Blank Space (Dirty South Book 1) Read online

  “Try four hours. It’s lunchtime.” I lifted the bag. “I brought Sydney home some lunch.”

  Frankie eyed the bag and stood. “It’s my fault. I just barged in. Sorry, Mr. Jenkins,” she said.

  I tried to translate the tone in her voice but I couldn’t. “It’s fine,” I said. “You can stay for lunch if you’d like, and come back after she finishes for the day. But we’re on a schedule.”

  Frankie grabbed her purse. “I’m better now. I’m gonna go home and get ready for work. I’ll text you later.”

  Sydney gave her a hug but kept her eyes on me. I’d pissed her off. And for some reason it turned me on. “Bye.” Frankie disappeared down the hallway, and I heard the faint sound of the front door click.

  We’d never stopped staring at each other. “Say what you want to say.”

  She swallowed, letting her eyes slide to the floor.

  I took a step toward her. “Say what you want to say to me. That’s an order, Sydney. Now.”

  Confusion clogged her features, and her fists tightened at her sides. She was pissed and I wanted to hear it. “Say it now—”

  “You asshole!” she shouted.

  Asshole? I dropped the bag of food to the floor. “Excuse me?” I stepped forward and inclined my head. “Asshole?”

  She lifted her chin and braced her hands against her hips. “You heard me. She was having a suck ass day, and you just made it worse.”

  Her attitude set me on edge. No one talked to me like that, not since high school. The tilt of her chin had me rock hard. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could control myself. I tittered on the line of fucking her mouth or telling her what I thought about being called an asshole.

  I chuckled to hide my anger; it didn’t help much. “Oh, Peach, that mouth of yours is gonna get you in a fuckin’ load of trouble.”

  “My mouth is just fine,” she said.

  I smiled, taking one step toward her. “I agree. Your mouth is definitely fine. But what comes out of it is pushing me.” A smartass comment almost slipped from her tongue, but she stopped it. “I understand,” she said

  I could see the stubbornness in her eyes, the things she wanted to say to me, but she swallowed them down.

  I lifted a brow. “Are you hungry?”

  She eyed the bag of Chinese food beside my feet. “I thought you wanted me to paint now, master.”

  Smiling, I curled my fingers inside my pockets. “After lunch, you’ll paint. We’re eating now.”

  She made a grand gesture of bowing and swayed her hips out of the door. Briefly closing my eyes, I popped my knuckles and followed after her. She’d already sat in her seat at the bar, her arms crossed tightly across her chest.

  Her cat plopped down beside her feet with a huff. The thing was pushing ten years. I slid her food toward her and watched as she absently picked at it. I could have sliced through the tension.

  Every time she twirled her fork I saw an infinity tattoo on the inside of her wrist. “Why the infinity sign?” I gestured with my fork.

  She immediately pulled her hands into her lap to hide it.

  A saddened look crossed her face, but she hid it when she glanced down at her lap. I reached across the table and tapped my index finger against the bar. She lifted her gaze, and her eyes shined wet with tears. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  I wouldn’t make her. She’d tell me eventually because I wanted to know. I needed to know more about her. “Okay.”

  She watched me lean back into my chair. She looked so small across from me. One foot rested against the top of the bar stool, her chin propped on the side of her knee. I’d traced the long line of it several times from my seat.

  “What are you trying to do?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Her cheeks turned pink, and she sighed. “Why do you want me here?”

  I watched her silently for a few minutes. “We’ve discussed this already. I want you to paint for me.”

  She shook her head. “Then why are you in here asking me personal questions and eating with me.”

  I shrugged. “Because I want to know all of my employees.”

  This wasn’t what she wanted to hear. She cleared her throat and jumped straight down off the bar stool. Before she could get out of the room, I caught up to her, and pressed her against the hallway wall.

  I took advantage of touching her. My fingers lingered over the curve of her hip, and I pulled her closer to me than needed. She stiffened against the wall, her breath quickened against my lips. “I want to know you, Sydney.”

