Know Me: A 'Me' Novel (Book 3) (A 'Me' Series) Read online

  Know Me

  A ‘Me’ Novel

  JERI WILLIAMS

  Copyright © 2017 Jeri Williams

  All rights reserved.

  This publication is protected under the US Copyright Act of 1976 and all other applicable international, federal, state, and local laws, and all rights are reserved, including resale rights: you are not allowed to give or sell this book to anyone else.

  Any trademarks, service marks, product names, or named features are assumed to be the property of their respective owners, and are used only for reference. There is no implied endorsement if the author uses one of these terms.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Prequel

  “But I don’t understand.” She scrunched up her cute as shit nose and tilted her head to the side, tears threating to fall from her expressive green eyes. I held my shit together because despite what she thought, hell what anyone would think after tonight, I didn’t want to hurt her, didn’t want her in pain. I was fucking this up though, I was being nice, the old me. If I really wanted this over, I’d have to be the new me and not look back.

  “It’s over Rabbit, us, we’re done,” I said, making my voice as hard and assholish as possible, which surprisingly wasn’t hard to do. It was a tone I had come to adopt over the last few weeks and perfected over the last few days, thanks to my father.

  “But…but… you’re my three , you love me,” she said, picking at her nails. This was harder than I thought, but it had to be done. She was right; I did love her, God, did I love her. But I wasn’t sure if I loved her because she was who I was supposed to love or if I was just following orders like a good boy. I hated this shit; that I didn’t know myself enough to know the difference pissed me off more.

  “I know, but I just…I just…I got shit that I need to do, and I need time to...Explore.” I said the only think I could think of that I knew would piss her off. It was either that or tell her the truth, and I wasn’t ready to face that shit myself, so partial lie it was. I knew it worked when the look in her eyes turned hard. I knew how she felt about me, about us, that we were her equivalent to soul mates and me saying I wanted to explore would be like a punch in the stomach to her. Her eyes turned into slits. I’ve only seen her look this way once before— when I forgot our one-year anniversary. It was a look that satisfied me and scared me all at the same time because I wanted her angry at me, to make it easier on her or me I didn’t know. It was a look that I had vowed to never make her wear again after groveling my ass off about the anniversary thing, yet here I was, the cause of it all again. Fuck.

  “Get out,” she said, her voice turning as hard as her eyes, and I wanted to point out that this was my apartment, but I figured I’d reach my dickdom tonight and besides, I didn’t want to be cruel; she had nowhere else to live after her parents decided she and I were solid enough to close the lines of her ever moving back, where as I had…options.

  “I’m sorry Ember, really I am,” I said as she slammed the door behind me. Everyone thought I was an asshole, Matt Kane, he’s the good one, but an asshole. Everyone except Ember until about five seconds ago. I was just living up to the lie, but deep down I hoped I hadn’t just made the biggest mistake of my life, but something told me I had .

  Chapter One

  Ember

  Perfect.

  My life is perfect. I have the perfect parents, perfect job, and the perfect boyfriend. Everything is blissfully perfect.

  Okay, maybe perfect is not really the right word, more like perfect-ish.

  My parents are as far from perfect as can be, my job is shit and well, my boyfriend just broke up with me, so, yeah, my life is perfect. Perfect shit. But not for long, I’m going to make it perfect again.

  Perfect.

  I knew it was something I had to be, strive to be in order to keep things level in my house. I had known at a young age that I wanted, no needed to be perfect. My parents were, to the outside world, prefect. No hair was ever out of place, no smile not bright, no blemishes on anything. Anything! And for the longest time, that’s how they were to me as well. I idolized my parents and our perfect little family, if I wanted to dig real deep, its probably where I got my number fixation for the number three. Three of us, happy and together equaled; perfection. But behind the too bright smiles and the empty ‘I love you’s’ was screaming, name calling, and hateful words spit at one another, you know, just your typical family. Oh and crying, god, the crying. My mother would cry for hours after my dad would basically reduce her to less than nothing with his words and while I was young, I wasn’t stupid. I felt the malice in his tone, saw the looks of disdain and resentment on his face, and I knew even at an early age of six that I wanted to be perfect so no man would ever look at me the way my father looked at my mom. That’s not to say that mom was innocent in all of this. She made a profession of getting under my father’s skin; it was scary. She was just as hateful and vindictive as he was; I mean some of the thing she’s done…

  It made me wonder: if they could turn on each other so quickly like that then what about me? Would they stop loving me too? I wanted to be perfect so that I would never give my parents reason to argue, especially about me so they wouldn’t get a divorce, and I wouldn’t have to move away like my fifth grade best friend Suzie did. I still remember the look on Suzie’s face as she drove away with her mom. If I could prevent that from being my fate, then so be it. I was going to live, breathe, and die perfect.

  So, that’s what I did. I did perfect like nobody’s business. I owned perfect. In everything and every way. Grades, manners, appearances, attitude. Everything. By the time I was in middle school, I was on the honor roll with three AP classes, president of the student body council, and captain of the cheerleading squad. I headed fundraisers and study groups and volunteered my time at animal shelters by high school. I was the perfect daughter and pillar of the community to match with my seemingly perfect Mayor father and Mayor’s wife mother. On paper and camera, we were the shit.

