Pretty Little Lies

20. Bay

TWENTY

bay

I guess there are after-parties following big football games and Oceanview was off defending their pride against their rival school today. It didn’t take much from Reeve to convince me to go. I was already out, the girls were staying with a friend all day, and Dad was having a guys’ day with Juice and Levi—no girls allowed, which makes me believe they’re gonna sneak a beer for him.

But the yacht I’m standing on is like a floating house with a small pool on the back, plush white lounge chairs, and a full kitchen, along with three levels of way too much money and envy.

I would die and go to heaven if I lived on something like this.

What’s also interesting is that not only do I see rich society kids on this boat, but guys with leather goats and tattoos too. My skin prickles when we pass a bunch of dudes, all eyeing me up and down like the night in The Landings.

Reeve must notice because he laces his fingers with mine and brings my hand up to press a soft kiss to it. It’s supposed to soothe, but I can’t get the goosebumps that line my skin to dissipate. “No one is going to dare touch you here, McQueen. I’ll bet my life on it.”

I don’t answer him because I don’t have anything to say. What makes now different than before?

“If you’re looking for them, they’re dead.” My focus slides over to him, who’s stopped to stand in front of me, blocking off the small group of guys chugging beers. “Did you think I was going to allow that to fly? For another gang to believe they could traipse around The Landings and put hands on you?”

“Torin did.”

“That’s Torin,” he retorts, then adds, “That’s my boy. And, with that being said, he wouldn’t fucking dare hurt you because he’s fully aware of my plans.”

I must not look convinced when he steps closer, hazels pinned evenly on mine. He’s not fucking around, and he’s tried to tell me before.

“Those were Emilio’s men,” I mutter. “Does…he know?”

“Yes.” I release the exhale I was holding. “He lost his shit when he found out, super pissed at me, but he’ll get over it.”

My blood runs cold at how collectedly he just mentioned that. “What did I tell you about staying out of trouble?” I chide lightly, knowing the power Emilio wields and what he could do. “Do you have a death wish?”

“Several.”

I sigh. God, he’s exasperating, careless, fucking hot, and stupid, has a solid answer for everything. “I don’t want you hurt.”

“And I believe you.”

“Which means I need you to chill on the immoral bullshit.”

His lips only heave a tad, showing me he’s half soaking that in. “Okay, baby. Anything else?”

“No…for now.”

Reeve unleashes his half-cocked smirk into a full one, visibly illustrating how he enjoys my worrying. “If you think of more, just let me know, but tonight…we’re just going to relax until I gotta take you home. I’ll go grab you a drink. What would you like?”

“Surprise me.”

His hazels drop down to my lips, suggesting what he’d enjoy even better. “I plan to, McQueen.”

“I’ll go hang out by that railing.” I point a few feet away toward the silent back of the boat before Reeve bumps my chest with his, his mouth hovering dangerously over mine.

“You know I like it when you’re a good girl.” His bottom lip dips and brushes against mine. “But I don’t want to fix the bad that runs through those South Shore veins.” He slides something long and hard through my palm and, for the very briefest of moments, my brain thinks it’s his cock. Or that’s what it decided it needed anyway. “To make you feel safer.”

Winking at me, he strides in the opposite direction as I glance down to find what he gave me instead—a black switchblade.

Feel safer.

Squeezing it in my hand, he just proves time and time again that my safety is a priority of his, too. What man would go to these limits when they don’t give a fuck? It’s something we share and also something we don’t.

We’re not born opponents. It’s where the line begins to get fuzzy, and the magnetism makes sense, because there’s no other way to bat it off. The only thing is that he’s associated with Torin, but he jostles with him too. Two peas not in the same pod, but they can slide their differences aside.

Pocketing the weapon, I go and claim the spot I said I’d be standing. I’m on the bottom level, away from most of the guests who are partying by the pool and hot tub, but it doesn’t stop Vivian’s arrival apparently from stalking me through the space.

