Craving BAD: An Anthology of Bad Boys and Wicked Girls

by A. J. Norris

  The material cut sharp about six inches below her left hip and hung diagonal to her right foot. Two large ovals opened on either side of her rib cage, exposing a trim waistline and multiple tattoos. I swallowed hard as my eyes caught the simple words written in black ink across her lower right rib.

  “Vivi senza rimpianti.” Live without regrets.

  I’d welcome all regrets and every mark those fucking spiked boots left on my shoulders any day of the week. She could stop a man’s heart and raise his cock at the same time without giving him a second glance.

  Okay, so maybe I had a thing for the woman. Just because I wanted to sleep with her didn’t mean I cared for her business practices. I was horny, not blind.

  The lucky bastard that ended up with her tonight had one hell of a package to unwrap.

  But it wouldn’t be the douchebag who had his hands on her…that much I knew without question. He wasn’t Charity’s type. Just looking at him, I could tell he was a corporate poser who stole from innocent people to put money in Big Brother’s pocket. I knew what I was, and readily admitted to being a crook. The glaring difference between a guy like that and me was that I stole to line my own pockets. I considered it a personal donation to my inability to stomach an office job.

  Glancing away for only a minute to check the location of the credit card, I turned my chin back toward the bar and growled as I watched the asshole beside her rub his hands all over her. I hated my reaction, and told myself it was simply because any connection between them meant one step closer to her making more bank than me.

  Yeah, right, Spence. Keep telling yourself that.

  Standing abruptly, I turned to Mindy and took her hand. A small smile played on her lips as I leaned over her and kissed her wrist, grazing her skin lightly with my teeth. She shuddered and I winked, knowing I’d played this pony as far as it would run.

  “Baby, I don’t know where our waitress has gone, but you shouldn’t have to wait for anything. I’m going to the bar to get you a drink. What can I get you?” It was total bullshit. I didn’t give a fuck if she waited until the place shut down. My mission was clear. I needed to get down there and ruin Charity’s night.

  “I’ll have a strawberry daiquiri with whipped cream and a cherry.” Mindy giggled and bit her lip again. It was starting to get annoying. I liked confident women, not fake demure ones who chewed their own faces off.

  Typical. What a pussy drink.

  Leaning in again, I dusted her cheek with my lips as I ran my hand along her outer thigh. “Don’t miss me too much.”

  “Hurry back,” she whispered, her eyes half-lit from two drinks.

  Lightweight.

  I didn’t answer her as I quickly turned away and headed toward the bar, my smile slipping as soon as my back was turned. I had no intention of bringing her a drink or anything else. The only woman on my mind just slid off her barstool and shoved her tits in the corporate douchebag’s face before giving his nonexistent biceps a firm squeeze and swinging her ass toward the bathrooms.

  Once I turned the corner into the small darkened hallway, it took me all of four strides to catch up with her. I thought about swinging her around to face me, but the opportunity to get under her skin was just too tempting to pass up. Sinking my fingers into the soft part of her elbow, I steered her off to the corner, and before she could open her mouth to tell me off, I pushed her chest first against the cinder block wall. I couldn’t stop myself from filling my lungs full of her spicy cinnamon perfume as I moved my hold from her elbow to her wrist and twisted her arm behind her back to hold her in place.

  Molding myself against her, I pressed my mouth against the back of her ear. “Get your eyeful, or do you want seconds?”

  Chapter Three

  Charity

  Men were so simple. Give them an emotionless compliment while squeezing any part of their body and they became circus monkeys. Paul had the biceps of a wet spaghetti noodle, but he ate up my gushing like it was his last meal in prison. I’d lifted his wallet out of his pocket and slipped it into my boots before he could wrap his head around what was happening.

  Sometimes I amazed myself with how fucking easy I made it look. More than once, I told myself I should be teaching a class or something. Only I’d come to realize what I had wasn’t a learned skill.

  It was a God-given talent.

