Chapter 4 Briar
brIAR
My body is still buzzing. A day later, mopping down the grimy counter at the truck stop, I’m still buzzing. Every time I move, I feel it. The ghost of pressure, heat, a pulse from where his mouth was. I nearly drop my rag.
Just thinking about him pulls my mind away from what I’m doing. He’s not even here, yet he’s the ultimate distraction. I’ve touched myself before, but that was just the tip of the iceberg. What Gareth gave me was the whole shebang. And he woke something up inside of me.
I still can’t believe it happened either. It’s like a dream. A fantasy I didn’t even know I had, and it came true.
My toes are burning, stuffed into a pair of shoes that are a size too small. I’m dying for something to eat too, and the rice cakes I brought from home just aren’t cutting it.
“Hey, can I get a warm-up over here!” The gruff voice shakes me out of my reminiscing. It’s Ross, a regular, who always toes the rudeness line. He’s a dick but not quite enough of a dick that he gets thrown out by Tony, the owner.
Normally, he doesn’t annoy me that much. But tonight, he’s hitting on my mom. And she seems to be falling for it. I try not to watch as she fawns all over his filthy arms, sweat-stained T-shirt, and denim vest. I just refill his coffee and walk away.
Behavior like this is probably why I don’t know who my father is. I’ve learned to deal with it over the years, but the thought of Ross coming back to the trailer tonight makes me sick to my stomach.
Thankfully, just as I’m about to lose myself in the horror of those thoughts, Sarah bursts through the door, waving a yellow daisy in her hand.
“Y’all serve cheeseburgers in here?” she calls out, striding up to the bar with that confidence I always envy. I’m smirking as she perches on a stool and hands me the flower. “Because I could use some meat!”
“That’s what I’m talking about—”
“Shut up, Ross,” she snaps. I have to turn away to hide my laughter, and I quickly go to the soda machine and fill her a glass of Sprite.
I trade it to her for the flower, which she slips into the breast pocket of my apron. She’s always bringing me silly little gifts, ever since we were kids. I have an entire drawer at home dedicated to them.
We’ve always been polar opposites, which is one of the reasons I think we get along so well.
I’m quiet, she’s loud. I’m an introvert, she’s an extrovert.
Men are a foreign species to me, while Sarah makes her living off them.
She works as a receptionist at an art gallery during the day but strips at night and makes a fortune.
I can’t even imagine having the guts to do what she does. Just being in the interrogation room with Gareth, knowing there could have been men on the other side watching us, had my heart racing.
Then again, there was something hot about it…the idea of them watching, wishing they were him, when in reality, only he could have a taste of me.
“Hello?” Sarah snaps her fingers in front of my face. I realize I’ve been off somewhere in a stupor, dreaming of Gareth and everything he did to me. “Earth to Briar? Anybody home?”
“S–sorry,” I stammer. “How’s it going?”
“How’s it going?” she laughs. “I’m the one who should be asking you that. So who is he?”
“Who is who?”
I’m playing dumb, but she sees right through me and shakes her head. “No, no. I know that look. You met somebody.”
“Shhh!” I exclaim as my mom starts to glance over. “Can you keep your voice down for five seconds?”
Sarah laughs, pops her straw from its paper, and slips it into her Sprite. “Spill.”
Honestly, I don’t even know where to begin. I’ve never had a boyfriend before, and I’m supposed to tell her about how I got turned on by the cop who pulled be over, cuffed me, and then went down on me at the police station?
And that I loved it?
It’s not that I want to hide it from her. She’s my best-friend. I just honestly don’t know how to even start the conversation.
“HELLO!?” Another snap in my face. “You’re spacing out again.”
“Sorry.”
“And you’re blushing.”
She’s right. My face is pins and needles, and heat is rushing up from my chest through my neck, causing my cheeks to sweat. I quickly dampen a washcloth and press it to my forehead.
It’s like every time I think about Gareth, time just stops. I feel the cold steel of his cuffs on my wrist, the scruff from his chin against my thighs, the hot expertise of his tongue on my—
“Hey! Spill it, girl!” Sarah’s giving me that look that she always gives me. It’s like an older-sister look that lets me know I won’t be getting away with hiding anything.
“Okay,” I say, leaning in. “I’ll tell you, but keep it quiet. I don’t want Mom to hear.”
I glance down the bar and see she’s deep into Ross’s bullshit. What I wouldn’t give for Sarah’s confidence to just stride over there and slap him.
I dive into the story. From the moment Gareth pulled me over, to him arresting me, cuffing me, placing me in the back of his car, and all the way to the interrogation room. I leave out…some of the details there, but Sarah is staring at me like she’s watching Fifty Shades of Grey for the first time.
“Wait, so he went down on you!?”
“Shhh!” I hiss, placing a finger over her lips. “Do you know what an indoor voice is? Use it!”
She bites my finger playfully, causing me to pull back. “Briar, this is huge. You’ve never even kissed a guy!”