“I’m surprised the yacht hasn’t been infested with fleas yet,” she sasses at my back, and I’m impressed that she has the balls to even approach me when there’s no one around. I’d smack her cocky bitch ass attitude right out of her body like an exorcist.

However, this isn’t my turf, and I’m fully aware of that.

“I took a shower with the hose before I left,” I reply, looking over the ocean and not bothering to spare her a second of my time.

A strong floral scent fills my nostrils, hinting that she’s closer before her weight falls to the short silver railing. “I don’t think I need to say that you need to stay away from Cairo.”

“Absolutely not. He’s all yours, sis.”

“That includes you keeping your dirty snatch away too.”

“It’s attached to me, so that’s a given.” Pain registers before her long nails do, digging into my forearm. The only warning she knows how to give me, because I’m highly assuming she doesn’t fight with her fists.

Geezus, didn’t I just say I got it?

“You know your species is going to be non-existent soon, right? South Shore will be no more.”

I’m not sure where she heard that, or what Cairo tells her, but I don’t feed into her taunting. Instead, I warn offer her a warning myself. “Get your hand off me.”

“Cairo is going to win one of the Titan’s seats. That means more power. That means muscle. That means you and your people are done.”

“Sounding a little discriminatory here, Viv. Calm it down, girl.”

“Do you think this is a joke?” she sneers through perfectly white teeth, thrusting her nails deeper into my flesh and she’s about to break the skin, to where I’m going to crack her in that already haughty nose of hers.

“The more you talk, yeah. A confident person only says it once.” Which she clearly isn’t. I’m not sure where Cairo picked this girl up, but I didn’t think the pushy, needy bitch was his ammo.

Not that someone like me would be.

However, maybe someone with a clear head, and reason to be all up my ass right now. Except men think with their dicks, don’t they? And she’s alright. She has pretty blonde hair…and that’s about it. Her green eyes don’t do much but squint, a lot . As she’s doing it to me right now, I can see the lines along the corners of her eyes.

“I just wanted to make sure that your low IQ level caught onto it,” she emits sourly through her normal lips. They’re painted with a pink shade of lipstick, which is a mixture of too dark for her complexion and trying too hard.

“I said I got it.”

She smirks as if my submission means she won. “You don’t know what I could do to someone like you? Don’t get on my radar. I’m a petty bitch.”

“Good for you.” I glance down at her claws still stuck in my flesh, because that’s the most important thing here. Not her claiming a man who wants nothing to do with me ever. “Now, let go.”

She lets out this little snort or scoff. I’m not sure, it’s a mixture of the two. However, it doesn’t allow me to ignore that she believes I’m the biggest piece of white trash she’s ever had to witness. “Or what?” My nostrils flare, but I’m done with the back-and-forth already. “You’re not gonna touch me.” And damn, does she sound confident about that fact. “Cairo and I are gonna rise as king and queen, and I’m still thinking of names to replace South Shore with.”

“How about Cuntville. Has a nice ring to it.”

“No, that’s where I’m gonna send you to.”

Talk about a third-grade comeback.

“Alright, well, I’m bored with this conversation so…” I see her other arm cock back, and I seize her wrist before she can slap me.

I’ve had enough of people trying to hit me this year already.

Twisting her so that her ass hits the railing, I’m practically foaming at the mouth. But then I remember how much I don’t want to cause a scene on a boat with people who are not mine.

“I don’t need reminding,” I leer. “Come at me again, and I’m gonna fuck you up.” I squeeze her wrist and watch her wince a bit. “Any woman who has to come at another about a dude means that your leash isn’t as tight as you want it to be.”

“Fuck you,” she spits out. “You don’t know anything .”

“I know that it appears he has zero interest in you and that you’re not together. That’s pathetic, Viv.”

“It’s kinda whorish of you to think you’re going to walk off in the sunset with all three of them.”

