Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Josie
Shame nibbles my guts as I sit by the fire, roasting marshmallows with my ex. I never should have agreed to that silly bet, and I definitely shouldn’t have let him go down on me. After the way he broke my fucking heart, I shouldn’t even be sitting beside him now.
What can I say? I’m a glutton for punishment.
And orgasms.
Eh, maybe it won’t be so bad. So long as I guard my heart, I’ll be fine. I know what I’m up against this time. I’m not a na?ve twenty-something with no impulse control. Now I’m an experienced twenty-something with no impulse control. It’s called growth.
“Blayne, could you pass that box of graham crackers my way?” I smile sweetly and bat my eyelashes.
King leans closer. “Don’t forget our little agreement,” he whispers.
I turn my face, mere inches from his lips—lips that I have never and will never kiss. “I’ve forgotten nothing,” I whisper right back. “I agreed to stop trying to ride with Blayne. I never agreed to stop trying to ride Blayne.”
King grumbles to himself and sits back, unable to argue with that. I caught him on a technicality.
Blayne pushes the box into my hand and sits beside me, much to King’s chagrin. The guy is practically in my lap on this tiny strip of wood.
Captain Cocksure rises and meanders a few feet away. Probably so that he can see where our hands are.
“How’d y’all start this party without me?” Lice Pick shouts as he wanders closer to the fire. He carries a six-pack in one hand and a battered lawn chair in the other. With a flick of his wrist, he opens the chair and plops it beside Blayne.
“Where’s Charity?” Blayne asks.
That must be Lice Pick’s love interest. I could get past that mustache, and I don’t mind his stocky, round build, but I just can’t get past his name. Good for her, though.
“Charity?” Lice Pick chuckles and pats his gut. “Wore her out and put her to bed.”
Bennett, King, and Blayne groan, and I have to turn my head to hide the giggles fighting their way out of me.
“When do we get to meet her?” Cat asks. “She’s been with us since the lake house, and we haven’t even seen her face.”
“She’s probably a pillow with a hole cut in the bottom,” Bennett says with a laugh, and Ezra and Aven join him.
“A hole? A solid wrinkle in the fabric would do the trick for this bloke,” Ezra bellows through laughter.
“Stop being jerks,” a voice says behind me, and I turn to see Eve approaching the fire. Her long legs look incredible in those tiny jean shorts. “I met her, albeit accidentally. She was snooping around the lake house before all of you arrived.”
“Snooping?” King says, his interest piqued.
Eve taps Blayne’s shoulder. “Move over, lover boy. I’ll be damned if I sit in the dirt, and this log is only big enough for two at most.”
Blayne rises, and she sits beside me. I pass a bag of marshmallows and a stick to her.
“Yeah, she was sniffing around the rooms. Found her in mine. Bleach-blonde hair high enough to touch heaven? Tits even bigger than that? Yeah, they like shit super-sized in Texas.” Eve skewers a mallow and holds it over the fire.
“Nothing to be concerned about, though. She was lost and got a little curious.”
“She’s nervous,” Blayne offers.
“Oh, so you two are acquainted as well?” King asks.
Blayne shrugs. “We know each other through—”
“Lice Pick?” King cuts in.
“Yeah.” Blayne glances at me, and Eve covers her mouth. What’s that all about?
I pull my marshmallow from the fire and stuff it between chocolate and graham crackers. This conversation is none of my business, and I’m not about to butt in. Not when I have a front-row seat to every juicy detail.
“Was she vetted before she was invited to join us?” Bennett looks at King. “You and Frankie check everyone out, right?”
“Frankie and I handle most of the Sinners and all the Cattle. Jim handles the staff and the little surprise parasites. I mean guests.”
“Cattle . . . those are the people we kill, right?” I ask. Jim gave me a brief rundown, but it’s all a blur. “Speaking of killing, when do we get to do that? I’m bored.”
King raises an eyebrow.
Okay, not totally bored. What happened in that RV was pretty not boring, but I’m not about to make a habit of it.
Not a regular habit, anyway. Just an occasional one. Maybe.
Cat checks her watch. “We’ll be competing in about eight hours, so if anyone needs their beauty sleep, better get on it now.”
“All you need is a catnap, kitten,” Bennett says with a smack to her butt.
She giggles and walks off, giving him a look over her shoulder that he can’t refuse. He rises and trots after her, a man in love.
God, I want that.
