3. Chapter 3
Chapter 3
N az was told to take Meg to the pharmacy. Julio seemed smug when he ordered him to do it, and Naz’s certainty that the other man had realized his aversion to sex solidified. He considered killing him again while he led Meg down the sidewalk to the nearest drugstore.
Her bare feet were no longer clean, and he kept glancing down, leading her around the broken glass and other crap on the sidewalk even as he kept his eyes on their surroundings.
Meg didn’t seem to notice his efforts. She never stopped talking on their walk, sharing her every thought about the rundown neighborhood they passed through on the way. The corner store was a couple miles away, and Julio knew exactly what he was doing by not allowing them to take the car. He’d sneered at her bare feet as he said the cars shouldn’t be seen because they didn’t have spare tags.
Julio was still a little pissed at her for hanging around Naz.
Naz was pissed as well. He didn’t need any drama. And Meg’s attention on him was sure to cause more of it.
He’d tried to glower at her, but Meg hadn’t been intimidated at all. She’d just laughed, telling him he wasn’t fooling her. She’d pegged him as harmless.
Naz didn’t want to hurt her. And he sure as hell didn’t want to fuck her. But he also wasn’t harmless.
Meg’s words trailed off into a frustrated groan. “Dammit, his cum really is leaking.”
Her words caused Naz’s gaze to flick down to her thighs, but he dragged his eyes away, pausing on the crescents she’d dug into her outer thigh with her nails. She wasn’t as carefree as she seemed, not that it mattered. He studied the street again.
“Julio’s a jackass. It’s too bad you’re not the biggest dick around.”
Startled, Naz’s steps froze as he stared at her.
Her smile tilted in a way that hinted she had a secret. “What? I’m not saying you don’t have a big dick, just that you’re not the one in charge.” Her gaze lowered to his crotch, and her tongue peeked out as she slid it across her lip with a hum. “Yeah, you’ve got big dick energy. The kind that doesn’t have to brag about it because you just have it.”
Naz jerked forward, leaving her behind.
Her laugh slid down his back like cold water. “God, you’re cute. Are you blushing?”
He wasn’t. It felt like the blood had drained out of his face instead while his penis tried to tuck itself back into his body.
She was wrong. He wasn’t packing much, and he was grateful for it.
Relief slid inside his knotted stomach when he pulled the door to the convenience store open. It looked like shit, but it had a pharmacy in the back.
At least Meg didn’t try to brush against him or anything as she entered. He followed behind her and watched the clerk frown at them before she started squawking about Meg’s lack of shoes.
Naz glowered at the employee, and it shut her up. At least someone found him intimidating. He followed Meg, who hadn’t even paused in her progress down the far aisle.
She didn’t go all the way to the back, where the pharmacy was located. Her finger pointed at each vitamin bottle as she read the labels under her breath, crowing as she grabbed a white one with giant pills. “Thank fuck, these hold off UTIs best.” She rattled the bottle, glancing over the aisle. “Shit, I might as well take one now.” She took off again, in the wrong direction.
Naz frowned when she opened the glass chiller, snagging a bottle of water and breaking the seal. She guzzled some, wiping her hand across her mouth before shoving it at him. “Here, hold this.”
He’d been gesturing toward the pharmacy, trying to get her attention, and fumbled to catch the water bottle. He gestured with the bottle instead.
Meg ignored him. She unsealed the pills, shaking one out on her hand, then shoved the bottle at him, cap and all, taking the water back to swallow down what he realized was a cranberry pill as he screwed the lid back onto the bottle.
He shook the bottle to gain her attention, then pointed at the pharmacy sign.
Meg’s smile was secretive again. “You saw me take one. Don’t act dumb, Naz.”
Anger heated his insides at the word, but she was moving away from him, choosing a different aisle.
A soft groan of annoyance slipped out of him. Usually it took a lot of effort to convince his mouth, throat, and tongue to move. If a noise was instinctual or reactionary, it sometimes came through without that effort. Meg’s whirlwind pace had already dragged more reactions out of him than he was used to, and it made Naz even more nervous around her when he caught up.
