Side Effects Read online

  SIDE EFFECTS

  by Lisa Suzanne

  © 2014 Lisa Suzanne

  All rights reserved. In accordance with the US Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher or author constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law and except for excerpts used in reviews. If you would like to use any words from this book other than for review purposes, prior written permission must be obtained from the publisher.

  Published in the United States of America by Lisa Suzanne.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any similarities to real people, living or dead, is purely coincidental. All characters and events in this work are figments of the author’s imagination.

  All songs, titles, and lyrics mentioned in this book are property of the songwriters.

  Cover Art by Kellie Dennis at Book Cover by Design: www.bookcoverbydesign.co.uk

  DEDICATION

  To my forever Cornhole partner and our little obstacle.

  PROLOGUE

  I counted the people quickly. There were seven. Seven fucking people jammed into a tiny box to bring me up three floors.

  I would’ve taken the stairs, but the large red sign that read “Emergency Exit Only! Alarm Will Sound!” stopped me from opening the door to the stairwell.

  I took a deep breath and debated waiting for the next free elevator, but I was already running late. It was just a goddamn dentist appointment. I was glad that it wasn’t a doctor’s appointment, because they’d probably rush me to the emergency room with the way my heart raced in my chest. My blood pressure had to be skyrocketing.

  “Excuse me,” I muttered, my mouth feeling like I’d been chewing on crackers for the last hour as I tried to make my way to the back. If I had to get on an elevator, at the very least I needed the bar to hold. I needed a corner to lean into, to relax in, to force myself to breathe in a safe cocoon.

  My vision started blurring as the onslaught of panic attacked every fiber of my being. I couldn’t get to the corner, so I was forced to stand steady on my own in the middle of the confined car moving me to my destination. My face flushed and sweat beaded on my upper lip. I gulped in a deep breath, trying to stave off the fear that was clenching my heart, but the air wouldn’t come. I couldn’t take a deep enough breath as tiny fingers wrapped around my throat and caused me to choke.

  The elevator skidded to a smooth stop at the next floor. One person exited. I inhaled as much air as my lungs could take when the doors opened, still unable to get to my coveted corner of the elevator. The doors closed, and immediately I was unable to breathe again. I tried to take in a deep breath, but my lungs just wouldn’t fill with the air I needed. I clutched my purse to my chest as I glanced around at the others who were just taking an elevator to their intended destination, those around me who had no idea what was going through my mind while I worried that I was going to die from lack of air. I tried focusing on anything other than the consuming panic that overwhelmed me as blackness tinted with tiny sparkles of white played havoc with my psyche. I stared up at the digital number detailing which floor the elevator was on.

  After what seemed like an eternity, the elevator rolled to a stop at the third floor. The doors slid open, and I practically ran out of the tiny car, cursing my dentist for moving to a new building where I had to take an elevator to get to him. I tried to push the all-encompassing panic out of my mind. I waited for the others who got off on my floor with me to pass by, and I took a moment to myself. I leaned up against the wall outside my dentist’s office, sucking in the refreshing air that I couldn’t seem to grasp as I stood on the elevator.

  Claustrophobia.

  One of the fears that millions of people deal with on a daily basis, but one of those things that I feared was going to consume me for the rest of my life.

  CHAPTER 1

  Have you ever walked in on the man you love fucking another woman? I don’t highly recommend it. But that’s one of the side effects of dating assholes.

  “Quinn, it’s not what you think.”

  Right. Erica writhing naked on top of Jared in my bed wasn’t what I thought.

  We have all been damaged. It’s one of the rare things that all humans hold in common.

  I needed to get past the baggage I carried, but part of me just needed to find myself first. I’d seen my best friend go through a divorce and in the process find the man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. During that difficult process, she managed to find herself. If she could do it under those dire circumstances, certainly I could find my forever too, right?

  What the fuck does it even mean to “find” myself? I’m not lost, am I? I know who the hell I am, and I like who I am.

  But a little part of me felt the green eyed monster of jealousy when I watched my best friend tear up as she walked down the aisle toward the man she loved, toward the man who loved her with everything inside of him. And a part of me felt an even bigger stab of envy when I looked over at him and saw the love he had for her shining in his own eyes.

  I wanted someone to love me so much that he cried when he saw me walking down the aisle in my white dress toward our forever.

  I’d never experienced that sort of love. I thought I had it with Jared until I saw him fucking Erica in my bed. My bed.

  Jared had everything I looked for on the outside: sexy tattoos all up and down his arms and across his chest and his back; that stubble that tickled the inside of my leg when his face was buried in my pussy; dark eyes that held mystery and hedonism in them. He was rough and sexy and perfect until he wasn’t anymore, and that bite stung so badly that even four years later, I still wasn’t ready to open myself up to something serious. So I played.

  When I met Caleb, he was hurting, I was hurting, and together we found something that worked for us. Neither of us wanted anything more than friends with benefits, until one day one of us did.

  And it wasn’t me.

