by Jay McLean
Fuck Florida. Fuck Daytona Beach. Fuck that hole in the wall strip club, and most of all, fuck bikers! I hope they all rot in the fucking depths of hell for eternity.
Twelve hours later I’m tucked in under the plush down comforter in Seven's spacious spare bedroom. The red silk sheets caress my body with the gentlest touch I have felt. It soothes away the pain of the brutal assault only hours earlier. I am slowly at peace.
That is until I’m left alone with my thoughts. The thoughts of him. The laid back, fun, and flirty evening we shared full of a lap dance and a hand full of drinks. All in good fun, I told myself repeatedly. I should have known that men like him don't do good fun. Men in general don't do good fun; which is why I have always done my best to steer clear of them.
Call me fucked up, call me damaged. Call me whatever you want to, but the God’s honest truth all circles around my sister and the abuse she suffered at the hands of Blue James, that fucking creep. She protected us; Journey and I, every time that creep would come within a few feet of us. We were young and it made no sense, but as an adult, I know exactly what kind of monster that man is.
What a stroll down memory lane.
Seven did her best to drag the details of my injuries out of me, but I knew the second I told her anything that happened she would be on the phone to Star. The same sister who desperately needed to get her own shit together. I was barely a teen when Star got knocked up, she gave the baby away to another family our shit- tastic parents knew; that was about the same time she spiraled out of control. Either way, she has her own problems to wade through, and I won't be bothering her with my own. Call me the considerate one in the family.
Yeah, Star... by the way, some biker raped me after shaking my naked ass on stage. I deserved it, right? Not so much.
His name was Zane, or at least that’s what he told me in between shots of vodka as he chain-smoked a pack of cigarettes. His long dark hair was sexy and I couldn't stop thinking about running my fingers through it while making out. Only making out. He was tempting, extremely tempting. But when you make it to twenty-three years old without fucking, you aren't about to let the first scarred biker you crush on pound you.
A chill runs through my body, and I shake it off. I'm not exactly sure how I’m going to get through this, but I can tell you that after my childhood, this isn't going to break me. Not by a fucking long shot.
DAWN ROBERTSON
Dawn Robertson is a twenty-something indie erotic romance, and mother. She lives in sunny senior citizen packed Florida, where she wrangles her kids, and Pitbull puppy.
Dawn can normally be found swearing like a sailor, making late night drive-thru appearances, arguing with her kids (or being run over by their power wheels), reading a steamy romance while hiding in her bathroom, writing her little heart out on her laptop (or dragging her Macbook to the Genius bar praying they can save her latest work in progress), or sipping on a smoothie. She loves to hear from her fans, readers, and authors alike. Feel free to drop her a message.
Dawn rarely takes life seriously, so be sure to expect heavy sarcasm from her. She is also the life of the party, so be sure to meet up with her at one of the many author events she will be attending in the next couple months. Buy her a shot of whiskey, and she will love you for life.
www.eroticadawn.com/
LINDA BARLOW
COLOR ME BAD
Copyright © 2014 by Linda Barlow
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Linda Barlow Books
http://www.lindabarlow.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.
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Chapter One
I didn't know the girl blowing me. She'd hit on me in the bar, and even though I wasn't in the mood for a chat, I'd gone with it. Not much of a connection, but she was ok looking and she didn't piss me off too bad. I am easily pissed off these days. I didn't care about the girl, but it had been quite a while since I'd gotten laid.
She was the one who started with the caresses on my arm and the coy smiles and the suggestion that we go somewhere more private. We only got as far as my car. She was all over me as soon as we climbed inside. Now I was half-sprawled over the front seat, one leg jammed up against the steering wheel, the other stretched out toward her side of the car. Her head was bobbing up and down in my lap while her fingers played with my balls. She had a great tongue, and she knew how to use it. Her mouth sucking my dick was hungry and tight. I was clutching her hair and urging her on, feeling the heaviness gather and the pleasure ramp up when she raised her head, still gently squeezing my balls with one hand, stared up into my face and asked in an excited voice, "You really did kill her, didn't you?"
I must have groaned in frustration because she dipped back down to her task, but all the pleasure had leeched out of me. I dragged her head away from my genitals and pushed her, none too gently, toward the passenger side door.
"Get out."
Wiping the moisture off her lips, she acted surprised. "What the fuck, dude? You were almost there, and I—"
I reached across her and opened the door. "Get the fuck out."
"I didn't mean...sorry if that was too personal a question. I just, you know, everybody says..."
"Now. Get out before I throw you out."
"But—"
I turned the key and started the car. "Unless you want me to drive you to that place in the woods where I strangled Hadley? You wanna see the spot? It's been awhile since I've taken a girl there."
She took off running before I even finished speaking.
I drove out of the bar parking lot, feeling like I was gonna hurl. My dick had shrunk, and I was cursing myself as I skidded onto the main road. Good thing there wasn't any traffic coming or that might have been the end of me. No big loss to the world.
