12. Lex
12
LEX
“ M ove.” With pink lips, flushed cheeks, and a stubborn set to her jaw, Juliet Donovan glares at me. She looks right at me when she speaks, and even though it’s clear she’s annoyed, I can’t help but relish in her undivided attention.
Vi et animo is Latin for “with heart and soul.” My heart and soul stands before me now. Not in a picture. Not in a stolen moment of her life plastered to my wall, but as a real live woman. Flesh and blood.
My eyes fall to where her slender neck is throbbing to the beat of her own heart. I can touch her—just reach out and stroke my fingertip down the column of her throat and feel the realness of her existence. She’s so close I can’t help but hold my breath, I want to make this moment last.
It’d been over and gone too soon when I’d seen her back at school. She hadn’t been focused on me then but on Nolan and Gio. That was all right. She can focus on them as long as she notices me too.
“Didn’t you hear me?” she snaps. “I said move .”
My cock is a damned iron brand inside my pants, throbbing behind my fly as if it can pry through the metal teeth of my zipper to capture her attention.
Instead of stepping aside as I know she expects me to, I widen my stance, blocking as much of her path as I can, inhaling the smell of what I assume is her lotion and shampoo. Cream and vanilla. I let the smell linger in my nose, wishing I could permanently carve the scent into my soul so I’ll never forget. No matter how many pictures I take, how many files I hack, there’s nothing quite like seeing the object of all my desires in the flesh.
"I heard you," I tell her, leaning forward. Punching one arm out, I slam it into the wall next to her head. She jumps, an action I know she hates because I see the way her lips curve around a silent curse right before her eyes are back on mine, narrowing. "I just don't feel all that interested in moving right now."
A volcano could erupt inside Ma-Ri’s lounge and I would stand as still as the statue I would inevitably become if it meant I could be this close to her. Flecks of varying shades of blue swirl in the depths of her eyes. There’s even some gray there.
The growl of irritation she unleashes is adorable. I picture her as a cute little puppy, barking and biting at me as I pick her up by the scruff. A puppy against a giant wolf. My eyes drop back to her bare throat. Smooth, unblemished flesh. How I want to sink my teeth into her and mark her for all to see.
"—fucking problem?" I'm so intent on devouring every minuscule detail of her features, her scent, her body, that I almost miss the entire question she asks me.
I blink, working my thoughts backward. What had she been saying? Ah, yes, she'd asked me what my problem was. That's easy enough to answer—my main problem now is that she has no idea who she belongs to. I recall the recent conversation I’d had with Allen Donovan, and a dark cloud descends over me. Before Nolan had called me out here to run some errands for Darrio so that Gio could help his mom out, I’d been ass deep in pulling up all kinds of records about the Donovan family.
It was difficult not to get distracted by all things Juliet. She’s just so fucking pretty it’s hard not to give her all of my attention, even when she doesn’t want it. Not that she’ll ever find out just how much of my attention she has or for how long. I’ll remember. I’ll know that for thirteen years. For nearly 4,745 days, I’ve thought about her, watched her, wanted her. But nope, those little secrets of ours will have to stay hidden with me. I can’t have her running, after all.
I have to ease her into our relationship if Nolan is going to agree to take her with us. It’ll take time and effort, for sure, but I can do it. I’m nothing if not persistent and dedicated. I’ll close around her with such silent intention that she never even realizes she's been caged. I can do it now. There's no boyfriend, no parents, no more barriers in my way anymore. Yet, at the same time, I have a feeling I'm going to miss this part of our relationship. The distance and watching. The building tension between us that has my cock rock hard in my pants as I get close enough to smell her for the first time in forever.
"Hello?" Juliet snaps her fingers in front of my face when I've still yet to respond to her question. "Anyone home? Are you just going to block my path and be a dick or do you actually want something from me?"
I want you on your knees, my mind immediately responds. Mouth open, tits bared for my eyes, legs spread, wet pussy on display .
A groan works its way up my throat. I beat it back. "Maybe all I want is a kiss," I hear myself say before I can stop myself.
