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  senseless for about two months straight a few years ago. I

  doubt either of us even cared anymore. But Kira would

  have, so I tried to pul her away before things could get

  ugly.

  Besides, he wasn't alone. The woman with him had a beer

  and she tipped it to her mouth, eyeing us with a smile. I

  yanked Kira's elbow to pul her away.

  "Ow," she said when the crowd closed behind us, cutting

  off the view of him. "What did you do that for?"

  "Don't cause trouble," I told her. "C'mon. Drinks."

  "Don't cause trouble," I told her. "C'mon. Drinks."

  "I wasn't going to cause trouble." She frowned and tossed

  her hair, not caring she'd whacked some dude across the

  face with it. He looked pissed. Not the way I wanted to

  start the night.

  "There wil be other guys here," I told her.

  Kira just sniffed and crossed her arms over her chest. "Oh,

  I know that."

  The Pharmacy was almost always a total sausage party—

  three guys for every girl, easy, and al of them horny and

  looking to hook up. Chivalry had nothing to do with them

  puling out their walets and plying us with booze. It was al

  about getting laid.

  "Oh, look," Kira said from beside me. "Talk about

  trouble."

  She was right. Trouble with a capital T. I stood taler in my sexy shoes and lifted my chin, straightened my shoulders.

  "Helo, Austin."

  Once upon a time, Austin and I had fucked like tigers. I

  was wiling to bet he stil had the scars. I did.

  was wiling to bet he stil had the scars. I did.

  "Paige." His hair was longer, but he had the same grin, the one that parted thighs like the Red Sea. He didn't look

  surprised to see me.

  Austin wore a blue-striped shirt and faded jeans that

  hugged his ass just right and hung down, ragged, at the

  hems. Jeans like that should be outlawed on men like

  Austin. His buddy, some guy I didn't know, wore an

  almost identical shirt, but with brown stripes. He didn't

  look half as good.

  Behind me, Kira dug her fingernails into the skin of my

  elbow. It stung, and I shook her off. "How are you?"

  "Good. I'm good." His eyes shifted to Kira and back to

  me. "Haven't seen you in a while."

  "Haven't been home," I said, though home to me now was

  an apartment on Front Street, not a trailer or a rented

  house in Lebanon.

  "Yeah. I know. Hey, Kira. I made it."

  My insides froze. I glared at her, but Kira gave me her

  best dumb look. "What?"

  best dumb look. "What?"

  She'd told him we'd be here. I knew it. I could see it on

  both their faces, their conspiracy, and I wondered how

  he'd convinced her to tel him. I thought about walking out,

  and the only reason I didn't was because he was looking at

  me. Not her.

  Kira saw it, too, and she gave me a narrow-eyed glare. I

  wouldn't have put it past her to have set this up purely to

  see the throw down between me and Austin, but I wasn't

  going to do it. I was past those days. She ralied when

  Austin's friend gave her a grin. It helped that he was cute.

  Not as cute as Austin, but then realy, who was? Who had

  ever been?

  "What're you drinking?" Austin was already puling out his

  walet to pay.

  I wasn't going to turn down a free drink, not even from

  him. "Margarita."

  "I'l take a Slow, Comfortable Screw." Kira made sure to

  lean in close so he could hear her. Her lips brushed his ear.

  Austin leaned away a little, not enough that Kira would

  notice. But I did. He introduced us both to his friend,

  Ethan, who managed to tear his gaze away from Kira's tits

  long enough to nod toward me without a trace of

  recognition. Wel, what had I expected him to do? Say,

  "Oh, so this is Paige?"

  "So what are you up to now?" Austin asked me as Kira

  and Ethan eyed each other.

  "I work for Kely Printing." The last time we spoke I'd stil been finishing the degree I'd started when we were

  together and taking care of some rich couple's kids. I

  didn't ask him what he was doing, not for work and not

  here in Harrisburg. I didn't want him to think I cared.

  "What about your mom?" Austin moved closer, his arm on

  the bar. "She stil working for Hershey? I haven't been to

  the shop for a while."

  My mom owns a tiny sandwich shop she inherited from

  her dad when I was in high school. I'd worked in that shop

  almost my entire life, running errands as a kid then

  graduating to making subs and running the cash register.

  Now I only helped if she had a big order to fil and deliver,

  or a party to cater.

  "She stil has it. She was working for Hershey but got laid

  off."

  Austin nodded. "I'm working for McClaron and Sons."

  I had no idea who or what McClaron and Sons was, but

  the fact he was working for someone other than his dad

  surprised me into a reply. "What about your dad?"

  Austin shrugged, then grimaced, and only because I'd once

  known him so wel it had been like knowing myself did I

  catch his hesitation. "It was time I got out of that job."

  "But you're doing the same thing, right? Construction?"

  Kira popped into the conversation and drew both our

  attentions.

  "Yeah, and some other stuff," Austin said, but didn't

  elaborate.

