by Jo Raven
Kaden glances at me and his gaze darkens. “Yeah. Yeah, it is.”
He punches the guy in the gut, making him double over, then crouches down in front of me and puts a finger under my chin, tilting my face up.
“Are you all right?” he asks.
I say nothing, lost. His eyes are a pale green, like jade. Green and gold, cat-like eyes that seem to smile at me.
“She’s wasted,” the asshole says. “Aren’t you, Hailey?”
“Yeah, I saw you contribute to that.” Kaden’s eyes flash. He doesn’t look away from me. “Want me to drive you home? I promise you’ll be safe with me.”
The other guy snorts, then curses when blood trickles from his nose. “His girlfriend reported him to the police because he was so rough with her. Did you know that?”
Kaden’s face twists in a grimace.
“I know,” I whisper.
Kaden straightens. “That’s not how things went down,” he says, but doesn’t elaborate.
I’m staring at him. At his full, wide mouth, the golden scruff on his jaw, the thick column of his neck, the wide shoulders.
“Hailey.” He rubs a big hand over his mouth. “You don’t have to come with me. I can call you a cab.”
“I’d rather go with you,” I hear myself say.
Oh boy.
“Seriously? You’d trust him but not me?” the other guy mutters angrily.
But Kaden hasn’t manhandled me, hasn’t made decisions for me, hasn’t assumed we’ll sleep together. He came to my rescue.
Also, I want him. What can I say? I’m horny. And drunk.
So I stretch out my hand, and he takes it. He pulls me to my feet and wraps an arm around my waist when I wobble.
“Easy there,” he says, and his voice, like his touch, is firm but gentle. “Ready to go?”
As much as I’ll ever be, after this disastrous end to the night. I just hope I haven’t just made the mother of all bad decisions…
Chapter Two
Kaden
I keep a hold on her as we exit the bar. She’s a little shaky, and she’s put back on her fuck-me high heels, so her balance is precarious—but it just means she leans a little bit more into me, so I can’t complain.
Back there, I didn’t lie. I’ll just drive her to her place and go. Unless she wants me to stay, but not sure I’d risk it.
I’m not taking her to my apartment. I don’t take girls there. Never. Not since that girl, Eva, freaked out and started accusing me right and left of being a pervert. She wasn’t even my proper girlfriend. We’d been getting it on for a couple of weeks when she decided my tastes were too heavy for her.
And she went straight to the police, instead of telling me not to talk to her again, which I’d have gladly done.
See, I’d trusted her. I don’t do that lightly anymore.
But this girl. Hailey. I help her into her coat, hang her purse on her shoulder, and pull on my leather jacket as we walk around the bar. Then I haul her back to my side and she’s a warm solid presence, her chestnut bob silky where I let my fingers sift through it. She smells of alcohol, but underneath it there’s a sweeter scent. Flowers. Honey.
Woman.
I help her wear my extra helmet, then climb on my motorbike and wait for her to settle behind me. “Hold on tight.” Her hands slide up my sides and stay there. I grab them, fold them over my stomach. “Tight, or you’ll fall off.”
She mumbles something to my back, wiggling on the saddle, and I smile.
Haven’t smiled in fucking ages.
I rev the engine, pull on my own helmet and gloves, and we’re off. The cold night air clears the rest of my buzz, and it intensifies all my senses.
Her arms wrapped around me. Her tits crushed to my back. The warmth of her legs pressed behind mine.
As we zip through the city, I ask for her address and we head that way. It’s not that far from where I live or the shop, and I file the street name and the number in a corner of my mind, not even sure what for.
I’m a delivery guy right now. I delivered her from that motherfucker Johnny who keeps forcing himself on girls too scared to report him, and I’m delivering her safe and sound to her place.
Job done.
I park my bike, kill the engine and hit the kickstand. She doesn’t move.
“Hailey?”
“I can’t feel my legs,” she says, muffled against my back. “Or my hands.”
