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“Think they’ll show?”
“Hell yeah. Crystal bitch was horny as fuck. Bitch practically rode me in the champagne room. Could fucking smell her pussy. She was dripping for it.”
“Cool. Cool.” I light up a cigarette, pull back the dingy curtain, and peer out the motel window for the millionth time in the past fifteen minutes.
“Bro, what the fuck is up with you? Acting like you about to lose your virginity or some shit.” Viking gives me a hard look.
“Just keyed up. Excitement of fucking finding her. Sooner we get this over with sooner we get back to Charleston.”
“Bullshit. Saw you staring at her picture like a lovesick puppy. I know you, man. You want in there. You fuck her before or after you tell her why she’s here I don’t care but let me get mine with that Crystal bitch before you blow our night all to shit with the heavy.”
I snort. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll tell her tomorrow over breakfast.”
“Good. Now stop acting like a school girl waiting for her crush to pick her up for a movie date. Fucking making me all jittery and shit too with all of your fidgeting.”
None of my brothers know who Hazel is to me. That she’s mine. Always has been.
The one I had to let go.
Never thought the day would come I’d get the chance to hold her again. Feel the beat of her heart beneath my palm. Whenever I think about the past we shared, it cuts like a knife. I bled myself dry and sold my soul to give her a sweet life. Gave her everything I had to give and to see this is where she’s ended up is completely fucked up.
Headlights flash in the parking lot. Must be them. I put out my cigarette and go to the bathroom to do a quick rinse with some mouthwash. No one wants to kiss an ashtray.
I’m on my third gargle when I hear the knock. I spit and rinse.
“Who’s ready to par-tay?” Crystal says, dropping her purse on the table that sits by the window. She hasn’t changed out of that red bikini. Just put a jean jacket and cut offs over it.
Hazel enters behind her wearing a gray zip-up style hoodie and black leggings looking like she’s ready to do anything but party. Free of the heavy makeup she wore in the club her natural beauty radiates. Now I see her clearly. My Honey Bee. She doesn’t need all that gunk on her face. Her dark hair, streaked with highlights is styled in a ponytail. I want to wrap it around my fist and give it a good yank as I kiss her. Her caramel eyes focus on me. Her pink lips tip into a smile, hiding the mole on her cheek in the groove. All that pole dancing keeps her in good shape. She’s got banging curves. Thick hips, toned stomach, natural double D breasts I’m eager to get reacquainted with.
“You got any music or what?” Crystal goes to the side of the room Viking’s claimed and is kicked back on the bed. She drops her ass to his lap, hooking her arms around his neck. They go at it hot and heavy. Bitch is about to swallow his damn tongue.
I study Hazel trying to get a read on her as she returns my gaze. Her lashes flutter over her eyes with an edge of shyness now that she’s no longer in the sexually charged atmosphere of the club.
“You want to go have a drink down by the pool with me?”
Blush sets in on her cheeks. “Yeah, I don’t think they’ll notice.”
I look back at Viking to see her friend practically dry humping his dick.
I grab the six pack of ponies and the extra key card. I have no plans of fucking Hazel. I don’t know whether to be offended or thankful she hasn’t recognized me. I need to know what led her down this path. To know that it wasn’t all in vain. The beatings. The fire. My years in juvie. My life without her.
We can’t go back and change the past I know, but I never wanted this for her. Taking her clothes off for money. Hooking up with strange men at cheap motels.
I pull out a chair at one of the tables. “Sit.”
“Thanks,” she mutters, and I hand her one of the beers after popping the cap off. She takes a swig, and her face softens in satisfaction.
“Long night?”
“Something like that.”
“You enjoy it?”
“What? Dancing?”
“Yeah.” I take a seat across from her and pop the cap off my own beer forgetting I just rinsed with mouthwash. The two flavors mixing nearly takes me out. I gag and spit it out.
Hazel snickers. “Something wrong with your beer?”
I cough and punch my chest. Shit is brutal. Like toothpaste and orange juice. “Nah. I’m good. You didn’t answer my question.”
“Stripping, right. I mean it wasn’t my childhood dream to grow up and take my clothes off for horny men, but shit happens.” She shrugs.
“What was? The dream that is.”
“Promise not to laugh?”
“Biker’s honor.”
“Is that a thing?”
“No, but I give you my word.”
“I didn’t have any family growing up. That’s all I’ve ever really wanted. The white picket fence. A doting husband who works while I stay home raising the kids and cooking his dinner. Like one of those vintage sitcoms from the fifties or whatever.” She shakes her head. “It’s stupid. I know that.”
There’s the girl I knew. I lick my lips wanting nothing more than to kiss her. “Not dumb at all. It’s sweet, but gotta tell ya, babe. Be a rare thing to meet a man wanting to give you that at a strip club.”
“I never said it’s what I want now.”
