My Fault (Culpable Book 1)

Seeing him hit me like a ton of bricks after those four days when I’d managed to more or less forget what had happened at the races and had tried to avoid thinking about him—and when I did think of him, I felt a strange, unpleasant sensation in my stomach. I knew I’d made him lose his prize possession and that they could have killed us that night, but it wasn’t all my fault. If it hadn’t been for Dan cheating on me, I’d never have gone; plus, that thug Ronnie had tricked me, had made me think I was allowed to compete, and it was only once he saw me win that he’d taken advantage of the stupid rules to keep the fifteen thousand dollars and Nick’s car.

I thought it would take days, months, years until that little rich kid would forgive me and forget what I had done, but it turned out that despite all the things I’d imagined Nick would say to me, he was there and the slate seemed to be wiped clean.

But making me pay some other way—that had to be a joke, right?

I didn’t know what to think anymore, and I also didn’t want to spend too long trying to figure out what Nicholas Leister would ask me to do to make up for this. Jesus—two hundred thousand dollars. I was sure I’d never see that much money in my life. Only someone as rich as him could blow something like that off, and even if I knew that car was just a toy for him, one of many he could buy, I felt relieved and thankful that he was willing to forgive me.

I’d spent the past few days trying to get used to life in that house, full of remorse and all kinds of other mixed-up feelings. The worst part, the source of my sorrow, was knowing that my boyfriend had decided to cheat on me. And now he was calling me and sending me thousands of messages trying to get me to forgive him and even get back together with him.

Every time my phone rang, my heart stopped, and when it started again, the beats hurt like a hammer blow. All that time I spent sunbathing reminded me of the things that tied me to my city, my home, and how that was all gone forever. That was what pained me most. My best friend had decided to cast aside our friendship for a guy, my guy, and he had the gall to ask me to forgive him. Was he crazy?

There was no way I’d ever speak with either of them again, no way I’d ever be so stupid to throw myself at some guy’s feet. Men had given me enough problems, and here I was, living with an attractive, dangerous guy with a parallel life that no one with half a brain would bother getting close to.

“You must be Nick’s worst nightmare,” Jenna said. She took a pack of cigarettes out from between her breasts and lit one. I couldn’t help but look around to see if Mom was nearby.

Jenna was the one good thing I’d gotten out of that disastrous night. Her joy, her sense of humor, had made the past few days easier. She told me that she’d known Nicholas since he was a boy. In fact, she was the person who knew him best.

According to her, my new stepbrother was an incorrigible man-whore who thought about nothing but parties, drinking, having fun, sex, and beating Ronnie as many times as he had to for people to realize he was the real king of the night around here.

None of that surprised me, but there was one thing that did, even if she couldn’t tell me much about it. When Nicholas was eighteen, he left his father’s home for a while and was living at Lion’s place in a rough part of town and getting into all kinds of trouble. That was where he’d met all those delinquents who lived a life of crime. Lion was one of the friends he held on to from that period.

I was shocked. My mother must have had no idea. If she did, she’d have told me. Now I understood how a guy from a rich family like Nick had wound up in the kind of shady business I’d seen the two nights I’d hung out with him.

“Why do you say that?” I asked Jenna, distracted, looking down into my bowl of cereal.

“Have you seen yourself?” she asked, and I felt slightly offended. “You’re the typical good girl who’s never even broken a dish, and all of the sudden you hop in a car, win a race, and get us all into a shitload of trouble. You’re not exactly what I’d call predictable, Noah, I’d bet you anything right now Nick is thinking of giving it to you every which way right on top of this counter to try to get over his frustration at losing his car. That’s how he usually solves his problems. He’s not the type to just forget it.” She made air quotes as she said these last words and laughed as she looked at my stunned expression.

“Come on!” she said. “Don’t tell me it never even crossed your mind. If I hadn’t known him since I was in diapers, I’d be throwing myself at him, too, just like every other girl in this town.”

In my mind, I started re-creating that kiss we had given each other on the hood of the car. It wasn’t the first time I’d remembered it, and my body always reacted by shivering and wishing his hands would caress me again…but that just meant I had eyes!

“Believe me when I say this—I’m not letting him give it to me anywhere. I’ve known enough pretty faces to last a lifetime. Guys like that will screw you over the first chance they get. Just look at my boyfriend Dan.”

“Ex-boyfriend Dan,” she corrected me, taking a drag from her cigarette. “You’re right, guys like him are dangerous, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t enjoy what they can offer you to get over your old guy. Who says a woman can’t sleep with a guy for the simple pleasure of doing it? You’re single, you’re pretty, it’s summer. Enjoy it and don’t think too much.”

