by R. K. Lilley
Fuck.
Danika heard about that little conversation. The fucker had tattled on me?
She was so pissed about it that she actually came to see me. Sought me out in my dressing room before the show.
I met her at the door. She was livid, so pissed she couldn't contain herself.
So beautiful it made my chest hurt.
She barged into the room. I shut us in.
She whirled on me. "How dare you?" she hissed. She was shaking. She looked like she wanted to attack me.
I wished she would.
"I know why you're here," I said in my most fake calm tone. "I can explain."
"Oh please do. I would love to hear it."
God, I missed her. Even her temper I loved.
I took a step toward her, but she backed away fast. "Don't you dare try to touch me."
I looked down, taking deep breaths, trying to cope with the gaping hole just a few words could leave in my chest. I deserved this, deserved the one I loved most thinking I was scum.
"Of course, Danika," I said, trying not to sound bitter, trying not to sound as gutted as I was. "I know how you feel about that. I take it this is about Milton?"
She curled her lip at me, nodding. Even that I loved. Sharing this air with her, anything she did I would have taken, just to keep sharing it.
I was so fucked.
"Of course it is. Why else would I be here?"
Deep breaths. "Why else indeed? Listen, I told him that because—"
"I can't believe you told him I was divorced!" she burst out.
I looked at her, just looked, jaw clenched. Now that was a tough blow to take without fighting back. "You are divorced," I said softly.
"That marriage was a joke. It didn't even count."
I flinched. I'd been punched in the face, been knocked across the fucking room and not felt it like I felt those two sentences. Jesus, she knew how to rip me apart.
Didn't matter. Didn't change a thing. I couldn't let her go out with that creep.
"I told him that because he is not the guy for you." My voice was shaking. She didn't notice.
"How cute," she said scathingly. "You think you know what's good for me?"
I did not have the heart to fight her. I wanted to spread my arms out, lay myself in front of her, waving a white flag, because my heart was not in it, when it came to this fight. It had surrendered to her, years ago.
But I knew my Danika, knew how she felt about me now. If I'd handed her that flag, she was liable to just light it on fire and throw it back.
"He's a womanizer," I explained to her. If she had a clue about this guy, she wouldn't go near him. I wanted to give her that clue.
She laughed, a bitter laugh that scratched at my insides like nails on a chalkboard. "Look who's talking."
"And a liar."
She started looking around the room, eyes wild.
I watched her steadily, determined to take whatever she was about to dish out.
"That is beside the point," she said, voice low and mean. "None of this is your business. Nothing in my life is your business. Are we clear?"
"Please, Danika," I pleaded. "Stay clear of him. I know you have a right to do as you please, but understand that I wouldn't have interfered if I weren't concerned. This guy is bad news. He'll break your heart, and when he does, I may well break his neck."
She pointed a trembling finger at me. "You stop it. Quit acting like you give a damn, and stay the fuck out of my life. You and I . . . we are nothing to each other. Less than strangers."
I shook my head, trying not to sway on my feet, even though she'd just blown my chest open wide with those shots.
We stared at each other, both of us panting.
I saw things in her eyes that I could not bear, and God only knows what she told herself she saw in mine.
I knew one thing. She didn't see the truth, didn't see the love, the agonized remorse they held.
"Please," I mouthed.
She went out with him. Very publicly. There were pictures of them together. I didn't dare hope she'd done that for my benefit.
I sought him out and warned him again.
This warning involved more contact.
I'd just landed another solid blow to his stomach when he warded me off, gasping. "What the fuck, dude?"
"I told you to stay away from Danika. Fucking warned you."
"What the hell is your problem?"
"You're my fucking problem. You."
I got a little carried away, bruised up his pretty boy face.
And still he kept seeing her.
And then I found out about his girlfriend, how he'd been playing them both, from Kenny.
Needless to say, I didn't handle that well.
I beat him bloody, the worst loss of temper I'd had in many years. So bad I started doubling up on therapy, going through anger management steps again.
I even checked myself back into rehab for a few days. I hadn't slipped, but my sobriety felt just a bit too fragile for a time. It was preemptive, and it helped.
And even with all of that, I wasn't sorry I'd messed up the motherfucker.
BOOKS BY R.K. LILLEY
THE WILD SIDE SERIES
THE WILD SIDE
IRIS
DAIR
TYRANT - COMING SOON
THE OTHER MAN - COMING SOON
THE UP IN THE AIR SERIES
IN FLIGHT
MILE HIGH
GROUNDED
MR. BEAUTIFUL
LANA (AN UP IN THE AIR COMPANION NOVELLA)
AUTHORITY - COMING SOON
THE TRISTAN & DANIKA SERIES
BAD THINGS
ROCK BOTTOM
LOVELY TRIGGER
THE HERETIC DAUGHTERS SERIES
BREATHING FIRE
CROSSING FIRE - COMING SOON
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JARED
I would not recommend reading this if you have not read BAD THINGS (TRISTAN & DANIKA #1)
THE GIRL
JARED
It was too late by the time I met her. By then, she was already falling for my brother, even though she'd only met him that day.
