Devious Love (Bay Falls High NEXT Book 3) Read online

  Devious Love

  Bay falls high NEXT

  Jaxson Kidman

  Contents

  Welcome to

  Devious Love

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Epilogue

  Want more #bfhnext?

  What is #bfh vs #hch?

  More from Jaxson

  Welcome to

  “I think I can safely say that we all love you, Winter.”

  Written by Jaxson Kidman

  Devious Love

  They think I can’t remember…

  But now they know I can.

  I’m screwed.

  There’s no other way to put it.

  The hunter is now the hunted.

  Hint: I’m the hunter…

  My only choice is to enter Troc territory and hope to hide there.

  But I can’t stay there forever.

  I can’t get too close to Talon.

  Or can I?

  I know I have to face everything.

  Noah. Easton. Xavier.

  My entire life… it’s all on the line.

  And now would be the absolute worst time to fall in love, right?

  Tell that to my heart.

  The time for revenge is over.

  Now I’m back to where this whole story started…

  I need to survive.

  Prologue

  Going for a ride

  knew this was going to happen. From the second I thought of the plan, this was the ending. There was no rewriting it. There was no calling back on fate to try again. This wasn’t some cheap board game to play during a power outage in a storm on the beach by candlelight,.

  It was all predetermined.

  And for me…

  The door slowly opens.

  I shut my eyes and roll over.

  “She’s still sleeping,” Noah says.

  “Wake her ass up,” Easton growls.

  “Nah, let her sleep,” Xavier says.

  “Why?” Easton asks.

  “Xavier is right,” Noah says. “Let her wake up on her own. She’ll have that sense of comfort for a second and then… boom.”

  They all laugh.

  Boom? What does boom mean?

  Boom can mean a lot of things.

  Mostly bad, of course.

  In this case it has to be bad.

  There is no good boom with Noah, Easton, and Xavier.

  They’re going to…

  The door shuts.

  I roll back over and open my eyes.

  I stare at the door.

  Slowly, I start to sit up.

  I tell myself there’s got to be a way out of the room but I know that won’t work.

  Worse part is I don’t even know where I am.

  I forget where I am.

  How ironic is that, right?

  The girl who did all she could to fake losing her memory now doesn’t know where she is.

  “Well played,” I whisper.

  Who am I talking to?

  I don’t know.

  Maybe myself. Maybe the universe.

  Maybe I would be better off just showing them I was awake and I wasn’t afraid.

  Eventually someone has to come looking for me, right?

  I think about the list of people who care about me…

  It’s a short list.

  I can only blame myself for that.

  There’s Gia.

  She has to come looking for me.

  Last she knew I was going with the guys to the ‘look how rich I am’ ball. I wonder how long it would take her to get scared. How many calls? How many texts? How many days would have to go by? And even then… I’m not sure who she’d tell.

  I would need my mother to do something. She would have to be the one to get involved big time.

  Does she even care about me?

  “This is bad,” I whisper.

  After my mother, there’s my father.

  But we know he’s far away right now.

  He’s still under the impression I have no memory too. That means he would end up just convincing himself that I was confused and lost. He would look, sure, but he wouldn’t look in the right spot.

  I was screwed.

  Big time screwed.

  I climb out of the big bed in the big room and walk to the big door.

  I’m going to take them on.

  All of them.

  All three.

  They were the ones who attacked first.

  They were the ones who messed with Tank and tried to kill me.

  It’s not breaking news that I want revenge.

  So I faked losing my memory to get close to them and hurt them.

  Big deal.

  It wasn’t like I did… much…

  I’m standing in the middle of the floor when the door opens again.

  Xavier steps into the room.

  He’s alone.

  “Winter,” he says.

  “Xavier,” I say.

  He looks back and slowly shuts the door.

  When he walks closer to me, I don’t make a move.

  His hands reach for my face.

  He touches my face and to my shock… he kisses me.

  His lips against mine.

  Filling me with warmth.

  I don’t want to like the warmth, but I secretly do.

  I want to pull away, but can’t.

  Xavier finally does.

  He then puts his lips to my ear.

  I shut my eyes.

  I have no idea what’s going through my body.

  He takes a deep breath.

  “It’s all over,” he whispers.

  “What is?” I whisper back.

  Xavier laughs. “Your life.”

  Chapter 1

  The new place

  I felt a hand touch my shoulder.

  I gasped and jumped up in the bed.

  My head slammed against the ceiling and I fell back down.

  “Oh, fuck, darling,” Talon’s voice said.

