I knew just from looking at him that Officer Asshole here was going to use this as an excuse to boost his pathetic little ego. When he wrenched my hands down and locked them into cuffs, he did it with enough force to tweak my shoulder. But I didn’t let on that he hurt me. In truth, I barely felt it. My adrenaline was so high, I probably wouldn’t have felt it even if he’d shot me.
Panic filled me so thickly that I couldn’t breathe, I could barely think. The only thing I could hold on to for the sake of my mental sanity was Jess: she was there, she was with me, and damn was that girl raising hell.
“This is absolutely outrageous!” she said, jabbing her finger at the fumbling guard. We’d been taken to the security office and made to wait there while the officer went to pull security cameras from the store. The guard kept mumbling something about forms and procedures, but Jess wasn’t having it. “Is the law in this country no longer innocent until proven guilty? We are being detained against our will! This is intimidation and harassment!”
Despite how absolute shitty this situation was, it still made me crack a smile. She was making that guard nervous as hell. The man kept trying to casually spin his pen between his fingers, then fumbling it, clearing his throat and making progressively weaker excuses. “You’re not being detained, ma’am, you’re free to go —”
“Not without my boyfriend, I’m not!” she snapped.
She’d never called me that before. It was probably a strange thing to latch on to, but I’d take any shred of distraction I could at this point. I was so hyped up already, all it really did was add even more adrenaline into the mix.
Boyfriend. Huh. I could get used to that.
I liked that.
“Ma’am, I need you to calm down,” the guard said. His pencil-thin mustache looked like a worm laid across his upper lip. Jess laid her hands flat on his desk, leaning toward him. It was as if she was channeling every drop of Queen Bitch energy she could possibly muster.
“Don’t you dare tell me to calm down,” she hissed. “If you don’t call that officer and find out what he’s seeing on those security tapes right this very second, I’m calling my lawyer.”
She didn’t have a lawyer, not that I knew of. The guard stuttered, shuffling around papers and saying something about a form. But when she whipped her cell phone out of her back pocket, he immediately clicked on his walkie and said, “Officer Madden, so we have any updates for Mr. Bent and Ms. Martin here?”
Seconds later, the walkie crackled and someone on the other end said, “We have two young women on tape planting the perfume in the bag. Suspect didn’t appear to see them do it.”
The guard audibly gulped, his eyes flickering over to me. I probably looked like I was going to kill him.
He’d be damned lucky if I didn’t.
***
It was like I was walking in a daze until we got back to my car. I had my awareness again once I was behind the wheel, but only barely. My head was swimming, my bloodstream a cocktail of stress-induced chemicals that wouldn’t simply disappear. They lingered, making my hands shake and my stomach churn.
My fingers were gripped so tightly around the wheel that they ached as I sped down the highway. Every beat of my heart was sickening hard. It was hot, so damn hot that sweat was dripping down my back. No matter how high I turned the AC, it wasn’t enough.
Jess said something to me, but my ears couldn’t make sense of the words. They were drowned out by anger — by suffocating, choking rage.
My only sense of relief was watching that odometer crawl higher and higher as I hauled ass down the highway.
It was always the same. No matter what efforts I made, no matter how I changed myself or vowed to do better, the world always gave me a reason to sink right back down again. I would have beaten that cop’s face in if Jess hadn’t stopped me; I probably would have gotten myself hauled off to jail or killed.
But that was the point. These people wouldn’t be satisfied until they found a way to make us disappear.
They sat in their churches and shouted “Amen!” to love and forgiveness, before they turned around and used every avenue they could to make those they didn’t approve of pay for merely existing. It wasn’t enough to keep your head down and try to disappear into the crowd. No, they’d sniff you out and make you the villain.
A shiny new Civic was trying to keep pace with me as I drove, revving up beside me and making it obvious he wanted to race. I nodded toward him, and we both slowed slightly until we were driving side by side at the same speed.
There was a storm in my chest with nowhere to go. The pressure was building, and I needed an outlet; I needed to do something, anything, to get rid of this feeling.
The Civic honked his horn in cadence, once, twice…on the third, we floored it. Jess gasped as the El Camino roared forward, blasting past the Civic without a struggle. He was barely even competition for me.
It wasn’t enough, it wasn’t fucking enough.
