31 Kisses Read online

  I moan. “I just shot up, and I’m already ready to go. Feel me.” I sit on the counter and open my legs.

  He doesn’t hesitate. His chubby fingers quickly glide over the lube. The counter’s too high for him to fuck me here, even though I can tell he’s contemplating it. I drop down, take his hand and lead him to the bed.

  A loud noise that sounds like a door shutting comes from the room next door. Excellent.

  “Go ahead and do at least half,” I say as he adjusts himself on the bed. He inserts the needle under his skin and before he depresses it, I sit down next to him. “Just half though,” I warn, as I start swirling my hips.

  He moans and injects the heroin into his vein.

  I grind into him. “The other half only when you’re about to come.”

  He nods and plops his head back. His eyes go wide as the drug courses through his veins. I grab onto his erection and glide my hands over it, slowly as the euphoric feeling takes him somewhere completely distant.

  I wait until his body stops moving, grab his fingers before he can release the needle and finish off the lethal dose. Half of it was enough to kill him—the whole thing ensures his death.

  “It’s most definitely not diluted,” I say as I finish him off. I hop off the bed and watch as he begins to seizure. “Sleep tight, you sick fucker.” I take a seat on the bed next to him and watch as his life quickly slips away.

  Within minutes, he’s completely unresponsive. My job is done. I head back into the bathroom, grab a pair of gloves from the zipper pocket of the purse, the bleach spray bottle, and the disinfectant with the extra alcohol. I wipe his body down with my concocted sanitizer and toilet paper, careful to wipe every part of him that touched me. He’s a shaver, which facilitates the clean-up process. And his thighs sticking together provides a good divider between the lube and the sheets. So, nothing fell on the bed sheets.

  I remove the condom, dropping it in a plastic baggie I had in my purse, and reach into his coat pocket to get a new one. I roll it on him, in case they decide to test it. They’ll probably find traces of the erection pill in his system and will think he died before getting his jollies off.

  I also get the piece of stretchy elastic tubing that belonged to the hooker I stole the needle from and get his fingerprints on it before rubbing it over his skin to transfer some skin cells. I drop it on the bed near him.

  I retrieve the syringe from under the cabinet. Then I wipe the floor where I was and the sinks, careful not to wipe too much. There was no need to. Anything I missed I’m sure the police in the Beneventi payroll will help conceal.

  “Now,” I say as I look around the room, “time to go to a party.”

  I walk out nonchalantly, so I don’t draw attention, and walk into the next town over, about thirty minutes away. I turn my phone on, dial Breaker, and hail a taxi. One stops just as Bartolomeu Beneventi’s low, grumbly voice answers, “Hello.”

  “One sec,” I tell my adoptive brother, whom I call cousin. “Forrest Hill University, please. Fraternity Hill.”

  The taxi driver speeds off and I take a long breath. “Twenty-seven.”

  “Good,” Breaker says. I hear him shuffle around. It sounds like he’s leaving some place quiet and getting in his car. “Meet you at Stone’s party?”

  “He’s going to flip out when he finds out you’re coming, Breaker.” I use the nickname his mom gave him.

  “You leave Stone to me.”

  His brother, Silvano Giuseppe Beneventi, who now goes by Stone Rissi, is going to lose his shit. “Okay, see you there.”

  2

  Pimps & Hos

  Hayden

  “Pimps & Hos is played out, huh?” Stone Rissi, my best friend since my freshman year, asks as he shoves me forward and out the door onto the porch of our frat house. He’s a year older, and has all the smugness of a frat president. “Look at all these people. At twenty bucks a head, we’re at least at two thousand dollars, and the party hasn’t even started.”

  I roll my eyes and take a seat on the large wicker sofas we have on the porch.

  “This is only the freshman rush. The real crowd gets here at midnight.” He crosses his arms and scans the crowd proudly.

  I put my feet up on the matching wicker coffee table and poke the arrogant douche, “No originality, bro.”

  “Fuck originality. Phi Alphas have sixteen thousand dollars to pay back in damages before New Year’s Day, or we get our privileges revoked.”

