The XOXO New Adult Collection: 16 Full Length New Adult Stories (334 page)

The metal door opened and closed. When he looked up to grab the next ID, he froze.

Standing a few feet from him stood Karma. She was wearing a low-cut silver dress that nearly stopped his heart. Her eyes seemed to glow from the lights. He could see the uncertainty in her gaze. Why was she here? What did it mean?

Eva nudged her forward.

Jax stood up and walked around the counter. He approached slowly. Afraid to make the wrong move.

Karma nervously pushed her hair away from her face.

Eva looked between the two of them, and then let herself through the double doors.

His heart hammered against his chest. Someone banged on the door, but he ignored them.

He was so close he could smell her shampoo. It was killing him. He wanted to reach out and touch her smooth, creamy skin, and the curve of her neck. Looking down at the swell of her breast was enough to make him come unglued.

“Jax,” she whispered.

He touched her face tentatively, holding her gaze. When she didn’t pull away his lips brushed hers and he felt the familiar electric current pass between them. He actually trembled when her lips opened willingly.

Karma leaned into the kiss, closing her eyes. Jax ran the palm of his hand down her smooth shoulder and dropped it to her waist, pulling her body to his. She melded perfectly to his contours as if they were made for each other. He kissed her slowly, taking his time. He couldn’t believe she was back in his arms.

Suddenly, he pulled away. Her face was flushed and her eyes shone brightly. “Karma, why are you here?”

The pounding on the door continued and Jax glared at the door. “One minute.”

He walked quickly through the doors and grabbed Rob, one of the other bouncers. “I gotta head out for the night. Take my place at the front. I’ll let my brother-in-law know.”

Rob shrugged and followed him to the front.

Jax grabbed Karma’s hand and they walked out the front door into the cool night air. As they walked his mind raced. He was still sorta pissed at the way she’d left him. They didn’t even have their last day together. But he also wanted to hear what she had to say.

Once they were far enough away from the club-goers waiting to enter, Jax stopped and turned to face her. “What’s going on?”

Karma looked down at her feet and then back at Jax. “I miss you.”

The simple words disarmed him, but he wasn’t going to let her off the hook that easily. “You could have returned my calls.”

“I wanted to give myself space. I figured it took three weeks for me to fall in love with you. I wanted to see if it would take three weeks to get you out of my system.”

He stood motionless. She loved him? His heart pounded. “And did it work? Am I out of your system?”

“Obviously not if I’m standing here right now. I understand if you don’t want anything to do with me. I guess I just wanted to tell you I’ve figured some things out in the last few weeks.”

“Such as?”

“It’s okay to fail. I realized running away from you because I was afraid I might get hurt was one of the stupidest things I’ve ever done. All my life I’ve wanted to be someone else, until I met you. I love the way I feel when I’m with you. I love who I am when I’m with you. For the first time in my life I actually like what I see in the mirror. I had to make sure I wasn’t using you as a crutch.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. I found out that even without you, I still liked who I had become. Which made me realize I was a complete idiot. Hell, we might not even work out. You might not even give me a second chance, or we could crash and burn in weeks. But to give up something that brings me so much pleasure because of fear is absurd. I don’t think I would ever have figured that out on my own if it hadn’t been for that stupid list.”

Jax swallowed, not trusting himself to speak. A rush of desire so sudden and fierce flowed through him. He could almost feel her firm breasts filling his hands, her thick thighs cradling him between them. He was hard and could hardly breathe.

“Do you still want me?” Karma whispered, her voice breaking.

“More than anything.”

Karma’s face lit up and she threw her arms around him. He couldn’t get her back to his place fast enough.

––––––––

J
ax had been awake for nearly an hour. His arm was cramped and painful, but he didn’t move it. Karma lay still in his arms, her arm wrapped around his waist. He wanted to slide his hands down her body, but she looked too peaceful. Her warm breath on his chest was like heaven. As usual, his cock ached to be inside of her.

Her eyes fluttered open, and she gave him a sleepy smile that made his stomach dip. “I was afraid I was going to wake up and find out last night was just a dream.” Her hand lazily roamed over his chest.

