A Love So Dangerous (To the Bone #1)

by Lili Valente

  Visions of that night—my twentieth birthday, the night everything changed—play out in the darkness behind my eyes: Gabe’s big hands pulling me into his arms, his fingers digging into my hips, his ice-blue eyes holding me captive in that moment before we kissed, promising wicked, wonderful things as his hand slipped between my legs and he made me shatter into a million beautiful pieces.

  But not before he made you beg for it, made you beg him to make you come like some bimbo in a porno.

  I open my eyes with a sigh, ignoring the way my body is tingling simply from thinking about Gabe’s touch.

  I did beg. I begged him to bring me over, and even worse I’d sort of…liked it. Loved it. I loved it so much even the memory is enough to make my panties damp, my breasts ache, and my heart beat faster with wanting more. More of Gabe, more of his kiss, his touch, of the rush I felt in his arms.

  I don’t know how much of that rush was because we’d barely escaped getting shot by the other people breaking into the store, and how much was Gabe—it had all been too tangled up together—but I know the feeling was dangerous.

  It was the kind of feeling that made my mother run away with her AA sponsor, never to be heard from again. The kind of feeling that made my big sister bail on her two-month-old daughter, and take off to Columbia with her new, drug-dealer boyfriend.

  It was the kind of feeling that could destroy what’s left of this family.

  Chuck won’t even look for a job, let alone take on the responsibility of running a household and raising four kids. If I’m not here for my brothers and Emmie, no one will be. They’ll go into the system and be placed in foster homes, homes that could be even worse than the placements I endured when I was younger.

  Lice infestations, shaved heads, older foster kids who pinch and hit, foster parents who spend your lunch money on cigarettes, and biological kids who are given your share of supper are shitty things, but there are worse ones. Far worse, and I refuse to be responsible for any of my kids suffering like that.

  And, in the end, that’s why I haven’t picked up the phone. That’s why I’ve ignored the text Gabe sent a week ago saying he had a con job on deck he thought I’d enjoy. That’s why I pretend it’s only the June heat that has me waking up multiple times a night, drenched in sweat, with my belly aching and my thighs shifting back and forth in an effort to banish the need that’s driving me crazy.

  I can’t give that need an inch, or I’m afraid it will take a mile, take everything I’ve worked and sacrificed for and leave me hating myself for turning out like my worthless mom and sister. I’m a strong person, but I’m not sure I’m strong enough to survive Gorgeous Gabe Alexander and come out whole on the other side.

  “So forget him, forget that night, and get over yourself,” I say, with a vicious kick to the thin sheet covering my legs.

  But some things are easier said than done.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Caitlin

  Thoughts of Gabe linger in my mind as I hustle down the stairs to the kitchen and shove frozen waffles into the toaster, teasing through my thoughts as I slap peanut butter on bread, drop apples and juice boxes into Ray and Sean’s lunch boxes, and use the last of the ham to make Danny a double-decker ham and cheese so he’ll have energy for softball practice. Visions of Gabe’s stupid-beautiful face flash on my mental screen as I pound back up the stairs, shouting for Sean and Ray to wake up before easing into Danny and Emmie’s room, and tiptoeing over to Emmie’s toddler bed.

  It’s only then, when she looks up at me with her big blue eyes and smiles her sweet smile that my head snaps back on straight.

  “Good morning, doodle.” I gather her into my arms, kissing the warm curve of her neck beneath her blond curls, that place that is still kitten soft and smells like the baby she once was instead of the busy toddler she’s becoming.

  This sweet little girl is worth the hard work. She’s worth living right and staying away from boys like Gabe, and all the trouble that would accompany him and his easy answers.

  There are no easy answers, and nothing comes for free. If I let my morals get any more twisted up than they are already, I’ll pay for it, one way or another.

  “I have a note,” Danny says from his bed behind me, his voice thick with sleep.

  “What kind of note?” I kiss Emmie’s cheek and lean down to fetch her Happy—her name for her pink-and-white-striped blanket—from her nest of covers. She clutches it in her chubby hands and presses it to her face with a content sigh, making me smile.

