I didn’t want to think about why the thought of her with Trevor made my gut churn.
“I’m out of here,” I said quietly to my mom, giving her a quick hug.
“Well that was a fast cleanup,” she replied, patting me on the back.
“Told you I had plans. I’ll see you in the next couple of days.”
I nodded at Ani and my aunt and uncle, then patted my dad on the shoulder as I made my way through the house. I was going to have to haul ass if I wanted to be on time.
Chapter 2
Anita
I was distracting myself. It was stupid. I knew that I shouldn’t be following Bram through the streets of downtown Portland, but when he’d left the house in such a hurry, I was curious.
Okay, I was dying to know where he was going.
Bram wasn’t exactly social. I could count on one hand the number of friends he had, and he’d never brought a woman home. Sure, I’d seen him leaving with chicks from one of the local bars—but he never actually introduced them to us. So where was he going at eight o’clock on a Friday night?
I let the question roll over and over in my brain, taking my mind off the things I actually should be worrying about as Bram parallel-parked across from a dive bar. What the hell? There wasn’t much else on the street, so I knew that was where he must be headed, but why?
Pulling around the corner, I parked in the smallest parking spot ever made and jogged toward the entrance of the bar. Bram had already gone inside, and when I glanced at the patrons smoking near the entrance, I groaned and looked down at myself. My jeans and flannel shirt were perfect for dinner at the Evans house, but I was going to stick out like a sore thumb if I tried to go inside.
I stepped quickly back around the corner as I unbuttoned my top, making a homeless guy down the street wolf-whistle. Jesus. Keeping one eye on the man sitting on the sidewalk, I pulled the shirt down my shoulders and tied it around my waist, leaving me in a black cami. That should work. I bent at the waist and scrubbed my fingers through my short, dark hair, then rose back up as I reached inside my nose and pulled my septum piercing down so it was visible. The retainer was easily hidden when I was around Dan and Liz, and I didn’t think either of them even knew I’d gotten it pierced. I loved it—I thought it looked badass, but my old foster parents really wouldn’t and I didn’t want to deal with their kind but scolding comments about my “pretty face.” I’d gotten enough of that when I’d dyed my hair blue my sophomore year in college.
Rifling through my bag, I pulled out a deep purple lip crayon and used a parked car’s side-view mirror to color in my lips and smooth my crazy hair a little. Perfect. I walked back around the building and made my way to the door as I slid my tongue ring in and twisted the ball on the end a few times to secure it.
The hipsters at the door ignored me as I walked past, acting like their damn clove cigarettes held the answers to the universe, and I couldn’t help but snort as I stepped inside. Acting like you don’t care doesn’t make you look cool, it just makes it look like you’re trying too hard. I could practically feel their bespectacled gazes on my flannel-covered ass. Take a good look, guys.
“Welcome to open-mike night,” a guy called into a microphone as I bellied up to the bar and slid my ass onto a stool. “For those of you who’re new here, the rules are simple. We don’t want to hear your song about the melting glaciers in Alaska or the time you drove your VW bus to the Grand Canyon. Covers only, folks. You sing an original song, we’ll boo your ass offstage.”
The crowd laughed, and my lips twitched as I looked at the guy on a small stage across the room. He was tall and lanky with a short beard and a shirt that said, BEER ME. Good looking, if you were into skinny guys.
“Got a friend starting us off tonight while you pussies get up the courage to sign in. Abraham?” the guy called, looking off to the darkened side of the stage.
My mouth dropped open as Bram stepped onstage, a worn guitar dangling from his hand. What in fucking fuck?
“Hefeweizen,” I called, glancing at the pretty, tattooed bartender who was leaning across the bartop next to me. “A shot of tequila too, please.”
She nodded and pulled her eyes away from Bram to get my drinks.
“Hello, Portland,” Bram said with a smile, making my stomach do a weird somersault. “Haven’t been onstage in a while, so you’ll have to bear with me.”
