Need you Now (Top Shelf Romance Book 2)

by Laurelin Paige

  I dig in my fingers, just to let her know who’s in charge. Having her under my control again, let’s just say it’s a good feeling.

  Her breathing changes. Tears in her eyes. “They know I was lying.”

  “Okay,” I say, “you’re okay.” I use my calming voice, a little trick I perfected down in that basement all those years, calming my guys down when things got rough, which was pretty much always. “It’s okay.”

  “It’s not okay.” She kicks, and I move my leg to pin hers, getting real close to her. This level of control feels a little too good. A little dangerous. “I hate you.”

  “I know, little bird.”

  “They all know!”

  “Did you tell them?”

  “No! I said I didn’t.”

  “Then they don’t know,” I say. “They have no idea. People are lost in their own miserable lives.” I breathe her in. “Your self-defense classes, though. You don’t try that shit on a person like me. Okay? What you were giving me out there, those weren’t good moves. You can do better.”

  “And you know all about me,” she bites out.

  “Your best move with a guy like me? Get the fuck away. You had a chance to run back there, and you didn’t take it. That would’ve been your best move.” I press her harder, putting my whole body into it, and whisper into her ear. “All the hitting and kicking, it’s just a lot of nothing to a guy like me. It’s barely even trouble. You get a chance to run, you take it.”

  I ease up a few inches and see the alarm in her eyes. It’s good that she’s scared. That’s how it should be. I let off, and she moves away.

  “Maybe I’ll run now.”

  “Little late for that.”

  She pulls her keys from her pocket and backs away from me, back to her car. Her eyes widen as she realizes I’m not planning to move. She waves the little copper key like it’s a knife. “You think I won’t run you over? Ram right into you?”

  Part of me wants her to do it. The same part of me that wants to crush any man who hurts her—even me. I like her strong and fighting. Powerful.

  The more realistic part of me knows there’s nothing a sixteen-year-old girl can do to a man like me. I’m too hard, too mean. She never stood a chance, not from the very first time I looked at her in that ridiculous party dress. I may never claim her, but she’ll always be mine.

  Her hands clench into fists. “What do you want from me?”

  “That’s a good question.” A good question without a good answer. I can’t seem to keep myself away from her. She’s too good for me, too pure. You made me lie to everyone. I’m ruining her, and I have no plans to stop.

  I take a step forward, and she’s a smart girl. It’s not hard to figure out what I might do to her.

  “Wait,” she says.

  I don’t wait. I step into her space, close enough to smell the strawberry scent of her shampoo, to feel her breath warm against my neck, to back her up to the cool metal side of the bright red vehicle. “You’re so fucking pretty.”

  Her voice trembles. “Why do you say that like it’s a bad thing?”

  Because I can’t stand her delicate eyelids and her bow-shaped mouth. She’s so fragile, so breakable, and I’m a goddamn sledgehammer. “Don’t move.” I grasp her upper arm and hold her against the SUV, wanting her right there.

  Her eyes are impossibly wide, staring up at me with fear. “I didn’t tell,” she whispers. “I wouldn’t.”

  I know, and maybe that’s what sealed her fate. Knowing that she lied for me, that she protected me. There aren’t many people in the world who would do that. Only my guys. Nobody else. Even if she only did it to save her family, it’s formed a bond between us.

  Her hair shimmers with spun gold. I reach up to touch one of the bright parts. It runs through my hand like silk—no, something softer. Like liquid, a whisper of a touch against calloused fingertips.

  She’s shivering. Terrified. That should be enough reason for me to let her go. Only a monster would keep her pinned like this, captive so that he could feel her hair. This isn’t right, but all I can think is that she’s listening to me. Don’t move, I told her, and she’s barely even blinking. It’s like catching fucking sunlight in a jar. I don’t want to let her go.

  And you know all about me.

  I know hardly anything about her—what does she taste like? What sounds can she make?

