Arranged love

“Run along,” Grave announces to the guy and his friends, still holding my hips. He hasn’t seen my face yet. He has no idea who I am.

“You can have her, man. A deaf bitch is useless. No fun when they can’t take orders.” The man laughs at me.

I open my mouth to give him a piece of my mind, but Grave pushes me to the side, my side hitting the bar. Then I see Titan walk up to stand next to Grave. Neither one of them looks at me as they advance on the man and his friends.

“What did you say?” Titan asks.

A shiver of fear runs up my spine. I almost forgot what his voice sounded like. Powerful is an understatement. The Kings ruled everything they touched. If their words didn’t get the job done, then their fists did.

“You know what I mean, man.” Mr. Blue Eyes laughs, and his friends follow.

“Enlighten me.” Titan lifts his chin.

“How is a man supposed to be in charge if a woman can’t hear our commands.” He spells it out.

“That’s what I thought you meant.” Titan speaks and looks at Grave. He starts laughing, and Grave follows suit.

Then without warning, the laughter stops, and Titan clocks Blue Eyes in the face, knocking him back into the other three guys he walked over here with. Like dominos.

Shit!

Then they’re dragging him through the crowd of people and to a back door that reads exit above it. I turn to face the bar, and the bartender places a shot in front of me. “I didn’t order that.”

“Titan did. And don’t worry, he paid your bill.” He slides the cash I put down back toward me.ConTEent bel0ngs to Nôv(e)lD/rama(.)Org .

Just fucking great!

I pick it up as he walks away and inspect it. Never drink anything given to you by a stranger. My mom’s words remind me. Titan isn’t a stranger, but that also doesn’t make it any safer. The guy could have poured acid in it for all I know. They were mean in high school, and college wasn’t any different.

Pure. Fucking. Evil.

The older they got, the more power they wielded.

The Kings ran the school, and the staff and their parents had their backs no matter what. They threw their weight around like fucking bulls in a china shop. Titan, Bones, and Cross all played baseball for the school. The staff kissed their asses because they could hit a fucking ball. The school wanted recognition, so they let them have their way. It always went badly.

And as for my mother? What does she know?

She left my dad, and for all I know, it was for his sleazy best friend and business partner.

“What the hell.” I throw back the shot and slam the glass down on the bar. “Thanks,” I mumble as he takes it away.

I pull my cell out of my pocket and check my messages. I have one from George. But he totally avoided my last message.

Motherfucker: Meet me in my office when you get home.

His office? He’s taken over everything. Including my life. My freedom. He’s going to use me for as long as my mother is alive.

I went to an attorney a couple of days ago, and he told me I needed twenty thousand for him to even look at my case. A retainer he had said. And I think George knows that I can’t afford legal help at the moment. He has me cornered in every situation. Now I’ve got fucking nothing since my card doesn’t work.

A girl bumps into my shoulder, and I delete the messages and put my cell away. I make my way back to the bathroom. I was gonna leave when I saw Titan and Grave were here, but now that they left, I might as well stay. Knowing what’s waiting for me at home, I can’t return unless I’m drunk. The fifty dollars I have in my purse should do the trick. I use the restroom and dry my hands off and then pull out my cell when it vibrates in my pocket. I’m expecting it to be another text from George, but it’s not.

Jasmine: Not gonna make it. Something came up. Find a stranger and let him fuck you raw.

I sigh at my friend’s message, then put my phone away and exit the bathroom. The blinding lights and music are giving me a headache, so I walk past the bar and out the exit. I’ll go somewhere else. A hole in the wall where no one knows me. Making my way to the back of the parking lot I come to a stop when I see my front tire is flat.

Looking up at the dark sky, I silently curse this fucking planet for my string of bad luck lately.

“You know if you get hurt, Bones is gonna kill you.”

I tense at the mention of Bones. I whip around to see Titan and Grave walking in the parking lot.

What did they do with those guys?

“Hey, Titan. It’s that girl over there.” I hear Grave call out, and I’m thankful he didn’t recognize me.

