KENNICK: A Bad Boy Romance Novel (29 page)

He just feels bad for you because of that knocker on your forehead,
I told
myself.
There’s no way someone like him
could like someone like you, you cow. Besides, what, are you gonna hop into bed
with the first guy who’s nice to you? Slut.

Shut up, Jeremy,
said that other voice, that new voice, the voice that
I was starting to like quite a bit.
Go
for it, Gabriella. Seal the deal. Make the break complete. When’s the last time
Jeremy looked at you with half the interest this guy’s showing? You deserve to
feel good for once. Drink up.

I was as torn as I’d ever
been in my life. But what the hell. I’d dug my grave deep enough, in my
opinion, and one drink wasn’t going to get me out – or dig me any deeper. I
smiled back at the handsome stranger, waved, and took another sip, this time
hoping I looked coy and demure and grateful.

I was rewarded by a nod –
and then thrown into a panic when the man rose from his place at the bar and
came to my side. I desperately swabbed at my greasy lips, cursing myself for
having ordered the most disgusting thing on the menu.

I gulped at the drink,
needing liquid courage.

Needing any courage I could
get my hands on.

That “Jeremy” voice inside
me was still screaming at me for being stupid, for being silly, slutty,
pathetic, worn-out, ugly, fat…

“What’s a pretty gal like
you doing in a place like this,” the stranger asked as he approached me, leaning
into the seat next to mine. I’m pretty sure I responded, but I think it was
just a strangled, choking sound.

He was even better looking
up close.

I could make out the hint of
tattoos crawling up his neck from the deep V of his shirt, and across the backs
of his hands. His leather jacket was adorned with patches. One larger than the
others, said “Black Smoke MC”.

His eyes fell on the bruise
above my eye, his brow furrowing, his hand coming up to brush it gently. His
touch was like being electrified. Perhaps it was the boldness of the motion; we
didn’t even know each other’s
names,
but
he’d already made contact with me; a very sensitive part of me, to boot.
Perhaps it was the way I was looking at his lips as he did it, his pouty,
gorgeous lips. Perhaps it was the booze, or the leftover adrenaline from my
rather eventful day. Whatever it was, it sealed my fate, even though I didn’t
know it at the time.

“Got something to do with
this?” he’d asked when he’d brushed his fingers against my forehead. My mind
dragged behind him, trying to figure out what he was asking, the small amount
of alcohol I’d had mingling with the unusually fatty and carbohydrate-laden
meal I was eating to create a general feeling of confusion in me. Alright, so I
was confused for more reasons than just the booze and burger, but I didn’t want
to admit it at the time.

“It’s a birthmark,” I
blurted out, flinching even as I said it. Of all the stupid excuses I’d made
for the marks Jeremy left on me, that was, without a doubt, the stupidest to
ever cross my lips. The stranger’s eyebrows raised in half-amusement,
half-concern.

“Is that so?” he said, his
voice low and sultry. I gulped down more of my drink, realizing with no small
dismay that it was the last gulp – I’d downed the whole thing in a matter of
minutes. And for someone who never drank…well, you can imagine how that might
have affected me. I felt warm all over, and suddenly a lot friendlier.

“Actually, no,” I said,
hearing the slightest slur in my words.
What
are you doing, Gabriella?
One part of me asked.

Getting what I fucking want for once,
said that other voice, that
new voice. And even if my real voice was slurring, that voice seemed straight
sober.

“That’s exactly the reason
I’m here,” I heard myself say. “I’m ditching the guy who did it.”

“Well, if I ever heard
something that called for a damn drink, that’s it,” the stranger said, flashing
me another crooked grin. They have yet to invent a word to describe what
happened in my pants, or my surprise at the feeling. He pounded on the bar,
attracting the attention of the bartender and making an “another” gesture with
his hand. She obliged, but not without a sour look in his direction. He offered
me his hand, not turning to me, snaking his hand underneath his shoulder in a
nonchalant way that was confusingly suave.

“Reign,” he said. “Like a
king, not the weather.”

“What?” I asked, stupidly,
taking his hand in a limp shake that belied the sharp, short shock that went
through me when we touched.

