I try all day and night, all my fucking life, to find it and then hold onto like it’s a precious treasure. But right now, it falls through my fingers as I give in to my body, with my thighs spread, his fantastically hard erection thick and heavy and doing its job between my legs, even with all this denim between us, as his mouth searches mine like I’m the answer to every and any question he’s ever had. He roams a hand down my back, cupping my ass to keep me close as I bite my lip, because I don’t know how to let go and shout and scream even though I want to. Instead I shudder several times and pant heavily as I come.

“Oh,” I gasp, keeping my voice low. I don’t want anyone to hear me, even though we’re the only ones here.

Without wasting a moment, he pulls me closer, wrapping his arms so tightly around me that it feels as if he’ll never let go, and I can’t say I want him to. His legs are tangled with mine, his arms hold me close, and I don’t know where I end and he begins. He kisses my forehead, my cheeks, my hair, and I feel cared for in a way I never have. I also feel pretty fucking amazing, like my whole body has taken a bath in golden sunlight and is shining. Is radiant. Is beautiful, and new, and pure again.

Maybe that’s weird to feel pure. But I do. With him.

“You’re beautiful Harley, so beautiful,” he murmurs and his voice is fading again, sleep threatening to overtake him as I roll off of him and return to lying side by side. He pulls at the sleeve of my teeshirt and kisses my tattoo.

“Are you going to tell me why you have a red ribbon on your arm?”

“Yeah, but you go first. You tell me why yours are all in threes. Why do you have the sunbursts and birds and all your abstract patterns in threes. What’s with the threes?”

“Hmmm? Those?”

“Yeah. Those,” I ask. He’s never told me. But I want to know.

He snuggles closer, tucking his face into my neck and breathing me in. He sighs happily, then says, “So I don’t forget my brothers.”

Brothers? Something doesn’t compute. Trey is an only child.

“What do you mean?”

“Will, Jake and Drew. They all died at birth. They’re my three dead brothers.”

My blood stops pumping, and it’s as if someone turned off the music at a dance, and turned the lights all the way up on me.

I push both hands against his shoulders. “What do you mean, Trey?” I ask, hoping, praying he made a mistake, that he will unsay what he just said. “Take that back, please.”

But he falls asleep, the drinking finally taking over, and he is passed out in arms, the marks of his three dead baby brothers permanently inked on his beautiful body.

Chapter Eleven

Harley

The first thing I do after I shower in the morning is locate a fresh pair of jeans and a t-shirt. Not for Trey. But for me. To separate myself from how I used to dress, used to look, used to play. I need to feel as comfortable in Converse as I do in Mary Janes.

As I do in evening dresses.

In trenchcoats and leather.

I can’t be like Layla all the time, at least not the Layla I was last night with Cam.

I want to be the person I am with Trey. I want to be that girl. Real and true and honest and scared.

I pull my hair into a tight ponytail and apply only the barest of makeup — gloss and a dab of blush.

But it’s hard, so incredibly, unbearably hard, to resist doing everything I can to look pretty, to be the prettiest girl in the room, as my mom taught me, as my tattoo reminds me.

So I go through the motions.

I linger over the powder, eyeshadow and mascara in my makeup bag, wanting — longing — to put on a perfect face. I pantomime the moves. Foundation dotted on the chin, the cheeks, under the eyes, then the forehead. Makeup brush spreads the foundation smoothly, then the makeup wedge to spread the powder. Blush next brushed onto the cheekbones, then eyeshadow, three to four applications so the eyes stand out. Then eyeliner on the lids. Mascara next, a full five minutes to achieve the right length, the right fullness above and below. Five minutes to make the eyes pop.

Mascara is the most essential of the five makeup vitamins — foundation, blush, eyeshadow, lipstick and mascara. Mascara is the hardest to apply, takes the longest, but reaps the most rewards. It’s the difference between a finished look and one that says I just don’t care.

I care. I care deeply. Painfully.

Too much.

I close my eyes, grit my teeth, hold the pink tube tightly in my fist and then let it go. It drops to the bottom of my makeup bag with a dull clank as it hits the powder case.

I zip the bag shut. I look myself over in the mirror. My face looks naked. It’s jarring and I feel jumpy, jittery. I remind myself what Joanne would say. Change is supposed to feel weird. You don’t get to the other side by feeling the same way you felt before. But knowing what’s coming this afternoon from Miranda to my mom’s house — a black-and-white reminder of who I was and what I did — it’s hard to imagine I’ll ever get to the other side. I want to cover myself up. I want to hide my new self. I want to slather my face with makeup.

I also just want to be me.

But I don’t know who she is. I don’t know who I am. I am two people. Torn and tattered in split halves.

I leave the bathroom and return to the living room. My apartment is quiet and the sun is barely rising. The first pink slivers of dawn peek over the horizon, pulling the night away. It is early, but I want to get ahead on my debt.

Kristen is probably sleeping, and Trey is still here, stretched out and gorgeous on the couch. He sleeps on his stomach, his cheek pressed into a pillow, one arm hanging off the side of the couch. I kneel down and reach for his arm, not quite touching, but tracing the air near his shoulder, outlining the sunbursts.

Did he mean what he said last night?

Does he have three brothers he’s never told me about?

He knows all my secrets. All my terrible truths. I want him to trust me. I want him to tell me about the marks on his body. I want him to feel safe with me. I want to know him as deeply and as truly as I think he knows me.

I need to resist Layla to do that. I bend closer to his arm and brush my lips ever so softly, ever so gently against his shoulder. A wisp of a kiss, a hint of all that I might feel for him.

A wish.

Then I grab my computer bag, head for the nearby diner, order a strong coffee, and steel myself for the next sordid chapter in my Memoirs. Soon, soon, I’ll be done.

Page 198…

Most of the time I was requested to wear my school girl uniform. But there were a few other outfits my clients liked. Some wanted me decked out in evening wear regalia so I could be the arm candy attending fancy parties, events and galas with them when they wanted the full girlfriend experience. But there was one client in particular – let’s call him Morris, shall we? – Who wanted me in something else.

Who wanted me in leather.

With a leash.

Those were the times I prepped elsewhere. I couldn’t undertake that kind of prep at home. So I’d arrive at the five-star hotel in my trench coat and heels, the risk of being seen part of the thrill. But I was never seen. Sunglasses were my best friend, along with doormen whose palms had been greased by my man.

I pressed the button for the elevator, shot up several floors to the penthouse level, and knocked – sexily of course, I’d been trained to knock sexily, and yes, there is a way to do this – on the door of his suite.

Once inside, the trench coat came off and the collar went on. Not on me. Never on me. On him. Black, leather, spiked. I attached the leash to it. Then, wearing a painted-on leather skirt, a skin-tight bustier and heels, I walked Morris around the suite.