Текст книги "Rock Bottom"

Автор книги: R. K. Lilley

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Текущая страница: 2 (всего у книги 15 страниц)

Frankie shook her head, sighing loudly and dramatically.  “I don’t know.  Those guys do have a rule about that.  They don’t hook up with each other’s girlfriends, ex or not.”

“Yet they’ve slept up with the same women before.  Makes no sense.”

“I doesn’t make any sense to me either.  That is definitely a guy thing.  Somehow calling a chick your girlfriend changes everything.”

My phone dinged with another message, and I had the strong urge to chuck it out the window.  “I need to stop going to these stupid parties with him all the time.  They’re pure drama.”  If I was honest with myself, I was terrified for him to go to one without me.  Twatalie seemed to be lurking everywhere, just waiting for her chance.

“That’s not a bad idea.  You have enough on your plate without dealing with Dean’s instigating ass.”

“I could have gotten some studying done tonight, or even just helped Jerry with the boys.  Anything would have been better than going out and watching my man get chummy with his ex.”

“I know I’ve said it before, but if it helps I’ll say it again; I don’t think there’s a chance in hell he’d ever touch her with a ten foot pole.”

It did help.

We ate burgers and skipped the fries.  We’d decided that the fries were the fattening part, and the burgers were just good solid protein.

We were heading back before I checked my texts.  I rolled my eyes when I saw that there were thirteen of them.  The last one told me all I needed to know about his mood.

Tristan:  Where the fuck did you go?

I made a face at my phone for that one, and my reply was short.

Danika:  Left with Frankie.

His answer was immediate.

Tristan:  Why didn’t you tell me you were leaving?

That was all the invitation I needed to vent.

Danika:  I would have, but you were busy talking to Nat.

My phone started ringing, and I cringed inwardly before answering.

“Hey…” I began.

“She fucking walked up to me!” his angry voice was loud enough that I held the phone away from my ear.  “I wanted nothing to do with her.  I never do.  Where are you?  I’m coming to get you.”

“We’re driving back to the party now.”

“We’re ten minutes out!” Frankie called loud enough to be heard on his end.

“Are you mad about this bullshit?” Tristan asked, his voice low and mean and just his tone would have had me mad if I wasn’t already.

“I don’t know.  Are you mad enough about Natalie sleeping with Dean after you broke up to fight him over it?”

He cursed on the other end.  “That is not what happened.  Dean is just trying to start shit, as usual.”

“Answer me this then:  Are you upset that they slept together?”

“I’m not mad at Natalie.  Believe me when I say that I couldn’t care less who she hooks up with.  I’m upset with Dean.  He’s crossing boundaries we set up fucking years ago, and he’s starting shit between you and me when there’s no call for it, and it’s none of his fucking business.”

He both had and hadn’t answered my question, but I suddenly felt silly about the entire thing.  He’d only been talking to her, and it wasn’t like they’d gone off alone.

His voice suddenly got very soft and from the first word, I knew I was done for.  “Let’s not fight, sweetheart.  You know you’re the only one I want.”

Did I know that?  The man had gotten around before he met me.  Hell, he’d been getting around even after that.  But he had been on his best behavior since we’d become exclusive.  I should know, since we were practically attached at the hip.

“I don’t want to fight either,” I conceded.

I glared at Frankie as she sent a smirk in my direction.  Everyone knew that Tristan had me wrapped around his little finger.

“Does this mean we skip straight to the make-up sex?” Tristan’s low voice rumbled across the line, making things low in my stomach clench.  “Want me to pull your hair and give you a rough ride, sweetheart?  Fuck the angst out?”

I snuck a peek at Frankie, and by the irrepressible grin on her face, she was hearing every word he was saying.  “I’ll see you in a minute,” I barked at him, hanging up.

“You’re blushing,” Frankie observed with a laugh.

“That man is shameless,” I grumbled.

CHAPTER THREE

DANIKA

Tristan was standing in the middle of the street, arms crossed over his chest, as we drove up.  He looked ready to fight…or pull some hair and do some hard fucking.

“Man, he’s got some impressive arms,” Frankie remarked.

Did he ever.  They were bulging and tatted up and looking ready to bust the seams of his black T-shirt.

He looked mean, and gorgeous, and his glowering expression did contrary things to my libido.

God, I wanted him.

“I’m not gonna lie, he is fucking hot, if you’re into that kind of thing, which it’s apparent you are.”