Her arms drop from her chest, the look of shock on her face so sudden that her features go slack for the briefest of moments. Then her brows lower and her lips curve into a scowl. Hands come up and slap at my chest. The heat of her palms where they press against me burns through my shirt and all I can think is she’s touching me . I want her to touch me some more.
"Back off, asshole," she grits out, unaware of my thoughts. "Just because I'm not on the other side of Silverwood anymore doesn't mean I'm suddenly a prostitute."
"I've never thought of you as a prostitute," I promise her, letting my body curve around hers, blocking her against the wall. Her hands on my chest are perfect. Her little nails dig in past the thin cotton of my shirt. I want it harder. I want her to score me with her body, make me bleed for her.
The tiny point of her nose tips upward as she bares the flat whites of her teeth at me. A groan threatens to break free from me. "Then why the hell would you think I'd ever kiss you?"
I tilt my head to the side. Her scent is all around me, invading my nostrils, driving me mad, making me forget where we are. "Because you want to know what it feels like," I croak out.
She laughs, but the sound is unamused. "I've kissed before," she says. "I don't need to wonder what it feels like."
I reach up and touch her jaw, letting my fingers skim along the underside of her face. I'm oh so close to the pulsing beat of her racing heart. I wonder how she'd react to me putting my hand around her throat, squeezing, giving her a sense of my strength. Of what I could do to her or better yet, for her. "You don't know what it feels like to kiss me ," I correct her.
One breath in. One breath out. She goes still and seconds tick by. Then her hand is punching into one of my shoulders, pushing me back. Disappointment is a sinking weight in my gut, but I let her go. The predator in me demands that I give chase as blue hair and eyes flash by me. My muscles tense and jump beneath my flesh and I clench my hands into fists, turning my head slightly as I watch Juliet Donovan sprint down the back hallway of The Dionysus Lounge.
She’s taller than I remember, taller than she appears in videos and pictures. I knew that. All of her documentation says she’s a solid five-foot-six-inches, but with her body so close to my own, she'd felt smaller. Breakable. I haven’t been near her—at least, not this close—in years.
My eyes bore into her back and the rounded curve of her ass encased in black slacks that are a bit too long for her legs as she hurries down the back hall and then disappears around the corner.
Her fall from grace has changed her. Juliet Donovan had been a beautiful ice queen. Soft, innocent, naive, and worst of all, untouchable. I never expected those barriers to come down so suddenly. Gone is the softness of her childhood, and though she might still be innocent in some ways, there’s no more naiveté left in the cold expressions I’ve seen her wear at school.
I didn’t think she could become more stunning if she tried, yet she has defied my expectations yet again. The Ice Queen fell into the gutter and having her so close to me once again is a torturous exercise in restraint.
Now that her pathetic excuse of a boyfriend is out of the way, the beast that has watched her for the last thirteen years, categorized everything about her from what brand of makeup she uses to what her favorite foods are is ravenous to get to her. She’s been abandoned by her family, by her boyfriend, and her friends. My upper lip curls back at the thought. They were all just vermin circling her anyway. She’s better off without them in her life. My only point of contention is that I was not the one who got rid of them for her.
I unclench my fists and smooth them over my dark jeans, wiping away the sweat as my heart rate kicks up. The end of my nose twitches as I think of all the ways I could hurt them. Knowing how much of a whore Avery Carpenter is, I’m sure the girl has nudes out there somewhere. All it would take is a few minutes of my time to share them with the whole of Silverwood Prep. Brandon Pillard, however … I’ll have to think of something special for him. Something painful. He’d had the perfect woman and he fucked her over. There’s a special place in my personal hell for him and I intend to bring it right to his front door.
“Lex!” Nolan’s sharp bark drags me out of my head, disrupting my fantasy of all of the devious things I’d like to do with Juliet’s ex-boyfriend.
I jerk my head up and catch the last tendrils of Juliet’s shampoo scent in my lungs. A groan works its way out of my chest. Nolan frowns at me. His head tilts down and he glances up the hall as if expecting Juliet to still be there. When he sees she’s not, he flicks his gaze back to me and arches a brow.
