Dirty Little Secret (Dirty #1) Read online

  “I’m not most guys,” I replied. “I like ‘em fast and easy. And slightly less classy. I don’t want to have to beg for it. I can tell just from looking at her, she’s outta my league. Not yours, though. You’ve got that sports car hum, haven’t you, Danny?”

  Melissa finally jumped into the middle of our little pissing contest.

  “Danny, I’ll see you in a minute, okay? I’m just going to grab my stuff from Cutter’s room.” Her voice was soft, and polite, and utterly unlike the one she used with me.

  Her fiancé leaned in like he wanted to kiss her, but she ducked toward my room too quickly for him to follow through. I debated – very briefly – the idea of not going after her. Of just standing there until she clued in that she couldn’t drag me around like her favorite fucking puppy.

  Second favorite. Danny is her favorite.

  One glance at the man made my decision for me. No fucking way was I hanging out with him for however long it took Melissa to grab her imaginary belongings. I’d kill him.

  She was waiting for me inside, hands clasped together, covering her ring, and one pathetic tear on her cheek. What a goddamned joke.

  “Please, let me explain,” she started. “I just needed to talk to him.”

  “He hurt you. Why the fuck am I even having to remind you of this?”

  She touched her lip guiltily. “It wasn’t on purpose. In three years he’s never done anything like that.”

  Three years? Fuck, fuck, fuck. This wasn’t some little thing that was going to blow over. The engagement meant something. Sunday dinners with parents and baby names picked out.

  “I went over there to break it off. I was worried you might be right. That he might be stuck in my head, and if I didn’t talk to him, he might be stuck in there forever.”

  “And somehow that ended in you wearing his ring and making out in the hallway? He went from being in your head to being in your pants?”

  “No. I mean, yes, he shoved the ring on my finger, and told me to keep it and he begged me to forgive him for last night, but I wasn’t making out with him.”

  “Save it, baby-doll,” I said contemptuously.

  “Cutter, you need to believe me.”

  How many times had Brandy said those same words before she tossed her own engagement ring back at me and moved in with Billy?

  I looked at Melissa’s face, trying to hold on to the fact that they were two very different girls. Jesus, how I wanted to believe her. I weighed it in my mind.

  “Go out there and tell him,” I commanded.

  “What?”

  “Now. Go. Out. There. Tell him to take his big-as-fuck ring and shove it up his too-tight-jeans-wearing ass. Tell him to fuck right off. Then come back here, and I’ll take you up on your oh-so-kind offer of mind-blowing sex. You begged me for it earlier, right? Get rid of that asshat out there, and come back in here, and I’ll let you have me.”

  Her eyes got wider and wider as I spoke, and I knew – I really fucking knew – I’d taken it a step too far when her mouth turned down, and she tightened her robe so far that I thought she might cut off her circulation.

  “It’s not that simple, Cutter.”

  Her words make me sick to my stomach. I had to grip the back of a chair to keep from doubling over.

  “It really is, Melissa.”

  She stared me down with that familiar, stubborn look on her face. The one she had before she made some bitchy, smart-ass comment, perfectly designed to cut me down and put me in place. Like she knew with complete certainty that whatever I’d just said was bullshit.

  Jesus. It was hot. It was what had attracted me to her in the first place, that unwillingness to back down. I needed to wipe it off her face before I convinced myself I was the right guy for her and that she could possibly be telling the truth. Before I dove across the room and sunk my tongue into her mouth.

  “I’m just glad I was right,” I stated before she could speak.

  “How does this situation make you right?” she demanded.

  “I wanted to prove you wanted to fuck me. Done. I wanted to prove you were a deceitful bitch. Done. And I wanted to humiliate you. Done.”

  Her face went ten shades of red. “Fuck. You.”

  “Never.” My voice was cold. “Go back to Danny. Fuck him. Marry him. Be his problem. Just stay the hell away from me.”

