Classy AF: Cheap Thrills Series Book 3

by Moore. , Mary B.

  “Oh, it’s on, baby.”

  At the same time as planning my revenge, a rush of excitement was going through me. Last night things had changed between us, whether she realized that or not, and this made what I was going to do to her even better.

  But first I needed coffee, lots of coffee.

  Then, I was going to get the items I’d put in my garage weeks ago after watching Home Alone. Some of my best pranks on her had been thanks to movies I’d watched when I couldn’t sleep, and this was going to be one of them.

  Rose

  I’d spent the entire day creeping around like my life depended on it, which it may well have. See, I knew Raoul took his shower and coffee more seriously than most people, but I couldn’t help myself last night.

  Once I’d snapped out of the shocked state I’d been in after he’d left, I’d used the key his brother had given me the last time he was here to get into the house, and I’d put the coffee pod and soap that I’d been holding onto for weeks in their places, and had then pegged it back to the safety of my home.

  I’d tossed and turned all night, wondering if maybe I should go back and get them, but then I’d forgotten to set my alarm so it’d been too late once I’d seen the time this morning. This meant getting ready in a hurry which I hated doing, and then checking to make sure the coast was clear for me to get to the car, and I ended up almost taking my leg off with the door. It also meant I had a million ideas going through my head about what he was going to do back to me all day, and the closer I got to my house now, the worse it got until I parked in my drive.

  Some people might ask why I continued the war, especially when it ended up with me nervously drumming my fingers on the wheel of my car while I stared at my house like it was about to explode.

  Well, Karen, that would be because I like a bit of excitement in my life, I like to laugh, I like winding Raoul Evans up, I enjoyed thinking up different things to do to him, and life is fucking serious enough as it is, so why the hell shouldn’t I? Honestly, people took things too seriously, they needed to just lighten up a little, and that’s what this did for me. Yeah, it definitely lightened things up, as well as worrying me about what was going to happen when I walked through my front door. But it was exciting, and there were days when you needed that adrenaline rush. There were also days when you needed it like you needed hemorrhoids, but at least life wasn’t dull.

  Taking a deep breath, I grabbed my purse and got out of the vehicle, looking nervously around me at the same time. He’d never done a sneak attack on me to date, but I’d messed with his coffee so anything was possible at this point.

  Realizing he would be able to see how paranoid I was if he was hiding anywhere and the kick he’d get out of it, I walked as confidently as possible to the door and unlocked it. It took everything I had to walk through it instead of crawling, but I did it and slammed it loudly behind me, looking everywhere I could for the trap. Nothing looked out of place, but looks were deceiving and I didn’t trust any of it.

  The feeling of disappointment ten minutes later when I didn’t find anything had my shoulders sagging. What if I’d pushed him too far this time? What if he regretted what had happened last night? That last one stung a bit, seeing as how it had been playing on repeat in my head all day long, and if he regretted it…

  I’d never been kissed like that in my life by a guy, ever. And it wasn’t just the kiss, it was the way it felt to have his hands on me like that, the hard muscles in his thighs against the back of mine, how soft his beard had felt on my lips and chin. And the kiss itself had been…

  I was so caught up in my thoughts as I opened the door to my bedroom, that I forgot to look around me first. I really should have, but any woman who’d been kissed by a man like Raoul Evans would understand why I wasn’t, and why I didn’t swear at my bedroom door – and the idiot who’d installed it so that it opened out into the hallway instead of inward like every other door – like I normally did. And also why I then walked into the plastic wrap with something sticky on it, getting it in my hair and on my face as I screamed and pulled it off, thinking it was a ghost or a genetically modified slug.