  A frustrated look pulled in the middle of her brow. She didn’t believe me, why would she? She’d been played numerous of times, hoping the next guy would treat her the way she wanted to be treated, only for it to never happen. “I don’t believe that. You want to sleep with me,” she said.

  I did. I nodded my head and cupped her jaw with my free hand. “I want to do way more than sleep with you. I want to lick you until you can’t take it anymore. Until you’re shaking against my mouth. But I want you to know that you’re worth more, Peach.”

  Despite the difficulty, I ran my mouth over hers, only enough for me to feel how she would taste when I did really kiss her. “I have to go back to work,” I whispered, pulling back to look at her.

  Her chest flushed a dark pink, her breathing low and steady. “Try to have some of the entrance finished please. Asher is coming over for dinner tonight.”

  Sydney lifted her eyes and watched me gather my keys. “I’ll get right to it.” I left her standing against the hallway wall. I said a silent prayer I’d have her against it again soon.

  Asher elbowed me in the ribs when we stopped in the entrance way of the house. The midnight sky covered half of my entrance way, with a shade of light green. I didn’t know much about art, but I knew what I liked. And I liked it.

  “So, she actually is talented,” Asher said. “I thought she was a lost cause by the way her crabby old mother talks about her.”

  She was talented. I knew she was the day I went to her old art studio. All the artwork on the walls was stunning.

  “I hope you like it. It’s not finished yet, but should be by tomorrow.”

  She stood in the hallway that led to the kitchen. She still wore her painting clothes, paint smeared in random places across her face and shirt. “It’s beautiful,” Asher said before I could, offering her his hand. “I think we’ll have to sign something next. My bedroom needs a nice mural.”

  I tightened my fists and wrapped the other around the back of Ash’s neck. “Now you know I don’t like to share,” I said.

  Ash’s grin widened.

  Sydney gave me a tight-lipped grin. “It depends on what you’re offering,” she said sweetly. “If it’s more than five grand a painting, then yes, I’d kindly paint your bedroom.”

  Asher gave me a shit-eating grin. “Five grand a painting, huh?” He turned back to Sydney. “I’d give you ten grand a painting, Sweetheart. Just say the word.”

  If I didn’t know my conniving manipulative brother, I would have slammed his face against the marble. I narrowed my eyes at Sydney. A soft smile slid across her face and it did things to me. I knew what she’d say before she said it.

  “Word,” she said, giving me a one-shoulder shrug.

  Asher chuckled beneath his breath. The way her eyes stopped on mine had my blood pumping. “Excuse us, Asher,” I said.

  Asher looked at both of us before slipping into the kitchen. Sydney pushed her hands down into her pockets, a slither of smooth skin peeked between her shirt hem and the low rise of those jeans.

  I wanted to take them off of her so badly. I hadn’t kissed her yet, not a real kiss, and I thought I should. I should show her that I want her now. Why not? I tightened my fists and ground my teeth. Hold it together.

  I knew she’d be pissed tonight. The look in her eyes when I shut the guest house door told me she hated that I had the effect I did on her.

  “You’re not going to pa
int anything for my brother, ever.”

  She lifted a brow. “Oh, really? Says who?”

  Oh, she’s asking for it. I stepped forward, and she lifted her chin, but I could see the lie in her pretty green eyes. “Says me. Now get your ass into the dining room, we’re having supper.”

  She opened her mouth to say something but closed it.

  “Are you two kids gonna sit outside and yap all night or are ya gonna come in and eat? I’ve spent all day on this,” Gloria shouted from the next room.

  Sydney tightened her firsts, turned and marched toward her seat. Asher caught my eye from the table and gave me that shit-eating grin.

  He knew I wanted her.

  And we both knew that I’d get what I wanted.

  Chapter Ten

  Sydney

  Ryder had woken me with a fog horn that morning, which earned him a black eye. It was reflex, swear.

  “You punched me in the damn face,” he said with a smile. “I’m glad to know those lessons I gave you come in handy for something.”

  The baseball hat on his head was turned backward. A bundle of his dark brown hair stuck through the front. “I’m so sorry, maybe you should never do that again. Sound like a good idea?”

