KEPT: A Small Town Second Chance Romance Novella (Reckless Falls Book 0)

by Vivian Lux

  "Oh fuck," I panted as the white hot coil snaked around my belly. I squeezed my eyes shut and arched upward into his tongue, grinding myself against him. He hummed something profane against my clit and then slipped that perfect finger inside of me, driving me right over the edge. I bit my lip hard enough to draw blood as I stifled a scream, just as Fiona called Cole's name from just outside the pick-up door.

  Cole bounced up from between my legs and slammed his lips into mine. His dimple glistened ever so slightly as he pulled back and smiled. "Thanks for helping me find my notecards, future-Mrs. Granger."

  I gaped at him as he yanked my skirt back down and opened the door. "Hey Fifi," he called out, charming as always. "I'm so sorry to keep you waiting, I left my speech in the truck." He looked back over his shoulder. "Luckily my fiancée knew where I put it."

  Fiona was smiling, dazzled by Cole, just like everyone was. Just like I was. I gave a small wave and watched as she led him over to the podium.

  Then I took a deep breath, checked my makeup in the rearview mirror and slid down out of the truck, careful to hold on to the door lest I collapse in a boneless puddle on the ground.

  "Autumn Melton!" a strangely familiar voice called. "How lovely to see you again!"

  I swallowed, opened my mouth, cleared my throat and then swallowed again as the burning blush ignited my cheeks. How? How was she here? How was she right outside the door again?

  Then I choked down a hysterical laugh and smiled hugely. "Hi Mrs. Collis," I grinned. "Are you here for Cole's speech? I'm so proud of him." I couldn't help but raise my chin. "Aren't you?" I needled her.

  She pressed her lips together. "It's lovely what he's doing for the town. I guess he made good after all. Eventually."

  I looked down at my left hand. "Eventually," I repeated, nodding firmly. Then I headed over to the podium to listen to my fiancé speak.

  THE END

  Thank you for reading KEPT! To read the next book in the Reckless Falls series, starring Cole's brother Derek, just keep turn the page!

  WRECKED:

  A Small Town Bad Boy Romance

  RECKLESS FALLS BOOK ONE

  by

  Vivian Lux

  Copyright 2017

  All Rights Reserved

  This book contains adult themes, explicit language and sexual situations. It is intended for mature audiences.

  NOTE: All characters in the book are 18+ years of age, and all sexual acts are consensual.

  If you want to read a special, subscriber only epilogue to WRECKED: A Small Town Bad Boy Romance, sign up to my mailing list using this link!

  Click here!

  BOOKS BY VIVIAN LUX:

  Sons of Steel Motorcycle Club:

  Steel My Heart

  Steel Me Away

  Steel My Love

  Steel My Soul

  Steel Forever (January 2016)

  Rockstar Romance

  JAX: A Rockstar Stepbrother Romance

  RANE: A Rockstar Stepbrother Romance

  WILDER: A Rockstar Romance

  LOW: A Rockstar Romance

  TRUE: A Rockstar Romance

  The Reckless Falls Series:

  WRECKED: A Small Town Bad Boy Romance

  TWICE: A Small Town Bad Boy Romance Times Two (February 2017)

  Sports Romance

  FORCE: A Bad Boy Sports Romance

  IMPACT: A Secret Baby Sports Romance

  I love to hear from my readers.

  Email me at mailto:velvetfirepress@gmail.com

  Friend me at facebook.com/vivianlux.romance

  Like me at facebook.com/vivianlux.author

  Amazon Author Page

  COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

  Please respect the work of this author. No part of this book may be reproduced or copied without permission. This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Any similarities to events or situations are also coincidental.

  The publisher and author acknowledge the trademark status and trademark ownership of all trademarks and locations mentioned in this book. Trademarks and locations are not sponsored or endorsed by trademark owners.

  (C) 2016 by Vivian Lux and Velvetfire Press

  All Rights Reserved

  Dedication:

  This one goes out to my new friend Jen Talty who, at the eleventh hour, rescued this book from the crappy plot I'd saddled it with and gave it entirely new life. If you like this book at all, it's because she fixed it.

  About this book:

  I never wanted to come back...

  Aria:

  When I inherited Grandpa’s house, I had no plans to stick around. One night back home in Reckless Falls is more than enough.

  But he’s in my way.

  Derek Granger. The high school bad boy. The one I spent every night daydreaming about. I thought I knew what to expect with him. He was a misguided kid back then, but now?

  What is he hiding?

  I don’t care that Derek has piercing eyes and cheekbones that could cut glass. I definitely don’t care about his reputation for a huge… ego. Derek is an arrogant, drunken party boy. I need him gone.

  But when he looks at me with those dark eyes, his voice heavy with desire, I can barely manage to whisper, “Stay.”

  Derek:

  She’s the one who left, not me. Even though I had every reason to go. She ran away and broke her parents’ hearts.

