“So,” I said as I hacked away, “do you always fight with your sister?”
“For as long as I can remember,” he answered. “Again, sorry you had to hear all that. She likes to get carried away with things.”
“Like what?”
From my peripheral, I watched him pause and glance at me. “Well, you know, she hears shit through the grapevine and likes to over-exaggerate it. It’s very frustrating when people put facts together that only you know without even consulting you about it.”
“I know what you mean,” I replied in understanding. “People will do that to you. Twist shit and antagonize you.”
He looked at me again, this time for a lot longer. “Oh, yeah? Spoken from experience?”
I shrugged. A lot. “A little.”
“Who the hell would want to antagonize you? No offense or anything, but you look as dangerous as a stuffed bear.”
I couldn’t help the laugh that escaped me and had to cover my face with my hand.
He laughed lightly beside me. “It’s true.”
I shrugged again. “Some might not agree with you.”
“Oh, yeah? I’m very sceptical.”
I shot him a glance and quickly returned to my plate. I was feeling too shy to meet his eye for longer than a second. What had become of my old confidence, I wondered. “Now you speak of experience. Why would anyone antagonize you?”
“I’m a little shit, that’s why.”
I nodded. “I can see that.”
Still staring at me, he added softly, “Sometimes you gotta break free from those people that bring you down, and try and forget the bad shit.”
I paused and glanced at him. Without stopping, I asked, “How do you try and forget?”
“Find something that works for you. Me, I like to work out my frustrations. Other people have other ways. Sports, classes…sex.”
Sex? How random was this guy?
I resisted fidgeting in my seat. Once upon a time, it was sex that made me forget. After my kind of upbringing, I had no idea what real affection was, and I leeched it out of men after seducing them.
Bad days. Bad memories. I shuddered at them and pushed them far from my thoughts. I was different now.
Kale seemed intent on watching my reaction, and a small smile formed. Why did he look like he had a secret?
“Right,” I eventually muttered, turning back to my food.
He took a few more bites. I hadn’t had a single bite yet. I hacked and hacked at the brick of a bacon strip and felt sore at the wrists.
“You doing alright there?” he asked me, his voice alight with humour. His eyes burned into my profile and then down at my hands. “You need help, Krisa?”
“It’s just a bit tough,” I answered quietly.
“Do you want me to cut it for you?”
“Uh… don’t worry about it –”
But he was already at my plate, leaning into my side, using his own fork and knife on same bacon I was struggling with. I dared myself to look up and found him scowling at the food. I was enamoured by those beautiful thick brows and that straight nose atop of those big pursed lips…
“I can’t believe I gave you all the damn hard bits,” he muttered, stirring me out of my daze. “I’m a terrible cook.”
“It’s fine,” I assured him.
“You can use your hands.”
“My hands?”
“Yeah, just grab the bacon and chomp on it.” He put the knife and fork down and picked up one the bacon strips in between his long fingers. He turned to me and brought the tip of it to my mouth.
I laughed lightly but it came out sounding nervous. “You want me to eat out of your hand?”
He smiled at my question, white teeth blaring beautifully. “Thought I should be the one getting messy.”
Okay, this was just getting weird now.
“I’m fine,” I told him.
“Come on, take a bite,” he pressed.
He still had the strip to my lips, staring expectantly at me with humour seared into his expression. He knew how odd this was. I can’t believe I parted my lips and let him settle an inch of the tasty burnt bacon slice into my mouth.
I swear – swear – it would have been the sexiest thing that ever happened to me if only my teeth would have cut through the meat with no worries. Instead, I crunched down and pulled back, trying desperately to dislodge the bacon from the rest of its body so that I could chew the damn thing. But, alas, it was hopeless, and I looked like a mutt chomping away at a piece of raw meat.
I pushed his hand away, frowning at the stupidity of this entire damn situation.
“I think it’s clear I can’t bite that off,” I stated, looking so embarrassed I’m sure my cheeks were blazing red.
“Do you want me to bite it off for you?”
The question sent spikes through my heart. My eyes popped wide open and I looked at him in stunned silence. He burst out laughing, the sound deep and contagious, and plopped the piece of bacon on the plate, eyeing the cross on my necklace so abruptly and quickly, I wouldn’t have noticed if I’d blinked.
“This is funny to you, isn’t it?” I felt that anger from before emerging. The same anger I felt when I walked into the kitchen to find it in absolute chaos. I could never control the words I spoke when I was passed a certain point of anger, and it rose so suddenly when it came to this man before me.
“You like to wind me up.” I shook my head and quickly slid off the stool. “I bet you burned that bacon on purpose too, huh? Just like you mispronounced my name on purpose last week.”
“I mispronounced your name for a reason,” he replied, that amused face slowly fading. “I thought you’d know what that reason was.”
“What reason could you possibly have to mispronounce it?”
“Sometimes we do things to juggle some people’s memories.”
What the hell was he on about? “And the bacon?” I then said, gesturing to the mess on the island.
“The bacon was a genuine mistake on my part,” he replied. “I’m a fucking shit cook, kitten.”
I froze. What did he just call me?
