I woke up sweating and panting, completely disoriented. My tank top was stuck to my body, and my sleep shorts were twisted around my hips and thighs.
“Ava?” Mia’s voice sounded from outside my door. “Are you okay?”
“Huh?” Wetting my lips, I tried again. “Yeah, um, sure,” I said as I rose up onto my elbows and looked around the dimly lit room. There was no sound and little light. Sliding my legs out of bed, I crossed the floor and opened the door.
Mia was on the other side looking as dishevelled as I felt, her skin tacky with sweat.
“Generator out?” I guessed.
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Fuck, it’s like an oven in here.” Gathering my hair up into a pile, I tilted my head back.
Our humble little apartment lost electricity more than it probably should. We’d spoken to the college housing department, and they assured us it was a fluke that would be fixed. That was twelve months ago. Every month, sometimes twice, the generator would fail, and for an evening, we would either freeze or overheat. This month it was overheating.
Tennessee nights at this time of year were hot, muggy and sticky. I wanted a shower.
“How long’s it been out?” I asked Mia as I headed to the fridge.
“Not sure, your moaning woke me up.”
“Wh-what?” I stammered as I turned to look at her.
“I thought you were having a nightmare at first,” Mia told me as she leaned against the counter. “And then I thought you had a guy in there with you.”
“A guy?” I knew my eyes were wide as saucers as I stared at my best friend, who was watching me curiously.
“Yeah, you were moaning.”
“A bad dream, I’m sure.” Turning my head away from her, I ran the water and filled two glasses. I avoided eye contact as I handed her a glass. “Whose turn is it to complain to housing?” I asked her as I took a sip.
“Yours.”
“Dammit.” With a resigned sigh, I headed back to bed. Pushing the window open, I hoped for a small breeze to cool the room. When I felt nothing except more heat, I tidied up the covers and climbed onto my bed.
I should have bought a fan. But then they only worked with electricity, and we currently didn’t have any.
“Night, Ava,” Mia called through the closed door, and I mumbled a goodnight back to her.
I sounded like I was moaning? As I lay on my bed, staring at the ceiling, I tried to think about what I was dreaming of. Closing my eyes, I decided it wasn’t worth worrying about. I needed sleep because I had a full day of classes tomorrow, and I had to fit in a trip to housing.
Strong hands slid down my sides as my body arched to meet his. His mouth captured mine in a hot searing kiss, his tongue stroking mine as his hips drove relentlessly into me…
My eyes flew open as I sat up straight. Oh shit.
I was having a wet flipping dream about Jett? As I shifted restlessly on my bed, my lust rose once again, and the throbbing in certain parts of me intensified.
Biting my lip, I turned onto my side. It had felt real. Like he had been here. My subconscious was remembering him more than I actually remembered him.
“He got a blow job in class, Ava,” I reminded myself crossly. “You’re lying here thinking about someone who doesn’t deserve it, and he’s already moved onto someone else.”
Flopping over onto my back, I took in a deep breath. The ache between my legs was still there. The need to be satisfied hadn’t lessened, even with my sharp reminder of who my body was craving. I was a healthy nineteen-year-old girl, I had urges, and my hand had always been enough. These walls were a little thicker than paper but not much. In the apartment I lived in with mom before I came here, the walls were thin. I didn’t make loud noises at any time, but as I lay in the dark, staring into the shadows, fragments of images and sounds danced out of my reach. I remembered a cry, a gasp, an elusive feeling with the promise only he could deliver.
One night.
I was with him for one night, and now he was haunting my dreams. Nightmares more like. The fact that my subconscious was throwing up visions of us tangled together was not welcome, or something I wanted to experience again. Thumping my head back onto the pillow, I groaned and then hastily covered my mouth. I did not need Mia coming back to the door.
With a disgruntled sigh, I spread my legs more and slipped my hand under my shorts. I would take care of this. I would not think of him. This was perfectly natural. I had nothing to be ashamed of. This would get him out of my system. That’s all this was: residual want.
