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  “Fuck.” My teeth were clenched and I could see spittle come out a little as I cursed.

  I shoved away from the porch and moved around to the back of the house. No one had fencing on this street. I could walk right into Clara’s backyard. If you asked me right in this moment why the fuck I cared so much that Clara seemed unaffected by my public humiliation, in all honesty I wouldn’t be able to tell you. I just knew that I needed her to react. Deep in my bones I wanted to see her get pissed off, rage at me. Because deep down inside I knew that it meant I owned her. It was the most fucked-up shit, but I didn’t really care. I had to own Clara’s every last emotion. I knew I couldn’t have love, compassion, lust— so I would take the rage, hate, and aggression. But fuck, being pressed against her was like the sweetest hell.

  I reached for the back French door handle just as Shannon flashed into view and flicked the lock. She backed up just as I flashed my gaze in her direction. I know I looked like an angry beast. I was panting, sweat was dripping from my forehead, and my clothes were sticking to my chest. It was hot as fucking hell out here and I wanted the fuck inside this house.

  Jiggling the handle, I heard the door creak. I could break this shit clean off if I really wanted to. I knew that I was already riding a fine line with the legal edge at this point. Between the video leaking, being the main participant in the video, and Clara drugged in it, I knew that I couldn’t push it. Talking my way into a bedroom, house, anything with a female involved had never been an issue before.

  “Shannon,” I warned. I kept my voice low, almost threatening.

  She backed away again. The light coming in through the window cast a shadow over half of her confused expression.

  “Look Dax, I don’t really know the full extent of what is going on, but I know if I let you in, I won’t have a place to live.” She paused, reached her hand forward and shrugged. “Sisters before manwhores.” And she dropped a shade in my face.

  My fist slammed into the side of the door. “FUCK!” I shoved my forehead against the wall and pushed hard. The pain eased my frustration, cleared my head, and gave me a new clarity. I would have to play this game better. The hurt would have to come from a different direction. I needed her to suffer, but I also needed to be the savior.

  I tilted my head back and roared up at the second story of the house.

  “Tonight, Clara!”

  I stalked down the back porch, went to go around the corner and my nose came in contact with a fist.

  What. The. Fucking. Fuck.

  Todd stood inches from me, his finger in my face. He looked ready to kill me. Only one other time had he looked this way, and it had been over a girl also. The only time we had come to blows was when I’d fucked the girl he was dating his junior year of high school. The girl was only using him to get closer to me. So I gave her closer. Was it a dick move? Absofuckinglutely. But pussy was pussy and Todd had to learn just like I had that chicks couldn’t be trusted. He was always looking for the nerdy types. So far they had all spread their legs for me. This was the first time I gave a shit though. Clara was all mine. I was taking over her life until she was consumed with only me. I didn’t give a flying fuck how irrational it all was, my hurt and pain needed an outlet. Remembering what I had felt when she turned her back on me all those years ago fueled the rage—and lust.

  Whoa.

  Well, yeah, I wanted to fuck her. She’d grown into the most beautiful female I’d ever seen. No amount of primp and curl could outdo Clara in all her natural glory. Besides, I couldn’t forget her tits. My dick got hard and I knew I would have to find an outlet for that very soon or my hand would be chaffed by the end of the night.

  “That was over the fucking line, Dax!” Todd stabbed his fingers through his hair and I watched him take a step back. He was pacing in front of me, shaking his head. He looked back up at me and it was then I knew regret for real. The mixture of seeing Clara hold back all her emotions and then Todd with that look of disappointment reflected back at me—I just couldn’t.

  “Yeah well, get the fuck over it. She’s just another piece of ass. I’m already forgetting about it and her. Now you have no more distractions, and you can get your face out of her cunt and back on track with the frat.”

  I pressed my fingers to my nose and felt the warm fluid flowing freely. Fucking asshole got me good. I pinched it off and tipped my head down. I wasn’t looking at him when he grabbed hold of my bicep.