  After gifting Monkey Paul a free show down the front of my dress while I shoved his wallet good and deep in my boots, I excused myself to the bathroom so I could take all the valuable shit out of it, wipe down any prints, and get rid of the evidence. He seemed like a solid businessman, worth at least a gold card or two. Another hit or two like him and I could make an early night of it.

  Just as I rounded the corner down a dimly lit hallway, a shadowy figure closed in behind me, quickly pacing my steps. I could’ve screamed, or ran ahead, but that would’ve called attention to myself, and that was the last thing I needed…especially because right then, Paul was probably realizing his grave error in judgement in inviting me to join him. A couple more steps and I’d be in the ladies’ room anyway.

  A distinct scent of sandalwood caught my nose as a hand roughly grabbed my elbow from behind and shoved me sideways and into a more secluded alcove. “Get your eyeful, or do you want seconds?”

  Shit.

  I made a soft grunting noise as his body weight pushed me further into the cinder block wall. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

  “You were staring pretty hard, baby.”

  “Crash and burn victims always catch my attention, Spence.”

  A mix of whiskey and mint on his breath fanned over my cheek as the opposite one pressed hard against the cold cinder block. “The only thing burning is you, baby,” he taunted with a rasp in his voice. “For me.”

  Pressing my palms against the wall, I inadvertently pushed harder against him, leaving no more to the imagination than sequins and determined will. “If that’s the kind of line you used on your picks tonight, you’ll be sleeping on a park bench next to the hookers on Biscayne Boulevard.”

  “Oh?” he breathed, shifting his body closer against mine. “Is that the corner you’ll be working later?”

  “Spence,” I chided, forcing the corners of my mouth downward while looking up at him. “That’s the best you’ve got? Shame.”

  A low laugh rumbled in Spencer’s chest, and he pulled my wrist tighter, causing my back to arch and the back of my head to fall against his shoulder. I fought a strong reactive instinct to close my eyes and relax into him. Knocking me off my game was exactly what he wanted, so of course, it had to be the last thing I’d allow.

  The darkened hallway stilled except for our labored breathing as he traced his fingertips on his free hand across the Italian words written across my ribcage. “Still no regrets, huh?”

  I stiffened under the rough pad of his thumb. “I don’t do regrets.”

  “You will tonight if you don’t stop fucking up my targets.”

  “I don’t need to fuck up your targets, Spence. You do a good job of that all by yourself,” I mocked in an unnervingly breathless tone. I squeezed the clutch purse in my hand, weighing my options of going for the pepper spray inside or just hitting him across the face with it.

  He blinked, a slow, wicked grin pulling across his mouth. “Maybe you couldn’t see past your own loss tonight, baby, but I’m killing it.”

  A part of me wanted to twist away from him while the other part wanted to wrap my free arm around the back of his neck and melt into him. Spencer towered over me at well above six feet tall, his muscular thigh shoved between my own to keep me pinned in place. I glanced up at him, grazing my skin against the rough stubble of his squared jaw and inviting lips. It seemed unfair how angelic his face looked when sin seeped out of every pore in his body. His face screamed for a woman to trust him, with a “how dangerous could I be” boyish grin, but I knew what hid beneath that grin.

  An icy ruthlessness that lived for the chase and got off on the win.


  His darkened eyes held a challenge that I decided to meet head-on. Jerking my arm out of his hold, I twisted around to face him, our legs still entwined at the knees. “Killing your own profits? Absolutely. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m the one cleaning house out there.” His eyes leveled on my face, and I fought for control over my own reaction. “What are you even doing here? This is my scene,” I bit out through clenched teeth.

  He studied me for a few seconds without speaking, holding his gaze to let me know he didn’t buy any line of shit I towed. “Cleaning house, huh?” His grin widened as he pointed his thumb over his shoulder toward the bar. “First hit of the night, right?”

  Begrudgingly, I nodded.

  He held up the last three fingers on his left hand. “Mindy was my third, baby. Diamonds, cards, wads of cash…you name it, I’ve got it.”

  “Bullshit.” The challenge left my mouth before I had a chance to chew the word up and swallow it back down.

  Spencer chuckled, his posture casual but relentlessly dominating. “You want to put your money where your mouth is?”