  “From Mr. Pitt. It’s in my backpack.”

  My smile vanishes. “Why didn’t you give it to me first thing after softball yesterday?”

  “I forgot,” Danny says with a grunt, followed by a heavy thud as he jumps from the top of his lofted bed

  “Don’t jump out of bed,” I snap as I turn, hitching Emmie higher on my hip. “You’re going to fall through the floor. What’s the note about?”

  “Special conference.” Danny grabs the jeans he wore yesterday from the back of his desk chair and shoves one of his skinny legs inside.

  He’s shooting up so fast he can’t keep on weight. By the end of the summer, he’ll be taller than I am. I’m only five foot one, so that’s not saying a lot, but still…I can’t believe my brother’s getting so big. It scares me a little. He’s only twelve, but he’s growing up so fast. Soon, he’ll be too old to care what his nagging older sister has to say, and way too big for me to have any hope of making him listen.

  Danny stretches, his ribs showing through his skin as he pulls a tee shirt from the pile on the floor and sniffs the pits before tugging it over his head. “I think he wants to talk to you after school.”

  “Crap, when?” I shove my tangled hair off my forehead. “Not today, I hope. I don’t get off work until four and I have to be back at the theater by—”

  “I don’t know! God, just read the note,” Danny snaps before vanishing into the hall, headed toward the bathroom.

  “Tone, Danny!” I call out after him before turning back to Emmie with a sigh. “Your uncle is a pain in my butt.”

  “In da butt,” Emmie repeats with a grin.

  “Yes,” I say with a serious nod. “Like a fart.”

  Emmie’s grin becomes a giggle. She doesn’t talk as much as the doctors would like a nearly three-year-old to talk, but she loves fart jokes, and I’m not above potty humor in the name of making her dimples pop.

  “You ready for breakfast?” I ask, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

  She nods, and we head down the stairs to the ground floor bathroom so the boys can have the one upstairs.

  The rest of the morning passes in the usual state of barely controlled chaos. Ray drops the book for his book report in the toilet and I end up blow-drying it with one hand while putting on my make-up with the other. Emmie spills her orange juice on my last clean pair of uniform shorts and I have to dash back upstairs to change into the hideous dress with the puffed sleeves I try not to wear on Fridays because that’s the day Mr. Noel comes in for pancakes and his hand has a habit of drifting.

  Sean realizes he forgot to do his spelling pre-test and Danny has to give it to him as I’m changing Emmie out of her orange-juice-soaked sleeper and giving her a quick wipe down at the sink. No sooner do I have her clean and dressed for daycare than Ray manages to break the zipper on his backpack and Sean bursts into tears because he got two words wrong on his pre-test and Danny is giving him shit about it.

  When I finally herd the savages out the door at ten ‘til eight, I’m already exhausted and not looking forward to a six hour shift at the restaurant, followed by another five hour shift at Cinema Eight later tonight.

  By the time I’ve dropped Sean and Ray at the elementary school, deposited Danny at the junior high with a strong warning to stay out of trouble and a note for Mr. Pitt saying I’ll have to push this afternoon’s conference to Monday, and sprinted Emmie to the front door of the Kiddie Kottage—hopefully giving myself just enough time to grab
a coffee at work before I have to clock in—my mind is already drifting back to that easy way out.

  As I maneuver the ancient family van through downtown Giffney, it dangles in my thoughts like forbidden fruit, so sweet and juicy I don’t see how I’m going to resist taking a bite. I’m hungry for it, starving, so ready for a taste of that easier life it promises, I can practically feel it exploding on my tongue.

  And then I see him, Gorgeous Gabe, leaning against the weathered bricks of Harry’s Diner, his jagged brown hair hanging low over one side of his forehead, looking so delicious in wrinkled black jeans and a whisper-thin gray tee shirt it should be illegal. The moment our eyes meet, his full lips draw into a grin that promises the best kind of trouble, and something breaks inside me.

