Ryler glances from me to his father then signs something again and even though I don’t know sign language, the movements of his arms are enough for me to tell he’s said something harsh.
“Hey, Luke asked me to help him,” Cole protests, touching his puffy cheek with his fingertips then wincing. There’s blood splattered all over his torn shirt and I’m fairly certain his nose is broken. “That’s what I was trying to do. If I wouldn’t have got caught, then Luke wouldn’t have had to share his winnings with me and would have had enough to pay his debt.”
“I didn’t ask you to do that,” I tell him, not wanting to be rude, but I don’t want the blame for this, nor did I ever want to lose all my money and be back to square one. “I would have been fine with playing another night or two. Now I have nothing and no game to go to.”
“I’ll find us another place,” Cole promises, reclining back in the chair and putting his feet onto the table. He’s lost his shoes somewhere—who knows where though. “I just need a few days.” He shuts his eyes and lets his head tip back.
“I don’t have a few days.” I rub my hand down my face then wince, forgetting that my cheek is injured. “I’m so f**ked.”
“We’ll figure it out. Nothing I haven’t handled before,” Cole mumbles while Ryler shoots a glare at his dad and throws the beer cap at him to get him to open his eyes. When he does, Ryler mouths something, but I can’t catch what. “Hey, I’m good at figuring stuff out under pressure,” Cole tells Ryler then looks up at me. “You think maybe you could ask your dad to spot us some cash so we can get things moving again?”
I shake my head and back out of the room. “I’m not asking my father for anything.”
He frowns. “Luke, it might be our only option.”
I hate the way he says our option as if his problem has become my problem. “I have enough problems of my own,” I tell him. “I don’t need anymore.”
“Just think about it,” Cole says while Ryler shakes his head, aggravated, as if his father does this all the time and Ryler is tired of it. “I’m sure he would do it for you if you asked him.”
Even if I wanted to ask him, I’m not so sure he would or if he has access to that kind of money. But I don’t want to go down that road with my father anyway, so it’s not an option. “I’m leaving tomorrow morning,” I tell Cole then leave the room. He calls out my name, almost panicking, but I know it’s not over me. It’s over himself. He’s a gambling addict. Pure and simple. My possible future, if I don’t figure out a way to straighten my act up. What a wake up call. Although, I’m not even sure if it’s what just barely happened, if it had something to do with finding out the truth about what happened to Amy, or if it was Violet opening up to me and making me want to be a better person.
As I tiredly drag my sore ass up the stairs, I try to remember how I got to this point in time, how I messed up my life so badly. Tired. Beat up. Broke. Alone. The last one might not be so true. That’s really up to Violet and whether she’ll ever have me again. Honestly, she’d be better off without me, at least until I clean my act up, but I’m too selfish to walk away from her.
That’s what I’m trying to convince myself not to be—selfish—when I enter the room and see her lying in bed, the covers kicked down, wearing one of my shirts, her long legs stretched out, I realize I need her. Through the insanity of my life, Violet is the one sane thing I have, even if our relationship is insane itself.
She’s left a lamp on, so there’s a soft trail of light in the small room. I tug my shirt off and slip my boots off as I make my way to the bed, pausing when I get beside it to unbutton my jeans and take them off. Her back is to me, her head resting against the pillow, her hair lose and down her back. I reach forward and brush it aside, then trace my fingertips along the two stars on her neck, her skin so soft and familiar, everything I want.
I can barely remember the first time I ever had sex and all the times after are a blur until I met Violet. Sure, it always felt good, for me at least. Not sure about the women since I didn’t care nor did I stick around long enough to ask. There was something about having that kind of control over a person like that—where I could just walk away before they ever used me—that made me feel briefly content. It would always fade though and I’d only get the contentment again when I f**ked the next one and so on and so on. I’ve never actually been with anyone more than once, including Violet, but not because I used her and bailed like with the rest of the women I’ve been with. Violet has always been different from anyone else I’ve been with. I knew that the first moment she literally fell into me. At the time, I didn’t know what exactly made her different or why I had the sudden need to be around the same woman for more than an hour. But now I think I know.
Because I’m in love with her. But I can’t tell her that. Not yet. I’m not ready and neither is she. In fact, I’m not sure she’ll ever be ready for that, at least with me, but I want to stick around and find out—be there for her.
Sucking in a deep breath over this terrifying revelation to myself, I climb into the bed and press up against her, wrapping my arms around her, slipping one underneath the crook of her neck so her head is resting on my arm like a pillow. I feel her jump a little and I half expect her to wake up out of her nightmare and be in panic, like she normally is whenever she wakes up. But she must have been awake the entire time, because she barely stirs before she relaxes against me.
“You smell like cigars,” she mutters as my fingers drift up and down her side. “And beer.”
I pull her closer against me and breathe in her scent; something vanilla with a hint of perfume that makes me briefly shut my eyes and get lost. “You look good in my shirt,“ I whisper, opening my eyes, then I sweep her hair out of the way and kiss the sensitive spot on her neck, right below her jawline, letting my lips linger there to taste her skin.
“Luke…” She almost sounds torn, her fingers finding my arm and digging into my skin. I wait for her to pull away, stop us from doing something, but then her back curves in and her ass presses against my cock.
The contact of it makes me groan and bite down on her skin more roughly than I intended on doing. In response, her nails stab into my skin, her back arching even more as my knee slides between her legs and I slip my hand up underneath her shirt to grip her hip, her skin warm.