  He nodded and patted his eye. “Sounds like a good one. Now get up we’re going mudding.”

  That was all I needed to hear. I dressed in my most worn jeans, boots and a white tank top. The humid August air was already sweltering in the early morning hours.

  Mom called out to us as we rode away into the woods on the four-wheeler. “Wonder what she wanted?” Ryder called over his shoulder.

  I shrugged and held tighter to him as the trail started to curve. We sped toward the river where it’d rained the night before. When the roads began to get muddy, I held tighter, squealing when the wheels sprayed us with mud.

  We rode for hours, until the four-wheeler’s gas gauge told us that he didn’t have much fun left in him. Ryder drove slowly toward the house, and that’s when I heard it.

  Meowing.

  “You hear that?” I asked.

  Ryder killed the engine and tilted his head. “Yeah, that’s Nyla. I know that obnoxious cry anywhere.”

  I rolled my eyes. Ryder always pretended to hate Nyla but I knew he loved her. When he thought no one was at home, he’d hold her and carry her around. Which required love because she was heavy as hell.

  We followed the cry until we stood underneath a giant tree. Nyla sat on a far left branch, her huge eyes silently begged for help. “Stupid cat,” Ryder whispered.

  “Why, Nyla?” I ask, tossing my hands upward. “Why?”

  “Hold this.”

  I reached to catch the cap and that was all it took for Ryder to start up the tree. “Ryder, get down. That’s crazy high.”

  He tossed me a look over his shoulder. Those bright eyes that matched my own were happy. Always. Ryder got to the third branch from the bottom and that’s when it happened.

  He laughed as he reached for Nyla. “She’s hissing at me. The ungrateful thing is hissing at me. You better know I love you,” he yelled down.

  I smiled. “Until infinity and beyond?”

  Ryder tossed his head backward, his laugh echoed in the forest. “Infinity,” he said.

  The moment his foot slipped, I watched his hand fail him, he grasped for a limb, but he only caught air.

  I failed him.

  He fell to the earth beneath, only a few yards from me. The two seconds it took for him to land felt like an infinity. What a cruel joke the universe had played. This couldn’t be real.

  It took five long seconds before I caught my own breath. Blood seeped from underneath his head, darkening the leaves around him.

  Vomit rose in my throat. I fell to my knees, my stomach released itself onto the forest floor beneath me. Tears clogged my throat and marred my face. The world had tossed me head first into a never-ending ocean of pain.

  And it didn’t get easier with time.

  I woke under a sweaty sheet. The heavy beat of my heart rang loudly in my ears. The room spun around me, the only thing I could focus on was the ceiling fan that turned slowly above me.

  “Breathe,” I whispered into the dark room. “Just breathe.”

  The silence of the room took over my body and stilled me. The nightmares had gotten better over the last year but when they did happen, it was worse than ever. I felt like I was right back on the forest floor.

  Nyla jumped on my bed and a blanket of guilt fell over my body. Guilt felt like an elephant that sat on my chest. Never giving me rest, always teetering in the back of my thoughts.

  If she hadn’t climbed up that tree, my brother would be here. But she did, and she was an animal. My therapist helped me through the guilt of my brother’s death. Though being at home had been a constant reminder.

  My parents never did forgive me. It still hung over my head when I walked into their home on Friday nights, or when they’d call me. The nasty never-ending rain cloud that hovered over my head, weighed hard on my shoulders, and slowly ate at my soul.

  I knew I wouldn’t get any sleep. Instead of force-feeding ice cream down my throat, I walked over toward Cash’s house. I planned to get a little work done before the morning.

  I read the text message that Cash had sent with his security code on it. I was glad when he offered it, because I was deathly afraid of tornadoes and Georgia had their fair share. If I was stuck in the guest house by myself, I’d spare the tornado the trouble and die of a heart attack.

  The lock clicked opened, and I slipped inside. The dark didn’t scare me, it was the silence. I flicked on the front light and pulled out my headphones. Thirty seconds later, I’d climbed the ladder while Maroon 5 blared in my ears, and added some color to the bottom section.

