“You will be later, Mrs Henley,” Alex whispers, and it makes me blush.
He pulls my knickers up before I can even reach for them, kisses my thigh before I get to my feet.
“Second half,” I say. “I really should give you that yellow card.”
He smirks. “Another kid will even up the teams at least, since you insist on being referee.”
“Maybe we’ll produce a whole team eventually,” I joke, but he doesn’t laugh.
“Maybe we will,” he says.
And as I watch him play the second half with his boys, Joe and Dean, something tells me having a whole football team of Alexander Henley’s children really wouldn’t be that bad.
It really wouldn’t be that bad at all.
THE END
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Johnny, my incredible editor, this one has been quite a ride, and I’ve loved every minute, as always. Thank you so much for pulling out all the stops for me.
Letitia, you always do me proud with the cover. You are amazing! Thank you so much.
Tracy, my awesome and tireless PA, I still love your face after two years, and I hope you still love mine. Thank you for all the hard work.
To Louise and Leigh for reading my early copies. Your input is so appreciated!
Michelle and Lesley, thank you so much as always.
To my amazing reader group, you ladies (and gents) are all kinds of awesome! Thank you so much for your support and enthusiasm – and your patience with this one!
So many friends to thank! Lisa, Dom, Jo, Sue, Siobhan, James, Lauren, Tom and the lovely Maria… I’m so honoured to know you all. Thank you all for putting up with my incessant book-speak!
Isabella and Demi, you changed my life, for real. I hope you know how much I love you for it.
Isa, thanks for being here for the second time in row I hit publish. I hope you realise this is going to be a ‘thing’ from now on. You might just have to move in…
Jon, your support means everything, as always.
My amazing family, I hope you know how important you are.
Bloggers and the amazing fellow authors who support me every day! Thank you so much! This community is incredible. I’m so honoured to be a part of it.
And of course, to my readers! Thank you for taking the time to
read Buy Me, Sir. I hope you enjoyed the experience.
If you love Alexander Henley even half as much as I enjoyed writing him, I’ll be a very happy author indeed. ? x
DELICATE SCARS
ALTA HENSLEY
To my sweet Ava and Kenna.
Everything I do is for you.
And to Mr. Hensley…my dream maker.
CHAPTER ONE
LOVE AT FIRST FUCKING SIGHT
QUINN
IS it possible to pick that one defining moment in life that fucked you up? I think it is fair to say that everyone in the world is messed up one way or the other. But can everyone look back on their life and pinpoint the exact minute it happened? I used to believe I wasn’t fucked up. I had absolutely no reason to be. I was actually one of the few people who could say I had a good childhood. Middle income family, parents who stayed married, average upbringing. Nothing there to fuck me up.
Maybe I could say I was fucked up by Anthony Cruz when he tried to take my virginity at the age of fifteen, but it wasn’t like rape or anything. I thought I was ready but it still felt like he was taking it rather than me giving it. So, I screamed no, and luckily for me, he stopped. However, other than the fact that he lied and told everyone we had hot and wild sex, then dumped me right afterwards, I still wouldn’t say he fucked me up.
My life was fairly easy growing up. I wouldn’t exactly say I was spoiled, but I never had to struggle. My parents paid for my car when I was sixteen, paid for my entire college education so I never had to get some lame part time job, and even helped pay my bills now so I could follow my dream of becoming a novelist.
My sister had died recently, and although it ripped my soul out of my body and shredded my heart into a million pieces, I survived. It didn’t change the core of who I was, nor put me in the fucked up category. I was able to move on just like every other person in the world who has lost a loved one. I went on one day at a time. But the truth of the matter was life simply wasn’t a struggle for me. Call me one of the lucky ones, I guess.
I WASN’T FUCKED UP…
Until I met him.
Axel Rye.
Yes.
He fucked me up.
He really fucked me up.
THE DEAFENING CLUB music pulsated through my body, the bass pounding at my ears like a hammer. I made a mental note to try to describe the sensation when I wrote my book. One more thing to add to my ever-growing list of story notes. I wanted my readers to understand the power the music possessed. I wanted to somehow successfully describe how the sound waves actually woke every nerve in your body and caused each one to vibrate from your head to your toes. I wanted to explain in detail how each thump of the bass made your entire core hum in excitement. Recounting this club would definitely be a challenge. How could you possibly express the inside of a nightclub without sounding like a washed-up poet?
I took off my apron at the end of my shift, desperate for a break. Standing on my feet for so many hours was a lot harder than I thought it would be. Bartending was no joke, and after working the job for one night, I felt bad for not tipping all my bartenders in the past way better than I did. My feet were killing me and that was with me wearing black ballet-slipper-like shoes, unlike all the five-inch heels the other women in the club wore. How they stood and balanced on the spikes, let alone danced, amazed me.
The club was hot, sticky, crowded, and I really wanted to get some fresh air and maybe a small moment of silence. I scanned the room, looking for my friend Felicity again. She had promised to meet me at the club before my shift ended and at least be a familiar face amongst the crowd of complete strangers.
