Promise Me This (Between Breaths 4)

Again, Cory lifted his glass and then his eyes shot to mine. I shook my head. “Nope. Been the handcuffee, but never the handcuffer.”

Avery’s eyebrows lifted as she playfully elbowed her man. “Apparently, we need to get more kinky to keep up with this group.”

Nate looked to be deliberating something, darkness shadowing his eyes, until finally he raised the neck of his beer to his mouth for a sip.

One of the guys whistled but Nate kept his eyes cast down, as if embarrassed by what I’d think after that bathroom incident.

A line of heat stretched across my cheeks. Little did he realize that he’d only intrigued me more.

Chapter Four

Nate

Driving to my mom’s house for dinner, my thoughts turned to Jessie again. As soon as she admitted to having been handcuffed the other night at the bar, my fantasies had gone wild. Shit, part of me wished I had never been part of that conversation. The group had gotten stupid with that game before, between drugs of choice to favorite sexual positions, but even those exchanges hadn’t done to me what this one had.

I was comfortable with keeping Jessie as my buddy, because she’d never allow me to get close anyway. When her phone pinged with a text, most likely from her latest boyfriend, I got this funny feeling in my stomach like I always did. I wanted to protect her, like a good friend should. No way did I want her with any hard-asses—especially ones who might take advantage of her. I knew she could hold her own, but maybe my mom had thought so at one time as well.

And maybe when you spent a lot of time with a monster, it changed you. Made you afraid, sucked out your goddamn soul.

But sitting across from her that night at the bar made me edgy and horny and hard as fuck. I hung out longer than normal just so I could get my dick under some semblance of control, but it only made things worse each time our legs accidentally brushed beneath the table.

Who was I kidding? A girl like Jessie—the way she’d talked to the guys from the shop? She wasn’t going to take any shit and certainly not from a guy like me, which was why I never hooked up with anybody in front of her before.

She’d give me the business, already did in her own way, and I liked having her as a friend. But I could tell she loved it when I gave it right back. We could ping-pong off each other and I could explore a healthy way to be around a girl. For once.

Still, since that night at the bar, I hadn’t gotten any kind of release except from my own damn hand while I imagined her beneath me, tied to the fucking bed. And every time she’d text me with a bridge question this week, I pictured us way up high on that blue viaduct getting it on for the entire world to see.

I turned the corner into the Waterford Development and then pulled into the shallow driveway up to the house. I grew up in what someone like Jessie might consider a huge-ass mansion. We all drove nice cars and had high-end gadgets but I’d give it all up in a heartbeat if my mom finally announced that she’d leave my dad’s ass.

As it was now, the tension was at an all-time high when we were all in the same room—it was almost like Dad knew that since I’m an adult, I could take him down with one punch. That we were all just toeing the line to keep up appearances. But having my asshole brother there only fueled the fire.

My father still travelled quite a bit for business so tonight it was just the three of us. My mother often arranged dinner for my brother and me when he was gone, probably because cooking helped her relax. She seemed more like her true self when she wasn’t under my father’s thumb.

I always made sure to show up early so my brother, Luke, didn’t do some stupid shit like egg her on or make her cry. He was turning into my father with every passing year and it twisted my stomach inside out to witness it.

Especially since it had always been me and Luke who had cowered together on the edge of our beds listening to the fights, the anger, the crying. Now, it was as if that experience had hardened him as much as it had softened me. I couldn’t wrap my brain around it. But suddenly the two of us were as different as night and day.

Luke pulled in behind me in his ridiculous mini-Hummer like he’d been off to war or something. Those cars were stupid as shit and only made him look like more of a meathead than he was. He was in his senior year at Rockwell University and was on the winning football team. He was a linebacker and huge as fuck. I thought I was built—but then I’d visit him in the weight room at his private Ivy League school and feel small in comparison.

He walked through the garage behind me and mumbled, “Gotta make this quick, picking up Anna in a couple of hours.” Anna was his latest girlfriend and I’ll admit it, their relationship made me nervous. Every time he’d bring her around, I’d check for signs of intimidation or manhandling. Anything that would give a clue that he’d finally crossed that line. I had no proof, just a niggling feeling and a mind-numbing dread that plagued me regularly.

My mother stood in the kitchen nursing a tall glass of wine. Her blond hair was up in a messy bun, so I knew she’d been working in the garden. She loved planting fresh herbs and root vegetables.

“Hi, Mom.” I took two strides forward and kissed her cheek. “Whatever you’re cooking smells good.”

“It’s chicken divan.” Mom was a fantastic cook and was always trying out new recipes. Before she married my father, she’d been a chef for a catering business. I figured if she ever left this marriage she’d have no problem finding a job again.

“You know,” I said. “There was a sign in the window at this culinary school on Front Street. They were looking for someone to teach cooking lessons to a kids’ group.”