by Skye Darrel
Bad Boy Rebel
Skye Darrel
Contents
Bad Boy Rebel
1. Old Houses and Lipstick
2. Bad Boy Blues
3. Rebel with a Cause
4. That Jersey Girl
5. This Is Not a Date
6. Blackjack for Beginners
7. No Turning Back
8. A Rose by Any Other Name
9. On Fire
10. Virgin Distraction
11. One Bar Fight Too Many
12. He’ll Be Back
13. Birds and Flowers
14. Wars and Loves
15. Staking My Claim
16. Staking Mine
17. Love or Revenge
18. Lucky Cherries
19. Ugly Duckling
20. Young Love, Old Problems
21. Something to Prove
22. Ghosts Don’t Rest
23. Too Good to Be True
24. Highs and Lows
25. Every Kitten Needs Her Wolf
26. Belted
27. A Bad Feeling
28. Ghosts
29. Once Upon a Time
30. Princess Against Monsters
31. Knight in Black Armor
32. Gamble on Love
33. Whole Again
Epilogue
A Note from the Author
Royce
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Also by Skye Darrel
Follow the Author
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to events, locales, or actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2019 by Skye Darrel
First Edition
https://skyedarrel.com/
Bad Boy Rebel
A bad boy alpha hellbent on revenge. A small town with dark secrets. I’m stuck in the middle with no way out.
I have three weeks to sell a house, or my sleazeball boss fires me. Challenge accepted. This house is picture perfect, with only one problem.
The moody bad boy next door who scares away all the buyers.
Cut abs, thick arms. Face of an angel. Body of a god. Shirtless and inked. Heart of stone, a brooding enigma. Even his dog scares me.
The locals call him a rebel. Former quarterback, former soldier. Current pain in my neck. He’s the last thing I need.
I’m the last thing he wants. He calls me a distraction, nothing but trouble.
He warns me to leave town. Bad men stalk the streets. Yeah, right. He’s the baddest thing in a hundred miles.
But when danger comes knocking, he swoops in like a savior.
A black knight who claims me for his own.
Bad Boy Rebel is a standalone, full-length romance with a Happily Ever After. Warning: high heat ahead.
1
Old Houses and Lipstick
Natalie
I want to look twenty years older. Maybe that would get Mr. Nelson to stop seeing me as some teenager on her first summer job. I’m a professional, mister.
He walks around the empty kitchen, peeking into cabinets and under the sink, checking for mildew, he says. It’s essential when buying a house to check for mildew. He’s a banker shopping for his fourth vacation home so he must know.
“The ad mentioned a pool,” Nelson says.
“Very true!”
“Show me. I’m an expert on the quality of pools.”
My smile goes so tight I’m splitting my cheeks. When we walk past a mirror, I don’t recognize myself. I thought wearing lipstick would give me an air of sophistication, but I look more like the Joker.
We go out back and sure enough—a typical backyard pool.
Mr. Banker frowns. “This is not a pool, Natalie. It’s a hole in the ground filled with water.”
“Um, what?”
Is grass not grass?
“It’s much too small,” he goes on. “Much too ordinary. Prosaic to a fault. Where’s the passion? The flair? The spice? There’s no inspiration whatsoever. Do you know what I see in this hole? I see an ugly thing that should never have been created.”
I gape at him in silence. I’m not sure if he’s describing the pool right in front of us, or my life in general. “This is not a hole,” I finally say. “It’s a rectangle. Holes are round.”
Cue smile.
No effect.
He sighs with disappointment. There should be a rule against people who can afford a fourth vacation home sighing with disappointment.
I go through the motions of showing him the rest of this 4,000 square foot Victorian mansion-house I couldn’t afford in my wildest dreams.
How do I explain to him if I don’t sell this house, I’ll be fired? I’ll lose everything. And when you’re on your own and fresh out of college with a degree in art history, it’s not easy to get everything back. Don’t even get me started on student loans.
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” Nelson says upstairs. “This is a proper bathroom.”
I should freaking hope so. There’s a double sink with a vanity, a huge bathtub that could fit three of me, and a separate modern shower encased in frosted glass. Marble adorns every surface. The toilet is equipped with a nozzle that clean your bottom after wiping, for that extra shine.
“Recently renovated,” I explain.
“Natalie, you don’t have the air of a used car salesman, so allow me to be blunt.”
He pauses.
I realize he wants my permission to be blunt, which is polite. “Please.”
“The lack of a pool aside, this house is perfect. Why is the listing one hundred thousand below market value?”
Here we go. “Location, Mr. Nelson, location. Salma’s Hope is a small town, not very convenient. A bit rural. There’s only one high school in the area—do you have children?”
