Rebel Soul: (Rebel Series Book 1) ((Rebel Series)) (4 page)

I squinted again, trying to get a closer look. Chris was…average looking. Brown hair, average face, average build. Nothing about him stood out except maybe his clothes. He didn’t dress like the guys from around here. Guys from Parry Sound wore blue jeans, plaid shirts, and camo. Chris was dressed in DC from head to toe.

I wrinkled my nose. “No, not my thing.” I couldn’t help but think of Brock. I searched the crowd, finally spotting him standing with Braden, taking slow sips of his beer while they inspected the new tires Peter O’Connor had put on his 1976 Bronco.

“Is
anyone
ever your thing?” Elle sighed, her voice pulling my gaze away from Brock’s tall form. She rolled her eyes at me and smirked; she’d caught exactly where I’d been looking. Before I could respond, Elle was nudging me again. She pointed to the back of Ezra’s truck, where Krista and Joanna were trying to climb up. Ezra took pity on their level of intoxication and helped them up, shaking his head ruefully. It was common knowledge that Ezra had a thing for Krista. It was definitely evident in the way his hand lingered on the back pocket of her shorts for a fraction of a second too long.

I remained beside Elle on the log, watching as Krista and Joanna danced in the bed of Ezra’s truck. They were belting out the lyrics to Florida Georgia Line’s “Sippin on Fire”, completely off key. Guys were hooting, acting like they were Nashville stars. Elle and I looked at one another and exploded into a fit of giggles.

Then “Somethin’ Bad” by Miranda Lambert and Carrie Underwood came on, and Elle’s laugh faded away. She gave me a knowing look before she grabbed a hold of my hand and yanked me up. “Oh hell no, Elle!” I told her, laughing harder while I shook my head. I was smiling so much that my cheeks actually hurt.

“Yes, hell yes,” Elle corrected, waving a finger at me with a devilish grin. “This is our song, and we’re actually pretty good at singing it,” she pointed out with a wink. I knew that Elle was drunk, and I was pretty gone myself. I knew that I was having fun and I didn’t want to stop, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t fishing for some attention from a certain dark and mysterious guy who evoked strange sensations in the pit of my belly. I caught Brock’s eye as I followed Elle towards the truck. The way he looked at me set me on fire. It was so intense I had to turn away, suddenly regretting my decision to follow Elle.

It was too late to back out now; Elle wouldn’t hear of it even if I wanted to. Krista and Joanna helped pull us up. “Don’t you dare change that, Braden!” Elle shouted, seeing Braden moving towards the speakers. He stopped, raising his beer in surrender, a smirk upon his lips.

Elle threw her arm around my shoulders and gave me an encouraging wink before she started to sing. Elle and I were quite good at singing; we could carry a tune and harmonize together after years of singing into hair brushes in her bedroom during sleepovers. I joined in confidently, along with Krista and Joanna on my left. I had no idea what we sounded like with them, but I didn’t care. Everyone else was having a blast, singing along and grinning like they were at an actual concert, not at some bush party with a bunch of drunk girls.

And Brock’s eyes. They were fixed on me the entire time, a gentle smile playing on those thick lips. His eyes made my heart rate accelerate and the butterflies take flight. Even when I closed my eyes, I could still feel the heat of his gaze.

We couldn’t even finish singing the song before the four of us dissolved in a fit of laughter. I suddenly had to pee something fierce, and I needed a moment away from those eyes before I did something I’d undoubtedly regret in the morning. “I need to pee,” I told Elle, squeezing her arm. “Come with me!”

“Oh, but I really love this song!” Elle pouted. I shrugged, unconcerned and climbed down off the back of the truck. I lacked grace, but at least I didn’t stumble and eat dirt. I wandered towards the bush and walked a little ways into the thicket, safe from any eyes that happened to look in my direction. Not that they’d see me anyway; it was pitch black.

I’d been peeing outside since I was a little kid; I had gotten the art down to perfection. I finished my business quickly and hiked my jeans up, buttoning them with clumsy fingers. I almost giggled, I was drunker than I thought.

The sound of twigs breaking beneath heavy footfalls made me freeze.

“Oh don’t pull those up just yet, sweet cheeks,” the disembodied voice said, making my blood run cold. I swallowed hard.

“Who is that? Braden…it’s not funny. Don’t even play.” I folded my arms across my chest, trying to keep myself from trembling.

The voice laughed, and the figure stepped forward. The little bit of light that came from the fire in the clearing was almost enough to make out his features. It was the guy that had been standing across from the fire, watching me. Ezra’s cousin, Chris.

