Killing June

  Begin Reading

  Table of Contents

  About the Author

  Copyright Page

  Thank you for buying this Swerve ebook.

  To receive special offers, bonus content, and info on new releases and other great reads, sign up for our newsletters.

  Or visit us online at us.macmillan.com/newslettersignup

  For email updates on the author, click here.

  The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you for your personal use only. You may not make this e-book publicly available in any way. Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author's copyright, please notify the publisher at: http://us.macmillanusa.com/piracy.

  Because without you, this book would never have been possible, I am dedicating it to my teachers. Each teacher, from elementary to high school, touched my life in their own way. But it is my special education teachers that undoubtedly fought the hardest to give me the skills I needed to write this.

  I was diagnosed with dyslexia and dysgraphia in second grade. The diagnosis did nothing to change the enormous struggle that language arts was for me, it only gave it a name. But a few dedicated teachers made all the difference in the world.

  I hated reading because it was hard—really, really hard. I hated writing because I felt like I had great ideas, but when I got them on paper they were a mess of bad handwriting. Most couldn’t read it, and when they could, the spelling was all wrong with the wrong word usage and backwards letters from time to time. It doesn’t matter what you know if you can’t get it out of your head.

  It was so frustrating, so overwhelming, that just the thought of having to read a book made me cry. I didn’t want to try. I was convinced that it was just never going to happen for me. But there were a few teachers who had different plans.

  My special education teachers stepped in. They worked so hard, finding alternative ways to teach me, researching my disability, and making sure I had every opportunity to succeed. When I wanted to give up, insisted on giving up, they wouldn’t let me. They pushed back and demanded I give 100 percent to overcoming the obstacles of my disabilities. Some days, when I was frustrated and hopeless, I hated them for it. But they persisted anyway. And there is no way to say thank you enough for that.

  Because of their efforts, one day it all clicked for me. The girl who cried at the thought of reading fell in love with books. The girl who fought against all written communication turned into an author.

  Sally Buford, Pat Keeling, and every assistant I came across in your classes: The work you put into the children you teach has a lasting effect that is immeasurable. You may never know the full impact of the work you do, but know that it is immense and so appreciated.

  Chapter One

  I’d thought about killing June before, but never with the determination I felt while sitting in Joe’s bar waiting to meet new clients. I hated her—who she was, the things she did, and mostly, that I needed her. I hated the tension tightening my gut, and the nausea I fought waiting for a stranger to slide onto the stool beside me.

  I glanced around, trying to spot my would-be client. Nothing but bikers and half-dressed, strung-out women. It would’ve been a rough crowd in my neighborhood, but that far south of I-20 in Dallas, it was spot on.

  My nerves, coupled with sticky Texas heat, pushed my discomfort over the edge. It was September, ten p.m., and a solid eighty-five degrees in Dallas. Ninety-five degrees easy in Joe’s smoke-filled sweatbox.

  “You’re nursing that one, Doll.” Joe pointed to my half-full glass. He pulled a bar towel across his damp, dark brow.

  “Here for a quick chat with a friend, then I have to drive. Being responsible, Joe.”

  “Sure ya are.” Joe winked and strolled across the bar to help a string of spandex and leather–clad ladies.

  We’d never discussed it, but I was sure the old man knew that the guys I met weren’t friends, and that I wasn’t hanging out to chat.

  Letting ice from my drink linger against my lips, fizz tickling my nose, I watched Joe pour tequila and pass out salt. My view was obstructed by the mass of a man who settled on the stool beside me.

  This was the awkward part.

  I didn’t know my client, didn’t know what he looked like, didn’t know if this was him.

  My eyes raked over the man and my throat ran dry, thinking of having him as a client. An image of him cuffed and on his knees flooded my vision. My clients came in all shapes and sizes, but they were usually refined and polished. His frame was well-used muscle wrapped in a black tee. His naturally tanned arms were covered in black ink. There was confidence in his movements, an air about him that dared you to question anything he did. Dark eyes and a stubbled jaw gave him a beautifully rough appeal. It made my own confidence sway.

