I didn’t want to disobey him, but maybe, I could at least change locations. I figured going into the tattoo studio in the next room wouldn’t be disobeying his orders too much. Besides¸ King’s sketchbook was in there, and it could help occupy me until he came back.

I crept out of the room. The party downstairs still raged although none of the party-goers had made their way upstairs like last time. I pushed open the door and stepped inside.

I wasn’t prepared for what I found.

My jaw fell to the floor along with my heart and any faith I had in King and his promises. My heart disintegrated in my chest.

It was dark in the room except for the neon lights beating in time with the bass of the Nine Inch Nails song playing on the iPod dock. King was perched on his chair with his eyes closed, a joint at his lips. His jeans were down around his ankles. A topless brunette was down on her knees in front of him, reaching for the waistband of his boxers.

“What the fuck,” I gasped. I was going to be sick. The asshole was just toying with me the entire time. He hadn’t meant a word. Maybe, that was the revenge he’d been wanting since Nikki stole from him. Maybe, that was his game the entire time and now that I was humiliated my debt had officially been paid.

King’s eyes opened suddenly, and I half-expected an apology for walking in and catching him in the act. At least, I expected an attempt at pulling up his pants. But it was my fault for thinking that way. Somewhere between the tattoos, the sandwiches on the dock, Grace’s house, and the carnival, I’d forgotten who I was dealing with.

This was the man who held me against my will. Handcuffed me to his bed. Threatened my life.

Killed his own mother.

He was the fucking devil himself. And all it took was a slutty brunette on her knees to remind me of that.

“Get out,” he barked. He took a long drag from the joint, then tugged on the brunette’s hair, tipping her head back. He leaned over until his lips were almost touching hers and made a show of blowing the smoke directly into her mouth.

I slammed the door and ran down the hall. I grabbed a bottle of something off of the kitchen table and headed outside to the dock, ignoring catcalls from some of the bikers I left in my wake.

I walked past the raging bonfire and toward the water.

I sat down on the end of the small pier and dangled my legs over the edge. I tore the cap off the bottle and tossed it into the water. I held up the bottom of the bottle and chugged a few mouthfuls of the amber liquid. It tasted like pure gasoline mixed with pine-cleaner, burning my throat and stomach on its way down. I took a breath and kept on drinking, swallowing one horrible tasting mouthful after another. I didn’t stop until I felt the hazy warmth begin to spread through me.

I wiped my mouth with my wrist and looked out onto the water.

I may not have known who I was in the past, but I knew who I didn’t want to be, and who I didn’t want to be was someone weak.

I’d fallen for it. His words. His body.

I’d fallen for him.

I may have set out to be a whore, but I sure as shit wasn’t going to allow myself to be treated like one.

He may have been the notorious Brantley King to everyone back in that house and everyone in that town, but to me, he just became the asshole. The asshole who just minutes before had broken my fucking heart.

Things were so much easier when I hated him.

“This seat taken?” A deep voice asked. I shrugged. Bear sat down next to me and lit a cigarette. “Something bothering you, pretty girl?”

“Nope,” I lied.

“I may not know shit about shit, but I can tell you that when a girl goes running from a party with only a bottle of whiskey for company, something is most definitely bothering her. In my experience, that something usually has a cock attached to it.” Bear exhaled the smoke.

“Well, you’re not completely wrong,” I admitted. Turning up the bottle again, the liquid no longer burned when I swallowed.

“Easy, girl,” Bear said, grabbing the bottle from me. He took a swig. “What’s going on between you and King, anyway? You his now? Cause he sure looks at you like you are. And seeing as he didn’t kill you and all, I’m thinking what he feels for you might be pretty fucking serious.”

I shook my head. “Right now, he’s in his studio, belonging to a brunette with fake tits.” My eyes welled up with tears, but I refused to cry at my own stupidity.

“Ah, I see,” Bear said, passing me back the bottle. “The kid doesn’t appreciate what’s right in front of him.”

“He’s not exactly a kid, Bear. Actually, I’m pretty sure he’s older than you, and it’s not that he doesn’t see what’s in front of him. It’s that he just doesn’t give a shit.” I was more than tipsy, working my way to more than drunk. My words grew bolder in my mouth before I spat them out. Any filter I ever had was completely gone. “What do you see when you look at me?”

Bear looked out on the water and scratched his beard. “I see a very, very fucking beautiful girl who shouldn’t be hanging out with the likes of anyone up in that house. Or anyone sitting next to her, for that matter. We’re bad seeds, little girl. You’re a good seed. I can tell. Shit, anyone within a hundred miles of here can tell. You don’t belong here. That much is obvious.”

“I don’t belong anywhere,” I admitted. A fog started to settle over the water, emerging from the trees on the other side of the bay, traveling toward, and brushing my ankles as it spread under the pier.

“Sure you do. First, you have to figure out where that someplace is. Then, you just have to want to belong there.”

I’m not sure if Bear knew my entire story, but what he said was way too simplified of an answer, especially in my case.

I laughed. “Oh yeah? Well, I’m leaving here tonight, and I have nowhere to go. I don’t want to live on the streets again, but that’s where I’m going to be. It takes a lot more than wanting to belong somewhere, or not belong, or whatever,” I said, my words slurring together.

“I remember talking to you that first night. Do you remember what I told you about coming back to the clubhouse with me?” Bear asked.

“Yes.”

“I should’ve never sent you up to King. I should have dragged you away right then and there and made you mine that night before King had his way with you.”

“King has never had his way with me,” I slurred. “His way or the highway, maybe.”

“No shit? Well that changes everything, baby,” Bear said. His smile reached all the way to his eyes which were shockingly bright and beautiful. I was pretty sure his beard hid even more of his good looks, and a very drunk part of me wanted to pull on it to see if it would come off.

“It changes nothing, Bear. I’m still leaving. He’s still with the brunette girl with the…” I cupped my hands in front of my chest. Bear laughed out loud, revealing a perfectly straight line of pearly white teeth.

“It changes everything, actually. Our bro code only goes so far. Seeing as how he’s not claimed you as his, as stupid as that is, my offer is still good. What’s fair is fair,” Bear said, again taking the bottle from my hands.

I looked over at him and half-expected to find him laughing at his own joke, but his lips were in a straight line.

He was dead serious.

He also wasn’t bad to look at. That night was the first time I’d seen his blonde hair pulled into a high bun on the back of his head.

“Listen,” Bear said. “King’s been my friend almost my entire life, but he knows the rules I live by. In my world, you’re fair game, and I would love to put you on your back in my bed.”

“You’re just saying that. The truth is that you’re not gonna want me when you find out that I don’t know what I’m doing when it comes to—” I darted my eyes to the bulge in his jeans. “—that.”