Page 8 of House Rules
The Titans are dangerous.
I try to push the gossip out of my head as I return to my station, but I just can’t shake the feeling that I just had a near miss with a grave mistake.
Con was so rough with that waitress. What if he was rougher with others? What if he did it on purpose? Or maybe they wanted to talk, to press charges, so the Titans just shut them up.
I push those thoughts away again. I have no proof anyone is even missing.
A single thought will not leave me be, though.
If the missing girls started just like me—how long before I disappear too?
3
Conrad
I’ve donemy level best to avoid her these past few years, still haunted by that one taste I had of her years ago. She’s all grown up now, and my first glimpse of her panicked, beautiful eyes had enough impact to just about set me on my ass.
I always thought her pretty, but she’s past the awkward teenager stage and well into heartbreaker territory now. Those amber eyes have deep, dark depths, depths I want to dive into, and any man who doesn’t look at that honeyed hair and picture it messy from sex is not a man.
Opening the door a crack, I watch her run down the hall, pushing a maid’s cart and disappearing around a corner. For a second, I consider followingher, grabbing her, putting her against the wall—right there in the hallway—and taking her hard and fast.
I don’t, but it’s not because I don’t want to. I really want to. I curb the impulse, though, because it’s too easy. I don’t want easy.
The waitress I came up here with, whatever her name was…she was easy. She was also uninteresting, unenthusiastic, and unaffected by what she begged for.
Phoenix wasn’t unaffected. In spite of the way she ran, she still wants me.
I run the finger I had buried deep in her pussy over my lips, sucking the last of her juices from my fingers. Her come is sweet and tangy, and I want more. I want to drink her pleasure straight from the source.
The only problem is, I’m not the only Titan who wants her. All of us, at one point or another, wanted her for himself. I don’t think any of us has ever fully shaken the schoolboy crushes we had on her.
But me…I was in love with her.
Something about Phoenix was different from the other women we always had chasing and fawning over us. We never felt the urge to treat her the way we did the others, without care or consideration. As an object. Phoenix Jones wasn’t calibrated for that.
Or at least…we didn’t feel that way in the beginning. Now? I don’t know what I feel for Phoenix. Everything is all kinds of twisted up where she’s concerned, my love for her entwined with anger and bitterness and hurt I’ve tried my damnedest to banish over the years.
We were all infatuated with her long before we became the Titans. As far back as middle school, when we were all just a group of gangly kids passing time at their parents’ workplace, we were fascinated by Phoenix Jones.
For a brief while, she was fascinated by us. Or me, at any rate. Then it all imploded in a teary break-up fit for the Lifetime channel.
“I can’t do this, Con.”
“Can’t do what?” I tried to tug her toward the bed we had made love in the night before and woken up in this morning. She pulled free of me, turning away and reaching for her shirt.
“This…” She gestured around the room, her expression panicked. “All of this. You. Me. Did you know I’ve been getting notes in my locker? Messages in my phone…all of them telling me I’m a slut. I’m a whore, and I’m not good enough. And…”
I watched in horror as her lip quivered. “Phoenix…you have to ignore that stuff. It’s just some jealous girl; it’s bullshit?—”
“No.” She shouts the word and then holds a palm up, visibly calming herself. “No,” she repeats, quieter now. “It’s not bullshit. They’re right. My dad’s a deadbeat, I’m a nothing, and this…this thing between us is going nowhere.”
“Phoenix, don’t do this.” I didn’t understand what was happening. I just knew I was losing her and couldn’t stop it.
Dressed now, she walked toward the door. “It’s what’s best.”
She doesn’t look back as the door closes behind her with a soft snick of sound.
As far as reasons to break up with someone were concerned, I thought hers was lame. I tried cornering her a couple of times and demanding something better, but Phoenix managed to avoid me for the remainder of that year. I went on to college that fall and did my level best to forget about her.