  At the same time as I was freaking out and pulling it off my face, I kicked a string at the bottom of the doorway which had been stopping the blades of a fan that was resting on my bed with a pile of feathers in front of it. Unfortunately, I did all of that, and I still had my mouth open while I screamed when the feathers hit me, too, meaning that they went in my mouth and stuck to the stuff that had been on the plastic wrap. I still wasn’t sure as I did it what the shit had happened, so I dropped to the floor, rolling around to get whatever it was off me, spitting them out of my mouth and wiping my eyes with the bottom of my scrub top. And that’s when I caught the scent of something, something that smelled like maple syrup, and opened my eyes seeing the white ceiling above me, with feathers still floating in the air.

  That’s when I figured out what he’d done.

  “I’m going to kick his ass!” No man would understand how much energy it took to wash thick hair on a good day. And thick hair with maple syrup? “He’s a dead man.”

  I only just resisted the temptation to go straight over to his house and do something to it, but the thought of the satisfaction he’d get seeing me looking like a chicken with alopecia stopped me. Instead, I turned the shower on, and sniffed all the bottles of shower gel - I hadn’t bought bars of soap since he’d messed with that one - shampoo, and conditioner first. Still not trusting him, I poured some out onto my hands and checked that they hadn’t been touched, and then got in the shower.

  It wasn’t until I was shampooing my hair for the fifth time that an idea hit me. I was going to mess with his mind. Have him tiptoeing around, worried to walk into his own house. Have him scared to make coffee every morning until he broke. And then I was going to get my revenge.

  Chapter Five

  Rose

  Six days later…

  I’d lasted six whole days, six long ass days, without breaking and doing something to him. Every morning I had the satisfaction of knowing he was testing everything he came across first, not knowing if I’d messed with something else. Then seeing him open his curtains and stand there sniffing his coffee while he watched my house, frowning the whole time. The first sip of coffee was always my favorite as I peeked through the edge of my curtains - the way he stuck his finger in the mug, lifted it back out, then sniffed it, and finally licked it like he expected it to be potting soil again. Pshaw, like I was an amateur.

  Nah, my parents had raised a genius, and I’d been stockpiling things for my revenge. I wasn’t going for something big or obvious, I was going with multiple small things, and ones that would pack a punch.

  Just to make him sweat even more, I’d even gone to my parent’s house for two days, only coming back last night. It had been hard not being able to see him, and I hadn’t realized truly how much those innocent glimpses of him and the way he’d scowl when I gave him a wave and smile each morning meant to me until I didn’t have them. Sure, I’d missed them in the past, but something had changed and the two days I’d been away had felt empty when I didn’t get them. Something neither of my parents had missed, by the way, and had both commented on, too, especially when I’d bounced out to my car when it was time to leave yesterday.

  “Give him a kiss from me,” Mom had called, waving excitedly.

  “Don’t you dare,” had been Dad’s booming response. “And don’t give him a kiss from you either. Kick his ass instead.”

  I had done neither, yet, and seeing as how I was at work now, it was unlikely I’d be doing it anytime soon. Which was ok, it meant I could torture him some more.

  “Rose,” one of the nurses called Kelly whispered behind me, breaking me out of my musings. When I turned around, she was standing there wringing her hands together. “I need your help in cubicle two.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “The woman says she fell down some stairs, but these don’t l
ook like those kinds of injuries,” she said quietly, looking over her shoulder where the cubicle would be if there wasn’t a wall in the way. “And she has a man with her, a big man.”

  And the reason for her asking for my help became clear. Gesturing at her to lead the way, I walked behind her, looking briefly at the dry erase board on the wall to gauge how long it would take for a doctor to get to the patient. We were really busy this morning after the full moon the night before, so it was likely it would take at least another hour unless the woman had injuries that would necessitate being seen as a priority.

  “How bad is it?” I asked as we got closer to the curtain where the patient was.

  Before she could reply, the wall of fabric was ripped aside, and I was face-to-face with one of the tallest guys I’d ever seen in my life. Tall wasn’t exactly scary, but the size of the man was. If I was lying about my weight, I’d say he had at least one-hundred-and-fifty pounds on me. If I was honest about it, he had one hundred on me. Either way – he was big.