That comment pisses me off.

And sparks an idea. One I’m going to have tallied under the you’re going to hell spreadsheet.

“Happy Trails, bitch.” I say it as though I’m casually telling her the weather when I shove her as hard as I can, watching her back curl around the top of the railing of the yacht. The splash being the only satisfying sound I’ve heard over the last two minutes.

I see her surface a moment later, dramatically gasping for air and flaying her arms every which way, splashing herself in the face and causing more of a fucking dramatic scene than it is.

It’s satisfying…for a good fifteen seconds.

“She can’t swim, you know.”

Fuck.

Slowly, I crane my head to Cairo’s voice placidly seated to my left. Dark eyes stare back at me, illustrating what they always do—nothing.

Zero concern for his so-called girlfriend.

Not a fuck given off those dark features as Vivian yells out desperately for help.

“You better go save her, then,” I reply with a weak point of my finger and exhaling a heavy breath, releasing some of the violent adrenaline to free from my body.

A ghost of a grin casts over his face, holding me still for only a brief fracture of a moment before he promptly pivots and walks away.

Well, shit.

“Hey, Bay Bay,” Reeve quips from the other side of the boat, carrying a red drink in one hand and a brown in the other. “Hope I didn’t?—”

“Help me!” Reeve’s brows clash together at Vivian’s plea, and I shrug nonchalantly. She asked for it, and I seriously gave her more than one opportunity to let me go.

I was threatened.

Plus, she needed to learn a lesson. Us folks around here don’t take too kindly to getting touched.

“Holy shit…” Reeve gapes at me like I’m a ghost and that he can’t believe I’m here when he brought me in the first place. “You’re so fuckin’ hot.”

My lips heedlessly lift, and he jerks his head for me to follow him at the same moment a guy in a pale yellow polo runs to the back of the boat and leans over the steel railing, yelling out, “ Oh my God,” before I hear a splash travel behind it.

Reeve enters a small room that looks like a mini bedroom with a sink and a small sectional bench with even a smaller table. The moment I’m in the room, Reeve shoves me against the wooden door, already ridding himself of the drinks in his hand.

I flick my gaze up to meet his hooped nose ring, the glinting of his hazel eyes, and that careless style of sandy blond hair that he’s always sporting.

“I want to erase that night,” he mutters, his hard body compressed into mine and I like the weight. The smell of the ocean coming off his skin and the warmth of him radiating into my pores. “I want to make it not exist. I want to make you mine.”

He doesn’t waste another moment, bending closer and pressing his soft lips against mine. Cupping my face and some of my neck, he runs his thumbs down my already heated skin. Torturously, he keeps the rhythm there, nice and slow, easy even.

Just like him.

My breathing hitches in need, the same moment he drops my face and laces our fingers together. Drawing both my arms over my head, he locks my wrists in one palm and drops his now free hand down my ribs.

“Every single night,” he mutters. “I wonder how bad it’ll get.”

“How bad what will get?”

“This.” The pads of his fingers flirt with the waistband of my shorts. “How crazed will I become? What sort of madness will take over me once I’ve experienced it all.”

“So…” I peer up at him, his eyes closed, his forehead pressed against mine as he slightly pants in despairing need. “Why haven’t you?”

“Because I want you practically begging for it.” Those piercing greens and browns flick open, sucking my next exhale. The intensity radiates off them, searing into my skin. “For it to be real.”

My lips part from the slight disbelief at his statement.

I hear him, I do.

Every meaningful word and the vulnerability that’s always fucking present as of late when he’s in front of me. I can’t say I’ve ever had someone look at me as he does. I feel as though I’m the most beautiful girl in the world and that he’d be lucky enough to have me.

That I’m worthy of such love.

After Matteo, I dabbled, but I didn’t date. I barely left my room for the first month, the house for two, I hung out with Levi, Hot Rod, and Juice and have been ever since. Tally on Travis as being a huge portion of being able to function as a human being and boys don’t and didn’t play a major occurrence in my life.

