Chapter 16
Alec
My fist raps against the mansion’s entrance. That’s the only way to describe it. This house is as big as some of the motels we stay at, and I can’t even see the roof. I’m not even exaggerating.
And I can’t wait.
“Are you ready?” I ask Tegan, though I know she probably isn’t. We haven’t had enough practice for a target this big and rich.
The order book burns against my chest with the prospect of more orders than usual. I won this house in a ruthless game of rock, paper, scissors, though I almost feel like Tye gave the game to me. He knows me well enough to know every move I’d make before I made it.
“Ready as I’ll ever be,” she says.
Multiple locks disengage before the big door swings open. A middle-aged woman with the air of a politician stands in the doorway.
“Can I help you kids?” she asks.
I internally panic for a moment. We have mere seconds to worm our way in, especially when the target already has her defenses raised. I shift my expression into that of a pitiful, woebegone teenager before dropping my shoulders and getting ready to speak.
“Hello, ma’am. I’m Robert, and this is Melissa.” I gesture toward Tegan, but before I can concoct my story, she steps in front of me.
“I’m a domestic violence victim,” she says, and I have to fight to hold back a smile. She lifts her hair away, exposing the shiner that I didn’t give her.
The woman clutches her neck and burns me with her gaze.
“Oh no, not him,” Tegan says. “He didn’t do this to me. We’re both from the shelter. His bruises are where no one can see them.”
My mouth drops open. I don’t even mean for it to.
While I’m guilty of using the abused-kid claim to weasel money out of these people, it seems incredibly wrong and callous to claim I’m a victim of DV.
Then again, I am a victim of DV. And so is Tegan.
That bruise didn’t come from her mother, but the bruises we have are invisible anyway.
But I’m also so proud of her. It’s as if finding out people care about her has given her the confidence I couldn’t bring her on my own. She’s taking an unfortunate bruise and turning it into an opportunity. Just like I taught her. I certainly can’t get upset with her for that.
“Oh, you sweet babies.” The woman clutches the metaphorical pearls at her neckline. “Come in, come in.” She steps aside and lets us in, and I throw Tegan a proud smile.
Even though I feel terrible for being proud.
“What are you selling?”
“Magazines. We’re trying to earn enough to get our own apartment. Aren’t we, Melissa?”
Tegan nods. “We really want to get out of the shelter and be together.”
Ah, young love. Nothing pulls at the heartstrings quite like that.
“Give me that book,” the woman says to me, her smile beaming, and I hand it to her.
Tegan slips her backpack off and pulls out her order book. Ballsy move. Sometimes throwing two order books into their face can snap them out of their sympathetic haze as they realize they’re being scammed. But I relax when the woman smiles and takes the book from Tegan without a second thought.
“I’ll do ten orders . . . each. I don’t care what magazines you put down, just pick any of them for me. I’ll be donating them anyway.”
And now I feel worse. This woman seems kind. Giving. And we’re steaming piles of shit in her walkway right now.
But twenty orders? From one house? Those numbers are spectacular.
Out of this world for Tegan’s first real score of her own.
That gives us plenty of orders to give to Stacks—and some money to squirrel away for when I leave the crew.
I have to let go of my guilt and focus on my end goal, which is securing a real future for myself.
For Tye, too, if he wants. Maybe even for Tegan.
I just have to focus on what I’m doing this for, which is to leave Stacks and his rules behind.
To live a healthier, more normal life. To run a crew that respects its members and hasn’t left them in the middle of nowhere to figure it out or die.
I’m doing this so that I can have a better life than this.
Hustling my ass off to give most of my hard-earned money to someone who doesn’t give a shit about me has gotten old.
Yeah, I need to focus on that. Because this isn’t the glamorous life I’ve led Tegan to believe.
It’s a pit of sludge formed by our cumulative trauma, and we’re all trapped inside.
It’s better than the hell we came from, but it’s nowhere near where I want us to be.
I just need to remember that we have to do disgusting things if we want to escape this life.
We leave the house with twenty orders between us and an extra hundred dollars each. With this much cash, we can stop for the day, so we walk down the street, back toward the van. I grab her hand and stop her before we reach it, though.
“I’m proud of you, pup. I hate using DV as a cover because it hits so close to home, but you did good. You’re a good little liar. Just like I thought you’d be.”
“Thanks . . . I think.”
I mess with her hair, and we head to the designated pickup spot. Once we open the back door, we discover that the van is empty. Not even Stacks sits in his usual spot behind the wheel.
“Hey, maybe we’ll actually have the best seat in the van this time,” I say as I help her inside.
I climb in behind her and leave the door open to stave off the heat as we take the middle seat instead of the very back. Someone else can sit on someone else’s lap this time. Then again, I don’t mind having her on my lap. Just thinking about the last time . . .
I glance around and make sure no one is coming before I push her back and climb over her. She looks up at me and bites her lip. I think we’re both riding a bit of a high after that sale.
I ease her hair away from her face and kiss the bruise on her head. “I really want to fuck you, pup.” I grab her hand and put it on the front of my jeans. “And I can. Right now.”
“What do you mean, you can right now?”
“I can’t always get hard. Trauma is a bitch.
” I trail kisses down her neck, but flashes of that exact trauma come to the front of my mind.
My stepfather’s touch drags across my skin, and my erection falls.
I’m limp again. “And sometimes I can’t fucking stay hard,” I say with a sigh.
I throw myself into the seat and try to beat back my absolute embarrassment.
“Hey,” she says as she sits up on her knees. Her hands go to either side of my face and make me look at her. “Don’t feel bad. People hurt you.”
