Devil May Care: Boxed Set (137 page)

“I…”

“You what?” I couldn’t help smiling.

“I don’t…I can’t…”

“It can’t be that bad.” Had she come here to finish what we started? Did she want to make a move? I sure as hell wouldn’t object to that. “Whatever you want, whatever you need…”

“Please. Please don’t…”

Don’t what? Don’t push? Don’t touch her? Don’t tease her? That last I couldn’t promise. Right now, teasing her and making her blush and squirm were the only things that kept me sane in this insane household. As for touching her, I remembered the feel of her backside against me from the water fountain. Would she enjoy it from behind?
Get it together, man!

“Please don’t make fun of me.”

“Why would I make fun of you?”

She wasn’t looking at me, and I wasn’t sure she heard me. “Please. This is really hard for me to do, and I can barely…”

“April.” I stood and walked over to her, close but not too close. “Listen to me. It’s fine. Let me help you.”

She swallowed, her face, neck and ears all red, and she removed the bathrobe.

April was wearing her short PJ shorts and my leather jacket, zipped just past halfway, a tantalizing view of her cleavage visible. I grew even harder at the sight of her. God, she would make the devil horny. Somehow, I managed to keep myself together. Something was obviously wrong, although she looked perfect to me.

“Let me help you,” I repeated.

“I…I just…wanted to try it on, but…”

Was she worried I’d be upset with her for wearing my jacket? Did she think that little of me?

“I personally don’t see a single problem with any of this.” I waved my hand up and down to encompass all of her hotness.

“The zipper’s stuck,” she said in a rush. “I can’t get it off.”

April

Today was a crazy busy day. After church, I did more college research, making sure no one was around. It wasn’t easy—P and P had a habit of playing around in the living room, and Yvonne kept coming in for various reasons too. I had to quickly click away whenever they came into the room. As much as the thought saddened me, Mom was right. I didn’t know how Dad would handle the news, and until and unless I found another place I wanted to go other than the community college, there wasn’t a reason for him to know about it, since it might create an unnecessary issue. Despite the interruptions, I did find a college I loved and desperately wanted to apply to—Oregon State.

I printed out the application form and sneaked it into my room. I was just hiding it in my school bag when Wes came barging in. He didn’t see the paper, did he? The last thing I needed was for him to gloat or try to hold the application over me as leverage to keep his activities a secret from Dad.

But he didn’t mention it, and we didn’t talk about the party. Did he even remember our kisses, our make out session? Our
only
make out session. It would never happen again.

We talked about the youth mission trip. He really didn’t want to go, and I felt torn. It might do him good, or it could make him even more dead set against the values my family stood for…or wanted to stand for.

He left for work, and when I made sure the application was secure in my school bag, I headed to the door. That was when I saw it. His leather jacket. The one that made Wes look like a teen god. He’d left it here, on my bed.

I didn’t know what came over me, but I found myself picking it up and hugging it. It smelled like Wes—spices and musk. My cheeks burned, and I tossed it back onto my bed. I had chores to do.

First up, dusting the first floor. I didn’t mind dusting that much. It was simple enough to do, and I could let my mind wander. And boy did it wander. I couldn’t stop thinking about Wes and the kisses we shared. Did he remember me at all? Of course not. He’d been blitzed. There was no way he wouldn’t have said something if he did remember.

“Are you all right, April?”

I jumped and glanced over. Yvonne had just entered the living room.

“I’m fine.” My cheeks had to be bright red. They felt like they were burning.

She stared at me strangely. I never used to have a problem with her before, but Wes sure brought out the bitch in her.

I winced. I shouldn’t think things like that.

“Are you sure?”

“Very sure.” Man, could it be any hotter in here? It felt like I was suffocating, and it really didn’t help that she was breathing down my neck.

I moved to dust the mantel and hoped she would leave.

No such luck.

“You seem a little…moody lately,” Yvonne said.

I swallowed hard. “I’m sorry.” It almost came out as a question.

“Yes. You’ve been different lately.”

“Ah…” She was acting really strange, and it was making me uncomfortable. “I…school’s been rough with finals, and cramps and my period…”

She stared at me for a moment then nodded, but I could tell she wasn’t convinced. At least she left.

I dusted a lot quicker after that and finished in no time. Up next was cleaning my room, which didn’t take long at all since I wasn’t much of a slob. When I was finished, I spied Wes’s leather jacket. I lay down on my bed beside it and closed my eyes. I could still smell him on it. I wondered how his first day at his new job was going. Good, I hoped. He seemed to really like cars. It was a much better job for him than painting houses. Dad would realize that too if he would stop being so pigheaded.

Next on the to-do list was to type up a report for school so I went on down to the computer. Jacqueline was just logging off.

She glanced over at me. “Do you need this?”

“Yep. For school.” Why did I feel the need to explain that to her?

Wes’s mother stood. “Here you go.” She turned to leave.

“Do you have a minute?” I blurted.

“Yes.” She faced me, waiting patiently.

I hesitated. I didn’t know Jacqueline all that well yet. Dad had married her most recently out of all of his wives. It wasn’t that I didn’t like her, I just hadn’t made a lot of time for her yet. She seemed a little uptight all the time, nothing at all like the relaxed Wes. Well, Wes was only relaxed and laid back when Dad wasn’t around. Then he could get just as tense.

“What do you think Wes will do after he graduates?” I finally asked.

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t know what that boy thinks sometimes. He doesn’t obey Walter. He does whatever he wants. He ignores your father’s rule for him to come straight home after school. He won’t bring his friends here, so I have a feeling they might not be a good crowd…”

Geez, she really didn’t think favorably about her son at all.

“Maybe he just needs a little push,” I said slowly.

