So Toxic(Bad Boy Next Door Book 4)(284)

I lift my hands in a what-the-fuck gesture. “Well?”

“I don’t want your cock right now. Not sure I’ll ever want it again. But I’ll let you know if I change my mind.”

The heat that was frying my dick a few minutes ago moves to my head, setting my brain on a slow boil. “You don’t want my cock?”

She crosses her arms and shakes her head, her smile turning devious.

She moves one leg to the side and points to her still glistening pussy. “Buck, honey, I figured something out after you ran off to California and left me behind. As long as I’ve got one of these, I can have as many of those,” She nods to my erection. “as I want.”

She lifts an eyebrow as she snatches the curtains closed.

Well, I’ll be—fucked.

Or not.





TEN





I take one step and flop backward onto the bed. With both hands over my face, I giggle.

Damn that felt good.

The pussy eating he did was great. But the look in his eyes when I opened the door and told him I’m going to bed—fucking priceless. Teach his ass to think he can smooth-talk his way into getting laid.

Asshat.

He can pack up his cock and carry it back to Hollywood for that shit.

As I stare at the ceiling, trying to relax enough to sleep, that last conversation I had with Buck before he took off runs through my head on a loop.

He pulled me into his arms, held me close, and dropped a kiss at my temple. “You’re eighteen now, you don’t need me anymore.”

“I’ll always need you, Buck.” The pain in my chest was enough to double me over. It was all I could do not to drop to my knees, but that would be truly humiliating, and I’d already tasted enough humiliation to last a lifetime.

He held me away from him and looked me right in the eyes. “Look, you and me, we’re on separate paths. It’s not like it was before. We always knew this wasn’t going to last forever.”

“But it could, Buck. Couldn’t it?”

His face went through a myriad of expressions—happiness, confusion, anger—finally settling on determination.

But then his eyes hardened. “Look, Lou. We were never meant to stay together. If we do, it’ll be a nail in the coffin of my career. I have to leave. You go to college and use that scholarship you worked so hard for. Someday you’ll thank me for this.”

Thank him? For ripping my soul to shreds and lighting a match to it? Not likely. It’s been damn near five years, and I’ve never felt gratitude for what he did. Not once.




Evening brings a cool breeze and the longing to get outside and enjoy it while it lasts.

But Buck’s next door. Do I really want to deal with him if he comes around?

Fuck him. After last night, I doubt he’ll show up over here again anytime soon.

Bastard.

Letting myself out of the house, I slide my flip-flops onto my feet. I slowly make my way to the north side of Aunt Delores’s place, instead of going south toward the Buckners’.

My ankle still aches, but if the military taught me anything it was to push past the pain. I tramp through the unkempt path through the little strip of trees that used to separate the Dubois’ from the Fontaines’ place—my mom’s place.

Aunt Delores and Uncle Manny bought my old house three or four years ago. My childhood home, if anyone could call it a home, still stands—if the term stands is used loosely. It’d be more accurate to say it leans…collapses…disintegrates at a low rate of speed—too slowly, in my opinion.

I push clingy weeds from my path and cross into the clearing that surrounds the decaying single-wide trailer where, more times than not, I spent the night hungry, alone, or scared. Or all of the above.

I wander to the place under the Bois d’Arc tree where I first met Aunt Delores. I was thirteen, and she had a basket filled with warm blueberry muffins and a smile.

She walked into the yard with her basket over her arm, picking her way through the brambles and brush.

I carefully scrambled down from the horse-apple tree. But, even though I was careful, one of the three-inch-long thorns still caught my top as I made my way from limb to limb. It tore the fabric and sent a streak of stinging pain through me. I jumped down, holding my side.

The woman rushed over, set her towel-covered basket on the ground, and knelt beside me. “You all right?”

An angry scratch leaked droplets of blood from my hip to my ribcage. I dashed the tears escaping from my eyes. “I’m okay.”

Her kind eyes were the bluest I’d ever seen. “Darlin’, that doesn’t look okay to me. Let’s tell your momma, so she can fix you up.”

She turned toward the rickety front steps.