  “What the fuck’s taking so long?” he yelled, making both of us freeze in place. “I brought her in to be looked at, not to waste my whole fucking day because you don’t know what you’re doing.”

  “I… I just got one of the other nurses, so she could help me check Tana over,” Kelly said, and I could feel her trembling when she leaned into me slightly.

  “Well, fucking get to it,” he snapped, pushing us out of the way. “I’m gonna get a drink, and I expect her done when I get back.”

  Neither of us moved until he’d turned the corner in the direction of the vending machines, and then I whispered, “Get one of the doctors, and make sure security are nearby just in case, ok?” Not waiting for her to reply, I walked quickly over to the side of the bed and introduced myself. “Hi, Tana, I’m Rose. Kelly asked me to come in and have a look at your injuries and we’ve got a doctor coming in to see you, too.” She kept glancing over at the area the man would appear in when he came back as I spoke and knew I didn’t have long to do this. “Tana, I want to make sure you’re safe first,” I whispered, leaning in close to her.

  “I’m safe,” she whimpered, pulling her legs up toward her and dropping them with a groan as she grabbed her side.

  Lifting up the edge of her shirt, it took everything in me not to make a noise when I saw the bruises. These weren’t the edge of stairs, or even a collision with the floor after falling down the stairs bruises. The man’s hands were so big, and he’d hit her so hard, that I could pretty much make out his knuckles and fingers, and I was worried about what damage was going on underneath the skin that I couldn’t see. The medical part of me knew her body needed help, and the normal woman in me knew she needed help.

  Pulling the garment back down over them, I leaned closer to her. “I don’t think you are, but I want to help you to be. Will you let me?”

  Just as she started nodding, the curtain was yanked back by the guy, and I was torn away from her in the next breath.

  Before I could even register the fact that I was moving, I heard a deep voice roar, “What the fuck?” Just as a fist that felt like the size of the platter Mom had served our dinner on two nights ago, hit my cheek.

  Raoul

  The irony that I felt like Rose must have the day I’d pulled the syrup and feathers stunt wasn’t lost on me. It had been almost a week since I’d done it and I hadn’t even heard her voice because work had been so busy. Then, when I’d finally said enough to it all and had given in and gone over to her house, it had been to find out she wasn’t home, and it had stayed that way for two days until her car reappeared yesterday. I’d later found out from Ellis that she’d gone to visit her parents on those days, but it felt like I was wading through a field of bear traps, waiting to make that footstep that ended up with the steel jaws going through my leg.

  I now checked my shower gel (refusing to buy the bar soap again) and shampoo – hell, I even checked my toothpaste and toothbrush – every morning. Then I’d check my coffee and stand drinking it while I watched her house for signs of life. Yeah, I was paranoid about the payback, but I was also jonesing for just a glimpse of the woman who was dominating my dreams and thoughts. And I’d finally gotten that glimpse this morning as she’d walked casually to her car, like she didn’t have a care in the world. There was no way she could miss me through the window, but did she throw me that smile and wave that drove me crazy? Nah, did she hell.

  That’s why I was going to go over to her house when I got home tonight, and I was going to kiss the shit out of her.

  “Yo, Raoul,” Logan called as he jogged past my desk. “We’ve gotta go, there’s been an incident at the hospital.”

  I kept telling myself that there were hundreds of people in the building that could be involved the whole time I ran behind him to where he was parked. I continued telling myself it throughout the whole drive there, too, but something told me I already knew who it was.

  My suspicions were confirmed when we ran through the ER over to the area where the first three beds were where the nurses were pointing us to, and I skidded to a stop when I saw three security guards holding down a bear of a man, who was threatening them at the top of his lungs.

  “Oh, fuck,” Logan breathed beside me, staring in horror at two women who were standing holding each other in the corner of the room. The first one, a blonde, looked like she’d had the shit beaten out of her and had tears running down her face, the other one…

  And that’s when I realized why he’d reacted the way he had, as I saw the swelling and redness on Rose’s cheek, and the way her eye was starting to shut with it.

