Dirty Little Secret (Dirty #1) (4 page)

CUTTER

It was really unfortunate that I’d let myself be so distracted.

All those girls were the same.
 I’d learned that lesson with Brandy, the first time around.  Bitchy teases who told you what you
wanted
to hear, told themselves what they
needed
to hear, then went ahead and opened their legs for the next guy in line.  He with the biggest bank account and tiniest dick wins.  No matter how good they looked on the surface.  I had been avoiding her type like the plague ever since the queen bitch herself slept with Billy. 

What a fucking cliché.
 

Jesus, I hated just
thinking
about them.  

I cracked a root beer and
cursed the fact that it wasn’t a regular beer.  Even if I’d been
allowed
to leave my house to retrieve real beer, I wouldn’t be permitted to drink it.  Then I reminded myself – again - that it was supposed to be my fucking day.  I took a swig and glanced toward the fold-down stairs that my ex had so astutely noticed earlier in the week.

This was the
only
beautiful thing about my place.  For all its puny, man-cave appearance, it had an amazing space above. 

Maybe it wouldn’t have appealed to anyone else.  It was perfect for me.  The angle
d windows above provided ideal light during the day.  The rows of pot lights that lined the ceiling were a fantastic contrast at night.

Dusk and dawn were my favorite, though.

Warm light filtered through the skylights, and through the sliding glass door that led out to the patio.  It basked the whole space in an eerie glow, perfect for the dark scenes I preferred to paint.

Oh, yeah.  About that.

Judge me all you want. Think of it as a shtick to get girls.  Or think of me as a tortured fucking artist, taking out my rage at the world.  I don’t care.  I mean, really, truly don’t give a shit.  The only place I felt at home was with a paintbrush in my fingers, letting everything in my head flow out through my hand and onto the blank space.

I need some time up there now.

I was so busy feeling sorry for myself that I almost missed the insistent knocking downstairs.  I was also so sure it was Brandy, back for round two, that I got my sneer ready before I even opened the door.  My readymade expression froze, then shattered.  My jaw dropped open as a petite, mud-covered tornado flew through my door. 

What the fuck.

I leaped back as she shook her tiny fist in my direction.  Shock melted into amusement.  Watching her was as funny as it was hot.  Like someone melted together a blow-up-sex-doll and a delicate china-doll and then turned the evil thing loose.

I wanted to press my mouth against that angry, self-satisfied twist in her lips, and suck it right off.

Use your words, Cutter,
I cautioned myself.
She’d probably just bite you. And not in a good way.

“Did you follow me home?”
I asked.

“It wasn’t hard to spot your truck-for-brains self. Especially since you were driving like the absolute douchebag you are.”

I glanced at my watch, then at her face, then back at my watch.

“What the hell are you doing?” she demanded.

“I just didn’t realize when you said
later
, you meant like, later today.”

“You really are an asshole, aren’t you?”

She took an angry step toward me, and I could immediately smell the soft, clean scent of her hair.  It wasn’t that overpowering, perfumed shit a lot of girls wear - that Brandy had been wearing.

It’s better.

She was close enough to touch, and my hands itched to do it.  Maybe to bury themselves in that mess of sweet-as-hell hair.

My pants suddenly felt
very
fucking tight

If she noticed my uncomfortable shift, she didn’t say.  Instead, she put her hands on her hips and glared at me.  She was maybe five foot four, and had to crane her neck up to do it.

“Should I sit down for this?” I teased.

“You can wipe that my-mom-dropped-me-on-my-head-when-I-was-a-baby smile off your face. I’m not here to entertain you.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

She ignored my comment. “I’m going to give you a choice. You can either give me the twelve hundred dollars it’s going cost to replace
my purse, my shoes, and to dry-clean my clothes, or I can call the police, and see how
they
want to deal with you.”

“You want money?” I sc
offed. “What a fucking surprise.”

She narrowed her eyes. “No, you twit. It’s about the principle. The money is symbolic.”

“Money is never symbolic.”

“Make you
r choice! Cash. Or cops.”

I suppressed a grin.
“I’m going to give
you
a choice. You can leave. Now. Or
I
can call the police and see how they deal with you and your home invasion tactics.”

“Go for it. I’m pretty sure the evidence of what you did to me is still all over your truck. You don’t exactly strike me as
a neat freak.”

I glanced guiltily at the pull out
couch and the empty take-out containers on my counters. 

“Well.
Maybe call first next time. I wasn’t expecting company,” I told her.

“Laugh it up,” she replied. “But when they match the dirt on your truck to the dirt all over me, I’m sure you won’t find it so funny anymore.”

She tapped my chest both times she said the word dirt, making it impossible for me to ignore my primal response to her.  Each poke shot straight to my groin.  The bitch was pretty good at this little game.

I planted a smi
rk on my face to cover my lust. “I somehow doubt they’re going to send a forensic team out here to investigate a drive-by mudding.”

I flopped down onto my couch-slash-
bed, conveniently already in the bed position, ignored the way my body wanted to cringe away from the spot where Brandy had been, and closed my eyes. 

I counted to thirty
, then asked, “You still here?”

“I’m not leaving until I get what I want.”

“I kinda had a shitty day, so I’m not in the mood.”

“In the mood for what?” she snapped.

Was she fucking kidding?

My eyes flew open.

Nope. Not kidding.

Or, if she was kidding, she was hiding it really well under that unamused glare.

I propped myself up on my elbow and ran my gaze from her feet to her face.  Twice.  Though to be honest, the second time was for
me,
rather than to drive home my innuendo.  Those white pants of her really left little to the imagination.  The tank top was as sparkly as ever, and the spattered chunks of mud weighed it down, exposing those beautiful tits even more.

