Ride (Alpha Male Romance): In Between the Covers (Carolina Bad Boys #3) (6 page)

Jase

UNLIKE THE FIRST FEW days Ave moved in with me when she tiptoed around as if she expected me to say
boo
every time she made a noise, she banged around the townhouse after my little dare. For three days she glared at me, tried to ignore me, and then resorted to cursing me out every chance she got.

I fucking loved it.

Her feisty reaction meant I got under her skin with an itch only I could scratch. Hopefully one day soon I’d feel her fingernails scratching all down my back, too.

She’d hit me hard the night of the Beta Theta Asshole party, cutting me right down to size. I’d had to massage my ego after that. I was only a guy after all. Everything had changed the morning she’d walked in on me in the bathroom. She’d been unable to look away. I hadn’t minded, not one bit. The way she’d stared at me—like she was memorizing every muscle and shadow and tattoo the same way she memorized her organic chemistry notes every night—soothed my bruised ego.

It’d taken all my willpower to restrain from pushing her against the sink and ripping off her sweats so I could bend her over and bang her right there. I wanted to know if she was smooth-shaved or if she had a sexy blonde landing strip on what would undoubtedly be a pale pink pussy to match her pale pink nipples.

I’d pushed her the night she found me jerking off. I’d needed to know if this insane attraction was one-sided. Sometimes it was so hard to tell with Ave. And contrary to popular belief, I wasn’t the risk-taker everyone made me out to be. There was a reason I was alone, why I kept my walls up almost as high as Ave’s, why I didn’t do friends and never, ever girlfriends.

If I was going to put myself out there for Ave, there had to be a reason. She had to want me as much as I wanted her.

The fire burning at a low blaze inside her almost combusted my heart. Every dare I gave she threw back at me with so much heat I could barely think around her. My words came out wrong, all wrong. I’d resorted to macho instincts when it came to her because I wanted her in my bed, every night. It killed me to have her two doors away and always denying me.

I should never have taken her out on my bike.

I wanted to get her back out on the road as soon as I could.

Ave had me tied in knots.

With her arms wrapped tightly around my stomach and her thighs pressed to mine as we’d sped along the Brazos Trail, I’d been in that moment with her. I thought about many more moments like that in the future with her. Her lips had nuzzled my neck and the thrill of her warm mouth on my skin superseded the thrill of the ride. A first. Her hair had whipped both our faces. Her laughter caused shockwaves to reverberate down to my thighs.

Her face had glowed when I’d helped her off the bike. Her cheeks had been rosy and her tropical blue eyes wide with wonder as we stood at the overlook. I’d only had eyes for her. She was more beautiful than any painting, any of nature’s glories, and by far more stunning than any woman I’d ever met.

Our kiss had been so close. Her eyes drifted closed. Her head had tilted for mine. Her breath slipped across my mouth and her lips parted in anticipation. Anticipation I’d savored one moment too long. A single kiss with Ave would be the end of everything else I knew. That almost-kiss was a mistake.

I’d never be the same again. I didn’t know if I was ready to change. I didn’t think she’d want me if she knew what I really was. How could she?

I don’t have conquests. I have fucks.
That was the damn truth. I’d never seduced a chick. I’d never had to. Never wanted to. Never needed to. Until now, that was.

The near-miss kiss was an accident I wanted to make a reality.

****

Another day. Another five hundred dollars
waiting to be made tonight
.

I thought my head was going to explode. The one hugged by my cranium and the one on top of my cock.

Ave didn’t bust into the bathroom on me again. I failed to catch her during bath time
again
. I jerked off to her. I bet she buzzed away with her bullet to thoughts of me at night.

Even though Ave had no problem giving me a piece of her mind as our standoff continued—what I liked to call the Great Roommate Détente of 2012—she sure had a problem getting rid of one single article of clothing from her hiding-in-plain-sight arsenal.

Gone were the rare viewings of tight jeans, sexy thermal shirts, silky halter tops or any tops, for that matter, that hinted at the gorgeous girl beneath.

