Sixteen
Amelia
Lock up, Amy.
For a moment, let's forget about the hot-guy-overload, and the scary new information about Luis and his empire, about his interest in me that was a lot creepier than I originally thought, the unsettling realization that bad boys only seemed to settle down with bad girls, and even the fact that I was very likely about to be involved in a plan that would, inevitably, lead to someone's death, oh and the whole dirty talk while he played with me in the middle of his kitchen then left me high and dry to go buy sugar thing.
Because those three words wiped all of that clear from my brain.
Lock up, Amy.
Ben and Johnnie, they both used that exact phrase. They even said it in the same light, but firm tone. I felt the squeezing sensation in my chest, realizing it had been more than a full day since I felt it, felt the loss. And then I felt almost guilty because, well, he just died. I was supposed to be grieving. I wasn't supposed to be able to go a full day without thinking about him. Even though there was a lot of crazy stuff going on around me and involving me. Maybe it was stupid to feel guilty about forgetting to feel sad, but what can I say, I wasn't exactly in a great place emotionally.
Feeling weighted, I made my way to the door and slid the locks into place.
Okay. Maybe I wasn't in a great place emotionally because a lot had just happened. And I mean just. In the course of three days, I buried the only friend I had in the world; I found drugs hidden in my wall; I realized how screwed that made me; I found out that a guy I casually dated wanted me because I looked like an ex that he kidnapped and held hostage until she overdosed on the drugs he sold; I realized that being a 'bad guy' apparently didn't make you a bad person if Johnnie, Cash, Breaker, Wolf, and Paine were anything to go by; I traveled fifteen hours to stay with someone who was a virtual stranger... and then I slept with him.
Alright. So maybe that was the thing I needed to address more than anything else. I slept with Johnnie. I had sex. And it was great. I mean, as far as first times go, I was pretty sure I had the best one a girl could ask for. Not only was it good from a technical standpoint, it was given to me by Johnnie. I was pretty sure if every woman on the planet could go back in time and re-do their first time, they would want Johnnie to be the one to break them in. For good reason. He was ridiculously good looking and he had the kind of charm that made me have to work at it to not become a puddle of need whenever he spoke. On top of that, he knew what he was doing. As in he knew what he was doing.
I didn't regret it.
Maybe I should have. I held onto it for so long only to all but fling it at the biggest womanizer that had ever crossed my path. But I didn't regret that. It was a good memory. It was one I wanted to have when things fell apart, like they would. Eventually.
Then I did the unthinkable; I opened up. I took all the dark, ugly parts of my life, the parts I kept so deeply buried that I wasn't even sure I could dig them up anymore, and I gave them to Johnnie. I gave him seven year old me, terrified and hurt beyond words the first time she realized that a man could let her down, that a man who claimed to love her could just as easily leave her. I told him how I coped with my mother; I told him about how ugly her addiction made me. I told him about her death with a detachment that made me feel cold and cruel.
But he got it; he got me. The way I felt about my mother's death was much like Johnnie's reaction to his father's passing. It was devoid of the concept of closure and felt, in an awful way, like a sigh of relief. It felt over. It felt freeing.
Unlike anyone else hearing that, he didn't think less of me. Maybe a small part of me hoped he felt the same kinship that I felt; the feeling of relief that someone else truly understood.
God, what did that say about me?
I rested my hand against the door for a moment, closing my eyes.
I needed to get a grip. I needed to stop creating invisible connections with a man I was going to leave sooner rather than later. There was no future for us. He was a bad boy; I was a good girl. It wouldn't work.
I swallowed hard against the lump in my throat, fighting the tightening in my chest and blinking the tears back.
My hand fell from the door.
"Lock up, Amy," I told myself.
But, buried beneath the safety of my rib cage, I was pretty sure my heart ignored the demand.
--
Johnnie came back an hour later, kicking at the door to his apartment. "Open up, Red Riding Hood. I'm not gonna eat you," his voice held an edge I didn't trust as I fumbled for the locks and drew the door open. "At least not until I get these bags outta my hands," he added with a wink as he walked in, kissing me on the cheek as he passed toward the kitchen, dropping the bags on the counter.
"Johnnie, I..." I started when I was cut off by the shrill sound of his phone ringing.