“My name,” he said, looking
at me out of the corner of his eye. I could only make out one side of his face,
but I could see the grin on him stretching from ear to ear. I blushed.

“Gabriella,” I said.
Gabby,
said that new voice in me. But
not yet; I couldn’t, not yet.

I have another confession to
make, dear reader. Jeremy was not only my first and only husband, and the first
and only man I’d ever let raise his hand against me, he was also my first and
only lover.

And in the five years we’d
been sleeping together, he’d never once made me come.

He’d gotten me close, a few
times, but he seemed to enjoy keeping me in a perpetual state of sexual limbo.
For that matter, I’d never been one to masturbate. That, at least, had nothing
to do with Jeremy.

I’d just always wanted to be
able to orgasm with someone I loved, and I thought that if I masturbated I
might “desensitize” myself to that sort of touch. Even when it became clear,
throughout the marriage, that Jeremy was never going to give me the sort of
release they write about in romance novels and talk about in Cosmo, I didn’t
think it was going to help the situation if I took it upon myself to get the
job done.

At 27, you could say I was
long overdue for it.

And what I’d felt when the
stranger touched me, when he looked at me…that spark, like a shaft of light
jolting through me, told me that even though I had just met him, and certainly
didn’t love him, he had the potential to give me what Jeremy never had.

And that new voice inside me
was hungry for it.

“Hey,” the stranger said, turning
to me somewhat abruptly from the bar. “If you had a theme park, what kind would
you have? What would the theme be, rides and stuff?”

I drew a deep breath in
surprise. What kind of question was that? Especially after…well, it didn’t seem
like quite the normal response to an admission like mine.

“Well…I don’t know. Um…” I
said, brain stuttering along. He was looking at me patiently, a smile on his
face that just begged to be returned. So I did. You know how they say that when
you’re not happy you should just smile, and it will fool your brain into
feeling happy? I can attest to that, from that experience. Smiling at him put
me at ease, made it okay that I was totally blindsided by his question and must
have seemed pretty stupid as I racked my brain for a clever answer. Everything,
it seemed, was easy with this guy.

~
5
~

How many stories start by
spotting someone across a bar? Taking a chance on them? Maybe just for the
night, maybe for a night and a morning, but maybe…

Reign watched the girl, who
was clearly enjoying the absolute hell out of her burger. Enjoying it so much,
you’d think she’d never had red meat or cheese before. She had beautiful, long
black hair that waved gently around her face, which just seemed so
damn…kissable. She was a thicker girl, but that only made him like her more. A
lot more. He thought about what it would be like to run his hands down her
sides, pry open her beautiful, soft thighs…

He couldn’t see, in the
dimness and the distance, the welt above her eye that would, soon, tell him
everything he needed to know about how she’d come to be there.

He could only see her
expression of unadulterated pleasure as she ate, like a child indulging in a
stolen cookie from the cookie jar, the way she closed her eyes, breathed through
her nose, with each bite. He bit his own lips reflexively.

I’d like to take a bite of you,
he thought, watching her, hoping
his energy would reach her somehow. It didn’t, obviously, but he wasn’t shy.
There was no reason to be shy. If she rejected him, so what? If she didn’t…

Well, they’d both have a
hell of a night. He’d make sure of it.

And who knew? Maybe it
wouldn’t just be a night…

But Reign shook that
possibility from his head, knowing that, just like every other girl who came in
and out of his life, she would just be around for a while. And what did he want
some girl clinging around him for, anyway? He didn’t need an old lady. Not yet.

Though he wondered how she’d
look in leather, hair windblown as they rolled down the highway…

“Honey,” Reign said, calling
to the bartender who’d served the girl her burger. “I wanna buy that girl a
drink. What do you think? Rum and coke?”

“Ummm, anything virgin’s
more like it, buddy. She’s jumpy as a jackrabbit on a coke binge, and twice as
cagey,” Honey said, her disapproval of Reign’s choice for the night coming
through her eyes.

“Make it a strong rum and
coke, then,” Reign said, rapping on the bar and shooting her a
“don’t-stick-your-nose-in-this” look. Honey shrugged and made the drink,
delivering it to the girl, who looked surprised, then nervous, then
embarrassed. She looked over in Reign’s direction, and he saw the unmistakable
flicker of “holy shit” that crossed her face.

