Chapter 8
CONNOR
“Hey, that wasn’t too bad,” my client says with a smile, trying to angle her eyes in the direction of her freshly-pierced nostril.
Pulling off my gloves, I offer her a small hand mirror to inspect my work.
“I told you,” I chuckle. “You did great. I’ve got some saline for you up front if you’re happy with it.”
With my client satisfied with her first - and hopefully not last - piercing, I walk her up to the front of the shop to talk aftercare and take payment. My eyes move to Tripp at his station, busy tattooing some sort of screwed-up, demonic horror show imagery onto his client’s shoulder.
I clean my station while he works, thankful for the shop’s playlist, even if it’s quiet. The hum of the tattoo machine and the guitar riffs coming through the bluetooth speaker help to quiet the growing volume of my telltale heart.
“Smoke break,” Tripp calls out to the shop as his client leaves.
I throw a nod in his direction as he reaches for a pack of cigarettes and his cell phone, taking both out front with him.
I wait, long enough that I’m sure he’s got a cigarette in his mouth, before I finally reach for my own cell phone sitting on my workstation.
Julia’s name has flashed across my screen more than once today, and though that isn’t unusual, between our group chat and our personal thread, everything about her contacting me feels unusual now.
She should stay far away from me, and I need to stay away from her.
Beneath a chain of texts that I’ve left unanswered over the past week sit two new ones from today, hours apart from each other.
I should block her number and wash my hands of the entire thing.
I should make up an excuse and get the hell out of here.
I shouldn’t have slept with her.
And I shouldn’t be texting her back.
Shit.
My face pinches and my stomach lurches as soon I press send.
A chat bubble appears, bobs for too many moments too long, and disappears, taking with it what I could almost be convinced might be what was left of my integrity.
I don’t ghost people after I have sex with them. I don’t tend to have messy, drunken sex with people to begin with, but even on the incredibly rare occasion that I do, I don’t ghost them afterward. I always make a clean, clear break.
I might run away from people at an Olympic level; but I don’t ghost. Ghosting is for assholes, and up until this point, I’d never considered myself to be one.
Screwing my best friend’s crying wife on the dingy counter in one of our closest friend’s bathroom kind of changes that, though.
I hate quiet days like today, but especially this week. An hour goes by with all of us twiddling our thumbs before someone finally wanders in, asking for Tripp by name. Good.
While they move toward his station to chat, sketch, and stencil, I busy myself. My hands work constantly; rearranging jewelry displays, counting inventory, cleaning over and over again. Anything to keep me from looking in their direction.
“Schepp,” Tripp calls across the shop, and my heart makes a flying leap into my throat. “Jules lost her keys. Take her the spare for me, will you?”
Before I can open my mouth to object, a set of car keys are flying toward me.
I catch them, staring down at them as if I’ve never seen a set of keys before in my life. Tripp looks at me expectantly as he slips into a clean pair of gloves, and I swallow hard.
“I’m not sure I’m the right man for the job,” I tell him.
Please don’t send me over there.
Don’t make me tell you what I did to you.
“You’ve seen my wife, right?” He asks as he settles back into his chair. “I’m not trusting any of these fucking neanderthals alone with her.”
Laughter spills out of the other guys here, and even from the client laid out on Tripp’s table, but all I can offer him is a light chuckle before I gear up and head out of the shop.
It isn’t out of the norm for me to go to the salon. Before Julia started cleaning up mine and Tripp’s cuts at their house, we’d hang out in the salon after hours. I’ve stopped by on weekends I wasn’t working to get a quick trim before a date or an upcoming event.
Even still, I do not want to be here right now.
How many of these people know about what happened between us?
Julia is standing at her station as I walk into the building, pulling the cape off of the chest of a smiling client. She gives a quick fluff to the woman’s hair and waves her toward the front desk, wearing a brilliant smile.
Her eyes meet mine, and for a second, she looks almost angry with me, but she replaces the anger in her features with a cool smile as she sets a hair brush down on the counter of her work station.
“I thought Tripp was bringing them,” she says. “Sorry. Hi.”
“Hey,” I nod. Pulling the keys from my pocket, I offer them to her. “Here you go.”
“Thank you,” she says. “I feel like such an—”
Without giving her the time or the opportunity to finish her sentence, I pivot, shoving my hands into the pockets of my jeans as I make my way toward the door of the salon. Jules is on my heels in less than a heartbeat, following too closely behind me as I step into the parking lot.
“Can we please talk?” She begs.
I keep a steady pace as I move through the lot. If I pretend that I can’t hear her, I can pretend that none of this ever happened and that things aren’t weird and uncomfortable and horrible right now.
“Connor!”
I try to ignore the hurt in her eyes as I chance a look over my shoulder at her.
“Sorry, I’ve gotta head back,” I tell her, jerking my thumb in the direction of my bike.
