The Bad Boy Next Door (8 page)

“To start with, it was because I was a fucked-up teenager with a shit load of anger and hate directed at a world that had shown me and my mom nothing but cruelty and pain. But then…” He drew in a slow breath and looked back up at me again. “But then my mom met my stepdad, and we moved to Willow Falls and I met you and my view on life changed.”

I swallowed. “Are you…did you…” My heart was going crazy. My tummy was a tornado of sickened confusion and uncertainty. I knew Lucas was dangerous, but my brain couldn’t coincide the arrogant bastard guy from next door with the kind of sadistic murderers the Trinity members were known for being.

“Am I still a member?”

All I could do was nod silently and stiltedly at his calm question.

“That’s another yes-and-no answer, I’m afraid.”

The complete non-answer pushed me over the edge. Red-hot fury flooded through me, a torrent of rage unlike any I’d ever experienced.

“Fuck you, Pratt,” I snarled, shoving at his shoulder with all my strength before scrambling off the bed. Screw his injuries. Screw his mysterious charm and dangerous sexiness. “I’m out of here.”

I stomped away from the bed, snatching up my clothes from the floor as I did so. I didn’t want to be near him anymore. I couldn’t deal with this.

He snagged my wrist before I made it to the bedroom door. Yanked me to a halt.

I spun on my heel, smashing my fist into his jaw.

I can punch hard when I want to, and I wanted to punch so very hard right at that second.

His jaw crunched against my knuckles. Pain sheared through my hand, up my arm, into my shoulder.

I didn’t care. The sight of his head snapping backward under the force of my punch filled me with a bleak, cold joy. “Stay away from me, Pratt. Don’t ever touch or talk to me again.”

His grip on my wrist didn’t slacken. In fact, it grew to a painful vice. Without so much as a grunt, his stare found mine once again. “The last woman who hit me ended up in hospital, Ronnie,” he declared, his voice calm. So calm.

My stomach rolled. My throat seized up.

“Why am I not surprised?” I shot back. I was operating on incensed adrenaline now. It occurred to me, in amongst all my rage and contempt, that all this scintillating conversation was taking place while we were both naked.

Seriously, folks. How fucked up was that?

“I didn’t put her there,” he said, still calm. “A cop did. The cop who is trying to fuck me over.”

For the gazillionth time in the last twenty-four hours, I was at a complete loss for what to say.

So I said “What?”

Lucas released my wrist. “How about we get dressed, I’ll make us coffee and something to eat and tell you everything?”

Studying him, I rubbed at my wrist.

Grief and guilt filled his expression. “I’m sorry, Ronnie,” he said, rubbing at the back of his neck. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

It didn’t hurt, but I felt wounded all the same.

Letting out a sigh, I shook my head. “You didn’t.”

Relief washed over his face.

“Go put some clothes on, Pratt,” I ordered, knowing I sounded tired and drained. “I’m assuming you have some here?”

He gave me a lopsided grin. “Yeah, I do. And so do you.”

I blinked. “I what?”

“There’s clothes for you in the closet.” He nodded his head toward the wall on the other side of the room. “If you want to put something fresh on.”

I don’t know what I was more stunned by. That there were clothes here for me, Or the fact Lucas didn’t seem contrite about that fact.

“My clothes?” I asked, my tummy churning in a very unexpected way. “From my closet in my house?”

He chuckled. “No. Clothes I bought for you.”

And with that, he turned on his heel and wandered into the room’s bathroom.

I heard the distinct and unmistakable sound of him emptying his bladder a few seconds later.

“Are you kidding me?” I shouted at the open door. I was a mess of anger, incredulous disbelief and something so much more disquieting: contentment.

His answering chuckle wafted out to where I still stood near the bedroom door. “We all pee, Ronnie. It’s a natural part of life.”

I ground my teeth, rolled my eyes and stomped my way to the bathroom.

“Sure,” I snapped, glaring at him where he stood in front of the toilet. “I just don’t want to hear it.”

I pulled the door shut on his smirk.

Lucas fucking Pratt. Bastard.

Thrumming with an energy I wasn’t yet prepared to contemplate, I flung my glare toward what I’d assumed was—on first entering the master suite—some kind of feature wall, but was apparently the closet.

