LAD: A British Bad Boy Romance Novel (Bad Boys of London Book 1) (16 page)

“This has got to be…Like, honestly, Felix, one of the best night of my life.” I walked behind her down the corridor to the lobby. The final touch of the evening took place on the garden roof of the hotel, where a supposedly charming post-event reception was about to take place with after-dinner cocktails and dancing under the stars. I began to wonder if this night would ever end.

“I’m glad you enjoyed yourself.” I felt deflated, distracted. My eyes darted from side to side, down hallways, and off into the distance. Hayley would be leaving in a few weeks back to her old life, back to normality too. I shouldn’t feel guilt for what I was about to do. I’d put in the deserving effort to allow her to sleep with me. I studied the roof top, praying there might be some dark, dingy, forbidden room we could get this done in. An opportunity for romance flew out the window with my decision I couldn’t fall for her any harder.

Bingo!
 

I spotted the target destination a few paces ahead of us and to the right. We passed the door. I stopped her tightly by the arm.

“What is it?” she asked. She’d been angry with me earlier, but the live performances softened her to me. It helped her to make the dreadful mistake of trusting me longer than she should.

“Aren’t you tried of this?” I asked her, hoping she might have the same inclination as me in that moment.

She furrowed her neck. “Holy shit. Did you just ask me a question?”

I opened a broom cupboard door beside us and threw her in. She giggled, luckily, and I pressed my body against hers, closing the door behind us.
 

“Still scared,” I said unto the darkness.

Our faces became illuminated in the glow of her cellphone. She shrugged cutely with a proud smile. “Nope.”
 

I didn’t drag this out. I landed a kiss against her mouth and began to feel up and down her legs, across her chest and lifted the hem of her dress. From the muffled sounds that she made back, I knew she enjoyed this.

At least until her words betrayed her body, as I feared that they might.
 

“Wait…No, Felix, wait,” she said and pushed my shoulders away from her. “I don’t want it like this.”

“How would you rather it then?” I asked admittedly frustrated. “In the same bed all those other women of mine have ventured.” I’d been so hot for her in that moment, desperate for her touch against mine, that I would have taken her anywhere she wanted to go to.

“With you? I…I…Felix, I honestly don't want it at all. I want it with someone who isn’t insane, who doesn’t need to play games like this. Sure, you invited me and my friends to this fucking amazing place for this…I mean…life changing event but…You don’t care about me. And I have a surprising amount of self-respect to let some psycho assault me in a broom closet.”
 

Her phone light flashed off. The cupboard fell dark.

“Hayley,” I said but she’d left already.

I considered not following her but old habits died hard. I snatched her back at the entrance to the rooftop and clutched her tightly. The look in her eye seemed more distant than ever. She’d teared up and it pained me to see her hurting. Then it pained me that I’d been the cause.

“I don’t know you.” She spoke to the side of us. “I like you, I’m attracted to you for some crazy, totally fuck up reason and all that. But you think this is the way to win a girl over? Flip-flop back and forth between being a gentleman and a savage? This weird game of yours…” She dismissed it with the sake of her chin. “In some other life this would have worked.”
 

Our eyes met.
 

She walked away.

I let her go.

I couldn’t believe that I let her go but I couldn’t creep her out her any further. I’d reached a limit with myself.

It’d become a mess, all of it. I wanted her. I wanted her in the worst ways. I wanted her in that very moment but the methods that had worked on pretty much every other woman in London were no good her. I needed to think. I needed to get myself out of this ridiculous costume.

I bolted up to my room and rapidly changed into my customary apparel. I poured an enormous glass of Jack, almost to the brim and lit a cigarette. Sitting in my favorite chair, I looked out upon the London skyline and tried to think.
 

Then I realized the whiskey wouldn’t help. I poured some nearby Worcestershire sauce into it to keep me from drinking it then crushed my entire pack of cigs.

Hayley’d either returned to her hotel, remained at the party or she was up at the reception at Coat Check. My guess was that her friends would’ve wanted to stay since the celebrations were far from finished and she’d oblige as she always seemed to. I had to go up there and somehow show her I’d change— I didn’t want to upset her. But all of this brought upon me such a tremendous sense of dread and fear that I remained planted in my velour chair.
 

This charade had grown tiresome.

Let the girl go and move on,
I thought.

I could go to the restaurant downstairs and have that hostess up here within minutes. Who needed Hayley?

…Nobody but me.

— 19 —
 

The fresh air on the roof provided me sanctuary from what happened downstairs. I’d wished in vain that somehow Felix would change for us, but I knew the ridiculous notion for me to expect that. Twisted and vain, Felix possessed qualities which would never work for me. I had told him goodbye and he let me this time. But I didn’t feel relief from him letting me.

Ako and Kristen were getting drinks from the bar. Other guests were dancing to the soft waltz being played by the small orchestra in the corner. Soft white lights were strung along the trellis and shrubbery.
 

“Babe, here.” Ako passed me some warm drink. “Irish coffee for your nerves.”

I couldn’t wait to go back to the hotel room and put this whole evening to rest. I’d even started looking forward to getting out of London completely if it meant not having to fret over this situation. That made my eyes water, but I hid it from my friends.
 

“Where’s Felix at?” Kristen asked.
 

“Who knows?”
 

“Hayley, he’s right over there.” Ako tipped her head toward the other side of the rooftop. Like some sort of apparition against the night’s fog, there he stood gazing at me. He had put on his usual attire, which seemed out of place now. He gazed at me with some regret and sadness, the same look he had when opening up about the death of his parents.

