“She deserves so much more,” he repeats.
“There’s plenty of time for her to turn it around. She’s still young,” I add, more to remind myself than Zach.
“I’ve offered her a job.”
“Oh?”
“She’s a kick-arse artist. She could do really well here, with the right training.”
I swallow at what he might be implying.
“I’ve already got my hands full with Biff.”
“You said it, man.”
“Fuck off. You seem to know how to handle her, so I wondered if you wanted to take her under your wing.”
“M-mentor her?”
“Yeah. You up for it?”
Fuck.
My heart races as I try to come up with a response that might get me out of this, but if I refuse, he’s going to want to know why. If I say yes then… fuck.
“S-sure. If you think she’s got what it takes.”
“I do. Plus, she owes me a few quid now, so she hasn’t got a lot of choice.”
“When’s she starting?”
“The second it’s safe for her to step outside of your flat.”
“She probably already has,” I mutter.
“Oh, she’s there. I sent Biff to babysit her.”
I can’t help but laugh at the serious look on his face.
“I’m not sure she’ll take too kindly to that.”
“Well, sadly for her, she hasn’t got a choice until this motherfucker is dealt with.”
“W-what are you planning?”
“Nothing for you to worry about.” He winks, causing dread to settle in the pit of my stomach.
“Zach, you can’t go up against this fucker. He’ll kill you without a second thought.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve got it handled.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “How?”
“Seriously, just make sure she doesn’t fuck off.”
“I’ve been trying.”
“You worry about that, I’ll worry about how I’m not about to lose fifty big ones to this cunt.”
“Fifty grand?” I balk.
“Yeah, seems Mummy was a right fucking junkie.”
“Jesus.”
“I might have had a lucky break when she handed me over, but a little of her blood runs through my veins. I can end this.” With that said, he spins on his heels and walks for the door.
“Zach, don’t die. Biff would fucking kill me.”
He chuckles. “No one is fucking dying. Well, maybe Jet and his goons.”
“W-what?” I stutter out, but it’s too late. He’s already gone.
I fall back down onto my stool, my head spinning.
When did my life get so dramatic?
When you locked eyes on the pocket rocket.
“Fucking hell.” I rub my hand down my face and tilt my head back to look at the ceiling.
This is going to be a fucking disaster.
15
Kas
The knock on the door scares the shit out of me. I like to pretend that this thing with Jet doesn’t bother me, but when I’m alone with just the creaks and cracks of the building around me for company, I’m bordering on a nervous fucking wreck.
I might have been let off with a painful warning, but I’ve no doubt Jet and his men aren’t too far away.
A suspicious looking black car followed me all the way back yesterday. It was almost enough to stop me from coming back here. But where the fuck else was I meant to go?
I laugh at my own thoughts as I slowly step toward the door.
I’m expecting to see one of his guys when I peer through the peephole, so I’m pleasantly surprised when I find Biff, my brother’s wife, on the other side.
“Kas, open up. I brought cupcakes.” She holds them up as if she knows I’m looking at her.
“Okay, but only because you have cake,” I say, pulling the door open.
“And coffee.”
“My hero.”
I reach for one of the takeout cups before she’s even inside the flat.
“Whoa, you must be a good influence on Spike. I’m used to this place resembling a dump.”
“I cleaned,” I admit, much to her surprise. Well, what did she expect me to do while locked up in here like fucking Rapunzel? Okay, so that’s not quite true. It’s hardly a tower, and really, I could have just walked right out the front door.
“So… how’s it going?”
“Oh, just great. I’ve got a drug lord gangster on my back and I’ve had to resort to my big brother paying him off to stop him from taking payment in other ways. He beat me yesterday to prove a point, and thanks to Spike I have no job. You know, just a regular Tuesday.”
I drop down onto one of the sofas with my coffee, and after toeing off her shoes she drops onto the other.
“You don’t have to do that, you know?”
“Do what?” I ask, my brows knitting together.
“Try to play it off like it’s nothing.”
I shrug. “It’s the only choice I’ve got. I can hardly let it break me.”
“It would break most people.”
“I’m not most people.” The shit I’ve lived through over the years would harden even the softest of hearts.
“You’re not alone anymore, Kas. You’ve got us. All the guys love you. We’re all here to help.”
“I know, it’s just…” I trail off, not all that comfortable with this kind of girl chat unless it’s with Jodie.
“You’re not used to it,” she finishes for me.
“Yup.”
Silence descends as we sip at our coffees before Biff turns to me, her eyes shining with excitement.
“Zach said you’re joining me as Rebel’s newest apprentice.”
“So it seems. I didn’t get much choice in the matter.”
“Did you want one? He said you’ve got mad skills.”
“He’s seen one sketch. I think he could be exaggerating a little.”
“Don’t tell him I said this, but most of the time, he’s right. Let’s see what you’ve got, then.”
“Um… I don’t have a portfolio or anything.”
“Just a few scraps of paper is fine.”
“Okay…” I push from the sofa with a sigh and head for the room to pull out my notepad. “Here.” I pass the battered old thing to Biff before falling back down.