  I always sat on the stool at the end. My associate, Robert, set the meetings up, gave them my description, and told them to sit next to me. So the man making my insides flip was either my client, or he had taken my client’s seat at a most inconvenient time. I’ll admit, I was hoping for the latter. Robert assured me he wouldn’t send men my way that I couldn’t handle. The guy next to me looked like a lot to handle. More than I was used to.

  I gave a thought to the makeup that was melting off my face and considered going to the bathroom to fix it before saying anything to him. It wouldn’t have mattered. When I first started meeting clients, I fussed over every detail. I worried they’d be disappointed by some trivial aspect of my hair, makeup, whatever. Now, I knew better. I either was or wasn’t what they wanted, and running mascara wouldn’t change it.

  I threw back the rest of my drink for courage and then swiveled on my wood stool, letting the toe of my shoe linger against his jeaned leg innocently.

  “You don’t look like you belong in here,” the man said. He talked without turning my way, but I knew he meant me.

  I didn’t look like I belonged. I’d come straight from work; there hadn’t been time to change into something that blended better with the babes and bikers. My knee-length pencil skirt, satin blouse, and Prada pumps would have to do.

  “You look like you fit quite well,” I replied, casually wiping condensation from my glass. It beaded off my finger and dropped onto the warped wooden bar top.

  Jeans, black T-shirt, tattoo-covered arms, and a muscle mass that made the bouncer look scrawny—he had drug dealer written all over him. Not your low-end corner man, but the thug that breaks the guy’s neck when he does more of the blow than he sells, and the profits don’t add up.

  “Hey, Doll,” Joe said, resting his brown liver-spotted forearms on the bar in front of me. “Glass is empty. Sure you don’t want another?”

  “She’ll have one more, and I’ll take a water,” my possible client said, cutting me off.

  “No, thanks,” I said, too late.

  “Sure thing, Cade.” Joe dipped his head and moved to comply with the stranger, Cade’s, request.

  “I didn’t peg you for a water guy,” I said. I didn’t like men ordering for me, or assuming I wanted to have a drink with them. It was presumptuous. Still, I didn’t know if he was my client, so I played nice.

  “You don’t strike me as a Jack & Coke girl, Doll, but here we are, both underestimating the other.”

  The deep tone in his voice was admittedly delicious. It was a voice that made you want to let your eyes flutter closed so you could concentrate on absorbing it. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad having a few clients like him thrown my way.

  “Cade, wasn’t it?”

  He turned his face toward me with a half-cocked grin, his dark hair falling forward on his head.

  “Doll isn’t my name. Joe gets away with it because he’s charming, in an old
guy sorta way. If we’re going to have any kind of arrangement, you don’t get to call me that again. We clear?” I looked him in the eye, my gaze unwavering.

  Men knew what they came to me for, the potent mixture of pain and pleasure only some women are cut out to provide. Still, it was good to establish who would be in control during our interactions. I could tell it was best to get that point straight with this one right away.

  Cade turned to face me head on. His heels rested against the bottom bar of his stool, knees bent, one on either side of my crossed legs, closing me in. My field of vision was reduced to the man before me—his dark hair and velvet brown eyes, the wide expanse of his shoulders, the rise and fall of his chest. From his easy posture, thick corded body, knowing smile, and focused stare, I could tell he was dominance personified. It was atypical of the men that came to me. Dominance was what they came for, not what they brought. To not be intimidated by that man would be a foolish thing for anyone. I tried not to let him see that.

  “Arrangement?” he said, his eyes lighting up with amusement. “I don’t pay for pussy, and you don’t want the kind of arrangements I make with people. I think that’s the guy you’re looking for.” Cade nodded toward a man who looked as out of place as I did. He wore a tailored suit and hovered awkwardly a few steps away. He was unmistakably my client, the kind I usually saw. He knew he was supposed to sit down next to me, but didn’t seem to like the prospect of approaching Cade for his seat. I couldn’t blame him.