“Lucas, you need to pull over,” Jess said. Her voice was calm and even, her eyes boring into the side of my face. I readjusted my hand, tightening it on the shifter. I didn’t need to be told what to do.
She reached over, laying her hand on my arm. “Lucas, you’re swerving. You’re angry. Pull over so you can calm down.”
The instinctual resistance that rose up in me wasn’t strong enough to defy her. I pulled off the highway, driving down a quiet residential street. The narrow road forced me to slow my speed, which I’d admittedly been pushing to dangerous levels.
Manson would fucking kill me if he found out I was driving like that, let alone with Jess in the car. The moment that thought hit me, shame hit with it. What was wrong with me? I’d let anger overtake everything else, I’d lost control when I should have been mature enough to handle it.
After driving aimlessly for a few minutes, I pulled off onto a dirt road. It led deep into the fields, but I parked to the side under the low-hanging boughs of a massive old oak tree. I turned off the engine, grasped my hands tightly on my knees, and closed my eyes as I focused on just breathing.
Jess’s fingers squeezed my arm; a reassurance I didn’t even know I needed. Her touch grounded me, and I finally opened my eyes.
“Let’s get out,” she said, giving me a nudge toward the door. “Come on.”
It was disorienting to step out in an unfamiliar place when I was already so on edge. Jess took my hand, walking with me to the back of the car. The sun was low in the sky, casting streaks of pink and orange through the clouds. The fields around us were quiet, with only the rustling of the grass and subtle buzzing of insects.
Opening the back of the car, we took a seat on the tailgate. She drew close to my side, leaning her head against my shoulder without saying a word. It was such a simple thing, but it meant more than she could have possibly known.
She hadn’t left me. She hadn’t run away when things went to shit, even though she could have. There was nothing to keep her there except the desire to protect me, which felt too damn strange to believe. But I’d seen it with my own eyes. Heard her words. Felt her grasp my hand and lead me out of there because I was too shell-shocked with anger to navigate my way out.
This was why I tried, and why I had to keep trying even when it sucked. For her. For all of us.
The blinding rage had leaked out of me, but apprehension was left in its place. I hadn’t said a word in that security office because I hadn’t dared to. If I’d moved, if I’d opened my mouth at all, I would have made everything so much worse. But that had left Jess to handle it alone, and I could have slapped myself for doing that to her.
Finally, I managed to get out, “I’m sorry.” The words felt sticky and thick in my mouth. “I shouldn’t have been driving like that.” I put my arms around her, embracing her tightly, then even tighter as the seconds went by. God, I didn’t want to fuck this up and make a mistake that would drive her away. “Thank you for calling me out on it.”
“I understand,” she said, her voice soft and muffled against my chest before I loosened my hold. “I don’t blame you for being pissed off, Lucas. I am too. The next time I see Danielle or Candace…” She cracked her knuckles against her palm, such a vicious look on her face that I couldn’t help but laugh.
It wasn’t that I didn’t find her intimidating; it was the opposite. Pissed-off Jessica was merciless and I fucking loved it.
“Don’t be getting into fights,” I said. “At least not without me there, got it?”
“Got it. I’ll wait until you’re with me so you can enjoy the show.” The thought made me smile, and her fingers brushed over my cheek before she said quietly, “I like it when you smile.”
The expression swiftly disappeared once she pointed it out. She said it so tenderly that my face heated even more, as if I wasn’t sweating enough already.
“I don’t like my smile much,” I said. It was a sentence I really shouldn’t have bothered to utter. What the hell did I want out of it — pity?
But she clicked her tongue, not as if she pitied me but as if she thought I was wrong. “Why not?”
It was shockingly difficult to do this “open and honest” communication thing. It made me antsy, like I needed to get up and run a mile instead of speaking anymore.
I turned toward her, baring my teeth and pulling my lower lip down, expecting her to cringe with disgust.
My teeth weren’t pretty, especially on my lower jaw. They were crooked and misaligned, yellowed from too much coffee and cigarettes. So I hid them. I didn’t give big toothy smiles. I hardly dared to even part my lips.
“My mouth is fucked up,” I said, shrugging as I turned away again. “My family never had the money for braces, or any regular dental work. Had to pull six teeth a few years ago because they got so bad.” I cleared my throat uncomfortably. “It’s just ugly, Jess, there’s no other way to say it.”
