1. “I DON’T GIVE A DAMN ‘BOUT MY BAD REPUTATION” #3
The scraggly Chihuahua growled up at him, her tongue lolling from the side of her mouth, her unicorn hoodie cinched around her absurd little body, as if that rainbow spike gave it the strength of a rhino.
The little rodent barked harder, and Soren gave up trying to speak over the noise and gave Jocelyn a desperate look of do something, or I will.
She huffed and casually pushed off the chipped wooden frame. “One second.”
The door slammed in his face. Soren listened to her muffled negotiation on the other side of the wall, followed by subdued silence.
The back door opened a second later. “Sweet Odin, she hates you.” Jocelyn blew a loose thread of hair out of her eye and leaned against the frame, arms folded within the sleeves of her silk kimono as she continued to block his entry.
“This is why you don’t feed gremlins after midnight.”
“Don’t talk about my daughter that way.”
“Yeah, I guess she inherited her charming personality from her mother.”
Jocelyn arched a dark, sculpted brow. “What can I say? We have no patience for strays.”
He met her eyes with another roll of his own. “So…you gonna let me in?”
“Wow,” she said with little inflection. “You really do spare me from having to gag over your silver tongue. What happened? Use up all your best material on tonight’s interviewee?”
“Something like that.” He stepped closer, silently urging her to invite him in. She wouldn’t. She never did.
Instead, she sniffed the air as if she could smell his date on him. Her mocha stare drifted from his tailored jacket to the toes of his Italian leather shoes. “My Goddess, you’re a cliché. So what do you want?”
Mostly, he wanted to silence that sharp mouth of hers. The bratty attitude had been done to death, but that was the default setting. Even in third grade, when she transferred to Hideaway Bay mid-year, she walked in like she owned the place, never caring what others thought of her.
Jocelyn Collins didn’t wait for acceptance. She was a storm of her own making, loud, unpredictable, wild, and catastrophic. She left trails of devastation in her wake and unapologetically went after whatever she wanted, regardless of who or what obstacles stood in her way.
“You really going to make me stand out here, Joce?”
“Yup.” There wasn’t an ounce of hesitation in her response.
“Invite me in. We both know how this ends.”
“Why should I?”
Her greatest ambition in life was to make him beg. “Because you and I both know you want me inside.” He grinned, letting her interpret that as she would.
“I don’t think so, Soren. Last time you came by, you left my toilet seat up and drank all my bourbon.”
“If I recall, you drank it with me.”
“I was only trying to be hospitable.” She examined her nails as if anything was more interesting than his presence.
His eyes drifted down her silk kimono, knowing full well she was naked underneath. Her hair held the tousled remnants of a fallen hairdo, wilting down her sharp shoulders in dark chocolate waves. His attention settled on her bare feet, where the blue paint on her middle toe had chipped.
This was what he chose over Olivia? He needed his head examined.
Warm light bled through the doorway, and distant punk rock drifted from inside the house.
“If that’s all you wanted, I have a book to finish writing.”
Their eyes locked in a challenging standoff just as the song shifted to Joan Jett’s “Bad Reputation”.
She wasn’t going to ask him in, and he sure as fuck wasn’t begging.
Glancing back at the neglected garden where wildflowers erupted in a riot of directions and heights as an endless fuck you to order, he muttered under his breath, “You’re such a pain in my ass.”
“Yet you keep coming back.”
“Shut up.” He narrowed his eyes at her.
She smirked, as if she just scored a point on her imaginary bitch-o-meter. Pouting dramatically, she cocked her head. “What’s wrong, Lord Fancy-pants? Can’t the other girls make you come as hard as I do?”
“Fuck you.”
She laughed. “Make me.”
That was all the invitation he needed.
Lunging across the threshold, backing her into the house, he fisted that bird’s nest of hair piled on top of her head. “You like when I fucking make you,” he growled, crushing his mouth against hers and shutting her up the only way he knew how.
She forked her fingers into his hair, pulling hard enough to rip a few strands free.
He kicked the door shut as blood pulsed hard and heavy to his cock.
Joan Jett shouted from the next room as he backed her into the wall, knocking into the accent table as a stack of books fell to the floor.
Her sharp tongue tasted like whiskey and defiance, and the combination hit his bloodstream with mercenary precision.
Jocelyn’s back collided with the hallway wall, rattling a framed picture off its nail, but neither of them flinched as the piece crashed against the hardwood.