I can’t look at her as she stares at it, firstly because I’m embarrassed that it’s just a dogeared old notebook I found in a café I was working at a few years ago, and secondly, I don’t show anyone my art, ever. It was only Mum who ever knew I could draw, but seeing as it wasn’t going to put a roof over our head anytime soon, or pay for her habit, it got brushed aside so I could work whatever job I could find.
Zach was right, though; my dream was always art school. I used to see some of the students heading to the universities throughout the city with their huge arse sketchbooks, and I’d be overcome with jealousy. I couldn’t think of anything better than spending my days lost in art.
It was just a dream, though.
“Kas, these are amazing.”
I shrug off the compliment like it’s nothing and reach for a cupcake.
“Spike’s going to have an easy job on his hands.”
The mention of his name has me pausing mid-bite. “Spike? Why?”
“Zach’s going to ask him to mentor you.”
“He’s what?” I splutter.
“Going to show you the ropes, get you trained up.”
“So… I’ll be working closely with him?”
“Yeah, why? Is that a problem?”
“No, I’m just surprised is all.”
She stares at me for a beat, and I fear she can read everything I’m trying to hide.
“Something has happened, hasn’t it?” she asks, causing all the blood to drain from my face. “Kas,” she warns.
“It was my fault. I pushed it—him. You can’t tell Zach, he’ll kill Spike.”
“I’m
not getting involved in any of the dirty secrets that go on under this roof. And clearly, you already know the risks.”
“It was a one-off. Tensions were running high.”
“How do you know that won’t happen again? You’re going to be working together now.”
“It just won’t. He told me as much.”
“I’m sure he said that when you first got here too, didn’t he? Look how that turned out. You’re playing a dangerous game here, Kas.”
“I know. None of this was meant to happen. I was just… lonely. He’s so sweet and… hot. I know it was wrong, but I needed it, the distraction.”
“I can’t tell you what to do and what not to do in this situation. Really I’ve no clue how you’re dealing with it all, but I won’t allow you to come between Zach and Spike, or the others. They’ve all been friends too long to have things ripped apart by you.” Her warning sends pain through my chest. I don’t have any intentions of ruining anything for either Spike or Zach.
Her warning comes from nowhere, but I feel its seriousness right down to my toes.
“I have no intentions of hurting them. Spike’s done more for me in the past few days than anyone ever has in my life. I guess I just got a little carried away with myself.”
“I won’t lie to Zach. If he asks me about this, I will tell him the truth. But that being said, I’m not going to go out of my way to hurt him, either. So, if you say it was a one-time thing and really mean it, then I’ll let it go. Just make sure it was, or you need to be honest. Those boys are my family now, and I won’t have anyone hurting them.”
“It’s not going to happen again,” I say, although even thinking the words feels wrong. I might want him back in my bed, I might want to feel his touch burning against my skin, to feel his body working mine to ecstasy, but I know I can’t—we can’t. Not now Zach knows, and not now he’s offered me a job. It would be the ultimate fuck-you to my brother when all he’s tried to do since I ambushed him and told him who I am, is help me.
“Okay,” she says, nodding before leaning forward and swiping a cupcake of her own.
“I don’t need a babysitter, you know? I am actually capable of following orders and staying put.”
“I’m not babysitting, I’m keeping you company.”
“Bullshit,” I say with a laugh. “They all think I’m a flight risk. Well, contrary to popular belief, I don’t actually want to walk out that door and be swiped by that arsehole.”
“Do you think it’ll be over once he’s been paid off?” she asks. And if that isn’t the million-dollar question. “I’ve seen enough films to know it’s often not that simple.”
“We can only hope, right? What else are we going to do, take them all out with the guys’ tattoo guns? Hardly.”
Biff snorts a laugh, but I can see the concern in her eyes.
“I didn’t want to bring any of you into this. It’s why I’d never told Zach. The thought of putting you all in danger because of me terrifies me.”
“We’re family, Kas. Danger or not, we’re all in this together.”
“You won’t be saying that if he swipes you and uses you as bait.”
“I’ll be fine,” she says, sounding way too confident. There’s no way she can appreciate what Jet and his guys are capable of—she’s grown up with wealth and privilege. The idea of London’s dark underworld is like a myth to the people she grew up around. They all stick their noses in the air and pretend that the drug rings, the fighting, the gangs, the MCs don’t exist. But I know differently. I see the evidence, the violence, the death that happens at the hands of all of them. It is very, very real, and equally as terrifying.
Biff ends up hanging out with me for a few hours before she makes her excuses and heads back to the studio and the guys.
As much as I appreciated her visit, I couldn’t shift the feeling that Zach was trying to mollycoddle me. I’m the last person who needs treating like a child. I’m not sure I ever really was one, and I’m certainly not now.
Once she leaves, my notebook that she left on the coffee table taunts me until I pick it up. I find an abandoned pen inside a magazine beside it and lose myself in putting ink on paper. I don’t think about what I’m drawing, I just let my hand move and forget about the world around me for a while. It’s a similar feeling to what Spike gave me last night, although that one came with a hell of a lot more pleasure instead of a stiff neck.