This time when she touched my face, it was to turn it toward her. She gripped her fingers around my jaw and pulled my head down into a demanding kiss. I clutched her waist, and she spread her legs and pulled my hand down to lay it against her thigh.
“Listen to me,” she said when she parted from my mouth and I was left breathlessly wanting more. “I like your smile. I like your crooked teeth. I like the filthy things you say.” She kept me close, gripping my shirt. God, I craved that fiery side of her. The more demanding, pushy, and confident she acted, the more I longed for her. “I like the way it makes me feel when you bare your teeth at me, and when you bite me…” I leaned into her neck and did just that. She groaned, and I traced my fingers up her leg, pushing her skirt up. “I love the way you touch me…the way you make me feel…”
Did she even notice when she switched from saying “like” to “love”? Because I sure as hell did. The word pricked my skin like a needle, but the drug that flowed through my veins wasn’t poison.
What a hopelessly desperate word. What a beautiful word…what a beautiful idea.
I pressed her back, practically climbing on top of her as I bit the soft flesh on her shoulder, holding on and tightening my hold every time she whimpered and squirmed.
Usually, when I felt this lost, I had Manson there to set me straight. To guide me through the anger back to reality. He knew how to focus my brain, how to redirect my attention and hold it. But Manson wasn’t here, and I still needed that outlet to let go.
Jess paused, and I lifted my head, watching her face. She was smiling as she watched me; a small, clever smile that made her green eyes sparkle.
“Kneel,” she said. Her voice was soft but her words were firm, and it made something inside me clench up tight in anticipation. “Get on your knees.”
I stared at her without moving. This was new. Overcoming her and overpowering her struggles had always been the thing, a craving it seemed both she and I shared. She’d never tried to take command before, but hearing that authoritative tone in her voice was sexy as hell.
“Why should I, sweetheart?” I said, growling the words into her mouth as I kissed her again. I’d thought kissing wasn’t my thing — Manson being the exception because shit, the things he could do with his tongue made me weak — but Jess had quickly fallen into that exception too. Her whole body moved when she kissed me; it melded against me like hot wax, pouring into every hollow place inside me.
“Because you’re distracted,” she said. “You’re hurting. You’re angry. Let me…”
We paused again, out of breath. Her lips brushed mine, and I could barely open my eyes to look at her. She was too beautiful, too perfect. If I looked at her, she would vanish like a mirage.
Her open palm caressed over my head, coming to rest at the back of my skull.
“I want you…” she said.
“You shouldn’t. I’m disgusting. Fucking filthy.”
She smiled wickedly. “I like disgusting boys.”
Our gazes clashed. Hers blazing with want, need. Demanding more from me — but also offering me an escape, opening the door to a haven I hadn’t known existed.
“You want me to kneel?” I said.
“Now.” Her voice carried the same unshakeable confidence I’d heard from her for so many years. The voice filled with derision that allowed her to walk through the halls of Wickeston High with her chin up, not fearing a single soul. Immoveable in her authority.
This was new, indeed. I didn’t know what to make of it, only that I liked it and it made my scattered brain suddenly zero in on one thing and one thing only: her.
I got out of the bed and dropped to my knees in the grass, right at the edge of the tailgate. It was slightly damp, soft as my knees pressed into it. That put her spread legs at eye level, and I salivated. Visions of burying my head beneath her skirt and inhaling the perfect scent of her pussy filled my brain. I looked up at her — those dilated green eyes, that beautifully sadistic smile — fuck, when had this side of her appeared? Maybe it had always been there, maybe we’d all sensed it and it had needed a little time to make its first appearance.
She trailed her finger along her thigh, bright blue acrylics hooking beneath the hem of her skirt as she pulled it up. It was a fucking tease as she spread her legs a little wider, her panties barely covering her.
“Don’t get used to being in charge,” I said. “I’m giving you a pass this time.”
She tweaked up one perfect eyebrow, giving me a smirk that made me want to ravage her. Her thighs quivered, her breath shuddered. I was so hard, I could split her in half.
“Keep telling yourself that,” she said. “Make yourself useful while you’re down there. Go on. Lick it.”
“With fucking pleasure.”
I tugged her panties to the side, closing my mouth over her. She was already wet, slick beneath my tongue when I probed into her.
“Stop.”
