Welcome to Sugartown

by Carmen Jenner

  “The wrong hit?”

  “I attacked the wrong guy. During the riot I was trying to save my own arse and managed to save a prison guard in the process. My time inside was almost up and I would have headed straight back into the waiting arms of the club, but the judge who’d sentenced me somehow caught wind of my heroic feat—” I make air quotes with my hands to let her know how ridiculous that is, because the truth of what happened with that prison guard was so much uglier than that. “—and he set my release six months early for good behaviour, no affiliation with the club and I had to disappear off the grid, change my name and remain in regular scheduled contact with my parole officer.

  “The club had several deals go south. Their other contact on the inside had to be the rat, but with the timing of my release and my disappearance, the weight of the club’s deals blowing up in their face fell on me. I knew better than to rat on the club. You rat, you die. My dad had instilled that in me from birth.”

  “So we were almost killed because of a misunderstanding?” A line forms between her brows. She’s so fucking cute when she’s mad, and I laugh a little at the stupidity of that thought because Ana brings new meaning to the words hell hath no fury. “Oh, you find this funny, do you?”

  She shoves at my chest with her arms and I gently catch her cast in my hand before it can do me serious damage.

  “No. I don’t find any of this shit funny. Nothing about being away from you is funny.” I trace my fingers over the plaster cast and then down over her hand. “How’s the arm?”

  “It’s in a cast, Elijah, how do you think it is?” We hear the whistle sounding the end of the game, and Ana yanks her arm free and begins the walk back to the oval.

  “I’m sorry, baby girl. I fucked up.”

  “Yeah, you did.”

  “So that’s it? No second chances? You’re just gonna walk away from this clean?”

  She backtracks and doesn’t stop until she’s right up in my face, or as in my face as she can be, given how short she is. “You think I’m walking away clean? I’m a fucking mess, Elijah! I can’t close my eyes without seeing that arsehole’s face, without feeling his hands on my body, inside me. He held a gun to my head and you watched—”

  “And I killed the motherfucker, didn’t I? I blew his face apart until he was no longer recognisable, Ana! Jesus. Fucking. H. Christ! What more do you want from me?”

  Fuck. Every time I try to speak calmly to her lately I lose my shit and frighten her to death. She just makes me so fucking crazy sometimes. Crazier than any woman has ever made me.

  She’s crying again when she says, “Nothing. I don’t want a goddamn thing from you, Elijah.”

  Ana disappears around the corner of the brick building and I have to fight the urge to follow her. She’s been through enough shit with the people in this town and doesn’t need me making a spectacle of her at her kid brother’s footy match so instead, in the privacy provided by the toilet block, I pound my fist into the brick until my knuckles are bloody and the pain settles in, bone deep. I’m not letting her walk away from this. I can’t.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Ana

  In the three weeks since my run in with Elijah at Little League Rugby, Holly has been glued to my side. Not that I’m not grateful. I am. I’m also indebted. If it weren’t for her helping me out on a Sunday with the baking, the pie shop would have sunk with this stupid cast on my arm.

  She’s done more than that, though. Elijah still insists on coming in every day for lunch and, every day at the same time, I take my lunch over to the house to avoid him.

  If Holly’s beside me he won’t even try speaking to me, he knows it’s a lost cause. But it’s when she’s not around, when I’m at my lowest, that he chooses to spark up a conversation with me. Every time I see him it’s like a blow to the gut and I don’t know whether it’s the same for him but the more he attacks at my defences, the more I feel them coming down. And I hate us both for it.

  That’s why I agreed to come out with Holly tonight. She’s been so good to me for so long that I thought it was time to be a good friend back. Only, as we enter the pub and the noise of the band and the crowd assaults us, and the realisation sinks in that I’m wearing a red dress that’s way too short and way too tight across my boobs and I probably look like a complete arsehole with too much make-up on and my hand still in this god dammed cast, I want to turn and run straight back out that door. And when my eyes slide across the room and fix on the pair of chocolate ones staring intently back at me and then onto Nicole White practically straddling the pool cue beside Elijah, I feel it like I’ve been punched in the face. Which is why, when Scott and his idiotic friends come strutting over to us like they own the place, I decide to do something I promised I never would again. I talk to him and make out like every word that comes from his mouth doesn’t make me want to throw up.

