“Mrs. Belfort had a lot to say about Darren and Pamela Morgansen. Especially the latter. Mrs. Belfort blamed her for not being around for you. Said that you’d kind of raised yourself since you’d moved into El Dorado, spending excessive time in her maze and by your window. Things added up, but you and your parents were cagey. Over the years, I thought about you a lot. I wanted to check in on you many, many times. But I knew it wouldn’t be constructive for you. Knew that your parents were always going to guard you with their common yet mistaken belief that what had happened that night could ruin their business, stain their reputations, and affect your status forever.”

We hugged after that, long and tight, like old friends that had missed each other. She wasn’t a friend, but I had missed her. Before I walked away, I asked her, “What do you make of Darren? He raped me, but he also unleashed the plastic bag after his death.”

“I think…” Villegas said carefully, rubbing her chin. “I think Darren was unbalanced. The writing was on the wall, but your mother didn’t want to read it. There was too much at stake. Keep your phone turned on.”

“You got it.”

When I walked out of the police station, I could feel Emery, Nolan, and Henry’s presence in the air. It sounded crazy, but I could. It smelled of danger and the sour copper of my blood the night they’d tried to kill the old Jesse. For a while there, I thought they’d succeeded. The universe felt limitless all of a sudden. Big and wide in an unthreatening, the-world-is-my-oyster way.

I missed Bane like a limb, but also wanted to punch him in the nuts. He’d betrayed me, before and after he knew me. Slept with me with the knowledge he was being paid. And yet, I knew he wasn’t the villain in my screwed-up story.

Artem, Dad, had given us each other, in the most unexpected way, and now I’d let Roman go. Only it seemed unfair that I’d have to give up someone who’d made me so happy, just because of one mistake. I thought about the piled-up stack of mistakes and wrongdoings Artem had collected over the years, some of them behind our backs.

Bane wasn’t perfect.

But he wasn’t evil.

He deserved a chance.

I drove up to El Dorado. I promised myself I wasn’t going to walk into the party and make a scene, but I wanted to know if my gut feeling was right. I parked a street away from Wren’s house, pulled my hoodie up to cover the majority of my face, and walked down her street toward her house. I wasn’t looking for Emery’s Volvo SUV or Nolan’s Ferrari. I was looking for an old beatdown red truck or a Harley.

When I found the red ugly thing sitting right in front of the huge floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the street, from which partygoers drank and laughed, I grinned to myself. Flippantly, I circled his truck from behind, unlocked the passenger door, and slipped in. He turned around from watching the party and almost punched my face on an instinct, before realizing who it was.

I tapped my chin thoughtfully, dragging my eyes over his beautiful face. “Hmm. Aggressive much?”

“Excuse me, Miss, did you lose your way to Hot Topic?” His eyes swept over my attire, and it occurred to me that Bane had never done this before. Teased me for my weird clothing. His corded muscles relaxed. I gulped. Roman ‘Bane’ Protsenko was beautiful like a Pushkin paragraph. You could read his face a thousand times, and each time, you’d find something new to admire.

“What are you doing here?” I squeezed his bicep. I already knew the answer, but wanted to hear it anyway.

He looked away, cracking his gum loudly. “Figured you were gonna show up here. I respect that you wanna do this alone, but I can’t justify these two gloriously big balls if I’m not man enough at least to give you backup.” He cupped his groin, a dark zing igniting in his eyes. “Know what? Fuck it. It’s not about you. I know you don’t need backup. I came here because I was worried, and I wanted to put my mind at ease. Are you mad?”

I shook my head, fighting a smile.

“Thank fuck. Gail says you’re bringing out the creeper in me, and I can’t afford a restraining order with my rich criminal record.”

“I actually think that I’m done with creepers for this lifetime, if you don’t mind. Can I get the cocky bastard version instead?”

Roman pretended to sift through an imaginary catalog in front of him, plucked a nonexistent page from it, and handed it to me. “Well, whaddaya know? It’s the only version of me that’s still in stock.”