I jerked upright. Her command was forceful, but the way she was looking at me — her cheeks were pink, her lips parted, her breath coming in short gasps.
She’d loved it, but she still made me stop. She was flexing her power to make me obey.
I gripped her thighs, jerking her toward me with a snarl. Her hand snapped out, grabbing my face and holding my gaze upward. Damn, those claws were sharp.
“Don’t you growl at me,” she said in that same stunningly forceful tone. Goddamn, that was sexy. “Behave.”
Desperately, I disentangled one arm to tug open my jeans, giving my cock room to stretch. No one had better come along this road because they were going to get a real show if they did.
“Go ahead,” she said. “Start again.”
I groaned as I ate her. She was so heavenly I never wanted to stop; I wanted to hold her there beneath my tongue until she writhed. She grasped my head, urging me on as she held me there. I stroked myself, flinching with pleasure when she laughed.
“Did I tell you that you could touch yourself?” she said. That little fucking brat.
I kept stroking to see if she’d dare tell me to stop, flicking my tongue over her clit until her legs were shaking in my hold.
“Mm, so you know you’re being disobedient then,” she said, pushing herself up a little straighter so she could tip my head back, forcing my mouth off of her. I ran my tongue over my lips, licking up the exquisite taste of her. But I saw her quiver. Her longing for me to keep going was obvious, despite her bravado to make me obey.
I said, “You’re such a fucking slut. You know you want more.”
“And you like sluts, don’t you, filthy boy?”
Maybe it was some fucked-up trauma response, but humiliation, shame, pain — it all got me hard. The rest of me could be swimming in embarrassment, drenched in anger, and my cock would still rise to the occasion. That was why Manson could work me so well; he thrived on degradation. He could say things to me that I’d beat anyone else down for, but from his lips, they were erotic, irresistible.
Now, I felt the same thing over her dirty words.
“Goddamn, girl, keep talking like that,” I said, looking up at her from between her legs. “You’ll make me cum if you keep that up.”
I wanted to sink into that heavenly cunt and pound her until she screamed. She spread her legs a little wider, but kept my head tipped back as she said, “Oh yeah? You like it when I talk down to you?” She laughed, the sound tingling over my spine. “What a fucking freak you are, getting off from having a girl humiliate you. Pathetic.”
I broke out of her hold, closing my mouth over her and eating that pussy like it was my last meal. She gasped, her protests dying in her throat as pleasure washed over her.
“Fuck, Lucas.” Her words shook, but she still managed to sneer at me. “Do you like how that tastes?” I nodded against her, not letting up for even a second. The more turned on she was, the better she tasted. “Want more? Do you want to fuck me?”
I nodded again, my cock twitching with eagerness to be inside her. She nudged herself against my mouth, grinding her pussy on my tongue. “Of course that’s what you want, you pervert.” She sucked in her breath, looking down at me with a wicked gleam in her eye before she spat on my face.
That unleashed the beast, and there was no getting it back in its cage once it was free. I rose up so fast that she yelped, as I lifted her entirely off the bed and impaled her on my cock. She grabbed hold of my shoulders, her legs wrapping tightly around me as I clutched her hips and fucked her hard.
“I fucking warned you not to get used to it,” I snarled, ignoring her pleading cries as her pussy squeezed around me. Her eyes rolled back as she came, helpless groans punctuating every thrust. I didn’t last much longer than she did.
I pressed inside her as deep as I could as I came, holding her there so not a single drop could escape from inside her. It was some primal bullshit but I couldn’t get enough of that — filling her up, pumping her full of my essence and leaving her marked with my cum.
My strength was sapped, and I sunk down into the grass and took her with me. Her legs straddled me and she laid her chest against mine, my cock still inside her. Our deep breaths swelled in unison for a few minutes as we lay there silently, eyes closed, surrounded by the soft sound of the breeze and twittering birds.
After several minutes of silence, she shifted to roll off of me and lie in the grass beside me. She snuggled close against me, resting her head on my shoulder as I wrapped my arm around her back.
“Lucas?” Her voice was soft, and surprisingly vulnerable. I tucked my free arm behind my head so I could look at her better.
“What happened today…it’s not the first time people have done shit like this to you,” she said. Her eyes kept darting away, as if she wanted so badly to lower them but was forcing herself not to do it. “I know that…I’ve done things to you, said things about you, that were just as unfair as what happened today. And I regret it so much. I wish I could take it back.”