I laughed out loud. Jenna was crazy! I wasn’t that kind of girl.

“How about we drop the subject of the Leisters and you promise to stay over tonight,” I said. If I had to spend three days alone with Nicholas in that gigantic house, I’d die before Monday arrived.

Jenna thought it over.

“Nick will almost certainly invite the guys, which means Lion will be here, and if you add in the alcohol and music…” Her fingers drummed her cheek. “Then I’m in!” She smiled.

That put me in a good mood. With Jenna next to me, the days would pass quicker, and that was what I needed just then: for the days to fly by without having to think about where they were taking me.

Just as Jenna had said, a few hours later the house was pure madness. It wasn’t even 9:00 p.m. when the doorbell started ringing. A bunch of guys and girls with beer kegs soon rolled in. When he heard the racket, Nicholas peeked out over the top of the stairs to invite everyone in, telling them to put on the music.

Drinks flowed like water, and the music boomed from speakers I couldn’t even see. I felt out of place in my athletic shorts with my hair pulled back. Jenna had gone home to change and still wasn’t back, so I went to my room to try to freshen up a little, looking through my closet to see if there was something that would be comfortable and still nice to wear.

I found a pair of black shorts that fit me like a second skin and an orange top that looked great with the tan I was starting to get. Satisfied, I let my hair down, threw on some flats—to hell with wearing heels in my own home—and ran off when I heard another doorbell ring over the music.

Before I got there, Jenna had already come in along with her boyfriend, Lion. The two of them were a spectacle. She hadn’t skimped on the high heels, but she was a little shorter than her boyfriend in his jeans and baggy black T-shirt.

Jenna hurried over with a smile.

“Girl, you are fine,” she said. “You already got your eye on someone? It’d be a shame to let that body go to waste!” she shouted, making me blush and giggle at the same time.

“Let’s get a drink. I’m parched,” Lion said. He’d already waved to several guys who came over to bump fists with him.

In the kitchen, Jenna went straight for the beer keg, and when she handed me a foamy cup, I took it happily. It was good, crisp, refreshing, and I was happy for a distraction to help me forget my ex.

As I drank, my mind washed away the bad feelings and the image of Dan, so blond, so handsome, how his hands used to caress me when we were alone or how he’d kiss me on the nose in the wintertime and laugh, saying I looked like a reindeer. It was stupid to keep dwelling on those things, but that had been nine months of my life. Not so many, maybe, but they’d been intense. I’d loved him. He’d been my first real boyfriend, and him cheating on me with someone who mattered so much to me…the mere fact that he’d cheated on me…

Now I was pissed. I went back for another beer. Just then, an email popped up on my phone. I assumed it would be Dan, but when I looked, I saw it was the same person who had sent me the photo of Dan and Beth kissing. Whoever that was, they obviously wanted to torment me because the subject line read:

MORE EVIDENCE OF DECEPTION FOR YOU.

I clicked on the file, my heart racing, but before I could see anything, my phone died. Shit. No battery. I should have figured; all day I’d been getting messages and calls from Dan that I’d tried to ignore. With my nerves frayed, prey to some masochistic instinct—because if it wasn’t that, why in the hell would I want to see more pictures of my boyfriend cheating on me?—I saw Nick’s iPhone on the table in the living room. There were tons of people around, so no one noticed when I grabbed it and walked off to a corner close to Will’s office. My hands were shaking so much I could hardly hit the keys, and I had to rewrite my email address like five times. When I finally entered it and my password correctly, I opened the file, and there, along with the photo I’d already seen, were tons of snapshots of Dan and Beth hooking up at the same party. I’d assumed that was where he’d cheated on me for the first time…but no. There were more of them in other places, even selfies, with their arms stretched out, their lips swollen, their eyes gleaming. I got so mad looking at them that the fury and pain almost made me drop the phone on the floor.

That was when someone came up behind me.

“What the hell are you doing with my phone?”

I jumped, and before I could close out the screen, Nicholas grabbed the phone out of my hands and started looking at the pictures with a scowl.

“Give it!” I said, feeling myself starting to drown in my misfortunes.

He smiled mischievously.

“Did you forget it’s mine?” he replied, engrossed in the screen.

I turned around to walk off. I knew I was close to losing it; I could feel it in the tremor in my hands and the sting in my eyes that I felt every time I wanted to cry.

A hand grabbed my arm.

I turned around to see Nick’s eyes boring into me.

