senseless for about two months straight a few years ago. I
doubt either of us even cared anymore. But Kira would
have, so I tried to pul her away before things could get
ugly.
Besides, he wasn't alone. The woman with him had a beer
and she tipped it to her mouth, eyeing us with a smile. I
yanked Kira's elbow to pul her away.
"Ow," she said when the crowd closed behind us, cutting
off the view of him. "What did you do that for?"
"Don't cause trouble," I told her. "C'mon. Drinks."
"Don't cause trouble," I told her. "C'mon. Drinks."
"I wasn't going to cause trouble." She frowned and tossed
her hair, not caring she'd whacked some dude across the
face with it. He looked pissed. Not the way I wanted to
start the night.
"There wil be other guys here," I told her.
Kira just sniffed and crossed her arms over her chest. "Oh,
I know that."
The Pharmacy was almost always a total sausage party—
three guys for every girl, easy, and al of them horny and
looking to hook up. Chivalry had nothing to do with them
puling out their walets and plying us with booze. It was al
about getting laid.
"Oh, look," Kira said from beside me. "Talk about
trouble."
She was right. Trouble with a capital T. I stood taler in my sexy shoes and lifted my chin, straightened my shoulders.
"Helo, Austin."
Once upon a time, Austin and I had fucked like tigers. I
was wiling to bet he stil had the scars. I did.
was wiling to bet he stil had the scars. I did.
"Paige." His hair was longer, but he had the same grin, the one that parted thighs like the Red Sea. He didn't look
surprised to see me.
Austin wore a blue-striped shirt and faded jeans that
hugged his ass just right and hung down, ragged, at the
hems. Jeans like that should be outlawed on men like
Austin. His buddy, some guy I didn't know, wore an
almost identical shirt, but with brown stripes. He didn't
look half as good.
Behind me, Kira dug her fingernails into the skin of my
elbow. It stung, and I shook her off. "How are you?"
"Good. I'm good." His eyes shifted to Kira and back to
me. "Haven't seen you in a while."
"Haven't been home," I said, though home to me now was
an apartment on Front Street, not a trailer or a rented
house in Lebanon.
"Yeah. I know. Hey, Kira. I made it."
My insides froze. I glared at her, but Kira gave me her
best dumb look. "What?"
best dumb look. "What?"
She'd told him we'd be here. I knew it. I could see it on
both their faces, their conspiracy, and I wondered how
he'd convinced her to tel him. I thought about walking out,
and the only reason I didn't was because he was looking at
me. Not her.
Kira saw it, too, and she gave me a narrow-eyed glare. I
wouldn't have put it past her to have set this up purely to
see the throw down between me and Austin, but I wasn't
going to do it. I was past those days. She ralied when
Austin's friend gave her a grin. It helped that he was cute.
Not as cute as Austin, but then realy, who was? Who had
ever been?
"What're you drinking?" Austin was already puling out his
walet to pay.
I wasn't going to turn down a free drink, not even from
him. "Margarita."
"I'l take a Slow, Comfortable Screw." Kira made sure to
lean in close so he could hear her. Her lips brushed his ear.
Austin leaned away a little, not enough that Kira would
notice. But I did. He introduced us both to his friend,
Ethan, who managed to tear his gaze away from Kira's tits
long enough to nod toward me without a trace of
recognition. Wel, what had I expected him to do? Say,
"Oh, so this is Paige?"
"So what are you up to now?" Austin asked me as Kira
and Ethan eyed each other.
"I work for Kely Printing." The last time we spoke I'd stil been finishing the degree I'd started when we were
together and taking care of some rich couple's kids. I
didn't ask him what he was doing, not for work and not
"What about your mom?" Austin moved closer, his arm on
the bar. "She stil working for Hershey? I haven't been to
the shop for a while."
My mom owns a tiny sandwich shop she inherited from
her dad when I was in high school. I'd worked in that shop
almost my entire life, running errands as a kid then
graduating to making subs and running the cash register.
Now I only helped if she had a big order to fil and deliver,
or a party to cater.
"She stil has it. She was working for Hershey but got laid
off."
Austin nodded. "I'm working for McClaron and Sons."
I had no idea who or what McClaron and Sons was, but
the fact he was working for someone other than his dad
surprised me into a reply. "What about your dad?"
Austin shrugged, then grimaced, and only because I'd once
known him so wel it had been like knowing myself did I
catch his hesitation. "It was time I got out of that job."
"But you're doing the same thing, right? Construction?"
Kira popped into the conversation and drew both our
attentions.
"Yeah, and some other stuff," Austin said, but didn't
elaborate.