My muscles pull uncomfortably from where I’ve been sitting hunched over for God knows how long when the sound of a key pushing into the lock startles me.
My breath catches as I wait for Spike to emerge. I haven’t seen him since he sent me away from his bedroom this morning, so I have no idea what kind of mood he might be in or if he even knows about the fact that he’s my new mentor.
“I brought pizza,” is the only thing he says as he walks inside, his voice flat, cold even, totally unlike anything I’m used to from him. I swallow down my apprehension and follow his movement as he walks to the kitchen.
He doesn’t once look up at me, instead just focusing on what he’s doing.
He drops two boxes on the counter, along with his keys, before going for the fridge for a beer.
Much to my disappointment, he doesn’t get one for me. I’ve been craving something all evening, but I didn’t want to just help myself to his stuff, so I stuck with a glass of water.
“Here,” he grunts, holding out the boxes and waiting for me to take the top one. “I took a guess. I hope you like it.”
“It’s pizza, what’s not to like?”
He shrugs, but that’s all the reaction I get as he places his can on the table and falls down with his own box, opening it up and immediately digging in.
I watch him, a little shell-shocked by his attitude.
“What?” he barks, still refusing to look up.
“Bad day at the office?”
“Something like that,” he mumbles around a mouthful of what looks like meat feast pizza.
“Biff told me about you training me up.”
“Can we not?”
“Can we not what? Talk?”
“Yeah.”
I narrow my eyes at him, wondering what’s turned him from the sweet guy he’s been over the past few days to the prick sitting before me now.
I don’t have to wonder for long. The answer is right in front of me. Well, it is me. Last night ruined everything, and although my body might have other ideas about a repeat, my head knows that he was right all along. It never should have happened.
“Okay, well. I’ll just…” Standing, I take myself, my pizza, and glass of crappy water to my bedroom and kick the door shut behind me.
I know when I’m not wanted, and I’ve already learned my lesson about forcing myself on him. If he needs space and to pretend that I’m not here, then he can have it.
16
Spike
“Fuck,” I mutter as she shuts her bedroom door.
I don’t want to be a prick, but putting some kind of barrier up between us is the only way I can see us getting through the next few days without doing something else we’re going to regret.
The second I walked into the flat, all I could think about was dragging her from the sofa and showing her exactly what had been in my head all day. But I can’t. I made Zach a promise—a promise that I’ve already broken. I need to stay away from her.
The thought of him finding her somewhere else to live doesn’t sit right with me. I like her being here. She makes this place feel more like a home than any other housemate I’ve had before, but I know it can’t happen.
The second all of this is over, she needs to get out of here so that I can continue with my life.
She makes me think back to a time I’ve fought hard to forget about, and she makes me want things that are just not a part of my future.
Forevers and futures don’t exist with me. Been there, done that, got the shattered heart to prove it. I’m done with that bullshit.
I
f Zach and Titch think they can commit to one woman and that it’s not going to end in disaster, then that’s fine for them. They can’t say I didn’t warn them about it. But that shit is not for me. Not again.
I only eat half my pizza before I give up. It’s unlike me, but my head’s spinning so much with everything going on right now that I just can’t stomach it.
Throwing it down on the other end of the sofa, a notepad on the one Kas was sitting on catches my eye.
I tell myself to leave it, but eventually my curiosity gets the better of me and I reach over for it.
My breath catches when I flip the page open. Zach was right, she really is quite talented. I flick through page after page of her drawings until I come to the last one.
“Fucking hell,” I whisper, my cock swelling as I stare down at her sketch of the two of us. We’re in her bed like last night. I’m between her thighs, my face in the crook of her neck. It’s erotic as fuck.
The longer I stare, the more my temperature increases as I vividly remember just how hot her skin was when I touched her, the little sounds she made as she was heading for release and just how tight she was when I finally pushed inside of her.
Fuck. Fuck.
Slamming the book shut, I place it back where I was. I dump my half-eaten pizza in the kitchen and march straight for the bathroom for a shower. A very cold shower.
My footsteps falter as I pass her door. I want to know what she’s doing, to say something, to apologise, but I know that doing any one of them is a bad idea. If I open that door, her scent is going to surround me and I know I’m not going to be able to remain standing in the doorway to have a conversation with her.
Lifting my hand to my hair, I run it through my messy locks, tugging until it bites and I’m safely locked in the bathroom.
Just a few days and she’ll be gone, and I can get on with my life without the constant reminder of how easily I played her body.
Just a few more days.
Things continue the same way for the next two days. Kas clearly got the message on Tuesday night when I came home, because she’s done her best to avoid me ever since. If I’m in the flat, she keeps herself locked in her room out of the way, and when I go to work, I can only assume that she stays put and keeps herself safe.
Defy You: A Brother's Best Friend/Age Gap Romance (Rebel Ink Book 3) Page 13
