Page 45 of Wicked Me
13
Sam
EVER SINCE PAIGE ANDRiley arrived home from their dinner together, Paige had barely said a word to anyone. She sat ramrod straight on the edge of the couch next to Riley while images from the news show flashed across her eyes. Where did she go inside that pretty head of hers? Probably to earlier when she lay spread out on the island in the kitchen like a feast sent from heaven. If I could crawl inside her head and join her, I would.
I could see the tension coiled tight inside her in her balled-up fists, the way her lips parted so she could saw her teeth across them, her chest pushing against her black dress, the hot one according to my dick-knuckle brother, and her heavy breaths. Yeah, pretty sure I made an impression.
I grinned into the pages of my book that I hadn’t read a single word from since they’d left. Her smooth skin, delicious curves, the way she threw her head back when I ripped off her thong had consumed my head. The musky, sweet smell of her was still on my fingers, which rushed lust-filled thoughts from my brain down south into a constant, painful reminder of her.
And what she’d said before, all that about not being a good person... I didn’t know where that came from, but I wanted to know more. I wanted her to prove to me shewasn’ta good person. Naked. Doing very, very bad things.
When the sports part of the nightly news started, Paige stood and stretched up on her silver-painted toes. Her calves flexed. I tried not to stare but did a damn poor job of it.
“Well, it’s been fun, everyone, but I need to get to sleep,” she announced. Her usually sexy, relaxed voice sounded strained, even with the glass of white wine she’d downed right when they got home.
“Yeah, me too. Long day tomorrow.” Riley turned off the television and chucked the remote toward the far side of the living room at my head.
I easily dodged it. It smashed into one of his baseball trophies on the bookshelf behind my armchair.
Paige frowned at Riley and shook her head as she went to the kitchen with her empty wine glass.
“Nice one,” I said to Riley and smiled. “No wonder you didn’t make it to the big leagues.”
He stood, glaring like he always did, and swayed on his feet. Jesus, was he drunk?
“Watch it, SamRam. At least I didn’t go to jail for assault and battery.”
The smile fell from my face as I gripped the arms of the chair to keep myself from swinging at him. Paige walked back into the living room. Without a glance at either of us, she went upstairs. Had she heard the jackass’s slip?
“How about you don’t mention that again?” I warned through gritted teeth.
Riley leaned down toward me, his beer breath strong enough to gross even me out. “Afraid Paige will find out, are we? I saw you looking at her.” His gaze was dark, lethal.
I pushed my fury to the side long enough to laugh in his face. What was he trying to do, intimidate me? “I look at a lot of people. Doesn’t mean anything.” I pushed him in the chest. Hard.
He stumbled backward, the stupid drunk. He almost didn’t catch himself in time before he took a dive into the corner of the coffee table. Four empty bottles of beer tipped over when he bumped into it. I’d been so focused on Paige, I hadn’t even noticed he drank that much.
“A word of advice, though? Why don’t you lay off the beer. Nobody likes the drunk at the party.” I stood and patted his cheek to help him sober up. Also because he hated it. “Actually, nobody likesyouat the party.”
“If you touch her, I’ll tell her everything about you. About how Hill cleared your name for the assault. About dealing drugs for him. Everything.”
“And the pictures with the prostitute and your dick in her hands?” I leveled him with a warning look since he should know better. “Are you going to tell her about that, too?”
The fucker always liked to spin things away from him and any responsibility he had in the whole Hill situation. He was the one who left the fucking laptop with all his shit on it right out in the openbeforehe’d wiped the incriminating pictures off of it. A real genius political consultant at work, ladies and gentlemen.
The police found the pictures the night I went to jail, and Hill had said he would make those disappear, too. He must really have his hands deep inside the pockets of the D.C.P.D. But instead of making them vanish, he used the pictures as blackmail against our family if we didn’t pay Rose’s debt off. He hadn’t exactly given us much of a choice.
“Do it, then. Tell her,” I continued. “I’m sure she’d be very interested to hearallof it.”
He nodded, slow and deliberate, as if he’d just cracked a riddle. “That’s why you’re around all the time, isn’t it? Is she already fucking you like the whores you’re used to?”
My fingers dug into my palms with the rage that sped through my veins. Oh, that fucking fuck didn’t just say that. He’d just downgraded his childhood friend to skank, but Paige was the furthest thing from a whore. He had to know that already, which meant he was just trying to get a reaction out of me. Testing me.
I stepped back. “There’s no fucking of any kind. She’s not my type. She doesn’t do anything for me. I’m here because I live here. End of story.”
“That better be the end of the story.”
I shook my head at the ceiling because that comeback was going in the record books under Most Pathetic. “Go to bed.”
