Page 7 of Bound By Temptation

If I grabbed her and fucked her against the wall, would anyone here stop me? Would she let me? Fuck.

She came to the glass case I’d moved to and started stacking boxes along with the coffees. There was no way in hell I’d be able to carry all of it at once. Which was fine. It was why I drove the Tahoe and not my bike.

The register beeped as she added up my total, still polite, but distant.

“That’s ninety-two twenty-six,” she said looking up expectantly.

“No family discount, huh?” I teased, trying to get a rise out of her. Just something. Anything but that voided mask.

That apparently was the wrong thing to say because her face fell.

No more smiling Indie. No, this was the enraged lit Indie who had a strong bite. She was two sides of a coin, just depended on what end came up once it was flipped. She could be nice as a kitten one moment, and in the next a fierce panther ready to claw your eyes out. I loved them both. Missed them both.

And since I was one of the lucky ones to piss her off, the panther was ready to attack, and I was ready for her bite. It was a craving that hit hard. If she’d just give me a snippet, I’d take it.

“Cash?” she asked instead of responding to me or commenting, but I could hear the bite in her tone.

I grabbed my wallet and pulled out two hundred-dollar bills, handing them to her. She did what she always did. Cashed it out without a word and put the rest in the tip jar. So what if I way overpaid to make sure her tip jar wasn’t light. She shared with her employees, and I wanted to make sure she was taken care of.

This dance started when the place opened, and I came in. She wanted to give me change, and I told her I was just putting it in the tip jar, and she should do the same. After a month of going back and forth with it, she finally gave up, putting whatever change leftover in the jar.

I felt it was a win on my end.

If anyone else checked me out, they did the same thing as Indie.

“I’ll get Marley to help you.”

This gesture was a surprise. I’d thought for sure she’d want to see me drop the five large coffees and burn myself to shit in retaliation.

She stepped around the corner and called out for her brother who came from behind the glass.

“Can you help him to his car please?” Indie asked him.

“He should just make a few trips,” Marley growled as he saw it was me needing the help. Yeah, no love lost there. That was what happened when you broke someone’s baby sister’s heart irrevocably.

He lifted the boxes and waited for me to get the coffees in the little cardboard carrying case.

“Thanks, man. I appreciate it.” I turned to Indie. “Thanks.” She said nothing, just nodded.

What I wouldn’t give for her beautiful smile to smile for me, at me, or something with me once again.

Marley was … well, Marley. True to his name, he was high as a kite most of the time. On what exactly, I didn’t know, but probably weed. Longer hair in the back brushed his shoulders. It was the beard I didn’t understand.

It was long and bushy, but he tied it in a ponytail right at the base of his chin. At first, I thought it was because he worked here and was trying to keep hair out of the food. Then I’d seen him out exactly the same way. To each their own.

Marley held the door open as I walked through and led him to the Tahoe.

“You know she’s never going to take you back, right?” Marley stated as I bleeped the locks and carefully opened the passenger side door. This was a bit out of the blue. He hadn’t said anything to me about his sister in years. Then again, our time together was very limited, and he’d never been given a face to face opportunity like this.

Indie set me up wide for this one. Couldn’t blame her, though.

“You come in every morning flashin’ all that cash like some biker big shot. Givin’ more than you should just to what, buy her? That shit doesn’t work on her. She’s not for fuckin’ sale. You should already know this,” he continued, standing next to the passenger side door.

I set the coffees down on the floorboard in a way they wouldn’t tip over, then reached for the boxes. “Who said I wanted to start shit up with her?” Because I knew no one had. That bridge burned and was ash that was swept away with the wind. Nothing but time rewinding back to high school and different choices made would allow her to want anything to do with me, besides my money for her baked stuff. Since I couldn’t change time, I had to deal with the fallout.

“Because a blind man could see right through you. How you look at her now like she’s your last meal and you’re a starving man. Like she’s everything you always wanted—the sun, moon, and fucking stars. Well, let me tell you that meal is dead and gone to you. You’re a pitch black sky with no rays of light. She fuckin’ hates your ass.”

She did. I knew it down to my shattered soul. And as much as I didn’t want to care, that I didn’t want it to bother me, it did and it pissed me off. She had been under my skin since the time we first saw each other in high school. Never had she made her way out. At this rate, she never would. She was an unseen tattoo carved into my soul that I felt every time I’d thought about her.

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