“It’s just not fair to you. Because what I need and what you need are probably very different things.”
“What do you mean?”
I don’t answer her, and she doesn’t release my face as my lip trembles. She only takes her right hand away to brush a tear I didn’t realize had fallen down my cheek. It just adds to the pile of embarrassment that’s crushing me.
“You’re anxious right now,” she says, mirroring my words from earlier. “Let me feed you.”
I suddenly realize what she’s asking. I’m not going to have sex with this girl just because she wants to make me feel better.
In fact, I don’t even think I could if I wanted to.
Her feeding herself to quench her anxiety isn’t the same thing as me using her body for my pleasure.
My selfish desires. I absolutely want to fuck her, especially as her hand falls over the front of my pants, but not like this.
I put my hand over hers. “I can’t, pup.”
She moves her fingers along the denim. Over my very limp dick. Other women would get offended by the flaccidity, but she seems more determined.
When she realizes I really can’t get hard, she sits back. “Is this because of Tye? Because he touched me?”
I would never get mad at her for being touched. Kind of the opposite, actually. I’d love to see Tye go further down with his hands.
But he can’t know this about me.
Despite our bond, I’ve never told him what I like. What I want. I’ve shared crew girls with other men, but not him. Maybe it’s the fear of judgement. Or that he might never speak to me again because his morals are much higher than mine.
Because I’ll admit, my morals are very fucked.
But her words go right to my mind, and I’m absolutely stuck on thinking about her, me, and Tye. Watching and pleasing and fucking. And just like that, life springs to my dick. I scan the horizon to make sure no one is coming before I climb over her again.
She looks up at me. Long, beautiful eyelashes frame her greenish eyes.
“Tell me you want me to fuck you,” I growl, “But understand what the fuck it means. Make sure you’re ready for this.”
“What am I not ready for?” she asks.
“Once I fuck you, you’ll be mine. And not just mine—” I cut myself off, afraid my words could frighten her.
Hiding this side of me from her is wrong. No, not just a side. It’s most of me. And I meant what I was going to say. Even if I let others play with her, she’s still mine. Not theirs. They’d merely borrow her body.
But I own it.
“Tell me what you want, Tegan. Use your words and tell me.”
“I want you, Ace,” she whispers before I capture her mouth with mine.
Sweat drips down my sides as the sun warms my back through the van windows. I’m hard because she pushed me into the fantasy. She’s willing. Deep inside, she knew what she was doing. She knows what I need and what she will grow to want.
I glance around once more, ensuring a clear coast before I lean back and start ripping off her pants. She kicks off her shoes, and I pull off the leggings and her underwear. Her hands go to cover her crotch, insecurity suddenly washing over her like a wave.
I rip her hands away. “Don’t you hide from me. Your body is perfect.” I put her hand on my dick. “Would it be this hard if I didn’t find you attractive?”
“I don’t know,” she says, her cheeks flushing with insecurity.
I grab her hips and pull her against me until my cock rests against the seam of her pussy. Heat and wetness embrace my dick, and I want nothing more than to be inside her.
“I won’t fuck you while you look so terrified,” I whisper before kissing her. “Is it your weight? Because fuck your weight, Tegan.”
“I don’t know,” she repeats.
“Is it the piercings?”
She bites her lip and nods.
“Oh, sweet girl, they won’t hurt you. I won’t hurt you.” I kiss down her neck until she softly moans. I reach down and grip my dick, dragging it through her wet heat.
She stops clenching my shirt, then relaxes, and that’s as much invitation as I need. I draw my hips back and put my cock against her entrance, then push my hips forward and drive myself into her. She screams, and I feel like shit because I promised I wouldn’t hurt her.
“Are you sure you aren’t a virgin? You’re tight,” I grit out. Her warmth wraps around me as if she were made for me.
“Yes, I’m sure,” she says, and her words turn into a moan.
I groan as I drop my face to her neck and inhale her scent. The problem is, I couldn’t even control myself when she grinded on my lap. She literally made me come in my pants just from existing. Being inside her is too much. And I should have waited so I could have given her the sex she deserves.
I drive my hips into hers and try to think of anything other than her moans and that subtle movement of her hips. I’m fucking done for.
I cage her within my arms as I lean my weight into them to fuck her.
My knee falls off the bench seat, and I reach down with my right arm to stop her full ass from falling off the seat as well.
Fuck, she’s so thick—full thighs and a big, round ass.
I won’t let her hate her body. Not while I’m set on admiring it every goddamn night.
My fingertips dig into her flesh as I kiss her, taking her moans into my mouth.
“We have to hurry, pup. They could come back at any moment.”
She nods, and I curl my pelvis against hers.
“I want to come inside you. For the entire ride back to the motel, you can sit with my come dripping from you. I want you to make my fucking jeans wet as you sit on my lap. Let me fill you, sweet girl.”
She looks up at me and bites her lip before giving me a slow nod.
I drop my mouth to hers and kiss her as I feel the need to bust. I’ve held back for as long as I humanly can. Her pussy is just too good. Too warm and inviting for the likes of me. I groan against her mouth as I come, filling her.
When I’ve finished, I pull out of her. My cock drips with her wetness and my come.
I look down at her pretty, creamy pussy and wish I could dive in and lick her clean.
But we can’t stay half-undressed any longer.
I put my hand around the back of her neck and pull her into me.
There’s a flash of something on her face, but I can’t tell what it means.
I kiss her. “Don’t regret what we did. I fucking don’t.”
I hope neither of us comes to regret what she set in motion by letting me inside her. Because now, she’s mine.