“ What ?” I snap at him.
Nolan purses his lips. “Maybe you should ask one of Auntie’s girls out, Lex. You’re looking a little tight there, man.” With a scowl, I lift one of my hands and give him my middle finger. He snorts and shakes his head before gesturing for me. “Come on,” he says. “We’ve got work to do.”
At his words, I sigh and turn, ducking into Ma-Ri’s office before closing the door and flipping the lock on the off chance someone gets a bit too curious. Now that Juliet has fled, Ma-Ri moves to the painting hanging on her wall depicting an old Asian woman working a rather strange-looking contraption, spinning silk from the butt of a worm. It’s always struck me as a bit odd, but I don’t question Ma-Ri on her decor. Neither does Nolan.
She lifts the painting down, setting it to the side to reveal the safe beyond it, and with careful fingers, she twists the lock back and forth until the telltale sound of the door clicking open engages. Ma-Ri reaches inside and withdraws a stack of green hundreds, neatly wrapped with a paper flap around the middle. She shuts and relocks the safe, replacing the painting over it before heading to her desk and slipping a white envelope out. Nolan and I remain silent as she puts the stack into the envelope and seals it before handing it over.
“The fee, boys,” she says, lifting her cigarette holder once more and putting it to her lips and sucking deeply.
“Ma-Ri.” Nolan frowns at the envelope. “You know we have to count it.”
Ma-Ri waves her hand absently at the now-sealed envelope. “Right, right, habit. Open it and count.”
A muscle jumps in Nolan’s jaw as he stares down at the unblemished and now closed envelope. It’s nothing to rip it open, but doing so would also insult the older woman and while I don’t particularly care if Auntie gets her panties up her asscrack about it, Nolan does. Still, after a brief moment of hesitation, he grits his teeth and slips his finger between the flap of the envelope, peeling it open so that the cash falls out into his palm.
Ma-Ri’s lips firm a bit at that, but she doesn’t speak as he quickly counts it. It’s only when he’s finished and tucking the flap back into the white paper that she opens her thin lips, blowing out a steady stream of smoke before she speaks.
“I take it your comment about coming back more often had everything to do with my new waitress,” she comments lightly as Nolan lifts the back of his t-shirt.
A flash of black metal at the small of his back is there and then gone as he tucks the money into the waistband right next to the Ruger P89. I recline against the back wall of Ma-Ri’s office as her gaze bounces my way and then back to Nolan.
As long as I’ve been coming here to run these little errands for G’s dad, I know my presence makes her nervous. That’s the point of my coming, though it’d been Gio’s turn. I’m no longer as annoyed by it as I was earlier. Coming had given me a chance to see Juliet again.
“I’m surprised you’d offer Juliet Donovan a job,” Nolan says to Ma-Ri.
Ma-Ri takes another drag from her cigarette via the long, antiquated holder she carries around. “I need waitresses and I don’t care what her daddy did. If she don’t work out, I’ll fire her. Simple as that.”
“There might be a few from Silverwood who won’t take kindly to her presence,” Nolan warns her.
He’s right. I’ve seen the treatment she’s received since the start of last summer. Sad really, but at the same time, it’s been almost … fun to see the change happening in real time. Almost as if I’ve been waiting for a new season of her life to start, for her to shake off the forced smiles she’d been using to hide the rising reality of who she is. This time, I’m not just watching from far away. I’m front and center.
“She ain’t no host,” Ma-Ri replies on a sigh. “She’ll be delivering drinks and working the back end. ‘Sides, Roquel asked me to give her a chance and my niece don’t often ask for anything.”
“Roquel asked?” Nolan looks back at me, his brows puckered.
I nod. “She’s been hanging around Juliet more,” I confirm. “They don’t seem like close friends, but close enough considering she’s the only one Juliet talks to.” And if anyone knows what Juliet Donovan is up to, it’s me.
