My Fault (Culpable Book 1)

My mind was cloudy. The only thing that mattered to me was payback. Major payback. I kept thinking over and over about Dan’s and Beth’s lips touching. It was disgusting. Just imagining it made me want to throw up. I saw everything in red. I was blinded by hatred, pain, and a profound need for revenge.

I was in my closet taking off my clothes, and on the other side of the wall was a boy I’d just met two hours ago who was patiently waiting on my bed for me to finish. I couldn’t show up at the races in a ball gown, let alone in stiletto heels. I put on a pair of jean shorts, a blue tank top, and some ordinary sandals. You couldn’t look like a Goody Two-shoes in a place like that, so I was happy to have on all that makeup, even if it wasn’t my usual thing. I pulled the goddamn bobby pins out of my hair—I must have had a hundred in—let my long hair down, and then pulled it back in a ponytail.

I had exactly one thought in my head: hooking up with the hottest and baddest guy there. That would make me feel satisfied, less used, less deceived, and like less of an idiot, even if deep down I knew none of that could erase reality: I was destroyed and struggling to hold my heart together.

Had Beth told Dan everything I’d confessed to her? Had they laughed at me while I was still trying to give it my all in my first and only relationship? Had they planned this?

I took a deep breath and tried to swallow the pain.

When I stepped out, Mario, the bartender I’d just met, stared at me admiringly, and I knew I’d achieved the effect I was going for.

“You look good,” he said. He smiled, and I responded in kind but unenthusiastically. I wasn’t in the mood for stupid compliments.

“Thanks,” I said, grabbing my bag off the bed and heading for the door. “Shall we?”

Mario stood up and followed me, and soon, we were climbing into his car.

Half an hour later, Mario turned off onto a secondary road surrounded by dry fields and red-and-orange dust. As we drove on, I could no longer hear the cars on the freeway. Instead it was just repetitive music getting louder and louder.

“You ever done something like this before?” Mario asked, one hand on the wheel and the other resting on the back of my seat.

“I’ve been in quite a few races, yeah,” I said in a surly tone.

He looked over and then back at the road. Then I saw tons of people in the distance and neon lights around a deserted area full of badly parked cars.

The music was deafening. The people there were between twenty and thirty. Everyone was drinking, dancing, and partying like this was the last day of their lives. Mario stopped close to where most of them were and got out, waiting for me to do the same.

“What is this place?” I asked him, and he chuckled.

“Don’t worry, these are the spectators. The important people are the ones over there,” he said, pointing to the left, where a big group of guys and girls were lying on the hoods of fancy souped-up cars with god-awful music blasting from their trunks.

I saw fluorescent fabrics all around, and beneath the headlights—which were the main source of light out there—they glowed brightly. Many of the girls had painted their bodies and even their faces in fluorescent paint.

“I see you pay attention to the details,” Mario said. I had no idea what he was talking about. But then he pointed at my chest, and I saw that whatever my mother had sprayed all over me was now shining on my pale skin like a thousand little fluorescent dots. Ridiculous.

“Honestly, I had no idea,” I said.

“Still and all, it’s for the best,” he said, looking at my shorts and my shirt. “Not just anyone can come here, and no offense, but you’re dressed a little more modestly than most people here.”

Modest! The girls there could have been strippers if they’d just taken off their micro-minis and bikini tops.

“I don’t know if you know the deal here, but there are gangs or groups. Your brother is the leader of one, and it’s important he beats Ronnie,” Mario said when we were close to the cars that would be racing.

Nick was a gang leader? That was unexpected, but I shouldn’t have been surprised. From what little I knew of him, it made sense he’d be involved in something like that. He was violent, frightening, and a hard-ass, and he hid it with amazing aplomb whenever he was hanging out with the people he’d grown up around. But he was a rich kid! This kind of thing didn’t happen in his world. What was a dude whose father was one of the most important lawyers in the country doing running a gang like the one I was looking at right now?

