Destroy Me (Crystal Gulf Book 1) (13 page)

“Indicative of what?” I take a bite. I want to taste what she tastes.

She points her fork at me and waves it around. “All of this.”

“Oh. You mean all of this sexy panty ripping fantastic-ness?” I smile crookedly. We both know we both think that.

“Have you really ripped panties apart?”

I smile at my salad. “In two.”

“Hmm. They’re just in the way anyway, aren’t they?”

“Blocking the best parts,” I agree.

“This conversation isn’t normal.”

My smile widens. “So you’re going to change lives. What else do you want to do?” I’m suddenly highly interested in her future. I won’t get to see it happen but I want to know what she’s dreaming about so when she’s gone, I can dream about it too.

“I don’t know. Changing lives is pretty hard work. Somewhere in the middle of that I’ll probably fall in love. Again,” she emphasizes harshly, stabbing her tomato. “And have kids. Build a life that I had, but better. Like we’re not moving.” She looks me in the eye, as if I’m her husband and I don’t agree with her wishes. If I were her husband, which is as unlikely as her being my wife, her wishes would probably be my command. She wouldn’t have to look at me like that. She could have whatever she wanted. “I want to raise my kids in one place forever. I want them to have the same friends until they’re old. The same memories. I don’t want them to be like me. I can live anywhere, but I also know there’s no point in meeting anyone because the second I do I’ll have to leave. I’m too comfortable being with myself.”

Dylan made it sound as if she stayed by herself out of naivety. I suspected that was somewhat true. Crystal Gulf wasn’t the kind of place I think she preferred. The occupants were like me and less like her. But really Harley is just afraid to get close to someone. I don’t know much about growing up with a family member in the army, but I can imagine the difficulties that come with moving over and over again, never growing up with people the way I grew up with Dylan.

And I’m being a pussy again.

I reach over and grab my wine glass, taking a long much needed drink. It doesn’t taste bad with the salad. “If it makes you feel any better this is who you are when you’re not comfortable with yourself.” I wink, teasing.

She winks back.

When dinner arrives and our glasses have been refilled I watch her dig into her pasta. She twirls the noodles around on her fork, takes a bite of chicken, and then slowly, as if she knows it’s going to curl her toes, puts it in her mouth. Her light brown lashes meet in bliss. Her lips have a slight smear of sauce on the corner of her mouth. It reminds me of when I put the sauce back because I knew it would be sexy as hell to watch her lick it off her bottom lip. I did it last time to mess with her. This time when she licks it off I have to look down.

Is it normal to want to kiss someone so bad? I’ve never wanted to kiss someone so badly in my entire life. It’s just a kiss. Two lips meeting. It used to be like tying my shoes. I had to kiss them. Had to or I couldn’t have the best parts underneath.

I still have almost two and a half months of watching her lick her lips and sway her apple shaped ass and tell me stories that are going to kill me every time I remember them. I chase away the relief that brings me with another drink of wine, and then the anger it leaves behind with a bite of clams. When did I start chasing shit away? It’s like scaring away a bear. It’ll come back. It can smell the food. I can smell the food. I want the food.

“Can I have a bite?” she asks, looking at my bowl.

Shit
. She wants a bite too. “Say please.”

She smiles without opening her mouth, with just those lips. Her light brown eyes narrow, filling with the part of her I’m sure Dylan never saw, that he didn’t even know it existed, because if he did he never would have left her with me. “Please, Bach,” she says huskily. “I really, really, want a bite.”

I want a bite too. I shift my legs, opening them, so my cock has room to expand in my jeans. I find the biggest clam, dunk it in my wine sauce, and hold it out between us. “How bad do you want this bite?”

She braces her hands on the table top and eyes me, not the bite. Me. “I want it bad, Bach. So badly I want to lean across this table and eat it in front of everyone.”

Thank you, Dylan
. “I’m not convinced. You don’t even look that hungry. You’re just being greedy.”