The girl could socialize her way through anything. Selfish as fuck sometimes, but she had been my friend since sixth grade, and we just meshed somehow. She was wild; I was not. She was fun, while I bored even myself sometimes. She had helped me land this job, a job completely out of my element, bartending at one of the most popular clubs in Los Angeles. Felicity had also offered me a place to stay while I did the research needed to write my book on the seedy life of nightclubs, drugs, and all the glitz and glamour laced with gritty shadows. I had high hopes I’d get enough real life details to expand into a book, but didn’t know how much information I could really gather. My editor Harrison—if you could really call him an editor since he only free-lanced for beginners like me and was trying to break into the publishing world himself—had thought it would be a good idea for me to completely go undercover and immerse myself in the everyday life… or nightlife, as it were. He said I lived in a suburban dollhouse and had no idea what happened beyond the key-entry gates. And unless I wanted to write a cookbook or some sugary puppy love young adult romance, I had to branch out and expand my life experiences. I agreed the investigation might make my book more genuine and complex, and I did feel as if I was trapped in the white box of boring. I also didn’t want to just get the generic, canned answers from an interview. Or write about something I knew absolutely nothing about and risk the readers sensing my ignorance. I had never been a partier unless you counted the couple times I drank from a beer bong at a frat party. But for this book—especially since it would be my debut—I wanted to go deeper and really capture the heart behind it all. I wanted the truth, the feelings, the reality.
Glancing at the clock, I saw that Felicity was over an hour late. Had my friend really flaked on me? Felicity had a habit of getting “lost,” but she wouldn’t just forget about me, or at least I hoped not. I had counted on her for a ride back to our apartment. Not wanting to walk through the wall of sweaty bodies by myself, I decided to just stay put a little longer and wait for her. I took in some of the faces around me and wondered if I should mingle and make some friends.
Yeah, like that was really going to happen.
Being outgoing was not my strength, so I chose to sit and observe instead.
A commotion got my attention, and I turned toward the front entrance to find a crowd gathered around a group of men who had just walked in. I stiffened, the hair on the back of my neck standing on end. I swallowed the lump forming in the back of my throat, my heart leaping as I saw the man I wanted to get to know. He was the key to my success. Tall. Handsome. Tattoos in all the right places. Face hidden in darkness. The pictures I had seen, and all the media coverage I’d watched, did not do this man justice. A single picture could not capture the raw power and strength rippling through him. The control, the authority, the mystery.
Axel Rye.
I watched with interest. I’d been told this club—Wicked—was the place to be. I hadn’t heard of it before, not until Felicity raved about the place and the people who frequented the spot like Axel Rye. He was clearly in demand by just watching all the people turn his way the minute he walked in. My new boss at the club confirmed my belief that Axel Rye was the hot ticket when he had told me to always cater to Axel and his friends’ needs. Never say no to the man. I was told Axel provided something crucial to the nightclub and the partygoers—drugs.
Trying to act cool, but feeling uneasy being in the same room with a known drug dealer, I looked around for Felicity again, feeling more than a little annoyed at still having to wait. I was completely out of my element and having serious doubts I could even do this… that I even wanted to do this. Who was I to think I could simply immerse myself in the scene and hang out with celebrities like Axel Rye… if you really could call him a celebrity? Although I guess in this scene he was—as fucked up as that was. Notoriety equaled fame, and Axel Rye was definitely notorious.
A deep wave of laughter erupted directly behind me, and I turned to find the same group of men I’d seen walk in just moments earlier. A flock of women surrounded them, flirting, dancing, and having a good time. Axel Rye stood in the middle of it all. He looked different than when I last saw him on television. Granted, when I watched him on TV he was in a suit and tie being escorted out of a courthouse by his team of lawyers after just being found not guilty of all drug charges. I had watched in awe when his arrog
ant ass hopped in a black Escalade as if he was innocent as an angel.
He was guilty.
Everyone knew it. He just had the money to buy his way out of a jail sentence. Or his rich rock star daddy did. Axel Rye was the son of the famous singer Jamison Rye, and the word “rich” wasn’t a strong enough term to describe the wealth that family had. They were helicopters and yacht rich. Axel Rye—though everyone thought was cool as fuck—was nothing but a trust fund baby. He hadn’t worked a real job a day in his life, so the fact he sold drugs wasn’t out of need to feed his family, pay for medical bills or for any other romanticized reason. No, he simply sold drugs because he wanted to and because he could.
But God, he was fucking handsome as hell.
And he was so close I could reach out and touch him if I wanted to. I had researched the crap out of this guy, and even though he was a complete stranger, I did have an odd sense I knew him. I had stared at his face and read countless articles while brainstorming and outlining my book. As odd as it was, this man was no stranger to me.
He was laughing when our eyes met, and I almost peed my pants from the huge weight in my stomach when I realized he caught me staring at him. His laugh stopped, and the smile on his face seemed to melt away slowly. He stood there frozen, his chiseled face almost demanding to be touched. The scar near his lower lip caught my eye. For a moment, I thought he might say something, but then I heard Felicity come up behind me.
“Hey there,” she said, a bit winded.
I snapped out of my groupie stare and watched as she wiggled her way to the bar and ordered a drink. “Crazy night! Sorry I’m so late.”
“It’s okay. I was actually hoping to leave. It’s been a long night.”
Acting as if she hadn’t heard me, she simply stared ahead until the bartender made and delivered her her drink. She grabbed her cocktail and spun around, taking in the dancing bodies around her. Bobbing her head to the music, she instantly fit in. “You do realize, Quinn, who that was staring at you, right?”