Mario stopped next to a couple of guys who could have given me nightmares for a month straight. They had tattoos on their arms and were wearing baggy clothes and cross pendants and all kinds of silver and gold chains. The girls beside them were dressed provocatively, but that was nothing compared to the ones near where we’d parked.

Mario fist-bumped the guys like they’d been friends all their lives, and they started jostling each other and laughing. It was strange to see such warm camaraderie. If you just looked at them, they were terrifying. All the guys had fluorescent-yellow bands around their forearms or wrists or in their hair. I realized all of them were members of the same gang. Nick’s gang.

“Who’s the hot chick?” one asked, and they all laughed as they looked over at me. People kept showing up and walking back and forth. But not them. They stayed where they were. I didn’t like the comment, but my only reaction was a scowl. Mario came to my aid.

“Y’all aren’t going to believe it, but she’s Nick’s stepsister,” he said. I was disappointed; I didn’t want anyone to know. I wanted to go unnoticed that night or at least have a good time without getting labeled as the goody-goody gold-digger stepsister-of-Nick.

If it was even possible, they laughed harder, and the girls looked at me with renewed interest.

“Bring our new friend something to drink!” a black guy said. He was holding a red cup and had his arm around the waist of a hot girl. She turned around, poured something into a cup, and passed it to me while the others went on talking and listening to their shrill music.

“So you’re our friend’s new girl?” she asked, eyeing me up. I did the same. If she wasn’t going to respect me, why should I respect her? She was black, tall, and very thin. Her hair was in thin braids that descended to her waist. She was wearing white shorts and a dark-blue T-shirt.

“Stepsister,” I corrected her, grabbing my cup and looking at it with suspicion. “You didn’t put anything in it, did you?” I asked. I didn’t trust these people. I’d already been drugged once. I didn’t need it to happen again.

“What kind of person do you think I am?” she asked, offended. “It’s beer, and if you want anything weaker, you’re in the wrong place.” She turned so fast her braids almost hit me and walked away swaying her hips sexily, causing many men there to stop and stare.

“You’ve only been here half an hour, and people are already placing bets on you,” Mario said.

“What kind of bets?” I asked, flustered.

“How soon you’re going to need to throw away your beer and take off running back home.” His face was expectant.

So that was how it was?

I glared at him and all the guys looking at me like I was a joke and drank the entire contents of that oversize cup. As I did, they started shouting louder and louder, and when I finished, a little woozy and with an urge to cough, all present clapped and whistled.

I lifted the cup with a smile.

“Who’s going to get me a refill?” For a moment, I felt free and happy.

The girl from before came back, this time with a smile on her lips.

“My name’s Jenna,” she said, handing me another cup. “If you really want to win these boys over, let your hair down, drink this, and hook up with the best-looking one. In that order.”

I burst out laughing. Was she serious? And if she was, did I care? I’d gone there with one goal in mind: get vengeance somehow on my disgusting ex-boyfriend and my ex-best friend, so letting my hair down and having fun…what was the harm in that?

“I think I’ll listen to you,” I told her, throwing away my hair band away and letting my hair fall over my shoulders as I took a swig of something much stronger than beer.

Jenna started dancing, amused. There was hardly any light there apart from the fluorescent-yellow bands and the headlights farther off.

“I’m Noah, by the way,” I said, realizing I’d failed to introduce myself.

She smiled. She seemed nice. All of a sudden, I heard a commotion. The guys who were sitting on the hoods of the cars got up and walked toward someone who was pulling up. Right away, I recognized Noah’s SUV.

“Here comes the dream and nightmare of any girl with eyes,” Jenna announced.

Whatever, I thought. Nick was hot, but as soon as he opened his mouth, you wanted to take off running or start banging your head against the wall.

I took another drink to keep from looking at him, counting the minutes until he’d come over and say something to me. It was fine. I expected it, and it would give me the chance to vent some of my frustration.