“More like a kick in the rump. I hope this youth mission trip will help him, but I have my doubts that he’ll apply himself and get anything out of it. Like his father,” she mumbled.

“He’s smart,” I gushed, then winced.

“Smart?”

Her snide tone churned my stomach. “Yes. With cars and—”

“Yes, yes, but how will that help him enrich his life? I know he has delusions of owning his own business, but he would be better served to turn his life around, to stick his nose in a book, to study hard and go to college. Lord knows he won’t be getting scholarships, so he’ll have to go to a state school, but that’s on him.”

This conversation was awful. Time to end it.

“Well, I better get to work.” I held up my folder.

Jacqueline nodded. “You’re a good girl, April, with a strong head on your shoulders. You do your father and the rest of us proud.”

“Thanks.”

I watched her walk away. I did them proud, but Wes didn’t. Wes never would. I had a feeling that nothing he could do would change their opinion on him. And that wasn’t fair. We all deserved second chances. We were all humans, and we all made mistakes.

My fingers traced my lips. Was kissing Wes a mistake?

Yes, but it was a mistake I found myself not regretting.

And a mistake I wanted to repeat.

***

Dinner was awkward. Beyond awkward. Jacqueline blew up at Wes, and he hadn’t even said anything bad. Okay, yeah, it was clear he had been about to try to weasel out of going on the youth mission trip, but he’d only said about two words before his mom jumped down his throat. No wonder he didn’t talk much at the dinner table or at breakfast. He talked more to us kids than he did the adults, and I didn’t blame them. They treated him like he was a baby, like they expected him to fail. How could anyone thrive under those conditions? It would be enough to make any teenager want to rebel against them.

I couldn’t help feeling guilty. Maybe my talk with Jacqueline, which hadn’t gone well at all, had contributed to her bad mood and why she’d been so quick to jump on Wes. I squirmed in my seat, wishing there was something I could do or say to help him, but with Yvonne eyeing me the entire time Jacqueline spoke, and then Dad going off on Wes, I knew better than to open my mouth. Did she suspect something was brewing between me and Wes?

Was something brewing between us?

Even more so than Jacqueline being a terrible mom to Wes was Dad. I couldn’t believe how he was treating Wes. Yeah, he had gotten mad at me over the years and punished me, but he never talked down to me quite as harshly as he did with Wes. Why? Because Wes wasn’t his? That was not reason to treat him like he was dirt. No wonder Wes wanted to lash out and rebel. Dad wasn’t treating him like family, so how could Wes ever think of us as his family?

But I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want Dad’s ire to be focused on me, especially because if I was seriously considering Oregon State, he would then have a reason to be upset with me, if Mom was right, which I had a strong suspicion she would be.

Dad banished Wes to do dishes by himself even though it wasn’t his turn to, and dishes were normally a two or three person job. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. But I wasn’t strong enough to stand up to Dad. For a long while now, I had been on his good side, and I didn’t want that to change.

Because I accepted his rule, or because I didn’t want to get punished?

Definitely leaning more toward the latter.

As Wes cleared the table and got ready to clean the dishes, I went upstairs to my room to get ready for bed. I was exhausted. Between finals and not sleeping well due to constantly waking up in the middle of the night because of unfulfilling sex dreams, I so needed more hours in bed to try to counter my sleep deprivation.

Showered, teeth brushed, hair combed, pajamas on, and I climbed into bed. Wes’s jacket still lay at the foot of my bed. I hugged it to my chest again and smelled it once more. Memories of his kisses came flooding back, and I reclined onto my bed, keeling the leather to my face. My hands went underneath my top, and my fingers found my nipples. They pebbled beneath my touch—hardening all the more as I pretended Wes was the one to be touching me.

Then I slid my hands down my stomach and spread my legs. I left on my short pajama shorts, putting my hand down them. My underwear was so wet already. I didn’t bother to remove it either, just pushed it to the side, feeling up and down my slick folds. I slipped one finger in and then another, figuring Wes would be the kind of guy to go all in, to really pleasure a girl. I added a third finger and closed my eyes, enjoying the feeling of giving myself pleasure. Wondered if it would feel really different if Wes was the one fingering me instead of myself.

I was close, but nothing I did could make me go over the edge. For the next minute, I continue to work myself, but I wasn’t getting any closer to orgasming.

Not how I wanted the night to end. I sat up, removed my shirt, and put on the jacket. The feeling of the leather against my nipples was almost too much, and when I resumed fingering myself again, I was over the edge almost immediately. My orgasm was intense and left me gasping.

For a few minutes, I just lay there, eyes closed, relaxed and so loose. It was almost freeing, being able to pleasure myself, to give into my feelings and desires. And, boy, did I have feelings and desires when it came to Wes.

I inhaled his scent one last time and sat up so I could get clean. Time to remove the leather jacket. I definitely had to get it back to Wes now. It would be worse if I kept it here longer. He had to be a ticking time bomb after what Dad, and his mom, put him through, and I didn’t want to be the one he let out all of his frustrations on. Come to think of it, I was really impressed he held back. He knew better than to pick a fight with them, but it had to be rough on him to stay silent and accept their punishment. Made me wonder if he had learned to internalize bad things from growing up in homes. I didn’t doubt his childhood had been awful. Maybe it wasn’t fair for me to judge him for the drinking and the drugs. Yes, it was a bad choice, but there was so much about him that I didn’t know yet, and a few times, I thought I caught glimpses of unexplainable sadness in his eyes. Not that having a rough past was a good excuse for bad choices, of course.

For the first time, I realized I didn’t just want Wes. I wanted to learn more about him and his past. I wanted him to open up to me. I wanted to be there for him.

I wanted him as a friend
and
as something more.

And, besides, giving back his leather jacket also meant I could check up on him and make sure he was doing all right.