Harlot (Hush #2), page 6
The way I blushed when she said his name was a dead giveaway, she said this morning at the coffee shop. I’m transparent, and he’s hellish. She warned me good pussy makes maniacs out of men, and Wilder Ridge is no exception.
“He didn’t.” I push myself into a sitting position with the hint of sugar and chocolate on my lips. “Benny said something about you and Talent, but obviously, Wilder knew why I was there. He called me Megan.”
“What did you expect, Camilla?” She frowns, tossing my spoon into the sink. “We can talk about it when he gets here. Go put some clothes on unless you plan on staying in your underwear all night. Which, wouldn’t surprise me, to be honest.”
This piece of news gets me off the couch. “Wilder is coming here?”
She props herself against the kitchen counter like this is news to her, too. Talent stays here from time to time. But they typically come home after I’ve gone to bed for the night, narrowing down our interactions to the coffeemaker in the morning. He holds a mug he doesn’t particularly like, and I drink as we touch on the weather and talk about our day, leaving out the gritty details about prostitution and racketeering. We’re polite and unintrusive.
One time, Dog Mom dropped off homemade cinnamon rolls. Talent and I shared one while he waited for Lydia to finish her hair.
But she said we’re having guests over for dinner.
“Movie night,” she replies, making it sound more like a question than an answer. “They’re bringing pizza.”
“I’ve never had a movie night with other people before,” I admit.
Lydia’s brows move up. “Neither have I.”
“It sounds like normal people stuff.”
Lydia pushes herself away from the kitchen counter and circles around it, unfastening her earrings as she walks past me. I follow her down the hallway.
“It’s Talent’s idea. I think he’s trying to domesticate me.”
We face each other before walking into our respective bedrooms across the hall from one another. She, in a pencil skirt and lace top. And me, in the most comfortable pair of underwear I own and an unpadded, unwired bra.
“Domesticate you?” I reject. “Like he isn’t a whole criminal? He’s on a first-name basis with the mafia.”
She shrugs one shoulder, turning away from me. “I tried to tell him I wasn’t the one.”
But men are maniacs, I finish in my head.
Men are also really freaking hungry.
Wilder and Talent show up with enough pizza to feed the neighborhood, but they ultimately eat most of it themselves. Folding entire slices in half, they take massive bites and mumble things like, so hungry, didn’t eat all day, and Lydia, baby, pass the peppers with food in their mouths.
“Are you going to eat?” Wilder asks from across the dinner table. He licks a dot of pizza sauce away at the corner of his mouth.
I haven’t recovered from our run-in earlier today, but Wilder acts like it never happened. And with Lydia watching us like a hawk, I don’t want to bring it up for discussion. At least he’s talking to me.
“I did.” I throw Dog my pizza crust. “I had two slices.”
“Amateur.” He winks before devouring another slice.
Sitting this close to the Ridge brothers, it’s easy to pick out their differences. Wilder’s eyes are lighter than Talent’s, and his hair isn’t as curly. Talent’s tall and athletic, and Wilder is tall and muscular. That’s probably because Talent handles the burden of his responsibilities better than his older sibling does, seemingly cool and unbothered. Wilder wears his stress like a badge, narrow and speculative, always ready for the jump off. I have no doubt he tames that beast by punishing himself in the gym.
But despite their differences, they work like a well-oiled machine. One is always looking for the other, so there’s never a moment when either is out of sight. I catch their wordless conversations across the table in the form of an arched eyebrow, a slight shake of a head, or an almost undetectable shrug.
Wilder passes Talent a napkin before he asks for one, and Talent opens the box with pepperoni and pineapple pizza for his brother before Wilder is done chewing the last slice.
Lydia is either used to it or doesn’t notice.
But then she grabs a towel right before I knock over my can of soda, and I find myself talking so she doesn’t have to.
“What are you smiling at?” Wilder asks. He sits back like he might finally be full.
I reach over and pluck a pineapple from what’s left of his last slice of pizza. “Nothing in particular.”
