I woke up with a start and sat upright on my bed, struggling to catch my breath. My heart pounded against my chest while my head swirled with the murkiness of sleep. I sighed and rubbed my eyes. As the prickly disorientation of sleep faded away I was able to breathe again. Outside, the sun was working its way toward the horizon, throwing shades of red, pink, and gold across the sky.
I missed Caleb already.
I glanced at the floor and a glint of silver caught my eye. I leaned forward. It was Caleb’s St. Christopher necklace.
I picked it up and studied it, the pad of my thumb rubbing over the tarnished, dented metal. The clasp was broken and I wondered if Caleb had noticed. This meant everything to him. He would hate being away from it. There wasn’t a lot he held sentimental to his heart, but this was something he did.
Because family was everything to him.
I started to cry again and held his necklace to my chest.
He hated me.
But it was better this way.
Better to break his heart now instead of dragging it out over the years when he realized that being with me was a mistake.
CALEB
I drank the fifth of bourbon, cranked Led Zeppelin, and lost myself in my art.
When the music stopped, I looked up to see Pandora standing in the doorway. She looked incredible. Red lips. Blonde hair. Thigh-high boots. And if I thought her dresses were tight in the past, this one was damn well painted on.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
I was slurring like fuck.
“I saw the light on. Saw your bike parked outside. Are you okay?”
It was hard to focus on her. “Sure.”
Her gaze dropped to the empty bottle tipped over on its side on my desk. “You want to talk about it?”
“No.” I looked down at my sketchpad and was taken back by what I saw. Honey looked back at me from the paper. Without realizing it, I’d drawn her with precise detail. “There’s nothing to talk about,” I said, not lifting my eyes from the beautiful face on the sketchpad.
Pandora moved to stand next to me and put her hand on my shoulder as she looked at the drawing.
“She doesn’t love you, you know,” she said.
“What are you talking about?” I asked broodily. My head was murky with too much liquor.
“I’ve been watching this disaster unfold for months. Watching how she tortures you. Watching how she raises you to crazy heights only to kick you behind the knees and drop you to the floor with her craziness.”
“She’s not crazy. The situation is.”
Pandora’s hand slid from my shoulder to the back of my neck. Then the other one joined in and she started to massage both my shoulders.
“She doesn’t get this lifestyle. I’ve seen the look on her face. She’s as out of place as a salmon at a grizzly bear tea party.” Her fingers swept up and down my shoulders and across the nape of my neck. And even though I was hammered, I realized what she was doing was more like a caress than a massage.
I stood up to put some distance between us, but I was more drunk than I thought and dropped down onto the chair in front of my computer.
“Whoa,” I moaned as the world spun and my vision blurred.
Before I could stop her, Pandora hoisted up her already short dress and climbed onto my lap.
“What are you doing?” I mumbled.
She straddled my hips and blanketed her body against me as she leaned forward. “Let me be with you,” she whispered against my lips. “Let me love you.”
When she tried to kiss me, I turned my head away from her mouth but she gripped my chin with vise-like strength and sharply turned my head back to face her. She kissed me hard, her lips devouring mine, her tongue thrusting into my mouth with ferocious desire.
I pulled away. “I don’t want to do this,” I slurred. Christ, when I opened my eyes there were two of her. But when I closed them I felt a wave of vertigo pull me backwards.
“We can be together,” she said, gasping as she rubbed her pussy against the front of my jeans. She pressed down with all her weight and started to get off on the hard bulge of my zipper. But despite all the rubbing, my cock wasn’t interested.
I tried to push her off me, but another wave of vertigo washed over me and my arms fell limp at my side and my head fell back. Pandora lifted my head so she could brush her lips over mine again. “She doesn’t want you. But I do.”
She grabbed my hand and forced it between her legs. She wasn’t wearing any panties, and the moment my fingers felt her slick pussy, she lit up like an atomic bomb. She cried out and furiously rubbed herself against my hand. With a yank I pulled it free.