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Authors: Nicole Edwards

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Chapter Four

Presley

Forty-five minutes after my conversation with Blaze—when I’d finally made it to my condo—I realized I should’ve stayed at the shop. There was a perfectly good cot that would’ve worked nicely as a bed for the night, but
no
, I was naïve enough to think that my roommates had remembered our conversation from last night.

Last. Freaking. Night.

Less than twenty-four hours ago, in fact, when I had sat Gil and Gavin down and insisted that they put a halt to the orgies in my living room. Simple as that.

Despite hoping otherwise, I knew. I fucking
knew
Gil was at it again. How did the saying go … can’t teach an old dog new tricks? Well, Gil was definitely a dog, but his age didn’t factor into it at all.

I had no more than one foot out of the elevator when I heard it. There were two condos on my floor, and only one of them was quiet. Mine, however, had music blaring, and there was a chorus of conversation competing with the noise. I hoped like hell our neighbors were heavy sleepers or spent their Friday nights out on Sixth Street, because there was no way they couldn’t hear that. The last thing I needed was to piss off the occupants of 1701 when I’d only been living there for a couple of weeks.

I preferred to get them to like me first, and since I hadn’t yet met them, that wasn’t even possible. And we all knew, when that time came, getting them to like me would be difficult enough thanks to the tattoos and the piercings that adorned the majority of my body. A lot of people shied away from that.

“Fuck.” Because I wasn’t in the mood to traipse four blocks back to the tattoo shop to spend the night on a crappy cot, I decided to take my chances.

The instant I opened the door, I wished I hadn’t.

Holy.

Fucking.

Shit.

“Gil! What the fuck?” I mumbled, my words completely drowned out by the music. I let the front door close behind me as I stepped into my condo, horrified by the debauchery taking place in my living room.

There were at least three chicks, two of whom were naked as the day they were born, playing with one another on my fucking couch, and one more who was giving far too much attention to none other than the man responsible for this madness, Gil Garner. My soon-to-be ex-roommate.

If it weren’t for the fact that Gil paid a third of my mortgage and the utilities, I really would’ve kicked his ass to the curb. Never mind the fact that he was my friend and my employee, or that we’d lived together for the past two years before we moved here. I still would’ve preferred to toss him out on the street in the below-freezing temps rather than stand here and watch as some brunette sucked him off in the middle of my fucking living room. But there she was, mouth wide open, his dick sliding in and out while she slobbered all over him.

Fucking lovely.

“Hey, sweets,” Gil greeted, casting a sideways glance my way as he waved at me with a beer bottle dangling from his fingers before his eyes dropped back to the girl kneeling between his splayed thighs.

I could hardly hear a word he said, but I refused to move any closer to … the nakedness. Instead, I glared at him.

He smiled, still peering back at me over his shoulder. “Thought you were workin’ late tonight.”

Yes, because that was a good excuse for some chick deep-throating him in the living room. He had his own room, for fuck’s sake, couldn’t he take that shit in there?

My gaze once again strayed to the two naked girls grinding against one another on the other end of the sectional sofa. I shook my head in disbelief. Didn’t they have their own place where they could do that? Without an audience, maybe?

“I left earl—” I stopped the words before the sentence fully formed. One, Gil wouldn’t have been able to hear me and two, I didn’t owe him an explanation. This was my condo; he just rented a room from me.

“Grab a beer, Pres. Stay a while,” a deep voice rumbled from behind me.

I spun around to see my other roommate, Gavin Dennis—who also happened to be my best friend since childhood—standing there, a half-naked chick hanging on him, her nipples visible over the low scoop of her dress.

Could it get any worse?

“What are you doing here?” I questioned, looking him square in the eye and doing my best to avoid the big-breasted girl running her hands along Gavin’s chiseled chest. “Shouldn’t you be at work?”

“Things were slow. I came home to change, but”—Gavin nodded his head toward the girl—“she asked me to stay.”

I had no idea who
she
was. And if I had to guess, neither did Gavin. And probably not Gil, either.

This was the story of my life.

Twenty-eight years old, living with two guys whose extracurricular activities included strange naked women and orgies, I should’ve expected this by now. Only I didn’t want to expect it. I didn’t want to come home to find naked women making out, either.

