I park in front of a vacant pump, and Demi grabs her bag.
“I’m going to get us some wine for tonight.” She points inside and gives me a wink that sends a twitch to my cock.
I fill my thirsty car and grit my teeth when the credit card machine is down. It instructs me to go inside and pay, but there’s a line ten people long.
Guess I don’t have a choice.
All I want to do is go back to my place and lose track of time for a few hours with Demi. She’s the only highlight of this shit-tastic day, and she’s so fucking gorgeous I want to devour her from head to toe.
She needs to be naked, in my bed, her curvy legs wrapped around mine and her nails digging into my ass as I bury my cock inside that perfect pussy of hers all night long.
From outside, I see the top of her head as she peruses the gas station’s fancy wine selection. Pulling my wallet from my pocket, I head inside and get in line.
“Oh, hey,” she says when she sees me. I take the bottle from her hand.
“You can head on out if you want.” I nod to the car.
The line grows shorter when a second checker comes to the front. A couple more people and I’m next.
My cock throbs when I think about what we’re going to be doing in T minus fifteen minutes.
“Okay, I’ll see you in a few.” Demi kisses my cheek and heads out, the bells on the door chiming as she skips through.
But then my stomach drops. For reasons I never could’ve anticipated.
Two more people are ahead of me, but I fish a fifty out of my wallet and slap it on the counter, telling the cashier to keep the change.
I have to get outside.
Now.
Forty
Demi
* * *
“Hey. Hey, you.” A woman leaning against the brick façade of the gas station calls after me as I head to Royal’s car.
I turn around, doing a double take. She looks familiar, but I can’t immediately place her. Matte, dark hair frames a round face, and pencil thin eyebrows accent blue, almond-shaped eyes. She wears a lot of makeup, like a woman with secrets for days, and her full lips are bunched into a hidden smirk.
She reminds me of a Bratz doll, pretty by her own standards and looking like she’s completely up to no good.
Stopping and adjusting the purse strap over my shoulder, I stare a little harder and rack my brain.
I know I’ve seen her before . . .
The woman motions me closer. Her knee is bent, her foot pressed against the back of a cage of propane tanks now.
“Excuse me, do I know you?” I ask, stepping closer.
Glancing inside the Conoco station, I see Royal slapping some cash on the counter and rushing to get out the door.
“You don’t know me, no.” She produces a lit cigarette from behind her, tapping the ash on the sidewalk and taking a slow drag. Clear gray smoke curls in front of her face and she laughs. “But we have something in common.”
Narrowing my eyes, I shake my head. “What are you talking about?”
Royal bursts through the doors, the bottle of my wine under his arm.
“What the hell are you doing here, Pandora?” he asks.
She takes another drag and a couple of steps toward him, blowing a puff of smoke in his face.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” She smirks. “What, I’m not allowed in Glidden ‘cause all of a sudden you think your fucking cock is too good for me? Running around with this rich bitch now, so you can’t be seen associating with me?”
“Royal, what is she talking about?” I move closer to him.
“This is my boss’s daughter. Pandora.” His jaw clenches when he says her name, and he watches her every move. “We used to . . . hang out. In our free time.”
“Oh,” I say. “Oh.”
That’s where I’ve seen her. At the garage the other week.
She doesn’t seem like the kind of woman I imagined Royal with over those lost years. In fact, she’s the opposite of what I ever pictured for him.
I won’t judge him though. Rixton County is slim pickings. All the smart, pretty, ambitious girls always move to Manhattan.
Royal hooks his hand into the crook of my elbow and nods toward the car.
“Let’s go,” he says.
Pandora’s nose scrunches, and she flicks her cigarette, grinding it into a paper and tobacco stump with the scuffed toe of her pleather boots.
“Do you know?” Pandora looks directly at me.
“Do I know what?” I ask.
Royal leads us away from her. But she follows.
“Do you know that he’s a sex offender?” Pandora yells after us. A man heading inside stops, stares, and then continues. A woman pumping gas takes a step closer to her sedan. “That’s right. Your little knight in shining armor is a fucking perv.”
My ears ring, and I can’t bring myself to look at him.
Sex offender?
His hands have explored every inch of my body. His cock has felt me from the inside. His mouth, his fingers, his tongue . . .
My stomach rolls and flips, and I feel a dry heave forming in the base of my belly.
Not to mention the fact that being associated with a sex offender is career suicide when you’re an elementary educator. No one, and I mean no one, wants their child’s teacher to be fucking a sex offender.
For a moment, my disgust fades and everything turns red. My head spins, and my chest thumps. I’m trembling, but I’m not scared.
I’m furious.
No wonder he didn’t want me to know.
No wonder he kept delaying. Distracting. Prolonging.
No wonder my parents want nothing to do with him.
My mind is flooded with every disgusting, sick, and vile assumption it can conjure, and my legs wobble as he leads me to his Challenger and opens the door.
“Get in, Demi. I’ll tell you everything.
Forty-One
Royal
* * *
{seven years ago}
* * *
I’m barreling down the highway in my truck, northbound to Saint Charmaine where my fifteen-year-old kid sister spends most of her days getting herself into all kinds of trouble.
Last time I saw Misty, she was strung out on something, showing off a homemade cross tattoo she got from one of her foster brothers. We’re not even religious, but she claimed she’d been having visions.
And the following week, I heard she was expelled from Saint Charmaine High.
The week after that, she was apprehended for shoplifting makeup and liquor from the local Wal-Mart. The store manager let her go, but she earned herself a lifetime ban from store #82746A.
She’s a lost soul, and I can’t blame her.
She’s grown up never knowing the love of a parent. Never having guidance and boundaries and expectations. Never having a family like the Rosewoods take her in and treat her like one of their own.
I know for damn sure I wouldn’t be who I am if it weren’t for the Rosewoods. They’re the closest thing to an actual family I’ve ever known.
Cranking the window, I let the wind hit my face and glance down to check my phone. I haven’t been able to reach her since I got her distress text earlier.