I mean really, I do owe him one. He can’t be the only one who gets to use the element of surprise to his advantage. But my cheeks still heat at the thought of it, at him in whatever state he’s in behind this door, dripping wet and probably seething with not-so-repressed anger from whatever shit storm he’s most recently brought on himself.
I push my ear against the door and listen, but besides the warmth from the steam seeping through, there’s no other signs of life. A gasp escapes my lips when it flies open suddenly, strong hands grabbing me by the arm to pull me inside.
The door slams shut again behind me, my back hitting it roughly as Damien pushes me against it and smacks his palm against the wood beside my head. “Spying on me now?” he asks with a cold stare.
“I—no,” I stammer. “I was just…” My train of thought disintegrates as my eyes trail down to his body. His torso is littered with vicious-looking bruises, the evidence of a brutal beatdown that stops my heart cold. “What the hell happened to you?”
“I fell down the stairs,” he says plainly.
“Is everything okay?” I ask tepidly, not willing to take his words at face value.
He cocks an eyebrow above a disgruntled stare. “Dandy. Now is that really what you wanted?” He moves closer to me, eyes shifting down my body before returning to my face. “Or did you come to return the favor for last night?”
His hand reaches up to stroke the top of my head, fingers curling and tugging gently at the naturally crimped pieces of my hair I haven’t had the chance to straighten. I somehow catch sight of myself in the mirror behind his shoulder. I look like a deer caught in headlights, but I somehow get the feeling that’s exactly what he wants.
My lips purse together defiantly. “I didn’t know I owed you something.”
“Don’t play naive, Wind,” he purrs against my ear, lighting me up with goosebumps. “You know everything is always an eye for an eye.”
Something hard brunts against my stomach, and I look down to see none other than the pole of Damien’s cock stiffening against the towel wrapped at his waist. Aside from the bruises, his body is a spectacle of lithe muscle and hard lines, one I could stare at for hours until I passed out from all the blood rushing to my head.
“If you had never been kissed before until yesterday, I guess that means you’ve never had a dick in your hand,” he murmurs, fingers trailing down to cup my chin and smush my lips. “Or your pretty little mouth.”
“You want me to go down on you?” I utter as my mind reels at the thought, the space between my legs heating with need. “That’s not exactly an even trade. All you did was finger me.”
“I made you come,” he corrects me. “Besides, if it’s so important shit feels fair to you, I’ll eat you out. Eventually.”
He unwraps the towel, shifting my hand to grip his rigid cock. I’m too distracted and enamored by the thought of his head buried between my legs to resist, the temptation of the promise he’s made swaying me to the dark side. I had come here wanting to know what happened last night. Now, I’m falling to my knees on the bathroom floor.
Do it, I tell myself.
It’s not like I haven’t thought about it before. Back when Jessa and I would dish about the random things we would be bold enough to do if the guys we liked ever gave us the time of day, Damien had always been at the forefront of my mind. I’d serendipitously name some other random guy from one of our classes to keep the peace, but when I joked about all the so-called dirty things I would be willing to do, I knew I was always talking about him.
I eye Damien’s cock, feeling the veins that run up and down the solid length of him against my palm as I shift my hand up and down. He sighs above my head, pressing his hands against the door where I had been standing and shifting his hips forward. My lips meet his dickhead, trailing my tongue around the rim before taking it completely into my mouth.
He tastes clean and freshly showered, but just past the soapy smell, the scent of him remains. It’s a concentrated blend of pheromones and spice that when paired with his cock moving in and out of my mouth, threatens to leave a puddle of wetness between my knees.
I gag as he pushes himself further into my mouth, brunting against the back of my throat and showing no mercy. I try and relax, if that’s even possible, letting him go deeper as I concentrate on breathing.
I open my half-closed eyes, taking in his body, the crest of pubic hair that frames the shaft of his dick, and the V of his stomach and hips.
Fuck, he’s got a good body.
