Breathe Me (A 'Me' Novel) Read online

  “Harley.” He caressed my bottom lip with his thumb. His eyes fell to my mouth, and he licked his lips, and that was it for me. I got goose bumps all over as I flattened my back against the wall and looked into his eyes, now a gunmetal color. I watched as he searched my face. He shouldn’t be allowed to look at a woman like this.

  “What are you hiding?” Those words caused my slamming heart to stop. How could he know I was hiding something when not even Ember knew? I was trying to tell myself he didn’t; it was just a ploy for someone like him to get what he wanted. But deep down, I knew he knew.

  “I…I…I don’t know what…”

  He took a deep breath and closed the already small gap between our bodies. I put my hands up to stop him, and they came into contact with his rock-hard abdomen. Shit, those couldn’t be real. I wanted to move my hand farther and feel what I knew would be a six-pack, if not an eight. That was the wrong thing for me to touch if I wanted to stop him.

  “Just a taste…” His grip on my face tightened slightly as he pulled me toward his lips. The heat coming off him felt amazing. It instantly made my vaginal walls tighten and moisten, dampening my panties. I had been waiting twenty-three years for this kiss, to feel lips on mine. I moved my hands to his sides and gripped his shirt, brazenly pulling him closer. I wanted this. I didn’t care that he was a stranger, a customer whose name I didn’t even know. I was ready.

  He must have taken my actions as a go-ahead, and he slowly leaned down, bringing our mouths closer. I closed my eyes, because that’s what they did in all my books, and waited for his lips to touch mine.

  “Harley, is that you?” a voice I knew and hated right now called out.

  Seriously? Great fucking timing, Ember.

  I heard him make the sexiest annoyed-sounding noise I had ever heard as he braced his hand against the wall and leaned down, his lips brushing my ear.

  “I smell you. Fuck, you smell amazing.” His voice came out leathery.

  If I wasn’t leaning against a wall, I would have fainted epically right there. I was 135 percent sure he wasn’t talking about my deodorant, and it made my panties moisten more.

  His voice was rough and spiked with sensuality; it went straight to my stomach, making me feel like I had a thousand little worms moving around in there. He nipped my ear, and then pulled back to face my vagina-blocking best friend and her boyfriend.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, I see that you’re…Dek?” Ember asked, focusing on Dystopian Biker guy. Wait, what did she call him?

  “You know him?” I asked, looking back and forth between Ember and Matt and the man who would mostly likely star in all my sex dreams to come.

  “It’s about time you showed up, bro,” Matt said, who looked less than happy to see…his brother?

  “Wait, ‘bro’? This is your brother, the brother you have been trying to set me up with? The loser?” I asked. This couldn’t be the same guy Matt and Ember had told me about. No, not my Dystopian Biker.

  “I see you’ve been building my fan club, Matty,” he—Dek—said coolly.

  I stepped to the side to put a little distance between us and saw that he had completely changed. Gone was the hot, sexy bad boy who not five minutes ago had me wanting to open myself up to him. Now what stood before me was a brooding, still hot and sexy man who looked…dangerous.

  “Car trouble, huh? I see you just wanted time in to get your dick wet,” Matt spat. I had never heard him talk like that, then it hit me what he really said.

  “Fuck you, asshole. Like I was going to let him fuck me against a wall on the street,” I said. Now that Em and Matt were here, I felt like my normal, fake self again. And it didn’t escape me that once again I was indirectly being called a slut.

  “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded, Harley, I swear.” Matt tore his eyes away from his brother and looked apologetically at me. He could kiss my ass. People tended to say what they really felt in the heat of the moment, and it wasn’t like I could argue. To those who knew me, I was a slut.

  “That’s not what I was doing, dipshit,” Dek said darkly, still focused on his brother. He looked as if he wanted to stomp the shit out of Matt. The look he had was one I was all too familiar with—it was the look of unadulterated hatred, the look that said, “I wish I could rip out your vocal cords through your nose and get away with it.” And it was all directed at Matt. It made me uncomfortable.

