Dirty South Drug Wars (7 page)

There was a lengthy pause before he blew out a deep breath. “That’s the saddest, most depressing story I’ve ever heard.”

I burst into laughter. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

“How do you know so much about the constellations?”

“My father and I used to search for them on clear nights. I’ve always loved studying the night sky, looking for comets and shooting stars. The mechanics of how everything works so perfectly together: gravity, mass, weightlessness. Imagine what it’s like to weigh nothing. I wonder if it’s like floating in the water with your eyes closed, or maybe something entirely different. The universe is so vast and so unexplored. There’s so much out there that we’ll probably never know about. The unknown terrifies, yet thrills me.”

My proverbial word vomit caused me to cringe, and my fingers searched for a strand of hair. Silky and synthetic, I locked one piece around my forefinger and twisted it tightly.

“Who are you?” he whispered.

“What’s in a name?”

“Everything. Everything is in a name. Your name tells who you are, where you come from.”

I said nothing in response but thought to myself he was absolutely right.

“If you won’t tell me your name, I’ll just call you Moon Goddess.”

His fingers brushed against my limp hand by my side. The action sent a warm, tingly feeling up my arm, a foreign, yet hauntingly familiar feeling.

“Artemis was a selfish goddess,” I whispered, staring at Scorpius shining above. “If she’d kept her feelings hidden, Orion wouldn’t have died. Why would you call me that? I’m nothing like her. I’d never risk someone’s life that way.”

“Why do I call you that? Because you’re beautiful just like a moon goddess.”

My breath caught in my throat as his warm hand cupped my cheek, his thumb brushing across my lips.

“How do I know you’re not just trying to seduce me with your pretty words? Maybe that’s how you seduce all the girls.”

“I’ve never tried to seduce anyone,” he said, no hint of falsity in his soft voice. “It’s normally
them
trying to seduce
me
.”

“Well, I’m not like most girls, Cash.” My cheeks burned hot as I gave away his secret name.

“Cash? Did you just call me Cash?”

Cash’s hand abandoned my face, dancing down the column of my neck. His fingertips sent chills down my spine, igniting my already burning body into an unwavering blaze. My heart thumped erratically as his fingers lingered near the top of my shirt. He quirked an eyebrow, waiting for a response.

“The Man in Black … Johnny Cash,” I whispered. “Besides, you haven’t told me your name either.”

“I asked first.” Cash paused, staring at my lips. “Mind if I kiss you, Moon Goddess?”

The thought of kissing him made my heart flutter. “Most guys don’t ask first.”

“I’m not like most guys.”

I didn’t have to answer him. He knew my answer from the way my body responded to his touch. He studied my face with a furrowed brow, as though I could deny him. Leaning in, he captured my mouth with his own. His warm tongue slid into my mouth and met mine slowly, carefully, as though he savored the taste and cherished the feeling. I reached up and pulled him closer, deepening the kiss. Fisting his hair between my fingers, my bones turned to jelly with each swipe of his tongue against mine. Liquid heat bubbled in the pit of my belly, popping and sizzling and sending my pulse askew. Our kiss broke apart, my regretful heart plummeting into my stomach and seeming to melt.

“You taste like candy and smell like
birthday cake
,” he whispered, brushing his lips against mine, breathing life back inside. “Why is that?”

“I had a few Jell-O shots earlier, and the cake smell is icing. I work in a bakery. Actually, it’s a cake shop. But we sell other sweets and party decor as well,” I told him in an apologetic voice, rambling, embarrassed.

“I love it. I love the way you taste, the way you smell. Tell me your name.”

I bit my lip and shut my eyes, relishing how his fingers drifted over my sensitive skin and the way he looked at me. I nearly cried when his fingers left my flesh to grasp my chin. His grip and the abandonment of his innocent exploration caused my eyes to open in surprise.

“I have ways to make you talk.”

