And the Sweet (Addiction Series Book 2) (9 page)

“Who the fuck cares what they are! You still fucked them!” I realize I’m a half-step from yelling so I lower my tone. It doesn’t stop Celia from lowering her voice though.

“That’s not true!” she cries, pulling away and slipping her tank over her head. Her skimpy skirt follows. Her face is red with anger, her eyes burning fire my way.

I force myself to ignore knowing my cum is no doubt leaking down her thighs with every movement she makes.

“No? No? Then why the fuck do you flirt with every-fucking-one of those guys down there in front of me? Why do they taunt me when we fight? Why do they talk about the sounds you make?”

“Really? For being a smart guy, you are a fucking idiot who doesn’t pay attention to anything you should.” She’s standing now, though her voice is lower, lethal. “I
flirt
with them because it distracts them. They’re not thinking about the fight. So you have an even
better
shot at winning.” She looks away from me toward the window, where the sounds of the guys grumbling and bitching can be heard. They heard us fucking and now they’re pissed. “And they taunt you to distract
you
. If they talk and act like I was with them, it pulls
you
out of the fight so
they
can try to win. They’re endgame has always been to throw you off your game.”

“But all they do is piss me off and make me fight harder,” I counter. Truthfully, Celia and I aren’t officially together, and haven't been for some time. Fucking here and there is not a real relationship make. No matter how badly I want things to go back to how they used to be. But those guys know how things once were between us, and I know they know how bad I want her back.

“Why do you think I don’t defend against it then? Why do you think I let your anger build?”

I go to open my mouth and find it snapping shut. Fuck if her reasoning doesn’t make sense. And I can see it all so perfectly. The guys she flirts with are always the ones I’m about to fight against. Or the ones I know I have to work harder to beat because they are trying to prove they’re somehow better. And anytime any of those dickheads try to act like they’ve had her, I see red and pummel them harder.

But….

“What about Frankie?” I ask and her face pales into something akin to sadness. As much as I hate thinking about my former best friend, about him and her, I can’t get it out of my head no matter what I do. And walking into my fucking bedroom to escape a party to see Cecelia riding that piece of shit years ago still makes my blood boil. “Were you just
flirting
with him too when you were bouncing on his dick?”

With a heavy breath, she drops to her knees before me. She doesn’t look nearly as guilty as I expect her to. Instead, she looks devastated. “You were with Hayley,” she simply responds and my heart shatters.

It’s my turn to look away. It’s my turn to feel the guilt I was trying to push at her. Hayley Roberts. My one month mistake, but which was really spread out over six. She manipulated everyone she came into contact with simply because she was a bored little rich girl who wanted to slum it for fun. She turned me against Celia, made me think she was playing me, and what did I do? Believed her. I believed her and then I fucked her breaking Celia’s heart in the process.

And whether Celia ever admits to it, I know what I did hurt her so fucking badly. I took years of us, together, took the vow we made to one another in rehab, and just threw them away. And because the taunts from the guys had started to intensify, I listened to Hayley tell me they were true, that Celia really did mess around on me, that she really did fuck others and played me for a fool and was bragging about it. In the end, I was the only one who made me a fool.

For six months I let my head be filled with lies and manipulations. For a six months, I pushed away from the only person who ever meant anything to me. I am so fucking thankful the damage wasn’t irreparable between us that Cecelia never spoke to me again.

It’s interesting to think, every guy talks up big about chick fights. And if they’re about you, your ego tends to swell. I mean really, who
wouldn’t
want two women fighting over them? It’s hot to think about, right? Maybe clothes will be ripped. Maybe the fight will turn into something less violent and become sexier. But that’s not the reality. At all. Those fuckers have never had one actually happen to them. Never seen one happen
for
them. After I pulled my head out of my ass, and Hayley was discovered to be the manipulative bitch that she is, Celia nearly killed her.

It wasn’t a cat fight. It wasn’t a
girl
fight. It was an all-out brawl, even harsher than the fights I willingly put myself in for money.

It was years of oppression bearing down. Years of anger at being abandoned and forgotten by those meant to be there for you. It was the loss of us and what we always were to each other that broke Cecelia Santos to the point where when Hayley was bussed away, no one expected her to live.

She was lucky as hell Cecelia was pulled off of her when she was because she might not have lived, now that I think about it.

Last I heard, Hayley Roberts was low functioning in some treatment center in Florida. Her “attacker” had never been identified, though it was reported in the news to be a possible robbery gone badly, especially given the shady neighborhood she’d been found in.

With her lack of motor function, it’s not like Hayley would be talking anytime soon.

“We were over, Chace. You wished me
gone
. And I tried to be, but I…I just thought if I could talk to you, make you see, that things could be fixed somehow. But instead,” she trails off, her eyes watering slightly. “Instead, I saw you with…and Frankie was there. He was willing. I was angry. I went about things the wrong way, but it’s not like I’m known for making the right decision every time something bad happens,” Celia says, bringing me back to the conversation.

I nod, my throat tight. The image in my head of the two of them returns full-force. Except this time I see it for what it was. She hated me in that moment and got back at me good. And I fucking deserved it. Because even though I was never
with
Hayley, to the outside world, to
Cecelia
, it certainly looked like I had been.

Not that I deserved retribution from Frankie, but that fucker showed his true colors in that moment and life has moved on without his ass around. If he ever returns to Chicago, he knows he’ll be dealt with. I don’t expect him to come back.

