The Bad Boy Next Door

by Lexxie Couper

  “I’m not your fucking girl,” I snarled.

  He drew his head closer to mine. “You’ve been mine, Ronnie, since the very second we met.”

  Before I could tell him what I thought of that statement, he crushed my lips with his.

  The savage kiss made my head spin and my pussy throb. By the time he pulled away, I was giddy with breathlessness. Or something far more disquieting—concentrated lust.

  He chuckled, as he threw the Camaro into reverse. “Buckle up.”

  I had a split second to think, shit, the garage door, and then we were speeding backwards and out of the garage.

  I blinked. When had he opened the automatic door? While he was kissing me? Had he pressed the button while he was kissing me? While I was drowning in lust and aching with hungry, debauched need, was he pressing the button on the remote control?

  The thought sent a hot, dark lick of anger through me.

  Fucking prick.

  He wasn’t kissing me again. In fact, the second we stopped, I was getting out and leaving him.

  Screw this. I didn’t have to stick with him. He was no one to me. Just a bad boy who’d moved in next door to me and proceeded to make my high school years hell. Sure, he was always wonderful to his parents and mine, but he used to laugh at me over and over. And then confuse me with those freaking brownies. And those enigmatic smiles… Dammit, I owed him nothing. He had—

  The screaming wail of an ambulance cut my surly resolute thought dead. Or maybe it was the way Lucas propelled my car into speeds I don’t think it’s ever been driven before. Certainly not while I was behind the wheel. Just because I owned a muscle car, didn’t mean I drove it like I was in NASCAR.

  But Lucas found the grunt in the Camaro’s engine. Found it, whipped it into a lather and proceeded to find more. He gunned the engine, red-lining the RPMs as he flew through the gears.

  Before I could take stock of the situation, my home was long behind us, not a sound of the ambulance’s siren to be heard.

  “Lucas,” I began, pretty certain I was going to break my nails clinging to the dash as hard as I was. I didn’t want to break my nails. It had taken a long time to break my habit of biting them, and only two days ago, I’d spent a ridiculous amount of money on my very first manicure. “You need to tell me what’s going on. Now.”

  He flung us around a corner so fast I think my poor car went up on two wheels. He made doing so look easy.

  The blanket he wore was pooled around his waist, leaving his upper body bare. The wounds peppering his torso continued to seep blood, but he didn’t seem to care.

  Nor did he seem inclined to answer me.

  “Lucas,” I snapped, that dark anger I’d experienced earlier over the garage door flaring up to epic proportions now. “If you don’t fucking tell me what’s going on, I’m going to throw myself from this car and go to the cops.”

  He shot me a quick look, his eyes and expression unreadable in the muted light from the dash.

  “I mean it,” I said, closing the fingers of my right hand around the door handle. “Now spill.”

  He eased back on the accelerator. A little. Not a lot, but enough for me to not feel like we were participating in an insane race.

  The trouble was, a part of me suspected we were, with an unseen pursuer more menacing than even Lucas. And right now, he was incredibly menacing.

  “The less you know, the better,” he finally answered, just as I was about to repeat my demand.

  I laughed; a dry, sarcastic bark of a sound I’d never made before. “No. The less I know, the worse for you. At this point in time, I can’t decide if you’re deranged and I need to check you into a loony bin, or if you’re unhinged and I need to call the police.”

  He surprised me by uttering his own laugh. If it wasn’t for the fact it disintegrated into a coughing fit that ended with bubbles of blood on his bottom lip, I think I may have hit him.

  Instead, I almost gasped with worry.

  Wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand, he frowned briefly at the blood and then returned his focus to the road. “The cops aren’t who you want to call, Ronnie. Not now.”

  I swallowed. He sounded…shaky.

  He coughed again. No blood this time, thank God, but a lot of wincing. What made a person cough up blood? I don’t know. But whatever it was, it couldn’t be good.

