In the Bad Boy's Bed (16 page)

Nick stumbled but didn't fall. He spun around to face his attacker.

"What the hell, punk!" Luke said. "Nobody takes my girl and jerks me around. I'm going to fuck you up." He swung his fist toward Nick's face.

Nick dodged the clumsy blow and delivered one of his own to Luke's block jaw.

Luke went down. He tried to get up but couldn't. He lay there, groaning drunkenly.

Nick grabbed my hand. We ran down the car-lined street to where his motorcycle was parked. He jumped on and started it. I gathered up my skirts as well as I could, climbed on behind him, and held on for dear life. He kicked it into gear, and we sped away from the party.

We said nothing during the ride; he concentrated on the traffic while I concentrated on the feel of my arms holding onto him, of my front cradled into his back. The wind whipped around me, pulling my hair up like it was caught in an upward spiraling waterfall. I didn't know where Nick was going. I didn't care. I was with him, his heat burning into my body, and that's all that mattered. So for now, at least, this very moment, I was just where I wanted to be.

I smiled into the wind and hugged closer to the familiar body in front of me. I buried my nose into the soft material of his suit jacket and breathed deeply of his distinctive scent, something I've never been able to describe without sounding like a commercial touting the benefits of a fresh-from-the-shower clean feeling.

We drove for about five minutes before he pulled into a deserted park, stopped the bike under a grove of trees, and killed the motor. He just sat there, gripping the handlebars, silent and still. H was so silent in fact that it worried me. Maybe Luke had got off a lucky punch I hadn't seen.

I rubbed my hands up and down his chest lightly and whispered his name.

He turned his head slightly toward me, but didn't look at me. Enough moonlight shone for me to see the grim line to his mouth. He dismounted, and walked a few feet away. The tension between us hung heavy and thick as a steel curtain.

Lifting my skirts high, I got off the bike and moved to stand in front of him.

"You're so quiet. Say something." I slipped my arms around his waist, slid my hands up his back.

He kept his arms at his sides.

"What do you want me to say?" he finally said.

"Start with why you brought me here?"

He looked at me, his eyes narrowed in anger. "Would you rather have stayed with Luke?" Sarcasm dripped from his words.

"No. But you didn't have to charge in like an Army Ranger to save me. I could have handled him."

"Yeah, I saw how you were handling him." His emphasis was heavy on the word handling.

"Nothing was going on. We—"

"Nothing going on! Hell, he had you pinned in the corner, his knee between your legs, his hands and his mouth all over you. He was this close to having your panties off and you screwed to the wall. Just how naïve are you, Angel, if you think nothing was going on between you two?"

"There were other people there; he wasn't going to do anything in a room full of people. I wouldn't have let him do anything."

"Honey, no one in that room was paying any attention to you two love birds all over each other hiding in that dark corner."

"It wasn't like that."

"He would have taken you right there and there would have been nothing you could have done to stop him. Is that what you wanted?"

"What do you think? Of course not!"

"Then why, Angel? Why were you hanging all over him, letting him touch you?"

"We, I . . . well, we started out just talking and dancing, then, I, well I . . . . "

"You what?" he demanded.

"I wanted to make you jealous."

"Oh great. You let yourself get nearly raped just to get my attention?"

"Hey, he was a little out of control, but he wasn't going to rape me."

"Rape is exactly what was going to happen if I hadn't have gotten you out of there."

"Oh, my savior."

"You bet your sweet little ass I am! Fuck! Why did I even bother?"

"Why did you?"

"Hell if I know!"

"No, really Nick. I want to know—why did you bother?"

"What kind of a stupid question is that?"

"One that deserves an answer. You've told me over and over that you don't care about me, so why do you care what Luke had in mind? Why did you rescue me from him and from every other guy you see expressing an interest in me?"

"Would I get into a fight with a 220-pound defensive lineman and risk getting jumped by the entire football team if I didn't care?"

"That doesn't answer my question."

