Insta-Hate (Instant Gratification #1) Read online

  I laughed. “I need to start running again. I stopped for a while because... I don’t know why, but I did.”

  “If you ever want a running buddy, here’s my number.” He scrawled it on a piece of paper. “I promise,” he said, looking up at me, “I’m not hitting on you. And this is going to sound crazy, but I think you and I are both hurting from something. It’d be nice to have a friend, and we can get in better shape together along the way.”

  I’d never run with a man before, and I was so out of shape. When I took the paper he offered, I imagined tossing it into the trash when I got home. But on second thought, maybe it would help me; push me farther, harder.

  “Okay. Thanks,” I said with a smile.

  “It’s okay if you aren’t interested. Just an offer.” Curtis smiled as the buzzer sounded. “It was nice talking with you, Alexandria.”

  “You too.”

  Curtis was either a good guy who was being completely honest, or a complete liar and a good one. I hoped he was the former and hated myself for even thinking he could be the latter. When did I become so jaded and cynical? I sighed, trying to make it through the other ten dates with a fake smile. Jillian glowed. She loved the attention she got from each man, loved to tell all about her plans and hopes and dreams.

  Maybe that was my problem. I didn’t have any aspirations at the moment. At a crossroads, I didn’t know where I was going, so I had no idea how to get there. The road to my future was not paved with speed dating, though. I was sure of that.

  Jillian and I split up after the dating craze, which I vowed to never participate in again. My legs were quivering by the time I left. There were some real creeps toward the end. I tried to be nice, but my bitchy took over. There was only so much patience I had for men who simply wanted sex from a woman. Sex was fine, but I didn’t hand it out like a business card and that was what some men at that place expected.

  Ava texted: Meet your Prince Charming?

  Me: You would have needed a gallon container of sanitizer.

  Ava: Shudder

  Me: Yeah

  Ava: Sorry, Lex.

  Me: I’m not.

  Ava: Sigh

  FOURTEEN

  Clubbing

  Alexandria

  I was sandwiched between Jillian and Ava as we sat in the back of the taxi that weaved its way through traffic. “I can’t wait to hit the dance floor!” Jillian squealed. Ava loved her from the moment I introduced them. Truthfully, the two of them would have a blast together tonight. Me? I’d probably be a wallflower. And I was good with that. Dancing with strangers wasn’t my favorite pastime.

  It was Saturday. My hair was freshly colored, cut, and curled. Ava insisted that I wear a dress to match hers and Jillian’s. We looked like triplets in tight, black satin. But truthfully, the dress looked hot and I felt good in it. Jillian didn’t hook me up on a blind date, so tonight I already felt like a winner.

  Ava leaned over to look at my phone. “Who are you texting?”

  “A friend,” I replied. Curtis and I were going to run in the morning at six a.m. and it was going to hurt, but I needed this. My body needed it. We were meeting at the Seventy-Ninth Street Transverse near the Museum of Natural History. The plan was to stretch, run, and then immediately fuel my body with copious amounts of coffee. Curtis seemed legit. I didn’t know why I texted him. He said that he saw something in me. Maybe subconsciously I saw the same in him.

  Jillian outed me. “She’s texting the hottie she met at speed dating the other day.”

  “Damn it, Jillian!” The cabbie glanced back at the three of us and smiled. Yeah, yeah.

  “What?” Ava squealed. “You met someone at speed dating? And you didn’t tell me?”

  “It’s not like that. We’re just friends. Running buddies.”

  “Aaargh!” Ava snarfled. “It starts that way. It’s always a ‘Hey baby, I’m just looking for a running buddy’, and then while you’re running you get all hot and pheromonal.” She gestured like she was conjuring a spell. “Then you’ll be sweaty and the sex will be phenomenal because you haven’t been laid in months and your vag is practically begging for it.”

  The cabbie’s eyes widened in the mirror. I motioned toward the road. Damn him. And damn Ava for saying my vag was desperate. She was fine! She was perfectly happy. Jillian stifled a giggle, looking up from her Kindle app. “Don’t you start in on me, too,” I warned her, stuffing my cell into her clutch. “We’re just running. End of story. And my lady cave is perfect and happy, thank you very much.”

