Alex (Heartbreakers & Troublemakers Book 3)

by Hope Hitchens

  I never took them home because I didn’t feel like working them in my home forge. Garage. In my garage. I was there now, pounding some very low-quality steel into what I wanted to become a Bowie knife. I had spent most of the day at the couple’s house seeing where it was they wanted the chandeliers mounted, so I could size them right.

  The woman had frowned at my initial designs. I didn’t do well on paper. I could work the metal, but she wanted me to show her like, full-color water paintings before she trusted me. Going back to work after that would have just been a waste of time. I’d do it tomorrow.

  I didn’t like taking my work home. I couldn’t get the furnace at home hot enough to work on the chandeliers. I did smaller pieces at home. Nothing fancy. Mostly knives. Not even to use for anything. Just to have. There used to be a time—centuries ago—when I used to play football just because. I just liked it, so I did it. I couldn’t play anymore unless I wanted to really just die this time. So, I did this.

  Of course, when pounding the steel over the anvil, I had to sit, like an old man. My back couldn’t take it. Sometimes the pain got pretty bad, but it never got bad enough for me to take a doctor up on taking pills for it. I had a pretty high tolerance for pain and didn’t want to take them unless I started being unable to see straight. If you ignored the pain long enough, it stopped hurting so much.

  The pain from the accident was definitely the worst I had ever experienced. Once the shock had worn off, and I started feeling it, it was like I had been sawed open. Getting the scar tattooed over had stung good too. It was nothing compared to shattering my back, but you just had to wait for the endorphins to kick in.

  I had gotten the entire half of my back done in one and a half sessions. Would have been one session but my artist tapped out before I did. The asymmetry wouldn’t have made sense horizontally, so I opted to get the whole back done. I just needed to get an appointment to finish up my right half. The docs would be cutting through thousands of dollars’ worth of artwork if they had to go back in there and dig around again.

  It was Monday. I was seeing Mom today, but I had some time to kill before I had to start getting ready and head over there. Seeing my mother was nice, but sometimes… I wished I gave less of a fuck. I couldn’t. It was literally just her and us our whole lives. Or my whole life at least. There was a chance Colin had known our father for a couple of years before the divorce. It had happened right before I was born.

  Who divorced their wife when she was pregnant with their child? Colin would have been three at the time, but that was still three years of possibly knowing him over my zero. Mom never bothered to replace him, our whole lives. The bookshelf in the living room was filled with the books she had bought about single parenting and raising boys as a single mom. She had done pretty well. Look at Colin. I wasn’t in jail or a murderer, so I’d call that its own small victory too.

  She had always been nice, and supportive about everything. Colin had been her golden boy, and I had given her the gray hairs, skipping school and shuttling random girls through her house. Olivia was the first girl I had actually formally introduced to her as my girlfriend, and she had loved her. Of course she had; Livvy was wife material. She had called her ‘ma’am’ and complimented her on her beautiful home; how could she be anything other than hooked, like I was? I had joked that Livvy was the reason she had been having so many lucid good days, but maybe I was psychic and didn’t know it.

  The one day Liv had flaked, she hadn’t had a bad day, but she got really upset thinking she wouldn’t get to see her. She had been having an almost good day. In her mind, we hadn’t broken up, and she wanted to see the girl who she lightly called her daughter-in-law. She was upset that she hadn’t shown up.

  I was too, but she was my mom, not Liv’s. She said she cared about her and I didn’t doubt it. I just wanted to know what the fuck she was up to that was so important she hadn’t remembered that.

  She was busy moving? Was she walking her shit from the old house to the new, one piece at a time? If she was mad, she didn’t have to be passive-aggressive about it. She could just tell me how she really feels and we can each stop disappointing each other.

  I would be getting my bike back soon.

  We could just stop.

  She was mad. She thought I was a piece of shit who didn’t respect women.

  It would have been good to get on top of her again. This time, I’d get her panties off, and she wouldn’t tell me she wasn’t ready. She’d let me feel her deep, where I knew she would feel as sweet as she tasted. She’d let me eat her out, but that was about it. She liked it when I would suck on her clit and put two fingers in her at the same time. She would squirm and shut her eyes. She’d get loud.

  Oh well, I guess.

  I didn’t want to give up, but she wasn’t like my back injury. I was still going to be able to walk if we never talked again. It just wasn’t fair. We hadn’t gotten to break up and move on, have an amicable split after a long-term high school relationship.

  She had been taken from me.

  The way it ended was not the way it would have if both of us would have been given the choice. There had been her parents, and my mom, and her sister, more people than the ones who mattered: she and I.

  I just needed to hear it from her; that there was no chance, and I would leave her alone… I’d fucking have to if it had really been too long. Cassie would trap me with that kid she had on the way because it would not matter at that point whether it was actually mine or not. And I could keep seeing Mom until she forgot me completely.

  Sounded like a plan.

  Calling her on the phone yesterday with Mom, I wanted to ask her where the hell she was, and why she was taking her anger at me out on my mom, but I hadn’t. Mom had asked me to call her, and I had. It was for her. Yeah. It was for her. Liv must have thought I’d lost my mind, talking to her like that, but it was what Mom wanted to hear.

