Jaded (24 page)

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We’d taken our time, but twenty minutes of foreplay stretched our limit and Bryce abruptly sat up and quickly rid himself of a shirt. He started on his jeans when I unzipped my own and shimmied out of them. Shirt and bra had already been stripped away, but when my fingers found the straps of my thong, Bryce groaned and stopped me. His hands left his pants and he bent to kiss my hip, just above my thong.

“Bryce,” I moaned, but could only lay there, helpless, against the onslaught of pleasure.

He slipped the thong off and five minutes later, I shoved him away and

desperately reached for his pants.

Bryce kicked them off and fell on top of me as he reached for my nightstand.

His body froze as he reached inside and I blinked in confusion, still dazed from lust, when he straightened away from me and sat back.

“What are you doing?” I cried out and moved to him.

Bryce kept me off and raised his head.

“Oh.”

He held my dad’s Colt.45 in his hand.

“What the hell is this?”

Busted. I sighed and said flatly, “What do you expect? My house was broken into and I have some freak sending me twisted letters. Not to mention…Leisha.”

“Jeez,” Bryce breathed out and looked from me to the gun and back again. He

cursed softly underneath his breath and laid down next to me. He cursed again. “You’re not staying here anymore. Not alone,” he declared.

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I scoffed, “And what? You’re going to stay every night? Keep lying to

AnnaBelle?”

He shrugged, “If I have to.”

“I can stay at Corr—”

“No,” Bryce interrupted me coldly. “I’m not okay with that.”

I quieted and moved to lay beside on him, on my side. I moved one hand to his chest and I swept it softly up and down in a caress.

He sighed again. “This is…” Screwed up.

“I know,” I muttered. “Believe me. I know.”

Bryce took a breath and sat up. He leaned over me again as he replaced the Colt in my nightstand. I moved to my back and Bryce stayed above me, staring at me.

“What?”

He raised a hand to cup the side of my face and shook his head, somber.

“What?” I asked again.

“Nothing,” he whispered and bent for my lips again.

I grinned against them and tugged him to fall on top of me.

He did and the next time he reached for a condom, he actually pulled one out.

We spent the rest of the morning and afternoon in bed, just like we tried the week before. Bryce wanted to watch some ESPN after we’d retired from the shower and I was okay with that. My legs felt a little wobbly from lack of food and the continuous onslaught of gasping, clenching, and groaning.

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I was in the kitchen when I heard the front door open. Dressed in a pair of scrub pants and a skimpy white tank-top that didn’t cover anything, I grasped a butcher knife for protection as I tiptoed around the doorway and waited.

The person wasn’t alone and our coat closet was opened. I heard the sound of metal hangers and knew they shuffled through the coats so I tiptoed around the dining room table and into the back hallway that had saved my life before. I circled around into the back sitting room and crept to the end of the main floor hallway where a second stairway had been built, but rarely used.

I hurried to my bedroom and it only took one look for Bryce to scramble out of bed. He put on a pair of jeans, moved in front of me and grasped the butcher knife instead. When I moved to the nightstand, he caught my hand and shook his head.

I was too scared to argue and I trusted him.

I felt a slight bulge in his pocket and recognized the feel of his phone. I turned back and grabbed my own as well as a set of keys. At the door, Bryce led the way first and we moved to the second stairs, but I shook my head and pointed towards my parent’s bedroom.

Bryce frowned, but he followed me through their room and neither of us stopped short at the destruction I’d overhauled before. We moved to the back patio and just as the door clicked shut behind us, the bedroom door was swept open and we both heard a short scream of horror, “Oh my god!”

I tensed, but threw my leg over the balcony and grasped the window’s ledge from the bottom bathroom. Bryce and I climbed our way to the ground and sprinted for Bryce’s car. Once we got inside, he reversed and grasped his phone in the other hand.

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When his finger cleared the nine and moved to the one, I grabbed it and said sharply,

“No.”

“What? Why not?”

“Those weren’t burglars or whoever from before,” I sighed wearily and my head hit the seat’s headrest.

“Who was that then?”