  The club Ava had been raving about for weeks was now open and the dancing queen could not wait another weekend to shake her groove thang. As an awesome wing woman and concerned friend (as Ava tends to drink when she dances and I can keep the skeezers away), I would shake mine with her. And Jillian – well, she just made everything better.

  The cabbie pulled over to the sidewalk. I took care of the fare and we stepped out into the September evening air, which was surprisingly cool. Goosebumps. Everywhere. “Let’s roll!” Ava said, lacing her arm through mine. I laced my left through Jillian’s and we strolled to the line. It only took a few minutes to get in the doors because bouncers love girls with tight dresses and boobs. Don’t forget the boobs.

  ***

  I was cutting myself off. Officially. Starting now. The bass thrummed through my body. Ava and Jillian swayed to the beat and I slammed the last drink of the night back. “Let’s go!” Jillian yelled, grabbing my hand and pulling me back onto the dance floor. It was glossy and black and the walls were white and everything was ink blotted. I giggled.

  “Ava, it’s like Doc’s pictures in here. We’re stuck inside them like Ava in Crazyland.”

  “Why not Alexandria in Crazyland? I’m not the only one who’s stuck here.”

  Jillian threw her arms up and tossed her hair back and forth. She looked fierce. I was pretty sure I looked stupid, but it all felt good, so what the hell. “They need a penis blot,” I yelled to Ava.

  “What are you talking about?” She laughed, clutching my arms and almost falling over.

  “In Doc’s office. There’s an inkblot in the hallway that looks like a big dick.”

  She snorted. “I’m looking for it next time.”

  “Jillian! I need my phone.”

  And I needed a break. It was too hot. Too many people writhing, too much friction and sweat. She fished it out of her clutch and I weaved through the crowd toward the only empty table I saw.

  ***

  Arsen

  Cody tried to get me to go out but I wasn’t feeling it. I wasn’t feeling anything. From the window wall in my apartment, I stood and watched the city lights. My phone buzzed with a new text message.

  Alexandria: What did she look like?

  Me: Who?

  Alexandria: Trinity

  Me: Why do you want to know?

  Alexandria: IDK. Curiosity?

  Me: Curiosity killed the cat.

  Alexandria: Fuck the cat.

  Me: What are you doing? Where are you?

  Alexandria: Chubbing with ma girls at Creww.

  Alexandria again: Clubbing with my girls at Cress. F’ing autocorrect.

  Me: Taking cab home?

  Alexandria: Yep

  Shit. I dialed Cody. “Yo,” he answered.

  “Get dressed. We’re going to Cress.”

  “Cress? Hell yeah!”

  “Easy boy, we’re rescuing a drunk girl.”

  He paused. “Alexandria?” I could almost hear him smile.

  “You in?”

  “Of course. Give me ten.”

  We lived close but not too close, yet somehow he literally knocked on my door ten minutes later. We each had on blue dress shirts and jeans, but the patterns were different. Cody hailed a cab and in twenty, we were past the red velvet cord. A Benjamin persuaded the bouncer to allow two more in, fire code be damned.

  “Money talks, bullshit walks, brother,” Cody said as we stepped into the crowd. “Where
’s the damsel in distress?” he asked as he rubbed his hands together.

  “You go left, I’ll go right?”

  “Sounds good,” Cody said and disappeared into the melee. I eased through, looking for blonde hair and a lithe body, but there were too many people.

  Texting Alexandria, I asked: What are you wearing?

  She answered immediately: Khakis

  Me: Hideous. Seriously. What are you wearing, Lex?

  Alexandria: I’m touching myself.

  Me: I’m in Cress. Where are you?

  Alexandria: Touching myself.

  Growling, I pushed to the tables that lined the dance floor and found one familiar face lit up by the light of a cell phone screen. Fuck. Me. Her hair was straight and her dress was barely there. I wanted to run my hands up her thighs and see if she wore panties. My guess was no. My erection led the way straight to her, hard as the needle on a compass.

  From behind I bent to whisper at her ear. “You don’t look like you’re touching yourself.”

