by Jacie Lennon
“Does it matter? I think that little kernel of doubt that he has to deal with will be punishment enough. He thinks he owns me, that we aren’t done. He thinks I will come crawling back on my hands and knees for him. But I won’t. And I want to forget for the night.”
“What does he have to offer you that you can’t get somewhere else?”
“Nothing. But not everything is about money.”
“Isn’t it?” I say with a smirk. “Money makes this world go round.”
“Money doesn’t fix some things. Now, do we have a deal?”
She sticks her hand between us, and I stare down at it, darting my tongue out to catch a drop of whiskey that gathered in the corner of my lips. I extend my palm, placing my hand in hers. The smallness of her fingers is a strange sight in my large one, smooth and cool to the touch. Instead of shaking, I jerk her to me, flush against my chest, and I dip my head down, pressing a kiss to her lips. She gasps, and I pull back with a scowl.
“Deal.”
2
Peyton
He tastes sweet, is the first thought that hits me when his lips touch mine, followed by the burn of alcohol against my tongue but I love it.
His mouth is gone as quickly as it was on me, and I almost reach up to touch my face but stop myself just in time. This is a business transaction, a moment of pleasure, and nothing more.
“Come on,” I say, grabbing his hand and glancing behind me to gauge his reaction.
His eyes find mine and hold my gaze until I look away first. I don’t know why. I usually don’t have any issue with holding my ground, but his perusal was too personal, came too close to getting inside my head. He doesn’t say anything, following me as I lead him outside. There’s no room for any sort of intimacy inside the warehouse, but that doesn’t stop some couples from putting on a show. I’ve never been an exhibitionist.
“Where are we going?” Brock’s deep voice comes from behind me, making the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. A weird sensation since I knew he was there to begin with.
I never thought this was how the night would end, but here I am, asshole in tow, and I am loving every minute of it.
“Didn’t you drive here?” I ask, looking at him, and he nods, eyes narrowing. “Well, you’re gonna take me home, pretty boy. But don’t get excited; it’s nothing fancy.” I laugh a little to take the sting from my words, and his mouth tilts up in a smirk.
“I don’t need fancy,” he says and reaches into his pocket, taking out a pair of keys and hitting a button.
A car starts up in the parking lot, the headlights turning on, and I look at it.
“Neat trick,” I say before walking toward it.
I get in, perched on the passenger seat, before Brock gets to the car, and he glances over at me as he climbs in.
“Eager?” he asks, inserting the key into the ignition and cranking the nicest vehicle I’ve ever sat inside.
I smooth my hands over the buttery leather seat and enjoy the feel of it before answering, “You have no idea.”
I squirm as Brock walks around my small room in the trailer. It’s sparsely decorated, so there’s not much for him to see, but he looks anyway. It’s weird; I expected him to rush in and grab me, ready to get to the fun stuff, but he’s taking his time. I feel like prey that he’s steadily stalking and contemplating devouring, and it makes my nipples prick. I haven’t been hard up for sex. I had it frequently with Drake, whether I was in the mood or not. But this situation is mine, one that I want to happen, and now that it’s here, I can sit and watch him stalk around my room.
I’ve always watched Brock, weirdly drawn to him. My brain knows that he was a dick to me, behind the scenes. He let those girls do his dirty work, but he never tried to stop it. Why should he when I was just a scholarship student? I meant nothing to him then, and I mean nothing to him now.
When I went to school at Almadale, I paid attention to him—knew which classes he had, when he ate lunch, and who he associated with. It was never with me unless he wanted to ridicule something that I couldn’t control. But when I saw the twins become close friends with Corbin—who was from my area, another scholarship student, like myself—I had hope. I don’t know why. It was like seeing something shiny in a store window but knowing I would never own it. Don’t we all want what we can’t have? But Brock wouldn’t know about that; he’s never wanted for anything because he has the world at his fingertips.