I didn’t actually want him. My body just needed release.
My fingers started to work on my problem, and as I closed my eyes, willing the finish line to be quick, I steadfastly refused to think of the cause of my discomfort.
Seriously, how long would it be until I was free of this guy?
The three of us sat in the car, watching the house, waiting for the last light to go out. The light above the porch finally vanished, signalling that the occupants were in bed. Finally.
Gray’s knee had been jittering for the last half hour, and even if he was my twin, I was close to amputating the fucking thing before I lost my mind. Ash sat in the back, relaxed and easy, as always.
“Time?” Gray asked for what felt like the millionth time.
“Ten minutes since you last asked,” Ash drawled from the back. His head was resting against the seat, and his eyes were half closed.
Gray twisted in his seat to glare at him, which gave me time to hide my grin at my cousin’s snark.
“Thirty more minutes,” I told them both quietly. “You remember your positions?”
“We’re not stupid,” Gray mumbled as his leg took up its rhythmic tapping again. After another twenty minutes, my hand shot out and I placed it firmly on his knee, pressing his leg down to the floor of the car.
“I will cut it off,” I warned with a hard glare to my brother. His answering scowl made me grin, but I didn’t remove my hand until he nodded.
“Are you sure they’ll sleep through this?” Ash asked me as he leaned forward, alert for the first time since we had parked halfway down the road.
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
“Okay, I’ll check the back now then.” He opened the car door and, pulling his hoodie low, he took off over the grass. Blending into the night, he was hard to spot, and I smiled with grim satisfaction at how well he had adjusted to our night-time “escapades.”
“He’s gotten good at this.” Gray echoed my thoughts as he too watched Ash disappear into the night.
“Like a duck to water,” I murmured as I checked my watch. “You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m ready.” Gray pulled his own hoodie down low over his face before he adjusted his black bandana over his mouth. “You have the codes?”
“I do.” I checked my watch again. “Three more minutes.”
Gray nodded and opened the car door. Following, I locked the car and then, ensuring there were no casual observers in the street, I placed the car key on top of the tyre out of sight. My phone lit up with a message from Ash telling us the back was clear, so we both jogged across the street and slipped undetected into the yard surrounding the house. Stealthily, we made our way around to the back and joined Ash, who was already at the back door, a small black folded-over case in his hand.
“You have five minutes,” I whispered to him.
Gray stood sentry at the bottom of the steps, pressed against the wall to keep out of sight but still able to watch.
As Ash started to pick the lock of the back door, I watched for any movement from inside the house. We had been watching the house for over a week. The routine was the same, the inhabitants very much keepers to the same schedule.
“I’m in,” Ash said as he stood and tested the handle. A low whistle to Gray, and my brother was coming up the steps.
“The study is the only thing we want,” I reminded them as Ash slowly pushed the door open.
When no answ
ering alarm sounded, I felt a smug thrill of victory. I knew the people who lived here had an alarm system, and I had been fairly confident that they didn’t set it at night-time.
Swiftly, the three of us crossed the kitchen, into the hall, and taking the second door on the left, we entered the study.
Pulling out my phone, I opened the note I had with the safe code. It was one of three, and my research told me, for the make of the safe these people had, you had three attempts before you were locked out.
Ash uncovered the safe, which was hidden behind a painting, and Gray snorted. “One time, I’d just like to come in and the fucking thing be on display.”
Three-five-one-seven-two, I punched the code in and waited. The safe beeped loudly in denial, and all three of us froze, waiting for the sound of movement to tell us that the occupant had been woken.
Seven-four-eight-nine-zero. The safe beeped, and I pushed the handle down. “Bullseye,” I told the others. The safe had the normal stack of cash, some boxes that would contain jewellery no doubt, and a few folders with paperwork. “Gray,” I instructed as Ash stayed by the door, watching.
