By the time the parade ended, my mom was snoring softly, her empty plate tilted precariously across her lap and her drained soda can loosely clutched in her fingers. I took both without waking her and scraped the dishes, washing and drying them before grabbing the trash and heading outside to the nearest communal dumpster.
Hushed voices traveled from behind the wood housing and I halted my approach, fingers tightening on the plastic bag in my hand. Straining to hear better, I recognized one of the voices immediately. I should; I heard it in my dreams every night, damn him. Debating whether to carry on or just turn around and cram the trash in our overflowing can, something about the tone of Reno's voice edged me closer, my steps feather light against the leaf-strewn ground.
“Get the fuck out of it, man. It's never just one time, Owen, and you know it.”
“I'm not fucking in, Madd. They helped me out. I'm returning the favour. One-time deal, nothing owed. They're even gonna throw in a sweetener, man.”
“A sweetener? It doesn't work like that. They saw a fucking opportunity.”
“Fuck you. I can handle myself. I don't need my kid brother telling me my shit.”
“Fuck me? You think James Ross is just gonna let you walk away? You're deluded.”
“You're a fucking pussy. Let me ask you this... what if I don't want to walk away? It's easy fucking money, Madd. More than you can make in a month helping the old man in the garage.”
“So, it's not just a one-time thing then?”
There was a pause. “It is what it is, Madd. Nothing to get your panties in a twist about.”
“O, I don't fucking like this—”
“Don’t sweat, dude. Look, I gotta split. Gwen's waiting and she won't put out if I piss her off. Ain’t got the energy to go looking elsewhere for pussy tonight.”
“Christ, you're an asshole.”
“Don't worry, little brother, one day you'll grow up to be just like me.”
With a guffaw, Owen Renner headed off in the other direction and I plastered my back against the fencing, slinking as far as possible into the shadows and holding my breath as his silhouette danced out of view.
“So… you won't speak to me, but you will listen in on my private conversations.”
The scream that left my lips pierced the night sky, probably waking my mom and disturbing every resident in the trailer park. My heart thundered behind my ribs and the garbage fell from my grasp. Palming my chest to stop the frantic thumping, I bent forward.
“You stupid jerk!” I screeched, glaring up at him from my bent over position and gasping for breath. “You scared the ever-loving shit out of me!”
Reno grinned as he settled his shoulder against the wooden post, folding his arms over his chest and crossing his ankles. “Nosy tonight, aren't we?”
I remembered then that I was pretending he didn't exist. Dropping my hand from my chest, I snatched the bag from the ground, shoved the plastic lid up, and dumped the trash inside. Slamming the lid back down with a bang, I lifted my chin and stormed past him. His hand wrapped around my wrist and tugged me backward. My back landed flush against his solid chest and both of his arms wrapped around my middle immediately, locking me in. His mouth dipped to my shoulder, effectively sucking all the fight right out of me in one breath.
Man, this was bad. I didn't speak, didn't dare utter one word or make one move. I needed to think. To figure out how to keep my wits about me and maneuver myself into a position of power so I didn’t wind up sucking his face off again.
“This feels familiar.” His breath skimmed the skin on my neck, sending a subtle tremor through me.
Clearing my throat, my voice still managed to come out husky and low. Sultry. Jesus. “Yeah? Well, it's not going to play out the way you're thinking.”
His fingers strummed across my stomach. “No?”
I shook my head instead of using my newly acquired sex voice and squirmed against his hold.
He loosened enough for me to claw back some breathing room, but kept me trapped in the circle of his arms. The scruff of his jaw grazed my cheek as he murmured, “Why are you fighting so hard?”
“I'm not going to fuck you, Ren.”
He was silent but for his soft breaths stirring the hairs at my temple. Then, “And what if I want more?”
My body tensed. “More? More... what?”
“More than sex.”
Something like hope bloomed inside my chest. My heart clenched with possibility. I shut that down fast, dragging in a breath and choking out a forced laugh. “You don't do more than sex.”
“What if I do now?”