  But never judge a family by its rose garden; it’s always the rose with the biggest bloom that has the sharpest thorns, especially in the Harrington household. I should coin that, it sounded poetic and deep. Poetic as it sounds, it sucked.

  My parents had that whole forbidden love/ high school sweethearts things going on. He was the Montague to her Capulet but with less suicide. He wooed her, won her, and then married and had me a year later, at least that’s the story they had sold to the press when he first began his campaign for Mayor. The real story was far less white picket fences and more bury in your closet type. Ready?

  So, I had an aunt. I think her name was June, my mom only told me this story once and trust me, once is enough so I may be getting her name wrong. Well, June and Kerry, that’s my dad, were the business back in the day. Even back then people couldn’t resist a bad boy and apparently, he was as bad as they got. Anyway, Dad and Aunt June were all into each other; meanwhile, Lilly— that’s my mom— was a shadow in the background since she was two years younger than her sister June and had been secretly crushing on dad for like, ever (shady right?). Something happened one night, no one will say what, but Mom hooked up with Sad (See? Shady!) And back then it was all about free love and well, she got knocked up. Kerry was none too pleased by that and insisted Mom ‘get rid of it’ (apparently, Dad was a dick even back then), but thank god, she didn’t. She tri
ed to hide it as best she could, but she was really sick during her pregnancy and wound up in the hospital. Hormones and dedicated parents are a truth serum like no other, and Mom told it all. When Aunt June found out her guy had cheated on her with her little sister and knocked her up, she took to some heavy drinking one night to drown her sorrows. Fade to black a few scenes later, and car versus tree equals one fatality. This part is also a little fuzzy because I’m not sure when Dad turned his ‘get rid of it’ around to ‘let’s get married’ but he did and well, 23 years later, here I am.

  Wondering how I found this out? Lilly told me. Yup. It’s her famous don’t end up in a loveless marriage like me story, but the moral of the story for me was don’t be a trifling ho and sleep with your sister’s man. Didn’t people have any morals back then?! Way to be a slut, Mother. Of course, I’d never say something like this out loud. Most of my comments and retorts were usually reserved for my inner monologue because perfect daughters didn’t back talk their parents or call them on their shit. I’ve bit my tongue more times than I’d care to remember, and while I didn’t have a wild untamable spirit that I was hiding like most girls who grew up in my shoes, I was still safely curious about all the things I had yet to try. Dating, partying, kissing, sex. Normal things.

  I guess you could say that’s how I’d ended up with Matt to begin with. I hate to say ended up with him because it sounds so ungrateful. I’m not, but I’m not sure I would have dated him if we had meet any other way then how we did. Don’t get me wrong; Matt Kane was far from unattractive. On a scale of gross to I’d pay to have sex with you, he was very much the latter. He had the three T’s in squares. Tall, tanned, and toned, with blond hair that was long on top and short on the sides, and the most amazing gray eyes known to man. When the sun hit them just right, they shimmered. His arms, god his arms were all sinewy and muscular and hypnotized me. I have a thing for arms. From town talk, Matt was pretty straight laced; he was one year older than me and he had an older brother, the bad seed who moved away and no one talked about, which left Matt to be the dutiful son and help his father, dry cleaning king, Royce Kane, care for his mother who was sick. He was slated to take over the family business — empire— because there wasn’t a dry cleaners you could go to that wasn’t a Kane’s dry cleaning on this side of the east coast. In short, Matt Kane was just as much town royalty as I was.

  There was always this part of me that wanted to be with someone who was the opposite of me, the opposite of perfect because I wanted to do all that normal stuff with someone who was normal. However from listening to my father talk about all Matt’s accolades and good achievements, he sounded too perfect, but when my dad and dry cleaning king himself Royce Kane bushed us at some function one day, then proceeded to talk about how us getting together would be ‘good press,’ I just went with it. I mean, I did have an urge to point out that this was the making of a bad reality show and, good press, really? Instead, I smiled politely and agreed to go out on a date with him. I mean he piqued my interest with his barley there smile and molded arms. Did I mention I love arms?

  And… yeah so after meeting someone, male someone’s, for the first time I have a very, very bad habit of checking out what they were…ahem…working with, teachers, mail men, grocery store clerks, you name it. Not that I was anxious to get rid of my V card or anything; even though Matt turned out to be my first. It was just something I did back then; let’s not try and analyze that and move on. So, Matt had a LOT to work with, like, huge, so yeah, I agreed to a date, besides he was a part of my plan to BE perfect.

  After our third date, I definitely turned into turbo slut , or something like it, because with little effort, he had me flat on my back in the back of his car. I was offering up my v-card with his hand in my panties, getting off with just a few well-placed words. And with a few well-placed kisses, he moved my panties to the side, and after putting on a condom, slid into me with a groan and banged my brains out. There was a lot more to Matt than the golden boy persona he had going on, a lot more.