Still, a guy had to try.
Tristan established at the start that they were only friends. I believed it for about two hours.
As soon as I said a few friendly words to her, he was pulling me aside, chastising me.
He clapped my shoulder and led me away from the group.
"Don't," he said quietly, with a look to tell me he meant it.
I raised my brows. We had a solid brother code and if he said she was off limits, that was as good as law. But . . . "You said she was just your friend."
He shook his head, "I'm not going there. She's off limits. End of story."
It was a fact that I didn't like to fight with my brother. He was the fighter.
I loved him, more than anyone on earth. He'd always taken care of me. He'd done more for me than my own dad, my own mom, and he was only a few years older than I was. If I had a problem, I went to Tristan. Big brother could fix it, I had absolute faith.
That being said, he was a stubborn cuss. Just then I found that to be annoying as hell.
"So you're just staking your claim on random women now, just in case you might want to fuck them later?" I asked, cringing at what came out of my mouth.
I was just frustrated, and if I was honest, jealous.
He gave me a look that shut me the hell up. He hadn't liked that.
"Don't, just don't. Don't talk about her like that, and get it out of your head if you're thinking you want to hook up with her. She doesn't hook up."
"What if I want to date her?" I asked quietly, testing him more than I normally did. I liked that girl, Danika, and I would have liked at least to feel her out.
"No. Knock it off. I'm done talking about it."
From the very start, the v
ery first day they met, Tristan was incapable of being logical when it came to Danika.
THE DATE
I'd finally gotten Danika to go out with me.
I was crazy about this girl. We hadn't been able to spend much time together, but I felt like I knew her, felt like I got her.
She was smart, funny, nice, and gorgeous. She was the kind of girl I wanted to marry someday. She wouldn't put up with any shit, but that was okay, I wouldn't be dealing any, if I had her around.
And then I kissed her. It was a good kiss. Fucking great.
And she shot me down. She was falling for Tristan. My brother. Had fallen.
I tried to shrug it off and enjoy the rest of the night. I enjoyed her company, even if she didn't like me that way.
What could I do? If the feelings weren't there for her, they weren't there.
"I won't make this awkward," I told her.
We smiled at each other. She was so beautiful. "Good," she said. "Thank you. I hate awkward."
She loved my brother, I realized it that night.
And he'd fallen for her too. That was another thing I learned that night, though I didn't think he realized how far gone he was. Stubborn bastard.
He'd caught us on our date, and pulled me aside to rip me a new one.
"What did I fucking tell you?" he gritted out, getting in my face, finger jabbing at my chest. "You stay away from her."
I studied him. He was a scary motherfucker, but never to me. His fists went flying often, but not at me. I was his baby brother. He was there to protect me, not hurt me, and he'd always made sure I knew it.
Since I was five, I'd known it, when he got in front of a careless backhand from my dad that was aimed at me. It hadn't been an accident.
He'd stepped into that hit.
"Don't you lay a hand on him, you bastard!" he'd snarled, taken another hit, and gotten right back up, right back into my dad's face. "You touch him again, I will end you."
Another hit, curses, followed by my mom kicking Tristan out of the house, telling him to take a breather, not to come back until he'd calmed down.
He was ten.
My dad never tried to hit me again, that I could remember. He always went after Tristan, the bigger, easier target.
He might have been furious, snarling at me now, but I knew his heart. He loved me more than he loved himself, would and had inflicted pain on himself to prevent mine.
"You can't put dibs on girls you aren't even dating," I told him quietly. I could be stubborn too.
He shook his head, eyes wild. "This is not 'girls,' this is Danika. And I don't need to explain myself. Back the fuck off."
It was so crazy, his reaction so over the top, that I knew then. "You're falling for her," I told him, voice pitched low. "At least admit it to yourself."
He shook his head, not admitting a thing. "Don't change the fucking subject. You going to stay away from her, or are we going to have a fucking problem?"
Stubborn cuss. "I'll stay away."
THE LAST DAY
I was strung out in the extreme, had been for days, and the only cure for that seemed to be to further partake. Speaking of which.
I answered my phone. "What's up, Dean?"
"I've got a present for you. Where you at?"
"My apartment."
"Have you even gone outside this week? You're just sitting at home getting high right now, aren't you?"
I grinned. "Just pot, dude. What are you, my mother?"
He laughed, and he sounded a bit like the old Dean, from years ago. "Your mom is the one that handed me my first joint, Jared. You can do better."
"Okay, what are you, my brother?"
We both laughed at that one. It was accurate. He acted more like my parent than my actual parents.
"You up for a party?" he asked me.
"Always."
"I'm bringing it to you."
The upcoming high had me feeling instantly revived. I actually got out of bed, gave Tristan a call.
He was in a rough place, I knew. He didn't pick up the phone.