  “You need to get to a hospital,” I said, unable to keep the concern from my voice. Damn it. I wanted to say angry with him. When I was angry, it was easier to forget how scared I was. When I was angry I forgot about those times when he would intimidate the shit out of the school’s quarterback every time the jerk tried to feel me up in the lunch hall. “And you need to tell me what’s going on.”

  He didn’t answer. Not straight away. What he did do was keep flicking glances in the rearview mirror.

  Finally, as if satisfied we weren’t being followed, he slowed a little more—to a speed somewhere in the vicinity of the posted limit—and shifted in his seat.

  Once more, I frowned. “Who are you, Lucas? Where do you go when you disappear? Who beat the shit out of you? Why did you turn up naked in my bed, and who do you think is going to try to hurt me?”

  A ragged breath left him, the sound becoming a gurgling cough. He slid a quick look my way. This time I couldn’t hold back my gasp. Whatever adrenaline he’d been running on, whatever dogged determination to get us as far away from my home as possible, had left him.

  If a freshly dug-up corpse had been driving, I would have been less dismayed. Less concerned.

  “I’ll tell you everything,” he answered, the words close to a mumbled slur, “when we’re safe.”

  My eyebrows lifted. “And we’re not now?”

  He shook his head, an action that didn’t help my current state of mind at all. “Not yet.”

  “Where are we going?”

  He gave me an address I’d never heard of before but knew was somewhere upstate.

  “And you think you’re going to drive us there?” I asked, incredulous.

  Once again, he shook his head. “No,” he rasped. “You are.”

  And with that, he slumped sideways in the seat, his head lolling, his eyes closing.

  Lunging from my seat, my seat belt digging into my chest and tummy, my stunned shout tearing at my throat, I caught the steering wheel just as Lucas’s hands slipped from it.

  Heart racing, I navigated the Camaro to the shoulder, thanking freaking God it was two am in the morning and the streets were deserted.

  “Lucas,” I said, giving him a shove with one hand.

  The car stalled to a halt as the soft thud of his foot falling from the accelerator filled the cabin.

  It took me a long time to get him out of the car. Fighting with the blanket and his extreme weight—who knew muscle weighed so much?—I dragged him around to the passenger seat and lowered him into it, the effort giving me a stitch in my side and burning lungs.

  I really needed to start working out. That was the trouble with being naturally skinny. There was no incentive to exercise, so when you found yourself on the run from an unknown threat with your scary, sexy and highly secretive neighbor, you struggled.

  Finally getting him back into the car, I spent a good few seconds longer than I probably should have checking his body for fresh blood.

  Some of his wounds seemed to be seeping more than they had when I first saw them. God knows how much extra damage I’d done moving him the way I just had. The thing was, I didn’t have a choice.

  I had to believe we were in danger. I had to believe Lucas was trying to get us—or him, at least—out of danger. And I had to believe him when he told me not to trust…

  Yeah, that instruction still hadn’t been finished. I’d have to take him to task over that when he regained consciousness.

  If he regains consciousness.

  I ignored the niggling question, draped the blanket of his groin—Jesus, were those cigarette burns on his inner thigh?—and ran
back to the driver’s side, buckled myself in, entered our destination into my maps app on my smartphone and floored the accelerator.

  It was time I drove the Camaro like it was meant to be driven.

  Lucas didn’t regain consciousness when I stopped for gas three hours later.

  By that stage, the sky was starting to turn a pinky gold with the approaching dawn.

  If the gas station attendant noticed the shirtless man with a bruised and bloody face slumped against the passenger window in my car, he didn’t show it when I paid.

  I made sure I paid with cash. I also made sure I was relaxed and normal. I didn’t want him to get suspicious about the nervous, jittery woman paying for gas in the wee hours of the morning if someone happened to question him at some point. As an added precaution, I covered my hair with the baseball cap I always kept in the car for days I found myself needing protection from the sun.

  If I’d had a spare pair of reading glasses in the car, I would have put those on as well. Unfortunately, I didn’t. I realized I’d also left my glasses back home.

  Hopefully, I wasn’t going to need to do any serious reading while on the run with Lucas.

