“Mind if I have one?” I nod at the cigarette in his hand.
His eyebrow crooks. You smoke? He questions probably because I’ve been around smokers the entire night and haven’t smoked a single one.
And normally I don’t, but tonight I’m going to be someone different. “Yep.” Hello world, meet drunken, smoker, Violet.
He shrugs, then takes the pack out of his pocket and gives me a cigarette and his lighter. I light up, not choking on the smoke because I have smoked in the past, under very strange circumstances when someone who took care of me for a while would have me light up for her when she was doing things like cooking and didn’t have free hands.
“How well do you know Luke?” I wonder curiously as I take a drag and smoke fills my lungs.
Ryler ashes his cigarette, sending ashes across the gravel just outside. Not very well. I met him once when he stayed with my dad a couple of summers ago, but that’s about it. Honestly, I’ve barely seen my dad though up until a couple of years ago. He puts the cigarette to his lips and breathes deeply, trying to cover up his uneasiness with the subject. What about you? He mouths, smoke laces from his lips.
“How well do I know Luke?” I ask and he nods. I waver, uncertain how to respond because it seems like I know Luke well, but at the same time I don’t know him at all. “I’m still trying to figure that out,” I say truthfully.
“What about you?”
“What about me what?” Hasn’t he already asked that question? Or am I losing track of time again.
I hardly know you. His attitude is veering toward flirty which would be fine if it wasn’t for Luke. Jesus, why can’t guys and girls just be friends?
“I’m a fairly boring person,” I tell him, then lean forward over the seat with a sarcastic dark look on my face. “And if I told you anything about me, then I’d have to kill you.”
He gives me a blank stare, trying not to laugh. Like I said, interesting.
I sit back and take a puff off my cigarette. “And I was just going to say the same thing about you, until you started flirting with me.”
Hey, you can’t blame a guy for trying. He presses his hand to his heart and sits up straight in the seat. Besides, if you would have just said you were with Luke, then I’d leave you alone.
Oh, I get it now. He’s trying to get me to confess. I’m about to say it to—it’s on the tip of my tongue even though I’m not sure if it’s the truth, but then Luke and Cole show up and interrupt me before I can. But the revelation itself makes panic soar in my chest and the need to do something crazy press up in my lungs and crush the air out of me.
Saved by the questionable boyfriend. Ryler winks at me then gets out of the driver’s seat and rounds the front of the car to the passenger side, while Cole flips the seat forward and Luke climbs in the back beside me
As soon as he gets settled, he takes one look at the cigarette in my hand and his brows dip together. “What the hell are you doing?”
I bat my eyelashes innocently at him and extend the cigarette toward him. “I lit it just for you.”
He looks at me skeptically. “Yeah, right. And smoked half of it.” He reaches for it to test me, but I move my hand to the side.
“No way.” I put the end into my mouth and allow the smoke to smother my lungs. “It’s mine now. You’re going to have to fight me to get it,” I say as Cole starts the car and then drives forward out of the parking lot.
Luke flicks a glance to Cole, then Ryler, then shakes his head, restraining a laugh. “How much did you have to drink?” he asks me in a low voice.
I shrug, watching the blurs of colors zip by the window as we drive onto the road and toward the freeway that will take us back toward the city. “Five, eight, eleven.” I hold up my fingers, trying to show him the amount, but eleven proves to be a problem. “Hey, I was just doing my job. It wasn’t my fault that Catterson guy kept offering me drinks.”
“You did a fine job,” Cole comments, making a turn onto the freeway. “But we’re going to have to find a new job for you tomorrow, so the bosses won’t catch onto you.”
“Okay, at first I was joking about the mobster thing before, but now I have to wonder.” I slant forward to stick my hand out the window and ash the cigarette.
“No mobsters, just hardcore gamblers who don’t take shit from anyone,” Cole says, putting a cigarette between his lips and cupping his hand around the end of it to light up.
After that remark, Ryler and him start having a conversation about the game, Ryler signing the entire time and seeming really annoyed at his father about something. It leaves me distracted enough to focus all of my attention on Luke as a darkness in my chest starts to stir, drunken Violet getting restless. Always looking for trouble, one of my foster mother’s used to say. Uncontrollable. She might not have been so right at the time, but now she would be. Guess I turned out exactly like she thought—like all of them thought. But that’s not what I want to focus on. Something good. I want to focus on something good that’s sitting right beside me.
Luke is staring straight ahead, arms folded, his muscles taut, his thinking face on, as if he’s pondering some complicated theory on human nature and how we turn out the way that we do, what molds us into the people we are.
I shake my head. God, I think some weird things when I’m drunk.
Luke. Focus on Luke.
He’s sitting close to me, but not close enough, so I scoot over and he shakes his head, his lips threatening to turn upward. “You have that look on your face,” he says, turning his head toward me. “The one where I can tell you want to start trouble.”
