Fixing Fate: A Pleasant Valley Novel Read online

  “Fuck.” My cum shoots all over the wet tiled floor, and I hang my head as I watch it wash down the drain. I’m such a dickhead. I haven’t jacked off like that since I was a damn teenager in high school and I had a crush on my Spanish teacher.

  I quickly finish and meet her in the living room where she’s glued to the TV. A cooking show is playing, and she’s looking back and forth between the screen and her phone. I could just watch her for hours. Her face is so expressive, and she has a natural beauty I’ve never seen before.

  If I stand here and gawk any longer, I’ll feel like more of an ass than I already do. “Hey.”

  Her phone flies across the room and lands on the floor. “Dammit.” She leans down to get it, sticking her ass in the air. I bite back a groan and look away when she sits up.

  “Sorry,” I apologize.

  She waves me off and fixes her hair nervously. “Not your fault I’m so jumpy. I was just reading an email from the lawyer administering my grandpa’s will.”

  “Everything okay?”

  After huffing out a breath, she continues. “Yeah, I think I finally found out why he left me the house.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Well, nothing was ever documented as far as a reason goes, but after doing some digging, the lawyer thinks it’s Grandpa’s way of making peace with my mother.”

  “How so?”

  “I’m assuming Jay told you our parents passed away when I was younger? Apparently, Grandpa showed up at the funeral and got into it with Jay. My brother kicked him out, which left even more bad blood between the two of them… So I’m the only remaining family.”

  I nod in agreement. That makes sense. Many years ago, we had answered a call where Jay almost lost his shit. I didn’t understand at the time that we had arrived at a scene similar to the one where his parents had died. He told me, a year and a half after we were partners, through a clogged throat and wet eyes, that a drunk driver had killed his parents. Unfortunately, I wouldn’t understand the crippling feeling until years later. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  She blinks rapidly and offers a weak smile. “Thanks. Anyway, when my mom was pregnant with Jay, her dad kicked her out of the house. Thank God my dad’s parents didn’t feel the same and let them live in their house until they had enough money to be on their own. I wish I could remember them, but they died when I was really young.” She takes a moment to reflect. “So, by my mom’s father leaving me the house he’d kicked her out of, it’s sorta like his redemption, I guess.”

  “That makes sense, I suppose.”

  “Well, whatever.” She tucks her phone back in the pocket of her jeans. “No point in wasting time trying to figure it out. I just wanna get it fixed and sold so I can go home.”

  I ignore the hollow feeling in my gut when I think about her leaving and grab my keys. “Ready to go?”

  “Yes. I’m starved.”

  I lick my lips as she walks in front of me to the door. “Me too, Mellie. Me too.”

  * * *

  “Was I right?”

  “Oh my God, Smith. This is the best thing I’ve ever had in my mouth.”

  Her innocent comment flies over her head, but I nearly choke on my juice. I could think of something that she’d grow to love having in her mouth more than pancakes.

  “You okay?” she asks through a mouthful of food.

  “Yeah.” I hit my chest and take another swallow of OJ. “I’m good.”

  We finish eating, and she has the balls to argue with me about paying. When I raise my voice and jokingly scold her, she holds her ground and rips the bill from my hand.

  “Knock that shit off right now. Give me the bill.”

  “No. It’s the least I can do for you.”

  “Mellie, I’m serious. You’re not paying.”

  She calmly pulls out her wallet all the while still looking at me. “I really want to. Please.” Her lip trembles and her eyes plead.

  Then I do something I have never done in my life, and will never do again. “Would it make you smile again if you paid?”

  “Yes.” Her teeth sparkle, and I can’t help the warmth that spreads through me from seeing her happy.

  “Okay, sunshine. Just this once.”

  * * *

  We spend the entire day walking around downtown and checking out the sights. As the day goes on, she lightens up more and more. Her laughter gets louder and her spirits brighter. I took her to the food court, where she ate more than I did, and we ended the day with ice cream by the pier. Like a fuckin’ date. Now, I’m driving back to the hotel to drop her off, and I don’t want the day to end.

