Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
NICOLE
“What are you doing here?!” I exclaimed, sliding into Akio’s passenger seat before he could drive off.
He had been knocking at my door for so long while Joe Santos was inside me and then peeped through my windows.
Thank God that I had turned off the security cameras and alarm system before Joe came over. I didn’t want Dad to know I didn’t have the damn cold-blooded heart to mess with Akio, so I’d invited over someone else in his mother’s mob family to get information.
The car was slowly inching forward, and then Akio pressed on the brakes. “What are you?—”
“I saw you peeping into my house—that’s what I’m doing here! Now, drive!”
I didn’t want Dad to return home and see Akio sitting at the curb.
Akio pressed on the gas and drove down the road, heading toward the beach.
“Now,” I said, crossing my arms, “tell me why you were at my house.”
When we stopped at a traffic light, Akio reached into the backseat and then set clothes in my lap. “You left these at my house the other night, and I wanted to return them to you. I washed them all.”
One by one, I picked up the neatly folded clothes on my lap. Shirt. Shorts. Bra.
No underwear.
While I had no business getting all warm in places that I shouldn’t be around him, I couldn’t stop myself from pressing my legs together and thinking about Akio purposefully leaving my underwear at his house … for reasons.
Like closing one of his textbooks before he was finished studying. Turning on some hentai—because Akio didn’t seem like one to watch regular porn. And stroking his huge cock with my thong while thinking of me.
At least, that was what I had done last night in the shirt he had given me. Touched myself until I came, thinking about nobody else but him, how innocent he truly was, how easily he had come twice for me, how turned on I’d made him, just as I was with no need to look any different.
Fuck.
I blew out a breath and tried to shake the thoughts from my mind. Focus, Nicole.
He had just waltzed into my house and put himself in danger! I couldn’t let that happen ever again. And I needed to make sure that he knew it too. No more randomly coming over, just to hand me some clothes. He could do that at school.
“Don’t get any ideas about anything happening between us just because we hooked up once,” I said, crossing my arms and glaring at the side of his cute face. “You shouldn’t have come to my house.”
“I-I know,” he said, his lips curling into the smallest frown. “I’m not your type.”
When those words came out of his mouth, I wanted to take it all back.
But I needed to keep the facade up around him. I didn’t want to drag him into this mess.
“No, you’re not.” But he was.
“Okay,” he whispered. “I’m sorry for coming to see you.”
Tears wavered in my eyes, and I wanted to hug him. So badly. He didn’t deserve to be treated this way, but I couldn’t stop now. I couldn’t let him know that I … that shit happened to me behind closed doors. For all I knew, he might try to get in the way and get hurt in the process. Hell, he had come all the way to my house, uninvited, in the middle of the night!
“You should be,” I forced myself to say, my chest so tight that I could barely breathe.
A long silence plagued the ride down to the beach. I leaned my head against the cold window and stared at the desolate road where the buildings had been closed for the quickly approaching winter months.
We reached the very end of the road, and Akio glanced toward the street that led to the Overlook. But instead of heading that way, he turned left and headed toward town to drop me back off at home.
While I had made my intentions clear with him, I had secretly hoped that he’d turn right. I yearned for a chance to be that couple that I had seen the other night, perched at the Overlook, his arms around my shoulders, kissing my neck, happy.
At least with someone.
When we reached Route 1—which had about three Dunkin’ Donuts, a Walmart, and a dozen other restaurants, pharmacies, and gas stations—I cleared my throat. “You didn’t see anything.”
Akio glanced over at me. “What?”
“You didn’t see anything at my house. Got it?”
Again, he stayed quiet until we reached my neighborhood. Akio paused at a Stop sign a few streets down from my house and parked the car, staring ahead through the windshield with an expression that I had never seen on his face prior to tonight.
“Who was he?”
“Who was who?” I asked, though I knew exactly who he was talking about.
“Who was the guy with you at your house?”
“It’s none of your business, Akio.”
“Yes, it is,” he snapped so suddenly.
My eyes widened at how loud his voice had become, and then I cleared my throat. “It’s no?—”
“He works for my parents, doesn’t he?” Akio asked.
“If you knew who he was, then why’d you ask?” I said, not wanting to talk about him anymore tonight. I had done what Dad had asked me to do, and now, it was my time to decompress, and I really didn’t want to do that by talking about that bastard Joe. Or the reasons I’d asked him to come over tonight … because I didn’t want to use the boy sitting in the driver’s seat.
“Did he hurt you?”
“They all do,” I murmured to myself, glaring out my passenger window.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Akio clenched, then unclenched his fist a few moments later. Then, as if all that … anger —if that was what it was—disappeared, he put the car into drive and headed back to my house. Too quietly.
He parked at the curb and offered me a small smile. “I’ll see you at school.”
I narrowed my eyes at his sudden change of emotions, then gathered my belongings and exited the car. “I’ll see you later, Akio.” Before I shut the door, I leaned down and looked into his car. “Remember what I told you?”
His smile didn’t falter. “Don’t worry.”
“Okay …” I said suspiciously, shutting the door and heading up the walkway.
Before I slipped into the house, I glanced back at him. The car lurched forward erratically. As if Akio wasn’t planning on an easy ride back to his house. And by the looks of it, he wasn’t heading that way either.