Chapter 4 #2
Cignette is trying so hard not to laugh, whereas Gavin looks like he might fucking detonate in shame.
“I–” he starts, but Cignette cuts him off.
“I’m down,” she chimes with a grin, and my God, I feel something inside my stomach twist at that simple action of hers.
Dammit all to hell.
“Perfect; follow me.”
“Cigs, stop–” Gavin tries to grab her arm, but she’s already reached Alex’s side and is striking up a conversation with him.
I wait until they’ve gone inside, then slide my hands into the back pockets of my jeans before making my way over to a nervous-looking Gavin.
I widen my stance just a little as I come to a stop in front of him, and when a muscle jumps in his jaw, I narrow my eyes at him. “Why are you here?” I question.
“I told you why.” He’s trying to act bored, but I notice the constant bob of his Adam’s apple as he keeps glancing around us.
I smirk. “I feel like we’re way past third-grade lies, Gav, don’t you think?” I tell him. “So, I’m going to ask again: why are you here?”
He scoffs. “I don’t know what you expect me to say, Dorran,” he states, then meets my eyes. “I’m here because Cignette’s car broke down, and your garage is the closest one in the area. That’s it; that’s the only reason why I’m here.”
I search his face, and realize he isn’t lying. “So you’re not here to manipulate Varsha into getting back with you?”
He laughs and shakes his head. “Fuck no, man; I’m over her. For real.”
His watered-down tone makes me grit my teeth, but I try not to lose my cool over it.
“You’re dating the County Administrator’s niece, then? Trying to get it on with the elites, or some shit?”
He chuckles. “Not really.” He runs his fingers through his hair. “She’s way outta my league, and you and I both know that.”
I relax my stance and fold my arms across my chest. “So what, you brought her here out of the kindness of your heart?”
He lets go of a breath and runs a hand over his jaw. “We’re fucking, okay?” he says. “I’m dating someone else, but Cigs and I – we’re…” he trails, then swallows.
I don’t know why I was expecting a different kind of answer from him. It’s always the same pattern with him, no matter what.
“Does Cignette know you’re in a relationship?” I ask.
He nods. “Yup.”
“And does your girlfriend know about Cignette?”
He shakes his head. “No.”
I dig the heels of my boots into the ground. “So you’re cheating on her.”
He blinks in surprise. “What’s it to you, man? Why’re you so interested? It’s not your sister this time, so my love and sex lives shouldn’t be any of your damn business. Stay out of it, alright?”
Honestly, I couldn’t care less about him or the woman he’s dating, and I certainly don’t give any number of shits about their feelings. But Cignette, on the other hand…
That woman is turning me into an open wound – fucking gaping and vulnerable. And, as much as I don’t like what it’s doing to me, I also wanna dive deeper and see where it takes me.
“I think you should go,” I tell Gavin.
His brows pinch together as he stares at me. “Excuse me?”
“Get outta here, Gav,” I say. “Are you suddenly hard on the ears or something?”
“And leave Cignette with you?” he asks incredulously. “I don’t think so.”
I lean in a little, and watch as he takes a step back. “I think she’ll be just fine with me.”
He sneers at me. “Well, what I think is that you’re damn near delusional.”
“Watch it, Gavin,” Jayce warns. A second later, he’s standing next to me, his gaze hard.
“Get. Outta. Here,” I repeat, and this time, the fucker actually listens. He gives Jayce and I a pathetic excuse of a glare, pivots on his feet, and practically jogs back up the street.
“That was easy,” Jayce observes.
I grin. “When has it ever been difficult with him?”
Jayce chuckles. “Touché.” He then bumps his shoulder against mine. “I found the battery, by the way.”
I nod at him. “Perfect.”
He places said battery on the ground, next to a portable toolbox that he’s already got set up for me, which makes me smile.
I really don’t deserve this guy.
“If you need anything else, just lemme know,” he tells me as he straightens.
