recognize. Oscar lives above the store with his mom, even though I get the feeling his mother isn’t there very often. He stops the bike and turns it off, the vibrations of the engines cease, but my muscles are like Jell-O. I swing my leg over, hopping off the bike while Oscar helps guide me. He gets off next, much more gracefully, and opens a metal-corrugated door next to the door to his apartment. Inside, there’s a small storage room. He walks the bike in and then holds out his hand for the bike helmet I took off. He watches as I run my hands through my hair and then locks the place up again.
“I thought we’d try here. Maybe she stumbled her way back home.” He pulls the door to the apartment open and holds it open for me as I follow him up the narrow steps.
“What’s been going on with her since I’ve been gone?”
“I haven’t heard from her much. I tried asking her about Gregory since she kind of remembers we saw her that day, but she doesn’t remember all of it. I don’t know if she still sees him or not, and I haven’t said shit to Johnny or K about what we saw. I don’t want them bringing her in. It’s possible she was too damn high to remember anything, and I don’t want them getting trigger happy because they think she’s holding back on them.”
I swallow a lump in my throat. I would hope they wouldn’t do that. Johnny wouldn’t. I know that from the very depths of my heart, but K is soulless.
He opens the door at the top of the stairs. He’s cleaned the place a bit since the last time I was here. I wait just inside as he walks around the apartment, checking everywhere. When he comes out of his mom’s room, he punches the wall.
I walk up to him. “Hey, hey. It’s okay.”
His hands turn to fists. “It’s just so fucked up.” He turns ravenous eyes on me. “Everything is fucked up in this hell hole, but you.”
The intensity of his words strike me. I crack a smile. “I don’t know. I’m kind of fucked up too.”
“Not like me. Not like the rest of the Heights. I don’t even deserve to touch you.”
My head snaps back as if he’s punched me. “Don’t do that.”
His jaw ticks. “It’s fucking true, and you know it. Out of all the guys you’ve chosen, I’m the one you went slumming for. I’m a piece of shit thug who hits someone for accidentally spitting in his face right after I told him his friend died. My mom’s a whore and a drug addict. I’m no one, Kyla.”
Shit’s real when he uses my actual name.
“You need a lobotomy if you think that’s true.”
He watches me like a man starved. He’s barely holding it together. His chest rises and lowers with the ferocity of his breaths.
“You’re no one? You don’t deserve to touch me?” I start to strip. I pull my shirt off, dropping it at our feet. My breasts jiggle as I stand upright before him, and he takes his eyeful. I kick off my shoes and then shimmy out of my skinny jeans, kicking them to the side as well until I’m standing in front of him in my bra and panties. “Do you want to hear how many times I’ve thought about your cock sliding inside me?” I arch a brow. “When I was away at Greenlawn, I had a lot of time on my hands.” I stalk toward him, wiggling my fingers. “These fingers have gotten a workout, but I’m done with that. I want you to touch me.”
Oscar’s gaze zeroes in on my cleavage. I have to say, this bra is doing a banging job. No wonder he’s looking at me like he could jump me right now. He swallows. “You’d let me do that. A street rat?”
I back him up into his room. “Let you do that? I’d beg you.”
Oscar groans. I don’t know what shit other bitches did to him, but he’s no one’s slut to keep around only when it suits them.
“You’re not my dirty little secret, Oscar.”
A spark fires in Oscar’s gaze, and he moves forward, hands cupping my ass as he grinds his erection into me. I’ve worked myself up for this moment. Dreamed about it in a fitful sleep. Daydreamed about it with my fingers coaxing my clit into submission.