Popping it into my mouth, I chew slowly because he’s watching with a stare so smoldering, I don’t want to miss the embers catching fire in his eyes. It’s the same heat kissing the curve of my neck, the bend of my elbow, and the hollow spot of my belly button. Lower, and lower, and lower, like his lips did the single night we spent together.
“Talent, did you know Camilla and Wilder are sleeping together?” Lydia announces like one announces they’ve run out of toothpaste or they’re taking the dog for a walk.
Talent and I choke on air, but the King and Queen of Disaster have a stare-off across the table. Lydia is eternally passive, blank-faced, and unmovable. Wilder is amused, shameless, and smirking.
“No one was sleeping, Lydia,” Wilder clarifies. He crumbles his napkin into a ball and throws it onto his plate, sinking into his seat for the fight.
I find my voice hiding under my heart and say, “Do we have to talk about this?”
There’s not a soul at this table who doesn’t know I’m paid to screw my way through Grand Haven. I was uncomfortable when I ran into Wilder at Benny’s office because bad timing put me in an uncomfortable situation, and I’m not emotionally mute like Lydia. The men I sleep with day in and day out are jobs. If they want to talk about that, so be it.
Wilder wasn’t a job, and I won’t talk about us like it meant nothing.
“No.” Talent pushes his chair back and walks to the fridge, carrying some of the tension away with him. It’s obvious by his stealth move to change the subject that he knows about his brother and me. “We’re going to sit our asses on that couch and watch a movie together like a normal fucking family. But drunk.”
Lydia was wrong.
Talent’s not trying to domesticate her. He wants to give her a family.
“Because let’s be real, not one of us is normal.”
Their love for whiskey isn’t something we share. I admire the way Lydia takes small sips and leaves a red lip print on the rim of her glass. She rotates her wrist, spinning the pretty amber liquid with ice. It comes off as sophisticated and mature, and I wonder if I’m not old enough to have developed a palate for it yet. Does it stop tasting like gasoline and pepper after a certain age?
Wilder and Talent drink theirs as fast as they pour it. How can they taste it at all?
Nursing my drink, the ice melts and sits on top of the liquor like a blanket. I use my finger as a cocktail straw and mix the concoction, hoping that diluting fuel with water will make it taste better.
My face must say it all because Wilder takes the seat next to me on the couch and chuckles. “Do you want me to get you something else?”
My experience with alcohol is novice, but I like the way it makes my lips tingle enough to shake my head no and wait for the rest of the ice to melt. The burn on the back of my tongue lessens with each small taste, and it doesn’t take long until I’m weightless.
Whiskey has my mood on a dimmer switch, and it turns my insecurities all the way down. Wilder’s thigh presses against mine, and my elbow rubs against his upper arm every time I inhale. Johnnie Walker tastes like gas on my tongue, but it smells like vanilla and oak on his lips. I scoot closer to inhale the scent of his breath.
Encouraged by liquor’s bad influence, I watch him instead of the movie. He takes my empty glass and sets it on the coffee table, sharing his drink with me instead of refilling mine. He brings it to my lips, and a drop of alcohol bleeds from the corner of my mouth. Wilder wipes it away with the pad of his thumb and sucks it off, and I exhale coolly.
“Is this what friends do, Camilla?” he asks in a low voice. “Is this what you had in mind?”
“I hope so,” I say without feeling the words in my mouth.
In the next instant, Wilder and Talent are on their feet, turning toward the front door like the police are about to break it down. My reaction time is delayed, so I’m the last to get up from the couch. Only to have Wilder sit me back down when whoever’s at the door knocks again.
“Who the fuck is it this late?” he asks as Lydia brushes past us.
“It’s only nine o’clock, boys.” She looks through the peephole and then tilts her head back, glancing up at the ceiling in annoyance. Lydia opens the door to reveal Dog Mom.
“Yoo-hoo, sorry to bother you. I know it’s after bedtime.” Dawn doesn’t wait to be invited inside, and she’s instantly flustered by not only one Ridge, but two. “Oh, wow. You’re both here. Such lucky girls.”
Smiling over the top of the couch, I wave. “Hi, Dawn.”