  Normally, any time I spend with a woman is minimal, and I’m rushing to leave so I can take a shower and wash their smell off me. But with Mellie, I don’t want today to end. I don’t want this brightness and happiness to fade away. I forgot what this felt like.

  I walk her to her room, and she leaves her door open behind for me to follow. She falls on the bed and reaches across for the remote. “Wanna hang out and watch a movie?”

  Fuck, yes. “I’d better go.”

  “Oh.” Her face falls, and it tears me up, but I need to get away from her before I do something I’ll regret.

  “I’ve got an early morning tomorrow. Speaking of which, why don’t you just give me the key now, so you don’t have to get up at the ass crack of dawn?” And so I don’t have to see you again. I need some time to get my damn head on straight.

  “Sure. I got an extra made.” When she hands me the key, I squeeze my hand around hers, unable to avoid the pull she has on me.

  Her head slowly rises, and she looks at my lips. She sways forward, and I back up. “Night, Mellie.”

  “Night, Smith.”

  Chapter 3

  Mellie

  A knock on the door, a pattern—knock, knock, pause, knock, pause, knock, knock, pause, knock—wakes me with a start, and I push myself against the headboard. My groggy brain is too tired to decipher if it was real or part of a dream. When the noise sounds again, I toss the covers off and tiptoe to the peephole.

  I weave my body around the chair I have propped under the knob and look through the little glass circle. Finding the hallway empty, I stand there, continuing to look out, but it remains devoid of anything or anyone. What the hell is going on?

  Tired and frustrated, I drag my feet back to the bed, and the rhythm sounds again, but this time something scratches the door after each pause. Fear registers in my brain before sliding down my spine. My hand is on my phone faster than I can blink, and I slide through my contacts and hit Smith’s name without thinking. During our time together yesterday, we exchanged numbers so we could communicate about the house.

  If I’ve learned anything from having Jay as a brother, it’s to get help first. You can question things later, but call for help to be on the safe side. I normally call Jay when I freak out for no reason, but this time, I think really there’s a reason, and Jay’s not here. When the ringing stops on the third ring, I wait for Smith to answer.

  “’Lo?”

  “Smith, someone’s here again,” I whisper into the receiver.

  Rustling sounds in my ear, and I hold in a screech when the scratching comes back on the door, this time without the knocking.

  “Call the front desk from the hotel phone. Then call the cops.”

  I should have thought about that before. “Okay.”

  “I’m on my way.” His truck starts, the beast of a motor revving loudly. “I’m in my truck now. I’ll be there in less than ten minutes.”

  “Okay.”

  “Call the cops, Mellie.”

  “Okay.” My shaking hands reach for the hotel phone, but when I put it to my other ear, there isn’t a dial tone. I slide the cord between my fingers, only to find the smooth plastic frayed in the middle. “Shit.”

  “What?”

  “It’s broken. The phone cord is split in half.”

  “Fuck, hang up with me and call the—”


  “No!” Another knock sounds, this time louder, and I crawl over in the corner to lessen the sound of my cry. “Don’t hang up, Smith. Please.”

  “Okay, okay. I won’t.”

  A scratch and a shake of the doorknob cause fear to paralyze my body. “They’re trying to get in.”

  He curses under his breath. “I’m going to hang up and call the police.”

  “No, please don’t.” Tears roll out of my eyes, and I lower my voice. “I’m so scared.”

  “Fuck, I know you are, but I’m still like five minutes out; a squad could get there faster.”

  “Please don’t.”

  “I’m sorry, I have to. Don’t move.”

  The phone becomes silent. “Smith? Smith? No, don’t hang up.” I slide down even lower on the floor, pulling the comforter off the mattress and covering myself with it. If someone breaks in here, I don’t want to see them.

  The screech comes again, and I silently cry into the fabric. After a long few minutes, there’s a loud bang, followed by the police yelling. I scramble and rush to open the door.

  “I think they’re gone now,” I tell the officer as he nods at me.

  I use the back of my sleeve to dab the corners of my eyes and I step back into the room.