Gray snapped a picture of the layout of the safe, and then quickly we took the contents out.
“Hurry,” I urged him as we divided the folders between us. We started searching. When I was almost through my search, I looked at my brother. His face was twisted in a scowl, and I knew he hadn’t found anything either.
“Anything?” Ash asked from the doorway.
“No,” Gray said as he stepped back and let out a long sigh. “Another fucking dead end.”
“Let’s put it back,” I told him as I held back on my own sigh. Quickly I checked the boxes and, with no interest in the contents, moved the diamonds, emeralds and other precious stones aside as I checked for hidden compartments. Gray was doing the same to the inside of the safe, and I could almost feel his irritation before he stilled.
“What is it?” I asked, closing the boxes and stepping up beside him.
He said nothing, but his look of determination made me wait patiently. A creak sounded above us, and all three of us stilled. Ash had his finger to his lips as he slowly opened the door a fraction more.
The creak sounded again, and Gray looked at me. “Bathroom?”
I nodded, but we made no move as we heard a door close, and then a few moments later, a steady stream as someone relieved their bladder.
“They sleep with the bedroom door open,” Ash whispered. “We need to be extra quiet.”
Gray started pressing again, and then I heard the soft click. With a triumphant smirk, he pulled out two items. A USB stick and an envelope.
“Harry? Are you okay?”
The three of us stood still at the sound of the voice.
As quickly as we could, Gray and I put the contents of the safe back together, even as we heard the answering murmur from the bathroom.
“I can get you some painkillers?” Harry’s wife called, and we all looked up as we heard her feet hit the floor.
“Hurry,” Ash urged, and I snatched Gray’s phone off of him to check the layout before we hastily closed the safe. The two of us replaced the painting, and then the three of us were at the study door, waiting.
The bathroom door opened as the toilet flushed.
“Dude didn’t even wash his hands,” Gray muttered in disgust.
“That’s the least of our problems if they come downstairs,” Ash warned.
“They won’t,” I whispered as I tucked the USB into my jeans and the envelope into my back pocket. “Let’s move. One at a time, like always.”
Ash was the first out of the study, and for a guy of six four, he was almost dainty as he crossed the hall and disappeared into the kitchen.
“Are you sure, dear? It won’t take a minute.”
“No, honey, let’s just go back to sleep.”
I grinned at Gray, who rolled his eyes at me for being right, before he left the study and crossed the hall and entered the kitchen. Casting a quick look around to make sure the room was as we found it, I followed them out. When I got to the kitchen, they were already outside, and I followed, Ash closing the door behind me.
We waited on the back porch for a few minutes before, one by one, we ran from the house back to the car.
Within ten minutes of being in the house, we were driving away with a USB stick and an envelope hopefully telling us what we needed to know. No one spoke during the trip back, not even as I parked the car outside the house, and as quietly as we had left it this evening, we made our way to the top floor.
In my room, Gray and Ash disrobed of their black clothing and pulled on their pyjama shorts. While they got ready to look like they had been in bed in case anyone came looking for us, I fired up the spare laptop I kept in the back of my closet.
“Was easier than I thought,” Gray said as he pulled a chair up beside me. It was the first any of us had spoken since we left the targeted house.
“Too easy?” Ash asked as he sat on the bed, his eyes on the screen. “What’s in the envelope?”
“A code,” I told him as I tossed it over to him. “I would guess it’s the passcode.”
“Yeah,” he nodded and then looked at the screen. “Swap seats. If it’s encrypted, I’ll get in quicker than you.”
Not a lie. Ash studied computer science, I did economics. Both of us were shit hot on computers, he was just better at coding and, in this case, decoding.
As we waited for the USB to come to life, I peeled my own clothes off. Unlike my brother and cousin, I slept naked, so I had no sleepwear to change into. However, they were used to seeing me in my underwear, and it was too humid tonight to be keeping my jeans on. Ash was grumbling about idiots and easy codes as I tossed my stuff in the hamper.