So— this —is a lot for me to take in. For me to believe. For me to form into an attachment that I can honestly not be afraid of.

Matteo fucked you up good, girl. He’s back for round two.

“What’s wrong?”

I blink, drawing Reeve back into view and staring at me, observing, learning every tic of mine and how I can psych myself out quicker than a burnout.

I’m a fucking mess emotionally, Reevie. I don’t want you to hurt me.

I also don’t desire for you to become collateral damage either.

“Your words are pretty,” I voice, my tone strained but light. “I like them.”

“I like you.”

I discharge a held puff of air because what’s life, what’s me, if I don’t start living? I’m better off with Matteo as his bitch if I keep this up.

“You don’t have to buy it yet,” Reeve professes. “But?—”

“I do.” I grip his shirt and ball it into a fist under my fingers because I need…support. I want his confidence that freely drips off him. “Just…fuck me over, and I’ll hit you in the balls so hard you’re going to taste yourself. Got it?”

“I’ll give you the hammer…or your shoe? How would you want to do that exactly? I can—” My mouth crashes into his, and in perfect harmony, as if we’ve been doing it forever, our tongues lash out against each other’s in the next brush of our lips.

Our once gentle kiss is starved. He opens his mouth wider, and I faithfully follow, lying one of my palms on the planes of his chest and feeling his erratic heartbeat.

You can’t fake that.

And we’re playing a dangerous game of Romeo and Juliet right now.

Fingers lace in my hair, drawing my chin upward as he peppers short and hasty kisses down my jaw and to the column of my throat where he goes in for the attack.

He sucks on my skin, producing the thought that he may leave marks to show off that I belong to someone as he loosens his hold. That he wants to subtly express that I’m not to be fucked with, especially in front of his boys outside.

His arm wraps around my back as he dips and lifts me in the air. Pivoting, he knocks into something when my arms wrap around his neck. My fingers thread through the thick strands of hair that remind me of warm sand and being buried underneath it. His mouth never leaves my skin as he licks and surprises me by biting down on me once, earning a small squeal to which he smiles against my skin.

Setting me down on the soft, plush couch, he comes down to his knees between my thighs. Those shards of mixed greens and browns assault my senses, causing my limbs to become jelly, and my breathing to only hitch because this is all too much. So much different than Torin.

No blood relation with Emilio.

He licks at his bottom lip, and I practically launch myself at him, pulling him back with me before our mouths are fusing together. We’re a fucking perfect mess as my hands roam the hard muscles of his biceps and chest and his fingers are impatiently unbuckling and ripping at my jean shorts.

They’re yanked down my thighs as I lift my ass to half-assist. He doesn’t even spare me a second to pull my feet out from them before he’s spreading my thighs wide. My bottom lip is captured and softly sucked on when the pad of one finger slides down my still-clothed slit.

I moan when he circles the sensitive area, tasting me lick by lick with his tongue and driving back any fear of what could happen after this. My body buzzes in excited anticipation as I reach for him, but he quickly catches my hand and lightly squeezes it. But then he allows me a brief sample of what he’s operating with, running my palm down his hard length, and I can’t help but slightly squeeze because I want it.

I fucking want him .

Reeve’s growl is captured by our lips, and I work determinedly, silently coaxing him to let me have it. To take me and want me and not hold who I am over my fucking head.

I stroke him again with his hand still on mine and my pussy clenches when I feel him flinch under my skin.

“Reevie,” I whimper as he comes back to kiss me again. To keep our lips fused together because the thought of us not kissing isn’t what he has in mind.

And, fuck me, he’s one hell of a fucking kisser.

Like kissing me until I don’t remember shit about my past kinda good.

My cotton thong is pulled to the side, and that’s when he disappears. My body mindlessly leans forward, searching for him.

Down there.