I twist his cap around and briefly cup the side of his neck. “Thanks, man.”
“I’ve got you.” He squeezes my wrist, then goes back in to work on the Fiesta.
I follow him, grab my cap from the rack next to the entrance, and chance a glance to where Alex and Varsha are busy talking to a smiling Cignette.
She laughs, and I’m left standing there like a moron, staring at her.
It’s an airy sound, her laughter. Almost weightless. And I realize, to my stupefaction, that I really like listening to it.
Her hair sways as she shifts and takes a drink from the beer bottle in her hand, and my lips twitch at the fact that she’s actually following in on my crew and I’s irregular routine of drinking at 10 in the fucking morning.
She lifts her head, and our eyes meet. She looks around as if searching for Gavin, but I shake my head subtly and mouth, “Don’t mention him.”
She has no idea why I’m asking her to do that, yet she inclines her head at my request anyway.
I give her a quick wink, then head outside again.
I push my curls back, put my cap on, and pop open the Cadillac’s hood.
I grab a wrench from the toolbox and loosen the nuts holding the cables to the terminal.
Beads of sweat trickle down my temples as I pull the negative cable off first, then proceed to do the same to the positive one.
Once I’m done with that, I keep both the cables separated so that they don’t end up touching each other.
I’m about to lift out the old battery when I feel a crunch of gravel behind me, followed by a flash of a shadow on my left. But, before I can turn toward it, though, Cignette appears in my line of view. Sans the beer bottle from earlier.
“Where is he?” she asks.
I lift the old battery and place it on the ground. “I asked him to leave.”
“Why?” Pure curiosity laces her voice.
I sigh and wipe the sweat off my upper lip as I straighten. “Because he’s Varsha’s ex, and I didn’t want her to see him, or him to see her.”
Cignette sucks in a breath, and her brows rise a little. “I see.” She shifts on her feet, and if I’m not mistaken, I notice a hint of anger on her face.
I purposefully brush by her to get to the new battery, and once I have it, I set it in and attach the cables to it – the negative one first, and then the positive.
I’m aware that she’s tracking my movements, so I work slow; I let her see everything she wants to see. It only serves to feed my fascination towards her.
Once I’m done, I check to see if the nuts are tight enough, then step back and slam the Cadillac’s hood shut. Placing a hand on it, I balance my weight sideways and say, “I’m assuming you’re aware that he has a girlfriend.” I know that she knows, but I still want her to admit it out loud.
Cignette swallows and leans against the car. “I am, yeah.”
I hum. “Then I’m also assuming that you like him on quite a serious note.” Like him to the point where you don’t care about the chick he’s seeing, or that him being in a relationship doesn’t affect your decision to want to hook up with him, is what I mean.
“I like him enough to fuck him,” she says, then lifts a shoulder. “Because that’s all it really is – casual, meaningless sex.”
I don’t know why that confession riles me, but it does. The thought of Gavin fucking Cignette makes my skin crawl; makes me wanna reach for the strings of her memories that hold the stupid asshole in them, and pull them apart.
“Gotcha,” I state, then jerk my head towards the car. “It’s done. You should try starting it.”
She gets in and does just that, then gives me a grin and a thumbs up when the engine roars to life.
Mission accomplished.
“How’re you paying?” I ask her when she steps out and walks over to me again. “Cash or card?”
“Card.” She reaches for the right back pocket of her shorts, frowns, then moves onto the other. She does that a few times – keeps searching all of her pockets – but all she manages to find is nothing.
“Fuck,” she whispers, then pats her shorts once more. “Fuck-fuck-fuck.” She looks at me with evident guilt on her face. “I can’t find my card,” she says.
I put my tongue to my cheek. “I can see that,” I muse.
“Umm…” She sighs. “Look, if you gimme an hour, I can drive home and get you the cash. I don’t have any on me at the moment, and I seem to have forgotten my card at the estate.”
I pull off my cap and tousle my now-sweaty hair. “There’s no need for that. You can come by tomorrow, if that’s convenient for you.”
