Wild Ones (The Lane) (8 page)

Fuck. I was turned on.

“Go after him!” a voice in my head screamed, and it sounded like my ma. It made it easy to ignore. Any advice she gave me, real or imagined, was nothing short of disastrous.

My cigarette had burned out at my feet and I gave it a baleful look, then kicked it for good measure before heading back inside.

Duke’s was even busier somehow, just in the short amount of time I had been gone. I hurried to retrieve my tray and take a couple of orders, then rushed to the bar in order to catch up. Jax was keeping tabs on me the entire time he was mixing drinks and I waited impatiently for him to finish.

“One Long Island, three Jäger Bombs, two Buds, one Bud Light, and a shot of Patron. Yes. The Patron’s for me.”

He didn’t move, just stared at me, an unreadable expression tightening his face.

I sighed.

“What, Jax?”

“Remember that time we went to that club? In Monroe?” His eyes took on a faraway look.

“Sure. Mayhem, wasn’t it?” My memory wasn’t that good, but that was the only club we ever went to when we ventured away from the Lane. I wondered where this was going but mostly I wanted him to hurry this along and get my drinks. Especially the Patron. I didn’t even really care about the others, so long as I got my shot.

“Yeah. And you were at the bar. Getting us refills.”

“Okay.” I still wasn’t getting it.

“And I was a little ways behind you. We were gonna run the game.”

I was still confused, though I knew what the game was—even though we never officially called it that—without needing him to elaborate. We did it whenever we started to get low on money. I’d go up to the bar by myself and wait for a guy to chat me up. When he offered to buy my drink, he unknowingly ended up purchasing both mine and Jax’s. At which point Jax would miraculously appear, playing the part of my boyfriend, and I’d gush about the nice man who insisted on paying. The Nice Man always ended up mumbling a quick, “No problem” before slinking away. It might have been a dirty trick but I looked at it as payback. They were only trying to liquor up an unsuspecting girl to try to take her home. If she wasn’t willing to go home with them sober, getting her drunk to agree to it was foul in my book. Jax had once called me a drunken Robin Hood upon hearing my justifications for it. I kinda liked it.

“I caught that guy signaling to the bartender,” he continued. “And the bartender put the drinks in front of him.” He shook his head in disgust and I remembered.

“The guy slipped something into my drink,” I finished for him and he nodded.

“I was so fucking angry,” he said and the ghost of that anger was on his face now. “I socked the fucker.”

“Broke his nose,” I added.

“And you were so pissed at me. Even after I explained.”

“Because you should have told me,” I said, repeating the exact words I had said that night.

“I couldn’t. I couldn’t think. Someone was gonna hurt you and I had to act.” This, too, was a repeat.

“I can take care of myself, Jax.”

His eyes cleared, looking at this Bri and not the Bri from that night in that bar, about to be taken advantage of, but at the same time, I wasn’t sure he could fully differentiate the two.

“I know,” he told me. “Fuck, I know, Bri. But you’re my best friend, and sometimes I can’t help stepping in if I think you’re in trouble.” He paused and I couldn’t help but feel as if we were starring in a Lifetime movie. “I feel like it’s that night all over again. That I’m standing back, too many bodies between us, and I’m watching your drink bubble. I don’t know about that Turner dude. There’s something about him that I don’t trust. Something that sets off warning bells.” He shrugged and gave me an apologetic smile.

“Well, you don’t have to break anyone’s nose this time,” I said, winking my seizing-emu wink. “I got it covered.”

I think he tried to smile back at me, a full-on Jax grin, the one he knew I loved, but it was so strained and full of doubt that it looked more like he was constipated. I didn’t say anything more to reassure him. I didn’t tell him I ran Luke off. I didn’t do these things not because I didn’t care, but because I knew Jax was gonna worry regardless. I wouldn’t fill his ears with pretty words to lull his anxiety, rock it to sleep. We were not that type of person, the type who talked just to hear ourselves, just because it was expected. Besides, if not Luke, there would be something else that put that look in Jax’s eyes. There always was.

He got me my orders and our night slipped by, a blur of faces, nonstop movement, countless drinks and aching feet. When it was finally over and we locked up with two days of freedom ahead of us, the nights Duke’s was closed, I half expected Luke to be waiting by my car. He wasn’t and I didn’t know if it was because I, for once, had parked in the employee lot after running late or because he was just not around. I resisted the urge to drive past the public lot to see if he was there. I refused to be that girl, the kind who chased around a man. No matter how good the sex might have been.