And then the wave.

And then, locked in like a
photon torpedo, he made his move.

As he got closer and her
face grew clearer, he saw the bruise above her eye for the first time. She was
guzzling the drink heartily; that didn’t necessarily make him happy to see,
since he preferred to spend his time with girls who could actually think for
themselves and weren’t puking on their shoes, but as his mind put together the
puzzle pieces (the way she’d been eating, the bruise, her very presence in the
bar in the first place), he thought she needed that drink more than even she
knew.

She’d need a lot of things.

And even if she refused some
of what he wanted to offer, the sexy stuff, he knew he’d still want to help her
get what she needed in any way he could.

After all, he’d been in much
the same place as her when he’d come to Ditcher’s Valley, all those years ago.
Running away from a broken home where fists flew more often than kisses. And
he’d been lucky to be taken in, taken care of, set back on his feet and given
the chance to find himself, be happy.

And he was interested in
paying that forward, whenever he could.

Starting with another drink
for Ms. Gorgeous Runaway over here. And maybe a touch that wouldn’t hurt, if
she’d let him.

He hoped, harder than ever
as he took in her voluptuous body, that she would.

~
6
~

“…and a bike ride on Mars
thing, with a Led Zeppelin laser show, you know, anti-gravity bike riding in
space. Gravitron, of course. And…a Martian photo booth. Martian laser tag,
maybe you have to fight evil aliens who want to eat you. A zero-gravity bar,
powdered vodka and all that shit. Anti-gravity sex room!”

“Stop, stop, please! Reign’s
Grown Up Space Camp…I can’t!” I said, snorting, acting quite unladylike, my
hand over my mouth to try and control myself. I almost thought I was going to
wet my pants from laughing so hard.

“So, Reign, you’re what, 27?
28? I’m good at guessing ages,” I said once I’d calmed down enough to stand up
straight. We were standing outside the bar, enjoying the evening, so much
warmer than I was used to up in the Rockies.

He was smoking a cigarette;
I was half-drunk and eying the cigarette somewhat enviously. I’d been a smoker
when I met Jeremy and, you guessed it, had quit upon his suggestion. I enjoyed
being a non-smoker, didn’t miss it much, but, hell, I’d broken all my other
rules that night, and a smoke sounded like as good a way to keep the train
rolling as any.

It had been so long since
someone asked me so many questions about myself, seemed to care about the
answers. Laughed at my jokes. Smiled at me.

Don’t I sound desperate as
hell? Would it make it any better if I told you that I wouldn’t have been
talking to him at all if he wasn’t also so damn handsome, as well as charming?
I mean, this would be any girl’s dream
regardless
of the circumstances. That crooked, boyish grin, that easy laugh…trust me,
ladies, if you’d been in my shoes you’d hold your judgement.

“Close, 29,” he said. He
seemed to notice where my eyes were lingering and held his pack of cigarettes
out to me; Parliaments, my old brand. It was fate! I laughed as I felt my hand go
up to the offered pack, certainly not responding to any conscious demand from
my brain. But why not? I was feeling good; two drinks in, hamburger slowly
digesting in my stomach, a handsome man at my side, why not? I let him light
the cigarette for me, began to cough violently as soon as I took the first
drag.

“Been awhile?” he asked,
eyebrows raised as he tried to hide amusement. I let him off the hook, laughing
at myself. God, it felt good to laugh.

“Five years,” I croaked,
smoke still streaming from my mouth and nostrils. The second drag, though, went
down okay, even if it felt a little scratchy. By the third, I remembered how
good a cigarette felt combined with a few drinks. The fourth, I was considering
buying my own pack. But, I knew that was a dangerous path to go down, Jeremy or
no Jeremy. Smoking in 2015 seemed as stupid as drinking while pregnant. I
stubbed out the cigarette, only a little disappointed.

“He make you quit?” Reign
suddenly asked, his smile fading as he brought up Jeremy. I’d told him the bare
minimum: cop husband, me on the run. We’d changed the subject quickly. This
wasn’t the time or place to linger on the past – even the very, very recent
past.