  That third date had been the best date.

  We dated for a while, and by dated I mean we had sex, lots and lots of sex, and then eventually became exclusive, which meant we only had sex with each other. This wasn’t an issue for me; I was never into dating a lot, a few one-time dates here or there, and nothing serious in high school because guys just used me as stepping stone to get to my dad. I even jokingly suggested to introduce my dad to this one guy I’d been seeing for a few weeks since he wouldn’t stop bugging me about what my father did during the day, or what he liked to eat in the morning, and the dude actually took me seriously. Got excited and pulled out a list of questions. A list! Needless to say, we didn’t date anymore after that. He’s now my father’s assistant.

  Matt on the other hand, well, he had no problem with girls using him to get something from his dad: a job, a recommendation letter for college, free dry cleaning, hell, he even offered some of that stuff to get a little nookie. When he told me, he at least looked as though he felt bad about it, but being as rational as I am, I was aware that one, he didn’t know me, and two, his past is his past. Besides, if I were a man who was well endowed with a vigorous sexual appetite like him, I’d probably do the same thing. Matt’s sexual appetite wasn’t just vigorous, it was visceral and dominant, and I found that I liked it, like a lot. I liked him a lot.

  He was my first serious boyfriend. He had no reason or aspiration to use me to get to my dad; Matt was more affluent than I was. He was also the first person besides my parents that I lived with, the first person I told about how my family really was and the first person who could melt my insides with a single look. He knew all my secrets, including the god-awful nicknames people called me before they feared my father too much. He was my everything; yet I always felt he was holding something back from me, like I didn’t quite know him. But in all fairness, he hadn’t quite known me either.

  Matt

  I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be in some club bathroom about to get my dick sucked by some eager blonde just because I bought her a drink. This is my brother’s deal, not mine. At least it was until he got all domesticated and shit. It’s like we switched places. Now, he’s the one settled down and I’m… Fuck, I’m lost. I should be home with my girlfriend getting ready for bed so that I could impress my father in hope that he’ll say I’m ready to take over the family business. But I’m here in some dirty ass bathroom about to make what I already know will be a big mistake. Shit, my whole life has been about taking over the family business, being the perfect son because Deklan, my older brother, already cornered the bad son market, which left me to be the other— the perfect one to make my father proud and carry on the family business. That was me, but I’m done following that perfect line that I’d carved out for myself.

  No more perfect girlfriend, family, or life and no more perfect Matt Kane; he’s gone. In his place is the Matt that I’ve kept hidden because he’s more like his brother than people think, or so I think. Hell, I don’t know anymore. All I know is my brother is an asshole times ten, and it works for him and led him to the love of his life, so maybe it’ll work for me, help me figure out what has become of my life, my plans. So I’m gonna let this chick suck me off and then go back out there and drink my weight in liquor and stumble my ass back home to my parents’ house like some college kid because I had the bright idea to break up with my girlfriend. All because I wanted to prove that what I felt for her wasn’t forced but was because I actually loved her. It says something about me that I can’t tell which is which.

  I’m a dumb fuck.

  “You with me baby?” The blonde’s voice broke through my thoughts, which should be an indicator that I shouldn’t let this happen. What guy zones the fuck out when he’s about to be blown off? A dumb one. I grunted a response that seemed to satisfy her, or maybe she just didn’t give a shit, because she tugged on my belt until it gave then slid it slowly from its loops. She
made a show of unbuttoning my pants and easing down my zipper; then she reached her hand inside to pull out my semi-hard cock. She has green eyes, but they weren’t the same green eyes I had been used to for the past three years, and when I closed my eyes and let my head hit the stall wall as she took me in her mouth, my body couldn’t get past the fact that this wasn’t Ember.

  Shit.

  “Mmmm,” she moaned when I hit the back of her throat, and Christ, I wanted it to feel good; hell, it did feel good, just not the kind of good I was used to. I squeezed my eyes shut as her grip on me tightened, and she began a steady rhythm of suck, and pull and I still wasn’t fully erect. Shit.

  I opened my eyes, grabbed her head, and yanked her back, intending on slamming into her mouth over and over again until I got over whatever or rather whoever was in my head. I stopped when her hungry eyes locked onto mine and again; I was reminded that her eyes, while gorgeous, were not the same eyes that could get me angry and hard within the same look. These eyes didn’t get that excited gleam in them when I grabbed onto her roughly, and I knew that these eyes wouldn’t go soft for me immediately after she came, as if she was embarrassed I got her off so hard.

  “What’s the matter, baby?” she asked, her hair still in my grip, and what was I supposed to say? I can’t let you suck me off because you’re not my ex-girlfriend? Fuck no. So instead I did what was the end game for us both, just in a different way.

  “Pull your top down,” I ordered as I took a step back and grabbed myself and began tugging on my cock. I watched her rub her hands over her breasts while pinching her nipples through the material before she tugged down one side and then the other of her dress and her small but ample tits spilled over.