The Big O Series

by M. S. Parker

  He was halfway through another whiskey, slurring his words, when he finally started talking more about Marlon.

  "What was he like as a kid? Did he run wild?" I waggled my brows at him. "Was he a flirt like you?"

  "Oh, honey..." He shook a finger at me. "You...you..." He frowned, like he couldn't remember what he'd been about to say.

  Shit, he better not be too drunk.

  Reaching over, I took his whiskey casually, pretending to be thirsty. "Mind?"

  His eyes rested on my lips as I licked them.

  I was so bad at this, but he was too drunk to notice.

  "That boy of mine...I tell you what," he said.

  "Tell me about him." I had long since stopped pretending to write. He hadn't even noticed. "I heard about the wreck he was in. Was he hurt?"

  "Stupid fuck," Washington muttered. "I buy him a car like that and what's he do? The first party he goes to, he ends up plastered and wraps it around a tree...and that woman. Fuck..."

  Widening my eyes, I put the whiskey down. "He was hurt? What woman?"

  Bleary-eyed, Washington stared at me. "How did you hear about that wreck?"

  "I research really well," I lied. "Did Marlon hurt the woman? Who was she?"

  "Stupid bitch died," he snapped. "Yeah, I'd say she was hurt. Caused me no end of problems, and Marlon...idiot kid. I swear, there's no way that boy was mine. I told his mama she must have been fucking the mailman or something. I wouldn't have had a boy that stupid. And he goes running his mouth off after everything I did."

  "What did you do?"

  My heart was racing now, but he'd told me too much to stop.

  The digital recorder in my little bag might run out of memory before he stopped at the rate he was going.

  "I..." Washington stopped abruptly and looked around. "What the fuck are you asking about this for? You can't put this in a rag. How did you hear about the wreck? I buried it."

  He swiped out a hand and the glass went smashing to the floor behind the bar. "Who the hell are you?"

  Rage must have been doing something to clear the alcohol from his head because he suddenly looked a lot more aware than he had even a few minutes ago. His eyes landed on the notepad I'd left on the bar and nerves unraveled in my gut.

  Sliding over the barstool, I decided maybe it would be a good idea to make my exit. Like now.

  His hand clamped over my wrist and bile surged into my throat. His eyes narrowed as he leaned forward. "Where do you think you're going?"

  Thirty-Three

  Jake

  My gut was crawling.

  The note from Michelle, the ticket, all of it had left me filled with anger and more than a little fear.

  It had been a week since Michelle and I talked about McCrane, and she'd been...distant. Distracted.

  Now I understood why.

  She left me a short explanation of what she planned to do and told me if I wanted to face him, I could come join the party.

  Party?

  One thing she didn't know about Washington McCrane – he was dangerous.

  It wasn't just that he'd arranged for me to go to prison. I had a bad feeling he was behind his own son's overdose and there were many other ugly things that trailed back to him. I couldn't prove any of them, but that many trails of smoke weren't coming just because he was a nice, friendly guy.

  The press pass she left me had gotten me inside, and so far, nobody had stopped me either. One thing I'd learned in my life was that if you acted like you belonged somewhere, most people left you alone. But now that I was inside the posh hotel conference area, I had no idea where to look for Michelle. Pulling out my phone, I debated on whether to send her a text, only to discover she'd sent me one at some point between my leaving the apartment and getting here.

  It read simply.

  MacArthur Suite.

  I'd been in this particular hotel before and knew that suite. I could even thank Whitley for that. The ballroom was two levels and the MacArthur was up on the second level, just outside the main entrance on that floor. Jogging up the stairs, I told myself that I just might spank Michelle for scaring me like this.

  Hotel staff, caterers, people in suits, all of them buzzed around and none of them paid me any attention as I strode down the hall and hung a left.

  This hallway was more deserted, quieter too.

  The discreet plaque outside the room I needed had a small note beneath. Private party. Do not enter.

  Sneering at it, I reached for the handle.

  A clatter and a bellow on the other side of the door had me pausing for the briefest second, while the words oh, shit spun through my mind.

  I jerked on the handles, but they didn't open.

  "Fuck this shit," I muttered, rearing back.

  Being big and muscled came in handy at times, and the doors gave way under my shoulder as I rammed into them.

  I came up short, though.

  Michelle stood in the middle of the room, a frown on her face. And she was holding the front of her shirt, waving it back and forth. There was a wet stain splattering the front of it. On the floor by her feet lay Washington McCrane, his eyes rolled back in his head.

  "What the..."

  She looked up at me, then at the doors I'd forced open. "Why did you do that?" Her eyes were big and wide.

  "I heard you call out!"

  "Oh..." She went red and bit her lip. "He...um...he went to grab me and I..." She mimed swinging her elbow at him.

  "You did that?" I pointed to the ass on the floor.

  "Yes." She smiled, looking pleased. "After...well, a few years ago, I thought maybe I should take self-defense. I've got a brown belt in taekwondo. That's the first time I've ever actually had to hit somebody though." With a frown, she rubbed her elbow. "It kind of hurt."

