Home > Bad Boy Blues(7)

Bad Boy Blues(7)
Author: Saffron A. Kent

“Do you still use blue glitter pens?”

I used to, back in school. I was the poster child for the color blue. Blue backpack, blue clothes, blue glitter pens, and, when I grew up, blue hair.

I nod. “Yes.”

He nods back, looking… nostalgic. “Of course you do.”

I should say something. I really should. But I’m in a trance. I think this is what being hypnotized feels like.

Right now, all I can do is track his stare as it slides down the line of my throat, which feels jam-packed with rocks, making it difficult to swallow. When he comes down to my chest, I realize that the last time he saw me, I was a C cup. I’m a D now.

I have every intention to tell him to stop ogling. Asshole pervert. I don’t want him to stare at me. I don’t want him to make my skin shiver.

But my words won’t come out. They are stuck to the back of my mouth and my teeth are gritted.

God, make him stop.

But he keeps taking me in. My tucked-in waist, rounded hips and thighs, my bare toes. My curvy body that has only grown in his absence.

“Why did you come back?” I ask again. This time with a desperation that wasn’t there before.

He brings his gaze back to mine, and through the cigarette in his mouth, says, “Maybe I missed you.”

Forcing myself to break his stare, I look down. My Mary Janes are lying on the ground, one on its side and the other some distance away from it. Abandoned. Marooned and astray. Kind of like me, right now.

I need to get away.

Shaking my head, I bend down and pick up my shoes. “I’m leaving.”

“Nice uniform, by the way.”

I stop.

Hugging my shoes to my chest, I return his stare. His jaw is clamped. I can see the tic in his facial muscles.

Is he pissed off that I work for his family now?

Tough luck.

As if I like this arrangement. As if I’d ever set foot inside the house where he grew up.

“Thank you,” I say, smiling falsely and smoothing a hand down my skirt. “I think so, too.”

Zach looks away from me as he lets his finished blunt fall to the ground and crushes it under his boots.

“Never thought doing dishes and mopping floors were part of your life goals.”

I knew he was going to say something insulting. He’s Zach.

But still, I flinch.

Life goals.

What does he know about goals and ambitions? What does he know about what happens when they’re snatched away from you in one blink?

Even though it stings, I keep my voice calm and casual. “Well, you don’t know everything about me now, do you? And it’s called a job. That’s how responsible people buy stuff.”

“Responsible, huh?”

“Yes.”

Straightening up and away from the wall, Zach comes to his full height. Cocking his head to the side, he asks as if he’s so curious, “What else do responsible people do? Besides changing bedsheets for a job and breaking and entering into their place of work.”

My eyes widen. “It was… you.”

Oh God.

So, he is an asshole pervert. He was watching me last night.

“It was. You were cute in your little black outfit. Stupid but cute. Did you really think no one would recognize you?” He chuckles. “As cute as you were, I hate to break it to you though. You’ve got no future in espionage. You’re a little too…” He looks me up and down. “Visible for that. So maybe it’s good that you get to change sheets and mop floors. Gotta keep your options open.”

And there it is. A little dig at my body along with other insults.

Nothing has changed, has it? He’s still the same. Only now, I’m more vulnerable. I have more to lose. Like my job and eventually, my house.

“Thanks for your concern about my career choices.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“Right. I wouldn’t expect you to understand,” I say, because I really can’t stop myself. “I wouldn’t expect someone like you, who’s gone through life riding on his daddy’s shoulders, completely wasted and high, to understand what it’s like for the rest of us.”

I stand tall under his scrutiny. I stand tall and firm, even though I’m quaking inside when he takes a step toward me. Then another and another. Until he’s so close to me that I can smell him.

Cigarette and blueberry pie, like the ones Maggie bakes.

Two things I never thought would go together but somehow do and I don’t like that. Not one bit.

Zach’s face is in the shadows now. But the sky and the stars provide enough light that I can see his eyes and his mouth when he says, “Yeah, maybe not. But I do understand one thing.”

Clutching my shoes tightly to my chest, I go for bravado. “What’s that?”

“If you want to keep this job, you’re gonna have to keep me happy,” he drawls.

His threat lingers between us, heavy and dark, just like him.

The soft leaves brushing against the nape of my neck suddenly start to feel sharp-edged and dangerous.

“I’m not your personal slave, if that’s what you think my job is,” I tell him, trying to hold on to the last remnants of my courage.

He leans down and his scent becomes so thick, so pervasive that my lips part. His stare falls to them before he looks me in the eyes. “I think your job is whatever I want it to be.”

