Barbie World (Baby Doll Series) (13 page)

“Do you want to know what I did with Kai tonight, Dylan?” I feel mean and dirty just saying these words to him.

He shakes his head no. “That’s not-”

I cut him off, not wanting to give him a chance to say anything. “Girls like me, Dylan. It is all about the rush. The high. How high can the boy take me? Do you want to know where I let him touch me?” I go to say more, but he grabs my hand, startling me.

He holds my hand in his fist tightly and then spreads it out so our fingers are interlocked. He takes his other hand and gently touches my cheek. My face is on fire, I am on fire. My head spins with his closeness. I can feel the heat that radiates off him. I am so confused, I don’t want this. I don’t want him to touch me and yet, at the same time, that’s all I want him to do. I want him to touch me so badly it hurts. I want to tell him the truth and let it heal us.

The truth is that after Kai and I kissed and we played pool for a little while, I told him I thought I should get home. Not because I needed to, but because I couldn’t get Dylan out of my head. I can never get him out of my head. I was hoping to get a glimpse of him before he went to bed. I was not expecting to see him waiting for me like a disappointed father. I am embarrassed that he caught me out with Kai.

“Barbie,” he says my name like a prayer before he brings his mouth to mine.

The world spins faster and faster on its axis. I need him desperately. I need him so bad that the ache I have been trying to dull is ripped wide open. I ache for him. I ache for this very moment. I ache for the moment when he will not be near me, touching me, kissing me. Drinking him in, I grip a handful of his shirt and pull him to me. He keeps me from spinning out of control; he is my anchor to this world. I need him desperately. I become awake with each touch while an electric pulse surges through me, making me blind. Bright white lights spread across my closed eyelids. This is what being alive feels like. I am dead on the inside and he is the only one that can revive me. He has the power to bring me back to life. He feels my need and backs me up against the wall. I cannot get close enough. His mouth leaves mine and I gasp for air before I am once again filled with a dark sorrow.

He trails a line of small kisses and nips down my neck then back again, memorizing me as the world lights up once again. He lifts me up and I wrap my legs around his waist. I pull at his shirt, revealing his taut stomach. I touch every line and dip his stomach and chest have to offer, mesmerizing them for the times I will not be touching them.

I need you. I need you
. “I need you,” I gasp into the darkness and we stumble backwards onto the bed. So much for just friends. Screw this. I want to be his friend about as badly as he wants to be mine. His hands crawl up my shirt, leaving a trail of white hot fire wherever they touch. I let out a small whimper as he gently pulls my shirt over my head.

I am exposed to him. He can see every flaw, visible or not. Every scar. I want to let him read them. I want him to know who I am. Each soft kiss he places on my skin is a silent promise to me.

He leans back to drink me in. “Beautiful,” he breathes. I lean down and meet his mouth halfway.

Chapter 15.
Dylan

Shit balls. Shit balls. Shit balls. So much for being just friends. Who the hell am I trying to kid, I don’t want to be her friend anymore then she wants to be mine. I lay my head on her chest, trying to let the sound of her breathing calm me. Let the steady rise and fall of her chest lull me into another moment. Shit nuggets. Her breasts are bare and she is pressed against me, molded perfectly to me. I am trying to do the right thing here, but dammit, this is freaking hard. No wonder there is an epidemic of teen pregnancy, saying no is easier said than done. Her fingers dance along my back, branding a white hot trail on my skin. An animalistic growl-that I didn’t know myself capable of producing-starts at the back of my throat.

She feels amazing. With just the thought of her, I could stay locked up in my bedroom for weeks at a time.
If that wouldn’t be completely creepy I mean
. No, the real thing is better. I try to remember everything about this moment, a snap shot in my mind, a moment frozen in time. I will remember how she looks lying under me, the contour of her body arching against me. Her skin glowing against the moonlight that bathes her. Her eyes closed in pure ecstasy. Her skin is like porcelain, my hands feel too rough to touch something so soft and delicate, but I am too greedy and too selfish not to touch.

