Crushing on the Bully (7 page)

“That’s the problem with all of you women!” Skull shouted, “You don’t listen! None of you! You only hear what you want to hear and then you go around interrupting and analyzing everything without ever knowing the damn truth!”

“I wouldn’t have to try to interrupt anything if you would just tell me what the hell was going on, Skull!” Clarissa shouted and crossed her arms.

“It’s... It’s complicated, okay?” he said, shaking his head.

“Try me,” Clarissa said and narrowed her eyes.

“I want to. I want to tell you, but I’ve worked too hard and I can’t screw this up! This is too important,” Skulls said.

Clarissa’s mouth dropped open and her heart dropped into her stomach.

“If your silly little bike gang is so freakin’ important, just get the hell out, Skull! I’ll be better off without you! Get out and leave me the hell alone! I mean it this time!” Clarissa shouted and pulled the door to open it, but despite her angry strength it didn’t budge.

“Damn it,” she swore and unlocked it.

“Clarissa, please calm down,” Skull said, “Please.”

“Out!” Clarissa said tearing open the door. She stalked across the room and snatched his jacket up and threw it into the hallway before chucking his shoes out in the same unceremonious manner.

“Clarissa!” Skull said.

“Skull, get out!” she shrieked.

Clarissa made herself watch Skull leave. She counted the steps that it took him to cross the threshold. Fourteen. Fourteen steps was all it took for him to be out of her life forever. Clarissa slammed the door and locked the deadbolt before falling to her knees.

Her heart was still beating and her lungs were still drawing in air, but Clarissa wasn’t sure how, because she felt hollow inside. How could organs sustain her if they had vanished. She lay on the floor and press her cheek against the carpet. It felt soft against her skin as the first tear fell.

“I’m only crying for the ‘what if’ that’s gone,” Clarissa told herself, “The lost possibilities.”

She didn’t believe the words even as she sobbed them into the carpet. She had let herself fall hard for a guy that would never be hers. Clarissa didn’t want him to be hers, not if he was going to throw his life away. It was better this way. She wouldn’t survive watching him spiral into the depths of hell and throw everything away.

Clarissa didn’t call Julie, though the thought did cross her mind. She didn’t think that her bestie would be capable of understanding what she was feeling tonight.

Chapter Seven

Skull grabbed his jacket and shoes and stormed down the steps without looking back. His breaths came out in short angry pants as he sprinted down to the ground floor. Why did he keep trying with that infuriating woman? Why did she insist on prying into the tiniest details of his life? Okay, so some of the things she asked about weren’t exactly tiny, but she needed to mind her own business. If she didn’t she could get hurt. If she knew too much, it could become dangerous for her. So why couldn’t she just trust him a little longer?

He was close to achieving his goal. He could feel it in the pit of his stomach. He just needed time, but no one wanted to give it to him. As the minutes and hours turned to days, weeks and eventually months and years everyone else had given up, but he hadn’t. He wanted answers and he’d have them.

Once outside he stepped into his boots and laced them up, making a mental note to himself not to take his shoes off at her place again. Was he really planning on seeing Clarissa again? Yes, despite how crazy it seemed Skull did plan on doing just that. She was quirky and frustrating, but he couldn’t stay away.

For the month that she avoided him he had driven by her place several times trying to get up the nerve to explain things to her. The guys of Starless had told him not to.

“Gal’s better off in the dark for now,” Hugo had said.

“Don’t get her wrapped up in this,” Lobster warned, “She’s a happy girl and you don’t want to fuck with that.”

“Lotta help you bastards are,” he cursed as he slipped his helmet on, “Maybe I should have told her in the first place. She couldn’t be any more useless to the situation than you ass hats, could she?”

Skull revved the engine and headed towards the pub. He knew he shouldn’t head there angry, but he couldn’t face his empty apartment yet. Not when less than five minutes ago he had been on the verge of confessing everything to Clarissa. How that quirky woman had won him over, he might never be sure.

At times Skull thought it might be her vulnerability. Other times he thought it might be the ember of fire that burned within waiting to go off at him without warning. Clarissa was damn sexy when she was angry.

Skull parked his bike in front of the pub and killed the engine. He tore the heavy helmet from his head and hung it on the handlebars. Before stepping away from his bike he took a few deep breaths. The Starless guys weren’t being unhelpful on purpose and he knew that. Hugo had threatened to quit helping him in his search if he lost his temper again.

“I shouldn’t have come here,” he said as he walked inside.

“Skull!” Lobster cried out cheerfully, “Didn’t think you’d be back so soon.”

“Well, here I am,” Skull said, trying to sound nonchalant, but failing. He turned to the bar tender and ordered a soda. He was still a few months from being able to drink, but he didn’t think he wanted to even then. It would just dull his senses.

“You just need to leave that girl alone,” Hugo chuckled, “You have more important things to worry about, Skull.

“I don’t want to talk about her,” Skull said staring into his dark colored soda.