  Now, she’s back from her glitzy life and she wants something from me.

  Little Miss Priss thinks she’s entitled to everything just because she’s a star. She can bat those pretty eyelashes at me. She can strut around in that curve-hugging dress and those tall boots.

  She can throw me against the wall and beg me to f*ck her, hard.

  She’s not kicking me out of my house.

  But I just might invite her into my bed.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Derek

  It had been quiet as hell around here since the old man died.

  It was strange, the silence that reigned in his absence. I always thought I liked the quiet up here, away from everyone. But I guess I didn’t realize how I was used to hearing his sounds, the coughing start of his old Land Rover, the creak of the porch swing as he sat looking out over the vast estate he had no one to share with - no one except me.

  I was also used to the sounds he’d make as he shuffled over to the carriage house, his rasping cough, his shuffling feet. I’d hear him and brace myself, waiting, until he knocked softly on the door…and then immediately opened it without waiting for me to reply. I supposed that was his right - since he owned the place and everything in it - so I’d grit my teeth. “Mr. Dolan, to what do I owe the pleasure?”

  He’d always have some sort of grumpy complaint. The old man was an asshole, that was for certain. But that last time he came over, he wasn’t himself. He’d looked at me with watery eyes. Was the old dude crying? I checked out the window really quick. Just to make sure the sky wasn’t full of flying pigs.

  “Do you remember my granddaughter?” he’d asked.

  I’d squeezed my fists real quick. I’d have to be careful about telling my landlord exactly what I remembered about his long lost granddaughter. I remembered her ass, that’s for sure. And the way she moved through our high school like the spotlight was shining on her. Talented as hell, yeah, and hotter than hell too, but she was also the ungrateful little shit who’d run away and left her parents halfway between anger and grieving. So I’d just nodded. “Sure do. Aria.”

  “I need you to find her.”

  I’d hesitate to call that the old man’s dying wish. I didn’t want to believe he was on his way out. I was stubbornly holding on to the idea that such a formidable old geezer would never die, and moreover that I’d always be able to live in this perfectly situated seclusion.

  But that’s exactly how it played out. I gave him his dying wish and I found her.


  And I found her pretty fucking fast too. I could have probably tracked her down years ago. If only someone had asked me. I mean, she was hiding right there in plain sight. Bubbly little Aria Jane Dolan had turned herself into a rockstar. A few searches, a couple of background checks and I was certain of it.

  She’d reemerged two years ago as the lead singer of the glitter-punk group Wrecked. When I saw the pictures, I sat back in my chair. She’d done…something to her face, and her hair was the color of a sunset on fire, but she was clearly the same girl who’d stood in the hallways of our school, planting herself right in my line of sight until I had no choice to stare at her. I’d recognize her anywhere and I meant to go tell Mr. Dolan that, right away.

  But then I’d kept digging. I couldn’t help it, it’s what I do. I usually charge big money for my skills, especially for this stuff, the things people want to stay hidden. But I had a soft spot for Mr. Dolan. He’d taken a chance on me last year, allowing a former alcoholic and semi-recluse to come live on his property. He’d done me a favor. So I owed him one and tried to tease out the story of Aria Jane.

  I wanted to give Mr. Dolan the whole story. After all, his granddaughter had disappeared almost seven years ago. He’d want to know what she’d been up to. So I kept to the public stuff, the interviews, clearly made up, where she’d completely rewritten her past.

  But the more I dug, the more I saw him there at her side. That creepy motherfucker. Called himself Killer Ness, though a simple background search let me know that he was born Killian Varness, was well into his late thirties and had a reputation in the music business for being a complete slime ball.

  I didn’t like him. I didn’t like his look, his pompous attitude in the press or the overbearing way he treated Aria. Like she was some kind of puppet only he could control. And she looked at him like he was her sole purpose in life. It made me want to puke. That wasn’t love in her eyes, it was cult-like worship. It wigged me the fuck out.

  So I started really digging.

  Hacking is just a matter of jiggling locks. That’s how I look at it anyway. People leave the doors to their houses unlocked all the time. May as well just be inviting people in, right? Well, it’s same with their devices too. If you’re going to leave your shit wide open like that then you shouldn’t be fucking surprised when people snoop. I feel guilty for a lot of shit I’ve done in my life, but breaking into unsecured cell phones is not one of them.

  It wasn’t hard to find Killian’s cell phone and it was even easier to hack it. I was looking for the evidence that he was up to something shady.

  Instead, I found his mistress.

  Aria, or Jane Doe as she called herself now, which was fucking funny because there was no way a girl like her could ever be anonymous, had gone on and on in her interviews about the love she and Killer shared. They were a rock solid couple who shared everything, from their creative pursuits to their bed. And maybe I’m a fucking asshole. I mean, that’s been demonstrated pretty clearly over and over again. But when I read how fucking swindled this girl was, this girl from my hometown, my benefactor’s long lost and dearly missed granddaughter, I kind of lost it.

