leaned back against the thick trunk of a huge banyan tree on the far corner of the front yard. The furthest away we could get from whatever it was that had caused Preppy to break down in the middle of the party. He was rubbing his eyes and temples, wincing and baring his teeth.
“Are you in pain?” I asked. “Where?” I looked him over and couldn’t see anything obvious. No tears in his hoodie or jeans, no blood stains of any kind. In fact, besides how he was responding to whatever it was causing him such distress, he looked good. REALLY good.
He’d filled out since I’d seen him last. His cheeks weren’t nearly as hollow as before. His face was no longer clean shaven and was a few days past being able to call it ‘stubble.’ Where the hair on his head was always a few shades lighter than his face, as it grew they looked to be a perfect match, both being a lighter shade of brown. His hazel eyes weren’t as glazed over but they still look unfocused.
“I’m fine!” Preppy said, blinking rapidly several times. He looked up at me.
He was anything but fine.
Just when I thought he was calming down he grabbed the sides of his head and dropped to his knees in the grass. “Aaaagggrrrrrr,” he yelled as if something inside was clawing it’s way out.
I knelt down beside him, unsure of how to help him especially since I didn’t know what it was that was hurting him so badly.
Distraction, I thought. So I did the only thing I could think of. I got right in Preppy’s face, I grabbed his shoulders... and I pressed my mouth to his. At first his entire body jumped like I’d stung him but at least he’d stopped screaming. I didn’t do a damn thing. I went perfectly still and waited as I felt his entire body relax, his lips soften against mine. A tingling bolt of desire hummed in my clit as I pressed my chest against his, packing him up against the tree.
He pulled back just far enough to speak, “What the fuck was that?” he asked, his cool breath against my lips as he panted against me. His pupils were wide and dark, barely any of his beautiful hazel eyes were visible. Wherever he’d gone, he’d come back.
“Distraction?” I asked, sounding breathless.
“Huh?” he asked, making no move to push me away.
“Distraction,” I said, suddenly second guessing myself and thinking that maybe I’d done the wrong thing after all. “When I was little and I broke my arm falling out of a tree I was climbing, my dad, he distracted me when the doctor was putting the cast on. He jumped around the ER making these loud monkey noises.” I laughed at the memory. “I thought he was insane until I realized the cast was on and I hadn’t felt a thing.”
“So that kiss was meant to be a distraction?” Preppy asked, amusement dancing in his eyes. He leaned in closer and my nipples pebbled in awareness. My panties were damp as he grabbed my arms and ran his hands down to my hips and around to my ass.
I nodded.
“Well then Doc,” he said, running the backs of his knuckles down my cheek and jaw. I leaned into his touch. “I think we can do better than that.”
I was about to ask him what he meant when his lips met mine. It was nothing like the first kiss which was practical and tight lipped. It was soft and hard all at the same time. He molded his mouth to me, his tongue connecting with mine in a way that made me feel a vibration between my thighs, like his tongue was licking right at the entrance of my pussy. I moaned into his mouth as he gripped the back of my head and held me in place as he assaulted me with his mouth, and I opened for him.
I heard something in the distance. My name being called? But I was too far gone to care, too lost in the high that was Samuel Clearwater to care who needed me or why.
Because I needed that kiss that moment and I was going to take it while I could.
“Dre!” Brandon shouted. Preppy pulled back and we both looked into the yard where Brandon was frantically searching for me.
“Who the fuck is that?” Preppy asked, holding me against him tighter.
“Brandon.” No sooner had I said it that Brandon spotted us and started jogging our way.
“Brandon?” Preppy asked, we were both breathing hard, my nipples rubbing against his chest and the fabric of my tank top as we breathed in the same air. “Who the fuck is Brandon?” he asked. That’s when he looked down between us, his eyes grew furious. His arms stiffening. I glanced down to see what he could be looking at and that’s when I saw Mirna’s ring on my finger, the diamond glistening against the reflection of the moon.
Preppy growled and let me go abruptly, side stepping me, and without him to hold onto and my thighs shaking with weakness I fell against the tree. He met Brandon halfway between the yard and the tree but before I realized what his intentions were his fist was flying and Brandon was flailing on the ground, clutching his bloody nose.
“Preppy!” I called out, but he’d already disappeared into the crowd. I ran to Brandon and started helping him up. “Come on, let’s go get you some ice.”
“Fuck,” Brandon moaned, standing with a wobble and holding onto my shoulder. “Was that who I think it was?” he asked.
“Yeah, it was.”
