Trial Run: Addicted To Love Romance Collection (2 page)

Two days earlier...

“Rob Tyson? Is that you?”

Rob’s grin widened when he saw the surprise on his old friend’s face. The years had been kind to him. Jason Watts looked exactly how a bachelor with a nice house and a fat bank account should look – tanned, buff, with perfect hair, and wearing exclusive design board shorts. He exuded confidence and an effortless demeanor Rob had always envied.

“Hey! I didn’t know if I’d still find you here,” he said as Jason pulled him in a tight bear hug. “You were only a last-minute thought,” Rob teased.

“Aw, you missed me!” Jason laughed.

Rob laughed with him.

“Come on in. I was just helping myself to a cold beer. You want one?”

“Does a bear like honey?”

Rob followed Jason to the bean-shaped pool and dropped his Timberlands weekender by one of the canvas recliners. The afternoon sun was losing some of its potency, but the trip had still left him hot and sweaty. He eyed the pool with longing.

“Cheers,” Rob said when Jason handed him a beer, and clinked his bottle to Jason’s. He took a long pull, then smacked his lips in appreciation. “Say, you wouldn’t happen to have a pair of board shorts to spare...” He eyed the pool meaningfully.

Jason let out a belly laugh and whacked his friend’s shoulder the way he always used to do, all those years ago. “You know where my room is – help yourself. There’s a whole drawer full of label-on new stuff I haven’t even looked at yet. And you’re right. The water will be perfect.”

Rob took the whole of one minute to find a pair of new swim shorts in Jason’s bedroom, change, and reappear by the side of the pool. He snatched up his beer and emptied the bottle in one, searching for his friend from the corner of his eye.

Jason’s head was just breaking through the surface at the far end of the pool. Rob took a running start and then leapt up in the air, coiled his arms around his knees and plunged right next to Jason, dislodging a large amount of water as he sank to the bottom of the pool.

When he surfaced, he only managed a half-breath before he felt Jason’s hands on the back of his head, pushing him back under. They fooled around underwater for a few minutes, neither of them able to gain an advantage. After a while, they broke off and lounged back against the side of the pool, half-floating, half-submerged, working on calming their breathing.

“I missed that,” Rob said, grinning.

“Me, too,” Jason grinned back. “You’ve been away a long time, buddy. What have you been up to?”

“Ah, this and that,” Rob answered.

Jason chuckled. “Yeah, me too.”

Rob grinned. “Yeah, I saw. There was me thinking I’d find you married, with a bunch of kids running around the place, but there’s no trace of a woman’s touch in your room.” Jason shrugged but said nothing. “Maybe women are not your thing…” Rob drawled, making a face at his friend.

“Asshole.”

“Really, man, you know you can tell me.”

Jason reached for Rob’s head and fought to push him under, but Rob kicked away from the edge of the pool.

“When was your coming out party? Did I miss it?” he taunted.

Jason cupped his hand on the water and thrust sharply toward Rob. Rob closed his eyes and waited for the waterfall to pass before he laughed loudly.

“Dick!”

Rob laughed and swam back. “Hey, I was just joking. You know that, right?”

“Yeah, I know,” Jason sighed. “It’s just not that easy to have a life … not with Amelie around the house. I’m tired of playing lookout and protector around that kid. It’s worse than having a bunch of kids of my own. At least I’d raise mine right.”

Rob chuckled, the image of a skinny girl with long hair and a slight gap between her front teeth floating to the forefront of his mind.

“Is she still here, then? Amelie? She must be... what?”

“Twenty-two in a few days,” Jason answered.

Rob let out a long whistle, trying to picture a grown-up version of the sweet girl from years ago. He shook his head. All he could come up with was still the rounded child face, only on a longer body.

“What about you?” Jason asked. “Love found you yet?”

Rob’s face fell. “Yeah, you could say that. Found me, ran me over, cut me to pieces, kicked me in the gut and left me for dead.” He shook his head. “Never again. Women are a dangerous species.”

Jason let out a single burst of laughter. “Which is exactly why I’m happy taking my sweet time.”

“Wish I had that kind of immunity,” Rob muttered, dejected.

Jason grimaced. “Ouch. That bad, huh? Still not over it?”

“Yeah, I’m over it. Over it forever. Don’t talk to me about love, my friend. Been there, done that. Got the t-shirt. And the leg cast, and the bruises…”

“Sounds like a lesson you won’t forget in a hurry.” Rob nodded. “So that must have been ‘this.’ What’s ‘that’?”

“I was still licking my wounds when I decided to take up a job as a stunt double.”

“Whoa!”

“Yeah. It was only going to be temporary. I’ve been doing that for the last eight years. The money’s good, but I’m still trying to find a way to get out…” His voice trailed away and a long-forgotten sadness reared its ugly head from beneath the layers of dust he’d blown over it. He pulled in a sharp breath and rallied. “Just finished filming in the Keys, so I thought, since I’m in the area...”

“I’m glad you came, Rob. Things haven’t been the same since college.”

Rob hesitated. “I saw the article about the helicopter crash, but by the time I could get away...”