Pushing against his arms, I forced myself out of his hold and spun to face him. The idea of more with Reno, whatever more was, had my blood rushing and heat flooding my cheeks.
But I couldn't. I couldn't let him in, not even an inch. “You think you promise the world and I spread my legs? Is that it?”
His left shoulder lifted in a shrug. “Not making any promises.”
He took a step forward; I took one back. And then another, and another, until I had nowhere left to go. His toes brushed mine, that's how close he was. Close enough to smell the earthy, clean scent that was all him. His head dipped until his full lips were almost grazing mine.
“You and I know, I don't need any tricks to get laid. Pussy comes to me.”
God, he was insufferable! Laying my clenched fists against his chest, I shoved him, moving him less than an inch for my efforts. He smirked down at me. I hated that I wanted to kiss it off his gorgeous face.
“Urgh! You're a conceited asshole. Pussy comes to me,” I mimicked his voice.
A short chuckle rumbled from his chest as he looked down at me, infuriatingly unruffled. “Am I lying?”
“Screw you!”
Reno’s hands circled my wrists and pinned my arms above my head before I knew what had happened. His torso pressed into mine hard enough to crush vital organs. God, I loved it. The feel of him pressed against me. I fucking loved it. My chest swelled with a heavy intake of breath. My hips rolled of their own accord. When I tried to swallow, my throat felt dry and clogged.
Unlike his normally cool, collected facade, when my lust-addled gaze lifted to his, his dark eyes simmered with a burning intensity, the heat blazing from within them promised to melt me from the inside out.
“Reno,” I started, but he pushed himself further into me and my eyes shot wide. I bit my lip. I could feel him. Hard and big against my stomach. Talking suddenly seemed like a physical impossibility.
“I can have sex with any girl. Any time. Including you,” he murmured softly.
I couldn't even balk at the sheer arrogance of his claim. Couldn't lash out at the audacity. It was true. I closed my eyes, partly to shutter them from him, partly because I was starting to fall apart. He was breaking me down. He was right: he didn't have to promise me anything. It wouldn't take much more, and I'd fold like a deck of cards. Which meant I had to fight back. I had to try, goddammit.
“You're right, if you wear me down enough, I'll give in.” Smoldering eyes bored triumphantly into mine, while mine filled with tears. “But please don't make me,” I whispered.
He inhaled sharply, his chest expanding against mine. I wanted him so much it hurt. Physically, emotionally. It ached. I was too vulnerable, too exposed.
I might crave him; I might even love him... but I didn't want to.
Ten
Reno
Well, she sucked the fun right out of that. Exhaling slowly, I eased back, releasing my hold on her wrists.
Riley’s big, green eyes glazed over, a multitude of emotions I couldn't decipher swimming in them. It wasn’t difficult to pick out her fear, to see how terrified she was. Of me, of herself, of wanting something so badly. And she did. Her body told me everything I already knew, even if she never would.
I wouldn’t force her into admitting it, but I couldn’t curtail the disappointment that rolled through me. I'd put her off limits for so long and had ever
y intention of keeping her that way. Turned out I was majorly fucking deluded.
With Leon's ass out of the way, my brain shifted. I'd walked out of the locker room, leaving Leon a broken wreck of a man, and caught sight of her walking down the hallway. It was like the ding, ding, ding in the ring. Suddenly she was available to me in a way she’d never been before, and the fight was on. I didn't want anyone else to have her; then it had to be me. And if that meant hurtling into unknown territory, it was worth it.
But fighting off other guys didn't seem to be my biggest problem right now. It was fighting the girl. What a head-fuck. I'd given myself the go ahead, made my intentions clear to Leon, out of respect for our friendship, because we both knew she'd always been mine. Apparently, he hadn't seen things that way, so the conversation had ended with us throwing fists. After he’d landed the first punch.
And after all that, she was the damn roadblock.
Riley wanted me as much as I wanted her. I knew it. Leon knew it. Every fucker knew it. She was putty in my hands. Soft, malleable.
