Wanted: A Bad Boy Romance (12 page)

His hand slices through the air.

“Start over with a clean slate,”
he says, zipping his jeans.

I smirk. “It doesn’t work that
way, Titan. You can’t run away from your past. It follows you wherever you go.”

“Not running away, Jordana. I’m
just moving on.” He huffs. “I’m not going to get anywhere in this town. My name
is shit here. Not going to spend the rest of my life living in this rat’s nest falling
asleep to the sound of the drunks leaving the bar every night.”

I can’t blame him. It’s not any
kind of life anyone should have to live.

“I don’t understand what that has
to do with me,” I say. “You act like I’m some kind of impediment to your
plans.”

“You are.” He steps toward me,
his eyes dropping to my chest. “Women are nothing but distractions.”

I scoff.

“That’s an extremely sexist thing
to say.” My arms fold, and I follow him to his kitchen where he retrieves a
beer and pops the tab.
 

“Not sexist.” He takes a gulp.
“It’s common knowledge.”

“Okay, yeah. Maybe if you had a
girlfriend or something, but I’m not trying to be your girlfriend.”

He laughs, glancing behind me at
the sack of sheets and towels on the floor by the bed.

“Right,” he says.

I wave my hand and turn away.
“All right.
Whatever, Titan.
Just forget everything.”

“That’s going to be hard to do,
but I’ll try.”

I release a deep breath. He has a
way of getting under my skin and then delivering the tiniest flattering remark
that morphs itself into a sliver of hope.

“We’re compatible, you and I,” he
says. “Physically.”

What am I supposed to say to
that?

“And your point?” I ask.

“It’s a shame I’m not in the
market for a girlfriend right now.” He leans against his counter, sipping from
the silver can in his hand. “I’d date the shit out of you. Fuck the shit out of
you too.”

My eyes roll into the back of my
head. “I see what you’re doing here.”

His expression grows serious.
“Oh, yeah? What am I doing here?”

“You’re fucking with me,” I say.
“Reverse psychology again.
I push
,
you
pull
.
You pull
,
I push
.
I’m beginning to detect a pattern here.”

It’s all a game to him. He only
wants me when he thinks he can’t have me.

“Parole Officer Perry, I do
believe you have me figured out.” His tone is just as sarcastic as the smug
grin on his handsome face.

“Game over,” I say.

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re manipulative.” I drag my
fingers along the sides of my head. “God. I can’t believe I fell for it! They
say convicts are skilled at this shit, but this is unbelievable, Titan.”

He stands
before
me, not a word and not so much as a hint of an expression
on his face.
Sipping his beer, he watches me.

“I can see how you’d think I’ve
been mind-fucking you,” he says after a long pause.

Perhaps referring to him as a
convict was too harsh. In so many ways, he’s so not one of them. It was unfair
of me to say that.

“I don’t want to fuck you,
Jordana,” he says, “because I don’t want to get attached to you. I don’t want
to be that jackass with the butterflies, checking his phone and counting down
the hours until he sees his woman again.”

“Who says it would be that way?”
I ask.

Sex.

That’s what this is about.

It’s about fucking the very
person you’re not supposed to fuck. It’s about letting the guilt sink into your
bones until you can feel it all and then not giving a damn because it makes you
feel alive.

“I just want to hook up.” I
shrug. “You’re making this way more complicated than it needs to be.”

“Everything a woman touches
becomes complicated.”

Now I see it.

Now I see it was all about
him
this whole time and not
me
.

He’s afraid.

Titan is scared he’ll feel
something for me, because when you care about someone you care an awful lot
about losing
them
.

And he’s not ready to go there.

It makes perfect sense.

“Remember what you said to me the
other night?” I say, stepping toward him. “Sometimes we just have to do and not
think?”

He sits his beer on the counter,
exhaling slowly as I step toward him. Pressing my body against him, I lift my
arms to his shoulders.

I love how safe I feel in his
arms. He’s huge. Massive. With my ear pressed against his chest, I listen to
the thundering beat in his chest.

His hands drag down my sides
until he reaches my ass, where he cups it in his hands and presses my hips into
his.