He gives me this look like I’m not old enough to ask others if they have children. “They’re grown,” he says. “What else?”
“Well, there have been some unsolved burglaries in the farms north of town. But that’s far from here.”
“Bad apples everywhere. That’s all?”
“The owner, Mr. Gatsby, is also in a hurry to sell.”
“Why?”
“I better show you.”
We go outside, and I point to the smaller house down the road. An old Colonial with a wraparound porch. You can see its siding through a grove of trees dividing the two properties, and with summer in full bloom, leaves hide the worst.
“The neighbor is kinda crazy,” I say.
There’s no polite way to put it. Some people like a little oddness in neighbors, but no one wants a full-blown psychopath next door.
We walk over to the Colonial and I cringe while Nelson takes in the view.
Ugly weeds cover the lawn so thickly you can’t even see grass anymore, which isn’t so terrible in itself. Lots of people prefer the natural look. But I haven’t met anyone who prefers the ramshackle picket fence surrounding the lawn, or the razor-sharp barbed wire looped all over the fence.
Nelson gapes at a folding table near the garage piled with rusty guns.
Signs staked in the ground. The nearest one reads, Due to the rising cost of ammunition, I no longer use warning shots. Another by the porch reads, Property patrolled by gunman with automatic weapons.
Incidentally, we’re in a town where the most dangerous thing I’ve seen is a waterfront park.
“How do you feel about guns, Mr. Nelson? You work at a bank so there must be lots of people with guns, right?”
As if on cue, gunshots ring o
ut from the backyard.
Nelson ducks.
I keep my smile up, used to the experience by now. I’m more embarrassed than anything.
“Who’s the owner?” Nelson says in a shaky voice as he straightens.
“A man.” I’ve never met the owner, but that’s my working theory.
More gunshots. Then a dog starts barking. I haven’t met that dog either, but it sounds like it could eat me whole.
Nelson snaps some pictures with his phone, then turns my way and offers his hand. We shake.
“Thank you for the tour, Natalie. I’ll let you know.”
“You have my card?”
“Got it!” He jogs back to his Lexus parked on the curb and drives off, leaving my tiny Beetle all alone by the roadside.
“Call me,” I mutter.
Only two houses sit beside this lonely road at the edge of Salma’s Hope, and woods surround the area for miles. If you buy the Victorian, your neighbor will be a psycho who owns a beast dog and shoots guns every day.
I could cry.
The dog barks again.
I scream.
I’ve had it. Slinging my bag over the shoulder, I walk across the lawn past a pile of doggie doo and up the porch. I slam the buzzer and take my heels off and kick the door again and again. He’ll get a piece of my mind if it kills me.
The shooting stops, then the barking.
“Open up!” I shout. “Open up or I’ll call the police! Open up you asshole!”
The door flings open.
His eyes are a blue so light they seem silver. That’s the first thing I notice. The rest of him stuns me. Strong jaw, arrow straight nose, high cheekbones. A face with that sculpted quality you see in models, but more rugged. Scruffy stubble shades his jaw, and his hair is cropped at the sides and tousled in a hot mess up top, barely smoothed back with loose whorls hanging over his eyes.
He’s shirtless. Thick, hard muscles stretch over a broad chest, and cut abs disappear under the waist of his jeans. He’s taller than me. Big. A dragon tattoo laces his arm, and a savage skull of weathered ink stares at me from his shoulder.
Even with that jaw shadow he looks younger than I imagined, late twenties or early thirties. In fact he’s the opposite of what I imagined.
He even smells okay, like metal and leather and this whiff of masculine aroma that makes me think of testosterone and hard things.
“May I help you?” His voice is crisp and dry.
“You,” I say.
“Yes, it’s me. You are?”
“Um.”
“Um isn’t a name, doll face.”
No one calls me doll face and lives, nevermind a shirtless psycho who happens to be visually pleasing. I get a card from my one-button blazer and shove it in his face, an act that may be more impressive if Shirtless weren’t so tall.
He snatches the card. “Branigan Realty Group?”
“Top ten in the country,” I parrot my boss. “Forty countries around the world. We sell commercial and residential. We recently opened a new branch in Singapore.”
“No shit? The Singaporeans must be dancing in the streets.”
He skims my card with this indifferent look while I skim his biceps. My face gets warmer and I tell myself it’s mostly anger.
“There was another real estate agent couple weeks ago knocking on my door,” Mr. Shirtless says. “Kept babbling about how I was scaring away his buyers. Oscar something. You and him together?”
Oscar McNamara is the best broker at Branigan Realty. He could sell beef to a vegetarian, but even Oscar couldn’t move the Victorian, all because of this rude jerk-off standing before me with no freaking shirt and zero manners.
So what he’s gorgeous? I don’t care! I bet he’s a total slob too.
