Читать книгу The Marked Men 3-Book Collection: Rule, Jet, Rome - Jay Crownover - Страница 12

Shaw was drunk—really, really drunk. She was also dressed like something out of a retro fantasy and had on those boots that make me want to drool. I had been grumpy and moody all week—my friends had noticed, my clients had noticed, the chick I’d walked out on on Saturday night noticed. I couldn’t put my finger on it. At first I thought it was Rome; I was pissed he wouldn’t just tell Mom to grow the fuck up and get over her shit. I wanted him to spend time with me, to have some good times before shipping back out to the desert, but he wasn’t ready to give up hope that he could fix our fractured family, and I didn’t want to fight with my brother, the freaking war hero. I thought maybe I just needed to get laid, but the hot blonde I went home with on Saturday had started to annoy me in the car on the way to her place. By the time we got to her room the last thing I wanted was to see her naked, so I bolted. Sunday came and went and my mood got darker. The guys suggested going to the Goal Line, thinking maybe I needed a dose of verbal ass-kicking from an ice-cold blonde to get me out of my moodiness, but I refused and instead spent the day brooding and playing Call of Duty. I had no idea what my problem was, but now, with Shaw all but plastered to the front of me, I was starting to get an idea.

I hadn’t been able to get the sight of Shaw and her ruffle-covered ass out of my head for days. Call me shallow, call me a chauvinistic pig, but there was just something about seeing her all sexed up and barely dressed that had made me look at her in an entirely new light. It was like being introduced to her all over again; the prim and proper little lady that Remy had worshipped overtaken by a sexy coed that had me up at night thinking X-rated thoughts.

Now with her looking at me all big-eyed and swaying unsteadily, I knew the right thing to do was fix her up and send her on her way. But then she kissed me and I was pretty sure I forgot my own name. I was too stunned to react at first—I mean, I had kissed hundreds of girls and there was always something nice about it, but Shaw kicked nice to the curb and went right into insanity inducing.

After I got enough blood back from below my belt, I realized that she was pulling away or, rather, falling away. And yes, I was a certified asshole because I knew she was sauced and I knew she was, for all intents and purposes, still my twin brother’s girl. None of that stopped me because she tasted sweet and tangy and felt better than anything I could remember in my entire life. She had on some kind of slinky top that was rubbing erotically across my chest, plus her hands were wrapped around my neck and playing with the last pointy spike of my new haircut—it was all going right to my dick, which was screaming at me to do something. So like a bastard I did.

I picked her up because she was short and I was tired of bending over. Her skirt was tight so I had no problem moving it up her shapely calves so that she could get her legs wrapped around me. She made a gasping noise and I maybe, possibly, would have stopped what I was doing to her mouth if she hadn’t used her new position to grind against my hard-on and get her hands up under my T-shirt. Of all the things I had ever thought about Shaw, the fact that she would go off like a bottle rocket when touched just right was not one of them. She always looked so cool and so collected, but now she was tugging my shirt off over my head and doing something with her tongue on my lip ring that was making my eyes cross. I knew—logically at least—that Nash was probably only a few minutes from walking in the door with her roommate and this had to stop. There was no way I would be able to live with myself if I let this get out of hand while she was drunk. I set her down on unsteady feet when I felt her push away from me, hoping that maybe, just maybe, even wasted she would be the voice of reason.

She just looked at me through hooded eyes the color of jade and licked her lips, which looked very thoroughly worked over—courtesy of yours truly. Nothing on this planet had ever been hotter.

She started pulling at the ties on her silky top and moved past me toward my bedroom. I forgot that she knew where my bedroom was, that she knew her way around my place—she had a damn key. It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her to stop, to tell her I would just put her to bed and she could just sleep whatever this was off, but as I followed behind her the blue top hit the floor followed by the black camisole and then the skirt that did amazing things to her ass. I picked up the discarded clothing and tried to talk myself off the ledge. I couldn’t do this, wouldn’t do this. It was bad enough I had kissed her like a sex-crazed lunatic. I needed to get control back, like yesterday. This was Shaw, not some bar bimbo. Not someone I could mercilessly kick out in the morning and never speak to again.