“I’ve only had sex with two people, ever,” she says, and my steps come to a screeching halt. “You don’t remember being the second person? I cheated on my husband with you, and you don’t remember that?”
A sick feeling settles into my gut. Guilt that twists itself into a rancid bile that burns in my chest and begs for escape.
“I remember every second of what we did,” I say quietly through my teeth as I round on her. “It’s all I’ve been able to think about for the past week, and it’s the single worst thing I’ve ever done to another person.”
Stepping closer to her as her lower lip trembles, I say, “Tripp is my best friend. How the hell am I supposed to work with the guy all day and look him in the eye, when all I can think about is the way his wife whined when I made her come?”
For too long, we stand immobile, staring at each other.
My heart races in my chest like it’s trying to break free and leave me here on my own. I can hear my pulse. I can see it in a dark halo around my vision.
Julia’s chest heaves with every breath, but she doesn’t speak.
She doesn’t even move.
Her throat bobs with a hard swallow, and I’m not sure that I’m entirely in control of myself anymore.
“Unlock the car,” I finally order, quickly casting a glance around us to make sure that we won’t be seen by any passersby.
Fumbling with her key fob, Julia presses the unlock button until her SUV lets out a beep. I follow closely behind her, resting my hand at her back - or using it to push her forward, I can’t be entirely sure which – and I throw open the back door.
I don’t bother to untie the apron around her waist before I reach around the front of her for the button of her pants.
I push them down quickly, forcing them to her ankles before doing the same to my own, and I spit onto my cock – god, I hate spit - before I quickly push inside of her to earn a harsh groan in response.
She feels like heaven.
“You need to stay away from me,” I tell her.
Her breath hitches as my hips move harder. Faster.
Every time I try to stop myself, to pull out of her and put an end to this, I just push deeper inside. Her body calls to mine, and the only thing I can manage to do is to answer that call.
With one hand digging into the plump cushion of her hip and the other holding onto the headrest next to her, I pound into her, letting out a groan as I slip in and out of the tight warmth of her body.
Her hand reaches for mine, and as her hips roll against me with every thrust, she fights a moan.
“Don’t,” I pant. “Don’t be quiet this time, Princess, I want to hear you.”
Over her shoulder, her eyes flick to mine as she whines through gritted teeth, and she doesn’t have to tell me what she’s thinking; I already know. I’m thinking it, too.
If she says my name, it’s real.
We don’t have alcohol to blame this time. We can’t hide behind lowered inhibitions and bad decisions. We can’t pretend that we don’t remember it happening.
The sun is shining and our minds are clear.
We can’t hide from our guilt, this time.
Bringing my hand down from the headrest, I slip it between Julia’s legs, drawing frenzied circles around her clit to force a loud, perfect moan out of her that sends heat rocketing down my spine.
My lips meet the soft skin at her spine to kiss and suck my way toward her shoulder as she tightens around my cock, and every one of my muscles begins to tense.
There’s a voice in the back of my mind – one that’s getting harder to ignore, whose volume gets louder and louder with every thrust of my hips – that tells me that I want to slow this down. I don’t want quickies with her in hidden-away places.
It begs me to take my time with her, and for a minute, I can convince myself that it’s only saying these things because I’ve been alone for so long.
“Connor,” she whines, her fingers squeezing around mine. My fingers at her clit speed up, my hips joining with them as my lips meet the crook of her neck. “Oh, god.”
My name on her lips, together with the tightening of her pussy, send me over the edge. I frantically reach for a balled-up piece of fabric from the cargo net at the back of the passenger’s side seat, using it to catch my cum as I quickly pull out of her.
Oh no. I’ve seen this fabric before.
Great. First, I cum on my best friend’s wife, now I cum on one of his shirts.
I’m really batting a thousand, here.
Julia rests against the back seat, panting to catch her breath as she reaches to slide her panties back into place before pulling herself to a seated position.
Brushing her hair out of the way, I trace a finger over the elegant script tattooed into the base of her neck. Tripp’s work, I’d be willing to bet. The lines are clean, it’s neatly printed, it’s only three small letters, but someone clearly took their time in doing it.
“What’s PJM?” I ask her.
“Nothing,” she answers, her tone clipped as she pulls her thick strands back into place.
Turning to face me, she scans me from head to toe and back again, pain etched somewhere behind her features. Her palm lands against my chest to feel the hard beating of my heart as her eyes meet mine and her brows dip.
“I don’t—”
My lips meet hers, my hand resting at her jaw as my tongue slides past her lips, and for one slow, heated second, I forget that she’s Tripp’s wife.
“We don’t talk about this,” I tell her. “He never finds out.”
Her head shakes in agreement with me and I press one more kiss to her lips before hurrying back toward my waiting bike.
I’m a monster.