  Interesting. Austin had worked for his dad's business the

  way I'd worked for my mom's—summers and after school

  since he'd been old enough to carry a hammer. It had

  always been the assumption that he'd take over the

  business when his dad retired, and become a ful partner

  business when his dad retired, and become a ful partner

  some time before that. I'd figured he already was.

  "What about you?" Kira sipped her drink, eyes on Ethan.

  For someone with a boyfriend, she certainly seemed

  interested in him, but then Kira was just one of those girls.

  You know. The slutty ones.

  "I'm a mechanic," he said. "For Hershey."

  "Oh, that's a good job!" Kira sidled in between Austin and Ethan.

  "It is a good job," Ethan agreed and drank from his cup

  while his eyes wandered everywhere on Kira's body but

  her face.

  It was so easy, realy. They wanted to seduce us. We

  wanted to be seduced, for a few hours anyway. I knew

  what we looked like to them. Two girls in slinky outfits,

  sucking back drink after drink and letting the crowd push

  us closer and closer. There's no such thing as social

  distance in bars. The music makes conversation impossible

  unless you lean across to shout in someone's ear. The

  crush of people means you have to fight for your own

  smal space, and sharing it doesn't seem so bad after a

  smal space, and sharing it doesn't seem so bad after a

  drink or four.

  When Austin's hand ended up on my ass, I didn't even

  blink. It felt good there. Heavy, warm. He had strong

  fingers to go along with those biceps. He smeled good.

  Drakkar Noir. D
espite myself and everything that had

  happened with us before, I'd missed him.

  Austin said into my ear, "Wanna dance?"

  Our bodies had always worked just right together,

  whether we were dancing or fucking. I was ready for both.

  Leaving Ethan and Kira, he took my hand and puled me

  up the stairs to the third floor, where the songs ran into one

  another without stopping and al sounded the same. We

  found a spot in the middle and started dancing.

  The booze had made me soft and melty, but the music

  wasn't. I wanted to slow dance. Austin wanted to grind.

  We compromised with a little hip action that brought us

  groin to groin, but when he tried to flip me around and get

  up on me in the back end, I pushed away with a smile.

  "You don't answer my messages," Austin said.

  It was easy to pretend I didn't hear him with the music so

  loud. I smiled and shook my head. He took me by the

  arm, up high in the soft part that bruises easily. His fingers

  closed al the way around it.

  He moved in to brush his lips against my ear. "I've realy

  missed you."

  I inched away from him, but Austin grabbed my wrist just

  as a bazilion watts of supernova bright light lit the entire

  dance floor. Austin stil looked good. I must not have

  looked like Frankenstein, because he reached to brush my

  hair from my forehead. He smiled again as the lights went

  down and the beat of the music started its rapid thump-

  thumping, the same as my heart.

  It was different when he kissed me. I felt different. His

  mouth opened and I let him inside me. His tongue stroked

  mine as his hand came up to curl in my hair. He didn't pul

  it, though my body tensed in anticipation.

  Austin nuzzled at my earlobe. "You stil taste the same."

  Fortunately, I remembered the reasons I'd broken off our

  relationship. Unfortunately, I stil remembered al the

  reasons we'd ever hooked up. When Austin ran a fingertip

  reasons we'd ever hooked up. When Austin ran a fingertip

  down my bare arm along the sensitive inside flesh to press

  his fingertip just over the pulse at my wrist, I knew he felt

  the way my heart sped up at his touch. Time hadn't

  changed that. Maybe it never would.

  Maybe that was okay.

  "Come home with me," Austin said.

  "It's too far." Forty minutes I'd have driven in a heartbeat back in the day, just to get in his pants. It wasn't too far.

  Just too long.

  "Paige," Austin said with a grin like a shark. "I moved to Lemoyne."

  Just across the river. Fifteen minutes, tops, if you drove

  realy slow or got stuck in traffic. The world fel out from

  under my fuck-me pumps, but Austin was there to catch

  me. The crowd moved and danced around us, but we

  stayed stil. I looked deep into his blue, blue eyes, made

  bluer by the strobe lights.

  "What the fuck," I said evenly, "did you do that for?"

  "New job," he reminded. "Remember?"

  "New job," he reminded. "Remember?"

  I tried to recal if he'd said where McClaron and Sons

  was, and couldn't. He should've told me, I thought, and

  hated myself for being irrationaly angry. I tugged my arm

  from his grip. "I have to go check on Kira."

  "She's fine. She's with Ethan."

  I tried to level him with a glare, but I'd never been able to

  level Austin. He'd laid me out cold a thousand times with a

  look, but though I'd practiced and perfected my steely-

  eyed look of cold disdain, it slid off him like oil. I bit my

  lower lip and lifted my chin.

  "If he's anything like you, I'd better make sure she's okay."

  "Paige." Austin's hand snagged my wrist. Puled me close.

  "If she's anything like you, she can handle him."

  The night it ended between us, we'd fucked up against the

  wal of our shitty, third-floor apartment on Cumberland

  Street in Lebanon. The red-blue lights of a cop car outside

  on the street had painted the ceiling and wal over our

  heads. He'd torn away my panties, tossed them to the

  side, used his body to pin mine to the wal while his hands

  side, used his body to pin mine to the wal while his hands

  held my ass.