"Hold that thought, darlin'," he said, sliding his finger across his phone and bringing it to his ear. "Sugar, honey, darlin'," he said into it, making an ugly wave of jealousy rush through my system, causing my lip to curl up slightly and I turned so he couldn't see my face, but stayed in the kitchen so I could listen. "Yeah. Sure. Shit," he said, and I felt his gaze fall on me though I couldn't see him. "Lo, you sure? Fuck. Yeah. No, thanks. I needed to know. Okay. Keep me posted." I knew he was watching me but I pretended to be super busy pouring my coffee. "That was Lo."
No kidding.
I felt the lip-curl thing again.
"Cash's woman," he added as if sensing my sour mood. That was just lovely. He called one of his friend's women 'sugar, honey, darlin''? Poor Cash had no idea what was going on behind his back. "Amelia," he said, his tone almost a little sharp and it was so strange, I felt myself turning. "Cash's woman," he repeated with a lot of emphasis that must have meant something in man-lingo, but didn't mean anything to me. Seeing this, he exhaled loudly. "I don't touch women who belong to someone else, certainly not ones who belong to my friends. How fuckin' low an opinion you have of me, Amy?"
Jeez. He looked outright offended. He was right. I wasn't being fair. Just because he whored around didn't mean he was a crummy friend. Augh. What was wrong with me? "Johnnie, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to... I was..."
Then a sly smile toyed with his lips and I wished I could suck that apology right back in. "You were jealous."
"I was not!"
I so was.
"Kinda like that, baby. Not gonna lie," he said, moving toward me, making me back away from him. "Like knowing you don't want another woman getting to claim me."
"Claim you?"
"You wanna plant your flag in me," he teased, backing me up against the counter. "And then you want to threaten war to anyone who dares to try to put a finger on your property."
"Oh my god. Get over yourself," I tried, though maybe a part of me was nodding her head and saying 'heck yeah, he's mine mine mine!'. But that was absolutely ridiculous.
"You want me all to yourself," he said, pressing his hips into mine, his hands planted on the the counter top on either side of my body.
"It's amazing that one man can have that inflated an ego."
"You can claim me, baby. I don't mind," he said, giving me a smile that backed up his words.
Shoot. I wanted that. I really wanted that. I wanted to claim him. But a man like him, he could never be mine.
"What did Lo have to say?" I asked, trying to change the topic. It worked. I knew this because his face fell into hard lines, almost making me regret asking. Almost.
"Honey..."
That wasn't a good 'honey'. That was a very, very bad 'honey'.
"Tell me," I demanded, feeling my heart start to pound in my chest.
He exhaled loudly, his hands moving to my hips and sinking in, then lifting me up so my butt was on the counter and he stepped into me until my legs went out to the sides of his body. "Not good news."
"I'm kinda getting that. Just tell me already. You're not helping by dragging it out."
His hands stayed on my hips and squeezed a little. "Lo and Hailstorm are looking into Luis' organization, especially the people who work for him. Baby..."
"No," I said, shaking my head so hard my vision blurred. No no no. No way.
"Yeah, baby. Pops worked for him."
"No," I said, and it came out a little hysterically.
One of his hands left my hips, traced a finger down my cheek, then grabbed the side of my neck. "Yeah, honey. He's been on the payroll for a coupla years now."
And it was right then that I realized I couldn't take anymore. I realized this because I simply shut down. It was like a door slamming, locking everything ugly that I didn't want to think about behind it. Left behind was just a blissful sort of numbness.
"Amy..."
"Okay," I said with a casual shrug.
"Okay?" he asked, his brows drawing together.
"Yeah, okay. Thanks for telling me."
"Thanks for telling you?"
"Why are you repeating everything I say?" I asked, a ghost of a smile on my lips.
"Baby..."
"I'm fine," I insisted, pushing into his stomach with my knees until he stepped back so I could hop down and grab my coffee.
"Yeah, angel, that's why I'm worried."
"You're worried because I'm fine?" I asked, shaking my head as I pulled open the pound of sugar and scooped a teaspoon into my coffee before twisting open the milk.
"I'm worried because you loved my old man, Amelia. I'm worried because I held you in my arms when you cried your heart out after his funeral. I'm worried because the Amelia I know wouldn't be 'fine' with any of this."
"Maybe that's only because you don't know me that well," I said, taking a sip of my coffee and cringing. Gross. Why hadn't I told him to pick up tea?
"In the bag, baby," he said with a small smile.
"What's in the bag?"
"Tea."
"You bought me tea?"