“I know,” I sigh, pretending to scrub the counter. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Well, obviously you can’t see him again.”
I stop. That wasn’t the reaction I was expecting from her.
To Sarah, men are exploitable. Just another source of income.
I would have thought she’d look at Gareth as something similar.
Not someone to make money off, but someone to…
enjoy? I dunno. But the way she’s frowning at me now has me perplexed.
“Why not?” I ask.
Her jaw drops. “Why not? Are you for real, Briar? Because he’s clearly corrupt as fuck! Talk about an abuse of power!”
I tilt my head side to side. “Yeah…maybe…”
“Maybe? Briar, he arrested you on false charges and then chained you up in a room so he could eat your pussy.”
“Okay, if you say it like that, you can make anything seem terrible.”
Her frown deepens. “So…you’re saying it wasn’t terrible?”
I stare back at her for a moment, conscious of my heartbeat. Slow and consistent but hammering hard like a drum in my chest. Finally, after a long moment, I shake my head. It feels like a confession.
“It wasn’t terrible, Sarah. It was amazing.”
She looks back at me with that unpredictable look of hers, where I can’t tell if she’s going to laugh or cuss me out. Then, slowly, the corner of her lip twists up, and she nods slowly.
“You kinky little bitch.”
“Shut up!” I gasp, snatching her Sprite away from her. She laughs and grabs it back.
“You liked it! You liked being cuffed and chained and used by this hot cop!”
My heartbeat increases as the volume of Sarah’s voice rises. I glance back at my mom, who’s looking back at us over her shoulder. Despite her own promiscuous nature, Mom is very strict when it comes to me and men. If she heard what I just told Sarah, she’d turn my bedroom into a jail cell.
“Okay, so what if I did?” I counter. “What are you? A nun?”
Sarah laughs. “I’m not a nun, but I know how to look after myself. What even happened to your car?”
“I don’t know,” I sigh. “I called the station, and they said it was ‘being processed.’ So Mom gave me a ride.”
“Son of a bitch probably stole it and sold it,” Sarah scoffs. “Or kept it as a trophy in his back yard—”
“Ew, would you stop?” I slap her arm, images of Gareth skipping through my mind, pulling at me like invisible hands, grabbing at every inch of my body. My thighs are getting hot too.
No. Not here. Not at work!
“He’s not like that,” I protest. Sarah may be my bestie, but she just doesn’t understand.
“That’s what they all say,” she replies. “Until six months in you’re making him dinner while he’s ‘working late’ with some other girl he pulled over.”
“Okay, I’m gonna kill you—” My voice cuts off mid-sentence when the door jangles and a form enters. A massive, muscled form, wearing a police uniform.
Gareth…
“Oh my God…” I whisper. “Sarah, it’s him.”
“Who?”
“Him! Who do you think?”
“The cop?” she asks, glancing over her shoulder. “What is he—?”
She stops too. Her voice catches in her throat when she sees him. Every massive inch of him, striding into the truck stop like he owns the place. The very walls seem to bend around him. I nearly melt as he fixes his eyes on me.
The heat between my thighs sparks into a scorching fire. I shift my weight from one foot to another and feel the wet spot already starting. Even my breasts are tingling.
How does he know I’m here? How does he know I’m working tonight? I should be scared, but I’m not. What does that say about me?
He steps right up to Sarah, towering over her, and gives her a curt nod. “Evening.” She doesn’t even respond. She just stares up at him, probably trying to process his overwhelming sexiness. “Briar, come outside with me for a moment.”
I try to speak, but my throat protests. I cough quietly and try again. “I’m working…Officer Rawls.”
Something shifts behind his eyes, like a window opening into a house on fire. It quickly closes again. “Come on, Briar. We don’t need to be that formal, do we? Call me Gareth.”
It almost pisses me off how hot he is. It shouldn’t be possible.
All this power he has over me without even trying.
Without pulling me over, without cuffing me.
He still has my body reacting, pleading with desperation for his touch.
And when I see the other women in the diner glancing over at him, whispering to each other, I start to boil.
“Oh, because we’re friends now?” I ask. “The man who arrested me and stole my car?”
“Stole your car? Who stole your car?”
Is he messing with me? Or is he serious?
“Um, you did?”
His slight smile turns into a soft smirk that sends a wave of heat rushing through me. My eyes trace the sculpted line of perfection that is his jaw, all the way to his lips…
…those lips. That tongue.
I nearly lose consciousness as I’m taken over by the images of him between my legs, staring up at me as he touched places on me that no man has ever touched. Did things no man has ever done.
“No one stole your car, Briar,” he says, interrupting my day-dreaming. “In fact, I’m here to return it to you.”
Sarah scoffs, finally interjecting herself into the conversation. “Yeah, right.”
Gareth raises an eyebrow at her. “A skeptic, eh?” He looks back to me. “Why don’t you come out and see for yourself?”