Need you Now (Top Shelf Romance Book 2)

by Laurelin Paige

  Whatever it takes.

  Grayson isn’t my blood brother—our bond runs deeper than that. He’s a brother from the fiery hell that was our childhood. A kid I swore to protect.

  So no, I didn’t get a name, but Madsen had to die. Now he’s dead. Madsen’s death fulfills a promise I made to another brother of ours—Cruz.

  Madsen put all of us through a lot of hell, but mostly he focused on Cruz back when they kept us all in that basement. And one night I looked Cruz right in the eye and I swore to him that I’d bring him Madsen’s ring. The ring would mean that Madsen was dead, that he had paid for what he did to us.

  It’s important for guys like Cruz to see me keeping my promises. To see that they have a leader they can count on. And Cruz seeing that Madsen’s really dead, that’s important, too, because when a guy fucked you up that much, you can’t just be told he’s dead—it’s not the same thing. You need evidence.

  She’s twisting the torn, bloody fabric of her dress—twisting and twisting. “I can give you money.”

  “I don’t need your money,” I say.

  “There must be something.”

  “Nothing you can give me.”

  There’s a silence. And then a whisper. “It’s my birthday.”

  I make the mistake of looking over at her again. This pure, perfect girl dropped into the middle of my hell, trapped and strapped, under the total and utter control of a predator. Yeah, I know how it feels.

  I force my eyes back onto the dark highway, lights blurring by. “So Madsen was some kind of friend of yours?”

  “Who’s Madsen?” she asks.

  “The guy you tried to save.”

  Her pretty lips are a round O.

  “He deserved to die,” I say.

  “I don’t know him. I think I met him…he looks familiar…maybe a friend of my parents’…”

  “He was at your fucking birthday party.”

  “Three hundred people were at my birthday party.”

  “What? You invite your parents and their friends to your party? I thought kids were supposed to rebel or something by your age.”

  I sense her staring at me now. “It’s sweet sixteen. It’s not really my party. It’s…a social event. He probably works with my dad, or he’s in the industry or the city.”

  “What the fuck,” I say. “Maybe next time you should invite two friends and get drunk by the river or something instead of hanging out with a scumbag like that.”

  There’s a silence. “Will there be one?”

  “What?”

  “Another time?” Her voice is quieter. “Another birthday?”

  I don’t want to think about birthdays. “We’ll see,” I say.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means we’ll see.” What it means is that there’s always a chance the van could get hit by lightning or a bus, and I die and she survives. It’s a cheat of an answer, but I don’t want her to fall apart before we get wherever we’re going. I’m thinking about drowning her in Big Moosehorn River. It’s a good way to go. Fast. Clean.

  She lets out this ragged sigh.

  Her dress looks like it’s from another country, or maybe another time—I don’t know shit about dresses. What I do know is that, from this angle, there’s something dried on the mound of her tit—dried tears, I think. I imagine licking that little spot off.

  I won’t do it, of course. I’ll kill her, but I won’t break her like that. I look again. She seems pale, almost green. “You going to be sick again?”

  She shakes her head.

  “You sure?”

  “Don’t worry.”

  “Come on. You look a little…I don’t know…”

  “Well, you don’t have to worry, because I’ve eaten exactly two strawberries. So it’s not as if—” She waves her hand.

  “What the fuck is that? Two strawberries?”

  She shakes her head like it’s too hard to explain to me.

  “You need something to eat. That’s your problem.”

  She gives me this incredulous look. “That’s my problem? Really?”

  “It sucks to be hungry. That’s all I’m saying.”

  “It does,” she says.

  “You should eat.”

  “Got any fries?” And then she laughs. It’s the way you laugh when things are fucked up beyond belief.

  There’s this buzzing in my head. I’m staring at her like an idiot because she’s beautiful when she laughs. Her laugh, her smile, it all gets me by the throat. And the exit to Big Moosehorn River is up ahead, but I pass it by.

