by Eva Luxe
“What are you doing this weekend?” I asked.
“Tomorrow’s booked, but Sunday I’m free,” Kami said.
“Cajun shrimp pasta at my place with a movie?” I asked.
“I’ll bring the wine,” she said, smiling.
Chapter 4- Zach
I woke up that morning with the taste of a stranger on my lips and a used condom on the floor next to me. This was why people needed to clean up after sex. But I had been too tipsy last night to do anything but fall asleep after getting the job done with the woman from the bar. I groaned as I threw the covers off me, and then a small whimper came from the other side of the bed.
“Watch it,” a woman said.
I recognized that sultry voice. Those low tones and that sensual accent. I looked over at the one window in my apartment and saw the sunlight streaming through.
Shit. This chick had stayed the night.
“Morning,” she said.
She threw her arm over me, and her lips attacked my neck. My morning wood was throbbing, but my mind was whirling. How many fucking beers did I have last night? Not enough to be drunk. That was for sure.
Was I that tired from work? It hadn’t been a strenuous day. Not compared to some of the days I’d had.
I fucking got lazy. That was what happened. And now I was about to pay the price.
“All right, you need to go,” I said.
“Before I make us some breakfast?” she asked.
“Yep.”
I slid off my bed and tugged on my pants. I looked back at the woman in bed, and I could see the heated stare rising up in her eyes. Her fiery red hair was mussed from our romp in the sack, and she was clinging to the comforter as she pulled it up over her naked body.
I couldn’t even remember what her naked body looked like.
Like all the other ones, I supposed.
“But you have this nice comfy cabin and no one to share it with. It’s so quaint and cozy; perfect for enjoying a morning meal together. Let me just fix us something—”
“I’ll call you a car,” I said.
I grabbed my phone off the floor and opened up the Uber app. The first time I found out that one of those drivers would come all the way out to the edge of nowhere, the rugged forest where I lived, I was so grateful I decided to use them every time I found myself in one of these situations— whether I was too tipsy to drive, or too close for comfort with a girl who needed to leave.
I requested the closest driver so he could come dig me out of this shithole I’d found myself in. Thank goodness for Uber. I could hear the girl murmuring behind me as she pulled her clothes on while my legs carried me down the metal staircase of my warehouse apartment.
“The least you could do is offer me some coffee,” she said.
“Don’t drink it.”
“You don’t drink coffee?”
“Nope.”
“Who the fuck doesn’t drink coffee?” she asked
“Me. Your ride will be here in seven minutes.”
“Well, that gives us seven minutes to have a bit of kitchen-counter fun.”
Her hands slid around my waist, rippling across my bare skin. I could feel her lips pressing kisses into the tattoos on my back, but I wasn’t going to have this. She needed to leave before she got more attached. She needed to go so she didn’t get any ideas.
Women always loved the bad boy. The brooding one that didn’t talk. They thought they could change him. Make him into a better man and pull out some decent husband and father type material that was buried in his gut or some shit. They didn’t want a man like me. They wanted what they thought they could turn me into.
And they were partially right. Women had no fucking business being with a man like me. But where they were wrong was in thinking they could change me. So I always had them hit the road before they could try.
“Want some tea?” I asked as her lips attacked my skin.
“You drink tea?” she asked, giggling. “How cute.”
I grabbed her arms and ripped them off my body. Her eyes were wide with shock, and her tits poked through her blouse. She was ready to go another round— I knew she was— but her scent was growing mustier on my skin, and it was filling my cabin, and all I wanted was for her to leave. To get out.
“What the hell’s gotten into you?” she asked. “Last night, you couldn’t wait to get in between my legs.”
“Alcohol will do that to you,” I said.
“Sweetie, you don’t need alcohol to know I’ve got decent love to give.”
“Sometimes decent doesn’t cut it for guys like me,” I said.
“What the fuck is your problem?” she asked. “Can’t keep it up without alcohol?”
I heard a car horn beep outside, and I sighed with relief.
“Ride’s here,” I said.
Another thing I loved about Uber is that they were usually way quicker than the app predicted.
“Good. Because this place is a fucking dump. View of the waterfall, my ass. One measly fucking window. You’re pathetic, you know that?”
Their true colors always came out once the fun was over and things got serious— or at least once they wanted them to get serious and I stopped it.
“I bet you don’t even remember my name,” she said.
“Adriana?” I asked.
She scowled at me and I shrugged.
“Amber!” she practically yelled.
Well, I was close.
She ripped the door open and tried to slam it going out. Women always tried to do that. Slam a door that opened to the side. Being an ass to them was the quickest way to get them out.
As she left, in a huff, I was happy to see her go. Her ass didn’t even look nearly as good as it had in the dimly lit bar.
These women thought they were on the prowl for a one-night stand, but many of them were actually on the prowl for their fairy tale. Sleeping with the bad boy, only to wake up and find out he’s a soft guy at heart. They want to fuck him senseless, ride his face a bit, then wake up with his arms wrapped around their bodies and hear him begging for them to stay.