“You know me better than I thought,” I say straightforwardly, not being able to see very clearly through the alcohol swishing around in my brain.
His eyes search mine confusedly. “Do I?”
I nod deliberately, a fire igniting in my chest based on lust. “And I bet you can guess exactly what I’m thinking right now.” I move my hand down the front of my body, biting my lip as I touch myself.
He sucks in a slow breath and gradually lets it out, mouthing the words wow. But he doesn’t speak aloud, just wraps his fingers around my wrist, brings my hand to his mouth, and puts his lips around the cigarette I’m holding. It makes me think of his tongue and how good it felt when it was licking me earlier in the bedroom.
After he takes a drag of my cigarette, he lets me have it back then says, “You’re thinking how awesome I am for winning three grand tonight.”
“As awesome as that is, that’s not what I’m thinking about.” I shake my head, feeling the electricity in the air, the out of controlness, just the way I like it. Then I place the cigarette to my lips, not because I want to smoke, but because I want to tease him like he just did with me. I give it a good long suck, feeling a flicker of panic when I see Preston’s face, the way it looked right before he shoved me down on my knees, turned on not just by getting a blowjob but by the pain and lack of desire in my expression. But I quickly shove the mental images away and it gets absorbed by the vodka burning in my veins and clouding my mind and judgment. “So guess again,” I say as I exhale a cloud of smoke.
Luke’s eyes darken, shadows in the inadequate light flowing in from the lampposts, casinos, and sights outside. He shifts toward me, his knee pressing against my leg as he cups his hand to my cheek and dips his lips to my ear. The warmth of his Bacardi laced breath caresses my skin and sends warmth throughout my body. Safe. I feel that safeness again.
“You were thinking about what I did to you in the bedroom a few hours ago,” he says in my ear, his voice low and filled with desire, his breath hot against my skin. Sweltering—I’m sweltering and it’s not from the heat of the desert. “And about how much you want me to do it to you again, only maybe slower this time and longer… take my time…” He has to be drunk as well and two drunken peas in a Challenger make for sporadic decisions without even a flicker of a thought about the consequences. And makes the adrenaline addict nearly fall into a state of euph
oria.
A calmness overcomes me and settles inside my chest, I let my hands drift toward Luke’s jeans, resting them right on top of his dick. Right there, in the backseat of the car with his uncle and cousin within earshot. And in return, Luke lets out a throaty groan that makes me want to rip off his clothes and scratch the shit out of him, like I was picturing doing back at the table.
But as my fingers start to wander up Luke’s shirt, my nails gently scratching against his lean muscles, his uncle burst the moment. “Okay, you two, let’s wait until we get back to the house,” he says amusedly. “I promise it’s not that far.”
I’m not one to get embarrassed, but either my cheeks heat or the air gets even hotter. Luke however looks completely unbothered as he sits back in the seat, putting his hands on top of mine so they’re trapped inside his shirt, my palms pressed against his muscles and warm flesh. Then he gives me a look as if he has every intention to continue this right up the moment we get into the bedroom. I just hope I can stay drunk enough that I can go through with it unemotionally, otherwise I might have to find another alternative to settle the emotions buried inside, one’s that want to burst out of me, both old ones and new ones. And I’m afraid once I let them out, I won’t be able to put them back in again.
Chapter 11
Luke
Good guy? Bad guy? What kind of guy am I? A few months ago, I knew the answer and I was okay with that. Better to understand yourself then to be completely clueless. Not knowing is hard and right now I’m the biggest, clueless asshole there is. Because I want to fuck the hell out of Violet. I want to fuck her long and hard until she screams out my name and stabs her nails into my skin like she did in the car… God, that made me almost come inside my jeans, right here in the back of the car.
I want her more than anything and need to take her more than anything. That’s what the devil on my shoulder is whispering. But on the opposite shoulder, there’s this little angel, well I guess that’s what it is, but I can’t be certain since I’ve never heard it before. But it’s telling me that Violet’s drunk and hurting, and that it almost seems like she’s trying to cover up her pain by doing reckless things she wouldn’t necessarily do when she was sober. Like coming with me here, being with me, wanting me. It hurts to think about it like that but I can see it in her eyes, the same look she had on the ledge when we were running from Geraldson. Only I’m her ledge this time—her danger.
I go back and forth for the entire drive and come to the decision to be a good guy, but she makes it really complicated when we get back, stumbling into the bedroom together and she starts stripping off her clothes before I can even get the door shut. She’s drunk enough that she’s unsteady on her feet and sloppy with her movements, but the way her eyes stay focused on me is sexy as hell. First the dress, then the slip under the dress… and oh hell, she has no panties on. But before I can even take that all in, off goes her bra. She playfully throws it at me and it ends up hitting my face. I catch it, shaking my head, a smile starting to emerge, but the sight of her bare body in front of me makes me have to bite down on my lip to suppress a moan.
“You’re seriously wasted.” I drop the bra onto the floor, unable to take my eyes off her long, lean legs, flat, inked stomach, her perky nipples.