I had hope that maybe he would notice me, hope that I could rise above, like Corbin, and be someone. Not the girl from the wrong side of town with a jackass dad and a dead mom. That hope died when I was expelled for fighting, and it wasn’t even my fault. Those girls had wanted me gone, and they’d made sure I got kicked out.
Now that it’s two years later, I feel that same magnetism toward him. The want to watch him, the same thrill when his icy eyes land on mine, but one thing has changed. I don’t have that hope anymore, that anything good will happen to me. I take things at face value, and I know where we stand. This is a quick fuck, and that’s all it will ever be. But I have that thrill, like I snuck into the store and stole the one thing I’d wanted from behind the window, if only for the night.
“What’s this?” Brock turns to me, finger running across the one award I’ve ever received.
I was so proud of it. Back when I had free time and joined the mathletes at Loredo High. We won our division my sophomore year, and then I took more shifts at Mooney’s and had to quit. But numbers are my thing, what I enjoy. I keep the books at the bar, and sometimes, more often than not, it’s the highlight of my day. Numbers are constant. They make sense. They go where they are supposed to, and they don’t deviate. Unlike people.
People are never constant; they always deviate or aren’t part of what your norm is.
“An award,” I tell him, and he narrows his eyes.
“I can see that. You were a mathlete?” He cocks his head at me, and I flush.
“Surprised?”
“No, but it’s not something I see very often.” He takes his finger off the award and turns to face me.
“A girl interested in math?”
“Nah, a nerd. Don’t have many of those at Almadale,” he says, his smirk back in place, and I roll my eyes. “So, wanna get down to business?”
“Yes.”
My nerves take over and to steady myself, I reach down with my hands and grip the hem of my T-shirt, but he quickly crosses the distance between us, his hands landing on mine, stopping me.
“You are my present to unwrap,” he says, his gruff voice shooting straight through me, my stomach bottoming out like I just went over a drop on a roller coaster.
“I’m no one’s present,” I whisper, and his smirk meets his eyes, making them glitter.
I expect him to counter with something, but he doesn’t. He silently strokes my skin with his thumb where my shirt is lifted, and goose bumps break out along my body. Something I’ve wanted for so long is finally happening, and I want to savor it. But I will never admit that this is more for me than to get back at Drake.
“What’s your beef with Drake anyway?” I ask, looking up to gauge his expression.
His eyes dart off and then back to mine, shuttered, and I regret asking.
“Oh, the usual. Different backgrounds, different worlds,” Brock says, not answering my question, and I choose to drop it.
Instead, I rise up on the balls of my feet and hook one hand around the back of his neck, bringing his mouth to mine for a kiss. The whiskey from earlier lingers, and I reach out with the tip of my tongue, tracing his bottom lip, tasting him fully before I pull back. He doesn’t waste a second before dipping down and wrapping strong arms around my legs, picking me up and pushing my back against the wall.
His cock presses into me, straining through our layers of clothing as his head lowers to mine again. His hands grip my ass, fingertips digging in, as his tongue delves into my mouth, tangling with my own.
Once he breaks the kiss off, I take in a
deep breath as he stares at me, our chests heaving in tandem, and I roll my hips against him a little for the friction. He flexes his arms, the hands still cupping my ass, firmly thrusting me against him, and my eyes roll back once he pushes his hardness into the area where I’m aching.
“Clothes off,” I pant, apparently unable to make a complete sentence, and he backs up, setting me on the floor.
Before I can even blink, his shirt is off and in a heap at my feet. I reach out, running my hand over his hard pecs, tracing the line of indentions across his chest and abdomen.
“Like what you see?” he asks, and I look up at him.
“It’ll do,” I say back.
He chuckles, the sound making me still. He has never laughed much, and I don’t know why. He reaches down, grasping me around the waist, and picks me straight up, throwing my body across one shoulder, as if I weigh nothing.
Damn.