Every day with Ave it was the same damn thing: same sensible shoes, same baggy clothes. Same frumpy, old maid, bought from the Goodwill bargain bins shit covering up the hot-as-hell, sexy bombshell hiding under that serviceable crap-colored sweater-blouse combo she wore.

I couldn’t wait to burn that shit so she could be the heart-stopping, pulse-pounding, self-assured woman she was meant to be.

From her bright blue eyes to the long wheat colored hair untouched by highlights or hairspray, she was unexplored territory. Fresh, good, clean, wholesome, and hot. She just needed to be uncovered . . . unclothed. And on my cock.

I got a bad rap all around. Rich boy prince who lived off his daddy’s AmEx, drove a motorcycle, had a tat or two, and liked to run around. It wasn’t totally like that. Cut off from the trust fund tray at the age of eighteen because Daddy Everly was nothing if not a hard ass, I’d had put my other head to good use.

Everly was raising an heir to the Texan oil field fortune, not a spoon-fed pussy with no business sense. Luckily I had the brains to match my brawn, as well as a side project that kept me flush enough to more than scrounge my way through my years at A&M.

Bad boy this, bad boy that, gossip about my “hit the tail and run” rep followed me like the exhaust fumes from my Harley. I didn’t really give a bunny’s cunt, unless it came to Ave. Until it had come to Ave . . . Avery.

Jesus, the dent she’s making in my ego is as big as the Grand Fucking Canyon.

I’d upped the stakes with Ave. She’d doubled-down. I had a way better poker face.

I smirked into the mirror on my closet door, drawing on jeans that had been rumpled on the floor the night before when I’d kicked them off. Adding a T-shirt, my favorite leather, a Marlboro Red dangling from my mouth, I made a clean sweep of the apartment on my way out.

In the bathroom, Ave’s towel flopped over mine. I shook them both out and hung them on the towel bar. Inhaling her scent, I closed my eyes. Her natural fragrance was jasmine or honeysuckle or some summer-sweet perfume. The same flowers my mama let free-range in the back forty. The smell swilled to my nose and percolated my prick.

I wasn’t making a full-on chef fucking breakfast every morning for Ave because I was a nice guy. Hell no. I expected some payback in return. The payback—when it finally happened—better be big, grand even. It had better include something close to total capitulation, and Ave’s heart.

I’d definitely expected a nice hard slap from across the breakfast table when I’d laid out my little challenge. It would’ve been excellent to goad her out of her shell, to see a spark of hot temper flare in her eyes. Instead, what I’d gotten was so much better I’d almost busted a nut in the breakfast nook. The lowering of her lashes, the tight hard peaks of her nipples—through another tent-like blouse, for crissakes.

The one bright spot was our early morning rides to campus. Ave had no choice but to hold onto me. She couldn’t help but laugh out loud when I hammered down on the throttle. She squeezed me tighter when I took extra sharp corners. She didn’t know it, but one day I was going to teach her how to drive my Harley. Then I was gonna ride
her
on my Harley.

Ave could deny it all she wanted but she was game. And it was on.

Striding outside, I smiled when I saw her standing beside my motorcycle. She didn’t have a car, just the bicycle, and she barely held down her job at Starfucks because she was so intent on getting the grades.

She kept tucking checks inside my wallet for her share of the rent. I left them under her pillow, torn into neat piles of paper.

Ave was never going to pay me for what I gave her. I had enough of getting paid for services rendered already, and I wouldn’t dirty our relationship with money matters.

The chinstrap of her helmet was so tight it cut into her neck. I loosened it, desperate to drag it off, push my fingers through her hair, make out with her right then and there.

“Loosen up, precious.” I climbed on and patted the seat behind me.

The leather groaned, and I did too as her thighs wrapped around mine. Timid arms trapped my stomach.

“I ain’t gonna bite ya.” I snapped my teeth in her direction, laughing when she swore beneath the helmet in garbled words. “Hang on tight.”

