Chapter 22 Neil #2
“Listen, little girl…” I began to recite the same script, going through the same motions in front of the same audience: Megan, who had settled in happily to watch the show.
“I fucked you, and you enjoyed it.” I reached out slowly and touched her lower lip with my thumb, remembering the lewd way that beautiful mouth had wrapped around my cock.
I felt her shiver with arousal and smiled.
“You did good. I’ve got to hand it to you.
A real slut in training. I’m sure you’ll improve with practice, but you won’t get it with me,” I said in a sultry murmur, all crude, calculated sweetness.
She glared at me and swatted my hand away clumsily.
I gave her a thin, fake smile and went on, “I don’t give a shit about what you feel or think or want.
Get out of this apartment and forget about me.
Do not get your hopes up; there won’t be a second time.
” I didn’t raise my voice—I didn’t need to.
My haughty, arrogant tone was enough to break her.
I watched her scatter into pieces on the floor like so much confetti.
Used and then discarded.
Exactly what had been done to me.
Exactly what Kim did and called it love.
If that was love then, fuck, I’d loved them all.
I was a true romantic.
At least I, unlike Kim, insisted on always having consent from my partners.
“You’re a…a real…”
“Asshole?” Megan offered from back over in the kitchen.
“Girls call him all sorts of things: perv, bastard, fuckboy, sociopath… The field’s wide open, really.
For the record, I’m on your side, babe.” She raised a hand in the air as if to ratify her support, but the woman was so freaked out that she couldn’t respond.
She retreated a few steps away from me and clutched her purse to her body like I was a monster she was going to have to outrun.
I laughed heartily, as cruel and malicious as I could make it, and bit my lower lip to put on my false face—a face that had been increasingly fucked up for months now—while I waited for the insults to start.
They all did it; I was used to it by then.
“Can you make it to the elevator, or do you need a push?” I sneered, and she shook her head, horrified. Her eyes glazed over, and I could tell she was willing herself not to cry. I felt nothing about that.
I hadn’t felt pity for anyone in a long time.
“Piss off, you know where the door is.” I gestured to it with my chin. She turned her back to me and ran out, slamming the door so hard behind her that Megan flinched.
“Damn, that’s one way to get rid of a girl. You need to get some new material, though. You can’t keep putting on the same show every morning,” she said through a mouthful of toast, sitting on the stool once again. She was still wearing my sweatshirt.
“Keep your nose out of my business,” I snapped.
My moods were shifting even more abruptly than normal; my personality was in constant flux. Sometimes vulnerable, sometimes nonchalant, and sometimes irascible and irrational. I was trying to fight everything I felt inside, trying to stuff it deep, deep down, but I couldn’t quite manage it.
Because there was nothing left in my life.
There was no family, no siblings, no hope, no ocean eyes to lose myself in, and no smell of coconut.
Nothing.
Except the nightmares.
And the two packs of Winstons I smoked every day.
The occasional fuck.
Work.
And the darkness.
“You’re just mad…” Megan stopped focusing on the jar of Nutella and looked at me, trying to get a bead on me. The word mad sank into my chest, arousing a feeling of anguish.
I wasn’t mad. I was enraged.
I stalked over to the kitchen island and grabbed her toast to give me some time to think up a response. I took a bite and chewed it anxiously.
There was a time when my Babygirl’s smile was enough to light up my bleakest thoughts.
She was my safe place, the only one that I could trust. My Neverland.
“You better get ready quick if you want a ride to work, otherwise you’re taking your bike.” I tossed the unfinished toast into the trash. Thinking about Tinkerbell made my stomach clench up. I already knew I was going to need uncountable cups of coffee to get through the rest of the day.
I walked to my room. Fortunately, the apartment was big enough for each of us to have our own rooms and bathrooms. I could not have handled sharing intimate spaces with her.
I threw the door open, and immediately my nose wrinkled with disgust. I could smell sex and some undefined feminine fragrance.
The bedsheets were still all rucked up and dirty, and I wasn’t about to sleep on them without first washing off any remnants of some girl I didn’t know.
I yanked them off the bed and wadded them into a ball on the floor.
A small piece of paper fell out as I did so.
