Now Leaving Sugartown Page 7

  “You steal it from your boss who hasn’t paid you in three months.”

  “It’s stolen?”

  “Well, duh.”

  “Jesus.” I shake my head. “So I’m harbouring a fugitive?”

  “I’m not a fugitive. At least, I don’t think I am. I may have punched the dude and left him passed out in his garage, but—”

  “You knocked him out and stole his van?”

  “Maybe?” she supplies sheepishly.

  I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Jesus Christ, Pepper.”

  “Well the fucker felt me up one too many times.”

  “What the hell am I going to do with you?”

  “Let me stay in your place rent-free for a month?”

  I shake my head. “You’re lucky I’m not calling your mother.”

  “Come on, Sam. You think she’s not happy to be rid of me?”

  I turn back around and stare hard at her. “She loves you, Pepper; so does Jack. We all do. You’re family. You take care of family.”

  “Is that what we are, Sammy? Family?” she says, and Christ help me, she’s giving me come-fuck-me eyes.

  As if my cock wasn’t already tortured enough.

  I snag my bottom lip with my teeth and bite down hard. “Yes, Pepper,” I say, as though I’m talking to a petulant child—which, truth be told … “That’s what we are.”

  “Well, technically we’re not.”

  “You know what I mean. I’m just lucky my balls are still intact. If Jack ever found out about you and me …”

  “What about you and me?

  “Don’t play coy, Little Harajuku. It doesn’t suit you.”

  “If you want to keep those balls intact, you will stop calling me that.”

  “Or what?” I challenge. “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to pull out my gun and tattoo your face in your sleep.”

  “Pepper, you actually have to have some muscle mass to be able to hold a man down, and you have those weedy little arms and chicken legs. I’d be surprised if you could hold down a toddler.”

  “Screw you. I have muscle mass.”

  “Where?”

  She climbs to her knees and leans in, her soft breast brushing my bare arm, and whispers, “In my tight. Hot. Cunt.”

  I close my eyes. I can’t look at her right now. If I do I’ll give in again, and she will see how weak I am. She’ll see that despite all the time that’s passed, she still owns me. And I can’t let her know that, because even though I’ve told myself these last few years that I don’t, a part of me still loves her. And I can’t watch her run again.

  Six years ago

  “WAIT,” I whisper, as Luke pushes my underwear aside and his fingers fumble over my pussy.

  “Come on, babe. Are you really gonna leave me with blue balls again?”

  God, he’s such a cockhead. It’s not like we’ve been together all that long. It’s been a month, maybe two, tops. I don’t know, it’s not like I’m crossing days off the calendar in the countdown to our anniversary with a bright red marker, and despite what my whoring, all-too-eager vagina might think, I’m just not sure I’m ready to spread my legs and let him pop my cherry before dinnertime.

  Luke ruts against my groin. It kinda reminds me of a dog humping its owner’s leg. He groans and slides off me, his clumsy, fumbling hands going with him and raking the hair back out of his eyes. “I don’t understand what the big deal is. You got a body made for banging, babe.”

  “Uh, maybe it’s the fact that you’re an insensitive jackarse¸ and I’m not ready to hand over my virginity like the stupid girls, so you can hang another cherry trophy on your wall.”

  “Is this some bullshit about me not respecting you afterward?”

  “No, it’s about me not respecting you the longer I let you lie here and pout like a whiny little bitch.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me, Holly? You left the two of them in her room with the door closed? Were you never a horny teenager?” Sam’s booming voice carries down the hall and seconds later my bedroom door bursts open to reveal a livid Sam and one very confused mother.

  “See? Still fully clothed,” Holly says.

  “Get out of my room,” I shout, glaring at the two of them. Luke catapults himself up off the bed. Holly ignores me, and turns her attention back to Sam. Sam, however? Well, Sam is not ignoring me. His eyes are glittering with rage and they stare accusingly at both of us. I’m not the one who barged into his room, but you’d think I was with the rage that’s rolling off of him.

  “Jesus, you’re worse than Jack and Coop combined. She’s going to date boys, Sam. She’s going to make out, and have sex, and drink, and make stupid decisions. You can’t save her from everything.”

