Don't Look / No Promises

SIX

Bella

Bella hadn’t seen Rose or Alice in almost two days.

Something was wrong.

She didn’t know what, but it had never gone this long. Alice was always in dire need of rescuing from some town function and Rose always needed someone to drive her somewhere, but all had been quiet on the western front. Bella hoped Rose hadn’t gone off and gotten herself killed somewhere in a ditch or a truck or a seedy bar bathroom. She hoped Alice hadn’t been shipped off to summer camp like last year. She hoped that their plans to go to the lake tomorrow were still on, but had a feeling they probably weren’t. She drove to the ice cream shop, not sure what she’d do if she found them there without her. The place was quiet though. No Rose. No Alice. Just one of the boys who hung around with her motorcycle paramore sitting on the front step, licking cream and peaches from a waffle cone, sweating around the edges. He was big and dark and off the Rez, a little scary but smiling at her.

“Well, hey there, Birdy,” he said, winking.

“My name is Bella.”

“I know, but you’re the one, yeah? The one that jacked the Bird?” Bella shrugged. “Did you know he’s been under that thing for three full days now? Still can’t get that baby to purr.” More licking.

“That bad?” she asked.

“Worse. Gonna cost him a pretty penny to fix it.”

Bella felt a momentary stab of guilt, but tried to squash it. “What’s your name?” she asked and the guy smiled at her before he stuck out his hand. He was handsome, thick dark hair and deep set eyes. Nice big smile. Ice cream smeared on his lip.

“Jacob,” he said when she slipped her hand into his, giving her a thorough shake. “Here, have a seat.” He patted the wooden step beside him and Bella sat down. He was wearing the same vest, same patches, but his hair was long and shaggy, not slicked back. He had a tattoo of a snake on his forearm, the one holding a creamy peach waffle cone out at her.

“Want some?”

“Sure.” Bella took the cone and licked the edge while Jacob stared out over the lawn. He was nice too, not just handsome. Handing over his treat like that. Giving her a nickname. She liked this Jacob.

“What’s his name?” she asked.

“He ain’t told you his name yet?” Jacob looked at her with raised brows and she shrugged.

“We haven’t gotten there, I guess. He knows mine.”

“Edward,” Jacob said.

“Edward,” she repeated.

“Listen, take it easy on him, huh?”

“He needs it easy?”

“Yeah,” Jacob nodded, taking the cone back and licking a drip before it fell. “He plays a good asshole, but he’s soft, you know?”

“I don’t really know anything actually.” Bella shook her head.

“All I’m gonna say, sweets, is that he needs a gentle touch. And that the shop is one block that direction.” Jacob pointed. “I’ll give you twenty minutes.”

---

Edward

Edward was draining the oil when she appeared.

When her shoes appeared.

Spiky pumps patterned in roses. Sky high and peep toed. These tiny little ankles and knees hidden behind the hem of a pale pink dress. He tucked his head out from underneath the Bird, staring up at her and, good Lord way way way up there in heaven, he promised to dedicate his life and soul to eternal salvation if he could only spend the rest of all of it right there. At her feet. Her all done up pink and pretty with flowers in her hair like that. He’d try real, real hard not to be that slimeball he claimed not to be if this was the reward.

“Well, hi there, doll. Didn’t expect you here.” He grinned, pushing himself out from underneath the car and standing up alongside her. Close. Maybe too close. He might get her dirty, might smudge up against all that pink, but he didn’t care. She smelled so good, really good, like she’d rolled around in violets and peaches. Like she’s driven around with the windows rolled down and the wind rushing up from the ocean, salt and sand, but maybe he was just thinking of the other night. Of kissing her. Shoving smoke and then his tongue between her lips and fuck, he wanted to do that again.

Right now.

Bella strode around him and settled herself in the driver’s seat, all one hundred pounds of her doing nothing to threaten the jack. “Feels good to be back here,” she mused. “Miss me, baby?” she asked the Bird, caressing the steering wheel while Edward ground his teeth and shoved his hands in his pockets.