“Shaw.” She turned to look at me over her shoulder and I think I blacked out for a second. I dropped the pile of clothes in my hands on the floor and tried to unstick my tongue from the roof of my mouth. I had seen a lot of girls naked, but none of them were this girl; none of them came anywhere close. Somehow she managed to get out of those tall motorcycle boots without falling on her face and she was staring at me with her big green eyes, clad in nothing more than a few scraps of black lace that were designed for aesthetics rather than function. Every good intention, every idea that I should be the good guy and do the right thing, went out the window.

She was all ice-cool hair, perfect pale skin, tiny little waist and high “touch me, please God, touch me” breasts. She had a body made to make men stupid and I wasn’t immune. I took a fumbling step toward her after kicking the door closed behind me.

Somewhere my conscience was whispering I should just put her to bed and go find a giant bottle of Crown to crawl into and a cold shower to get my libido back in check, but none of that was going to happen because she met me halfway and her little hands went right to my belt buckle.

“Shaw,” I tried again. I put my hands on her shoulders and where I thought I was going to push her away, my body betrayed me, and I ended up pushing the straps of that fancy bra off her shoulders. She pressed close to me, her hands making short work of the belt and the zipper on my pants. Her lips fluttered over the pulse pounding rapidly at my throat. Her hands trailed lightly over my chest and across my abs, which were tense with desire. One of her legs slid between mine and rubbed against the evidence that I wasn’t going to stop her regardless of knowing it was the right thing to do.

“Stop thinking so hard.” Her voice was all husky and cloudy with desire. She was the last person on earth I should be contemplating doing this with, but even as objections broke through my haze of lust I used one hand to unhook her bra and the other to tangle in her hair as I sealed my mouth over hers.

Kissing Shaw was a different experience from kissing any other girl. For one, she was really good at it. Most girls got lost or a little confused because of the lip ring and the metal barbell in the center of my tongue, but Shaw seemed oblivious to both of them and kissed me like she had been born to do it. She was also a lot shorter than most of the girls I normally hooked up with so there was an entire learning curve involved and I had to figure out a way to get all the best parts of us lined up. She didn’t seem to care at all that I was a little rough, that I was suddenly impatient. I felt like if I gave myself too much time to get my head around what I was doing I would falter and stop. And man, I really, really didn’t want to stop, because her hands had found their way into my pants and my dick would kill me if I pulled the plug now.

She tugged the denim down over my ass and I pulled her up so that we were pressed together chest to chest. I shrugged the pants the rest of the way off and gave her a little push so that she fell back onto my rumpled bed. It took some maneuvering and a few curse words to get my boots off and when I went to crawl up onto the bed my brain short-circuited because all she had on were the barely-there lace panties and a dreamy look on her face. A lot of girls had been in this bed; in fact, last weekend had been the first time in a long time I had spent the night alone. Even though I was in a haze of testicle-squeezing desire I knew that, beyond a shadow of a doubt, none of them had ever looked like Shaw looked against the dark sheets and comforter. She slid an appreciative eye over my naked form, not like she hadn’t seen it before, but somehow now that I was sprawled out on top of her, the look was more “do me” and less “Rule, you’re gross.”

Her hand brushed over the tattoo of the sacred heart on the center of my chest and up along the two giant rib pieces that covered most of my torso. I had a lot of color and a lot of artwork decorating my skin and when I was naked it tended to be a lot to take in and had been overwhelming to some of my less adventurous bed partners. I mean, I’m not vain or conceited but I know I’m all right to look at. I’m tall and tend toward lean and fit and I go to the gym a few times a week, but none of that really mattered because she was looking at me like I was everything she’d ever wanted and it was doing weird things to my head. I also had a barbell pierced through the head of my penis, which meant I was both brave and idiotic, because half the chicks who saw it had no clue what to do with it. Shaw had walked in on me enough times to know that it was there, but she didn’t seem to care either way. She let the pad of her thumb brush across the top ball of it, which made me suck in a breath.