Standing on my toes, I deposit
soft kisses into his neck and whisper, “Don’t think…”

Titan’s hands rake down the back
of my thighs until he lifts me up. I wrap my legs around him as he carries me
to his bed with slow, steady steps.

Everything becomes a blur from
there. Clothes are torn off. Hands slip and glide into intimate places. Tongues
are swirling. Lips
are tasting
. Within minutes, he’s
inside me, filling me so deep it hurts.

I wear a smile the second we’re
finished, my sex still pulsing, swollen and wet as I redress. That time was
fast. Instinctual.

The room smells like us, and
Titan lies spent on his back, his cock still swollen and wet with my arousal.

I don’t say a word, mostly
because there’s nothing to say. It was just sex. I want to prove to him that
I’m not trying to be his girlfriend. I’m not trying to make him fall in love
with me. I’m not trying to complicate a damn thing.

It’s
just sex.

Nothing else.

It’s not everyday you meet
someone who can make your body explode with a few flicks of a well-placed
tongue and a quick hate-fuck session.

By the time I’m home, Mom is
passed out in the recliner in front of the fireplace, an empty glass of wine on
a coaster beside her. Lewis is hunched over his computer in his study, barely
noticing as I walk by.

I head up to my room, soak in the
bath, and climb into bed.

Satisfaction runs the length of
me, but I can’t help the excitement that fills me to the brim at the thought of
seeing Titan again.

“Saw a guy outside Hammerhead the
other night,” I say to KJ Tuesday morning. He called in sick to work on Monday
much to the dismay of Kyle, who actually had to get off his ass for once.

“Yeah?” KJ says, ear tuned to me
as he pulls a clean oil filter from a box in the back room. “What happened?”

“He lurked in the alley,” I say.
“Went after this drunk.”

“Went after him, like, he was
going to do something?” KJ asks.

“Yeah.
Pretty
sure.
I stopped it though.”

“You get a good look at him?”

“Didn’t see his face,” I say.
“Called out from my apartment and the guy took off. Other guy never even
noticed.”

“Wow,” KJ says. “Just think
,
you could’ve been a local hero. Everyone’s looking for
that asshole.”

“You still convinced
it’s
Kyle?” I ask, glancing around to ensure we’re alone.

He shrugs, jutting out his chin.
“My money’s on Kyle. Yeah.”

My memory’s fuzzy from that
night, but nothing about that guy made me think it was Kyle. With Kyle’s
average height and lean build, I don’t see how he could be beating
drunk
bastards within an inch of their life and coming into
work with clean knuckles and a light demeanor.

After tossing and turning for
hours last night, I Googled Jordana’s brother, Jerome for lack of something
better
to do. According to an article, he’d been beat up
outside a bar three years ago. The article claimed it was a random act of
violence, and the perp was never caught.

The circumstances are undeniably
similar to the string of recent attacks.

“How long did you say this has
been going on?” I ask KJ.

He scratches the back of his
skinny neck and shrugs. “Couple years, maybe three? I dunno.”

KJ’s a simple guy, and I’m not
entirely convinced there’s a whole lot going on behind those squinty eyes. What
you see is what you get with him.

Kyle struts in at half past the
hour, sipping his Dew and taking his sweet time getting settled. After a solid
ten minutes, he hangs up his jacket and brushes past me, slamming his hand
against my shoulder like we’re pals.

“You ready for another fight
tonight?” he asks, keeping his voice low.

My body still aches from the
fight last Saturday night, but the hundred dollar bills tucked into a sock
under my mattress help numb the pain.
 

“A Tuesday night fight?” I ask,
buying some time before I give an answer.

“Ain’t
no set
night for fighting.
We fight when we fight. It’s all about lining up the
right guys.” Kyle wears the devil’s smirk. “Here’s the deal. Last couple
fights? People are saying they’re stacked. They don’t like paying all that good
money and seeing the guy go down after five minutes.”

“What’s your point?” I know
exactly what is damn point is.

He cocks his head, his brows
meeting. “You’re Goliath. You need to fight another Goliath. Simple as that.”

“Thought you said it’d be easy
money? Sounds like work to me.” Not that I couldn’t take it, but making a
couple thousand bucks for a five minute fight is more my style.

