Chapter Thirteen
Fourteen Years Old
Lying on my bed, remote in hand, I flick through the channels on the TV that sits on the top of my chest of drawers. Alex is lying beside me, texting some girl in his class he’s trying to bribe to complete his history homework in exchange for letting her suck him off.
Seriously, how does that benefit the girl at all? He gets his homework done and also gets a blowjob? Win-win for him.
“Is she gonna do it?” I am curious to know if he actually is as smooth as he always makes himself out to be and if he could get this girl to agree.
“Fuck yeah!” he exclaims, looking all sorts of crazy proud of his negotiation skills if the wide grin now spread across his face means anything. He holds the screen up, so I can see the girls reply agreeing to do both, and rubs his hands together in delight.
“You’re such a pig,” I chastise jokingly, as a timid knock sounds at my bedroom door. I already know it’s Chris without having to open it. She’s the only one who respects my privacy enough to knock and doesn’t barge straight in without permission. Plus, our father is away on a business trip, taking our ”brother” with him and leaving me alone to look after my ten-year-old baby sister.
“Come in, munchkin,” I say from the bed, finally settling on the movie The Little Mermaid, which is already halfway through. Alex groans at my choice, but I love Disney films and this one is Chris’s favourite, so he will just have to suck it up.
Chris opens the door and takes a tentative step into my room. Her head is down, and her shoulders are drooped. I sit up on my knees as concern fills my whole body.
“Chris, what’s the matter?” I ask, reaching out to grab Alex’s arm.
“I – I – ” she starts, her voice wavering, and she begins to wring her hands together. I can’t breathe. Whatever it is it has to be bad. “I think I’m dying.”
Oh fuck.
“What?” I exclaim, jumping off the bed and rushing to her side. Alex sits up, watching us both. “What do you mean?”
Chris looks towards Alex with unshed tears in her eyes, and her cheeks start to flush with embarrassment. Confusion accompanies my concern. Why is Chris getting embarrassed in front of Alex?
“I went to the bathroom, and when I finished…” she pauses and gives me a look like she really does not want to say the next part in front of a boy. She glances at Alex again, who I can hear shifting around on the bed, and lowers her voice to a whisper only I can hear. “There was blood on the paper, in the bowl, and on my panties.” Her lip wobbles once she’s finished, and I let out a laugh. Chris’s face falls, and she lets out a huff.
“Oh, munchkin,” I say, wrapping my arms around her in a hug, “you’re not dying.” I pull her over to my bed and sit her between Alex and me. My poor baby sister is about to get the ‘birds and the bees’ talk, which I am totally not equipped for and really should have come from our good-for-nothing mother.
It was times like this I really hate the woman.
“I’m not?” she asks nervously, relief filling her beautifully soft features. I nod and tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. She is going to grow up gorgeous with her huge blue eyes that observed everything and always sees the beauty in others, pouty rosy-pink lips that always speaks the truth even if it was laced with sass, and her perfect skin even though she isn’t at the age where she’ll start to get acne, I know she is going to be blessed with never having a blemish on her face.
“You’re becoming a woman,” Alex offers unhelpfully, wrapping an arm around her shoulder and pulling her into his chest. Chris wrinkles her nose in disgust and shakes her head in disbelief, pushing out of his hold.
“I’m not a woman! I’m a girl!”
I look over Chris’s dark head to Alex, who’s biting his lip to stop from laughing. I glare at him, trying to make him understand this is a big deal for a girl. It was already hard enough that she had started physically developing early, much earlier than I had, and now she has to endure this.
Her small body had already started rounding out her hips and developing breasts. Three months ago, we had to take a trip to get her training bras, as she jumped from nothing to an A-cup overnight. But I thought I had more time before the period talk.
“Chris, from now on every month your-”
“Aunt Flo, shark week, painters and decorators,” Alex interrupts.
“Shut the fuck up, Alex! You’re not helping!” I glare as his whole body shakes with barely contained glee at my embarrassingly poor effort to explain how her body is changing. “Every month this will happen, but all you need to do is wear a pad on your underwear, and it will collect the blood for you.”
“Like a nappy?” Chris shrieks.
“I guess.” I shrug, kind of agreeing with her analogy.
“No freaking way,” she says.
“Language,” Alex reprimands. Chris sticks her tongue out at him and turns back to face me.