She looked good in that car.

Too good.

“Of course not,” he grumbled. “She’s in the ER because of you.”

“I heard it wasn’t going well.” She looked up at him and he shrugged.

“I’m doing what I can, but the axle is shot.”

“Shame.” She dropped her hands to the cream leather on either side of her hips. “Seems a waste of such potential.”

Oh, the potential. Talk to him about potential, why don’t you? That dress was cut high at her ribs with a full skirt that would flip right up over her waist and he could have her pinned to that seat in no time, fuck the jack. Fuck the tranny. Fuck the chips and the dents and the mangled gear box because this girl was rubbing her thighs like she was needy or something.

“How’d you know we were here?”

“Jacob. I met him at the ice cream shop.”

That fucker had skipped out on Edward nearly an hour ago, of course that’s where he’d gone. Edward muttered something nasty about Jacob under his breath and kicked the floor with the toe of his boot.

“Don’t listen to anything he says,” he grumbled.

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Bella said.

“He’s full of shit. That’s why his eyes are so brown.”

“My eyes are brown,” she said and yeah, they were, but he liked hers. They were the amber of fresh, clean oil. Jacob’s were just shit. Edward rolled his eyes, trying not to stare at her.

“When I get this girl going, I’m coming to pick you up in it,” he said

“You know where I live?”

“Big house with the gate, yeah?”

Bella shook her head. “That’s Alice’s. I’m over in Westbrook.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “You followed me?”

“Sort of,” he admitted.

“What’s your definition of sort of?”

“I know your license plate.” He grinned.

“That’s my dad’s car. He’s a cop.”

Edward felt his stomach drop just a little. Shit. “A cop, huh? He got guns?”

“Lots of them.”

“He use ‘em?”

“When he needs to.”

“How’s he gonna be, when I show up?”

“I’ll do what I can, but you might want to wear your funeral clothes.” Bella pulled herself from the Bird and stepped right up in front of him, the neckline of her dress squashed up against his chest. She fingered the patch on his vest, the name stitched into the fabric, the two dates that bordered it, and looked up at him.

“Just so we’re clear, you don’t know me at all.”

“I know what your mouth tastes like,” he said.

“I know your name,” she whispered, right before she left.

Next

AN: Hadley fixes my mistakes. And talks me down off ledges. And makes me smile more than any person on earth other than my husband.

Don't Look / No Promises

FIVE

Bella

She agreed.

It was crazy. She was crazy. This whole situation was crazy. And this guy was fucking nuts. He buried his nose near her crotch and ripped holes in her tights and now he wanted to go for a ride. She was nodding before she even really thought about it.

Crazy.

“No way, doll. You’re up front.” He patted the seat in front of him, between his legs, and grinned at her.

“What? No.” She shook her head, so nervous she could throw up right now.

“C’mon. It’s my favorite way.” He held his hand out and waited until she took it, pulling her close and settling her before him. The engine block was hot between her thighs and she was hot between his, his chest flush up against her back as he gripped the handlebars on either side of her.

“Hold on,” he said over her shoulder. “This is gonna be fast.”

Twenty five minutes later, Bella completely understood why boys were so enamored of motorcycles. It was exhilarating, really, hurtling along just open and free and exposed to all the light and sound and sky. Everything about it made her skin sing, her nerves hum, and she might never get over this feeling for as long as she lived. It was like flying. Like falling. The wind in her face and the shift of his arms around her when they took a turn. The brush of his scratchy chin against her neck and she could have sworn the soft flesh of his lips traced a line from her shoulder to her ear when they hit a straightaway canyon chopped through a towering wall of trees. The way his thighs tightened around her when he shifted gears, how he could set one steady foot down and hold up the entire enormous weight of him and her and that giant bike all on one leg.