My free hand trails up greedily to settle on one of his muscular thighs before shifting up to his ass and pulling him forward, further into the cramped space of my already full mouth and throat. Tears roll down my cheeks as he bucks against me, pushing the back of my head into the door behind me as his hips jerk in response.
“Windy?” my mother’s voice suddenly sounds down the hall, but Damien doesn’t let me up, not until my teeth begin to clamp down on him in response. He shifts away from me, pulling his still-hard cock from my mouth just as her voice rings out again, closer this time. “Windy, are you in there?”
“What, Mom?” I manage to choke out in a hoarse, nervous voice that’s barely my own.
“Did you hear Damien come home at all last night? I hope everything is okay.”
I roll my eyes as he thumbs the head of his cock in front of me, readying it for my mouth again. “I think I heard him come in. It was late, though.”
Even after my reply, I can still sense her on the other side of the door. “Are you okay? You sound like you’re sitting on the floor.”
“I’m…looking for my comb, under the sink. I’m fine.”
“The yellow comb? Or the tortoiselle comb? You know, I think I saw that one downstairs.”
“I’ve got it,” I call back to her, my tone on the brim of frustration.
“Okay,” I hear her say. “Well, have a good day at school.”
I hear her footsteps heading down the stairs. Damien yanks me up to standing, pressing my body against the door again. “You won’t say a word about what you saw in here,” he orders. “To anyone.”
“Why would I?” I utter as my gaze slips down to his mouth. His bottom lip is even fuller than normal this morning, slightly swollen from the thrashing he took, but I still want to taste the blood that might be behind his kiss, to share in his pain the way he’s shared in mine.
This world is shit, and sometimes you have to scrape the joy out of it in any way possible.
“I’m not looking for a discussion, Wind,” he mutters, looking into my eyes as his thumb trails up to my bottom lip. As usual, his touch feels both tender and threatening. “Just fucking promise.”
“Okay,” I offer, but I can see on his face that’s not good enough. “I promise.”
He narrows his eyes at me before taking hold of my jacket and pulling me away from the door to open it and kick me out.
“W-wait—” I sputter, and it’s nearly shocking how badly I don’t want our encounter to be over. Everything about it has been wrong, the bruises on his body, the way he pushed his dick inside my mouth, the way I so greedily sucked.
Damien’s movements still, and he looks at me expectantly. “What?”
“Are you taking me to school?” I squeak.
He cocks an eyebrow at me, but the slightest smile curls the edges of his mouth. “Sure, Wind,” he says, reaching down to run his hand over the curve of my ass through my skirt. “I’ll take your sweet little ass to school. You’re gonna have to find your own way home, but it seems like you’ve managed to do that before.”
“What, why?” I ask, a surge of jealousy rushing through me I know leaves visible evidence on my cheeks. “I mean—”
“Because I’ve got shit to do,” he tells me bluntly. “That’s why. And it’s none of your business.”
I glare up at him. “Don’t you think you’ve gotten yourself into enough trouble lately?”
; “The day I think that is the day I die,” he mutters. “Now stop asking questions.”
“You’re living in my house,” I counter defensively. “Don’t you think I deserve a heads up if you’re going to lead some evil shit storm straight to my front door?”
He grabs me by the wrist and pulls me forward, forcing my hand against a yellowing bruise on his chest. “Look at me, Wind,” he says as his gaze cuts into mine. “You don’t think evil knows where you live already?”
I don’t say anything. Maybe he’s right.
He doesn’t wait for me to respond. He opens the door and pushes me outside, slamming it shut behind me.
13
I get Windy to school on time for once, watching as she ascends the stairs up to campus and disappears into Hudson Hall. She said almost nothing to me on the drive over, but I’ve been around her long enough by now to sense her mood.
She’s spooked. By me. By what she saw. By the things I did to her, and the things I made her do. Kissing her had been just an introduction to all the warm and soft feelings her mouth can provide, and now that she’s let me brunt my dick against her tonsils, I can hardly wait until the next time.
