by Cassia Leo
“Too late. TMZ already got the scoop. I don’t know how they got tipped off, but your sister getting drugged is all over the TV and net now.”
“Damn it all! This is all we need. I’ll call Paulie and Jarvis, put them on alert too. Is Jed there?”
“Nah, man. He was but he just left. I think he’s headed back home.”
“Kay. I want someone with her at all times. We can’t cancel out that psycho being involved. This is exactly the type of chink she could use to slip in and strike. This is my bullshit to deal with, not Lex’s. And I refuse to let anything happen to her. Damn it.” A tornado of madness touched down in my mind and my skin itched from the spiked anxiety. “I’m coming.”
“Look, you don’t have to do that, D. Trust me. She’s fine. I’ll stay with her and bring her home as soon as she’s discharged. It’ll be okay. Relax.”
“I can’t fucking relax. You didn’t see that picture, how badly gouged it was. She hates Alexa.”
“Why? That’s crazy and weird. It’s not like you’d ever hit that.”
“Yeah … exactly,” I said, but it didn’t feel or sound at all convincing because I honestly did want to hit that. In the worst way. “But that freak’s a total nutcase. She was in Alexa’s room. In her fucking room, probably imagining burning it down with her in it. Just bring her back, Matty. I don’t think she realizes how serious this is. She doesn’t have anyone else to take care of her. I’m it. I’m all she’s got.”
“I know. I’ve got this. Plus, I just learned Kate holds black belts in both Kung Fu and Karate. Between the two of us, we’ve got it covered. So fucking hot, and I don’t think she even knows how damn bangable she is. We’re good. I promise. We’ll bring her home, safe and sound.”
“You’d better. Did you tell Kate that assessment?”
“Kind of, but I don’t think she took me seriously. She ended up dancing with some other dude right after I told her to call me. I’m gonna have to fix that.”
“You do that. Call me as soon as Alexa’s discharged and you’re on your way.”
“Will do.”
I hung up and paced some more. My wracked nerves had kept me up all night, but, as the sun was rising, it did inspire a song about waiting in silence as seconds melt away, so that was the only good thing away I got out of this freakout.
Matty texted me when they were on their way back. I had Jed come over to stand guard outside in case any unwanted visitors showed up. The press wasn’t even piling up yet outside the gate, which was good but also bad. What if no one cared? Wouldn’t that be worse? Probably.
Alexa and company whooshed inside with a spring breeze but without incident.
Kate aided her with a clutch on her forearm through the foyer and great room, although she seemed steady on her feet and didn’t look like she needed the assistance.
Matty came in behind them.
“Are you okay?” I asked, hurrying up to her, truly, deeply concerned. “What the hell were you thinking?”
“I was just dancing, Danny, and I’m fine. Forget it. It’s over.” She elbowed her way past the stand of people around her and flopped down on the couch with her hand over her forehead.
“More than dancing, according to the bartender I spoke with.”
“What business is it of yours what I do or don’t do? Your guard dogs helped me out anyway, and I’m fine. See? Thanks so much, Kate. Oh, and Matty.”
Kate waved. “Glad you’re okay, Lex. I’m gonna take off. I’m exhausted.”
“Kay. Thanks for sticking around. Bye, lover,” Alexa said with a blown kiss.
Kate left out the front door but closed it quietly.
I walked over to Matty near the winding staircase and stood under the chandelier. “Is she okay for real?”
“Yeah, she looks and seems all right now,” he said, peering over my shoulder me. “No ill effects. Cops got the bastard. I really need to crash too. I’m dyin’ myself.”
“All right. Thanks, man.” I looked over my shoulder for a second, then turned to face him and backhanded his upper arm. “Thanks for staying with her all night and for driving her home.”
“No prob.”
I leaned in and whispered, “Did that creep fucking touch her?”
“Yeah, but she doesn’t remember any of it. Just dancing, that’s it. I told her he was getting handsy and that she said no. Scotty let Jed scare the ever-living shit out of him before the cops picked him up. It’s all good. Everything’s fine. She was in good spirits on the ride home.” He reached behind me and slapped my back. “Is our session still on for Wednesday?”