  “This did nothing but push me closer to her.” He sighed and dropped my arm. I refused to look up at him. “Look, I don’t know what the fuck is going on with you. I haven’t seen you act like this since you first came to live with us. I don’t know what you have to do with Clara or she does you, but I know it has to do with your past.” He didn’t talk for a long time. I glared at him from the corner of my eye. Fuck, my face hurt. Everyone kept hitting me in my face. At this point I would welcome a crotch shot.

  “I’ll find it out. You know I can.”

  I just smirked. It hurt like fuck but I couldn’t show weakness now. Straightening my back and giving him the full stance of badass, I allowed the blood to flow down my chin and drip onto my shirt.

  Fuck. I really liked this shirt.

  “Back off, Todd.”

  I turned and stalked off.

  Chapter Eight

  Todd

  Up In the Air by Thirty Seconds to Mars started to play. My phone was on the coffee table in the greatroom and I moved quickly and grabbed it. I’d put a call in to my dad to not only find out about Clara Parker and Dax, but also to get that fucking video pulled. It had been two days since the incident and breathed I out a sigh of release that my dad’s name, Paul, flashed on the phone. I slid my thumb across the screen.

  “Yeah.” My tone was curt and I cringed, instantly regretting it, but I was playing hardball with Dax Trenton. He was much better at these games than I was.

  “Well, I got most of the videos off the net. I have blocks up for the embedded code that people use to download it.” He was silent for a long time, and I heard clicking of computer keys on the other end of the line.

  “There is something else.” More silence.

  I collapsed into the chair and grunted. I was out of patience. Clara was avoiding me like a pro and it was putting me on edge. Dax was still trying to get into the house. The girl managed to totally avoid us. I saw her in passing quickly before she disappeared into a crowd.

  “The video source was pinged to your computer, Todd.” He didn’t speak again. I could almost feel his accusing eye on me. Did he really think I was capable of this shit? I pinched the bridge of my nose between two fingers.

  “It was Dax,” I ground out.

  I was really trying to avoid this with my dad. He felt like Dax was a son. When we adopted him we really thought growing up without worry, hunger, or abuse would make him better. This was a huge setback.

  “Why?” My dad was a genius. Quite literally setting bar and setting the curve. The military went to him first when they needed encryption codes or other secret military documents secured over the net.

  I fell back against the couch, closing my eyes tight. I shook my head, then realized he couldn’t see me. “I don’t know. I was honestly hoping you could help me with that. This all started when he met this girl in the video, Clara Parker.” I reached for my bottled water on the table in front of me and took a swig. “Does the name ring a bell? I get the feeling he knew her in the past and it was why he was so volatile when he first came to live with us.”

  My dad snorted on the other line. “Funny. I thought he was volatile because of the abuse and sexual assault.”

  We were both silent for a long stretch. Together we decided it would be in Dax’s favor to allow professionals to bring any of that up. Yet we couldn’t avoid the possibility that Clara had something to do with that past.

  “Well, whatever it is, we need to sort it out. He seems hell bent on torturing this girl and she’s innocent. She’s just a girl. She d
oesn’t seem to know him and she looks just as confused by his actions.”

  “Are you sure? I mean, she could have been hooked up with the father somehow.”

  I took another drink, shaking my head. “No, I know her father. He’s a professor of archeology. They would never have run in the same circles. You just need to trace them all back to before we got Dax. I need answers if I am going to help either of them.”

  More clicking of computer keys on the other end, and then a grunt. “I’m on it. Just─” He cleared his throat. “Keep an eye on Dax. He’s almost to his future, he can’t afford setbacks.”

  “I know.” I hung up the phone. I groaned and threw my arm over my face and got ready to try and get back in Clara’s good graces. How I would do that, I had no clue.