  By privileges he means chicks, or rather the parties that bring them through our front door.

  “The fucking pledges had to take the fireworks and light them on the football field. Coach nearly had a coronary when he saw the scorches on the ground.”

  “Stone, you’re the one who made them chug the beer as they spun around. Then they had to light the match and set off the fireworks.”

  “I thought it would be funny.”

  “You know hazing is illegal, right?” I roll up my sleeves. It’s December eighteenth, and it feels like a cool October afternoon. The weather’s been unstable lately, freezing one minute, warm the next.

  He cocks his head to the side. “Seriously?”

  “Yeah, dick.” I chuckle. “Aren’t you studying Criminal Law?”

  “Not yet,” he answers. “I didn’t think the assholes would mount the fireworks backward. Don’t they know how to read? The boxes said ‘this way up.’”

  “You overestimated their intelligence.”

  He scans the street, flippantly tacking on, “They’re a bunch of lightweights anyway.”

  “One of those unintelligent lightweights is still in the ICU,” I remind him, pointing out the reason we’re still on probation with the university’s Campus Life Department. “We shouldn’t even be having this party.”

  “Hayden, the Dean said no house parties.” He holds his hands in the air and rotates his upper half, gesturing to the raging street party on Fraternity Hill. “We are outside, and there is no one, not even on our front lawn, on Phi Alpha property.” He puts his hands down and smirks at me. “Best of all, the pledges are hosting it! They are technically not house members, they are associated with the frat, but they aren’t Alphas yet.”

  I shake my head and grin. “Leave it to you to find loopholes.”

  “Loopholes are my specialty, brother. I’m gone next year and all this will be yours.” He takes a seat right beside me, props his feet up next to mine, and clinks his cup to my bottle in cheers.

  I snort. “I’m not toasting to you leaving.” I’m friends with everyone in the frat, close to some of them, but Stone is the brother I never had—the roots I was never able to plant anywhere else—and he’s leaving for California in a few months.

  “Then toast to you becoming Alpha President next year. I’ll be away at law school, learning how to get away with murder and shit. You never know, it might come in handy with one of these guys later on.”

  Considering we would have been charged with some kind of negligence with the latest firework incident, I can see where he’s coming from. “Yeah, that’s true,” I admit. “Better study up. You have your work cut out for you.”

  A low rumble erupts from his lips, “You’ve got no idea.”

  “It will be rough without you though.” I clear the lump forming in my throat. Aside from my father, I never really had anyone to miss.

  “What? You getting all sentimental on me now?”

  A little bit. “Nah, but your Stone Motherfucking Rissi. Forrest Hill University will definitely feel your absence.”

  “The female population will definitely feel a certain way about it…” he adds as he makes himself more comfortable. “Think I can officially change my middle name to Motherfucking? My middle name is spent.”

  “You should make that your first order of business when you get to law school. I’m sure you can charm your way into making that possible.”

  “I am a charmer,” he says, winking his right eye. He scans the crowd for his prey. “Shall
I slum it with the freshman, or aim for a Zeta?”

  “You’ve probably fucked your way through the Zeta house already.”

  “Right.” He sips some of his drink and stops. Smirking, he locates the freshman girls, wearing the pink pledge sashes, and points at them with the bottle. “Zeta pledge? Best of both worlds.”

  “Good call. Most of the other Zetas know you’re a dick.”

  “They know I have one.” He brings the bottle back to his lips, but lowers it to ask, “What about you?”

  “I have one too.” I take a swig from my beer and look around for her. I heard Stone on the phone with Kelsie yesterday.

  “Not what I meant.” He scoffs at me. “You know, if she was my real blood, and not just my adopted sister, I’d castrate you for even touching her.”

  I don’t doubt that.

  “But what you two do is none of my business. Plus, Kelsie isn’t the hurt feelings type of girl.”

  He’s got that right. She’s the punch him in the balls, jab to the throat, type of girl. Rough around the edges, hard as steel everywhere else, except when we’re naked.