It had been a while since I'd run into one of those women. The idea of fucking a might-be murderer got them off. I knew they were out there. And they knew where to find me. There were whole websites where strangers who claimed to know something about the case went online and discussed me. It had died down for a few months, but the anniversary of Hadley's disappearance was coming soon, so it was ramping up again. It would be back in the press. The paparazzi would return to town, and Nancy Fucking Grace would probably try to interview me again. That bitch had been even more persistent than the cops.
Nobody cared that I'd had nothing to do with Hadley's disappearance. That I hadn't killed her. That I missed her, and still, after all this time, couldn't get her throaty laughter out of my head. That I felt so fucking helpless, and that I'd never forgive myself for failing to protect her. Jesus, what a fuck up I was. I brushed my face with the back of one hand and drove even faster, half-hoping to lose control and spin into a tree.
Hadley was dead. Had to be. But we didn't know for sure. A whole year with no word, no trace, no closure. A year in which my own miserable life had sunk farther and farther down the toilet. Might as well ram a tree or a bridge abutment and end the mess that was my life.
Of course I didn't ram a tree or a bridge abutment. I just drove. I didn't know where the fuck I was going and I didn't care. The highway unrolled beneath my wheels. At some point it started to rain. I left the windshield wipers off for as long as I could, but the rain kept coming down harder, and I finally had to turn the damn things on. The slap
of the wipers was a sound that used to soothe me, but no longer. Now when I heard that slap, that swish, that hiss, I flashed back to the night I'd screwed up so bad that my girl had died.
* * *
It had been raining that night, too. Hadley and I had gone to dinner at an Italian place in the next town. We'd argued, as we often did that spring. Times were rocky. People heard us quarreling, but none of them had been close enough to nail the reason for our disagreement. I remember it well, though. Hadley was cheating on me and I wanted her to stop.
It's not what you think, though. We weren't exclusive; never had been. It wasn't the cheating that I was sweating about. It was the risks she was taking, which were freaking me out.
Why Hadley had ever started up with me to begin with, I still didn't know. This had puzzled the police, too. Not to mention her friends and family. Those crime websites had gone nuts over the incongruity of a rich college girl from an old New England family hooking up with a scruffy townie like me. I didn't go to either of the fancy local colleges, Whittacre or Penshurst. Much less to the even fancier ones around Boston, an hour away. I worked construction for my uncle's company and took night courses when I could find the time and the money.
Yeah, I had dreams. I'd have loved to spend a cushy four years at a bucolic college, worrying about nothing more serious than booze, football, and frat parties, but I hadn't been born into that life. My father ran off with another woman when I was five and my big brother Sean got blown to bits in Afghanistan trying to rescue some buddies captured by the fucking Taliban. Whatever was left of my mom's heart broke when she lost Sean, and she went about her life and her job—she worked as a hairdresser—with a grim, joyless determination. The news that I was the main suspect in an unsolved disappearance/probable murder just about killed her.
I'd met Hadley at a party at her college in the beginning of the school year. I'd been a waiter, passing out trays of shit like stuffed mushrooms and mini-quiches at a party under a tent on the grassy lawn of Penshurst Quad. The college was welcoming back the students, professors, and a bunch of well-heeled parents. I hated them all on sight. I had to work two jobs and go without booze and cigarettes while I tried to scrape together enough cash to take one lousy night course at one of the cheaper state schools. I wanted—can you believe it—to learn criminology, and maybe crime scene analysis. I loved those TV shows about that shit. Maybe one day I could be an investigator or even—crazy fantasy alert—go to law school and be a criminal prosecutor. I wanted to solve crimes, not commit them.
There were some hot girls at that party, but I wasn't interested. Rich chicks, not my scene. But Hadley was different. Not that she looked different, except for her carrot-colored hair, which was unusual in a crowd full of bleached blondes and color-enhanced brunettes. The clothes, the hair style, the jewelry, that was all rich-girl standard. But the mischievous glint in her eyes when I presented her with the first canapé was something else.
"You don't belong here," were her first words, said low to me.
But just as I was about to get pissed off, she added, "Where you belong is naked on your back with me sitting atop you, riding you hard." Now I probably should have been pissed off at that, too—what was this, sexual harassment—but, fuck, I was twenty-one and the image aroused me. Then when she winked at me and said, "Sorry. It's just that you have such nice muscles in your arms, so I started imagining how built the rest of your body must be. I'm bad, I know, but it's who I am." Then she held out her hand as if to an equal and added, "I'm Hadley. What's your name?"
So I told her. Before the party was over, she'd given me her number. I almost didn't call. What was the point? But I kept remembering that merry look in her eyes and her hearty laugh. She seemed like a girl who really enjoyed life, so what the fuck, why not take a chance?
We started hooking up her second week of school. She didn't care that I was a townie, that I worked construction, that I'd been in trouble a lot as a teenager and wasn't exactly primed for a bright future. In fact, she accused me of having a big old chip on my shoulder. "You live in the fucking U S of A. You can do anything, be anything. Try living in one of the poorer nations in Africa or in one of those central Asia pseudo-republics, and then come complain to me about your lack of opportunities."