But he didn’t do it. Actually, he deliberately ignored me for half an hour. That surprised me at first, but I was grateful afterward because I was having fun with Jenna, enjoying her energetic way of talking and dancing to the hardcore music that was playing.

“I should introduce you to my guy,” she said as I watched her, thinking to myself that she could swing her hips better than Beyonce herself. I followed her to where all the people were standing. The other girls were drinking or talking, and two or three were flirting with guys, trying to get them to dance along.

Jenna’s boyfriend was the guy I’d seen her with when I had gotten there, I thought. Just then, he was in the middle of a discussion with Nick.

I tensed as I approached them, standing at some distance from everyone else.

“Lion!” Jenna shouted, pulling on his shoulders and giving him a kiss on the cheek. Lion and Nick both turned toward us. Nicholas didn’t look excited to see me.

“This is Noah,” she said, spinning him all the way around so I could get a good look at him. Lion was the same height as Nick and very striking with his green eyes—green like the mint in a mojito—and his perfectly sculpted, muscular body.

Jenna was a lucky woman!

“What’s up, Noah?” he said with a friendly smile but keeping an eye on my stepbrother.

“Nice to meet you,” I said, smiling back. I was really starting to like Jenna, and I didn’t want her boyfriend to believe all the stuff Nick had certainly told him about me.

“Wow, you can be nice and everything,” Nicholas said cynically. I geared up, ready to attack for the third, maybe the fourth time.

I wasn’t in the mood for another fight, though, so I resorted to a universal gesture: raising my middle finger and walking off in search of something better to do.

That was when I felt his arm loop through mine, pulling me toward a dark corner between two expensive cars. Jenna and her boyfriend watched us for a moment, but then she kissed him hard. It stung to see a couple that looked so good together, so happy. Not even four hours ago, I too thought I had the best guy in the world by my side, and now…

“What do you want?” I asked Nick, expelling all my rage. He’d pushed me into the car, so I was trapped between him and the door of a gray BMW.

He’d changed clothes. Now he was wearing jeans that left his Calvin Klein underwear exposed and a tight black T-shirt that showed off his muscular arms.

He didn’t answer, just looked at me briefly before grabbing my phone from my hand and showing me the screen with the photo that had broken my heart two inches from my face.

“Who is this?” he asked me. Was he pretending to be interested in my private life?

I reached out to grab my phone, but he pulled it away, observing my reaction.

“What do you care?” I hissed with as much contempt as I could muster.

“Me? I couldn’t give less of a shit. But I’m guessing it must be your boyfriend, or ex-boyfriend if you’ve got any self-respect. And since women are all basically the same, I’d imagine that your main goal tonight, besides pestering me, is getting your revenge on this dickhead.”

How could he know that? Was it so obvious that payback was the one thing on my mind? He continued, “So let me offer my assistance. I’ll kiss you and we’ll take a bunch of photos of it, and in exchange you’ll take your ass back home. I don’t want you here, Noah.”

I was shocked and needed some time to absorb what he’d said. As I lingered there, he stared at whatever was happening behind me. Kiss this idiot? Never! And yet, if I thought about it, he really was hot, and maybe I wasn’t into it exactly, but I knew perfectly well how that bastard Dan would take it. He had a big head and thought he was the best-looking guy at the school, and nothing would bother him like seeing me with a guy who was obviously his physical superior.

“Fine,” I said. From Nick’s expression, I could see he’d assumed I wouldn’t go along with it. “I want that fucker to feel like the biggest piece of shit in the world, and if I’ve got to kiss you to make that happen?” I shrugged. “Then so be it. But I don’t want to go anywhere else tonight. I’m having fun, so here’s the deal. You offer me your body to help me get revenge on my stupid ex-boyfriend, and I promise I won’t crash any more of your parties.”

He smiled, and I looked back at him confused. What was so funny?

“You’re honestly fucked up in the head, you know that, right?” He shook his own head in disbelief.