  “I don’t sell pussy,” I said, snapping back at him.

  Cade’s smug grin brought my shame and rage bubbling to the surface. I could feel my cheeks reddening. It reignited my urge to kill June, sooner rather than later. That part of my life was ugly. I spent nights with men I didn’t know, dominated them, and set them free. I didn’t fuck them. Yes, that line was thin, but it was the only action standing between something I could live with, and being a whore.

  That was why I needed her. I needed June to help make me whole again; to make me a single person not divided by the ugliness I let live inside me. When that ugliness was dead, I could kill June too. Until then, I needed her in such a way that who she was, and who I was, were becoming so entwined, I feared we could never part.

  Joe placed another Jack & Coke in front of me, and water for Cade.

  “Can I get my tab, Joe?” I asked. I could iron out the final details of my arrangement with my actual client outside, away from that asshole.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Cade said, standing in the small place between our stools. He towered over me, so close I felt him brush against my skin.

  He pulled a fifty from his wallet and tossed it onto the bar. Cade leaned down to me, his body arching over mine, engulfing the space around me. He moved the hair back from my ear with his nose. I froze, concentrating on my breathing in order to keep the panic at bay. I tried not to feel the tickle of his warm breath on my skin. I wasn’t okay with being that close, with a touch that felt so intimate, but I couldn’t fucking move.

  He placed one hand on the small of my back, right over the .40 cal Smith & Wesson tucked into the band of my skirt. I felt the metal firm against my skin as he pushed on the weapon.

  His voice was a bone-melting baritone. “Anyone that takes the time to see you would know you don’t sell pussy, Doll. You sell an experience, right?” He leaned away and winked at me. He downed his glass of water like it was something worth drinking, then sauntered to the door.

  I hated him. I didn’t know him, but I hated him. Who the hell did he think he was? Condescending ass. I didn’t sell pussy, actually. I wasn’t a whore. Even if I was, I was higher on the societal class scale than his thug ass. At least I had a real job, one that provided insurance, and a 401k plan. And damn right the night a man spent with me was an experience. I felt like hurling the glass in my hand at the back of his head as he ducked out of the bar.

  I did my best to shake it off as my actual client clambered up to the bar, settling himself on the stool Cade had just vacated. He was half Cade’s size, his posture not as good, and I could see the nerves behind his slick smile. I had no idea why I was comparing him to that asshole.

  “You must be Rob’s girl,” my client said, raising a hand to order a drink. The cuff of his suit jacket slid back, exposing gold cufflinks. If he was smart he’d realize where he was and put his damn hand down. In bars like that, he wouldn’t have gold cufflinks for long if he didn’t.

  “I’m not ‘Rob’s girl’.” No one owned me. “But yes, I’m who you’re looking for.” I took a long pull on the now watery Jack & Coke that Cade had so graciously bought for me.

  This guy wasn’t smart. He put his hand down, but shrugged off his coat, slid his sleeve up, and checked his Burberry watch. Either he had a personal bodyguard I couldn’t see, or he was asking the bikers on the other side of the bar—who were proudly displaying their cut—to rob him. Knowing he dealt with Robert told me it was probably the former. I was sure there was a large, scary man in a corner somewhere being paid to watch my pretty-boy client.

  “Okay, then you must have a name. I’ll need something to scream out, I’m sure.” His smile and arrogant chuckle sent a wave of nausea through my gut. I hated playing nice.

  “We can talk money and then we can talk about making you scream.” Smiling at him, I bit my bottom lip and pulled it through my teeth slowly. I turned toward him with my legs crossed and let the toe of my Prada linger against his shin. “You pay me half now and half tomorrow night, before service is provided.”

  “If I give you half now, how do I know you’ll show tomorrow?”