  On the run.

  God, I wish I knew what I was on the run from.

  It took another tank of gas and a pee break—during which I spent the entire time straining to hear what was going on outside the public bathroom in fear whoever was after us was going to get to the still-unconscious Lucas slumped in the car—to get to our destination.

  When I did pull into the driveway of the address he’d given me before passing out, I wondered if I’d heard him correctly.

  The place was…was…

  Not at all what I thought a hideout would be.

  A very expensive-looking split-level home made of glass and steel built into the side of a cliff overlooking a long stretch of empty beach. It was surrounded, not by other houses, but by dense forest. The high sun glinted off the east-facing windows and steel railings like diamonds.

  There was no sign of anyone moving around inside.

  What there was, was a gate directly in front of me.

  It looked locked.

  Fuck. What did I do now?

  Taking my foot off the accelerator, I moved it to the brake.

  And blinked when a soft chime sounded from my glove compartment a second before the gate began to slide open.

  What. The. Fuck?

  Beside me, Lucas groaned.

  I let out a soft cry, the unexpected noise dialing my jitters up to a gazillion. Gripping the steering wheel so tightly my knuckles felt like they were going to pop, I squinted at him.

  The sun outside cast him in a glaring, color-bleaching light. It didn’t, however, hide how ashen his skin was.

  “Lucas?” I whispered. No, I don’t know why I whispered either. “Are you sure this is the…”

  I stopped myself before I could say right place. Something in my car had just opened the security gate, some kind of proximity activator, I assumed. Of course this was the right place.

  Fixing my stare on the sweeping driveway leading up to the glass and steel building, I let out a wobbly breath and pressed my foot to the accelerator.

  The Camaro slowly crunched its way up the drive, bringing us closer to the house.

  Lucas didn’t make another sound.

  I pulled to a complete halt and killed the engine in front of the closed double garage door. The tick-tick-tick of hot metal cooling filled the silence, as did the distant cry of loons beyond the windows.

  I studied the house, its rooms clearly visible through the floor-to-ceiling windows for a moment and then, taking a lucky guess, I reached over Lucas’s inert body and popped open the glove compartment.

  There, in amongst my normal shit—spare sunglasses with scratched lenses, numerous tubes of lip gloss, parking fines I probably should get around to paying sometime soon, a bag of Hershey Kisses that most likely were melted beyond their cute shape by now—was a small black rectangle with a smaller red button in the middle.

  Straightening back into my seat with the strange device in hand, I looked at the closed garage door and pressed my thumb to the red button.

  The garage door slowly rose, revealing a bright yellow sports car that my brain told me was a Ferrari but my eyes refused to believe was there, and an empty spot beside it.

  Heart thumping faster than ever, I started the engine of my Camaro, drove into the empty spot and closed the garage door behind me.

  I turned off the ignition and sat in my ticking car again for a moment, pulse pounding in my ears.

  Okay. Now what?

  Get Lucas inside. Check his wounds. Then get answers.

  I could do that. Sure.

  With a determined nod of my head, and a concerted girding up of my loins, I got out of the car, hurried around to the passenger side door and opened it.

  Lucas didn’t move. He looked bad. Really bad. But even looking like he was on death’s door, he was still the sexiest fucking bastard I’ve ever laid eyes on.

  Letting out a steadying breath, I leant into the car and reached across him to release the seat buckle.

  And damn near screamed when he jolted upright, snatching my arm in a fierce grip. “I’ll fucking kill you,” he snarled, stare locked on me.

  His eyes were wild. Feverish. His fingers drilled into my arm.

  “Lucas,” I yelped. “It’s me. Ronnie.”

  Confusion etched his face. His eyes focused on mine long enough for me to see raw pain in them, and then he released my arm and touched my lips with a shaky hand. “Ronnie. I think I’m…”

  He passed out. Again.

  If I weren’t freaking out of my freaking mind, I’d be pissed. He was making a bad habit of passing out at the most inappropriate times.