“Yeah, yeah. I almost forgot, with everything.”
“Well, your sister’s one sassy and determined handful, that’s for sure. I don’t know that I’d want to babysit again.”
“She’s not my sister,” I said through a clenched jaw. I thought for several moments and said, “She’s more like … baggage.”
Matty cringed as a loud gasp ripped through the air behind me. My heart sank when I dared to look back and saw the bloody result of my stab.
Clutching the mahogany banister, she creaked out, “Baggage, Danny? Really? You asshole! Thanks a bunch!” Her lower lip wobbled and tears filled her eyes so fast and streamed down her cheeks. She coughed to punch away a sob and spun away from me and rushed up towards her room.
“Shit,” I dragged out, looking back at Matty for assistance, but I royally fucked up. What could he do or say to fix my tainted, big fat mouth?
“Sucker punch. Really low blow, dude.” Matty shook his head and waved his hands. “I didn’t have time to warn you. This is all yours to tackle. I’m outta here. The carnage will be gruesome.”
“Surely. Shit.”
With a door slam, he left me to pick up the rubble from my detonating word.
“Fuuuuck.” I ascended after her and felt crushed when I found her ripping clothes out of her bureau and pounding them into a suitcase.
Hearing me coming, she said, “Damn you, Danny. Get the hell away from me.”
“I … didn’t mean that.”
“You most certainly did. Do you think I want to be here, under your brick-heavy thumb? Hell no. I just don’t have my shit all together yet. But I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t ask to get ditched.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” I clutched her arm to stop her from her mad rush to pack. “Alexa. Will you stop?”
“No, Danny. I’m leaving.”
“Where the hell will you go?”
Her loose blond hair had become a wild mess, and she moved her hand to smooth it out of her eyes but I wouldn’t release her. “Does it matter? I don’t know, and I don’t fucking care, as long as it’s far away from you. I’m tired of you treating me like some kid or a piece of shit. I’m not. I’m fun and I’m sexy, dammit. And I’m tired of being your effing baggage and getting all your trash talk shoved in my face. It’s rude and demeaning, not funny one bit.”
I used my fingers to clear her face of stray strands and tears. “You’re not leaving here,” I said softly. “No damn way.”
“You think you can just order me around all the time, like you own me or something? You don’t. I am an adult and I can think for myself. And I can do whatever the hell I want.”
“Okay, you’re right. How’s this? I don’t want you to leave.”
“Screw you! I am.” Her fiery glare cut into my eyes like stickpins. “I hate you so stinking much, you know that? She left me. She just fucking left, leaving me nothing more than a kiss-off P.S. scribble at the bottom of Bill’s note, without ever looking back. How could you say that to me? How dare you! It’s so, so wrong and hurtful. You just … crushed me.”
I hugged her. She beat my chest and then eventually gave up in defeat as she broke down and sobbed against my pecs. “I know. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Lex. I didn’t mean it.”
She jerked away from me, waved her hands and took in deep breaths to yank some composure back. “You are such an asshole, such a filthy, butt-
munching asshole. I never asked for this shitty life or to be a burden to you and Bill. I don’t wanna be baggage to you anymore. I know that this situation sucks, okay? I know. But, I’ll have my degree in eight weeks, and I already said I have a job lined up. Then I’ll get my own place, cut you free, and unburden you once and for all.”
“You are not a burden or baggage to me,” I yelled. “You’re not. I fucked up and said a wretched and boneheaded thing, but it’s not true.”
“Oh no? Then what is true, Danny? What’s true?”
“This is what’s fucking true.” I seized her arms, pulling her back to me and up against my body. I clutched her head and roughly planted my lips on hers. I pulled her in closer, like I’d drowned if I didn’t suck out a bit of her soul or feel her body crushed against mine. She shook in my sudden, turbulent grip for two seconds, then slid her arms around my neck and molded herself to me. My hands followed her spine and the curve of her ass.