  She spun to go, and I closed my eyes. I couldn’t stand the thought of watching her leave.

  I heard her sharp intake of breath, and the slam of the door.

  Jesus. What did I just do?

  I needed to go after her. To explain why I was letting Danny have her. To tell her how fucking sick I felt about it, but that this was how it should be. For her sake.

  No.

  What I actually needed to do was to stop myself from doing any of that and let Melissa have a good goddamned life, uncluttered by a man like me.

  I grabbed my phone and dialed Galini, the ever-helpful probation officer.

  “Pleasant surprise, Cutter,” he greeted. “How was the wedding?”

  “Perfect. I still hate everyone in my family, and I still want to kick Juice’s ass.”

  Galini went silent, and I was pleased as fucking punch that I’d shocked him. I was tired of bending to his will.

  “You there, buddy?” I prodded.

  “I’m here, Cutter. Can I ask…Are planning on acting on your feelings?”

  I barked out a laugh. “Hell, no. I’m going home early, and I just want you to lock me back up. Give me an hour, okay, and then turn the monitor back on.”

  “You’re sure? You have the whole day to –“

  “I’m sure,” I interrupted. “Over and fucking out.”

  I hung up the phone and put my head into my hands. Relief mingled with regret and I had to rein in a strong urge to break something.

  MELISSA

  “Did you get your stuff?” Danny asked.

  His voice was quiet. Almost humble. It hid any trace of the man he’d been the night before, and any trace of curiosity about Cutter, or why a man like that had let a girl like me stay with him all night without trying to sleep with me.

  Then again, I admitted to myself. The solid spank of rejection I gave him yesterday might’ve been enough to make him think I really am a frigid bitch.

  “Mel?”

  Crap. Had Danny been talking to me? I looked at his face, and remembered that he had asked me a question, but couldn’t recall what it was.

  “Did you get your stuff?” he repeated.

  “Oh. I made a mistake,” I replied. “I thought my purse was in his room, but it must be in yours.”

  “Ours.”

  “What?”

  “It must be in our room.”

  “Right.”

  I followed him into the room blindly, then stood in the middle of it and stared around. After a minute, Danny shoved my balled-up clothes in my hands. I gripped them tightly, but didn’t move.

  “I meant what I said before,” Danny told me almost hesitantly.

  What had he said before? I struggled to sort through the outpouring of feelings he’d tossed my way when I knocked on his door.

  He was sorry. He would never pressure me again. He’d only had the drinks to try and loosen up. He thought it would be easier if we slept together before we got married. He’d made a mistake. He could give us some time. Give me some time.

  “We’re not getting married,” I whispered.

  “What?”

  “I’m not marrying you,” I stated more loudly.

  “You don’t mean that,” Danny argued.

  I shook my head. I wasn’t going to waste time trying to convince him.

  “This has been a messed up few weeks,” he added. “But we’ll get through it. Just like always.”

  “What have we ever had to get through?” I asked woodenly.

  “I don’t…Just…Things,” he replied lamely.

  “Name one.”

  “Things aren’t supposed to be har
d, Mel.”

  “Aren’t they?”

  “Of course not.”

  “I think that they are,” I replied. “Otherwise, why would there be all those sayings?”

  “What sayings?”

  “What doesn’t kill you make you stronger. Every scar tells a story. And a hundred more.”

  Danny looked at me like I was crazy.

  “I’m getting dressed,” I sighed.

  I dropped my robe, not caring if he saw or not.

  Get your fill now, I thought. Because it’s the first, last, and only time you’re going to have the opportunity.

  I knew he wouldn’t risk making a move on me again. Not with all the heartfelt promises he’d just made on repeat.

  Then again…

  Maybe I ought to make a move on him.

  A small amount of emotion finally crept through my numbness. Bitter anger. And as soon as I acknowledged it, it bloomed. Heat throbbed through me. It was wild and undirected. But maybe it could be directed, if Danny was still willing.

  When I looked up, Danny was staring into another corner of the room.