I barely heard Frankie as I watched Tristan stride around to my side of the car, pulling the door open before we were even fully stopped at the curb.

“Relax, loverboy,” Frankie called to him, “we were only gone an hour.”

He barely answered her, just giving her the most perfunctory wave before he tugged me out of the car.

“Let’s go home,” he growled, pretty much dragging me after him down the sidewalk.

“Goodnight!” Frankie shouted loudly.

“Call you tomorrow!” I yelled back, suddenly just as anxious as Tristan to get us to his car.  All it had taken was one smoldering glance.

“You like fighting,” I accused him, my voice low.

“Hardly.  What I like is fucking you, and I can’t do that when you’re ditching me at parties.”

I just glared at him, no comeback coming to mind.  It didn’t help that he was making me equal parts horny and mad.

“We grabbed a burger.  You were busy, so I don’t see how you can complain.”

“What do you want me to do, run when she comes near me?  Should I have shoved her in the pool?”

That painted an appealing picture that had me smiling.  “You might have earned some brownie points, if you had.”

He grimaced as he handed me into the car.

I changed the subject, just as tired as he was of talking about Natalie.  “You sure you’re good to drive?”

“Yeah.  We were talking more than drinking.”  He got behind the wheel, not looking at me as he started the car.

“Take off your panties.”  His tone was casual, idle even.

My nipples tightened, a heavy, delicious feeling pooling between my legs.  “We aren’t that far from your apartment,” I protested, even as my hands inched my skirt up, pulling at the tiny string of my panties.  I yanked them down impatiently.

“Just a warm up, pudding.”

I swallowed hard as he started driving with one hand, and the other went to my upper thigh, rubbing hard.  “I’m already warmed up.”  I’d come a long way from needing much foreplay.  He had me well tuned, in a constant state of rut that matched his own.

“Open your legs.  Prove it.”

I parted my legs, my hips moving towards his hand.  He inched it higher, but not enough.

“You wet?  Show me.  I want your pussy crying for me.”

I grabbed his hand, tugging it until his knuckles grazed my entrance.  We both sucked in a breath at the light contact.

He turned his wrist in my hand, shoving two fingers in deep before I knew his intent.  My eyes shut and I moaned loudly.

“God, I love your hands,” I groaned.

He dragged his fingers out slowly, wriggling them along my inner walls, making me squirm and curse.  He punched them back in hard, and I kicked a shoe off, digging one heel into the car seat, tilting my hips up as far as they’d go, lost to sensation, worried only about my own race toward release, the world coming down to what his fingers were doing to me.

He got me off fast, knowing just where to touch and how hard to work me.

I only realized that the car was stopped as I came back down from my orgasm, his fingers dragging out of me.  I started to sit up as I saw that his jeans were unfastened.  His cock was bared, hard and prominent, one big hand fisting it.

I moaned at the sight.

“Let me,” I offered, trying to sit up.  He jammed his fingers back inside of me, pinning me where I was.

“No.  I want this right here,” he moved his fingers to demonstrate what ‘this’ was, “so I’ll wait until we’re home.  I want a rough ride, so I’m just warming you up.  I’m going to nail you to the wall.”

“Ahhh,” I gasped as his fingers started up a rhythm, then protested when they abruptly left me.

“Buckle up, boo.  We’re going home.”

I sat up and fastened my seat belt, eyeing up his bared erection as he started to drive.  I lasted maybe thirty seconds before my hand began to inch toward it.

I gripped him hard, having to lean far to the left to get a good hold of it.  My fingers barely touched around the girth of him.  I thought that was the hottest thing in the world.

I stroked him roughly once, twice, before he stayed my hand.  I watched in rapt fascination as one pearly drop of liquid seeped out of his engorged tip.

I was out of my seatbelt, leaning over him the second he pulled the car into the parking lot of his apartment, my mouth hungry as I tongued the head of his cock.

He pulled me off him by my hair, giving me a pained smile.  “Like I said, I’m waiting to fuck you.  Get out of the car, boo.”

I had a brief urge to sass him for that, but I squelched it, instead hightailing it upstairs.  He had plans, and I was on board with them, regardless of what exactly they were.  My libido had gone into overdrive with this man, and become a thing beyond my control.

It was like a magic trick in itself, the speed in which he unlocked the apartment door, shut it behind us, and had me pinned against it.

My heels dug into his ass as he ground into me.  Our kisses were hard and rough, hot and intoxicating, hungry and insatiable.