Zach fills my entire vision. His dark t-shirt, his broad shoulders. I can’t see anything beyond him. It makes my heart pound faster. With fear. With hate.

So much so that I can’t stop myself from sneering, “You haven’t changed a bit, have you? I bet you still think you own the world.”

He shakes his head, slowly, dangerously. Hypnotically. “I don’t give a fuck about the world. But I do own you.”

Fully knowing that it might make my situation worse, I scoff. “You’ll never own me. Not now. Not ever.”

“Is that a challenge, Blue?”

Blue.

How can one word have such a drastic effect? It makes my inside tumble. My chest quivers as Blue slides down my throat as if I’ve inhaled it like a drug.

“It’s a promise.”

Zach scans my face, as if he’s memorizing my features. As if he plans to dream of me tonight.

I let him.

I let him memorize it, soak it in, so when he sees me behind his closed eyelids, he understands that I’m not kidding. That no matter what I’m not going to play his games. That somehow, I’m going to find a way to put this all to an end.

Getting my house back is too important to me.

“If we’re making promises, then let me tell you one thing,” he whispers, low and rough. “If I want you to be my slave, you’ll be falling to the ground so fast that your knees will bleed along with your palm. So don’t tempt me. I’m very easily tempted.”

Night sky.

I have a thing for it. A blue so deep that it’s almost black and the cluster of stars, trying to light it up.

It’s impossible, but I do appreciate their determination and that they come out night after night only to fail.

The first few months away from this town were hard because I couldn’t see the night sky. It’s practically impossible to see it in the city. Probably that’s why no one sleeps in New York. They don’t have a sky to call their own.

But even then, the lack of sleep, the fact that the world was an unknown void for me, I never thought of coming back.

Because nothing’s worth coming back here. Not then and not even now.

Three years and not one thing has changed. This town still smells like shit and a fuck-ton of bad memories. The wide walls, the big architecture, miles and miles of estate that foolish people pay premium dollar to tour.

It all makes me feel small. Tiny, worthless.

The Pleiades, my birthplace, has always made me feel how much I don’t belong here.

I’m in my old room. It’s done in dark shades, gray and black. Everything looks polished and fresh. They probably spent an entire day cleaning it up, thinking I’d be staying.

But I’m not.

I know what freedom feels like, tastes like. I know that freedom is riding my bike down a never-ending highway. Freedom is the wind in my face.

Freedom is the knowledge that at the end of the day, I don’t have to come back to a place I was trapped in for eighteen fucking years.

I’m shoving my clothes inside my backpack when I hear a knock at my door. I’d let it go but I’m going there anyway.

Besides, I have a feeling who it might be, and I need to set her straight once and for all.

Zipping up my bag and slinging it over my shoulder, I cross the room and open the door. Nora, Mrs. Stewart to everyone else, stands there, carrying a tray of food. She looks at me, followed by the backpack on my shoulder, and her lips purse in disappointment.

She lifts the tray and says, “I brought you food.”

“I can grab something on the road.”

“So, you’re leaving then?”

“Yes.”

She’s silent for a heartbeat before saying, “Tests come back next week.”

I clench my jaw. “Call me with them.”

Her silence at my casual answer stretches longer than before. I know what it means. It means she’s prepping her comeback. That’s the thing with Nora. She thinks that just because she’s been working for my family ever since I was born, she has some kind of liberty to lecture me. Like I’m her kid or something.

For the most part, I let her think that. Maybe as a gratitude for all the times she snuck food into my room, or put me to sleep or dried off my tears that I was too proud to acknowledge myself when no one else was allowed to have any contact with me. But if she knows what’s good for her, she’ll keep her mouth shut.

“Nothing’s changed, you know,” she begins softly, or rather it would be soft if her expression wasn’t stern and her voice didn’t sound like it belonged to a school principal. “In fact, things have gotten worse. If you thought your leaving would solve everything, then you were wrong. It didn’t happen. He’s still the same and she still makes excuses for him. Most of the staff don’t know what’s going on. But the ones who do, we’re not allowed to talk about it.”

   
Most Popular
» Nothing But Trouble (Malibu University #1)
» Kill Switch (Devil's Night #3)
» Hold Me Today (Put A Ring On It #1)
» Spinning Silver
» Birthday Girl
» A Nordic King (Royal Romance #3)
» The Wild Heir (Royal Romance #2)
» The Swedish Prince (Royal Romance #1)
» Nothing Personal (Karina Halle)
» My Life in Shambles
» The Warrior Queen (The Hundredth Queen #4)
» The Rogue Queen (The Hundredth Queen #3)
romance.readsbookonline.com Copyright 2016 - 2024