  Contrary to popular belief, women aren’t always the needy ones who hold on and fall in love even when we promise not to. This time it was Caleb, and while he had been the best bang of my life up to that point, he wasn’t my forever.

  I had to stop fooling around with Caleb when he started to get that look in his eye. I just wasn’t ready for something serious, but he was. In fact, he married the very next girl he started seeing after I ended our arrangement.

  The worst part of that was that I’d never get the chance to sleep with him again.

  So I had a good time, I met a lot of hot guys, and I enjoyed every second of it. It wasn’t until I saw my best friend get everything that she ever wanted – and deserved – that I started thinking that maybe it was time to move on and start looking for my own forever. I was a pseudo aunt to the most adorable baby girl, and when I held little Allison in my arms, I wanted one of my own.

  I just wasn’t ready to start looking for my forever.

  CHAPTER 2

  Tyler Claiborne, who I had nicknamed Talented, Twisted Tyler in my mind, took the stage. It was a Thursday night, and Ty’s band was playing a seedy bar in downtown Tempe, Arizona, so I dragged Avery with me. She was a colleague from the English department at school turned close friend. My best friend was married with a baby at home, and Avery’s best friend was home mending a broken heart, so it was natural for us to hang out together. We were two single ladies on the town, and she had joined me to show my support for Tyler.

  Okay, “show my support” may have been stretching the
truth a little. The main reason I even went was because Tyler was gorgeous and I’d most likely hook up with him after the show. And when he was on an adrenaline high after playing lead guitar on stage, the sex was always top notch.

  We’d met at Strikers, the bar where Tyler worked, about six months earlier. He served me drinks and had me on my knees in a private hallway leading to the employee break room before the end of his shift. He was sexy, but he was for sure not my forever. He was actually kind of a douchebag, but he was warm and usually willing, and neither of us was looking for more than a fun time.

  Tyler was a bartender with aspirations in music. I’m not sure I’ll ever understand why he settled for working in a bar just outside of Phoenix when he dreamed of hitting it big on the music scene. But watching him play guitar when his band booked a rare gig (and he wasn’t working at the bar) was surely a sight to behold. He had stage presence, and I watched the ladies ogle and swoon over him. He could have his pick of any one of them, but when their set ended, I was the one he’d be calling for a few moments of pleasure. And that was the thing that seemed to keep me coming back for more.

  I had memorized every word to every Twisted Effects song. I sang loud and proud up against the stage directly in front of Tyler as I watched his gorgeous hands shred the strings of his guitar. He sang back-up vocals and I sang right along with him, and I saw his eyes roam around the bar, never actually settling on me.

  But I didn’t care. I was just happy to be there, happy that I’d get my chance after the show.

  I watched his every move, studying the way his hands played that guitar and the way his scruff had grown out a little longer than he usually kept it. He wore a baseball cap backwards, so I couldn’t see the hair that I loved to tug on as he moved inside of me, but I watched his dark eyes. The way he lit up when he played guitar with his band was so different from how he looked when he wasn’t on stage.

  They only played six songs that night because they were opening for another local band. After they finished playing, Avery stepped outside with me and we walked around to the back of the bar, where the band would be packing up their gear. I’d met the other guys in Ty’s band a few times, and Avery had hooked up with the drummer, Todd, once. She told me that she hoped for a repeat performance, but he was an even bigger douchebag than Tyler.

  “That was fucking awesome,” I gushed when I saw Ty. He was putting his guitar in a case amidst a flurry of activity around him.

  He grunted in reply, not even bothering to look up at me.

  Okay, so apparently he hadn’t thought it was as awesome as I had.

  “Ty? You okay?”

  I glanced over to see Avery busy flirting with Todd.

  He didn’t look at me, but he started in on everything that went wrong. “It fucking sucked. Todd kept messing up, and Drew fucked up the goddamn words twice. Twice! He’s our fucking lead singer!”

  I hadn’t noticed. I had assumed Drew was drunk, as he usually was when he took the stage. It didn’t seem like he’d forgotten the words. It just seemed like he slurred his way through some of them.

  I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to piss him off, and I didn’t know him well enough to be able to determine if he wanted comfort or if he wanted silence. So I chose silence.

  “Fucking say something,” he said.

  Apparently silence was the wrong choice.

  “I didn’t notice any of that. And you know I know every song. No one noticed. It was amazing.”

  “Whatever,” he said, lifting his guitar into the back of his Jeep.

  A few other girls had gathered behind the bar. It wasn’t just Avery and me who wanted to sleep with the various members of Twisted Effects.

  Ty glanced up at the small gathering of women behind the bar. “Look, I have to get our shit. I’ll talk to you later.”

  It was a brush off, and certainly it was because he didn’t want those other girls to get the wrong idea about him and me. I respected that because we were both only in it for fun. Outsiders may have seen the way he treated me as disrespectful, but I understood our agreement clearly. I didn’t walk away with hurt feelings any more than he would have if he had seen me with another man.