He buried himself inside of me with one sure thrust, and the fever took us as he gave me the rough ride he’d promised, muttering curses and endearments into my ear as he rocked my world.

“Gonna fuck you ’til neither of us can walk straight tomorrow,” he growled into my mouth.

I melted.  Deep waves of rapture took me as he pulled out and shot back in with long, heavy thrusts, fast and hard, my hips moving with him, each thrust slamming me into the door at my back.

“Love you,” I gasped as I came.

His back bowed, and he came, buried deep inside of me, shouting with his pleasure.

“God, that was intense,” I breathed.

“Oh, we’re not finished.”

He pulled out still twitching, no sooner letting my feet touch the ground than he was dragging me straight to his bedroom.

He pushed me onto the bed, his expression fierce.  And tender.

God, I loved him, loved this, adored everything he did to me, every touch, every taste, making me love an act that had terrorized me for most of my adult life.

He flipped me onto my stomach, lifting my hips to just the right angle, the head of his cock pulsing against me, barely pushing inside, instead teasing me relentlessly.

“Talk to me, sweetheart,” he rasped into my ear.  “I want you to tell me just what you want.  Make it dirty.”

My hips strained back against him, my back arching as his hand palmed my breast.  “Fuck me hard.”  I gasped as the first perfect inch of him breached me.  “Pull my hair and pound me into this bed.”

That startled a rough laugh out of him.  The laugh was cut off short, though, as he sank into me, pushing hard and deep, stretching me, filling me until every nerve inside of me vibrated to life.

He took my request literally, pounding into me until I thought I’d leave a permanent indent in his bed, my face buried so deep in his soft mattress that I had to push up on my elbows just to take a breath.

He didn’t let up, taking me with relentless purpose.  It was a sheet clawing kind of fuck, and he had me screaming before he was done.

He lay heavy on my back after we finished, panting, his hips still grinding down, pinning me.  “You okay?” he panted.  “I think I lost all brain function for a bit there.”

“Mmmhmm,” I murmured, still breathing hard as I drifted back down to earth.

It was a long time before he shifted off me, and even then he draped himself over me.  My man was a cuddler, and I couldn’t have been happier about it.

“It’s going to be tough to give this up for five days a week,” he mused, his voice sleepy.

That made me stiffen.  I’d nearly forgotten about the record deal.  Maybe my mind had blocked it out.  The entire thing terrified me.  I knew it wouldn’t be good for us.  Good for Tristan, maybe.  At least I hoped so.  But certainly not good for the two of us together.

His hand tightened on my hip, and I realized that I’d been spacing out while he’d been asking me a question.  “Are you sure you’re okay with this?  If you don’t like it, I won’t do it.  I don’t want to be gone that much anyway.”

I patted his hand, shutting my eyes tight.  He was hugging my back, and didn’t see the tears slipping past my lids.  “Of course I’m okay with it.  You can’t pass up this chance, Tristan, and we’ll still see each other on weekends.”

“God, that sounds awful.  Five days a week is ridiculous.  I’ll see if I can’t change their minds about the schedule.”

In the end, they stuck to the schedule.  Five days away, two days home, week after week.  It began to take its toll on us almost right away; Tristan coming home more tired each time, more strung out.  I felt him inching further away from me every time he left, and the absences started to stretch into longer lengths of time, days turning into weeks.

We were drifting apart.  I felt helpless to stop the pattern, but still, I held onto him for dear life.

CHAPTER FOUR

MONTHS LATER

DANIKA

The neighborhood was scary, even by trailer park standards.  It was just the sort of place I’d pictured her living for all these years apart.  In my mind, it had always been either a dump like this or her not living at all.  She just led that kind of a life.

I knocked on the door, waited a solid minute, then knocked again.  I could hear the TV on inside and there was an old, beat-up Nissan Sentra in the carport.  This was the place, and somebody was home.  I wasn’t leaving until that somebody answered the door.

After a solid five minutes of this, I tried the door.  It wasn’t locked, and with more than a little trepidation, I opened it.

The inside of the trailer was even smaller than it appeared outside, and I could make out most of the inside of the place with just a glance.

My mother, rail thin and haggard, sat slumped on a sofa that looked like it had been through hell.  Knowing her, and remembering my childhood, it probably had.  The woman was a bundle of apathetic chaos.

She was aimed at a TV that was running an episode of some reality show, but I didn’t think she was actually watching it.  She was zoning out, and even at the entrance of a daughter she hadn’t seen in years, her gaze barely shifted, and her face didn’t so much as twitch.

