Gas or Ass Read online

  Gas or Ass

  Eden Connor

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  GAS OR ASS

  First edition. March 28, 2015.

  Copyright © 2015 Eden Connor.

  Written by Eden Connor.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Gas or Ass

  Author’s Notes

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Further Reading: Wildly Inappropriate

  Also By Eden Connor

  The odometer on my sex life was stuck at zero the day my mother came home with a husband I’d never met. Dale brought his two grown sons to help us pack and move into their home. Both were hard-bodied and handsome, but Caine didn’t speak to me. Colt, on the other hand, said crude stuff like, “Wanna ride with me? Then I’m gonna need gas or ass,” but I couldn’t take my eyes off his rippling muscles and challenging blue eyes.

  When Colt offered me a ride to school, I thought the ‘gas or ass’ thing was a joke, but he wasn’t kidding. Though he barely touched me, he shattered the innocence I couldn’t wait to shed, and even then, I sensed I’d never be the same.

  He and Caine soon upped the stakes, putting me behind the wheel of cars that could reach insane speeds. They kept challenging me to find my inner wild child, pairing illegal drag races with high-octane sex games. It wasn’t long before I was hooked, but I always planned to walk away.

  Then everything spun out of control and walking wasn’t an option.

  I had to run.

  **Disclaimer: This is a tale of a young girl’s crush that turns to hatred and back to love. Gas and Ass is the crush-to-hate part of the story. There’s no HEA inside these pages, so if that’s a must, this isn’t the story for you. If you can delay gratification, however, the hatred-to-love part is the basis of the sequel, Turn and Burn.

  Author’s Notes

  I’ve gotten into the habit of telling my readers where my head was at when I write my stories. I want to do no less here. But, fasten your seat belts, because my notes, like the tale within, ain’t necessarily a smooth ride.

  I scan my Facebook feed probably more than I should. In my defense, what I see there suffices as my only adult interaction on too many days. I have a lot of authors in my feed, so, I see a lot of the phenomenon I call author drama. One day it’s a flap about censorship, the next, it’s an outcry about the meanness of reviewers who can’t string four words together with the correct punctuation, but have the nerve to knock an author’s latest release. The following week it’ll be m/m writers all atwitter because some guy dared asked why the hell a straight woman wrote a gay romance—or stated that she shouldn’t.

  And lately, it’s been fiction shaming.

  What’s fiction shaming? Most of you know, but for the insulated, it’s that nasty habit some authors have of finger wagging at their fellow writers on their choice of subject matter.

  Like dino porn.

  And rape fantasy.

  And pseudo-incest.

  Well, here’s the bumpy part of this ride.

  This story? It’s pseudo-incest. Stepbrother porn.

  It’s not even a romance, not this part of the tale, anyway. It’s...drum roll, please... New Adult, coming-of-age contemporary erotica.

  Wag those fingers if you must. You’re welcome to knock this story as just ‘another one of those nasty, badly-written porn stories trying to sneak under the radar and be about incest to make a quick buck.’

  I’ll make it easier for you.

  The main characters are blue-collar—mechanics and forklift drivers. And, just to lower the bar some more, I set the tale in a small North Carolina town where the only place one hears proper English is in English class. A place where everyone says ‘aint’. And ‘gonna’. And fixin’ to. A place where I spent my teenage years.

  Yep. This story is about rednecks.

  Good old boys who like NASCAR and drive souped-up vintage cars. Guys who live for Friday night so they can put the nose of those cars on a line spray-painted on the road, drop the hammer, and fly for ten seconds or less. And the win or the loss will eat away at them until Friday night rolls around and they get another shot at ten seconds of glory.

  And did I mention, it’s not a romance?

  Nope. It’s contemporary erotic fiction. Think Fast and Furious meets Girl, Interrupted.

  Why’d I write it?

  Well, to be honest, the story began as satire—a protest of sorts.

  Because I don’t think anyone calling themselves an author has any business finger wagging at any other writer on their choice of subject matter. Save that shit for something that does matter, like the Oxford comma and the unfortunate fact that so few seem to know that paintings are hung, but people are always hanged.

  But come at me for the pseudo-incest at your own risk, because baby, I ain’t ashamed. I’ll say here what I’ve said elsewhere:

  No fictional characters were harmed in the writing of this story. I put my heroine through emotional hell. She has more orgasms to her credit than a smuggled copy of Hustler in a Supermax. And I make no apologies. It’s fiction, yo.

  I think that those who write for any reason should be the standard-bearers, the front line fighters, in the war against censorship. Because it’s not the things we write about that define us. It’s the things we fear writing about. The things we think that ‘other people’ cannot handle and should therefore not be allowed to read? Those things define, not the reader, but the society who seeks to ban them.

  I don’t think it matters what that author’s motivations are. Frankly, I’ve never made what anyone could call a ‘fast buck’ with my writing. I write to eat, but in a vastly different way, I write to live. I can tackle thorny problem via a fictional character that I cannot defeat in real life. And inside the story, I can beat the odds and sleep okay for a couple of nights. And maybe, a couple of my readers can, too.