It’s a common misconception that sex addicts are horrible people who lack any ounce of ability to maintain a monogamous relationship.
I may be a horrible person, but I’ll be damned if I can’t be loyal to someone.
I masturbate to the thought of sucking the same dick every night.
Are you kidding me? Monogamy is the stuff my wet dreams are made of.
Unfortunately, the only man I’ve ever desired to commit to had zero desire of a similar nature. Even now, our inner workings fail to align.
He only went down on me to win a bet with Jim.
I’m a smart girl, and I figured it out fairly quickly.
In fact, I knew what he meant as soon as he told his friend he’d lost. I once watched him arm-wrestle a three-year-old little boy because the child’s father bet King five dollars he couldn’t beat him.
This was at a charity event.
The “bets” were actually donations for cancer research.
King was meant to lose—a cute gimmick/photo-op the event organizer thought everyone would naturally understand. Well, she underestimated the pull of a bet on this man.
Did King lose? No. He grinned at that little boy and pinned his tiny little fist in record time. The child cried. Wept actual tears. King still stood and collected his five-dollar winnings like an absolute cad. And that’s where you’d think the story would end, right?
But it’s not. Because what he did next was just a small thread in the fabric of our early tapestry. It’s just a tiny glimpse of how he pulled me closer and closer until I thought I saw a picture forming in the weaver’s loom.
He pulled out his wallet, tucked those ten ones inside, and pulled out a bank envelope.
I don’t know how much was inside, and I never asked, but it was enough to put a smile on both the man’s and the director’s faces.
With those two satisfied, he turned his attention to the disgruntled child.
He marched back to the table, rolled up his shirt sleeve, and plonked his elbow onto the surface.
The baffled child stopped crying, purely out of shock, and when King motioned for him to arm-wrestle him once more, the child shook his head.
People had gathered around to see the spectacle by this point—far more than had seen him beat the child.
I felt a shock of pride rush through me when he leaned over the table and told the kid he couldn’t win every time, but he had to keep trying.
I’d said that same thing to him only the night before when he couldn’t get me to reach that illusive tenth orgasm.
It hadn’t helped King’s ego, but it soothed the little boy. He nodded and put up his tiny arm. King took his hand, and the match began. This time, the win went the other way, and my heart felt a shock for a different reason.
At that point, I knew so little about him.
Pretty much only that he was attractive, violent, and could fuck.
We were at a cancer-research event so that we could murder one of the attendees, for fuck’s sake, so I was well aware that he wasn’t morally sound.
I knew he worked as a fed and that his accent made me buy stock in panty liners.
But this? Learning that he was also generous and kind, that behind that gruff exterior there might be a little something softer?
That was the beginning of the end for us.
There was romance five years ago. There were flirtations, longing looks, and the beginnings of something real. The threads were mostly mine, but he wove some as well. He can pretend it was all an act, but what we shared was something special.
Now I’m forced to pretend it wasn’t.
“Guess I’d better hit the sack too,” Blayne says. He scuffs his cowboy boot through the dirt. “You coming, Pick?”
The bald man shakes his head. “Nah. Charity’s already fast asleep, and a little beauty sleep ain’t doing me any good.” He shakes the silver can of beer in his hand. “Besides, me and this little guy have business to attend to.”
He opens the can, and hot beer spews all over him.
And me.
“Fuck,” I whisper as I hold my s’more away from the disaster. But it’s too late. It was soaked too.
“Sorry,” Lice Pick says. “I don’t think things through sometimes.”
I pin King with a look. “Yeah, same.”
“As much fun as this is, I only came out here to steal you away,” Eve says. She hands her marshmallow stick to Lice Pick and takes my hand in hers. “Join me in my RV?”
“At least take me to dinner first,” I say as I toss my ruined snack into the fire.
Eve giggles, and I don’t even spare King another glance as I stroll behind her. The girls were nice when we went shopping the other day, so I’m open to making friends. When you’re a nomadic serial killer, friends are few and far between.
We enter Eve’s RV, and I’m shocked to find two more women seated on the mattress in the back. “I didn’t realize this would be a group session, but I’m down to try anything once.”
Eve tips her head back with a laugh, and Kindra and Frankie join her. “No, honey. As pretty as you are, redheads are not my type. Not since that damn fashion show.”
“And we are strictly dickly over here,” Frankie says, motioning between herself and Kindra. “No shade if you’re into chicks, though. We don’t really give a shit about that sort of thing.”