  Her laughter turns into sniffles and sobs. She leans her head against the passenger-side window. Hopeless.

  “We’re gonna get you something to eat,” I say. “There’s a Burger Benny up at the next exit. Okay?”

  “Okay,” she whispers, trancelike.

  I’ll feed her before I kill her. It’s the most messed-up thing I’ve done in a long time.

  I shove a caterer’s cap low over my head as I pull up behind the truck in the drive-through line. “I don’t have to tell you to act right when we go through here, do I? Do I need to remind you how many people will die if you don’t act right?”

  She just watches me with this wounded, piercing look that’s a little bit hot. Her light brown eyes shine with tears.

  Doesn’t matter how wide and brown her fucking eyes are, though. “Tell me you get it.”

  “I get it.”

  I stare at the lit-up menu. You’d think I’ve never ordered a fucking hamburger before. There was a time I hadn’t. I didn’t grow up with goddamn Happy Meals. The first time I experienced a drive-through, I was fifteen and fresh out of the basement after six years. Fresh from our violent escape.

  I mostly remember the strangeness of it. How tinny and mechanical the voice on the other end of the machine sounded. Like a robot or something, rushing me to pick.

  Back then I had this sense that I didn’t even belong in the world, as if it had spun on without me and I didn’t have a place. And that tinny voice, demanding my order, like a fist around my throat, the kind that leaves bruises the other boys pretend not to see.

  “Burger combo,” I say because the fist never really eased up. Because she should know how it feels, taking what you can get. That’s all she’s doing now—taking what she gets.

  “Would you like a drink with that?” the voice asks.

  I consider asking what she wants, but that feels too personal. What kind of soda does she drink? Or maybe she’s too rich and fancy to drink soda.

  “Two colas. Anything,” I say into the speaker, and then I drive forward before I get the total.

  “Don’t I get to pick my last meal?” she asks, real quiet. She’s looking straight ahead, her face in profile.

  I study her nose and her chin, the slope of her neck. I suddenly want to know what she smells like up close. I want to press my face into the vulnerable skin of her neck and breathe deep.

  My body gets hot just thinking about it, and I hate that. I hate that feeling that rushes through me, that thickness in my dick. I hate that she makes me feel this way.

  There’s a part of me that wants to tell her this isn’t her last meal, but I won’t do that. And anyway, she should find out what it’s like to scarf down what’s in front of you, knowing there might not be more. Knowing you might not be alive even if there is. I want her to understand where I’m coming from.

  “You want to die hungry, die hungry,” I say.

  The window slides open, and some punk kid reads the total without even looking up. I dig the cash out of my wallet and hand it over.

  It’s when he’s passing back the change that he sees her. His eyes fasten on her tits, pushed together by that fussy dress.

  “Ketchup?” he asks, voice pitched high.

  “Yeah,” I growl because I don’t like the way this horndog’s looking at her. She’s just a fucking kid. Why’s he looking at her tits like that? And she’s in the passenger seat of my van. Mine.r />
  Mine. The word comes out of nowhere, but it’s true.

  She stays quiet, staring ahead. She might as well be a mannequin in a store window. All except for the tear tracks shining in the moonlight.

  I grab the food and drinks when the punk hands them out, shove the stuff into her hands, and pull away. No one else gets to see her. It was stupid letting anyone see her, linking us together—a fucking witness. She knows I killed Madsen, and now that punk saw me with her, a daisy chain that leads to me in jail.

  Even so, even knowing how dangerous she is, I’m mostly mad that another guy checked her out.

  The van bounces on the speed bump, and she lets out a small sound of alarm, clutching the bag like it’s a damn roller-coaster bar. And then we’re on the freeway, heading back to the Big Moosehorn Park exit.

  The ride smoothes out. “Open it,” I tell her.

  Paper crinkles as she unpacks the food and holds it out like I might take it from her. Her hand looks small, especially holding the big wrapped burger. And she’s trembling.

  Fuck. What am I doing with her? Why isn’t she dead?