There were no handles or hinges or anything that would suggest it was anything other than a wall, but that was the direction Lucas had indicated with his head earlier when dropping the bomb I had clothes here.

Eyes narrowing, I crossed to the wall. I let out a soft gasp as I realized it wasn’t a wall as such, but a divider almost the length of the room behind which was the closet.

The biggest walk-in closet I’ve ever seen.

On one side hung a collection of clothes that could only belong to Lucas. Jeans, shirts and suits. Suits. Oh God, how freaking sexy would he look in a suit? I couldn’t begin to imagine. If I did, I’d probably have some kind of mental orgasm.

On the other side…

My heart tripped over itself as I stared at the clothes on the other side of the closet.

Dresses. More dresses than I’ve ever owned. Exquisite silky dresses. Beautiful shimmery dresses. Mini dresses in a variety of fabrics. Maxi dresses in flowy chiffon. So many dresses. Beside the dresses, were shelves full of denim—jeans of all shades of blue and black. I’ve been a sucker for jeans for as long as I can remember, a fact Lucas was plainly aware of. I could also see denim shorts and denim miniskirts.

And I could see T-shirts.

If there’s one item of clothing I have a weakness for, it’s T-shirts. Especially T-shirts with retro logos on them. And in amongst all those folded T-shirts, I glimpsed what could only be the logos for the Rolling Stones,
Star Wars
,
Ghostbusters
, the Ramones, AC/DC, Wonder Woman…

Oh boy.

I moved deeper into the walk-in closet, trying to hold onto my fury at Lucas but damn near salivating at all those T-shirts.

And then I spied the shoes and kind of lost it for a second.

Doc Martens and Chucks and flip-flops and strappy stilettoes of all colors lined up beside each other. I didn’t need to pick up any of them up to know they were my size.

Oh boy. Again.

Clothes. For me. Picked for me. Bought for me.

By who? Lucas? Or the good doctor? I couldn’t picture Lucas in any kind of store that would sell women’s clothing. Not at all.

Chest tight, pulse pounding, I approached the shelves of denim shorts and trailed my fingertips over them.

Dressed. I needed to get dressed. So I could tell Lucas exactly what I thought of—

“I’ve always loved your ass in those short shorts you wear.”

I startled at Lucas’s deep voice to my right.

He leant against the inside wall of the closet, his grin lazy and satisfied as he watched me. There was no way I could miss the fact he was still naked. Christ, he was the most exquisite example of the male species I’ve ever encountered. And the most arrogant.

Prick.

Of course, that didn’t stop my body reacting to the open hunger in his eyes as he regarded me, or the sheer maleness of his naked form.

Stupid body.

“In that case,” I said, turning back to the clothes, “I think I’ll wear a maxi dress so you can’t—”

His laughter preceded his firm grip on my wrist, which preceded—by barely a heartbeat—him yanking me to his chest and crushing my mouth with his.

The possessive kiss lasted a split second. Long enough for me to realize I had fuck-all chance of resisting him.

And then he let me go with another chuckle.

I swayed on my feet for a second. Swayed. For a goddamn second.

He chuckled, and slapped my ass. “Short shorts, Ronnie.”

Grinding my teeth, I watched him turn to
his
side of the closet and select a pair of Levis that looked like they’d been worn a hundred times.

I made the mistake of tracking his hands as he shook out his jeans, which brought my line of sight dangerously close to his groin.

My pulse quickened as his impressive cock came into my peripheral and, muttering, “Bastard prick,” loud enough for him to hear me, I snatched a pair of shorts from my side, along with a T-shirt.

Shorts.

Yeah, I know.

Without looking at Lucas, I stomped from the closet and across the bedroom.

My overnight bag with my toiletries was still in my car in the garage. I
could
stomp out to it naked to collect it, thereby allowing me to apply my jasmine-scented deodorant, or I could stomp into the bathroom and use Lucas’s deodorant.

I stomped to the bathroom.

Screw him.

I’d just finished dousing my armpits in sandalwood-scented spray when Lucas came up behind me.

His hands slid over my hips. My
bare
hips. Damn it, why hadn’t I at least put my shorts on first?

Because I wanted him to come in here to me?

