Savages Series Boxed Set

by Jessica Gadziala

  So yeah.

  That was the plan.

  --

  Nine and a half hours later, I felt marginally better. I threw myself into work. I hit the gym for a good, heart-pounding workout, spending most of the time running on the treadmill. First, because it was great cardio. Second, because it was a good way to focus because I hated it so much. Third, it worked off some of the stress and sexual tension.

  "Running like you think you can actually outrun your problems," Shane Mallick, the gym owner, and also, apparently, the loan shark, commented as I made my way toward the doors afterward.

  "Hell, maybe if I commit hard enough, I can."

  "Wishful thinking, sweetheart," his voice followed as I walked outside.

  And, well, I knew that was true. But still, I felt alright as I pulled into my drive and went into my house. I went up and took a shower, watching the tattoo cover-up run down my body after scrubbing with a loufa. It even lasted through a sweaty workout. That stuff was amazing. I imagined if my bruises didn't start fading, I was going to be using it for a while.

  I had just slipped into a very unappealing outfit of oversize sweats and a roomy, ratty tee when my doorbell chimed. I ran down the stairs, blindly pushing on my glasses as I fiddled with the locks.

  "Oh," I said, jumping back slightly at the image of Paine standing on my front steps. Not only was he standing there, but he was cleaned up. Meaning, that he had on black slacks, a tailored, tucked-in black button-up, a black belt with a nice solid silver buckle, and a watch on his wrist that years of watch buying for my father told me cost at least five grand. "Um... hi," I fumbled, realizing I had been staring.

  "Hey babygirl," he said, doing an inspection with an amused smile.

  "What are you doing here?" I blurted out.

  "Taking you to dinner," he said, slipping his hands into his front pockets.

  "You're taking me to dinner? Now?"

  "No, next Thursday. I got dressed for the fuck of it."

  "Why?" I asked, brows drawing together.

  I had pretty successfully managed to convince myself Paine was a thing of the past over the past few hours. So him standing at my door, all cleaned up and asking me on a date, yeah... I was a little confused.

  "Gotta eat. I can do it alone. I'd rather do it while looking at a gorgeous face. I left an hour for you to get yourself together. Don't know how long it takes you to slip into a dress and heels, but judging by how long it takes my sisters, we'll probably still be late for our reservation."

  I shook my head, trying to clear it of the fog. "I, ah, I'll be done in half an hour."

  "Miracle," Paine said, rocking back onto the heels of his black dress shoes. "You forgetting something, babygirl?"

  Forgetting something? What could I be forgetting seeing as I hadn't expected him in the first place?

  "You gonna kiss me or not?"

  "Oh," I said, feeling a silly smile pull at my lips as I stepped into the doorway, leaned up, and pressed a quick kiss to his lips.

  "I don't know what the fuck that was, but it wasn't a kiss," he complained as soon as I went down on my flat feet.

  My lips twitched. "Maybe you need to show me what a kiss is then," I challenged.

  Before I could even finish speaking, his hand was at the back of my neck and he was simultaneously moving into the entryway and slamming me back against the wall as his mouth crashed down on mine. There was nothing tentative or gentle about the kiss. His lips seared into mine, claiming them, branding them, guaranteeing I would feel him there for hours afterward.

  Just when I felt like my body was going to melt into a puddle of need, he pulled away, released my head to push my glasses back up my nose a little. "For future reference, that was a kiss. Now go get into something that shows off those pins of yours; I'll occupy myself for a while."

  I moved off the wall, nodding, a bit too dazed from the kiss to say anything. As he crossed toward the living room, he slapped my ass hard enough to make my step falter. When I looked over my shoulder at him, he was smirking.

  Before I could run across the room and jump him, I hurried upstairs to get myself put together. He didn't tell me where we were going, but judging by the way he was dressed and the request for dress and heels, I imagined it was somewhere nice.