“It’s so hot,” I grumbled as I took Ash’s vacant spot on the bed.
“I’m in,” Ash said. “Looks like a video, we watching?”
“Fuck yes, we are,” Gray said as he leaned closer.
Twenty minutes later, not one of us had spoken a word.
“Fuck,” I finally murmured.
Ash huffed in agreement, his eyes on the now black screen.
“I…” Gray trailed off before his hand ran over his hair. “I will never unsee that.”
“What a sick bastard.” Ash shook his head as he stood up. “What a sick, twisted fuck.”
“We need to identify her,” I spoke softly as I looked at the two of them. “She probably has family who have no idea where she is or what happened to her.”
“We need to identify the four bastards in the video also.” Gray’s voice was hoarse.
“Well, Harry wasn’t one of them,” Ash spat. “But I bet he knows who they are.”
“We’ll figure it out,” I told them. “Jesus, I don’t think I can sleep after that.”
“We have to.” Gray stood too. “Who’s keeping it?”
All three of us stared at the USB stick like it was a deadly snake. “I will.” I picked up the innocent looking USB.
“Will the laptop show that we watched it?” Gray asked Ash.
“No, I’ll clear any traces of it.”
“Tomorrow,” I told them. “It’s almost two in the morning. Go to bed.”
They left, and I stood alone in my room, my fingers curled tightly around the offending item. With great care, I put it and the envelope in my own safe, which I kept hidden under the floorboards in my closet.
Over an hour later, I still couldn’t sleep. The scenes from the film we had inadvertently uncovered were still fresh in my head. Grumbling under my breath and getting out of bed, I flung on some training shorts and a T-shirt from earlier.
I needed to clear my head.
Seeing the low light from under Ash’s door told me he was also still up. I could hear my brother pacing in his room, and it made me feel slightly better knowing the film had caused them the same amount of unrest as it caused me. I knew they both would have heard me, but neither of them stopped me from
leaving the house, and I knew none of us would sleep much tonight.
Walking the campus at almost three in the morning had a surreal feeling about it. The buildings were in darkness, while the halls and dorms only had a few lights on, depicting either late night studiers or those who had more interesting things to do in bed than sleep. The humid night air made me thankful I had pulled these workout shorts on, as already I could feel sweat trickle down my back.
The more I walked, the more my head was filled with the images of the girl on the film. We had watched it on low sound, but even with the barely heard audio, her screams would linger.
Reaching the other end of the campus, I debated about walking back in a straight line and went on a detour instead, weaving in amongst the buildings, heading in the direction of the stadium. I always found inner peace on the turf.
I saw her before I recognised her. Sitting on the steps of a simple apartment block, I hesitated before I decided to approach her.
The girl from class today didn’t notice me at all. Her long slim legs were stretched out in front of her on the lower steps as her elbows rested on the step behind her, her head tilted backwards as she stared up at the night sky. Her hair was a tangled looking mess as it hung loose around her shoulders and rested on the step at her back. For as engrossed as she was watching the stars, the position didn’t look comfortable.
With a sigh, she sat up, and I watched her back curve as her hands gathered her long blonde hair into her hands before she twisted it on her head, her breasts catching my attention in her thin top as they stood out proudly.
With her hair off her face, I could appreciate her beauty. I hadn’t noticed in class, but she was more than pretty. A small, delicate button nose sat over thick plump lips. I almost wished it wasn’t as dark—I had paid no real attention to her looks this afternoon. I hadn’t paid attention to her really. Her loose jeans and loose T-shirt had been hiding a body that curved in all the right places if her shorts and tank were anything to go by.
“Don’t scream,” I said to her as I approached her, knowing she was completely unaware of me walking towards her, and her startled yelp reminded me of her reaction earlier in class.
Ruthless Heart Page 6