“Does this happen to you?” Her big blue eyes are like sapphires soaking in everything she was just told. I nod.
“It happens to most women when they get to a certain age, munchkin.” I smile at her and begin to rub her back. “It basically means your body is ready to have a baby.” She sits for a long moment, as the cogs in her head turn frantically, digesting my poor ass attempt in explaining puberty.
“But I don’t want a baby now,” she exclaims.
“I’d fucking hope not!” Alex says, putting his arm around her shoulder again, but his time she doesn’t try to escape. “You need to become a famous astronaut or a doctor or something first before having babies.” My sister laughs as Alex begins tickling her sides until she screams. She’s going to pee if he doesn’t stop. “Or better yet, just stay a virgin.”
Chris’s little face turns to me, her eyes wide and filled with so many questions.
Thanks a lot, Alex.
I shake my head, not wanting to touch that topic if I could help it, and leave my room for my adjoining bathroom. I grab a pack of unopened pads for Chris, bringing them back to show her how to fasten the wings to the underside of her underwear securely. She runs away to her room, saying she’s going to practice on other panties, so she is a pro the next time her “Aunt Flo” comes.
The next morning, my body was still filled with the restlessness that was caused by the events of last night. Alex hadn’t come home from his booty call with the redhead, so I guessed I wouldn’t be seeing him again until this evening.
I got up, put on fresh sportswear, and decided punishing the bag again probably wouldn’t be as fruitful as last night’s attempt. And considering how antsy I still felt, taking Rocky out for a run might be better.
Two birds, one stone scenario; Rocky got a good walk, and I could metaphorically run away from my problems.
We ran twenty kilometres, just under a half marathon, and the distance made me oddly proud that I could do one if I wanted to. But I hated running, for fun or sport. It was a release I needed to help clear my head as my feet hammered the asphalt. A necessary evil, one of many I did not enjoy.
I slowed down as I made it back to the start of the long gravel driveway leading home. Rocky had already raced ahead towards the front door, and he would no doubt be lapping up the water I’d left out on the porch for his return.
The top of the two-story house became visible as I walked down the dark stones, and I could practically hear a hot bath calling my name, but the tall figure which stood peering into the window of my car halted my steps. Fuck’s sake, my lack of weaponry on my person may be a problem now, and I mentally calculated if I had enough time to make it to the front door.
Where most people kept a spare key under the welcome mat, we kept a garrotte.
But more importantly, where was Rocky? My dog would usually be barking to alert me of any intruders. Panic threatened before I spotted the giant mutt lying sprawled across the deck, panting heavily. I hadn’t taken him out on a long run in weeks, but he shouldn’t be ignoring a stranger like that. If my unwanted guest had done something to my dog, I’d kill the fucker with my bare hands.
“Is this beauty yours?” the man asked, resting his arm along the top of my McLaren with his back to me. The familiar, rich baritone made my body react instantly, and my thighs clenched to stop the overwhelming feeling of need between them.
Either that or I needed to pee.
Jake straightened and turned, his eyes flickering across my sweaty body, and I became hyperaware of the lack of clothing. Sports bra and shorts seemed like a good idea when I wasn’t expecting company in the form of this God-like man. His eyes quickly appraised me, then landed on my face as he gestured his head over his shoulder back at my car. “Nought to sixty in what, five seconds?”
“Three,” I said bluntly, putting my hands on my hips, trying to keep the look of surprise off my face. He let out a low whistle and nodded his head like he was impressed. He should be; that baby was fast. “What are you doing here, Jake? Or more to the point; how did you find me?”
He smiled, showing his perfectly straight white teeth, and drove a hand through his brown hair. He was his exact opposite from last night, wearing a loose-fitting shirt, and instead of his dress pants were a pair of worn dark denim jeans. The clothing didn’t cling to his body the way his suit did, but it didn’t hide the fact he was a mass of muscle underneath. He had piqued my curiosity with the top three buttons of his shirt undone, showing the edges of black and brown ink after guessing correctly from last night, although it was still not enough to show what it was.
Fuck me sideways, the urge to rip that shirt open and lick along his chest…
Jake’s eyes dropped to my chest. I glanced down to check what had caught his attention to find my nipples were making themselves obvious through the thin fabric of my sports bra, and that made my cheeks flush. I never got embarrassed about my body. Hell, I sort of needed it for my job, but for some reason, Jake caused all these visceral reactions I couldn’t control.