Soren’s fingers tightened in her hair, angling her head exactly where he wanted it so he could take her mouth with unapologetic, demanding need.
She bit his lower lip hard enough to draw a sound from his throat, hard enough that he tasted blood. His dick pulsed in excitement. He’d deny wanting her until his last breath, but right now, he was desperate to have her.
“You’re a fucking animal,” he growled, reclaiming control of the kiss.
“Says the stray who keeps showing up at my door.” She yanked his belt, tugging the leather through the buckle with the efficiency of a woman who did this enough times to no longer need his consent.
Shrugging his suit jacket off his shoulders, he tossed it over the banister without looking.
Yanking her kimono, he exposed her creamy-white shoulder.
The warm slope of ivory skin beneath called to his tongue like water to a thirsting man.
He pressed his mouth to the curve of her neck and tasted where her pulse hammered against his tongue.
Desire singed the air as her soft breath teased his temple.
The familiar concoction of whisky and lust wrapped around him with the suffocating familiarity of a drug he consistently failed to quit.
Warm fingers shoved into his briefs and closed around his cock, sure and demanding, pulling his hips forward before his pride could intervene.
“Careful,” she teased, her grip tightening with deliberate cruelty. “Wouldn’t want to embarrass yourself like last time.”
“Keep talking.” He bent low and bit her nipple.
She gasped. “Oh, I plan to.” Her dark eyes teased as her smile pulled at her flushed cheeks.
Those taunting lips… He should shove her to her knees and shut her up for good.
“I know what you’re thinking.”
Fuck. She probably did. He loved and hated that knowing look in her eyes. Pure sin wrapped in silk. No other person could get away with breaking his balls as often as she did.
“Turn around,” he growled and shoved her into the wall, fully intending to ruin her.
Her eyes, sharp with disdain, glared over her shoulder. “Asshole.” Challenge flickered in her stare, and his blood heated several more degrees.
They understood what this was. Accepted it. Equally hated the curse they mutually suffered.
Fucking her against the wall would resolve nothing and complicate everything, but they were already past the point of denial. Their two-decade rivalry had come to a head the day of his father’s funeral, and he’d not been able to stop obsessing over her in the eighteen months since.
Gripping her lush ass, he dug his nails into silk and soft flesh as he pressed her shoulders down, bending her into position. Shoving up her robe, his hunger surged. He needed to get inside of her.
“Is this what you want?” He smacked her ass and stepped closer, dragging his aching cock against the crease as his nails scored the delicate skin of those grabbable cheeks.
She arched like a cat. “Am I supposed to feel something?”
He gathered her hair in his fist and jerked her head back. “You can be such a brat.”
She chuckled, unaffected by the word. If anything, it egged her on. “Brat? You’re the one hesitating—”
Soren ripped the kimono off her body and kicked her feet apart. Her spine arched, and she squirmed closer as his palm slid to the bare plane of her stomach. Dipping his fingers between her wet folds, he tested her heat and found her wet and ready as she thrust her hips to meet his exploring touch.
Breath left her in a low, fractured exhalation when he replaced his fingers with his cock. His body pressed to hers, caging her between him and the wall.
“Am I hesitating now?” His mouth moved against the shell of her ear as his swollen cock stretched her, his fingers sliding along the strained slit of her wet pussy to the hard bud of her swollen clit.
“Gah, stop talking.” She widened her stance, giving him easier access, and he plunged into her, fully seating himself.
“Admit it, Joce, everything out of my mouth makes you wet.”
“Hardly,” she lied, her voice catching when his fingers rolled her clit faster.
He chuckled as her body betrayed her words, as he easily slid in and out of her slick heat. The soft sound of pleasure that escaped her throat vibrated against the wall and straight through his chest.
“I don’t…” She moaned. “…respond to mediocre.”
If only that were true. Then he might be able to walk away. He could stop showing up on her back porch at random hours of the night.
He raised his fingers, drenched in the proof of her lies, and pressed them between her full lips. “Taste how bad you want me.”
She bit his fingers, and he hissed, ripping them from her mouth and returning them to her needy pussy.
“Do that again, and I’ll—”
“You’ll what?” He jerked her hair back as he thrust his hips forward, hitting the exact place deep inside of her proven to cut off her lies.
Her breath hitched, her body contradicting her claim to unaffectedness. Drenched, her body clenched his throbbing cock. Sometimes, the raw honesty of her physical reaction gutted him in ways her sharp tongue could never undo.