Page 72 of Dark and Dangerous

I should’ve let her stay and have fun with her friends, had Jonah drive her home. But I didn’t want our night to end. Ignoring her question, I quip, “You want to hear something funny?”

“Okay?”

“My grandpa’s name is Martin. Everyone calls him Marty. MartyPayne.”

Harlow’s quiet for so long, it forces my eyes to hers. “That’s not funny, Jace.”

“Ironic, then?” I offer with a shrug, then sigh. “I have to pick him up,” I tell her, not feeling the need to explain why. I try to calm mythoughts, my frustration. “Look, I still want to hang out with you if you still want to.”

“I do,” she says quickly, and I force a smile in her direction as we pull up at the general store’s door. Mae had mentioned that my grandpa was drunk, which is always the case these days, but usually he’s a quiet drunk. This time, he’s belligerent, yelling at people to clear out. There was no one there.

“I’m really sorry to do this,” I tell Harlow, motioning to the back of the van. “You mind going in the back?”

“No.” She unclips her belt and makes quick work of moving between the seats to the back. “And do me a favor?” I add, “Just… don’t make yourself known.”

“Okay.” I watch as she sits behind the passenger’s seat, her legs drawn to her chest, and I absolutely hate this for her. That she has tohidefrom him. Or maybe he’s the one I’m hiding from her.

Without another thought, I hop out and enter the store. Mae’s sitting behind the counter, watching movies on an old laptop. “I’m so sorry,” is the first thing I say.

“You don’t need to keep apologizing, Jace. It’s not your fault.” It’s not hers, either, I want to say, yet she’s the one constantly cleaning up his mess.

“Grandpa.” I shake his shoulder gently. “It’s Jace. You ready to go home?” No response, other than a groan. I lift him to his feet, put his arm around my shoulder. “You’re going to have to use your legs to walk out to my van. You think you can do that?”

For the absolute shit show my grandpa is, I give him this: hetries. Whenever I ask something of him,he tries, and it’s all I can ask for.

I help him outside, thanking Mae again as I do, and lead him to my van, where I open the door, set him down in the seat as carefully as possible. “We’ll get you home and into bed, okay?”

“Okay, Jace.”

He falls asleep in the time it takes for me to get from his door to mine, his quiet snore filling the cab. I reach behind his chair until I find Harlow’s shoulder. She grasps the tips of my fingers, kisses them gently,and that simple move, that simple touch, fills my lungs with air, reminds me of my purpose.

At home, I quickly get my grandpa into the house and into his bed, covers up, light on in the bathroom, door ajar, then I run back out, let Harlow out of the back of my van. “Sorry about that.” I grab her waist, helping her down. “Meet me at the back door. I’ll just make sure he hasn’t gotten back up before I let you in.”

“Okay.”

Grandpa’s still in his room when I re-enter the house, and I let Harlow in through the back, from the kitchen. The kitchen and upstairs are the only areas in the house that are clean, mainly because Grandpa doesn’t use them. He’d never make it up the stairs in his constant state, and he only enters the kitchen to grab beers from the fridge. Lately, he hasn’t even bothered to store them in there—just sets the entire case by his feet while he sits in his recliner.

I take Harlow’s hand and lead her upstairs to my bedroom, where I close the door after us, and lean against it. “Sorry,” I repeat.

“It’s fine, Jace,” she says, only it’s not.Not really. I shouldn’t have dragged her into my shit like this, let her into this part of my world. Into the darkness. “Is your grandpa okay?”

“Yeah. He’s out for the night.”

“Good.” She’s looking around my room now, mostly dark, lit up only by my computer’s screen saver. She flicks her attention from the dark walls, furniture, and bedding, to the half-built computers lying around, then to the video game consoles and controllers strewn about. I didn’t clean my room before she got here. I didn’t think I’d need to. “Huh,” she says, eyes trailing back to me. “You really are a nerd.”

“Geek,” I correct and sink down on the edge of my bed. I reach for her hand, pull her closer until she’s standing between my legs. “Now, you were saying something before we got rudely interrupted.”

She twists her lips, eying the ceiling. “I don’t recall.”

I pull her closer by her thighs. “Something about you showing me how turned on you were?”

“Oh.” She keeps her smile restrained, placing a knee on the bed on either side of me. I rest my hands on her back as she pushes forward aninch. She tilts her head, her mouth meeting mine, followed by her tongue, and when she moans into me, grinding her hips down, I lose control. I grab her ass with one hand, her hair in the other, tugging hard until she reveals her neck to me. There’s something about her neck that drives me wild—the way it forms when she bends it, giving me access to it. I pull on her sweater, beg against her skin, “Off.”

She does as I say, her hips still moving in tiny circles, and I can feel her warmth against my cock, feel her need against the back of my fingers when I touch her there. Sweater now gone, she’s in a low-cut top, and I kiss down her neck, to her chest, and she links her hands at my nape, arching her back for me. I get to her breast, just above her bra, and I glance up, questioning.

“Please,” Harlow whispers, and I bite down on her top just as a loudthudsounds from downstairs.

“Fuck.” I help her off me until she’s on her feet, adjusting her clothes while I adjust my erection. “You should probably go.”

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