“Oh, I don’t, do I?” I all but growled.
“Nah. You’re more of a whisper.” She nodded, satisfied with her explanation.
“Fuck this! I tried being nice, but I’m not a nice guy, lady. The fact that I remained calm this long is a miracle in itself,” I spat out, shoving her feet off the amp with my shoe, and they thudded against the floor.
She gasped and clutched her chest. “Shocker,” she said in a bored tone, folding her arms beneath her head.
“And just what in the hell are you doing now?”
“I told you, I’m here for Skip Turner, and I’m not budging one inch until I talk to him,” she insisted and stuck out her tongue.
Without a second’s thought, my mouth opened, “Women like you trapse around the world, barking orders at people and expect them to fall in line. Well, I have news for you,” I lurched toward her, and she gasped, but didn’t move otherwise as Ilowered my face, stopping only an inch from hers, “You. Are. Dead. Wrong. You won’t win a fight against me, you pretty little monster, because no matter how wicked you are, I promise you, I’m worse.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that. I’ve dealt with people like you. The ones who need to belittle poor defenseless littlemonsters such as me to make their strong man heart feel better. Men like you are all the same. You need someone to stroke your ego every now and then or you are cranky. That about sums it up, doesn’t it?” She breathed out heavily, her hot breath blew on my face as she spoke, and my cock bobbed with excitement. I wasn’t lying in the slightest when I told her I was certain I was worse than her. Her smart mouth spewing hate in my direction was my kind of foreplay and my very specific brand of drug. The big red flag here was that she wasn’t trying turn me on. Honestly, until this moment, sex was the last thing on my mind.
Her tongue swiped across her lips as her eyes widened. I didn’t know how much time had passed as we stared at one another, waging a silent war with one another, but it was long enough that my biceps ached from holding all of my weight off her. I had already lost my mind and gotten in her space, but I refused to cross another boundary by touching her despite how badly I wanted to. I’d never loathed someone so instantaneously and wanted to fuck their brains out at the same time. I called her on her shit, and she did the same for me. I wasn’t looking for her, I didn’t need another fucking headache right now, but here she was breathing unevenly underneath my body.
She leaned forward ever so slightly, placing her cheek against mine, and whispered into my ear, “Or judging by how hard your cock is, maybe your ego isn’t the only thing that needs to be stroked.”
I gulped. How the hell was I supposed to respond to that? It wasn’t like there was a fucking handbook on the etiquette ofhow to handle this kind of situation. For once, I was speechless. I didn’t know how to reply to her. If I spoke my mind and told her how I truly felt right now, she would probably knee me in the balls and run screaming out of my shop, calling the cops on me on her way out the door.
“It’s always the pretty little monsters you have to worry about because people have done despicable, unspeakable things to us to mold us into the broken beauties we are. I’m a fast learner, and I have you all figured out.” A small sadistic laugh crept out of her mouth, and even though I wasn’t able to see her face, I imagined there was a smirk plastered on her lips.
Two could play at this game. There was no denying my stiff cock’s involvement at this point, so I didn’t bother trying. I carried my hate for this town down to the bitter end and had wished for a challenge. The universe had pretty much saidhold my beer. I had never been one to back away from conflict, and I sure as shit wasn’t going to now. Knowing I might get the police called on me, I let her have the brunt of what I’d been holding onto since I saw her. I placed my mouth at the edge of her ear as she had done mine. “Even monsters are afraid of the devil. Evidently, you still have things to learn. Oh, and you’d do well to remember this little tidbit of information if and when we ever see one another again. I usually fuck manners into smart mouths like yours.” I paused, counting backward from three, waiting for the guttural scream that would no doubt come.
When she didn’t respond, I pulled away from her and stared into her breathtaking pale blue eyes. “Is this manly enough for you, little monster?”
Her eyebrows knitted tightly together, and they were fast to relax as realization washed over her face. “Holy shit! You are Skip Turner, aren’t you?”
“In the fucking flesh,” I said in a hoarse voice. My insides were on fire, and my throat was suddenly the driest it had ever been in my life.
