Tainted Love: A Lovestruck Novella, Book 1 (9 page)

Lawson

The clock on my phone flips over to five, and I feel like Cinda-fucking-rella. I may be broke, but at least I get to fuck a princess tonight.

The work day is officially done. And with Carly’s help, since she’s not a slack-ass like Todd, we finished the repairs and maintenance for all customers before the weekend.  I’ve already cleaned up in the sink, well, as best I can until I have a real shower, and changed out of my coveralls. So now, I’m just waiting for Josie to come by after work. During my short break around one, when I went to pick up lunch for me and the guys, I stopped by the pharmacy and grabbed some XL condoms. Now we’re ready to get down to business.

My phone dings with a text message right on time. I glance down and see it’s from Josie, but it doesn’t say she’s on her way. Instead, it says she’s gotta work over to finish up a few things, and could I bring her car by so I won’t have to wait for her.

Well, fuck.

That wasn’t the text I was hoping to get. The one I wanted was, “
I’m on my way, and let’s fuck in the garage because I can’t wait another second longer for your big cock.”

Okay. So we’ll just have to wait a few more hours until she gets off work.

Early this morning, I moved Josie’s El Camino into a parking spot on the curb to use the garage bay it was in. So I grab her keys, lock up and head out the front door to drive it two blocks over. Since downtown is emptying out, I snag a parking spot right in front of her office building. I’ve just typed up the message on my phone and sent it to her when the front door opens and Josie steps out. She’s beautiful as always, but the expression on her face is frazzled instead of warm and welcoming. It must’ve been a shitty day.

“Hey,” I say when she approaches, leaning forward to kiss her cheek. My lips barely graze her skin before she pulls away.

“Fuck, what a god-awful day,” she says with a shake of her blonde hair. “My boss is retiring, so I have to find another job. What if I don’t find another job? And everyone’s been calling me a slut after they saw my name on the incident report from the night before…”

Reaching for her face with both hands, I hold her still while my lips find hers. It takes a few kisses before I convince her mouth to open so my tongue can remind her that tonight I’ll make everything else disappear. It’ll just be me and her, nothing else. God, why does it feel so good to kiss her? And why does my cock perk up like a homing device in search of her pussy whenever she’s nearby. Hell, I’ve been that way all day just thinking about her. I’ve never felt this way about a woman, especially not one I just met.

“Come over to my place tonight?” I ask, when I pull away, her fists still clenching the front of my shirt in an awesome way. “My brother went by to wait for the new mattress delivery and assured me that she cleared out and left her key on the counter.”

“You have a brother?” she asks.

“Ah, yeah,” I tell her with a smile. “Abe. He’s four years older than me, divorced with a three-year-old son, Ollie. Well, Oliver, but we all call him Ollie.”

“You have a nephew?”

“Yeah,” I reply slowly.

“Huh,” she says, removing her hands from me. “I don’t know much about you.” That doesn’t sound good. She didn’t say it in the,
I want us to get to know each other better
. No, it was said more in the,
I’ve had your cock in my mouth, and I don’t know shit about you
way.

“Come over tonight, and we can start learning all this stuff about each other, okay?” I say, almost ready to get on my knees and beg to have her in my bed tonight.

“Okay,” she nods, just as some dick in a suit yells, “
Josie
?” from further down the sidewalk.

Her head spins around so fast that I get smacked in the face with her
Moroccan My Shine
hair.

“Bryan?” she says softly to the man walking toward us.

While I’m glaring at the douche in the three-piece gray suit, he only has greedy eyes for the woman in front of me, beaming at her.

“I thought that was your car! How’ve you been?” he asks, scooping her up in a hug that catches her off guard since her arms flatten against the front of his body instead of embracing him back. “What are you doing in downtown?”

“I-I, ah, work here,” she says, jerking a thumb in the direction of the building next to us. “Wh-what are you doing here?”

“Oh, I’ve got a part-time internship in the DA’s office while I study for the Bar,” he says with an answering nod to the big brick courthouse across the street. 

“You-you work here? As an attorney?” Josie asks.

“Not yet, but as soon as I pass the Bar. I’ve already got an offer up in your hometown, but I was hoping to get one here…”

Maybe I’m reading too much into the conversation, but I’m guessing this is the cheater and that he’s hoping to be near her again. What a dick.

I clear my throat to remind them both that I’m still standing there.

Josie jumps like she had forgotten I was behind her, and then steps to the side of me. “Bryan, this is Lawson Andrews. Lawson this is Bryan Davis.”

The fucker offers me a hand to shake, but I just stand there and wait patiently. Wanting her to say I’m the guy she’s dating or boyfriend or some fucking thing to elude to the fact that her mouth’s been on my cock and mine’s been on her pussy. When it doesn’t come, I reluctantly take the guy’s hand, squeezing with all my might. He returns the same amount of pressure. Asshat.

“Nice to meet you,” he says through clenched teeth.

“Yeah,” I reply, refusing to say the same words, even if they’re a lie.

“So, what are your plans for dinner?” the dick asks, his gaze flickering over to me an instant before it goes back to Josie. “Can I take you out so we can catch up?”

“We –” I start to let him down easy, when Josie shocks the fuck out of me by saying, “Sure. I just need to finish up a few things inside.”

What the hell is going on right now?

Did I walk into some alternate universe?

She’s gonna leave me standing on the sidewalk and blow off our plans to fuck all night to go on
a date
with this asshole? An asshole that, if I had to guess, blew his chance with her by cheating on her. Who would cheat on this beautiful woman?

“Josie?” I ask in bewilderment.

