If You Stay (Beautifully Broken, #1)(17)

“Please, Pax. I need it. I’ll stop. I promise. But I need it one more time. Just one more. And then I’ll go get help. I promise.”

Tears are streaking down her face in black streaks from her makeup. The sunlight exposes the hardened lines on her face, the lines that nighttime hides for her. In the light of day, she looks hard and used.

Because that’s exactly what she is. I sigh again.

“Fine. I’ve only got a little. I’m not going to use for a while. You can have what I have left, which is probably only one line. And then you need to go get help. Get your shit straight.”

She’s shaking now, her breath catching in her throat as she waits for me to lead her to the coke. It’s all she can focus on right now, so I shut up and save my breath with the lecture.

I lead her to my kitchen table, and cut up the one little rock I have left. I drag it into a line and watch as she inhales it in two snorts. She slumps into the seat and lets it take affect and when she turns to me, she is visibly calmer.

“Ready for that blowjob?”

She’s looking up at me, expectant, familiar. And for a second, the thought of a blowjob does make my groin automatically react, shifting against the constrained crotch of my jeans. But I shake my head.

“I’m not really in the mood, Jill.”

I turn around and pad across the stone in my bare feet, toward the living room. She grabs my arm.

“You can’t give it to me for nothing, Pax. I don’t feel right about that. Besides, I feel bad for leaving you the other night. Just let me pay for it. Please.”

A woman is begging to suck my dick. Oh, the irony. And it’s particularly ironic that I just don’t want it. My mind has been consumed with Mila Hill lately. The thought of this bar whore frankly turns my stomach a bit now.

I shake my head.

But Jill shakes hers too, and now she leaning against me, running her hands over the bare skin of my chest, trailing her fingers down to my waist band and unzipping my jeans. She bends and runs her tongue around my nipple and then she’s got me in her grasp. I’m instantly horny.

I inhale a little as she runs her fingers up and down my shaft, outside of my underwear. Fuck. I curse my testosterone.

“Fine,” I sigh. As if getting a blowjob is a hardship. I drop my pants and she sinks to her knees in front of me, taking all of me into her mouth. And as I lose myself in the moment, in the pleasure of her lips forming a vacuum around my dick, sliding, moving, sucking, I stare at the lake.

As Jill’s head bobs, I watch the current and the waves, the occasional sailboat. I watch the seagulls fly, I watch the sun. And then Mila’s face forms unbidden yet again in my mind. Hers is as different from Jill’s hardened face as it can possibly be; fresh and innocent. I focus on it, then picture her lush tits with the pink nipples that point to the sun.

It makes me come a lot faster than normal. I groan and spurt into Jill’s mouth and I don’t even look. In my head, it is Mila’s mouth. It is Mila’s hands cupping my balls, lightly squeezing them as I come.

And as I open my eyes, I am horrified to see Mila’s face.

For real.

Staring up at me from the stretch of beach below my house. She can see perfectly into my home, and can see perfectly that Jill is bent in front of me sucking my dick.

And she looks as horrified as I feel.





[page]Chapter Eight


Mila



Oh, my God.

I feel like a freight train just plowed into my chest, knocking all the air from my body. I don’t know why. I don’t own Pax, not in the slightest. But he’s been coming to see me every day so I felt like there was a mutual attraction there. I mean, he drove into town just to walk me the length of one block every day. Frankly, it’s all I’ve been able to think about. He’s even invaded my dreams.

But clearly, I was wrong. My fascination with him isn’t reciprocated.

He’s getting a blowjob from the girl who left him on the beach.

I can’t even think. My head is swirling in a blur of anger and hurt. I just grab my supplies, fold up my easel and bolt for my car. I think I might hear his voice behind me, calling my name, but I don’t turn around. I start to run, and when I reach my car, I dump my things into it and peel out.

I chance a glance into the rearview mirror and he’s not there.

I exhale.

I’m not sure if I’m disappointed or not. A sick part of me kind of wishes that he’d cared enough to chase after me. But he didn’t. So he doesn’t care. I feel like crying. And that’s ridiculous. But then I cry anyway.

I cry for the end of something that didn’t even have a chance to begin.

And then I cry because I feel even stupider for having such stupid thoughts.

I’m an idiot.

I drive to my shop and sit there for a bit inside of my car. I pull myself together and finally walk inside. I flip the sign to Open and put my apron on. And then I do what I always do when I’m happy or sad or bored or well, anything.

I paint.

With swooping strokes, I paint the sun hanging over the edge of the lake by Pax’s house. I paint the gray choppy water and then I turn the sun black, allowing the paint to drip toward the water. It’s a dark scene and it perfectly fits how I feel. Stormy, black, angry. All are words that can be used to fit both the scene and my mood.