She took a deep breath, and held it for a moment. I could hardly believe what I was hearing. An apology? For me? From her?
People didn’t apologize to me for shit, but I also didn’t welcome apologies in the first place. I didn’t forgive people. There was no point.
With Jess, I’d figured the past was the past. I wasn’t going to pretend I was an innocent victim; I’d had a hand in more than my fair share of trouble. She’d been a bitch back then and hadn’t been much better when we reunited…at first.
Somehow, against my better judgment, I think I’d forgiven her without even realizing it. But now that she was actually apologizing, I could see the worry all over her face. The fear that she’d wrenched herself open, forced herself to be vulnerable, even though the result might hurt.
She didn’t expect me to forgive her. She couldn’t even look at me anymore.
I sat up, and she did too. “Okay, hold up — I have to put my dick away for this.” It was a relief when my comment got a tiny laugh out of her. I was uncomfortable as hell with conversations like this. Frankly, I couldn’t remember the last time anyone had apologized to me, and I didn’t know what to do with it now that she had.
She was plucking at the grass, nervously pinching the blades between her fingers. I needed to say something, but I had to figure out what the hell I was feeling first. I wasn’t angry. I was nervous, because I was confused and caught off guard. But I felt…
Relieved? Validated? Assured? I didn’t know what the hell to call it, but it wasn’t a bad feeling.
“You don’t have to forgive me,” she said quickly, cutting me off when I opened my mouth to respond. “I realize that apologizing puts you on the spot to have some kind of response for it, and you don’t have to. I just wanted you to know. I really am sorry.”
“Shit, Jess.” I rubbed the back of my head, trying to come up with the right words. I didn’t know the first thing about accepting an apology, so I tried to think of how Manson reacted when I apologized to him. “I get it. I mean, I can be a major dick too. I think when…when you’ve spent a lot of time feeling out of control, feeling like other people are running your life, you’ll end up doing almost anything to take some of that control back. Even if it means turning around and hurting other people. Doesn’t make it okay…” I looked over at her and found her watching me. Waiting, with this look of hopeful vulnerability on her face that made me just want to hold her. “People don’t apologize to me, Jess, so I’m in uncharted territory here, okay? But I accept your apology. Thank you for…for saying that.”
“Actions will mean more than words,” she said, giving me a small smile. “I’ll show you I mean it.”
She was already doing a damn good job of it.
“Come here.” I gathered her up and pulled her between my legs, so I could hold her there with her back against my chest. I rested my head against hers, savoring that sweet strawberry scent in her hair.
“Well, since we’re here confessin’ shit…I guess I’ll tell you something you should probably know. Back in high school, when I smashed that bottle on Alex’s head…it was because he was talking shit about you, Jess.”
She stiffened, and she turned her head to look back at me with a shocked expression. “Wait…what? Lucas, you hated me back then. You couldn’t stand me. Like, I don’t blame you, but…” She shook her head slowly. “Why would you do that?”
I barely understood it myself, but I still had to try to explain. “I suppose I did hate you, about as much as you hated me. But I guess I was a little protective of getting to hate you. When I heard him talking about you, he was bragging about Kyle showing him some photos of you…”
“I knew it,” she hissed. “I fucking knew Kyle showed him. He always denied it.” She closed her eyes for a moment, working through whatever she was feeling in silence. “Why did you…I mean…you got expelled for that, Lucas.”
I shrugged. “I hated that school. I was really only sticking around for the boys anyway. So, you know, I saw the opportunity and took it.”
But she didn’t look like she believed me, at least not the way I was telling it. I wasn’t being entirely truthful either. I didn’t mention how it had made me so fucking furious to hear Alex talk about her that I would have done the same thing even if he’d been my best friend.
“I guess you’ve been guarding me for even longer than I thought, huh?” she said, with the cutest blush rising on her cheeks.
“Guess so. Guard dogs never go off duty,” I said.
I looked at our hands, twined together on her lap. Those fingers of hers were magic, but not only because they could bring pleasure. She knew how to touch me when I was angry, when I was scared. I couldn’t even be sure when she’d learned to do that, or if it was simply natural to her.
“Never?” she said, and it took me a moment to realize what she was asking. But when I answered, I really fucking meant it.
“Never.”