She’d stopped in front of a surprisingly large selection of condoms for a store that wasn’t that impressive. Her grin widened as she met his eyes. “Apparently people around this neighborhood like to fuck. You think Julio will use condoms if I buy them? Maybe something that’s supposed to be good for the guy?” She hummed in her throat as her gaze roamed the options. “What’s your favorite type?”
Naz shook his head. He’d never bought condoms in his life. You had to want to use your dick to need condoms.
Meg’s grin died, her eyes narrowing in a glare. “Not you too! Naz, you should really use condoms.”
He started to shake his head again, but he held still, realizing it’d only confuse her.
Besides, she was already lecturing him. “My ex was an asshole, but at least he suited up. Some girls lie about birth control, and birth control can fail, and then there’s all the STDs because no matter what they say, you can never know where they’ve been. And on top of all that, you should ask the girl’s preference—or the guy’s.” She shrugged, turning to scan labels. “You do you, but a lot of women get UTIs easily and don’t appreciate leaking all day.” She grimaced. “Besides, one of the social workers once told me—” She cut herself off, frowning at the condoms. She grabbed something that said ‘bare’ and ‘extra lubed’ and smacked the three-pack box into his chest. “Here. For you.”
At least it didn’t say extra-large or some shit. He stared at the small, gray box he’d fumbled to catch, holding it like it’d bite him.
Meg grabbed a large variety pack, tucking it in her curled arm. “For Julio. A girl can hope.”
When she started to head to another aisle, Naz leaned forward to hang the condoms she’d given him back up.
Meg reached past him, snatching them off the rack again and pushing them into his hand. “Seriously, buy them for yourself.”
She was pointless to argue with, but holding the condoms made him queasy. Naz tried to put them back again.
Meg pushed at his arm, frowning when it didn’t budge. The condoms were held in midair between them.
“Come on, these are good ones.” She tapped his crotch with the water bottle, making his nerves skitter. “I want it to be good for you if anyone wants to tap that. You don’t want diseased junk, do you? Besides, I might be able to fuck you once Julio isn’t so possessive.”
Naz’s nerves skittered again. He tried not to hear her words, tried to concentrate so he could say the word that was blocking his throat.
She leaned into his chest, her breasts brushing against it as she stood on her tiptoes to reach his ear. “I bet we’d fuck so good. You’re so serious. Men like you can really break free with their dick planted—”
“Stop.”
He wanted to curl up and die at the oddness of the word in his ears. His mouth hadn’t moved quite properly, so there was a lisp and a hollow inflection to it.
Meg was staring at his lips, her brow wrinkled, but at least she’d fallen back on her heels, no longer pressed against him.
“Sure,” she mumbled, taking the condoms from him and continuing to stare at his mouth. “So you can talk. I thought I heard it, but I didn’t realize…”
She didn’t finish the thought, and Naz was grateful. His eyes shifted away. She likely thought he was dumb again.
A ripping sound brought his attention back. She’d torn open the condom box they’d been fighting over, and a condom fell to the ground. So had the large multi-pack. After shoving the water bottle at him, which he clutched on instinct, she crouched down, snatching up the big box of condoms and the loose one.
“There, I’ve ruined the package now. I guess we have to buy it.” She shoved the multi-pack into his arms as well as the damaged package, his arms full of her stuff.
He didn’t expect her to reach around him and dig his wallet out of his pants, making his ass clench tight against her touch.
She flipped it open, tucking the loose condom inside. “Now you’ll have one for the next time you get laid.” She shoved the wallet back into his pocket. Then she grabbed all the condoms back, leaving him with the water bottle and pills.
Her bare feet slapped on the grungy tiles beneath them as she headed toward the front of the store.
Naz was ready to be away from her, but Julio would be pissed if they didn’t get the pill he’d sent them for. He headed after her.
She’d dumped the condoms into the top shopping basket instead of heading to checkout like he’d thought, pulling it out by the handles.
The employee sneered at her, and Meg sneered right back. “I like to fuck. Don’t judge me just because you’ve never been fucked right.”
The employee’s sneer turned into a hard line as her eyes narrowed, but Meg had already turned her back on her, approaching Naz and shifting the basket closer.
“Here, drop them in.”
Naz did, and the pills rattled. Then she was off again, turning down a different aisle.
Still nowhere near the pharmacy.