What would they look like
free, and pressed into my hands?

She finally figured out what I meant, and h
er face went pink. “You’re a pig.”

“Yep.”

“Don’t try to sound embarrassed about it or anything.”

“I’m not.  And you know why? Because
as far as I’m concerned, you’re fucking worse.”

“I don’t have a clue what could possibly bring me down to your level,” she retorted. “But from the excited look on my face I bet you’re about to tell me
what makes us even.”

I rolled my eyes. “Even? Don’t kid yourself.
Pigs are smart. Hungry consumers, yes, but full of brains, too. You’re so far
below
pig on the evolutionary scale that it’s not even funny.”

“What, exactly, do you think I am?”

“A mouse.”

“I’m not a goddamned mouse!”

“Fine. I’ll put it another way.”

She stuck her chin out defiantly. “I can’t wait to hear it.”

“Plain and simple? You’re nothing more than an everyday, run-of-the-mill cock-tease.”

MELISSA

His words hung in the air.  And they pissed me off.  I couldn’t deny them without sounding slutty.  I couldn’t affirm them without sounding like a prude.  So I went for the only other option – complete denial.

“I don’t want anything to do with you. Or your cock.” I spat out the last word like it disgusted me rather than thrilled me. “All I want is clean clothes and a new purse.”

He shot me a lascivious smile. “You know what? I’m having second thoughts. Why don’t you take off your clothes, leave them here, and I’ll wash them for you myself?”

“You wish.”

His smile spread into a lazy, sexy grin, and suddenly he was on his feet, just an inch from my body.  And I’m not going to lie and say that I didn’t like the feel of him there.  Want - hot, specific, and right between my legs - made me tremble.

“Actually. I think
you
wish.” His voice was low, fucking amazing, and so close to me that could feel it rumble in his chest.

I stifled a gasp. “You’re not my type.”

“Here’s the thing,
baby-doll.
Every girl like you wants a guy like me. At least for the two hours it would take for me to wring you dry. The question is…What would
I
get out of it? Abso-fucking-lutely nothing. You’d take every good thing I have to offer – and believe me, it
is
good – and then you’d run off.”

As he spoke, he dragged a rough hand down my bare arm, leaving a flaming trail of desire in its wake.

“You have no idea what kind of girl I am,” I replied, trying to keep my breathing in check.

“Oh, but I do. Perfect parents. Perfect boyfriend. Perfect friends. Perfect life. Perfect little princess.”

My breasts rose and fell with the cadence of his words, and his eyes strayed to my cleavage.  I took the tiniest step closer.  He brought his hand up to my cheek and grazed it lightly with his knuckles before bringing his arm around me and pulling me in.  He spread my legs with his knee while holding the small of my back, and my insides tightened.

Holy shit,
I thought.
He’s right. I
do
wish.

“What’s your favorite kind of ice
cream?” he asked softly.

“Ice cream?”

“Mmmhmm.”

My favorite had
always been Tin Roof Sundae with whipped cream and caramel drizzle.  But when I opened my mouth, a lie came out instead.

“Vanilla.”

He leaned down, brushed his lips against mine, and whispered, “Perfectly predictable.”

I had to get out of that over-sexed, over-confident caveman’s house, before I could do something I’d regret later. 

Because when he’d suggested I take my clothes off, I was more than half tempted to do it, just for shock value.

Because when he’d call m
e a cock-tease, I’d wanted to prove him wrong. 

And because now that he was pressed against me, I wanted to strip him bare and fuck him and his shitty attitude sideways.

“I have to leave,” I gasped.

He smirked and let me go. “Thought so.”

I banged down the stairs.  I was angry at him.  I was really angry at myself.  And I was really,
really
at my newfound libido.

I paused in the parking lot to shoot his obnoxiously parked truck a dirty look.  Then I slammed it with a solid
kick and turned to give the finger to what I hoped was the right window. 

“Take that, dipshit,” I muttered.

I got one moment of satisfaction.  Then I got soaking wet.

“What the fuck!” I sputtered from underneath the stream of water pouring down on my head.

“Sorry,” hollered the king of all assholes from a patio above me. “I was aiming for my truck. Someone told me it was dirty.”

“Like hell you were!” I yelled back.

“Just look at it this way…Now you’re clean
and
cool.”

I glared up at him, pulled out my cell phone and yelled back, “And now I really am going to call the police!”

He held a bucket out menacingly. “I’m assuming that means you’ve got a good replacement plan on that fancy phone of yours. Oh, and that you’re hoping our parking lot camera didn’t catch you shit-kicking my truck.”

Goddamn him.  Why did he always seem to have the upper hand?

I decided to take what little dignity I had left and hightail it out of there.  After all, I knew where he lived, and even though my formerly perfect self had never needed to exact revenge before, I was pretty sure it was the kind of thing that could only get better with planning.

I sho
ved my phone back into my purse and climbed into Danny’s car. 

By the time I reached the apartment I shared with Shelby, I was shivering so badly that I almost couldn’t unlock the door.

My friend gasped when she caught sight of me.

“What happened?”

“The coffee shop was out of frappes,” I muttered.

“What?”

My teeth started to chatter. “I d-d-don’t feel very well.”

Shelby brought her hand up to my forehead. “You’re burning up!”

“Sh-sh-shelby?”

“Yes?”

“What’s your favorite ice cream?”

“Vanilla. Why?”

“N-n-no reason. I need to go to bed.”

“Let me run you a bath first. I think you have a fever.”

And there – if I wanted it - was the excuse I needed for my recent, out of character behavior.

But I didn’t want an excuse.

Instead, I wanted to use the fever to feed my dreams of a blonde Sasquatch ravaging my body.