They stopped thirty miles down the coast. Half an hour of wind had Bella’s hair in knots and her legs vibrating. He helped her off the bike and held onto her hand for a minute until she could feel her feet again before he turned the bike off and rested it on its kickstand. The sudden silence made her ears ring and she couldn’t look at him, she just couldn’t, so she walked down to the water again and plopped down right at the edge.

“You’re gonna get wet down there,” he called, settling in the sand ten yards up the beach from her, a safe distance from the tide. Bella turned away from the water and sat on her feet, water lapping at her toes, looking up at him with the mountains behind and the dark black sky above and him lit up silver like he’d fallen off the face of the moon. She wanted to crawl up the beach and kiss his face right off, but she dug her fingers into the wet sand between her knees and stayed put.

“You might be a total slime ball,” she said.

“I might?”

Bella nodded. “What if you are?”

“Wanna get slimed?” he asked. Even in the dark, she could see that cocky grin, glowing white. The ocean was rushing in behind her and the sky was pressing down on her and this boy was pinning her to the sand even though he wasn’t even touching her at all.

She shook her head. “Too messy.”

“Ok, well . . .” He leaned forward, elbows to his knees. “What if I’m not a slime ball?”

“Prove it.”

He scowled. “Where’d you get off stealing cars anyway? Good girl like you . . .”

“It was Rose’s idea.” Bella shrugged. “Plus, it’s fun.”

“Well, I hope you had fun destroying the Bird,” he grumbled. “Was it worth it? How was she?”

“So good,” Bella sighed. “Rode like a dream.”

He licked his lips. “I’ll bet.”

---

Edward

They played twenty six rounds of Truth or Lie to get her up the beach. Twenty six rounds of questions answered by movement, a foot forward at a time for each correct stab he made at figuring this girl out. Twenty six rounds to move her a mere dozen feet.

Which meant that he knew a lot about what she wasn’t.

She wasn’t a sister and she wasn’t a natural blonde. She didn’t like licorice and she wasn’t born in December. She didn’t like pink and she didn’t like to draw. She didn’t eat chicken and she wasn’t ever gonna get a tattoo, at least not as far as she was concerned. By the time she was nestled beside him in the sand, he was certain that this girl wasn’t at all what he’d expected either.

“You ever smoke a doob before?” he asked, digging a joint from his pack of smokes.

“Of course,” she said, snatching it away. “I’m not a total prude.”

“Glad to hear that.” He grinned at her, watching her light the joint and puff deeply twice before handing it back, waving smoke away from her face. He took a drag as she exhaled and grabbed her by the chin, popping her mouth open and sealing his own right over it. She gasped, grabbed his wrists, but inhaled, eyes wide and on him the whole time and good god, her mouth tasted like sweet and ripe and full-on summer. He freed her lips and licked the taste of her off himself as she let his cloud of smoke drift around them, her mouth glistening.

“You just kissed me.” She sounded shocked.

“That wasn’t no kiss.” He shook his head at her.

“Sure it was. You didn’t even ask.”

“I gotta ask?”

“It’s not nice to take things without asking.”

“I watched you steal my car, you know? Let you, actually, ‘cause it was something to watch . . .  you on your knees like that.” He winked at her, eyes still on her mouth. “Tell me your name.”

“My name?”

He nodded. “I been calling you indecent things in my head all day. You better give me the real thing.”

“Like what? What have you been calling me?”

“I ain’t sayin’. Give it to me. The real thing.”

“Ask nice,” she said and he kissed her again. Harder this time. Softer. Everything in between. Lips and tongues and breath all tied up together and he knew he was good at this. Knew just how to angle his head and dig his tongue in deep. Knew just how to hold her face close and suck on her lip like she was really candy and he was just searching for that hot melting center of her.

“Nice enough for you?” he asked, lips brushing hers.

“Bella,” she whispered, out of breath.

“You’ve gotta be shitting me.”

“No.” She shook her head. “That’s the truth.”

“Well that’s gonna work out just fine, doll. I been calling you beautiful in my head this whole time anyway.”

Next

Author's Note - Hadley Hemingway is my rock star. I'm her groupie. Follow her everywhere.