  Fuck, it was what I had wanted to say too. It wasn’t just for Mom. I was mad that when I talked to Liv, it wasn’t like that anymore. That so much time had passed and maybe she didn’t feel the same way I did about her. Will was right. Olivia was still the girl I was in love with. Even after all those years, and the distance, and now meeting each other again.

  I didn’t want to think about it. I tried to zone out, listening to the clang of the hammer meeting the steel. If I managed to get a good rhythm going, I could lose myself completely. Metal was temperamental, but it was predictable. It warped when you heated it. Flattened when you hammered it. The red-hot piece I was working was flattening out nicely. I’d have something blade-shaped before I had to leave to see Mom.

  “Alex?”

  My hammer glanced off the metal wrong and knocked it out of the tongs. It hit the ground, almost getting my foot. I shot up.

  Livvy was standing there, looking around the room like she was sure I was going to murder her in it. I kept a lot of the knives up on the walls. With the pile of scrap metal, anvil and the rest of the stuff it sort of looked like a torture dungeon.

  “Liv… what are you doing here?” I asked her.

  “I let myself in, the door was open. I’m sorry I scared you.”

  “I’m just surprised to see you,” I said, dunking the steel in water, cooling it before I put it down and took my gloves off.

  “We have to go see your mom today,” she said. She was right, but we had about half an hour before we had to leave in order to get there on time. Before I had to leave to get there on time. Did she just say we?

  “I didn’t think you’d show up,” I said to her.

  “I’m sorry about yesterday,” she said walking towards me. Her hair was back, and she looked like she had just come from her school. “I don’t want you to think I did it because of you. I didn’t.”

  She was so close, four or five inches and our bodies would be touching.

  “I don’t,” I said.

  I did.

  She put her hands on my face and leaned up, kissing
me, real soft, like the night she had stayed over. Like she was scared. I was too, but how long was I going to be scared before I fucking did something about it. I grabbed her closer and kissed her harder. I ran my tongue along her lip because I wanted in. She was stiff against me, but her mouth softened, and her lips parted.

  One of my hands went to her nape and held her still as I massaged the inside of her mouth with my tongue. I heard her softly moan. Her hands grabbed at my shirt. I broke the kiss to take her hand and slide it onto my bare skin underneath.

  Her hand was cool and soft. She looked down watching her hand move up my body like she could see through the shirt. My skin felt like it burned where she touched it. I tilted her chin up and kissed her again. I stifled a groan when she ran her hand over my crotch. Our bodies fell into the old pattern. I had thought that so many times when we were together would be our first time, but they never were.

  She didn’t owe me shit, but I wanted her. I bent down over her and ran a hand over her ass and squeezed it. Both her arms went round my neck. Her skirt was tight down her thighs, stopping her from wrapping them around me. I crouched down in front of her and slid it up her legs as she looked down, watching me. Her pupils were dilated like she had just shot up. I ran a hand over her smooth inner thigh. God, I had missed this. This body, that girl.

  “I don’t want to just eat you out again, sugar, I want to fuck you,” I said, looking at her. I had pushed the skirt up around her hips. Her panties were plain white. Thin straps and a thong in the back. I slipped my fingers through the straps and looked up at her to see whether she didn’t want me to take them off of her.

  “Do you have protection?” she asked. Yes, but I didn’t keep it in the garage. I was a diligent condom user. You had to be if you wanted to fuck. I didn’t want to use a condom with her though. Call me selfish. You wouldn’t be wrong.

  “I can get a condom if you want me to… but I don’t want to use one with you,” I said. I slid the panties down her thighs. She lifted her feet so I could pull them off. I stuffed them in my pocket because I didn’t want to put them on the garage floor. I kissed the inside of her knee and trailed my tongue up the warm, velvety skin. “I’ve used them every other time.”

  “I’m on the pill,” she said. She had been since high school. Apparently, some girls took it for reasons other than birth control. Her hand was in my hair. I kissed up her leg to the apex of her thighs where she had been getting progressively wetter as I touched her. She sighed feeling my mouth against her sex, tasting her. She’d always loved being eaten out, but not today. I had been waiting for this for years; we were going all the way.

  I undid my pants and pulled my cock out as I stood in front of her. She put her arms around me, and I lifted her, supporting her against my body and leaning her back against the wall.

  I held one of her legs up as I ran my dick up and down her slit a couple of times before sliding in. Her pussy was so wet, but she felt tight. She made this sound like it hurt but she didn’t stop me. Her head was back against the wall, and her hand was gripping my shoulder, tight. Her nails dug into the skin a little.

  Holding her up, I fucked her. The room was hot from the forge, but that wasn’t the reason she started to sweat. I stretched her out, driving into her balls deep, again and again. I felt her teeth on my neck and collarbone. She bit down, trying not to scream. Her nails scraped my skin, making me fuck her harder.

  She moaned my name, ‘Lex, Lex,’ the harder I gave it to her. I didn’t want to be nice, or gentle about it because this was years of frustration and lust finally getting out. This was everything I couldn’t tell her and everything I had wanted to do since we’d gotten together, all those years ago.

