Another One Bites the Dust

by Lani Lynn Vale

  Ember, my darling sister, called it the “Big Brother.” She said that it would whip you in to shape in no time fast. I wasn’t sure if that was the case, but I did use it on her a lot when she was a kid. Normally it shut her up, but there was no telling if she shut up because of the glare, or if she decided to cut me some slack.

  The teenagers left in a squeal of tires, and I had to laugh because of their horrified expressions they all were wearing.

  Payton’s husky laugh from beside me jolted me out of my thoughts. “You’re badass. Those kids just ran a red light in front of a cop!”

  I glanced back at the retreating car, and sure enough, a motorcycle cop was trailing behind them with his lights on. At that, I laughed my ass off. Karma was a bitch.

  We arrived at Payton’s apartment fifteen minutes later. She parked next to her Mazda and hopped off. I remembered helping buy the car with her only last week. Payton was going a little crazy in the spending department with her new job. She jumped up and down, squealing excitedly. I just shook my head. This woman was crazy, and all of that craziness turned me on beyond belief. Too bad she didn’t want me back.

  “Let’s get you inside, sweet cheeks, I’ve got places to be, and here isn’t one of them.” I said cruelly.

  Her face fell, and I felt like a total ass, but she’d made it abundantly clear that she wasn’t ready. I didn’t think I could be around her and not want her, so this was all for nothing and I wasn’t into torture. All I had to do was enter a room with her in it, and my dick was ready for her.

  I hadn’t had a woman in months, since the day I met her. Being horny made me grumpy. I was in a perpetual bad mood. Even riding didn’t clear my head as it used to. Now all it did was make me drive by her apartment, and check to make sure everything looked all right.

  I grabbed her elbow with my left hand, and walked her up to her door. My brows furrowed as I noticed the door handle, and then six deadbolts that adorned the door above it. What the fuck?

  “What the fuck?” I asked aloud when I still drew a blank.

  She ignored me, and went to unlock the first lock, and then the bottom two. My brows furrowed again, wondering what the heck was going on.

  “Why do you only have three of them locked?” I questioned.

  “Why do you care?” She shot back.

  “Tell me.” I demanded.

  “You can go sit on a cactus. I don’t want to talk to you right now. You make me so mad I can’t see straight.” She growled through gritted teeth.

  I looked at her long and hard. “Payton.”

  I must have gotten through, because she finally explained. “The way I figure it, if they can pick locks, they’ll just keep locking ones that weren’t locked in the first place. I only ever lock half of them. In addition, I switch them up. I never lock the same pattern two days in a row.”

  That was borderline genius, if you didn’t count the little fact that a lock picker wasn’t stupid. You had to know how a lock works first before you can pick it. They can tell, as can I, which one is locked as soon as the picks are interested. Not that I was going to tell her that. She needed that extra security and peace of mind for something. Not that I understood why. What the heck was going on?

  “Why do you have six locks in the first place?” I asked.

  She answered, although reluctantly. “When I was attacked, I was too scared to stay at home. My little brother came up with this idea, and my brain was all right with having six locks. I could stay here without being too scared.”

  My body froze once I heard her explanation. “Wait a minute. You were attacked? You never said anything about an attack, all you said was that your boyfriend left you.”

  “He did.” She said shortly.

  “You just said you were attacked, did your boyfriend do it?” I demanded.

  “Ex, and no.”

  “Payton, you will fucking tell me. I have ways of finding shit out, and one way or another I’ll know what happened. Do you want it to be the easy way, or the hard way?”

  She gave me a look that clearly stated I was the dumbest man on the planet if I thought she was going to say anything now. Consequently, I stared back at her until she finally gave in.

  She took a deep breath, and then let it out slowly. “My boyfriend and I were walking back to our car after eating at The Watering Hole. You know how parking is downtown. No parking anywhere close that you don’t have to pay for. Two people attacked us from behind. Instead of Rory helping and fighting back, he ran away, leaving me to them. I was beaten, and then they stole my wallet, and keys. My freakin car wasn’t even there, and my wallet had all of three dollars in it. I was broken for a useless set of keys and three damn dollars.”