  Inside, I’m already falling, tumbling into the waiting arms of temptation with a sigh of pleasure, standing on tiptoe to claim his lips and taste his wicked taste and tell him how much I’ve missed the way his eyes light up when he’s thinking naughty things about me.

  My outsides, however, are a different story.

  On the outside, I am calm, cool, collected, and not the least bit interested in what Gabe has to offer. As long as I can hold that facade together, I’ll be all right.

  “Keep telling yourself that,” I mutter as I slam the door to the van shut behind me and start across the street.

  Gabe’s icy blue eyes drift up and down, taking in my uniform with obvious amusement. “Nice dress.”

  “What do you want?” I ask in a flat tone, crossing my arms beneath my breasts only to uncross them a second later when I remember how low cut the stupid ruffled collar is. “I only have a second, or I’ll be late for work.”

  Gabe’s smile doesn’t falter. “I’ve missed you too, sweetheart.”

  “I’m not your sweetheart,” I say, but I can feel the blush spreading across my cheeks.

  A part of me would like to be his sweetheart, to be Gabe’s girl, and, more importantly, his partner in crime.

  “But you could be.” He pushes away from the wall, closing the distance between us, not stopping until he’s so close I can smell his soap and trouble smell, the one that makes my mouth water and my skin feel too small. “What do you say? Up for another job? This one needs a feminine touch.”

  I shake my head as I back away, my pulse leaping at my throat. “No,” I say, even as my heart screams yes and my fingertips begin to tingle, remembering the rush of plucking a thousand dollars in jewelry from the pawnshop’s glass case.

  “You don’t mean that.” He falls in beside me as I start toward the diner’s front door. “Come on, Caitlin. Come play with me.”

  Play. That’s all this is to him, some stupid game to help pass the time this summer while he’s home from college and working part time at his dad’s law firm. Gabe’s dad is a successful lawyer, his mom is a high-priced interior decorator, and his grandmother is descended from the town founders, and richer than God. Gabe told me he could buy and sell my entire family at least twice, and I believe him. He isn’t desperate the way I am; he’s simply bored.

  I can’t remember the last time I was bored. I’m too exhausted and overworked and stressed out to be bored. Boredom sounds like fucking heaven to me, and the fact that the boy breezing into the coffee shop beside me doesn’t realize how lucky he is to have the luxury of boredom pisses me off, and gives me the strength to turn to him and say—

  “I’m not your toy, and I don’t have time to play.” I lower my voice, not wanting my boss, Gretchen, to hear me sassing a customer. “So leave. Now. And don’t bother me at work again.”

  I spin on my heel and flee through the long, narrow aisle of the restaurant, shoving through the swinging doors leading to the kitchen and the tiny staff break room without a backward glance. But I can feel Gabe watching me, the weight of his gaze making me feel heavier and lighter at the same time, making my blood rush and my stomach drop and my traitorous feet want to reverse course and hurry back to his side.

  I’m not finished with Gabe; deep down, I know that.

  But sometimes success is simply a matter of putting off disaster for one moment and then another and another, keeping the balls in the air for as long as possible before they all come crashing down.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Gabe

  The lady doth protest too much. –Shakespeare

  If I were a nice guy, I would take Caitlin at her word and leave her alone.

  But I’m not a nice guy, and I saw the way her eyes lit up when I mentioned the job. She’s hooked, just like me. She’s had a taste, and she’s dying for more. All it will take is a few more nudges and she’ll tumble over the edge of hesitation into my arms, where I’ll be waiting to catch her.

  Catch her, and lead her further along the road we started down two months ago.

  Ever since that night in her friend’s car, I haven’t been able to get Caitlin out of my head. I keep hearing her laugh and those sexy moans she made when I slipped my fingers between her legs, remembering the way her pale throat glowed in the flashing red and blue police lights as she threw her head back and came on my hand. I taste her kiss when I wake up in the night, sweating despite the air conditioning my mother keeps set at sixty-five degrees. I see Caitlin’s old-before-her-time green eyes floating in the darkness while I’m lying awake in bed, trying not to think about the future.