  I grabbed a black lace underwear set, black garter belt, and sheer stockings, a simple little black dress that showed barely a hint of cleavage but a whole helluva lot of leg, and a pair of ultra-thin spike heels in a matte black color. I fixed my hair, applied more tattoo makeup, made my eyes a little smoky and slipped into my clothes. Contacts in, I spritzed a little perfume and added simple diamond studs to my ears. I slathered on some lip balm, because no way was I putting on lipstick that might discourage more kissing like we had just done, then made my way back downstairs with five extra minutes to spare.

  At the sound of my heels on the floor, Paine turned his attention away from the TV and looked at me. Letting out a low whistle, he patted his knee.

  A part of me knew I really shouldn't always go to him when called me like a dog, but... come on. A man like Paine told you to follow him into hell, you ignored the demons and fire and went with him. So I moved toward him, stepping between his legs, then lowered myself down on one of his thighs. One of his arms rested across my thighs, the other went around my waist and pulled me to the side against his chest, nestling my face under his chin.

  When the silence stretched, his arm tightened around me slightly. "What's up with you?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "Don't know you that well, but I do know you're not the quiet type. So what's up?"

  "Paine we have to get to dinner before we lose our reservation."

  "Fuck our reservation. I want to know what's up. Was it that shit Sawyer dropped last night?"

  "Paine..."

  "Listen, I'm not the emotional touchy-feely kind of man, but I don't like a woman bullshitting me either. So tell me what's up; we'll talk it out. If you don't want to talk about it, then you need to fucking let it go."

  Well then.

  That was... refreshing.

  I was used to men doing one of two things: demanding to know every detail of what I was thinking, or men not wanting to hear word one about my thoughts or feelings.

  It was nice to be given an option.

  And, well, I think I've established that I am not the kind of woman who could let things go. So I was going to swallow my pride and talk it out with him.

  "Why are you taking me to dinner?" I asked, my focus on the TV. "You don't really seem like the kind of man to wine and dine."

  "I'm not," he said bluntly, making me try to pull away to look at him, but he wouldn't let me. "You want the truth?"

  "Always," I said honestly. Even if what I heard was something I didn't like, it was way better than what would go on in my head if I was left to come to my own conclusions.

  "I obviously haven't been a boy scout. When I was younger, it was all about money and power. Now, money is still important. So is respect, not so much the power. But one constant since I was old enough to chase a skirt, I've liked women. Meaning, a wide variety of them. I've never been a man for exclusivity. That being said, I'm up front about that shit. I don't lie or feed lines or tell women I'm going to call when I'm not. You know exactly what you're getting from me."

  "Then why do I not know what I'm getting from you?"

  "'Cause, baby, I got no fucking idea what is going on here." He paused, letting that sink in. "I like being around you. You're interesting, different. You're hot as shit. And, babygirl, I don't remember the last time I wanted to fuck someone as much as I want to fuck you. That being said, this ain't no promise of anything. Maybe we'll fuck and I'll want to move on. Maybe I'll want to hang around and keep fucking you until it's out of our systems. Maybe something else. Fuck if I know at this point. If you can live with that uncertainty, great, let's go to dinner. You think you can't, maybe we should call it a day because I'm not gonna be that guy."
>
  "What guy?"

  "The one who pulls you around, promising one thing one minute, then when you get comfortable and feel safe, changes his mind. I've seen assholes do that to my sisters; I've had countless nights of them showing up at my place crying. I don't want to be that guy. I don't want you to get comfortable, feel safe and stable, then fuck you over. So I'm sharing this with you now so you know not to latch on because this shit is new to me and I don't know how it's going to go."

  "You never know how it's going to go," I said, shrugging a little.

  "So you can live with it."

  Could I? Honestly, I didn't know for sure. But the only way for foggy things to get clearer was to progress into them. So I just had to wrap some barbed wire around my heart and hope that, along with some surprisingly good communication skills, he wasn't equipped with wire cutters too.

  "I'm a big girl, Paine. And I'm also really hungry. So where are you taking me?"

