Dirty Angel (The List #2)

by N. K. Love

  I splash some water on my rosy cheeks in a failed attempt to sober myself up but the wobbly walk up here has already told me it’s time for me to call it a night. Those shots were a bad idea. My mini victory high is short lived when the disgusting truth that instigated my immature plan invades my drunken mind; Mike was having an affair, a fucking affair, for nearly a year and heaven knows if there were others.

  Deceit twists its hand around my naïve heart to squeeze out every last drop of love I felt for Mike. The leftover residue, that’s impossible to remove, becomes black; representing a shadow of the sad kind of love that will scar my heart forever.

  From one emotional extreme to the other, I now feel dejected. I slowly make my way back down, watching each step again to make sure I don’t fall.

  As I reach the bottom of the stairs somebody turns the corner blindly and smacks straight into me. The force sends me hurtling to the floor, landing on my arse, sending shooting pains like a karate chop to the vagina. My back slams across the steps like a dead weight as I land.

  Fucking ouch… That’s going to fucking bruise like a peach. I feel somebody grabbing at my upper arms trying to help me up and then realise who that somebody is. It’s blondy. I pull myself up using the railing and shrug her hands off me as I reach for my bag and swing it over my shoulder.

  What is it with this freakin’ staircase? First Mike and now her.

  “I’m so so sorry, I wasn’t looking where I was going darling… Oh hey, it’s you.”

  “Who’s me?!” What? That doesn’t even make sense Beth. I can’t shake the bitter attitude from my tone even though I don’t even know if she knew she was shagging a married man.

  “You, the chick with that fine specimen of a human being out there. He is d-amn hot girl! My friends and I are well jelly!”

  “Yes, he is fucking hot isn’t he? You’re right to be jealous.” Shut up and walk away. Shut up, don’t do it, don’t do it. “He’s a real man, a million times the man your fucking boyfriend is.”

  “Ookay, I think you need to take a chill pill. There’s no need to be rude. I was actually being nice.”

  “Well stop being ‘nice’, go back to your boyfriend and tell him you’ve just met his wife, Bethany. Who, incidentally, he was still fucking – if you can even call it that – a month ago!” Beth, you bitch. Argh, I’m a bitch. “Shit—I’m sorry I—” But it’s too late, she’s spun on the spot and she’s gone.

  Time for me to make a sharp exit too. I can’t handle another confrontation tonight. I scoot past the doorway and a pang of pain shoots across my entire back. I try to disappear into the crowd not wanting to see the commotion blondy’s probably causing behind me.

  Jax sees me, then studies the situation behind me, so I know something’s going on. He shakes his head, gestures towards the entrance and I meet him there. He hands me my bag as we walk out the bar and a bit further down the street, where I perch on a low wall. The footfall has slowed down from earlier but will start getting busier again now as people bring their nights to a close. I just want to get out of here and away from my vile ex.

  Whilst cursing under my breath I fumble in my clutch for my phone to call a taxi. Jax tells me he’s told the others we’ve gone so they don’t get worried, whereas I’d completely forgot about them until now.

  I hear raised voices above the muffled sound of the DJs music inside the bar behind us and see Mike arguing with blondy but she storms off, in our direction! Great, I really don’t want to deal with this bullshit when I’m drunk or when Jax is here.

  Blondy looks up and when she sees me she shouts over, “Hey wifey, he’s all yours!” Stomping past us, evidently she didn’t know he was married then so I mentally delete her from my Shit List. Jax holds my hand softly and gives it a gentle protective squeeze.

  Miss Sensible is calmly trying to convince me to leave it until I can actually articulate myself properly. Mike’s pathetically scurrying after her and it’s like a red rag to a bull when it’s evident he is actually going to walk past me, his wife, without so much as looking at me.

  What kind of a fucking man is he? Certainly not the one I thought I knew. Miss Fierce mutes Miss Sensible with the deathly look of a woman scorned; standing with a psycho look on her face, nodding her head saying in an American accent, “It’s o-on now!” She is awesome, I love her.

  I slip Jax’s grip and in what feels like one giant leap—but was probably more like two or three stumbled steps—I step behind Mike, pulling his shoulder back. “Are you really gonna walk by and not even acknowledge this shit Mike?”

  He turns to face me saying, “Not now Beth,” as though I’m a petulant child pestering him for attention. I open my mouth like a spitting cobra and spray venom in the form of two simple syllables, which are rapidly becoming favourites of mine; “Fuck. It!”

  In a blink of a drunken eye, I launch my fist out, punching him hard in a sideswipe move to his cheekbone just above his jawline. I twist my hips as I connect to get as much force behind my fist as possible, which is much needed with my puny arms. Every ounce of frustration, hurt and regret was in that punch and Jesus it feels good! Wooo hooo!

  Fuck. Taking him by surprise, I’ve managed to actually knock him to the floor. My drunken reckless strength must be immense. I totally rock! Miss Fierce is dusting off her shoulders with a proud look on her face, but I also have my dad to thank for instilling self-defence in me from a young age.