“It’s all good, don’t feel guilty for that. Handling a funeral was not the hardest part of the last ten and a half years.” At Rob’s inquiring glance, Jason sighed and continued. “Let’s put it this way: dealing with a rebellious little sister is the bane of my existence.”

Rob laughed. “Little Amelie? Really?”

“You wouldn’t believe how much trouble one small kid can get herself into. It was bad enough being her guardian before business school. I thought she’d calm down, you know, find a boyfriend, get her hormones under control... But she’s been worse since she came back. It’s like everything she does is designed to annoy me.”

“Yeah, right. You’re just being oversensitive.”

“I’m not. Honestly, stay a few days and see for yourself.”

“So why is she still here if you don’t get along? I would have thought she’d have moved out by now.”

“She won’t do that until I sign her inheritance over. Until then, she’s intent on torturing me.”

“See? You’re exaggerating again. A woman can only torture you if you let her.”

“Oh, you think so, do you?”

“Sure.”

“Okay. Let me think… Last week, I had to hold her hair while she puked in the bushes behind Cora’s nightclub. She disappeared for two days – I don’t know where she went – and then last night a mate of mine texted me to ask if I knew she was auditioning for a job at a strip club. I went to get her and she threw a mighty fit, right in front of everyone.”

Rob laughed heartily, his whole body shaking, making little wavelets ripple over the surface of the pool.

“Oh, I’d love to have seen that.”

“I’ll take you along next time,” Jason promised. “I tell you, I can’t wait for the day she leaves. The sooner, the better, and preferably before she completely destroys my reputation.”

Once he managed to regain his composure, Rob asked, “You think she needs to find a boyfriend, then?”

“I’m sure she already has. Multiple times. Not that they helped settle her down.”

Rob frowned, unable to marry Amelie’s image in his head with the concept of multiple boyfriends. She’d been such an awkward kid, tongue-tied and uncoordinated, always forgetting to pick up a set of keys or her phone, or failing to make transport arrangements to and from her friends, or school, or tennis practice.

“You know what her plans are? I mean, why do a business degree if you’re going to spend your whole life at home, sulking?”

“Beats me. She could just go out and get a job. A decent job – I don’t mean the stripper kind. But instead, it’s like she’s made it her life’s ambition to torment me.”

The sky was beginning to darken, taking on a purple hue topped with an orange layer of whipped clouds, when a sharp trill came from the house.

“Phone,” Jason said and hauled himself out of the pool. “Bit early for Amelie,” he said as he sprinted to the house.

The conversation can’t have lasted more than seconds. In a flash, Jason ran back out and waved his car keys at Rob.

“You wanna come along?”

“Sure.”

“I won’t lie,” Jason said as he unlocked a shiny new SUV parked by the roadside, just outside the green arch formed by the aging banyan trees. “I might need you for the muscle.”

“You’re taking me to a brawl?” Rob chuckled. “Feels like yesterday...”

Jason laughed as he peeled out and drove faster than the legal speed limit toward Boca Raton. “Yeah, but that fight had nothing to do with Amelie.”

“I couldn’t close my right fist for two days,” Rob said, flexing his fingers now, as he remembered their last fight together when, aged just eighteen, they’d walked away relatively unscathed from an encounter with the Ramos brothers. Well, apart from the deep gash in Jason’s thigh and Rob’s split eyebrow and grazed knuckles. They were lucky the patrol car arrived when it did, and the fact that there was a warrant already out for the brothers’ arrest didn’t hurt either.

Rob squinted as Jason turned down a less well-cared-for street. Most houses displayed signs of neglect here, and not all street lights functioned. Jason stopped the car in front of a property set back from the road, bordered by tall hedges and with a blinking neon sign over the double door.

Black Tulip Tattoo and Piercings
, it read, and there were two black stylized tulips painted straight onto the white wall by the door. An offending odor permeated the space surrounding the house, and Rob sniffed twice, trying to place its origin. Chemical... antiseptic with a slight charring whiff, maybe.

“Watch my back,” Jason ordered and burst through the front door.

The small reception desk hid a girl who couldn’t have been more than fifteen. She took one look at Jason and shrunk back into her chair.

Rob gestured to her to get out, and she didn’t have to be told twice. The door swung shut behind her at the same time as Jason’s shout came from the room at the back. Rob sprinted over and caught the fist that had missed Jason’s face by a hair’s breadth. A quick twist and shove, and the pierced skinhead who’d launched it crumpled to the floor. Rob’s heel to the gut made sure he’d stay there for a while.

To his right, Jason was sinking his fist into the tattooist’s stomach, but that didn’t hold Rob’s attention for long. Because on the cot in the middle of the room the most perfectly shaped woman lay naked on her front, her peachy and flawlessly tanned ass cheeks glowing in the light of the overhead projector. Two parallel stripes of white powder marred the round contour of her right ass cheek. The projector’s light outlined the word SLUT on her upper back. Only the S and part of the L had been inked, Rob realized with relief.

Relief was not the expression she wore when she turned her head around to see what the commotion was about. The scowl on her face deepened when she saw Jason bent over the tattooist, and then she sat up, scattering the coke, and turned to the door. Her ice blue eyes locked on Rob.