Still, I noticed Ace and Fabian taking appraising glances at her as she went up the stairs, the hem of her skirt dancing dangerously around the curve of her ass, and I can’t deny the surge of ownership that flowed through me.
She’s mine, whether she knows it or not.
But I have a feeling she does. Eighteen years-old and never been kissed, let alone touched. She’s been too straight-laced until now, too stuck in her own trauma to let anyone past her defenses, but I’m all too willing to convince myself she’s just been waiting for me.
Waiting or not, it feels like I’m ready to give her everything.
Including the tattoo she’s been dreading.
“We’re a people without a country,” Fabian says as we descend upon the bleachers, skipping class again. “The Snake Eyes need a headquarters.” He passes me the blunt we’re sharing, and I take a long drag, craving the distraction.
“I’m aware,” I mutter, smoke puffing from my lips as I speak. I know they’re used to Rey and the way he used to do things. The territory grabs, the turf wars, the EYE 4 AN EYE tags asserting ownership. Things are different now, but I’ve been too caught up in my own personal shit to make that abundantly clear.
Ace takes the blunt from my fingertips and puffs away. “Personally, I like the nomadic approach,” he notes. He could just be being diplomatic, so indoctrinated by being part of a team that he knows not to makes waves, or he could just be reluctant to cross me.
Either way, it’s a smart move, along with being one I’m grateful for. I don’t need anyone second guessing me right now, not when I’ve still got shit of my own to deal with, let alone the agenda of the gang.
“Man, I’ve gotta start going to class,” Fabian notes. “They’re gonna kick me out of the Honor Society.”
“Honor Society?” I repeat. “Fuck that.”
“What?” he asks, turning a skeptical eye towards me. “You don’t plan on graduating? This is it for you?”
“Why wouldn’t it be?” I counter. “Tomorrow’s not guaranteed, let alone graduation.”
“But you’re the Sheriff’s son,” Fabian says skeptically. “You really think anyone is gonna try to take you out? I thought that’s why you got called back to be leader, you being pretty much untouchable and all.”
By now, the weed has spun its way into my veins, mellowing me out enough to not instantly want to strike back against the assumptions he’s managed to pin on me. I shake my head. “If anything,” I say. “That makes me more of a target.”
I leave it at that. No one else needs to know about the card I’ve got in my back pocket, waiting to be played. But it all starts with getting the proof I need, because without it, everything stays only a suspicion.
“Well if we plan on disrupting shit around here,” Ace muses. “We’d better act soon.”
I give a nod as smoke filters from my lips in a languid line. “Leave it to me.”
***
The Diablo Beach cemetery sits at the top of a tall, sloping hill, one bordered with meadows that bloom with bright patches of marigolds in the fall. The orange juxtaposed against the green from the cemetery paints a colorful landscape, one that’s almost pleasant, but for as long as I live I’ll never get used to visiting my sister here.
It’s a gloomy, windswept afternoon by the time I park my car near the mausoleum where she’s interred in a gray box with a brass placard that’s already turning green from the moisture brought in with the fog from the coast. It’s hard to believe it’s been nearly two years since we said goodbye.
Only we didn’t, not technically, because she never gave me the chance.
She just left. Left Mom, left Windy. Left me.
Damn it, Jessa.
I know it’s not right to think ill of the dead, but sometimes I can’t help it. And lately, I’ve needed that anger, because sometimes it feels like the only thing that’s keeping me going.
After I came back from my involuntary hiatus at military school, it didn’t take me very long to discover I wasn’t the only one periodically stopping here to visit dead family.
It’s been at least twice now that I’ve seen Jax, the enforcer for the Daggers, here on the same day, around the same time. Snake Eyes intel has made me aware that he’s got an aunt buried here, a teacher who used to work at Diablo Beach Prep of all places. Looking at Jax, you would think his entire extended family were hooligans and criminals, not kindly old ladies who taught English.
He’s here now, black Chevelle parked like a giant arrow signaling his presence. Just what I wanted.