I’d been called that before. A very long time ago. I couldn’t remember why or by whom. If it was during my past, then I’d most likely been drunk stupid.
“I’m not hungry anymore,” I quietly said, turning away from his examining eyes. “I’m going to do your laundry and then I’m going to leave.”
“Do you want me to make some other kind of food?”
“No.”
“If I’ve pissed you off, I’m sorry –”
“You apologize too much,” I cut in sharply, backing out of the kitchen. “I’ll let you know when I’m finished, Mr Brenner. Until then, you should really consider turning off your stove top. The last thing the kitchen deserves is a fire on top of last week’s shit-storm.”
Chapter Ten
Kale
The second I’d set her down, she fixed her clothes, sliding her skirt down in place. All the while she refused to meet my eye, until we were standing there, in the darkness of a smelly alleyway, in silence.
I was certainly no fucking Casanova, huh?
I could’ve done better than this.
“Well,” she finally started, clearing her throat, “thanks for that. I should, uh, get going –”
“You seriously going to ditch me?” I cut in, astonished.
Her cheeks were red. She looked like she wanted to be anywhere but here. “Um, well, that’s usually what happens after a hook-up, right?”
Jesus.
I stuffed my hands in my pockets and stared down the alleyway. I didn’t know the girl. Didn’t know a fucking thing, but I felt this weird as fuck ache in my body at the thought of her leaving and never seeing her again.
I never spared a girl a second thought before, but the way she looked at me as I fucked her, muddled my thoughts. Admittedly, I was curious about her. She was a mystery of sorts, and I wanted to know more about her. About why sh
e fucked men – because surely I wasn’t the only one she’d used – to try and forget.
What did she want to forget?
“Don’t,” I found myself saying. “Let’s go for a walk or something. I don’t know.”
She just blinked at me in surprise. “A walk?”
“Yeah.”
Now her gaze travelled up and down my body, but it wasn’t in a heated way. She was suddenly wary. “You know, I don’t think that’s a good idea. I’ll just –”
“I’m harmless,” I cut in, smiling at her. “If I wanted to axe you to pieces, I’d have dragged you to my torture chamber before I fucked you against this wall, right?”
She didn’t respond for a moment. Her hand went up to her forehead, and she rested it there like she was taking her own temperature.
“Yeah,” she mumbled, “I’m sorry. I know that, it’s just… I’m pretty drunk.”
“You and me both.” Although, at this point, I realized she was far drunker than me, which was a shame.
“I’m going to forget all about you by the morning, so it’s really pointless sticking around.”
I felt panicked by the thought. Fuck, what the hell had gotten into me?
“Am I that forgettable?” I teased, though it pained my ego to think it.
Her eyes widened in alarm. “Oh, no! You’re incredible. Your package is… wow, I felt it a long ways inside!”
I laughed. This girl.
“What I mean is, I’m so drunk, like, I’m hardly going to piece this shit by tomorrow. It happens all the time.”
“What does exactly? The drinking, the hooking up, or the forgetting?”
She paused, her cat-eyes moving from side to side. “All three.”
I didn’t have an immediate response for that. She suddenly looked regretful for answering. She looked down at the ground, growing increasingly uncomfortable.
“I do all three too,” I then said, quietly. “When you have no meaning in life, that’s sort of what happens, right?”
Her face looked back up to mine, appearing grateful at my understanding. “Yeah,” she agreed, softly.
“The past catches up to you, so you make a break for it and go out for a night. Get smashed, meet some person your body wants a taste of, and then you crash hard the second you get home. By morning, you feel emptier than ever.”
She swallowed hard, and her eyes misted just a little. “Yeah,” she repeated.
“So let’s break that habit,” I said, sounding more hopeful than I intended. “Instead of ditching me, how about we go back inside? We’ll dance some more, drink a bit more, and talk. Yeah?”
That seemed like a better offer. She nodded slowly. “Sure, my friends are probably wondering where I am. Are you here with yours?”
I shook my head. “Nah, I wanted to go out on my own.”
Didn’t need fake people tonight.
We returned to the club. She went off to speak with a couple of her friends, girls that equally looked as down on their luck as her. I grabbed a shot at the bar as I watched her converse with them, and I slammed that vodka down, unable to look away. The alcohol burned down my throat, making me warm everywhere.
When the girls left her to dance, I went to her. The second we returned to the floor, her arms wrapped once more around me, and it felt good.
Too damn good to forget.
*
I’m not sure how we found ourselves alone again.
Did she take me to the bathroom, or did I take her?
It was all a fucking daze. We were so unbelievably drunk, nothing made sense anymore. But neither of us cared.
One minute we were dancing, and the next we were in a toilet stall. It wasn’t hygienic, but fuck hygiene when you have a solid 20 out of 10 babe sitting in your lap, undoing your pants again.
She pulled out my hardened cock and slipped my condom on. I grabbed at her ass, positioning her over me before she sank down, taking me into her wet little pussy. She threw her head back and I buried my face into her breasts, licking at her exposed cleavage. She moved up and down, and I helped her along, thrusting in and out of her.
We were a tangled ball, and she held me tight again. Even tighter than before.
I was her shield, remember?