  "Sushi," he said, pushing me onto my feet then standing himself. "Figured you didn't want any more comfort food after that workout."

  I turned back on my way to the door. "Are you following me?"

  "No, babe. Doesn't take a genius to guess that after the pancakes, you were feeling guilty and would hit the gym after work," he explained, letting me slip into my coat then putting a hand at my lower back as he led me out the front door.

  Just like the apparent mobster Luca Grassi, Paine was the opening doors type. It was a quality I really appreciated. While, sure, I could open the thing my damn self, it was nice that there were still men out there who employed good old-fashioned chivalry, provided it didn't come with chauvinism. Something told me that since Paine grew up with a strong mother, aunts, grandmother, and two little sisters, there was no way he was going to pull that sexism shit on me.

  Twenty minutes later, we were out of Navesink Bank and walking up to the best sushi restaurant in the area. It was situated right on the beach, the back deck allowing an uninterrupted view of the crashing waves, even in the dead of winter. The inside was sleek, sticking to a classic theme of orange and black: black tables, chairs, sushi bar, and drink bar, black hardwood floors, black textured walls and orange hanging dome lights, orange upholstery on the booth backs, and water color black and orange understated artwork. The music, as always, was low and bluesy, inviting conversation. Paine walked me up to the hostess, his hand at my lower back, and I realized that it was a quality I really liked about him. Around other people, he liked to have a hand on me, claiming me. Maybe I was setting my sex back a couple of years to admit I liked it, but I did.

  We sat and ordered drinks. Paine kept up light comments on the menu selection. I had my own menu up, but I hadn't so much as glanced at it, far more occupied watching him read his.

  "What?" he asked, looking up with a smile, catching me.

  "Nothing," I said, averting my eyes.

  "Nuh-uh. You aren't getting off that easy."

  "Nothing. You look nice," I admitted with a casual shrug. "And," I rushed to add, feeling almost a little shy at the admission which was completely unlike me, "I hadn't expected you to be a sushi kind of guy."

  "You think I look nice, huh?"

  "Shut up," I laughed, swatting him with my menu.

  "I mean, can't blame you for thinking that, babygirl. I'm fine as fuck..."

  "And so humble," I smiled.

  "Know what?"

  "No, what?"

  "You look nice too. And by 'nice' I mean it's taking just about every ounce of self-control I got to not drag you off to the bathroom, hike up that skirt, and fuck you hard enough for this entire restaurant to know how much I like how you look in that dress."

  He said this, mind you, as the waitress came back to drop our drinks. So, yeah, she overheard the entire thing and her cheeks went pink and she couldn't quite make eye-contact with either of us as she took our order.

  "What?" he asked when I shook my head at him as she walked away. "Pretty sure everyone in here knows we want to fuck each other."

  "Well they can assume things, but you didn't have to confirm it."

  "You embarrassed?" he asked, picking up his craft beer with a smirk.

  "No, I'm not embarrassed, but our waitress obviously is."

  "She'll get over it. It'll give her a story to tell all the other servers later. So," he said, letting the word hang.

  Oh, the small talk part of the evening. Usually it was something I excelled with, but mostly because I shared numerous friends or relations with the men I went on dates with. It was always easy to commiserate about sharing prep schools or ridiculous social engagements we had been forced into at young ages. I had nothing like that to play off with Paine. "So..." I repeated.

  "Tell me about your sister," he offered, sitting back, making his legs push forward under the table and his knees pressed into mine.

  So then I told him about my sister.

  Elana was always a good topic for me. While Roman was my best friend, my confidant, my partner in crime, Elana was the one who first sneaked me a cigarette and a bottle of scotch. Our mother dying early put her in the strange position to, at once, feel the need to mother me, but also corrupt me like all good big sisters do. She was the one to sit me down and have the period talk. She was the one to explain to me what a penis looked like, what it felt like, what losing my virginity would be like. She was the one to pick me and Rome up when we got knock-down drunk at a friend's house and sneak us up into my room before our dad could see us. She was the one to push Dad's buttons to draw his attention away from me when he was being too hard.