I gulped as he released my chin and ghosted his fingers down my body. When he reached my pants, he tugged at the waistband. The tremble of my heart sped into overdrive with the knowledge of what was about to take place. For the first time, this night, this guy’s actions, they meant something to me, something to cherish, to cling to. This wasn’t a moment full of teenage reckless abandon. I felt it in my bones, and it stirred in the sultry night air, stiff and billowing off the river.

Cash felt it too. A stranger to me, but somehow not, I could read it in every stroke of my skin, in each brush of his lips against mine, and especially in the resolution in his eyes. He was so beautiful hovering above me, like an intangible angel surrounded by nothing but the black sky, the twinkling stars, and the full moon.

“Oh God,” I whispered once he tugged down on my pants slightly. His breath hitched and his fingers froze against my flesh.

“What’s that?” he asked in an odd tone, staring down at my ink.

My tattoo traveled from my right hip down to my lower abdomen. Aunt Maggie had taken me to a tattoo parlor on my seventeenth birthday. She had pretended she was my mother, signed the waiver, and gave me an encouraging grin. It was her idea of revenge on my mother for shaming our family by bedding a Montgomery.

The tattoo was a bouquet of white lilies, the petals broken and crushed. The edges were brown with age and decay. Rips and holes covered the tattered petals. A white ribbon hung limply from the flowers and trailed down my hip. The lilies were flushed yellow at the base, near the deep green stems. Even in their broken, despairing state, the flowers were still beautiful.

“That’s my lily tattoo. Why?”

Swallowing hard with a strange expression, Cash stared at the lilies and ran his fingertips over the surface of my skin, tickling it and causing me to squirm.

“Why crushed lilies? Why do you have this tattooed on you?”

I bit my lip, baffled over the change in mood and his thick, strained voice. A heavy tension hung over us, darker than the murky waters churning nearby.

“It’s a reminder to myself. To enjoy things while you can because even the most beautiful things can easily be ruined.”

Pain flashed in his eyes, his gaze drifting back down to my ink. His fingertips lightly massaged my flesh below the almost translucent flowers. The pale moonlight fell across his body, highlighting his own ink. An elegant, black scroll drifted up his forearm, the same arm that touched my hip. My body froze as my brain repeated the word permanently etched across his skin.

Montgomery.

I uttered the word in shock, my voice breaking at the end.

Chuckling nervously, the tension only slightly eased on his face. “Yeah, I guess you know at least
part
of my name now.”

He flinched in shock as I jerked away from him, stumbled to my feet, and yanked my pants above my hip bones. My body was flooded with humiliation, sickness, and shame for letting a Montgomery touch me so intimately and
loving
it.

Bewildered, he jumped to his feet. Turning on one heel, I darted down the pier. Low music pulsed from the house, the sound growing louder with each step I took. Each thump of bass pounded in succession with my heart. Nausea churned inside my belly, the lusty, liquid heat long since simmering away, replaced with bone-cold horror. I didn’t make it far before he caught up, grabbed my arms, and spun me around to face him. The house was still several yards out of my reach.

“What’s wrong? Where are you going?” he asked, not even out of breath.

My body was pressed against his. He was too close. His body was warm and he smelled so good. Why couldn’t he be someone else? Why couldn’t I?

“Nothing. I’ve just … I’ve gotta go,” I said.

Cold terror consumed me as my uncle’s words from long ago ran through my mind.

I’ll kill you myself.

“You’re lying. You saw my tattoo and ran. It’s because I’m a
Montgomery
, right?”

Tilting my head up with his fingers, he held my stare, his confused and suspicious. Horror shone back at me, my own reflection gleaming in his moon-kissed eyes. Dark eyebrows knitted together, his expression demanded an answer, but received none. Lips sealed tight, I trembled under his touch, but no longer for the same reasons.

“I see it on your face.” Cash chuckled bitterly. “You saw my tattoo and began making assumptions about me because of my name.”

