Chapter 19

nineteen

HENDRIX

Assault, my asshole.

Did I beat Ethan's ass? Yes.

Did I kill him? No. I doubted he even had to go to the hospital.

Luckily, there was no proof it was me, and with our history with Barrington pricks, one person's word didn't count for much.

I broke through the double-doored entrance, Wolf's truck waiting right outside the police station. I hauled my ass inside and slammed the door as rage burned through me. Oh, that little shitstain was about to pay for this by way of one incinerated, piss-yellow Camaro.

I glanced across the console as Wolf pulled away from the station. "I need to go get gas."

"Already went by the 7-11. Filled up a canister, did a little digging, and found out the cameras they have at the pumps are fakes." He glanced away when he turned onto the highway. "Which means there's no footage of you smashing Ethan's face."

Good friends always have your back. But… "How did you know I was brought in about the Barrington dick and not any of the other ten million things we could get arrested for?"

"I saw the Barrington police car pull out of the parking lot from the lunchroom. Plus, Brown came and got Lola right after you left."

My heart rate ticked up.

That idiot had actually tried to use Lola—the chick he had referred to as "my girl," the one I beat the shit out of him over—as a witness.

No way he was that stupid, and whatever ulterior motive he had, it wasn't going to fly with me. Mess with me all he wanted, try to screw with her…I settled back in the seat. "Might need two tanks, Wolf."

Fifteen minutes later, some sick-ass rap blasted from Wolf's speakers while I flicked the flint of a lighter. I was amped up, more than ready to set that cocksucker's car on fire. He thought he had some balls to report me; I'd roast his nuts on an open thirty-thousand-dollar fire.

The speed of the truck slowed just before I noticed the massive plume of black smoke rising above the treetops.

When we rounded the curve of the highway, and the Barrington High parking lot came into view, Wolf let off the accelerator. "Holy shit."

One of the cars in the parking lot was on fire. A piss-stain yellow one.

"Looks like someone beat you to it." Wolf hummed the tune to "Lola" as a firetruck whizzed past, sirens blaring.

He was right.

The only person who would do some crap like that outside of me, him, Bellamy, or Zepp, was Lola. She had this Harley Quinn vibe about her, and the Joker side of my personality thrived on it.

If I hadn't been in love with her since I was four, that incinerated Camaro sure as hell would have sent me hurtling my stupid ass off lover's leap. I'd always had her back. She'd always had mine. And wasn't that the entire point of being in love with someone? Trusting them. Knowing they were your ride-or-die…even if they screwed up.

Wolf continued down the highway toward Dayton's city limits, and I spent that entire ride imagining Lola dousing a tank of gas on Ethan's ugly sportscar, then tossing a match to it. All because that Barrington dickhead had tried to get me arrested. My dick couldn't have been harder if I'd popped ten Viagra.

Wolf hadn't come to a complete stop in my drive before I was opening the door and trying to climb out with a hard-on from hell.

He cocked a brow when I turned around. "You're going in there to fuck her, aren't you?"

"It's the only real way to say thank you in the case of arson, Wolf." Then I slammed the door and jogged toward the house.

He could call me a hypocritical fuck for ten weeks straight because the nut I was about to bust would be worth it.

As soon as I stepped inside, the clang of water running through the old pipes greeted me.

My attention went straight to the closed bathroom door. The image of her naked, arsonist body had me climbing the steps two at a time and snatching a condom from my bedroom.

Fuck boundaries and fuck her lines.She wanted lines. She damn well knew better than to set fire to Ethan-Fuckface-Taylor's car.

I shoved open the door just as a very naked Lola put one leg over the edge of the old, porcelain tub. I got an eyeful of tits and trimmed pussy before she yanked the plastic shower curtain in front of her. Like I hadn't had my cock and face buried in it a few days ago…

"What the hell, Hendrix?"

I shut the bathroom door. "You set fire to his car?"

"Yeah, I fucking did." Her jaw set. "Asshole."

That was all I needed.

I pointed the condom packet at her. "Fuck your lines, Lola Stevens." I was going to fuck the absolute shit out of her until she wouldn't be able to sit down without remembering exactly why us being just friends would never work out.

I got into the shower, fully clothed, then grabbed her jaw and shoved her back against the tile while hot water drenched my clothes. "You know what fire does to me."

I searched her eyes for the slightest bit of hesitation, and when I didn't find it, I slammed my lips over hers. Hard. Her body went limp in my hold.

"Oh, you know." I kissed her deeper, nipping at her lip as I plastered myself against her. "But just friends, right?"

"Yes," she breathed, her hands gripping my shoulders. "Friends…"

I slipped my hand between her legs, skimming a finger over her wet pussy. "That's sure as hell not what this feels like."

Her teeth skimmed my lips on a moan. "No, it doesn't." Then her hands slipped underneath my shirt, peeling the wet material over my head before she reached for my belt. "We should stop."

"Yeah." I sunk my fingers inside her pussy, then groaned because, damn, she was wet. "We should. Shouldn't we?"

On a gasp, Lola shoved my soaked jeans and boxers down. "In a minute. Just…" Then she grabbed my ass, hooking her leg around my hip and putting her bare pussy too close to my cock. "A minute."

A minute? No fucking way. "How about five?" I ripped the foil and rolled the condom over my cock.

Her nails raked over my wet back when I bent just enough to place the head of my dick at her warm, slick entrance. "How much harm can you do in five minutes?" she breathed against my lips.