Don't Look / No Promises

FOUR

Bella 

“I look like a whore,” Bella said.

“No, you look like a slut. Difference,” Rose sighed from her spot on the bed, not bothering to look.

“There’s always a difference with you.” Bella struggled to adjust the tiny shorts Rose demanded she put on. There was a midsummer party on the beach that night, an invitation printed on brown paper and burned around the edges which decreed that attendees come in costume, or at least a mask. Bella thought it was all a little ridiculous. By her own standards, she dressed up every day. It was fun, for the most part, until Rose had an excuse to pull this kind of crap.

Bella looked like she belonged on the back of that guy’s bike. The torn up t-shirt and the shorts and the tights, good god, what was even going on here?

“The boots are a no,” Rose said absently.

Bella glanced down at the worn, black leather boots she’d laced up over her calves. They were flat soled and kind of dirty but considering the last pair of shoes Rose had gotten her caught in, she wasn’t taking any chances.

“The boots stay,” Bella said, as Alice sauntered through her bedroom door, effectively taking all focus off that evening’s footwear.

“What did you do to your hair?!” Bella cried.

“It’s called a bob.” Alice ruffled the chin length fringe with her fingers, smiling.

“You got a hairstyle named after a man? What on earth were you thinking?” Bella shook her head, staring at her friend’s scandalously short haircut.

“I think it’s hot.” Both girls turned to stare at Rose, who was staring at Alice. “What?” Rose shrugged. “I like it. It does something good for you.”

“Rose.” Alice slapped a hand over her heart, speaking in that snarky tone she’d perfected. “You’re being so nice to me. What’s wrong?”

“Quit being a complicated bitch and just accept the compliment. Lord . . .” Rose sighed. Alice turned toward the mirror and Bella tried to adjust the shorts some more, the black tights beneath them riding in all the wrong places, and the room fell silent. When Bella finally reached an agreement with her clothing and straightened, Rose was staring at Alice through the mirror.

Both of them were licking their lips.

By the time the three girls arrived at the beach, the party was in full swing. They were late, very late, but that was because Alice almost refused to play along with Rose’s costumes, which had Bella stripping to her underwear before Rose threw a temper tantrum. As it were, Bella was still in the damned tights. Alice had compromised with jeans that were obscenely tight and a shirt cropped off at her ribs. Rose was in heels that looked impossible to walk in and a dress so small she could barely bend over without showing off stuff she should be keeping to herself. Alice was still glaring at Rose and Rose was still sneaking glances at Alice and Bella had no idea what was up with these two. They were always at each other’s throats, but it hadn’t always been this way. Usually they were tag-teaming Bella, yet it felt like they had no time for her lately, so they focused on beating each other down. Bella left them to their bickering after half an hour of listening to them argue over Rose’s sexual escapades, wandering down to the water by herself. She didn’t really know anyone here, a mix of kids from the south side of town and the reservation, not the kind she typically mixed with. She felt out of place in her costume. In her trio. In her skin.

“Damn, doll. You’re killing it.”

He appeared beside her, the guy on the bike, eyeing her before biting his lip. He hadn’t followed the rules at all, in the same jeans and the same t-shirt and the same embroidered vest that he wore every other time she’d seen him. He looked like he wanted to eat her.

She felt ridiculous.

“It’s just an act.” Bella shook her head.

“You’d look fucking perfect riding on my … bike.” His jaw twitched.

“You’d look real pretty with a bruise on your cheek,” she hissed back, hoping she sounded threatening. Judging from the smirk that spread across his lips, she didn’t.

“Dare ya.” He winked.

Bella crossed her arms over her chest, shaking her head.

“C’mon, I’ll give you a free hit and then we can start playing by the rules.” He tapped his cheek with a finger and winked at her again. “You know you want to.”

“I don’t want anything from you,” Bella scowled.

“Come on, doll, don’t break my heart.”

“Better than your car.”

