2. Nineteen Years Earlier…
JASON
I’ve been watching her.
She’s too pretty for her own good, with the moonlight bouncing off her dark, shiny hair. The curves of her silhouette strike too many adult ideas in my mind — dangerous ones— and she isn’t the kind of distraction I need, when I’m trying to get my life back on track.
I know who she is. I’ve seen her around this small town plenty.
Amanda Warren is one of those rich kids from the holiday mansions along the shoreline of Mountain Lake. Her family has a new man of the house almost every time they come here for the summer, and even a blind man could see the dysfunction from a distance. On the surface everything looks perfect, but there’s no love in that house.
It’s no surprise Amanda began to rebel as she got older, and it’s been amusing to watch her wealthy family’s facade of perfection begin to crack, but this summer — after she graduated high school — has been something else.
A glimpse of adulthood has set her on fire, and there’s every chance she’ll burn herself to the ground with her lack of control.
She’s been growing more and more reckless and wild. Like she’s on a mission to cause the kind of mayhem that would drive parents crazy. Sadly, from what I can tell, hers don’t care to notice, and every day she grows bolder in her attempts to draw their attention.
The escalation is hard to witness, but I can’t look away.
Once she started letting the filthy little rich boys take advantage of her, I knew I’d have to step in and end it. She’s constantly on her knees, taking more cock than any girl her age should. If those any of those punks have a condom, she gives him a ticket to ride. Then she cries in secret up at the falls, once they’ve had their fun and left her behind like she’s worthless.
I know she hates what she’s doing, but that doesn’t stop her.
Word is getting around, and she has no end of suitors. Sometimes, fights break out over who’ll get to use her next, and if the smile on her face is anything to go by, she likes when that happens. She’s desperate to feel wanted, that much is obvious.
If she keeps it up, she’s going to get herself hurt, and I’m sure she likes the idea of that, too. Her behavior is getting dangerous, and it’s a classic cry for help, from where I’m sitting, but nobody is coming to save her. She’ll get herself in serious trouble sooner or later.
She needs someone to teach her a lesson and scare her straight before it gets that far. And since I’m the only one paying her any mind, I feel that responsibility heavy on my shoulders, so when the opportunity comes, I seize it.
No doubt she thinks she’s alone on the building site, because she snuck over the locked gate at midnight, but she’ll soon learn otherwise.
I wait until she’s busy reading the labels on the paint cans with her flashlight, and then I grab her from behind, clamp her arms to her body, and cover her mouth with a firm seal, so she can’t scream.
“You’re in the wrong place at the wrong time, Princess,” I whisper in her ear. “This is a one-thief town, and I’ve got dibs.”
She struggles and squirms, and I sicken myself with how much I enjoy it. I press her to the nearest wall and make sure she can feel how hard she’s making my cock. I slot myself against the soft valley of her ass, press her chest and hips to the wall more firmly, and give a hum of approval when she still tries to escape my grasp. “Keep fighting, baby girl. I like it.”
She goes still.
“Are you scared, Amanda Warren?”
She stiffens further when I call her by name.
“Yes, I know who you are.” I kiss her just below her ear. “Anyone in town with a penis knows who you are, Mandi. You’re the girl who lets those horny little shits shove their dirty cocks inside you all day long. You know who I am, and you think I want to do it too? Is that why you’re scared?”
Her heart is racing. The rush of her pulse makes my lips tingle when I press them to her neck. “Lucky for you, I don’t fuck teenage sluts with no self-worth.” I ease my grip by the tiniest fraction. “And I’m feeling charitable, so I’ll step in front of your runaway-train bullshit and keep you from going off the rails.”
I release her slowly and turn her to face me, but I keep her cornered so she can’t run. “What are you doing here?”
She stares up at me, wide eyed and speechless.
“I need an answer, Princess. Why are you breaking into private property, when you should be tucked up in bed, sleeping off all that fucking cock you took today?” I place my hand on the wall at her back and lean over her with every intention to intimidate.
Her eyebrows dip. “How…?”
“How do I know?” I raise an eyebrow. “You’re playing your naughty games in my neck of the woods, sweetheart. You think I can’t hear your fake orgasms ringing through the forest? I hear your fucking noise and hunt you down, so I can watch your pretty little rich-girl cunt take a pounding from those spoiled assholes, like some twisted reality-TV drama of the sick and pompous. You people come here for a season, but this is my town, and I know everything that happens here.” I tilt my head. “Almost everything. Tell me why.”
“Why I fuck them?” she asks, squinting at me.
“Oh, my sweet summer child,” I breathe with a laugh. “You’re not fucking them. They’re fucking you. And I know why you’re letting it happen. I’m more curious about what you’re doing here tonight, rummaging through these fucking paint cans. Enlighten me.”
“I… I saw them through the fence, this morning. I was checking what colors there are,” she says, glancing at the cans. “I need something bright.”
“For what?”
She tugs her eyebrows into a V and looks at me as if I’m unintelligent. “To paint with,” she says, her tone slow and patronizing.
I grab her throat and push her against the wall. “I’m not one of your stupid fuck-boys, Princess. I won’t allow attention-deprived little brats to talk to me with anything less than respect. We both know I could snap this dainty little neck and disappear before anyone bothered to look for you. Best you don’t intentionally piss me off when I’m asking why the rich girl needs to steal paint.”
In the dim light, she searches my face with sweet, round, hazel eyes, and I give her nothing to read there but pure control.
She wets her lips, flutters her lashes, and pulls the old lost-puppy face, but if she thinks that’ll make me do anything she wants, she’s shit out of luck.
