Dirty Little Secret (Dirty #1) (18 page)

MELISSA

After I dropped Danny’s car, I caught a cab to my parents’ house, where I spent the next few days.  I’d only meant to give myself a night away from home, to keep from having to face Shelby and her perpetually cheerful disposition. I knew my parents were away, and that gave me some much needed time alone.  But after the first night, I couldn’t make myself leave.

It wasn’t until the fifth day, when
I’d finally caught a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror, that I’d decided I’d better make a visit to my apartment.  I’d gone through every spare outfit I had at their place, and all I had left was a bikini and a pair of cut-off shorts.  They weren’t exactly flattering.  Even after a shower and a raid of my mother’s make-up, I still looked like a five dollar hooker.  On a bad day.

So I tossed aside what little pride I had left, and caught a cab home.

The first thing that struck me as odd as I paid my fare was that Danny hadn’t yet picked up his car.  The second strange thing I noted as I came through the door at mine and Shelby’s apartment. It was too dark.  And not the kind of dark like no one was home.  The kind of dark that begged for candlelit dinner. 

The third
thing that gave me pause was the low sound of Danny’s voice, carrying from somewhere inside, down through the hall.

I assumed he was there for me.

I assumed he wanted to make amends.

Or something. 

Anything but what I saw when I got to the living room.

“What. The. Fuck.”

At my slow exclamation, two nude bodies jumped up from the couch.  Two sets of eyes met mine in horror.

“Mel
issa!” Shelby’s voice came out sounding like a yelping Chihuahua.

Danny just used my roommate’s bra to cover up his rather unimpressive package.

“Dodged a bullet there, didn’t I?” I asked, then started to laugh.

Maybe they were expecting me to freak out.  Hell, maybe I
was
freaking out, laughing because my best friend and my ex-fiancé were having sex.  I glanced down at the ring on my finger.  Oh, yes.  It was still there.  For as long as it had been on my hand, I’d wanted to take it off and leave it off.  Now that I could legitimately give it back…I wanted to cling to it.

I looked back to Shelby
and Danny, and another hysterical giggle burst through my lips.

“You realize that we’ll never be able to
sit
on the couch again,” I stated. 

They both stared at me, mouths open, and eyes wide. 
And damn, I just couldn’t hold it in. 

“Don’t mind me,” I said between giggles. “I’m just going to grab a shirt and go.”

I laughed all the way to my room, where I grabbed the first t-shirt I could find, and all the way back out the door, where near-hysterical tears poured down my cheeks.  I couldn’t even stop when I realized that because I’d taken a cab to my parents place and back, and hadn’t picked up my car, and now…for some unfathomable reason, Danny’s vehicle was now parked
behind
mine. I was stuck.

“Well…What the fuck am I going to do now?”

I almost – really damned close to almost, in fact – went back into the house.

What would they do if I just flopped down on the couch, put my feet on the table, and flicked on the TV and started watching a movie?

But at that second, I spotted the still half-full bottle of Southern Comfort on Danny’s backseat.  I yanked on the door, found it open, and decided to help myself.

I cracked the bottle and chugged back a healthy swig.  It shot
straight through me, warming everything from the inside out.  I took a second sip.  For the first time in almost a week, I felt relaxed.  Not calm, exactly.  But something that would pass – if I didn’t analyze it too carefully, that is – for happiness.

I glanced up toward the window of my apartment, and snorted another laugh, trying to guess how long I should give them before I went in and demanded that Danny move his car. 

Probably not long.

I grinned, and
spontaneously decided to go for a walk. 

Bottle in hand, I wove through the streets, wondering why it hadn’t occurred to me to drink in public before.

I don’t know if I consciously made my way toward the party house or not, but ten minutes - and a lot of stumbles - later, I found myself standing in front of the notorious building, daring myself to go inside.

Okay, maybe stood in front of is an exaggeration.  I was actually crouched down in the bushes, staring th
rough a window of the well-known home, thinking tipsily about how the few blocks between my place and
this
place acted as a buffer between worlds.

On my side,
it was all row housing.  Three-level, attached homes, which had been converted into apartments.  Each house had the same layout.  The first floor was comprised of a bachelor suite, a shared laundry room, and a storage area.  The second floor – where Shelby and I lived – was the biggest in the house, with a full kitchen, a wide living space, and two bedrooms, each with its own bathroom.  The top floor had a one-bedroom penthouse.  And each one was the same as the last.  Understated.  Classy.