He leaned down and brushed his warm lips against mine. I attempted to pull away, but it was no use. Fingers left my chin, drifted along my jawbone, and cupped the back of my neck. My body became a traitor against me as it pressed against his, melding myself against his hard planes, my lips parting, receiving his kiss. Warning bells alarmed inside my head and I broke away.

He shook his head. “Is that it? Are you like everyone else, assuming the worst because I’m a Montgomery?”

Cash’s words stung because they were true. That was exactly what I’d done. But if he knew who I was he’d assume the same thing. I tried in vain to pull away from him, but he held me against his body and stared down at me as tears formed in my eyes.

“Please don’t cry,” he whispered, his face bunched in worry, the words, his voice suddenly so familiar. “I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

“Oh my God,” I whispered.

I covered my mouth with one hand and reached out to cup his face. The teenager transformed before me, morphing into a ghost from the past—a little boy clutching a bouquet of flowers.

It was
him
. He wasn’t just any Montgomery. He was
Tanner
Montgomery, the little boy from the funeral home. The boy who gave me the lilies. The boy I’d thought about constantly since the age of twelve. He stood there, right in front of me, in the flesh, smelling like heaven and looking like sin. Gone was that little, sweet boy. In his place stood a grown man.

“Just … just pretend like tonight didn’t happen,” I whispered, stricken.

The horror and realization of his identity washed over my body. My hands fell from his warm, smooth face. A look of hurt and anger crossed his features as I continued to speak.

“Believe me, it’s best this way.”

His fingers lost their grip and he rubbed his temples. Tanner shook his head and laughed dryly.

“Is it that easy for you? To pretend that something amazing didn’t happen back there on that pier?” He pointed over one shoulder with his thumb, glaring at me. I backed away. His hands no longer held me back.

“No.” I wiped the tears away with the back of my hand. “I know something amazing happened back there, but believe me when I say you need to stay far, far away from me before something horrible happens to the both of us.”

“What do you mean? I’m not letting you leave until you explain.” He reached for me once more.

“I need to go,” I choked out.

The sound of someone yelling my alias drifted in the stiff, warm breeze. Josie stood on the back deck of the house screaming for Mandy.

“That’s my cousin looking for me. I have to leave. Let me go, please.”

“I’m not letting you go,” he countered, his expression stubborn. “And you don’t want me to. Deny it, but I see it. I see it in your eyes, in the way you kiss me.”

“I have a boyfriend.” I avoided his stare. “The guy I was talking to inside … that’s my boyfriend.”

“You’re lying to me,” he said without hesitation. “It’s because of who I am.”

Tanner pulled me into his arms and captured my lips. Nothing seemed to matter when he kissed me, not either of our surnames or the fact that our relatives had a long, bloody history. Time stood still, and I grew lost in his lips, in his arms, in the warm sense of protection he provided. For the first time in my life, something as simple as a kiss sent shockwaves throughout my body and I felt free, floating in the space of someone’s heart.

Tanner’s heart.

Josie’s voice grew louder as she searched for me, her persistent yelling pricking through the hazy fog of lips and tongues, of something
more
. I pushed myself away from him, breathless.

“Stay away from me,” I told him weakly, trying to convey my seriousness with my firm stare.

Everything within me screamed to run, to stay, conflicting my thoughts, but not confusing my words. Simply speaking to me was placing Tanner in imminent danger, so I lied. I lied with my words, with the way I retreated, step by step.

Jaw clenched, he shook his head, looking absolutely lethal. “Impossible. I’ve never felt anything like the way I felt on the pier, and you haven’t either. Tell me why you’re fighting it.”

Tanner followed me, moving forward with each stumbling step of my boots against the grass. He continued to blame himself and his family for my reluctance, not understanding the truth behind my reason to run from him. I begged him to let me be, but he followed me up the hill. My pace quickened the closer I got to the deck.