  I let out a whimper and touched my forehead.

  I waited for a second for the golf-ball sized bruise to pop out of my forehead.

  “Talon?” I asked.

  The room was really dark.

  “I’m right here,” he said.

  “Turn on a light,” I said.

  I listened to him jump from the bunkbed to the wooden floor.

  The light made a click sound and half the bedroom was lit up.

  I looked around the room and groaned.

  The sight and smell hit me again.

  A stark reminder of where I was and why I was there.

  Talon jumped at the bunk bed and pulled himself up with ease.

  He climbed into the bed with me.

  I pulled the covers to my chin and kicked my feet at him.

  “Other side of the bed,” I said.

  “I know,” he said. “Calm your panties. If I wanted to make a move, I would have in the dark. Especially tonight.”

  “What time is it?”

  “It’s like two,” he said.

  “Why are you awake?”

  “T
wo is early for me,” he said. “I’m like a vampire. Want to see my fangs?”

  He opened his mouth and laughed.

  I swallowed hard. “I’m not in the mood for laughing.”

  “I’m just trying to help. You were making a lot of noise.”

  “What kind of noise?” I asked.

  “Groans. Moans. You were rolling around too. Then you whimpered.”

  “You heard that?”

  “All of it,” Talon said. “I was just coming in to check on you. Like I said I would. I kept my promise.”

  “You’re earning your paycheck,” I said.

  “Speaking of which…”

  Talon rubbed his thumb to his middle and pointer fingers on right hand.

  “Yeah, I know,” I said. “I will pay you when I get back to the beach house.”

  “Which is when?” he asked.

  “I don’t know yet,” I said. “Got it?”

  Talon inched forward. “Don’t think this is me being nice. There’s a time limit to my work before the getting paid thing.”

  I looked around the room. “I mean, you’ve treated me so nice. What room is this?”

  Talon laughed. “Sorry it’s not a mansion. This is the Troc version of a guest bedroom.”

  “Bunkbeds?” I asked. “And ones these tall with the ceiling so low?”

  “Better than sleeping on the street,” he said. “How’s your head?”

  “Fine,” I said. “Just a bump.”

  “You are a Bump,” he said.

  “Oh. Good one.”

  “What were you dreaming about?”

  “None of your business,” I said.

  “Two predictions.”

  “I don’t care,” I said.

  “One, you were dreaming of Noah, Easton, and Xavier. You can’t even hide from them in your dreams. That’s not good, darling.”

  “What’s the other prediction?” I asked.

  “Thought you didn’t care?”

  “You already started talking…”

  “Right,” Talon said. “Second prediction. You were thinking about me.”

  “Now that’s a nightmare,” I said.

  Talon laughed. “Come hang for a minute. Get some air. Let’s go.”

  He swung his legs over the bed and jumped off like it was nothing.

  That made my heart jump.

  I carefully climbed down the loose ladder.

  The bed was creaky. Not safe.

  But it was the only bed I had at the moment.

  The name of the game was to hide out and think.

  Talon grabbed my hand and walked me out of the bedroom.

  Trocs lived in long, skinny houses.

  They had quite a few bedrooms in each house, but each room was really small. Like it was made to cram in as many people as possible. Which is what the Trocs did. It was family, friends, or whoever else needed a bed.

  That’s how Talon’s house was. I wasn’t sure if it was actually his house or not.

  I didn’t ask.

  I was starting to learn that in life sometimes the less I knew, the better off I was.

  We walked the mile-long hallway in the dark.

  The house had a smell to it.

  Kind of like old clothes, old food, and dust.

  There were no cleaning people or personal chefs or anything that was the norm for the Bumps.

  I heard laughter.

  I pulled at Talon’s hand.

  “Who’s here again?” I asked.

  He ignored me.

  He was such an ass like that.

  I hated that he had a sense of power over me.

  For the moment, he did.

  And to top it off, I owed him money for helping me.

  Everywhere I turned I felt like I owed someone something.

  Yet all I wanted was my revenge for what had happened.

  We entered the living room and I spotted Kace and Crew.

  They were sitting on opposite couches, passing a joint back and forth.

  The smell of the smoke hit my nose and I cringed.

  Emily and Raine were in a chair together, with a bottle of something.

  Giggling, pointing and laughing at Kace and Crew.

  It was more than obvious the four were plotting their night together. Someone would eventually choose someone and then just run with it.

  There were a handful of others there.

  I didn’t care who they were.

  I didn’t want to know their names.

  “Ah, man, look… that’s a Bump,” some guy said.