“Gil!” I shouted, wanting him to hear me over the music, gearing up to give him a piece of my mind.

Gavin’s hand landed on my arm. “Give him a break, Pres.”

I frowned at him, noting his sympathetic tone. “What are you talking about?”

“He just found out his girlfriend’s been screwing some dude on the side.”

Confused, I continued to stare at Gavin. “He doesn’t
have
a girlfriend.”

“Oh. My bad.” Gavin offered up that smile that made most women drop to their knees.

I was not one of those women.

I was immune to both of these men. Always had been. Always would be.

However, based on the way Blondie was feeling Gavin up right there in front of me, I was pretty sure she was going to be next to board that ship.

“Oh, and that guy over there,” Gavin said, pointing toward the the corner, “That’s Jake. He’s our neighbor.”

Slowly pivoting, I peered around the wall that was obscuring my view of the entire room until my eyes landed on the man I hadn’t even noticed sitting in the corner. His face was hidden by a baseball cap, and he wasn’t paying the least bit of attention to me. Then again, why would he? I had clothes on and there was a live porno taking place only a few feet in front of him.

Surprisingly, there were no women in his lap or kneeling in front of him, and he was dressed, from what I could tell. Still didn’t explain why he had his ass planted in
my
chair, just that maybe he had a little more common sense than Gil or Gavin.

“Why’s he here?” I asked, moving back and glancing at Gavin. It was then I realized Gavin couldn’t answer me because Blondie’s tongue was down his throat.

Great.

Knowing I could throw as much of a tantrum as I wanted but it wouldn’t change anything tonight, I gave up after turning down the music. It was the least they could do, even if we obviously weren’t disturbing our neighbor because he’d made himself at home in my chair.

Grabbing a bottle of water from the refrigerator, I glanced into the living room one more time only to notice that one of the naked chicks was now licking the other like a lollipop while the three guys sat back and watched the spectacle.

“Ugghh.” With my bottle of water in hand, I went straight for my bedroom, closing and locking the door behind me.

Pulling the hood off my head, I then yanked my sweatshirt off, tossing it in the direction of the clothes hamper. Taking my bottle of water with me, I went to the bathroom, then closed and locked that door as well.

I was not taking any chances.

It wasn’t that I thought Gavin or Gil would come in. They knew better. But the others… Who knew what they were capable of? I’d only made that mistake once and I’d found myself being hit on by an overly friendly redhead who’d misplaced her clothes—or so she’d said.

I was not going to make the same mistake twice.

A few minutes later, I was relaxing in the huge tub, bubbles up to my neck, a single candle sitting on the ledge. I could still hear the music, could feel the pulse from the bass through the floor, but I managed to ignore it. I’d had a shit day, and the only thing I wanted to do now was block everything out for a little while, then curl up in my bed and sleep for the duration.

Maybe tomorrow would be better.

A girl could only hope.

Chapter Five

Jake

Saturday morning

My head was throbbing and I couldn’t recall half of what had happened last night.

I remembered hearing a noise in the hall, then opening the door to find my new neighbor—one of them, anyway—talking to a group of women. Well, feeling them up was a more apt description. I’d been momentarily distracted when one of the girls pulled off her shirt, and I possibly had made a sound, which I could only assume was when the neighbor had noticed me, resulting in an invitation to come over for a beer.

One look at those chicks and I’d figured what the hell.

Not long after I’d gone over there, Gil’s roommate Gavin arrived. It was a crazy coincidence that I knew Gavin, so I’d decided to stick around for a while. The next thing I knew, I was camped out in a dark corner, drinking beer and watching the show with my new neighbors and their… friends. Around two a.m., beer turned into shots of tequila—a lot of them—and somehow I’d managed to stumble home shortly after the sun had come up.

The only thing I knew for certain was that I hadn’t slept with any of those chicks, but Gil and Gavin had. In fact, Gil and Gavin had double-teamed the exuberant brunette right there on the couch. Based on her pleading and excited squeals, she’d been quite content to be filled to the brim, and none of them seemed bothered by an audience, so I hadn’t bothered to get up.

Now, I wished I’d had the sense to take ibuprofen before I’d passed out on my couch a few hours ago.