  “Not especially,” I mused, matching his smirk. “I know where my money’s been. Not many places to stash goods in this outfit, Spence. A lady has to get creative.” Just to fuck with him, I licked my lips and ran my eyes down the length of my dress, dragging his stare along with mine. When I stopped my perusal at the apex of my thighs, he cursed under his breath and cleared his throat. If I wasn’t a master at controlling my emotions, I’d fist pump the air.

  “Scared?”

  What?

  “Of you? Hell, no,” I assured him with a defiant edge to my tone. “I’ll bet you a hundred dollars my lifts are double yours in the half hour I’ve been here than however long you’ve annoyed every female in the entire club.”

  One-hundred dollars? Have I lost my mind?

  Of course I’d lost it. I lost it eight years ago when a dark, handsome guy in a bar tried to pick me up. Had I known then what I knew now, I would have either walked away or chosen a different target that night. I’d honed my instincts since then and could pick out ignorance in the flash of a watch or the wave of a card. Spencer had seemed like any other guy that night.

  No, that’s a lie.

  Spencer was unlike any guy, ever. I just didn’t know how to recognize him for what he was at the time. Although I’d run away from my drunk-ass mother when I was fifteen and lived on the streets of South Beach on my own for three years, targeting and stealing for sport hadn’t become second nature to me at that point. It took robbing Spencer blind and him tracking me down for me to learn from the best and become the best.

  I’d dethroned him. He just couldn’t accept it.

  Tucking one hand in his pocket, he closed his fingers around something while placing the other one on the wall beside my head. “Ladies first. You show me yours and I’ll show you mine.”

  A hot warmth flooded my chest. “Everyone’s seen yours, Spence. It’s not impressive.”

  A wolfish grin stole any smugness I might’ve enjoyed from that dig. “We’ll see about that. Go…”

  Digging into the top of my right boot, I pulled out Paul’s entire wallet and dropped it open. “Four hundred in cash and a MasterCard.” I’d never owned a MasterCard, or any card in my life, but for a one-hit-score, I felt rather victorious over my stash. Maybe my stupid pride was the reason I didn’t look closely enough into Spencer’s eyes to see the way they lit with excitement when he took a small breath and nodded.

  “Well, now, that’s impressive.”

  “Told you,” I agreed, holding out my palm for his one-hundred-dollar payment.

  In a surprise move, he grabbed the back of my hand and slammed my palm against the wall beside my head. Leaning in close, he inhaled slowly and ran his nose down the length of my collarbone. “But not as impressive as this.” Without raising an eye to me, he pulled a rectangular, black object out of his pocket and held it up to my face.

  Fuck. AmEx Black.

  Invitation only. Five-thousand-dollar initiation fee. Twenty-five-hundred-dollar annual fee. Unlimited charging. I’d heard a rumor once that one card-holder bought a Bentley on his AmEx Black for the low, low price of four-hundred-thousand-dollars.

  Cha-Ching.

  “Where’d you get that?” I reached for the card held in front of my face, and he quickly jerked it over his shoulder, pursing his lips and clicking his tongue.

  “Going to have to be quicker than that, baby. This is a one-man operation.”

  I knew the path to getting my hands on that card led south, straight down to the impressive bulge in his pants. “Surely you didn’t lift that off the idiot blonde you bounced around on your lap like a beach ball.” Spencer had a reputation for playing less than intelligent women, but he had to have more taste than that.

  “Jealous?” He cocked an eyebrow with a devilish grin as if to say, wishing things were different?

  “Intrigued.” I schooled my expression so as not to respond with, more than you know.

  “Liar,” he reminded me, pressing tighter against me. “You owe me a Benjamin, Charity.”

  Grumbling, I jerked my wrist from his hold and reached into my boot, pulling out a crisp one-hundred-dollar bill. “Fine, here.”

  I guess it’s true…easy come easy go.

  I hated losing, and the only thing I hated more than losing was losing to Spencer. Staring at his shit-eating grin did nothing to improve my mood, either. The night hadn’t been one of my most productive, and a little part of me wondered if raising the stakes wouldn’t push lady luck in my favor.