“Why are you looking at this shit? Are you a masochist or what?” he asked, disgusted, putting his phone in his back pocket and grabbing my arm. I guess I wasn’t the only one asking that question.

“Maybe. But either way, you’re the last person I want to see right now,” I said, thinking he was the perfect person to take my bad mood out on.

He gave me a strange look, almost as if he actually wanted to understand what was going on in my head.

“What’s up with that, Freckles?”

I rolled my eyes at that damned nickname he’d given me.

“Let’s see,” I said sarcastically. “Since I got here, all you’ve done is talk bad about me, threaten me, leave me stranded in the middle of nowhere, act like a horndog, and…oh, I forgot! Let someone drug me!” I counted these episodes off on my fingers.

“So now it’s my fault that your asshole boyfriend cheated on you,” he said, letting me go and observing me as if he found the whole thing funny.

“I’m just pissed off at life in general, so leave me alone, okay?” I said, ready to walk past him and go to my room. He stood in my way and grabbed me around the waist with one arm. Before I knew what was happening, he pushed me into Will’s office, closed the door, and looked me in the eye. The room was dark except for the light of the moon coming in through the windows behind the desk and chairs.

I exhaled all the air I had in my lungs when he stepped forward and trapped me against the door. When I looked closely at him, I saw how drunk he was.

“Stop thinking about that asshole,” he said, pushing my hair back and kissing the skin of my shoulder.

It was as unexpected as it was intense. It reminded me of the kiss at the races. What had started as simple vengeance had turned into a pleasurable, exciting kiss…and now the same thing was happening again.

“What are you doing?” I asked when his lips started to slowly climb my neck, leaving a trail of little hot pecks until he reached my ear. I had to close my eyes when I felt his teeth digging into me.

“I’m showing you how good life can be,” he responded, his breathing accelerating as he reached a hand under my shirt and started stroking my back, softly at first and then pressing me into his firm body.

He couldn’t know what he was doing. Had he forgotten whom he was kissing? We hated each other, even more now that I had lost his favorite toy and his archenemy had fired a gun at his back. It was my fault…but if all that was true, why couldn’t I stop enjoying these hot, unexpected caresses?

“I’ve been holding back with you… Dammit, you’re stuck in my head, and I can’t stop thinking of you,” he said, picking me up easily and forcing me to wrap my legs around his back.

I didn’t even have time to assimilate his words because all at once, his lips were over mine, ardent, possessive, kissing me in a way no one ever had.

It was strange, feeling him this way, especially after how he’d acted just a few hours before, but my thoughts, my feelings, my problems, anything that had affected me in the past, all that was in the background now because—my God!—that boy knew exactly what he was doing.

His tongue jutted against mine passionately, and his breath was intoxicating. Without realizing it, I responded in kind. My hands wrapped around his neck and pulled him into me, as if he were my oxygen…a contradiction, since the way he was kissing me made it almost impossible to breathe.

I pulled his hair, making him lean his head back so I could catch my breath. He grunted from the pain when I had to pull harder because he refused to take his mouth away from mine.

We were panting, and his blue eyes looked straight into mine while I tried to control the waves of burning pleasure flowing through my body from head to toe. My legs were still around him, and he pulled me into him tightly as if he couldn’t bear for any space to exist between our two bodies.

“You’re rough,” I gasped, unable to contain myself. Not that I cared—we’d only been in there for five minutes, and he already had me in the palm of his hand.

“And you’re unbearable.”

I couldn’t say anything back—his lips were too quick to attack.

All that was too intense. I felt him all over. One of his hands started unbuttoning my top while the other gripped my thighs. He started walking to the right, probably intending to lay me out on the desk there, but I pulled him toward me, and my back struck the wall. I heard a click, and the lights came on, illuminating everything around us and ourselves with painful clarity.

It was as if someone had dumped cold water on our heads. Nicholas stopped, looked at me surprised, breathing hard like me, and reality imposed itself on the physical attraction of our bodies. Nicholas leaned his forehead into mine and closed his eyes for a few seconds that seemed interminable.

“Shit!” he exclaimed, dropping me. He turned around and walked out the door without looking back.

Reality hit me so hard that my legs gave out from under me and I fell to the floor, leaned back against the wall, and hugged my knees. Only then did I start to grasp what we’d done.

Hooking up with Nicholas wouldn’t solve anything. It wouldn’t undo Dan’s cheating on me, it wouldn’t fill up the solitude of living in that place without family or friends, and it certainly wouldn’t help the two of us get along any better. That episode with Nick could only mean one thing: problems.