Wanted: A Bad Boy Romance (8 page)

When I’m finished, Titan pulls
out, gripping his wet cock and coaxing his load until my lower belly is
blanketed in his white seed. The second he’s done, he rolls over and collapses
next to me.

He’s still hard as a rock.

I guarantee he could go another
round or two without any problems.

But I’m spent.

I want to bask in this moment.
Envelop myself in the physicality and ignore the psychology. Despite the fact
that I’m a thinker, I don’t want to think right now. It’ll only take away from
the delicious guilt and pleasure sinking into my bones.

Being bad…kind of feels good…

No.

It feels amazing.

Titan swallows a deep breath and
sits up on the edge of my bed. I yank the covers over top of me, simply because
it seems like the appropriate thing to do now that we’re done.

He turns to look at me, his eyes
dragging over the covers before returning to meet my gaze. Wearing the look of
a satisfied man, he cocks a half-smile. I return it. He needs to know I’m okay
with what happened. We don’t need to discuss it. It doesn’t have to be awkward.

It happened.

It’s over.

We got it out of our system.

“Fuck, Jordana,” he says with a
gleam in his eye. “Best sex I’ve had in my life.”

“You’re just saying that.”
My cheeks warm.

“I don’t say things I don’t
mean.” He rises, leaning down and swiping his white towel off the floor. It’s
secure around his waist a moment later, though I can still see the outline of
his rigid cock.

My room is almost pitch dark
except for the moon coming through the window behind him.

Footsteps tromp up the stairs,
sending my heart jumping high into my throat.

“Shit,” I whisper, scrambling to
grab my clothes off the floor. “Did you hear that?”

His face scrunches, and he cocks
his ear toward the door, shaking his head.

“Someone’s coming up the stairs,”
I whisper, pressing my finger to my lips to quiet his response. “Hear that?”

The footsteps grow louder. My
heart pounds harder.

Every ounce of ecstasy has
drained from me, replaced with a heavy dose of fear. My mother would have my
head if she knew I’d just had casual sex with Lewis’ son under their roof.

“This can’t happen again.” I hope
off the bed and scrounge for my clothes, throwing them on in haste until I’m
covered up again.

Titan gives me a curious glance
with a half-grin, as if my sudden scrambling amuses him. He couldn’t care less
about getting caught.

With that, I brush past him and
head into my bathroom, locking the door behind me. My room smell like sex. My
skin smells like him.

Masculine soap
and a hint of shop grease.

I shouldn’t have gotten dressed.
I need to wash him off me. Stripping down again, I run the shower and step inside,
washing him off as best I can.

It was all fun and games until
the prospect of getting caught became as real as the water trickling between my
swollen folds.

Regardless of everything, for the
first time in three years, I felt alive tonight. Since Jerome died, I’ve
been merely existing
. Doing everything by the book because
it’s safe. Making the kind of good decisions that would make my mother proud,
so she wouldn’t have to worry about me.

For the last three years, I’ve
been living my life for her.

I’ve been a good girl.

Tonight I lived for me.

But it can’t happen again.

“Paychecks are in.” Kyle slaps a
green envelope across my chest the next morning. “There’s a little something
extra in there for ya.”

I rip the seal and yank out my
check from Rasmussen Auto.
A paltry $298.46 for a whole week.
Behind that are several
hundred dollar
bills.

“What’s this?” I ask.

“An advance.” He smirks, chopping
gum in the side of his jaw. “Got another fight next week. Gonna be a big one.”

I sigh, staring at the tiny
numbers on my check. I have to move out of my father’s house. I can’t live
there another day while he plays house with Laticia and her sex-on-legs
daughter with the juicy ass and the fuck-me-lips tries to pretend her pretty
little head isn’t filled with the same dirty thoughts as mine.

My cock throbs at the thought of
last night and how fucking amazing her tight pussy felt bare against my dick.
Her smooth skin beneath my hands, her caramel curves filling my palms, her
thighs straddling me, her sweet scent…

Fuck, what I wouldn’t give to
have her one more time.

Judging by how quickly she bolted
into the shower when we were done, she has no intentions of a second round.

But I do.

I mean
,
I would if I was sticking around. But I’m not.

“What night?” I ask.

“Saturday,” he says. “Same place.
Same time.”

“Hammerhead?”

“Yeah.” He squeezes my shoulder
as he passes by. “You good?”

I count the bills again.
Four hundred bucks.
If I win, which I will, I’ll get at
least another grand.

“Yeah, man. Whatever. I’ll be
there.” I shove the envelope in my back pocket and head toward the garage.

***

“Place rents for four hundred a
month,” the pot-bellied landlord says, raking his greasy hands down his
suspenders.

We stand in the doorway of a
musty studio apartment in the old downtown area. The place hasn’t been updated
in thirty odd years judging by the avocado green appliances in the dirty
kitchenette.

The landlord pushes
past me and limps toward the wall, unhooking the Murphy bed and
showing me how
it folds down. The fucking thing takes up the whole room,
leaving barely enough space for a walkway toward the kitchenette and bathroom.
A corner of the room hosts a small table and two chairs.

This place is one of the few
places in town that will rent to people without doing credit checks, and
they’ll sign a month-to-month. It’s exactly what I need. I don’t know how long
I’ll be sticking around. The wind just might blow me far away from here, and I
just might let it.

“Fully furnished.” He states the
obvious with a chuckle in his tone. “Could move in tonight if you wanted.”

Jingling the keys in his hand,
his brows lift. I take another look around the place. It doesn’t have to be the
fucking Waldorf Astoria. Just need a place to rest my head until I get my feet
on the ground.

“Everything works,” he says.
“Toilet. Sink. Stove. Microwave. Cable TV is extra of course.”

