Page 277 of Tis the Season to be Bullied

My intentions had been pure, too. I wasn’t even thinking about sex. All I wanted was to get Jess somewhere quiet.

Because I was worried about her.

Why was I worried about her? She’d gotten trashed before. We both had. But something was wrong that night. Something?—

“You don’t want your face to get stuck like that.”

I glance at Indi, no idea what to say because my thoughts scatter away like marbles on a mirrored floor.

Her eyebrows draw together. “You okay?”

I hurriedly look back at the road. I had too many tokes on that joint—I feel woozy and lazy and fucking crazy.

And I’m rhyming. That can’t be a good sign.

I eventually get out a far from reassuring, “Sure.”

Don’t look at her. Those hypnotic eyes. That expressive mouth. Keep your eyes on the goddamn road.

“You really don’t remember anything?”

Just like Addy, with the constant questions, the nagging, non-fucking-stop. I’ve told her more than I’ve told anyone except Marcus, and she still wants more?

“Drop it,” I snap.

I catch her flinching from the corner of my eye, but I bite back the apology brimming on my lips. I’ve done months’s worth of thinking and theorizing on this shit. I’m not gonna keep giving myself grief over it.

It’s over.

Whatever happened, happened.

If there’s still some karmic debt for me to pay, then I’ll pay when the universe is good and ready for me.

Indi licks her lips, and I narrow my eyes as if that will somehow diminish my peripheral vision. It doesn’t. If anything, it intensifies it. She sits back in her seat, and I can clearly see her breasts pushing against her shirt.

God, I can so vividly recall every curve of her body gleaming with water. How her back arched and the sound she made when she rubbed herself out on the rim of the bath.

I shift, tugging at my slacks as my dick starts hardening.

I should just have fucked her back there in Addy’s yard. Would have been done with all these thoughts, done with her filling every inch of my mind,donewith losing control.

My hands tighten on the steering wheel.

Thoughts blur through my mind.

There’s a camping spot a few miles ahead, if I take the next turn off. I can strip Indi naked, shove her in the backseat of my car, and fuck her till I’m done and finished with her.

Till she’s begging me to stop.

Did Jessica beg for me to stop? Did she scream?

I should remember something like that, right? How could I not remember that?

My hand dips down to the indicator, but before I can signal to turn, my phone vibrates in my console. One glance is enough to see the short message on my lock screen.

$250,000.

My heart stops for a second, and then slams against my ribs like a wild animal trying to get out.

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