“Fair enough. What do you want?”
She unzips her hoodie, revealing nothing beneath it but her bare skinned beauty. “To go for a swim. You game?”
“Little chilly for that don’t ya think?”
“Don’t be a wuss puss. Besides, the water’s heated.”
“I take it you’ve been here before.”
“I dated the manager’s son. She likes me.” She stands up and kicks off her shoes before dropping her pants to reveal hot pink cotton panties with the word FLIRT in black bold print. “You coming?”
No but I will be if I don’t get away from her.
“Why not?” I down the rest of my beer hoping to erase the taste of mouthwash.
Hazel doesn’t hesitate to dive on in. When she comes up for air her tits bob in the water taunting me.
I hang my cut over the back of the chair with care. I undress quickly and Hazel shrieks while covering her eyes at the sight of my cock.
I strut to the edge of the pool and drop in off the side. Hazel swims away from me, but I go under and grab her feet, yanking her toward me. Her legs wrap around my waist, breasts smashed to my chest, arms around my neck. The moon shines bright on a cloudless night. Low hums of the sleeping city provide our soundtrack.
Out here just the two of us is like existing in a dream world of what might have been had I found her sooner or had I never left.
“What’s your name?”
“Holy.”
“No.” Her beer flavored breath fans over my lips. “Your real name.”
“What’s yours? I doubt it’s Honey.”
“It’s like that, huh.” She moves in like she might kiss me on huh.
I have two choices to make here. Come clean with the truth or continue the lie and take what I want. My dick votes option number two. Hazel can hate me for it later. Wrapping her ponytail in my fist, I draw her in, claiming her sweet lips.
Intoxicating and sinful, I feel like I’ve stolen the key to the Garden of Eden. I probe the seam of her velvety lips with my tongue demanding entrance, needing so much more. A million emotions and memories slam into me as I deepen the kiss. Heart hammering in my chest I explore all the parts of her that I never knew. The white-hot flame of desire consumes me. I burn and ache to be inside her. To confess all my sins and pray she’ll still want me. Will she see me as friend, enemy, or lover?
Grazing my bottom lip with her teeth she nips me then pulls away much too soon for my liking, but I let her go. Leaning my elbows on the edge of the pool I watch her swim, gilding under the water like a fish remembering all the times we snuck out in the middle of the night to swim in one of the neighbor’s pools. I taught Hazel to swim. Does she remember?
I close my eyes remembering how she’d beg me to do handstands and to compete to see which of us could hold our breath the longest. In those moments we are allowed to be kids. We were free.
“Promise me forever,” the soft plea plays in my head on a loop.
“Forever and ever,” I’d reply every time.
I broke my promise.
I’d do it all again if it brought us to here every time.
My Honey Bee in my arms.
Naked and willing.
“Penny for your thoughts.” She moves in close again. Palms to my shoulders, legs latched over my hips.
“Trying to figure you out.”
“I think you think too much, Holy.” Hazel floats on her back, legs still attached to me. Small waves ripple over her torso as she drifts away. Her pretty nipples hardened, pointing to the stars, begging me to taste them.
Gripping her armpits, I pull her back to me. I wonder what she’d say if I told her I want to tie her up and tease her till she’s dripping wet and on the verge of tears for my dick. That she’s mine. Always has been. My Honey Bee.
Hazel rolls her hips, rubbing her snatch against my erection. I grab her ass and stalk toward the steps. Our mouths collide. The cool air chills the upper half of my body, but I don’t give a fuck right now as I put her on the cement steps of the pool, ready to claim her right here. Not caring who sees me fuck her.
I loom over her on my knees. My tan ass in the air pebbled with goosebumps. Her nails scratch down the scarred ridges of my back, and I stiffen out of reflex.
Hazel is too into me to notice or too nice to be vocal about the interruption. Kissing her again is the perfect distraction from telling her the truth.
I’m horny and selfish.
Bastard born.
I’ll push and push till I get my way.
If she were smart, she’d ran the second our eyes met in that club.
I’m not the boy she knew. When I lost her, that monster who lives inside me broke free.
There’s no caging or taming him.
Devil knows she tried.
I stroke a finger along her cheek and thrust my hips dry humping her. Giving my cock just a taste of her pussy over the crotch of her panties.
My wet hair hangs in my eyes as she grabs the diamond encrusted cross pendant that hangs around my neck tugging me closer to kiss me again. The warm water laps against my cold ass. “Holy,” my road name leaves her lips like a prayer, but there’s nothing saintly about me.
If I were a good man, I’d have already told her who I was and why I’m here.
That she got her wish. A real family of her own. People who want nothing more than for her to come home. I was supposed to be that.
Her protector.
Her friend.
Her family.
Only I stole her innocence.
Woke her up in the middle of the night already inside her because the monster inside me broke free to claim her. Like I want to do now.