Atlas
Icame in my pants.
That, after the chocolate bar fiasco, and my bad-boy reputation is officially in rigor mortis. To top it all, I’ll have to jerk off again to calm the raging hard-on that’s driving me insane.
Summer won’t admit she likes me yet, but we’ll get there.
Our back and forth keeps replaying in my mind on the way back to my place. She got me with the whole “I’m a virgin.” How foolish I must’ve looked that she couldn’t hold her laughter in. That doll face can easily play tricks on me. Summer can be sneaky and hard to read until she feels good. Then neither her body nor her face can lie, hold back, or hide a thing from me.
Those fuckin’ raspy moans... it’s like she was singing for me, and my dick most certainly lost it for a moment. First time that’s ever happened to me.
The memory of her hands on my neck pops up, making me laugh. Neither my vastly superior size nor the fact she was butt-naked stopped her from trying to throttle me. That fire in her eyes? Teasing me, insulting me, coming on my fingers, withmy nameon her lips. It’s always there.
My name. She definitely likes me.
I pull up in front of my place, and by the time I reach the front door, I’m still smiling like an idiot.
Link’s in the living room, but I pass him by, heading straight for the stairs.
“Ace!”
“What?”
“What did you do?”
“That’s none of your business,” I snap. “You know what, you’re a fuckin’ hypocrite!”
“How am I a hypocrite?”
“That girl you’re chasing after... her father died two or three years ago, right? He was her whole family, but that doesn’t stop you, does it? Yet you make me the bad guy for going after Summer.”
“That’s different.”
“Oh, yeah? Enlighten me! How’s it different?”
“Raven has a stepmother, friends, and money. She’s nothing like the girl you’re chasing. And above all,I really like her.”
“And I really like Summer!” I shout, more taken aback by my own words than Link seems to be. Summer intrigues me enough to want to get to know her. Is that what liking someone even means? Or maybe the fact that I’m more alive around her than ever before? The answers to those questions might be left for another day, but what I need Link to get through his head won’t. “That’s the last time I’m discussing this with you. I’m not asking permission. I am going after her, and that’s final!”
Turning my back on him, I take exactly two steps before he speaks again.
“Fine!” I look over my shoulder to find him raising his hands. “So how did it go?” His tone’s on a whole other plane from the one a second ago.
“Perfect! She threw a lamp at me,” I joke while he closes in and clasps my shoulder, the tension instantly gone. We’re like that with him—unable to stay mad at each other for more than five minutes.
“I can see how she’s already falling for you,” Link mocks me and gets a slap to the back of his head. But then his expression turns serious. “We have an issue at Warehouse 4. The guys are already there.”
Warehouse 4—that’s the one by the river. We have a whole network, and the numbering system serves us, so no actual location is being revealed in our conversations.
“I’ll tell you on the way there. I bet it’s Jacob again.”
That fuckin’ cousin of mine!
Hatred has been Jacob’s driving force for the last three years, and I don’t know if he’ll ever be able to stop and come back to us. At this point, it doesn’t seem likely.
Link briefs me on the way there that they’ve caught a guy snooping around, and it wasn’t random. The guards have spotted him multiple times over the last week.
When my cousin messes with my business, his attacks are usually on more than one front. So maybe Thorne withdrew under pressure from him? My aunt, who was best friends with my mom, wouldn’t approve of Jacob snitching on us to the cops, but my cousin seems to think sabotaging my workflow is fair game, to remind me how much he hates me.
