Serena gives my fingers a quick yank. “He can’t see me.” Her emerald eyes glitter with tears, and my heart breaks for her. I know how bad it feels to disappoint a sibling. I know how hard that is to live with, especially when they’re not around to make it up to them anymore.
I lean in and touch my nose to hers for a moment. It doesn’t seem inappropriate considering I had my tongue down her throat less than five minutes ago. “He won’t see you. I can promise you that.”
A weak laugh escapes her as the stench of something sour wafts over from the bin. “You do realize we have lousy luck in dark alleys laden with dumpsters.”
I wince at the thought. “You might be right, but look at it this way. If there’s a dead body tonight, it will most likely be mine, so you’re good to go.”
She gives a little laugh. Her head tilting to the side allows for the streetlamp to glow over her features and makes Serena look like an angel—one with horns and a tail, but a being of an otherworldly variety nevertheless.
As soon as it’s clear, we hightail it to my car, and I speed us the hell out of there. Neither one of us says a word about those heated kisses, and we arrive at Whitney Briggs in silence. Serena pauses to get out as she swings the car door open, her heavy eyes lifting to mine.
“Thanks for the clean getaway.” Her lips quiver a moment, full and ruby red, and that heated response my body has been doling out liberally in her honor goes off like a bomb.
“You bet.” It comes out lower than a whisper. I swallow hard because I know what I have to do. “Hey, Serena?”
She turns around, those wide eyes as large as dinner plates. “Yes?”
“I’m sorry.” There. It’s probably the first thing I should have said as soon as I realized it was her.
Her mouth falls open, and her eyes widen to the sky. “You son of a bitch.” She slams the door and runs all the way to her dorm.
A dark laugh rumbles in my chest as I shake my head after her. There’s the feisty girl I know and love. Not that I love her. Not in that way. But Serena’s special brand of spice is an acquired taste, that’s for sure.
And all the way home I think about strawberries.
Unfortunately for me and my twitching boxers, I hit the bed alone, curling up with my laptop instead of another warm body. Instead of bedding the peacock princess—the girl of my illusions, not the one that the light of reality revealed—I look up Shelby Trainee, the dearly departed soul’s sister. After about an hour, I stumble upon a tidbit of information that makes me blink hard just to make sure I didn’t hallucinate the effort.
“Holy shit,” I whisper. Not only does this bombshell shed a whole new light on Shelby, but it screams intent.
If this isn’t a motivation for homicide, I don’t know what is.
Shelby Trainee had over a million reasons to kill her brother.
This is an undeniable motive for murder.
Dead until Sundown
Serena
Fourteen. That’s how old I was the day of my greatest humiliation yet—and by yet, I mean up until the other night when the masked man I was making out with proved to be none other than Shepherd Collins. Shepherd. Collins. I cannot even begin to understand how Shep’s slippery tongue managed to slither down my throat—and with me such a willing party to the madness! Shit. Just shit.
God, what was I thinking letting Harley drag me to that glorified brothel? She sure as heck didn’t need to go there. She has Tyson wrapped around her lusty little finger. Okay, so it’s actually the other way around. Tyson very much has Harley under his two-timing thumb. Bleh. Personally, I have no clue what she sees in him. He’s constantly flipping his long hair out of his stoned eyes—eyes that are red, white, and blue like the all-American tragedy he’s shaping up to be. And she knows he’s a skirt chaser.
To make it worse, he’s forever leering at other girls with that greasy grin. I don’t know how she can stand to be around him, let alone allow him to have his way with her mouth—and according to her, that’s all he’s had his way with.
Lucky for the both of us, I feel close enough to Harley to openly threaten bodily harm in the event she decides to lose her mind and open her legs. I explicitly told her that the boy toy he has swinging between his own legs is firmly verboten. This is non-negotiable if she wants to keep being my roommate. Under no circumstances is that hairy, scary womanizer allowed behind our closed door. I don’t care if her bed is a solid six feet from my own. I’m not sharing air space with that professional pelvic grinder. He’s just going to have to get his jollies off elsewhere because I’ve all but placed a chastity belt on Harley’s West Virginia.
I can’t help but giggle to myself as I land my order on the cook’s counter. Shep’s verbal slipup still cracks me up. WestVagina. No wonder that boy made his way to the dirty side of Jepson. He was looking to get L-U-C-K-Y. Which also happens to be the name of the girl I’m serving.
Seated at my one and only functioning table is Lucky Madden and her best friend, Ava. They’re older than me by a few years, but I’ve seen them around campus. Lucky is dating Lawson Kent, and Ava is with Grant Jones. Both of those boys are good friends with Eli. In fact, all three are in the back right now shooting up those pool tables.
I gave Eli the details about my app, and he said he could get it done, but it might take longer than I needed. Something about getting lawyers involved because of consent issues. And then, he reassured me that it wouldn’t be a problem because we have a lawyer on our side—Shepherd Collins.
I swear, there is less than six degrees of separation between Shep and me, always have been. It’s a bit creepy when you get down to it. I mean, we’re not family. Not technically. In fact, we’re not even friends. And we sure as hell are absolutely nothing else.
My stomach tenses in knots. Those kisses burn through me with the intensity of ten thousand suns, and suddenly I’m weak at the knees. Damn Shep and his magic lips for inflicting me with such a mesmerizing experience. In truth, I had never been kissed that way. There is not one boy on this planet who had the butterflies in me fluttering like mad while he sealed his mouth over mine and made me his in every way. And the way he lifted my arms and bound them, the way his eyes never left mine—that entire walk on the wild side is far too intense for me to deal with right now.
No sooner do I turn around than my orders are up, and I take the tray over to where Lucky and Ava are laughing to the point of tears. In a strange way, it makes me miss Sunday. Of course, I still have Sunday in my life, but now that she’s with Seth—and I mean really with, it’s hard for her to find some solo time, let alone time to spend with me.