  We end up naked often. I rub my palms against my jeans, tugging the material lower and giving myself room. “Then why are you asking?”

  He shakes his head. “Kelsie isn’t the type of girl you want to date, Hayden.” His serious tone catches me off guard. “I told you there’s a reason why I don’t associate with my family, and she may not be blood, but she’s family. She has issues, and that’s putting it lightly.”

  “Yet, she’s the only person you talk to from home?”

  He narrows his eyes and nods his head slowly. “Do whatever you want, but she’s mixed up in things even you can’t save her from.”

  I sip my beer. There’s nothing to say to that. He has told me there’s a reason, but he has never told me the actual reason. Then again, I tend to avoid those kinds of conversations—the ones where questions can be reciprocated. I only answer questions I don’t mind answering, especially in the city.

  Before my father got involved with the DEA and FBI and went undercover to try and take down the Beneventi family, I was a New Yorker. If anyone ever found out my real name was Jason Denhay West, son of Robert West, I’d be a target.

  The only reason Kade, my father’s partner and the man helping me hide from the Beneventis, let me come back to the city is because I didn’t give him much of a choice. I only told him after I accepted the spot. He could’ve put an end to it if he wanted to, but he didn’t see it as a threat. I left the city with my dad when I was little—right after my mother was blown up in front of our house. The hit was placed on all of us, but Dad always told me Fabrizio spared us. I never understood why, but I bet it had something to do with the pen drive currently hiding in my football.

  Not even Kade knew I had that. He asked me about it once, but I kept it secret, like my dad asked me to. I can still hear his voice saying, Tell no one unless they find you and you have no way out. I get a feeling my Dad didn’t trust Kade. If Dad wanted to give it to him, then he would have.

  “What the fuck is he doing here?” Stone asks, as he plops his drink down on the table, spilling the majority of it on the lower part of my jeans. Stone reaches into his back pocket and takes out his cell phone. Stone hits the speaker button, stands, and leaves the phone in his seat. It rings four times before her voice comes through.

  “Hey, Stone. We just got here.” Kelsie’s pretty face lights up his screen.

  Stone looks down at the cell phone, jaw clenched, and nods his head. “I can see that. Since when do you come accompanied?”

  Accompanied? My gut churns at the thought of not ending this night with her. I look up and spot Kelsie in the crowd with a guy a few inches taller than her. He’s passing one of the pledges now. Our pledge is six foot one, this guy has to be a couple inches taller than that. The difference in height between him and Kelsie isn’t much.

  She must be wearing heels. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that girl wear heels before, or a skirt for that matter. Maybe it’s because of the new boyfriend. I groan and size him up. Blond hair, arms full of tattoos, and a face you don’t want to mess with. He looks mean as fuck, and just like Stone.

  Holy shit. I check on Stone. He’s looking straight out at the guy and Kelsie. His fingernails are digging into the flesh of his palms and his breathing is controlled, as if he has to think about when to breathe.

  “Kelsie got a new boyfriend?” I ask, despite knowing the answer.

  Stone swivels his head around to me with a disgusted look on his face, but it’s Kelsie who answers my question. “Breaker is not my fucking boyfriend.”

  What kind of name is Breaker?

  “You there?” she asks.

  Shit. I forgot she was on speakerphone. “Hey, Kelsie.”

  Her voice softens a bit. “Hey, Hayden. Can you take me off speakerphone? I need to talk to Stone, please.”

  Stone’s eyebrows jump up. He mouths the word, “please” and shapes it into a question. “Who taught you all those manners?” he taunts Kelsie while eyeing me. “Definitely wasn’t our family.”

  From the little Stone has told me, Kelsie’s dad was a family friend. They grew up together and after his death, Stone’s father adopted her. There is no blood relation, which makes me a little uneasy about the fact that she’s here with Breaker.

  I reach for the phone, tap on the speaker button, disengaging it, and hand the phone to Stone, who looks pissed. “You kind of look like him if you frown like that.”