It’s funny, in a non-funny way, to think about the fact that I have this image. I’m a badass. I fight for a living. Not professionally with flashing lights and a big paycheck from Casinos, closer to Fight Club than anything, and all underground. I have tats covering most of my body, including images of Celia and me together that she drew of us. I have a pierced dick – because Cecilia thought it’d feel good for her and convinced me to do it when we were eighteen. But still, I have this image that I put out to the world; angry, threatening,
lethal
. And the world thinks I’ve fucked anything female with a pulse. I mean I thought Celia had. She has her own image, obviously. But I’ve only been with two people in all of my years of sexual activity.

Yes, one had been a massive mistake. I knew Hayley was the second it happened. But again, she was a master manipulator. And the other, the only woman I can or will ever love.

“So you’ve really never been with any of them?”

She shakes her head no. “I wouldn’t do that. And despite what being with Frankie suggests, like I said, I thought you were with someone else. I wasn’t cheating on you. I couldn’t cheat on you.”

I swallow hard. She’s so earnest in her words and my heart is pounding. But there’s something I need to know. “How many…how many people have you… been with?”

Her cheeks pink again. I’m not going to like this answer even though it’s not really my right to feel anger about it anymore. “Uh, four?” she says like she’s not sure. I’m wondering if she’s just trying to keep me from feeling pissed off again. Again, I don’t really have a right to, but I can’t help the feelings regardless. I give her a look that says elaborate and she does with a huff. “You, Frankie, some guy named Andrew I hooked up with when I was told you hadn’t broken things off with Hayley yet though I now realise you already had.” I want to ask when this was; before her beat down of Hayley, when so many untruths were running rampant, and especially from Hayley herself? Or was it after the attack and she simply didn’t believe me when I said I wasn’t with Hayley, and that despite appearances, had never been and never wanted to be. I also want to ask who told her these things because I want to hurt them for hurting her. “Oh and um, Rina.”

And in that moment, everything I had just been thinking flies out of my head.

“What about Rina?”

A deep red tints her cheeks. She bites her plump lip and won’t meet my eyes. “Um, a one-time thing?” she answers again using a question.

“Wait, Rina as in the
girl
Rina?” My brain is scrambled at this point. I almost wonder if I heard her right or if I’ve really lost my mind. I mean Celia just admitted to having sex with a woman. I think. And being the man that I am, I’m not opposed to seeing this. Chick fights, no. Girl on girl sex? Absolutely!

“Yes?”

“Jesus fuck.” My dick hardens because without even trying to, I’m picturing it. Rina is hot. Not Cecelia hot, because where Celia is size twelve voluptuous muscles and curves and has the tits and ass and the hips that I love to grip, Rina is petite and feisty and fucking spritely as hell. At least that’s what I remember from the select few times I actually saw her or had any contract with her. “Were you drunk?” It’s a viable question, and turns the conversation a little more serious. Since we left the rehab center when we were teenagers, Cecelia and I try not to imbibe in anything. A drink or two here and there for her, but nothing more. We went through treatment once, and it sucked. The last thing we want is to become addicted again.

And though there was a not-so-one-time occurrence where we tried and then let the booger sugar dictate our actions, and my memory of that time is blurry at best – I see limbs moving, touching, hear moans, and feel pleasure – we have managed to stay clean. Because like I said, rehab sucks. And as adults, jail is the option if we fail.

Jail or death.

“I’d had a little but I was in full function of my faculties,” she says full of honesty. I can see she wants me to know she hadn’t done this because of inebriation, that she doesn’t want me to think badly of her for having a drink. I don’t. She’s an adult. I know she won’t drink to intoxication and not just because of my issues. We’re still recovering addicts; the slightest thing could be our downfall.

“When…um, when was this?” I ask around a sudden lump in my throat. It’s a mix of jealousy – for someone else touching her – and lust because it was a woman, and again, a very strong part of me wants to see that. In spite of the jealousy.

“It was…it was after you tried talking to me at work, at her going away party from work.” She looks away from me, shame covering her face. I wonder what she’s thinking and why.

“What’s wrong?”

“I just, I didn’t trust you, Chace. I didn’t trust that you were telling me the truth, or that you really were worried about me beyond obligation due to our time knowing one another.” She still won’t look at me. “I wasn’t gonna go to the party, but Melody told me it would be good for me to get out a bit. I never went anywhere, did anything. I just worked and hid away. Mel has always been decent to me, especially letting me stay with her for that time, so I felt like I owed it to her to go.”

I shake my head. I still can’t believe how fucked up this whole thing turned out. I still can’t believe how fucked up I was to let it all happen because regardless of how we got to that point, it truly was all my fault. Because while Cecelia might not have been a saint, letting the guys close to her but still held at arm’s length, she never once betrayed me, not like I’d been told. Not like I’d accused. Not like I’d
believed
. And in the end, I’d wasted two years of us. Two years of what we could have been.

“How did you and Rina end up together then?” I ask simply to change the dismal thoughts in my head. I want us to move forward. I know I have a lot to make up for, but I know we can’t live in past regrets. Not if we have a shot at a future.

“Oh uh, she said… I mean I told her,” face flushed and words stuttered, Celia blows out a heavy breath. “We were talking. We were talking about our interests. Talked about how though we worked together for a few years, at two different places, we never really hung out or knew one another.” And then the dam releases. “We just talked. And she’s pretty. She said she thought I was pretty. Though I didn’t drink a
lot
, I did have liquid courage. Rina said she’d always thought about kissing me, so I let her. And I kissed her back. And then, well, one thing led to another, I guess.”

Pulling her to me, I remove her tank and skirt. We have other things we still need to get through, but for now, I want the heavy shit to be put aside. I want my heart to not feel like it’s about to be crushed.

“Tell me all about it,” I say to her as I take an erect nipple into my mouth. The mood once more at ease, I say, “I want every last detail.” I’m not going to make it down to fight my second round tonight. And fuck if I care to lose tonight.