“Camilla.” Dog Mom hesitantly drags her eyes away from Wilder. “Just the person I was looking for. We spoke about getting you signed up for a patrol shift, but we keep missing each other.”
“Darn,” I say mischievously. Lydia snorts and closes the door.
“I was walking by and saw the lights on, so I decided to give it a shot and stop by. I’m glad I did,” she says like an afterthought. Dawn passes the clipboard. My heart sinks when I see no one else has signed up for the neighborhood watch. “As you can see, I can really use the help.”
“Sure, Dawn.” I sign my name for a night next week. And maybe whiskey makes me do it, but I add Wilder’s name next to mine.
“Wait.” Wilder palms the back of his neck, narrowing his eyes. “I—I’m busy that night.”
Smiling at Dog Mom, I return the volunteer sheet and say, “Change your plans, Wilder.”
Before she leaves, Dawn waves the clipboard in Lydia’s direction. “What do you say?”
“No.”
Deadpan.
Period.
No emoji.
Once Dog Mom takes her exit, Wilder takes both of our glasses from the table and walks them to the kitchen. “I told you she’s mean, Camilla.”
“Wild, don’t start your shit.” Talent sits back on the couch and pours himself another finger of whiskey. Shoulders forward and knees parted, Talent’s thick eyebrows are relaxed, and his eyes reflect a lushy shine.
“I’m not mean,” Lydia insists. I assume she’s going to sit next to Talent, but she stops in front of me with my half-smile on her lips. “Didn’t I tell you not to make friends with the neighbors? What that lady needs is a good dick in her life.”
“Maybe you should hire her,” I reply playfully. Liquor makes me brave and shreds my filter into pieces. “Maybe she can take Benny Cros off my hands.”
Talent laughs into his glass, but Wilder slams the bottle of Johnnie Walker onto the counter. And I think I like it when he’s jealous.
“I’ve heard rumors about him.” To everyone’s surprise, Lydia pushes me down onto the couch and straddles my waist. She takes my hands and puts them on her hips, and then gently brushes a strand of hair away from my face. “I heard he’s hard to fuck.”
Plenty of men have seen Lydia Montgomery naked. They heard her moans, touched her in intimate places, and had their way with her. But there was no soul. It lacked passion. She may have been pinned underneath their bodies, but she was far, far away.
She looks down on me with a small smile on her lips and golden playfulness in her eyes, and I don’t doubt that she’s right here with me.
“The problem with men like Benny Cros is he doesn’t respect women.” Lydia starts to slowly circle her hips, and a dense silence falls over the apartment.
Sucking in a sharp breath, a pricking heat brings sensation back to my lips, to the tips of my fingers, and it floods my stomach with warmth.
“Pleasuring a woman never crosses his mind.” Lydia slides her hands over mine and squeezes her hips until I feel how they swing back and forth like the letter M. “As far as he’s concerned, we’re the lucky ones.”
I press my fingers into her, studying the sway in which she moves, memorizing how seamless and fluid she is above me.
“His lovers take it because they’re desperate, and we take it because we’re paid to. So the bastard goes unchecked.” She guides my hands up her sides, holding them so that I feel her ribcage move with the motion at her belly. Her heart is under there, slow and beating steady. “He abuses our bodies and pats himself on the back after because he can’t imagine a world where he isn’t king. But fuck him.”
My lips spread into a smile, and I whisper, “Fuck him.”
She arches an eyebrow, and the half-grin just for me spreads into a smile as wide as my own. Lydia throws her head back, shaking her long hair back and forth like a goddess. She strokes harder and deeper, pinching her thighs around my waist. “The next time you’re with him, show that motherfucker what he’ll never have, and then take it away.”
Lowering herself over me, Lydia pinches my bottom lip between her thumb and forefinger. With her mouth right above my ear, she whispers, “Don’t you ever let these men make you feel like you have anything to be ashamed of again. Not Benny. Not Wilder. Not anyone. Find the goddamned light.”
Sitting in the hallway closet during the day was uncomfortable.