  Songs blended into one another and my paint brush slipped from my hand. I hadn’t realized I’d gotten sleepy and stumbled backward off the ladder. I landed on my ass, my arms wrapped tightly around my head.

  I heard the ladder crash through my Beats. Pain shot up my tailbone and into my lower back. No. No. No. I tried to move but fell back on my bottom.

  Seconds later my headphones were snatched out of my ears and someone grabbed my face. “Goddammit, are you okay?”

  Cash’s voice was deep, a rasp that I hadn’t recognized at first. A bedroom voice that would strip me clean of any clothing. “I-I’m fine,” I whispered.

  His heavy lids widened as he reached down to pick me up. “Ouch,” I whispered.

  Wide hands wrapped around me, and I was in his arms a moment later. “Is it your back?” he whispered, his breath heavy with scotch and mouth wash. My body vibrated.

  “My butt too,” I whispered. “I think I just bruised it. I’ll be fine.”

  Cash studied my face for a few seconds before walking up the stairs. I clung to his wide shoulders for support, he really gave me no choice. “I said I would be fine.”

  “I heard you. I’m not deaf.”

  I gaped at him. “You must be, because if you did hear me, you would have put me down.”

  Cash continued to ignore me, his footsteps thudded against the hardwood. I’d never been to this part of his house, but I knew where he carried me. The double doors at the end of the hallway were the width of three normal doors with iron handles I could slip my arms through. They looked like they had been carved for a king.

  I guess they had.

  He kicked them opened with the heel of his foot, and they swung inward to the room where I knew he slept.

  The darkness hid most of the room from me. A path of moonlight streamed in from the balcony doors on the left and lit up his bed. The size alone was fit for royalty, much larger than a California King.

  A downy white comforter bunched around the middle, and I felt my heartbeat quicken. Cash laid me down carefully on what I assumed was his side. I sunk into the softness, but I squealed when my butt touched the mattress.

  Cash pulled me back toward him, his wide palm dug int
o my thigh. “You’ve bruised your tailbone,” he whispered, his voice still deep. “I’m going to lay you down on your stomach so I can have a look.”

  I squeezed my eyes as he lowered me to the bed. My body ached from the fall but nothing felt broken. Pressing my face into the mattress, I breathed in the scent of him. It lingered in the room, brushed against my chilled legs.

  Silence overtook the room, and another chill ran up my body. I shifted and felt why I was so cold. I still wore my tiny girl boxers. I started to sit up when I felt his flat palm against my lower back. “Stay still,” he rasped out.

  I froze.

  My fingers tightened in the sheets and all my insecurities emerged from hiding. When he turned on his lamp, I groaned into the mattress. “Please,” I whispered. “I just want to go back to bed.”

  He chuckled from across the room. Knowing he wasn’t near, I started to sit up. “Don’t you dare,” he said. “I’m getting you an ice pack.”

  “I don’t need one.”

  He didn’t answer, but I felt his weight from behind me on the bed. “Yes, you do. Now pull down your shorts.”

  My nipples hardened against my T-shirt. There wasn’t anything I wanted to do more, and I hated myself for it. “Oh, no sir, you’re not getting me out of my clothes.”

  Cash slipped in behind me, but held me down with one palm against my upper back. Pressing himself against my bottom, he hooked two fingers into the waistband of my shorts, and slowly tugged them down my thighs.

  Every part of me screamed against my closed mouth, but in all honesty, the euphoria from his touch was slowly rendering me speechless. The calluses on his hand scraped the backs of my legs. I sent a silent thank you upward for the lacy panties I knew hugged me right.

  I knew when he noticed the fabric, because his grip tightened against me. A deep groan left his throat, I expected to feel him press harder, but he didn’t. As much as I wanted to press myself back against him, I didn’t.

  Half of me died inside. Why wouldn’t he touch me? I sat with my ass up in the air in lace panties. The cool ice pack settled against my tailbone. “Now, does that feel good?”