Our lips flowed in sync, opening and closing together in a dance of need that picked up in intensity along with the rushed breaths flying out of our noses that quickly intertwined and mated like horny ghosts.
As I thrust my tongue in deep through her opened lips, she moaned against my exploration and sucked me in deeper, again and again. She flung her head back and cried my name as I moved my mouth down to munch her neck.
I bit her ear. “This is what’s true, Alexa. And I don’t want anyone giving me that look, like I’m demented somehow, because I want you so fucking bad.”
At that, our hands began to roam with claws drawn, seizing flesh in a feral explosion of passion and lust. Still clamping her crudely against my body, I lifted her off the ground, flipped her legs around me with a hoist, and tossed us both down on the bed.
Her warm, quickened breaths on my upper lip and soft strokes on the back of my neck whisked my piqued flesh like butterfly wings, but they held the power of electrical storms, singing me with zaps deep in my gut. Every whooshing skim kindled me like flames made of bright colors. God, I’d never felt more alive than this moment. I surged to life with vivid essence and flew strong against her sexy body, craving to drink her in entirely. My life before her kiss felt like a span of starvation, where all along I’d only had crap to consume but never even knew or realized it. Now, I was finally, finally tasting real food for the first time, and I never wanted to go back to the horrible, empty, unsatisfying dreck of yesterday. Never.
Diving again and again into her hot, minty mouth, I slowly ran my hand down her back once more, relishing every sexy inch. I squeezed her ass cheek as my fingers rounded that biteable spot. In my famished hunger, I wanted to consume her, to take her, to own her. Possessively, urgently, afraid to lose this feeling, I squeezed her butt, now with both hands, harder and harder, while grinding my erection against her panty-covered heaven. I needed her. God, I needed her now and my whole being ached to own her. My cock throbbed and twitched to feel her slick hold. But she yowled loudly in real pain at my animalistic claim to make her mine.
“Ya mad at me, Danny? I was just … out for some fun at that club. I didn’t know that would happen. It’s not my fault I got drugged.”
Shit, shit. I groaned as everything beautiful shot away like a murder of crows spooked by lightning. Why did I have to be such a twisted freak? Why? “I know. No, I’m not mad at you.”
“Then, why are you kissing me like you’re pissed, like you’re gonna flip me over any second and strap my ass until I’m striped red and screaming.”
The visual singed me like hot coal and I gasped. I’m no sadist, but no woman’s ever said or done anything even close to my kinky desires before and the fact that she spit it out so flippantly, like it was at the top of her head, ignited my lust like never before. An inferno flared up in my loins, and at the same time, a rush of disappointment, as I realized she’d be just another waste of my time. She would. I tried, I tried to get wilder and kinkier with Britt, and it chased her into the arms of someone who’d never be caught dead in leather. With my lust completely torn up and stomped on, I stroked hair off Alexa’s cheek and kissed her lips gently, once, then twice. “I’m not mad, I swear, and I’m so sorry. I got carried away and … and swept up … in this.”
She laughed like a bubbling spring. “Well, good. You had me worried. I’ve never been kissed like this before. It’s so damn hot. Kiss me again.”
I shook my head to slash up our strong bond and got off her body and then her bed. This sucked. This sucked so bad. Why couldn’t I just be some normal dude? Bad enough I was craving to fuck my step-sister blind, but my true hunger went far, far beyond that. I wanted so much more. “No. I can’t. This is all wrong.”
She clutched my hand. “Danny. It’s okay. How’s it wrong? We’re not really related and it’s not like we grew up together or anything. We’re both adults.”
“No, it’s not that. I don’t give a shit about that.”
“Well, okay then. It doesn’t matter what anyone thinks, but this, whatever it is, is scorching hot, and I don’t want you to stop. And I know you don’t. I felt it. Now stop being an idiot and get over here and gimme some more of that. Please?”
Shit. “I’m sorry, Alexa, that I got you all riled up, first with my words, and now, with my filthy paws and lips. I’m sorry I went there.”
“What the hell, Danny? So, you don’t really want me? What the heck are you doing then? What was all this? Why’d you kiss me? No, not just kiss me, run at me like a freight train. You said that was truth and you rammed me down onto my own damn mattress.”