“Yeah, well, turns out . . . it’s worse than we thought.” He eyed her pointedly. “There’s a crack in the axle and the gearbox is dust. My pretty Bird is broken.”

“That’s too bad. Hope you figure out who did it.”

“I’m getting closer,” he said, edging toward her.

“And what will you do if you catch up?”

“When,” he corrected her. “When I catch up. Seems to me, she owes me.” He licked his lips. “Big time.”

“What could you possibly want?” Bella snapped and he arched a placid eyebrow.

“You on all fours. Biting my sheets,” he said.

Bella’s mouth dropped open. “Did you really just say that out loud? You did . . .”

“I want a lot more than that, doll, but I can’t say the rest. Don’t want to scare you off just yet.”

---

Edward

What a feisty little shit.

She threatened to slap him and then she blushed apple red, when he told her what he really wanted. And he hadn’t even told her the best parts yet. How he wanted her on all fours and biting, yes, but also how he dreamt about her every night for an entire week and that he wanted to hear her moan his name in every different way possible. The loud and quiet and soft and raw and taking and giving. He wanted to hold onto her hair and wanted to leave a couple handprints on her backside. Wanted her to paint his neck up with hickeys and hollow out her cheeks around his dick.

He’d never gone down on a girl before, but fuck if he didn’t want to bury himself between her legs and let her ride his face.

He couldn’t tell her all that.

Not yet.  

“You do realize this is a costume party, right? You were supposed to dress up,” she accused.

“Oh, I did. I’m the heartbroken biker with a couple of ghosts and great big vice for cute girls with smart mouths. You, in this …” He waved a hand up and down her, licking his lips again. “You look like you could be my girl, on the back of my bike.”

“It’s stupid, I hate it.” Bella fidgeted.

“It’s perfect. Except,” he faltered, and dropped to one knee in front of her. Bella took a step back, startled, but he caught her by the knee, producing a pocket knife and flicking it open. He thumbed the blade and looked up at her, a smirk on his face and his hand gripping her hard by the leg. “Hold still,” he whispered.

She trembled as he plucked the tights off her thigh, lifting the sheer fabric just enough to nick it with the tip of the blade. A hole the size of an orange gaped on her thigh, baring flesh, soft pale pink in a bed of black.

“Stop it,” she whispered, voice wavering as he cut another hole, bigger this time near her ankle. His knees were digging into the gravel beach and his cheek was pressed up against the pocket of her shorts and the space between her legs was so fucking close to his face that he could barely concentrate.

“Not a chance, doll.”

Another nick to her opposite leg and he tucked two fingers inside, her warm skin right there as he pulled at the tights, gaping the pinprick into a hole big enough to disappear beneath the hem of her shorts, baring the soft pale inside of her thigh. He licked his lips and tried to hold back a groan. He had to let go. Stand up. Step back and put some distance between them because he was moments away from pressing his nose up against that seam in her shorts. He shoved his hands into his pockets, hoping his stiff dick wasn’t too noticeable, and studied his handiwork from a few feet away. The holes in those tights, holy mother, they made his knees go weak all over. Her breath was coming short and her eyes were big and wide and she was stretching her arms out at her sides like she looking for something to hold onto.

“Much better,” he told her.

She just shook her head at him, speechless, it seemed.

“Let me take you for a ride,” he said, reaching for her hand. She balled her fingers up in the a fist that fit perfectly into his palm and he held her tight as she tried to step away.

“No, thanks,” she stammered.

“Not that kind of ride,” he said.

Yet, he thought.

“Then what?” she asked.

“On my bike.”

“I don’t trust you.”

“You don’t gotta trust me, doll. You just gotta say yes.”

Next


Author's Note: Hadley Hemingway fixes my mistakes, and then I go back in a probably fuck it all up again. Errors belong entirely to me.

Random news and ramblings

Check-in time:

- It took a bunch of fighting with some not-so-nice nerd type 'helpers' on the blogger forum, but I think I may have solved the email notification problem. Seems Blogger can't handle such a concept on it's own . . . shocking, I know. Come to find out I need a whole separate account with Feedburner in order to notify followers, which then entails burning and pinging and setting default numbers high or lower when it all should probably just be easy. 