I realized I was letting this girl call all the shots. I was about to have sex with her and we had barely said a word; she was touching me, making me go crazy and I was just letting her. I needed to get with the program, so I hooked my fingers in her tiny little underwear and pulled them down her legs. She shivered in response and now that she was finally fully naked and trapped under me there was a hint of trepidation in her mossy gaze.

“You’re beautiful.” I had said it to many others before her, but I think this was the first time I meant it.

She put her hands on either side of my head and I realized my new hairdo wasn’t exactly an easy one to work with where sex was involved. There was nothing up there for her to hold on to, nothing up there for her to run her fingers through—it was all spiked up and manhandled into intimidating spikes—not that she seemed to care. She scraped her fingernails across my scalp and gave me a lopsided grin. I couldn’t tell if the booze was wearing off or she was finally starting to realize we were naked in bed and about to cross a definite boundary, but a hint of the Shaw I was used to dealing with was starting to surface.

“So are you. You shouldn’t be, but you always have been. I remember the first time I saw you I couldn’t believe you were Remy’s twin. He was so handsome, always so put together, but you … God, Rule, you are and were just perfect.”

The fact that she brought Remy’s name up while her hand was wrapped around my dick should have been like ice water on the moment. It wasn’t. I kissed her below her ear and let my teeth nick her neck and she made a noise that did something to the center of my chest. She hooked a leg up over my hip so that all her heat was pressed up against my hardness. I blinked for a second because I felt like I was forgetting something. She was wrapping her arms around my shoulders and panting as I brushed kisses across her puckered nipples. Just as I was about to let her pull me in, a shiver of apprehension slammed across my spine and I pushed off her. “Condom.” I’d been having sex since I was fourteen years old and it didn’t matter who the girl was or how drunk I was—I never forgot. The fact that my head was spun around by her and I was so lost in what we were doing that I almost put both of us at risk scared the shit out of me.

“I have one in my purse.”

I looked at her and blinked. “I have a box in the nightstand, Shaw. Come on, do you really want to do this? Think about it. You’re wasted. You’re probably going to regret it in the morning.”

She sat up and her cool two-toned hair fell forward to cover the top of her swollen breasts. She looked like every naughty dream I had ever had of her and I couldn’t believe I was trying to talk her out of doing this with me. Her eyes suddenly got glassy and I knew she was going to cry. She went to crawl past me off the bed but I trapped her in my arms and rolled her so that we were once again lined up.

“Don’t cry.”

“You never wanted me.”

I was stunned I just let my mouth fall open. “Uh … I’m pretty sure you can feel the proof that that’s not true. In fact, you just had your hot little hands all over it.”

She shook her head and her silky blond hair rubbed across my chest. “That’s not what I mean.”

“What do you mean?” She wiggled a little against me and reached an arm up for my nightstand drawer. If it had been anyone else I would have freaked out, but this was Shaw. Anything that was in that drawer wouldn’t surprise her or freak her out; including the loaded gun I kept in there. I heard the cellophane wrapper and felt her hands back below my waist. I wasn’t sure I remembered ever having a condom put on me or it ever feeling so good.

“Rule, it’s my birthday and my life is a freaking mess most of the time. Can you just for once do something nice for me, please?”

What red-blooded American male would turn down a dead-sexy, naked blonde who asked him to please do it to her? Not me, no way, no how, so I kissed her again, let my tongue slide against hers and lifted her leg up over my hip. I liked to think I knew what I was doing in this department—after all I had more practice than I cared to admit—but for some reason with her I felt like what I was doing was all new. She kissed me back and gasped softly as I started to slide in. She was tight and tiny, hot and wet, and I thought I was going to die if I didn’t get to get all the way in in the next second.

She whispered my name across my neck and arched her back. Her nails dug into my shoulders as I lifted her up a little bit and tried to push all the way in. I swore and she froze as there was something most definitely in the way, but my momentum was too great and I had her too keyed up to stop. She snapped her wide eyes to mine as her mouth made a little O of surprised pain as I glared down at her.

“What the fuck, Shaw?”