The bedroom didn’t have its own wall to separate it from the living quarters, and so I saw some man’s feet sticking out of the bottom of the bed across the room.  I hadn’t expected anything different.  Even ravaged by her addiction, I could see the beauty in my mother’s face.  That, paired with the fact that she wasn’t at all picky, meant that she’d never had a second’s trouble finding a man.

Keeping one around for long, well now, that was another story.

“Hi,” I said to her quietly, mindful of the strange man just a few feet away.

“Hey,” she said tonelessly.  Nothing else.

I wasn’t certain it had ever been said aloud, but I’d always had the acute sense that my sister and I had been nothing but a burden to my mother.  I was grown now and hadn’t seen her in years, and still, I saw the same look in her eyes that I always had.

I wasn’t wanted here.

I never had been.

I grabbed a short stool near the door, carrying it with me to sit down eye level to her.  I made sure not to block her view of the TV.  I wasn’t here to rile her.

“The man and woman that came to see you a few years ago, Jerry and Bev,” I began, having rehearsed the words like a nervous child, “they are very good people.  They’ve been wonderful to me.  They’re very dependable employers and close friends of mine.  They take care of me, provide a good home for me.”

There was no change in her expression, no recognition in her eyes that I’d said anything that should affect her.

“I’m doing well.  I’m a full-time student, and I work part-time during the semester.”

Nothing.

“I’m still taking dance classes.  I don’t have a lot of time for dancing, with school and work, but I haven’t given up.  When things calm down, I fully plan to pursue that.”

“Do you have any cash?” she asked, as though it was the most reasonable question in the world, and I hadn’t been talking about something entirely different.

I swallowed, stung when I shouldn’t have been, further disillusioned when I had no right to it.

“There’s a man asleep in the other room.  If I don’t pay him what I owe him, he’s going to hurt me.”

“Should I call the police?”

“That won’t help me.  It’s…complicated.  Do you have any cash?”

Even when she talked about him hurting her, there was no expression on her face.  She’d been dead inside for a very long time.

I pulled out my wallet, fishing out what little cash I had.  I knew I wasn’t really helping her, but being an enabler was deeply ingrained in me, thanks to her, and the thought of the creep in the bedroom hurting her was something I’d prevent, if I could.

I handed her forty dollars, and she took it without a qualm.

“That all you have?” she asked blankly.  She was a shell of a person.  A zombie.

I nodded.  “I don’t keep much cash on me.  It’s not convenient.”

“What about a debit card?  I won’t take much, and I’ll send it back to you.”

My mouth hardened.  I’d heard that before.  “I’m not comfortable with that.”

Finally, that got a reaction from her, even if only a slight one.  Her face formed into a ghost of a sneer.  “I’m just trying to survive here, same as you, same as anyone.”

I didn’t think she was the same as me.  I knew that her demons had won a long time ago.  I still planned to put up a hell of a fight with mine.

“I’m working my way through school, and I don’t have any more money to spare.  That’s how I survive.”

“You got my looks, but that’s it.  Where you got that attitude of yours, I’ll never know.  Dahlia didn’t get our looks, but at least when I talk to her, I know I’m talking to my daughter.”

I latched onto that.  It was the entire reason I’d come.  Whatever digs she’d been trying to get in, I ignored completely.  “Have you talked to Dahlia?  Has she come to see you?”

Her sneer was back.  “Saw her a few months ago.  That one doesn’t think she’s too good for her mother.”

I processed that.

I’d begun to look for my sister about a month prior.  Just telling Jerry about my search had unearthed some clues.  Unbeknownst to me, he’d found my mother years ago, at the beginning of my employment, and paid her a visit.  I’d been very young, and he’d just wanted to be sure that my mother was okay with her daughter, who was barely out of high school, working as a live-in nanny.  He had found what I found today, a woman that cared about nothing.

The casual observer might have mistaken it all for apathy, but I was not the casual observer.  I’d been watching this indifference all my life, and it was a step beyond even that.

Any soul she’d had she’d lost before I had memories.

It had been a last resort, but having her address was a lead I couldn’t ignore.

“Do you have her address or even her phone number?  I’d like to find her.  She and I have been out of touch for a while.”

“She told me all about what happened with you and that old man.  I doubt she’ll want to talk to you.”

My spine stiffened, and it took every ounce of my will not to visibly flinch.