  McCrane groaned and lifted a hand as his eyes started to open. The sound drew my attention back to him and murderous rage flooded me.

  I started toward him, but Michelle cut between us. "Don't!" She put her hands on my chest. "Don't, okay? It's over. You can have your life back...Matthew."

  I blinked, the sound of that name so foreign, I didn't know what to think.

  "What in the hell happened?" the older man on the floor said, his voice getting louder with every word.

  From where I stood, I could see when his eyes landed on Michelle, and when memory returned. Those angry eyes narrowed, and he started to speak, but Michelle shifted and when she did, I came into full view.

  His eyes widened.

  I don't know at exactly what second he recognized me, but he started to scramble back on the ground. It would have been wise, because I wanted to take him apart.

  But again, Michelle caught my arms.

  "Don't." She adjusted her stance so she could see the man on the floor as she held out her hand. "Listen."

  I glanced down and in it was a small, rectangular device. Frowning at the sight of it, I shook my head. But then she pushed a button, and I realized what it was – a digital recorder.

  McCrane's voice came spilling out.

  "He told me what he did, Matthew," she said earnestly. "He told me that Marlon had been driving and that Marlon crashed the car."

  "That's fucking crazy!" Washington shouted, shoving upright. "You stupid bitch, what are you playing at?"

  But she ignored him. "You can have your life back. My parents have connections too. They'll help you clear your name, and he can pay for what he did."

  That pushed Washington over the edge, and he got up, rushing at us.

  This time, I was the one to smash a body part into the man's face.

  But it wasn't my elbow.

  It was my fist, and if my knuckles were bruised and sore afterward, it was well worth it.

  He went down, hard, and this time, his eyes didn't roll back. They flat out shut, and he was still out of it when the cops arrived a short time later.

  Thirty-Four

  Michelle

  My heart was still hammering against my ri
bs.

  The man I loved had disappeared into the bathroom a few minutes ago. Jake – he decided he wanted to continue to go by the name Jake King – had just thoroughly destroyed my mind. Again.

  One of these days, I was going to do the same to him.

  Rolling onto my belly, I eyed the door and thought about the past few months.

  Washington McCrane had taken a plea deal and was doing a couple of years at a prison in Texas back where the crimes he'd committed had taken place. He probably would have fought harder, but I'd let some of the story leak to a reporter I knew – I wasn't above letting a story leak if it was for the right reason – and people started coming out of the wood work with dirt on the scumbag.

  Maybe he thought if he took a plea deal, he'd be safer from the other people who were looking to come after him. I had no idea.

  Jake had gone to see his father. They were trying to fix their relationship. Apparently, his dad had been looking for him for some time, but the name change had made it hard.

  Jake going to him had made it easier...or as easy as it could be, all things considered.

  He'd been busy.

  Not just renewing his relationship with his father, but with other things. He moved in with me and started a new job – two of them actually.

  One of them was as a freelance writer...for Coterie, of all places.

  He surprised the hell out of me when the article had gone live a month after everything had gone down with McCrane.

  The article had been titled,

  I Was a Male Prostitute and I'm Giving It All Up For Love.

  It had been written under a pseudonym – as had the other two articles he'd penned for them. And they wanted more.

  But that was what he'd done, given up the life he'd been living for me. He told me it wasn't much of a sacrifice, though, walking away from that life for one with me.

  My parents were still at work helping him clear his name. Nothing moved fast when it came to political shit, I guessed.

  My phone buzzed, and I picked it up. Gina had taken me under her wing and often helped me come up with new ideas to pitch to Aunt Blair.

  The message on my phone was the thumbs up from my aunt.

  I grinned, even as a blush colored my cheeks.

  It had taken all my courage to send that particular suggestion to her. After all, talking blow jobs with your aunt was almost as much fun as talking about them with your mother.

  But there it was...the go ahead for my new assignment.

  How to Give Your Man the Best Blow Job

  The door to the bathroom opened, and Jake came out.

  I smiled at him and crooked my finger. "I think I'll need your help on another writing assignment."

  Turn the page to continue The Big O Series.

  Big O’s

  RAYE: A kiss from a stranger at midnight on New Year’s Eve doesn’t mean anything, does it? Then why can’t I stop thinking about him?

  Maybe because he’s the most gorgeous man I’ve ever kissed – but even if I see him again, it can never become anything more than a fantasy. You see, I’m broken, and no one can fix me.

  KANE: A kiss at midnight after saving a damsel in distress should’ve gotten me something better than a slap across the face, but I don’t regret it. Not because of how beautiful she was, or how great it felt when I kissed her. It was the look on her face just before she ran. A broken look…and I’m a guy who fixes broken things.

  One

  Raye

  When I asked my boss about getting more overtime, I hadn’t quite planned on staying so late that I’d end up getting caught in the midst of the New Year’s Eve revelers. That was what I got for offering to let everyone else with a life enjoy the festivities.