“Well I think your boyfriend just broke my fucking nose,” Brandon said sounding like he was speaking through a drive through window at a fast food restaurant.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I argued as I led him over to the coolers for some ice. I reached in and grabbed a few cubes, wrapping them in a napkin and pressing it to his face. He hissed. “Actually, I think he saw my grandmother’s ring and thought you gave it to me.”
Brandon started laughing. Full out belly laughing. “Oh my shit I have to call Ralph right fucking now,” Brandon said reaching into his pocket for his phone.
“Why?”
“Because, your boyfriend thinks I’m straight. Who better to appreciate the humor in that than MY boyfriend?” Brandon said. He smiled as his thumb clicked across the screen.
He had a point. The situation would probably be funny to me.
Someday.
Brandon was just about to hold the phone up to his ear when the crowd erupted in cheers once again. I looked to where Thia and Bear were in the front and he was planting a big kiss on her mouth.
“Preppy, you’re fucking next!” someone shouted, and I realized it was Billy. His mason jar now only half of what it had been ten minutes before. “Don’t drink the water over here or you’ll be getting hitched!”
At the sound of his name my stomach flipped. Brandon had finished dialing and was holding the phone to his ear. I heard Ralph on the other end saying “Hello? Baby is that you?” Brandon opened his mouth and was about to speak but stopped when someone on the other side of the crowd chimed in.
“Actually, I got married before these two beautiful big fucks,” the voice slurred.
Preppy.
The crowd was quiet. A few people in the front shuffled around and parted and that’s when I saw him again. This time he was standing on the edge of the fire pit where Bear was standing only seconds before. “In fact, my wife’s here tonight,” Preppy said. He looked around and spotted me with Brandon. Our eyes locked and he pinned me in place with his gaze. He lifted the bottle in his hand in my direction. He swayed slightly. “This is for you, Doc. Isn’t my wife beautiful folks?” I felt a hundred set of eyes shift toward me. “Don’t worry about the bleeding guy. That’s just my wife’s finance who I just punched in the fucking face.” He threw the bottle into the fire which cracked against the brick. Flames shot higher into the sky as he jumped down and disappeared from view.
Several people were calling out his name, including myself.
Brandon might have been the one Preppy hit, but I felt as if he’d punched me square in the gut.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
PREPPY
Life was fucking loud.
And Doc was fucking engaged.
She kissed me.
Noise was everywhere and anywhere.
Whispers, laughter, chattering, music, tires on the gravel, birds in the trees. Even the low bu
zzing of King’s tattoo gun in the next room had jack-hammer-esque quality to it that made my pulse pound in my head.
With each passing moment the noise grew louder and louder until I was face first on the mattress covering my head with a pillow and screaming into the sheets over the ear torture of everyday life.
I’d come to the apartment so that Doe, I mean RAY, and King’s kid could have her room back but also because I thought it would be quieter.
I was wrong.
The last straw was a motherfucking cricket sitting just outside the open window. I jumped to my feet and darted from drawer to cabinet, discarding contents to the floor. I was so focused on my search I didn’t hear Bear come in until he spoke up from the doorway. “Something I can help you look for?”
“My gun. Do you know where it is?” I asked without looking back at him. “Did you keep it or throw it away like the rest of my shit.”
“Fuck you. We kept your shit for a long time and you know we don’t throw away guns.” Bear tilted his head. “You got someone to kill?”
“Fuck yeah I do,” I corrected.
“You gonna tell me who?”
“Why is it all so fucking loud!” I shouted, opening the last cabinet in the kitchenette, pushing aside the pots and pans with no luck. I slammed the door and headed to the bedroom to start on my search there.
“Uhhhhh hear what?” Bear asked, following me into the bedroom and then the bathroom.
“Fuck, it,” I finally said, giving up my search. I turned to Bear and held out my hand. “Let me use yours.”
“First tell me who it is you thinking of killin’,” Bear insisted, placing a protective hand inside his cut over his gun.
“You really don’t hear that?”
Bear looked around and even briefly closed his eyes before opening them again. “I don’t have a fucking clue what you’re talking about.”
“Close your eyes again. Fucking LISTEN,” I snapped, growing frustrated. My mind racing.
The second Bear closed his eyes and removed his hand off his gun I reached inside his cut and before he could stop me I shot through the open window, blasting the little green bug into smithereens and in the process exploding the piece of faux marble covering the window sill and shattering the glass of the window when it fell from its locked position.
“Much better,” I said, tossing the gun back at Bear before he had a chance to grab it back from me.
