Convict: A Bad Boy Romance (36 page)

I
think
I’m losing my mind. Tessa’s on the other side of the huge fucking flower vase, and all I can see are glimpses of auburn hair and her white shoulders. Every so often she laughs, sometimes politely and sometimes not.

I’ve been in La Carretera for almost ten years. I’ve killed and hurt more people than I can count. I’ve exchanged dope for guns in abandoned lots, outnumbered ten to one. I’ve carted pounds of blow to Las Vegas all by myself, the stuff hidden in a spare tire. I’ve seen friends and family die in front of me, but I’ve always gotten my shit
done
.

Manny sends me to do something, and no matter what, I
deliver
.

Except now, apparently. Because of some accountant’s daughter from the valley.

I don’t have a plan anymore. I’m supposed to be drugging her, but that ship has sailed.

“My ex did Krav Maga,” the girl next to me says. She’s pretty and decked out in ice that
looks
real. “You look like you do Krav Maga.”

I’m pretty sure that’s a martial art, but it could also be some kind of bongo drum I’ve never heard of.

“I used to,” I hazard. “I’ve been too busy lately, though, so it’s just the gym for now.”

“At least your firm is doing well,” she says. “My ex was a money manager, but then he got caught trading...”

She keeps talking but I’m not paying attention. The band is back on the stage, talking and laughing and picking up their instruments, and I’m wondering if they’re going to start playing again.

I lift my whiskey glass to my mouth again, but it’s empty, and then I realize the girl next to me is looking at me like she expects an answer.

“Really,” I say, the most neutral word I can think of.

She giggles.

“Yeah, he was a real winner,” she says. She purses her lips and looks up at me sideways, through her eyelashes. I hold up my glass.

“I need a refill,” I say. “I’ll be back in a jiff.”

Jiff
seems like a thing Brent would say.

I order another Scotch, and as the bartender is handing it to me, I hear her voice.

“You sure you should be going that hard?”

I turn and there she is.

“You know what sneaks up on people?” I ask her.

“Are you going to say tigers?” she asks. The bartender puts a napkin on the bar as if to remind her what she’s doing, and she orders a club soda with lime.

I raise my eyebrows at her.

“I’m a responsible adult,” she says. “I’m taking a break.”

“It’s because I’m here, isn’t it?” I ask. “Now you feel like a lush when I’m around.”

“There’s no winning with you, is there?” she asks.

We both step away from the bar, and now we’re the only ones standing on this side of the room. Everyone else is finishing dinner, the servers clearing away plates. The band is warming up.

Across the room, the bride and groom are going from table to table, hugging people and shaking hands. I wish I could remember their names. Brent probably knows their names.

“You never did tell me how you know Karen and Eddie,” she says. Her lips close around the straw in her drink and she takes a sip.

Then she licks a droplet from her top lip, and
fuck
it’s distracting. All I can think about are those lips sliding over the shaft of my cock, that pink tongue flicking the underside.

“I worked with Eddie at his first job out of college,” I say. It seems safe. There’s no way she knows all his coworkers from his boring office job, right?

Instead, she tilts her head to one side.

“When he was a wilderness ranger?” she asks.

I look over at Eddie again. He’s slightly pudgy and barely taller than his wife.

“That’s right,” I say.

“You were a ranger too?” she asks.

“I was his boss,” I say. I’ve had plenty of Scotch by now, so why the fuck not. “I was in charge of all the wilderness rangers in his, uh, division, actually.”

I try to remember everything I know about forest rangers. There’s not much.

My family went camping once before my dad left us, probably when I was seven or eight. I hardly remember it.

“What was your favorite part of being a wilderness ranger?” she asks, her eyes dancing. She takes another sip, and I force myself to look away this time.

“The wilderness,” I say. “I fought a bear once.”

“Did you?” she asks.

“It was pretty dire, but I kicked his ass,” I say. “Bears learned not to come at me
that
day.”

“So he told all his bear friends not to fuck with Brent,” she says. “Brent, the bear fighter. I forgot your last name already.”

Me too.

“I’m just saying, no more bears picked fights with me.”

“Undoubtedly,” she says. “How do you
really
know them?”

I glance over my shoulder at the bartender, but he’s ten feet away and not paying us any attention.

What I’m about to do is fucking
stupid
, not to mention reckless as hell.

And yet, I feel like I’m careening downhill with no brakes, straight toward this girl.