Tuesday and Wednesday crawled by. I filled the time with a trip to the Lane with Jax and Aaron, where we got unforgivably trashed and acted like complete idiots; laundry done in the Laundromat that smelled heavily of fried onions and falafels; and grocery shopping for beer, ramen noodles and bread, our apartment staples. Through all of it, there was no Luke. Anywhere. It was as though he didn’t exist, as if he had been an idea and not an actual solid thing. Part of me knew that was how it should have been. Another part of me, a part that was already substantial and rapidly growing, which I had a feeling I inherited from my ma and da, ached for his presence, like a junkie jonesing for a fix. By the time Thursday night rolled around and I was well into the second part of my double, that latter part of me decided we were going to be well and truly pissed. Which really wasn’t too much of a surprise, considering I was so often treading that line anyway.

I’d never been the one on the wrong end of a one-night stand. I’d always been the one to not call or to kick the other person out of my bed the next morning. I didn’t get burned. I was the one holding the matches.

By the end of my shift, when I was walking back to my car on feet that didn’t feel attached and there was no sign of Luke or Preach, my anger became nothing short of volatile. Fuck Luke Turner. Fuck him straight to the deepest circles of hell where he belonged. Fuck me for letting him take me home. For even noticing him in the first place. Fuck him for getting under my skin, for having a large penis and knowing how to use it, for making me forget for even a minute that he was a boxer and that every boxer was an asshole. Fuck him for making me want him. I might have sent him away but fuck him for not refusing or showing back up with a half-assed apology and dirty makeup sex. Or just dirty makeup sex.

When Jax strolled into the apartment a few hours after I got home with a pilfered bottle of Captain Morgan under his arm, I felt a flash of gratitude cut through my rage, dousing some of the flames. He might not have known the cause of my temper, but he didn’t run from it. Instead, he broke the seal on the Captain and attempted to soothe the beast in me with stolen booze, cigarette after cigarette, and old music. We sat cross-legged on the floor of the living room, passing the bottle back and forth between us, the smoke from our cigarettes hanging like a cloud over our heads. Cat Stevens was serenading us from the stereo, telling us how hard it was to get by on just a smile, and I knew, in that moment, that Jax was the only person who would never really let me down. I scared him sometimes, I think, made him nervous at times, but the ugliness in me, the darkness I so often felt shadowing my every movement, my dysfunction, none of that ever made him flee.

I didn’t talk about Luke, aside from stating, “I hope he gets a concussion tomorrow,” and Jax snorted but didn’t press for details. We drank until we could no longer sit up, then we lay down on the secondhand throw pillows we pulled off the couch and drank some more. Some girls had girlfriends they could call over to cry on their shoulders and drink wine with. I had a good-looking curly-haired bartender who poured liquor down my throat and stood in the path of my anger, never flinching at my storm.

Jax woke me up when he left for work the next afternoon and I stumbled back to the bathroom to shower the booze and smoke off my skin. The night stretched out in front of me, hours of solitude that I’d never quite learned how to be entirely comfortable with. But aside from Rosie, Jax’s sister whom I could tolerate and little more, I had no one to call to help me combat the heavy silence.

So I did the only reasonable thing. I grabbed a beer from the fridge and turned on the crappy little TV, passing the evening with bad reality shows while painting my nails.

It was after one o’clock when I decided to go to bed. I knew Jax probably wouldn’t be home, having spent the night before with me rather than out on his never-ending quest to hook up with every drunk girl in town. I fought the urge to call him to check because while spending a Friday night holed up was a level of pathetic I could accept, calling Jax home to sit with me was another level entirely and not so easily acceptable. That was one of the problems with getting too close to people, I had realized. You started to develop a level of dependency on them, no matter how hard you tried not to.

I wasn’t sure exactly when I fell asleep after lying in the dark, staring at my ceiling and listening to the cars passing in front of the apartment building, the occasional crying baby or yell from the parking lot. I wasn’t sure how much time passed once I did fall asleep. One minute I was conscious, thinking how if my eyes were shut I wouldn’t know I’d ever moved away from that shitty hole-in-the-wall in the city, and the next, I was being jerked awake. Someone was at the front door, and I wasn’t sure if they were knocking or trying to splinter the wood with their fists.