  Stone snatches the phone from my hand. “Shut up, and stay the fuck away from him and Kelsie.” He brings the phone to his ear before I can say ‘Hell no’ and says, “No. I don’t give a shit what you want or what you did. No!”

  It takes a minute before a rough voice comes on the other end. He barely has a chance to say ‘hello’ before Stone jumps down his throat. “You weren’t invited.”

  “We need to talk about Dad.”

  I glare up, realizing I can hear the conversation on the other end, but I don’t interrupt. I simply drink my beer and try and tune them out by watching Kelsie. She heads over to the bar setup, on the sidewalk in front of the house, giving me a better visual. She really took the party theme to a whole new level. The tight, black ultra miniskirt, pink leather jacket, and hot pink stilettos look great on her.

  I particularly like the sexy shoes; they make her ass look even curvier from this angle. Her hair is tousled enough to look like she just got fucked, and her huge, worn mismatching purse makes her look like the girls down on Main. Nice touch.

  “I don’t care!” Stone shouts and knocks me in the stomach with his elbow. If I didn’t have muscles there, it would hurt.

  I rub my stomach, feigning injury.

  He snaps his fingers in the air and shakes his head. He caught me staring at Kelsie, but I always stare at Kelsie. Why is this time different than all the other times? Because his brother is here? And what does that have to do with my relationship, or lack of relationship, with Kelsie?

  Stone’s never really comfortable when Kelsie’s around. It’s not that he doesn’t like her, or else he wouldn’t keep inviting her over, it’s that he’s always worried something’s going to happen. He talks a lot of shit about her, but he reaches out to her to keep her out of trouble. Though, I don’t see why he would think she was in trouble. From what he tells me, during the day she works at the restaurant his dad owns, trying to get it back on its feet, and in the evening, she trains and teaches self-defense classes to women.

  Her kind of trouble is pretty badass, if you ask me. She’s sexy, wild, and determined. There’s an edge to her that not many girls around here have, and a silence I recognize all too well. Both of us are orphans. She lost her mother at a young age, like I did, and both of us lost our fathers at fifteen. I never elaborated on the details, and she never told me the specifics of hers, because it was simply unnecessary. The parentless children in us recognize the sadness that comes from loss—
from having our worlds destroyed by heartache. Maybe that’s why it’s so easy to talk to her, or not talk to her.

  Talking isn’t a prerequisite for our relationship, and our relationship isn’t dependent on any kind of routine. We just are when we are, and we do when we do. No times. No dates. No attachments.

  But there are feelings, and feelings come with attachments. As much as I’ve tried to deny it to Stone and myself, I can’t. I’ve tried my whole life not to get attached to anything, much less anyone, and now I’ve got nothing but attachments. There’d be no hesitation in either decision: I’d give Stone a piece of my liver if he ever needed one, which, with the quantity of alcohol he drinks, I’m quite certain is a possibility, and I’d give Kelsie my heart if she ever asked for it.

  But she’ll never ask for it. She’s not that kind of girl. We met freshman year, and I don’t even have her number or know her last name. We share more of our bodies than we share of our minds. I’m willing to bet she has her own secrets, just like I do. They may not be as insane as mine, but maybe more dangerous.

  There’s something innately dark about her, giving her this unattainable air that lures people to her and dares them to try and snag her up. Every time I look into her eyes though, there’s a depth there that threatens to suck me in.

  One fixed look, and she conveys her trust in me, hooking me and willing me to defy the boundaries that keep us from being more to each other.

  Sometimes I wonder what else she does, or who else she does them with. She shows up with scrapes and bruises all over her body. Not all of them can come from the training. I’ve often wondered if there’s a reason for the secrecy and for Stone’s warnings, and I’ve always come up with the same answer: abusive boyfriend.

  I’ve never brought myself to ask her. A little over two years, and I’m afraid to scare her off with my speculations. We’ve sat down on this very porch at least thirty times, watching people party like they didn’t have to worry about getting drunk. They could forget about anything and everyone with a liquid bullet or a few puffs of the magic smoke.