Provocation (Explicitly Yours 3)

Her mouth fell open. High? She wasn’t high. She was pissed. Johnny would jump to that conclusion at the first sign of her old self. Spending two nights with Beau had reminded her of the girl she used to be. As Beau had embraced that about her, it became clearer that Johnny never had. He didn’t like her wild.

The accusation was so offensive, she couldn’t even deny it. The man she loved acted as though he didn’t even know her. If she’d changed over the years, maybe he had too. Or maybe it was that she’d cared so fiercely about him, was so grateful to him, that she hadn’t seen the truth. He wasn’t etched into her heart, woven into her soul. She didn’t feel him in her every movement—it wasn’t his love that coursed through her veins like blood.

She went to the hallway closet and slid a cardboard box from the top shelf.

“What’re you doing?” he asked.

She crouched, lifted the lid and fingered through some folders until she found one labeled Important Papers—Lola. She took it, along with her passport and a credit card she’d filed away earlier that year when she and Johnny had opened a joint account.

“Did you hear me?” he persisted. “I asked what the fuck you’re on.”

She stood up. The papers rustled as she clutched them. “I’m not high, and you have no right to ask me that.”

“I have every right. It’s the only explanation. It’s just like those nights you used to come into Hey Joe after an especially rough shift.”

Her mouth tingled, bitterness on her tongue. She’d barely been an adult back then—she’d fucked up just like every other teenager. Why was she paying for those mistakes now? Everything in her body was tight, and if he kept plucking at her, she would snap.

“Look at you—you’re shaking,” Johnny said. “Your eyes are watering, your hair’s a mess—”

“My ey

es are watering from lack of sleep and because cars have been kicking dirt into my face for the last hour. I’m shaking because I just carried five hundred thousand dollars over two miles.”

“If I’d known, I would’ve picked you up. I told you that. Don’t take it out on me.”

As if he hadn’t played a role in any of this. As if her anger was completely out of left field. “Fuck you, Johnny. Just fuck you.”

His eyes doubled in size. “Fuck me? Why?”

“You know why.” She continued to their room and grabbed a duffel bag from the closet.

“You come in here like a tornado, get me all worked up and say fuck me?”

“You used me. Both of you.” She was practically shuddering now. “Everybody got what they wanted, even me, but at what price?”

Johnny threw both hands in the air. “Seriously, what the fuck? That’s completely unfair. We made every decision together.”

“I made every decision. By myself. I had to decide how much money I was worth.”

“Bullshit. We both knew it was just an exchange. It was never about what you were worth. I didn’t ask you to do this.”

“You didn’t ask me not to.” She ripped articles of clothing off their hangers and stuffed them into the bag. “What choice did I have? If I’d said no, you would’ve always resented me for the life we could’ve had. I did this for us.”

“And you didn’t enjoy it at all, did you?” His lips compressed into a line. “You practically jumped at the chance do it again.”

Her throat closed. He wasn’t wrong—she’d been clinging to the lie that she hadn’t wanted to go back to Beau. What did that make her? What did that make Johnny? If he’d even suspected she’d wanted this and he still hadn’t stopped her, then he’d gambled with her.

“Just admit that you liked it,” he said. “A million-dollar price tag made you feel pretty damn special.”

“Special?” She could barely get the word out, her head burning like her entire body was on fire. She slammed her fists on the bed. “You think having two men use me to boost their egos is special? I have a stranger’s cum on my pants and more money than I know what to do with. Does that make me special?”

“Jesus Christ.” Johnny staggered back. “Like I need that fucking mental image.”

“Yeah?” She grabbed a stack of his jeans from a shelf and threw them on the ground. “Well, at least you didn’t live through it!”

“I did live through it,” he said. “Except I had to use my imagination. All the things he was getting for his money. Tell me what they were, Lola. Why you? What did you give him that someone else couldn’t?”

She shook her head. He had no idea the mental images she could give him—like the one where Beau had seduced her in to fucking him every which way while he plotted how to hurt her the most. “You don’t know what you’re asking for. You can’t handle details.”

“Try me.”

“I know you, Johnny. Just let it go. It’s not worth—”

“I can handle it,” he said, raising his voice. “What was he like? Was it better? What did you let him do?”

Lola’s body tightened at just the threat of a memory. As if she’d had any control over what Beau did to her. Once the sun went down, her body had become his. It’d breathed for him, thrummed for him, come for him. And he’d been thorough with each inch of her, leaving no part untouched.

“Everything,” she said levelly.

He shook his head hard. “I don’t believe you.”

“Everything one man can do to one woman, he did to me. My mouth, my pussy, my ass. He had it all.”

“You let him—?” Johnny reached back, grasping at nothing. “But you never…you wouldn’t—for years I’ve asked you for that. He got it in two nights?”

“That’s what you sold him. Don’t act like you didn’t know. You were there for the negotiation.”

“And you promised me you were safe—that he didn’t force you into anything.”

She’d protected Johnny too long. No matter what he thought, he hadn’t lived through what she had. He had to accept his share of the blame for everything that’d happened the last few weeks. “He didn’t take a thing, Johnny. He waited for me to come to him, and I did. I gave him what he wanted.”

“Liar,” he said. “You can enjoy it, but you can’t want it. That’s not fair.”

“It wasn’t just sex for me. It was more.”

Johnny pointed at the duffel bag. “Is that what this is about? You’re going to see him again?”