She shakes her head. “No, that’s not fair to you.” She pauses, looks contemplative, then says, “Drop by the estate after you’ve closed shop. I can pay you then.”
I hesitate at that.
I know every single one of the guards that’s stationed by and in her mother, Miranda’s, fancy house.
Me and the crew do, after all, conduct all of the kills for her and her brother, Chase.
I’m aware that every guard under his payroll has rotational shifts – ones that take them back-and-forth from his to his sister’s estates.
Cignette, of course, doesn’t need to know that I know all of this shit, or that I kill for her uncle.
Still, none of it means that I can simply trot up to their house. But hey, when the fuck have I shied away from jumping right into a roaring inferno?
Never, as far as I can remember.
I scrub a hand under my jaw and say, “Sure.” Why the hell not, right? I’ve already been acting deranged in the presence of this woman, so what’s a little more madness to top it all off and damn me furthermore?
Besides, being alone with her might give me a chance to do the thing I’ve wanted to do since she got here: stake my goddamn claim on her.
And yeah, it’s very Neanderthal-like of me to say that, but this is who I am, and Cignette will have to get used to it, whether she likes it or not.
Because one thing I know for sure is that she can’t be with Gavin, not after I’ve laid eyes on her.
“Great.” She smiles, and this time, I feel its impact straight to my cock.
We exchange numbers, and I can’t help but think how Jayce is going to have my ass for this. But I guess it’s too late for me to back out now, so eh, whatever.
“Oh hey, I forgot to tell you,” Cignette begins. “You’ll have to come over before 12a.m., because that’s when our gates close, and they don’t open for anyone until 8 in the morning.”
Weird. I wasn’t aware of that little tidbit.
I give her a nod. “Got it.”
“Ledge!”
Cignette turns, and as she does, a gust of wind blows by us, pushing her hair sideways.
My eyes fall on her back, and there, inked on her skin, I see an untethered swan. I only get a brief glimpse of it before I have to avert my gaze from her and look in the direction of the voice.
“What?” I bark at Varsha, Jayce, and Alex. It’s the former who’d called my name.
Alex and Varsha give me knowing looks, whereas Jayce simply shakes his head at me before saying, “Alex is hungry. We’re headed to McDonald’s for a quick bite. You coming?”
I glance at Cignette, then at my crew. “Yeah,” I tell Jayce. “You guys go ahead; I’ll catch up in a bit.”
They nod and head out, and when I look down at her, I find Cignette gazing up at me.
I step close to her, and she inhales a sharp breath. “Are you gonna go back to Gavin now?” I ask, then cage her in by placing both of my hands on her Cadillac’s hood.
She scans my face. “No,” she answers in a rasp.
I tread closer, and when my hips brush her stomach, I stifle to urge to rock them against her.
“Good.”
She smiles a little. “Good, huh?” she sasses.
I lean in – so close that I can breathe in every one of her sweet, beer-laced exhales. “Mm-hmm.”
She pushes forward, and I feel her chest rising and falling in sync with mine.
I tilt my head and very gently run the tip of my nose over her cheek, her jaw, and then the side of her neck. My cock is straining against my zipper almost painfully, and I’m so damn close to stripping her down and fucking her raw that it’s taking all my strength to hold myself in.
“Dorran…” she whispers, and Christ, my name on her lips is a vice of the darkest nature. It promises to feed my newly-found hunger for her, yet keeps me aching for what’s to come.
“I…” she starts, then sighs. “Dorran, I have to go.”
I move back just a little so that I can look at her.
She’s completely flushed, and yet there’s regret in her eyes as she again says, “I have to go.”
I nod. “Okay.”
“Yeah.”
I chuckle, then push away from her before backtracking towards the garage so that I can lock it up before joining the crew at McDonald’s.
“Go,” I tell her, and run my gaze over her frame. “I’ll see you at midnight, Little Swan.”