“Me too. I didn’t want to fall asleep. But it’s not a dream.” He pressed his lips to her temple. “I’ve been lying awake thinking that we needed to clarify something.”

“Such as?”

“I don’t want to share you, Karma.” Her hand stopped moving and she went very still. “Are you willing to make this exclusive?”

“Of course, Jax. I only want you, and I’d be green with envy if you were with anyone else.”

He searched her face and any doubts slipped away. “Thank god.” He pulled her against his chest and rolled on top of her, adjusting his body to give him room for his hand to slide down to her breast. He rubbed his thumb back and forth over her nipple, which quickly hardened from his touch.

Karma tilted her head back and he dipped his head to catch her lips with his—they were warm and sweet. Without hesitation, her tongue swirled around his mouth. Jax groaned.

Her small soft hands moved down his back. He pulled away to grab a condom.

“Jax.” Her voice was urgent and demanding. Her legs dropped to the side and she raised her hips.

“Jesus, Karma.” Jax’s voice was husky as his body joined with hers. A wild desire drove his body. Her soft moans and cries only increased his pleasure.

He was never going to get enough of this girl, and he planned on spending the rest of his days proving that to her.

Now or Never

Truth or Dare

Hired Gun 1

Hired Gun 2

Hired Gun 3

http://www.ajbennettauthor.com

L
iv

FUCKING SPLINTERS! I HATED
them, and now, they stuck into my flesh as I sprung over an old, rotting wooden fence and landed hard on the balls of my feet, sending pins and needles shooting up my legs. I didn’t have time to pull the slivers out. I had to keep going or
he
would catch up, and that would be the end of the line for me. It would all be over. All the crap that I’d been working toward for half a year would be for nothing—nothing but ashes in the wind. If I didn’t lose my pursuer, I would be in a heap of trouble, more than I already had in my hot little hands.

Which brought me to the reason I was running away from the damn bastard in the first place; it wasn’t that he didn’t deserve the wreck of the wrath I’d left behind me. If anyone deserved to get their digs torched to the ground, it was Ruben. No one would ever make me, Liv Westing, do their bidding ever again. Never. And no one would ever hurt me or my sister Audrey ever again— that, I promised myself with every living atom of my being.

I spotted our rusted, ancient station wagon down the street as I emerged from behind an old one story stucco, two bedroom shack which matched the entire block in its tired crumbling state. The poor construction was evident throughout the neighborhood and left it looking like the epitome of ghetto America, forgotten and left to the rats, human and rodent alike. I could feel eyeballs peeking from behind the dirt stained windows and stares from people sitting in their dollar store plastic lawn chairs with their paint-spotted jeans as they pointed toward me racing down the cracked asphalt of the decaying urban street. They didn’t concern me one bit. All of them were what I swore I would never become. For this, I ran. I would run from this kind of life, trapped in a rotting suburbia, until I collapsed, if I had to.

My muscles burned, and my chest felt like it was swelling up into an asthmatic fit, but I kept on. The station wagon was getting closer and closer, and I prayed Audrey had the engine already running. Relieved to spot the vapor puffing from the tailpipe, dirtying the air behind the car, I huffed in a deeper breath and booked it. Audrey was waiting and would slam the gas to get the hell out of Dodge, if needed. Thank God. I waved her down madly, gripping the wrapped canvas bag I had tucked under my left arm. I couldn’t glance behind me. I just couldn’t let myself realize the dread I could feel crawling inside if I saw Ruben closing in on me, right on my heels. Nope, couldn’t turn around now.

“Open the door!” I hollered toward Audrey, hoping she could hear me over the obnoxious humming of the engine of our vehicle. It may have been old, and it may have been worn out like an old shoe and sputter coughed like the best of the old clunkers, but it had been our home many times over and held our entire world within its belly. Now, it would be our rescuer once more, our knight in shiny armor of metal and rust.

Audrey leaned over and opened the door, giving it a good heave to send the heavy door swinging outward just in time for me to lunge inside, grip the door with my free hand, and yank it with all my strength to pull it shut.

