Sweetest Sin: Bad Boy Bundle (50 page)

Table of Contents

Off Limits

Fling

Improper

Old School

Dane

Chapter One

Lola

Hurtling through dark roads in my new car wasn't exactly the ideal evening. I was frustrated, angry and above all, tired. My dream job at a fashion magazine had seemed like a blessing at first but it had sapped up all of my time since I had begun. It seemed that ninety percent of my time was taken up by work. The other ten was the commute. My god, the commute was the worst part.

Two hours each way, through abandoned country roads. I could go the whole journey without seeing another human being, forget another car. All I had to keep me company was the radio, which blasted country music to keep me awake. Tonight even that wasn't working.

"Focus Lola," I muttered through gritted teeth, „Don’t fall asleep." It was easier said than done, however.

I felt my eyes growing heavy and my shoulders began to slump. Walking around in high heels all day wasn't exactly great for my energy levels. The road was pretty straight all the way up. I could rest my eyes for just a second, couldn't I?

It was stupid but I wasn't thinking straight. My brain was overcome with the mist of over tiredness. My boss had been on my ass all day. She'd even told me that I was starting to look a little 'rough around the edges'. Ha. She might have been a cold faced bitch who wouldn't eat a piece of chocolate or a slice of cheese if you payed her, but I had what she didn't have. Youth. At twenty four years old my body was lean but curvy in all the right places. My long dark hair was made up of exactly zero percent extensions and the color was all my own. In the fashion industry I was fat, so is everyone who fits a standard size small (extra extra small is where it's at). But the few straight guys in the office loved me in a way that they would never love Jennifer. She was jealous of me and that felt so fucking good. I tried to keep that in mind when she was yelling at me and telling me that I was the worst excuse for a fashion journalist that she had ever come across in her life. It was just jealousy, that was all it was. I had a great eye for fashion, wrote beautifully and loved talking to creative people. I was a born fashion journalist, even if Jennifer couldn't see it. I would just have to keep outdoing her until I eventually got promoted to editor and she had to see me as an equal instead of an inferior. Yeah, that was a good plan.

I smirked without opening my eyes. My dreamy stupor had conjured the image of what would happen if I swapped Jennifer's diet drinks for regular and swapped her cigarettes for food, somehow without her noticing. I wasn't exactly feeling logical. The idea of her ballooning up from her slender size minus two to my size and beyond was pleasing to me. That woman's only achievements in life seemed to be her ability to keep a straight face in any situation and being able to fit into clothes made with pre-pubescent children in mind. If she got fat then her life would be ruined. It felt really good to imagine that.

My eyes only flashed open when I heard a yell and in that second I saw a motorcycle right in front of me. I slammed down on the brakes but it was too late. The bike fell to the ground but the man went flying right over the hood of my car. I screamed as the car drew to an abrupt, screeching halt. With a hit like that I didn't know how he could still be alive. He couldn't be. I had officially killed another human being. Jesus Christ, I was a murderer.

I took a deep breath and wiped away the tears that were forming at the corner of my eyes and forced myself to get out of the car. This wasn't going to be a hit and run. I had to face the music. This guy must have family and friends, people who cared about him deeply. I knew that I did. I could only imagine how heartbroken my parents, siblings and friends would be if they heard that I had been killed. Oh god, maybe he had more family than that. Not everyone was as much of a fuck up in relationships as I was. This guy could have a wife and kids. His wife could already have died from some tragic illness like the one in the lifetime movie I'd seen last week. Maybe I had orphaned some children. I felt like a fucking monster.

I barely glanced at the damage that the impact had done to the front of my car, though I knew that would be a problem too. I had been saving for almost a year to afford it. It was the first ever car that I owned that someone hadn't owned before me, and now it was most likely ruined. Still, it paled in comparison to the death of another person. Cars could be replaced. Yes, it costs a lot of money, but it could be done. Human lives could not be replaced. I would gladly have agreed never to drive ever again if I could only go back in time and undo these last few horrible minutes. I braced myself.

I made my way to the back of the car and was shocked at what I saw. Not blood and guts.

Not a corpse.

Not even a dying man.

No, all that I saw was a man casually smoking a cigarette against the back of my car. If he wasn't bleeding from his head then I wouldn't have thought he had been knocked down at all. He was smiling at me like he'd seen me across the club and wanted to flirt with me. Was he nuts?

“Oh my god,” I exclaimed, unable to keep the hysteria from my voice, “I am so sorry! I took my eyes off of the road for two seconds, and well, you were there. We have to get you to the emergency room!”

The man batted me away with a dismissive wave of his hand, though he was still smirking at me. As arrogant as the gesture was something about him intrigued me. He had the looks of an old movie star, dark hair, muscles and a white smile, but he was dressed in a pair of jeans and a leather jacket. The kind of guy who didn't give a fuck about fashion or his looks but always looked amazing anyway. Jennifer was always trying to get the male models that we hired for photo shoots to encapsulate that kind of attitude a bit more, but it never worked. They were always a bit too young, or too dumb, or just too boring. All most of them could do was stand there and pout. Though most of them were ridiculously good looking and a few had hit on me in the past, I had always refused. Their lack of personality just wasn't appealing. This guy was different though. This guy had something that I liked.

Still, he must have been stupid if he thought that head wound wasn't something to worry about.

“Sir, I'm going to have to insist that I bring you to the emergency room. Your head looks pretty bad,” I said, trying my best to sound confident and professional but my voice had faded to a squeaky nag now, “I'm the one that hit you so it's my responsibility to make sure that you're OK.