“You want to know a secret?” I ask, dropping my voice.

“What kind of secret?” she asks. “Is it about your predilection for fucking elevators?”

“It’s for fucking
in
elevators,” I say. “And that’s not a secret.”

“Well, not anymore,” she says.

“I’m not really Brent,” I say.

Her eyes go wide, and she glances from side to side, making sure there’s no one around us.

Then she puts one hand on my arm, and I can feel the heat of her skin even through my jacket and shirt.

“Are you a spy?” she whispers.

For another moment, she looks up at me with those wide green eyes, admiration and fascination in them.

Then she dissolves into giggles.

She leaves her hand on my arm, though, so it’s impossible to get mad.

I take another drink and wait for her to stop laughing, remaining as cool and calm as I can.

“I’d be a terrible spy,” I say, when her laughter starts to die down. “I lasted, what, two hours with my fake identity?”

“True,” she said. “Though you look very James Bond in a tuxedo.”

“I thought so too,” I say, and she rolls her eyes again, even though she’s smiling.

“Okay, so who are you?” she asks. “And how did you bust into the society event of the year?”

I shrug and come up with something on the spot.

“Brent’s a friend of a friend,” I say. “And he got the flu yesterday, and told my buddy to come in his place. But then my friend had a family emergency, gave me the invite, and now here I am.”

“So you just came to some stranger’s wedding,” she says.

I hold up my Scotch glass.

“I’ve drunk about seventy dollars worth of Scotch so far tonight,” I say. “I’m never getting invited to another wedding at the Beverly Hills Resort. Why wouldn’t I come and see how the other half lives?”

She considers this for a moment as I hold my breath. There’s no way she’ll guess what I’m actually there to do, but she could have me kicked out if she wanted.

“I’d probably come too,” she said. “Just to see what kind of wedding five hundred grand gets you.”

I let out a low whistle.

“Really?” I ask.

“Oh, at least,” she says.

I know how many guns or cars that much can buy you, or how much blow.

Weddings? Not so much.

“You’re telling me this wedding cost more than the house I grew up in,” I say.

“Probably,” she says, then shrugs. “I guess, if you’ve got the money, you can spend it on what you like.”

I open my mouth but then the band all starts playing at once, some oldie that I half-recognize. The other guests all get up and head to the dance floor, finally liquored up enough to get their grooves on.

“You save me that dance?” I ask.

“You gonna tell me your real name?” she asks.

“You gonna dance with me?”

“I see we’re at an impasse,” she says, and finishes her club soda. She sets it on a table behind her, and she’s giving me that little smile again. The one that just
dares
me to do something.

“You said you’d dance with me if I wasn’t already balls-deep in someone else, if I recall correctly,” I say.

I take a step closer to her, and now we’re only a couple inches apart. She’s looking up at me and not backing down, that same challenge in her eyes.

Any other girl would be bent over the sink in my hotel room by now. I’m not bragging, it’s just true.

But Tessa’s standing here, fully clothed, and it fucking
unleashes
something inside me.

“I just asked whether you
would
be balls-deep,” she says. “I didn’t make any promises.”

She takes a tiny step forward.

“Elevator-fucker,” she says, her body only a couple inches from mine.

I am not about to fucking let her
win
this... whatever this is.

“I always make sure the elevator comes first,” I murmur.

Her cheeks turn faintly pink but she doesn’t back down. I’m starting to get hard.

“So you’re a
gentleman
elevator-fucker,” she says.

I drain the final sip of scotch, and then reach around her to put the empty glass on the table behind her.

She still doesn’t move, and I’m starting to wish she would. I try
desperately
to think about something else, but it isn’t working, and my dick is just getting harder by the second.

“I’m wearing a tuxedo,” I say. “Of course I’m a gentleman. I always call the elevator the next day.”

That part’s just a lie.

I don’t fuck elevators, but I never call women the next day. Hell, I never even get their numbers. Usually I don’t get their
names
.

“Liar,” she says.

“Yeah, you got me,” I say. “I’m an elevator virgin.”

“You don’t call, either,” she says, narrowing her eyes and tilting her head to one side. “I can
tell
.”

“Then we’re even,” I say. “I don’t call the next day and you’re a cocktease who’s keeping me from getting lucky with some trust fund girl. Are you going to dance with me or what?”

“I still don’t know your name,” she says.