  “You have got to be kidding.” I whispered in a deadly tone.

  I was shocked. Never would you have thought that she’d suffered something so horrible. When you see her you see rainbows and fucking sunshine, and to think that her loser ex-boyfriend just left her to that fate. She was all of five feet tall if she was lucky, she never would have stood a chance against one man, let alone two. What a piece of shit.

  “No. Three broken ribs, internal bleeding, broken left foot, sprained ankles, a broken hip, and a concussion. Scrapes from the concrete covered my entire body where my clothes didn’t protect it. Minor bruises everywhere else.” She said as if it wasn’t a big deal.

  I felt like the biggest douche bag on the planet. Here I was thinking of only myself, and she was recovering from a beating, let alone one hell of a betrayal from the one person she should be able to trust the most. Instead of supporting her, I snarled, bitched, and ignored her every time we came into contact. I thought she was a fucking tease. Never in a million years would I have imagined this was the reason for her hot and cold nature, and her shitty attitude.

  “It’s okay, Max. I didn’t want anyone to know anyway. You can go now.” She said as she held the front door open for me to exit.

  I did so reluctantly.

  “Just tell me two things.” I said gruffly, “What were their names?”

  “Jake and Kyle Donner.” She whispered.

  The name didn’t ring any bells, but by tomorrow, I would know everything about them. Right down to when they took a piss. “What about your ex-boyfriend. What’s his name?”

  She looked at me puzzled. “Rory Christenson. Why?”

  I gave her a smile. It wasn’t a nice smile either. It was a calculated one. Tomorrow, he wouldn’t know what hit him. She looked at me warily, but wisely stayed silent. I’m sure by now she figured out why I wanted the names. She knew I wasn’t going to let this go.

  “You can go now.” She said shortly.

  I smiled a sincere smile this time. Taking her face into my hands, I gave her a soft kiss on the lips. “When you’re ready, I’ll be here waiting for you.”

  Chapter 1

  The object of war is not to die for your country, but make the other bastard die for his.

  -George S. Patton

  This was stupid. I was stupid. It was crazy. We loved to fight. Never once did he say something that I agreed with. The only thing we had was raw passion. We were both so very attracted to each other that we burned with it. He would walk into the room, and I would instantly want him with a ferocity that was probably unhealthy.

  We had that relationship where the little boy would push the little girl down on the playground, and then kick dirt on her. Then he’d tell the whole school that she smelled like poop. When we were around the others of our group, we’d fight like cats and dogs. In private was an entirely different matter. He was sweet, and funny, we laughed, and he listened while I cried.

  Ember sent me a text earlier tonight saying her brother was being recalled back into the military. She told me they were having a party for him as a going away sort of thing, but I declined. I didn’t think I could do it. That is until about five until midnight when I gave up, and went anyway.

  Which led me to now. I was at Max’s door. No one was at Emb
er’s besides those that belonged there. Max had gone home nearly an hour ago. I’d been standing here for over twenty minutes, trying to work the courage up to knock.

  My phone jingled in my pocket, and I dug it out to look at it. It was from Max.

  Max: Gonna be gone for a while. Give me a call on if you need me. I’ll check my messages when I can.

  Simple. Pure Max. He knew I’d worry if I couldn’t get a hold of him, and he didn’t want me to worry. Over the past six months, I’ve shared many nights on the phone with him. Him talking me out of my night terrors.

  There would be times I’d wake up, and have him on the line without even realizing it. I’d wake up to him talking to me quietly, soothing my fears down. He’d stay on the phone with me for nearly an hour waiting for me to calm down enough to go back to sleep.

  Before I had Max, I would lay awake for hours, until daylight kissed the sky, scared to even get out of bed. I’d been on medication, but all it did was keep me in a dreaming state, reliving my personal nightmare over and over again, unable to wake up fully.