  “I can save her from making this decision.” Sam points at Luke. “You. Out.”

  “Mrs Harris said I could stay for dinner,” Luke protests.

  “Your invitation’s been revoked.”

  “Sam,” Holly chastises. “Ignore him, Luke. He’s just being an overprotective big brother.”

  “No. It’s okay. I think I should go home. I haven’t told my mum where I am yet.”

  I haven’t even moved. I can’t. I’m literally frozen to the spot in my mortification. I glare at Sam. He glares back. And I could have sworn I saw him flinch when Holly called him overprotective. Does he not realise he’s being a total arsehole? I mean, I wasn’t planning on getting naked with Luke while my mother was in the kitchen making dinner and Jackson is due home from work at any minute, but him barging in here and telling me I’m not allowed to? Well, that kinda makes me want to straddle Luke and ride him like a pony in front of the both of them.

  “You don’t have to leave,” I say to Luke. Though seeing Sam’s murderous expression, I almost want him to.

  Holly sniffs the air and then yelps, “Oh fuck, my chicken’s burning.”

  My mother runs off to save dinner, leaving me alone, with Sam and Luke, and a whole heap of unbridled testosterone.

  “It’s fine,” Luke says to the empty hall, and then he mutters so low I almost don’t hear it, “It’s not like she’s putting out anyway.”

  I know my mum didn’t catch that because she’s long gone, but Sammy sure as hell did. One minute he’s standing in front of me, the next, Luke is shoved against the wall, held in place by Sam’s forearm jammed into his windpipe. “I’m only gonna say this once, so listen up, fuck knuckle, if I so much as hear you’ve laid a hand on Pepper I’m going to rip your balls off and feed them to you. Got it?”

  “Sam!” I yell, thumping on his back in protest. I may as well be a toddler for all the effect it has on him. Luke’s wide-eyed gaze darts to mine, and then back to Sam. He nods, in as much as someone can nod when someone else much larger—and also fully grown—pins you up against the wall by the throat. Sam releases his hold and Luke slides down the wall.

  “This shit is not fucking worth it.” Luke scrambles to his feet and sends me an accusatory scowl, and then he bolts from my house. Probably for good. Because of my … whatever-the-fuck Sam is to me, Luke, the only good thing to happen to me since I started high school, is gone.

  Sam quietly closes the bedroom door and turns to me. His eyes are dark and furious, his body is tense, his shoulders held high and tight, and his hands are flexed into fists by his sides. “You need to start making smarter decisions.”

  “Fuck you, Sam.”

  “Yeah, fuck me for trying to salvage some of your fucking virtue. God knows you don’t care about it, so fuck me for getting in the way of you being branded a slut.”

  I step back, as if I’ve been slapped. Sam has never spoken to me like that. Not even when he took the rap for me for stealing his Camaro and running it into a street sign after I’d broken into Jack and Holly’s liquor cabinet when the parentals were away on a dirty weekend last month and Sam was left with babysitting duty. He told Officer Truitt that he’d been driving and was so tired he veered off the road. He’d been furious t
hen, but not over the car; he was angry I’d endangered myself that way. He’d been mad, but he had still never spoken to me like this.

  “I didn’t ask you to protect my virtue, Sam,” I snap back, and then I find myself forced up against the wall, in much the same way Luke was, only Sam’s fingers are digging into the tops of my arms and his face is just inches from mine. Close enough to feel his warm breath on my face. Close enough to kiss, if only I could find the courage to lean in.

  “You should be begging me to protect your virtue, Little,” Sam whispers. His words make my head spin. His scent makes me want to push him back on my bed and rub myself all over him like a cat in heat.

  My entire body breaks out in goose bumps. Sam lets me go, but he pens me in against the wall with an arm either side of my head. He runs the tip of his nose along the side of my neck. I close my eyes, wanting, wishing with every cell in my body that he would just press his lips to my skin. That he would take me in his arms and lay me out on the bed that Luke and I had just mussed with our heavy petting. That he would possess my body the way that he possesses my every thought.

