The Bad Boy Next Door (2 page)

It was his eyes that messed with me the most, however.

His eyes had always mesmerized me. There was a secret world of danger and violence in them I’d never been able to comprehend. I had even admitted to Mads one night, when we were sixteen and tipsy on my Dad’s
secret
bottle of Wild Turkey, that his eyes were sexy.

Right now, his eyes looked crazy. Scary crazy.

“Are you on drugs?” I asked.

There were a lot of things about Lucas that made him fall into the bad-boy category, but using had never been one of them.

Lucas liked being in control too much. I knew that.

But his eyes…

He stared at me, his chest heaving, his eyes…

Bright red fresh blood began to flow from his nose, and suddenly he staggered sideways.

“Jesus, Lucas,” I burst out, clawing myself off the bed.

I grabbed at his arm before he could collapse to the ground, steadying him with a flat palm on his chest—right above the tattoo of a raven inked over his heart. “What have you been doing?”

His gaze found mine. For a second, they were as direct and piercing as always, and then they fogged over with what I assume was pain but might be…something else.

“Ronnie?” he mumbled, raising a hand—bloody-knuckled, I noticed—to cup the side of my face. “What are you doing here? I’ll fucking kill them if they’ve hurt you.”

I frowned, alarm bells ringing in my head, my blood roaring in my ears. “We’re in my bedroom, Lucas,” I said calmly even as my tummy knotted. “You woke me in my bed. What happened to you?”

He brushed his thumb over my lips, fresh blood oozing from his nose. “Ronnie. I’ve wanted you since I first fucking saw—”

His eyes rolled back into his head and he crumpled to the ground.

I couldn’t stop him. He was too heavy, too solid. Too boneless.

By the time my brain registered he was going down, and that I was still gripping his upper arm with a firm hold, he hit the floor, taking me with him.

We hit it hard. I heard a sharp crack as his head smacked the floor. My right knee did the same and pain shot up my leg. I tried to bite back a gasp, but it escaped me before I could stop it. I’ve had surgery twice on my knee for anterior cruciate ligament damage, the last operation only a year ago. Suffice to say, my bare knee striking my floor wasn’t fun.

“Goddamn it,” I muttered, wincing at the shards of pain spearing my reconstructed knee as I tried to shift Lucas onto his back, or at least get him into a better position on his side.

Worry ate at me. Worry and fear.

I hadn’t seen my mysterious bad-boy neighbor for three months, and this is how he turns up? And who were
they
? Who did he think had me? And what had
they
done to him?

Ignoring the screaming agony in my knee, I finally managed to move him into a position I hoped was more comfortable. I stole a second to run my gaze over him.

Jesus, he was beaten black and blue. There wasn’t a part of his body not bruised or cut in some way.

I tentatively feathered my fingers over the worst-looking wounds, uncertain what to do.

Did I call 911? I had no idea how injured he was. What I did have was an idea about how often the cops came looking for him in our house during the times he was AWOL. If I called 911, would he hate me for it? Would I be putting him in more danger?

Should I ring his folks?

I needed to ring someone. Jesus, if I could afford it, I’d call a doctor at least. Someone to come check him out.

Frowning, I ran a gaze over him again. The fact he was at my house tightened something in my stomach I didn’t expect, something I hadn’t experienced since the night I’d realized I really,
really
wanted to go down on my best friend and make her scream my name.

That thing in my tummy tightened some more, radiating a heat lower into the place between my thighs that hadn’t reacted to a guy for a long time.

What the hell?

Was I seriously getting aroused? By my neighbor?

My unconscious, mysterious bad-boy neighbor who’d spent years teasing me and driving me all kinds of crazy?

What. The. Hell?

“Screw this,” I muttered with one last look at Lucas as I began to climb to my feet. “I’m calling 91—”

A hard fist wrapped around my wrist, jerking me to a halt.

“Ronnie,” Lucas’s hoarse growl scraped at my fraying state of mind.

My stare snapped to his face. He looked up at me, his eyes clear, bright. Too bright. Too intense.