“I’m waiting,” I growl. “Do I need to guess? Is it more of your spoiled brat bullshit? Mommy and Stepdaddy are too busy with the little one to give you what you need? Why do you want paint? Mommy likes things clean and perfect, so I doubt she ever bought you paint in your life, which means the odds that you’re an artist are pretty slim. More likely you need it for acting out — painting naughty words on walls and cars around town, to get her to notice you. Tell me what you’re planning to paint with these supplies, angry girl. I get enough grief for being the town low-life, without copping more suspicion borne from whatever crap you decide to fucking vandalize.”
Her throat strains under my fingers, and she moves her lips, like she wants to talk but can’t. I step closer, pinning her in place so she has no chance to slip away when I loosen my grip on her neck.
“It’s for art” — she gasps for breath — “not vandalism. And I’m not angry.”
“Yes you are,” I counter with authority in my tone. “I know anger when I see it. I also know sadness, in case you thought I was only giving you one diagnosis. You’re a sad, angry girl, who doesn’t love herself, and if you were mine, I’d spank your ass for behaving the way you do.”
She lifts her chin in defiance, but her eyes are glassy with tears.
The truth hurt. And from the way her body responds to my threat, she likes the pain.
Bad attention is still attention, and she seems desperate for anything she can get. She presses into my touch everywhere she can, but not in any attempt to break free. Her curves taunt me, and our shapes slot together, though I doubt she even realizes the way she automatically shifts to receive my thigh between her legs.
I firm my hand around her throat, and her eyes flash at me, as her nipples harden enough to be felt through her thin cropped T-shirt.
“You’d spank me?” she utters in a hoarse whisper.
God, she fucking wants it.
Someone should have cared enough to enforce some boundaries with her a long time ago, but it’s obvious that wasn’t the case. Nobody gave a damn.
“What kind of art?” I ask, ignoring her interest in discipline. I move closer, but ease the tension in my grip again, so she can speak. “What do you like to paint, Princess?”
She looks confused by the question. Am I the first to ask it?
“I don’t paint,” she whispers. “Not yet.”
“What made you want to start tonight, with bright colors?” I demand to know, more curious than ever.
“I…” She turns her gaze skyward, and then down the street she came from. “Mom doesn’t allow paint inside. Only Pencil. Plain pencil, because color pencil doesn’t erase to her satisfaction. But the piece I’m working on… Pencil isn’t enough. It doesn’t feel right.” Her eyes sparkle as she explains, and it’s the most natural and authentic I’ve seen her. Whatever she’s working on, she’s invested in it. She moves her body against mine, like the pressure might sway me to feel the same need for color as she does.
I want to take whatever paint I can find and pour it through her mom’s house, to spite the woman for forbidding such passion instead of encouraging it. The only thing that deters me, is the idea of Mandi being blamed for the mess I’d make.
“Why is pencil not enough?” I ask. “What did you draw? Clown cats? Fruit-covered hats? Lovers on acid? Our lake under rainbow skies?”
“Children playing,” she says with a gulp I feel against my palm. “Their happiness shouldn’t be so gray.”
I want to ask if she knows what happiness even looks like, but she’s no doubt seen it all around and is painting it as a way to feel or understand the foreign concept.
“Bright colors sound appropriate for that,” I murmur as the wind whips her dark hair across her face. I capture the long strands between my fingers and stroke their silkiness before sweeping them back behind her ear. “What will Mommy say if she finds you painting in her house?”
“She won’t find out,” Mandi says with conviction. “She barely looks my way, and I’ll be careful. Besides, the picture I drew is on the wall inside my closet, where she can’t see it.”
“In the closet? Hidden, like it’s something shameful? While you flaunt other things she’d disapprove of so publicly?” I run my thumb along her smooth jaw.
Why doesn’t she want her mother to see the art she loves? Does she fear scorn and judgment? Is it preservation? She thinks her passion could be taken away from her?
“Do you always draw in secret?” I ask, watching the subtle shift of her parted lips with each of her short, panted breaths.
“I only draw in secret.”
When I shift my gaze to her eyes, I find her watching my mouth just as closely. Whether she knows she’s doing it or not, she’s rocking her crotch against my leg.
I release her neck and step back. “You’d better get your paint and go home, Princess. I’ve got work to do.”
“Stealing?” she asks, all superior.
“We’re both thieves tonight, Mandi. You need color, and I need cash. Not everyone had the good fortune to be born rich, you know.”
“Yeah, well, being rich isn’t everything.” She looks around at the beautiful lake and all the big houses of those who can afford to live on its shores. “Money doesn’t buy happiness.”
I look her over. “Was that a joke? Because you’re stealing the color to paint happiness?”
She smiles a little and shakes her head. “Coincidence.”
“You know what else is coincidence?” I step closer again.
She doesn’t move away, and shows me no fear as she raises her chin. “What?”
“How badly we both want things to be different.” I slowly run my fingers through her hair, and then fist her long locks tightly at the base of her skull, until she angles her head where I want it with a pained hiss. “Make better choices,” I growl in her ear, “or you’ll attract the wrong things into your life.”
“Like I’ve attracted you?” she whispers.
“Maybe.” I twist my other hand in her cropped tee, until my knuckles brush against the soft undersides of her breasts. “Or maybe I’m the only thing right, Princess.” I let her go and straighten her clothes while she stands still and lets me. “Run along and do what you can to make the pencil children happy, Mandi. Maybe one day you’ll be one of them.”