Funnily enough, it was Jax who gave me my first black eye upon my return to this city. I had goaded him to fight, using Windy to target the girl I knew he had it bad for. She’s his girlfriend now, bridging lines between the Roses and the Daggers in the most heartwarming of ways. In the grand scheme of things, I technically had a hand in writing their cute little love story.
“I just want a minute or two of your time,” I say, walking up behind him from an angle he’s not expecting. He jerks around with cold eyes, and I raise my hand. “You owe me.”
“Owe you a fuckin’ beating,” he counters, thumbing his nose at me.
“Too late for that,” I counter.
“Yeah, you making a lot of new friends now that you’re back in town?” His eyes examine my face. I know someone with his expertise can spot the aftermath of a beatdown, no matter how subtle.
“And enemies.”
“Well, you can count me in the latter.” He takes a step toward me, cracking his knuckles as he does. “But you already knew that.”
“Like I said,” I tell him, but I can’t stop a smirk from sliding onto my face. It’d be easy to get him to fight right now. Too easy. “I just want a minute of your time. Well actually, your girlfriend’s time.”
His eyes narrow in my direction. “What the fuck did you just say?”
“I said,” I continue slowly, taking a step forward. “I need a word. With your girlfriend.”
Jax’s girlfriend, Samaire Convoy, is the daughter of none other than the lawyer working on Benita Andreas’s case, and I think he might be interested in what I have to say.
But Jax doesn’t wait for me to say anything else. I take a step back, narrowly escaping the swing he throws, but he’s on me a minute later, grabbing me by the collar and socking me in my wounded ribs. The breath rushes from my chest, but I harness the pain. Military school was instrumental in training my body. I may not be as big as Jax, but the anger swirling inside me makes me just as dangerous.
So we may as well tussle amongst the stones. It might just be therapeutic for the both of us.
I land a satisfying punch to Jax’s midsection before he tosses me away from him. He has to be reconsidering whether or not he can completely steamroll ov
er me the way he does everyone else. We circle each other for a second or two before I bound forward, tackling him to the ground and knocking my fist against his temple.
“Seeing little birdies now?” I sneer as I watch his eyes momentarily roll in his head. They float back to normal all too soon and he kicks me off him, thudding one heavy knee into my chest. The bruised parts of my body howl with pain, but I don’t stop. I need the chaos, because without it, I start to remember Jessa lying in that gray box just up the path.
The physical pain distracts me from everything else. There’s not enough time to mourn my sister, to feel the guilt that wants to drown me like an overflowing river, when I’m wrapped up in trying to stay alive.
I wrench my head to the side just in time to avoid another skull-shattering punch from Jax. His fist thuds into the grass next to my ear, and I can hear the way the earth shifts in response. That wouldn’t have been good.
We get back onto our feet at nearly the same time. Adrenaline is still pumping through my veins like a drug, the same drug I know Jax gets high on, too. He glares at me, but his eyes waiver behind me. Begrudgingly, he comes out of fighting stance.
“What?” I mutter, not ready for the battle to be over. Not being able to fight back effectively the night before has left me with a metric shit ton of aggression that threatens to bury me if I don’t get it out. “Don’t tell me you’re scared.”
“I’m not doing this here,” he tells me. “Fighting you on top of my aunt’s grave is too fucked up, even for my tastes. It’s disrespectful.”
“Oh, you don’t think she knew who you are?” I counter. “She would probably be expecting this if she could expect anything at all. Only she can’t, because she’s gone. Forever.” I shake my head. “She’s not even really here, because this whole place is fucking theater.”
Jax cocks a skeptical eyebrow at me. “You didn’t just tail me here, did you?” he murmurs. “You’re here for a reason.” His eyes float up over the graveyard, and I see him focus on my car parked up on the hill near Jessa’s mausoleum. If he doesn’t know about her already, all it would take is a little investigating, as simple as reading her last name, the same as mine, on the placard.
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