“She break up with you again?” Lobster asked.

“I said I don’t want to talk about it,” Skull said.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Lobster chuckled.

“Leave him be,” Hugo said.

Skull sighed and guzzled down his soda before storming out. He couldn’t face his empty apartment, but he couldn’t stand another moment of being trapped in the pub with the Starless either. He put his helmet back on and headed towards the highway. He needed a long quiet ride to help him unwind.

“That always does the trick,” he grinned to himself.

Chapter Eight

Avoiding Skull was more difficult than Clarissa had thought it would be. Before meeting him by chance at the grocery store she hadn’t even know of his existence, but since the night she kicked him out of her apartment two months ago, he seemed to be everywhere she went. The weekend after their blow out she went shopping at the mall with Julie. Clarissa hadn’t bothered to tell Julie that she had seen him again or what had transpired between them. She just wanted to let the memories fade away and to be done with Skull, while she still could.

“Look it’s that guy again,” Julie whispered in her ear as they walked towards the food court.

“What?” Clarissa hissed, “Where?”

She knew there was currently only one guy that would make Julie talk in low, hushed tones.

“To the left at the leather store,” Julie said and Clarissa turned to look, but Julie stopped her, “No, don’t look. Let’s just hurry up.”

“Clarissa!” Skull’s voiced reached her ears and her heart skipped a beat and she stopped in her tracks, paralyzed.

“Just act like you didn’t hear him,” Julie urged, pulling on her arm.

“Go ahead,” Clarissa sighed, “I’ll meet you at the food court.”

“Are you sure?” Julie said her face scrunched up in what was supposed to be a sympathetic look.

“Yeah,” Clarissa nodded, “Go ahead.”

“Okay, good luck, Rissa” Julie said and walked away quickly, looking back over her shoulder before disappearing around the corner.

“Hey,” Skull called out as he crossed the hall, making his way through the Saturday afternoon crowd. Clarissa thought about trying to disappear in the crowd, but she didn’t want to worry all afternoon that he was following her around or that they would cross paths again.

“I told you I didn’t want to talk to you anymore,” Clarissa said looking down at her feet, because she didn’t trust herself not to forgive him if she looked at the broad grin that displayed his dimples so well that his voice told her he was flashing.

“I know, but we need to talk,” Skull said reaching out to take her hand.

“I don’t want to,” Clarissa said and pulled away, “I’ve heard all I need to hear.”

Skull started to say something else, but Julie appeared from around the corner waving her cellphone in the air.

“My mom needs me to come babysit, we gotta go,” she called.

“Gotta go,” Clarissa grinned and sprinted off to join Julie.

“See aren’t you glad I’m noisy,” Julie giggled as they ran through the food court and out the front door.

“Thanks,” Clarissa laughed to hide the fact she wanted to cry.

Then there was the two times that Skull had stopped by her apartment. The first time was a week after their encounter in the mall and fortunately, Clarissa had been working late and hadn’t made it home yet. She wouldn’t have known he had stopped by at all if he hadn’t left a note.

“Hey Bookworm,

We need to talk. We’re having a party for Lobster’s birthday tonight at the AlleyCat. See you there?”

Clarissa had wished he signed the note. He didn’t need to, because who else had a friend called Lobster and hung out at the biker bar, but she would have liked to see how he signed his name, even if it wasn’t his real name.

Clarissa changed into a green tank and a long brown skirt and walked over to the bar. She stood outside for a few minutes before walking away.

“I can’t,” she shook her head, “No. Just no.”

She walked home torn between wanting to run back and demand answers and wanting to run home as quickly as her feet would carry her. Torn between the two emotions she walked slowly as if her feet were weighed down by stones.

“You can’t change him,” she told herself, “and you can’t save him.”

Weeks passed and Clarissa had settled back into the routine she followed before Skull, before motorcycle rides and biker bars. She slept most of the day before work and read until she fell asleep when she returned home. Went to the movies with Julie on Wednesday nights and shopping at the mall Saturday afternoons. She should have been happy that her life was back to normal, but she wasn’t.

Early Friday morning found her laying awake staring at the ceiling. Large stacks of books she had already read cluttered her bedroom threatening to topple over if exhaled too hard. Clarissa sat up and leaned against the wall. Her eyes were wide open even if the red numbers on the clock read five fifteen AM, which was usually about the time her eyelids would grow heavy from exhaustion.

Before Skull, she’d force herself to finish the chapter she was on and go to sleep, if it wasn’t a cliffhanger. If it was she’d make a pot of coffee or grab a soda or energy drink and finish the book and maybe start on its sequel if it had one. This morning all she could do was envy the girl in the book she just finished. She had managed to change the bad boy, jerk, ass hat of a bully she had fallen in love with.

“Books lie,” she whispered to the empty room and her words bounced around before echoing back to her ears.

Clarissa laughed at the echo, but it was a dry, bored sounding laugh.

Knock! Knock!

“Great,” Clarissa sighed, “Now I’m hearing things.”