  Joe appeared in front of us, raising a wiry gray eyebrow at my client.

  “Martini with a lemon twist,” my client said, pushing his blond waves back from his forehead, sweeping his hand along the side of his hair. It all fell right back into place, the place he had gelled it. The action made him even more annoying.

  “If you know Robert, and obviously you do, then you know the kind of people he associates with. The kind that follows through with what they say. If I tell you I’ll be there tomorrow night, I will.”

  Joe set my client’s martini—gin and vermouth with one pearl onion, one olive, and no twist—down in front of him. “You still good, Doll?”

  “Done, actually.”

  “Your tab is twelve tonight.” Joe eyed the fifty Cade left on the bar.

  I picked it up and slid it into my bra. “My friend here is picking up my tab.” I slid off my stool and placed my hand on his designer shirt–clad shoulder.

  “Then it’ll be eighteen fifty for you,” Joe said, nodding toward him.

  My client pulled his wallet and an envelope from the pocket of his slacks. He took a twenty from his wallet and gave it to Joe, who pocketed it without bothering to ask if he wanted his change, and handed the envelope to me.

  “Four hundred,” he said, as I felt out the envelope, pushing it into my purse.

  The card I handed him in return had nothing but an address. “Short notice, so tomorrow you show up with six.”

  “Rob said eight total would take care of it. Why are we talking about a thousand now?”

  He was still standing, and there wasn’t but an inch between us. I slid my hand down the front of his slacks, cupping him when I found what I was looking for. With his dick and a fair amount of his balls in the palm of my hand, I squeezed. It was just enough to make him white knuckle the edge of the bar with one hand and throw the other up to his mouth, stopping the gasp.

  “We’re talking about it,” I said in his ear, “because I’m worth it.” I released him, massaging gently as I did. “The only thing you need to say from here on out is ‘Yes, Miss June.’”

  All of the pressure was released and his dick started to stir in his slacks, going from chubby to something I could work with. “Yes, Miss June,” he said, exhaling.

  “Good boy.” I slid out from between him and the stool. “Ten tomorrow night.”

  “Don’t you wan
t to know my name?” he asked.

  “I’m not the one who’ll need something to scream. So, no.”

  Chapter Two

  The morning sun glittered across the fifty stories of mirrored glass of the Thanksgiving Tower, reflecting the surrounding landscape of buildings. Inside, the silence of the marble halls was welcome after the symphony of horns, engines, chirps, yells, and brake squeals of Dallas’s morning traffic jam.

  I stabbed the button for the forty-sixth floor in the sleek elevator, emerging into Star Industries, Inc. Clawing my way up the corporate ladder for five years had earned me an office, a secretary, and a plaque on the door that read Acquisitions Manager. As a little girl I’d never dreamed of being a shark, but I was damn good at it, buying failing businesses, chopping them up, and selling the pieces off to the highest bidder.

  Jasmine, my secretary, was beaming when I stepped into our office suite. She was all big brown eyes, and her toothy grin grew with each step I took toward her.

  Coat on the hook, gym bag under the desk, purse in the drawer. Jasmine front and center ready to regale me with the morning’s office gossip. Same routine five days a week, six on occasion.

  “So?” Jasmine asked, perched on the edge of my office chair, grinning and leaning in.

  “So, what?” Obviously there was delectable information I wasn’t aware of.

  “So how was your date last night? Spill it.” She arched her dark manicured brows and wagged them at me.

  Date? Right, I’d told some people from the office I couldn’t meet for drinks because of a business meeting. “It wasn’t a date,” I corrected. “A meeting, Jasmine. Not a date.”

  “Whatever,” she said, after some time. “Was he cute? If so, was he skinny-hot like Adam Levine, or beefier like Charlie Hunnam?”

  This was stupid, I thought, shaking my head. What kind of man-rating system was that?

  “Oh lord, you’re blushing!” Jasmine said, clapping.