Every move she makes, I’ll be there—like that shitty-ass old song. Juliet Donovan is my muse, my obsession, and no one knows her better than me. Likely not even the girl herself.
Nolan blows out a breath and returns his attention to Ma-Ri. “It’s your business, Auntie,” he says, “but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Ma-Ri smiles at him and pats him on the cheek. “You play rough, No-No,” she says, using the old moniker she’d given him when he’d been a child. “You should give that poor girl a break.”
Nolan flinches. “You’re too kind, Auntie,” he replies, shaking his head. “She’s not as nice as you seem to think she is.”
“ Oh, pah ,” Ma-Ri huffs out a breath. “She’s just protectin’ herself. ‘Sides, it might do your little group good to try and go after some girls that don’t fall at your feet with their legs already spread.”
Nolan laughs. “We don’t take advantage, Auntie. Gio’s the only one who slips up on occasion.”
Ma-Ri gives him a bland glare. “Don’t try to fool me none, No-No,” she says. “That boy does more than slip up on occasion . If he ain’t careful, next time I see him, he’ll be bringing me a babe to hold.”
It would be difficult to deny Ma-Ri’s claim. After all, between the three of us, Gio’s drowned himself in the most pussy a man could likely take and still live. He’s fucked more than half the female populace at Silverwood Public and though none would openly claim as much, several members of the Silverwood Prep Elite.
“You know I always look out for him, Auntie,” Nolan says. “We’ve got plans of our own. None of us would do much good as fathers.”
Ma-Ri shakes her head. “Just ‘cause yer own daddies ain’t worth a lick don’t mean nothing, No-No,” she says. “But you be sure ‘bout Gio. All it takes is one wrong move.”
“We got it.” Nolan leans down and presses his lips to her upturned cheek, nearly bending in half to press the chaste kiss on the much shorter woman, the insult of counting the money long forgotten. “See ya next month.”
Ma-Ri waves us off. As Nolan goes into the hallway, I trail him. The second the door shuts, his pleasant expression falls away. “This will be a problem for her business,” he mutters.
“Like she said,” I reply on a grunt, “it’s hers to do with what she wants.”
Nolan levels me with a glare. One that I neither reciprocate nor care for. “Darrio’s not gonna give a shit if she’s losing out on income,” he snaps. “His payment remains the same regardless. Despite what she claims, if that girl’s here, she’ll bring Ma-Ri’s profits down.”
He doesn’t know that. Not for sure. But I do and Nolan is forgetting that Juliet Donovan’s new status as an outcast has brought forth a whole host of cockroaches. They’ve been subtle, but I see it—the look in the eyes of our fellow classmates, of the teachers, of even the pricks still in Silverwood Prep. Now that she’s supposedly vulnerable, I have no doubt they’ll try to take advantage.
“Let it go, Nolan,” I urge, my voice deepening.
His eyes widen. “Are you defending her?” he demands. Before I can reply, he scowls and continues. “Don’t let your little obsession get in the way, Lex. We have people to protect. Ma-Ri’s one of them.”
“Then perhaps we should think about doing something with Darrio,” I bite out.
Nolan curses and turns away from me, stomping up the hall. I don’t say a word, choosing to remain silent until we’re out of the club and back in my SUV. I get into the driver’s side and turn the engine on as he stews in the passenger seat. Several long minutes go by as I pull out of the lot and take the highway back to Silverwood.
Finally, he speaks. “It’s Gio’s call,” he says. “If he wants to end this shit with Darrio, then he needs to be the one to make the decision. Not me. They’re blood.”
I nod my assent. Blood doesn’t mean much in the long run. Just like Juliet’s blood abandoned her the second they could or the way Nolan cares for Ma-Ri despite there being no familial relation, it ends up being water under the bridge in the long run. For us, blood just means responsibility. As such, it’ll be Gio’s decision to make regarding his own piece-of-shit father.
Once that decision is made though, Silverwood will see a new leader in its underworld. As far as I’m concerned, Darrio Vargas’ days on Earth are already numbered.