Women didn’t want one-night stands. They wanted impossible fairytale endings. The easiest way to burst that fantasy, if they didn’t listen, was to be an ass.
And I was fucking good at it.
Chapter 5- Zach
Sighing, I grabbed a beer from the fridge before I sat down at my computer. I hadn’t checked my email in ages, due to being too busy working outside to do any kind of desk work. I had some bills to pay too.
By the time I was done, I was ready to get out of there. I had a free day from work, and I wasn’t going to spend it cooped up next to a body of water I couldn’t see very well, as Adriana or Amber or whatever her name was had so not so kindly pointed out.
I stripped and took a quick shower, rinsing the smell of that strange woman off my body. I couldn’t even remember if she felt nice last night. The sex was probably terrible. But I didn’t feel as stressed, and my mind wasn’t wound so tightly. It got the job done, even though it wasn’t one to remember, and as I got out of the shower, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror.
I didn’t look at myself much, but when I did, I was always shocked by what I saw. I was a scrawny little kid in school that got manipulated and knocked around by his dad a lot. All legs and arms and an attitude that didn’t fit inside my little body.
But now, I was six foot two and easily two hundred and seventy pounds of muscle. I had lots of facial hair and I also had tattoos covering just about every inch of my body that could be covered up with clothes if I needed to look classy and professional. The phoenix was my first tattoo after I dropped my last name. I got away from my father and wanted nothing to do with him— I didn’t even want all his money— so I made my middle name my last name.
Now, instead of being Zachary Harte Laine, I was Zachary Harte. No middle name.
Stepping out of the bathroom, I made my way up to the loft. I used the loft as my bedroom, even t
hough it really wasn’t a separate part of the warehouse. I dug around until I found some clean clothes to pull on. Then I grabbed my leather jacket and started for my motorcycle.
My car was a beat-up piece of shit and it was still at the bar from last night. I’d called an Uber since I was tipsy, and I figured that since Caden had wanted me to go out drinking with him so bad, he would help me get my car later. It wasn’t like I was afraid it would be stolen.
It was just a scrap of garbage I’d found on the side of the road that I had hauled to my place. I worked on it and fixed it up, and it ran just fine. I fixed it when it needed to be fixed and rode it to and from work.
But my motorcycle? That thing was my baby.
I threw my leg over her and took in the smell of the ocean. She was sleek and black, with a stripe of chrome running down each side. My motorcycle was a beauty, and people stared at her whenever I rode her down the road.
She deserved that kind of attention. She deserved people gawking at her. She was the belle of the ball, rumbling between my legs as she carried me up the coast of Oregon whenever I needed to get away.
Onyx, I called her.
Onyx was the only woman I needed in my life. She was reliable and hot as hell. And she was loud, but it was only her engine— I didn’t have to talk to her or have her accuse me of not listening to what she was saying.
I rode her into a gas station and started to fill up her tank. I knew she was thirsty, and I was itching for a drive up the coast. I wanted to feel the wind in my hair and smell the salt water as I blew by it on my black bullet.
I wanted to find a secluded beach and stand there so I could take in the crashing of the water against the shoreline. I stuck the gas nozzle in her tank and started to fill her up, but a giggling sound caught my attention.
I turned my head and saw a little girl skipping across the parking lot while clutching onto her mother’s hand.
I watched them for a while before they disappeared into the gas station. The little girl had bouncing brown curls and a massive smile on her face. The mother looked tired, like she’d been put through the wringer, even though it was only ten in the morning.
It made me ache for my own mother, which is lame, but it was how I fucking felt. Soon, a change of plans happened.
Closing up the gas tank, I hopped onto Onyx and rode back into town. The sea soon receded behind me, and the crashing shores gave way to the bustling city of Brookings.
I wove through the streets with my sunglasses on, ignoring the stares of people standing on the sidewalk as I made my way to the edge of town. I rode up to the edge of the Oregon-Washington border before I rode off the beaten path, but an hour later, I was crossing through the gates.
The gates of the cemetery.
Parking my bike, I slowly walked down the concrete path. I studied all the tombstones, some much smaller than they ever needed to be. I walked quietly by people grieving the loss of their loved ones and took off my sunglasses, trying to be respectful of the dead as I walked past them. Their dead bodies were six feet underneath my footfalls as I made my way to the back end of the cemetery. Lined with trees and shaded from the better part of the sun.
I stopped just shy of my mother’s grave before I sighed and shook my head.
“I wish you were still here, Ma,” I said. “There’s no reason for you not to be.”
I was squeezing my sunglasses so tightly that I thought I was going to break them in my hands.
“I know you did your best by me, and I’ll never fault you for that.”
Flashes of my childhood came crashing back to me, and it took my breath away. People think that being rich solves all problems but in my family, that wasn’t the case. We may have had tons of money but we didn’t have love, or respect, or peace and quiet. Those things are priceless.
I remembered fights my parents had and the way my father used to roar at my mother. The names he called her and the way she would try to shield me from it all. I could still smell the alcohol that soaked his breath as I jumped in front of my mother time and time again, hoping to shield her the same way she tried to shield me.