“We work for the same company,” I say. “But it’s just me right now. My name is—”
“Natalie Whipple,” Shirtless says. He hands the card back. “Doll face has a name.”
“Keep it,” I snap.
He sticks the card in his pocket, then takes it out again and brings it to his nose. “Thought I smelled something good. You perfume these? That’s a nice touch.”
I’m fuming. “You got a name?”
He leans against the door frame, which makes the muscles in his hips pop out even more. The waistline of his jeans sits too low for my comfort.
“Asher Wade,” he says casually.
“Jerk-off has a name,” I stammer with all the indignation I can summon.
“Which brings us back to my original question. May I help you?”
“How about you clean up your lawn? Muzzle your dog and stop shooting guns in broad daylight. That would be neighborly.”
“We’re not neighbors. You’re not even from Salma’s Hope.”
“Is it that obvious?”
“Is the sky blue?”
I roll my eyes. “About the guns—”
“Call the police if you want. But the chief of police in Salma’s Hope is a good friend of mine. He’ll side with me. I’m shooting on my own property and not harming a soul. We’re miles outside the town limits, where the nice people live. Nobody’s complaining but some real estate agent from the city. Sorry, doll face.”
I stare at him, my face shaking, his words the final straw that overwhelms my defenses. It’s been a long day, a long week. A long month.
This is humiliating. I shouldn’t have to put up with this behavior from anyone, but here I am trying to reason with a half-naked guy, and for what? Tears burn the back of my eyes as my face crumbles.
Asher looks startled. He disappears into a surprisingly neat living room and returns with a box of Kleenex. “Here.”
I rip out a fresh tissue and wipe my eyes.
“Seems you’re having a shitty day, Natalie.” All the bite has gone from his tone.
“You don’t know the half of it.”
“Look,” he says, “I’ll cut back on my shooting. Would that help?”
I nod, sniffling.
“And I’ll see to it Hansel doesn’t disturb you,” he says.
“Hansel?”
“The barking you heard.” Asher whistles. A dog with black and white fur pads across the neat living room to sit at his feet, and it’s not a hell hound at all. It’s cute. Big pointy ears. Bright eyes. It looks up and seems to smile. “Meet Hansel.”
This was not how I imagined my confrontation would go with either man or dog. “Thank you for understanding,” I say.
“We all got troubles, Natalie. I’m not a dick by nature.”
All of a sudden I feel silly standing here barefoot on a stranger’s porch, holding my heels with one hand and a crumpled tissue with the other.
I look at his broad chest and my face warms some more. “Are you a gun nut or something?”
“Something.” He holds my gaze. “Where are you staying?”
“Ruby’s Motel.” It was the cheapest place I could find near town, including on Airbnb, and it’s no stranger to cockroaches. Just until I get Gatsby’s house sold.
Asher raises an eyebrow. “That place isn’t fit for human habitation.”
“It’s fit for my budget,” I say stiffly.
“Your bigshot real estate company can’t pay for a decent hotel?”
“My big shot real estate doesn’t cover my expenses.”
“It’s none of my business,” he says, “but a girl like you shouldn’t stay there. Ruby’s is a rough place.”
“A girl like me?”
“Innocent. Doll face.”
Now I remember why he’s an asshole. “I’m twenty-three, jerk-off.”
“Well you look fresh out of prom. Check out Goldilocks Inn on Main Street. Juno Newlin is the owner, and we go way back. Tell her I sent you.”
Both my eyebrows go up. “Why the kindness?”
“Because I’m a nice guy.”
I think of a retort but hold my mouth. Maybe he is. He’s a dick and possibly psychotic, but he’s not setting off the creep alarm. “T
hanks.”
The door closes gently.
I turn around slowly, and only now do I realize how fast my heart beats.
2
Bad Boy Blues
Asher
I watch her from the window as she walks toward the curb, holding the strap of her pink messenger bag. Her hair is tied back in a wispy tail that flows down her shoulder, and her hips and ass look snug in that skirt. My cock aches with an animal reaction. From the back, she’s all woman, but that doesn’t change the fact she looks like a damn schoolgirl, all sweet and soft, strictly off-limits.
I bet her pussy still has a cherry.
No—what the fuck am I thinking?
Living alone for two years must have made me feral. Here I am, having nasty thoughts about a woman I just met. My brother didn’t raise me to be a savage.
Natalie is not my type.
Not my concern.
Not interested in the least.
She gets into a yellow Volkswagen Beetle parked beside the road and speeds away. Out of sight, out of mind.
Salma’s Hope is no place for her. Even her little car sticks out.
Around here we drive big and live big.
I take a step back as my body tremors, my jaw aching from how hard I bite my teeth, the throb in my pants no better.
