Free Dirty South Drug Wars by Jae Hood Page A

taken me to a tattoo parlor on my seventeenth birthday. She had pretended she was my mother, signed the waiver, and gave me an encouraging grin. It was her idea of revenge on my mother for shaming our family by bedding a Montgomery.
    The tattoo was a bouquet of white lilies, the petals broken and crushed. The edges were brown with age and decay. Rips and holes covered the tattered petals. A white ribbon hung limply from the flowers and trailed down my hip. The lilies were flushed yellow at the base, near the deep green stems. Even in their broken, despairing state, the flowers were still beautiful.
    “That’s my lily tattoo. Why?”
    Swallowing hard with a strange expression, Cash stared at the lilies and ran his fingertips over the surface of my skin, tickling it and causing me to squirm.
    “Why crushed lilies? Why do you have this tattooed on you?”
    I bit my lip, baffled over the change in mood and his thick, strained voice. A heavy tension hung over us, darker than the murky waters churning nearby.
    “It’s a reminder to myself. To enjoy things while you can because even the most beautiful things can easily be ruined.”
    Pain flashed in his eyes, his gaze drifting back down to my ink. His fingertips lightly massaged my flesh below the almost translucent flowers. The pale moonlight fell across his body, highlighting his own ink. An elegant, black scroll drifted up his forearm, the same arm that touched my hip. My body froze as my brain repeated the word permanently etched across his skin.
    Montgomery.
    I uttered the word in shock, my voice breaking at the end.
    Chuckling nervously, the tension only slightly eased on his face. “Yeah, I guess you know at least part of my name now.”
    He flinched in shock as I jerked away from him, stumbled to my feet, and yanked my pants above my hip bones. My body was flooded with humiliation, sickness, and shame for letting a Montgomery touch me so intimately and loving it.
    Bewildered, he jumped to his feet. Turning on one heel, I darted down the pier. Low music pulsed from the house, the sound growing louder with each step I took. Each thump of bass pounded in succession with my heart. Nausea churned inside my belly, the lusty, liquid heat long since simmering away, replaced with bone-cold horror. I didn’t make it far before he caught up, grabbed my arms, and spun me around to face him. The house was still several yards out of my reach.
    “What’s wrong? Where are you going?” he asked, not even out of breath.
    My body was pressed against his. He was too close. His body was warm and he smelled so good. Why couldn’t he be someone else? Why couldn’t I?
    “Nothing. I’ve just … I’ve gotta go,” I said.
    Cold terror consumed me as my uncle’s words from long ago ran through my mind.
    I’ll kill you myself.
    “You’re lying. You saw my tattoo and ran. It’s because I’m a Montgomery , right?”
    Tilting my head up with his fingers, he held my stare, his confused and suspicious. Horror shone back at me, my own reflection gleaming in his moon-kissed eyes. Dark eyebrows knitted together, his expression demanded an answer, but received none. Lips sealed tight, I trembled under his touch, but no longer for the same reasons.
    “I see it on your face.” Cash chuckled bitterly. “You saw my tattoo and began making assumptions about me because of my name.”
    He leaned down and brushed his warm lips against mine. I attempted to pull away, but it was no use. Fingers left my chin, drifted along my jawbone, and cupped the back of my neck. My body became a traitor against me as it pressed against his, melding myself against his hard planes, my lips parting, receiving his kiss. Warning bells alarmed inside my head and I broke away.
    He shook his head. “Is that it? Are you like everyone else, assuming the worst because I’m a Montgomery?”
    Cash’s words stung because they were true. That was exactly what I’d done. But if he knew who I was he’d assume the same