“Fighting’s entertainment, Titan.
I’m in the entertainment business,” he says. “If we can’t get anyone to come to
these fights, we don’t make any money and you don’t get paid. The gravy train’s
coming to an end.”

“I want more money,” I say.
“Double.”

“Fuck no.” He doesn’t hesitate.

“Then I’m out.” Shit. Not ready
to be out yet, but I’ll take the chance and bluff.

Kyle storms off with his hands on
his hips. I see his lips moving, but I don’t hear the slew of profanities he’s
probably slinging from clear across the garage.

He wants me to fight. Clearly, I
have the upper hand.

I slip outside to pull another
car in and hoist it up on the lift. It’s my third car of the morning so far and
my breakfast is barely settled in my stomach. Life’s a fucking joke when I’m
working three times as hard as that jackass and he’s making twice as much as
me.

Kyle watches me from behind the
glass window in the customer lobby. When we make eye contact, I see he’s on his
phone. My gut tells me he’s lining up the financials for tonight, and I’m going
to be fighting for a two grand prize.

***

There’s barely enough room in the
corner of my shit box apartment for some shadow boxing, but I do it anyway. I
stretch, jog in place, and pump out some
push ups
like
I’m training for an Olympic fight on a time crunch.

I have no clue how big my
opponent will be tonight, but judging by the fact that Kyle wants to put on a
good show, I’m going into this expecting the worst.

Nothing about me is small by any
means, but I’ve seen some big sons of bitches in the pen. There are men who
could pick me up with one hand and make me look light as a feather in their
meaty claw.

Kind of how I did with my last two
opponents…

Maybe it’s karma.

Either way, I refuse to lose
tonight. One of my old cellmates was a professional MMA fighter. When the
guards weren’t looking, he’d teach me everything he knew. Looking back, we were
just a couple of knuckleheads having fun. It was a way to pass the time, and he
was only bunking with me a couple years before he was released for good
behavior.

I have half a mind to look him
up, but I wouldn’t even know where to start. He was from Oklahoma. I know that
much.

I yank a folded towel from the
edge of my bed, one of the fancy ones Jordana gave me, and just before I’m to
wipe the glaze of sweat from my brow there’s a knock at the door.

My money’s on Jordana, and a
quick glance out the window proves I’m right. Her car’s parked down below.

“Coming,” I yell a minute later
when she knocks.

When I jerk the door open, she’s standing
with the most devious half-smirk I’ve ever seen. Her work blouse is unbuttoned
just enough that her cleavage is in full view, and her full lips are glazed in
red gloss.

She came to fuck.

I have exactly one hour before I
need to head across the street to the bar basement. I could sit here and
mindfuck the shit out of her until the inevitable happens, or I can take her
right here.

No words.

No resistance.

No excuses.

No apologies.

I reach for her, pulling her by
the wrist into my apartment and slamming the door behind her.

Her lips part, as if she’s about
to say something, but I silence her with a kiss. My hands run down her sides,
skimming her soft belly until I find the button of her pants. Within seconds,
her pants are lying in a heap on the floor and I’m two seconds from ripping the
buttons clean off her blouse.

Our tongues swirl, hot and
hungry, and her delicate perfume
fills
my lungs. Each
punishing kiss is a reminder that she shouldn’t be here. Each plunge of my
finger between her slick folds is a reminder that I’m glad she came.

I’m hard as a rock, and she
wastes little time taking me in her palm and coaxing me until I’m fully grown.
We stumble backwards, toward the bed, and she collapses. Like an animal, I rip
her panties off and unhook her bra, covering her warm body with mine and taking
a pointed nipple in my mouth. Her legs part as her hips settle into the lumpy
mattress, a silent, desperate plea to keep going.

Yanking my sweats down, I
position my cock on top of her, teasing her with the touch of the hot hardness
against her warm wetness. She moans, biting her lip as I suck her nipple and
release it with a quick graze of my teeth.

There’s nothing romantic about
what we do, and rightfully so.

I lean up, and her legs widen.
With a grip on the base of my cock, I slide it inside her. The clock is
running. Plunging myself over and over, reaching new heights and depths all at
once, I fuck her with quick,
jack-hammered
thrusts.

Her tits bounce with each creak
of the bed, and her long nails slice into my tensioned biceps as I hold my body
above hers.