She gave her head a little shake and lifted her other leg up around my hip and moved against me in a way that made me utter every swear word I knew. “Don’t stop. Rule, please don’t stop.” She was breathy and it was too late for that to be an option anyway. She felt better than anything I had ever felt in my life and there was no way I was going to stop now, not unless I wanted to walk funny until I was thirty. I let the fingers of one hand tangle in her hair and propped my weight on the other so that I wasn’t crushing her and went about having the best sex of my life with a goddamn lying virgin.

She moved just the way I wanted her to, touched me in ways that would wake me up in the middle of the night remembering them. She kissed me like she had been created to do it exactly the way I liked and matched my rhythm the way only people who’ve had lots and lots of sex together normally managed to do. Every time she whispered my name or made a sexy sound of satisfaction and delight it made me feel ten feet tall. I hadn’t had sober sex in a long time and I hadn’t had sex with someone I knew for more than a few hours in a long time, either. I couldn’t believe the difference both those things made.

I wanted it to be good for her, wanted it to turn her inside-out like it was doing to me, and since it was her first time, I wanted to make sure that it was what she was going to have to compare every guy to after me.

As we moved together she arched her back and put her hands back on my head. “Oh my God, Rule.” She was close; I could feel the little tremors all along my cock. There was no way I was going to ruin this for her so I touched her in a way that was guaranteed to make her shatter and was rewarded with big eyes and a gasp of surrender. I was super relieved because I wasn’t going to last much longer. I buried my nose in her neck and followed her over the edge. By the time we were done my arms were shaking and I was breathing like I had run a marathon. I slid out of her and rolled to my side, all ready to have the regret and despair settle on me, but her eyes had drifted closed so I got up to go into my bathroom and clean up. I pulled on a pair of sweats and grabbed a washcloth for her. When I went back into the room she was curled up on her side with her cheek resting on her folded hands, which made her look all of sixteen years old. The steady rise and fall of her chest indicated that she was asleep, so I cleaned her up the best I could without waking her and settled on the bed next to her. I crossed my arms under my head and stared up at the ceiling.

What the hell had I done? And what in the hell had Remy been doing with her for all those years if he hadn’t been sleeping with her? They had always claimed they were just friends, but no one had believed them. The love they had for each other, the protectiveness, the camaraderie they shared had often made me jealous, and now I didn’t know what the hell to think. Shaw had been a girl who fell into the “girls I can’t or won’t have sex with” category for most of my life, but now I had blown that all to smithereens and I didn’t know what to do about it. She wasn’t just some chick I could never call again, that I could shove out the door the next morning. Add in the fact that it was probably the most intense, best sex of my life, and I felt like I was losing control. I shouldn’t feel that way about Shaw; she shouldn’t be the one to rock my world like it had never been rocked before. Frankly, it weirded me out that she was better and more turned on by my ink and piercings than the majority of girls I brought home. Now I had disarray on my hands and the wrong girl in my bed and I didn’t have a clue what to do about it.

I fell asleep sometime after the sun started to come up and when I woke to the sound of my phone ringing the first thing I did was look on the other side of the bed. All the things from the night before slammed into my head. Shaw was gone. The pile of clothes I left on the floor last night were folded neatly on the end of the bed and none of her pretty little things were left. I groaned and threw an arm over my eyes while answering the call.

“What?”

My brother chuckled in my ear. “Did I interrupt something?”

When I moved to sit up, something crinkled under my hip, and I pulled it out. On a plain piece of sketch paper I’d had lying around for drawing up designs for clients she had written in her neat, girly script:

Best birthday gift ever! —Thanks!

She didn’t sign it, didn’t say she would call or ask me to call her. It was plain and simple, and I wasn’t sure if it made me elated or furious. My brother was still waiting for a response, so I shook the cobwebs in my head loose and sat up in the bed. It smelled like sex and her.

“No, I just didn’t sleep good last night.”

“That’s what happens when you bring strangers home with you—you have to make sure you sleep with one eye open so they don’t rob you or stab you while you sleep.”

I groaned. “Dude, you need to get out of the army. Not every stranger is an insurgent.”