The Hammerhead is across the
street. It’d be easy to sneak in the backdoor over there. Drinking is a
violation of my parole, so as long as I’m not seen strutting in the front door
like some moron and ordering a beer, I’m good.

“I’ll take it.” I grab the keys
from his pudgy fingers and hand him the four hundred cash from my pocket.

He pulls a folded piece of paper
from his back pocket and shoves it at me. “Fill out the app. Drop it off in the
rent drop box on your way out.”

I take it from him and shrug.
Seems a little backwards, but I’m not about to argue with him. The guy waddles
out, pulling the door shut behind him. I take a seat at the table and pull a
pen. As soon as the app is filled out, I drop it off and head back to the house
to grab what few things I have and bring them back.

The house is quiet. Dad must
still be at work. I don’t know nor do I care where Laticia is.
Jordana’s probably hiding from me.
Still haven’t seen her
since last night, but that’s on her.

I have no problem fucking the
hell out of a beautiful woman and looking her in the eye the next day.

I toss my things in a couple of
plastic sacks from the kitchen and hop back in Jerome’s Mustang. Still can’t
believe Laticia’s okay with me driving it, and to be honest, it’s kind of weird
driving a dead guy’s car, but I promised her I’d take care of it. I’ll fix it
up as soon as my cash flow improves, and she’ll be able to sell it just fine.

Stopping at a big box store on my
way home, I buy a cheap bed-in-a-bag set and a small slew of paper plates,
plastic cutlery, and enough groceries to sustain me until I get paid again next
week.

That night I pull a chair up to
my window for some people watching. Not much to do without a TV, and I’ve
already watched some porn on my phone and cranked a couple out.

It’s getting late; late enough
that people are starting to leave the bar for the night. I watch like some
fucking vigilante. So help me if I so much as see a drunk peeling out of the
parking lot, I’m calling their plates in.

Being a snitch in prison would
get your ass handed to you.

But I’m on the outside now.

The rules are different.

Or at least
my
rules are different.

If I can save another family from
getting the phone call we got the night of the accident, I’ll sing like a
goddamned canary.

A handful of
car speed away.
Nothing crazy. Nothing suspect.

I rise up and grab my
bed-in-a-bag, yanking out the wrinkled sheets and pulling down the Murphy bed.
Five minutes later, I’m lying on the scratchiest sheets I’ve ever felt, staring
up at a water-stained ceiling.

But I’m happy.

Or, shit.
As
happy as I can be.

I slide my hands behind my head
and inhale, ignoring the musty scent that fills my lungs.

From here on out, it’s just me
against the world.

Fuck my pathetic, egotistical
father.

Fuck the aunts and uncles and
cousins who couldn’t find the time to send one fucking Christmas card or letter
while I was locked up.

Fuck all the friends who
scrambled like sheep the second I landed myself in hot water.
 

I don’t need anyone, and I sure
as hell don’t need that noise.

***

Can’t. Sleep.

I’ve tossed and turned for hours
on this lumpy mattress.

But
it’s not
the bed
,
it’s my mind
. It won’t shut off. You’d
think a guy would be used to being alone with his thoughts by now. I roll to my
side, tucking the pillow in half and jamming it under my head.

The room is hot. With one
solitary window, I don’t get the privilege of having a cross breeze.

Since there’s no point in tossing
and turning the rest of the night, I rise up and grab bottled water from the
fridge and take a seat by the window. The clock reads just past closing time,
and only a couple cars remain in the parking lot of the Hammerhead.

Streetlights fade, taking their
turns in alternate patterns. A squad car does a slow crawl down Bevin Street;
his due diligence I guess. My eyelids are heavy. I know my body’s tired, but my
mind is wired.

A shadowy figure in the narrow
alley between The Hammerhead and a donut shop draws my eye. He moves slowly,
his back against the brick façade of the building. Taking careful side steps,
he peeks his head around the corner.

The heavy door of the bar flies
open a minute later and a scrawny man in a ball cap
stumbles
out, almost losing his balance. He steadies his hand against the nearby window
to regain his balance before fishing in his coat pockets for his keys.

My blood boils. The fuckhead can
hardly walk straight but he’s clearly going to drive home. I pull in a deep
breath to calm my heated nerves before rising up and hunching outside my
window.

I’m two seconds from shouting at
the moron until he swaggers past the alley and the guy standing in the shadows
emerges. Their strides are identical, paces matched. The drunk doesn’t notice
the guy three steps behind him. The gap between them closes, my heart races.

This is the guy.

The guy on the
news that KJ told me about.

Holy shit.

A car flies by. The guy following
the drunk doesn’t miss a step. Doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t veer away. He’s brazen.
Unafraid. Determined.

“Hey!” I yell in my deepest
baritone, backing away from the window, out of sight. Standing in the dark of
my apartment, I watch the second guy back off and veer toward another alley. He
walks under a streetlamp just enough for me to catch a glimpse of his jacket: a
canvas utility jacket covered in a camouflage pattern. The guy is lankier than
Kyle. KJ was wrong. There’s no way that’s fucking Kyle.

The drunk glances around in
search of my voice, staggering forward when he gives up. The shadowy figure is
gone, probably lurking out of sight as the drunk starts his car.

I squint to read the plates. I
can only make out a couple letters and a number. Going to need to get some
binoculars with my next check. All I see is it’s a white Honda. Four doors.
Older.

The call to the police takes a
minute. I’m sure they’ll never find the Honda. He’s probably long gone by now,
but at least I did my part. I can go to bed tonight knowing I did what I could.

My bed calls to me, my mind
settling down for the night. Before I drone off, I make a mental note to tell
KJ about the guy who is most certainly not Kyle.