“Lucas,” I said, tugging with pathetic force at his grip on my wrist. Or maybe I whispered his name. I don’t know. I felt…confused. My heart was racing. My head was roaring. “You need—”

“
You
,” he snarled, the word thick with hunger, before he yanked me downward and captured my lips with his.

He took savage possession of my mouth, his tongue and teeth wild. He fisted his hands in my hair with painful pleasure, and before I could stop the whimper of unexpected rapture vibrating in my throat, he flipped me onto my back and pinned me to the floor.

All without surrendering ownership of my lips.

In fact, his kiss turned hungrier.

Hotter.

His hips ground to mine, his rigid cock damn near penetrating my pussy. My heart leapt into frenzied life, slamming into my throat as his thighs slid over mine. He swept his tongue into my mouth, over and over, seeking out mine.

I want to say I bucked him off and scrambled away. I want to say I lashed out at him with my feet. He was my bastard bad-boy neighbor, after all, and I was not in the market for the kind of insanity being kissed by him would bring.

I
want
to say all those things, but I can’t.

A need crashed through me so powerful, so absolute I couldn’t resist it. A ravenous craving to surrender to the unexpected pleasure consuming me at Lucas’s rough domination of my body and mouth.

I whimpered again, louder this time, and shoved my hips upward, aching to feel his hard cock part my folds and slam into me. I clawed at his back, lashed at his tongue with my own.

He groaned in return, dragging one hand from my hair and down over my shoulder until he reached my breast.

He closed his fingers over its swell, rubbing his palm at my distended nipple, moving his mouth to my jaw, my throat, up to my ear.

“Ronnie,” he rasped against my temple. “I thought I’d never see you again.”

I arched beneath him, in part because his fingers had found my nipple with pinching flicks that detonated wicked sensations in my very center, in part because I desperately wanted to feel more of his cock sliding past my pussy lips.

“I don’t…” I began, but he silenced me with a kiss more hungry and savage than the first.

And as before, I had no hope of denying how my body reacted to it. How every fiber in my body craved more.

I’d never had this kind of overwhelming, intoxicating, body-rocking reaction to a kiss before. This was nothing like anything I’d experienced before.

Wild. Animalistic. Carnal. Insane.

I never wanted it to stop.

But it did.

Lucas tore his lips from mine and, as my raw moan of dismay filled the room’s silence, he lowered his head to my breast and claimed my nipple with his mouth. Sucked on it.

“Oh God!” I burst out, gouging at his back with my nails. “Oh God, Lucas.”

He didn’t stop. I didn’t want him to.

Instead, he shoved his hand down between our naked bodies—now slicked with perspiration—and plunged a finger into my sex.

“Fuck!” I bucked beneath him, thrusting my hips up into the exquisite invasion. “Fuck, Lucas, what are you—”

He crushed my lips again with his, smothering my exclamation in a kiss I didn’t even bother to resist. I wanted him to kiss me. I wanted him to fuck me with his finger.

I wanted him to fuck me with his fingers, his tongue, his cock.

I wanted him to completely take me in every way.

Which should have unnerved me to no end.

Instead, it drove me to roll my hips harder to his, taking his finger deeper into my pussy.

He growled into my mouth, his tongue battling mine as he stroked my G-spot.

Concentrated pleasure sheared through me. I pulled away from the kiss, incapable of holding back my cry, needing to let it tear from me as what felt like an orgasm began to throb in my core.

Oh God, I was about to come.

I was about to come and my asshole neighbor was the one responsible for it.

How did this happen? How?

Lucas stroked his finger faster inside me, fisted his other hand in my hair again and ravished my throat with branding bites, working his way down to my breasts once more.

He licked and bit and sucked my nipples, first one and then the other, his erection rubbing high against my inner thigh.

“Oh God, Lucas,” I groaned, tossing my head side-to-side. “I don’t…I don’t…”

Want you to stop.

Understand.

Both fit. Both ended the sentence perfectly. Both didn’t come close to describing my state of mind. My mind was lost to the pleasure of his touch. My body was equally adrift, burning up with the wicked sensations consuming me.

I erupted in an orgasm more brutal than any I’d had before. It tore through me, a potent, fierce wave of concentrated pleasure that swept aside any control or decorum I had. I cried out, arching and writhing and bucking beneath him.