*shakes fist at Blogger*

As far as I know, notifications are now working, the first of those notifications going out for chapter three of Don't Look / No Promises.


- I've been asked a couple of times if I'm planning to post Don't Look / No Promises to ff.net. The answer to this is no. I do not like that site, the people who run it, the guest reviewers . . . etc. I pulled my stories for a reason and will not be posting new material there. This is where you can find me and my words for the time being. I have given Hadley Hemingway permission to post DL/NP to her own ff.net site, as the story is for her, but she has yet to make a decision about that.


- On that note: there is a difference between a simple Beta and Hadley Hemingway. Correcting periods and commas is standard but a true Beta, one who takes that term seriously, is someone who steps even deeper into the story. Asks hard questions, points out discrepancies or inconsistencies, pushes their writer toward a better manuscript, a better story. Sometimes it involves kicking and screaming (mostly on my part) but at this point the term 'Beta' just doesn't do Hadley justice anymore. She is a co-author, right there with me for every step of the way, just as invested in these plot lines and characters as I am. Sure, she might correct my missing commas and my run on sentences, but that it only the tip of her giant iceberg. 

I found a treasure buried in the deep, dark masses of this fandom, the best one around hands down, and I'm keeping her. She will never get rid of me. 

- As for future projects . . . Dry spells must come and go in a writer's life, just like forests must burn once a millenia and droughts must break with a torrential downpour. I have a multitude of documents intended for several different fates. Some are destined for book covers, some might find their way here and if I can rope her down, a certain someone has penned a couple chapters of something with me that I'm really excited about. 

- I'm also cooking something . . .  something small but also really, really big . . .  and will tell you about it when DL/NP finishes posting. 

Stay tuned.

XO

HBM

Don't Look / No Promises

THREE

Bella

Bella was driving her father’s new station wagon down Hemlock Street two days later when she saw him again.

The radio was tuned to the newest station, the one her father grumbled about, that dreadful rock and roll, the Chief called it. It was her favorite. If she turned it up loud enough, she could feel the guitars in her heartstrings, could feel the drums behind her eyes, the melody trapped in her blood until it was singing along and she slipped right into the costume folds of the song. The girl with the body of a lover and the soul of a siren. She wanted to be those guitar strings, caressed by rough fingers until she was wailing. She wanted to be that microphone, the place where chapped lips and exhaled breath pressed up against. She wanted to be those drums, pounded upon until the rhythm was buried beneath her skin strong enough that she’d never forget it.

The light ahead changed, flashing red, and Bella stomped hard on the brake peddle, her bottom lifting off the seat with the effort to stop the beast in time. The Ford was too big for her, too much power her father said, just before he grumbled about the radio. She’d promised to wear her seatbelt. Promised to follow all the rules and to err on the side of caution. She was a good girl, a copper’s daughter.

But she had also promised not to listen to the radio either.

A roar suddenly drown out the music as a motorcycle pulled up beside her. She glanced over and then whipped her head straight forward, gripping the steering wheel tight as she gulped. It was him. The guy with the blue car and the hair combed back shiny and slick. The wind had blown it loose, now messy and tumbled on his head, and he had the same kind of glasses her father wore with the shiny reflective lenses.

He had a tattoo on his arm and a dirty white t shirt and a vest covered in patches and a face that made her want to crawl out of her skin.

“Well, hi there, doll.”

Oh God.

He was leaning in the window, the passenger’s side, his arms folded over the door and a godawful sexy smirk on his face. The sunglasses now dangled from one hand and his eyes were so green that Bella felt a little dazed. His bike was propped on its side behind him, abandoned.

“I didn’t know you had a bike,” she stuttered.

“Yeah, well, some chick stole my car.” He winked at her. “She jacked the tranny somewhere halfway to the ocean. It took me and the boys two days to get her back to town and it’s gonna take another two weeks to get her back up and running.”