He muttered something under his breath that I didn’t catch. “Hey, I’m gonna come to Denver for the week. My shoulder is acting up and I need to touch base with my orthopedic surgeon, plus Mom is getting on my last nerve. Shaw refused to come over for lunch today because Mom wouldn’t invite you as well. Now she’s convinced you’ve somehow corrupted her darling girl. I keep telling her she needs to see someone and Dad even agrees, but she’s just so stubborn. I guess that’s who we get it from.”

I winced a little, glad the conversation was happening over the phone. I was sure guilt colored my face. My mom would freak out to extreme levels if she had any clue just how thoroughly I had corrupted Shaw.

“How much longer before you have to go?”

“I have to be medically cleared first and I’m supposed to meet with a VA counselor to make sure that I’m not suffering from PTSD because of the accident. I have to have a clean bill of health all the way around before I go back.”

“Well, it’ll be nice to finally get a chance to hang out without all the family drama.”

“Yeah, I’ve been calling Shaw all morning to ask her if I can take her out to dinner or something for her birthday. I’m sure her moronic parents didn’t do anything again and I hate the idea that she probably had to spend it alone. You should get off your lazy ass and come with us if I get a hold of her.”

I started to choke a little. It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him that she most definitely hadn’t been alone, but this was Shaw and, even as close I am to Rome, he didn’t need to know what we had been doing last night.

“Naw, I think she’s had enough of me. I ran into her a few weeks ago and I see her around here and there. I think it’s a nice break for her not to have to deal with me every weekend.”

He laughed a little. “You’re probably right. I’m gonna crash with my buddy Drew since I don’t think my shoulder is up to sleeping on your shitty couch and he has the room, but I’ll hit you up when I roll into town. If I can’t get in touch with Shaw, you and I can go grab dinner somewhere and you can disgust me with all the tales of your latest conquests.”

I rubbed a hand over my tired face and shoved Shaw’s note into the nightstand. I could still feel her hands moving all over me.

“You need to get off your butt and start having some conquests of your own. You’re a hero, dude, chicks eat that stuff up.”

“I’m not like you, Rule; I’m not twenty-two and living life by the seat of my pants. Right now I want to get healthy and finish up my tour without any more dead bodies. I’ve seen the worst humanity has to offer and in the last six years I’ve buried more friends than I’ve made. I get out of the army in less than two years and I don’t know what the future holds for me so nailing every pretty girl in my path is pretty low on my priority ladder. One day you’ll understand.”

He wasn’t wrong. My priorities were very different from his. I made good money, had a ton of savings, and drove a nice car. I was viscerally aware that the majority of my time was spent trying to outrun the shadow of my dead twin. I wallowed in superficial relationships so no one could get close to me, no one could judge me and find me lacking. I sought out girls who were easy, who had zero expectations beyond what I offered—a good time and a few mindless minutes of release. I have never had a girlfriend, and I’ve never let anyone all the way in because I was scared that I wouldn’t be enough once they got down to the core of who I am. I knew it was messed up, knew I was an emotional train wreck, and the thing with Shaw was just bound to make it even worse.

“Whatever. A good time never killed anyone. Call me later.”

I tossed the phone on the bed and went into the bathroom to take care of business. When I went into the living room Nash was sprawled out on the couch watching an early game on the flat-screen. He had a mug of coffee in one hand and a doughnut in the other.

“Morning.”

He flicked his gaze up to me. “What’s up?”

“Nothing. Did you see Shaw this morning?”

He nodded and held up the doughnut. “She left these. So what’s the deal with that? She was in the kitchen this morning, so I assumed she stayed the night with you. I thought you were going to put her in a cab.”

“Where did her roommate end up?” I tried to change the subject as I got my own coffee.

“I offered to bring her back here to wait for Shaw, but she was having a good time so we had a few more drinks, then I called her a cab. She seemed to think it was a brilliant idea that her very intoxicated friend was going home with you. Why is that?”

I grunted and sank down on the couch next to him.

“I dunno. Shaw and I have all kinds of twisted history, who knows?”

“But she spent the night with you?”

“Yeah.”