“So what? So are you.” She backs up until her legs brush the bed, and then she lowers herself down onto the mattress, crooking a finger at me to follow, waiting for me to go get her. And I want to badly, but I need to be a good guy, even if it’s just once in my life.
“I’m always drunk,” I admit truthfully, slowly crossing the room toward her. “You on the other hand usually aren’t.” I stop just short of the bed where her legs are dangling over. “In fact, I’ve only seen you drunk once.”
She gives me a blank stare. “Can you seriously tell me that you’ve never slept with a girl that was drunk before?”
I shake my head. “But you’re different.” I reach out and place my hand on her cheek, intoxicated enough that I don’t give a shit how emotional I’m being. “And I don’t want to sleep with you just because you’re drunk and you’re hurting over something... I want it to mean something… for both of us.” I blow out a breath, my cock getting seriously angry with me. “But if you want to talk about it, we can. In fact, I wish you would.”
She lets out a sharp laugh. “I don’t want to talk at all.” She leans away from my hand, her expression hardening and filling with panic. “Why are you trying to be all chivalrous right now, when hours ago you were so ready to fuck me?”
“Because I got caught up in the moment earlier,” I tell her, letting my hand fall to my side. “And I’m not saying I don’t want you. Trust me, I do, but I’ve just been thinking,” I take a deep inhale and let it out slowly before I sit down on the bed beside her, “About how we haven’t really talked about anything. And I know you don’t want to, which is fine, but I just don’t think we should sleep together. Not until we’ve confronted the stuff between us.” God, this is a first for me. Naked girl in front of me, legs spread open, and I’m not willing to thrust my cock inside her.
I wait for her to get pissed at me, but instead she starts breathing heavily as if she’s struggling to get air into her lungs and her gaze is sweeping the room, as if she’s searching for a way out, this panicked frenzy taken over the drunken look in her eyes. I’m not sure where it stemmed from so abruptly, but I know enough about panic attacks to know she’s about to have one.
“Violet, relax.” I put a hand on her knee, trying to get her to look at me. “I’m not going anywhere and I’m not going to make you talk about anything you don’t want to.”
Still breathing erratically, she looks down at my hand on her knee then wrenches her leg away from me. “Don’t touch me.” She jumps up from the bed and grabs the slip from off the floor, tugging it over her head. Then she starts for the door, ready to walk out. I get up to grab her, even though I know it’s probably not a good idea to touch her when she’s in this state of mind. But like hell I’m letting her go out there in a piece of fabric that barely covers her ass and shows the outline of her nipples.
“Please calm down.” I pause as her eyes land on me, wild panic flowing from them. I put my hands up, letting her know I’m not going to touch her. “I think you’re having a panic attack.”
“No, I’m not.” Terror fills her expression as she looks from me to the door and then her gaze lands on the window. Without saying another word, she rushes to the window and throws it open, a hot breeze gusting in.
“God dammit, Violet, stop it.” I hurry to her, snagging her arm before she can climb out the window, panicking as I think of Amy. We’re on the second floor and even though she could be okay jumping out, I’m not going to take that risk. “If you get dressed then I’ll let you go out the door…. I just didn’t want you walking out dressed in that.”
“Let me go.” She jerks her arm away from me, glaring at me. “That isn’t what this is about.” Then she swings her legs out of the window, but I grab the back of her dress and pull her to me. She fights against me, wiggling her arms and legs, writhing her body as I wrap my arms around her and pull her back to me. “Let me go… let me go…” she gasps, pushing back against me.
I rock her back and forth and kiss her head. “No, not until you tell me what’s going on.”
“There’s too much…” her voice cracks and even though I can’t see her face, I think she’s crying. “I need to turn it off…” she starts massaging her chest as if it’s tender “It hurts…” Another gasp, then another.
I hug her against me, trying to figure out what I just witnessed and how to calm her down. I’m not sure if she was actually going to jump or if she was just thinking about it, but Jesus, what if she was? What if things are so bad she’s ready to take pain over anything else?
“Please, let me go…” she begs between gasps, tearing my heart in half with the agony in her voice. “I just need to sit in the window for a moment… see it… and I’ll b
e okay…” She tries to suck air in her lungs, but the anxiety is too great and I can tell she’s not breathing very well.
She’s going to blackout and I know I need to calm her down somehow, but I honestly have no idea how. When I get riled up like this, I either drink, gamble recklessly, or start fights. I want none of that for her so instead I turn her around so she’s facing me. She’s too weak to really fight me, too focused on trying to breathe. Tears stain her green eyes and face, mascara running down her cheeks as she refuses to look me in the eye.
“Violet, look at me,” I say in a soft but steady voice I’m pretty sure I’ve never, ever used before. I cup her face with one hand, while supporting her weight in the other. When she shakes her head, more tears streaming down her face, I try again in the gentlest voice I can summon. “Baby, look at me.”