“Bor-r-r-r-ing,” I announced
my conclusion about my living space into the air.

All the places in
this
area were also student housing, but they attracted people who preferred beer to books.

Far
more interesting.

As was evidenced by what I could see
- through the haze of Southern Comfort and a steamy window - of the eclectic group inside.

Guy with guitar.  Check.

Girl with flower in her hair.  Check.

“What the hell are you doing?
!”

I jumped back at the angry, feminine voice
that came through the screen.  Oh, and at her shriek holler, I landed solidly on my ass.

“Silv!” the girl yell
ed. “There’s a fucking pervert out there, watching us!”

Part of me cowered, and begged the living-on-the-edge me to run.  I ignored her snivell
ing.  In fact, I took that good girl, smacked her face, shoved her down, and stood my ground, waiting for the confrontation.

It only took a second.

A redhead with a pierced lip came storming out of the house.  She marched over to me and grabbed me by my hair. 

Why couldn’t it have been the one with the flower?
I thought, and fought down a giggle.

As the redhead
dragged me from my hiding place, my shorts snagged on a thorn, which tore a gaping hole right below one of my rear pockets.  The other girl didn’t care. She just yanked harder, forced me up and through the front door.  Once inside, she pushed me to my knees in front of a porn-moustached man.

“She was in the bushes,” the redhead announced. “Spying on our party.”

And here comes the
very
obvious reason why, for a good girl, drinking is a no-no.  Especially street-drinking.  A wine spritzer with a lemon twist, sipped over the course of a three-hour meal is as far as my former type would usually go.  Several shots of straight Southern…not so much.

I snorted. “This is
not
a party. I can’t even believe I called the cops on you last week.”

Porn-stache eyed me up and down. “You called the cops?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t look like you have the nerve to call your mother, let alone the cops.”

I took a swig from my bottle and announced, “I live three blocks over. We could hear you from there. Oh, and I’m not wearing a bra, just a bikini.”

Stachey-mc-stacherson fixed his gaze on my t-shirt.  I stuck my chest out defiantly, pleased when my nipples stood to attention.

“I told you she was a pervert,” the redhead stated.

“I’m not the one with the creep-tastic moustache, staring at some girl’s boobs,” I retorted.

She cuffed me, and I fell to the floor with my hand covering the immediately sore spot just above my cheekbone.

“What the hell!” I yelled.
“That’s going to leave a bruise!”

“That’s my boyfriend,” she informed me. “
His name is Silv. Try insulting him again.”

From my spot on the floor, I gave her a disgusted look.  Because apparently, in addition to my sudden brashness, I was in the mood for making bad choices.

“Your boyfriend looks like a three-day old douchebag. And I don’t mean the metaphorical kind. I mean a real and true, actual, physical douchebag. I’m sure you’ve seen one.”

She l
eaped at me.  But even drunk, I was quick.  And years of cheerleading made me flexible.  I twisted and rolled away, and the girl landed with a hard thump right beside me.  The bottle of Southern tipped in my hand, splashing out on the floor.

“Dammit,” I muttered.

The girl and I came to our feet at the same second.  She lunged for me again, and instinctively, I lashed out.

My left fist – because
the right one was now clutched around the Southern Comfort – flew to her face, striking her awkwardly on the nose.

My hand
hurt. 
It
burned.
  And I wondered how the hell anyone could fight on a regular basis.

Still, the sight of the redhead
splayed out on the floor, total shock coloring her features, was gratifying.  When she tried to stand, slipped on the tile floor, and went down again, it was entertaining enough to make me burst out laughing.

“Oh, shit. That is funny,” I said
, then turned to my nearly empty liquor bottle. “But I spilled my drink.”

Silv-the-Porn-King grinned, and his squirrel-tail moustache wiggled
at he spoke to the girl on the floor. “Don’t bother standing up, Candy. I’m gonna pour a body shot for our new friend here, and you’re gonna be the cup.”

Seconds later, I was slurping up tequila from the belly button of a girl who wanted to kill me, and negotiating the terms of a round of strip poker.

CUTTER

I pulled my truck up
Melissa’s street, and forced myself to see past the perfect little yards and the perfect little porches.  The neighborhood was yuppie-in-the-making to a fucking tee. 