She flopped onto her side and hugged her pillow close to her trying to trick herself into thinking she was tired.

Knock! Knock!

“Who in the hell would come to see me this time of the morning?” Clarissa sighed and sat up, “It’s most likely Julie. Maybe Chad broke up with her again?”

They had been in an on-again-off-again relationship for the last few weeks. Chad had been in their graduating class and up until recently she had liked him fairly well, but having to hear her bestie cry about him twice in the same week had changed her mind. Maybe it was that way with all guys, maybe it didn’t matter whether they were on the chest club or drove a motorcycle. They were just jerks.

Knock! Knock! Knock!

“Hang on!” Clarissa called out, “I’m coming! Give me a blasted minute to get some damn clothes on.

Clarissa pulled her black knee length nightgown over her head and sprinted towards the door, grabbing her robe from the back of the sofa. She rose to her tiptoes and checked the peephole. Skull stood on the other side of the door running a hand through his hair. Clarissa’s heart skipped a beat and with trembling hands she opened the door, intending to tell him to shove off.

“Hey,” he said giving her a sleepy grin.

“What’s up?” she asked, holding the robe tightly around her.

“Can I come in?” Skull asked,

“Yes. No!” Clarissa said unsure of what she was going to do.

“Which is it then, Bookworm?” he asked.

“What do you want?” Clarissa asked and crossed her arms.

“To talk,” Skull said.

“About what?” Clarissa asked, “It’s too late for confessions and besides I’m not a priest.”

“Lame,” Skull shook his head.

“You’re one to talk,” Clarissa sighed, “Come inside before you wake the whole of the building.”

“Thanks,” he said coming inside.

Clarissa shut the door and locked it slowly, putting off the moment when she’d have to turn and face him. When he looked at her with his deep brown eyes and she’d feel weak in the knees. The moment when she’d want to kiss him, to pull him into her arms and not let him leave. Clarissa was startled from her thoughts by Skull wrapping his arms around her waist and resting his chin gently atop her head.

She wrapped her arms over his and leaned back into him for a moment. Clarissa inhaled his scent smelling the bike, the wind, and freedom. A soft sigh escaped her lips as she relaxed. She knew she should pull away from him, but she couldn’t. Love—was that what she was feeling? Clarissa wasn’t sure. How could you love someone you didn’t know? Was it even possible? She had known Justin most of her life and thought she had loved him at one time, but now she knew it never was love. It was attachment, safety, and familiarity. So what was drawing her to Skull? Mystery? Freedom? His bike?

Clarissa liked all of those things, even if she was slow to admit it to herself, but it was more than that. She wanted to fall into him, to bare her body, mind, and soul to him. To have him touch the raw spots of her existence. To allow him to know her as only she knew herself, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t give herself over to someone who kept so much from her. To someone who didn’t want to let her in.

Clarissa turned slowly in Skull’s embrace and looked up at him. Their eyes met for a moment before his lips claimed hers. She wrapped her arms around him and surrendered to the kiss. Her lips moved against his trying to tell him everything she couldn’t put into words. Her tongue danced with his, probing deeper into his mouth trying to touch on the hidden part of him, the part that he kept secret from her.

Clarissa’s hands moved to his face and touched his cheeks gently. She thought he trembled for a moment, but she couldn’t be sure because her hands were still trembling. Breaking the kiss for a second she looked into his brown eyes and saw a sadness that she wanted to erase, a pain she wanted to heal. Clarissa nibbled his lower lip and renewed the kiss. As their tongues danced together they moved to the sofa.

Clarissa lay back, pulling him with her. She leaned up and deepened the kiss as a fire began to rage in her belly. Skull tossed aside his leather jacket before tracing her jaw line with a single finger. Clarissa arched her back and looked up at him. He pushed aside the fabric of her robe and leaned forward kissing her neck gently. Clarissa’s fingers trailed over his shoulders and back.

Skull’s lips traveled down her throat to her collarbone before reaching the modest cleavage Clarissa’s nightgown left exposed. She bit her lip as her nipples hardened at his approach. Skull rested his head against her breast and Clarissa played with his hair, running her fingers through it and touching his scalp.

Skull rose and kicked his shoes off. They landed on the carpet with a soft thud, but Clarissa didn’t scold him for not taking them off at the door. Her pulse was racing and she wanted more of him. Her body trembled as she waited for what Skull would do next.

He rested his head against her breast again, resting his weight against her. Clarissa stroked his hair not sure how to tell him she wanted more. That she wanted to give herself over to what was quickly forming between them. She opened her mouth to speak, but hesitated. Skull’s breathing was slow and steady. She cocked her head to the side so she could see him better and grinned. He had fallen asleep. Clarissa rested a hand on his shoulder and stroked his hair with the other. For now he was safe from whatever he could have been getting into with Lobster and the others. For the moment he was here with her. Clarissa kissed the top of his head and fell asleep feeling his gentle heartbeat against her body.