CHAPTER TWO
RAZOR
“Suck it, Bunny,” I demand, desperation huffing through my voice.
Stroking the pad of my thumb down her wet tongue, she forms her pretty, pink lips around my finger, looking up at me from her knees with a glisten in her big, hazel brown eyes.
My vision clears, focusing on the black microfiber rag I’m rubbing over the droplets that are long gone.
I’ve gotta stop fantasizing about her. I’m gonna end up crashing in the Globe and hurt or kill someone.
I just can’t.
She’s a sweet, little paradox that I have to make shit up in order to talk to. Otherwise, all I get is innocent smiles she wears for show.
Everyone here knows she’s wounded. But no matter how many times I sneak in sly questions, especially about what Carl does to her in her tent, she pretends like she’s fine. And I’m kind of fucking sick in the head because I honestly believe if she let me fill her once, twice, maybe three times…
Yeah. I’m gonna need more than that.
But that’s beside the point.
I think I could fill the cracks of my broken bunny and make her excited for something, teach her how to dance without the mask.
“No, you big block head! It’s on eight!” Aries shouts gruffly.
Checking over my shoulder, I catch Cash smiling in Aries’ face, his hand firm on the throttle, ready to instigate further.
He loves to piss her off. Which makes us all reap the consequence of her intentionally burning our asses with her flames in the Globe.
Aries is a firecracker. It’s fitting for her role.
She keeps hollering at Cash, her voice getting lost in him shredding his throttle, so I get back to drying my bike that’s already fucking dry, and the sneaks of white in my peripheral bug my heart, shooting my attention straight ahead.
You must love to make me suffer, Bunny.
The hateful sun is beating down on her olive tan, and her flipped, cocoa brunette hair is blowing around the white tank top she’s ripped to fall just above her navel.
Seeing her wouldn’t be enough.
No, she still has her pants undone, exposing the white lace that trims the cotton panties I’ve stared at before tossing in the washer with thoughts that would make someone’s stomach knot.
Taking in her low-rise jeans fluctuating with the roll of her violin hips, I travel back up the muscle tightening her waist—and my eyes hit hers like a knife piercing a spinning target.
She never looks for long. But this time, her acknowledging me doesn’t last for more than a second before she’s awkwardly shifting the stuff in her hands and following Ora up the bleachers.
What the fuck?
No. That doesn’t work for me.
She has a bottle of nail polish in her hands, which is a great conversation starter, a great way to touch her without it being forced.
I could rest my hand on her thigh and marvel her up close while she concentrates on painting my nails the shiny black she never strays from.
Dropping the rag, the adamant need for her attention shoves my feet into a quick stride toward the metal stairs she’s racing up.
One might say I’m tenacious. The other might say I’m clueless.
Either way, determination electrifies me, zapping live wires just beneath my chest that put me into a predacious hunt, skipping two steps at a time.
The bleachers shake, and if I am clueless, then at least I’m observant. Because I catch the way Bunny’s spine stiffens from my presence as she shoots a leg over the metal bench seat to face Ora.
Her denim jeans are already so low. When she sits, the extra fabric opens a slot in the back and shows off her ridiculous back dimples and an infuriating tease of the contoured pure muscle shaped like a heart.
Her ass.
I’m talking about her mind-melting, heart-shaped ass.
A groan stirs, the heat of my need getting caged within my ribs. It pounds my feet harder, climbing the steps until I’m veering to the left in a lunge and landing right next to her. “Bun?”
She’s so beautiful. Even when she’s timid.
“What’s up, Razor?” Ora tosses a fist up with a grin. So, I give her knuckles back and bump her fist, waiting for Bunny’s dark hazel to catch the sunlight.
But her hair moves.
Her fucking hair moves away from the undeniable truth that she’s hit when no one else is around to say something.
“What’s that?” rips through my teeth, and I reach out to pry the hair away from the simmering handprint on her cheek without a second thought.
“Nothing,” she lies, leaning from my touch and giving me her infamous bunny eyes. “What’d you need?”
“Carl hit her again. Obviously,” Ora bites out.
My vision tunnels. The vexation tingling up my arms is encouraging me to flip the switch, go dark and purge what I’ve been internalizing.
I think I ask her if she’s okay. I might just be standing here like an obsessive idiot staring at her.
Would you blame me? If I was? If I was just staring at her without pulling an excuse out of my ass?
She’s alchemy, the brightest star.
“You needed something?”
“It’s not important,” I insist. With rage bubbling in my veins, I start heading back down the bleachers, absently pulling my pack of cigarettes from my pocket.
I begin to tune out Ora’s sarcastic cheer, but Bunny’s light voice running off her tongue at record speed perks my ears up, my pulsing attention draining through the back of my head to hear Ora make a comment about me wanting to know how many fingers Bunny uses.
