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There’s one picture I keep going back to. Of her facing Man Bun’s table—probably taking his order, unaware of the hidden camera strapped to his body. It captures a longing in her eyes. She’s smiling, but in her head, she’s somewhere else. Somewhere happy. Somewhere her gambling addict of a brother won’t make her work her ass off while he hoards his pile of ill-earned gains.
Just the photos of her, still-life images of her beauty, make me want to know more, to get inside that black-haired head of hers and root out her secrets. Learn what makes her tick.
No, this job won’t be so bad. Because I want this woman. I’m already imagining wrapping that long black ponytail around my fist as I lean her over my bed and fill her hungry pussy hard and rough.
It’s time to make her mine.
1
Skye
I wake up with a blinding headache and my sixth sense ringing in my ears. That’s what Mom always called it when she was still alive. Me and Ian’s sixth sense. As cliché as it sounds, we’re so close in age that we’ve got smell, hearing, touch, sight, taste, and an innate feeling whenever one of us needs the other one.
Before I even turn on the lamp next to my bed, I roll over to speed-dial my brother’s number. I expect it to go straight to voicemail, the way it’s been doing for the last two weeks. I’ve had to break into his house using the spare key he left at my place just to get in a single word with him face-to-face.
Today, however, he answers on the first ring. “What?” he demands, none of the morning gruffness in his voice. In fact, he’s all business, despite it being the ass crack of dawn.
“Okay, tell me what’s wrong,” I say, my own voice still gravelly from sleep. I’d worked the night shift last night and hadn’t gotten into bed until after one.
Ian groans. “Not this again.”
“I’ve let this go on for two weeks, Ian. No more. You tell me what’s wrong with you or I’m coming over.” Pausing, I grit my teeth and wait for him to respond, but he doesn’t. “I mean it this time.”
“Did anyone ever tell you you’re a pain in the ass?” he says. In the background, I hear his coffee maker beep and the sound of him rummaging through cabinets for a mug.
“Did anyone ever tell you you’re a terrible liar?”
“No,” he growls. “Because you’re the only one who can tell when I’m bluffing.”
Sitting up in bed, I let my long black hair fall around my shoulders in a tangle of messy knots. “We should play poker together sometime, we’d clean up.” I inject a healthy dose of sarcasm there, and he knows exactly why. Ian had started gambling in high school, after our dad split, and he hadn’t quit for good until four years ago. Right after our mother passed away. He blew half the money we’d inherited from her on a single, grief-stricken drunk casino escapade, so he’d promised never to step foot in the casinos again.
“That’s not what’s going on, is it?” I whisper hesitantly. “You haven’t started again?”
“God, no. Skye, I’d tell you if that was it. You know I would.”
I sigh into the receiver. That much I’ve got to hand him. He might be a liar and a jerk about telling me when anything bothers him, but my brother knows when to be honest with me about the real stuff. The serious shit. He knows our relationship depends on it because I can’t go down that road again. Which is why I’m so confused by the way he’s acting right now.
“Just promise me that whatever it is, you won’t be too proud to just tell me the truth.” When he’s silent, I add, “Can you promise that?”
Now it’s his turn to sigh. He knows me every bit as well as I know him, and he’s fully aware I’m not going to give up. “I swear I will,” he eventually says, though from his tone I’m not so sure I believe him.
For the moment, it’ll have to be good enough. “Okay. So … I’ll see you tomorrow night, yeah?” Usually, we have movie night at the theater down the block every Tuesday, but he’s skipped out on the last couple weeks while avoiding me. Ian’s the only other person I know who enjoys the same off-the-wall comedies that I do—the kind of movies that make other people roll their eyes.
He gets it, though.
“Adam Sandler and Andy Samberg, here we come,” he says dryly.
“You better not stand me up or I’ll come after you,” I warn with a grin before we say goodbye and I roll out of bed. Since I’m up, I might as well get in some cardio.
My boss has been on my case worse than ever lately. Can’t you just lose ten more pounds, Skye? Then you’ll really rake in the tips. Like it’s any of his business what I weigh. Sure, most of my co-workers are thinner than me, but they’d faint at the idea of running a 5K, much less a half marathon like I ran last month.
Greg’s words get to me, though, as much as I hate to admit it. I try to block them out, slipping on my earbuds and turning up Jessie J to deafening levels as I jog down to the boardwalk, but they still rattle around in my head every time I pass anyone my age. Mentally, I know they all must have similar problems. Maybe that smiling couple is making up from a bad argument the night before; or that girl upside-down on the beach in her yoga pose is recovering from a shitty breakup or struggling with a gambling problem like my brother.
You can’t judge people by looking; I k
now that.
It’s just that they all look so much more at peace than me.
