Greetings from Sugartown (6 page)

“Stop it. Please?”

I do it again, and almost earn a knee to the nut-sack. “Careful, baby. If you want me to fuck your brains out you’re going to need those things intact.”

“Who said anything about you fucking my brains out?”

“I did.”

She steels her expression and jerks her knee towards me. She’s just playing, but my immediate reaction is to flinch, which in turn makes her laugh.

“Right, that’s it,” I say, and take no prisoners. I pin her down with my lower half, and tickle the shit out of her ribs. She screams and jerks, and carries on like a pork chop. “Say you’re sorry.”

“No,” she says between fits of laughter.

“Say it.”

“No.”

“Say I’m the best, and you wanna worship at my feet, and wash my clothes, and suck my cock till I paint your pretty face with come.”

“Oh my God, you’re a freak.” Ana says, between peals of laughter.

“Take it back, and say you love me.”

“No.” She slaps at my chest in an effort to shoo me away and winds up elbowing me in the face when I tickle her again. “Gah. Stop it.”

“Say it, Ana.”

“Fine. I love you.”

“Say you love me forever, and you’ll never leave.” I smother her face in kisses.

“But what if I meet the man of my dreams at the diner and want to run off with him?” Her eyes sparkle with playfulness.

“Don’t even fucking joke about that shit. It’s not funny.”

“Oh, you thought you were it for me, huh? Sorry. I’m just holding out till I find the next best thing.”

“Take it back, or I’ll fuck you til we’re both raw.”

“Yeah.” She smiles, and it’s flirty and full of challenge. It makes me want to spank her. Hard. “Not really a deterrent.”

“Fuck it. Alright, Miss Holding Out For Something Better, how’s this: take it back, or I’ll never make you come with my mouth again.”

“Please. Like you’d last a day without doing that? We both know you love it as much as I do.”

“God damn it, woman, I’m trying to win here, and you’re bruising my ego.”

“You’ll be right, Squirt.” She mocks me, and ruffles my hair.

“No. I won’t,” I say in all seriousness and bring her hands to my lips. She lets me kiss them, and then she rests one against my cheek.

“I wouldn’t either.”

“Sometimes I think you’d be just fine without me, baby girl.” Her brow creases, and she shifts beneath me. I come up on my knees so I’m no longer pinning her legs, and then flop back down on my side of the couch.

“Why would you say that?”

“What, that you’d be okay without me? Because it’s true. A beautiful woman like you could have any man you want.”

She snorts.

“I’m serious.”

“Then I want you,” she says and straddles me, settling her weight down in my lap. She links her arms behind my shoulders and toys with the hair at the back of my neck. Ana grinds her arse against my crotch, and my dick goes electric. That fucker is humming louder than her Magic Wand, and it wants out of my jeans, yesterday.

“Good.” I thrust my hips upward and sink my fingers into the soft flesh of her arse, slamming her down on me. I love how we fit together, even fully clothed. “’Cause I’m never giving you up.”

“Then we don’t need to be having this conversation.”

“There’s one thing we do need to talk about, though.”

“Oh, really?” She kisses my lips, my cheeks, and runs her tongue across my stubbled jaw to my ear lobe. “What’s that?”

“What happened today with Nicole?”

She halts her gyrating, and lets out an angry sigh. “Really? We’re going to talk about her right now?”

“No, we’re going to talk about your behaviour.”

“What, are you my dad?”

“Ana.” I warn.

“It just … it makes me crazy when I see you with her.”

“Yeah, I kinda got that. The question is why?”

She laughs, humourlessly. “You’re kidding right?”

“I know there’s history; I’m not talking about that.”

“Right. I forgot we don’t talk about your fuck-ups,” she says, and climbs off me. Picking up our empty glasses of wine, she heads to the kitchen. I follow close behind. This is one conversation I’m not letting her walk away from. “Just mine.”