She starts to lift up, leaning toward the middle of the table like she’s going to slide her thighs around my lap and eat me. In front of everyone. “I am greedy. Selfish even. I still want a bite.”

Slowly, in front of everyone, she leans forward with her mouth open, her tongue stained red from the marinara sauce. I watch her mouth in a trance. The way her lips glisten, how her top lip looks like a bow. And then she closes her lips around my fork. As she slides the clam off her eyes eat mine. It’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen. And she’s still fully clothed. If anything that makes it sexier.

“Mmm.” She sits back down, smiling satisfyingly. “It’s better than mine.”

I just stare.

She takes a sip of her wine. “Dinner’s not so bad. Huh?”

I shake my head.

“Is it more fun than Black Light?”

I nod.

“Couldn’t do that in a display case,” she says quietly. “Could you?”

I shrug.

“Eat, Bach. It’s getting cold.”

I eat.

The food is actually really good. There are couples all over the restaurant. I imagine their private conversation, and know without knowing they’re not as much fun as ours. Although that’s probably because they’re really a couple. Harley and I are only friends. We’re just teasing. One couple in particular catches my eye. She doesn’t look as in love as he does. She looks bored. I’m guessing this is their first and last date. What do people think when they look at Harley and me? Which one of us is teasing a little more than the other?

When the check comes I pay, leaving a tip that doubles the bill. She raises her eyebrow but doesn’t comment. I feel like I should pay double for dinner with her.

Stepping outside, she sticks close to my side. It’s just us. There’s a breeze rustling the trees, carrying with it the smell of coffee. When we get to my car she goes to the passenger side and I go the other.
Now what?
I think.

“It’s only eight,” she says when I start the car, making me think her thoughts have aligned with mine.

I put it in reverse and look over my shoulder, glancing at her fleetingly before backing out. “You want to do something else?” We’re doing something else.

“I don’t know. What do you want to do?”

I smile at my window, earning a smile from the guy in the car next to me. He winks. I wink back. Why ruin it for him? There’s enough Bach Bachmen to go around. “I really want some apple pie.” Her threat still hangs in the air. If I take her home now she could go out. Drink. Become someone she’s not to get back at Dylan and to prove me wrong. And maybe I’m not done teasing yet. Maybe I want another bite.

“What would you do if we weren’t together?”

“Honestly? Black Light.” I don’t smile or laugh or even wink. I’m not kidding.

“Why?” she asks, not really glaring, but close.

I shrug. “Why do addicts continue to do what hurts them? That one second of relief, of forgetting, is worth the hangover the next day, or the shakes, or being alone.”

“You only think it’s worth it. Sleeping with those girls only hurts you. Drinking, drugs, sex—these things aren’t actually helping you. They’re hurting you and keeping you down. They’re preventing you from being the man you were at dinner. Don’t you want to be that man all the time?”

I look out of my window again. “You sound like Dylan.”

“I’m serious.”

My fingers itch to turn the radio on. To scream at her. Yell. Hurt her so I don’t have to be hurt. I force myself to look at her. Her eyes are nothing but sincere. She’s not trying to hurt me. “I was only that man for you. No one else wants him. They want the asshole. I want him too.”

“Why?” she asks sadly.

“That’s who I’ve always been.”

She sighs softly, her breath barely making a sound. “I don’t want you to think that I like you any more tonight than I did yesterday or tomorrow or last year. I think what I’m starting to realize is the fun intriguing man you were at dinner is no different than the dickhead you were in your bedroom. You can’t have one without the other. But you don’t have to push that guy away because everyone else doesn’t know how to handle him. He deserves to exist too. Hurting yourself to prove everyone right is going to destroy you.”

She could be right.

If she is it doesn’t matter. When she’s gone that Bach’s gone too. The world would eat him alive.

Just like my dad did.

I turn the radio on.