  It was worth a shot.

  Raising my face, I shot him a dazzling smile. “You’re almost jovial tonight, Spence. You kick a puppy on your way to rob me?”

  He narrowed his eyes and smirked. “That’s a little hypocritical, don’t you think?”

  “Maybe, but you’ve interrupted my night and wasted,” I glanced at an invisible watch on my arm, “at least twenty minutes of prime floor time. I think you owe me an opportunity to win my money back.”

  “How so,” he asked, obviously intrigued.

  I thought about it. Paul was a dead end, as was Suede. Spencer’s blonde bimbo had most likely moved on in his absence so any shot he had at swiping more from her was gone. We needed to come to an agreement on a separate venue…a planned force of attack against the clueless idiots about to part with their money…alone.

  “No more sabotaging each other for tonight. We play our own marks and let the other do the same. What happens, happens, and at the end of the night, whoever has the biggest payout wins.”

  “Wins, what?” His tone was low and seductive.

  I eyed him cautiously. “Half.”

  He tilted his head slightly and stared at my mouth. I both loved and hated when he did that. Having Spencer in such close proximity drove an ice pick into my hard exterior, forcing the insecurity to seep out through the cracks. It was clear to me my terms weren’t going to satisfy him.

  “No dice,” he declared, moving closer. “Try again.”

  I sighed and ran a hand through my sprayed blonde curls. “I don’t have time for games. Name your stakes.”

  “You,” he said, matter-of-factly.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me. If my payout beats yours at the end of the night, I want you naked and in my bed. No arguing, no smart-mouth, and no resisting.” When my chin dropped in shock, he grinned and added, “And you have to like it.”

  “No.” Hell no. Who the hell did he think he was talking to?

  One corner of his mouth lifted as he rocked back on his heels. “Scared?”

  That did it. One word. One simple word was all it took to push me over the edge. Besides, until Spencer grew a pair of breasts and shaved his legs, a woman could still work magic a man could only dream of.

  “You’re on,” I bit out between clenched teeth. “We meet in room five-twenty-six at the Fallon Hotel at two a.m. But be prepared to go down, Sp
encer. I never lose.”

  Without warning, he took my face in between his palms and stole a heated and demanding kiss. His mouth was warm and tasted of whiskey as his tongue slipped past my lips and tangled with my own. Surprised, I resisted at first, then completely drunk off his command of my body, returned it with vigor.

  Spencer kissed like he was a dying man and I was the last sip of water on earth.

  Breaking the kiss, he left me dizzy and shaking. “Room four-thirty-two. And the only thing going down tonight, Charity…will be you.”

  With a wink, he released me and disappeared out of the side door, leaving me to wonder what the hell I’d just gotten myself into.

  Chapter Four

  Spencer

  Concentrating on a new target while still tasting Charity on my lips was like trying to tread water with ankle weights tied to your feet. As agreed, we’d left Suede after our close call and headed to another club. I hadn’t bothered to remember the name of the one I’d walked into—my mind raced too hard with the feel of her curves under my hands and her mouth on mine.

  Hell, I didn’t even remember targeting the middle-aged redhead with the barely-there dress sitting at the bar alone. Before I knew what happened, my hand was on her back and I’d fed her four shots of something I couldn’t afford. All I comprehended was that the payout had better be worth the cluster fuck Charity made of my night.

  It didn’t help matters that she sat less than twenty feet away from me, pushing her tits in some jackass’s face. The more he smiled, the more I wanted to punch the shit out of him. Catching her eyes, I shot her a warning look, but she just grinned and ran her fingers along the graying hair at his temples.

  Fuck!

  Shaking my head to clear it of cinnamon perfume and sexy as hell black sequined dresses, I redirected my attention, noticing the new club seemed less upscale and more like frat party than Suede. Normally, I avoided such places…money didn’t congregate here as much as broke ass twenty-somethings looking to drink on someone else’s dime…but my head wasn’t in the game as much as other parts that craved relief.