God help me, but I want to.
Jagger
Istand behind the black leather salon chair, staring at Poppy’s expression in the mirror. Her multi-colored eyes swirl with excitement, and all of her perfectly straight teeth show from her wide smile. She is animated and vibrant, and it does something funny to my stomach, making me want to figure out how to keep her that way.
Then the stylist approaches, and my mood turns to fucking shit. I haven’t so much as had a passing thought about my past in almost twenty-four hours. Not since I spotted Halfpint last night. But it returns with the force of a hurricane the moment the bottle blond appears.
My teeth clamp down, and the feeling in my stomach turns to nausea, bile rising in my chest. When she touches Poppy, the urge to break her goddamn predatory hand slams into me like a wrecking ball.
Memories of her hands on me, of Krista dangling Casey like a bargaining chip, make me dizzy. The way they groped and grabbed at me like I was a piece of meat. The shame and embarrassment I felt when my body reacted to them. She was one of many, along with my goddamnstepmother,that violated me time and time again.
Except…
I said yes. Every time. Played every game. They never had to tie me down. Just dangle Casey.
That means it wasn’t really assault, right?
One late night when I was fifteen, I crept through the house, trying not to get caught sneaking in after being at my girlfriend’s when I overheard Krista cackling obnoxiously, which wasn’t unusual. Everything about that bitch was obnoxious.
To this day, what I heard her say makes me more nauseous, angrier than anything she ever did to me.
So I confronted her. Threatened to tell my dad and brother. Even Liam, though I didn’t know him back then.
It seemed to work.
Then one night, I woke up with her mouth on my dick. I jerked her away from me, wrapped my hands around her throat, and told her she was done.
She twisted the story so fast, my head spun.
“No one will believe I forced you. Took advantage of you,” she cackled in my face, ignoring the way my hand tightened around her neck. “You’re bigger and stronger than I am, but even if they do, I’ll take Casey, and no one will ever see us again. I’m quite resourceful, you know.”
My heart hammered. I wouldn’t let her hurt Casey like that. I may have been resentful of her, but she was just a kid. Not even a fucking teenager, and I knew the cunt was psychotic enough to follow through.
She offered a deal. Casey would be off-limits if she could have me. The thought turned my stomach, and for a nanosecond, I considered squeezing until she could no longer waste oxygen.
Looking back, that’s what I should’ve done.
Krista’s demands eventually became more. Her friends wanted to join, and I didn’t have a choice.
The woman with her hands on Poppy is one of those sick bitches with a husband just as bad. She doesn’t recognize me. Atsixteen, I wasn’t covered in tattoos and piercings, didn’t have long hair or a five o’clock shadow. My face still held many babyish qualities of youth that have long since given way to maturity. My shoulders have spread, I’ve grown another three inches, and the gangly hundred sixty-pound boy is now a two hundred twenty-pound man. The truth is, I could pass for closer to thirty than twenty.
But I recognize her. The voice. The eyes. The bottle blond hair. They were all blonds. And it’s taking everything in me not to rip her away from Poppy.
“What are we after today?” she asks, oblivious to my presence and quiet rage. “Color? Cut? Oh, you should go blond!”
“No,” my voice cuts through the room, garnering stares from the clients on either side of Poppy. She meets my eyes in the mirror, brows raised in question. I try to unclench…my jaw, my fists…every muscle in my body. I’m not sure it works, but I at least manage to take control of my voice. With a lower, softer tone, my eyes focused only on Poppy, I say, “Her color is perfect. She doesn’t need to be blond.”
Poppy beams back at me, her radiant smile thumping against the fury roiling through me.
“But blonds have more fun, sweetheart.” The bitch shakes her bottle job, smiles, and winks. “Trust me. I’m the expert here.”
“Then how about you carry your expertise to someone who fucking wants it?”
Her gasp of shock is almost satisfying. Almost.
Poppy looks at me with a curious gaze. Questions swim in her hazel eyes. I’m surprised when she doesn’t reprimand me for being rude, as she has on occasion. She doesn’t even object to my demand. She shifts, like she wants to reach for me, but doesn’t. Like she knows touch might unravel me.
I wish she didn’t. I don’t want her to see that part of me.