"A fucking lot." Then I slammed into her. And, fuck me, at the groan her tight heat forced up my throat. My teeth sank into her shoulder on another muffled grunt when I went just that much farther.

She felt so damn good. Physically. Mentally.

"Why the fuck does your pussy feel so good?" I gripped her hips when I hit the end of her, took one deep breath, then fucked her like I could put her through the tile.

The slap of wet skin against skin bounced off the shower walls, mixing with her jilted moans.

Lola clutched at me, nails threatening to break skin while her lips brushed my throat. "Harder."

I almost lost it. I wasn't sure it was possible to fuck her harder, but I sure as hell tried. I buried myself so deep her breath caught.

"Shit…" Her pussy squeezed me tight before her body relaxed on a sexy-as-hell, make-my-dick-want-to-come moan.

I held that need in, focusing on the grout stain on the wall until she was shaking and clinging to me, then I came on a groan.

I'd barely caught my breath by the time she slipped away from me. "That can't happen again," she said, snatching the shampoo bottle from the rusted, wire caddy.

Like hell, it wouldn't. "Third time's a charm, though."

"Third time's a habit." She dumped shampoo into her palm. "And this is not going to be a habit."

But wasn't that what any addict said?

When I walked into the kitchen the next morning, Lola stood in front of the counter, her back to the doorway as she pushed up on tiptoes to rummage through the cabinets.My gaze trailed from her bare legs to the blond pigtails hanging down her back.Part of me wondered if she'd braided her hair with the sole intent to mess with me. She knew I had a thing for pigtails on her. Then again, I had a thing for anything on her.

She took the SpongeBob mug, startling when she turned around. "Shit, Hendrix." She placed a palm over her heart. "Don't creep up on me."

"Creeper is as a creeper does…" I mumbled as I moved around her to grab a bowl from the cabinet while she made her coffee.

The old cat clock on the wall ticked, filling the silence.

I'd just opened the fridge and grabbed the milk when she sighed.

"What are you going to do about Ethan?"

"Well, I was going to set his car on fire, but since that's already been handled..." I dumped Coco Puffs into the bowl, put the milk back, and took a seat at the kitchen table. "Nothing."

She sat across from me and lifted her mug to her mouth with a subtle smirk. "How very rational of you."

Rational? Not exactly. I just had limited options that wouldn't end up with me back in jail.

"Why the hell would Ethan give the police my name?"

I hadn't moved past the fact that he was a rich idiot. "What did they ask you?"

"They just wanted a statement. Apparently, you caught me banging Ethan and got ‘ragey.'" She placed her mug onto the table, swiping at a trickle of coffee running down the side. "I refrained from explaining that, according to you, if he fucked me, he'd be dead."

"My words were actually a corpse… and yes, he would be." Honestly, he was lucky he wasn't. And based on the fact that he had the balls to lie and say he screwed her, I wasn't writing that off as a possibility just yet.

I spooned several large helpings of cereal into my mouth, trying to figure out what Ethan's agenda really was. "If that piece of shit comes into your work, you'd better call me."

"He's not going to do anything to me in a busy restaurant."

"I don't want him anywhere near you."

We stared at each other for a few seconds before she sighed. "What are we doing, Hendrix?"

Being the same possessive, crazy people we'd always been with one another.

When I didn't answer, she pushed to her feet and took her mug to the sink. "You shouldn't get murderous over friends ."

"I shouldn't fuck friends in the shower…."

She flipped on the faucet. "That was a one-time thing."

I dropped my spoon against my empty bowl with a clink. "Why are you so hellbent on this friend's thing?"

"Because I hurt you!" She whipped around, a torn expression on her face. "And whatever you think you want right now, you haven't thought it through. You haven't forgiven me—"

I shoved out of the chair with a screech of wood over linoleum. "You don't know what the fuck I've done." Honestly, I thought I may have forgiven her more than I'd forgiven myself. Which was messed up.

We stood on opposite sides of the kitchen in a silent draw.

"Anything outside of friends means uncorking a bottle of shit neither of us is ready to deal with," she said.

Like that bottle hadn't been opened the first time I had finger fucked her in the restroom, or when I had buried myself balls deep in her on my bed and then again in the shower… Let her move into my house.

"Hate to tell you," I grabbed my bowl from the table and moved past her to dump it into the sink. "Shit's already been uncorked."

A horn blared from the driveway, and Lola's attention snapped toward the front of the house. "I can't give you what you want, Hendrix. I'm sorry. I really do want to be friends." She pushed away from the counter, tears building in her eyes. "I've missed you," she said before ducking into the living room.

The line she'd carved on the treehouse wall flipped through my head like a tattered movie reel. Seeing those words a few weeks ago had pissed me off because she had no right to miss me, not when she was the reason we had split up. I doubted she'd gone through the emotional shitstorm I had—the betrayal, the fucking heartache. I miss you, too, seemed like a swift kick in the balls. It felt too insincere and selfish.

And it still did.

The dying embers of anger over the situation fanned back to life.

I stormed through the living room after her, tired of playing these stupid games. Tired of hurting and hating myself over her. "Too bad. You missing me and trying to be my friend isn't good enough for me, Lola."

She grabbed her backpack from the bottom step and shouldered it before stopping by the front door. "Please, Hendrix." Her voice wavered, and the desperate look in her eyes damn near broke me. It was regret and hope, devastation all mixed into one. "Let it go."

What the hell had I missed? "What are you not telling me?"

The horn blared from the drive again. "Nothing," she whispered, then opened the front door and left.

Nothing? That was a damn lie.