  “Can you tell me what happened, exactly?”

  As I’m going over the noises and cut phone cord, a commotion in the hall makes me jump. When I hear Smith’s voice, I stand up to go to him but then hesitate.

  “Mellie, Jesus. You okay?” He sighs a large breath when he sees me. Taking a few steps inside the room, he approaches me but then backs up and runs his hands through his hair. God, I’d love nothing more than to have him open his arms and let me fall into them.

  “Yes. I’m so—”

  “Don’t you dare apologize.”

  I swallow and nod. The question of why I want to allow myself to find comfort in his arms fades away fast. I don’t have Jay, so I’m using Smith as my stand-in protector. It makes sense.

  “Ma’am, if you don’t mind, I’d like to continue getting your statement.”

  As I continue to tell the officer what happened, I feel like an idiot. I’m sure I freaked out over nothing, and it was probably the same punk kids playing pranks again, running up and down the hallway. Smith and the guy taking my statement talk quietly for a moment. Then the officers leave and the hotel manager changes out the phone, apologizing.

  “Thank you for coming,” I whisper to Smith.

  His fingers press under my chin, and he lifts my face, so I’m looking at him. His normally intense chocolate-colored eyes lighten a shade. “Pack your stuff.”

  “What? Why?”

  “You’re not staying here.”

  He’s right. I don’t feel safe in this place. I pack my clothes and laptop into my suitcase. “Yeah, this is kind of a dive. I think there’s a nicer hotel down the street. I’ll go check in—”

  “I have a guest room.”

  My hands halt their progress mid-air, and the shirt I was holding falls to the ground. “Oh, umm, thanks, but I’ll just stay in a different hotel.” No way. No way could I stay with him. He’s just so... much.

  “You trust me?”

  How do I answer that? I don’t. For reasons I don’t understand... I do feel safe with him. I feel all the things with him: lust, security, alive. Too much.

  “Who’d you call when you freaked out tonight? Who did you cling to when that asshole was scarin’ you back at the house?” He steps closer and bends his knees, so he’s eye level with me. “You trust me.”

  “Yeah,” I admit. “I trust you.”

  “Then let me take care of you.”

  My eyes must answer for me because he picks up the shirt I dropped and tosses it on top of the other clothes. Then he grabs my suitcase and waits at the door for me. He carries my bags to the front desk, where I check out. When I get into his truck for the second time in as many days, a sense of calm washes over me. We drive silently to his house, and I sit up straight when he pulls into the garage and shuts the truck off.

  Before we get out, he gives me a quick rundown on the alarm system and has me repeat his code back to him.

  He then takes my belongings, and I follow him inside where I watch him disarm the system. The entire kitchen is black—countertops, floors, appliances. I wouldn’t have imagined it would look good, but actually seeing it in person is amazing. His living room is sunken and surrounded with different shades of grays. It’s all very modern and manly. “Wow, Smith. This place is gorgeous.”

  “Thanks. It was originally a fixer-upper, but I couldn’t part with it once I saw the sunset.” He nods at the large picture window toward the back of the house. “The sun rises back here, which shines through my bedroom window and is just as amazing.”

  “Oh, I’d love to wake up in your bed to that.”

  He laughs then tries to hide it with a cough.

  When I realize how that came out, I quickly try to backtrack. “I didn’t mean… I just meant that I wanted to see the sun rise from your room. Not from in your bed. Oh, my God.” I can imagine how red my face is, since it feels like it’s on fire.

  “It’s okay.” He chuckles. “Let me show you to your room.”

  When he heads up the stairs, I look up at the ceiling and take a deep breath to get back a little of my dignity before following him. I see light flicked on in a room to the right, so I head there.

  “Thank you,” I tell him when I walk in and see him laying a blanket out on the bed.

  “No problem. The bathroom is right next door, and I’m across the hall.”

  “Okay.”

  “You sure you’re okay? That was a pretty scary situation for you.”