  My pulse rages in my ears like a goddamn ocean. How messed up is that? I can kill a man and go out for a nice dinner right afterward, calm and serene, laughing with my guys over stupid shit. But pinning this fragile girl to the smooth side of her vehicle gets me churned up inside.

  “Have you ever been kissed?” I whisper.

  It feels like the time to whisper, everything intimate even when it smells like damp dirt. Or maybe because of it. We’re getting primal here. This isn’t a fancy party like she’s used to. I’ll never be that kind of man. This is who I am. Hard. Ruthless.

  “I—I—” She stammers like she’s trying to figure out the right thing to tell me.

  “The truth,” I say, laying steel under my voice. When I leave her again, all I’ll have of her is knowledge. When I’m lying in my empty fucking bedroom at the Bradford, jacking off, all I’ll have is this.

  “Yes,” she whispers. “At a party. He—”

  I make a growling sound, and she stops.

  I didn’t mean to do that. It sprang from deep inside me, a raw part of me best left alone.

  She digs into things I don’t want dug into just by being who she is, just by looking at me with those big brown eyes.

  Fuck.

  My pulse rages.

  “What did he do?” I make myself ask, voice mocking like I don’t give a shit. “Did he touch your pretty tits? Did he come in your mouth?”

  “What?” Her eyes widen, and that mouth—God, that mouth. Her lips part in shock. “No.”

  Isn’t that what kids do these days? You read those articles about middle school kids getting pregnant. But what the fuck do I know about being a kid? Not a damn thing. I knew about touching and about cum. It’s a kiss that would have shocked me.

  A kiss. Lips on lips. Tongue against tongue. The mechanics sound simple, but the reality confounds me. I stare at the pink of her lips, the shape of them, wondering how they would feel against mine. Telling myself I have no right.

  My hand slides through her hair and locks behind her neck, holding her in place. My other hand keeps her pinned against that vehicle.

  Leave her the fuck alone.

  I might have been able to walk away. That’s what I tell myself. Then her head tilts back, just the smallest degree, and her lips part.

  And I’m lost. Everything inside me goes upside down. I bend my face to hers, a breath away.

  And freeze.

  Her breath heats my lips. The moment stretches out in rapid heartbeats. I stalked her, but she set the fucking trap.

  And then I can’t stop myself—I press my lips to hers. Lights explode behind my eyes.

  God, she feels so soft—so soft, so good. I sink into the pleasure of her. She’s warm, luxurious. She’s all-consuming quicksand I never want to escape. Sweet and soft, like everything good.

  I’m sinking into oblivion, and it’s all I want.

  I adjust my grip on the back of her neck, fisting her hair, my other hand gripping her shoulder. I love holding her like this.

  Fuck, it’s too much.

  I pull back, blood racing. It’s too much. It’s not enough.

  She stares at me with this stunned light in her eyes, arms dropping to her sides. Was she trying to push me away? If she was, I couldn’t tell. What does she see on my face? Hunger? Surprise? Danger?

  I fit our lips back together, higher and harder this time. Even better. No matter how our lips connect, it feels like magic.

  I want a better taste, but using my tongue will change this. It will make it less pure, and her lips are fucking heaven.

  A little voice says why not? I
ruin everything I touch. Why not her? So I do it—I slip my tongue along her lower lip.

  She gasps into my mouth.

  I delve deeper. I take more.

  I invade the fuck out of her, tasting her everywhere, exploring her mouth like it’s the last thing I’ll taste. I’m blown away by the sweetness of her, the surrender. I don’t deserve it, but I take it.

  I grip her harder, kiss her harder, lost. Only when the shadows crowd in from the corners of my mind do I realize I’m running out of breath. When I pull back, I’m panting hard. So is she.

  I stare into her brown eyes, drowning in them.

  She looks almost tender, but that can’t be right. The kiss must have fucked me up.

  The point of her tongue darts out to her lips, and I groan against the urge to kiss her again. I’m already rock-hard against her stomach, one second away from throwing her on the hood of the car and fucking her.