  His breath washes over the sensitive flesh below my ear. I hold mine until it hurts. And then Sam’s lips press a warm, wet kiss against my neck. His tongue darts out to taste my skin and the ache between my legs turns to agony. With a grunt, Sam wedges his leg between my thighs. I let out a startled cry. His lips trail my neck, my jaw, and then finally he takes my mouth with his in a searing, hot kiss.

  I must be losing my ever-loving mind. I’m delusional. I’ve gone completely insane. This isn’t at all like kissing Luke. I don’t feel numb. I feel alive. I feel as though our bodies were spiralling in opposite directions, and now? Now, they’re moving as one, they’re connected, they’re … right.

  I rock my pelvis against him. His knee thrusts into the hollow between my legs, pulling an involuntary moan from my mouth, and then Sam pulls away. He skitters back, as if I’m the one who attacked him, and he rakes his hands through his hair. “Fuck!”

  Once again I’m stunned into silence as I watch his livid expression and powerful body fill up my room with his fury. “That can never happen again.”

  “Sam—”

  “Don’t.”

  “Why are you mad at me?”

  “I’m not. I’m angry at myself.” He doesn’t look at me. Instead, he scrubs his hands over his face, and then glares at the floor as though it’s offended him. “This never happened; put it out of your head.”

  “But it did happen.”

  “No. It didn’t.”

  “You felt it too, didn’t you? The spark? That sense of rightness?”

  He laughs, but there isn’t a single trace of humour in it. “No. All I felt was wrong, because it was like kissing my sister. That was the biggest mistake of my life.”

  With my sharp intake of breath, his eyes finally meet mine. My heart hurts, my head wants to escape, and my whole body aches with longing. Tears prick my eyes. I swallow them back. I swallow back the three little words that I so badly want to say to him. I swallow all my emotion down like a Viper, and spit out my next words like venom, “You ruin everything.”

  His face crumples, he closes his eyes and exhales. “I don’t know what I was thinking—”

  “Get out.”

  “Pepper …”

  “Get the fuck out, or I’ll scream.”

  He holds his hands up in a placating gesture and backs away from me, pausing when the door is at his back. “I wish I could love you the way you want me to.”

  “Don’t,” I warn before he steps out of the room and quietly closes the door behind him.

  The second I hear his retreating footsteps up the hallway, I yank open the top drawer of my dresser and pull out the manicure set that houses my blades. I remove one, discarding the rest and the leather pouch to the sea of clothing on my floor. I sit down on the bed, and pull my skirt up my thigh. I need this release more than I’ve ever needed it. I slowly slide the razorblade across my soft flesh, revelling in the burn that the blade leaves in its wake. Tears blur my vision and I cover my mouth to stifle a sob.

  When the blissful nothingness ebbs away and Sam’s words reverberate through my head I make another incision, directly above the last. I cut until my fingers ache, but after a while not even the euphoric release is enough to drown out his words.

  The biggest mistake of my life

  My biggest mistake was that for half a second I let myself believe that Sam actually wanted me.

  WHEN I agreed to let Pepper stay with me I’d known it would be challenging, but even I hadn’t prepared for this. Two weeks after she came prancing through my door and my balls are so fucking blue you may as well call me a Smurf. And yeah, jacking off in the bathroom ten minutes before Holly and Jack’s ceremony wasn’t my smartest move, but when she came tearing out of that bathroom with her makeup done, her hair all fucking fancy in a half-up, half-down thing with big, fat curls on the end and wearing a dress—and not just one of those short skirts she favours, like a soft, flowing fabric, girly, pastel lavender dress—I about lost my shit, ripped the thing off of her and fucked her hard enough to ruin that pretty hair and makeup.

  Jesus Christ it’s hot in here. I switch on the pedestal fan and stand there for a full thirty seconds with my hand on my hard cock and my wet body drying far too rapidly. This damn heat wave is doing my head in. Seven days straight and people everywhere are either fucking like bunnies, lighting fires in a total fire ban, or stockpiling refreshments as if it’s the end of the goddamned world. And since I can only do two of those three things with Pepper in my house, I’m standing buck-naked ten minutes before a wedding partaking in a little hand to gland contact.