"Figured you wanted your caffeine fix so you settled for coffee though you don't drink it. So I picked you up some tea."
I put my mug down, moving to the bag as if I needed proof. And, sure enough, there was a box of tea. Not only was it a box of tea; it was a box of my tea. He must have looked at the sweet tea when I had it steeping on the balcony. Since when was any man that observant?
"That was sweet. Thank you."
"That's it?" he asked and I jerked to look at him, brows drawn together.
"What were you expecting?"
He gave me a wicked grin that suggested I knew exactly what he expected. "But I'll settle for a kiss," he said, puckering his lips a little at me.
"You're ridiculous."
"You love it."
"Stop being so cocky."
"Stop liking it."
This was not going to lead to anywhere good. I moved to dump my coffee down the drain, rinsed my cup and went in search of a saucepan seeing as having a teapot did not scream 'bad boy manwhore' and therefore, Johnnie did not own one. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him watch me for a moment before moving to pour himself a cup of coffee and hop up on the counter where he had me sitting a moment before.
"What's the flour and butter and eggs for?"
"To have in the fridge in case you need them," I said with a head shake. How did he not know that?
"So you're not cooking for me again?"
"No."
"That's okay," he said, seeming to find very little offensive, no matter how much I tried to be that way. "I'll just have you for lunch. And dinner. And dessert."
I watched the pot on the stove, ignoring the tightening of my sex at the promise of his words. Why couldn't my mind and body be in agreement about him being a bad idea?
"Relax, honey. We'll order in," he said, hopping down and moving out of the kitchen.
I fought the urge I had to call him back, to ask him not to walk away from me, to come and tease me and kiss me and make things better. But that wasn't his place. He wasn't my boyfriend. As much as he thought it was cute to joke around about being okay with my staking claim, I knew better. He wasn't that kind of guy. And, well, I wasn't exactly that kind of girl either.
I had to let him walk away.
And I had to get okay with that sensation.
--
It was the middle of the night after tossing and turning for a good two and a half hours, when Johnnie climbed into bed, rolled me onto my stomach, slid a knee between my legs and half-laid his weight over my back, pinning me in place. And that was when I could finally get to sleep, his breath warm on my neck, his body a comfortable kind of heavy.
Then, I was awake. The sun was slanting through the pulled blinds and I blinked away the traces of sleep. Already awake, or waking up because of my movement, Johnnie made a grumbling noise in the back of my neck. "Too early."
"You have your days and nights mixed up," I informed the pillow, unable to move.
"Not mixed up. I just like the nights better," he said, planting his forearms on the mattress and starting to lift up. The movement had his knee brushing the juncture of my thighs and I heard an unexpected gasp rush from my lips. His entire body froze at the sound and I had the weird, unnecessary urge to hold my breath. Then he was moving, but only his knee, pulling back, then rubbing between my legs again. This time, it wasn't a gasp, it was more of a small whimper. "Fuck, so sweet," he said, nuzzling his face into my neck. His knee shifted away, but only because his hand replaced it, stroking me through my pajama pants until I was arching my butt backward, trying to give him better access.
Taking that as permission, his hands went to my pants, grabbing the waistband of them and my panties and slowly dragging down so my bottom was exposed. The material stayed bunched around my knees and his hand moved to stroke up my exposed cleft.
"So wet," he murmured, shifting his hips and I felt his hardness press against my butt. "This hurt?" he asked, slipping a finger easily inside me, drawing out a moan. "I'll take that as a no?" he chuckled into my hair as his finger started to thrust hard and fast. "Think I'm gonna fuck you like this, baby. You want that?"
"Y... yes," I whimpered, rocking my hips in rhythm with his finger. "Johnnie..."
"Fuck," he growled, pulling his finger out of me and I felt his knees straddle my hips as he leaned his torso toward the nightstand where I heard him fumble with the box of condoms. He came back and sat on his ankles for a moment, giving me time to feel a hint of uncertainty settle in. It would be a mistake, to let him touch me again, to feel him inside me again. It would only blur the lines more.
His hands moved out and grabbed the cheeks of my butt, squeezing hard as he shifted forward and his length slid up my cleft, the head rubbing against my throbbing clit. "Gonna ease you into it, darlin', but I want to fuck you hard," he told me and I felt a thrill of desire rush through my system, bringing a rush of wet between my thighs. "Sound good?"
"Yes," I whispered.