God
damn
, her spine is made of steel.

Kind of like my dick.

I break first. I walk around behind her and take her shoulders, one bare and one with a strap on it, and lean down, my lips almost touching the shell of her ear. She smells like flowers and cinnamon.

“My name,” I say, “Is Alejandro Felipe Paolo Velasquez de Monteca.”

Mostly not true.

“But you can call me Alex,” I growl. “Now, are we going to
fucking
dance, or what?”

W
e fucking dance
.

Like I’m going to say no to Alejandro Felipe Something Something, looking like pure man candy in a tux, telling me his name like it’s a litany of the filthy things he’d like to do to me.

The moment we get on the floor the band switches moods and I hear the familiar strains of
Kiss From a Rose
, a chorus of
oooohs
coming from the bridesmaids.

It’s not the song I had in mind. It’s kind of... sweet and romantic, which isn’t exactly my mood right now, but Alejandro Felipe — Alex — already has one hand at the small of my back and the other closed around my own, and there’s no way I’m getting out of this.

“See?” he says. “Is this so bad?”

“I guess it’s all right,” I say. “I’ve had better.”

That’s not true, but if there’s something I like better than pressing his buttons, I haven’t found it yet.

“Is that a challenge?” he asks.

“Just a statement of fact,” I say, trying to sound nonchalant.

He waits a few more beats, and then suddenly he steps back and pulls my arm over my head and I almost go off-balance as I twirl around, my skirt rippling out to the sides, and then he catches me against his chest and we’re dancing again like nothing happened.

A few people glance over, and I pretend not to see them.

“You’ve gotta warn a girl,” I say with fake indignation. “Especially a girl in four-inch heels. That could have been
deadly
.”

He just laughs.

“Does anything please you?” he teases.

“Of course,” I say. “Nice men who don’t lie about their names, who call the next day, and who don’t try to kill me on the dance floor.”

There was a time that I thought I liked those things.

That time was this afternoon.

“I’m sure this wedding is
full
of nice men,” he says. “And here you are.”

“
You
dragged me onto this dance floor,” I say.

“
You
followed me to the bar,” he points out.

The singer is really wailing now, putting his all into this sappy old song.

Alex spins me again but this time I’m expecting it. More people are looking but I don’t give a shit.

“Fast learner,” Alex says.

“I’m pretty quick,” I say.

The song gets to its final bars and Alex presses me against him even harder. My heart is beating so hard that I’m
sure
he can feel it, and I look up at him.

He’s going to kiss me
, I think.

Kiss me. Kiss me.

Just fucking kiss me.

He looks down. He smiles.

Then I’m falling backwards.

I goddamn
squeal
and throw my arms around his neck, but of course he’s got his arms around me and I’m not about to go crashing to the floor.

At the bottom he pauses for a moment with an absolutely wicked grin on his face, like he’s won something. I’m nearly horizontal and something raw and primal
surges
through me, like we’re in bed and I’ve got my legs wrapped around him.

I’m breathing hard. I lick my lips.

“Fucker,” I say.

He lifts me back onto my feet, and I’m still pressed against him, the heat of his body radiating through his shirt and jacket and into my skin. I feel like I’m melting, and as the band kicks into
Hey Ya
I shake my head a little in an attempt to regain my composure.

“Fancy enough for you?” he asks, his lips close to my ear again.

I take a deep breath. All I can think of is him, tossing me onto a bed and crawling over me, his mouth covering mine.

My whole body practically
pulses
with need. I’m nearly dizzy with it.

I’ve never felt like this, not even
close
.

I wonder if I’m dying or something
, I think.

Probably not.

“That was good, but I expect more of someone with four names,” I say.

He pulls me in by my hips and the song gets too loud for us to talk, so I just let myself go, moving in time to the music. I groove. I shimmy. I shake it like a Polaroid picture.

Our hips are grinding together, and I can feel him getting hard, right there on the dance floor of this
very
fancy wedding.

He’s got his hands on the bare skin of my shoulder, on my waist, and then I’m reaching inside his tuxedo jacket and pressing my hands against his sides. Even through his shirt, I can feel that he’s pure muscle.

He could definitely toss me onto a bed
, I think, and then I blush. He keeps stiffening beneath his rented tuxedo pants, and I shouldn’t, but I fucking
love
it. I love that no matter what he says, he can’t control his own dick in public, not when we’re dancing dirty like this.

The song changes again and Alex takes off his jacket and throws it onto a chair. He loosens his tie, and surprise surprise, he looks just as good disheveled as he does buttoned up.

There’s something just barely peeking out of his sleeve at his wrist. A tattoo. I only see it for a split second and then he pulls his sleeve down and grabs me again, not even pretending to play nice any more.

Before I know it I’m spun around, my back pressed against his torso and his erection against me, his hands still digging into my hips, holding me as tight against him as he can. For the first time I look around the dance floor, and I’m a little relieved to realize that other people are getting
down
too.

Then I catch Andrew’s gaze. He’s standing at the edge of the dance floor, not moving at all, a drink in his hand and his nose in the air.

While we’re looking at each other, he
smirks
and says something to the guy standing next to him, a guy I sort of recognize as one of Nick’s friends.

For a moment it works, and I miss the beat, my muscles suddenly not working right anymore. I misstep in my heels and probably look like a weird ostrich.

Then I think:
Fuck it
.

Go ahead, tell Nick that you watched me practically fuck some guy on the dance floor. That it proves I’m some kind of gold digging slut.

I reach up behind me and put my hand around the back of Alex’s neck. It’s hot and just a little damp with sweat, and then I move my hips back and
writhe
.

There’s no other word for it.

Alex makes a low noise in his chest and moves with me in perfect time and I let my eyes slide shut, not taking in a single thing besides the feeling of his body against mine, the perfect way we’re moving together, his hands on me, raw and powerful and needy as hell.

I’m fucking
wet
. I feel like my whole body is a raging river of seething
want
.

The song ends, the music stops and I’m breathing hard. Other couples move apart but not us. Alex keeps me right where I am, bends down, puts his lips against my ear.

“Where’d that come from?” he asks.

Andrew’s talking to someone else now, not looking at me, so I lick my lips and try to catch my breath. My feet are starting to hurt and I can feel the sweat forming at my hairline, threatening to trickle down my neck and into my dress.

“Would all the single women please congregate on the dance floor!” the band leader says into the microphone.

Nope
, I think.

I’m not
about
to stand in front of everyone and jump for some flowers.

“Let’s get some air,” I say, and head toward the patio. I grab my clutch from my chair and Alex grabs his jacket and his drink. Just as Karen is standing in front of a gaggle of women, urging them to
make more noise
, we leave through the doors to a wide, empty patio.

It’s cool outside, but the air feels good against my overheated body. On a terrace below is the shimmering pool, surrounded by $3,500-a-night tile-roofed bungalows.

There’s no one else outside, and I glance back at the doors to the ballroom, wondering if this was a bad idea.

Alex just laughs at me, and I can hear a cheer go up from inside the building.

“You gonna tell me what that was or not?” he asks.

“It was nothing, really,” I say, but he just laughs again, like he knows I’m lying.

“Sure,” he says.

I blow a strand of hair out of my face, and I can feel a bead of sweat trickle down my neck.

“My ex’s best friend is here,” I say. “The one who convinced my ex that I was only dating him for his money.”

“Were you?”

“Of course not,” I say.

He holds his hands up, whiskey still in one, and his face is oddly serious.

“No judgment,” he says. “We all gotta live somehow.”

“That wasn’t it,” I say.

I want to talk about
anything
but my ex right now.

“So you saw this guy and went buck wild on me,” he says. “I’m not sure whether I should be pleased or insulted.”

“You
felt
pretty pleased
,
” I say.

“Hard not to be, tiger.”

“Interesting choice of words.”

He takes another sip of his drink, and I watch his Adam’s apple as he swallows, the muscles in his throat contracting.

“What kind of whiskey is that?” I ask.

“Scotch,” he says. “Smoky as hell, not suitable for delicate ladies.”

“I’m not delicate,” I say, and he holds the glass out toward me.

Something
possesses
me. I glance into his eyes, and then, instead of taking a sip like a normal person, I dip a finger into the glass.

Then I suck the whiskey off my finger, staring straight into Alex’s eyes the whole time. I feel like someone else entirely has taken over my body, because
this
is not a thing that Tessa Fulbright does.

But the truth? I
like
it. I like the way all the nerve endings in my body feel like they’re sparking and I like the look that crosses Alex’s face, the moment of surprise and raw
lust
.

“It’s good whiskey,” I say.