is a pickle in his pocket!
A dark shadow of a man pops up next to the table. “Senator Danberry?”
We both look up, only to meet with a flash to the eyes. The senator gasps and gags, and I steal the singular asthmatic window to run like hell.
Whitney Briggs University never looked so good—so innocent, so free of perverted old men. I run all the way to Cutler Tower, straight to my dorm, straight to bed. Scarlett’s not home, so I fall into a deep coma-like sleep and forget all about the inebriated old Santa who wants to feed my kitty.
The sound of the world crashing in shatters me out of a dead sleep.
“What?” I struggle to rise to my elbows, only to find the sun already filling the room and all three of my best friends shouting something at once.
“What the hell?” I scoot to the edge of the bed and wipe the sleep out of my eyes.
“What the hell is right,” Cassidy spits it out, caustic like bleach, before her affect softens and she runs her fingers through my hair with a look that suggests tears are imminent. “Say it ain’t so, sweetie.”
“Say what ain’t so? Am I dreaming?” I scoot so far back, I’m practically climbing the wall to get away from the three of them.
Piper clutches at her chest like she might join Cassidy in the boo-hoo fest, and, dear God, if Piper is prepared to show that level of emotion you know that something is very fucking wrong.
I pull Scarlett in by the shirt until there’s nothing separating us but a sea of her crimson locks.
“Speak now or forever hold your peace.” Scarlett is notoriously good at that, considering she chose that very juncture to burst out and say nice things about her stepmother during her nuptials a few weeks back.
“You don’t know.” Relief sweeps her face, and the color slightly comes back to her cheeks. Nobody blushes quite like Scarlett. She truly is an Irish blushing rose.
“I don’t know what? Would somebody please tell me before I lose my ever-loving mind?”
A firm knock comes over the door, and I’m the first to jump to see who it is. If my best friends aren’t willing to cough up the ugly truth, maybe this ham-fisted stranger will do the deed.
Norma, my dorm mother, and Mrs. Carmichael, my guidance advisor, stand side by side with horrified looks. Mrs. Carmichael clutches a newspaper in her hands as the two of them stammer for words.
“For God’s sake, does everyone around here need a road map to tell me what’s on your minds? Spill it, would you?”
“Miss Pembrooke.” Mrs. Carmichael grimaces as if what comes next were somehow ghastly. “I’m afraid the press got ahold of some sensitive information regarding your—gentleman caller.” She clears her throat while exchanging glances with Norma. Norma is a grad student whom I’ve always secretly felt sorry for because she’s so painfully shy she hardly looks you in the eye when speaking.
“What gentleman caller? For God’s sake, I’m not a prostitute.” I snatch the paper from her. “Let me see this.” I unscroll it to find my startled face, my body clad in a little tight dress while seated precariously on Senator Danberry’s dirty old lap—his fingers pressed against my left boob—a moment I can’t even recall. “Oh my shit.” I stumble backward.
A flood of words stream from the women at the door at once—It’s best for the university. It’ll be strictly temporary—but only if you can swing it. This isn’t mandatory, of course.
Scarlett and Piper manically swirl around the tiny dorm room packing up “just a few things” into my hot pink Michael Kors overnight bag, and I come too just long enough to motion to the bathroom, and Cassidy scoops all of my makeup right in with a sweep of her hand.
I hardly remember how we get from Cutler Tower to the pool room in the back of the Black Bear, with Piper shutting the door behind us as if a body needed to be buried. I can’t blame her. An entire parade of reporters, with camera lenses the size of baseball bats, followed us over like a coven of darkness.
Owen, Cade, Rex, and Jet arrive, inspiring Scarlett and Cassidy to fill them and me in on the media shitstorm that took over the entire late great state of North Carolina.
But the sounds Scarlett and Cassidy make with their mouths are soon reduced to wordless drivel. I’m too lost staring at the bevy of newspapers Piper has strewn out in front of me.
Senator Danberry’s Mistress Revealed! Daisy Pembrooke: Coed by Day—Stripper by Night!
“Nobody reads the newspaper.” Piper scrapes the table clean. “It’s a dead medium.”
“Just my parents,” I mumble incoherently. God, where’s my phone? On second thought, do I really want my phone?
“She can’t stay at school,” Cassidy rants to the boys as if she’s scolding them.
“She’ll sue Briggs,” Owen barks.
God, I’m not going to sue the school, am I? For what?
My mind spins at a million miles an hour as manic conversations rattle all around me. I can’t focus. The words swim by like slippery fish that my mind can’t quite catch the meaning of. I’m not entirely sure what’s happened, but I’m getting the feeling my life will never be the same.