Those memories had been buried in some dark corner of my mind, but just the knowledge that my mother knew what had happened felt as though they’d been unearthed afresh.  I felt exposed and filthy in a way I hadn’t experienced in years.

“I’d like to at least try,” I explained to her calmly.  “It’s been years, and she is my sister.”

“You’re no different than me.  What you did with that old man proves that.  You can look at me like I’m the dirt beneath your feet all you want, but we’re the same.  Living wretched lives and getting by however we can.”

“You missed your calling,” I shot back, falling back on sarcasm, as usual, to get by, “you should have been a poet.”  I wanted to rail at her, the one who’d abandoned us to the mercy of twisted strangers, but I dug deep and managed to stop with that one barb.

“I don’t have her number, don’t know where she lives.  She’s the one visits me, from time to time.”

“How often?”

“How should I know?  Do I look like I keep a calendar?  Whenever she feels like it, I guess.”

“Does she live in town, or does she drive in from somewhere else?”

“You sure you don’t have any more cash?”

“Are you saying you’ll have answers for me if I bring you more money?”

She shrugged and said something noncommittal, but I suddenly wasn’t concentrating on her, my focus shifting to the man stirring on the bed.

“I should be going,” I began, standing up to leave.

A shiver of fear went through my body when the large man sat up, his black glare going immediately to me.  He was older, with salt and pepper hair and an intimidatingly large frame.

I needed to get out of there.  One glance and I knew that I did not want to be at this man’s mercy.

I took a few steps back, reaching into my purse, trying clumsily to find the note I’d painstakingly written out for my sister.

The man was across the room, in my face before I could find the piece of paper.  He snatched my purse out of my hands.  He had my wallet in his hands before I could blink, rifling through it as though he had every right.  He shoved it back in the bag, glaring at me.  His black eyes lacked any sign of humanity.

I backed away two more steps.  He followed, the look on his face as menacing as any I’d seen.

“This your girl, bitch?” he growled at my mother over his shoulder.  “It must be your girl.  She looks just like you.  Girl, you know your bitch of a mom owes me five grand?”

I shook my head, trembling in fear, because for every step I took back, he took two, crowding me against the door.

He thrust my purse back at me, speaking in a low, harsh voice.  “What were you digging for in that bag?”

I shook my head, too frightened to process the question quickly.

“Answer me!”  He shouted, one beefy hand gripping my chin.

“N-n a note.  It was just a note.”

He dug in the purse, pulling out my letter to my sister and shaking it in my face.  “This?  This what you come for?”

I nodded, then whimpered as he crumpled the paper in his fist, pried my mouth open roughly, and shoved it between my teeth.

“Get the fuck out of here!  You come back when you have this bitch’s money, you understand?”

I nodded, but I had no intention of ever coming back.

He let me go.

I fumbled with the knob, but he was on me, catching my shoulders in his hands with a death grip that made my eyes sting in pain.

He snarled, shaking me hard enough to make my teeth rattle.

He let go of my shoulders, but only to grip the thin shoulders of my tank top, ripping it open with one violent movement.

I stopped breathing; I was so shocked and terrified.  My mind couldn’t comprehend how fast the situation had escalated, how fast I’d lost all control of it.

“Please don’t,” I tried to say around the crumpled paper in my mouth.

He paid no mind, moving his big body hard into mine, capturing my thighs between his own.  “Keep in mind, bitch, you take more’n two days to get me my money, you’re gonna pay me back the interest in snatch, and I ain’t gonna make it nice for you.  We clear?”

I nodded, just struggling to breathe.

He wasn’t finished, palming one of my breasts, kneading at it roughly.  “You don’t come back, I’m coming for you, you understand?”

He let me loose, smiling as he handed me my purse and backed away.  His smile alone was enough to give me nightmares.

“Go on now, little girl.  I’ll be seeing you soon.”

I ran out of there, not trusting for a second that he was really letting me go.

I was a good five minute drive away before I pulled over, coughing out the paper in my mouth, taking deep gasping breaths in relief.  I was shaking, but I didn’t cry, though it was an effort.

I held my shirt together as I got out of the car, moving to the trunk.  I grabbed my entire overnight bag, dragging it into the car with me.  Luckily, I had a change of clothes, since I’d planned to stay over at Tristan’s apartment for the weekend.  But it wouldn’t do to show up with a torn shirt.  That would surely raise questions that I had no intention of answering.

I changed my shirt, stuffing the ruined one into my bag.

I sat there, trembling, for a solid thirty minutes before I felt steady enough to drive.