  Jax is standing close enough to cocoon me with his powerful force field but he doesn’t intervene. Mike groans and curses, holding his face, dazed on the floor. I look up at the sound of cheers and clapping, it’s coming from blondy on the other side of the road further down the street.

  I look back down at Mike, “That’s 29 you cheating fuck!” Man, I’m drunk. But a drunken genius if ‘29’ does actually correlate to ‘Hit somebody’ on my Fuck It list. As far as I’m concerned, it was well deserved so Wills will be proud!

  Jax flags down a taxi sharpish and ushers me in. Things start getting blurry. Reality seems to be a million miles away and far out of my grasp.

  Mumbling my address to the driver, I sit back in the seat shaking my head and rubbing the knuckles on my right hand. Jax puts a protective arm around me and pulls me into his chest resting his hand over my sore knuckles. “Angel, don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re shook up and pretty wasted so I’m gonna stay with you tonight. I just need to know you’re okay. Nothing more.”

  It’s like music to my ears that I get to have him near me for longer. I don’t want to be by myself and if I can’t have my mom or Wills, I want Jax. As one side of my mind thinks clearly, the other side joins my body in the shadows of nothingness. A void of confusion.

  It’s as though an outside influence is telling me categorically that Jax is what I need and I cannot ignore it. But I’m afraid to admit to him that I have this unexplainable compelling need for him. That shit is on pause for a reason Bethany!

  It’s irrational thinking. The alcohol, the adrenalin and the whirlwind of emotions I’ve gone through over the last few hours. I need to switch off, I need to sleep… I need to forget…

  I manage to mumble a reply, “Whatever G... I’m past caring…” My heavy eyelids shut. “Thank you.” I give way to let the alcohol and exhaustion take over whilst I bask in the warm protectiveness that is Jax.

  The next thing I feel is a cold breeze blowing against my skin as I float effortlessly away. I breathe in the unique scent of Jax, which should probably smell like trouble but it doesn’t, it smells like home, where my body belongs. I realise then that he’s carrying me. I nuzzle into his neck, kiss him, thank him and drift off again with my arms draped around his neck.

  Chapter Five

  2:43am

  Jax

  What have I gotten myself into? This girl somehow taps into parts of me I’d crushed deep inside having chosen to keep the complications in my life to a minimum. I’ve accustomed myself into who I need to be so why am I letting h
er slide beneath the barbed wire like I haven’t got a say in the matter.

  I always keep myself busy. If I’m not working at the gym, I’m working out. If I’m not working out, I’m working at home. There’s always plenty to do in the house or on the land. My body and mind are always active. So how is it that I find myself thinking about her, our conversations, our texts, how she looks, sounds, feels, smells…? How she might taste? How she sounds when she comes? Fuck!

  Especially this week, since Sunday. I’d wound myself up so much that by Tuesday, I took it out on her, as if that’d reverse the effect. A text message came through and when I saw her name, my mood instantly lifted, which profusely irritated me. She was telling me that she’ll be at the Devon event, something I was already aware of, having monitored the growing list of attendees for that very reason. I didn’t reply. Instead I did something worse. I thought about the hundreds of men that are going to have their eyes all over her throughout that trip. I imagined men hitting on her. I imagined her naivety getting her into trouble, or her witty mouth. But worst of all were the images of somebody else touching her, pleasing her, fucking her and her enjoying it…

  A little later on another message came through basically pre-warning me to make sure I didn’t have a problem with her fucking around with other men. What the fuck, was she reading my thoughts? Was she trying to take the piss out of me? I snapped and replied in haste, regretting it as soon as I’d hit send and re-read it.

  She hadn’t done anything wrong. At the time I tried to convince myself that it was because she was being presumptuous for even thinking I’d care when I didn’t give a fuck. But I can admit now that it wasn’t just how she can lift my mood in a flash, it was the thought of somebody else touching her that made me snap. Attack may be the best form of defence in the heat of the moment but I felt like a fool afterwards.

  I stewed on Wednesday, I couldn’t sleep so I resorted to a quick fix distraction. I went for a drive, found a pub miles away and did what I do. That killed some time and released some tension. I still didn’t sleep a wink though. I’m not a good sleeper at the best of times but when something’s playing on my mind I can’t switch off.

  The next night, I lay in bed replaying all of my interactions with Beth, trying aimlessly to pinpoint exactly what has gotten under my skin so I could fix it. I re-read our text thread and couldn’t stop myself from calling her with some lame excuse about checking on her back. Pretty selfish of me really and completely defeating my objective.

  We talked for ages about everything and nothing at the same time. I have come to the conclusion that there’s nothing specific to pinpoint, it’s just her in her entirety. Everything about her exposes a weakness in me that was dead and buried until now. I can’t deny that as curious as this makes me, it also unsettles the shit out of me.

  I found out that she’s separated from her husband, which clarifies that the wedding ring was real and not a decoy, which is what I’d suspected. I like listening to her talk about herself and I especially like that she doesn’t pressure me to talk. The sound of her voice is hypnotic. I joked that she should record it for me as a sleep aid, but secretly I think it may actually work. Well, I know it would because I drifted straight into a contented sleep afterwards. The next morning, it was great feeling to wake up in bed feeling well rested and full of energy again.