I nearly fell out of bed, I was so startled. I shot up and out of my room, stumbling down the hallway, careening off walls and fumbling in the dark. It wasn’t until I reached the kitchen that I realized I wasn’t wearing pants. Or a shirt, for that matter. The tank I had on was more of a thought than an actual top. There was no substance to it. I was debating going back for bottoms, at the least, when the pounding grew more insistent and any nakedness was instantly forgotten. Between my childhood and the past four years I’d spent here, I knew what that kind of knocking typically meant.

Cops.

I rushed the rest of the way to the door. Thoughts of Jax and mangled cars, sterile hospitals and beeping machines raced through my mind, my heart beating a furious tattoo against my ribs. My stomach was somewhere in my throat and I knew, I just knew, that I was going to find a grim-faced officer standing in the hallway, bringing me news that would cripple me in a way only Jax was capable of. I couldn’t breathe. Something was pressing on my lungs and maybe it was a good thing, because if it wasn’t there, I was sure I’d be throwing up everything I’d ever eaten.

I flung open the door, my palms slipping on the knob, and I could feel tears—at least I thought they were tears, they might have been acid—burning the back of my eyeballs.

Standing in front of me, leaning against the doorframe looking punch-drunk, wasn’t a cop, grim or otherwise.

It was Luke.

Chapter Eight

“What the hell, Turner!” I was shouting before he even registered I was there. “You scared the shit out of me.”

My heart hadn’t gotten the memo that all was well quite yet. It was still pounding furiously, though whatever was holding my lungs hostage had started to loosen its grip.

Luke blinked rapidly and raised his head, attempting to straighten, only to wind up staggering. Years of dealing with drunks had me reaching out instinctively to steady him, even though what I really wanted to do was shove him over. I noticed a large gash above his right eyebrow and a slightly smaller one in the middle of his chin. Both were still bleeding, though not horribly.

He had yet to say anything. Instead, he was giving me a look full of dull consideration and a little distrust. It was hard to gauge through the pain I could practically feel radiating off him.

“What happened to you?” I demanded, even though I was sure I already knew. Hadn’t I just wished a concussion on him the day before? It was something to fill the thick silence, however, to ease the weight of it.

He shook his head and pushed unsteadily past me into the apartment. Even injured and drawn in on himself as he was, he still overpowered the space, making it feel much smaller than it already was. It really didn’t need the help.

“What the fuck is it about you?” he muttered, turning to look at me where I hadn’t moved from the doorway. He leaned heavily against the side of the sofa, wincing as he did.

“Not following,” I replied, trying and failing to not wince right along with him. He looked off, standing there, the battered fighter almost down for the count, weight being supported by the Salvation Army couch that had seen better days a decade ago. I started to shut the door only to change my mind at the last minute. I wasn’t one to usually exercise caution, but something felt unpredictable, almost dangerous, about him tonight.

“Who put you up to it? Was it Johnson?” he hissed, eyes blazing. “One of his guys? King? King pissed because I won’t throw a fight?” The combination of his anger and pain was so intense, he was vibrating from the force of it.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I told him evenly, years of watching my ma handle my da making it second nature. “No one’s put me up to anything. Whatever that means.”

He took a step toward me, eyes flashing.

“It was King, wasn’t it? Damn you, Bri. Tell me!”

“What the hell does Joshua have to do with anything?” I asked confused. I knew I should have been nervous at this point. I knew that would be a normal reaction, but I wasn’t. I couldn’t bring myself to be. I was intrigued.

He stared at me, an incredulous look on his face, and for a second it looked as though he’d calmed down.

“You mean you don’t know?”

“Know what?” I tossed my hands up in exasperation. “You show up at my house in the middle of the night, ranting like a lunatic about my boss, and you expect me to know what the fuck you’re talking about?”

His eyes narrowed and he charged me, grabbing my shoulder with one hand and slamming the door behind me shut with the other. He might have been hurt but he was still a brute.

“What the fuck is he paying you?” he shouted, bringing his other hand over to grasp my jaw, his grip strong but still with a gentleness to it as he forced me to look at him. My palms connected with his chest and I pushed him, shoving him back a single step. It wasn’t much, but I felt as if I’d moved a brick wall.

“Not enough!” I snapped. “Not nearly enough to deal with assholes like you on a regular basis.”

“So it’s true! He set me up!”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Think I’m stupid? That I wouldn’t put it together? He arranges for me to pay Callahan a visit and you just happen to be there looking like a wet dream?” He shook me hard, hard enough that my jaw snapped closed, and all I could think of was my da coming in drunk and ranting at my ma, smacking her around. And my ma would take it. She’d stand there stoically and let him hit on her, scream at her, and maybe she’d raise her voice back at him once in a while, but most of the time, she was his punching bag.