  Ember placed a hand on Matt’s forearm as if to stop him from saying anything more. “What are you doing with him, Har? How do you even know him?” She eyed me speculatively. Just because she didn’t say it out loud, I knew she was thinking the same thing as Matt. I found yet another strange piece of casual ass and was getting ready to fuck him, and in this one case, she wasn’t far off the mark.

  “I met her in a store. So what?” Dek shifted his stance, widening his legs as if ready to pounce.

  “There’s a store for picking up ass? Again, no offense, Harley,” Matt said.

  This time, Ember hit him on the arm and gave him a warning look. At least she knew not to poke the bear.

  “Whatever. I have to go. I’ll talk to you later, Em.” I made no promises to the rest of them. I knew Mr. Too Good Too Be True was too good to be true. Of course a guy that hot was going to leave a trail of women in his wake. What would he possibly want with me, except the obvious? That was the one thing my mother was actually right about. I had to get away from here before I let the old nuances come back, before my walls came down.

  I turned and walked away without so much as a glance in his direction. I immediately felt him, his presence, following me.

  “What?” I turned to him. If he thought I’d give him the time of day now that I knew who he was, what he was, he was in for a little truth.

  “Whoa, hold up. It’s still late, and I wanted to make sure you got home all right.”

  “I can find it on my own, thanks, Dek.” I turned to leave, but he grabbed my wrist. In that moment, I had a flashback to when I was seven and had dropped a glass of milk on the floor. My mother not only made me squeeze the milk in a cup and drink it, but she also held my wrist so tight that it was bruised and sore for a week.

  I panicked and pulled back from Dek’s grip, fear making my heart spasm.

  His eyes darkened briefly before he raised his hands up, palms out, and said, “I’m not going to hurt you, Harley, and don’t call me that. My name is Deklan. No one calls me Dek except for Matty and…just don’t call me that.”

  “I’m sorry, I have to go, and my house is not that far. Thank you.”

  “Wait, what happened back there? Before my brother showed up, you wanted me to kiss you. I know you did. What changed?” He searched my face, as if looking for the girl he had pinned to the wall not more than ten minutes ago.

  I felt my ears warm with the embarrassment at the memory of my almost kiss. It would be a memory I would return back to.

  “Nothing. Contrary to what your brother thinks, I’m not a member of Sluts-R-Us,” I bit out. I had to be hard with this guy. I couldn’t let him in. He would be just like her—he would hurt me, and I couldn’t have that.

  “I could give zero fucks what my brother thinks about anything. As usual, he is clueless about everything. That’s not what I was doing with you.”

  “What were you doing?” I folded my arms across my chest, rubbing my goose bumps. The temperature had dropped with the late hour. I watched as he shrugged out of his jacket and slowly placed it around my shoulders, then looked me in the eye.

  “I think you know what I was doing, but if you want, I can show you again. In fact, I can show you all night if that’s what you want.” His eyes had a slight glint to them, and I was so ready to give him anything he wanted. The hot, sexy bad boy was back.

  “I don’t think so,” I said.

  “I do.” He took a step back and assessed me in his jacket. “It’s going to happen, sweetheart, trust me. The way you…” He shook his head. “Just trust me, it will happen.” He smirke
d like he knew this giant secret, and I wanted to punch and kiss him all in the same breath. A part of me knew he was absolutely right. Fucking Deklan. Even his name was hot. Why couldn’t his name be Eunice or Wilbur, something less hot?

  I was in so much trouble.

  Chapter 8

  Deklan

  Fuck! I punched my fist into the wall, wishing like hell it was my brother’s face. He fucked my whole night up. Not that I thought Harley would be back here with me now grinding those nice-ass tits in my chest. No, she wasn’t like the usual piece of ass I would spit a few words to and fuck.

  She was raw, and innocent.

  And real.

  And Matty had to go and fuck it all up, his bitch ass.