  I love his concern; he reminds me of Jay. But not in the brotherly sense... at all. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

  He makes a fist with one hand, and taps it against his leg, and then smiles at me before he walks out. The door shuts with a quiet click, and I fall onto the bed. I take off my leggings I threw on before I came and remove my sweatshirt, leaving me in a cami and boy shorts. Without even bothering to shut the light off, I fall asleep.

  “Mellie.” A deep voice rouses me, and the bed dips. “Wake up, Mellie.”

  When the sleepiness fades away enough for me to realize I’m being woken up, I blink my lids and see Smith’s handsome face. He smiles at me, and I melt further into the mattress.

  “Morning,” I whisper.

  “God, you look beautiful,” he says just as quietly.

  “I do?”

  “Hell, yes.” He trails a single finger down my face, his eyes watching it until they outline my lips. “From the moment I first saw you, I was floored by how fuckin’ beautiful you are.”

  Nobody has ever called me that before. I’ve never been beautiful. I want to tell him how special that makes me feel, but he continues before I can say anything.

  “But you’re Jay’s baby sister, and he’d cut off my nuts if he knew how badly I want you.”

  Why does that make me feel good… warm and fuzzy and safe? It’s been a long time since I felt like that. It’s time to move on. I know he won’t let anything happen, so with that encouragement, I get bold and trace his stubble. “He doesn’t have to know.”

  “Mellie… Baby, don’t tempt me.”

  Going from his cues, he wants this just as badly as I do. His nostrils flare, and when he licks his lips, I run my finger across them. A rumble erupts from his throat, and before I know it, he’s on top of me and his mouth is against mine. The tips of his fingers knead my butt with one hand and the other cups a breast. The prickly hairs from his face scratch me, but I don’t care. I’ve wanted this forever, it seems. Wanted to be normal after it happened.

  I whimper, and he pulls back. “Did I hurt you?”

  “No.” I close my eyes and smile when I feel his lips hovering above mine.

  “Good. I don’t want to hurt you.”

  That’s the last thing I want to do. You know how much
I love you, but I can’t let him have all of you. I have to have you, but I can’t hurt you… It’d kill me, you know that. I don’t want to hurt you.

  “Stop, Norman. Then stop if you don’t want to hurt me.”

  Norman yanks down my pants and flips me over onto my stomach. Why is he back? Jay said he was far away. I thought I was with Smith. “I’ll be gentle. I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “No!”

  “Shh. It’ll only hurt for a minute.”

  “Stop, please. God, stop!”

  “Mellie, wake up.” There’s Smith. He’s here; he didn’t leave.

  I won’t let Norman ruin this. I flip back over with a strength I wasn’t aware I had. I reach for Smith’s face to pull it back down to mine so I can feel his mouth against me again, but he’s gone. “Smith, no. Don’t leave.”

  “Mellie, Jesus, wake up.” He shakes me, and when I open my eyes, he’s above me, but not like before. Instead of being soft and sweet, he looks angry and scared. His eyes are frantic, and his hair is slightly wet, like he’s just taken a shower. Wait. He just came in here. Norman wasn’t here. Smith wasn’t here. Crap, I was dreaming.

  “Shit.” I sit up, pushing my hair off my face. “Shit. Sorry.”

  “Dammit.” He runs his hands through his hair. “Scared the shit outta me. You sure you’re all right? You need anything? Water?”

  I shake my head. “No, I’m fine. Just embarrassed.” I haven’t had a nightmare in a few years. I thought they had gone away.

  “Okay. Okay.” He stands, and I can’t help the gasp that flies out of my mouth, but this time, it’s because he’s in nothing but a towel, and I’ve never seen anything so hot in my life. Like back at the hotel, he’s underwear model beautiful, and I can’t stop looking.

  The towel is so low on his hips, I can see the start of the trail of dark hairs down there. I sweep my eyes all the way up... past the muscles in his stomach, the piercings in his nipples, all the way to the sexy shadow adorning his face, and finally stop on his dark eyes.

  Any thought of the nightmare is long gone. It used to take me all day to get rid of the terrifying dreams, but one look at Smith, and he makes them disappear. He’s a miracle worker.