“Scarlett can’t be photographed with her,” Piper insists, and I agree without fully understanding the true meaning behind this. “Sorry”—she makes a face—“but the Digital Age can be a real bitch. Crap like this can come back to haunt her in ten years. You’ll have to lay low.”
“Lay low,” I repeat stupidly. In fact, I have nothing but my own stupidity to blame for this one. God, why am I such an idiot?
“What if she stays with Cade?” Cassidy offers up her boyfriend on a silver platter, and for a fleeting moment, I’m thankful and yet still unsure why.
Piper shakes her head. “Buddy will bark up a storm every time a photographer comes sniffing around.” She leans in for
lorn at the mention of Cade’s big furry beast. “I’d offer you Owen’s place, but there are way too many places for those pap vermin to hide.”
“Pap?” I nod into the lunacy happening around me. “Do I need to get a pap smear?” Anything seems possible and quasi-logical when your life is spinning out of control. God knows I’d skip all the way to the gynecologist’s office to right the situation.
“No, silly.” Piper gives my hand a tug, and I blink because I wasn’t even aware of the fact she was holding it. “The choice is clear. You’ll have to stay with Jet.”
Cassidy nods frantically into this. “You’ll have to stay with Jet.”
Scarlett lets out a heavy sigh of relief. “You’ll stay with Jet.”
I glance down at the other end of the table at the hulkish, tatted manwhore of a beast.
“I’ll stay with Jet?”
Bodies burst into the room just as my friends escort me out and into Jet Madden’s souped-up monster truck. Before I can blink, we’re off to the other side of Hollow Brook.
What the hell just happened?
Jet
What the hell just happened?
I pull into the back of the tiny house I’m usually proud to call my own, but at the moment I’d trade in my pride of ownership for a cloak of invisibility. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t shake the fuckers who followed us here.
“Don’t worry,” I say, killing the engine. Daisy Pembrooke sits by my side, staring straight ahead, shaking as if she’s just seen her life flash before her eyes, and in a lot of ways she has. “They can’t come back here. It’s private property.” I help Daisy out, grab her bag, and usher her in through the side door just as an infantry of men erupt over the lawn, clutching on to their cameras as if it were their dicks. “Dude,” I bark at the first one who gets in my face. “Get the hell out of here! I’m calling the cops.”
No sooner do I get us inside and lock the door than an angry fist slams over it as someone shouts, “I’d like to ask a few questions!”
“Not today, buddy.”
I help Daisy into the living room and glance around helpless at the pigsty the place is. Soda cans, fast food wrappers, shoes in a pile at the foot of the door, and a pair of baby pink panties I manage to flick under the couch with my shoe. “Let’s take a seat. You want something to drink? I can make coffee.” I can make coffee? Hell, I don’t think I can boil water for this girl. God knows that ancient coffeemaker I have collecting dust hasn’t worked since day one.
“No.” It’s all she can manage. Her fingers tremble as she plays with her necklace a moment. Daisy is sweet—not usually, but for the sake of pity, I’ll defer to kindness. But she is undeniably beautiful with those pouty pink lips and tits the size of melons. I never understood why the hell she flaunted the goods down at that meat market to begin with. Caila reigns in that place. But Daisy? Miss Whitney Briggs University? Now that’s just a case of wrong time, wrong place written all over it. I thought she might live to regret that stripper hovel one day, and now I’m convinced she’ll live to regret something far worse.
“Start from the beginning.”
“I—” a few gagging noises emit from her throat. “Then he—” she twirls her finger through the air. “Caila—” she gets a far away look in her eye, a little demonic if you ask me, just before she starts nodding her head nonstop.
The back door rattles, and I hear my name shouted and cursed. I let Daisy’s buddies in while Rex shakes his head at me.
“You okay with this circus?” He nods back at the screaming crowd as I bolt us inside.
“Yeah, sure.” Something in me is very much not okay with any impending circus taking up residence on my front lawn. If the McCarthy’s next door thought they had an issue with my truck making the neighborhood look like trash, I’m sure they’re loving this. The McCarthy’s can suck my big, fat dick as far as I’m concerned. That girl is hurting, and if this is the only place she has, then so be it.
We head back into the living room where the girls huddle in a frantic circle, crying, screaming—and from this vantage point, it looks as if a struggle is taking place.
What the hell?
“I need my phone,” Daisy pleads while engaging in a tug-of-war over a purse with Piper. The purse goes flying and crashes into the front window with the horrible stunted sound of glass cracking.
“Shit.” Deep down, I’ve known girls were trouble—too much “handle with care” bullshit that required endless apologies and copious amounts of chocolate, but this? The screaming, the crying, the broken fucking window? Why the hell did I voluntarily crawl into this shithole again?