  A small hand cups my cheek, warm and soft. Her eyes never leave mine. “You’ve never done that before, have you?”

  Shock freezes me from the inside out.

  I take a step back.

  Her hand falls away.

  How does she know? How does she fucking know? Nothing about me is finessed or gentle. When I fuck, it’s hard and rough—and no one’s ever questioned where I learned it, how I started.

  Leave her the fuck alone, the voice whispers again. This time it isn’t trying to protect her. It’s trying to protect me. She sees too deep inside me. “You fucking serious?” I say.

  She gazes, unblinking.

  “You serious?” I go to her and grab her a little rough. I press her to the Navigator door, let her feel the ridge of my steely cock, let her feel how there’s nothing nice about me. “You need to stop spinning fucked-up little schoolgirl fantasies about me.”

  She stiffens under me, no longer soft. She’s scared.

  “What the fuck good is it?” I demand. “What the fuck good is it to learn all that bullshit self-defense, or what I taught you about running from people who might really fuck with you, if you can’t see what’s in front of your face?”

  Still she gazes up at me.

  I jerk her a little, trying to shake the answer out of her.

  “Okay,” she breathes.

  I stay on her, though. Funny how that works—here I am, back again, holding her close, enjoying her warmth and her softness once again.

  Some string of logic twists around in my head, saying it would be good for her if I took her right now, right on the hood of her daddy’s car, just to show her what the world is like so that she doesn’t get the lesson from somebody else, somebody worse.

  It’s important to know what the world is like. She’s in for a lot of hurt, this girl.

  I close my eyes. This other part of me wants to protect her from that. Like maybe she never has to know what the world is.

  I want that for her in a way I haven’t wanted anything for a long time. I want her to not know how things are. To not know what darkness really is.

  “Hey,” she whispers.

  I open my eyes. She’s furrowing her pretty brows, drawing them together like dark, silky dashes. Dainty creases form at the inner edges. Her lips are pursed in a pout of concentration.

  She removes my hands from her and brushes my sleeve. “Look at this. You have something all over your sleeve. Your sleeve is covered in…what is this?”

  I pull my arm away, because I think it might be blood and I don’t want her touching that scumbag’s blood. But then I see it’s not. “Oh. Just sawdust,” I say.

  “Were you making something? Doing woodworking?”

  The hopeful look in her eyes kills me. That’s what she thinks I do? Make nice furniture? All industrious and shit? Maybe sanding down my ventriloquist’s dummy between shows at the children’s hospital?

  “We’re out of here,” I say.

  Chapter 9

  Brooke

  He makes me drop him on a gloomy corner in Franklin City. He melts into the shadows as soon as he’s out of the car, like a shark disappearing into the murky depths of the ocean.

  We only spent a couple of hours together, but it feels like I lived a lifetime in those hours.

  I head toward the freeway that will take me back home, a deep suburb as far east as you can get from west.

  I put my phone back together while I’m stopped at a light just before the freeway entrance.

  The texts and voicemails flow in. Mom asking where I am. She hadn’t gotten my voicemail. Then it’s Mom saying I’m not at Chelsea’s. Mom angry. Then Dad.

  I quickly give them a call.

  “Brooke!” Her voice is high, the way it gets when she’s drinking or mad. I’m thinking she’s a little of both. My throat clenches with worry—or maybe just grief. She’s like this more and more.

  “I just got your messages,” I say. “I’m fine, I’m okay.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Just driving around,” I say. That’s what the man said to tell people. I wanted to drive around and think about my school project.

  “You lied to us!”

  “I knew you wouldn’t understand, so I—”

  “You lied! You frightened us out of our minds! Not to mention wasting the time of the police!”

  A bolt of fear shoots through me. “I shouldn’t talk while I drive,” I say. “Everything’s fine.” I hang up, thankful for the excuse.

  But everything isn’t fine.

  Detective Emilio Rivera is there when I arrive.