  I squirt a little lotion from the bottle—Pepper’s expensive stuff that smells like cupcake batter—and run my hand over the head of my cock, and down the rigid length as I think about her in that dress. Then I think about tearing off that dress and covering her tattoos with my mouth as I take her on the bathroom sink. I slide my cock in and out of my grip, imagining it’s her perfect, wet pussy. Pinching my nipple hard, I imagine her teeth clamped down over the sensitive flesh.

  I groan. My muscles tense, my balls shrink up close to my body, and then my orgasm rips through me at the same time as the bathroom door is flung wide. Pepper hobbles into the room, her hands clutching the hem of her dress. I turn in an effort to hide the evidence from her, but my cock is still spilling seed. Come hits the fan and flies off in all directions as I grind out the last of my orgasm, and a final drop of semen spills from my cock.

  Fuck.

  I don’t even have time to bathe in the afterglow because Pepper is sending me death glares in the mirror and her mouth is twisted into a sneer. “YOU. GOT. COME. IN. MY. HAIR.”

  I practically bust a nut laughing. Loud, unruly guffaws that are so incredibly inappropriate right now that I’m afraid she might actually hurt me.

  “You got come in my hair!” she screams again.

  “I’m so sorry,” I say, still howling with laughter.

  “You got come in my hair ten minutes before my mother’s wedding.”

  My jaw snaps closed. That is kinda bad. “I’ll help you wash it out.”

  I grab a strand of her hair but my hands are covered in jizz and I end up putting more in there. Pepper limps away from me, her hands still trying to pry the fabric from her boot. “Do not touch me.”

  “It was an accident. I’m sorry.”

  “Why in the hell are you jacking off into the fan?”

  “I wasn’t jacking off into the fan. Why the hell are you busting in on me without knocking? Didn’t you already spend enough time in the bathroom?”

  “I wasn’t busting in on you. My dress is caught in my bracelet, which is caught in the zip on my Docs. I needed help,” she whines pathetically. “Why didn’t you just jack off in the shower like everyone else?”

  “Will you please stop saying jacking off? I’m getting hard again …” I have to close
my eyes so her words won’t get the best of me, and then I remember what else she just said, and my lids fly open with excitement. “Are you saying you masturbate in my shower?”

  “Sam, I have come in my hair.”

  “Right, sorry.” Seeking a towel, I swing around, but it appears to be on the floor beneath her feet. Pepper’s dress really is caught in her zippered boot, and one of those spiked bracelets she wears is all caught up in that shit, too. That’s why she’s bent over at the waist clutching the delicate fabric. And that’s why my cock just slapped her in the face when I wrenched around. It doesn’t matter why my dick is hitting her in the cheek, though; what matters is that she doesn’t bite it off as she stares it down like a hound from hell with a tasty sausage dangled before its sharp and terrible teeth.

  Pepper glances up and the look in her eyes promises all manner of evil things. Sadly, none of them are sexual. “Did you just dick slap me?”

  I hold up my hands in a placating gesture. “It wasn’t intentional. I promise. I don’t just go around dick slapping women.”

  “Oh, so it’s just me you mark with your jizz and slap around with your cock? Well, I sure do feel fucking lucky,” she says with enough sarcasm to choke a horse. “Now get the fuck out. I have to use an entire can of dry shampoo on this shit because I don’t have time to wash and redo my hair, and I can’t go to my mother’s wedding looking like a drowned rat.”

  I scurry from the bathroom, with my cock between my legs, but feeling pretty damn proud all the same. I know, it makes me a man child, but if that’s a name I have to take on board I’ll gladly wear it. I’ll pin that fucker to a name badge and never take it off because today I am Master of the Universe.

  Dick slap to the face.

  Wait ’til Jake hears about this.

  IT’S OFFICIAL. I hate weddings. Not that I go to a lot of them, considering I’m twenty-three, none of my friends back in Melbourne are married or would even entertain the idea of marriage … ever, and I always sort of held the opinion—much like my traitorous mother did, until recently—that it was a barbaric and antiquated tradition. I mean, forcing two people into a monogamous relationship for the rest of their lives? No thank you.