  ***

  Clara

  It’d been just over a month since what Shannon and I referred to as ‘the incident’. Dax hadn’t come back later that day like he’d threatened to do when he released the video. He’d gone ahead and threw a party instead. Probably in celebration of my fallen status in society. The thing about it all—and what I’d quickly learned—was that college life was far different than high school. If Dax did this while we were in high school, I would hear about it every second of every day. I wouldn’t live it down. It would’ve infected any social networking I was part of. I found mostly support in college. People either quickly forgot what happened, or they just didn’t care. A few feminist groups came to me to verbalize their support and offer to cut off Dax’s balls.

  For the most part neither he, nor his frat were very popular at the moment. I did a clever job at avoiding. Todd was a bit more ruthless, it turned out, than Dax. I’d gotten a steady supply of surprises on my doorstep for the first two weeks. When Todd quickly realized that wasn’t going to work out for him, he went back to relentless text messages, Facebook posts on my wall, and DMs to my Facebook. I ignored them all. I didn’t block him, mostly because that was a bitchy thing to do.

  I didn’t know the whole story, and for all I knew when I stopped to think about it, Todd really knew nothing about it.

  The fact was I simply wasn’t ready to trust them. For one, every time I spied Dax he had another girl sitting in his lap. Literally, it was a new one every time I saw him. Tamara seemed to have moved on to a new conquest, hanging all over a very handsome dark-skinned guy. He was in my English 4 class and usually sat next to me. At first I thought it was a trick. Get me to open up, spill my guts, and give Dax more ammo. Turns out he was just a nice guy. What he was doing with a girl like Tamara was beyond me.

  It was Friday, my day off.

  Where I should’ve been studying for a quiz on Monday, I had allowed Shannon to drag me to the Montclair Plaza Mall. She wanted new shoes and just got paid. She worked at the local Sprouts Farms Market, and was off today too. The plan was to shop, get a lunch and head down to Disneyland around three. Spend until close there and grab dinner. I needed Disneyland after the month I’d dealt with. The quiet agony that I suppressed was weighing on me. So many nights I wanted to cry for the boy I lost in Dax. This new man that was birthed in his place was a stranger and the more I thought on it, the sicker I got.

  Still, I didn’t tell my dad about him. It would break his heart. He’d been just as devastated when the state came to collect him, saying he was being placed in his father’s custody.

  Marcus Trenton.

  Chills broke out all over my body remembering that man.

  A day later my mother was killed in a car accident. Everything came tumbling down at once in my life and I was only a child. It was me against the world back then. I realized quickly my father had lost me, my mother, and Dax. I needed to stop being selfish and allow him to mourn.

  So we did. We mourned together.

  We’d all grown up in or in the outskirts of Chicago. And Dax’s father was one of the biggest career criminals known in those parts. I was pretty sure if I asked around the bad elements here people would know his name. Dax had totally disappeared from my life. He’d promised—why did I really expect a child to keep that promise?

  “Always, Clara-belle. Always mine, always yours.”

  Always.

  It was like our thing.

  I felt a burning sensation behind my eyes and I started to shake. It hurt every time I thought about it and realized Dax Trenton had totally forgotten me. Who knew what his father had done to him once he went back? The state had put Dax in our custody and for two wonderful years he’d lived with us. Then he was just gone.

  A clearing throat behind me dropped me out of my internal musings. I’d been just standing in the middle of the Doctor Who section of Hot Topic, zoning out.

  Great, Clara, just great.

  I shifted my gaze towards the sound, and instantly I felt my body go on high alert.

  Todd stood, leaning against the table with all the Doctor Who shirts. His perfectly muscled arms were crossed over his chest. There went that simmering again. It was slow at first and as my eyes locked on his unique blue hues I was lost to his playful gaze.

  “Fancy seeing you here, Ms. Clara.”

  I felt the heat spread in my cheeks and I turned from him. I sealed my lips shut. Maybe if I said nothing he would go away. It’d been working so far. Then again, so far I’d only seen the top of his head. I would leave an hour early in the morning just to avoid running into my hot neighbors.