  I took a slow, deliberate step in his direction. He didn’t move until I was close enough to touch him, until I actually put my hand out and reached for him. Then he flinched away.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  I tried to make my voice sexy. “If you don’t know…”

  Danny swallowed, and a flush crept up from underneath his shirt. “We have to check out in fifteen minutes.”

  I put a hand on his bicep and squeezed it before arching an eyebrow suggestively. “We’ll have to hurry, then.”

  “Didn’t we just sort out that we don’t have a reason to hurry?”

  I forced a breathy giggle. “That’s not what I heard.”

  He met my eyes carefully, and removed my hand from his arm.

  “I really think we should leave,” he said.

  I dropped the pretense of seduction. “Why?”

  “Because I don’t want this.”

  “I thought you couldn’t wait to hop in bed with me.”

  “Mel, you kicked me…you-no-where…and ran out of here and spent the night with someone else.”

  I brushed aside the fact that Danny, a grown man, couldn’t say the word balls, and grabbed his arm again. I stood on my tiptoes, pushing the length of my clothing-free body into his, and pulled his bottom lip between mine. But he grabbed my shoulders, forced me away, and held me at arms’ length.

  “Mel, I think there’s something wrong with you.”

  “What the hell do you mean?”

  “Exactly what I said. Just like always. But lately…I feel like you don’t mean anything you say at all.”

  With his words, a hollow ache wormed through my heart. Logically, I knew I’d been deceiving Danny. And Shelby. Though for some reason that seemed the like the same thing, and I’d been kind of counting them as one person instead of two. I’d lied to him (them) about Cutter. I’d agreed to marry him (them, if you wanted to count the fact that I’d asked Shelby to be my maid of honor) when I had no intention of doing it.

  I’m just as fake as Cutter thinks I am.

  “Three minutes ago, you were telling me we could work through anything,” I said stiffly, trying desperately to avoid my self-directed anger.

  “And three minutes ago, you were telling me you couldn’t marry me,” Danny countered.

  “You’re breaking up with me, aren’t you?” I asked as the realization hit me.

  “I think we should take some time,” he replied carefully.

  For a second, I stared at him, wondering if he could be any more cliché. Then I remembered. Cliché was the whole basis of our relationship. Blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl. Tall, dark, and handsome man. Cheerleader. Ball player. It’s not you, it’s me.

  Angrily, I dug my bra and underwear from the pile of clothes, slipped them on first, then shimmied into my jeans and pulled on my torn shirt.

  “I can still give you a ride home,” Danny offered.

  I gave him a cold stare. “I’ll drive myself. You can pick up your car when you’ve figured out how you’re getting out of here.”

  I grabbed his keys from the table.

  “Mel…”

  “What?” I snapped.

  “That was him, wasn’t it?”

  “Who?”

  “The guy out there. Cutter. He was the one with the truck. The one who you said touched you.”

  Shit.

  I gave him a look that probably said it all, and took off before he could ask for any further explanation.

  I made it as far as the bushes outside before I bent over and dry-heaved away my self-disgust.

  CUTTER

  Why the fuck was I expecting this to be easy?

  I stared helplessly at the canvas in front of me, willing myself to paint something that wasn’t Melissa-related.

  When I first got home, I put everything I had into the commissioned piece for the university. I’d done all I could do on it for now, but I wasn’t done releasing whatever pent-up pain had been created when I sent her back to her fiancé.

  Now almost a week had gone by, and I was still an aching mess.

  I slashed the brush across the blank white canvas, leaving nothing but an angry black mark in the middle.

  I stared at it, full of self-loathing and a desire to destroy rather than create. Impulsively, I grabbed the canvas, lifted it over my head, and smashed it across the easel.

  Fuck, it felt good.

  I stomped on it with my booted foot, and the whole thing snapped under the aggressive maneuver.

  It still wasn’t enough.