He pulled me into a kiss that made oxygen seem overrated. Our tongues lashed at each other, swirling together, at war over who was more in lust with the other. He jerked me into him, and I straddled his narrow thighs in seconds, fumbling with the buttons of his cargo pants while he unzipped my hoodie and pulled down the collar of my shirt, bringing one of my nipples into his mouth and biting it. He sucked his way up to my neck so hungrily I was sure he was going to leave purple marks all over me. His cock sprang free, and it was scorching hot in my hand as he pushed my jeans off and tugged my underwear to the side. I gave his PA a quick tug before I sank down onto his dick and closed my eyes, shuddering from the ripples of pleasure moving through me. He flipped us over, and suddenly, I was beneath him, writhing. I pulled his jeans down and scraped his lower back. We were moving in sync, like we always did. Like the waves he liked to ride. Knowing where to peak, where to soar, and where to break. “Where have you been?” he asked, sinking into me, his weight on me. I should have been frightened to get caught. Especially with a reputation like mine. Like ours. But with Bane, I felt fearless.

The outliers. The rejects. We’re free.

“Gail’s,” I answered. “Pam’s. Mrs. B’s. Just…around.”

“No, Snowflake. Where have you been before? When I was lost. When I was a monster. When nothing made sense. Where have you been all my life?”

I pulled back to look at him. Some of his pain had melted away, but most of it was there, in his eyes, waiting for me to tell him that I didn’t care that his family had stolen mine. That I wasn’t too broken to love him how he so obviously and heartbreakingly deserved to be loved. “Iris” by the Goo Goo Dolls started drifting from the radio like a lullaby, and it was perfect, and we were perfect. Even though life was far, far from perfect.

“I was right here. Waiting for you.” I pressed my palm against his heart, smiling.

My Whole Life Has Been Pledged to This Meeting with You

Bane. Roman. My sort-of stepbrother.

A con, a liar, and a thief. He was there for me at the end, when no one else was.

He was there for me when I needed him, and when I didn’t.

And he was there for me, even though I constantly pushed him away.

He thrust into me in long, punishing strokes, and I arched my back, forgetting where we were, who we were surrounded by. His ass was bare and visible for everyone outside to see, but all I felt was pleasure and triumph as he snaked one hand between us, pushing two fingers into me, making me feel so full I could hardly breathe. Our sweat cemented us together, and his cock was so hard and thick inside me, I felt him everywhere. He kept sucking, biting, and nibbling at my skin. My breasts were exposed and pushed out of my bra, bouncing against his steel chest, the collar of my shirt stretched and ruined, and again, I found myself craving to be taken mercilessly but willingly. He circled his cock inside me, teasing every nerve-end, then hoisted one of my legs over his shoulder for better access, plunging into me harder than before.

I gasped his name over and over again. Then two knocks rattled the window above my head.

“Go the fuck away,” Roman snarled, his face still buried in my chest, covering and licking me.

“Holy shit, dude, they’re legit fucking!” I saw two guys I used to go to school with laughing and pushing each other excitedly.

“Go away!” It was my turn to yell. But my heart wasn’t in it. I was so focused on the intense pleasure, on my pussy dripping and the wetness pooling between us, on the orgasm I was reaching just as they started hooting loudly.

“Shit, it’s Jesse Parker!”

“Carter, dickhead, not Parker.”

“Whatever, man. Orgy Girl strikes again. Call Emery. Now.”

“What?”

One of them punched the other in the shoulder. “Now!”

“Finish for me, baby, so we can get out of here. It’s fucking Losertown. No wonder you moved out,” Bane hissed, biting my shoulder. Just as he said that, I fell apart in his arms, feeling wave after wave of electricity slamming into my body. After I came, Bane raised himself on his forearms, picked me up, put me in the passenger seat, and revved up his engine. His dick was still hard, a pearl of white pre-cum welling along his cock ring. He didn’t come. He rolled his window down.

“Hi.” He smiled casually at the two guys.

“H…hi?” one of them said, confused. The other one was in the process of releasing a slow, recognizing shit when Bane sent his fist to both their faces in rapid succession, and the crack of their noses breaking filled the air.

Bane backed out of his parking space. The guys were standing at the curb, crouching down and screaming, holding their noses. I was zipping my hoodie up and covering as much as I could of myself when Bane stuck his head out from my window again, tucking his cock back into his pants.

“Warn Emery not to ask his daddy to bail him out. Because if I hear he’s out and about tonight, I won’t show him the same mercy my girlfriend did.”

We took off just when the police cars started pouring in through the gate. There was a row of three of them. I saw Detective Villegas sitting in the passenger seat of the first one, looking serious and talking on her phone. Neighbors poured out of their doors, opened the curtains of their big mansions, watching intently as the line of vehicles crawled up to Wren’s house.

It reminded me of the opening scene of Blue Velvet, when the seemingly perfect neighborhood is actually crawling with rustling beetles and hissing cockroaches. The perfect guys from the perfect families of All Saints High weren’t so perfect anymore.