Dammit, I should have given her my gloves. I remove her hands from my middle and slide off the machine, carefully lifting my leg over the saddle, not to hit her.
Then I drag her off, until she’s standing in the circle of my arms, her head tucked under my chin, my hands on the small of her back.
Why does she have to feel so fucking good in my arms? So right, like she belongs there. I don’t know her.
And I don’t trust people, not anymore.
My body is taking notice, too, my dick swelling against her soft curves. I’d been half-hard most of the ride, feeling her against my back, imagining what I’d do to her, with her—and now I’m rock hard and uncomfortable.
It’s to make sure she’s steady on her feet, I tell myself, keeping a hold on her as we make our way to the building and she unlocks the door. That’s it.
One last moment of this warm, breathless feeling I get when I hold her against me.
Then she turns her dark eyes on me and says, “Come up with me?”
No. That’s what I should say. She’s tipsy, and everyone saw me leave with her, and if she freaks out like Eva did I’ll have trouble convincing anyone it wasn’t true.
But I say yes. Yes.
I stand no chance of refusing her, even if I know it’s a fucking bad idea…
Her apartment is small but neat and cozy. She shrugs off her coat on the sofa and toes off her shoes. “Drink?”
“Sure thing. Thanks.” I take off my jacket, leave it on the sofa next to hers, and shove my hands in my pockets as I cross the living room to look out of the window at the street below.
“Brandy okay?”
I nod and she slides beside me, pushing the cool glass in my hand. “Thanks for punching out that creepy guy and bringing me home.”
Sipping at the brandy, I steal a look at her bright-eyed face. “No problem.”
“I’m new in town and I… I wanted to have a fun night out.”
“You have every right.”
“I wasn’t careful. That was a mistake.”
I sigh. “Then maybe you shouldn’t have invited me up.”
She laughs, a sweet sound. “Why? I’m not afraid of you.”
“Maybe you should be.”
She puts her glass on the window sill, and stares outside. “I think you’re the one afraid.”
I freeze, choke on my brandy and start to cough.
Fucking hell.
She laughs as I bend over, hacking, and takes the glass from my hand. Then she pats my back. “You okay?”
I nod and wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. “That went down the wrong way.”
Yep.
I take the glass from her hand and take another sip. It burns and soothes my raw throat.
She’s leaning back against the wall, her cheeks rosy, her mouth tilted in a smile, her tits heaving with each breath, barely contained in her black mini dress. She bends one leg at the knee, propping her bare foot on the wall, and my gaze trails down her long legs.
I gulp down the rest of the brandy.
It’s not helping.
“I should go.” But my feet don’t move from the spot. She smoothes a hand down her side and my eyes follow the movement, hypnotized. “You should tell me to go.”
“And if I don’t want to?”
“Fuck, I wanna kiss you.” I put my glass down and step closer, drawing in her scent.
“So kiss me.”
“Not a good idea. You heard Mr. Asshole back at the bar. I get rough with girls.”
“A bit of rough isn’t a bad thing.”
My control snaps, then, and I push her into the wall, my mouth crashing down on hers, my hands grabbing the back of her head, my fingers sinking in her silky hair.
Damn, she tastes as good as she smells, like strawberries and white chocolate and a hint of the brandy she’s been sipping. She gasps and I lick the inside of her mouth, wanting more. Wanting her to kiss me back.
Until she does, moaning and sliding her arms around me, pressing our bodies together, and it’s so fucking hot, it’s about to blow my mind.
Better than any girl I’ve kissed, or touched, or held.
Then again, it’s been so long since I’ve done that, since my hook-ups have turned into quick fucks in bathroom stalls at the back of bars, that it’s possible I don’t remember.
And she melts into me so sweetly, so perfectly, I want more. More than I’ve dared ask in a fucking good while, with the rumors hounding me, my friends not believing me.
My brother not believing me. Everyone whispering behind my back, avoiding me.
