BASTARD: A Stepbrother Romance (These Wicked Games Book 1)

BASTARD

These Wicked Games, Book 1

Ava Dark

This is a work of fiction (albeit a hot, sexy, and downright dirty one). Names, characters, places, dialogue, and everything else are products of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to people or events, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

If you want to know when my next sexy tale is released, plus get discounts and freebies, click here:
http://j.mp/AvaDarkReleases

He doesn’t see me yet.

But he will, if I don’t get out of here.

And I really don’t want that.

I head back toward the hot, loud kitchen of the restaurant, where Ivan, the seven-foot cook, noisily bangs around, suddenly feeling far too exposed in my Hooters uniform of tight shirt and short-shorts.

“Claire,” my manager calls. She’s a woman in her mid-fifties; butch, but still kind of nice. Though she always calls me by my last name, and never gets it right. She reminds me of the Russian from
Orange is the New Black
, but taller. “Where you going?”

“I was just taking a break, Nina.”

“Break? You just had one.” She leans in close and sniffs. “You’re not smoking again,
nyet
?”

“No. I just—” I glance in the direction he sits. Oh fuck, he’s looking at us. I can only hope it’s because the tall Russian woman drew his attention when she shouted at me.

Nina turns to see what I’m looking at. Then she turns back to me and says, “You know him? He’s sexy.” She winks.

I shake my head. “No. I got to go.”

“You look beautiful,” she calls as I barge into the kitchen.

Yeah, she may think I look beautiful. But men are more likely to think of me as bountiful—if they think of me at all. The only reason Hooters hired me is to fulfill their quota of normal-or-above weight female hostesses.

That quota is one, in case anyone is wondering.

I quickly make my way to the back door, hoping I’m not being chased.

He can’t see me like this. I used to be this skinny little kid, and now, well now I’m neither.

I’ll be twenty in two months, and I’ve put on at least that in pounds since I last saw Cade. Or, since he last saw me, to be exact.

“Maggie?” a voice calls. It’s a man’s.

I instinctively turn to look. My next instinct is to think,
fuck!

“Can I help you?” I ask, surprised at my own ability to deceive.

“Mags? What are you doing working in a place like this?”

He looks me up and down, and I don’t like the feelings it stirs in my gut—and other places.

“You can’t be back here sir,” I say, then turn and hurry through the kitchen, toward the back door.

“Hey!” Ivan, the cook, calls. I glance over my shoulder and see him step in front of Cade, blocking his path to me.

At seven feet, and nearly half as wide, Cade doesn’t have much choice but to stop.

I glance back one last time as I exit out the back door, and see the top of his head over the huge cook’s shoulders. He leans to the side, and our eyes lock.

Then the door closes, and he’s taken from my life again, this time by a dirty, dented metal door, rather than a dirty, damaged life.

But the effect is the same.

I don’t have my purse, and thus don’t have my keys, but my windows can be pushed down from the outside, and there’s a spare in my glovebox.

I think.

One of those plastic ones.

Though as I walk toward my car, I wonder if it’s there. I bought the car for two grand last year, and that was the last time I looked at the book that came with it.

I remember seeing a plastic key, because I remember wondering if it would break if I tried to use it. Guess I’m about to find out.

I hear the back door open, and despite everything, hope it’s not Ivan telling me he just put the guy who was following me in the hospital, and to ask if I’m okay.

But when I look back, it’s not Ivan’s lumbering form I see, ducking to avoid the doorway, but Cade’s lean, muscular frame, running toward me.

I was just fourteen when he left.

Left me there all alone.

Left me to deal with the hell that my life would become without him there to protect me, shelter me.

I’ll never forgive him for leaving.

But seeing him again in the flesh, after all these years, I can’t help but feel something that isn’t hate.

I’ve seen him on YouTube, mentioned on Twitter, featured in entire articles dedicated to him at sites like The New York Times and Wall Street Journal.

But this is the first time I’ve seen him in person since that night he left me standing in our shitty, overheated kitchen, holding the cake I’d spent all day making, specially for him.

The one he never even saw.

And now here he is, running not away, but
toward
me.

I freeze. As embarrassed as I am for him to see me like this, I’m even more embarrassed at the idea of him seeing my car. Especially the mess inside it. If I just stand here, my brain assures me, he won’t know it’s mine.

My brain also throws out the idea of jumping into the dumpster to hide. That would be disgusting, but, more importantly, he’s already seen me.

“Mags,” he states, stopping in front of me.

I just stare. Then I say, “How’d you get past Ivan?”

He shakes his head. “What are you doing here?”

“I work here,” I say without inflection. Without emotion. I can’t pretend I don’t know him. He makes me feel too much to do that convincingly. But that doesn’t mean I have to give in. I can control myself. I won’t scream at him how I feel. How much he hurt me.

How he destroyed the dreams of a little fourteen-year-old girl who hoped he might take her with him, away from here, who had fantasies of them getting an apartment together, getting shitty jobs and barely making rent. But being free.

And together.

“Why?” He says it like an insult.

“Why?” I ask, suddenly feeling that emotion I’ve held back for so many years, feeling it bubble out as rage. “You don’t get to ask me why, Cade! You left. You walked out of my life. And you lost all right to question my decisions when you did that.”

“Hey.” He takes my arm, and fuck, why does it have to feel so comforting.

I yank it away from him. “No! Leave me alone.”