I'd never had to beg a chick for sex, though; damned if I would start now.
“Okay, Ri. Have it your way.”
Her visible sigh of relief was a punch to the gut, but I kept my features in check, aside from the muscle ticking in my jaw. I wasn't fucking made of stone. And a girl being relieved she didn't have to have sex with me? Yeah, I wasn't down for that shit. Why did I even bother? There was a ton of pussy clamouring for my dick. Why was I chasing tail that didn't want it? All the girls throwing themselves at me, and I wanted the one that wouldn't.
Was it the challenge, the thrill of the chase, or was it just Riley?
Fuck if I knew.
What I did know was how to push Riley Mason's buttons. I saw it in her eyes every time Raya sank that ass down on me. And I had no qualms about playing dirty. I’d push every one of her buttons if it got her to come to me. Because these days, I couldn't think about anyone or anything else, and if she was tying me in knots, I was sure as fuck gonna tangle her up with me.
“Happy Thanksgiving,” I murmured against the soft rise of her cheekbone, dropping a chaste kiss there. Then I turned and walked away, leaving her with her back plastered to the trash housing, and her breath panting like a train. By rights, I should have had her pinned to that fucking fence with my dick. If she'd just give in to what she so clearly wanted. I shook my head and adjusted my jeans.
Fuck my life.
“You're needed at the garage next week, son.” I rolled my eyes as I walked through the door, my gaze swaying to the balding, portly figure rising from the couch.
“Fine,” I muttered, going straight to the fridge and grabbing a can of soda before taking a long swig. Didn’t want a break anyway.
My dad, who was actually my stepdad, drew up beside me and opened the fridge door I'd just closed, grabbing another can of beer. Our eyes met when he turned, and I half-raised a brow.
A beefy hand landed on my shoulder, squeezing. “This is my last one.”
I inclined my head in acknowledgement. Brett's hand clapped my back briefly before the weight of it disappeared and his heavy footsteps retreated down the hall.
Brett Renner married our mom when I was three and Owen six. He’d treated us like family from day one, even welcomed us into his home, this very trailer. It had seemed like a mansion back then. One of the biggest in the park with three bedrooms, a kitchen, diner. I could remember walking into my room—my own room—eyes wide as saucers, a huge smile splitting my face.
Brett had been a massive upgrade from both Owen’s dad, and mine. The former had knocked my mother up at sixteen, and they’d lived with his parents until he’d impregnated another girl two years later. Mom had packed up and left… with the guy she’d been seeing on the side. So, not quite the wounded party. Less than a year into that relationship, I came along. But my sperm donor hadn’t managed to hold her attention for much longer. Mom fell for Brett when she met him serving drinks in a bar, and it was bye-bye bio-Dad. He'd never looked for her, or me.
Things had been good here for a while. Brett ran a successful garage, Mom had waitressed at the local highway diner. O and I had made friends easily. Life had been stable for six years. Then, for reasons my mom never fully explained, she'd split. Took off for work one day and never came back. A postcard arrived a couple of weeks later saying she'd had to leave and she was sorry, but she wanted her boys to know how much she loved them. Really, Mom? If you love your boys, you fucking stay with them to tell them in person.
Her diner cronies had already spilled her sordid tale to Brett by that point. Poor guy had been terrified she might have been kidnapped or murdered, but nope. Old habits die hard with my mother. She'd been banging some rich guy behind Brett's back for months and they'd taken off. She was ready for another upgrade. This time without her kids.
So, here we were.
Brett drank like a fish and we butted heads at times, but he’d taken on two young kids who weren't biologically his, despite the fact we probably served as constant reminders of the woman who cheated on him. If that was true, he’d never let it show. Instead, he’d fed and clothed us, sat down to help with homework, changed our names to his, and put our names on his garage.
The guy had been more of a parent than any of the assholes who’d brought us into this world. And every time I thought about it, I choked. There wasn't much that got to me, but that did. I'd never told him, obviously. We were guys; we knew that shit without putting words to it. But, yeah… Brett Renner was more than a step-dad.