  In a lot of ways, we were alike. Physically, we were both blond, tall, and thin. Whereas I got the ass, she got the boobs. Where I got my mom's blue eyes, she got Dad's gray. And we both were raised up under a strict parent who was always very concerned about things like appearances so we both learned to rebel at young ages. But where I had my quiet rebellions I always tried to keep my father from finding out about, Elana practically waved hers in his face. She didn't even try to tame her sex hair when she came home from one of her lover's houses when we were teens or sneak in the back door when she came in drunk. She spent money on ridiculous things she didn't need or want just to piss off our father. She crashed her first three cars he bought her.

  When I was young, I had always seen her as kind of badass and strong. It took me a long time to see that all the rebellion was her way of getting attention. That was what she wanted. She didn't want love, she wanted people to notice her. Especially men. Every guy in her life was a sad testament of her need of validation from them because she never got it from our father.

  Elana had 'daddy issues' written all over her.

  And, worse yet, she didn't even realize it.

  Regardless, she was my big sister. Where Roman was my sun growing up: bright, warm, uplifting, Elana was my moon. She was the one I cried to at night in our beds after I got reamed for not doing the extra credit in a class I was already getting an A in. She was the keeper of my secrets, a place I could bury my hopes and fears and know no one else would ever find out about them. She was a dark, deep kind of comfort.

  Maybe that was why my nights had felt especially lonely since she disappeared.

  "What about your sisters?" I asked when I realized we were both halfway through our meals and I hadn't shut up except to chew.

  "Kenzi is a real ball-buster. She's a lot like my mom in that way, always up in your business, never shy to share her very emphatic opinions. Reese is a lot more shy, quiet. Mom managed to keep them both off the streets. Kenz went to design school and has her own small line in one of the boutique shops in Milltown. Reese got her masters in library science and, obviously, works in the local library."

  I paused to take a sip of my drink and finally got the nerve to ask something that I had wanted to since I met him. "Can I ask how the heck you got a name like Paine?"

  He laughed a little, pushing his plates toward the end of the table for the passing busboy to grab easily. "
I was a big ass baby. Ten pounds, four ounces. Mom was a skinny thing, hips like a twelve-year old boy. She couldn't get me out. So they gave her a massive dose of Ketamine and took me out. She was out of it for almost a full day after. Couldn't even hold or feed me. So my dad, the shit he was, filled out all the paperwork. He was probably high at the time and thought it would be funny because of how much pain I put my mother through before they finally decided to do a c-section."

  "She didn't want to change it once she was back to functioning?"

  Paine shrugged. "It's hard to say what went down between her and my dad. I know shit went bad as I got older, but I think when I first came around, she was head-over for him. She probably decided to humor him and leave it. It worked out in the end. There might have been a little ribbing when I was too small to know a fist to the face shut up a bully, but come on... a gang member with a government name like Paine?"

  I smiled, imagining it was definitely better to be a gang banger by the name of Paine than to be, say, Billy or Brian.

  We talked over green tea ice cream, skimming over the topic of my father, concentrating a bit more on silly, nothing things like hobbies and cars, both of us being fans of a nice ride.

  When the check was dropped, as customary, on Paine's side of the table, I nodded my head toward it. "I don't suppose you're going to let me..."

  "Nope," he cut me off, reaching for a wallet, pulling out a credit card and putting it inside the book without so much as looking at the bill, and held it out just in time to hand it off to our passing waitress. It was all so smooth you'd swear it had to be practiced. But, I guess, Paine was always just effortlessly smooth like that.

  "Can I persuade you to let me leave the tip?" I pressed, growing up with a father that insisted it was a power move to pay. Whoever went out of pocket had the upper hand. I had to admit that in my dating life, it proved all too true.

  "This matter to you?"