  “Eat it,” I tell her. I’m ruining her. That’s what I’m doing with her.

  Her life was charmed—a pretty little rich girl at her sweet-sixteen party. Then she got a glimpse of me. Now she’s facing death or whatever the fuck I want to do to her. Which is a lot.

  She’s this pure thing in my control, and I’m bloody and horny, and I want to devour her. I want to press my face to those pushed-up tits above the edge of that dress and fuck her hard and fast.

  Skin smooth and pretty like an egg.

  But here’s the thing about an egg: when you break it, you get everything you want, but then it’s not smooth or perfect anymore. It’s just this dead thing.

  This is something I know a fuck of a lot about, let’s just say.

  And yeah, you can put yourself back together, but you’re never right afterward, not really. You’re cracked and misshapen and definitely not smooth and nice like this girl.

  There should be some smooth and nice things left in this world.

  “I’m not—” Her voice cracks. “—hungry.”

  I know she’s thinking about what I said, about her dying hungry. Maybe she’d rather go that way, all focused on it. People like to think they’d be prepared for death. They don’t want to be caught off guard. Me, I’ve always been the opposite. There’s no honor in death, no clean way to go. It’s always messy. Always painful.

  Catch me by fucking surprise. Fight me.

  I think it at her, as if she can hear. As if she’ll suddenly learn how to use my gun, to take it from me. But she can’t. She’s completely defenseless.

  “Did I ask what you want to do?” I say, nice and soft. “Open the wrapper and eat.”

  I only get to see the flash of her eyes, the light of anger, before she looks down. She puts the burger in her lap—I imagine it warming the tops of her thighs. She unfolds the paper slow—a small act of defiance.

  It gets me hard, the way she’s fighting with the only weapons she has. The way her small hands fold around the messy burger and pick it up.

  The way her mouth opens wide.

  Chapter 3

  Brooke

  The burger tastes amazing, juicy and salty on my tongue. God, how long has it been since I had a burger? It feels like forever, those two strawberries a distant dream.

  I don’t want him to see how good this is for me, how desperate I am. I want to swallow the entire burger, that’s how much I want this. Except then he’d know. I can feel him watching me, weighing me. I can feel his gaze on my skin like a brand, hot and possessive.

  We’re going through woods now. Some kind of backwoods road.

  I need to get away, form a plan, push back for once, but I don’t know how. Do I try to fight him? Or do I somehow smash through my window? Dive out of a moving vehicle and run? In a full-length gown?

  The headlights catch a wooden sign for a hiking area up ahead. The sign is cut ragged on the edges to look rustic. Disney rustic. We’re in the state park, I realize. “I was here once,” I say. “With my Girl Scout troop.”

  “Don’t.” His rumbly tone makes my chest tighten. Even his voice is overwhelming, taking over everything.

  “Don’t what?”

  “Try to humanize yourself. It doesn’t work on people like me.”

  I want to tell him I wasn’t doing that—I wasn’t doing anything at all, just saying a thing that came into my mind—but he probably won’t believe me, and I don’t want to get him angry. I’ve seen him angry. I mouth the word okay and take another bite, hating myself for wanting the burger more than anything else in that moment. Gluttony, my mom would call it.

  Some of the juice drips down my chin. I wipe it quick, embarrassed. “Sorry,” I mumble out of habit, feeling him watching.

  I can’t imagine how I must look in this torn dress, stuffing my face. I should have stood my ground about the burger. My mother would have refused, even if she were starving.

  I take another big bite and close my eyes, enjoying the comfort and satisfaction of food entering my belly. A better person might not taste it. A better person might be focusing on her circumstances, but this burger is the best thing I’ve ever eaten. I take another bite. I chew, eyes closed. I swallow the goodness. I’m dissolving in rapture.

  A rough sound comes from the driver side. I risk a look, steeling myself for the judgment in his eyes, the condemnation. I’m so used to this that it shouldn’t hurt, but it always does.