  I lashed out more, tearing through paintings, complete and incomplete, tossing them into a pile in the center of my studio space. I grabbed my stack of brushes and threw them on top.

  It looks like a goddamned funeral pyre, I thought, and pictured the whole fucking thing going up in flames.

  I squeezed out a few tubes of paint, then frantically searched the room for something, anything that would turn fantasy into reality.

  I remembered the lighter in my night stand, and took the stairs two at a time. My hands reached into a drawer and struck reformed arsonist’s gold. My fingers closed over the lighter greedily. In seconds, I was back in my studio, holding it over the destruction.

  I knew full well what would happen if I used the lighter. After all, it had only been three years since I’d burned my best friend’s bedroom to an ashy end. I remembered it easily now.

  Brandy had confessed her infidelity just two weeks earlier, and I’d let my fury build through the days, cold and calculating. Revenge consumed me, and I formed what I thought of as the perfect plan.

  I waited until I knew they’d be away from home, then broke in. I piled every piece of clothing they had onto the bed, and I lit the whole fucking thing up. I watched it burn outward, hotter and hotter. I was frozen to the spot, in perfect contrast to the flames, which danced and moved like they were alive.

  It was the sirens that pulled me out, and reminded me that I needed to use the extinguisher I’d brought with me. I’d let it go on much longer than I intended, though, and most of the bedroom was destroyed.

  Would I forgive myself if I destroyed my studio in the same way? Or the apartment where I lived? Did I give a flying fuck?

  Sadly, I did. I wasn’t the same man now I was back then.

  I flicked the lighter on, then off, then on again.

  “You up there?”

  The voice, feminine, familiar, and reminiscent of every good childhood memory I had, halted my obsessive behavior in its tracks.

  “Cutter?”

  I tossed my shirt on and climbed down the ladder, and stared cautiously at my sister. Without our dad and Juice flanking her, it was easier to look at her.

  “The door was open,” she said, also cautious.

  “Usually is,” I muttered.

  “That seems…”

  “Unsafe?” I filled in
. “Well. You know me. I’ve always liked to live on the edge.”

  “You’re covered in paint.”

  “Makes sense. I was painting.”

  “You’re not making this very easy,” she said.

  I don’t even know what this is, I thought.

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “Sorry.”

  Fiona stood awkwardly across the room, holding herself like she was waiting for me to make a move. Actually, it was more like she couldn’t move. She saw my curious look, and shifted, just enough for me to catch a brief glimpse of rich, brown hair at knee level.

  “He’s shy,” my sister announced.

  “He?”

  “My son.”

  A tiny head poked out from behind her, and big blue eyes blinked at me slowly before he disappeared again.

  “Come out, Lane,” my sister said softly. “Maybe your uncle has some juice.”

  “Lane?” I said, surprise evident in my voice.

  “Yes,” she replied. “C’mon, little buddy. Say hi and ask Uncle Cutter if he has a drink for you.”

  In response to my sister’s gentle coaxing, the little boy peeked out again and stared up at me.

  “Juice?” he said hopefully, but he had a bit of a lisp, and it sounded more like, “Jooth?”

  Did he call his father that? The small, mean voice popped into my head unbidden, and I shoved it aside forcefully.

  “I have some root beer,” I offered, meeting Fiona’s eyes.

  “Sure,” she agreed.

  I grabbed a can from the tiny fridge, cracked it open, and handed it over. The little boy – my nephew, as weird as it seemed – had to use both hands to grab it from me.

  Fiona settled him on the futon, plugged a pair of headphones first into her phone, then into his ears, and he immediately began tapping on the screen. My sister smiled fondly at him before turning to me.

  “I saw you at the hotel,” she announced. “Thanks for trying.”

  My throat constricted a little, and I gave her a tight nod.

  “You named him after Mom?”

  “Yes.”

  “You and Juice?” I asked before I could stop myself.

  She ignored the bite in my words. “He isn’t Josh’s biological son. A DNA test ruled him out as the father.”