“Life’s too damn short to be so preoccupied with who someone else is fucking,” I say with a shrug. “Sounds like I’m in good company.”
Frankie and Kindra look at each other and nod.
“Yeah, I like this one,” Eve says.
“Me too,” Frankie says. “Which is why we’ve called you in here.”
“So that we could warn you,” Kindra adds.
Warn me?
I wander to the middle of the RV and plop down in the sitting area.
Fairy lights hang overhead, and a small but very healthy pothos plant slithers over the top of the window.
I say nothing, waiting for the girls to continue.
When they don’t, when we just sit here in silence for several seconds, I finally ask.
“Warn me about what?”
They look at each other.
“We aren’t the She-Woman Man-Haters Club or anything like that,” Kindra says. “We’re just looking out for you.”
Frankie nods. “I love King like a father, and he’s an exceptional boss, but when it comes to King as a man?” She takes a deep breath. “He needs to do some soul searching. That’s all I’m saying.”
“Oh,” I say with a nod. “Is that what this is about?”
During the shopping trip, we didn’t really talk about my love life—past or present. They’re unaware of the history between me and King. Whatever they have to say about him, I probably already know.
“We normally wouldn’t bring it up,” Eve says, “but Jim has a habit of putting people together like some sort of mad sex scientist. Bennett and Cat. Frankie and Maverick. Most recently, Aven and Quinn.”
Kindra squirms on the mattress. “We can’t prove that he pushed me and Ezra together, but it’s highly suspected.”
“But aren’t all of you happy?” I ask. I haven’t seen much of the couples, but anytime I’ve witnessed the girls and guys together, they seem as if they’ve found their perfect matches.
“Deliriously,” Kindra says, “but our men weren’t King.”
I bite my bottom lip to fight off the smile, but the smile wins out. “Let me guess. You want me to know that he’s a playboy womanizer with a nice pair of running shoes?”
Heads bob up and down. It’s like being at the racetrack.
“Ladies, I love you for this, but I’m well aware,” I say.
Then I proceed to tell them only what they need to know—that King and I had a no-strings-attached agreement several years ago. That he’s the man who showed me what an outlet murder could be when utilized responsibly.
I leave out the fact that I’m a raging sexaholic. I also don’t tell them that I failed miserably at the no-strings bullshit, and he broke my heart and left me to wait in the rain for a man who would never return.
They already think he’s a dog. I don’t need them to think he’s actually the fleas on the dog, even if he is. I don’t want them to hate him, even if he deserves it.
But mostly, I don’t want them to think I’m an absolute idiot, even if I am.
After all, I was the moron who heard “no strings” and had the audacity to think I’d be the exception. And here I am, falling back into old patterns.
No. It’s different this time. I don’t want him like that. It’s purely feral.
“What about Cat and Quinn?” I ask. “I take it they don’t agree with you three?”
“No, they think we’re being shortsighted.
” Kindra grips the edge of the mattress and leans forward.
“Quinn’s husband is gruff and closed off, and Cat’s boyfriend is a reformed playboy.
Those girls fail to see our concerns. They are firmly in camp ‘I Can Change Him’ because they did change their men. But again . . . their men aren’t King.”
“Yeah,” Eve says. “They were still boys when they met Cat and Quinn, and they’ve matured. Well, Bennett is questionable, but you know what I mean. King is set in his ways.”
“So you don’t think he can change?” I ask.
All three women scoff, but it’s Kindra who answers me. “That man couldn’t change clothes, let alone himself. You saw him tonight, didn’t you? Aside from the eccentric leader of our cult, who wears a suit to a bonfire?”
“Honey, just be careful with your heart. That’s all we’re saying.” Eve places a hand on my thigh. “We like you, and we want you to stick around.”
“Need more members for the She-Woman Man-Haters?”
The girls laugh.
“I’m being careful, guys. Thanks for looking out. Honestly, we parted ways amicably all those years ago. I missed the sex at first, but I’ve been over that for a while now.”
Yeah, that part I’ve been over for a while, but let’s not forget how long it took to get over the loss of him.
The girls look between each other.
“I’m serious!” I muster a smile. “Now . . . tell me what you know about Blayne.”
The girls look a bit more assured this time, but as they say what little they know of the cowboy from Texas, I’m miles away in my head.
And several years away too.