Harley

I’m getting good at dealing with Bach’s mood swings. They’re sudden, like a flash of lightning. As long as I don’t stand to close it won’t strike me. Lately however, there’s a small part of me who wants to stand as close to him as I can and take it head on. I didn’t know that part existed until him. Growing up in my house you avoided lightning at all costs. You were polite, honest, and good. You don’t want what you can’t have and appreciate what you do. For the most part I’ve always understood that, because lightning can kill you.

Lightening can destroy you.

When we get to his house he parks next to my car and kills the engine. He runs a hand through his hair, ruining it. I like it ruined. “Listen, Harley. Instead of trying to figure out how everyone else would do this I’m just going to do it my way. I want you to come back inside with me. We can watch a movie or play hide and seek. Whatever you Squares do when you’re not knitting.”

“Why should I?” I want him to say it.
Tell me you want me
. I don’t realize how badly I want to be wanted until the moment when I’m desperately waiting for his answer. “I can’t even talk to you without you being moody.”

“I won’t be moody. I promise. I’ll shit kittens if that’s what you want. Just come in. I want you to come in.”

“Okay, Bach. I’ll come in.”

Without another word he gets out of his car. Why do I want to come in? I’m entering this part of anger and depression that is teetering on the edge of destruction. Who is she? What about this mystery girl made Dylan choose her over me? Bach knows who she is. Why won’t he tell me? Why does he have to eyes so pale? Smell so good?

Why does the sound of his deep voice make me want to press my lips to his?

The party next door hits me when I get out. The house music bleeds onto the lawn, filling the air with its pounding hypnotic base. Neon lights and flashes of white glows through the windows of the house. I can see bodies dancing, women in white bikinis with their exposed skin decorated with bright pink and green neon paint. I imagine Bach there with Black Light. He’s not the only one with mood swings. I’m moody too. Suddenly I’m exhausted. Dinner took a lot out of me. Keeping my ass in my seat and my hands to myself was a full time job. Being normal was fun because I knew he didn’t want to be. We both didn’t want to be.

He seems exhausted too as he takes the stairs slowly. As he unlocks the door I stop beside him, watching his fingers fumble with his key. He glances at me, meeting my eyes on the first try. The lights from the party momentarily blanket us, bathing us both in neon. It makes his sea green eyes glow dangerously. When he closes the door he kicks off his boots and takes his sweater off in one fluid motion, leaving him in his white button down.

“I need a drink,” he mumbles, turning the lights on.

I set my purse on the coffee table just as my cell rings. Bach looks at me when I don’t answer it.

“It’s Dylan,” I explain. “He has a special ringtone. I don’t have to look to know it’s him.”

He bites his lip where I hit it, like it hurts but he doesn’t want to stop. Then he sits on the couch and turns the TV on, cranking up the volume. There’s a boxing match on. The cheering crowd grates on my nerves as I sit down on the other end of the couch. He’s in a lightning kind of mood again. I can feel him crackling and the energy coming off of him bounces off of me. Especially when Dylan calls a second time. This time he leaves a voice message.

“Fuck it.” He bolts off the couch and goes to the kitchen.

I don’t have to watch. I can hear him open a cupboard, unscrew a bottle, and pour the contents into his glass. I can picture him guzzling it down, running from whatever makes his hands shake and gives him nightmares. When he returns to the couch his glass is full of something light brown.

“Where’s mine?”

He looks at me sideways. “You like scotch?”

“Is scotch all you have?” He nods unwillingly. “Then I want some. Don’t get up,” I tell him when he starts to rise.
Jerk.
I am not a fragile broken doll. I don’t normally partake in drinking, but he isn’t my boss and I can do what I want. “I’ll get it myself.”

“You’re a pain the ass.”

Like he hasn’t been checking my ass out all day anyway. I saw him, I just liked knowing he thought he was doing it in private. He’s so used to being brazen he can’t be anything else. His kitchen is a mess. There’s old food stuck to frying pans on the stove and takeout containers poking out of the trash. The smell of rotten garbage emanates from the bin. I step over an empty bag of chips and search his cupboards until I find a glass. I hear him groan when the icemaker whirs to life.