Page 7 of Dirty
“It was a gift for my sister,” Sera said, considering the contents of her own glass. “We were supposed to drink it tomorrow night when I arrived, to celebrate her wedding. But since it looks like I’m going to be missing the ceremony altogether, I thought fuck it. Be a shame not to enjoy it.”
“Sounds like you two are close.”
She shrugged. She was tall, her frame strong, but the act of shrugging made her look small and fragile. “Sometimes you end up close to someone because you have no other choice. I used to take care of her, once upon a time.”
Did she mean let these small snippets of information slip? I was learning a lot about her just by sitting here, watching her, but her words told me even more about her past. The scar on her jaw was an act of violence. Her defensive attitude said she was used to protecting herself. And now she was telling me, perhaps inadvertently, that the childhood she’d shared with her sister was fraught with discord. I tossed back another mouthful of the tequila, and my phone buzzed in my pocket again. Damn it, Monica was on a mission tonight. I’d have to call her tomorrow or she really would set out to track me down. That would not end well, for me or for her.
Sera’s mouth turned up at the corners, forming a half amused smile. “You think an awful lot for a pretty boy.”
“Pretty boy?” I’d just met her. Most girls weren't comfortable teasing me about my looks until at least the fourth or fifth drink. Then again, I didn’t usually find myself locked inside a seedy motel room with many women until long after that, and look at where we found ourselves now. “Am I not allowed to think?”
“It’s been my experience that good looks aren’t often married to intellect,” she said.
“Great. We’re making sweeping generalizations. I fucking love those. I guess you have an IQ of fifty-three, then. And you’re a woman, so you’re probably horrible at putting flat-pack furniture together. And you’re a bad driver. And you love to shop and waste all your money on manicures and frivolous, sparkly shit. You probably have a wardrobe full of purses and shoes, and you take four hours in the morning to apply your makeup and straighten your hair.”
She scowled. Drank. Scowled some more. “You know none of that is true. You wouldn’t have said it otherwise.”
“Maybe.”
“You’re the one with the designer suitcase, not me.”
“I stole that off a dead man.”
Her scathing expression said she didn’t believe me for a second. “Come on. You’re probably some sort of investment banker or something. Or a military brat. Although your haircut’s too fancy for that.”
“Thanks. Your hair looks like you’ve had rats nesting in it.” I’d never been told I looked like an investment banker before. Someone claimed I looked like a mortician once, and even that was less offensive thaninvestmentbanker. I came to Liberty Fields straight from another job, one where I had to look the part, so I could understand Sera making a few assumptions. The old adage, ‘never judge a book by its cover’, was so pointless. Peoplealwaysjudged a book by its cover, and the cover Sera saw when I walked into that lobby earlier tonight was a polished, well turned out, very stylish cover. If she’d met me last week, when I was sporting a full beard and covered in dirt, head to toe in camo gear, she would have formed a very different opinion of me. She probably would have thought I was a survivalist nut with a nuclear bunker full of supplies underneath my house. She would never have agreed to share this room with me, that was for fucking sure.
Sera cocked her head to one side, her eyes narrowing into slits. She probably wanted to come across as assessing and severe, but that wasn’t the outcome she achieved. Instead, she looked like a little girl who couldn’t make up her mind. “I’m gonna go to sleep soon. Don’t even think about trying to climb into bed with me. It’s a sure fire way of getting yourself castrated.”
“Please. You know you want to sleep with me, Sera Lafferty. You wanted to sleep with me the moment you set eyes on me.”
A slow, frankly unnerving smile spread across her face. She was beginning to look like a woman who reallywouldtear a guy’s dick off for climbing into bed with her. “You have a very high opinion of yourself,Fix.”
I grinned back at her, flashing her my teeth. “Of course I do. I’m really fucking awesome.”
THREE
BAD ANGEL
SERA
“Just admit it. Admit it to yourself. What harm will it do? You saw me, you thought I was hot, and you wanted to fuck me.”
Where did this guy get off? How could he be so arrogant and brash, without even a glimmer of humility? He was probably the hottest guy I’d ever crossed paths with, hotter than my ex, Gareth, by strides, but with great looks came great responsibility. He should have been humble about his appearance, but instead it seemed as though he’d never even heard of the term.
“Oh, come on. Don’t look so pissy. I shoot from the hip,” he said, grinning. “There’s nothing wrong with taking what you want every once in a while.”
“I want tequila,” I told him, hefting the half-empty bottle in the air. “I want this stupid storm to end so I can get out of here. I donotwant to fuck you.” I wondered if that little speech had convinced him. I was fist pumping inside, because to my own ears I’d sounded like I meant it. For all intents and purposes, itwastrue. Fair enough, I couldn’t keep my eyes off Fix. It was all fun and games, imagining what his hands would feel like all over my body, but I wasn’t dumb enough to act on those thoughts. Fix grunted. Kneeling on the floor at the foot of my bed, his elbows resting on the edge of my mattress, he looked like he was about to climb up onto the damn thing and prowl toward me like a stalking panther.
“Where are you from?” he asked. Thequestion was out of the blue.
“South Carolina. A tiny place called Montmorenci.” I took a swig directly out of the tequila bottle.
“Did you hate it there?” he probed.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
