Dirty Little Secret (Dirty #1)

Dirty Little Secrets

By Amber Rides

Copyright 2014, Amber Rideau

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof
may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever
without the express written permission of the publisher
except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

CUTTER

My week
was like a sandwich.  Not a good one, either.  More like someone took a perfectly delicious piece of meat, shoved it between two pieces of shit, and then made me eat it.

Typically
, I spent five days a week, ten hours a day hauling lumber for shitty pay, on an even shittier rotating schedule that messed with my sleep and generally put me in a bad mood.  I spent a sixth day doing my eight hours a week of court-mandated community service.  I won’t bother getting into that shit now.  It’s a long, boring sob story for another time.  The seventh day was dedicated to fantasizing about freedom, girls, and beer.  Although not necessarily in that order.

This
particular week, though…It started with a bang.  Two if you counted the sudden, startling one that came knocking on my door a few hours before I had to be at work.

“Who the fuck is that?” I muttered.

I could count on one hand the people who knew where I lived.  Only two of them would come by unannounced.  My probation officer, or the cop who had the hate-filled hard on for me.  I couldn’t ignore either.  Of course, that didn’t mean I had to like it.  Or even be nice about it.

I jumped up from my bed without
preamble and fixed a scowl on my face.

When I flung the door open, I was surprised to see that i
t wasn’t either of them. 

It was my ex, Brandy.  In a fucking raincoat.

“What the hell?”

The words were barely out of my mouth before she pushed a hooker-red, painted-nail hand into my chest.  She wore the perfume that used to be my favourite.  I couldn’t even remember what it was called, but i
ts cloying scent was all around, making me want to throw up my toast.

“How did you find me?”

“I didn’t know you were hiding.”

“Only from you.”

Let me offer some quick insight here, on my full-on hatred of the woman standing in front of me.

She was a card-carrying bitch. 
She had mean and petty down to a science.  If that’s not enough…There’s this.

For three
years, we dated.  She kept a toothbrush on my sink.  I bought her a ring.  Oh.  She fucked my best friend, for most of those three years.  So I lit his house on fire.  Then she started keeping her toothbrush on his – somewhat charred – sink.

At that moment, though, she seemed to have forgotten all of it.  Except for the bitch part, of course.

“You’re pretty, baby,” she purred. “But not that smart. And therefore not that hard to find.”

“And that’s why I spend my days haul
ing around large pieces of wood while you spend yours…What do you do again for money? Right. You seduce rich assholes.”

She tapped my chest
and winked. “And
not
rich assholes, apparently.”

“Fuck you. Didn’t you get a restraining order against me?”

“I did. A few times…The last of them expired last week. I’m assuming you’re not going to try to light me on fire again.”

“Not today,” I agreed. “Besides. I wasn’t after
you
. You weren’t worth the time. It was that two-faced sonofabitch who needed to burn. What do you want?”

“I want
you, honey.”

I didn’t let my surprise register on my face.
“Not that I can blame you…But for fuck’s sake, why? Billy give you herpes? That’s what you get for sucking off a gigolo.”

She didn’t take the bait.  Or the hint.

“I mean it, hon. I
need
you.”

“Sorry, Brandy. You’re two
years and one friend-dick too late.”

She smiled a thin-lipped smile. “You look good, Mr. Lane. That
is
what you’re going by now, right?”

“It’s my legal name now, so yes, I
go
by it. And by the way,
you
look like shit, Brandy.”

She laughed, probably because she knew the second statement was a lie. 

One thing about my ex that’ll never change – she’ll always make an effort to look like a magazine ad.  Flawless, tanned skin.  Silky auburn hair.  A body that made her bullshit worth putting up with.  To a point, anyway.  She usually dressed like a supermodel, too.  Which brought me back to the raincoat.

“What’s with the get-up, Brandy?” I asked
mockingly. “Never took you for the P.I. type.”

“Anyone else home?” she breathed.

I looked around in as exaggerated a fashion as I could manage.  The studio-style suite was the size of a box.  My bed-slash-couch took up the majority of the room. 

“Don’t think so, Brandy,” I said.

“What about up there?” She jerked her head toward the narrow, fold-down ladder at the other end of the room.

Shit.

I was usually really good at remembering to put it away.

“Storage,” I muttered, then slapped on
a grin to distract her. “There
is
one more place to check, though. Just let me look under
here
.”

I bent down and pretended to look underneath the pull-out
couch, and yelped in a ridiculously unmanly way when one of Brandy’s hands found my ass.

“Jesus! What are you doing?”

I wheeled around to face her.  She dropped the raincoat to the floor.  She had nothing underneath but a lacy bra and matching thong.  She ran her hands up her own thighs and slipped a finger underneath the underwear.

“You just wanna watch, baby? Or you wanna join in?”

I hated the stupid bitch.  But I was also a complete asshole, and not an idiot.  When some willing, ten-out-of-ten, piece of ass presents itself, I’m gonna take it with barely a blink. 

“Gra
b a condom from the night stand,” I growled. “And turn around. I don’t want to see your face when I’m pity fucking you.”

It was only partly a lie.  I had no interest in seeing her face. 
Mostly though, I didn’t want her to catch sight of the blinking anklet secured just above my foot, either.  No need to bring that particular item into the mix.