  I could see it the first time I saw her. It was what made me turn up at that bookstore early this morning, hoping I’d see her again. After reading that book that hit a little too close to home and seeing her again in the morning, something about her stayed with me. Fuck, it was what made me lie to Matt, telling him I’d be another day due to car trouble, not that I gave a shit about lying to him. I had already swung by the house and saw Mom, who had been napping. I asked the home health nurse not to mention I’d been there. I didn’t want any family reunions just yet. I fucked about town, staying hidden, and went to that bookstore like a bitch with a habit. I went with the hopes she was working, but when I didn’t see her at first, I decided to go check out some books. I was two chapters into some book about a set of twins, one of which had a demon living inside of him—twisted shit—when Harley came in with her tight tank top looking distracted as hell and, though she tried to hide it, clearly upset about something.

  I thought I saw a flash of something in her eyes this morning, when she fed me that bullshit about sleeping wrong, and I sensed something was up. She looked like a sheep in wolf’s clothing. All badass and sexy, but her eyes gave her away. She was as innocent as I wasn’t, and I wanted to know what she was hiding, why she was hiding, and who she was hiding from. I made her nervous, I made everyone nervous, but with her it was more than that. Like she wasn’t used to talking to men and it flustered her. I guess that was why I wasn’t my normal, charming, some call it asshole, self.

  When she jetted out of the store and forgot her phone after I clocked her back—yeah, her fucking back—instincts told me to go after her instead of leaving it with the store for her to get later. I was glad I did; she was walking in a fucking shady-ass part of town that I used to frequent when I lived here. People went to that side to get lost or get into some shit. I didn’t want either happening to her.

  And just when I was about to give her what I knew she wanted, my cock-blocking brother and his loud-ass, perky girlfriend had to shut it down. It was all I could do not to pop him right then and there. And what was this shit about her being a slut? Yeah, I caught all that shade they were throwing her way. Fuckers. There was no way she was a grade A slut.

  No way.

  I smelled the arousal of someone innocent. It was heavy in the air between us when she handed my jacket back to me, and it made my dick stand up and pay attention. I wasn’t being cocky when I told her we would happen. I was being hopeful. Me, fucking hopeful to have sex with a chick. If I had friends, they would ride me hard for this shit. Harley was probably so sheltered that someone like me would get her dirty, and if she allowed me to, I’d get her dirty in the best way possible.

  Chapter 9

  Harley

  I rolled over in bed, listening and thinking.

  Listening, always in a fight-or-flight state, and thinking about a sexy man with steel-gray eyes that reached my soul. I didn’t even remember walking home last night after leaving the sexiest man whom I had only ever read about, and thoughts of him filled up every space of my brain.

  Deklan.

  Deklan.

  His name was like a marathon runner running laps over and over in my head and overpowering all logical thought processes. But I wasn’t stupid. Once he found out how fragile I was on top of being the biggest liar, he would hurt me.

  Everyone you let in—loved—hurts you. It was something I had never been able to understand. Was it really supposed to be like that?

  I didn’t understand how someone could throw love away so easily like last week’s leftovers and not bat an eye, while others were so desperate for it they would do anything for it. How the people who were supposed to love you hated you and thrived on your pain. How was I supposed to know what love was if no one had ever shown me, loved me? How would I know when it was real? I had my romance novels to compare, and in most of them the guy either started out hating the girl, or was a big asshole to her, and then they had mind-blowing sex, and he confessed his love, or one of them ran then came back and they lived happily ever after. This was what I was yearning hard for, what I would never have.

  Love.

  I slipped back to sleep and dreamed of being happy, except now there was a certain brooding, sexy male starring in my dreams.

  With a smile on my face, I got up to do…well, nothing. It was my off day, and those days were always filled with fear and anxiety because who knew what I would be doing or what I would have to go through on these days.

  I straightened up my room and checked on the remaining books I had hidden last night. I couldn’t wait to be able to read again. I dared not read today; it was too soon. Eventually she would forget about her burning what she thought were all my books, but until then it was too risky. After getting dressed and dry swallowing an anxiety pill, I eased out of my room only to be met with silence. Good, she hadn’t gotten up yet.