“My mother,” I said weakly.

Bryce didn’t say anything, but he glanced at me sharply.

I sighed, “I recognized her voice. That was my mother.”

Bryce braked quickly and turned the car around.

“What are you doing?”

“You’re going back to talk to her and tell her what’s going on. That’s what we’re doing,” Bryce said harshly, his jaw clenched.

“No. Please. I can’t see her now. I just—I can’t. Not yet.” I needed time to regroup. I needed time to…figure out what I even wanted to say to my mother.

He looked over my clothes and asked with a smirk, “Do you have some extra

clothes at school?”

“No.” The ones I did have were dirty. I used my second set when I’d met Mena for the first time.

Bryce twisted into his backseat and came back with a hooded sweatshirt in hand.

“You can wear this,” he said simply. “Sure you don’t want to go back to your house?”

“I have clothes at Corrigan’s house.”

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So we went there and we weren’t the only ones.

In the basement, we were met with a flushed and shirtless Corrigan. He looked like he’d just ran his hands through his hair because it stood straight up and his jeans were unbuttoned with the zipper halfway pulled up.

Bryce smiled and asked, “You found Logan.”

Corrigan cracked a grin and said, “I found Logan so scram. I’ve only got another hour before Stephen gets home.”

I bypassed them and changed into a different set of clothes. Now dressed in jeans and an added bra with a green top, I moved back to the stairway and found Bryce sitting, waiting for me.

No

Corrigan.

Just then we heard a moan from a closed door and I rolled my eyes. “Can we

please leave?”

“Yes, please.” Bryce sighed and stood up.

Back in the car, he didn’t move to start the engine, but said instead, “You have to go and see her. You know that, right?”

I did, but… “Fine,” I surrendered.

Bryce reversed again and we drove back. We were met with flashing headlights from two police cruisers that were parked where we’d vacated. As we got out of the car, I recognized Officer Sheila on the front porch, talking with my mother and a notepad in hand. Her partner stood right behind her and another man stood behind my mother.

Or a boy, actually. He looked early twenties and he could’ve been a personal trainer from the sheer white shirt that clung to him. Tight trendy jeans rested over a pair Tijan Jaded

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of beaded flip-flops. His hair looked almost wet from the overload of hair gel, which said a lot when I saw it from a distance.

And my mom.

The knot of dread and nervousness exploded inside of me.

My mom looked good, but she always looked good. Corrigan had tried his hand

multiple times with my mom. She flirted, loved the attention, but—thank god—she’d never accepted his offers.

Her blonde hair was swept in a diamond-studded hair clip. Her long curls

cascaded to frame her heart-shaped face. She matched her boy toy with a long white sweater wrapped around her that was tied with a sash. Her tailored jeans peeked underneath and instead of beaded flip flops, she wore diamond-studded high heels. The diamonds matched the ones that circled her neck and hung from her ears.

I didn’t feel the hand that Bryce placed in the small of my back as he guided me to the front porch.

Sheila skimmed over my pale features and glanced at Bryce behind me as my

mother squealed, “Sheldon!”

She swept me against her chest and patted my hair delicately. “I’ve missed you so much, honey!”

“Really,” I said dryly.

“Oh my gosh, honey. I had no idea. Are you okay? Our house was broken into,

can you believe it? Officer Padley told me that this was the second time and you were here during the first. I can’t believe it. My room was destroyed. All my valuables and jewels are all gone. I can’t believe it.”

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I pulled away and saw the wry look in Sheila’s eyes before I said firmly, “The men who broke in didn’t do that to your stuff, mom. I did.”

My mom had been standing in front of me for five minutes now, but at my

words—I finally saw my mom.

A flicker of rage flashed in her eyes, but it was gone instantly.

“You did what?” Her comforting hand turned into a cold grasp.

“You heard me,” I clipped out.

I felt Bryce shift closer, just one step, behind me.

Sheila coughed and asked, “Could I have a word in private with your daughter, Ms. Jeneve?”

“It’s Carlton now,” Sharon Jeneve said coldly as her eyes swept over Sheila, to Bryce, and settled on me.