  “Ah, man, look,” I said. “It’s my middle finger.” I lifted my middle finger. “You like that?”

  “I bet you’d like it if I used my middle finger on you,” the guy said.

  Talon snapped his fingers. “Brock, shut it.”

  “What the fuck?” Brock asked.

  “I said to shut up,” Talon ordered.

  “Ah, fuck, he’s hitting a Bump,” someone else said. “Talon is hitting a Bump. Take that shit off the checklist.”

  “What checklist?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” Talon said.

  “Winter, we have a checklist,” Kace said. “It’s fun shit to do.”

  “Kace, not now,” Talon said.

  “Yeah, yeah, got it,” Kace said. He held the joint out. “Want some, Winter?”

  “No thanks,” I said. “I’m good right here.”

  “Come hang with us,” Emily said. “Have a little sippy, sippy.”

  “You can jump right on us,” Raine said. “We can fill you in on everyone. You need to know their secrets to take them all down.”

  “What secrets?” Crew asked.

  “Not you,” Emily said. She pointed at Brock. “I’ll tell her your secret.”

  “I don’t have a secret,” Brock said.

  “Oh, bullshit,” Raine said. She started to laugh.

  “What’s the secret then?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” Talon said. “What’s the secret, Emily?”

  “You know what it is, Talon,” Emily said. “Brock is missing a few inches downstairs.”

  Everyone let out an ooohhh sound.

  “Fuck off,” Brock said. “That was one person who said it.”

  “That’s all it takes,” Raine said.

  “That’s why you need to use your middle finger then?” I asked.

  Kace clapped. “Yes! Look at Winter go!”

  “You know what?” Brock asked. He stepped toward me. “You dumb fucking Bump. What the fuck are you doing here? Trying to pretend that you fit in? You don’t know shit about this life…”

  “That’s enough, Brock,” Talon said.

  “No, I’m not done,” Brock said. “I’m going to turn this bitch Bump around, bend her over and-”

  Talon swung and hit Brock in the jaw.

  That’s all it took to drop him.

  He hit the floor and Crew ran over and pointed.

  I gasped.

  The girls giggled.

  Crew counted to ten then yelled ‘Ding! Ding! Ding!’

  He grabbed Talon’s arm and lifted it. “Total fucking knockout!”

  They all cheered and clapped as Brock started to stir.

  I inched away from Talon. “I need to go back to sleep.”

  “Need me?” he whispered.

  I bit my lip. I hated to admit it…

  “Yes, Talon, I need you.”

  It wasn’t anything like that.

  Talon would just stay in the bed with me. On the opposite end. I would shut my eyes and face the wall. Take deep breaths. As long as some body part was touching me, I felt safe. His leg touching mine, over the covers, that was fine.

  I fell asleep and stayed asleep without any other dreams.

  When I woke up to the room filled with sunlight, I reached for my phone.

  It always scared me that I hadn’t heard from Noah, Easton, or Xavier.

  They claimed they knew the truth about my memory but they hadn’t tried anything
. Yet.

  The yet part was the worst of it all.

  The yet part was why I had submerged myself into the Troc world.

  I sent Gia a quick text to let her know I was alive and safe.

  She was the only one who knew where I was and why.

  I climbed down from the bunkbed and exited the bedroom the way I always did. I looked up and down the hallway like it was a busy road. Then I walked on my toes.

  The smell of the house hit me again.

  I fought really hard not to judge Talon for the way he lived.

  He certainly lived up to the Troc life though.

  Then again, they weren’t rich like the Bumps.

  I stepped into the bathroom and cringed when I looked at the toilet.

  All I could picture was guys like Brock drinking too much and puking into the toilet. And I knew that Talon wasn’t the type to clean a bathroom.

  There were two tiles on the floor that were cracked.

  The shower curtain was open and the tile was a dark pink color.

  Really old looking stuff.

  When I turned on the water, the pipes gave a quiet groan and then spit some water before running like normal.

  I cupped my hands and leaned down so I could splash my face.

  I took a deep breath and had no choice but to shut the bathroom door so I could use the bathroom in privacy.

  When I left the bathroom, I walked through the living room, which was a mess from the night before. Beer cans and whiskey bottles left all around. Along with bags of chips and snacks half spilled on the floor.

  The kitchen was my savior.

  Coffee.

  Troc coffee was a far cry from the good stuff I was used to.

  Their coffee was cheap. Sometimes it was watery. Sometimes it was like mud.

  But coffee was coffee.

  I couldn’t complain.

  I saw that the coffee had already been made.