  Nicole chooses this moment to play up the fact that she’s yet again sinking her claws into my sloppy seconds by laughing like a complete whore and running her fingers down the side of Elijah’s face.

  “Looks like our exes are getting friendly,” Scott mumbles, sounding about as happy as I am about it.

  “Buy me a drink, Scott,” I say, as I grab his collar and lead him towards the bar. “It’s the least you can do after the crap you pulled in high school.”

  “You got it, Blondie.”

  Holly seems to be hitting it off with the new bartender, who seems real nice and is certainly pretty enough to look at. We don’t normally have the luxury of having bands play at the Sugartown Hotel, but the new guy somehow convinced Dave that bands would get more patrons in the door, and so far it appears to have worked.

  Holly and I make a show of dancing. We both agreed it was the right thing to do to support the new guy’s band theory. Best intentions aside, I know we’re both just trying to gain the attention of the two hottest men in place. I make the mistake of seeking out the gaze of one of those hot men and earn a stab to the heart because of it. Elijah once said he couldn’t imagine anything hotter than Holly and I together and, as the band blasted out a very sexy and slightly emo cover of The Divinyls’ I Touch Myself, Holly practically molests me in her effort to get the new guy’s attention. It looks as though Elijah is one step away from jumping the pool table and molesting the both of us.

  Scott jumps right on in behind me and I feel my spine turn to slush when I think about the last time a guy stood that close behind me. Then I remember the way Elijah had reacted to that scenario and, with a quick glance in his direction, I excuse myself and head for the bar. He doesn’t make a move toward me, but I feel his eyes burning a hole in my backside until I’m sitting safely on a stool.

  Holly stays on the dance floor and I’m okay with that, because it gives me a chance to suss out the new guy and see if he meets the best friend seal of approval.

  “Thirsty work, huh?” He leans over the bar and his eyes are sparkling as he winks at me. He’s got a very Adam Levine kind of vibe—sex on a stick and just as cheeky too. “What can I get ya?”

  “Johnnie Walker, blue label, neat.”

  “Ooh, top-shelf? Either you’re in for a big night or you’re buying for the guy in the corner who’s been tossing them back like lollies and hasn’t taken his eyes off you all night.”

  “Let’s go with the first one,” I say and slap a fifty-dollar note on the bar. I gulp down the shot. My stomach threatens a mini revolt and I have to choke it down again before it makes an embarrassing reappearance. After the burn settles all I can taste is Elijah, and my heart hurts all over again.

  “Tonight, I’m drinking for Australia,” I declare and tilt my glass toward him in a salute.

  “Thatta girl.” He refills my glass and shakes his head when I slip another fifty-dollar note from my clutch. “This one’s on me.”

  “Thanks.” I smile and sip the shot slowly, and then, because the taste is so familiar I hold the glass beneath my nose and inhale. When I open my eyes sex on a stick
is watching me with a half-smile and a knowing glint in his eye.

  “How long has it been?”

  I don’t know if he’s talking about the last time I got laid—which sadly has been never—how long it’s been since I had a drink—I am sort of acting like a raging alcoholic—or how long since Elijah and I broke up, but I find myself answering the latter, anyway. “Four weeks.”

  “I think from the death glares he’s sending me right now that it’s safe to say he wants you back.”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “Yeah? So is life.”

  “Yeah, no shit.”

  “That dance you two were doing, was that all for him?”

  “Mine was. Holly’s though, Holly’s was all for you.”

  “And this Holly, is she complicated?”