Her hand snakes to the front of my belt, loosening it. Forget about trying to be responsible. I try to capture her mouth with mine, but she ducks her head and I end up planting one on her forehead. She will not let me kiss her anymore and it is pissing me off, though not enough to make me stop trying.

Hell, if I had protection, the world would have one less virgin, but an annoying little voice that sounds like my mom warns me not too. I go through the list of why not using protection is a bad idea. I still her hand that is unzipping my fly. She looks at me with squinty eyes and I try to focus on my breathing.

“I don’t have anything.” I also don’t know if I want to do this, this way, right after we were just fighting and her refusing to kiss me now. Why will she not kiss me? I brushed my teeth before I
came into her room. I do a quick breath test, breathing into my shoulder. No, I am good. “Kiss me.” I try again. She bites her bottom lip and shakes her head no. I sigh and roll off her, staring at the ceiling. She follows, straddling me. She kisses my neck and I moan. “We don’t have to kiss. We can do other things.” Do I really care if she will not kiss me? Hell yes, I do because that is the annoying thing about me. I need to solve a problem. I cannot just skip it. No, I need to figure out the equation before I can continue.

She feels the hesitation in my body; stilling, she sits up and climbs off me.
Why the hell did I hesitate?
I sit up on my elbows, looking at her. Her legs are tucked under her and her hair creates a wall between us, hiding her true feelings. Despite this, she is still the most beautiful person I have ever seen. “I can’t kiss you it makes things to real.” She says from the safety hidden behind her hair. “We don’t have to kiss… I just don’t get it. I am trying but, I don’t know what you want from me.” I cannot keep up with her. She has me going crazy. I am trying my best, but I am only a guy. One moment, she hates me; the next, she is pulling off my clothes, kissing me and then refusing to let our lips touch. I am trying to stay on this roller coaster and not bail.

“Look, we can figure this out, whatever is going on with you. I want to help you.” Her shoulders shudder and even though I cannot hear them fall, I know her tears are real.

“I know I seem crazy. I feel like sometimes I really am crazy. One moment I am pushing you away and the next I am begging you to touch me like some crazed hormonal girl.” She turns so I can see her face with two silver streams flowing down.

“You are not crazy. You have been through a lot. Hell, you continue to go through a lot.” I reach out for her and pull her onto my lap, wrapping her in my arms. “I am here for you if you need me and I have no complaints about the raging hormonal girl thing.”

She smiles at that. “It is wrong, though, I am no better than the rumors about me. I am becoming what they say. Not that I care what is said about me, but the truth is, I don’t want to be that girl. You have a girlfriend and no matter how much I don’t like her, she is your girlfriend.” She unwinds herself from my arms and slips out of my lap.

“What are you saying? That it is over between us?” I ask her. “I don’t want to be with her. I want to be with you. I am only with her because I thought it would appease my mother, but I don’t care what my mom or anyone else thinks.”

She jumps to her feet, grabs her shirt off the floor and pulls it over her head. Well that sucks! “No, you can’t do that.” She grabs a pair of jeans, and pulls them on.
Now that really sucks
! “Dylan you cannot break up with Katie,” she says.

“I don’t want to be with her. I want you and I need you. You are all I think about I lie awake all night thinking about you, not her.” I grab her and pull her into my arms once again.

“Don’t say that,” she protests.

“But it’s the truth.”

She shakes her head no. “Dylan, I told you, I am really messed up right now. This is fun, messing around with you is fun, but that is where it has to stop. We broke up, we don’t belong together. We never belonged together.” She gives me a smile that says she feels bad that I am hanging on for no reason. She kisses me on the cheek and steps out of my arms. Maybe I am holding onto nothing, but I cannot let her go, not just yet. “Dylan, promise me you will stay with Katie. I don’t want your mom to get the wrong idea about us.” I go to protest, but something in her eyes stops me; it’s a look of desperation. “Please.”

I sigh, scrubbing my hand down my face. “I promise.”