Ave did. Her inner thighs gripping my legs through every corner made me hornier and hornier.

Maybe I was a fuckup. Maybe I had millions of dollars at my fingertips. Maybe I’d let that all slip through my hands, but as I put the bike into full throttle and held Ave’s fingers at my waist, I knew I wasn’t going to let her slip away.

During the ride to campus, the wind lashing my face cleared my head of everything. Ave on the back, snuggled close and giggling like a girl on a rollercoaster, made the short journey that much sweeter. Her tits bumped against my back. Her hips cradled my ass.

I banked a seriously deep curve, chuckling when she squealed.

With a scream of tires on pavement I roared up at the Starbucks kiosk. Everyone within rubbernecking distance did a double take.

Sliding off the bike, I removed my helmet and tucked it under my arm.

I gave Ave my hand and helped her off. She was laughing and breathless, and so fucking pretty. For a moment, she was heedless of the other people staring at us. I liked her that way.

“Allow me,” I said.

She inhaled. She stopped laughing.

My fingertips grazed her neck as I unfastened her helmet. I wisped her hair-tie free, letting the tumbling locks fall down her back and around her shoulders. The scent of her fragrance—the one from the bathroom—wafted up to me.

I drove my fingers into her hair and held her in place.

Her gaze dropped to my mouth.

Mine lifted to her eyes where the blue irises darkened.

Swooping down, I captured her lips with mine. Ave gasped, then moaned. Her hands pressed against my chest, moved to my neck, pulled me closer.

The first taste of her lips tore a groan from me. I held her to me with my hand buried in her hair, the other wrapped around her waist.

I licked her soft seam with the tip of my tongue. When she parted her lips and let me inside, she was the softest, warmest and possibly the wildest woman I’d ever kissed.

Our tongues coiled and danced. Our lips took the force of the kiss that went from a first brush to full-fledged want within seconds. My fist twisted in her hair. Her fingers dug into my shoulders. The smoldering flame between us burst to fiery life.

I pulled away for a second only to be guided back to her lush soft mouth. She sucked my bottom lip. I almost shot in my pants. I bit hers back, growling when she whimpered.

We parted, and softly pecked at each other’s mouths. Once. Twice. Three times.

I dove inside for one last deep kiss, swallowing her gasp, spurred on when she grinded her hips against my full-blown erection.

When I withdrew, Ave chased after my mouth. I stared at her kiss-swollen lips, so greedy for her.

I stepped back. I didn’t say a word. Neither did she. She watched me put my helmet back on. I hit the kickstarter and started the bike. At the last second, I grabbed her hand and kissed the heart of her palm.

Roaring off, I left Ave shell-shocked, and me? I was rocked to my balls.

Jase

HOLY SHIT. HOW I got through the rest of the day was a miracle of some sort or other. Fuck, I didn’t even know how I rode my Harley away from Ave, my body shook so hard from those kisses. I wanted a repeat, surround sound, maybe a video I could replay, and endless days of what I’d just experienced with her.

There was just one little problem.

I fucked women for money. I dressed to order for wealthy society broads, women who had too much bank and not enough bang in their bedrooms. I undressed for them and made sure their orgasms weren’t the fake kind screamed out to stroke the egos of their high-powered “daddies”.

I pocketed the cash and got out as quickly as I could.

Going home alone, I relegated each lady to a memory of money made that had nothing at-fucking-all to do with lovemaking. I distilled them into dollar signs and decimal points as I reminded myself I was lucky I could use my body as a business transaction. I’d hit the shower—painfully hot water, strong soap, three complete washings—hit my studies, and study my bank account.

All my tats, my motorcycle, my rep—it was to keep people off my back. I let people think what they wanted because their opinions didn’t matter. But Ave’s did. She was the only person I wanted riding my back. She could never find out how I kept us flush.

To say I had my reasons for trying to keep Ave at arms length when I wanted nothing more than to haul her into my bed and let her into my heart was an understatement.

In other words, I was fucked.