  I walked away from the table, and went to look up at the wall of Disney themed tanks, hoodies, and other items I didn’t really need. They had an Elsa sweatshirt—my dad would kill me knowing I was spending my food allowance on Hot Topic crap.

  “You can’t ignore me forever. At some point you will have to talk to me, then you will remember how much you adore my company.” I could feel the tug in my lips. I dropped my head and warm hands rested on my shoulders.

  My back was still to him, but I felt his heat right up against me.

  “I’ve been doing a great job so far,” I whispered. God, I sounded like a damned mouse.

  Slowly and almost carefully, he turned me around. I kept my gaze pinned to the ground. Fingers slipped under my chin and tilted upward to look into those warm, glittering eyes. His hair was a little tousled. Who was I kidding? It was designed to look neatly tousled at all times. It really was unfair how beautiful he was.

  “At this point I’m not above begging. I just need us to have a little talk.” His voice was low. The deep tone seemed to vibrate through me. Goosebumps lifted up my arms and I felt this tight feeling low in my belly.

  My shoulders slumped. I knew I couldn’t keep my distance from this guy. I didn’t trust him just yet, but I knew that I couldn’t stay away.

  “Todd.” I stepped back out of his hold. “We aren’t ever going to happen. I mean, I can’t, not now,” I finished honestly. As aroused by him as I clearly was, it was just that. With him, the idea of his friendship got me hotter than the idea of him as my boyfriend.

  He shoved his hands in his front pockets. My eyes pinned to how he looked in those jeans. They were fitted to his body as if they were custom made. He had on a loose Quicksilver blue tank top and rainbow flip flops. My scan met his eyes and he was sporting this smug, knowing grin.

  “You sure about that, Ms. Clara? Because that perusal was quite sexual in nature.”

  I rolled my eyes and turned away from him, heading to the register. No one was there as usual. I got on my tip toes and scanned for a worker. I saw no one.

  Todd leaned his elbow against the counter, facing me and so very close. I shivered.

  “Just lunch, that’s all I’m asking.”

  “I’m having lunch with Shannon,” I replied quickly.

  “Ah, but Shannon likes me. We are secret friends when you’re not around.”

  I glared at him because I knew this. I shifted a step back from him, and he just leaned closer.

  “Please. I’ll pull a Top Gun if you don’t, in the middle of the mall.”

  I swallowed hard. �
�You wouldn’t,” I whispered.

  He grinned. “Oh, I would.”

  “Um, are you ready?” The unamused voice of the female employee had me jerking way from Todd.

  “Ye—yes, I’m all set,” I stammered.

  Todd just kept looking at me with this satisfied smirk on his face. His eyes glittered playfully. All the while the employee kept looking between Todd and me like we were intruding on her home or something.

  “That will be fifty-four dollars and ninety-eight cents.”

  I went to dig in my small over-the-shoulder bag but Todd’s deep rumble halted me. When I looked up he was handing the woman an American Express Black card. I knew the dude had money but not that much money. I reached my hand out to intercept it, but he moved it out of my way and the woman took it. As she was making the charge, I crossed my arms over my chest and pouted. I wasn’t a huge pouter but he was blackmailing me—clearly.

  “That’s low,” I whispered.

  He slapped his hand to his chest, and had the decency to look wounded.

  “How dare you, Clara! It is not low at all to buy something for a friend!”

  He performed the whole thing so over the top that I couldn’t stop it. I laughed. I couldn’t help it, it was all just so cute.

  “Okay, fine! Lunch and we will talk.”

  The woman handed me my bag, Todd his card, and told us to both have a good day. We left the store just as Shannon was coming towards us.

  “Oh good, he found you. I knew you would be in the fangirl store.”

  My mouth fell open as I looked between the two of them.

  “You mean—this─” I glared at the two of them. Shannon just shrugged while answering a text and Todd put his arm over my shoulder and laughed. It was deep and masculine and hit me right where it counted, between my legs.

  “Yes, my dear Clara, it was all a set-up.”

  “But—”