Dread washed over me, and my skin erupted in goose bumps as he spoke.

“I’m clearly not Braden.”

“You’re also clearly not funny,” I retorted, my voice sounding strong to my ears. This situation had me desperately wishing I wasn’t drunk.

“I’m not trying to be funny,” Chris said, stepping towards me. I didn’t like how he was leering. I didn’t like the way his tongue darted out and licked across his lips, as if he was hungry and I was food.

“Leave me alone,” I ordered, about to whirl around and head back to the group. His arm shot out and grabbed my wrist painfully hard.

“Come on, don’t be a cock tease. I saw the way you were looking at me. You want it.” His breath smelled like whiskey and cigarettes. Chris was obviously three sheets to the wind.

“I definitely don’t,” I assured him, trying to wrench my wrist from his grip. He sneered, squeezing tighter and twisting. He yanked me towards him, and I collided with his chest. My head knocked against his chin and he swore before the back of his free hand struck my cheek with a staggering force. I stumbled, seeing stars. I tried to shove him away, but his hands were on me again, grabbing my body and trying to touch me in places I didn’t want to be touched.

“Stop!” I tried to shout before his clammy hand clamped over my mouth, silencing my protests.

Tears blurred my vision and I panicked. My brothers and my father had all made sure to teach me a few basic self-defense moves, but it was an entirely different thing to apply what I learned when I was thirteen now that I was in a situation like this. I couldn’t recall anything, but I refused to be compliant and still. I thrashed about, trying to elbow and knee in places, trying to make enough noise that someone at the fire would hear me. But the music was too loud, people were talking and we were too far away. I had a terrible feeling that no one would come.

Chris had my body pressed against the nearest tree, pinning me to it.

In a matter of seconds, he had unbuttoned my jeans and was trying to force his hand down between my legs. I squeezed with all my might, trying to keep his intrusive fingers away. I couldn’t speak with his hand clamped over my mouth, but I kept trying to scream. My voice came out in muffled whimpers. I could barely see through the tears, and I tried to shake my head and plead with him to stop. Chris laughed darkly, shoving my head back so it hit the trunk of the tree. I bit my tongue, and instantly a metallic taste filled my mouth; I knew it had to be the taste of my own blood.

Just before the hopeless desperation welled over me, I heard a sinister growling sound that made the hair on the nape of my neck stand up. All I could do was watch as a huge dog darted from the clearing and latched on to Chris’s leg. Brock’s dog.

Chris released me, swearing as he tried to free his leg from the dog’s mouth. He kicked at it with his free foot, but the dog didn’t seem to feel the impact at all. He was relentlessly shaking the limb he had. The effort of trying to kick the dog had Chris falling to the ground, but the dog didn’t loosen its hold.

My hands gripped into the bark of the tree I was still leaning against and I desperately fought to keep myself from completely collapsing. I knew I should run, but my limbs wouldn’t work.

Brock

As the hours passed, the party grew, more and more people appeared in my little clearing. The fire grew, the noise level grew, and my patience shrank.

I’d been back in town for a week, and this was my first “public appearance”. It had been a long time since I was surrounded by so many people, and I can’t say that I was comfortable about it. I was on edge, and I couldn’t tell if something was actually off about tonight, or if Tessa Armstrong had just thrown me for a loop.

After our brief conversation by her truck, I’d watched as she returned to the fire and her friends and struggled to make sense of whatever the hell happened to me back there.

The last time I was around Tessa Armstrong, she was eleven and definitely
not
the young woman who’d stood before me, amber eyes wide with want. Tessa had always been a pretty girl, but now she was stunning…now, I was attracted to her. It took everything I had to not walk up to her and kiss those smart lips until she melted into me. During our conversation, I found myself wanting to know exactly what sounds she’d make when pleasured.

And no good things could come from that. I knew the Armstrong clan enough to know that they wouldn’t let me anywhere near Tessa. Hell, they wouldn’t have let me near her before the label of ex-convict befell my shoulders. I knew this with utmost sincerity: if any of her brothers knew that Tessa was in the same place as me, they’d be here to drag her home.

I needed to keep my distance.

Still, my eyes betrayed me. Time and time again, they’d float over to the fire pit just to catch a glimpse, almost like I was already addicted to the sight of her. After a while, she seemed to relax and even started to have a little fun with her best friend, my brother’s girlfriend. I turned to watch her laugh, the way she tossed her head back, her slender throat just begging to be ravished.

What the hell
? I shook my head, trying to clear away the overtly sexual thoughts about my former best friend’s little sister from my mind.