He pressed his groin to my ass, the smooth denim of his jeans a wicked friction against my skin. “Sure you want to talk, Ronnie?” he murmured into my ear, his lips a tickling caress. A ripple of excitement licked up my spine. My nipples pebbled.

Sucking in a sharp breath, I turned to face him. His palms burned my hips, hot and confident and possessive. His eyes blazed with the same arrogance. And yet I could see in him an uncertainty. A vulnerability I’d never seen before.

With a ragged sigh, I nodded. “I’m sure, Lucas. I need to know what’s going on, and you need to tell me. Before whatever
this
is between us becomes something else.”

He searched my eyes, maybe to see if he could convince me otherwise. Maybe glad for the fact I was forcing him to finally share what he’d kept from me for so long.

The thing was, now it was going to happen, I wasn’t sure I wanted it to. Ignorance is bliss and all. When I knew, I had no way of
unknowing
, and I’d spent so many years operating on the assumption the boy next door was a prick with an attitude and chip on his broad shoulder, I didn’t know if I was ready to discover he was anything but.

“Finish getting dressed, Ronnie,” he said, his tone calm and enigmatic. “I’ll wait for you in the living room.”

He dropped a gentle kiss on my forehead—quick and tender and utterly unlike any kiss he’d given me before—and then turned to leave.

“Lucas?” I called after him.

He stopped. “Yes?”

“Why tell me to pack an overnight bag given there’s a whole wardrobe here for me?” I drew a steadying breath. “I mean, if I looked hard enough in these cupboards, what are the chances of me finding toiletries for me?”

He let out a low chuckle. “The chances are very high.”

“So why make me pack a bag?”

He dropped his head. “Because the chances of me not surviving the trip here were higher.”

I swallowed.

Lucas turned and left me alone in the bathroom.

It took me longer to get dressed than it should, given all I was doing was pulling on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt.

The T-shirt was snug and had a deep V neckline that showed more cleavage than I was normally comfortable with. But even with the mayhem and confusion on the last few hours, the thought of Lucas being able to check out my boobs in such a way made my pussy contract with wicked excitement.

The shorts
were
short. You could damn near see my butt cheeks peeking out from beneath the frayed hemline.

I studied my reflection in the mirror, my heart racing. and let out a shaky sigh when I realized I couldn’t stand in the bathroom any longer.

By the time I descended the stairs from the top floor to the living room level, the delicious aroma of freshly brewed coffee filled the air. My mouth filled with saliva.

Lucas looked up from where he was placing a steaming mug on the dining table, along with what looked like a platter of freshly cut fruit. “Like the shorts,” he said.

I flipped him off, even as my tummy twisted with in purely sexual delight.

Without any other response, I crossed to the table, lowered myself in a seat and snagged one of the coffees.

Lucas watched me take a sip. I
watched
him watch me.

An enigmatic expression flickered over his face and then he walked back into the kitchen.

Taking another sip of the coffee, I continued to watch him as he placed a pan on the stovetop and turned on the gas. The coffee was good. So good. The bastard. Of course he would make the best coffee I’ve ever had.

“It was the cop who asked me to kill someone.”

My stomach rolled at his statement, uttered in an offhand way over his shoulder as he cracked an egg into the pan.

The sizzling pop and crackle of the egg frying filled the silence between us. I was glad for that. I had no fucking clue what to say. I’d grown up without hearing statements like that. The most horrific statement I’d ever heard in my formative years, those years responsible for how you deal with stressful situations, was, “Veronica, would you like to go to the Justin Bieber concert?”

When Lucas turned back to me, his eyes were angry. And haunted. “The cop—a piece of work called Officer Dewey—became obsessed with me after watching me on the underground MMA circuit. One night, he followed me after a fight. That was how he discovered I was a member of Trinity. He used it as a means to initiate a relationship with me.”

I didn’t like the way he said
relationship
. Not at all. My face must have shown it.

Lucas chuckled, the sound bleak and dry and without any humor at all. “Yeah, he wanted to fuck me. When I emphatically said no, he gave me two options—let him fuck me or be arrested.”

The wave of nauseous tension that had been churning in my stomach turned into a tidal wave of sickened disbelief. I knew cops weren’t all paragons of virtue, but blackmailing a teenager into sex? Jesus.