I squeal as he bends down, depositing me on my tiny bed, and I scramble to rise on my elbows before he dips down, unbuttoning my low-slung jeans with an ease that indicates he’s done this many times before. He peels them down my body and then buries his face in my crotch, breathing in before raising his head, a satisfied gleam in his eye.
“You smell amazing,” he says before reaching and swiping my panties to one side and inserting one finger.
I gasp at the intrusion, not expecting it, but it’s welcome, all the same. His other hand reaches for the hem of my shirt, inching it up to my neck, my small lacy bra exposed, and my nipples prick behind it once the cold air brushes across my skin.
“Fuck me,” I say, gripping his hair as he starts to lower his head to my pussy.
I don’t know what’s come over me, but it’s such an intimate thing to let someone lick you, taste you, feel you. This is a quick fuck, and that’s all. That’s what I have to remember.
“Whatever you want,” he says with a shrug, dragging himself up and taking his wallet from his jeans before he sheds them. He extracts a condom from inside and quickly rolls it on his length, and then he lowers on top of me.
“Wait,” I say, placing my hands against his chest.
“What?” he asks, stopping, hovering over me.
“I want to be on top.”
He looks at me for a moment before smirking again, rolling over me and onto his back.
“Your wish is my command,” he says, placing his hands behind his head.
His eyes track my movements as I finish removing my shirt and then climb on top of him. His gaze darts all over me, taking everything in, and I warm under the perusal. I always wanted his eyes on me, and now that I have it, I want it to last forever. Maybe that makes me pathetic, but I don’t care. I don’t hope anymore. I’m determined to live in the moment.
I brush my panties to the side, not bothering to take them off, and line his cock up with me, sinking slowly as I watch his face. He sucks in a sharp breath and then lets out a soft groan as I take my time to get fully seated. I want to pinch myself to see if I’m actually straddling Brock Montgomery right now, but I don’t dare. I start to rock back and forth, feeling him stretch me and hit every nerve ending inside my walls.
I raise my hands, making my tits look their best, and hold my hair up a little.
“You look like a fucking seductive librarian in those glasses,” Brock grunts, and I laugh.
“Isn’t it a sexy librarian?” I ask, breathing hard with the exertion of moving rapidly on top of him.
“You are beyond sexy. You’ve got me seduced right now,” he says, hands coming to my hips as he ups the rhythm I’ve set.
I try to brush his words off, not take them to heart. I know how guys talk in bed and what they will say to get what they want.
“I have to be honest, Montgomery. I thought you would be kinkier, less vanilla in bed,” I say, waiting for his reaction.
His fingers dig into the flesh at my hips as a startled laugh sneaks out from him.
“What the fuck, Rossman? I’m trying to enjoy the view,” he says, eyes on my breasts, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t stick them up into the air a little more. “But if you want more, all you have to do is say the word. I’ll be in control.”
His smile has my heart stuttering. It’s unusual to see his real smile, not the carefully crafted smirk that he uses. It’s more common for him not to smile at all. Remember, I said I spent a lot of time watching him.
But that real smile that he just flashed up at me has me stalling out, only coming back to life when he frowns at me.
“You okay?” he asks, and I jump a little.
Get it together, I chide myself and launch back into fucking him with a frenzy.
With a growl, he flips me on my back, rises on his knees as he pulls out, and then has me on my stomach, ass up in the air before he’s driving back into me. I swear it took half a second for this to happen, and then this animal of a man destroys me while making me feel like a goddess, all at once. A foreign feeling for me.
He leans down, wrapping one hand around my neck and suspending me in the air as he slowly drags my body up to him while he pumps his hips in and out. My back is pressed against his chest when he stops moving, lowering his mouth to my neck.
He drags his teeth against my skin before pausing near my ear and whispering, “Happy now?”
