James: A College Girl Romance Read Online Free

when I reached him. “How’s things?”
    I smiled up at him.
    “I’m ready to go home and crash.”
    “You say that every night,” he laughed.
    “It’s the truth.”
    He walked me all the way to my beat-to-shit Honda Civic.
    “I owe you, Big Mike.”
    “You don’t owe me shit, Little Red,” he said good-naturedly. “Be safe drivin’ home.”
    “I always am.”
    After I got in the car, Mike closed the door after me and I hit the locks. Too curious to wait until I got back to my craptastic apartment, I took the envelope from my purse. It was sealed. I slid my thumb under the corner and tore open the paper. Looking inside, I gasped.
    Crisp hundred-dollar bills. This would cover my over-priced rent for the next month—at least. Paper clipped to the bottom of the stack of bills was a business card. My hands shook as I slipped it out of the paperclip and turned it over.
    James McDevitt .

Chapter 2: James
     
     
    S trip clubs. If memory served, Bennett had called them my “weakness.” That, or my “place of residence.” He had been right. He was always right. That was Ryan Bennett, for you, though. My roommate from freshman year of undergrad was one holier-than-thou son of a bitch. I laughed as I thought of the “advice” I had received from Alex, his eighteen-year-old twoo wuv —who must have been at least twenty-one or twenty-two by now.
    Stop expecting the worst out of people, and try believing that someone out there will love you for who you are. Blah, blah, blah.
    That pair had been made for one another. Of course, I had thought about fucking her, for all of five seconds before common sense had kicked in. Bennett’s scandalous little fall from grace had made it even easier to get under his skin. Falling in love with a naïve little freshman in one of his classes? After ten years of his self-righteousness bullshit, I had enjoyed fucking with him. He was so easy to wind up—he had even stopped talking to me for the better part of six months. Something about life being too short for my bullshit.
    The fact that he had come around meant maybe he had realized that no one—not even him—was perfect. That, or Papa Bennett’s cancer was causing Ryan to re-examine his sanctimonious douche-baggery. I felt for the guy. I could be a total prick—as I had been accused of being by many of the fairer sex—but it was his old man staring down death.
    If I’d had a different relationship with my father, maybe I would give a rat’s ass what the fuck happened to him. No, that wasn’t accurate. I wanted to see my father go to hell, preferably screaming and in flames.
    The truth was that I didn’t have a deep connection with anyone. Calling it a result of my childhood would have been pretentious psycho-babble. I liked it that way. A lack of emotional bullshit kept things simple. I was in the market for a good time, not drama.
    I spent my life in airports and strip clubs in different cities. I referred to my part of the business as client management . Client management was a polite way of saying I mind-fucked people. Where the talent came in was making it all look like one long party full of naked, willing participants and expensive alcohol. I didn’t discriminate. Gay, straight, bi, man, woman—I was the guy who had made the party happen.
    Tonight had just been about unwinding. A little strip club off I-80. It was quiet, out of the way, and it stocked my usual flavor—dumb, dyed blonde, and desperate for my dick. Kinda like Bennett’s ex, but that was another story.
    At the end of the day, I just wanted to turn it all off. Have a good drink and bury my dick balls-deep in pussy and fuck until she screamed “ Yes! God! Yes! ” The who of it didn’t matter. Strippers had been my Eureka! moment in college. Commitment-free and plentiful. It was a mutually beneficial relationship.
    Destiny or Faith or Jade would get enough money to fuel whatever habit it was she was stripping to support—be it drugs, shopping, or