I never hung out at Bones’s father’s house. He came to mine to fuck me, and that was that. We didn’t date. We were both very aware of our situation. He wanted to get his dick sucked, and I fell to my knees every chance we had. The kids feared him. High school and college. He never showed any emotion over anything. His only love was baseball. He was gonna go pro until he didn’t. That day was a very bad day. For the both of us.

Titan says nothing. Why isn’t he calling me out?

“What’s she just doing standing there?” Grave asks him. “Let’s go find out.” He removes his hands from his pocket and lifts them up in the air, walking up to me.

“What the fuck are you doing, man?” Titan asks, sounding irritated.

“I’m showing her I have no weapons,” Grave says. “Don’t want her to think I’m gonna attack her or anything.”

Oh, Dear Lord! He really thinks I’m deaf.

Titan stops before me and looks at me expectantly. He knows I can hear, but he’s not gonna say it. He’s waiting to see how long I can play this game.

I narrow my eyes on him and cross my arms over my chest.

I go to open my mouth, but Grave speaks. “Fuck, her tire is flat!”

Titan looks at me. “Have a spare?” he asks me.

Like he would fix it anyway. I shake my head.

Grave smiles. “She can read lips.”

Titan snorts.

“She could ride with us,” Grave offers.

I go to open my mouth to say hell no, but the words die on my lips when an evil smile spreads across Titan’s face.

He looks the same as he did in college but also different. His blue eyes darker, his jaw even more defined. The black wing tattoo around his neck moves as he swallows. He wears a black V-neck shirt, and a pair of black Aviators hang off the collar. He runs his tongue over his perfectly white teeth as his eyes look me up and down like he wants to eat me alive.

He and I never got along in school. He treated women like they were disposable. He went through them like most girls go through underwear. And his senior year in high school, their English teacher got fired. The rumor was he fucked her in the back seat of her car on school property, and her husband caught them. Of course she was the only one that was punished for their sexual activities.

“Yeah.” He finally speaks and gives me a nod as he rubs his finger over his bottom lip. “We’ll give her a ride.”

The way his deep voice says ride, I think he means the kind that involves me naked and him on top of me. My heart begins to pound in my chest, and I take a step back from them.

Grave rolls his eyes. “You’re scaring her.”

Titan stares down at me, his arms still crossed over his chest and that snake of a smile on his face. “Am I scaring you?”

I narrow my eyes on his.

“I’ll go get the car. You stay here with her,” Grave announces and then walks away.

Titan steps up to me.

“Don’t …”

“Look who found her voice,” he muses.

“Shut up, Titan.” I snap, pulling my cell out of my pocket and dial Jasmine’s number. It rings once, twice. Three times. I pull it from my ear, and he snatches it from my hand. “Hey …”

His smile just widens. “So you do remember me.”

Like I could forget. “Give me my phone back.” I order reaching out for it.

He places it in the front pocket of his jeans. “Drop to your knees.”

“Excuse me?” I blink.

His dark blue eyes look me up and down, and the corners of his lips turn up like he knows a secret. And he does. Several of them about me. “Drop to your knees and I’ll give it back to you.”

My blood boils at his words. “Fuck you!”

He steps into me, pressing my back into my door, and I gasp in surprise. I thought he was big, but his hard chest presses into mine, and I have to tilt my head back to look him in the eyes. Even with my heels on, this man towers over me. I always liked that about him. He’s the tallest of all the Kings.

The scent of his cologne hits my nose, and I hate how much I like it. It brings back old memories that I want to drown in, but I make myself stay here in the present. The light pole I parked under casts a shadow over his chiseled face, making it glow like a ghost from my past.

“We came close that one time.” His eyes go to my chest, and I know he can feel my heart pound against his. He reaches up and runs his knuckles over my neck. His skull ring burns the skin, making me shiver. “So fucking close. It was the only time I could actually tolerate you.”

“Titan.” I swallow, trying to calm my nerves.

“Yeah, Em?” he asks as his eyes roam my face.

A fucking whimper comes out when he calls me by my old nickname. Then my breath quickens when he places his hands on my face, caging me in.