  “Surprisingly not.” I lean back on the stool a little to get a better look at him. It’s kind of an odd question for a guy who doesn’t know her from a bar of soap, and I feel a flutter of excitement for her when I realise he wants to get to know her a lot better. “Holly’s a great girl. She’s calls it like she sees it, she doesn’t like to be undermined, patronized or interrupted when she’s ranting. She’s loyal to a fault and she’s been a bossy, nosy bitch since kindergarten.”

  He laughs and shakes his head. “Wow, that’s really a stellar recommendation.”

  “She’s the best woman I know. I hear she’s also fireworks in the sack, though that little titbit came from her, so don’t blame me if it turns out not to be true.” I swallow back the rest of my drink and slide off the stool I’m occupying. “Will you tell her I went home? I don’t want her to feel like she has to take me home when there’s someone else waiting for her.”

  “I’ll tell her.”

  I swing around and face the room, my eyes automatically searching out Elijah’s, as if they’re on autopilot. Disappointment washes through me when I don’t find them anywhere. Maybe he went home, or maybe he’s in the bathroom taking a pee. That thought automatically makes me need to go myself so I turn back around and say, “Oh, and if you break her heart I’ll hunt you down and rip out yours.” And then I strut away to the ladies.

  I’m still laughing at the look on his face when I stumble into the bathroom and freeze in my tracks. Propped up against the wall is a young couple fucking one another’s brains out. Crude, yes, but there’s really no other way to describe it. His jeans are down around his ankles displaying a firm arse and two long muscular legs, one with a very detailed tiger tattoo. Her legs are wrapped around his hips. One of his hands supports her weight while the other palm is slammed flat against the tile, and his thrusts are hard enough to nail her to the goddamn wall. He groans with each one and the sound rings in my ears—primal, animal, it calls to some baser thing inside me yearning to be let out of her cage.

  The moment seems to stretch on for eons.

  Neither one of them has noticed me yet. Her eyes are shut tightly, and the noise of the door banging shut is swallowed by her moans.

  “Oh, fuck me harder,” she cries out and I find I’m equal parts aroused and revolted. Also, I can almost pinpoint the second when my addled brain catches up to what my eyes are witnessing and my heart shatters in two. I can’t look away, and yet I’ll never be able to look at him the same way again. In this moment, all the bullshit that had transpired between us before seems like just that, bullshit.

  But this?

  This is the sort of betrayal I can never forgive him for, because no matter what the excuse, he knows how I feel about him. He also knows how I feel about her and he knew there was a chance I would find the two of them like this, and the fact that he’s willing to hurt me for the sake of a quick fuck makes me hate him just a little.

  I’m not an idiot, though. It’s obvious he’s enjoying himself, too. That’s evident by what he says next as he hammers into her, “God, you feel so fucking good.”

  Nicole lets out this ridiculously high-pitched giggle and opens her eyes. They widen in shock and then narrow down as she registers that I’m standing there, watching. A smile spreads across her face, wide and victorious. And then she grabs his arse with her long taloned hands and drives him into her faster.

  It isn’t long before he’s finishing hard and fast, exactly the way he never could with me. And that cuts deeper than anything I’ve seen so far in this disgusting bathroom. He leans against her, spent. He doesn’t kiss her; there’s none of the tenderness of our post orgasmic moments, but that hardly matters. The truth is, he still fucked a girl up against the bathroom wall knowing I was in the very next room.

  Nicole bends down to whisper into his ear. “Looks like we’ve got ourselves an audience.”

  Elijah freezes and then he turns his upper body to face me. Only his upper body, because I’m assuming the lower half is still buried in that whore. “Ah, fuck.”

  I don’t say a single thing in return, though there are many, many words on the tip of my tongue. I simply convey all of the hurt I’m feeling with one look before calmly stepping through the door.

  Once I’m in the hallway with that mind-fuck of a mess behind me, I take a deep breath and bolt outside. My plan is to run all the way home. It’s just a few short blocks, and the bathroom incident has sobered me enough to ensure I won’t wind up stumbling and passing out in someone’s front yard. That’s the plan, but life hardly ever goes according to one.

