Page 227 of Rebellious

“How long after your release do you fall back into drugs?” Jana asked, unsure how she felt about Hal’s revelation. Not that it mattered. She loved and wanted Diesel. The only way to have him was if she completed rehab. “And why do your parents keep insisting you go if it does no good?”

“They think one day it will stick,” he told her, leaned back, and dug in his pocket. He pulled out an 8-ball, and Jana’s eyes rounded. “And I never stop. They just don’t know.”

Jana’s gaze flew to his.

“I bribe one of the aide’s.” He set the coke on the coffee table. “I don’t withdraw massive amounts of money from my expense account, so it doesn’t alert either my team or my parents to what I’m doing.”

“E-expense account?”

“You don’t have one? You should tell whoever sent you here to set one up for you.”

“My, uh, my…” Hal didn’t need to know her sordid history, so she kept it simple. “My boyfriend is paying.”

“You belong to someone?” He sounded disappointed.

She gazed at him through the sweep of her lashes. “We’ve been arguing a lot recently. He just dropped me here and forgot about me.”

Those first two days, especially.

“Ahh, babe—” Hal took her chin between his soft fingertips. She preferred Diesel’s rougher touch. “I’m sorry to hear he abandoned you.”

“Me, too,” Jana said in a small voice. She wanted a hit and she had no money. “I feel so alone, like he swept me away and forgot I existed.” She moved closer, gazed into his eyes. “C-can you…I just want to feel better.”

Hal dropped his gaze to her lips. “What’s in it for me if I give you a hit?”

“I’ll suck you off,” she breathed, not caring that this was the longest conversation they’d had or about his sexual history or if he was in a relationship.

“A cock suck a day for one hit every evening. You’re drug tested twice a week for the first two weeks, but if we fuck, I can hook you up with clean piss. I’ll pay for yours like I pay for mine.”

“Why are you being so nice?”

“I told you why. You’re too pretty to seem so lost. And to find out that motherfucker just deserted you, fuck him. Let him pay for your ‘rehab’. Meanwhile, I get to fuck his woman and let her have the fun he’s denying her.”

“If he comes to visit and sees me high, he’ll be livid,” Jana said, reminding herself how important Diesel was to her and how she didn’t want to risk losing him. “I love him.”

“Does he love you?”

“It doesn’t matter. I have enough love for both of us.”

Hal studied her, nodded, and grabbed the 8-ball, getting to his feet.

Panicked, Jana jumped to hers. “I want a hit,” she whined.

“One hit to welcome you here.”

Sagging in relief, Jana dropped to her knees, pulled Hal’s sweats down around his hips, and freed his hard cock. It wasn’t as long and thick as Diesel’s, but it didn’t matter. “One dick lick to show my appreciation,” she said, and sucked him into her mouth.

Five months ago, Thanksgiving began as an ordinary day. Mom was pregnant with weeks left until she delivered CJ’s little sister. Diesel and Tabitha lived in a condo, pretending to be happily married. Molly was still his lab partner. Harley hated him and Rebel hated everyone.

When he’d awakened that morning, CJ never thought that would change. He believed he’d resume school that Monday and carry on with football practice and holiday preparations.

Then, it all changed, and nothing but Mom and Jo’s recovery mattered. Not Rebel’s rebelliousness that gave her name a new goddamn meaning or Harley’s vindictiveness that came out of nowhere.

Since the moment Mom collapsed, their lives had become a never-ending loop-the-loop, soaring to highs brought on by relief and gratefulness and bottoming out to new lows because of new threats. To him. To Mom. To Rebel.

To Harley and, for that matter, to Jo.

But, now, five months to the day when he thought he’d lost her before he ever got to know her, his little sister was home.