And even if you feel OK, I think it would be a lot better if we could get a qualified doctor to confirm that for us. That way we can get back to our lives.” I didn't add that that was the only way I could truly wipe my guilty conscience clean.

He shrugged, still smirking at me.

“Don't stress yourself, sweet cheeks. You think that was my first time getting mowed down when I'm on my bike? Nah, I'm used to it,” he touched his head and looked at the blood, which was no longer pumping in a worrying fashion, “This? This is nothing. You barely made a dent in me.” He must have been from New York because his accent was different. I liked it. It kind of added to his charm. His crazy, idiotic charm. Was this guy actually serious?

“Are you nuts? People die from concussion, don't they? You must be really dumb if you think this is nothing,” I folded my arms, ready for a battle, “You need stitches and a doctor's expertise. And don't call me sweet cheeks, ever. My name is Lola.”

Annoyingly, he seemed to find my feistiness cute. He raised an eyebrow at me and for a second he just looked me up and down. OK, so my work attire wasn't your typical office outfit. Clingy dresses were in at the moment and I had to keep up with the times, even if they did draw attention to my rather large breasts. The guy managed to pull himself away from enjoying the view and looked me in the eyes.

“OK, Lola,” he said, overemphasizing my name, “My name is Vince. And I'm fine, thanks but judging by the sound my bike made when you ran me over, it's not.”

“I did not run you over!” I insisted, “I just, well, collided with you.”

Vince laughed at me but he was already walking around the side of my car to check the damage. I was expecting it to be bad but it was actually ten times worse than I had expected.

Not the car. The front of the car was dented of course, quite badly, but that seemed to be the extent of the damage. I couldn't even focus on that though, not when I saw Vince's bike. Half of it was under the car but the half that I could see was twisted and dented so badly that the shape was barely recognizable as a motorcycle.

Vince gave a low whistle.

“Fuck,” I said, “Fuck, that doesn't look good. But you can fix it, right?”

“Five years of work on that thing,” he said, staring at it like someone might stare at the recent corpse of a loved one, “Five years of work and money, all gone down the shitter.”

I began to panic. He was making me feel really bad. I hadn't meant to hit him, or the bike. I really hadn't. The last thing I needed right now was a lawsuit. I barely had enough money to cover rent and food, even with my new job. I hoped he didn't want too much from me, because there was no way that I could give it to him without becoming homeless in the process. You didn't hear of many successful fashion journalists who were also homeless.

“I could give you some money,” I said doubtfully, thinking of my bank account which didn't seem to ever go over triple figures. Vince looked at me and I could see he was suppressing a smile. “You got seventy thousand handy? That should cover it,” he said. My face dropped. Seventy thousand dollars was more money than I had ever seen in my life. There was no way. No way in hell. This guy had spent all that on a bike? I could have bought several decent cars with that money if I had it.

“I don't have that kinda money,” I said, looking down at my designer impostor shoes. I made enough to survive on and to go out occasionally but that was it. If I had seventy thousand dollars laying around I certainly wouldn't be working for Jennifer at the stupid fashion magazine. From what I could tell, Vince liked me. Guys generally did, after all. But also like most guys I had dated, he liked his mode of transport a lot better than he liked me. I was screwed.

He tutted at my response and dragged the motorcycle out of the way. I watched him pull a strange looking tool from his pocket and pop some of the dents out of the front of my car.

“You're a mechanic?” I asked, and he nodded, “That's really great. Look, can I give you a ride somewhere at least?”

Vince finally looked at me, a big smile on his face now. He was obviously loving every second of this, though I couldn't understand why.

“I don't care about money,” he said, “I'm not exactly in poverty right now. Let's put it that way. And a ride would be good, but there's something else that you can do for me.

I forced a smile and looked up at him, expecting to hear something simple. Maybe he was hungry and wanted to pass the drive-thru on the way home. Maybe he even wanted my number. Seventy thousand dollars, I couldn't do, but I would do anything else to make him happy and avoid being sued. Almost anything.

“What do you want?” I asked. Part of me was really hoping that he would ask for a date, or at least for my number. He was the best looking guy that I had seen in a long time, and I worked in the fashion industry. He also had that charisma that guys in my industry seemed to be completely lacking. I couldn't help but wish that a date with me was what he wanted.

He looked me up and down again, letting his eyes linger on different parts of my body. His gaze made me shiver but I tried not to show it.

“I want you,” he said, grinning. Huh? He wanted me to what? It took me a moment to realize what he was talking about and about a millisecond more to become outraged. He wanted me? Who the fuck did he think he was? I wasn't a new car or a pack of nachos sitting on the shelf at some musty old garage. He couldn't just point out what he wanted and take it. I was a person, not a thing! “Who the fuck do you think you are! Preying on a poor woman in the middle of nowhere! You should be ashamed of yourself. You can't have me, you'll never have me,” My anger made me more confident, “I don't give out blow jobs on the side of the road, no matter how bad I injure people -which I've never done, until today by the way. I have morals!”

Vince bit his lip and looked at me. There was something so sexy about that gesture that I could feel my heart thumping. This was like the set up of a bad porno movie and I didn't want to be a part of it. At least, I didn't think that I did.

“OK, OK. No reason to eat my head off. I just think you're sexy, that's all,” he put his hands up as if I was pointing a gun right at him, “But I'll keep my hands to myself for as long as you want me to. A ride home would be good.”

I was annoyed that he had even dared to ask that I would have sex with him but not annoyed enough to leave him on the side of the dark road with no cell reception. He was rude, certainly, but he didn't seem dangerous. After what I had done I would have to put up with him, at least until we got to his place. I got into the driver's seat and beeped at him.