  I’ve never been the kind of person to give up on something I want, even back in high school, when I was still resigned to the path my parents had laid out for my life.

  Now, I flat out refuse to take no for an answer.

  Caitlin is going to agree to this job, and then the next, and the next. We’re going to have a summer neither of us will ever forget, and do the world some good while we’re at it. And by the time we go our separate ways, she’ll have enough money to go to college and stop wasting her life, and I will have had her, every way I want her.

  I ease into a booth on the far side of the restaurant and take the sticky menu the older waitress with the gray-streaked brown bun offers. She’s wearing the same dress as Caitlin—a short number with a black skirt, red suspenders, and a frilly white apron, apparently inspired by a Bavarian brew house—but the effect is…decidedly different. On the senior waitress, the dress is as tired and out-of-place as the faded, yellowing posters of rural Germany hanging on the walls of this South Carolina diner.

  But on Caitlin …

  When she pushes back through the double doors, every male head in the restaurant swivels her way. The low cut neck of the dress shows off her curves, while the red band around the middle highlights her tiny waist. Her caramel-streaked honey blonde hair is pulled into a ponytail that emphasizes the graceful column of her neck, and when she walks, her skirt swishes temptingly around her thighs.

  That swish makes it impossible to keep my thoughts from drifting back to that night in the VW bug, when she spread her thighs in silent invitation, daring me to find out if breaking and entering had left her as turned on as I was. It had, of course, left her so hot and slick it had only taken me a few minutes to get her off. Just thinking about it is enough to make my jeans tighter, and my hands ache to be sliding up her thighs to cup her ass in my hands.

  I want this girl. I want to help her, and fuck her, and steal things with her, and make her laugh the way she did right before we kissed goodbye back in April. I want more time with Caitlin more than I’ve wanted anything in months, and that alone is reason enough to keep my seat, even when she turns and scowls at me. Not many things hold my interest for more than a few hours at a time these days, but Caitlin Cooney, with her wild streak running through her pathetically responsible, dreary life like a caramel swirl through ice cream just…does it for me.

  I watch her cross the restaurant, not phased by the thinning of her lips, or the pinched look on her face. She can put an end to her frustration any time she wants. All she has to do is quit fighting, and give in to what we obviously both want.

  “What will you have?”
she asks, pen clenched tightly between her fingers, gaze glued to the pad in her hand.

  “You, tomorrow night,” I say. “At my house, for dinner with my parents. Nothing else, just dinner, conversation, and I’ll take you home straight after.”

  Her eyes flick to mine, surprise clear in their depths. “I thought you said…” She casts a glance over her shoulder at the older waitress wiping down the stainless steel counter before turning back to me and continuing in a whisper, “I thought you said it was a job.”

  “It is. A con job,” I say. “I’ll pay you five hundred dollars to pretend to be my girlfriend for the night.”

  “Five hundred…” A smile teases at the edge of her lips. “You’re kidding.”

  “I’m not. Five hundred dollars for one night of pretend.”

  She narrows her eyes, obviously looking for the catch. “Why? Why do you need a pretend girlfriend?”

  “My mother insists on setting me up with girls she meets through her volunteer work. She thinks I need a girlfriend to turn my life around.” That’s not exactly why my mother is so determined to see me in love, but it’s close enough. “She refuses to let it go, no matter how many times I insult the nice young women she dumps in my lap. A fake summer love is the only way I can think of to get her to leave me alone.”

  Caitlin points the business end of her pen at my face. “I thought you said it was only for the night.”

  “Five hundred dollars for the night, with an option to rebook if my mother requires further conning,” I clarify. “Future dates and payments to be negotiated on a case by case basis.”

  Caitlin casts another glance over her shoulder. This time, the older waitress is watching her with a sour expression.

  “Just order something,” Caitlin whispers as she turns back to me. “Or I’m going to get into trouble.”