“I came to get my jacket and my phone,” he said, clearing his throat and effectively pulling me out of my dirty fantasy involving his chest and my mouth and the fact my nipples were thrilled to see Jake again.
Oh shit, I didn’t even check to see if there was anything in his jacket pockets when I got home.
“I used the Find my Friends app to find it, and therefore, found you.”
Oh.
“Oh,” I voiced, heat creeping up my neck.
“I also came to ask you out. On a date,” he added casually, taking a step closer to me. Rocky picked up his head, letting out a low growl and Jake looked towards the house where he lay. “Is he yours?”
I glanced at Rocky, a moment of déjà vu taking over as I remembered the interaction I’d already had with Jake when we first spoke outside the coffee shop. I wasn’t exactly undercover that day, trying to fly under the radar as I got my recon, and maybe taking Rocky with me wasn’t exactly a smart move. The dog always attracted attention. But Rocky was pretty nondescript, with no distinguishing features such as a white paw or black-tipped ears. He was gorgeous in my eyes, but being completely brown, surely Jake wouldn’t recognise or remember him as the dog from before. Or me, as his owner, for that matter…
“Newfoundlands must be a popular breed,” Jake added, looking at me expectantly, waiting for my response.
“There are a lot of dogs in Carlin Valley, Jake. Maybe Newfoundlands were the ‘in dog’ when I got Rocky,” I clipped, relaxing slightly as he seemed to overlook meeting my dog before now. I rolled my eyes at the useless fur baby who had resumed his sleeping position as I spoke.
Jake took another step towards me, close enough that he reached out for my head. My body stiffened and my throat thickened as his hand came to my hair. I closed my eyes, fighting to control my breathing, when I felt the brush of his hand tucking a strand of sweaty stray hair behind my ear. My shoulders sagged at the gentle sweep of his fingertips behind my ear and down to my jaw, his touch far more familiar than it should be for only officially meeting last night.
“So,” he drawled, slowly taking his hand away and narrowing his eyes as he watched me, trying to figure me out. He was much taller than me; at a rough guess, I’d say at least six foot three compared to my five-seven, making me look up into his sickeningly beautiful face. “Would you like to go out with me?”
“Why?” I blurted in an awkward rush, my pulse going haywire from the panic of him touching my hair, then the gentle caress down the side of my face. Jake chuckled, and I swear the low vibration trembled across the ground and up my body.
“Well, I met an interesting woman last night at a party, and I want to get to know her better.” He rubbed the back of his neck, seemingly kind of nervous if the slight flush of pink to his cheeks was anything to go by. Jacob Weston gets nervous, huh, who would have guessed after the alpha asshole I met at the party seemed so sure of himself. It was sort of endearing. “Just one drink, Stevie, and if you don’t want to see me again, I’ll leave you alone.”
I stood staring at him with a frown, weighing up my options and deciding on how much of a bad idea going out with his man would be. The odds didn’t seem great, but he was hot, and I was thirsty, so with a nod of my head, I agreed.
Part two of the assignment hadn’t been disclosed yet, following completion of part one yesterday, but I’d worked on plenty of similar jobs to know it would most likely follow a certain pattern; meet, date, steal. No harm in getting ahead of the game.
“Let me shower and I can meet you at a bar?” I suggested, stepping back and pointing towards the house with my thumb. Spinning in the gravel, I turned my back to him and started walking away.
“It’s fine, I can wait, Stevie. I have no other plans,” he said, the crunch of the gravel echoing my footsteps as he followed a few paces behind me. “If I could have my phone, I can catch up with some emails while I wait.”
Gritting my teeth, I plastered on my best fake smile to face him. I didn’t like this man knowing where I lived, and under no circumstance did I want him inside where I lived. “Okay, I’ll get your phone and you can wait here. You’re not coming in.”
I took off into the house and slammed the door before Jake could make it up the porch steps. Running into my room, I grabbed the suit jacket I had accidentally taken home, with the rush Alex had me leaving in, and patted the pockets. The phone was tucked in the inside pocket and barely weighed a thing. No wonder I hadn’t realised it was there.
I hung my head back and looked at the ceiling, letting out a growl. Stupid, stupid, Stevie. Next time, I won’t make the mistake of taking a target’s anything home.