  Now—twenty four hours later—she is lying in that very same bed, fast asleep after an unpredictably messed up night.

  Friday, I’d spent the morning working on our sales forecasting and on management conference calls most of the afternoon. One of my fortes is figures—not just the female variety. I only ever find those calls enjoyable if any of my so called peers from across the country fancy going toe to toe with me. They all know I like a challenge but they rarely have the balls to put one on the table, especially live on a call with the CEO. This is the right gig for me though, at 24/7, it’s a believable mask. I initially worked as a personal trainer just to test the water and see if I was ready to work and be around people again. Going from running my empire and answering to myself, to being a PT was a fucked up but necessary adjustment to make.

  It was challenging at first because the businessman in me hated seeing the gyms potential go unnoticed by Carl, the incompetent loser that was manager at the time. He wreaked of piss poor management skills from the second I stepped into his office for my interview. We took an instant disliking to each other and I couldn’t resist calling bullshit by wiping the floor with him in my interview. I gave impeccable answers and countered each one with shit he would have known if he had a clue how to run a business. I wasn’t in the right frame of mind and had never had reason to bite my tongue before. I’ve always been the dog, never the tail. Needless to say I didn’t get the job and after I’d embarrassed him, he took great pleasure in calling me to give me the news.

  That didn’t sit well with me so, although I didn’t need the job, I made a couple of calls and took great pleasure in receiving a second call from Carl the next day to apologise and explain there’d been a mix up, offering me the job with additional pay. That wasn’t part of the deal I’d made when I’d spoken to his CEO but rubbed salt in Carls wounds and helped put him in his place; on the back foot.

  We kept our distance, there wasn’t really a need for us to interact. It pissed me off to see him barely managing to keep the place afloat when the answers were under his nose. He was gradually running the place into the ground and it was frustrating. Then one night about six months later, Michelle, who was a cool chick that I’d shagged for a few weeks when I first started, was upset and confided in me. Her best friend, who was also a PT there—but she was really quiet and avoided me like the plague—had been working late with Carl. He ended up locking her in his office and he fucking raped her. I felt my blood run cold in my veins for a minute whilst I processed the information. He’d prayed on her because she was shy and reserved and he knew he could manipulate and scare her into keeping her mouth shut. I’d wondered why she suddenly left.

  Michelle had tried to convince her to report it but she was scared shitless and was adamant that she just wanted to forget about it. Needless to say that it was the final nail in Carl’s coffin. He disappeared shortly afterwards and I couldn’t wait to accept the challenge to turn the place around.

  The senior management were elated when I agreed to the promotion under my strict conditions, which were written into my already fine-tuned contract sharpish. They’re the only ones who know exactly how overqualified I am for the job but that doesn’t mean to say I haven’t had to work hard to achieve the results I do. I know the place inside out.

  I’ve always maintained good fitness levels and looked after my body but it wasn’t until just before I started at 24/7 that I discovered the escapism training hard gives you. Once you submerge yourself into the zone, nothing else matters, the world doesn’t exist, it’s just a battle between yourself and your limits.

  By the end of today, after calling around more gym members to assign competitors for each of the heats at the Devon event, I was more than ready to celebrate qualifying. It was a massive achievement that everybody has worked hard for. Considering we were on the brink of closure thanks to Carl, this is an exceptional U turn.

  Taking a seat in my large brown leather club chair, in the corner of the room by the window, I recall the evening’s events.

  As soon as Beth walked in I couldn’t keep my eyes off her. Each time I see her, the impulse I have to look after her intensifies. She is feisty, which is sexy as fuck, but I’m no idiot. It’s clearly a thin disguise harbouring her vulnerability. I felt it the first time I met her and told her as much. I stand by it now even more so.

  I allowed myself to enjoy flirting with her even though I know it’ll lead nowhere—her choice not mine. Flirting with a girl is usually the quickest way to decide if I’m going to be coming or going. So Beth has me at an advantage as we mess around with each other from across the table.

  At Kee
pers, Beth sees her deadbeat husband and finds out he’d cheated on her. My urge to protect her became justified. I couldn’t imagine what was going on in her head. As I watched her trying to process it, tears streaming silently down her freckled cheeks, I just wanted to reach out and kiss them away.

  What is she doing to me? This isn’t me. The ‘me’ I’ve become can be caring but not fucking emotionally attached. I fight the instinct to resort to my usual defence mechanism. Instead I’m forced to stand there watching her heart breaking in front of me. I wanted nothing more than to go and spark him clean out. Restraining myself was tough but I knew that it wasn’t my call.

  In her true contradictory style, I watched her shake away the hurt and dust herself off to show him that she didn’t give a fuck about him; whether that’s true or not was irrelevant. I was only too happy to oblige, safe in the confidence that I wasn’t taking advantage of her. She was in full control, although I let her believe I was the one calling the shots.

  That is until she kissed me. Any control from either of us disintegrated on the spot as I got lost in her lips at last. I think I’d imagined that moment every single time I’d looked at those suckable lips of hers. It felt more than just a kiss. It was an entire fucking conversation and I’m not big on kissing; far too intimate for my usual agenda.