  My pulse kicks into overdrive. He smiles at me in a kindly way, like an uncle.

  My mother embraces me—partly for the benefit of Detective Rivera, I’m sure. I’ll get the freeze or worse once he leaves.

  Dad looks stern. “You gave us quite a scare, young lady.”

  I murmur something about not having ideas for my prehistoric village. “I thought I’d be home before you noticed.” Part of me does feel guilty for all the fuss. I’ve been taught to be small and silent, to take up as little space as possible.

  The other part of me is scared of what Detective Rivera sees. His eyes are sharp despite the vague smile on his face. I have the impression of a mirror, one of those one-way things they put in interrogation rooms. He can see me, but I don’t know what he’s thinking.

  “I’m sorry to waste your time,” I tell him, heart beating too fast.

  “It’s no problem,” he says smoothly. “I’d actually like to ask you a few questions.”

  “Questions?” My voice sounds as high and thin as my mother’s.

  “About the incident last fall. Your birthday.” His tone is sympathetic, but I’m not fooled. He’s observing me. Recording every detail in that whirring computer he’s got inside his head. “We have some new leads that I need to follow up.”

  “This again?” Mother gives me a hard look, as if I asked for it to be brought up. “The incident is best forgotten, Brooke, you know that. You can’t let it ruin your future. Or this family.”

  She leaves the room in a flurry of silk and Chanel No. 5. The guilt sits heavy in my gut, churning like rocks. Like boulders. I don’t want to ruin this family. But how can I forget him? I can’t.

  You don’t want to forget him, a voice inside my head whispers.

  It’s my darkest secret.

  My father glances at his phone. “I’ve already missed two meetings.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, because he pours everything into his work, and missed meetings can be disastrous.

  He’s already on the phone by the time he leaves the room.

  I’m alone with Detective Rivera, which is both a relief and a source of fear. At least I don’t need to put up an act for my parents’ sake. On the other hand, Detective Rivera won’t have to put up an act, either. Nothing about his outward appearance changes, but I feel the shift in the air, the hardening.

  “Driving around?” he says, almost mild. “Where?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “For
two hours.”

  “I was focused on my school project.” I remind him of the lie. “Lost in thought.”

  “Ah,” he says with a patronizing agreement. “The prehistoric village. That’s all right. I’m sure a car as new and nice as yours has a GPS system. We can pull up the logs, find out where you went. Maybe find some surveillance cameras along your route.”

  I hadn’t thought about that. Worry mixes with something else—a sense of protectiveness. My eyes narrow. “Does it matter where I went? What does this have to do with the prior incident?”

  “What indeed,” he murmurs. “But yes, you’re right. The prior incident. We got a hit on a partial fingerprint at a different crime scene. One that matches the one from your party.”

  My blood races. A different crime scene? A partial fingerprint? All I can picture is another white dress with pink flowers, another girl. Did he take her hostage, too? Did he make her drive him around? Did he kiss her? Of course those thoughts are crazy. He doesn’t spend his days making lost little girls drive him around. And even if he did, I don’t care.

  I shouldn’t care.

  I twist my hands together, remembering how the man looked in the car. Dark and mysterious. Forbidding. “A different crime scene. That’s scary,” I manage to say. It’s the right answer for someone like me. A victim.

  It’s also true. I’m scared of him, even though he excited me. Took me over. Reached inside to my pounding heart.

  How much is it worth to feel alive? A little fear seems like a small price to pay.

  Detective Rivera nods, studying me intently. “That’s right. It is scary what he’s capable of. And how they found the print—smeared in blood.”

  The words slither down my spine, cold and thick. “Blood?”

  “There was quite a lot of it,” he says conversationally. “That’s the typical result when you run a human body through a wood chipper. It pulverizes everything, but it’s messy. Don’t know why they did it. It doesn’t get rid of the DNA. We got enough tooth fragments and bone chips to test. Even fingernails.” He’s looking right at me, testing me.