  It was our mutual understanding, and maybe others didn’t get it, but I didn’t care what other people thought about it. We were happy with the way our relationship worked.

  And the more I said it in my head, the more I convinced myself that I believed it.

  Avery disappeared somewhere with Todd, so I headed back inside solo to wait for her. I was sitting at the bar nursing a beer when she returned about twenty minutes later, disheveled and smiling.

  I raised one eyebrow at my friend, and her smile just widened.

  “As good as last time?”

  “Better,” she said.

  “Good for you.”

  “I saw Ty out there. He said to send you back out.”

  I sighed. I felt a little burned that he blew me off, and now I had to go back to him for more of his special Tyler treatment.

  The back of the bar had cleared out except for one lone man leaning up against a Jeep, cigarette dangling from his lips and one knee bent as his foot rested on the fender. His face was turned down and he was studying his phone when I spotted him.

  “Get your shit all packed up?” I asked. He tapped a few more keys and then looked up at me as he slid his phone into his pocket.

  He inhaled one more drag of his cigarette, and then he flicked it on the ground, blowing out a puff of smoke.

  “All packed. I just forgot one thing.”

  He didn’t move from his place, and for some reason, my body moved toward his like a magnet until I stood directly in front of him.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  He reached out and pulled me closer.

  “This,” he said, and then his lips smashed viciously to mine.

  An angry Ty was a hot Ty. But I hadn’t met many sides of Ty that I didn’t think were hot.

  As our tongues battered against each other ferociously, I felt his hand move down to cup that spot between my legs that ached for him.

  I moaned into his kiss and reached down between us to take him in my hands. He pulled back from our kiss and leaned his neck back as our hands worked each other feverishly.

  He straightened suddenly and grabbed my hand, pulling me to the side of his car. He got in the backseat, and then he pushed his jeans down.

  He motioned for me to get in.

  When Ty wanted it, I was not in any position to deny him.

  “This has to be quick. People are waiting inside for me,” he said.

  As if it would be any other way when I was about to get fucked in the backseat of a car by the lead guitarist for the band I just watched.

  I was glad I chose to wear a skirt, and I took the top as I bent my legs on either side of him.

  He rolled on a condom, and then he pulled my panties to the side and thrust his cock into me before my body was completely ready for him, but once he pulled back and pushed forward a few times, we hit our groove.

  He was right; it was quick. He pushed hard into me, his hands gripping my thighs to him as he grunted out his release. My fingertips trailed down to rub my clit vigorously until I brought myself over the edge with Ty still inside of me.

  The moment my body stopped its shuddering, Ty lifted me off of him. I smiled down at him, still straddling his legs, and he closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath.

  “Thanks, babe,” he said. He slapped my ass. “See you inside.”

  It was an effective dismissal, but I couldn’t help the smile on my face as I walked back into the bar. Maybe it was all wrong and contradictory, but I’d thoroughly enjoyed my few moments of backseat pleasure with Talented Tyler.

  CHAPTER 3

  Friday night found me at Strikers with Avery. Strikers was a local bar that was a little trashy, but it had hot bartenders and a good vibe. In fact, the whole reason I wanted to go that night was to see if Tyler
was working.

  He was.

  Avery was as raunchy as me, and I loved everything about her. I was three margaritas and two tequila shots into my night and enjoying every second with my friend. The music blared from the speakers, so we had to yell our conversation at each other. We were in the middle of a very important discussion regarding the merits of male/male versus male/female porn when two men came up to our table with a round of shots.

  I have never been one to turn down free liquor, but neither of these guys did it for me. Neither was bad looking; they just weren’t my type. One was tall with dark blonde hair and blue eyes covered by black framed glasses. The other one had dark hair and dark eyes. Both were too clean cut and preppy for me. I wasn’t into pretty boys; I was into bad boys. I glanced at Avery, who looked interested in the one with dark hair.

  As I watched Avery introduce herself, I looked awkwardly at the one left for me. His hair was neatly groomed, and he reminded me a little of Zack Morris from the television show Saved by the Bell but with glasses. I was briefly sidetracked while I thought about the actor who played Zack Morris all grown up. He had turned into quite the Mr. Yummypants.

  He smiled tightly at me, pressing his lips together. “Reed,” he said, setting two shots on the table and sticking his hand out for me to shake. Who the fuck shakes hands in a bar?

  I took his hand, finding it clammy and realizing I’d already forgotten his name. “Quinn.” I pulled my hand back.

  “Shot of tequila?” He nodded at the shot glasses sitting in front of him.

  I shrugged. “Why the hell not?”

  He pushed one of the shot glasses toward me as Avery and Dorky Dark Hair picked up theirs. The four of us touched our glasses together and threw back the shots, and then Dorky Dark Hair took Avery’s hand and led her to the dance floor. That left me alone at the table with Preppy Blondie what’s-his-nuts. He sat. Apparently just because Avery and his friend were going to hook up, that meant he and I were going to?