Interesting. Austin had worked for his dad's business the
way I'd worked for my mom's—summers and after school
since he'd been old enough to carry a hammer. It had
always been the assumption that he'd take over the
business when his dad retired, and become a ful partner
business when his dad retired, and become a ful partner
some time before that. I'd figured he already was.
"What about you?" Kira sipped her drink, eyes on Ethan.
For someone with a boyfriend, she certainly seemed
interested in him, but then Kira was just one of those girls.
You know. The slutty ones.
"I'm a mechanic," he said. "For Hershey."
"Oh, that's a good job!" Kira sidled in between Austin and Ethan.
"It is a good job," Ethan agreed and drank from his cup
while his eyes wandered everywhere on Kira's body but
her face.
It was so easy, realy. They wanted to seduce us. We
wanted to be seduced, for a few hours anyway. I knew
what we looked like to them. Two girls in slinky outfits,
sucking back drink after drink and letting the crowd push
us closer and closer. There's no such thing as social
distance in bars. The music makes conversation impossible
unless you lean across to shout in someone's ear. The
crush of people means you have to fight for your own
smal space, and sharing it doesn't seem so bad after a
smal space, and sharing it doesn't seem so bad after a
drink or four.
When Austin's hand ended up on my ass, I didn't even
blink. It felt good there. Heavy, warm. He had strong
fingers to go along with those biceps. He smeled good.
Drakkar Noir. D
espite myself and everything that had
happened with us before, I'd missed him.
Austin said into my ear, "Wanna dance?"
Our bodies had always worked just right together,
whether we were dancing or fucking. I was ready for both.
Leaving Ethan and Kira, he took my hand and puled me
up the stairs to the third floor, where the songs ran into one
another without stopping and al sounded the same. We
found a spot in the middle and started dancing.
The booze had made me soft and melty, but the music
wasn't. I wanted to slow dance. Austin wanted to grind.
We compromised with a little hip action that brought us
groin to groin, but when he tried to flip me around and get
up on me in the back end, I pushed away with a smile.
"You don't answer my messages," Austin said.
It was easy to pretend I didn't hear him with the music so
loud. I smiled and shook my head. He took me by the
arm, up high in the soft part that bruises easily. His fingers
closed al the way around it.
He moved in to brush his lips against my ear. "I've realy
missed you."
I inched away from him, but Austin grabbed my wrist just
as a bazilion watts of supernova bright light lit the entire
dance floor. Austin stil looked good. I must not have
looked like Frankenstein, because he reached to brush my
hair from my forehead. He smiled again as the lights went
down and the beat of the music started its rapid thump-
thumping, the same as my heart.
It was different when he kissed me. I felt different. His
mouth opened and I let him inside me. His tongue stroked
mine as his hand came up to curl in my hair. He didn't pul
it, though my body tensed in anticipation.
Austin nuzzled at my earlobe. "You stil taste the same."
Fortunately, I remembered the reasons I'd broken off our
relationship. Unfortunately, I stil remembered al the
reasons we'd ever hooked up. When Austin ran a fingertip
reasons we'd ever hooked up. When Austin ran a fingertip
down my bare arm along the sensitive inside flesh to press
his fingertip just over the pulse at my wrist, I knew he felt
the way my heart sped up at his touch. Time hadn't
changed that. Maybe it never would.
Maybe that was okay.
"Come home with me," Austin said.
"It's too far." Forty minutes I'd have driven in a heartbeat back in the day, just to get in his pants. It wasn't too far.
Just too long.
"Paige," Austin said with a grin like a shark. "I moved to Lemoyne."
Just across the river. Fifteen minutes, tops, if you drove
realy slow or got stuck in traffic. The world fel out from
under my fuck-me pumps, but Austin was there to catch
me. The crowd moved and danced around us, but we
stayed stil. I looked deep into his blue, blue eyes, made
bluer by the strobe lights.
"What the fuck," I said evenly, "did you do that for?"
"New job," he reminded. "Remember?"
"New job," he reminded. "Remember?"
I tried to recal if he'd said where McClaron and Sons
was, and couldn't. He should've told me, I thought, and
hated myself for being irrationaly angry. I tugged my arm
from his grip. "I have to go check on Kira."
"She's fine. She's with Ethan."
I tried to level him with a glare, but I'd never been able to
level Austin. He'd laid me out cold a thousand times with a
look, but though I'd practiced and perfected my steely-
eyed look of cold disdain, it slid off him like oil. I bit my
lower lip and lifted my chin.
"If he's anything like you, I'd better make sure she's okay."
"Paige." Austin's hand snagged my wrist. Puled me close.
"If she's anything like you, she can handle him."
The night it ended between us, we'd fucked up against the
wal of our shitty, third-floor apartment on Cumberland
Street in Lebanon. The red-blue lights of a cop car outside
on the street had painted the ceiling and wal over our
heads. He'd torn away my panties, tossed them to the
side, used his body to pin mine to the wal while his hands
side, used his body to pin mine to the wal while his hands
held my ass.
