Stain (Stain #1)(43)

“Watch out!”

“Fuck!” I stomp on the brake, and quick reflexes are the only things keeping us from ramming into the car in front of us. There’s no impact, but our bodies lean forward from the abrupt deceleration of the truck, only to slam us back into our seats when we come to a dead stop.

“You all right?”

She nods, and her eyes are wide with fear when she looks at me and all I want to do is grab her face and kiss the hell out of her plump, dark red lips.

“I’m okay.” Like a shark with the scent of blood, I track the path of that little pink tongue as it darts across her lips and disappears inside her mouth. What I wouldn’t give to taste it. Taste her. “How about you? Are you all right?” she questions.

Far from it. I want to pull you across the armrest of my truck, slide your panties aside, and ease you down on my rock-hard dick. I want inside that tight *, right the f*ck now.

I clear my throat. “I’m good.” Bullshit. I shift around my seat, and slip a hand around my package to adjust myself. Willpower and stubbornness are the only things keeping my foot on the gas as I continue our drive.

She doesn’t even realize how lucky she is right now. If I wasn’t driving, I’d be on her so fast she wouldn’t even know what hit her until I was deep inside her cunt.

“Those guys with Mallory…are they friends of yours?” I hear her ask and I have to pull my head out of the nice little fantasy I have her starring in just to concentrate on what she’s saying. She’s talking about Tek and Blay. Those two are the furthest thing from friends. Fact is, they aren’t supposed to be in this part of town. Only reason why Dro put up with them in his territory is because he is working on a deal with Deacon, their boss. Dro had asked me to cover this rave tonight, push as much SKY as I could. But then, because he’d also advised me to do nothing except keep an eye on them, I spent the better part of the night pissed as f*ck watching these guys sell their second-rate shit in our territory.

And then I saw her. Highly impossible considering the dance floor was teeming with an orgy of overstimulated, oversexed teenagers, but I knew down to an instinctual level that it was her. I know her walk. I’m not sure when I memorized it but somehow I knew the girl walking up the staircase with the short, fluid strides and the subtlest sway to her hips was Aylee. I’d followed to be doubly sure. I’m glad I did. I hadn’t been talking out of my ass about wanting to throw that high-as-f*ck * who’d thought he could lay his hands on her off the platform’s railing. It would’ve been pretty damn awesome to see his skull crack on the concrete floor. Lucky for him, she was there.

“I don’t have friends.”

“Oh.”

That soft little sound does something to me and the next thing I know I’m explaining why the f*ck I don’t have a buddy to shoot the breeze with. “I’m not very good with people. Friendships, dating, that’s all pointless to me. People generally hold my interest only as long as they remain useful to me. Once you’ve served your purpose, you don’t exist to me anymore.”

“That’s sad,” she remarks softly, with only compassion in her voice, but her tender brand of empathy chafes at my chest like sandpaper.

“That’s me.”





Chapter 17


Aylee


“Am I taking you home?” he asks, with visible tension in his clenched jaw. There’s a dark expression on his face that goes beyond simple brooding. Silently, I wonder if I did or said anything wrong.

“No,” the answer comes too quick. I hate how desperate I am right now for even the smallest sliver of his time and attention. “I’m supposed to be sleeping over at Mallory’s tonight.”

Nothing and then, “He let you off your chain?” The question drips with so much disdain, it burns like acid. There’s no reading his expression when he briefly turns to me. He’s completely closed off.

I don’t pretend not to know who he’s talking about. He saw the bruise on my cheek. He may not be the school type, but that certainly doesn’t mean he is stupid. He knows what’s happening. He knows Tim hurt me. Except he has no idea to what extent. And I want to keep it that way.

I hesitate for a small fraction of a second before throwing caution to the wind and setting my hand on his thigh. He visibly jerks, his thigh muscle tensing beneath my hand like my touch hurt him. When I make to pull back, his hand falls on mine like an anvil. His grip is so tight I’m afraid he might break my fingers.

“Maddox.” The whimper of his name instantly loosens his grip.

Taking his eyes momentarily off the road, he looks at me with sincerity. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs. He keeps my hand buried beneath the warm weight of his own.

We drive in silence going to a destination only he knows. It doesn’t matter where he’s taking me or where we end up. As long as I’m not going home. I’m content being in his truck. I’m content having my hand sandwiched between his palm and thigh. I’m content simply orbiting around him, basking in the lure of his presence. Bliss I’ve seldom known is in this moment.

Roughly forty-five minutes later, we pull up to an old, misshapen wire fence. Just beyond the fence are rows upon rows of massive steel, rectangular containers that stand maybe about forty to fifty feet high. It’s the sort of cargo containers you’d find attached to the back of semitrucks on the interstate.