My answering moan has him pushing me back down, fucking me, our sweaty bodies mixing as my body heats up, the telltale tingling starting in my fingers and toes. I grab his hand, placing it between my legs on top of my clit, and he rubs in the same tempo as he’s pounding in and out of me. I come with a cry, my body lifting from the bed, and he catches my chest, wrapping a strong arm around my tits and bringing me back against him as he groans his release, jerking inside me as I pulsate around him.
My mind is racing, jumping from elation to a strange fear that this was a bad choice on my part. I always wanted to know what it was like to be with him, and now that I know, how do I just move on, like everything is normal?
What the fuck have I done?
3
Brock
Three Months Later
My dad’s wife, Linda, is finally fucking out of our family, and I couldn’t be happier. I’ve been dreaming of the day she would become his ex. There’s a part of me that feels remorse for hiding it all from Dad until the big reveal, but I couldn’t help myself. The gold-digging bitch had it coming, and now that I’m on the other side, I can breathe a little easier. The months it took me to build up a case against her were worth it.
I sit on the bench outside of the Italian restaurant I recently walked out of, a plate of food in my hand, and I stick a forkful of pasta in my mouth as I wait. My phone vibrates in my pocket, and I absently take it out, swiping it open as I swallow. I furrow my brow as I stare down at it, not making sense of what I’m seeing.
Unknown number: Can we meet?
Me: Who is this?
Unknown number: 317 Portland St., one hour.
Me: Who the fuck is this?
No reply.
I stare at my phone for another full minute, but no scrolling dots appear.
I try to mentally go through who it could be, but I come up empty. I stick another forkful of food in my mouth and chew, glancing up as Bodhi drops in the seat beside me, holding the shell of a shrimp in his hand.
He looks at me and then leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees.
“Were all of the dramatics necessary?” he asks, his usual carefree smile wiped off of his face.
I lick sauce off of my thumb and eye him. “Maybe not, but it was fun.”
“You destroyed Dad back there.”
“No, Linda destroyed Dad. I was merely the messenger. She doesn’t get to tear our family apart, and Dad wasn’t listening.”
Bodhi only shakes his head, throwing the shrimp shell to the side as he stands and pulls a cigarette from his pocket.
“Come on,” he says, walking around the corner of the restaurant to where we parked our vehicles.<
br />
I follow him but glance back as the door opens.
Landry, Linda’s daughter, and Corbin walk out. She’s crying, and he’s comforting her. I watch them for a second, and then I continue around the corner, letting them have their moment.
Their relationship is weird to me. It’s developed quickly over the last couple of months.
I didn’t trust Landry at first and was a downright ass to her when she first came to live with us. But she’s proven she doesn’t have any malicious intentions toward our family, so I’ve finally accepted her as an acquaintance. I wouldn’t say friend yet. She hates me, and I haven’t had the time to apologize to her. The thought of an apology makes my stomach turn; it’s not something I’ve ever done. But if she’s going to be Corbin’s girl, I guess I’ve got to make nice.
I’ve never felt the urge to be monogamous with someone, but it doesn’t look so bad, the way they are holding each other. Most people think I’m cold, and they would be right; I am. I have my reasons.
I shake my head, clearing my thoughts. When I look up, Landry is stalking my way.
“I want your word that this won’t go any further. You won’t take action against her on a legal level,” Landry says, her hands on her hips.
She doesn’t have to worry. Now that her mom is as good as gone, I couldn’t care less about legal action.
“From our standpoint, as long as she complies with what our lawyer draws up, she’s as good as forgotten,” I say, and Bodhi agrees with a smile and a nod.
“I’m sure your dad will have something to say about it though,” Landry says.
“Maybe. I’ll talk to him,” I counter.
I watch Corbin wrap his arms around her, sending another weird pang of something through me.
“Thank you,” she says.
“You did good,” I tell her gruffly, not sure where it came from.
“A compliment from Brock Montgomery? Is the world ending?”
I don’t reply, and thankfully, Corbin cuts in, saving me, “Can I borrow the car?”