“Don’t worry, dude,” Rex whispers as if they could hear over their yelling. “I got this.”
“I’ve got this,” I correct. I don’t need Rex or his money to fix anything for me. I could have said no and put the ax to this very bad idea from the get-go, but something deep inside of me wanted to help Daisy out. She’s tough, fiercely independent, and feisty as hell, but, at this moment, life has gotten her by the balls and she just needs a minute. I get it. I’ve needed a minute or two myself before.
More pounding ensues over the front door.
We all need a minute right about now.
Rex heads over and steps outside. Hopefully, he’ll quell the shitstorm. I know for a fact if I head out there, bodies are going to fly. Rex has always been able to settle with words what I’ve done far more effectively with my fists going as far back to when we were kids.
Daisy raises her tiny hand to the ceiling while clutching her phone before pulling it in and glancing down at it. “Oh God!” she whimpers, scrolling through it. “Oh God, no!” Her voice hits the roof in a series of moans and guttural cries, sounding more like an injured animal than anything human. “My mother knows! My brothers know! Oh, for shit’s sake, I’m fucking dead.”
I haven’t heard a woman curse that much in this living room since—last night.
Her knees curl to her chest, and she rocks over the sofa in a catatonic state. “I’m a dead woman who will never graduate law school!”
Rex steps back in just as the girls start in a tizzy of shouts and cries of manufactured encouragement.
“Sounds like a beehive.” He winces. “You should be good with the press. I reminded them of a few stalking laws. Then, the cops showed up and made them all get on the sidewalk. That might be as good as it gets for now. You need me to run and get food or anything?”
“I’m good. The fridge is full, and I’ll call takeout or something for dinner. Why don’t you help me get the rest of the girls out of here, and I’ll get the poor thing to bed?”
Rex glares at me a moment, and I smack him over the arm.
“Get your head out of the gutter, dude.”
“I would, but I happen to be in the gutter.” His lips expand into a greasy grin. Rex Toberman has been busting my balls for as long as I can remember, and he’s one of the few people on the planet with a free pass to do so. “Go easy on her. She’s in for a shit ride.”
“Yes, well, like every good shit, this too will be flushed away in no time. The public has about a fifteen-minute attention span. Everyone will forget her name and whatever supposedly happened by Tuesday at the latest—with the exception of her mother and brothers, but then again, those are her worries, not mine. The only girl I need to worry about is Lucky and getting her through the next four years of Sexed Up U. I’ve seen the debauchery that goes on at that place. There’s no way I’m letting my little sister fall prey to any of it.” And now, with Daisy, I can see firsthand where a little wayward fucking can land you. She didn’t really sleep with the old coot, did she? Just the thought makes my stomach turn.
“Dude, you’re the debauchery that goes on at that place.” His brows knit high in his forehead, and I scowl because I hate it when he’s right.
“Don’t look at me like that. And, believe me, once Trixy gets to college, you’ll feel the same way.” Rex just needs his little sister to put him in his self
-righteous place.
That smug look on his face eases. “You’re right. But any boy that wants to get near my little sister will have to get through both Fort Knox and me.” Knox is Trixy’s twin. All three of them look alike if you ask me.
“Well, I’m Fort Fucking Madden.” My chest expands in a show of force. “And, if any dude even blinks in Lucky’s direction, he’ll be missing an eye before he notices it’s gone. I’m not messing around.”
Daisy bursts into tears, and the girls rile themselves up in a tizzy. It’s a ranting, screaming match with wailing and fist thrashing taking place, and, for the love of God, can’t they see they’re not solving a damn thing?
Rex gathers up the girls like baby chicks, and one by one they all hug Daisy goodbye and follow him out the door in single file. Before I know it, a strangled silence fills the space between us, and it’s just Daisy and me, staring one another down from across the room.
“Go ahead and say it,” she spits the words out with venom, catching me off guard.
“Say what?” Why does it suddenly feel as if I just got caught with my dick in my hand—not that I don’t usually let the girls catch me like that.
“Say what you’re thinking. I’m a dumb bimbo who got what she deserved!” Her voice warbles as she shouts the words out.
“Would you keep it down?” I shut the window in the kitchen before heading back. “Geez. You’ve got a dedicated audience in the event you haven’t noticed. No need to fuel the fire. This will all die down—you’ll see.” I wondered if the words were a lie as they flew from my lips. Daisy Pembrooke has never given me more than the time of day. Deep down, I’ve always suspected she thinks she’s better than me. Deep down, I’ve always known she was right, but that’s not the point. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. You’ll be back swinging off the pole in no time.” I give a little wink as her fury grows.
Dirty Kisses Page 3