For now I will do what she asks, but that doesn’t mean I am going to stop trying to get her back, every day. If it takes the rest of my life, I am going to win her back.

Chapter 16.
Barbie

I could have died in his arms last night. I was lost in a moment that I have wanted so badly. That I needed. However, it’s not going to happen again because, with one swift hand, he had me undone. He is dangerous to me.

“Barbie?” I look up at Mrs. Knight and blink several times, clearing the fog from my head. “Are you feeling okay?” Her hands flutter to my forehead, a motherly action I am not used to. So I do what any wounded creature would do, I recoil from her touch.

“Yes, I’m fine.”

She scrunches her face. “Would you like something else to eat? You haven’t touched your food.” I look down at the pile of fluffy pancakes dripping in syrup and butter.

“No. I am just not really hungry.”

Her dark brows crease in a frown. “Are you sure you feel okay?” she frets. Of course she would think I am sick when I haven’t eaten much. I can usually go head to head with her son in an eating match and have since I came here.

Just as I am about to lie to her, Dylan appears in the kitchen and her attention is drawn to him. Mine, too. His hair is soaking wet from his morning shower. He wears a pair of new dark distressed jeans that ride low on his hips. Oh, my God. Hot, wet boy with no shirt on, right in front of me. It is like dangling a donut in front of Third and telling him he can’t eat it because he’s on a diet. Well, I am on a diet, too; a strict no touching hot boys with ripped abs diet. Damn, what is in the milk around here?

He opens up the fridge and pulls out the carton of milk and chocolate syrup. Each movement he makes displays his well sculptured muscles. EEEK. Stop Staring. I watch each movement like a hungry hawk while remembering what those abs felt like under my hands makes me dizzy with desire. I forget we are not alone as I drool.

Mrs. Knight turns in her seat. “Hey, baby, are you hungry?” she asks him.

He turns to us, but looks right at me; his dark eyes pinning me with a fire behind them. “Yeah,” he says, keeping those dark, smoldering eyes on me. She nods, standing to make him a plate.

“And, Dylan, for goodness sakes go put on a shirt. No one wants to see that.” I take a sharp intake of breath that I hope nobody notices, but he does. He smiles, pleased with himself, and sits down at the table while his mom piles pancakes onto a plate for him.

“Oh, Barbie, before I forget, are you still job hunting?” Mrs. Knight asks.

No, after our first attempt of job hunting, we gave up. The job market does not look positive for two teenage girls like us. “Yes,” I say.

“Oh, good. Well, my friend, Dee, is a party planner and she is looking for help for a party this weekend. I think it is a sweet sixteen. I am sure it is not as glamorous as it sounds, but…” Dylan is staring at me with that infuriatingly stupid smirk on his face, making it hard for me to concentrate on what is being said.

“Sure, that would be great.” I stand up, needing to put some distance between us.

“Great! I will give her a call and tell her you’ll do it.” She sounds startled from my sudden reaction.

“Thanks.” I back out the door, staring at Dylan who stares back, smiling while stuffing his mouth full of pancakes, which is strangely attractive to me.

I am seriously losing it.

###

“Hey, I think I might have scored us a part time job for this weekend,” I say as I climb into Roxie’s car.

“Freaking fabulous,” she says, giving me a smile.

“I don’t know how fabulous it really is, we are going to be scraping plates for a sweet sixteen.”

“If it keeps my mother’s happy, then I will do it. Man, they have been really riding my ass lately. Mom number two actually said that she thought this whole doom and gloom faze would be over by now.”

I kick off my flip flops and put my feet on the air conditioner vent. “What? You’re not doom and gloom, you are rainbows and My Little Ponies,” I say to her.

“I know, right; that’s what I am saying.” She swerves the car onto the highway.

“I could talk to them for you; tell them you are the light of my life, the only thing that brings happiness into it.” I lean my head towards her, batting my eyes.

“No. I don’t think it would work. They are just freaked out. They are afraid that if something happens between Third and I-” She looks at me nervously.