It was over quickly, and
for a second I felt bad.  Then Brandy turned her head my way, and I felt disgusted instead.  I still pulled up my pants from around my ankles so she
wouldn’t
see the offending piece of equipment blinking its little green light.

“You want to cuddle?” she asked in a sickly sweet voice. “I know how you like that.”

In reply, I lit a cigarette – strictly a no-no for a reformed arsonist, particularly since my house arrest prohibits my use of fire - and collapsed on the bed.  Brandy eyed the exhale of smoke distastefully. 

Like I gave a shit what she thought. 
In fact, I’d quit, but it somehow seemed fitting that I use up one of the stale cigarettes left in the pack.  To commemorate the fucking moment.

“You
want to know
why
I like to cuddle, Brandy?” I asked, and blew a ring of smoke in her direction.

“Not really.”

“Too fucking bad. I’m telling you anyway.”

She flicked away a
piece of ash that landed on her stomach and shot me an annoyed look.

“It’ll give you something to listen to while you pull up your panties and put on your coat
,” I told her.

“Whatever,” she spat.

“In
tenth grade biology, we had a very enlightening teacher. Biggest fucking nerd you ever saw. He used to stand at the front of the class, pulling up his pants by their goddamned suspenders. One day he segregates us and sends the girls off to learn about tampons or some other, equally unappealing chick-stuff, then tells us he’s going to talk about sex. We all looked at his weird ear hair and flaring nostrils and wondered the same thing.  How is it possible that this man has ever had sex himself?  Or with anyone
but
himself?” I paused to light a second cigarette, and grinned as I recounted what happened next.

“Which part of coitu
s is the most important?” the teacher demanded in his nasally voice.

The soon-to-be drop-outs responded with a shitload of obnoxious comments.

“Which part isn’t important?” 

“Getting some!”

“Making sure she has huge tits!”

And the know-it-alls who thought they had the right answer added their two cents.

“The orgasm.”

“Telling her you love her.”

“Making sure you’re married first.”

The teacher shook his head. “You’re all wrong. The most important part of coitus is actually not the act itself. It’s what comes after.”

“A nap?” I called out.

The whole class laughed appreciatively at that one.

“No, Cutter. If you think you can roll over and take a nap after you’re done, your career as a sex god will end around the same time as your sexual peak. Roughly four years from today.”

This time, the whole class laughed at my expense.  I sat back in my chair, embarrassed at being called out by a man in suspenders.

“And I suppose you’d know that from experience,” I shot back.

The teacher grinned. “No, son. I’ve never been your particular brand of pretty.”

He turned around, reached into his briefcase, and yanked out a glossy photograph.  Then he tacked the photo to the wall behind his desk.  Cheers and catcalls met the display.  It was a picture of a very attractive woman, all black hair and gorgeous, kissable lips.  Oh, and she was in a bikini, splayed out on a bed with a come-fuck-me smile on her face and her finger crooked, just in case what she wanted wasn’t quite obvious enough.

“That, gentlemen, is what a good post-coitus cuddle earns you. A man like me can be married to a woman like that,” the teacher informed us.

“Right,” I scoffed. “Who? What man?”

“I just told you. Me.”

“No fucking way.”

The teacher let the F-bomb slide.  I’ve gotta
admit, I might’ve, too, if I were tapping the woman who came to the classroom door that very second. 

I was too busy picking up my own jaw off the floor to notice if everyone else was as stunned as I was.

She wasn’t just a woman
like
the one in the picture.  She was
the
woman from it.  In the flesh.  Or less in the flesh, depending on how you wanted to look at it. 

“David, my love,” she said. “You forgot your lunch at home.”

The teacher turned and shot us a wink.  The fucker had planned the whole thing, of course.

Then she
– his gorgeous
wife -
dropped a brown paper bag on his desk, glanced at the pornographic shot of herself, and left.  Like it was no big deal.  I personally remember staring at that damned lunch bag, wondering if it was full of PB&J, or if it was cherry-flavored lube and more nude photos.  I really fucking hoped it was the latter.

“And that, my dear,” I finished. “Is the
stupid-ass reason I never kick a woman out before copping a little post-coitus cuddle. So. You still interested?”

Brandy shot me a disgusted look, but didn’t make a move to leave. 
She really couldn’t take a hint.  I’d have to try harder.

“You want to explain this
?” I asked with a sigh.

“Explain what?”

I rolled my eyes. “Why you came to me for what you can probably get on any street corner.”

She trailed a finger up my chest. “I don’t know where
they’ve
been.”

“You don’t know where I’ve been, either,” I pointed out.

“Sometimes a girl just wants to come home.”

“That’s sweet, and I didn’t even have to cuddle you,” I said. “But two years is a long time.”

“How much trouble ca
n you have gotten into in two years?” she teased.

“About one piece of
trouble
per week. That’s fifty-two pieces of
trouble
in a year. Sixty, if you count the two bonus months. So a hundred and twenty, total. Just in case you needed help with the math.” 

I grabbed her finger,
which was now at my chin, and shoved it away.

“You’ve changed,
Mr. Lane
.”

I didn’t like the predatory glint in her eyes.

“It’s time for you to get your shit and get out,” I told her.

Brandy sat up. “Now?”

“Sorry. You’re a little past your expiry date.” I rolled over and closed my eyes. “I’ve got stuff to take care of. And I need a nap.”

End of slice one of my shit sandwich.  Insert the meat.