"If you think insulting me is a good way to apologize, you're seriously delusional."
"Yeah, guess that's true." I scrubbed my face, not really knowing what to say or how to act around the girl. She wasn't just any girl. She was connected to my job, a job that I couldn't stand to lose no matter how fucking hot she was.
"I just wanted to offer you something to eat."
"I'm not gonna fuck you," I said curtly.
"Who the fuck asked you to?” Harley spat incredulously.
I barked out a laugh at her indignation. She had some spunk. She might have looked meek and prissy, but underneath the facade, there was a firestorm burning inside.
"I call bullshit, Harley. Your friends were eye fucking me all day. You think I can’t sense that? I might be a mechanic, but my IQ is intact—full functioning faculties and all that shit. In other words, I can tell when someone wants to fuck me." I took a swig of my beer to finish it off. “Or better put, wants me to fuck them.”
Her face flared with a gorgeous blush and I watched her nipples harden through the thin fabric of her dress. Her mouth was slightly open in shock and then she demurely licked her lips in order to compose herself.
"They went home. I thought you’d be hungry. I was trying to be nice."
“Nice is for pussies and suckers,” I said. I yanked her toward me so she fit between my spread legs. She was close enough now that I could feel the heat of her skin, see the rapid beat of her pulse as it throbbed in her neck. She seemed to be holding her breath and struggling not to close her eyes.
“I’m not trying to do anything besides offer you dinner because you worked so hard today,” she gritted through clenched teeth.
"Too bad," I said. I was inches from her vulnerable neck and I wanted to suck and bite her there until she was wet. Harley was fucking beautiful and had no idea of how dangerous she was for someone like me. "Sweetheart, I can’t get tangled up with a girl like you, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to." She closed her eyes as I spoke and our noses were nearly touching. I took her wrist in my hand and I could feel her pulse thrumming.
“Do you hate people like me because Kat died?” she asked me with her eyes still closed.
“I hate everyone since Kat died.”
The silence was cavernous and long. That did it, my fascination was over.
“I’ll see myself out.”
I stood and dropped her wrist, she didn’t move or open her eyes as I turned my back and made my way out of her gilded dungeon.
Money didn’t set you free. If anything, Harley Brooks was more trapped in this town than I was.
Chapter 5
HARLEY
Before I went to bed, I scoured the internet for newspaper articles about Katherine Dunne’s death. None of the sources stated her cause of death, and I knew, anecdotally, that suicides were kept private and not released to the public. One of the articles said she’d died tragically and my heart broke for Wyatt. I’d remembered hearing rumors about her death, but I didn’t want to believe any of them and disrespect her in that way.
It was hard to fall asleep. My body felt exhausted, but my mind was running. I hated being in the house alone and I checked the doors and the alarms system at least three times before I crawled into my bed. Every noise or creak had me jumping up and peering out the window. Finally, after a couple of hours of escalating fear, I went into my father’s room and pulled his .38 from a drawer and brought it to my room. I didn’t like that those pool maintenance guys knew I was home alone. I berated myself for not asking Alexandra to spend the night. Ultimately, I tossed and turned until almost three o’clock in the morning. Then I dug in my drawer and bypassed the gun, pulled out my vibrator instead and turned it on. I imagined Wyatt’s hands on me and him taking me roughly in front of the two pool guys. I was so wet with desire, the vibrator slid deep inside me as I pictured Wyatt making me suck his cock while the other two watched. I came so hard that I arched and moaned out loud, a luxury I didn’t have because I lived at home. I fucked myself with the vibrator as I rode the wave of the orgasm and thought of Wyatt’s dirty hands on my ass pulling my body to his.
…
I came downstairs yawning at nine in the morning. My coffee was brewed and I poured myself a huge cup. The vacuum sounded in one of the dens, so I knew the cleaning lady had arrived and let herself in. After popping toast in the toaster, I checked my texts.