“What? What is happening between Third and you?” I squeal practically bouncing out of my seat belt.

“Stop it. Don’t make a big deal. It is nothing really; he just came over a couple of times and…” she trails off

“And?” I encourage her.

She sighs. “Barbie, don’t make this into something it’s not, okay? I am not even sure I like him like that or even in general as a person, but my moms walked in on me on top of him.”

I squeal again, covering my mouth when she shoots me death rays. “Sorry, it is just that you deserve to be happy, and Third is the greatest guy. If you would only let him, I know he would treat you like a princess.”

She humphs. “Maybe you should take your own advice.” She gives me a pointed look.

“What does that mean?” I glare at her.

“It is just that you, too, deserve to be happy and for some f’ed up reason, you don’t believe it. You have two guys who I am sure would do anything you asked-even commit murder-and you keep them at bay.”

Now I humph. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.

“Ah, don’t pout. Pull your panties out of your butt and relax.” I stick my tongue out at her.

###

The Death Dogs played over the Georgia line in a little club called The Twisted Sickness. It is a black, two-story building that is as filthy as it sounds. Back at the Knights, looking up at the house, the tree seems too immense and high today for me to climb, my legs burn from dancing tonight so instead, I slip in through the back door. It is pitch black and I bump into the table.

“Shit. Ouch. Ouch. Ouch.” I hop around the kitchen, clutching my foot. The kitchen light flips on. Crap.

“Barbie?” I hear her sharp intake of breath. Panic leaks out around me. “Were you out?” she asks me as she takes me in.

I cringe, imagining how I must look to her; an X in black sharpie betrays my hand, I have on a short, black, leather mini skirt that barely covers my butt, paired with ripped fish net stockings. To top off my look, I wear a skin tight shirt that exposes my midriff and arms and my eyes are painted in black make up. Nothing screams rebellious teenager more than eyeliner.

“Barbie, we had a deal.” I hear the disappointment laced in her voice. I am ready to flee. In my mind, I am mapping out the quickest way to grab Everett and run. Maybe I can crash at Kai’s until I can figure out where to go from there. My feet pulse with anticipation, I clutch my hands together, opening and closing them.

“Were you out?” she asks again, her arms folded across her fuzzy, pink robe.

“I just went out with a friend,” I say, trying to defend my actions, but I know there is no argument. I broke one of her rules and I am about to pay for my crime. “It was just a friend,” I say defensively because I can see the accusation in her face. I don’t need to explain myself to her. I need to get the hell out. I know how this works; come on, bring on the screaming and yelling, bring on the fists. I have been through a lot worse than whatever this lady is about to dish out.

“A friend? Is this friend a boy?” she asks. Her question temporally disarms me.

“Yes.” I am walking on broken glass; I feel the deep cuts from the glass that slices open my skin. I need to get out before I bleed to death all over her clean floors and she takes everything from me.

She is blocking my escape route and my only way to Everett. I can go back out the back door, but I am not so sure she will not lock me out and call the police. I imagine them dragging me away, kicking and screaming. She knows that I will stay around for them to take me that I will not leave Everett. Never. I will have nothing without him. He is my world. Oh shit, I am going to be sick. My stomach rolls with nausea. I think I might vomit on her pink slippers, covering the little delicate roses with my horror.

“Did you hear me,” she says, tapping her foot.

“Yes, it was a boy,” I answer. She throws her hands up and mumbles something about teenagers going to be the death of her. “Let me just take Everett. I promise, we will be out of here. You will not have to deal with us anymore. Just let me get him, please.”

“What are you talking about? I am not letting you take Everett anywhere,” she says, horrified.

“Please,” I beg. I will fall to her feet and beg her for mercy. “Please, I know I deserve to be living in a home for troubled girls or much worse, but please, don’t punish Everett. I need to keep him safe. He needs me,” I sob.