  The past three months have been miraculous, and it was all because of Max. I was ready a month ago, but I was too scared to admit it. Now, he was leaving, and he could very well not come back. I was scared shitless.

  Scrounging up the courage that I no longer had, I knocked on the door. Heavy footsteps sounded behind the door, and I waited while the lock was turned, and the chain was released. It felt like an eternity before the door opened.

  Max was a beautiful specimen of a man. Tall and lean, muscles in all the right places. Not bulky, but definitely not scrawny either. He had ebony hair cropped closely to his scalp. He had lean narrow hips that tapered up to a well-defined chest. His eyes were a shade of green exactly like his sister’s. A scar ran along his chin down the left side of his jaw, and disappeared behind his ear.

  His eyes lit when he saw me at in the doorway, and a little piece of hope took root in my chest.

  “Hey.” I said.

  He regarded me for a few moments before stooping down and grabbing me up in a bear hug. His arms tightened around my back. My hands were trapped between us, and my face squeezed up into the crook of his chin. My feet dangled a good ten inches off the floor.

  At four feet eleven and a half inches, it was standard procedure to encounter a person taller than me. Max, however, towered over me with his six foot one inch height. His face was buried in my neck, and I giggled at the ridiculousness of being held nearly a foot off the ground.

  “What are you doing here? Did you have a nightmare? I’m so sorry; I didn’t realize my phone was dead until I got back in from the party.” Max said with his head still buried in my neck.

  His voice sent shivers down my spine. He had such a low deep voice. He could easily compete with that country singer, Josh Turner, who could kill a low note. Such a rich deep voice was made for seducing women. All he had to do was say my name, and I was gone. During our many late night conversations, I would calm with just listening to the deep cadence of his voice, droning on and on about nothing consequential.

  He seemed concerned that he might have missed my call. “You didn’t miss my call. I’ve been outside for twenty minutes trying to work up the courage to come knock on the door. Ember told me you’re leaving. I didn’t want you to leave and not hear from me before you go.”

  He set me down on my feet and searched my eyes, looking for something. “That’s all you wanted?”

  Heat crept up my neck, and Max laughed when he saw the blush.

  “Are you trying to tell me you finally want me, and I have to leave the damn country in the morning?” He asked gruffly.

  My mouth opened and closed like a fish. My face felt like it was on fire, and I didn’t know what to say. I mean yes, on one hand, I wanted him as I wanted my next breath. On the other hand, however, I was scared shitless that he was going to leave and never come back.

  “Yes and no.” I finally got out.

  He raised a brow in question, so I continued.

  “I want you more than I want my next breath.” I squeezed out.

  “Baby, you can have me. I only have one night, but you can bet your cookie stash in your nightstand drawer that when I get back, I’ll be in your bed. If we do this, your mine. Don’t mistake this as some one-night kind of thing. You will be mine.”

  I was left speechless. I mean sure, he did say he wanted me before he found out about my attack. When I’d told him some of the details, he’d backed off, and I took that to mean that he was no longer interested. He answered my calls in the night, and I leaned more towards thinking that he felt sorry for me, rather than wanting me.

  Guess I was wrong.

  “I’m a hot mess, Max.” I said to him.

  He gave a throaty laugh. “Honey, we’re all hot messes. Some more than others. You and I are probably neck in neck in the screwed up race.”

  “You’re not screwed up. Now, we’re wasting all of our time. Take me to bed, or lose me forever.” I said, trying to contain my laugh.

  Max didn’t. “Show me the way home, honey.”

  With that, he bent low at the waist, and I was up and over his shoulder. Each step bounced me up and down, and I had a nice view of his perfectly tight ass. My hands itched to grab and squeeze, but I wasn’t the type of person who would initiate anything.

  My way of doing things was by playing everything off; I hid behind my sarcastic sense of humor. Just like earlier with my Top Gun comment, I made light of something, when in reality I wanted to jump his bones like there was no tomorrow.