She was right, of course. She was planning to be an international aid worker when she graduated, and she had already volunteered her time for multiple human rights efforts. Hadley had a head full of ideas about all the great things she wanted to do to improve the living conditions of folks less fortunate than she was. She was brimming with enthusiasm. It still seems impossible to me that such a larger-than-life spirit could be extinguished from this Earth.
She loved sex, too, and she would do anything, try anything. I'd never met anyone who would speak so openly about her needs and desires. She was sexually adventurous and, in that respect, she lived on the edge.
That's what I was troubled about—that dark edge of hers. She had been hanging out with some sketchy people. I tried to get her to stop, but she wouldn't. So we fought.
Our evening ended early that night. She told me to drop her off at her apartment, which I did. And no, she did not want me to come in. As soon as she stepped out of the car, I slammed off, pissed, wheels skidding on the wet pavement. I drove around for a while, just like I was doing tonight. The rain was torrential, and there was a storm inside me, too. Bursting with unspent energy, I stopped to pick up a six-pack to help me mellow out. I knew the dude who was working at the convenience store where I bought the beer. Not well, but enough to shoot the shit for a little while. We discussed the Red Sox's chances for a winning season, and the guy remembered it later when the cops questioned him.
After that I went home. I logged into this computer game I play and hung out with some MMO friends, which also helped my ass later. Then I went to bed. I was alone for the rest of the night, feeling sorry for myself and mad at Hadley. It was not until afterwards that I felt guilty. I'd dropped her off without even checking to make sure she'd gotten safely inside the dark apartment. I hadn't called her or texted her. I hadn't made sure she was safe. I hadn't protected her.
Sometime that night Hadley had disappeared, and to this day, no one knew what had happened to her.
Chapter Two
Without really paying attention, I'd driven to the outskirts of Boston. I didn't know where the hell I was going—sometimes I just like to drive. But the fuel tank indicator lit up, reminding me that cruising without purpose wastes money. I exited the highway and drove around looking for an open gas station. The neighborhood was crappy, but I didn't care. I almost wished some freak would try to carjack me so I could beat his head in.
I found a gas station, pulled in, entered my one lousy credit card that was always close to maxed out, and started pumping gas. The rain was brutal and the pump island didn't offer much shelter. I noticed, without paying much attention, that an argument was going on at the next island. Man's voice, girl's, heated debate, punctuated with curses. Couldn't really see them through the slashing rain. I wanted to get as much gas as I could afford and hop back inside my vehicle where it was dry.
I had just stashed the hose and climbed in when something streaked toward me through the rain and crashed into the side of my car. The passenger side door jerked open. Before I could react, this skinny, soaking-wet girl flung herself inside, spraying me with rainwater as her long stringy hair flew all over the place. She whipped her head around, looking for a split second at me then back at whatever she was running from. "Drive!" she screamed. "What are you waiting for? Put your foot on it and get me out of here."
"Who the fuck are you?"
Someone or something beat on the outside of the car, and I started the engine reflexively. There was another crash as something that looked like a shovel slammed against the side of my car. I stomped on the brake, and was about to leap out and attack whoever was damaging my car, but the girl grabbed my arm. "He's got a gun. Just drive. Please."
I don't take orders from anybody, especially strange women, but another whack of whatever the crazy man had in his hands helped me make up my mind. I didn't have a weapon, and I could hear yelling and cursing behind me. I couldn't see the asshole with the shovel, but it sounded as if he was foaming at the mouth.
"Go, go!" she cried, turning around in the seat looking out through the pouring rain. There was a boom that sounded like a shotgun. The girl threw herself on her belly on the seat, her head practically in my lap. "Fuck! He's gonna kill us!"
I hit the gas, and we sped out of the parking lot. I drove us up the road from the gas station and swung back toward the highway. "Who is that guy? Has he got a car? Is it just the one or are there more of them?"
"Yeah, he has a car, but I disabled it. You gotta lose him. He's fuckin' crazy."
I wanted details. If some crazy dude with weapons was gonna be on my ass, I needed to know how soon. "Disabled it how?"
"When he went in to pay and buy some smokes, I ripped his keys out of the ignition." She held up a set of keys. "I don't know if he has a spare."
"Let's assume he does." I didn't see any pursuit, though. I found the on-ramp back to the highway as quick as I could and took it. Once we were up to speed and getting farther away from the psycho every minute, both me and the girl started to relax.
I scowled at her. She had moved away from me, settling into the passenger's seat like she belonged there. "Can you turn the heat on? I'm freezing."
I ignored the request. "Why was that guy chasing you? Did you rob him?"
She shot me a wary glance. Her hair was all mashed down across her face, so she combed it away with her fingers. More rainwater splattered around. She wasn't as young as I'd first thought. Not a kid, although I wouldn't say she looked much like a woman, either, given how small and skinny she was; no curves, all angles. "No, I didn't fucking rob him."