I slowly nodded. “It is, and I do want you, not just ’cause you’re sexy, but because you’re intriguing and complex and sassy. But that doesn’t make this right,” I pointed to her hot body, gauzy skirt flipped up to show me the wetness of arousal on the pink flowers of her underwear, “when we’re all wrong for one another. Our personalities don’t mesh, like, at all. Giving in to this would be the worst thing for me, for us.”
“What the hell! Screw you. Just fucking leave then.”
I pressed my curled in lips together to silence the customary twisted barb behind them. “I am not the kind of man you need, and I don’t want to hurt you. Getting physical like this is a horrible idea. You know me, but you don’t really know me, and I wanna keep it that way.”
She chucked a pillow at my face then covered her exposed upper thighs with her dress skirt with a brush of her hand. “Whatever. You’re nothing but a chickenshit wimp and you know it. Get the hell out.”
“Fine. But you’re staying here.” I pointed to the floor as an exclamation point. “You’re not going anywhere that I can’t keep an eye on you.”
“Why? Afraid I’m gonna get fucked by someone who’s not afraid to actually go for it without having to drug me?”
“No. I’m afraid you’ll get shot or knifed. And whether by my hand or stupidity, or someone else’s, I refuse to ever lose you.”
***
CHAPTER FIVE
Alexa
Danny’s tongue wildly fucking mine and his grabby hands squeezing my ass still had me dizzy and hot, as well as annoyed, three days later. That was the hottest damn thing in the world. His kiss. No guy’s ever, ever, kissed me like that, with that much ownership, that much confidence, that much talent. I stroked my bottom lip. Wow. I couldn’t stand the thought of that being our one and only kiss ever. Just thinking about the gentle grazes of his knuckles down my back made me all sorts of fluttery and weak. I didn’t want our evident fireworks to be over with just a couple firecrackers when I knew, with every cell in my body, much bigger explosions were to be had in the sheets … or the pool …. anywhere really.
Seventy or so tables surrounded the stage at Smitty’s Smokehouse, and about twenty were up in the loft. It was a packed house, and Kate and I specifically arrived early to snag a good spot in the loft where we could look down on the rocking action. She whined about the location at first but caved to my beggary. I didn’t want to be able to see Danny’s fac
e up close when he made those goddamn, panty-melting moans. Hell no.
Kate and I were cracking up while tackling dripping, sweet-tangy ribs when IF came out on stage to thunderous applause. I set my rack down and let out a whoop.
Danny looked me dead in the eye just as I was sucking burgundy goop off my finger. My stomach dropped and my breath quickened. The zapping and lofty connection between us was thicker than pea soup, than leather. In shock, I froze, the digit still in my mouth. I dragged it out slowly. He spoke to the crowd at the mic, but I had no clue what he was saying because he never took his eyes off me as I disregarded my move for a napkin and continued to clean all my fingers with my sucking mouth instead. I ached to feel his body against mine and hear his breathy disgusting comments in my ear.
As Matty tapped the bass drum three times to kick off the number, Danny shook his head to break our mind meld that was creating its own soulful music.
My heart sank. I wanted him all to myself.
The crowd cheered instantly, loving the evident first pick. It was Heartbeats on Fire, their most upbeat and longest charting tune. It was a good choice.
Damn. Danny was right. As the songs fell into a quieter pace after four, and the growls and hot, heavy breaths simmered down to barely there, the erotic rhythmic beats and deeper lyrics in the stuff I’d never heard felt like a grownup sexy versus the blatant, in-your-face, practically soft-core porn prose of yesterday. So hot. This had swagger and guts, as well as a deep sadness, as Danny sang a song that I think was titled, Shredded, since that word kept getting repeated, which likely had to do with his breakup.
Although not a full-blown concert with pyrotechnics or chains and leather, the jeans, yummy t-shirts, and boots were no less sexy. The crowd loved it. The cheers, the chatter, the female screams, drifted down and went silent as heaviness and poignancy filled the air.