So maybe I was a rent boy who let women use me for easy money, but at least I paid the bills on time. That included Ave’s share, too, so she could concentrate on her studies. She had scholarship grades to maintain after all.

I managed to keep my marks at dean’s list level, which wasn’t too shabby. And it meant my dad continued to foot the bill for tuition and fees even if he didn’t bother with those pesky necessities like food, shelter, clothing . . . condoms. My father was a hard-nosed businessman who’d made his own way from scratch. He believed he was instilling a strong work ethic in me. He just had no idea what my line of work was.

So
, when Ave got home from her last lecture on the Day of the Blissful Kiss, I blanked her. Which was exactly what I should’ve done when she’d shown up on my doorstep. Instead of inviting her into my home and into my heart, I should’ve pushed her away, shut the door in her face. Because things like
I need
and
I want
had no place in this secret sex-for-money world I’d created.  

On my way out of the townhouse, I had a bad taste in my mouth. It was the fourth night in a row I was booked to go fuck some society ho. I stiffened my shoulders and chanced a glance at Ave as she sat at the table with her MacBook opened in front of her.

She straightened her back and looked me head on. No, she looked
through
me. Our kiss was not repeated, not mentioned. Nothing chanced. Nothing gained. Nothing lost.

Right. I’d just keep telling myself that.

I stepped outside. When I shut the door behind me, I closed Ave out, too.

My heart, that fucking stupid thing, dropped so fast I thought my legs would give out. The bad taste in my mouth grew more vile. It almost erased the sweet taste of Ave’s lips from our earlier kisses.
Almost.

It was a trying night with Mrs. M. Delesseleine in her high-powered, high-rise, deluxe hotel suite.

The woman had claws for fingernails, and she wasn’t happy unless I bled for her. Before Ave, a night like this was nothing more than a means to an end.

Now, it felt like
the end
. I’d fucked one or two women almost every single night since Ave had moved in. Different broads, another handful of dollar bills.
Daddy Warbucks.
My conscience started taking on its own life-form. My cock still performed though.

Maybe that made me sick. I didn’t know. I didn’t want them, not like
her
. I chalked it up to basic male anatomy. It really didn’t matter one way or the other.

M. Delesseleine drew things out. She made me strip. She made me strip her with as little use of my hands as possible. She wanted me to fuck her cunt slowly. She had a full hour to fill with my cock, after all.

While she moaned and begged and demanded, I shut off my mind, mindlessly pummeling her. I wouldn’t think about Ave.
Not here. Not now.
I wouldn’t sully her that way.

I made that bitch come three times before I pulled out and came inside the condom. I wouldn’t give her the pleasure of ever having me jet inside, and there was always a rubber.

M. didn’t like that, but that was too fucking bad. My rules.

Dressing quickly, I pocketed the cash—no checks, untraceable transaction. Touché. And fuck you very much, IRS.

I didn’t want to think about Ave until I’d gotten home and had my shower, but thoughts came unbidden. Our ride. Our kisses. Her fresh scent.

When I got home and slunk into the kitchen stinking of high-class perfume, Ave closed her books and stood to make her escape. She was pissed and she had every right to be. I’d kissed her then left her high and dry.

She was clean. She was innocent. That’s why Avery was so special to me. She didn’t make me feel dirty no matter how filthy I was inside. Ave made me want more, with her.

And frankly, her skittishness after a long evening of riding some woman I hoped I’d never see again made me a little on the tetchy side.

I grabbed her elbow.

“I have an exam tomorrow, Jase.”

But her protest died on a whimper when I curled my arms around her.

“So fuckin’ beautiful, precious.”

She covered her face with her hands. “I’m horrible.”

Every moment with Ave showed me a new side. This one had me growling, “Who told you that?” Tears slithered down her cheeks and I scooped them away. “Stop, honey, stop. Please.”

Her hesitant fingers slid through my hair when my lips replaced my fingers on her face. My tongue collected the salty teardrops.

“Jase?”