She dropped her head back onto the floor and stared past me. “Of course, you are. Why did I expect this to be easy? The only man who stands between me and what I want…I’ve not only insulted his ego but was moments away from who knows what.”
Checkmate. I got her. I was happy, or at least, I thought I would be after I finally bested her. What I was feeling wasn’t at all how I remembered happy feeling. In fact, I felt like an asshole, which wasn’t a new notion for me at all. The fact that I felt like an asshole for feeling like one was, though. I actually cared if I hurt her feelings. I was fucked.
In record time, I was on my feet and held my hand out for her to take. She was cautious, and I almost reassured her by being cliché and telling herI didn’t bite, but it would have been a lie. I most definitely did bite, and I fucking loved doing it. “Want to discuss that guitar now?”
Her hand hesitantly hovered in the air about a foot below mine, and I scooped her fingers into my palm. “Is that a yes?” I asked as soon as she was standing.
She shook her head. “It’s more of a I have to fucking leave. Thanks for the chat, Devil,” her full crimson lips said quickly, and I almost didn’t understand what she’d said. As soon as the last word left her mouth, she bolted out the door.
6/
fiona
“So,you’re telling me we came all this way, and the guy didn’t have the guitar anymore?” Trinity asked, raising a suspicious eyebrow as she stabbed her fork through a strawberry and popped it into her mouth. “The internet is nothing but lies.” Technically, I never told her he didn’t have the guitar. She assumed that had been the case when I said I didn’t see it in there. The fact Skip and I never made it to the actual reason I was in his shop hadn’t exactly come up with Trinity either. I didn’t like deceiving her, but there was no chance I was going to tell her that he’d threatened to fuck some manners into my mouth, and I was only seconds away from letting him. She wasn’t a saint by any means, but she would have had a problem with it. The plan I had come up with to get the guitar was something she would have a bigger problem with.
I didn’t answer her, shoving a sizable chunk of waffle into my mouth and then another. My skin flushed at the thought of how much I wanted him to be a man of his word. I knew Bonnie Jane was right when she told me my mouth would always get me into trouble, but I never in a million years would have thought I would have happily welcomed a punishment for it. Ever.
“The guy was an asshole, wasn’t he?” she asked. Finally, a question I was able to truthfully answer. She’d prattled on all morning, firing questions one right after another. Each time she asked another, I would stuff more food into my mouth, and I was almost out of waffles.
I managed to dodge Eli and her for the most part yesterday evening when I arrived at the hotel by suggesting they go explore the town. I was tired and wanted to be alone to figure out how to get my hands on Feather’s guitar without ever seeing Skip again. Being around that man was a slippery slope, one I didn’t need to fall down, and one I refused to jump on. When I was stupidly allowing him to hover over my body, I was exposed, despite being clothed. He saw me as much as I saw him, and I didn’t fucking like it at all. I had never been in love, but what stirred between us gave me a glimpse of something too close for my comfort. The back and forth was too powerful, and although it in no way, shape, or form resembled what most knew as love, I had been honest with him. I was broken and wasn’t sure if I’d ever been loved the way a person was supposed to be by someone who claimed to love them. Bonnie Jane’s way of saying she cared was by not hitting my face so the bruises weren’t visible.
I really did love her, or at least, I believed I did, and that was enough to give her the power to almost destroy me. Loving people made you vulnerable, and I promised myself after I left home the last time I ever let Bonnie Jane put her hands on me, that I would never feel like that again. I would never allow love back into my heart. Despite never wanting to become more like her, she had gotten her wish. I did agree with her on one subject. Love was nothing but lies and, in our case, abuse.
“Without question, he was one of the worst people I have ever met.” I neglected to tell her every ounce of poison that crept out from his black heart consumed me because I would never admit it. That memory was one I would lock away fromeveryone but me. What happened between Skip and me was hands down one of the single hottest moments of my life. Even before walking into his shop, I was all too aware of how messed up I truly was, and when I left, I would never be the same.
“I was afraid of that.”