No one who lived here would wind up behind bars.  If they broke any laws, they would be the embezzl
ement kind, where they’d have tucked away a hundred million dollars in an off-shore account.  Their only punishment would be having to use all the money to drink non-brand-name liquor in some beach-filled, non-extraditing country somewhere.  Okay, maybe I wasn’t
that
fucking successful at seeing past it, but I tried.  Sort of.

Melissa’s house
was at the end of a cul-de-sac, and I had to beat down a weak-ass urge to spin the truck through the street and head off in the other direction.

Thirty-five minutes,
I reminded myself.
Don’t fucking waste them.

The driveway in front of her place was
full of cars that made my lip curl derisively.  Shiny.  Heated seats.  Making a statement about their owners’ places in the world.

I parked my truck behind a Beemer, blocking it in, and hopped out of my truck. 

She was in apartment B, and that, at least, made me smile.  She’d stuck herself in the middle.  The top floor would’ve been too obvious, and screamed of ego, while the bottom would’ve been overly self-effacing.  The middle was Melissa drawing attention to the fact that she was good, but not
too
good.  She could take second place gracefully.

Except with me,
I thought.
I’m going to put her in first place, every fucking day.

My heart
squeezed in my chest, and I took the walkway in wide, eager steps.

Then stopped.

Through the white curtains on the second floor, I saw a man’s silhouette.

She had company.  I hadn’t planned for that contingency.  I glanced at my watch.  Thirty-two minutes.  I’d use two to get rid of him, and thirty to talk her into giving me another chance. 
For once, I wouldn’t fuck up.

A moment later, though, another figure crossed the curtains, and I froze.

Even from where I was, and with the curtains obscuring the view, I could tell she was naked.

Perfectly fucking naked.

The swell of hips and tits, the flow of hair, the subtle shift of leg – all of it made me go completely still.

She wrapped her arms around the man,
tipped her head back, and their lips met, looking for all the world like a piece of goddamned art.  Something I’d be proud to paint.

Fuck.

No.  That didn’t even begin to describe the somehow hollow, somehow angry, somehow shattered feeling that drove through me.

I had no one to blame but myself.  I’d se
nt her straight back to him, and I had to fucking own it. That didn’t make it hurt any less.

I spun on my heel and hightailed it back to my truck, wishing I hadn’t taken my sister’s words to heart. 
Wishing I was still as heart
less
as I’d been before I met Melissa.

I backed my truck up slowly.  I didn’t want to cause a scene, which spoke volumes about my state of mind.  I didn’t want to destroy anything.  Except maybe myself.

When my cell phone rang the first time, pulling me from the brink of a pain-filled cavern, I didn’t answer it.

I continued to drive blindly thr
ough the streets with a crushed-in feeling pushing on my chest, and a sea of black in my mind.

When my cell went off another time, I forced myself to grab the phone from the console.

Pull your shit together, Cutter,
I chastised myself as I answered in a dull tone.

“
Yeah?”

“Buddy.
You know that pretty blonde in your coat and not much else?”

My boss’s gravelly v
oice was concerned, and I wondered for a
- possibly losing-my-shit-influenced - moment if he was psychic.  How else would he know I was on the edge, and how would he know it was about Melissa?  Then he spoke again.

“I got the feeling she meant something to you, son. And at the moment, she’s hella-fucked-up-drunk
.”

“What are you talking about? I just saw her with…” I trailed off, swallowed thickly, and cursed myself for not being able to finish like a man. “I just fucking saw her.”

“Naw, dude. I don’t know who you saw, but that girl is here.”

“You’re wrong.”

“I wouldn’t be calling you if I wasn’t sure. And buddy…I
am
sure this is your girl. I wouldn’t forget a face or a body like hers. Stuck out like a fucking sore thumb at the warehouse. Sticks out here at this party.”

I finally sat up a little straighter.  It wasn’t her, sucking face with the silhouetted man.

So who was at her house? Jesus. The roommate, maybe.

I shook my head to clear it.  Relief at the realization
that Melissa might still be free was fleeting.  Worry quickly took its place.

“Cutter, you there?” my boss prompted.

I cleared my throat. “Yeah, man. You wanna give me an address?”

He reeled one off, and I was glad that it was only five minutes from where I was. 
Hella-fucked-up-drunk.