“And I’m assuming—because I’ve known you since forever—that you didn’t spend the night discussing politics and watching TV?”

I glowered over at him. “No.”

He shook his head and made a tsk-tsk sound. “What were you thinking?”

“I wasn’t, clearly.”

“Dude, she’s not one of those girls. You can’t just have me escort her out in the morning and never talk to her again.”

“Hey, I woke up alone this morning. I didn’t make her go anywhere.”

“But you would’ve and Shaw is way too classy and smart to do a walk of shame. Man, I can’t believe you hooked up with your brother’s girl. You really do have a problem. That’s a whole mess I wouldn’t even jump into no matter how hot the girl was.”

I made a strangled noise and reached forward to put my elbows on my knees. “Let’s just say I don’t think there is any real reason to worry about tarnishing Remy’s memory. I don’t know what was going on between those two for all those years, but after last night there is undeniable proof that they weren’t sleeping together.”

Nash swore and his eyes got wide. “She was a virgin?”

I nodded. I probably shouldn’t be sharing all this with Nash, but I was confused and he was my best friend. I was in over my head.

“She was a virgin and gave it up to you? Holy shit, bro, that’s like a huge deal!”

I sighed. “That’s what I thought, but then she was gone when I woke up. She was pretty trashed last night, so maybe it was just beer goggles and too many martinis that made the choice for her.”

“She seemed fine this morning. I mean, she looked hungover and pretty worked over, but she wasn’t nervous or weird or anything. She called Ayden for a ride and ran out for breakfast while she waited. I dunno, man, she didn’t seem all swoony in love or stalker pissed-off, she just seemed like normal Shaw. Granted, I always thought she kinda had a thing for you.”

I turned to him with a look of bewilderment. “What?”

“She puts up with your shit no matter how bad it is. Don’t you remember that one New Year’s she showed up to get you and you brought home the redhead and her friend? That was a freak show and Shaw didn’t even blink, she just tossed you your pants and told you to get it together. She lets you be all moody, surly, and grumpy and doesn’t even bat an eye—and trust me, dude, that shit gets old superfast. She’s willing to go to battle with the only parents she’s known to show her any love because she wants them to treat you right and quit blaming you for Remy’s death. She isn’t doing any of that for Margot or Dale, and she sure ain’t doing it for Remy. The only person any of that benefits is you. Even as stubborn and self-involved as you are, you have to be able to see that.”

“But she’s Shaw. Perfect Shaw. Even when she was little she was untouchable and aloof. She would be over at the house all the time with Remy and every time I said anything or did anything she would just look at me like I was an idiot.”

He snorted. “You were an idiot. You don’t remember being sixteen? We were a nightmare and never very nice to her. You made fun of her hair, teased Remy mercilessly about spending all his time with her, you were an ass.”

“I was?”

“Dude, you still totally are. And Shaw is Shaw. She’s so freaking beautiful it hurts to look at her sometimes, but she doesn’t even know it. She’s still untouchable because she’s always going to be richer and smarter than we are, but she doesn’t care about any of that. She’s cool, she doesn’t care that you’re just you, and honestly, Rule, any chick who can put up with the headache that is you, well I’d put a goddamn diamond on her finger.”

I punched him in the shoulder. “I’m not that bad.”

He gave me a look. “Yeah, you are. Think about it; it only took seeing her dressed as a sexy referee to get you to notice she was an actual girl after all this time. You suck.”

“But, man oh man, did she look good in that outfit.”

“See, total suckage. So what are you going to do now, call her?”

“I don’t know. Rome is coming to town, and since I like my privates located where they are I need to keep this on the down low. I don’t think she’ll say anything to him.”

“Probably not. She knows it would drive your crazy mom right over the edge.”

“Yeah.”

“So.” He paused and gave me a pointed look. “Was it worth screwing everything up?”

I let my head fall back on the couch and stared up at the ceiling. “It so totally was.”

I had had the best sex of my life with a girl I had thought was way out of my league and in love with my dead brother. Yeah, Nash was probably right, if anybody could put up with all the crazy I was rocking I should probably lock her in quick because even I could see how seriously screwed up I am.