  But this nasty habit of pointing and saying, “No one should write that shit,” has to stop. We have to accept that the biggest sex organ in the body is also the most convoluted, in every sense of the word. Taboo topics are the very ones that some readers crave. Can my shaming sisters not see that those readers lurk in their fan base? Can’t they understand that, while their loyal fan might read their shiny new YA or sweet romance one night, they can’t resist taking a peek at some monster porn the next? Reading fiction is an escape. And, frankly, erotic romance is shaky ground indeed to pick as the place to draw a line in the sand and try to say that one fantasy is fine but the next is dirty or wrong. Because that’s too damn close to the line of thought that says a rape victim had it coming because of what she chose to wear, isn’t it?

  So, here it is. My entry into the stepbrother porn craze.

  And baby, I’ll say it one more time.

  I ain’t ashamed.

  In fact, I think, in many ways, this is one of the best stories I’ve ever written. The sex is habanero-hot. The setting? I lived this scene in my youth and I busted my ass to make sure you can smell the gasoline fumes.

  As I said, this tale began as satire. But after I set it in the place where someth
ing very taboo happened to me, it turned into something far different. I will say, my personal story is not the same as the one I put on the page, but all the characters within are based on people I met at the time.

  And one in particular, I never could decide if I loved or hated, but that person scarred me and I tried my damndest to return the favor.

  I bear those scars to this day. And I’ll be goddamned if I’ll let anyone make me ashamed of them. So, underneath the story lurks a fictional victory over a dragon I never could slay when it was alive, and tonight, I expect to sleep. And this sleep has been a long time coming.

  So, to those singing the chorus of Shame on You, let me sum this up.

  It took me 60,000 plus words to find the courage to write the five paragraphs that were me, slaying that dragon. Most readers will skim right past them and never see the real monster here. But I see it. And this story is the place, the only place, where I ever came close to beating it. So fuck you. The rest? Pure stepbrother, pseudo-incest.

  Enjoy.

  To those who can spot the real monster with no trouble at all, despite its camo clothing, I say, take my hand. I grew up in an era where women realized that tearing each other down was the real devil’s handiwork, not sex, or sex books, or sex thoughts, however taboo.

  What the fuck happened to the rest of you?

  ~E

  Chapter One

  I re-read the college application with a sigh. Eyeing the clock, I set the laptop aside and jumped off the couch, leaving the browser window open. Stalking to the front door, I jerked it open and peered outside. A car I’d never seen pulled into a parking space in front of our apartment building.

  “Dammit, Mom,” I grumbled, dismissing the unfamiliar vehicle. Turning to scan the street again, I prayed I’d see our faded gold Kia. No luck there, but a glimpse of auburn hair drew my attention to the strange car at the foot of the stairs again.

  “Mom?”

  My mother opened the door and jumped out, waving me down the stairs with an excited squeal. “Come see the new car!”

  Relief swept through me. A new car meant no more anxious moments after work, jiggling the ignition and praying the ten-year-old vehicle would start.

  “What kind is it?” We’d been hoping to trade for a newer model Kia. This was definitely no Kia.

  “Volkswagen Passat.”

  The luxurious interior smelled so good, my head swam when I slid behind the wheel. We’d never had leather seats before, but the flashy two-tone gray seemed out of character for her. “Why’re there two brake pedals?” I caressed the top of the leather-wrapped steering wheel, eying accessories we’d never been able to afford. The interior looked better than any used car we’d ever had. I didn’t see a cigarette burn. No stains on the carpet floor mats. Not a single scratch marred the plastic parts.

  She laughed. “It’s a manual transmission, Shelby. That’s a clutch, not a brake pedal.”

  I blinked and turned to peer at her. “But... I don’t know how to drive a stick.”

  “Dale will teach you.” Her smug smile made me want to slap her.

  Anger shut off my breath. Some kids have mothers who drink or who eat Valium like candy. My mother got off on staring into the eyes of a beautiful liar and thinking she’d be the one to tame his wild ways. Bad boys were her drug of choice. This latest one was no different from the rest, I was sure. I hadn’t met him yet, but they’d taken off for parts unknown two weekends in a row. Every time she brought him up, I changed the topic. He’d last the same six months as all the rest before she’d OD on all the broken promises and ‘loans till payday’ that never got repaid. Why bother?

  I glared at the extra pedal in the floorboard. Did the asshole sell Volkswagens? Why else would she buy a damn car I couldn’t drive? Jerking around to peer into the back seat, my heart nearly stopped when I caught sight of the sticker affixed to the side window. Even reading through the translucent paper, I had no trouble making out the hefty sticker price. Who was this guy? Why had she let him talk her into something she’d regret?

  How was she going to help me with college expenses if she’d gone over the amount we’d budgeted for a car payment?

  “Well, saying your boyfriend will teach me to drive a stick doesn’t help get me to work on time, does it?” I spun to fix her with an accusing look. “And how can you afford a forty thousand dollar car?”

  Tears gleamed in her eyes, but I couldn’t generate much sympathy. She could be so impulsive. Since my grandmother’s death, eight months ago, I’d lost my only ally in forcing my mother to be a responsible adult.