  It took me way longer to get him out of the Camaro and into the house than I was happy with. If I’d have known I was going to be lugging a 230 pound hunk of man around, I would have spent more time working out. By the time I got him into the living room and onto the closest sofa—if the low, sleek pristine-white leather piece of designer furniture could be called such a modest word—I was puffing and sweaty.

  Mercifully, Lucas regained enough consciousness halfway into our hideout that I wasn’t so much carrying/dragging him as I was supporting/dragging him.

  His feet moved and his legs supported him—just. He wrapped his muscular arm around my shoulders, his strength wavering.

  When I stretched him out on the white cushions—not so white after this, what with the blood once again seeping from his side—he let out a low groan.

  “I’m sorry, Lucas,” I murmured, crouching down beside him.

  He looked like shit. Sexy shit, but still shit.

  Sweat beaded his forehead. His eyes were closed. His hair hung about his face in damp strands. There was a pallor to his skin I didn’t like one little bit.

  Crouched beside him, a part of me was aware soft music had started playing the moment we’d entered the house—AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell”—another part of me aware said the house smelt like jasmine and Lucas and pine forests. I brushed a clumpy strand of hair from his forehead. “Tell me what to do, Lucas,” I whispered, stare fixed on his face.

  “Doctor,” he slurred, eyelids fighting to open. It was a fight they failed.

  “Call a doctor?” I confirmed, tummy clenching.

  “Winchester.” The name was as slurred at the word doctor.

  “Doctor Winchester?”

  I think he nodded. I could be wrong. He seemed to have slumped into unconsciousness again.

  I pushed myself to my feet and went searching for a telephone directory. None.

  Lips twisting with frustration, I pulled my phone from my pocket and googled Doctor Winchester.

  The only result that came up relevant to where we were was a veterinarian located in the next county. I studied the man’s website.

  Surely he wasn’t the doctor Lucas was talking about?

 
Right?

  Stomach a mess of churning butterflies, and with no other option I could see, I hit the phone icon on the website and raised my cell to my ear.

  Five rings later, a man with a scratchy voice answered. “Doctor Winchester’s Animal Clinic.”

  “I’m not sure I have the right number,” I said, doing my best to sound relaxed but puzzled at the same time. “I’m after the Doctor Winchester who knows Lucas Pratt.”

  “Doctor Winchester will be there ASAP,” the scratchy-voiced man said, voice no longer quite so scratchy and far more efficient and alert.

  “Excuse me?” I said, shocked and confused.

  I didn’t get an answer. Whoever the scratchy-voiced man was, he’d hung up on me.

  Blinking at my phone, I huffed out a breath and swung a glare toward Lucas where he lay motionless on the sofa.

  “You are so going to get it when you’re not in the middle of dying,” I muttered.

  Stomping from the living room, I went looking for…well, something. Anything. I needed to know where I was, who owned this house, and why I had a garage door opener for it in my glove compartment.

  After one lap of the floor I was on—there were funky staircases leading both up and down from the living area—I was beginning to think I owned the place.

  In the bookcase in the living room were all my favorite books—the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy, G.R.R. Martin’s complete works, Stephen King’s earlier books, the Disc World series and a collection of Mills and Boon’s sexy books. Yes, I’d been a romance book junkie since I was sixteen, and I’m not ashamed to admit it.

  Amongst the DVDs shelved beside the bookcase were all my favorite movies—I am a B-grade sci-fi fan through and through.

  What the hell?

  In the kitchen, I found a bowl of Granny Smith apples, my preferred variety for healthy munching, and more than one packet of Oreos, my preferred cookie for non-healthy munching.

  A frown pulled at my eyebrows. What the hell was going on?

  I checked on Lucas—yay, his wounds had stopped bleeding—and then wandered up the stairs and into luxury I couldn’t have begun to imagine.

  Three bedrooms, all exquisitely and yet minimally decorated, two with massive beds bigger than I’d ever seen, and the third with a plush sofa I suspected became a foldaway bed. In that room was a desk. On the desk was a sketch pad and some pencils.