“You are not going anywhere. We had a deal and you broke that deal, therefore, you will have to suffer the consequences, but I am not throwing you on the streets or giving you over to the state.” No, what she has in store is going to be much worse. I am about to bolt, push her over and run for it, but in her ramblings something catches me. “… and therefore, there will be no TV or phone. You are stuck home for the whole week and if I catch you sneaking out again, so help me, I will put bars on your window,” she says.

“What?” I ask, seeing if I heard her right.

She sighs, “You heard me, bars, and I mean it. No Roxie or whoever this boy is.” I jump at her, wrapping my arms around her small frame. I catch her off guard and she stumbles back a little.
She starts to laugh and hugs me back. “I am serious,” she says, laughing around her words and I squeeze her tighter. “Well, I sure wasn’t expecting this reaction; a fight, yes, but not this.” She shakes her head and hugs me back. “And don’t think Dylan is getting out of this, either; I know he has been covering for you.”

Dylan has been covering for me? He knew I have been sneaking out all along and kept it to himself? Maybe I can trust him after all. I am to have no social life whatsoever and I could not be happier. I have never been grounded in my life so maybe that is another reason I don’t mind it, but the main reason, Everett is safe. I didn’t mess up things any more than I already have for him.

“Oh, Barbie,” she says when I am about to skip up the stairs. “This boy. If he wants to take you out, he will have to do what any respectable young man would do and come to the door to get you and meet us. He must have you home at a reasonable time. Not like some hoodlum, dropping you off in the middle of the night.” I hop back down the stairs and kiss her on her cheek before taking the stairs two at a time. I haven’t felt this happy in a long time.

###

I am grounded for a week, which is easy time. I have all privileges taken away. I am to be stuck at home; my only freedom comes in the form of the job Mrs. Knight got me that is happening this weekend. When I asked the lady on the phone if she needed more help, she was ecstatic to have Kai and Roxie join the crew.

If this is this girl’s sweet sixteen, I can’t imagine what she is going to expect for her wedding. The sweet sixteen is a no expense spared, Moroccan themed party. Complete with servants aka us, elephants, monkeys, a snake charmer and belly dancers.

There is no break between serving appetizers and running Shirley Temples to the little sister of the sweet sixteener so I don’t get to talk to Kai or Roxie much and I am missing them both. I didn’t think I would be lonely being grounded. For so long it was just me and Everett, but once I made friends, it really sucks when you can’t see them or talk to them on the phone. It is not until we are scraping birthday cake of the floor that I get to finally talk to them.

I drop a tub of plates off to Kai who is elbow deep in suds. “Did I forget to thank you for getting me this great gig,” he says sarcastically. He takes a handful of suds and blows them at me. I side step them and drop the dishes in the water, sending a volcano of suds onto the floor. I decide it is about time to take a break and have some cake, so I grab a slice of some of the leftover cake and a fork that looks clean.

“So, I want to ask you something.” I take a bite of cake.

“Shoot.” Kai bobs ever so slightly and I see he has an ear bud in one of his ears, the other hangs down his back. I wonder what he is listening too.

“Well, I was hoping that you would meet my… my… “ I don’t know what to call them the Knights are not my parents and I don’t really consider them guardians because I am using them as a stopping ground on my way to better things, but then again, I am grounded and really the only ones that have the authority to do that are either a parent or guardian and since I never had a parent ground me, I go with “guardians.” “I want you to meet my guardians, the Knights’.”

He makes a face like he smells something bad. “Meet the rents? I have never been good with parents, sweetheart.” Kai says as he dumps a whole plate of food into a trash can. God, some people are so wasteful.

“They are not my parents,” I correct him quickly. “They are… my guardians.” I have trouble saying the word; it sounds wrong in my mouth.

I push him over and start washing the dishes with him. Submerging my hands deep into the dirty soapy water. I spray a plate with the hose, dripping the food onto the floor, nearly missing his shoes. The mess swims around his sneakers.

“I don’t know, sweetheart.” He steps over the mess and looks up at me. I give him a dirty look and accidently spray some of the water towards him.