That clearly does not help my mental state.
I actually fucking hate Bunny’s reaction.
I stew on her repulsion while picking a cigarette out and wedging it between my lips, my eyes narrowing to decode whether it’s a skit to save face, or if the thought of me wanting to do “gross things” to her projects her voice the loudest I’ve heard it go because it’s stirring something depraved inside her.
I look back at the hot breeze grazing her hair around her shoulders, subconsciously taking the next step while scratching my nail into the wheel of my lighter.
I wanna do filthy, rotten, vile things to you, little bunny.
And I will.
Until then, I’m lighting my vice and stepping off the creaking metal. Bunny’s never willingly let us see the marks and bruises Carl leaves on her. But Ora sees them all from her side of their room.
The first time seeing her fresh from malevolence with my own eyes is sinking hundreds of razor-sharp teeth into my back and eating my fucking spine.
“Ra-zor!” Cash calls out dramatically.
Ripping the cherry bright, until my lungs can fill, I grow unhealthily aware of innocent eyes on my back.
It breaks a smile on my face. Kind of seems like maybe she’s also shedding shadowed attention.
Xene runs a hand through his shaggy, sun-bleached hair and wipes at the burn reddening his nose. “Where you goin’, dude?!” he shouts, stepping up next to Cash still watching me from his bike.
I gesture to the way I’m heading, plucking the rolled paper from my lips. “Takin’ a piss. You wanna watch?”
Leaving it at that, I squint through the glare bouncing off the pavement and start looking around for Carl’s dumbass top hat.
I don’t wanna draw attention to Bunny and overwhelm her with the collective volatility. Cash and Xene care for her, too. Enough for them to stomp by my side and start flipping shit over to find him.
That’s the last thing Bunny needs right now.
Sweat rolls down my neck, walking through the beating heat with my head oscillating and my attention scanning around tents, food trucks, and the carousel twinkling its childish tune while on a test run.
To be clear, I don’t really know what I can do about this.
Everything’s fucked and I have to keep my head on straight. I can’t explode and strangle him in front of others.
I am getting Bunny out of here. It has to be executed right, though. And the measly fifty dollars he passes to us in cash each week is just enough for groceries and essentials.
Ripping my cigarette down to the filter, I flick it away from me and hope to fucking God it hits the tent next to me just right.
I watch it skip across the pavement and land in the overgrown blades of grass sticking up around one of the tents stakes, and a disappointed groan heats my nose, watching the last coil of smoke puff away with my idea of burning this place down.
Accidentally. I’d accidentally burn it down. Don’t twist my words.
Placing a target on VORE embroidered to the back of his obnoxiously orange coat, my eyes don’t slip from him for a second while chewing through the distance between us.
I didn’t hear them sneak up. They’re usually too loud to ignore. But Cash and Xene fall in stride with my steps on either side of me, both sending vulturous looks to the back of Carl’s head.
Cash’s jaw tics, trails of sweat running from his peroxide buzzcut down his mahogany skin. “Been a long time comin’.”
“Shoulda spoke up the first time Ora told us,” I mutter.
As if he feels Muerte de Tres, Carl whisks around and staples a look of surprise on. “Boys!”
“Slash and dash?” Xene asks under his breath.
“No,” I answer, carving my mouth into a smile. “Not yet… Hey, Carl! I’ve been thinkin’…” Stopping right in front his pornstache, I gesture around and scratch my chin. “I think I have a way to get more traction here. I’ll need access to the library for flyers.”
“No,” he refuses darkly, his mask dripping from his face. But he immediately wipes the evidence and chuckles. “You shouldn’t be on those things. You know that.”
“No computers,” I shake my head. Lying. “Just printer paper and magazine clippings.”
Honestly, that should be a dead giveaway that I’m lying. I’m not plopping my ass down on the floor to glue shit and play scrapbooking princess on two hundred flyers. Fuck that shit.
His brows jam and he frowns. “Oh, well if that’s all you need-”
“And the truck keys,” I add. “Bunny will be going with me. I need her gentle touch.”
He stiffens, sliding his jaw back and forth with cold eyes. “I’ll think about it.”
“No,” I refuse, taking another step closer. “You won’t think about it, Carl. You will happily place them in my hand because you’d hate for folks to find out the truth and us do nothing to stop it from spreading.”
Trepidation dulls his face, but he quickly splits a crazy smile on and shakes a finger at me. “Always giving me a run for my money, starboy.”
I eye his hand, wondering if his right palm is the one that just hurt my little bunny.
Something crackles in my head. It surges like split wires and tunnels my vision, then I’m boiling alive with ire I cannot swallow and control, my hands tensing with vibration.