  After cleaning up the bathroom and getting rid of the evidence of last night’s trauma, I made myself breakfast and then flopped down on the couch to watch some mindless television. I was deep into a trashy talk show and the people on stage were about to have an all-out brawl when I heard her stir in her bedroom. I froze, my heart going to my throat, causing my breath to catch. I stared at the people being broken up by the security team on TV and wished I had a personal security team. Someone who would stop her or at least push me to stop her.

  Or to leave.

  Her door opened, and she spent a few moments in the bathroom before coming out dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, her normal attire. The house we lived in once belonged to my grandmother, whom I had never met before she died and left everything to my mother. My mother proclaimed, “I’m handicapped” and got a check from the government every month to be able to afford the bills, until she started taking my checks.

  After pouring herself a glass of milk, she walked into the living room and sat down on the couch next to me. I tensed up, hoping she couldn’t sense my fear, and ignored the pain in my achy back. She loved that shit, knowing she was the cause of any reaction from me. We sat for a few minutes, her laughing at the show and me sweating so hard I felt the moisture under my arms.

  “Those people are stupid.” She pointed to the TV. “There is no way in hell I would go on national TV and admit how much of a whore I am, or that I don’t know what my sexual identity is. They are losers.” She laughed as if she pitied them. That was the thing about my mother—she always saw herself better than most people, even though she would never admit in a million centuries that she was below them.

  “What’s with you? You’re so quiet today.” She eyed me.

  Breathe, act normal.

  “Nothing, just tired, I suppose,” I replied in a meek voice I couldn’t help. I hated that I gave her the satisfaction of knowing I was scared of her.

  “Tired of what? It ain’t like you work hard at a stupid bookstore.” She sneered, and I fought hard not to correct her grammar.

  Life, I was tired of life, I thought, but instead, I just shrugged my shoulders, and that was good enough of a reply for her. But I really was tired, of being lonely and feeling stuck and pretending. Damn, I was tired of pretending. There was a part of me, a rather big part, that was small, weak, and vulnerable and just wanted someone to love me. Wanted to have a mother
who didn’t look at me with such hatred and disgust, to be loved. That part, that longing, was what I hid because that part made her stand up and cheer and made me want to give up.

  And it always showed around her.

  Some days I wished I could show someone the real me, the fragile dreamer destined to live a lifeless life. But instead, the only person I talked to when I was off was my mother. Ember had long since stopped trying to get me out of the house on my days off because I’d finally told her that my days off were for “family time,” and she left me alone. Family time, what a fucking joke.

  I hated making small talk with my mother. When I was young, I learned that small talk usually resulted in me saying something to piss her off, and that meant getting my ass beat. No, it was better for me not to say much. We watched TV silently for a few hours, and I relaxed a little. If she was going to strike, she would have done it by now. She started cleaning after there was nothing else good on TV, and I helped. She liked when she didn’t have to ask me to do things. After an hour of cleaning, my back felt like it was on fire, and after taking a shower, I went to take a nap.

  I awoke to laughter from somewhere in the house. Sitting up, I rubbed the sleep from eyes and checked the time: after midnight. That could mean only one thing. Creeping over to the door, I cracked it and listened.

  “I didn’t think you’d actually call me back,” I heard my mom say in a strange, almost flirtatious voice.

  “Well, the way you sucked my dick that last time, I wanted more. What could I say?” said a greasy male voice that instantly made me recoil. Gross.

  I closed my door quickly and threw on some shoes. If she had a man over, she wouldn’t pay any attention to me. I learned to stay hidden on these nights.

  I slipped out my window and started walking to nowhere since it was a nice night. The sky was clear and shone bright with the new moon. I walked for a few minutes, secretly hoping to run into a certain brooding male, but he didn’t look like the type to just walk around. I walked past an all-night diner and realized I hadn’t eaten since this morning. I slowed my walk and savored the smell of hamburgers and fried food. I didn’t have any money and was starving. I read this book once about losing weight. It had said to try and visualize yourself eating what you crave, and that way you wouldn’t be hungry for it. Food was mind over matter. You were not really hungry; your mind just thought it was. So that was what I was thinking about until I could get home and eat something, if the coast was clear. I closed my eyes and let the smells take over me. I imagined I was eating meatloaf with green beans and savoring every bite.