Boner’s attention stayed pinned to the road, his long hair a dark curtain between us. He punched the radio on with a quick jab of a finger. Bad Company blared over the speakers, slamming aside my hazy thoughts.
Yep, my sky is burning, all right. I’m on fucking fire.
I’D TOUCHED HER.
Naked-ish Jill. She’d stood there like a spooked baby bird, all alone in its nest. Vulnerable. Totally irresistible. That long strawberry-blonde hair falling in waves around her blushing face. Those cushiony lips parted, those tits. Fuck, those perfect full tits. So damned beautiful. She’d taken my hand in hers, and…time had stopped along with my pulse.
Jill had wanted me to touch her. Like a fucking pinup centerfold just for me. She’d wanted me to do it, and I did, and then I couldn’t stop. Kissing, licking, stroking. Her tits were just the way I’d imagined they’d feel—soft but firm, totally addictive.
I ran a hand across my chest. Her mouth, her skin, her lips, her tongue still had my blood simmering.
After the mall, I’d dropped Jill off at home, Nina at the club, and headed to my house where I cleaned up, downed a beer, and fell back on my bed, trying to get those images of Jill out of my head. I couldn’t let myself go there. Could not. I felt that heaviness in my gut, that clamping in my chest, whenever I was around her.
I know what that is.
I know.
Connection. Need.
My eyelids sank. My breathing deepened as my body gave in to fatigue, but it was a fitful sleep that only brought shrill voices from a lifetime ago, from a broken connection.
“Inès, you need to calm down. I told you, we’ll leave Denver soon.”
“You keep saying we’re gonna leave, you keep saying soon, but we’re still here. Still here!”
“Things are busy. I haven’t—”
She blew out a huff of air, her head swinging to the side, as if she were disgusted by the sight of me. “The Executioners are always busy. You always have the next job and the next job. It never stops. But I need to go to LA. You told me so many times we’d go. We haven’t done shit!”
“We need money, Inès, so that once we get to fucking LA, we can eat, find somewhere to stay. You know what that’s like, come on.”
“Once we get there, I’ll get work. I always do. You worry too much. We’ll have money coming in.”
“We don’t know that.”
“But I make money now!”
“Inès, your last gig was weeks ago. You spent it all.”
Her mouth tensed. Her dark eyes flitted around our tiny one-room apartment, like a trapped moth looking for the light.
She’d promised me she’d save it, but, of course, she hadn’t. She’d gotten two modeling jobs in a row and celebrated by buying herself and her friends clothes and trinkets and taking them out to a club. Then, she’d had to have new pictures taken of herself and a fancy portfolio binder to put them in.
Inès hadn’t been taking her meds either. She’d been trying cocaine instead. You couldn’t get modeling gigs while you were trashed, but she thought she was fucking invincible.
She tugged on her dark hair. Her black-lined eyes blazed with volcanic fire. “This place is killing me. Why can’t you see that?”
There was that fragile tone of voice I knew so well, the little girl who’d clung to me for years in that rotten apartment of her father’s.
Her dark velvet eyes softened, pleading with me. She was the one who would take my hands in hers whenever I’d finally get home, usually just before sunrise. She’d massage each swollen finger with ointment, wrapping them in bandages, as she murmured sweet words and told me funny stories to help me forget the hell I’d been a part of that night.
The one who believed in me, who trusted only me.
But that was changing. I could feel it, sense it, like an animal sensing an earthquake coming on.
“I know, Inès. I know.”
She shoved at my chest. “You know, you know? What the fuck do you know?” She sprang to her feet, grabbed her little leather backpack, and ran out the door, her hiss hanging in the hot humid air.
My eyes flew open, and I gasped, a cold sweat prickling my skin. I blew out air, as if it could sweep away that vivid memory.
My phone buzzed and vibrated, its small screen lighting up my dark room.
I rubbed my eyes and reached over, grabbing the phone.
A message from Butler.
Where the fuck r u? Get yr ass over to the Tingle NOW!
I took in a breath. What better way to get Jill’s hot little body from burning my retinas and those acid-laced memories from dancing in my brain than by having professional strippers do their thing in front of me?
I threw cold water on my face, changed my shirt, shoved my boots on, got on my bike and sped over to the Tingle.
But I was wrong. Being here only made me testy.
Mindy was working tonight. She spun the hell out of herself on the pole and then got me drinks, one after the other. She sat in my lap, her one arm slung around my shoulders, and flirted with Butler.
I couldn’t breathe. Her powdery sweet perfume was a nauseating cloud between us, stifling me. The pounding music hammered through my head.