  She giggled and turned around. “What?” She furrowed her brow. “What are you doing here?”

  She snapped a pic of her dark haired friend and Jillian, then she handed the phone to Jillian, who grinned and wiggled her fingers at me. Hook, line, and sinker. Damn it. Jillian was playing me. Touching herself – hmph. The thought of Lexie touching herself…

  Cody caught up with me and looked from one of Lexie’s friends to the other. He liked what he saw. He looked like a cartoon drawing of an Irishman with pink hearts bulging from his eyes and chest. “Easy,” I warned.

  He slung an arm over my shoulder. “No prob. Since you don’t care, I’ll just...” He smiled at Alexandria. “Want to dance?”

  She gulped and then downed part of her drink before answering, “Sure.”

  I could kill him. He knew it. His eyes glittered as he led her into the crowd, looking back to see if he got a rise out of me. I watched his every movement, happily noting that his hands stayed in the respectable waist area. The pair laughed and – Lex’s legs in those damn heels. My God.

  “I’m Ava, the BFF, and I know who you are so don’t bother with pleasantries. What are your intentions with our Lexie?”

  Jillian snorted, recovering behind the rim of her glass.

  “Uh, my intention was to make sure she didn’t get hurt going home. She’s drunk in this city and that’s a dangerous thing to be. Especially for a woman, dressed like that,” I said, watching her and Cody.

  “Excuse me? She looks hot!” Ava yelled angrily.

  “She does. That’s my point.”

  Ava backed down. “Oh, so you’re like a hero or something. That’s too bad.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  Shrugging, Ava took a sip from her drink. “Because not all girls want to be saved, and others aren’t able to be.”

  “Which type is she?” I asked, ticking my head toward Alexandria.

  “Both. Which means you’re screwed if you like her, but between us three,” she leaned in and so did Jillian, “she gets horny when she drinks, so you could probably get lucky, and if she gets laid, I’d be ecstatic.”

  I laughed at her boldness. “Why would you be ecstatic?”

  “Because every trace of Ren Tricher needs to be erased from the walls of her lady canal.”

  My fists balled on their own. “Who is Ren Tricher?”

  “Last guy to swim down the canal, dude. Pay attention,” Jillian added.

  I stared at Alexandria. She wasn’t Trinity, she was Alexandria Ray. And now her friends had me thinking all sorts of crazy thoughts. She was my student. I couldn’t let Josh down by fucking a student, but that was all I could picture now. I wanted to bury myself in her so damn deep she’d forget the last loser’s name. I wanted to punish her for looking like Trinity, for her lips and how she wet them. For her eyes and how they would widen as I threw caution to the wind and strode across the floor. I moved forward involuntarily.

  Jillian nudged me. “Easy, cowboy. She’s worth more than an eight second ride. She’s worth more than a one-night stand. She’s worth everything and deserves to be loved. Plus, you’re her instructor. You’d better think this entire thing through before you go all caveman on her. You need to think with your head and leave your dick out of this.”

  Ava umhmmmed and sipped her drink. “Testify.”

  “Besides,” Jillian said, nodding toward Lex and Cody. “She’s not into your friend. There’s no chemistry there whatsoever.”

  I stared at them. They were awkward and having fun, but she was right. They weren’t feeling an attraction to each other. They were just hanging out. Cody was trying to piss me off, and he succeeded. I was an asshole. Again.

  Ava smiled. “What you should do,” she said way too loudly, “is go out there and show Lexie exactly what chemistry with a real man is like. Ren was a douche. He’s this big shot photographer who just used her for sex when his job brought him to New York. She’s scared of men and intimacy, so she let him.”

  “Why would she do that?”

  “She thought that was all she was worth,” Ava said sadly.

  “Fuck that.”

  “Yep,” Jillian agreed. “Fuck it.”

  “Fuck it,” Ava said, raising her glass in the air. “Go show her. But be gentle or I’ll castrate you myself. You’re local, so...”

  My balls hurt just thinking about that, but they hurt worse from Lex and that fucking dress. I nodded to her friends and pushed my way through the crowd. Cody smirked and clapped me on the shoulder, leaning in and saying, “’Bout time, bro.”