  Looking around, I admired his sense of style. The living room was homey and comfortable. Although it had white walls, there were photos hung on the walls. Most likely thanks to his sister who seemed to have a camera attached to her ass at all times. There was a large sectional that took up three quarters of the room, and it looked so very comfortable.

  He took me down a long hallway, and I made note to come back and look at the family portrait tomorrow morning before I left. Walking at a fast clip, we winded up in his bedroom, and I found myself flying through the air, slamming into a bed that felt like clouds.

  “Oh, Lord have mercy. You have one comfortable bed. I could totally sleep in this thing forever. I bet even crumbs wouldn’t ruin this experience.” I said, while moving my arms and legs in and out making an imaginary snow angel.

  “You can have the bed if you like it that much.” Max said while ridding himself of his shirt.

  “I’ll just sleep here since you won’t be here to use it anyway.” I said absently.

  “That would be okay, if you wanted to do that. I don’t mind in the least. It also might help your nightmares.” He said casually, almost as if he didn’t care in the least.

  He did care though, so much that he was trying to offer me his place where he knew it was safer, without offending my sense of independence. Everything in me screamed to take him up on the offer, but I knew if I did, that I would never want to leave. He’d get tired of me being here eventually, and I didn’t want to set myself up for failure.

  Hoping to divert his attention, I ran my eyes up and down his bared torso. “You’re gorgeous.”

  He was, too. His chest was well defined. The majority of his chest was unblemished and beautiful. There was a small portion of his upper right chest and arm that had some scarring, but from this angle, I didn’t know if it continued to his back or not. From what I could tell, it wasn’t too bad. Just a few puckered scars that looked like maybe some shrapnel got ahold of him. He could have been much worse; my hours of volunteering at the local VA hospital showed me that.

  I was incredibly shy, and put on a good front with my wit and humor, but all of that humor deserted me at the moment. I longed to run my hands over him, but I stayed still, hoping that he would see that I needed him to take charge. He did. The man never missed a damn thing. He knew things about me that even I wasn’t aware of until he brought them to my attention.

  Three weeks ago,
the group all went out to eat at Cheddar’s. For dessert, I’d ordered a brownie, and Max made sure to tell the waiter to hold the nuts, when I never even thought to ask. I would have just picked them out once it arrived, but he noticed me do that only once.

  His arms went to the waistband of my pants, and unzipped them slowly. My breath stalled in my chest, and I started panicking. Max noticed everything though, and stopped before he divested me of my jeans.

  “You okay?” He asked.

  How the heck do I tell him this? “Yes. It’s been a while, and, um, well, Rorysaidiwasacoldfish.”

  Spreading my legs wide, he kneeled down between them regarding me warmly. “I got Rory. The rest you said too fast. Say it slower, Payton.”

  Taking a deep breath, I said, “Rory said I was a bad lay. That I didn’t participate, and I needed to lighten up. I….I want it. I do. But I don’t know how to say it in the heat of things.”

  “You listen to me,” he said leaning closer. “This Rory shit isn’t a man. A man wouldn’t leave his girl in the fucking street with two men attacking her. His woman doesn’t enjoy sex with him says something about the man, not the woman. It’s the man’s job to figure out what the woman likes, what will bring out the wild in her. Let me let you in on a little secret; I can make you wild. Don’t doubt it.”

  My mouth went dry, and I had nothing to say to that. Instead, I lifted my hips off the bed so he could take my pants off more easily. He took the invitation for what it was, and took off my jeans. My panties were exposed, and suddenly I felt immensely embarrassed. If I had known I was going to be doing this today, I wouldn’t have worn these.

  Studying my panties with a smile he said, “Angry Birds, eh? Are these boy’s underwear?”

  My face went up in flames. Taking the pillow on the bed next to my head, I buried my face into it. “Oh, my God. Omygodohmygod!”

  “It’s cute. I didn’t realize grown women could wear boy’s underwear, but strangely, you wear them well. I don’t think I’ll look at an Angry Bird the same way again.” Max chuckled.