The mere mention of “him”
actually drove a cold stake through my heart, made the night seem a little
chillier, bristled the hair on my arms. I wasn’t safe yet. I was still in the
States, not far enough away. I still had my damn car. Maybe he already knew
where I was…maybe he was headed there right now…and I was, what, drinking and
flirting with a stranger?
Real fucking
smart, Gabriella. Just sit like a damn duck in a frozen pond.

“Shit, sorry,” Reign said,
picking up on the change in my mood. “I didn’t mean to drag you down.”

“No, no, it’s fine, you, uh,
you gave me a little wake-up call is all,” I said, my words coming out slow and
heavy as my brain imagined all the horrible things that would happen when he
found me. If he found me. When he found me. If/when.

“You know, you don’t have to
be afraid of him, not here, at least,” Reign said, cocking his head to the
side.

“And why’s that?” I asked,
distracted by my own brain, barely even registering what he was saying.

“Just…trust me. Anyone like
him, he’d not be welcome here. Cop or no cop, he doesn’t have any sway around
these parts,” Reign said, suddenly moving a bit closer. I responded by backing
up.
You don’t know Jeremy,
I thought.

“Really, I mean it. If you
haven’t figured it out yet, everyone in that bar is looking out for each other.
And we’ll look out for you, too, if you need us to,” Reign said, his eyes
seeming to grow deeper with each word. I wanted to believe him, wanted to believe
those gorgeous eyes, but I’d just met him. And he’d just met me. He just wanted
to get into my pants, anyway.

“Yeah, okay, well, I should
probably…” I said, starting to turn away, meaning to end this madness, go to my
room, sleep until I was sober and get back on the road. He stopped me, grasping
my arm. Oh god, the feel of his hand on my bicep…Jesus Christ. It was a light
grip, not forceful, but it sent shivers throughout my entire body, seemed like
electricity coursing through me.

“How’d you do that?” I
blurted out, turning to face him, the alcohol only adding the confusion I felt
about my body’s reaction to his touch.

When’s the last time Jeremy grabbed your arm without leaving a bruise,
I thought.

“Do what?” Reign said,
cocking his head once more, his expression increasingly concerned. I shook my
head, as though I could physically shed the feeling that his touch had left me
with. A fluttering, heart-racing feeling. A warm feeling.

A safe feeling. An exciting
feeling.

“Nothing, nothing, I just…I
drank too much,” I said, pulling my arm away and rubbing at the spot he’d
touched.

“No, you didn’t. Something
happened. After I mentioned him. You’re afraid, and you shouldn’t be. Every
moment you spend afraid of him is another moment he wins,” Reign said, our
conversation no longer the lighthearted frolic of getting-to-know-you it had
been.

“Well, sorry, it’s just all
happening so quickly,” I said, getting defensive. “And I’m not safe. He could
be tracking my car. I need to…I need to get out of the States. I need a new
car, and I need to get to Mexico.”

“We can get you a car,”
Reign said.

“Why? Why would you want to
do that? Why are you even talking to me? Why do you want to help me?” I asked,
my mind trying to make sense of him. This strange, stunning, charming, man
before me, like another of the day’s bizarre gifts from God, who seemed to only
want to help me. It wasn’t what I’d ever expected from life, to find kindness
in a stranger. Not, at least, since Jeremy had come into my life. “You just
want to bang me!”

Reign suddenly smiled,
seeming almost like he was stifling laughter. My heart fell.
Of course he doesn’t want to bang you, you
fatass. He just watched you scarf down a burger, and look at him! He’s a
goddamn God! And you? You’re…you’re just a fat girl with a black eye.

“Well, you ain’t too far
off. I mean, there’s a reason I bought you that drink. But I want to help you
because I know where you are. I been there, too. Takes one to know one, as they
say. I’d help you no matter what. If I was lucky enough to get to see you in
your birthday suit, well…that’d just be a bonus for me,” he said. His eyes told
me that he was being truthful. I blushed, now embarrassed, and more than a
little turned on by the idea of being naked with him.

I hadn’t felt turned on in a
long, long time.