“Ana …”

“I don’t wanna talk about it, Elijah. Can’t we just put it behind us and move on?”

“You know that’s not ever going to happen again, right? You know I’d never do anything to hurt you.”

She freezes before she reaches the sink, her back facing me when she says, “Else.”

“What?” I frown, confused.

“Anything else. You’d never do anything
else
to hurt me.”

“Baby girl.” I pinch the bridge of my nose, and let out a deep breath. “I was hurting.”

“Oh, and I wasn’t?” She sets the glasses down in the sink. Leaning against the bench, she turns to face me.

“I just—I fucked up. I made a fucking mistake. I was hurting, and I was angry. I couldn’t afford to go back to jail by punching some fucker in the head, which is where you talking to Cooper was taking me.”

“So that makes it okay?”

“No! Of course it doesn’t fucking make it okay. If I could go back and erase the whole thing I would. I’d fix this so that you never had a reason to doubt me again, but I can’t.”

“And I can’t ever un-see it, or un-hear the way she moaned, or the way your voice sounded when you came with your cock inside her.”

“Ana—”

“I don’t want you talking to her again.”

“I didn’t seek her out. She came to deliver a pizza, for Christ’s sake. I glare up at the ceiling, lacing my fingers behind my neck, and wishing we were past this already. “You have got to let this go. I’m not interested in Nicole, and you need to learn to trust me.” I step closer to her, but she holds up her hands to signal me to stop. “I realise I made it hard for that to happen. It was my fault, that’s on me, but baby, if this is going to work you have got to get the fuck over it.”

“Alright then, how ‘bout we take a break? I go and screw some guy you hate in the men’s room at the Sugartown Hotel, and you can walk in on the two us. Then you can see how awkward that is—”

“Don’t even fucking joke about that shit.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” she says, and then throws the dishcloth at the sink. “I’m going to bed.”

“Come on, Ana.” I stand in front of her, attempting to take her in my arms, but she shirks away, and motions for me to give her space.

“Just … I need to be alone right now.”

She walks from the room and I stare after her, dumbfounded, wondering how the hell that escalated so quickly. I open the fridge for another beer, shoving containers of leftovers aside in order to find one last stubbie. I wind up empty-handed. I slam the fucker closed in a fit of rage, and slump back against the cold metal. It’s not the lack of beer that’s pissing me off right now. It’s that maybe we’re not ready for the rock and the vows. We can’t even have a simple conversation without it blowing up into World War Fucking Three.

D
O YOU
ever have those moments where you just wanna punch someone in the face? I don’t mean figuratively. I mean, a time when you wanna rear back and smack the shit out of his nose? Maybe I’ve been hanging around Holly too long, but damn it, Elijah makes me furious sometimes.

I know, he’s trying, and I love him for that. I really do. But it doesn’t stop me feeling stabby when I think about Nicole. The funny thing is, three weeks ago we were blissfully happy, and Nicole was a thing of the past. Out of sight, out of mind. But when I see them together, or I think of what I walked into in that bathroom, the rage builds within me. The walls go up so I can’t get hurt again. And the worst part is, I can feel it happening. I can feel myself freaking out and causing a rift between us, and I can’t stop it.

After our argument, I went to bed and lay awake until Elijah came in sometime around two am. He tossed and turned, and then, without a word, he pulled me into the crook of his arm so he could sleep. Ever since we got back together, that’s how we’ve slept. Like he has to touch me, even when he’s unconscious. At first it drove me mad. Despite being naked, he’s a hot sleeper, and so I’d wake in the middle of the night and try and push him off me, which meant he’d wake and try to pull me back in. After a while it just became easier to put up with it, and now I’m not sure I could sleep any other way.

Warm, all-encompassing arms aside, my heart still hurt, and I still lay awake all night while Elijah snored in my ear.