“Amelie?” he whispered, his heart skipping a beat.

Amelie blinked and shuddered, making the light glint off her rainbow nipple rings. In the next moment, she launched herself at her brother’s back, screaming.

“No, no, no! Leave him alone, Jason! Get off him! Stop interfering with my life, asshole!”

Jason disengaged himself from her grip and shoved her back, but Amelie was not going to give up that easily. She twisted Jason’s forearm just enough to make him gasp, then she let go and slipped between him and the man he was punching.

The room spun, and she felt her balance waver. Arms open wide, she let herself slide to the floor. Something didn’t make sense. She couldn’t make her muscles work right. Why wouldn’t her fist tighten up?

“Amelie?”

Rob’s voice. She’d recognize it anywhere.

“Amelie, look at me.” A hand under her chin, tilting her face up. “Open your eyes. Amelie, look at me, please.”

She tried hard to focus, but the light was smudging his features. Then she found them – Rob’s eyes. His beautiful chocolate brown irises with wide dark centers like pools of desire, fringed by thick, long lashes. So deep, she could dive into their depths. She wanted to.

Voices were speaking in the background, fast and outraged. Before she could make sense of the words and place them into sentences, she felt herself lifted up and bent over. Then two fingers slid over her tongue and she gagged. No. She was not going to throw up. Eww. Gross.

Amelie shook her head, but the action only made the room spin faster. The fingers were on her tongue again, and this time she couldn’t hold back. She threw up all over the tiled floor, spattering the cot, the fallen ink gun and everyone around her in vomit.

The smell made her retch again and again. She had no strength, so she let the hands that held her take all the weight, and allowed her body to do what it wanted.

After a while, she felt the hands move to her armpits. A coarse, restraining papery garment was being fitted to her body by a second pair of hands. With the last ounce of energy, she fought against it, but her efforts were ineffective.

“Stop fighting or you’ll have to walk out of here naked,” Jason’s voice percolated through the fog of her brain, but his threat was pointless, because she couldn’t feel her fingers, or her legs, or...

There was movement, and the caressing touch of cool night air, and then only blackness.

Rob watched as Amelie launched herself at her brother, oblivious of her nakedness or any danger to which she may be exposing herself. He took two strides toward them, then stopped, hesitating. What now? Should he simply grab her and pull her away? She didn’t have a stitch of clothing on. How would she react to his hands on her body? More to the point, how would Jason react to his best friend brazenly manhandling his sister?

Amelie took that decision out of his hands when she collapsed to the floor. Her knees buckled and she slid slowly down, deflated, like a punctured balloon.

He rushed to help Jason then, sliding an arm behind her back and pulling her face around with his free hand to look at her eyes.

It only took a glance at her pupils to work it out.

“Roofies!”

Jason nodded in agreement. “Still think I’m overreacting?”

Rob didn’t bother answering. “She’s not completely out yet. We need to get it out of her system quick.”

“We need salt and warm water.”

“Not enough time. Can you think of something else?”

“Just trigger her gag reflex.”

Rob frowned. “I’ll hold her up.” He shifted his grip so Amelie was in a better position, making sure he didn’t touch her in any inappropriate places. Still, he was all man, and the ugly duckling he used to know had transformed into a swan over the last ten years. There was no escaping the heat coursing through his body when he propped her naked, plump behind against his leg and bent her over his arm, holding her mass of chestnut hair back with his other hand.

When she was done, Jason grabbed some paper off the roll used to cover the tattooist’s cot and wrapped it as best he could around his sister. She fought and mumbled incoherent slurred words at the discomfort, but soon passed out. Rob hoisted her up in his arms and followed Jason back out to the car.

He sat in the back with Amelie on his lap, his eyes skimming over her body, as Jason drove back almost as fast as before. The paper roll couldn’t disguise the curvature of her hip, the curl of her calf, her slender ankles... Lips pressed together, Rob stared at her child-like face, wondering what he would do if she’d been his sister, instead of Jason’s. What was she thinking of? Why would she be so careless about her own safety? Did she enjoy getting in trouble? Did she expect, perhaps, that her brother would swoop in and rescue her every time?

No matter how pretty she was, or how delectable her body had become – and he was definitely not staring at the shape her nipple rings etched into the paper covering – if she’d been his sister he would have bent her across his knees and tanned that pert behind until it glowed. This princess syndrome she seemed to indulge in had to be stopped before it got out of control. One day her prince charming would fail to appear, and then what? Knocking sense into her by whatever means necessary, now, would be the best course of action, for her own good.

Rob carried Amelie into the house and laid her carefully in her bed, then stood back as Jason ripped the paper from around her and pulled a sheet over her naked body. Again, he didn’t look at her nipples, so he couldn’t explain how he’d noticed the ring on the left had flipped up and over the top, begging to be straightened, and he most certainly hadn’t caught a glimpse of the ice blue stone of her clit dangle, the exact same color as her eyes.

He turned and walked out the door before he failed to notice more things about Amelie that made his blood heat up and race around his body. She was no more than a spoilt brat who needed firm handling if she was going to make it past her twenty-second birthday alive.