And why shouldn’t you feel turned on? He’s hotter than Jeremy by a
country mile, and he’s interested in you. Shit, Gabby, you better take his hand
right now and drag him straight to your motel room. If you don’t, you’ll regret
it forever. This is your clean break. Make it a little dirty, why don’t you?
For once in your life…

Do what you want.

My heart was pounding, my
face flushed. Was I really going to…was this really…he kept
looking
at me, just
looking,
like I was a piece of pie he wanted to slather in whipped
cream, like I was worth looking at. I could feel my pussy responding to his
gaze, melting under his blue eyes…

“Come to my room,” I said,
the words flying from my mouth before I even realized I was saying them. One
hand automatically came to cover my lips as they gaped open, a comical “o”.
Reign’s eyebrows raised once more, a grin coming over his face, shaking his
head slightly.

“I don’t think you thought
that through,” he said, as though speaking to a foolish child. Which is exactly
how I felt as I stood there blushing.

“I don’t…I’m sorry…” I
stuttered through my hands, just about ready to crawl under a rock from
mortification.

“Don’t apologize,” Reign
said, the grin fading from his face as he looked at me, eyes slowly growing
darker. “Unless you mean to take it back.”

He stepped closer to me, his
hand coming up once more to my bicep, this time stroking the flesh there
softly, making my chest constrict, all the air seeming to leave my body, my
hair standing on end. I’m pretty sure I made a sound, unintentionally, a soft
mewling sound.

I didn’t mean to take it
back. I meant to take it further.

In a blind rush, I grabbed
for him, acting on instinct alone, my palm against the back of his neck, under
the wisps of curling hair that fell around his shoulders, pulling him in
towards me until his lips landed on mine. He tasted like sweet honey and
whiskey and smoke and everything free.

Something inside of me broke
in two.

His hands came to my hips,
pulling me into him, and I parted my legs automatically, without thinking. I
wanted to wrap them around him right then, rub my pussy against him. I hadn’t
felt myself so alive, so aroused, in years. As his tongue danced in my mouth, I
felt his thigh press gently between my knees, inviting me to move closer to
him.

I did, my own tongue now
tentatively darting into his mouth, tasting him. With my eyes closed I felt him
press his leg upward, between my thighs, and moaned into his mouth, my body
trembling as it flooded with desire for the first time in so long. My clit
jumped as the tough denim of Reign’s jeans pressed against the thin fabric of
my leggings, then strained forward, wanting more.

With a sudden grunt, Reign
pulled back, his hands remaining on my hips, his eyes looking down into mine,
all fire and need.

“Are you sure?” he said, his
voice low and rough, almost like a caress in my mind. It drew another burst of
shivers from my body. I nodded, unable to speak, only wanting to taste him on
my lips once more. But I didn’t have the chance; at least not then. He grabbed
my wrist, pushing me away while simultaneously pulling me along the side of the
bar towards the motel rooms lined up side-by-side.

“Seven,” I said, breathless,
mind turned into a lightning storm, clouded and tempestuous. I could barely
remember my own name, but I could remember my room number perfectly well. Reign
looked back at me as he pulled me forward, my feet stumbling over themselves in
my agitated state.

As though suddenly
remembering the bruise above my eye, and what that could mean, he slowed down,
letting me catch up to him, and we walked abreast to the room, his arm coming
around my waist and sending little tendrils of excitement through me.

I dropped the keys trying to
open the door, then took too long trying to get the key to fit the lock.
Meanwhile, Reign was being categorically unhelpful by tracing his tongue along
my neck, planting feathery light kisses across my skin. A part of me wanted to
cry.
What have I been doing all my life,
why have I waited so long to feel so good, why couldn’t Jeremy make me feel
like this?

Finally, I managed to get
the door open and we stumbled in. I automatically turned off the light that I’d
left on, but Reign turned it back.

“I want to see your
beautiful body,” he said. I was standing in front of the bed, at a loss now
that we were here. I hadn’t really let myself plan that far ahead. What did I
do now? I hadn’t ever been with anyone with Jeremy. I knew what he liked, knew
his desires better than I even knew my own, but not this stranger. Not this
mysterious, sexy, intoxicating stranger. I didn’t know where to begin, and I
felt panic rising in my chest as I worried about disappointing him, about not
performing up to his standards.