  I was close. I tried to control my stroke. Thinking about coming inside her was so hot. I lifted her higher, so I fucked her from below, hitting her clit on every thrust. She came apart almost immediately, clamping down on me and shaking in my arms. I sped up, so I came too, busting inside of her before slowing down.

  The skin on my neck and back felt raw and stung from her attacks. A good sting. Like a sign I did a good job. I kissed her before lowering her onto the ground. Her face was flushed. She held onto my arms like she was afraid she’d fall over if she tried to stand on her own.

  “What time is it?” she asked. I cursed, remembering why she was there in the first place.

  We were late.

  15

  Olivia

  I held Alex’s hand as we walked into the assisted living home to see Deana. He laced our fingers together, the way we would when we were younger. His hands were always beat up from football and lifting, but they were gentle when he touched me.

  Deana was happy to see us—both of us. Up to that point, we had never really acted like a couple, even when she thought we were. We had never touched or held hands or kissed in front of her.

  But today, I couldn’t keep my hands off him. I didn’t want to. We had just… I still didn’t have any panties on. We had fucked in his dark, hot garage surrounded by knives and that thing with the fire. A furnace. Or incinerator. I didn’t know. He was pounding a red-hot piece of metal over an anvil. I had never even seen one of those in real life. What was he doing? He was deep in concentration. His face had been hard, these little lines between his brows.

  Talking on the phone with him it was like nothing had changed. How many times had we had that conversation before? Wondering where the other was, and promising to see one another later. There was something, and I wanted it back. I knew him. His voice and his touch. So much had changed, but some of it was the same. I wanted the comfort I knew I felt with him. The intimacy we already had. He would only push back against my resistance for so long.

  I had to try. If for nothing else but closure. Maybe for the sex too. The sex had been hard and deep. He had been hard and big. And bare. Good idea? Maybe not the best, but I wasn’t going to ask him to wrap it up now. If he wanted to go again, I’d be ready in a second. All he had to do was kiss my neck, run a hand up my inner thigh, and I’d be finished.

  Maybe the other people at the facility didn’t want to see Alex and me sucking face, but fuck it. They would. Deana teased us the entire time. Alex reveled in it. Some part of his body was touching me at every point during the visit. We took a walk around the grounds and fed the ducks at the pond.

  It felt like a date. It didn’t matter that everyone else was around us. I felt open and close to him. I felt like the resentment and hurt I had felt after the split were nothing. They were erased. The mood endured into the car ride when I felt Alex grab my thigh as he drove.

  “What was with that phone call yesterday?” I asked.

  “Hm. I thought you’d ask me, but after what happened in the garage, I just figured you agreed.” His hand tightened on my leg.

  “I thought you had had a stroke or something,” I said, trying to defend myself.

  “Give it up, sugar. You loved it. Mom was having a weird day, and she was really upset that you didn’t come. In her mind, she forgot we had broken up. I fed her what she needed to hear.”

  “What she needed, or what you needed?”

  “What you needed,” he said.

  I let him have that one because he wasn’t wrong. I felt a little bad as we came up to his house. Our date was over. I didn’t want it to be. We needed to talk. We could just pretend like the first conversation had never happened. We didn’t need to talk about whoever he fucked after me. We needed to talk about us. He stopped the car in the driveway. He had to take his hand off my thigh to do it.

  “Will you talk to me now?” I asked him.

  “All we ever do is talk. Let’s fuck,” he said, leaning over and kissing my neck.

  “Lex, I need to know. I already talked to Iris.” I closed my eyes feeling his lips on my skin. His neck was covered in my bite-marks, he hadn’t even bothered to cover them up when we went to see his mom.

  We were in his driveway. If there wasn’t a center console between us and the possi
bility of a nosy neighbor watching, I would be letting him do what he wanted me to do. My belt was off, and my body was turned, looking at him. My knees rested against the center console between us.

  “Let’s go in the house,” he said. I shook my head.

  “You won’t distract me with your dick,” I said. He smirked and leaned back into the seat stretching his back out.

  “What did she tell you that I have to defend myself against?”

  “You used to sleep with a lot of girls in high school,” I said.

  “I didn’t sleep with all of them,” he said, not denying it. “I didn’t sleep with you.”

  “You slept with one of Iris’s friends.”

  “You have to be more specific, sugar,” he said. He had turned his body to face me and had rested one of his hands on my knees across the center console.

  “Leslie… ring a bell?”

  Lines appeared between his brows as he thought.

  “Redhead girl? Kind of short?”

  “Yeah. Her,” I said, rolling my eyes. At least he remembered. There couldn’t have been that many since if he did. “Iris told me she got pregnant, and it was yours.”

  He sat upright.

  “No way. I have never fucked anyone raw in my life, besides you, and that was just today.”

  “She lost it, apparently, but Iris, she told me that because she wanted to illustrate to me how much you slept around back then.”

  “I didn’t sleep with her, Liv.”

  “She told me she said she did because it was something people would believe, and they did. She wanted to cover her ass when she got pregnant by some old sugar daddy or something that she had, and she threw you under the bus.”

  “The abridged version,” he spat.

  “Was she lying?”