(FREE TO READ) Bad Moon

Chapter 3; soul mates

Jaylin lost his virginity at fourteen.

At sixteen, he thought he was in love.

At eighteen, when his father left his mother to die, Jaylin realized there was no such thing.

Now at twenty years old, he laid tangled in the arms of an older woman. She smelled of cheap perfume—a toxic vanilla pong, sold in ninety-seven cent bottles.

Olivia was a mess wrapped in lace lingerie. A beautiful mess, one that stuck to Jaylin's bare chest as if his heartbeat could sing her librettos of a promising future. It seemed that was all Olivia Black ever wanted from life. A warm embrace.

Jaylin could give that to her. For a price.

"It's ten. I should get going." His whisper was worn, his voice drained to hoarseness. There was something starved in her that drove him to the point of exhaustion every time. Or maybe it was the fear, the thrill that they'd be caught.

He felt Olivia's fingers halt to a stop, and forfeit the circle she'd been tracing on his chest. "Where did the time go?"

That was the thing about Olivia. All her life she'd done nothing but make terrible decisions—nothing but pit herself between a rock and a hard place. And no matter how many times Jaylin tried to help her, she only plunged head-first into a larger pool of irrationality. He could grow angry all he wanted, swear he'd cleanse his life of her toxicity. But the moment Olivia spoke, it felt like no sound in the world could compare. Just like that, he wasn't angry anymore. She had the voice of an angel.

It was a shame Olivia Black was the way that she was. Broken, like everyone else in this place.

Jaylin began to shift beneath her, and she groaned in a voice that made it all the more difficult to leave, "Stay. One more."

Jaylin fished her hand out from beneath the blankets. "I have to go."

Olivia frowned and turned her shapely body over. She curled into herself, her back to Jaylin. "Okay," she said, her voice small as a mouse—and yet it spoke volumes.

Again with the rejection, Jaylin thought. Olivia had always been so difficult.

"Tyler will be home any minute, alright? We've talked about this. Don't be angry."

He watched as her body eased with a silent sigh, her small pale shoulders sinking. "Money's on the nightstand," was all she said.

Jaylinwas consumed with guilt as he dressed and took the stack of cash from its place. That guilt again, always bending him in its meaty fists. He felt guilty for a lot of reasons after these visits. Guilty for leaving Olivia in the hands of her abusive husband. Guilty for sleeping with a married woman. Guilty for getting paid to. Ultimately, it meant nothing; he added the cash to his collection, and that was that.

Life went on. Debts were paid.

As always, Jaylin was careful to wipe away every print he'd left behind. He swept the pillow free of blond strays, fixed the sheets where he laid and gathered the used condom up to toss in the dumpster outside.

Tyler would be none the wiser, but Jaylin had a premonition in the depths of his gut. Tyler would find out one day. On that day, Jaylin hoped for lilies on his grave. He never understood the fascination with roses; they hurt and they smelled. Not that it'd matter to a dead man.

For now, it was almost pleasing the way he could undo Olivia like Tyler never could. He was no home-wrecker, Jaylin Maxwell. But Tyler Black was the exception. Tyler was the one who wrecked. Homes, lives, people—whatever happened to fall in his line of sight. Tyler was acid, and he made damn sure to erode everything in his way.