Could she be the one to make me trust again?
Chapter Three
Hailey
He’s kissing me, his mouth hot and hard. Demanding. I don’t think I’ve ever been kissed like this, with such fierceness and need.
His big, strong body pushes me into the wall, pressing every inch of himself into me. The wall of his chest is molded to my breasts, and I feel every breath he takes. His leg moves between mine and his hard-on is a hot brand against my stomach.
Maybe he’s right. Maybe I should stop him, tell him to go.
But I want this. This is what I went out to do, and he’s right here, gorgeous and aroused and sexy as hell. He’s easily the most attractive man I’ve ever met, and with his jaw-length hair, dark tattoos and the rumors about him, he feels dangerous.
Too hot to handle.
Can I handle what he asks of me, what he’ll try to take from me? What sort of weird sexual acts is he into?
I’m crazy for throwing caution to the wind and getting down and dirty with him. Absolutely. One hundred percent.
I still can’t stop kissing him. He tastes good, of sexy man and spice, and I want more.
Even when he slides one hand down to the hem of my dress, pushes it up and slips his fingers into my panties. Especially then.
Oh God. The feel of his rough, hard fingers pushing into my pussy has me moaning in his mouth and ready to come.
This is crazy, and… so frigging hot. His eyes are half-closed, his hair brushing my cheek as he kisses me, as he fingers me—and I come apart with a huge shudder.
His fingers withdraw and he drags his lips across my cheek to whisper in my ear, “Was it good?”
I can’t speak, can’t draw enough air, still shaking from the pleasure, so I nod.
“You’re hot,” he breathes, then reaches down to press on the bulge in his jeans, and seeing that wrings a moan from my throat. “I wanna undress you and fuck you against the wall.”
A whimper escapes me. I swallow. “What do you expect from me, Kaden?”
He stills, his hand still on top of his hard-on, his gaze lifting to lock on mine. “What?”
“I…” I’m leaning on my wall, my dress shoved up around my hips, my panties soaked, the sexiest man ever in front of me, and I say, “You won’t ask me to do anything weird, will you?”
His mouth opens. Something dark passes behind his pale eyes. A flash of pain.
He steps back. “You believe what that fucking bastard told you at the bar? The one groping you and dragging you along with him? Really?”
I frown. “He wasn’t the only one who told me that. Marcela—”
“Marcela told you that the charges were true? Fuck.”
I frown, trying to remember. She hadn’t said that exactly, had she? She’d said the charges didn’t stick.
“Goddammit. Eva, the girl who filed the complaint? She lied.” He drags his fingers through his hair. “I’m not a fucking deviant. I’m no pervert. I don’t… fuck, I don’t fuck kids, or animals, or any of that shit, okay?”
“Then what was that about?”
“It was about me liking some stuff Eva decided was too fucking much for her.” He sighs, a frustrated, angry sound. “You know what? Forget it. Told you this was a bad idea from the start.”
And just like that, he turns around and goes, slamming the door of the apartment behind him.
He forgot his jacket.
Sitting on the sofa, I hold it to my face and shamelessly inhale the scent of leather and man. It’s morning time—late morning—and the pale autumn light slants through my windows. Last night seems like a strange dream.
But it was real.
I was lucky. Hindsight is twenty/twenty. It could have ended pretty bad, both at the bar and here, with Kaden.
He didn’t hurt me, though. If anything, he was the one who seemed hurt as he left. He knows what everyone says about him. And he says it isn’t true.
Could I check the facts? Ask someone about this?
Should I bother? I’ll probably never see him again. Ours was a chance meeting, and no matter how handsome he is, how gentle he was with me, how his electric touch made me come in a way that turned me inside out, it was a moment of madness. I wanted a wild night out, a turning point for my life, and I got it.
Time to gather my pieces together, settle in and restart my life. I still need to unpack my suitcases, work on my photography website, see if I have clients in the area, and set up some advertising to find more. I have some money saved, but it won’t last me forever.