  I bore the marks of that last encounter on my back for a

  few weeks where a nail from a falen picture had gouged

  me. I hadn't noticed the pain or the blood while we were

  going at it. I never had found my panties.

  It had ended but wasn't over. The plain truth is, with a few

  drinks in me there was little chance of my resisting Austin.

  Not drunk. Not sober, either. Why else had I moved so

  far away?

  "Hel, no," Kira said when I found her downstairs and

  brought up the subject. She shook her head and looked

  over my shoulder to where I was sure Austin was

  watching. "You told me to never, never, never let you fuck

  him again!"

  I made myself stare at her, not look back at him. "I know.

  But that was before."

  "Before what?" Kira's lip curled.

  "Before you thought it would be fun to invite him out with

  us. I haven't talked to him in months. Since before I moved

  here. But now here he is."

  here. But now here he is."

  "And looking utterly fuckable." Kira didn't lose the sneer, but her gaze flickered back and forth to my face and over

  my shoulder. "You know, Paige, I've known him as long

  as you have. He moved up here, wanted to know where

  the good places to go were. I told him we were coming

  here. I didn't know you were going to go home with him. I

  thought you were over him."

  "I am over him!" I looked over my shoulder and caught his

  gaze, then turned away with hot cheeks and fast-beating

  heart.

  "Whatever."

  "I'l give you my key." I looked back at Austin, now bent

  in conversation with Ethan.

  "Fuck, no. I'l get Tony to come pick me up!" Kira shook

  her head and stumbled a little bit.

  I reached to steady her and she clutched at my hand. "Wil

  he come for you?"

  "He wil if I fucking tel him to." Kira straightened, then

  "He wil if I fucking tel him to." Kira straightened, then

  swiped at her hair.

  "I'l wait with you until he comes."

  "Don't do me any favors," Kira said, then slung her arm

  around my shoulder. "Paige. Don't forget what happened."

  As if I ever could. "I'l be fine!"

  "Don't let your pussy get you into trouble," she continued, warning me off what she'd falen prey to many times

  herself. "He made you cry."

  "Yeah." I let Austin's gaze catch mine when it turned

  toward me and didn't look away. "Wel, he won't make

  me cry anymore."

  "He'l always make you cry," Kira said. "But go.

  Whatever. He's got a magic cock. I get it."

  Remembering the times she'd left me stranded so she

  could go home with someone she met in a bar, I didn't feel

  nearly as bad as she wanted me to. "I'l wait until Tony

  gets here."

  I could do that, at least.

  I could do that, at least.

  Going to
Austin's place was one thing, driving with him

  another. I wasn't going to get in the car with him after he'd

  been drinking, for one, and for another, I wasn't going to

  be stuck at his house without knowing for sure I'd be able

  to get home.

  He grinned when I went over to him, but I fended off his

  kiss. "I have to wait for Kira to get picked up. I'l meet you

  there."

  Austin puled me close and nuzzled my neck exactly how

  he knew I liked it best. "Just come with me."

  "No." I pushed him slightly away. Drunker, I'd have given

  in. More sober, I'm sure I'd have gone home alone. Stuck

  in this midway point where I wanted to taste him again and

  knowing lust is never as pretty the morning after, I shook

  my head. "I'l meet you there. Give me the address."

  Maybe things were different, after al.

  Austin kissed me again, harder, and this time I let him. He

  knew just how to do it, where to put his hands and his

  tongue and how to bump me with his groin to make my

  breath catch in my throat. My nipples throbbed, poking

  breath catch in my throat. My nipples throbbed, poking

  the silk of my shirt.

  "Don't take too long." He stepped back, steady on his feet and not slurring his words. He reached as I turned and at

  the last moment, captured my wrist with his fingers. I let

  him tug me closer. "You're not going to bail on me, are

  you? Like last time?"

  Last time I hadn't had Kira to remind me that I'd vowed

  never to go to bed with Austin again. Not that it was

  stopping me. Last time I'd caled him just after two in the

  morning and told him I wanted to come over, but when I

  hung up the phone, good reason had won over the desire

  for his hands on me. That had been months ago, before I

  moved here.

  "Are you stil angry about that?"

  "I wasn't mad. Just disappointed. Do it again, I'l be mad."

  He grinned and dipped his head to kiss me but stopped

  short of my lips, just brushing them. "And disappointed."

  His blue eyes bore deep into mine, and for half a minute

  nothing else mattered. I felt Kira at my elbow, but I didn't

  turn to look at her. I looked right into Austin's eyes when I

  turn to look at her. I looked right into Austin's eyes when I

  replied. "You won't be."

  He let me go with another kiss and a nuzzle that sent

  shivers marching along every nerve. I found Kira waiting

  for me by the door. Oblivious to the crowd buffeting her,

  she held her place instead of stepping aside until I showed