The Probability of Violet & Luke (The Coincidence 4)

I bat my eyelashes innocently at him and extend the cigarette toward him. “I lit it just for you.”

He looks at me skeptically. “Yeah, right. And smoked half of it.” He reaches for it to test me, but I move my hand to the side.

“No way.” I put the end into my mouth and allow the smoke to smother my lungs. “It’s mine now. You’re going to have to fight me to get it,” I say as Cole starts the car and then drives forward out of the parking lot.

Luke flicks a glance to Cole, then Ryler, then shakes his head, restraining a laugh. “How much did you have to drink?” he asks me in a low voice.

I shrug, watching the blurs of colors zip by the window as we drive onto the road and toward the freeway that will take us back toward the city. “Five, eight, eleven.” I hold up my fingers, trying to show him the amount, but eleven proves to be a problem. “Hey, I was just doing my job. It wasn’t my fault that Catterson guy kept offering me drinks.”

“You did a fine job,” Cole comments, making a turn onto the freeway. “But we’re going to have to find a new job for you tomorrow, so the bosses won’t catch onto you.”

“Okay, at first I was joking about the mobster thing before, but now I have to wonder.” I slant forward to stick my hand out the window and ash the cigarette.

“No mobsters, just hardcore gamblers who don’t take shit from anyone,” Cole says, putting a cigarette between his lips and cupping his hand around the end of it to light up.

After that remark, Ryler and him start having a conversation about the game, Ryler signing the entire time and seeming really annoyed at his father about something. It leaves me distracted enough to focus all of my attention on Luke as a darkness in my chest starts to stir, drunken Violet getting restless. Always looking for trouble, one of my foster mother’s used to say. Uncontrollable. She might not have been so right at the time, but now she would be. Guess I turned out exactly like she thought—like all of them thought. But that’s not what I want to focus on. Something good. I want to focus on something good that’s sitting right beside me.

Luke is staring straight ahead, arms folded, his muscles taut, his thinking face on, as if he’s pondering some complicated theory on human nature and how we turn out the way that we do, what molds us into the people we are.

I shake my head. God, I think some weird things when I’m drunk.

Luke. Focus on Luke.

He’s sitting close to me, but not close enough, so I scoot over and he shakes his head, his lips threatening to turn upward. “You have that look on your face,” he says, turning his head toward me. “The one where I can tell you want to start trouble.”

“You know me better than I thought,” I say straightforwardly, not being able to see very clearly through the alcohol swishing around in my brain.

His eyes search mine confusedly. “Do I?”

I nod deliberately, a fire igniting in my chest based on lust. “And I bet you can guess exactly what I’m thinking right now.” I move my hand down the front of my body, biting my lip as I touch myself.

He sucks in a slow breath and gradually lets it out, mouthing the words wow. But he doesn’t speak aloud, just wraps his fingers around my wrist, brings my hand to his mouth, and puts his lips around the cigarette I’m holding. It makes me think of his tongue and how good it felt when it was licking me earlier in the bedroom.

After he takes a drag of my cigarette, he lets me have it back then says, “You’re thinking how awesome I am for winning three grand tonight.”

“As awesome as that is, that’s not what I’m thinking about.” I shake my head, feeling the electricity in the air, the out of controlness, just the way I like it. Then I place the cigarette to my lips, not because I want to smoke, but because I want to tease him like he just did with me. I give it a good long suck, feeling a flicker of panic when I see Preston’s face, the way it looked right before he shoved me down on my knees, turned on not just by getting a blowjob but by the pain and lack of desire in my expression. But I quickly shove the mental images away and it gets absorbed by the vodka burning in my veins and clouding my mind and judgment. “So guess again,” I say as I exhale a cloud of smoke.

Luke’s eyes darken, shadows in the inadequate light flowing in from the lampposts, casinos, and sights outside. He shifts toward me, his knee pressing against my leg as he cups his hand to my cheek and dips his lips to my ear. The warmth of his Bacardi laced breath caresses my skin and sends warmth throughout my body. Safe. I feel that safeness again.

“You were thinking about what I did to you in the bedroom a few hours ago,” he says in my ear, his voice low and filled with desire, his breath hot against my skin. Sweltering—I’m sweltering and it’s not from the heat of the desert. “And about how much you want me to do it to you again, only maybe slower this time and longer… take my time…” He has to be drunk as well and two drunken peas in a Challenger make for sporadic decisions without even a flicker of a thought about the consequences. And makes the adrenaline addict nearly fall into a state of euphoria.

A calmness overcomes me and settles inside my chest, I let my hands drift toward Luke’s jeans, resting them right on top of his dick. Right there, in the backseat of the car with his uncle and cousin within earshot. And in return, Luke lets out a throaty groan that makes me want to rip off his clothes and scratch the shit out of him, like I was picturing doing back at the table.

But as my fingers start to wander up Luke’s shirt, my nails gently scratching against his lean muscles, his uncle burst the moment. “Okay, you two, let’s wait until we get back to the house,” he says amusedly. “I promise it’s not that far.”

I’m not one to get embarrassed, but either my cheeks heat or the air gets even hotter. Luke however looks completely unbothered as he sits back in the seat, putting his hands on top of mine so they’re trapped inside his shirt, my palms pressed against his muscles and warm flesh. Then he gives me a look as if he has every intention to continue this right up the moment we get into the bedroom. I just hope I can stay drunk enough that I can go through with it unemotionally, otherwise I might have to find another alternative to settle the emotions buried inside, one’s that want to burst out of me, both old ones and new ones. And I’m afraid once I let them out, I won’t be able to put them back in again.

Chapter 11