Brett's head popped out of his door, and my eyes zipped to his.
“Your brother home tonight?”
“Doubt it. He's at Gwen's.”
He nodded once. “I'm turning in. Lock up before you head to bed, son.”
“Sure,” I muttered with a two-fingered salute.
His lips curved into a warm smile before his door closed, clicking into place with a faint clunk.
Bringing the can to my lips, I tossed my head back. Thoughts of a stubborn-ass blonde filtered through my mind, clogging it up like spam.
Riley Mason.
I first saw her when she was eight years old. Leon and I spotted her, a little sprite of a thing, sitting on the grass outside her trailer, lacing up a pair of battered purple sneakers. She seemed fucking ethereal, even then, with her curly halo of straw blonde hair, tiny heart-shaped face with a light spattering of freckles dotting her cheekbones and the bridge of her nose, and the softest sweet pink lips. Then she'd looked up. Clear green eyes stared right at me. I remember thinking she was a genuine angel.
She still looked like heaven—the curls had mellowed into loose waves, and her green eyes had darkened slightly—then she opened those pouty, plump lips, and all kinds of venom spewed out. That was probably what I liked most about her. She never blew smoke up my ass, and she didn't sit back and take my shit.
At nine, I'd been too preoccupied with video games and football to pay the new girl too much attention, but she’d snared Leon from that first look. He'd chased around after her ever since. By thirteen, I’d started to view her subtle curves and beautiful face differently, but at that point, Leon was crazy about her. I hadn't pursued her, but I'd never been able to resist her completely.
I'd spent the past few years provoking her, taunting her, anything to get a reaction. The spark of fire that flashed in her eyes whenever I pissed her off, the pink blush that crept over her cheeks when she got all flummoxed and worked up, the tremble that traveled her body when she was trying and failing to hide her reaction to me. She didn’t look at any other guy the way she looked at me, and I fed off that shit like some kind of incubus. She got off on it, too. I knew she did. Which made it all the more difficult to understand her need to put a brick wall between us.
A vivid image replayed in my head—of Riley backed up against the fencing, her eyes wide with want, body quivering with desire. I inhaled roughly, tampering down the urge to tear through the park and
storm her trailer. That wouldn’t work. Not with Riley.
I pressed the cool aluminium to my mouth and drained the can, wishing like hell I had a clue what the fuck went on inside her head.
Eleven
Riley
“So, you're like the original sour puss these days, huh? What's eatin' ya, sugar plum?”
Running my tongue over my upper teeth and biting down on it, I inhaled deeply through already flared nostrils. Calm. Just stay calm.
Hard to do when there was a rage coursing through me like venom, threatening to turn me green like The Hulk. Which was the color of the day apparently, what with my entire vision being clouded by jealousy. The kind I was desperately trying to avoid acknowledging.
Fury burned a path right through me. It simmered from the tips of my toes to the top of my scalp.
“O-kay.” A hand gripped my elbow firmly, guiding me from my seat and escorting me through the cafeteria, abandoning the tray of leftover food and viciously squeezed water bottle on the table.
“Please explain while we walk it off,” Liss chirped as we paced the empty hallway, “why you look like you're a nanosecond away from cutting a bitch with a dirty blade.”
Tugging my arm from her hold, I pounded forward through a set of double doors, frustration and anger lashing through me. How did I answer this? How did I explain to her that Reno put his lips on me—uninvited—a few weeks ago and sliced a hole into a can of worms that we should never have opened? That, after ignoring him for days, fighting to force the mangy little beasts back where they belonged and seal it the hell shut again, he'd cornered me by a dumpster on Thanksgiving and tore the lid to my fucked-up feelings clean off. Literally bared my soul. Now a barrage of emotions overwhelmed me, and I couldn’t seem to control them. And, as if he sensed my weakness, he’d decided to use it against me.
Untouchable: (Unstoppable - Book 1) (The Unstoppable Series) Page 5