I was not my ma.

“I don’t think you’re stupid, but I do think you’re a paranoid schizophrenic. What was I doing there? I work there, you dumbass. I’ve worked there for four years!” I jabbed my finger into his chest. My voice, already loud, rose an octave. I was closely approaching a pitch that only dogs would be able to hear. I was yelling at him. I was yelling at my da. I was yelling at my ma. I was screaming to the past and the present that they would never merge and history would never repeat itself. “You’re the one who keeps showing up where I am! Not the other way around. So back the fuck up, let me the hell go and get the hell out of here if that’s all you came for.”

“I can’t get you out of my damn head!” he roared. “I almost lost tonight because of you. I never fucking lose, do you understand that? I let Callahan go because of you! I don’t do that shit. Period. If I’m given a job, I do it. Yet, you come along and now I can’t stop thinking about you. What is it about you?”

“It’s because I don’t like your psychotic ass and you don’t know how to deal with it!”

Abruptly he released my shoulder, while still keeping a grip on my face. Before I could react, his fingers slipped down the front of my panties and I arched my back involuntarily, a groan escaping before I could stop it.

“Why the fuck are you wet then?” he growled.

I shifted, clenching my legs closed, trying to force his fingers where I really wanted them. The place desperate for friction of any kind, painfully throbbing for it.

“Because you’re a decent lay!” I gasped, trying to force heat into my words and cringing when it came out as a desperate moan.

“Am I? Or are you trying to fuck with my head?” he snarled, flexing his hand.

I groaned again and fisted his shirt.

“If you’re going to keep your hand there, you better start fucking with me.”

He jerked it away and I whimpered, hating myself instantly for it.

“I want answers.”

“And I want to come now, you dick! Everyone has problems.”

“Did King set me up?” he demanded, ignoring me completely.

“Fuck if I know. I still don’t understand what Joshua or Chase has to do with anything.” I did know that I was aching, my insides burning and twisting and pulsating. The urge to start humping the air like a horny dog was nearly overwhelming.

“You said he was your boss,” he pressed.

“He owns Duke’s and Bar 9. I work at both. That makes him my boss.”

He continued to stare down at me and I held his gaze, even when my eyes felt like they were glassing over. I knew that if I broke contact first, I was gonna lose. Lose what, I wasn’t entirely sure, but it was imperative that I won.

Finally, finally, he took a deep breath and stepped back completely. I didn’t pull him forward and grind on his leg, as much as I wanted to.

“I believe you.”

“Damn straight,” I muttered.

“For now,” he clarified. “But understand this. If you’re trying to fuck me over, I’ll find out.”

“And the thought terrifies me. Truly.”

“Your smart mouth is going to get you into trouble one day,” he warned and now that his anger was abating, I could see that the momentarily forgotten pain was surging forward to take its place.

“Yeah, yeah. I’ve heard it before.” I moved around him and motioned for him to follow me back to the bathroom. We didn’t have much in the way of first aid supplies, but there was an old bottle of peroxide under the sink and maybe a few Band-Aids.

He staggered behind me but I didn’t offer him any assistance. I didn’t know if he’d accept it and truthfully, I kinda wanted to punish him. Punish him on behalf of my spasming vag.

In the bathroom I shoved him down on the closed toilet seat, smirking a little when he lurched to one side before catching himself. I dug under the vanity, wrinkling my nose at the wet spots where the pipes had leaked again. In the back, buried behind a bunch of random hair products that Rosie had no doubt left when she moved out, I found a dusty bottle of peroxide and a long-forgotten tube of antibacterial cream. A few Band-Aids were mixed in with the odd Q-Tip in the toothpaste drawer and I gathered them all up, sitting them on the back of the toilet.

Nudging Luke’s legs apart, I stepped between them and tipped his head back, brushing the damp hair out of his eyes, the smell of shampoo wafting up toward me as I did. I looked closely at the cut above his brow, frowning slightly.

“Don’t you have a cut man or something that patches you up?” I asked.

He looked up at me with a wicked gleam before his gaze traveled down and he stared fixedly at my chest. My nipples tightened, pushing against the sheer fabric of my tank.

“Focus, Turner. Cut man. You got one?”

He nodded briskly, his eyes never wavering. I gritted my teeth and shut my eyes, praying to a God that didn’t believe in me for patience.