“You know, it’s not a bad thing,” my brother remarked, leaning against a parked Bronco. He took a slow sip of his beer, his eyes fixed on my face. Braden looked a lot like I had at his age. Lean, mischievous, that
I-don’t-give-a-fuck
attitude I used to wear like armor. He had our mom’s thin lips and we both shared the Miller characteristics of dark hair, chiseled features, and a fighter’s personality.

“What?” I gave Braden a warning look, hoping it would convey that he’d better
not
go where I thought he was going to go.

Braden’s lips perked up in defiance, and I knew the little shit knew. He just didn’t care. His eyes flickered to the fire, to where Elle and Tessa were sitting. “Tessa. It’s not a bad thing. She’s actually really cool.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “I’m not interested.” My tone booked no room for argument, and anybody else would have backed slowly away and let it be. Not Braden though; he liked to get under my skin about shit like this. His eyes came back to focus on me. They were glassy from the eight beers he’d downed.

“Yes you are. You’d be fucking nuts
not
to be. Half the guys around here wish they could land Tessa. She’s picky though, really fucking picky. And her brothers don’t exactly make things easy.” One of his friends walked by, and Braden’s face lit up with humor. “Fuck, you should have
seen
what they did to Ezra. Eh, Ezra!” Braden gripped his buddy on the shoulder, buckling over and using his grip to keep himself from falling completely forward.

Ezra looked from me to Braden, confusion lining his face. “What?”

“When you fucked Tessa!” Braden laughed, still buckled over with laughter. A swell of jealousy unlike anything I’d experienced before almost consumed me, and I had to work extra hard to keep my face indifferent.

Ezra frowned, irritated that he was bringing it up. “Fuck off,” he muttered, shrugging off Braden’s hand. He continued walking over to his truck, shaking his head and sending a dark look over his shoulder.

“Fuck, all three of them showed up to give him a ‘talking to’. He ended up with a black eye and I think he pissed himself!”

It was
really
difficult to keep the smile from teasing up the corners of my lips at the mental image Braden painted, but it became easier when my thoughts focused on the fact that
Ezra
had fucked Tessa.

Jealousy wasn’t something I was accustomed to, especially jealousy to this extent, over a
girl
. Well, a woman now, but still. I didn’t do jealousy.

Braden straightened up, wiping at his eyes a little to rid the moisture. He
actually
cried he was laughing so hard. “I don’t think that’d be a problem for you though,” he remarked, eyeing me warily. “You’re fucking jacked.”

I exhaled deeply. “I’m not into Tessa,” I said, forcing each of my words to drive a point into Braden that I sincerely hoped he’d pick up.

“Whatever. Some other chick then. I highly doubt Alberta work camps are plentiful in the pootie tang department. I know jail sure as fuck wasn’t.”

I stiffened at the mention of jail, and for the first time that night, Braden looked almost apologetic. He cleared his throat and took another swig of his beer. “I’m just saying, go get balls deep in some chick. I think it’d help you lighten the fuck up,” Braden added, letting his hand drop with the empty beer. He avoided my gaze like the plague, focusing on the first person he saw nearby. “Yo, Peter! Come over here for a minute!”

Peter O’Connor approached, frowning when he saw Braden’s boot was positioned against his tailgate. “Boots off, man. I just got that painted!”

“Yeah, yeah. Sorry.” Braden waved away Peter’s concern, dropping his foot. “Brock was just admiring the Bronco. He wanted to know what kind of work you’ve put into it.”

I didn’t let the surprise I felt show. I kept my mask of indifference on and looked at Peter, who seemed to cower slightly before me. It was the common reaction I got since arriving home a week ago. He swallowed hard and started rambling about all the time and money he put into the aging Bronco.

Normally, engine talk captured my attention. I loved vehicles and the mechanics of how they worked, but my mind was still cloudy with all the shit my brother had said, and with the fact that the last time I saw Braden and his friends, they were far too young to drive, let alone understand how to restore vehicles like the Bronco.

I felt old and out of place. Twenty-four isn’t really old by any stretch, but I guess when you go through the things that I went through…it ages you. I had definitely changed
a lot
since the last time I was here, and maybe Braden was right. Maybe I
did
need to get laid. It had been a long fucking time since I felt a woman beneath me.

I exhaled, nodding every now and then to keep up the ruse of listening to Peter and Braden as they talked shop. I brought my lukewarm beer to my lips again, still feeling incredibly out of place among these people. My brother’s friends, people I’d known but not personally. I missed my old friends, my old life. I almost missed the person I was before everything happened, but you can’t go back. I could never go back to the person I was seven years ago; too many fucked up things had happened since then.