Naz followed along.
She’d spotted some clothes, zeroing in on the spare underwear, which made sense if she was as soaked as she said. Naz turned his head away, not wanting to think about that.
He spied a pair of shoes. They were cloth and basic, with ugly blue-jean and white alternating stripes, but they were the only ones he saw that weren’t open-toed—a horrible option for the warehouse—and that looked close to her size. He removed them from the rack and held them out to her.
Meg paused, her mouth parting in surprise as her amber eyes flashed brighter. “Hey, those are my size.” She shook the basket. “Drop them in.”
Naz shook his head, ripping the tags off and dropping them into the basket before kneeling to guide first one foot, then the other, into the shoes. Satisfied her feet were covered, he rose and gestured toward the pharmacy.
She tried to step around him. He reached for her arm, then remembered how the dead dealer and then Julio had both grabbed her there. His body blocked her instead, letting the basket bump into his stomach each time he moved in front of her. He pointed at the pharmacy sign.
Meg frowned at him. “I don’t know what you’re trying to tell me. You’re gonna have to say it.”
Naz was done talking. Two words were more than enough in one day, still echoing in his ear with their false sounds. Besides, he may have been able to force out one-syllable words, like ‘pill,’ but anything more complicated was beyond him unless he was calm.
Meg didn’t make him feel calm.
He dragged out his phone, opening up the Notes app he used on the rare occasions that Diego dragged him to see a doctor or their boss. Ramiro Rodriguez was the man who hired out Naz as muscle to the cartel, and he was big on communication.
Naz typed out a message and turned it for her to read. ‘Pharmacy. After pill.’
Her feet shifted in her new shoes, and his eyes narrowed.
“I don’t need it,” she whispered.
Naz typed again. ‘You don’t want his baby.’
Meg snorted. “Hell no. I lied about not being on anything. Julio was being a dick, and I thought it would stop him from coming inside me, and I wanted to see if I could get away from him by coming here.”
Naz was going to be in a world of shit with Julio if he let her escape. ‘No running away,’ he typed.
She lifted her eyes to his with that secret smile. “Not gonna let me? Even if I said pretty please?”
Naz shook his head.
Meg laughed. “That’s okay. Julio is a good option for now. I orgasmed with him, and he seems like the real deal. You know, like he’s actually got money. I mean, you’re buying all this shit for me, aren’t you?”
He nodded. She’d been barefoot, and her shorts had no pockets. It wasn’t likely she had any money.
“I’ve been living on the streets for a while, and I always do better if I hook up with someone. It’s not a bad deal. I take care of their dick, they take care of me. At least I eat a bit better this way. Speaking of eating…” She pushed past him.
There wasn’t much Naz could say against her logic. He’d starved a time or two, and not starving was better, though there wasn’t a lot of choice in it for him sometimes. It took concentration for him to chew as well.
He trailed after her again. To his surprise, when she got to the food aisle, she zeroed in on a pack of gummy worms, something soft on her face. “I love these.” She dropped them into the basket and reached for more: bears, snakes, and some odd-looking fake berries. “Well, I like gummies better when they’re edibles, but these will do in a pinch.”
She picked up other things around the store. A hairbrush and hair ties, Post-its and pens, a pack of almonds, and when she’d moved on to the makeup aisle, she’d glanced at his face, but when he kept it smooth, she grabbed a few things from that section, too.
With each addition, her shoulders loosened further, and her smile seemed more genuine. She wasn’t greedy. The basket was still only half full when she headed toward the check out.
Naz tapped her shoulder, holding out his phone. ‘Buy the pill.’
Her smile fell away. “I told you—”
He typed out another message. ‘Julio will check.’
Wrinkles formed on her forehead as she considered that. “You think he’ll be pissed about my lie?”
Naz just looked at her. Julio had a temper mixed with paranoia, with a constant need to prove himself. It could be a toxic combination at times.
Meg shrugged. “Sure. A waste of money, but you’re paying.” Her face brightened. “Once he sees how much it is, maybe he’ll use the condoms. Let’s go.”
She finally led the way to the back of the store. Naz let her do the talking, trying to ignore how the pharmacist looked at him as if his dick was the cause of her buying the pill.