I stepped on the gas, barely breathing again until
I pulled my truck up in front of the squat house. 

There was no doubt I was in the right place. 
The driveway was full, and so was the street.  To park, I had to coast straight up onto the grass.

What I saw inside
would normally have made me laugh. 

Even at the relatively early hour, the house was wall-to-wall with flesh.

In one corner, a slim, freckled redhead on all fours acted as table for a group of near nude women played a round of cards on her back. 

A pack
of guys - some of whom I recognized from group the less-than-savory men I worked with at the lumber yard - crowded another corner. 

I didn’t see Melissa.

My boss called out to me from somewhere on the other side the mess of flesh.

“Cutter!”

The rest of the guys heard him and followed with a mocking greeting.

“Cutter down!”

“Cutter out!”

“Cutter head off!”

Idiots.

It had been a long time since I’d surrounded myself with drunk fools.

Where the fuck is she?
I wondered.

I couldn’t see through the smoke, and I had to push my way through a wall of people just to get to my boss.  Halfway there, a guy with a ridiculous moustache slapped me on the shoulder and nodded toward the human table in the corner.
“You here for a buy-in on the table?”

“Maybe later,” I muttered.

“C’mon man. It’s a riot,” the other guys cajoled. “Right ladies?”

“Sorr
y, Silv,” called a familiar, feminine, and totally slurred voice. “No dicks, just chicks.”

“You sure about that…baby-doll
?” I replied carefully.

“What. The. Hell.”

The angry voice was like a sword wrapped in satin. 

“You know this one?” the ‘stache-king asked.

I slapped a grin onto my face. “Little bit.”

Then Melissa stood up, and my smile
slipped.

W
here the fuck is her shirt?

For a moment
, I was frozen to the spot with my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth.  She had her hair in a thick braid that begged to be pulled.  For whatever reason, it looked longer, wrapped up like that, resting right into the centre of her tits.  Jesus.  As if they weren’t hard-on inducing enough already.  Shit.  My memory hadn’t done them justice.  Jesus-shit-Jesus.  They were bigger than my fucking fists and perky as hell.  For a long second, I considered crossing the room, bending down, and taking one in my mouth.

“Like what you see, mother
trucker
?” she asked in a voice that made me wish no one else was in the room.

And that’s what brought me back to fucking reality again.  Roomful of people.  Melissa, half-fucking naked. 
A welt under one eye.  I gave myself a mental bitch slap.

“Yeah,” I growled. “I like what I see.
And so does every other asshole in here.”

She glanced around, looking for a minute like she wished she was covered up.  Then she squared her shoulders, making those gorgeous tits bounce once
more before they settled again, and faced me straight on.  The effect of too much booze was clear in her bloodshot eyes.

“I suck at poker,” she pouted.

“Put on some damned clothes,” I ordered.

“I lost ‘em, fair and square,” she replied.

“I don’t care if you’re Mother-fucking-Teresa and you gave them to needy children in Tibet.  Find a fucking shirt. Or at least take mine. Before I make my
hands
do the job instead.”

“A hand job? You’d like
that
wouldn’t you?” she asked.

I took a step toward her before I could stop myself, fully p
repared to show her what I’d like, audience or not.

Jesus, Cutter. Get. A. Hold.

At the last second, I stopped, slipped off my t-shirt and tossed it in her direction.  It sailed past her, and it was impossible not to stare as she bent over to grab it.  There was a huge, ass-baring tear just under her jeans shorts pocket.  As if they weren’t already short enough.

I wanted to suck on that
exposed skin even more than I wanted to suck on one of her rose-tinted nipples.

Melissa
stood up again and flashed me a dirty look. 

“Put it on,” I commanded. “We’re leaving.”

She held the shirt out distastefully.

“Just
try
not doing it,” I dared her, putting every bit of menace into my statement that I could. “See what happens.”

She gave me a wide-eyed look, and ducked into my t-shirt.  It was then that I caught sight of the ring on her finger.

So she hadn’t given up completely on Danny the fiancé.  The shiny rock flashed at me mockingly as she slid her arms through the sleeves, then placed them on her hips.

Why was she here, then, like this?

“Who the hell do you think you are?” she hissed.

“
Right now, all I am is your ride home.”

I strode over to her, slid my arms around her
familiarly enticing body, and flung her over my shoulder.