  Not even thinking about what I was doing, I launched myself at the heap of bodies on the floor, the only thoughts in my mind revolving around where I could hit the asshole to cause him the most pain. Logan was two steps ahead of me, though, because he caught me around the waist and gave me a hard pinch when I went to push him away from me.

  “She’s scared enough as it is, man,” he hissed, nodding over at Rose who hadn’t taken her eyes off the big man like she was afraid he was going to get free. “You do that, you’ll scare her even more.”

  Just then, the big fucker did break free, shaking off one of the guards like he was a fly, meaning that both of us had to jump on top of him, anyway. This also meant that I got to get in some hits as we cuffed his hands behind him and his feet together, including an ‘accidental’ toe to the junk when he rolled to his side as I was getting to my feet. Not one of us would ever admit to it not being accidental, though, because no normal man would ever be ok with what he’d done to the two women. And one of the women he’d hit was one of the nicest women to ever walk the earth. Sure, she was a pain in the ass, but she was my pain in the ass.

  Rose

  Finishing writing the last word on the form in his hand, DB looked up at where I was sitting with an icepack on my face. It had been just over three hours since I’d been punched in the face by the gargantuan man, aka Chad Vernon the asshole, and both Tana and I had been assessed and our injuries confirmed. She had a fractured wrist, two broken ribs, her cheekbone was fractured, and she was bruised all over, but the good news was that there was no internal bleeding. I had a badly bruised and swollen cheek, and the beginning of a beautiful black eye, but I’d got away relatively unscathed given the size of the guy.

  “The security guards have all completed writing out their statements, but they’re coming in tomorrow to go over a few things,” he told us, leaning back and pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’d be grateful if you could do the same thing, Rose, and one of us will come and speak to you here,” he said, directing this last bit at Tana, who was nervously chewing the thumbnail on the hand that wasn’t in a cast.

  I felt the legs underneath me shift, at the same time that the arm around my waist tightened. “Am I good to take Rose home and finish up with you tomorrow?” Raoul asked, making it clear he would be doing just that, regardless.

  After they’d cuffed Chad, the three
security guards had remained on his back until DB turned up to help Logan transport him down to where they took men who obviously ate steroids like Skittles. In my mind, the bars were made of a special blend of Kryptonite and steel, the walls were made of titanium, and they fed them batteries for breakfast there. Maybe it was even a hole dug thirty feet into the ground, that had titanium reinforced walls, and kryptonite steel bars over the top of it? It couldn’t be where they put the average law breaker, though, no fucking way.

  Raoul had held me, and I’d held Tana throughout the whole removal of gigantor, feeling her shaking the whole time. Once he was gone, we’d both gone off for X-rays, as well as a CT scan for her, before being moved into this room where Raoul pulled me onto his lap, and hadn’t let me up since.

  Which brought me to now - us writing out our statements, which had sucked big fat gorilla balls. You don’t realize how much you use technology until you have to write out five pages of words by hand, with no spellcheck, no autocorrect, and using muscles in your hand you haven’t had to use like that in years. This had then progressed into all of us – with me sitting on Raoul’s lap – listening and swallowing audibly as Tana outlined the months of abuse she’d gone through, and the events this morning that had led to him bringing her in to be seen.

  Leaning to the side so that DB could see Raoul, I whispered to Tana, “Will you be ok here on your own?”

  Smiling sadly at me, she nodded and picked at the blanket that was covering her. “Yeah, what’s the worst that can happen, right?”

  Figuring that fake wood still counted, I rapped on the top of the table on wheels beside her bed. “Let’s not tempt fate, shall we?”

  That’s when the first true smile I’d seen from her happened, and she slowly lifted her good hand and mimicked the knocks on the table. “We got it double covered now.”