  His face is in the shadows—all I see is the unruly outline of his black hair. Suddenly the glow from the headlights reflects off his face. The breath goes out of me. It’s not judgment I see. It’s something else.

  I look away quickly, feeling as if I saw something I should never have seen. Something new in his eyes. Hunger, raw and feral. My heart pounds the way it did back in that alley, when I was listening to the thwaps.

  I reach into the bag and grab some fries, stuffing them into my mouth. I don’t even care.

  Something bad’s going to happen, and nothing matters anymore…and the fries are warm and salty and delicious. I’ve been hungry forever. This is my last meal, the one he chose for me.

  And it’s perfect.

  The dress cuts into my stomach, squeezing me. It’s a vise grip, squeezing the life out of me, but I can’t stop eating. There’s not enough room in this dress for food or life, barely even room for breathing, but I don’t care.

  For a second, it’s just me and this rich, greasy, forbidden meal and not him looking at me like that. I stuff more fries into my mouth, ravenous. Screw it—I’m eating all of them.

  Tears in my eyes. I’m a mess. For once it doesn’t matter.

  I make a tray on my lap with the bag, and I squeeze ketchup all over the fries and eat them that way. The road gets really bumpy just around the time I finish my meal.

  I force myself back to reality. Everything’s dark around us, no lights at all except for our headlights. I see something glint up ahead, and I realize it’s the river.

  The road stops at the river. Whatever’s going to happen, it’ll happen now.

  And that’s when the buzzing in my head starts. This animal buzzing—maybe it’s panic. I can’t get a breath. He stops the van at the river’s edge, and I’m gasping for breath.

  He looks at me. “What’s going on with you? What’s wrong?” He sounds angry.

  “I can’t breathe,” I gasp. “I can’t get a breath. This dress. I shouldn’t have…” I try to suck in air, but I can’t. I press my hands to my belly. “No.”

  He’s got this strange look on his face, like he’s alarmed, like I’m a wild animal trapped in his car with him. Isn’t that funny? Like I’m the animal. I would laugh if I could breathe.

  “It’s too tight…I shouldn’t have…”

  “Loosen it.”

  “I can’t just…” I feel dizzy, crazy. Suddenly heavy hands are on my shoulders, turnin
g me, pushing me to the door. His fingers are at my back. He’s unzipping my dress. The sound echoes through the tiny space. “No,” I beg. “Please don’t.”

  “Shut up.” He yanks the zipper all the way down to the base of my spine. I feel the cold on my skin, the release. The rush of air into my lungs.

  I hold the front of the dress to me and turn, shrinking back, as far away as I can get from him in this tiny space. I stare at him, eyes wide, backed into the corner where the seat meets the door.

  “Better?”

  I just watch him. “Are you going to rip the rest of my clothes off now?”

  He snorts. “Any dress that makes you choose between breathing and eating isn’t worth wearing.”

  “I’d rather keep it on.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m not going to rip it off you.”

  I keep it at my chest, heaving breaths. I don’t believe him. I can’t.

  “I’m not going to rip it off you,” he repeats. “Okay? That’s not where this is going.”

  “Where is it going?”

  He moves his hand to the armrest on his door. Everything slows. I jerk as a pop at my back tells me he just unlocked the doors. “Get out.”

  I watch him, afraid to move. What will he do to me outside?

  “Do it. Get out. And don’t even think about running. You won’t like what happens. Do you understand what I’m saying?” He lowers his voice to a whisper. “You really won’t like it.”

  With shaking hands, I open my door. He opens his, eyes on me. I start to climb out.

  He’s one step ahead of me, shutting his door, a devil in black.

  The van’s still running. He left it running. What does that mean? That he’s going to kill me quick? That I’m not even worth turning the engine off for?

  He’s walking around the front, quick steps in the glare of the headlights. He freezes and turns my way, alarmed, as though he just realized something.

  It’s like a cord is connecting us—in that instant I know what he’s thinking. I could slide over. I could take the van.