“Yeah, ’cause you’re an asshole,” Tall Skinny Guy called out.
“Yeah, yeah. I’m here now,” Bram said, making the crowd chuckle. “Can I sing, or are you gonna keep running your mouth?”
“By all means,” Tall Skinny Guy replied, throwing his arms out.
“First song, you might not know—”
“No originals!” Tall Skinny Guy yelled as the bartender slid my drinks over the counter.
Bram went completely still and turned his head slowly toward the side of the stage while the crowd snickered.
“Fine. Fine. Go ahead,” Tall Skinny Guy said over the crowd.
“Jesus.” Bram shook his head. “And I worried I’d be late.”
I couldn’t help but smile at the way the crowd was eating Bram up. He was working them—Bram, who rarely got along with anyone and walked around with a permanent scowl—held a crowded bar in the palm of his hand.
“Like I said, you might not recognize this one—but it’s not one of mine so Jay can shut the fuck up and let me do it,” Bram said, leaning into the mike with a small smile on his face as he settled himself more comfortably on the bar stool he was perched on. “This is ‘Thief and a Liar’ by Jeffrey Martin.”
By the noise of the crowd, I guessed they knew who he was talking about but I’d never heard of him.
The minute Bram began to play, my heart began thumping hard in my chest. I couldn’t tell if it was nervousness or excitement. When his voice came through the speakers again, I think I stopped breathing.
He sang, his voice a little raspy but seriously good, and I spun away, taking the shot fast before chasing it with my beer. My hands were shaking as I pulled the orange off the rim of my glass and dropped it into my beer. I wanted to turn back around and see him, but for the first time since I’d walked into the bar, I felt weird about the way I’d followed him.
It was odd. I was watching Bram do something that he’d obviously not wanted us to know about, but I was the one who felt naked.
After a few moments, I turned back around holding my beer in front of me just so I’d have something to do with my hands…and met Bram’s eyes from across the room.
Oh, God. I’d thought that the dim spotlight on him would hide me from view, but when I’d sat at the bar, the lights behind it illuminated me.
“I am a thief and a liar of the very worst kind. Oh, I sell to the broken and I rob them blind. I will build you a house with my own two hands, and then burn it to the ground as quick as I can.” Bram’s voice didn’t falter, not even when he raised his eyebrows, as if to say, I caught you.
I swallowed hard and glanced away, bringing my beer to my lips like nothing was wrong as I slid slowly off the stool. I wondered if I could make it out the doors without him catching me. Part of me thought that he’d ignore my departure and keep going, but the other part of me knew that, if I took one step away from my bar stool, he’d be calling me out over the damn speaker system.
As Bram strummed the last chord of the song, the crowd burst out in applause, and he smiled wide, glancing around in front of him.
“Damn, you guys have a lot of energy. I’ve been up since four a.m.; I think it’s past my bedtime,” he said jokingly as he scratched at his beard. “You want one more?”
Whistling and cheering came through the room, and I wondered how often he came to this bar to sing. The people seemed to know him, or at least recognize him.
“All right. One more.” He repositioned on his stool. “Pretty sure you’ll know this one. This is ‘First’ by Cold War Kids.”
Bram’s eyes came back to me, and I
fumbled with my empty beer glass, setting it on the bartop behind me.
He crooned the chorus into the mike, slowing down the familiar song. Holy shit.
He was going to kill me.
I stood frozen through the entire song, and Bram’s eyes never left me. When he was done, he climbed up from the stool, and I calculated my distance from the front door as I pulled a twenty-dollar bill out of my purse and threw it on the bar.
I took one step toward freedom, my eyes on Bram, when his head slowly shook from side to side, warning me to stay put.
“Your turn to entertain me,” Bram said, leaning down into the microphone. The crowd cheered, but his words were for me.
“We’ll entertain you,” a tall girl called out, her arm wrapped around her much shorter friend as they swayed. The entire bar erupted in laughter, and the girl’s face dropped as her eyes went wide. She was drunk, but apparently not drunk enough to ignore the fact that she’d just made an ass out of herself.