  When she had no response, I reminded myself I didn’t have time for this. “I need your debit card, please. Seventy-five dollars. Pay you back tomorrow. The deadline to apply to UNC-Wilmington is midnight tonight.

  While we traded glares, a huge black truck pulled into the space on my right. A tall man in a baseball cap got out of the vehicle and walked up to Mom. He slid an arm around her waist and kissed her flushed cheek. She beamed. “Shelby, this is Dale Hannah. Dale, this is my daughter, Shelby.”

  So not the time to show off a new boyfriend. I got out of the car and slammed the door. “Hello. Nice to meet you, Dale.” I gave the stranger a polite smile. “Sorry to run, but I’ll be late to work if I don’t leave in three minutes. And it looks like someone needs to drive me,” I gritted through clenched teeth.

  Dismissing him, I focused on my mother. “Did you hear me? If I don’t get that college application in today, I’ll miss the deadline. I can give it back to you after two a.m., when my paycheck hits my account.”

  “You need money for a college fee?” The man reached for the back pocket of his jeans.

  Unease trickled down my spine when he pulled a credit card out of his wallet and extended the shiny plastic rectangle in my direction. “Here, use this.”

  I cut Mom another look. Why was she just standing there like a dolt? I made the protest on her behalf. “Uh, thanks, but we have it handled.”

  The man cocked a brow and half-turned to her. She cleared her throat. “First things first. Let’s go inside.”

  I dashed ahead, racing up the stars to grab my purse. Just hold it together and get out of here. Don’t say something I’ll regret later. Maybe I can talk her into returning the damn car tomorrow.

  When I was halfway down the stairs, she raised her eyes to mine and pointed to the new chaise we’d splurged on with the income tax refund. “Sit down, Shelby. I have something to tell you.”

  Dread turned my feet to cement blocks. Heart hammering, I made it downstairs and perched on the side of the chair. Her eyes had that tense look that meant bad news. Had she lost her job? Buying a new car, only to be fired a few hours later, was what passed for luck in our family.

  She extended her left hand. A square-cut diamond glinted from her left finger. I stared at the wide band behind it. “Dale and I got married today.”

  A joke? Lifting my eyes from the ring, I took my first good look at the man. His hair was neatly trimmed around his ears, but when he whipped off the baseball cap, a thick ebony wave fell over his brow. Not a speck of gray showed around his temples. Friendly blue eyes met my scrutiny. His tanned face suggested he worked outdoors. A five o’clock shadow shaded a square chin with a cleft in the center. His build suggested a background in athletics. Just her type.

  He was attractive in a throwback, Elvis sort of way, minus the sneer. His polo shirt had a logo embroidered on the left chest. A rippling pair of black-and-white checkered flags crossed under gold letters. I had to squint to read the words. Ridenhour Race Team. He settled the matching cap back on his head.

  The trickle of unease swelled to a river. I looked back to my mother. “But—”

  “Macy, let me.” He squeezed Mom’s hand. A matching band glinted from his third finger.

  She tipped her face to his. The trademark ‘helpless’ smile she only used around men made me want to hurl. “Please.”

  He turned the full force of those ey
es on me. The pleading look only put me more on guard. “Shelby, the minute I stopped to help a stranded motorist and laid eyes on your mama, I knew she was the woman I’d been waitin’ for all my life.”

  “And this revelation happened... when?” I couldn’t help my tart tone.

  “Four weeks ago today.”

  Even Macy Roberts, hopeless romantic and single mother, wouldn’t marry a guy she’d only known a month. Not after all the times she’d been burned. I burst out laughing and got to my feet.

  “Good one, Mom. You really had me going for a minute. Seriously, I gotta go. Can’t be late again or Sam’ll fire me. Can you just enter the card number on that application and hit ‘send’ after you drive me to work? You guys can laugh after I’m gone.”

  I hustled to the door and yanked it open, only to come to a complete halt. Four long, interlocked legs criss-crossed the small stoop. Two legs were clad in faded denim, complete with ripped-out knees. Gray sweats clung to the other set. I drew up short and looked from one side of the porch to the other. A mannequin leaned on each railing—male, but too good-looking to be anything but life-sized plaster figurines.

  The one on my left was the spitting image of the man on the couch, except the eyes that raked me were black. The tips of the other’s close-cropped hair glowed nearly white in the fading sunlight, but he appraised me with blue eyes identical to Dale’s. Same dimple in his chin.

  “Gotta love a redhead. You Shelby?” the blond demanded.

  My mouth went dry and my ovaries shouted, Holy hotness! Pewter hair dusted his pecs and trailed his centerline, disappearing underneath the elastic waistband of his baggy sweatpants—sweatpants that barely clung to slim hips. I couldn’t take my eyes off the ropes of muscle outlining his hipbones. Is he wearing an athletic cup? He had the look of a football player. God, how I hate jocks.

  He shoved his fingers into the waistband. Is he touching himself?

  I jerked my eyes to his face, cursing my pale complexion. He smirked when heat swept my cheeks. “Y-yes.”