I grinned and then bent down to grab it, taking it with me into the bathroom.
Naturally, I immediately flushed it down the toilet without bothering to read it.
Did that girl seriously think I was going to call her?
“Pathetic…” I said in a flat mutter as I got into the shower and began scrubbing myself with a large quantity of body wash.
I wanted to erase the hands and mouths that crawled all over me, even if I did allow them to do it.
I was doing whatever I could to drive away the memory of Babygirl’s ocean eyes by finding them in the face of another, along with her radiant smile and those plush lips I constantly longed to feel wrapped around me…
I glanced down to where my cock seemed to have had a reaction to my reminiscing.
I felt a jolt of electricity run down my spine, making me gasp.
I pressed my forehead to the shower wall and heaved a sigh.
I focused on stifling any dirty thoughts: I was not going to jerk off in the shower to thoughts of her.
It wasn’t happening.
I would always be stronger than my desire for her.
I went back to soaping myself as the tepid water slid down my worked, swollen muscles. Since I had started working out harder every day, my body had changed. I felt even sturdier, more toned, and more defined.
I had forgotten how it felt, being desirable to others, during those months when I was solely focused on Selene.
But it didn’t make me feel the way it had before—satisfied and proud. Instead, it was just irritating and boring because sex was nothing but a way to keep from going completely out of my mind.
The Boy wasn’t happy with the situation either; we were both struggling just to survive.
I washed one more time and contentedly breathed in the new, clean smell that had replaced the odor of that girl. Then I got out of the shower and slicked back my dripping hair before wrapping a towel around my hips and padding over to my room.
“Neil, would you get a fucking move on?” Megan threw open my bedroom door and froze, staring almost drunkenly at my damp body.
I had to marvel at her sometimes when she reacted to my body like that.
I raised the corner of my mouth in amusement and ignored her, instead opening a drawer to pull out a pair of clean boxers.
“Need something, Head Case?” I gave her a bland look; her breath caught, and she cleared her throat, blinking several times. She was all ready for work in a black blazer and skirt that looked sexy as hell, clinging perfectly to her well-balanced curves.
“No,” she shook herself, holding tightly to the doorknob.
“I just wanted to see how far along you were. We can’t be late.
” Megan was struggling to keep her emotions under control.
The electric attraction between the two of us was palpable; it had been hard to handle for the first couple of months, but I’d learned how to live with it without ever crossing the line.
“I realize that. Give me ten minutes.” I held the boxers in one hand and used the other to loosen my towel.
I could have dropped it entirely and given her a real eyeful, but I preferred to tease her a little first. I watched her artfully made-up face as I gave her a warning look.
She took a wary step back and immediately covered her eyes as I let the skimpy towel fall to the floor and stood there, completely naked.
“Oh, you motherfucker! You’re disgusting!
” she shouted like a lunatic and slammed the door behind her as she fled the room.
I burst out laughing because even Megan had her moments of naivety.
She always presented herself as so tough, but she was soft too, in her own way.
She often blushed when I walked around the apartment half-naked, and her face went up in flames when those green eyes of hers glanced between my legs.
I quickly finished dressing in a neat blue suit and white button-down.
I dried my hair and combed it back so it wasn’t as disheveled as usual.
I rubbed my bristly jaw, where I had the beginnings of a beard, before grabbing my pack of Winstons and car keys off the desk.
My gaze snagged, though, on something shiny and silver with a little shell dangling off it.
Her bracelet.
I’d quit wearing it, but I hadn’t thrown it out. I’d never be able to bring myself to get rid of it. I decided to take it off one night after it had gotten caught in the blond hair of some girl who was sucking me off.
It had suddenly hit me how sick the whole situation was—how sick I made myself—and I couldn’t wear it after that.
“Neil! Let’s go!” Megan hollered from the other side of my closed door. I ignored her, turning my attention from the bracelet to my phone. I grabbed it and after dabbing some cologne on my throat, walked out of the room.
“Get off my ass. I’m ready,” I said huffily, brushing past her. We took the elevator down, and I leaned back against the mirrored wall, taking the opportunity to check my emails and texts.
The most recent one was from Logan. My heart lurched when I read it: