Sexy Bastards Anthology: Bad Boy, Biker, Alpha, Motorcycle Club, Contemporary Romance Collection (42 page)

Chapter 2

Ellis

Rage was burning a hole in my stomach. She better not have anyone over at her place. I’ll kill him. I swear to God, I’ll fucking kill him. Nobody touches Talia. Nobody but me.

My car came to a screeching halt in the parking lot of her apartment complex. I got out, arming the alarm and charging up to her door, knocking with more force than necessary.

It felt like an eternity until she opened the door. In the meantime, I was ready to break it down. My teeth ground together as I waited for the door to open. As soon as I saw her, all my rage melted into a warm puddle in my chest. Her long, red curls were sitting to one side over her delicate shoulder and she was wearing a thin orange T-shirt with an obnoxious saying on it. The short-shorts she wore showed off her creamy, long-stem legs.

“Don’t you take a hint?” she said, her lips in a firm, grim line, but her light brown eyes glittering with excitement and amusement.

I pushed the white door open and heard its smack against the plaster of the wall.

“Well, why don’t you come in?” she murmured dryly.

My eyes darted around the apartment, coming to land on the empty plate and fork set next to the large textbook perched on her small dining room table. Her cat, Misty, meowed at me before curling herself around my legs.

I looked down at the cat, knowing that if anyone else was in the apartment, she’d be coiled up in his or her lap, as she was the most emotional, needy cat
ever
.

“Why you wind me up like that, T?” I asked, my arms folded over my chest as she rested her luscious ass on the edge of the dining room table, her arms matching my posture across her chest.

I used all my willpower to keep my eyes on hers. “Answer me.”

She snorted and waved her hand, pushing off the table and making her way around it to go sit down in front of the textbook.

Annoyed, I crossed the distance between us and grabbed her hand before she could sit, pulling her to me and pressing her soft body against mine. “Not so fast. You haven’t answered my question.”

She scoffed and pushed away, although I noticed a hesitation for a split second. “I don’t owe you shit.”

“Dammit,” I said, raking my fingers through my hair. “You can’t do that to me. Just tell me you want to be alone or something.”

She threw her head back and laughed, sitting down at the table. “Yeah, right. I’ve tried it all, Ellis. You don’t listen and won’t listen. You’re a stubborn-ass mule.” She shook her head.

I shoved my keys into my jeans pocket, the red and gold USMC lanyard dangling out. “The fuck that’s supposed to mean?”

She sighed and shoved the pencil behind her ear. It was a sexy-as-hell move and I tried to ignore it as I stared into her defiant eyes. “You know what it means. You want me when you want me, but when you don’t, nobody else can have me.”

I cocked my head to the side, confused at her words, because I wanted her
all
of the time. “What are you talking about?”

She narrowed her eyes and bit her cherry red lip. “Just go, Ellis.” She gestured around her small apartment. “As you can see, there’s nobody else here. I’ve got a big test tomorrow, and I don’t need you keeping me up all hours.”

I stared at her incredulously. “You’re not serious.”

Her teeth still had her bottom lip hostage and it made my cock twitch in my pants when she did that. “I’m very serious.”

“Can’t I just stay for a little while?” I threw her my sexy smirk and pleading eyes.

A look I couldn’t quite decipher passed over her features. It bordered between annoyed and turned on. She must have seen my expression and looked down at her book again. She pulled the pencil from behind her ear and put it to her mouth. “Just go, please.”

I stood there for a few long seconds, staring at her, but she wouldn’t look up. Giving up, I left her place, quietly closing her door behind me and getting into my car.

As I drove home, I couldn’t understand what had happened. I wanted her – and I could tell she wanted me, too. This was our way. Whenever I’d call, she would be there. So why hadn’t she been there when I’d needed her? What was her problem tonight?

For the first few months after we’d met, we were inseparable. She’d come to my place or I’d be at her little apartment with her and her needy black cat. But in the past few weeks, she’d sort of grown distant. I didn’t understand it at all. All I’d asked is that she not fuck anyone else. That she was mine and mine alone. I didn’t understand what was so hard about that.

Admittedly – releasing from the service had been hard on me. I never liked to admit weakness but having to go back to being a civilian after being owned by the government for so long took some adjustment. I was actively looking for a job in the “real world” while collecting some government money after being in for so long, but I was mostly going out on the weekends and having fun.

I was 25 now, probably time for me to calm the hell down and get some sort of career going for myself, but I was tired. One on hand, I wanted to rest and try to take my time in finding a job, but the other half me, the one who was used to being busy and following orders, was becoming restless.

At the stoplight, I rolled the window down and let the warm night air wash into the car. With my head tilted back against the headrest, I scrubbed a hand over the scruff on my chin and cheeks. Admittedly, it was nice to grow it out a little instead of having to have it baby-ass smooth every day for inspection. I planned on growing my hair out a little bit, too.

I spied the pack of cigarettes lying on the floorboard of the passenger side and contemplated leaning over and picking them up and having one. I’d vowed to quit when I got out of the service, and I pretty much had, but I still wanted one occasionally.

A loud honk blaring from behind me blew that idea.

Looking in my rearview mirror, the angry driver behind me had his hands flailing around and honked again. I could hear him cussing me out through my open window and looked at the light. It was green, but we were also the only two people on the street.

What the fuck?

This guy was pissing me off.

I should have just hit the gas, but instead, I shoved the car into park. I flung open my door and got out, storming toward him. His eyes got big seeing me come at him, and miraculously, he’d stopped yelling and making hand gestures at me.

I watched as his window zipped up and he yanked the steering wheel to the right and pealed out and around my car to zoom through the light.

“That’s what I thought, asshole! Could have just gone around me earlier, you dick!” I put up both middle fingers toward his retreating piece of shit Honda.

I shook my head and got back into my car. Damn, it would have been nice to have cracked his skull. Or at least have roughed him up a little.

Reaching down to the passenger floorboard, I grabbed the cigarettes and pulled one from the pack and pushed the car’s lighter in to heat it up. Shoving the unlit cigarette behind my ear, I put the car in gear and proceeded to go, even though the light had turned red again.

Good thing the streets were empty. The lighter popped and I lit my addiction stick with it and took a drag. Thinking of the asshole who’d sped away earlier, I smiled, cigarette dangling from the corner of my mouth. Just like my mother used to – and I’d hated it when she did that. Now look at me.

Chapter 3

Talia

“I aced my History final!” I squealed to my friend and boss, Bo.

She hugged me. “That’s so great! I’m so proud of you, sweetie!”

Bo – or Bonita, the full, formal name she never used – had been a good friend and huge cheerleader of mine since my darker days. She had gotten me the job at the coffee shop and encouraged me to go back to school. She was currently managing the shop while trying to raise two daughters alone, and I admired her strength.

When her (now ex) husband had put her in the ICU with a few broken bones and facial swelling that made her almost unrecognizable, I had crumpled in grief when I’d visited her at the hospital. I couldn’t believe a human being could do that to another. I’d held her hand while she cried, and had driven her home from the hospital when she’d been strong enough to leave.

Watching her struggle to pay for a divorce attorney and restraining order and remain strong for her daughters gave me the strength I needed to break the addiction I was currently living with. An addiction that had been the demise of my mother, one that had made me so angry at her. And there I was, following in her footsteps, a path I most certainly didn’t need to be taking.

After getting her life together, Bo had told me sternly it was time for me to get clean. I had only been 21 at the time, and she saw some potential in me that I hadn’t seen in myself. She showed me that strength came in all forms, and when she helped me get clean, I felt like I finally had family again, even if she wasn’t blood. And in my case, blood most certainly wasn’t thicker than water.

Breaking my addiction to cocaine was the single hardest thing I’d ever done. Not even burying my mother or watching my father leave out the front door with a suitcase in his hand when I was 10 years old was harder. No. Breaking a drug addiction was the worst pain of my life.

The day before I’d entered rehab, I made sure to go out with a bang. I’d snorted all the coke I could get my hands on, then I drank a shitload of whiskey and whatever else they had at the party I’d gone to. I woke a couple days later lying next to some dude on the floor of the house I’d been partying at. He looked in as bad of shape as me.

I don’t even remember how I got home early that morning. I really don’t. The suitcase lying open and empty on my bed sobered me up pretty fast, though. With a banging headache, a few trips to the porcelain god to throw up, and cottonmouth from hell, I had packed that suitcase and called Bo to tell her I was ready to go. Even though my hands were shaking something fierce and tears were beginning to form in my eyes.

She’d dropped me off at the New Beginnings Treatment Center here in Tampa and I had been terrified the first day – which didn’t turn out to be so bad. I was shown to a room, and then to where the dining hall was. By the end of that first night, I was sad and down, but okay, my resolve strong.

I woke the next morning in pain. I was shaking even worse and it felt like all my nerve endings were on fire. They were crying out for the drug they were so used to getting, but I was depriving them of it.

“It hurts,” I’d sobbed to the counselor. “It hurts bad. Can’t you give me something?” I’d asked, begging her for mercy.

She’d looked at me with kind, mocha colored eyes and skin the color of chocolate and had shook her head. “I’m sorry, sweetie, no.”

Then came the profuse vomiting and the sweating as the drug worked itself out of my system. It had been so bad, I’d almost passed out from the pain. I had cried and pulled my hair out until it lay in pieces on the bathroom floor. I had tried to be strong but eventually succumbed to sleep, and I think I slept for two days straight after that.

When I woke, I felt better. I attempted to eat a little and tried to distract myself with TV, reading, and talking to the other residents. I had been proud I’d gone through the worst, but little did I know, the worst was yet to come. I had another 27 days to get through without anything stronger than aspirin.

I shook my head at the memory. It plagued me night and day. I had never told another living soul except Bo.

“You’re almost there, baby girl,” Bo said, shoving a cupful of ground espresso into the machine and pushing the start button.

I wiped my hands on my apron and filled a paper cup with steaming hot, dark coffee from the tall, stainless-steel container, then I secured a plastic lid on top.

“I know. I’m so close. I just wish I knew what kind of job I wanted after I got my degree.”

She smirked at me while dumping a shot glass of espresso into a larger plastic cup filled with something white and foamy. “You’ll figure it out. You’re bright and ridiculously smart.”

I grinned a little. She was so good at charming people, at making people smile. It was why she made manager of this store so quickly. She had the ability to smile through her pain and put on a pretty, happy face, even when she wanted to die. Those were her words, not mine, but I could relate.

My phone vibrated in my apron pocket and I waited until there were no more customers in my line before walking into the back room to check it. It was a text from Ellis.

U busy tonight? I need to see your beautiful red-headed self.

I sighed. My night was wide open and the thought of seeing him exhilarated me a little, but also scared me. I was supposed to be distancing myself from him, because he just wasn’t good for me. So if I let him in and he hurt me, I had nobody to blame but myself.

Still, my heart ached at the thought of seeing him. I’d told him to leave a few nights ago. But he obviously knew this dysfunctional connection between us was still very, very strong. I bit my lip in contemplation. Do I want to have him just for a night, his body next to mine, his breath in my ear, his sexy, deep voice dripping words from a talented tongue that I knew was mere lip service by a set of beautiful, perfect lips, just to have the pain of my bed being empty come morning?

Yes, yes I did.

So I responded to him:
Sorry, baby. Maybe some other night.

The fact that I wanted him made me turn him down to spare me the heartache. The fact that I called him baby just to keep him hanging on was my insecurity showing. Maybe I was just as much of an asshole as he was. Oh, the games we play.

The next night was nothing different. He’d actually not texted back last night, but today, he was back at it. I was on the closing shift again today, and the texts from him started late afternoon:

I can’t stay away from you much longer, beautiful.

I’m coming over tonight, and you’re going to be happy when I arrive. Trust me.

I rolled my eyes at his attempt at charm. I had just taken my last final today and had a glorious two weeks off until next semester. I wouldn’t get home ‘til late, but that never stopped him before. I wanted to see him – I always wanted to see him – but I knew I shouldn’t.

However, that didn’t stop me from texting him back and telling him I was free.

Why did I do that?

Ellis:
What time you get off?

Me:
9

Ellis:
I’ll be over at 9:15.

I bit my lip again. I knew why he was coming over. It was the only reason he ever came over. But I missed him, even if I was stupid and shouldn’t be. I needed to find myself another guy. Get into a “real” relationship with someone who wasn’t so messed up. Not that I wasn’t screwed up myself, but two messy people trying to love each other was not going to work. I needed a normal guy who would worship me and buy me jewelry with his good-paying job. Not this scarred-up dude who didn’t know how to express his emotions and said “fuck” too much.

My reply:
See you then.

See? I’m no better than he is. We’re both a steaming, scorching, hot mess… together.

Ellis

Looking at the computer, I wondered what kind of job I should get. The job I’d had in the Marine Corps was what I’d loved, but I really didn’t learn anything much except how to kill people quickly and how to shoot a bunch of different types of weapons. That, and how to disassemble and reassemble a rifle in less than a minute. Something told me this wasn’t a skill that would get me a very high paying job. After all, who uses weapons? Military and law enforcement. I’d already done the military, and after my stint as a teen in the OAB and my arrests, there was no way I was getting a job in law enforcement. Not that I really wanted one. I’d always had some sort of aversion to cops. Probably my rebellious nature. They made me nervous.

I smirked a little at that, knowing in the back of my mind that it was wrong and stupid, but I couldn’t help it. My mom knew it, too, which is why I rarely heard from her anymore. She’d gotten remarried about two years after I joined, and I was glad she had someone to take care of her. Even as a teen I had always felt like I should be looking out for her, even though back then I mostly just looked out for myself and my homies, because I was a stupid, selfish, misguided kid. Trying to fit in where I could get in, and not caring about the repercussions or how it would impact my mom, my family, or anyone else around me.

I slammed the laptop lid closed with a sigh and scrubbed a hand over my face. Gazing around my small little mobile home, I looked at my keys lying on my kitchen counter. A smile lit up my face.

Maybe a bike ride would help my mood?

Getting up from the chair, I plucked up my keys and headed out to the parking lot. The Florida sun was blazing overhead, and the wind was warm and muggy.

Slinging my leg over my beautiful black and blue Ducati Diavel, I pushed the engine to start and rumbled out of the parking lot of my apartment complex.

I should technically be wearing a helmet, but, well, fuck that. My sunglasses helped to keep the wind out of my eyes so I could see and I felt freer weaving in and out of the downtown traffic as I made my way toward the beach highway. I heard a few honks as I wound my way through the cars, and I responded with my customary one-finger greeting, along with my accompanying cocky-ass grin.

I seemed to be able to breathe again as my bike and I reached the 275 freeway so I could ride across the bridge and clear my head as the crystal blue waters glistened under the sun. Testing the throttle, I pushed it harder than it should be pushed and my bike made a beautiful sound as it ate pavement across the bridge.

I wasn’t much to admire beauty of any kind, but the gulf coast waters made anyone who crossed their paths appreciate them. Only two other beautiful things ever made me pause. One was the smell of gunpowder after obliterating a target on shooting day, and the pearly white smile of a redhead who had flipped my life upside down.

I couldn’t explain why Talia did the things she did to me, but all I knew was that I had tried to look for another girl, I had tried sleeping with randoms I’d meet here and there, but none of them were
her
. Not even motherfucking close.

The sky and sea passed me in a blur as I continued to ride, hoping to find some sea-lined highway I could just fly down without a care in the world. But even I knew that wasn’t entirely true. I would always have cares in the world, but sometimes I wanted to forget them.

Forget that I needed to probably find a job, and soon.

Forget that I, most likely, would never sleep a full 7 or 8 hours a night uninterrupted by nightmares again for the rest of my days.

Forget that the missing finger on my left hand would never be coming back.

Forget that, despite all of the above, I would never care for anyone other than Talia ever again. I’d tried and I’d failed and now I had to figure out a way to tell her. She played games with me, and I didn’t know if it was because she was just a player herself, or because she was scared of me – of us – on some level.

I wanted to “wine and dine” her. I wanted to show her off to the world and let her meet my mom and new stepdad. But I didn’t know how to broach that conversation. I didn’t know how to do anything but strip her bare and love her with my body and feel her body loving mine back. I always wished that would be enough, but with what little I knew about women, I just knew it wouldn’t and couldn’t be.

There were friends of mine in the service who were married. Their beautiful wives seemed to be perfect for them. I should have asked them back then how they met and kept their wives. Because as of now, I was failing on a serious level and I didn’t know to bring up my score.