And as I did, Lucas yanked his fingers from my pussy and replaced them with his tongue, penetrating my seam with wild strokes, licking at my clit with flicking stabs.

Another orgasm crashed through me. I bucked again, every fiber in my body thrumming with wave after wave of incredible pleasure.

I clawed at the top of his head, at the floor, my heels skidding and slipping on the polished wooden surface as I tried to ram my sex harder to his amazing mouth.

He growled against my flesh, grabbing my butt and jerking my hips upward, his tongue on my clit as he pulled my lower body, my back off the floor.

I whimpered, my shoulders driving against the floorboards, my thighs suddenly draped over his broad shoulders.

For a moment, a split second of rational thought had me wondering how he could be so rough, so strong, when he was so beaten, and then he nipped at my clit, and I couldn’t think of anything else at all except how good it felt.

My third orgasm tore a wild, groaning cry from me. I whimpered his name, over and over, undone by it all.

He didn’t stop fucking me with his mouth. Not until I rolled my head and slapped my hand weakly on the floor, too drained to do more. “Lucas,” I panted. “I can’t…no more…”

He removed his mouth from my pussy and captured my inner thigh with his lips, sucking hard on the flesh there.

I cried out, arching once more, stunned at how I could still experience pleasure after such a mind-shattering orgasm. But I did. Lots of pleasure. As he branded my thigh with his mouth, I moaned and whimpered his name.

“Lucas…oh God, Lucas…”

He lifted his head from my thigh, blew a fine stream of air on my bruised flesh and then crawled up my body. Covered it with his.

His thick, hard cock nudged at my pussy lips. Parted them.

My breath caught in my throat. I froze beneath him, clinging to his shoulders, my thighs hugging his legs, our groins completely aligned.

I knew what was going to happen next.

I knew it was wrong.

I knew I had to stop him.

I knew all these things.

Knowing, however, meant nothing at that point in time.

All that my brain, my body, my heart hung on, was the exquisite sensation of his cock inching into my sex. His flesh penetrating mine.

“They will never hurt you, Ronnie,” he growled, his face bare inches from mine, his fingers tangling in my hair, his cock parting my folds more. “I will kill them before they—”

His eyes unfocussed. Just like that, his eyes lost all clarity. The lucidity vanished from his stare and, with a sharp groan, the rigidity left his body and he slumped on top of me.

Motionless.

I
t took me longer than it should to wriggle out from beneath him. I was worried. No, more than worried. I was scared.

Scared he had life-threatening internal injuries that were surely killing him.

Scared of the raw desire for him crashing through me like a tsunami.

Scared of what he’d said before he’d fallen unconscious.
Who
will never hurt me? Why would he think someone
wanted
to hurt me?

It was too much to handle.

Finally free of his limp weight, I snatched up the phone and called 911. I had no other choice. I had to do what I thought was best, and what I thought was best right at that very second in time was keeping him alive.

Dispatch answered on the fifth ring—yes, I counted them. It was a way to try to make myself calm down and not panic that I may be doing the wrong thing.

I asked for an ambulance, gave my address and told them to hurry, all without taking my stare off Lucas where he lay motionless on the floor.

When I was asked what was the nature of the emergency, I answered as honestly as I could. “My neighbor has been beaten up. He’s unconscious on my bedroom floor and his injuries are really bad.”

When I was asked for his name, I didn’t give it. Instead, I urged them to hurry.

I had no idea what was going on with Lucas, but I figured it was better not to give his name out. Not on the phone.

“Your name is?”

“Ronnie,” I answered, staring at Lucas. Shit, was he still breathing? Was he? “Hurry up and get the fuck here.”

I disconnected before I could be asked anything else that might make Lucas furious with me. As it was, I suspected he was going to kick my ass when he regained consciousness.

Tossing my phone onto the bed, I crouched down beside him and pressed my fingers gently to his throat.

His pulse beat against my fingertips in a weak throb. So faint, so slow it scared me all over again.

“If you die on me, Lucas Pratt,” I muttered, “I’m going to be pissed at you.”

I straightened to my feet. I had to get some clothes on before the paramedics arrived.