  “Ana!” I hear his footsteps pounding the pavement behind me, but I don’t bother to turn around, I just run faster and pray he doesn’t catch up. Apparently I’m not that lucky though. Elijah reaches out and yanks me back into the curve of his chest. “Baby girl, would you just stop and talk to me.”

  “Don’t you dare call me that!” I kick and try to lurch away from him but he holds my arms down by my sides, rendering me completely useless. “You just had your dick buried in another girl and, no less than five seconds later, you’re calling me baby girl? Fuck you, Cade!”

  He spins me around so my back is pressed into an alcove created by an empty storefront. “What do you want me to say, Ana? You broke this shit off, not me. So why do you give two fucks about who I’m buried inside?”

  “I don’t.”

  “Bullshit. You jealous? That it? ”

  “Oh completely,” I sneer, “because I’ve always wanted to be nailed to the wall of some dingy toilet that hasn’t been cleaned in over a century.”

  “I forgot you were such a purist.”

  “Fuck you!”

  “Wish you would’ve.” He leans forward, pinning me against the glass with his massive frame, his eyes all molten chocolate, his voice pitched low and gravely. “It’d be the fuck of your life, darlin’.”

  “This is sick.” I attempt to move past him, but he places a meaty paw in the middle of my chest and gently pushes me back against the glass. “Let me go.”

  It’s only then that I realise just how drunk he is. He smells like whiskey and need and sex, and knowing the latter is because of someone other than me makes me want to throw up.

  He begins pressing sloppy kisses into my neck and, god help me, it’s been so long since he touched me that I find myself revelling in the feel of his hot mouth on my skin. So much so, that a small moan escapes my mouth before I can rein it in.

  “God, I miss that. I miss the sounds you make when you come. I miss the way you come alive beneath my hands.” He runs his hand up my dress, slides my knickers aside until his warm hand is cupping me. His finger glides into my wetness while his thumb strokes circles around my clit. Despite my better judgement, I feel myself leaning into his touch, and the more his fingers work against me, the more my thoughts flee and my body takes over until I’m panting and aching for more. “Yeah, just like that, baby girl. Fuck, I miss you.”

  That revelation brings my orgasm to a crashing halt and I press my hands into his chest and plead, “Stop.”

  He doesn’t. Instead, he doubles his efforts and acts as though he hasn’t heard me. Warmth travels up from my toe
s and floods the centre of my belly. I rock my hips into his hand.

  “Come for me, Ana,” he whispers.

  “No.” But even as I say it, I’m breathless with need. My legs are trembling beneath my weight and I’m shaking from head to toe, and it’s sure as hell not from fear. One more circle of his thumb and then I completely come apart in his hands, clawing and scratching and pulling him closer as wave after delicious wave of my orgasm sluices through me, even though I’m appalled and repelled by what he just did.

  He leans in and whispers, “I love you, baby.”

  I freeze against him. Finally hearing those words should make my heart soar. Instead, it shatters that last fragile shard of dignity I have left and I completely lose it. I shove him back with my hands against his chest and punch him right in the jaw with the fist of my fractured arm. I cry out, because it stings like a bitch. Clearly, I’ve just ruined whatever good progress I’d made with it these last few weeks because it hurts just as much as it did the night I first injured it.

  Elijah rubs his jaw and then turns angry dark eyes on me. “Fuck!”

  “Yeah, I can see that you love me, Elijah. What with the way you were fucking Nicole up against the wall. I can see you missed me real bad.”

  “Jesus Christ, Ana, she’s filler!” he roars, getting all up in my face again. “Fuck! That girl in there has nothing on you! And yeah, I fucked her. I fucked the shit outta her because I thought for one minute, just one single fucking minute, I might be able to bury myself in someone else and forget about you.”

  “Is that supposed to make me feel better? That you have to screw other women to forget about me?”

  “Honestly, darlin’, I don’t care how it makes you feel. It’s the truth.”

  “Like you’re an expert on the truth.”

  “God, you’re so fucking self-righteous! You didn’t seem to give a shit about the truth when I was getting you off with my hand just now.”