“Go, go, go!”

The screech of tires and the smell of rubber permeated the air as the station wagon lurched forward, the belts screaming in protest but catching enough to send us on our way. My heart was racing, but I finally let myself chance a peek behind us. I could now actually hope that we had, maybe, just maybe, gotten away by the skin of our teeth.

Ruben was hollering, cursing and throwing the bat he had in his hand toward the car. He was too far behind us to catch up, and it hit with a gentle thump on the street before it went rolling away into the muck lined gutter. He was furious, his face an unhealthy scarlet, while he was drenched with sweat dripping down his light blue button up shirt from the chase he’d given.

Not bad for an out of shape swindler. The sweat stains down the front and on the sides of the blue material made me smirk at him as he slowed down, his hands on his knees as he desperately tried to catch his breath, retching out his lunch instead. His slight potbelly was in the way, the one too many Philly-steak sandwiches he loved so much were doing a number on him right now. I laughed and turned back to the road, giggling to myself as his yells faded and his robust figure disappeared in the kicked up dust cloud swirling around behind us.

“Yeah!” I couldn’t contain my glee. Damn bastard could eat our dust.

“Did you get it?” Audrey’s voice brought me back to the car, shushing my laugh as I watched her face, steady and still. Her hazel eyes focused on the street as she slowed just enough to make the turn onto the highway. The sunset made her eyes glow, like embers flickering against the sun’s last rays. Her face hid the concern that had probably eaten at her while she had waited for me as I conned Ruben out of his money stash. It was now smoothing over with relief, though caution still etched itself across her pretty, youthful face, making her look even younger than she was.

“Yep, got the whole darn thing. Ruben’s shitting bricks now!” I let out my breath, sucking in a deep slow one, still trying to catch my breath from the sprint for my life I had just done.

She nodded. “Good.”

I was the younger one. At nineteen, I’d lived my life recklessly, yet Audrey, at twenty, was decades more mature than I was. She was the well versed one, the one that was always praised by teachers and got the good grades. Me−I was the letdown, the one that never got it right. I was okay with that though. I loved her with every fiber of my being, and I looked up to her, hoping one day my wild streak would fade down and I’d become more like her. She was the good girl. I was the bad one. We balanced each other like a yin and yang. That was the way I liked it. I had hoped it was enough for her too, at least for now.

“Oh, I accidentally set his place on fire too,” I mumbled.

“You what?” Audrey chanced a wide-eyed glance toward me before shifting her shocked face back to the road. The wagon bounced on its worn-down shocks as we jumped over the incline onto the highway, headed toward San Diego. Arizona’s arid desert had shriveled us up, and it was high time we headed to the humidity of the west coast beaches.

“Hey, I ran into his stupid candle set up. He had them all lit up. You know how much he just loves his potpourri and incense. The place smelled like some apple pie convention. Any man who likes candles that much has got to have something wrong with him,” I snickered. Pulling the worn canvas bag onto my lap from the floor where I had dropped it. I yanked at the strings that held the opening shut. Reaching in, I plucked out one of the many thick rolls of bills, squealing from excitement. I’d hit the jackpot. Discovering the safe Ruben kept haphazardly hidden in his apartment was unsecured, he’d made it too easy to rob him blind. The lock was broken from a previous robbery, and he’d neglected to get it fixed but still kept on using the darn thing. Not too smart there, if you ask me. His loss.

“How much do you think was in there?” Audrey asked. Her knuckles were white from gripping the steering wheel. I was sure she was having a small heart attack even now, being so used to my crazy antics. It wasn’t until we hit the city limits of Flagstaff that she even began to relax. However, the tension in her jaw was still there, making her grind her teeth back and forth, a habit I repeatedly reminded her not to do.

“I don’t know...looks like mostly hundreds and twenties. I think there has to be at least ten...maybe fifteen thousand here.” I smiled, stuffing the bills back into the bag and tucking it under my seat. I slipped down into the soft, worn half-leather, half-weaved canvas seat, which felt more like home to me than any other place had for a long time. It sighed under my weight as I brought my legs up onto the dashboard.