“Okay, you really need to start talking, lady, because this is the third time today I’ve caught you moping around the shop while you glare across the street at your man. What the hell is going on with you two?” Kristine pulls me from my gloomy thoughts. I only hired her a three months ago, but already I love her like she’s part of the family. She and Holly get on like cheese and crackers, which is rare for Hols, because she’s something of an acquired taste. Kristine’s a gorgeous blonde, just a few years older than us, who doesn’t look a day over twenty-two. Her obsession with lipstick might border on insanity, but she can totally pull it off. I’d look like a freaking Muppet if I tried to wear the bright pink she’s sporting now.

I shrug. “I don’t know.”

“Bullshit.” She fake coughs, and I smile over at her and shake my head.

“We’re just going through a rough patch right now.”
Were we, though?
I mean, we were doing fine, great even, before Tramp Stamp came strutting back into town. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”

“Nothing, huh?”

The bell above the door jingles as Holly comes strutting through it. “What up, bitches?” She’s not oblivious to the paying customers, but she doesn’t give a crap either. That’s my best friend for you.

“Nothing,” I mumble, and collect the half-empty coffee pot from the dispenser. I pour myself a cup, and mope some more.

“Oh, hell no,” Holly says, and then she turns to Kristine. “How long has she been like this?”

“Since I came in this morning.”

“Hey, I’m standing right here.”

“Good. Then you’ll be able to feel it when I bitch-slap your pretty little face. What the fuck is going on with you two?”

“Nothing, we’re just—”

“Going through a rough patch?” they both finish for me.

“It’s not a big deal.”

“Oh, honey, that’s where you’re wrong. See, when team Fingergate is okay, everything in the world is just fine and dandy. But when you guys are fighting, or God forbid, on a freaking break, the whole world is thrown into chaos.”

“It’s true,” Kristine says.

“That is not true.”

“Mm-hmm.” Kristine shoots Holly a surreptitious glance.

“I expect this kind of thing from her,” I point at Holly, “but Kristine, I’m disappointed in you.”

“Suck it up, princess. You’re just trying to shift focus because you know we’re right.”

“You know what you need?” Holly asks.

“No, but I can’t wait to hear it,” I deadpan.

“We need a girl’s night out with our old friend, Mr Smirnoff.”

“And this is going to fix my relationship problems how?”

“Who cares about your relationship problems? Jack’s driving me fucking crazy, and I could do with a night away where I don’t feel like throttling him.”

“Well then, I’m so glad my problems with my man will save you from strangling yours,” I mutter, and then I give in, because I know there is no other option here. “When and where are we doing this thing?”

“Tonight. Sugartown pub. Be there or be totally unawesome, bitches.”

“Fine. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to drown my sorrows in a tub of Cookie Cream Commotion.” I collect my things from beneath the counter and trudge my glum little butt toward the door. I fish through my handbag as I step out onto the street. I’m not watching where I’m going, and I feel like a complete spaz when my face slams into a giant wall of muscle. Strong hands reach out to steady me and stop me from toppling.

“God, I am so sorry.” I say, staring up into bright blue eyes.

“It’s fine.” The guy releases my shoulders and finally looks down at me. It takes me a second to realise he’s the guy that was in here yesterday, the same one that left the twenty-dollar tip.

“Hey, you were here yesterday.”

“No. You must have me confused with someone else.”

“I never forget a good tipper, since we don’t often see them in our neck of the woods.” I smile up at him, but he averts his gaze and glances nervously over his shoulder. “Are you visiting someone in town, or just passing through?”

“Just passing through. Excuse me, I gotta go”

“You don’t want pie?”

“No,” he says, and scurries off down Main Street.

Well, that was weird
. I glance across the road. Elijah’s standing out the front of Bob’s, his shoulders tight with anger, his arms crossed in front of his massive chest. He looks pissed.
Good
. I return his steely gaze for a moment and then scurry over to my scooter, buckling up my helmet beneath my chin, and taking off for home without another glance in his direction.