I bit back a grimace.

“Of course, Ms. Carlton.”

My mother’s back straightened and she faced Sheila squarely. “I’d like a full list of everything my daughter damaged and everything the burglars damaged. I have a right to my own property.”

“Well, with all due respect, Ms. Carlton,” Sheila said softly. “You have a right to parent your daughter, but I’ve yet to see any of that happen.”

My mother didn’t gasp. She didn’t curse. She just heard it, understood it, and stored the snub away until it would come back out to bite Sheila in the behind.

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Sheila saw that too, but she finished, “We’ll get the list to you in due time. Until then, my officers and colleagues have done all the police business that’s to be done here.”

She signaled the deputies to leave and quickly both police cruisers had left.

“Sheldon,” Sheila murmured with a gesture of her head. “Can I have a word?”

Sharon Jeneve-Carlton reached for her boy toy’s hand and they both moved inside without another word.

When the door clicked shut, Sheila exhaled a deep breath, “That’s some mother for you. I’ll give you that.”

I waited.

Bryce leaned on the porch’s banister behind me.

“I don’t have jurisdiction to inform your mother of everything that’s gone on with my investigation. However, I strongly encourage you to be completely upfront with your mother.”

“Why?” I bit out. “She’ll just leave. She’ll do that anyway.”

“Maybe your mother would take you with her.”

“I’m not going,” I said firmly. I would not leave Bryce or Corrigan. Fat chance.

She shook her head and glanced to Bryce. She spoke clearly, “I didn’t like you at first look and I don’t like you now, but this girl cares about you so do right by her. Make her tell her mother what’s going on.”

Bryce didn’t react or comment.

Sheila didn’t expect it. She shook her head and left the porch to where her partner waited in their own car.

As they left, Corrigan’s car screeched to a halt in the driveway.

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He wasn’t alone.

Bryce snorted in laughter as we saw Corrigan leap out of the car and jog over to us. Logan followed at a more sedate pace, opening and closing her own door without assistance.

“Hey, man. Wasn’t that…what’s her face?”

“Yeah,” I said dully and skimmed over Logan’s tight features. She looked like she’d been thoroughly screwed over.

“So…,” Corrigan murmured as he leaned beside Bryce against the banister,

“What’s going on?”

I sighed and leaned on his other side. I surrendered my defeat, “My mother’s home.”

Corrigan choked in surprise, “What?”

Logan’s eyes went wide.

Bryce remained unmoving.

“Mama Jeneve is home!?” Corrigan jumped back up. “Sweet!”

“And she’s brought her boy toy with her.”

Corrigan barked out a laugh. “That’s awesome. I’m gonna go say hi.”

Logan stayed behind and leaned, awkwardly, against the house.

I told her, a dull anger, “He doesn’t love you. I don’t get why you jump in his bed when he whistles. It’s pathetic.”

Logan gulped, but murmured, hesitatingly, “I thought you were going to be nice.

Corrigan said you’d be nice.”

Bryce

watched.

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“He lied,” I laughed. “Corrigan is just another guy. They always lie to get what they want. Guess what? You were dropped before and he’s going to drop you again. I don’t understand why you guys keep signing up for the same humiliation.” And then I delivered the most embarrassing, “He’s inside hitting on my mother.”

Logan glanced at me, but quickly looked away when she whispered, “I think that says more about you than me.”

Bryce coughed to cover a laugh.

I seethed, “He picked you up at a fast food joint. We’d just bailed him out of jail and he got to order his food and sex for home. You let him do that. You guys always let him do that.”

“Then why are you friends with him?” Logan asked quietly.

“Because he calls me in the morning,” I said sweetly and left with my shoulders high. Strong.

I shook my head in disgust as I walked through the front door and heard my

mother’s flirtatious shriek of laughter. They were in the kitchen and Boy Toy was glowering from a seat at the kitchen table.

Sharon Carlton glowed as Corrigan stood right next to her, whispering sweet

nothings in her ear.

“Corrigan,” I said simply.

He looked up.

“Out.”

He

left.