I bore the marks of that last encounter on my back for a
few weeks where a nail from a falen picture had gouged
me. I hadn't noticed the pain or the blood while we were
going at it. I never had found my panties.
It had ended but wasn't over. The plain truth is, with a few
drinks in me there was little chance of my resisting Austin.
Not drunk. Not sober, either. Why else had I moved so
far away?
"Hel, no," Kira said when I found her downstairs and
brought up the subject. She shook her head and looked
over my shoulder to where I was sure Austin was
watching. "You told me to never, never, never let you fuck
him again!"
I made myself stare at her, not look back at him. "I know.
But that was before."
"Before what?" Kira's lip curled.
"Before you thought it would be fun to invite him out with
us. I haven't talked to him in months. Since before I moved
here. But now here he is."
here. But now here he is."
"And looking utterly fuckable." Kira didn't lose the sneer, but her gaze flickered back and forth to my face and over
my shoulder. "You know, Paige, I've known him as long
as you have. He moved up here, wanted to know where
the good places to go were. I told him we were coming
here. I didn't know you were going to go home with him. I
thought you were over him."
"I am over him!" I looked over my shoulder and caught his
gaze, then turned away with hot cheeks and fast-beating
heart.
"Whatever."
"I'l give you my key." I looked back at Austin, now bent
in conversation with Ethan.
"Fuck, no. I'l get Tony to come pick me up!" Kira shook
her head and stumbled a little bit.
I reached to steady her and she clutched at my hand. "Wil
he come for you?"
"He wil if I fucking tel him to." Kira straightened, then
"He wil if I fucking tel him to." Kira straightened, then
swiped at her hair.
"I'l wait with you until he comes."
"Don't do me any favors," Kira said, then slung her arm
around my shoulder. "Paige. Don't forget what happened."
As if I ever could. "I'l be fine!"
"Don't let your pussy get you into trouble," she continued, warning me off what she'd falen prey to many times
herself. "He made you cry."
"Yeah." I let Austin's gaze catch mine when it turned
toward me and didn't look away. "Wel, he won't make
me cry anymore."
"He'l always make you cry," Kira said. "But go.
Whatever. He's got a magic cock. I get it."
Remembering the times she'd left me stranded so she
could go home with someone she met in a bar, I didn't feel
nearly as bad as she wanted me to. "I'l wait until Tony
gets here."
I could do that, at least.
I could do that, at least.
Going to
Austin's place was one thing, driving with him
another. I wasn't going to get in the car with him after he'd
been drinking, for one, and for another, I wasn't going to
be stuck at his house without knowing for sure I'd be able
to get home.
He grinned when I went over to him, but I fended off his
kiss. "I have to wait for Kira to get picked up. I'l meet you
there."
Austin puled me close and nuzzled my neck exactly how
he knew I liked it best. "Just come with me."
"No." I pushed him slightly away. Drunker, I'd have given
in. More sober, I'm sure I'd have gone home alone. Stuck
in this midway point where I wanted to taste him again and
knowing lust is never as pretty the morning after, I shook
my head. "I'l meet you there. Give me the address."
Maybe things were different, after al.
Austin kissed me again, harder, and this time I let him. He
knew just how to do it, where to put his hands and his
tongue and how to bump me with his groin to make my
breath catch in my throat. My nipples throbbed, poking
breath catch in my throat. My nipples throbbed, poking
the silk of my shirt.
"Don't take too long." He stepped back, steady on his feet and not slurring his words. He reached as I turned and at
the last moment, captured my wrist with his fingers. I let
him tug me closer. "You're not going to bail on me, are
you? Like last time?"
Last time I hadn't had Kira to remind me that I'd vowed
never to go to bed with Austin again. Not that it was
stopping me. Last time I'd caled him just after two in the
morning and told him I wanted to come over, but when I
hung up the phone, good reason had won over the desire
for his hands on me. That had been months ago, before I
moved here.
"Are you stil angry about that?"
"I wasn't mad. Just disappointed. Do it again, I'l be mad."
He grinned and dipped his head to kiss me but stopped
short of my lips, just brushing them. "And disappointed."
His blue eyes bore deep into mine, and for half a minute
nothing else mattered. I felt Kira at my elbow, but I didn't
turn to look at her. I looked right into Austin's eyes when I
turn to look at her. I looked right into Austin's eyes when I
replied. "You won't be."
He let me go with another kiss and a nuzzle that sent
shivers marching along every nerve. I found Kira waiting
for me by the door. Oblivious to the crowd buffeting her,
she held her place instead of stepping aside until I showed