“You don’t grab another man’s gun, asshole,” Bear growled, anger lacing his every word as I climbed back into bed. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
“Getting rid of some of the god-damned noise around here. That’s what I was fucking doing.”
“Preppy, you’ve lost your goddamned mind is what you’ve done,” Bear barked over me. The door to the apartment slammed open and King burst into the room, a frantic look on his face.
“What the fuck was that?”
“Preppy sentenced a cricket outside the window to death by firing squad of one,” Bear remarked.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” King shouted, pulling me up and holding me in front of him, his face only inches from mine. An angry vein thrummed in his forehead as it had always done when he was pissed. I missed that vein.
“What the fuck is your problem?” I asked.
“Are fucking kidding me right now? My problem is that we have kids and women who fucking live here and you’re firing a gun outside the god damned window like it’s the wild west. Fuck, Prep. I know shit’s different around here now, but that shit you just pulled wouldn’t fucking fly before you went away either.”
“I’m so fucking sorry that I don’t live up to your new family man standards,” I said, grabbing his wrist and tossing it away from where he had gathered a handful of my shirt in his hand. I grabbed a duffel bag from under the bed and tossed a few pairs of shorts and shirts into it.
“You need help?” King asked, his anger turning into frustration. “Do we need to send you somewhere? Just tell me what you fucking need, Preppy!”
“I need the noise to stop. I need the light to stop burning my fucking eyes. I need my fucking cock to work instead of lying limp between my fucking legs.” I zipped the bag and tossed it over my shoulder. I looked back at King who was standing there with that look on his face that I was tired of seeing. “I need my friends to stop looking at me like I’m some dog who got hit by a fucking car.”
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” Bear asked as I made my way to the door.
“Somewhere much fucking quieter.”
King’s arm shot out, blocking me from the door.
“Just let him go,” Bear said pulling on King’s arm. He reluctantly let it fall with a growl and I left, slamming the door and leaving my two best friends behind me.
Nobody followed me.
Which was good.
Because I had no fucking idea where I was going.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
KING
“Hey, you busy?” Pup asked, peeking her blonde head around the door.
“Just finishing up,” I said, snapping off my black gloves and tossing them into the trash bin. I rolled my stool to the center of the room and she didn’t need another invitation, she stepped into the room and between my legs so I could wrap my arms around her, but it wasn’t close enough.
Never was.
I grabbed her hips and pulled her close until her body was firmly against mine and my face against her chest.
“What’s going on?” I mumbled from between her tits. My last client just left and I was beat. It was the last session of six for one of the biggest and most intricate back pieces I’d ever done.
“Oh wow. It’s beautiful,” Pup exclaimed and when I looked up she had my phone in one hand and the other was covering her mouth as she looked down at the screen at the picture I’d just taken before I’d wrapped up his back and sent him on his way. “It’s your best one yet.”
“You say that about all of them,” I said, again pressing my face between her braless tits and wanting very badly to sleep there for the rest of the fucking night.
Pup laughed and stepped back but I wouldn’t let her get far so I grabbed her hand and pulled her back into me. “I need to talk to you about something serious,” she said.
“You pregnant again?” I asked, unable to hide the hope in my voice. Some may view my need to knock my woman up constantly as pathetic, but I saw her being pregnant with my baby as more than just carrying a kid. Her being pregnant with my baby was like the possession of her. A body and soul kind of thing. It made me rock fucking hard every time I thought of her belly growing and her tits swelling again.
“No!” she said, slapping me playfully on the shoulder. “We said we would take a break. We have three and I need a minute to just...to just breathe!”
“How long do you need to breathe baby?” I murmured, lightly running my teeth over sensitive spot of skin under her tit over her shirt. “A week?” I dug my fingers into her hips and moved my head lower to kiss the small strip of skin between her tank top and her shorts. “Two weeks?” I asked, licking a circle around her belly button. I looked up just as her pale cheeks turned bright pink. “Three? Because you know, baby, I’ll give you whatever you want.” I rubbed my thumbs over the tops of her thighs from the outside in, dipping them into the frayed opening of her shorts. Goosebumps rose on her warm flesh.
“Time,” she said sternly. Well, as sternly as she could with my thumbs circling so close to her pussy. “I just want a little time.”
“I’ll give you two months,” I bargained without waiting for her to reply. Instead, I watched as her eyes turn dark as I ran my nose over stomach and breathed in her arousal. There was no better scent on earth than my woman when she was turned on.
MY woman.
Something I could say a million fucking times and it never got old.
MINE.
“We...we can talk about that stuff. Baby stuff. La...later,” she stammered. ?
??Right now I need to talk to you. It’s about Prep.”