  I didn’t even look at him. Alexandria’s eyes widened as I grabbed her by the waist.

  FIFTEEN

  Fraternization

  Alexandria

  I guess Mr. Daniel didn’t like text messages. I guess he liked talking in person. Because after I texted him and told him where we were, he showed up at Cress. Like the stalker he just might be, even though he was a really sexy one. Arsen’s strong hands held me to him, moving his leg in between mine and rocking my body side to side. Mr. Daniel could dance. But this was probably a bad idea. Scratch that. Worst idea ever. He was my instructor. “You could probably lose your job for this,” I told him.

  “For dancing with a student?” he asked, dark blue eyes glittering.

  He bent low. “We’re adults and we’re just dancing, Lex,” he said, but his fingers told a different story. They carved a slow, sensual pathway up the backs of my thighs. When they disappeared beneath the short fabric of my dress, I gasped. His mouth pressed softly against mine as he stroked my sensitive skin. Every cell in my body was on fire and he’d lit the match. He was appropriately named, despite the misspelling.

  I pulled away, pinching my stinging lips. It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy it – I loved it. That was what scared me the most. Lust was a liar and I couldn’t afford to trust that slut. Not right now.

  Arsen’s eyes darkened as he watched me back away. “Cody and I want to make sure all of you ladies get home safely. Are you ready?”

  “Yeah.”

  I followed numbly in his wake through the mass of writhing bodies. Arsen asked Cody if he was ready to escort us home, but Cody had a different suggestion. He would go with Ava and Jillian while Arsen would see me home. Logically it made sense, and I didn’t realize it but we lived within a few blocks of one another. Sometimes logic was bad and I didn’t like this idea, because all of my body wanted all of his. Arsen was the danger that women craved. He was tall, dark, and broodishly handsome. He was smart, accomplished, and rich. Women sought him; they didn’t run away.

  In angry silence, he hailed a cab outside. I slid into the darkness as he shoved his phone at me. “Did you send any of these or was it all Jillian?”

  I read through them, my eyes bulging out of my head. No wonder he thought I wanted to sex him up! I was going to kill that girl. “Um, the first ones I sent. The last were all Jillian.”

  “Figured as much.” He was silent for
a few blocks. “Why did you want to know what she looked like?”

  “Because I wanted to see why you look at me the way you do.”

  “How is that?” I shifted to see her better.

  “Like you can’t believe I’m in front of you, but I can’t tell if you hated or loved her. There’s a swirl of emotion in your eyes that I can’t quite understand.”

  ***

  Arsen

  She hit the nail on the head. I both hated and loved Trinity. If I ever found her, I’d let her know exactly that. When the cab pulled to the curb in front of her building, I paid for the fare. Stubborn as she was, Lex tried to fight me on it, but I was faster and the cabbie took the money I proffered and thanked us both.

  She shivered in the cool evening air, standing awkwardly in front of her building. I cleared my throat. “Can I walk you up?”

  With guarded sea-green eyes, she said, “Okay.” If she wanted to see Trinity, I’d show her. The picture strip in my pocket had burned me all night. It would be a relief for her to see it. Then she would understand why I couldn’t peel my eyes away, why I wished at times that she were someone else and at the same time, that she wasn’t.

  The lobby was full of simple tans and fake plants with wide leaves and red flowers. We stepped into the elevator and rode to the second floor. “Why don’t you live higher?” I asked, hating that someone could climb her fire escape so easily.

  Her brows furrowed in displeasure. “It’s what was available.”

  She turned the key in the lock and pushed her way inside, flipping the light switches up. The space was clean and simple. Hardwood floors, white couches. Laying her cell and keys on a small table beside the door, she eased her feet out of the heels and smiled.

  “Coffee?”

  I should go home. “Sure.”

  In the kitchen, she grabbed a couple of K-cups and went to work. I sat on a barstool and tried to justify staying to drink the coffee. Or maybe I was thinking of an excuse to give her. I needed to leave, but wanted to stay. And my reasons for the latter weren’t altogether altruistic.