“Are you okay?” a voice, strong and clear, broke through.
I blinked and found myself still in the bathroom, forehead resting on the shoulder of another girl. My eyelashes felt thick, and there was a blur.
What the fuck?
Was I crying?
Jesus Christ. Motherfucker!
“Are you okay?” she asked again.
Standing up straight, I looked down at the girl I’d been about to have sex with. Brown eyes stared back at me.
Nausea rolled viciously through my stomach, the alcohol shifting my body from a pleasant fog to agony.
“No, I’m not okay,” I muttered and turned to grip the sink ledge. “Just go on out. I feel sick.”
“Do you want me to get someone?”
“Just go!” I shouted, and she slipped out the door quickly, while I closed my eyes and hardened every muscle in my body, willing the sickness to disappear.
But after a few seconds, I was fucking done. Here I was, holed up in the bathroom, practically in fucking tears. And why?
Out of control. That’s what I was. Always out of control.
Picking my toothbrush out of the holder, I jammed it down my throat and emptied everything I’d eaten today into the toilet. Most of it was the alcohol of the last four hours, and it burned like hell as I gripped the sink to the side and leaned over, wrenching.
“Jared, you okay?” someone burst in.
“Goddammit!” I yelled. “Can’t people just leave me the fuck alone?” I spit up the rest of what was coming up from my stomach and looked over at whoever was at the door.
Shit.
“Jax,” I started but couldn’t finish. He was shrinking away.
He didn’t speak again. Only looked away and backed out of the bathroom, closing the door.
And in that moment, I was no better than our fucking father.
I knew the look on his face. I’d seen it before. Hell, I’d even worn it myself. Too scared to meet my eyes. Leaving as quietly as you came. Trying to remain off the radar of the drunk lunatic.
I gargled some mouthwash, yanked off my T-shirt, and collapsed against the bathroom wall to rest. I needed to calm down before I apologized to him. He couldn’t see me like that again.
I stayed there a minute or two, trying to get my head straight and my stomach to settle.
But as I stood up to leave the room, the entire house went dead. Lights out, music off, and all I heard were the loud barks of pissed off partiers.
“What the hell?” I felt my way out the bathroom door and to my bedroom.
Stumbling over the shit on my floor, I found a flashlight in the bedside table and switched it on.
It wasn’t storming out, and we paid our bills on time. Why the hell was the electricity out?
Walking over to the window, I saw the Brandt’s porch light on, so I knew it wasn’t the neighborhood.
And then I saw Tate.
No. I zoned in on her like a bullet.
Her silhouette was behind her curtain, and I knew. I fucking knew what she did.
Powering down the stairs and through the drunken assholes falling and laughing around my house and yard, I darted out the backdoor, hopped on the AC unit and jumped over the fence.
The key her father left me to watch over the house was still on my key ring, so I dug it out of my pants and charged through the back door, not caring if she heard me.
She’d find out soon enough that I was in the house, anyway.
God! I can’t believe she cut the fucking electricity to my house.
My blood swirled like a cyclonic wind inside of me, but believe it or not, it felt easy. This was where I was strong.
Was I supposed to be in here? No. What would I do or say when I got to her? I had no idea. But I wanted this fight.
Swinging myself around the bannister, I barreled up the stairs and caught sight of Tate darting back into her room.
Was that a bat she was holding?
Yeah, that was gonna help. She wasn’t safe from me, and now she knew it.
I swung her door open in time to see her try to make her escape through the French doors. “Oh no, you don’t!”
Turning around to face me, she tried to raise the bat, but I was on her before she even got ready to swing. Snatching it out of her hands, I charged into her space, hovering but not touching. Wave after wave of heat washed over me from the inch of air between us.
She was pissed, too, from the look in her eyes. But her breathing wasn’t hard and deep. It was fast and shallow. She was scared.
“Get out! Are you crazy?” she tried to dart around me to get out of the room, but I cut her off.
“You cut the electricity to my house.” I kept my voice low and even. I didn’t want her afraid of me. It’s not like I would hurt her. But she had to know that one good turn deserved another.
“Prove it,” she snipped.
Oh, baby. My face relaxed, and I orchestrated a very fake and creepy smile. She did not want to play with me like this.
“How’d you get in here?” she snapped. “I’ll call the police!”
“I have a key,” I responded, enjoying her crestfallen face.
“How do you have a key to my house?”
“You and your dad were in Europe all summer,” I said, narrowing my eyes. “Who do you think got the mail? Your dad trusts me. He shouldn’t have.”
James Brandt, I was pretty sure, knew next to nothing about my relationship with his daughter. Tate didn’t go whining about the state of affairs between us, because if she did, I was sure I’d be missing a couple of limbs.
“Get out,” she ordered, disgust and ire written all over her face, and I clenched my fists.
Advancing on her until she was backed up against her French doors, I hovered down and let her know who was really in control here.
Lesson one, Tate. I don’t do what I’m told. “You’re a nosy bitch, Tatum. Keep your fucking ass on your own side of the fence.”
She met my eyes, not blinking. “Keeping the neighborhood awake makes people irritable.”
I almost laughed at her spunk. She was trying to prove what a fighter she could be, and I plastered both of my hands on each side of her head, letting her know that she wasn’t even in my weight class.
Why she didn’t squirm out from under my arm, I have no idea. I half-expected her to. She stayed her ground, and unfortunately, that was hard on the both of us, I think. Eye to eye, nose to nose, tasting her breath, the room was crowded with tension or hatred. Maybe both, or maybe it was something else.
Thank God, she was the one to look away first. Her eyes dropped, and for a moment I thought I had her.
Until…her eyes started roaming over me, and I fucking stiffened.
Everywhere.
I watched as her heated gaze blazed a path over the lantern tattoo on my upper arm and down to the script on my torso, over my bare stomach and up my naked chest.
And goddamn, her eyes felt good.
What the hell are you doing, Tate?
Images from my daydream in the bathroom poured in, and my own gaze started to fall down over her uncontrollably.
I enjoyed a great view down her black tank top and over the tops of her perfect breasts. I liked that I could see a sliver of her stomach where the waistband of her little boxer shorts was rolled over. I loved thinking about what she’d sound like moaning my name.
But I hated that looking into her eyes was the best view of all.
She saw me, the real me, and it was the only time I actually felt like I existed.
But she also saw all of the ugliness and confusion.
She saw everything that made me a loser.
And that’s when I knew what she was doing. She was playing a game with me. Looking at me, getting me to nearly lose it.
Taking a deep breath, I turned away to walk out. “No one else is complaining so why don’t you shut up and leave it alone?”
“Leave the key,” she shot back, and I stopped.