“I’m still working at the lumber company. Overtime, most weeks. It’s decent pay, and it keeps me afloat. Figured you’d be proud of that.”
The wind started to kick up and rustle the trees, blowing leaves my way as I drew in a deep breath.
“And no, I don’t talk to him, if you’re wondering. I never will, if I’ve got any say in the matter.”
I sighed as I looked around. I hated coming to the cemetery. I hated talking to her gravestone. I hated having to relive the fact that she was dead, and I hated having to come to terms with what killed her.
Or rather, who killed her.
“I don’t blame you, Ma, if you’re worried about that. You did the best you could. You got away from a man who destroyed us. That took a lot of strength. I just needed to be stronger for you.”
I swallowed my guilt down as I closed my eyes, trying to conjure her face in my mind’s eye. But with each passing day, her memory slowly faded. With each passing day, I looked less like her and more like him. With each passing day, her corpse rotted underneath the city of Brookings, Oregon while my mind slowly chiseled away at the last bit of sanity I had left.
“I wish I could’ve been stronger for you,” I said.
The wind kicked up around my body, fluttering my coat as the leaves danced around my feet. It almost felt like the wind was trying to wrap me up, encase me in its cool strength, and tell me something.
I just wasn’t in the right frame of mind to figure out what.
“I love you, Ma. I’m always going to. And I need you to know that I don’t hate you. That I’m not mad at you. You endured enough from life, and it just didn’t want to give you a break. No one can fault you for that.”
I closed my eyes and saw my mother’s body being carried out from our huge, mansion-sized home. Her wrist hung over the edge of the gurney. Her skin was pale, but the slit in her wrist was crimson red.
“I could never hate you,” I said breathlessly.
The wind kicked up so hard it almost knocked me off my feet. I steadied myself, taking a step back as my eyes flew open. I sighed as I took in my mother’s gravestone one last time, then I bent over and put my hand on it. I placed a small kiss at the corner of the jagged granite, weathered from years of wind, storms, and rain.
Then I turned around and started back for my bike.
I slid my sunglasses onto my face to shield my eyes from the wind. It pressed at my back like it was pushing me away from my mother’s grave. It swirled around my legs and wafted up the back of my jacket, and it didn’t stop until my feet hit the parking lot of the cemetery.
I looked back one last time to take in my mother’s grave from afar before I slung my leg over Onyx.
Then, I struck up my bike and left.
Chapter 6- Paige
The meeting my boss set me up with wasn’t a meeting at my office. It was a meeting at the client’s building. I woke up Monday morning to a call from my boss saying I had half an hour to get ready.
“Do you have the file folder ready for me at the office?” I asked.
“Nope. The client wants you to meet him at his office on the other side of Seattle.”
“Can’t we just have a conference over the phone like we usually do?” I asked.
“Look,” my boss said. “I don’t know why he chose you personally, but the money this man is paying you is three times what you usually make in one month. Get yourself ready. A car’s gonna be waiting for you at nine.”
I had no idea what was going on, but I figured I didn’t have much of a choice. I pulled on a pair of skinny jeans before I zipped black boots up my calves. I threw on a pale-blue, sleeveless blouse before I pulled on my crimson-red peacoat. That was good enough for this meeting, I guessed.
There was a knock at my door, and I opened it to find a comforting-looking man standing there.
“Miss Conwel
l?” he asked.
“Yes?”
“Why don’t you come with me?”
The man seemed nice enough and greeted me with a smile before we walked down to the car. I shook his hand before he opened the car door for me, and I smiled as I got in. I sighed as I sat down in the genuine leather seats and felt their warmth cascading through my thighs. I knew from the moment I saw the car that I was dealing with a rich hothead.
The car was sleek and fully-loaded. It was also bright red.
There was a partition window separating me from the driver, but it was rolled down. There were sodas on ice in little compartments built into the side of the car, and I grabbed one to try and quench my thirst.
Everything had been thrown at me so quickly that I hadn’t had enough time to even brew myself a cup of coffee, and I was craving something to help me wake up. The driver climbed into the car and pulled us away from my apartment, and that was when I decided to speak up.
“So, where are we headed?” I asked.
“Kent Enterprises, ma’am.”
“You mean the seafood company?” I asked.
“Yes, ma’am. The seafood company.”
“Why are we headed there? Does my client work there?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“Well, your client owns it.”
“My client owns Kent Enterprises.”
“Precisely.”
“Well, good to know, I guess.”
I settled back in for the ride and watched as Seattle passed us by. The Space Needle loomed over the entire city, and I couldn’t stop staring at it. In all the years I’d lived here, I’d never once been up it. I heard there was a restaurant or something up there, but it was exclusive and was only reserved for those who could handle one-thousand-dollar dinner plates.
I didn’t know if it was true, but it sure seemed glamorous, nonetheless.
After twenty minutes of traveling, the car pulled up to a massive gate. The driver punched in a code and the gate slowly opened. We drove inside, and the road took us up to a massive building. This was certainly an empire this person had built, and I dug my phone out so I could start doing some preliminary research on my client.