“Oh, Lawson, thanks for bringing over my car. And fixing it, of course,” she says, practically dismissing me with her palm held out to me, silently asking for her keys. So, what do I do?

I want to ram my fist into this fucker’s face so hard I can’t stand it. Then I want to haul her back to my garage over my shoulder and fuck some sense into her.

But I don’t do either.

Instead, I place the keys in her waiting hand, and then I walk away without another word.

…

Josie

“Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod.” The words are on repeat like a broken record as I slip into the women’s bathroom in our office and call Reagan.

“Hey, girl. What’s up?” she asks.

“Reagan! You’ll never believe who’s back in town and just asked me out,” I tell her in a frantic rush of words.

“What the –”

“Bryan! Bryan is here, and we’re going to dinner. The love potion worked!”

“Hold the fucking phone,” she says. “You’re going out with
Bryan
, the dickwad that
cheated
on you? You can’t be serious, Josie.”

“What do you mean?” I ask, slumping against the wall.

“What about Lawson? I thought you were head over heels for him.”

Lawson. God, he’s so hot. And last night was a-freaking-mazing.

“Josie?” she asks.

“Oh, well, um, Lawson’s great, but Bryan is the one. I’ve always known he was my soulmate, and now he’s back…”

“Stop, stop, stop,” Reagan says. “Am I gonna have to come smack the shit out of you?”

“What? Why?”

“Because you’re being stupid, Josie.”

“No, I’m not. People make mistakes. Remember how Bryan begged me to forgive him, but I was too stubborn to accept it? Then he left for law school, and I haven’t seen him in three years! Three! This is what Madam Tess meant. That I had to stop being so stubborn to find love, and now we have a second chance.”

“Where are you? I need to find you and knee that dick in his ball sack,” Reagan says in a huff. “He’s gonna hurt you again, and then it’ll be too late!”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve only got two days to sleep with Lawson and pass on the potion. After that, time’s up and you’ll be shit out of luck. Or have you already slept with Lawson?”

“No, I haven’t. We were going to tonight, but…”

“But your head found its way into your ass, and now you’ve turned delusional enough to go out with the man who hurt you so bad you haven’t dated in three long years!”

“I haven’t dated because no one could replace him or what we had…”

“His affairs? Yes, most people could not give you that because they’re not
jackasses
!” she exclaims.

“Why are you upset? I thought you would be happy for me. After Bryan and I…you know, seal the deal tonight, then you can drink the potion, and all will be perfect.”

“No,” she says curtly.

“No what?” I ask.

“I’m not drinking the potion if you choose him over Lawson.”

“Fine, I’ll get one of the girls here to drink it.”

“That’ll be tough to do when you don’t
have
the potion.”

“What the…you little bitch!” I exclaim in understanding.

“Ditch the dick and go get some of Lawson’s, Josie, or you’re gonna regret it for the rest of your life!”

“You’re wrong,” I say. “Why else would Bryan be back in my life at the perfect time unless he’s the one?”

“Coincidence. What’s not a coincidence is you losing your car door and finding Lawson!”

“Okay. I’m hanging up now,” I warn her. “I’ll call you after I seal the deal so you can drink the potion.”

“Not gonna happen,” she says, but we’ll just see about that.

…

After I finish up on the last of the letters to our clients about John’s retirement that he insisted be finished today, I head out the front and find Bryan waiting for me in the passenger seat of my car.

“Ready?” he asks.

“Sure,” I say. But then when I reach for my door handle, I see the dings of missing paint from the day it was ripped off the hinges; and I can’t help but think about Lawson. There’s a burning sensation in the pit of my stomach that accompanies it, like I’m cheating on him. Which is nuts, right? Since we weren’t really together. Were we?

“You okay?” Bryan asks as I sit down in the driver seat.

“Yeah, just a long day,” I tell him, cranking my baby and merging into the street. “My boss is retiring. So if I don’t find a job soon, I may end up back in Roanoke.”

“Really?” he says, his brown eyes, the identical color of his hair, wide and excited when I glance over at him. “We could be living in the same city again?” he asks.

“Yeah,” I answer on an exhale, because the idea of leaving Greensboro is depressing. I’ve lived here since I started college seven years ago. It’s my home now, and the thought of returning to the city where I grew up, the one where the town is small, everyone gossips about everyone else’s business and the women are all two-faced, jealous bitches, never crossed my mind.

“So where do you want to eat?” I ask Bryan as we come to a stop in afternoon traffic.

“How about
Bonefish Grill
?” he suggests, and I try to repress my instant cringe at the mention of fish. We dated for over two years. How does he not remember that I despise seafood, not just fish, but all of it? A seed of doubt plants itself inside my hungry, empty stomach, and I just know that if I were with Lawson, he and I would agree on dinner without argument.

“How about Mexican instead?” I ask, glancing over at Bryan. The wide, muscular man shivers like a child in response.

“Sorry, Josie, but I haven’t overcome food poisoning on undercooked chicken fajitas from a few years ago.”

Fuck. I knew it. Less than five minutes and we already can’t agree on dinner. What the hell am I doing with him right now? I glance over at Bryan again and see a mildly attractive young man in a nice gray suit. Three years ago he was the hottest man I’d ever seen. Now, he hasn’t changed much, but I must have, because the ugliness of him hurting me worse than anyone else in the world makes him hideous, especially when I think about Lawson. A beautiful, sweet man, who has my same goofy sense of humor and who…gets me. There’s no way to know if Lawson will end up hurting me or cheating on me, but deep down in my heart I know he wouldn’t.

“Do you like
South Park
?” I ask Bryan.

“Huh?” he asks. “That stupid cartoon with the foul-mouthed kids?”

“Yeah, that one.”