The wood floor was hard under my bottom, and as I grew taller, the space got smaller and more cramped. But during the day, light from the rest of the house shone under the door and kept me from being in complete darkness. Sometimes I’d press my face right against the door gap to capture as much light as I could, praying the entire time I’d be let out before the sun set. Other times, I’d make shadow figures on the wall, or I snapped buttons off our winter coats and played with them like dolls.
Sitting in the hallway closet during the night was lurid.
The mind plays dirty tricks in the dark. Suddenly, the closet wasn’t a small square space, but an infinite inky abyss. Walls ceased to exist. No beginning. No end. Just blackness. I’d push myself into the corner where I knew for certain the ground was solid beneath me, but if I so much as moved, something might have reached out of oblivion and taken me. Our jackets took on the form of monsters, and every noise or movement of air was the boogeyman.
It got dark enough that I couldn’t tell if my eyes were open or closed. Daddy wouldn’t let me out if I cried, and I couldn’t hear the monsters over the sound of my own heavy breathing if I panicked. So, I taught myself to be completely still and quiet until my dad opened the closet door. He’d pull a short metal chain, illuminating a low-watt light bulb hanging from the ceiling.
I hated that light bulb.
“Did you pray for guidance?” Daddy was a silhouette until my eyes adjusted to the abrupt brilliance. The bulb would swing back and forth above his head, teasing me. “The way of the wicked is like deep darkness. Find what makes you stumble.”
By the time I was tall enough to reach the chain myself, I already had the candles.
Lydia knows not to turn on my bedroom light if I wake up crying during the night, unable to tell if my eyes are open or closed. It only extends the part of the nightmare where my dad is a shadow and the bulb at the top of the closet sways out of reach.
I hear my bedroom door open, but I’m paralyzed with fear, afraid to move in case this isn’t a nightmare and I’m still in the closet with the monsters.
“Shit,” Lydia breathes out.
Holding my hands over my mouth to keep from crying out too loudly, I hear the strike of a match before I smell the sulfur in the air.
“Did her candles go out?” Talent’s tone is thick with sleep.
Trickling firelight licks the walls, low at first but growing higher and brighter as Lydia and Talent set flame to the wicks one by one. A yellow glow burns orange-red, banishing the darkness and the nightmare it brought with it, caging the monsters for another time. The beginning and the end are in sight again. My bedroom has four walls, a ceiling, and a floor.
“Camilla, I can’t get half of these to light,” Lydia says. Her voice is as real as the shape of the room. Candlelight contours her face, cradling the smooth angle of her jaw and emphasizing the circles under her eyes.
“Closet,” I force out. My chin quivers and my eyes burn with unshed tears. Even though I feel the mattress under my back and the cotton sheets against my skin, lingering fear sticks like a fading stain. I blink, and warm tears run down my temples into my hair. “I have more candles in there.”
Talent opens my closet door to find it empty of everything but stacks of boxes, each filled with candles. He drives his hand through his hair, taking in my only way of coping before he grabs the box on top. While he lights brand-new candles, Lydia sits at the end of my bed. She doesn’t touch me, or ask if I’m okay, because we’ve been through this before. I’m not okay.
Instead, she crosses her bare legs and leans back on her hand. Lydia considers me as she gives me time to focus on her weight near my feet and the softness in her eyes. Sleep lines cross her face, and there’s a tiny hole near the hem of her shirt. Small imperfections no one outside this room will ever see.
“Lover of light,” she says with a pinch of teasing.
Firelight serves like a safety blanket, but I don’t need my candles during the day like I need them at night. I light them when the sun’s up because they’re the most familiar thing in my life. When my own family left me at the mercy of the dark, tea lights gave me sight. My candles give me comfort.
They’re essential at night. My bedtime routine starts by checking each and every candle in my bedroom for wick lengths and wax levels. If I don’t think a candle will make it through the night, it’s exchanged for one that will. It’s not often they burn out while I’m asleep, but when it happens and if I wake up, my heart and mind immediately go back to those nights I was locked in my family’s closet. There’s no give between this reality and that one, and my reaction is fast and out of my control.