He grabbed me by the arms, crushed his lips against mine, rough with anger, hunger, frustration. Our bodies locked in a steel-tight grip that was more battle than embrace. But soon the kiss changed, turning passionate and needy, then deep and erotic.

Our tense grip relaxed. We pulled each other even closer, until I thought we would fuse into one entity.

"Does that answer your question?" he whispered when our lips finally parted. His thumb gently stroked my kiss-plumped lips.

I swallowed the lump of need so I could speak. "It tells me a lot, but not enough.

Tell me more."

He kissed me again, and when he spoke, it was softly against my cheek. "I would fight anyone who tried to hurt you or take you from me."

"Why, Nick? Tell me why."

To my surprise, he left my side and walked a bit away from me. "You know how I felt about you in high school."

"Yes."

He was quiet for a moment. "Before I met you, getting out of that school was all I wanted. I didn't fit in, and I know that most people thought I was nothing more than a loser with no future. What they didn't know was that I had been taking summer and home-school classes from the time I got kicked out of my first school. There was nothing I wanted more than to graduate early, get on to college sooner, get out and get a good job with good pay so my family would never go without anything again."

He turned to me, the anger gone from his eyes, his mouth.

"That all changed that night on the river when you and I made love. It's like you owned me that night; I couldn't get you out of my mind. That last semester was the best and worst time of my life. Being with you was like . . . it was a great high when we were together, and a hard crash when we weren't. We were so intense together that it burned out all thoughts of anything else. After that first time with you, all I could think about was being with you again. I came close to failing one of my classes. If I had failed, I would have lost my scholarship to this college."

"Surely one bad class wouldn't have kept you out, from this college or another one?"

"Angel, if I had failed that class, it would have ended my shot at college because I wouldn't have stayed around to make it up. I couldn't stand being so close to you, being able to watch you from afar but not being able to talk to you or kiss you or touch you or make love to you. I couldn't stand the thought of seeing you end up with some other guy.

I had to get away."

"You got your wish. You never looked back. Never said goodbye."

"Actually, I did say goodbye . . . at that Christmas party. Where you said you wanted nothing to do with me."

I dipped my head in remembrance. "I didn't mean it, Nick. It really hurt when you left school, left town; I was shocked at how much. I didn't know where you had gone, or why. I thought you had just . . . ." I shrugged, not wanting to say aloud what it was I had thought.

"Dropped out? Got kicked out?"

Ashamed, I nodded my head. "I'm sorry, Nick. I'm sorry for a lot of things I did and said. Why didn't you ever tell me about your college plans?"

"I don't know." He grinned. "We were usually too busy doing other things. But, look, I didn't tell you this to get an apology—we're not doing
I'm sorry
anymore, remember?"

I nodded. He continued.

"When I saw you here, at that dance, I was thrilled. I thought we might be able to pick up where we left off. But when I felt that same heat between us, I was afraid it would overtake me here like it did in high school and derail me. I've got my whole future wrapped up in college. If I lose my scholarship, I may not get a second chance."

"So you think you have to choose? Me or college? There can't be a middle ground where you can fit both of us into your life?"

"Yeah, well, that's what I tried to convince myself. But, seeing you with other guys is a million times more derailing than being with you ever would be. Every time I think of some guy touching you, making love to you—hell, just looking at you in that way—I go crazy. Seeing you with Luke tonight made me realize that I've got to be with you."

"Why?"

"Why? Why? Why? You sure ask a lot of questions. I thought you smart, rich girls had all the answers."

"We do . . . I just want to hear you say it."

He wrapped his arms around my waist and drew me hard against him, and captured my eyes with his so intently I thought they'd swallow me.

"In high school I told you that you needed to take risks to get what you needed to make you happy. Now I'm taking my own advice. I love you, Angel. I want us to be together and I'm willing to take the risks to make it happen. My future without you in it wouldn't be a very happy one. I want to go for it all."