After my dad died when I was in grade nine, I went a little wild. I rebelled and it was an incredible feeling of freedom, having that man that I hated with every fiber of my body dead and gone. I was free of the guilt of leaving my siblings in that house. I went through a time where I drank
a lot
at parties just like this one. I had fun, and I enjoyed the attention that was lavished on me from the opposite sex. I used to hook up with willing girls and not care if they developed feelings. All I wanted was to experience the freedom I never had when my old man was around.

When I wasn’t partying it up with my friends or getting my old shitty Ford stuck in a mud bog, I spent
a lot
of time at the Armstrong’s farm. I think Gordon’s dad took pity on me and put me to work just to try and keep me, and Gordon, out of trouble. Whatever the reason for hiring me, I was grateful. It was because of that job that I was able to earn enough money working on his farm to sign up for my first rodeo tour competition.

I left town the second I had the cash to enter the rodeo tour for bull riding when I was seventeen. I’d always been damn good at bull riding. Nothing came close to the feeling of staying on when the beast was working its hardest to buck you off. The money was decent, good enough to send back to my mom and still have a little left over for myself. I traveled with the Ontario Rodeo Association for a year and a half before the arrest.

Even before the arrest, I’d drifted away from my friends. That’s what happens when you move on and pursue different interests; when you aren’t forced to see each other often around town. When your interests grow from partying and drinking and girls to something more. That was what happened when you stopped running in the same circle.

Gordon and Grady were still in Parry Sound. I had no clue what Gordon was up to; I’d yet to run into him, but Grady had his own wood milling company and Travis was a top charting country singer, based out of Nashville and currently on tour.

“Don’t get too shitfaced, Braden. We need to be up early tomorrow,” I told my brother, frowning as he cracked open his ninth beer. I needed him level headed and awake. Braden rolled his eyes at me.

“Yes,
Dad
. I’m aware we have to be up early tomorrow,” he grumbled. I clenched my jaw, irritated at my brother. I hated when he called me Dad, even though growing up I had filled those shoes to the best of my ability for him. It was still a fucking insult.

“Don’t be a dick,” I shot back, my gaze drawn again to the fire and the beautiful blonde sitting before it. I forced myself to stop staring and instead looked down at my feet, where my dog was lying. Hunter’s body language alarmed me. His head was raised and he was focused on the small cluster of guys hanging out by the bed of Ezra’s truck.

Hunter had always been wary of strangers due to his rough start, but he seemed particularly fixated on one guy in particular. He wasn’t from around here. With a town as small as Parry Sound, everyone knew everyone else and I definitely didn’t know him. He looked like a cidiot, the slang term my friends used to describe someone that was obviously from the city and most likely an idiot. He was dressed in DC from head to toe. He had a faux hawk and what I could see of his arms were covered in the kind of shitty tattoos you’d expect to get in someone’s basement.

I didn’t like the vibe he gave off, or the way that he loudly complained about the music selection on more than one occasion since arriving an hour ago. He was boastful, loud, and cocky as hell. I didn’t trust him and it was evident that Hunter didn’t trust him either.

I especially didn’t like the way he was staring at Tessa.  I didn’t like the greasy way his gaze alternated from watching the two girls shaking their asses to Florida Georgia Line to staring at Tessa.

“Braden,” I said lowly, stepping closer towards my brother. “Who’s the walking DC advertisement?”

Braden lifted his head, following my gaze. “I don’t fucking know. He came with someone, I think.”

“I don’t like him,” I muttered darkly, my brow furrowing.

Braden laughed. “You don’t like anybody,” he pointed out, shrugging off my concerns. I opened my mouth and promptly closed it when I saw Elle leading Tessa over to Ezra’s truck. DC guy’s eyes followed her as she climbed into the back beside the other two drunk girls.

A Miranda Lambert and Carrie Underwood duet came on, one I hadn’t heard before, and Elle instantly started to sing. She was at least better than the two tone-deaf girls beside her.

Tessa hesitated for several long minutes, her eyes searching the crowd for a moment until they found me. I felt my lips turning up in the tiniest hint of a smile when those amber eyes landed on me. She smiled wider in response and joined in.

And shit…she wasn’t half bad. Her voice was melodious and the way that her eyelids fluttered closed, her thick lashes resting on her soft cheeks took my breath away. It was as if the music was flowing through her, and it was the most erotic thing I’d ever witnessed. My jeans started to feel extremely uncomfortable. It took everything I had in me to pry my eyes away from her, but not before Braden noticed.