“And why didn’t he do anything for you?”

He shrugged, and with the movement his hands somehow found themselves just below my knees, slowly working their way up. I shivered, then forced myself to focus because clearly one of us had to.

“Did you even see your cut man? What about your trainer? God, I don’t know, even your manager?” I asked and at this, he shook his head. “So, you could be bleeding internally right now and—” I was cut off by him gripping my ass, dragging me forward.

“It’s fine,” he rumbled. The pressure on my ass disappeared for a second and my panties were jerked down, pooling at my feet. I stepped out of them quickly. “So shut up.”

He wrapped an arm around my waist and stood, yanking his own pants down one-handed. Then he sat down again and pulled me to straddle his lap.

“Do you want this?” he growled.

I always hated talkers, but with Luke it was different somehow. It was words I’d heard before, from others, but they felt different coming from his mouth, almost as if they meant more.

I nodded quickly because while he was a talker, I wasn’t. My goal was to be fucked so thoroughly, I would be incapable of speech. And when he lifted me up and brought me back down on his hardness, I knew he was going to do just that.

“God!” I half moaned, half screamed and he grinned in a lazy, wolfish way.

“Move,” he ordered and I was nodding again, frantically, because, yes, moving was good. Moving was really good. His hands clamped on to my hips, fingers digging in, and he started rocking me back and forth rapidly. I didn’t think I imagined the stars exploding behind my lids.

“Damn it, Bri. Move.”

I gripped his shoulders and took over, that pathetic mewling sound escaping my lips every few seconds. His hands were everywhere, ghosting over my ass, running underneath my shirt to skate across my back, slipping around front to palm my breasts, twisting and pulling and squeezing. They slipped between us, touching me just above where we were connected, and I wanted to scream that it was too much but it wasn’t. It wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough.

One minute my shirt was there, and the next a ripping sound echoed off the cheap tile and it was reduced to shreds that hung from my shoulders. Even though I registered that I loved that tank, I didn’t care because I was yanking his shirt over his head and his skin was on my skin and that was all that mattered.

I was lost and drowning in the flames. His arm banded around my waist once more and he bounced me up and down. I threw my head back, clenching my eyes shut, and wrapped my arms as far around his neck as I could reach from my position. His mouth latched on to my collarbone and he nipped at it, and why the fuck did that feel so good?

Pressure was building up inside me and I couldn’t think around it, couldn’t think around the need for release, for that pressure to finally explode. I was sensation. I was feeling.

He slammed me down hard and I was soaring, bowing back into an almost unnatural shape, free-falling and unable to breathe. He was still pounding into me, or maybe pounding me onto him, but it was blurry through the flames licking me, burrowing into my skin and igniting my bones. When I started to come down, he angled his hips, hitting a spot deep inside me that had me hissing and spitting like a savage cat.

He was saying something but I couldn’t make out the words over the roaring in my head. Or maybe that roaring was him. He pulled me down hard, holding me fast with a biting strength, and his whole body gave one final jerk. I collapsed forward, my forehead hitting his shoulder with a thud. After a second he leaned back, stretching out his legs, pulling my body close to his and tucking my head into his neck as we struggled to catch our breath.

“What the fuck is it with you?” he muttered again, and I grinned into his sweaty skin, my eyes drifting closed.

* * *

“Your lame ass shouldn’t be carrying me,” I mumbled into his throat a while later. How much later, I didn’t know. I didn’t even remember falling asleep.

“Your scrawny ass should think about putting on some weight.”

I grunted in reply, squeezing his hips with my thighs. He hissed and pinched my ass with the hand gripping it.

When we got to my bed, he sat down, still holding on to me as he leaned back, arranging us so I was sprawled across his chest like his own personal blanket. I would have protested if I hadn’t been so comfortable.

“What’s your problem with boxers?” he whispered after a minute, brushing the hair back from my face. I frowned because it was too gentle of a gesture for him. He wrapped the locks around his fist, and even though he didn’t move it, it tugged a little and my frown slipped and I sighed. It was as close to dreamy as a girl like me would ever get.

I shrugged. “Never came across a decent one.”

He snorted. “And you’re decent?”

“Not even close. Grab that sheet. I’m cold.”

He reached over with his free hand and pulled it across my back. I lifted my head for a second and looked at him, amused at the sight of him against my blue flannel sheets with the stars on them. He looked ridiculous. Charmingly so. Or as close to charming as a guy like him would ever get.