Immense hunger ripped through me with that one little question. I shed my leather jacket and wondered how much Ave was willing to give. Because for her, for the first time, I’d give everything.

“Are you using me?” she asked, pulling her skirt down around her thighs when I tried to tug it up.

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.”

“No, I’m not, Jase. You kissed me in front of everyone, then the next time I saw you, you acted like I was invisible.”

“I’m sorry, Ave. You scare the crap out of me. Half the time I don’t even know what I’m doing around you.”

She didn’t move away from me so I took that as permission. The kiss I brushed along her neck made her sigh. There was no duplicity in my actions, just sheer want. For her taste, her feel, her freshness I’d never experienced.

Soft starving eyes slid to mine. “Don’t do this, Jase. Not if you’re going to hurt me.” Her shoulders rolling forward, she tried to hermit her way back into her shell of protection.

Everything. Ave meant it all. Her shy ways, her beautiful looks, her need . . . she needed me like no one ever had.

“I wanna make love to you. Wake up with you.” My lips tripped across her mouth and I aimed inside with my tongue.

Tentative licks met me. Then wild wet heat. Every motion, every intense and deep emotion, she met. The lapping, the teeth scraping, the lashing in and out as our mouths meshed had me on the edge of dragging my jeans off and grabbing my cock.

I let her go to get rid of my shirt, chuckling in a tight, low drawl when her fingers traced the grooves of muscle and the trail of hair from my stomach to the top of my pants. My cock rapped hard against the zipper. I was full, erect, eight inches of wide dick begging to be fucked or sucked.

I pulled her hands off me. Her eyes widened.

With a smirk, I asked, “Want it, darlin’?”

I was pushing Ave. I knew it.

The stain on her cheeks and the flush up her neck was a telltale sign she liked it.

I breathed against the small curl of her ear, tasting her earlobe, as sweet as her lips. “I know you do. You wanna see me naked again, you wanna fuck me. You want my mouth on your cunt and your hands driving into my hair to hold . . . me . . . tight.”

Her whimper drove a spike of need through me. I slipped my tongue into her mouth, hauling her into my arms. I’d never been kissed like this. Little pants of breath, small sips of lips in between deep, heady, all seeking lunges. My hands dragged up her nape, into her hair, clasping, winding, tightening.

Breaking away from Ave’s addictive lips, I clasped her face. One hand fell to her waist, bunching up the blouse, touching bare skin I’d only glimpsed once. “Are you gonna insult me again by asking about my intentions with you?”

“No!” Her mouth was so swollen I wanted to fuck it with my cock, slowly.

“Are you gonna tell me what happened to you, honey, to make you think you’re anything less than goddamn perfection?”

She gasped and turned to flee, but I grabbed her around the waist before she could get away.

A whip of her hair flicked across my face, and fury filled her expression before she buried it inside. “Not now, Jase.”

She slid her hands into the out-of-shape cuffs of her sleeves. A nervous twitch. One I wanted to break her of once I found out what had caused it.

Touching her cheek, I sought her eyes. “Sleep with me tonight, Ave.”

She glanced away.

I wrapped my arms around her and rocked side-to-side. “Sleep with me. Every night. Goddamn it, I want you however I can get you.” I kissed her neck, her lips, her lowered eyelids, murmuring all the time. “I’m not what you think.”

I was worse, though. Dirty, inside and out. Used up, paid for, a fuck for money. But not for Ave, never with her. She didn’t know. She had no idea. I planned to keep it that way.

One silent nod of her head beneath my chin and I groaned. The months of wanting, the years of searching, finally finding Avery, and she was going to sleep with me. I wanted to strip off and do a victory dance before bending her over the table.

I was pretty sure those wicked ideas gleamed in my eyes, but I tried to extinguish them.

“Now”—I tilted her chin for a quick kiss—“put on your ugliest nightgown and get to my room. I’m holdin’ you all night long.”

And that was it, all I wanted.

A sniffled weak laugh came from her before she turned away, leaving me standing there feeling oh so thankful.