Bram’s eyes went soft as he glanced over, then he leaned back into the mike again and nodded toward me. “Sorry, beautiful, but my girl’s waiting for me at the bar.”
My mouth dropped open and my stomach flipped as he moved toward me, but before he’d made it through half the crowd, I’d snapped it shut again and was crossing my arms over my chest. He better have been talking about some other woman at the bar. If he thought I was playing along with his bullshit announcement, he was sadly mistaken.
“You di—” The words weren’t even out of my mouth before his hand was wrapped lightly around the front of my throat, his fingers and thumb resting at the bottom of my jaw.
“Hey, baby,” he murmured, leaning in without any warning and kissing me gently.
I’d been expecting something different. Something punishing. Hard. Maybe a bite. I think that was why, when he went to move away, my mouth followed his.
It was instinct. Nothing more. But the soft brush of lips hadn’t been enough.
Bram made a surprised noise in his throat when my arms dropped and wrapped around him. Our eyes met for a split second before he groaned and pushed me back against the bar.
Then his mouth was on mine again, and there was nothing soft about it. He pulled gently, wetly, at my bottom lip, and I opened my mouth, my breath hitching as his tongue slid inside. Holy shit, Bram could kiss.
I forgot where we were. I forgot who he was. Hell, I forgot who I was.
Nothing mattered except our points of contact. His hips pressing against my waist, his hard back beneath my palms, one of his hands at my throat and the other setting his guitar on the bar behind me so he could slide his fingers through the short hair at the back of my head.
“I’ll put this in the back room,” the tall guy’s voice said teasingly from behind me, I assumed talking about the guitar.
Bram nodded, still kissing me, and then his hand was on my ass, lifting me as I jumped up and wrapped my legs around his waist.
Oh God, that was so much better. I ground against him as he stepped away from the bar and pulled his mouth from mine. His hand moved around the back of my head, and he shoved my face into his neck as he moved through the bar.
Shit. What the fuck were we doing? I held on tight, my face burning in embarrassment even though it was hidden, and my pussy rubbing against his dick with every step he took.
We were both breathing heavy when we hit the cool night air, and I shivered as he asked me where I was parked.
“Around the corner,” I rasped, making him shudder as my lips rubbed against his skin.
He strode down the pavement, never letting me down until we’d rounded the corner and were shadowed by the tall building.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” he asked as he dropped me to my feet.
“What the hell was that?” I snapped back, stumbling a little as I lost my balance.
“If I wanted you here, I would have fucking invited you.” He ignored my question, scowling as he gripped my arm to make sure I didn’t fall over.
“I didn’t know you could sing like that.”
“Who do you think taught Katie?” My foster sister Kate was incredible on the guitar, and she’d had a kick-ass voice for as long as I’d known her. I’d never wondered how she’d learned; it had always just been true.
“Oh,” I said, sidestepping him.
“Did you follow me?” he asked incredulously, stepping back in front of me. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“With me? Yeah, I’m the one who fucked up tonight. Right,” I said back sarcastically. “You just kissed me!”
“That’s the way you want to play it?” he murmured, shaking his head as he scratched at his beard. “Sure. I was getting the barflies off my back and used you to do it, but the rest of that shit was you.”
“Me?” I screeched, making the homeless guy down the street start yelling about waking him up.
“Shut the fuck up,” Bram yelled back at the guy, making him go silent.
“I didn’t do shit!” I hissed, my hands fisting at my sides.
“That wasn’t you, grabbing me and pulling me into you—giving me fuck-me eyes?”
“Fuck-me eyes?” I screeched again.
“You’re still fucking doing it!” Bram yelled back, leaning down.
We both went silent for a long moment, glaring at each other.
I’m not sure which one of us moved first, but all of a sudden, Bram’s mouth was back on mine, and he was pushing me against the brick wall of the building behind me.