Bella’s mouth fell open.

She clamped it shut.

“That was your car?” she asked, trying to sound surprised.

“Beauty, isn’t she?” He licked his lips and Bella wasn’t entirely convinced he was talking about the car anymore. The way he was looking at her was downright indecent. “Sold my soul for that jewel, hurts to see her treated so badly.”

The light changed, flashing green, and Bella blinked, seeing double.

“Let go,” she told him and pressed her foot to the gas before he had time to respond, lurching forward, almost running over his foot. She sped ahead, heart fluttering hard enough to blur her vision, almost making a complete getaway except for the next unfortunate red light.

“You keep running from me like this and I’m gonna have to chase you!” he yelled over the roar of his motorcycle as he crawled to a stop beside her again. Bella flushed, gripping the wheel even tighter, certain that her father would kill her if she wrecked his nice new car over a boy.

“I’m not running, I’m driving,” she told him, chancing a glance in his direction. Bad move. He had his glasses back on and he was gripping the handlebars tight enough to make his tendons stand upright and he was leaning toward her, angling the bike with that cocky grin that made her stomach tumble.

“That what you call it? ‘Cause the Bird was still smoking when I found her and I don’t think they call that driving, doll.”

Wink.

Green light.

Bella lurched forward, nearly stalling the car, and raced ahead of him again.

God hated her, probably because she didn’t go to church on the regular anymore. She hit another red.

---

Edward

Edward chuckled to himself as he pulled up beside her for the third time. She was blushing such a pretty color and her eyes were bright, looking rattled and sexy and guilty.

He loved it.

“What would your daddy think about you speeding like this?” he chided her.

“He’d tell me to speed away from boys on motorcycles.”

“Ah, we’re not all bad. Some of us are just looking for a little fun.”

She glared at him and, oh man, he loved that too. Her face wrinkled and her lips pulled down but he had a thing for girls with a mean streak. They were the ones that looked all sweet and nice and won over your parents, then clawed the shit out of your back in your steamed-up car before you drove them home. Kept you on a leash, at arm’s length, until they broke, and then they were on you with biting and clawing and the kind of filthy language that could get them a one way ticket to hell if they ever confessed to it.

This one had it buried deep, but it was there.

“I am not a play toy,” she spat.

“Sure about that? ‘Cause I play for keeps.”

She took off again, straight up running the red light. A delivery truck skidded to halt in the intersection to avoid her and he watched her go,  shaking his head in amazement. Girl damn near killed herself to get away from him and he didn’t even know her name. He’d spent most of the day with his hands under the Bird, trying to piece the poor thing back together and she had the balls to deny causing the damage. He wanted to bend her over the hood and rub her nose in it, like a bad dog who shit in his shoe. Give her a good spanking to make up for the new tranny and the chips to the paint job.

He wanted to spread her out across that big back seat and make her beg him for forgiveness.

He drove the bike all around town looking for her, imagining the slide of her panties down her thighs and what her mouth might feel like. Spotted her car in front of a big house with a big gate and sat outside for hours, wondering if she’s ever been with a guy before. He hoped so. The innocent ones, the ones who needed you to take over and love on them, give them something soft and sweet, they weren’t for him. He wanted a little bit of knowledge. A little understanding, maybe some confidence, enough to get them upright and demanding. Enough so that they could tell him where to lick and kiss and bite without stuttering, pant harder, faster, don’t stop, don’t stop, fuck me, don’t stop instead of the virginal silent treatment.

He knew it was loneliness, this infatuation over her. Seth and Jacob tried, but they weren’t filling up the big gaping hole in his middle. He was still haunted, still surprised, still too bruised to even think about it much but when he did, it felt like dying must feel. A pull in his gut that just didn’t feel survivable, as though his insides were tearing away and his blood was breaking loose. It had been more than two years and even still, he ached deep in his belly when he thought about it.

Basically, he blamed everyone and everything but himself.

Next