Double Clutch - Реинхардт Лиз (хороший книги онлайн бесплатно .TXT) 📗

He was like some insane addiction. I craved him, and the more I had of him, the worse the cravings got.

After my brain hammered out all of my shuddering maternal-based guilt, it brought me back to my love/hate thought obsession: Saxon Maclean. I thought about Jake’s fierce insistence that Saxon was just playing one big head game, but my heart couldn’t believe that. Not entirely. He had opened up to me. He had done things that made no sense, which was not unusual for Saxon, but some of the senseless things had done nothing to benefit him. Why would he do that?

When he talked about Jake and how everything had fallen apart, he wasn’t acting. I knew that for sure. Even Saxon wasn’t that good. He let himself be Jake’s fall guy. Even today. He could have come out and told Jake about our kiss, the rides home, but he just played on Jake’s hatred and let him take another swing. If Jake was going to feel any anger at me, it was all gone, replaced by anger at Saxon.

Why would he do that unless he really cared about Jake?

I was lost in the tangle of it. I was nervous about the calls and the ridiculous government date. I had never seen Saxon so determined. If he still had it in his head to win this thing, he would. I hoped Saxon would let me go now, but I didn’t think it was likely.

Finally, I was broken out of my reverie by Coach Dunn waving her arms at me.

I put my hand along my back and yanked my earbuds out.

“Sorry coach.” I breathed heavily

“Good job, Blixen.” She scowled and shook her head. I thought for a minute she was being sarcastic. “Really good time. You’re improving a little with every run.” She clapped me on the shoulder. “See you tomorrow.”

I jogged into the locker room and changed. I didn’t feel like showering anywhere other than my comfy home shower with all of my good shampoos and soaps. Besides, I hated putting my feet down anywhere really grimy and gross, like the concrete of a high school shower stall. I was on my way out and wondering how long the late bus would take when I ran into Saxon.

Chapter 11

I actually crashed into him. He caught me around the waist, and I stood in his arms for a few seconds, until my head cleared and I backed away, breaking the circle we made together.

“Jesus, watch where you’re going, Blix.” He shook me a little. “C’mon. I’ve been waiting.”

“For me?” I was confused. “I can’t, Saxon. I have to catch the late bus.”

“You’re not riding the shitty late bus. C’mon.”

He didn’t look at me, just walked. And because I had a million things to clear up with him, because I had his tooth in my pocket, because I wanted to let him know that I understood the good under all his cocky pretend-bad, because I knew he loved Jake as much as I did, I followed. Down the long hallway with gold-tiled walls, down the crumbling stone steps to the lower parking lot, and right up to his big black car, I followed Saxon. He got in and pushed my door open, and I got in next to him.

“I watched you run.” He lit a cigarette and drew in deeply. He exhaled in one long breath.

“I didn’t watch you.” I waved the smoke away from my face and he switched hands.

“I know.” He took another drag and blew it away from me.

“How’s your tooth?” Or the hole in his head where his tooth was before Jake smashed it out. But I didn’t think he’d appreciate my specifics.

“Gone. I have one bitch of a headache.” He leaned his head back on his seat and took a long drag. “He needed to do that.”

“Not really.” I thought I understood why Saxon did what he did, but I wanted to hear it from him, if that was possible.

“More importantly,” he said, taking another drag, “I needed him to do it to me.”

“You could tell him the truth.” I knew Saxon and Jake would never be friends again, but some kind of peace had to be better than all this.

“So could you,” he bit back, reminding me that there were many circles of truth when it came to me and Saxon and Jake.

We sat in silence for a few minutes. He smoked the entire cigarette faster than I’d ever seen anyone smoke one before.

“I might.” If I wasn’t such a wimp, I already would have. How had it all gotten so tangled so fast?

“You know it’s not about truth or lies.” He lit up another one. “It’s about Jake’s perception. You and I have one more thing in common now.”

“What’s that?” I gripped the sides of the leather seats.

“We’re both protecting Jake.” He pressed his thumb hard between his eyes.

“Come here.” I motioned with my hands.

“Where?” I could tell from the way he squinted his eyes that he was in a lot of pain.

“On my lap.” I didn’t like saying it out loud, because it made it sound tawdry and hot, when it was really just my best attempt at a peace offering. And, hopefully, an end to all the head games.

“We need to get in the back for that, Blix.” He tried to sound sexy, but the pain made him grimace through it.

“Not for sex.” He pretended to pout, and I gave my best glare. “I’ll rub your head.”

His eyebrows pulled low. “Alright.” I knew he was evaluating my angle, the reason for my sudden kindness, but he didn’t seem able to come up with anything. He flicked his cigarette out the window, right under a ‘no smoking’ sign and nodded to me.

Saxon and I got in the big backseat and he stretched across it, his head cradled on my lap. I pushed his shiny black hair back off of his forehead. He pressed his head harder onto my thighs and made a low humming noise, like a purr. I thought about the first day I met him and how he reminded me of a jungle cat.

I rubbed his temples, up into his hair, down the sides of his face and all around his eyes. He breathed low and deep, almost like he had fallen asleep. His face relaxed, all of the muscles finally slack. He was beautiful. He had it all; great skin, great bones, great hair. He was just bad enough to be interesting, he was brilliant, he was funny. Soccer forward, AP student, resident badass, and the love of my life’s personal martyr.

I pulled away, but his hands reached up and caught me around the wrists. He still had his eyes closed. He ran his fingers up and down my forearms.

“Please, Brenna,” he said in a voice so unlike Saxon’s usual voice that I could hardly believe it was him speaking. “Don’t stop yet.”

My hands shook when I put them back on Saxon’s head, smoothing his hair back and running my fingers through it. I traced his features, ran my hands over the skin of his face and along the column of his neck. It wasn’t until he shifted, and I saw exactly what my touch was doing to his lower regions that I pulled back.