Remembering I’d left the ibuprofen in my office, I stumbled in that direction. The light was on, which I didn’t remember doing, and my laptop was open. After grabbing the bottle from the top desk drawer and shaking two out, I touched the track pad to wake the computer, then stared down at the screen.

Chapter One

It was a cold winter night. Three women naked. No, wait. Make that four women. A pussy-licking orgy on one side, double penetration on the other.

Okay. What the fuck had I been thinking?

Cold winter night? That flat-out sucked.

Now, the pussy-licking orgy… That wasn’t a bad storyline, though I would’ve had to do a hell of a lot better than twenty-six words. Especially if I’d had the crazy notion that that had the makings of a novel.

Apparently, I’d mistakenly thought I could write in my inebriated state, which explained the bullshit I was looking at now. Pressing the delete key, I watched the words disappear as I shook my head.

I needed coffee. Desperately.

Popping two ibuprofen in my mouth, I downed them without water, hoping like hell they would kick the hangover and right my world before I did something stupid. Like attempt to write again. If that was what I’d resorted to writing while intoxicated, I probably needed to lay off the alcohol. Or lock up my laptop.

Or both.

Making my way to the kitchen, I flipped on the light, then flipped it off again when my head screamed at me.

“Meow.”

Peering down, I saw Cat padding out from the laundry room.

“Hope you had a better night than I did,” I told the cat, not expecting a response.

Cat rarely paid any attention to me unless he was hungry or his water bowl was empty. Sometimes I wondered if Abby was right, that Cat was pissed because I hadn’t bothered to give him a real name.

I trekked into the laundry room to find his bowls turned upside down—which was his way of telling me I was a shitty human. I didn’t even want to check out my closet because the last time I’d forgotten to feed him, he’d clawed up two of my T-shirts and hacked up hairballs and left them in my shoe.

Grabbing the food from the cabinet, I filled one bowl and set it on the floor before adding water to the other.

“There. You’re all set. Leave my clothes and my shoes alone.”

Back in the kitchen, I stopped beside the coffeepot, grabbed a clean mug hanging on the rack above it, but before I could get the coffee grounds out of the cabinet, my gaze slid over to the center island, where a black, leather-bound notebook with cursive lettering scrolled across the front sat. It was the one Abby had given me two weeks ago for my thirty-sixth birthday. Beside it, a pen.

I smiled, remembering the way Abby’s glittering green eyes had lit up when I’d unwrapped the gift.

“What am I supposed to do with this?” I asked, smiling back at her, trying desperately to hide my confusion.

“You’re s’posed to write a book in it. What d’ya think?”

Now, as I stared down at it, I flipped open the front cover, reading the choppy block letters scribbled across the first page. Not for the first time, I wondered what had spurred Abby to want me to write a book in a notebook.

To Uncle Jake. I hope you write a best seller in this one day. Love, Abby.

Yeah, well … I hoped I wrote a best seller
anywhere
at this point. Fuck, I was game to cop a squat on the sidewalk out front with a piece of chalk if that would do the trick. I could picture it now, front page of the
Austin American-Statesman
:
Best-selling author has psychotic break. The words chalked on the sidewalk speak for themselves.

I hadn’t had the heart to shatter the hopes of the sweetest fifteen-year-old kid I knew—who’d been through so much in the past year—by telling her that I didn’t
write
my books. I typed them. On the computer. The book I was supposed to be working on notwithstanding because I had yet to type shit on it—unless a bunch of drunken rambling counted. Which it didn’t. But the other fourteen I’d written over the last seven years had been written one keystroke at a time.

As I stared at the notebook, the clean white pages inside with their perfect blue lines called to me, urged me to grab that pen and…

What? What the hell was I supposed to do now?

As with everything else that had previously rattled around in my head, the journal stopped talking to me. Although that didn’t stop me from staring down at it. Surely I could take it from here, right?

Setting the coffee mug down, I snatched the journal, the pen, and my black hoodie and made my way to the door. Then, after turning back to get my shoes, keys, cell phone, and my wallet, I finally made it out into the hall and over to the elevator.

Once more, I turned back around, headed back into my condo, dropping my pile of crap back on the kitchen island.

I needed to shower first. No fucking way in hell I could go out in public smelling like … a brewery.

BOOK: Inked on Paper
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