So much to do.
Then I glance down at my lap and his leather jacket.
Crap. How do I return it to him? Should I do the stalky thing and search for his address online, then show up at his doorstep?
Or wait to see if he comes back to claim it?
Tempting, but I shouldn’t. No matter what he said, why should I believe the charges against him were false? Better close this episode of my life quickly and quietly.
I grab my phone and google his name. When that fails, I try a few of the search engines for people that I know.
And what doI know? Zilch. He’s not listed.
I chew at a nail, trying to decide what to do. Forget it? Wait?
Or I could go back to the bar and ask the bartender. He seemed to know Kaden. I could ask for Kaden’s address, or leave the jacket there, ask him to pass it on.
Oh God, more craziness. I shouldn’t do this, shouldn’t head over, shouldn’t ask more questions about Kaden.
That’s when I remember that my car is parked at the bar since last night. Well, what do you know?
Smells like fate to me.
The bartender does a double-take when he sees me. He drops the rag he was using to wipe down the bar and chuckles.
“Well, well. Looks like you survived evil Kaden after all. What can I do you for?”
I can feel the frown pulling my brows together. “You’re teasing. Are you friends with Kaden?”
“I wouldn’t call us that.” He shrugs his massive shoulders. “But I’ve known him a long time.”
“These rumors, the charges against him… Is there any truth in them?”
“Truth. Such a relative thing.” He scratches at his beard. “He’s trouble, but he’s not a sicko.”
“Meaning?”
“The girl he was with was shocked by things he asked her to do in bed. She was a stupid little bitch. She came here, telling everyone about that, and that snake who chatted you up last night convinced her to go to the police.”
“And what did the police say?”
“They took her statement, asked what exactly was the deviation, and then told her to go home and that there was nothing illegal in what Kaden had asked of her.”
I bite my lip. I’m dying to ask what he’d asked of her, but crap, it’s none of my business. There’s nothing between me and Kaden, except his jacket.
Which I set on the bar. “He forgot this last night at my
place. Can you give it back to him?”
“No can do, lady. You’ll have to give it to him yourself.”
“I can’t.”
“Sure you can. I’ll tell you where to find his shop. You can give it to him there. He’s a mechanic. Repairs cars and bikes.” He fishes a pen and a piece of paper from behind him and scribbles down a street and number. “There you go.”
“I’m not sure I want to see him again.”
“Ah.” He shakes his shaggy head and grabs again the rag. “Up to you, of course. Though I think you should.”
“Why?”
“You like him.” The bartender doesn’t look up, as if cleaning the bar is the most important task ever entrusted to him. “He could use a friendly face these days.”
“Are the rumors so bad?”
“They reached his family, who won’t talk to him anymore. His friends, who shun him. He’s…” The bartender finally looks up. “He’s all alone, and sometimes I am worried about him.”
I don’t know what to reply to that. The Kaden I thought I’d met last night was a completely different Kaden today. Someone wronged. Someone who didn’t hurt anyone.
“I’ll find him.” I gather up the jacket once more. “Thanks for the address.”
Not sure what I’d say or do except return to Kaden what was his, but as I sit behind the wheel of my car and switch on the engine, I realize I don’t much care about anything else but seeing his face once again.
The shop is small, tucked away in a backstreet. I ask for Kaden and a surly boy points me to the back.
I find him leaning against a car with its engine uncovered, his cell phone in his hand. He’s not looking at it, instead staring right ahead, seemingly lost in thought, and I take a moment to take him in before he sees me.
His hair is pulled back, bound at the nape. He has a dark smudge on his cheek, and his hands are grimy. The blue coveralls he’s wearing are worn and ripped, stained with what has to be motor oil and dirt, the white T-shirt he’s got on underneath stretched snugly across his broad chest. Those tattooed arms have my heart doing backflips.