“When the fuck did you get a tongue ring?” he gasped into my mouth as he slid his thigh between mine, lifting my body slightly as he pressed up.
“A couple years ago.” I moaned and rocked against him.
“I’ve never seen it.” His hands moved over my torso, reaching up to grip my breasts over my cami.
“I know.” I slid my hands under his T-shirt and dug my fingers into the warm skin at his sides.
A familiar wolf whistle came from down the street, making us pause.
“Keys,” he whispered before pressing his mouth to mine again. “Keys. Now.”
I fumbled with the purse hanging over my shoulder and pulled out the keys to my SUV.
The second Bram heard them jingle, he was stepping back and grabbing them from my hand. Without a word, he gripped my fingers and walked me over to my car. When we reached it, he paused and turned his head to look at me.
I held my breath as he clicked the remote, unlocking the driver’s-side door.
Then he clicked it again, unlocking the rest, and opened up the door to the backseat. He stood there, not moving, letting me make the decision. I could have snatched the keys out of his hand and moved around the front of my SUV. That would have been smarter.
Instead, I slid past him and climbed into the backseat.
I was making a really bad decision. I knew that. I think we both knew that. Nothing good could come of messing around with Bram. At best, things would be even more awkward between us later. At worst, we’d actually hate each other instead of the halfhearted bickering we’d been doing before.
But I didn’t care.
This wasn’t real life. I knew that, once Bram climbed back out of my Toyota, whatever was happening would be over. But in three days, I was going to have to deal with more real life than I wanted to, so I pushed back all the doubts in my mind.
The backseats in my car were pushed down because I’d been hauling shit for my house that week. So when we got inside the dark car, we had a wide expanse of room to move. That didn’t mean it was easy though. Bram hit his head and cursed as he climbed in behind me, locking the doors with a loud honk. I got a rug burn on my elbow as I rolled to my back and scooted across the rough carpeting.
Then, finally, there we were.
I was on my back, my knees spread wide around Bram’s hips, and he was coming down on top of me, bracing himself on his elbows.
“I can’t see shit,” he said as our eyes adjusted to the dark.
“You know what I look like,” I whispered back, my nerves making my voice a little shaky.
“I don’t know what these look like,” he argued, dropping one of his hands to slide it over my breast, his fingertips finding my nipple through my cami.
Well. It seemed as though the lack of sight didn’t hinder him in the slightest.
His lips came down on mine, and I groaned into his mouth as his tongue slid across my tongue ring, playing with it for a second before he was pulling away slightly and sucking my bottom lip into his mouth.
“You had Hefeweizen,” he commented, running his lips down my jaw.
I couldn’t stop the giggle that burst out of my throat.
“What? It’s my favorite.” He moved his mouth to my neck, and I arched back as he sucked at the skin there, moving to my shoulder as his hand gripped the strap to my cami and jerked it down my arm.
“Shit,” I groaned as his lips moved down my breast and pulled my nipple into his mouth.
“You’re so tiny,” Bram murmured, making me freeze.
I wasn’t shy, and I wasn’t unhappy with my body. I was small. Small hips, small breasts, small ass, short legs—the works. But no man had ever had the balls to say something like that to me before, especially while he had his mouth on me.
“Don’t be an idiot,” Bram scolded, biting down on my nipple as he felt me stiffen. “Look at that sweet little nipple. Perfect size for my mouth.”
“Bram,” I groaned as my entire body flushed. I reached down and pulled at the back of his shirt, pulling it up and over his head. When it reached his arms, it got stuck between us, and what little sight I’d had completely vanished as the shirt covered my eyes.
“No blindfolds this time,” Bram murmured, leaning up on one arm and then the other to pull the shirt off. This time?
As soon as he was bare chested, I dove for his skin, licking at his nipples and biting at the skin near his collarbone. He tasted so good. Clean, with the tiniest hint of salt. It must have been warm under the bar’s spotlight.
“Stop,” he said softly, then again louder. “Stop.”