“Pull my hair,” Vivian begged, lipstick smeared across her cheek. “Choke me, Ryder.”

I wrapped both hands around her neck, my thumbs digging into the base of her throat. Her eyes squeezed shut and her jaw dropped open as I thrust into her, over and over. Vivian arched her back so she could take me deeper, and I seized the opportunity to make her scream. She clawed my back, her fake nails dragging along my skin. “Fuck me harder, baby.”

I lowered my head and took her wide nipple into my mouth, relishing the taste of cotton candy and sweat on her tits. As I swirled her pert bud around my mouth, I could feel her pussy clenching around my shaft. She was going to come. I pulled out, teasing her engorged clit with my swollen head. The tiny, circular motions drove her insane.

Vivian bit her bottom lip and purred. Then, she took my ten inches in both her hands and shoved me back inside her.

This time, I didn’t stop until her orgasmic screams echoed across the kitchen. And even then, I continued to drive into her until I came all over her heart-shaped ass.

After we cleaned up in the shower, she said with a drunken slur, “My sister’s going to kill us if she finds out.”

“Let’s make sure she never does, then.” I kissed Vivian on the forehead, and her right hand snaked around my cock once more, ready for round two. I eased her off of me. “I’ve got an early shift tomorrow.”

Vivian squeezed my ass cheek. “You wanna come over tomorrow night?”

Truth was, even though they were twins, I liked Violet better. I knew it was wrong to fuck Viv while I was dating her sister, but I couldn’t stop. Without meaning to, I’d become a serial cheater over the past few years. Sleeping with multiple women simultaneously seemed to be hard-wired into my brain. It was fun. Addictive. The thrill that came with sneaking around gave me daily highs. I’d traded one addiction (Oxy) for another (sex). But sex was definitely healthier, right?

Ever since Nica betrayed me eighteen years ago, I’d never had a genuine, committed relationship. I didn’t believe in them anymore. And the women who thought they could change me were all shocked when they realized that I would never change.

I was a jackass—irresponsible, reckless, and mean.

I was the ultimate playboy, and I played the field damn hard.

If they didn’t like that, then they could fucking leave.

* * *

I woke up one day and realized I was thirty-six.

What. The. Fuckitty. Fuck.

Where did eighteen years of my life go? The first eighteen years happened in slow motion, like a bullet spiraling through gelatin. The next eighteen years flew by like machine gun rounds through rice paper. Over the years, my memories shuffled around like playing cards, but one thing was certain, one thing had always been certain, my life as I knew it was over, and I’d never get it back.

One day I was burning photos of Nica. The next day I was working as a cashier at Walgreens. One day I was counting down the hours till Nica was released from prison. The next day I was following her taxi back to the same house I’d escaped from at seventeen. One day I was holding the phone, ready to dial the cell number I knew by heart. The next day I was pulverizing everything I owned that reminded me of her. Her crooked smile and impossible legs. Her slanted handwriting and vanilla perfume.

She used to dot all her i’s with tiny black hearts.

Veronica, sweet, precious, darling, sexy, my baby, went straight from Honoria Women’s Prison back into the arms of the one who hurt her. The day she was released, she went straight back to Dad and begged him to take her back. Begged him to shield her broken self from the sun and rain and wind. Begged for her old life back. Probably begged for his cock, too. He took her back in, and whatever happened later, behind closed doors, was their business.

Veronica was dead to me. Not only had she never bothered to contact me, but she sought deliverance from the man who kicked her out in the first place. The liar. The betrayer. The abuser.

I had no place in my heart for someone like her. Not anymore.

She had five years to make amends. Five years to add me to the visitor’s list. Five years to let me see my child.

But she didn’t.

She chose him instead. Her husband. The one she never divorced. The one she still honored, loved, and obeyed.

That had been age twenty-two. I’d waited five long years to see her again. To hear her voice. Smell her hair. Kiss her lips.

I’d wasted my fucking time.

After that day, I vowed to never wait for another woman again. They just weren’t fucking worth my time.

How did twenty-two turn into thirty-six? God, I wish I knew. Hundreds of wasted nights spent with nameless women. Thousands of hours spent doing back-breaking labor that even illegals turned down. Scrubbing gas station toilets. Scraping gum and shit off sidewalk cracks. Wiping homeless men’s asses and changing catheters. Millions of seconds spent wondering, what if Nica had come back to me? What if that child had been mine? What if we had been a family?

Now I was almost forty and still living like a bachelor. I didn’t love it. I didn’t hate it. Life was just what it was. I’d been dealt a shitty card, and if I didn’t like it, Hell was gaping wide open, waiting to take me in. I owned a gun. It would’ve been easy enough. Once, during a particularly low time in my life, I placed that cold muzzle against my tongue and squeezed my eyes shut so hard my brain ached. But I didn’t pull the trigger. That day, I decided that living a broken life was better than no life at all. That being poor was better than being a coward. That a painful past didn’t always mean a painful future. Brief optimism sent a surge of adrenaline through my veins and even at thirty-six, I wanted to believe that things could still turn around for me.

So, when Paul Rayner himself bumped into me one day, noticed my work ethic, and offered me a job, I thought the worst was over. I thought that I was being given a second chance at life. I thought I’d never have to suffer again. I couldn’t have been further from the truth.

What I should’ve done was rip his business card into a million pieces and continue working at my dead-end job. A couple more years at Motel Six and I might’ve made manager.

But even at thirty-six, I was still gullible. I was still foolish. I still believed.

What had I thought Paul was offering me? My chance at the American Dream? A way out? A better life? Maybe all of the above. Whatever it was, the opportunity was once in a lifetime, and I thought it would’ve been foolish to pass it up. After all, how often did one of the richest men in America offer a nobody scum like me a job? A good job at that? So I handed in my resignation that afternoon and showed up at Paul’s office the next morning, hair gelled back and everything, awaiting orders.

Little did I know I’d sold my soul to El Diablo.

Little did I know El Diablo was a hundred times worse than my deadbeat father.

Little did I know that working for Paul would eventually lead to not three days in a box, but three years in prison.