Then he began waking towards me. Kristen took my mug for me while I moved away, not toward him but rather to flee. I looked back over my shoulder one more time. Our pattern of movement took on a staggered hunt— Sometimes he’d be close, sometimes he’d pull back. This whole hunter nonsense again and I wouldn’t have another second it. I wasn’t prey and I wasn’t scared anymore. I clamored down the stairs into the ballroom and stood firm in place.

I moved towards him and he towards me.

“May I dance with you?”

“I beg your pardon?” I snapped and squinted.

“I would like to dance with you, Hayley,” he repeated. “No games. I’m so tired.”

“You dance?” I asked.

“I would dance with you. May I dance with you?”

I bit my lower lip and took ten steps toward the hotel lobby before I stopped. “Why should I do this for you?”

He truly did seem spent by this whole ordeal, by this façade he put on for people. He said, “You owe me nothing. If I could walk away from you right now, believe me that I would for our own sakes but you know we can’t let go now, Hayley. I’m made to be with you, I’m made for you. You’re made for me, you can punish me for days with a look, or the silence you give me. I’ll do anything to not upset you like I did earlier, not ever…Not ever again.”

Time froze for me.

Felix placed one arm around my waist and held my hand with the other. “May I dance with you?”

His touch was intoxicating, soft and gentle. I wanted to say more, to ask questions or protest, but he’d said what I’d been meaning to say all along. The moment felt so right — So fucked up and right and good — that I let it happen.
 

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered into my ear. The words came out with some difficulty. “I’m not a very nice guy, but I wanna be for you.” My heart sprung out of my chest.
 

‘Bye, Hayley!’ It proclaimed. ‘Nice knowin’ ya!’
 

Felix’s soft words aroused to me.

“Any other time, it might have worked with us.”

“Why can’t we try?” he asked, looking intently into my eyes. The bright blue color was disarming. He held a familiar earnest hunger in his eyes.

 
I wanted to be with him but could I trust him beyond this moment? He gently kissed my lips. I melted. I tasted tenderness, protection.

“You said it would be dangerous for me to date you.”

His forehead rested against mine as we swayed to the dulcet tones of the viola. “Darling, I haven’t dated anyone in five years. I don’t know what I’m talking about when it comes to matters of the heart. All I can tell you is I’d never hurt you, not once, not ever again after tonight.”

“How can I trust you?”

Felix’s arms wrapped me into him and held me so tightly, I could hardly breathe. “I have nothing to offer you but everything in me that I’ll keep you safe and happy the rest of my life.”

“Okay.” That was the word that came from my lips before I could even think about it. Yes, I wanted to try with him. Call it instincts, call it Fate, call it soul-mates…I didn’t care. Whatever justified this new feeling, this compulsion to never be away from him. I wanted to be with him more than anything, to protect him from himself.

Gently taking my hand, he guided me through the crowd. No words were spoken. I knew where he was taking me and I was allowing him to take me there. As we entered the elevator, I secretly hoped that no one would be inside waiting. I desperately needed him to kiss me again. My wish came true. Felix brought his lips to mine as the door quietly closed. I had to be with him, intimately; To be undressed with him and to feel his hands on my body.
 

Upon reaching the fifth floor, Felix took my hand in his and escorted me to his room. I knew that he had probably brought countless women in here but none in such a way as this. I knew it deep within me that what he was doing with me was special. It felt necessary and right.

He closed the door behind me, took off his new leather jacket, and threw it aside.

“Are you alright?” he asked with imploring eyes. I nodded softly. “Here it is— My humble abode.”

I caught my other forearm and stood nervously in the center of the room, not knowing where I should be. “It’s…It’s super nice.”

“You’re nervous,” he observed.
 

I nodded.

“It’s alright. I’m nervous too.”

“I want to have you. Please let me.” Felix whispered into my ear. There was nothing in the world that I wanted more than that, and I gently nodded my head to say that it was alright. With that, he pushed me onto the bed with some force.

“Be gentle,” I begged of him.

He appeared concerned and held me tightly in his arms, kissing at my collarbones. “Baby, I’m sorry. I’m not used to this.”

“To what?”

“To fucking girls I really like.”

He took a breath and slowly positioned himself on top of me. The weight of his body felt needed like I’d been missing him there my entire life. We kissed our infamous style of kiss again. He tasted like raspberries from the platters being served downstairs He tasted like summer. I could’ve kissed him forever.

“The only girl I might’ve ever…”

He lifted his head slightly. Those eyes stole me inside of him, to the softness he kept secret within in.

“Ever…what?”

“Ever loved.”

I inhaled deeply and held my head back. He began to slowly explore my body, kissing each crevice and curve as I figured out if this is what this was— My urge to be around him, him spiking my thoughts, my impulsion to make everything okay in his life, for him not to feel the pain of the loss of his parents.

I could hear myself moaning from his gentle caressing. I floated above my own self, still able to feel every feeling, and yet so detached from the thing. He undressed me, starting with my gown, then my bra, and finally my panties. I lay before him completely naked and vulnerable, my nipples pert, my hair follicles erect.

“Oh my God,” he breathed at the sight of me.

I pulled myself back into my body and wrapped my arms around him. I studied a scar running down his wrist as my fingertips interlaced with his.

Murakami saved him too,
I thought. I knew that now. I traced a finger down the bevel of skin then ran a soft bite on his neck. He groaned to me, clamping his tightly shut to indulge in me letting go for him.

“Would it scare you to tell you I’m in love with you so soon?” he whispered.

“No.” No tell-tale signs suggested otherwise.

He sucked on my nipples, twirling his tongue in circles. The sensation was so soft and sweet that I could feel it all the way down to my yearning region.