"Nick, you're not going to fail—at school, our relationship, or at anything else you want. Maybe I didn't have a lot of faith in you or in us when we were in high school, but I do now. It's not because you've changed that much; it's because I have. I judged you by external things when all along I knew what kind of person you were inside. Mr. Wilson once accused me of not having standards because I was with you instead of Sean. I told him that Sean was mean to me, drank too much, was a jerk, and hit me, while you were good to me, kind, thoughtful, loving, decent, and made me happy. I asked him how, based on the facts, he could judge Sean as better boyfriend material. I told him I deserved someone as wonderful as you."

When I stopped talking, I realized tears were rolling down my cheeks. Nick was gently brushing them away with his thumbs.

"What I wouldn't have given to hear you say that in high school."

I reached out to caress his face, trying to rub away the hurt I read in his eyes. "I should have. I'm sorry I didn't. But I'm saying it now. There's something else I should have said out loud a long time ago." I cupped his face in my palms. "I love you, Nick," and kissed his right eye. "I love you, Nick," I said, and kissed his left eye. "I love you, Nick." I kissed his mouth.

"Ah, my sweet, Angel," he murmured. "I love you, too. So much." Then he kissed me again, and again. "I asked you a question the first night I met you, and I didn't like the answer you gave me, so I'm asking you again. Come home with me tonight. Let me spend the rest of the night making love to you."

My voice and head groggy with love and desire, I gave him the answer we both wanted. "Absolutely."

He leaned in to kiss me again, but I moved back. "Before you take me to your bed, bad boy, I should warn you—you better still have your switchblade 'cause you're going to need it to cut this pink monstrosity off of me." I held up layers of pink fluff.

He grinned that crooked little smile I loved so much and patted his coat pocket.

"Not a problem."

Hand in hand, we headed toward his bike, but then he stopped and pulled me around to face him.

"Before we go, there's something I have to do."

"What?"

He bowed. "May I have this dance?"

His romantic gesture touched me in a way nothing ever had before, and my heart swelled so full with love I couldn't speak.

"This is our prom, after all."

I curtseyed, went into his arms, and danced my very first dance with the man I loved.

* * * * *

Several years have passed since that night. We call it our night of awakening.

Nick and I are still working at our relationship and our education. We live together in a little apartment off campus. We eat a lot of ramen noodles. Steak—our favorite food—

is a once-a-month luxury, and it doesn't come with merlot sauce and English Stilton slivers. We're poor, but that's only until we finish school; he's a semester away from finishing grad school, and I'm not far behind. We're in love, and we're happy, and that's forever.

Like all couples, we've had our challenges. Nick can sometimes be stubborn. OK, both of us can be. My parents still can't understand my choice in Nick. It doesn't seem to make a difference to them that I'm happy. Truly happy. But then, it's my choice and not theirs. So, whatever. His mom is less critical of our relationship, but she has it in her head that I'm holding him back. She's worried I'm going to get pregnant and ruin his life. But mainly, she's terrified I'll leave him.

Whatever life tosses our way, we deal with it together. The tie that binds us has been stretched thin, and even broken in places. But before it could twirl off in opposite directions, we grabbed both ends and tied them together to give us a sturdy holding place to grasp.

The one never-changing truth in our lives is that the love we have for each other is real and precious and worth fighting for. The plan hasn't failed us yet.

~The End~

About the Author

Sophia Ryan's life as a writer in the corporate world pays the bills but doesn't scratch her creative itch. What does scratch that itch is capturing the stories that arise from her heart.

After selling over a dozen romances to the confessions magazines, she started writing books. Her first was an erotic e-romance under the name Toni Zuma called
Hot Summer
Fling
.
In The Bad Boy's Bed
, written as Sophia Ryan, is her first young adult novel. She's also writing two spicy romances and another erotic romance and hopes to finish them soon.

Passion is a major theme in Sophia's work, no matter which name she uses. When she's not writing about passion, she's indulging in it—yoga, hiking, laughing with friends over hot chile and cold beer, and watching the Sandia Mountains turn the color of ripe watermelon at sunset.