“I’m in a bad, bad place right now, and all I care about is seeing that bastard suffer as much as I’m suffering right now.” I could hear the pain in my voice. That photo kept flashing over and over in my mind, tormenting me. I didn’t care that Nick was my stepbrother or that he was a grade-A imbecile. I wanted vengeance, that was it. I knew the drinks I’d had that night were affecting my judgment, but I didn’t care.

“So are you going to kiss me or not?” I dared him.

Nick laughed.

That pissed me off, so I did something I’d been wanting to do ever since I met him: I raised one foot and kicked him straight in the shin. He shouted, more from surprise than pain.

“Stop laughing, jerkoff! There are plenty of dudes here. If you’re not going to do it, someone else will.” As soon as I’d spoken, I got ready to walk off and show him I was serious.

“That’s not gonna happen,” he said brusquely. “I want you out of here, so get over here.” He pulled me over to the hood of the car, where no one else at the party could see us, thankfully. I hopped up on the hood, and Nicholas looked at my legs, my waist, my chest, my eyes.

“You must really be pissed to do this,” he said, pulling out the iPhone and turning on the camera.

“You must be really desperate not to see me anymore,” I counterattacked, pretending I wasn’t nervous at all. I could barely stand him; I hated him actually, and for the same reason, it made me happy to know I was using him for my benefit.

He didn’t say anything back. He just opened my knees with his hands and got between them. While he held the phone with one hand, the other stroked the bare flesh of my thighs. Despite what I’d thought or what I wished I’d thought, that contact didn’t leave my body indifferent.

“Just get it over with,” I said, and he looked irate, but his left hand grabbed the nape of my neck, and he slammed his lips into mine.

I couldn’t suppress a tickle in my stomach. His lips were soft, his chin prickly with a slight growth of beard. He kissed me angrily, as if he were making me pay for all the arguments we’d had since we met. I realized then that I hadn’t heard the camera click.

I shoved him as hard as I could but only managed to move him a few inches.

“Why don’t you take the photo already?” This was the closest he’d ever been to me and the best view I’d ever had of those bright eyes with their long lashes. He wasn’t hard to look at. My god! The son of a bitch was making my legs tremble, it didn’t matter how much I hated him.

“How about you open your mouth without making some stupid-ass comment and we can finally get this over with?” he replied.

He lifted the phone to the height of our heads. As I watched him, my lips grew involuntarily moist. Then he pulled me into him. He kissed me; I heard the click. He put his tongue in my mouth, and when he started to move it, I felt suddenly weightless. Our lips were moving in unison, and it wasn’t just because of the photo.

I liked feeling what I felt just then. My entire body was burning with passion for the moment, and deep down in my soul, I knew I had my revenge. I was enjoying that kiss, and I couldn’t wait for my ex-boyfriend to find out!

His hands were back on my legs. This was lust, pure, undiluted lust. And hate. We hated each other, we couldn’t stand each other, and that made it okay for us to use each other in this way.

I reached up and ran my hands through his dark hair. Screw being prudent!

His hands were on my lower thighs, squeezing them, making me shiver, making parts of my body I’d prefer not to name catch fire. He bit my lower lip, and I wanted to scream.

“Don’t stop,” I said when he reached my waist. I wanted him to keep going, wanted him to make me forget all I was feeling at that instant, to make all my sorrow vanish, all my demons. I wanted to use him for that, use him the way so many boys use girls, I wanted…

He pulled away.

I opened my eyes. What was he doing?

“You’ve got your photo,” he said, and dropped the phone into my hand.

I was panting. I was angry that he’d stopped; I was angry that the one time he did something right, he had to mess it up; I was angry because he was incorrigible and I hated everything he, his father, and his godforsaken life had done to mine.

“That’s it?” I asked. My cheeks were on fire. My body was yearning for him to touch me again.

“Try to stay out of my way tonight,” he warned me.

What had happened? What had we just done?

I watched him as he walked away, feeling a strange, indescribable sensation.