  Which was fine. All I had to do was restock, straighten, and handle the end of the night paperwork. It was monotonous work, especially since I was on my own, but sometimes, I preferred it that way. Especially here in the store. It wasn’t that I minded my co-workers or even the manager. I liked them all, but people and me…well, I’d never quite figured out how to make myself click with them, and sometimes, the downtime away from others cleared my head.

  I’d had plenty of it over the past two hours, cleaning up the shop and restocking for the New Year’s Day sale that would start in…oh, maybe eight hours. And that was late for a New Year’s Sale, some people thought.

  The hours didn’t suck as bad as they did on Black Friday, but they weren’t banker’s hours either.

  Fortunately, I didn’t have to come in until noon.

  I swung by the bathroom on my way out, and after using the facilities, I automatically checked my reflection. A petite woman with bright red hair and blue eyes stared back at me, the shadows smudged under those eyes a mark of too many nights spent working or studying or both. I was cramming as many classes in as I could at NYU while juggling both school and my job.

  To say that I was exhausted would be putting it mildly.

  After one last pass through the shop to check the lights, I headed for the employee entrance that let out at the small alley in the back, pulling on my winter coat along the way. I hated that alley. Even though there was a security camera and other people often getting off or going into work, it was still too isolated for my liking.

  Turning up the collar on my coat, I checked the doors and the alarm system before turning to head down the alley toward W. 35th and the crush of people jamming Times Square just beyond.

  It was my first New Year’s in New York City, but I wasn’t going to join the revelry.

  I was heading home.

  Fighting my way through the bodies packed elbow to elbow took some time, but since it wasn’t quite midnight, I was making some headway.

  Somebody wolf-whistled, practically right in my ear, and I ignored them. Another block or two and things would loosen up. Not much, but at least I’d be able to walk freely. Most of the people were fighting to get to Times Square. I was almost positive I was the only one fighting to get out of it. It might have been easier if I’d just stayed another hour or two, but I’d prefer not to walk the streets completely alone if I didn’t have to.

  Of course, I’d have to wait until five or six in the morning for alone to even be a possibility tonight.

  Finally breaking free of the crush, I shoved my hair back from my face before jamming my hands back into my coat pockets and began to walk.

  Somebody wolf-whistled at me again.

  I ignored it.

  When it came a second time, it was a little harder to ignore, mostly because it sounded closer, but this was New Year’s Eve and everybody and their brother was plastered three sheets to the wind. Drunks, as obnoxious as they were, were normally harmless. The best thing to do was just ignore them.

  That was what I told myself right up until my arm was caught in what felt like a giant vice. I found myself jerked to a stop and a big, leering man peered down at me. “Well, look at you, sweetheart. Where you going in such a hurry?”

  Even though my heart had begun to hammer, I gave him a pointed look, then lowered my gaze to the hand gripping my arm. “Away. If you don’t mind?”

  “Maybe me and my buddy could join you. Seems we ain’t got anybody to kiss at midnight,” he said and broke out into loud peals of laughter as if he’d told the funniest damn joke he’d ever heard.

  My belly roiled, but I kept the nerves I felt from leaking out and showing on my face as I suggested, “Maybe try kissing each other.”

  Jerking my arm away, I pivoted on my heel and began to walk even faster.

  “Hey!” he hollered out behind me.

  I deliberately stepped into a clutch of people and twisted, thankful that most of them were quite a bit taller than me. Being short had been the bane of my existence for most of my life, but sometimes, it did come in handy.

  I put my legs to good use and swung east, heading in a different direction than I’d intended. It would still take me home, although it would add a few minutes more to the comm
ute. The main thing, I was going a different route than those assholes and that was what counted.

  When I heard the footsteps and a shouted, “Hey, honey! Hold up!” panic started to chitter inside me.

  I didn’t hold up. I walked even faster, just this side of a run.

  Nerves were quickly fading into panic, but I held it at bay. They were drunk, and they’d get bored once I proved to be more trouble than they were worth. Maybe I should swing back to Times Square, find one of the cops–

  Yeah, right, a jeering voice inside me said. Fat lot of good that would do you. Just get home!

  I wasn’t even halfway there, and I knew the subway would be packed this time of night. I could always try to flag down a taxi, but that would mean stopping my headlong rush to get away from these guys and…

  Shit.

  A hard hand clamped around my upper arm, and once more, I was swung around to face the guy who’d hassled me earlier. His breath smelled of stale beer and fried food, an altogether unappealing combination that made my stomach spin and flip even more than it already was.

  “Where you running off to?” he demanded. “We was talking to you!”

  Were! The word leaped into my addled brain, but somehow, I didn’t think correcting his grammar was the ideal route to take here.

  I jerked against his hold, but his grip was punishingly tight. “Let me go,” I said, trying to make my voice stern.

  “No…I wanna talk to you.”

  The look in his eyes had nothing to do with talking though.

  His friend leered at me as I looked around, trying to figure out what to do. The panic that had been whispering inside was now a full-throated yell, and I thought about calling for help. I was afraid it would be useless. The air was full of people’s shouts, music from nearby parties, and for some insane reason, although there were people all around, hardly anybody seemed to really be there.