“Mags, come on. I haven’t seen you in years. Let’s go somewhere and talk.”

I glare at him, my eyes burning, my vision beginning to distort. “Fuck you. Just… stay out of my life. It’s what you’re good at.”

“Mags,” he says, and wraps his arms around me.

Then the tears do spill. “Let me go,” I say as I dig my fingers into his shirt, clutching him tightly.

I breathe deep, and a flood of memories comes back as I inhale his scent.

His hand goes to my neck, running his finger lightly over it like he used to do when I was a kid. Back then, it was a game to try to give me goosebumps. Well, it’s working now too, but it’s giving me more than that.

“Why’d you leave?” I sob.

“Shh,” he says.

With great effort, I unclutch my hands and pull away. I shake my head as I stare at him. “No, I deserve to know. Why? Why’d you leave me? All alone with…” I stifle a sob, then wipe my eyes.

“I didn’t leave you.”

“Yes you did! I was there. I would know.”

“It wasn’t you. I would never leave you.”

“Could have fooled me.” I storm past him, heading back to the restaurant.

“Hey,” I hear him call.

I don’t stop.

Unfortunately, the back door is locked, and I don’t have my keys. I bang on it, hoping Ivan can hear me over the noise of the kitchen and the music from the restaurant.

A hand grabs my shoulder, spins me.

And I spin right into his arms. It feels so good. Like home. “No,” I say after a moment, pushing away.

Cade takes my hand. I try to pull free, but it’s no use, he’s still way stronger than I am. “Come on, little bird, let’s talk.”

“You don’t get to call me that anymore.”

He grins. “Really, little bird? Is that what you think?”

I feel a smile working at my own lips, and dig my fingernails into my palm. “Stop.”

“I’ll stop if you go—”

“Great. That’s exactly what I want to do.” I turn back to the door and bang on it again with my free hand. “Ivan!” I call.

Cade lets go of the hand he’s holding.

I look at him.

“All right, little bird. If you really want me to leave you alone, I will. I’m sorry I upset you.” He turns to go, then pauses. Without looking back, he says, “I didn’t leave you. And I’m not leaving you now.”

Then he walks away.

I watch him disappear around the corner. I’m going to have to redo my mascara.

And maybe change my shirt. I feel like someone is ripping my heart out of me, but it doesn’t want to let go, and veins and arteries are stretching and snapping as it’s worked loose. But it’s not gone. Not yet.

There’s still a few threads connecting it. Soon they will sever, and then it would be gone for good.

But right now, in this moment, there’s still a chance.

I run.

I round the bend to the front parking lot where customers park. I look around for Cade, but don’t see him. I spin frantically, trying to locate him.

I run through the aisles of parked cars, looking for taillights or reverse lights. He’s nowhere in sight.

I see a car, a Mercedes, leaving the parking lot, at the far end of the shopping center. Is it him? It’s the kind of car he might drive.

The parking lot is in a depression, and I watch his car as it goes up the hill, pauses at the stoplight, then makes a right turn.

I collapse to the asphalt, staring at the car as it turns through the next intersection, and out of my life for good.

A horn makes me jump.

I crawl out of its way without looking, and lean my back against a parked car, bringing my knees to my chest and putting my head down.

“Crazy bitch!” the driver calls as I hear the car pass me.

I just sob. I lost him again. He was there, right in front of me. Holding me, just like he used to—
not just like,
I think, but I push this away—and I let him go. And now—

“You’re going to get yourself killed.”

I look up. A man in a motorcycle helmet looks down at me.

“Are you okay?” comes from behind the tinted visor.

I recognize the voice. It’s… “Cade? But you left.” It must be a hallucination.

He lifts the visor, and I see part of a face that looks like his. “I told you I didn’t.”

I shake my head, pointing in the direction of the parking lot’s exit. “I saw your car. The silver Mercedes.”

“I don’t drive a Mercedes.” He points to a motorcycle behind him.

I look at it. It doesn’t look like any motorcycle I’ve ever seen. I didn’t even hear it pull up.

He takes my hand, and pulls me to my feet, like I weigh nothing at all. “Get on.”

I look at the bike, then at him. All I can think to say is, “I don’t have a helmet.”

“Wear mine.” He pulls his helmet off and hands it to me.

I wipe my eyes, then take it, and stare down at it. “What about you?”

“It’s only a minute from here, and it’s a secret road.” He takes the helmet from my hands, untucks my hair from behind my ears, then slides it over my head. He buckles it as I just stand there, staring at him. It’s loose, but doesn’t seem in danger of falling off.

He snaps the visor shut. “Might get windy. And dusty.”

“But I have work,” I mutter.

He opens the visor again. “What?”

“I have work.”

“Fuck that. Some minimum wage job where fat, drunk slobs ogle you? I won’t have my little sister working at a place like that.”

“I’m capable of taking care of myself. And you don’t get a say. I’m an adult. And you left.”

Instead of responding, he takes me by the hips, and bodily lifts me up onto the seat of his motorcycle.

My feet don’t touch the ground, and the bike rocks on its kickstand as though it’s about to tip. “Ahhh!” I squeak as my feet scrabble to find a foothold on the pegs.

“I’ve got you, little bird.”

He climbs on, then looks back at me. “Wrap your arms around me, and lean into me.”

“Why?” I ask. I’m pissed at him for just picking me up like that, and I know I should get off. But, I also liked it…