I sucked at her throat, licked along her collarbone as she rode me, losing herself completely. It was beautiful, in a messy fucked-up kind of way.
We didn’t speak. We just quietly moaned and breathed hard, completely aware of the people moving in and out of the toilets, no doubt aware of us. We didn’t care. And I loved that about her.
Krisa riled me up.
She was reckless, like me.
She loved to drink, like me.
We were two poisonous substances, mixing together like a fucking cocktail.
It was bad, but I sensed we loved bad.
“That’s it, kitten,” I whispered into her ear when I felt her muscles clench. “Come all over my dick. Come on.”
Her fingers painfully dug into my back as she came hard, shaking above me, looking like a goddamn goddess with her sweaty hair half covering her sweet face.
I followed straight after, coming so hard, I felt my own body tense from the intensity.
Wow.
Fucking wow.
She collapsed against me, her fast heart beats matching mine.
“You’re incredible,” I muttered to her. “Fucking perfect.”
She was.
She was the kind of girl you could fuck a hundred times and never get bored.
I just knew it.
“That was intense,” she whispered, giggling a little.
She pulled away and I looked up at her glowing eyes. I couldn’t part from this. No fucking way. She had to come home with me.
Had to.
It was a must.
So I fucking told her, “Come home with me.”
She paused and her smile slowly faded. “To do what?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Let’s fuck again or something. Anything.” It troubled me that I didn’t care. The warning signs were there. I was interested in a girl for a little more than sex, and it made no sense to me.
She shook her head slowly. “Can’t. I have to get back to my own place.”
Before I could protest, she slowly moved off of me, and my cock plopped out of her, feeling miserably alone once again. She fixed herself up a second time, and I stood up, disposing the condom in the toilet before flushing it. As I tucked myself back in, I stared at her in the cramped space, and she was avoiding my eye.
“Give me your number at least,” I said, desperately. “We can do this again, kitten.”
She nodded. “Okay, we can do that.”
My heart burst. What a strange feeling. “Yeah?”
“Sure. But first you need to get out of the ladies room so I can clean myself up. I’ll meet you at the table, okay?”
I nodded, moving out of the stall. “Alright. I’ll be there.”
She shut the stall door in front of me and I hurried out of there before another girl came in. I went to the table and waited for her.
I waited five minutes.
Then ten.
The third time I checked my watch, I’d waited twenty.
It dawned on me right away what had happened, and I felt like a fucking seedy chump. Like a moron, I’d been fooled.
Krisa had bailed on me.
I sighed, shaking my head as my body felt weighed down by disappointment.
Well played, kitten.
Chapter Eleven
Krisa
I’d done as I said and left. There were no final words between us. The only thing he asked was, “How much do I owe you?” and I told him the amount through clenched teeth. Then I was gone. Deciphering today was going to be a mission in the days ahead, and I hated that I knew I would be thinking about it.
The next day, I abandoned a house job I was meant to get done and scheduled an emergency lunch with Courtney. I needed this off my chest. We met at t
he diner, and I unleashed every single detail of my second and third meeting with Kale Brenner. Right down to the freaking bacon slice in my mouth.
But instead of helping me, Courtney sat there, red in the face, and laughed her ass off. She couldn’t hold a steady face, much less a steady conversation.
“You’re meant to help me out,” I scolded her angrily. “You’re meant to tell me what the hell is wrong with that dude? And why did he make breakfast and purposely burn the bacon? I don’t believe it was a mistake at all. Come on, Courtney!”
She tried to recover from the laughter, but she couldn’t. Eventually some words were managed in between each bout of ha-ha.
“He likes you…” she said, fanning her sweaty face. “He must. Calling you to come over and then not even knowing what the hell you should clean up. Come on, Krisa, it’s not that hard to figure out.”
“So what do I do?”
“You stay away from him. No more going to his house. Don’t pick up his calls either.” Her face turned serious and all laughter finally died down as she looked gravely at me. “He’s trouble, bud. Trouble.”
“Trouble,” I repeated absently. “How come he’s never felt that way to me then?”
“What do you mean?”
I couldn’t explain it without sounding crazy, but this was Courtney. She was all about crazy. “I don’t know what it is, but it’s like…I know him from somewhere.”
She tilted her head to the side, studying me. “From where?”
“I don’t know.” But he called me kitten, and I knew someone at some point in my life called me that. It was a vague memory. One that involved dark places and crowded people.
“Doesn’t matter,” she told me adamantly. “Just stay away and don’t answer his calls.”
I didn’t have to worry about him calling me. He didn’t.
For four days I went about my usual routine, plodding along like nothing happened. But every time I had a moment alone and nothing to do, he popped into my head and I had no control over it.
It was hard to understand why I kept repeating those last moments with him in my mind. I didn’t know him and he didn’t know me. Aside from that four hour clean up, our encounters had been brief and meaningless. From the little I gathered about him, he was a demanding man with a vicious temper and a hobby that involved an escort service. Now, really, what was so attractive about that? And when I reminded myself of this, it re-affirmed my reasons for blocking him out of my thoughts because he was everything I needed to stay away from. The man was far from good. He was the opposite.