Without hesitation, that wicked tongue lashes out against me, eating me out like a last meal, not coming up for air, asking me how I like it, or if I need a minute.

No, this man goes in for the fucking kill shot.

My thighs twitch when I feel the warmth of his tongue petting my clit. His soft lips sucking it in his mouth as he explores and finds all the ways that drive me absolutely fucking insane.

Pressure falls at the base of my spine, followed by the tingling sensation of my orgasm waving hello and, soon, goodbye.

Falling onto the cushioned sectional, I bring my feet up to rest on the couch and open my legs wider. I feel shameless with him, powerful even. Those stunning hazels of his are dark when they strike up to gape up at me. They’re unholy, profane, and absolutely breathtaking.

His tongue delves inside me as he watches every move I make, every expression. His thumb grazes my clit as he teases me with what’s entering my cunt but what could really be penetrating me with.

“Fuck…Reeve…” My back arches for more as the muscles in my stomach begin to flutter.

He still doesn’t come up, doesn’t bother to give me a slight break to show me that cocky and sexy smirk he’s always displaying in my direction.

No, Reeve worships me like he was born to do it.

“You said if I begged you’d fuck me?”

Geezus Christ, who are you right now?

Apparently, brazen as fuck because I’ve had small pieces of Reeve, but this…a girl could get really used to it.

Reeve hums along my slit, drawing his tongue upward, and I think he’s going to answer me, but he only goes back to doing what he so graciously does a good job at.

“I’m ready,” I pant out, holding his regard.

He doesn’t move.

“Reeve, please…” I must’ve given him too much confidence because two fingers are sinking deep into me, and I gasp into a slow moan. “Goddd…”

He acknowledges me by pumping into me faster, licking my clit, and circling the sensitive nub with the tip of his tongue.

My orgasm splits through me so quickly that I don’t get that waiting period before I’m soaring through space and time. Reeve doesn’t quit, forcing my climax to last longer. To keep going because he’s not done.

“Oh fuck .” Another tremor racks through my whole body, and I clench my thighs closed from the intensity of it, trapping Reeve’s head and bowing my back forward for another lick, another kiss or delve of his digits.

He rewards me with all of them until I’m a sack of wasted bones and collapsing back against the cushions.

When he finally does come up, Reeve clenches, snatching my tee and immediately heaving me back into him. Our mouths couple, and I can taste him and myself as he deepens the kiss.

“You good, baby?”

“Define good,” I quake, chest heaving heavily up and down, which receives me one of those famous Reeve smirks.

“I’ll take that as you’re doing fine.” His forehead presses into mine with that silly smile. “I think I might have a crush on you, McQueen.”

Damn, I think I might be too.

Or is that my orgasm still talking? I’m not sure.

But he really doesn’t look bad still on his knees between thighs with both his palms holding me there.

“You still can’t be coming to South Shore like you do,” I scold lightly.

“Then I might come at night.” He kisses me again. “Climb through your window.” Another kiss. “Maybe sink myself deep inside you.”

My pussy throbs at the thought of him fucking me for real this time.

Yo, I’ve never craved someone like I do him right this very instance.

Oh, God, fucking shoot me in the face right now.

“Stop teasing me, asshole,” I grind out, but it’s fake as hell. There’s no cloaking shit, feelings, wants, the desire of belonging to him, because Reeve Stanton would treat me like a queen, and I’d never know how to wear that crown right.

“Quit denying your starting to like me then, McQueen.” I open my mouth to tell him I’m not, but my self-preservation just stood in my way. “Sounds like you need some more softening.”

“I don’t.”

“You do,” he vouches softly, coming up to place with a lock of my hair. “I got all the time in the world. Besides…I need to make sure you have a good story to tell our kids.” My face must explode with several choice words floating through my brain because Reeve barks out in laughter. “It’d be a whole lot easier for you in the long run, baby. Don’t fight it.”