I miss slicking my tongue between
her folds and teasing her clit with her taste in my mouth, but we’ll visit that
another day. Right now, this is about my throbbing cock and her tight pussy and
one sweet release.

We fuck harder and faster than
ever before, and her lower back arches just enough that my cock slicks against
her clit with each reentry. After a few more minutes, her body convulses
against me as I dump my hot cum inside her writhing body.

I collapse on top of her, kissing
her satisfied, smiling mouth before rolling off.

Fuck. The kiss was unnecessary.

Jordana catches her breath,
leaning up on her elbows. Her round tits are still on full display, and I soak
in every last second of that beautiful fucking view.

“Want to get a bite to eat?” she
asks. “You hungry at all?”

I hit the bathroom to clean up
and return, pulling a white t-shit over my head.

“Nah,” I say. “I’ve got somewhere
to be in a half hour. You gotta go.”

Her face falls, but I refuse to
let myself feel like a douche.

“Oh. Okay.” She sits up and
scoots off the bed, gathering her clothes into her arms. We share the tiny
space in silence as she redresses. Although she’s not speaking, the tension’s
ripe for the picking.

Words linger on the tip of my
tongue. I don’t want to send her out there feeling used, but telling her
“thanks for the lay” or “drive home safe” would be pathetic as fuck.

I force myself to man up. She
came here looking for sex. If anything, she used me. She should be strutting
out the door like a proud fucking peacock.

“Where you going tonight?” she
asks.

I shake my head and laugh.
“What’s it to you?”

She needs to know we are most
definitely
not
friends.

“Just making conversation,
Titan.”

“Got a job on the side.”

“What kind of job?”

“Don’t worry about it. Just a
little something to build up my funds until I can go back to school and get the
hell out of here.”

She shrugs. “Fine, Titan.
Whatever. As long as it’s not illegal.”

I don’t speak. It’s none of her
business anyway.

“It’s not illegal, right?” She
slips her purse around her shoulder and ambles the whole five steps to the
door.

“Don’t worry about it,” I say.
For the first time, I wonder how she’d feel if she knew I was fighting men for
money. It’s not like I’m beating people up, but she might be weird about that
shit given the way her brother was murdered. “You do you. I’ll do me.”

She stops, sighing, and then
turns to face me. “You’re a smart man, Titan. I really hope you’re not doing
anything dumb.”

Her dark eyes search mine, as if
the truth rests somewhere in my poker-faced stare. She looks exactly like a
woman assuming the worst. When women get hunches about shit, they don’t let up
until they get their answer. They keep digging, poking, and prodding.

“I fight for money, Jordana,” I
say. “It’s an underground thing.”

“Illegal?”

“Not necessarily. Not going out
and committing crimes,” I say. “It’s a word of mouth operation.”

“If it’s underground, it’s
underground for a reason,” she says. “It’s illegal.”

“I show up. I fight my opponent.
I get paid. That’s my extent of the involvement.”

“Yeah, but you don’t know, Titan,
if it’s a front for some kind of organized crime. Maybe drugs are being
exchanged? Maybe people are being trafficked? You don’t know what’s going on
behind the scenes or what the men exchanging money are doing with that money
afterwards.”

“I think you’ve seen too many
Dateline episodes.”

“You’re being ridiculously
irrational right now.” She steps toward me, her hands wringing the air.
“Seriously. Do you want to go right back to where you came from? Because this
is how you go back. Did you do this before? How do you even know how to fight?”

“No, and I learned while I was
locked up. Anyway, I’m only doing a few fights,” I say. “They’re five minute
fights, Jordana. I’m in. I get paid. I’m out. A few more of these and I’m done.
I’ll have enough saved to finish my degree, and I’m out of here.”

“What if someone gets hurt,
Titan? What if you permanently injure someone? They can come back and sue you
and press charges and…”

Her voice trails as her eyes
water.

“Look,” I say, stepping toward
her and placing my hands on her arms. I’ve never been good at comforting anyone
before, but it’s no excuse not to try. “I get that this is your passion. I get
that you’ve dedicated your entire college career to researching the fucked up
criminal justice system we have in this country. But I’m not going back. Trust
me. I’m not an idiot. I’m smart about this.”