“I sure wouldn’t want to bore you. How about we leave this place and go play Barbie?”
She looks at me, genuinely confused.
“Barbie?”
I lean in close to her ear, inhaling her scent. Sweet and sugary like cookies. Damn... just damn.
“Yeah. I’ll be Ken, and you can be the box I come in,” I whisper against her ear. I mean, really, can I help it if my lips graze against it?
She grows still, then pulls away from me.
“Did you really go there just now?” she asks like she can’t quite believe it. She’s shaking her head and laughing, and she does not look bored.
Score one for me. “Figured I better come at you with my A-game,” I joke, taking another drink.
“Good plan, Romeo. Not sure this romance could survive your B-game.”
“What’s your name, pretty girl?”
“Oh man, you are cheesy.”
“I do try. Come on, give me your name.”
She stops and looks at me for a minute, and it’s almost as if she’s trying to place me, but then shrugs it off.
“We won’t know each other long enough to have to worry about using names.”
“Is that so?”
“That’s a fact.”
I lean in to whisper for her ears only. “My name’s Hunter. You need to remember it so you can scream it out later,” I tell her.
She leans in to me, and her sweet scent claims me. “I’ll do that very thing, Hunter. I’ll scream it so hard my landlord will think someone is killing me.”
“Now, we’re talking,” I tell her, my dick rock hard as she gets up. She starts to walk around me and I grab her arm, unable to ignore the way her warm skin sends an electric current through my body. “Where are you going?”
“I figured I’d better hurry before the store closes.”
“The store?”
“Yeah, Hunter. I’m all out of batteries. I’ll need them tonight when I’m in bed alone, but don’t worry, I’ll remember your name when I make myself come.”
BURNED
KATIE
“I gave up on fairytales. They’re always backwards.
In real life, Prince Charming might marry Snow White, but he’s busy boning Little Miss Muffet two nights a week.”
2
He’s a player. I spotted him a mile away. I also remember him. He’s with my sister’s husband’s crew. What was it she said his name was? Torch? I like Hunter better. I should be running away from him, and I started to. Then, he touched my arm. In that moment, I felt connected to him. I don’t know how to describe it, but I did. My life hasn’t been my own from the day my father took me away from my mom and sister, Bethie. I’ve learned to take my pleasure where I can find it. Something about Hunter, or Torch—whoever he is—calls to me, and I’m going throw caution to the wind. Still, I need to make sure I’ve protected Bethie and her daughter Gabriella.
“I’ll bring you more pleasure than anything with batteries, sweetness.”
I wonder if he really thinks these lines work? He’s a man, so he probably does, when really it’s that fucking body of his that’s working for me. He’s got that ‘V’, I just know it. You know the one; the finely chiseled indention that starts along the hip bone and runs lower into the promised land? The one that makes all women lose their minds? It’s there and, by God, I want to see it.
I just need to do one thing first. “Well, I need to use the little girl’s room. So, I’ll think about it. In the meantime, you just sit there and look pretty.”
“I’ll sit here and admire the view, instead,” he tells me.
That’s just annoying. He doesn’t realize that’s the one thing he could say that would turn me off. Still, I know he’s watching, and it kills me, but I wore the right shoes tonight to hide my limp, so I take all the energy and focus I have into making sure my steps don’t falter. When I make it to the little foyer that leads to the bathrooms, I lean against the wall and breathe. After I make sure he didn’t follow me, I head into the bathroom. Luckily, it’s a single-stall bathroom, so I lock the door, pull myself up on the counter, and call Bethie.
“Bethie, we have problems,” I tell her.
“What? Where are you? Are you in trouble? I told you, you need to stop running around. They can find us.”
“Will you relax? I don’t look anything like you anymore… or myself, for that matter. Between the hair dye, the colored contacts, and thirty pounds I’ve packed on my ass, I don’t even recognize my damn self in the mirror.”
“It’s too dangerous. You know they will be hunting for us. Especially now that grandfather—”
“Don’t call him that. Anyway, that’s kind of why I’m calling. I’m at the Broke Spoke and… there’s this guy hitting on me. He says his name is Hunter, but…”
“But?” she asks, her voice laced with fear.
“It’s that same good-looking biker who was at the movie theater that night with Skull.”