"Love you, brother," I said after the beep. "Don't you give up on her. She'll come around."
Dean showed up at my place a few hours later. It wasn't much of a party, just him, a bag full of something fun, two girls, and a bottle of vodka.
The girls were groupies.
I invited them in, but I didn't try to flirt with them. Dean could have them. I didn't like the girls Dean found. They always seemed far gone to the point that sleeping with them would just be exploitive.
I might have been covered in ink and in a band, but I liked nice girls. Ones that smiled with their eyes and wanted to fall in love. Until I found that, I could wait.
Dean went straight to the living room sofa and started mixing on the coffee table. Speedballs, I saw. Good shit.
The girls followed him like he was feeding them catnip.
I snagged his bottle of vodka, went into the kitchen, and poured us all a shot.
"Cheers," I said, and drank mine. No one even noticed what I was doing. The girls were watching Dean's activities with rapt attention. Junkies then.
One of them held out her arm for him to shoot her up.
He shrugged her off. "Don't be a bitch. Host first. Get over here, Jared."
I moved to sit by him on the couch, holding out my arm, jonesing hard for that first sweet high. This shit was the best high there was, when the rush from the coke met the bliss of the dope.
He shot me up.
I sat back and sighed as I felt it hit my bloodstream like a Mack truck.
"Fuck, that's good," I said softly, a head to toe rush sweeping me, shivers and pins and needles moving through me, all at the same time.
Dean shot me a sharp smile as he emptied another needle into one of the girl's arms. "The best, right? And you're gonna love me, because I brought plenty to go around. You can thank me later."
FRANKIE
The first time I met her I was positive we'd never be compatible. It took me no time at all to come to that conclusion. Her smile was too nice, too free of baggage.
I met her in a college bar across the street from UNLV, at the insistence of a well meaning Danika.
I hated college bars. They were always full of college guys, and college guys seemed to all live under the delusion that lesbians were just girls that liked to go that extra mile to turn them on. I wasn't crazy about that.
Estella was beautiful. I didn't have a type, but this girl was everybody's type. Of a height with me, she was shapely, with a body that wouldn't quit. She was showing a lot of that hot little body, in a skimpy black top that clung to her breasts, and a white mini skirt that barely covered her ass. Her skin was a creamy caramel that struck me as edible.
She'd recently moved to the states from Brazil, and had a sexy as hell accent.
Her hair was also a showstopper. It was a sun streaked brown, and there were wavy masses of it.
My mind ran a little wild with the things I'd like to do to that hair, but I put a stop to that pretty quickly.
She was an edible little distraction, to be sure, but not for me.
Not for me. Not for me. Not for me.
So what if I had to tell myself that several times within a few minutes of meeting her?
Didn't mean a thing.
"I'm Estella," she said with a blinding smile, holding her hand out to me.
Was I supposed to shake it?
I did, awkwardly.
"Frankie."
"Frankie," she rolled the name around in her mouth, somehow making it exotic. "I love that name. It's strong. It suits you."
I smiled neutrally. "Thank you. Estella's a beautiful name. Suits you." Nothing about my tone or my eyes was flirtatious. Just making conversation.
Estella's eyes, on the other hand, were running all over my bared, inked flesh. She wasn't even trying to hide the fact that she liked what she saw.
I glanced at the dance floor. One of their group was trying to ge
t her attention.
I pointed. "I think you're wanted on the dance floor."
She glanced back, then shot me a blatantly seductive smile. "Join me?"
I shook my head. "No thanks. You have fun though."
She walked away, a sexy little shake to her stride.
Danika was giving me a look, and I leveled a rueful one back at her.
"It's hard to explain a preference like mine," I explained. I'm attracted to Estella. She's highly fuckable, but that is not the point. I couldn't be who I need to be with her, and I won't settle for less."
"How do you ever find anyone?" Danika asked, sympathy in her voice. "It's hard enough finding decent people to date and then throwing something like that in the mix . . ."
"It's not easy. Not at all. But I'll tell you what, I won't ever be finding that somebody at a college bar. I'd rather be celibate for life than try vanilla again. Does nothing for me."
"So you have tried it?"
I grimaced. I had, with disastrous results, to the point where I'd thought something was broken inside of me, with no remedy to fix it. "Not with a lot of success, and not since I was too young to know better. A preference like mine . . . It's a dark thing, in a way, but when I get it right, God, there's nothing like it. Regular sex could never compare. Has all the excitement of a board game to me."
Eventually Estella came back, handing me a martini, flashing me a big smile.
"I love tattoos," she said, eyes all over my skin.
"Oh yeah?" I questioned, thinking she didn't mean it, since she had none of her own. "I have a tattoo parlor. If you're ever thinking of about getting ink, you should come to me."
She looked interested.
I didn't know how it happened, but the little vixen talked me into taking her home that night.
We made out for hours, and I got her off. Repeatedly. She was a hot little piece.
She slept over at my house, and nosily interrogated me about anything remotely fetish related that she found there.