"Cock your knees for me baby. I want your ass up in the air." I pushed my arms up under me, pressing up. My knees went up too, bending up toward my belly slightly as I kept my torso low so my butt was where he wanted it. "Just like that," he praised and I felt a fluttering at his words. He shifted in behind me, rocking his hips so his erection teased between my folds until I was writhing for him. One of his hands rested just above my butt, the other guided him toward my entrance where he paused as he pressed in.
I waited for it, the pain, the burning pinch that had been there before. It didn't come. There was a slight pulling sensation that made my thighs tense, but it eased as quickly as it started. "You okay?" he asked, pausing when he had just barely penetrated.
"Don't stop," I begged, my hands gripping the sheets, my sex clenching around him.
"Fuck, angel," he groaned, thrusting forward and filling me to the hilt. His hands moved to span my hips, holding on as he made a few gentle, tentative thrusts, easing me into it. When all he got from me was strangled moans, his fingers sunk into my hips, using them to pull me back into his body as he thrust forward.
"Oh... my god," I groaned, pushing up onto my palms.
One of his hands moved up my spine, his palm spreading across the back of my head, then curling his fingers in and turning. He pulled and the pain was a quick, sharp sensation that felt way too good in a way too dirty kind of way. "So tight, baby," he growled, digging into my hair again, but harder, using it to pull me backward until my hands were off the mattress, until my back was against his front. His hand released my hair, and moved to brush over my breast, then trail down my belly, until it slid between my thighs and started circling my clit. "Want your arms around me, honey," he murmured and my arms went up oddly and around the back of his neck. "Good girl," he praised, his thrusts getting faster, hitting me deep each time and the friction became an almost painful sensation.
"Johnnie," I groaned, feeling the tightening start deep.
"That's it baby. Squeeze my cock," he urged. His finger did another sweep of my clit and my breath got stuck in my chest as my orgasm coursed through my body, a fast, frantic pulsation around Johnnie who groaned out a curse as he thrust deep and buried, his body jerking as he came. His finger slid from my clit and moved to my inner thigh, squeezing. "Good morning angel," he said, pressing a kiss into my neck. I felt a giggle well up, wild and uncontrollable. "What?"
" 'Good morning'?" I asked, chest shaking.
"Best way to wake up, don't you think?"
I felt a smile spread across my face. It was the first real, genuine smile I had felt in a long while. "I can't argue with that."
"Honey..." he said, his voice sickly sweet.
"I think I can make it better," I tried, needing the moment to end. If it didn't, I was pretty sure I would turn, throw my arms around him, and beg him to let me keep the moment until the end of time; to let me keep him to the end of time.
"Gotta hear this," he said, nibbling the space right below my ear.
"Pancakes," I announced. "You got most of the ingredients yesterday. Except the baking powder. But you, by some miracle, have a thing of baking soda in your cabinet. It will do in a pinch."
He slid out of me, arms going around my middle for a squeeze. "You're somethin' else, honey," he said and it sounded like a compliment. "Guess I'm running out for syrup," he announced, moving toward the bathroom.
With that, I pulled my pants and panties back up and moved on wobbly legs toward the kitchen where I started coffee for Johnnie and put on water for me. I heard the water running in the bathroom and stumbling in the bedroom for a minute before Johnnie emerged, hair wet from a quick shower and dressed in black skinny jeans, creepers, and a v-neck white tee. Simple. But, lord, he was the sexiest thing I had ever seen. He watched me for a second, head tilted to the side, something I couldn't read behind his eyes, before he moved toward me and wrapped me up, squeezing me so tight I lost my breath. He pulled back, kissing the tip of my nose. "Be right back," he announced, letting me go and moving toward the door.
"Lock up, Amy."
I watched the door close.
It was too late for that, I realized. He was already in.
That was so, so not good.
I moved to the door anyway, locking it, before going back to the kitchen and gathering the ingredients onto the counter. I had just pulled a big bowl from the cabinet above and placed it on the counter when the knock was at the door.
I skipped (okay not quite skipped, but it was close) toward the door. "That was quick. What else did you get that your hands are ful..." I started, pulling open the door.
I hadn't checked the peephole.
Stupid, stupid move.
Because it wasn't Johnnie and the syrup at the door.
"Hello darling," Luis said, as usual, heavy on the 'g' and I had a sinking feeling inside, like the floor giving way beneath my feet.