  I sent the text from an encrypted source. That probably freaked her out. But I figured it was a good deed under my belt.

  Lord knows I have some serious karmic debt to repay.

  And once I’d done that, I stood up and headed up to the great house.

  When I’m really into a project, the weeks can just slip by. The seasons were changing, right under my fucking nose. The tourists were leaving my quaint little hometown, and heading back to their suburban lives. It was still hot out, but the sun shone with that late summer’s glow, turning everything golden.

  Up at the great house, things were changing rapidly too.

  I opened the big French doors off the main porch and stood in the doorway with my nose wrinkled and tried to wrap my head around the scene in front of me.

  The smell of death was hanging in the air. A hospital bed sat right in the middle of the living room. A visiting nurse checked the IV drip that hung next to the bed. And Mr. Dolan didn’t move a muscle when I walked in.

  His eyes were closed and his mouth hung open, toothless and vulnerable like a baby bird. It felt like an intrusion, me seeing him like this. I cleared my throat. “I found her, old man,” I told him.

  He didn’t say anything, but the papery skin around his eyes tightened a little, so I knew he’d heard me. I shoved the papers onto the table that was set up next to him and I hightailed it out of the great house and back across the wide lawn to my place.

  I figured whatever, he wanted to do with Aria, the time to do it was gone. But I’d found her for him, that was the important thing.

  He died three days later.

  I’d granted his dying wish.

  I didn’t go to the funeral.

  He knew what he meant to me in life. Death wasn’t going to change that. And besides, no one wanted to see me there anyway. I stayed hidden, like I do, and I figured I’d get used to the silence. The sound of the wind coming off the lake and the far off sounds of cars down in the valley below were the only noises I heard. I buried myself in my work, my real work, not the hacker shit that paid the bills, and lived in that silence for weeks.

  Until one morning in early October, a sound broke the silence. The sound of car wheels on the long driveway, climbing up to the great house.

  I was just coming back across the lawn after finishing a trail run through the morning mist. The glare of the headlights caught me and I froze in place just like a deer.

  The car door slammed and a wild-eyed, fierce looking redhead came stomping across the lawn in these incredibly sexy yet completely ridiculous-for-this-terrain boots.

  It was her. The granddaughter. The face I’d tracked down.

  Aria.

  Or was she still Jane Doe?

  She came charging at me like an enraged bull, but at the last minute those ridiculous boots betrayed her. Before I could think, I was lunging forward to catch her, and for a second there was nothing but primal, animal desire in my brain. Holy hell, that ass I’d admired in high school had somehow gotten even better.

  Then I ducked, but not quickly enough. Her slapping palm caught me on the side of the ear and it hurt like fucking hell. “Hey!” I shouted, and she tumbled the rest of the way to the ground.

  She planted her hands in the grass for a moment, taking a deep breath and when she looked back up at me with those deep blue eyes, I started moving to her again. I couldn’t fucking help it.

  But she stopped me in my tracks with an accusing finger. “Derek Granger?” she shouted. “This is my house! What the fuck are you doing here?”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Aria Jane

  I’d almost deleted the email from my grandfather’s lawyer. I thought it was spam.

  After all, nobody called me Aria anymore. I was Jane Doe.

  Or was I?

  Because at the moment I opened my email, the life I knew, the life Jane knew, was falling the fuck apart.

  Killian wasn’t speaking to me, even though I was the one who was wronged. Seven years I’d given him. I’d trusted him with everything, my career, my future, my life and he’d repaid that trust by stomping it into the ground. And then fucking someone else right on top of it.

  The anonymous tip about his infidelity had landed in my email too. Ever since it had proven true, I’d kept a careful watch on my inbox.

  That night in our apartment, I listened to Killian brazenly opening the door and letting her in. Her. Just to fuck with me. Because he could. Because he had all the power here and I had none of my own…because I wasn’t a person, I was an image. I was Jane. And so I flipped open my laptop and went to my email, hoping against hope that another anonymous bombshell would drop out of the clear blue sky and tell me the next fucking step to get out from under Killian Varness’s thumb.

  And there it was.

  My grandfather’s estate.
<
br />   He’d willed it to Aria.

  To me.

  I closed my laptop and breathed out a silent prayer of thanks. Thanks to the anonymous person, this email fairy godmother who seemed to be looking out for me when no one else in my life was. And thanks to my grandfather for giving me an escape route and a way to stand on my own two feet. I’d spent seven years with Killian. Seven years while he broke more promises than he made. Seven years where he controlled everything about me, my clothes, my hair, my face, my image, my emotions….and my money.

  I was dead broke and dependent, but my grandfather’s will had just changed all that.

  I packed a suitcase and I left Killian that night. I wasn’t sure he was going to notice I was leaving. His mistress was screaming like a fucking porn star right as I yanked my battered touring suitcase down from the top of the hallway closet. It was packed already. We were about to leave for a three-week tour of the West Coast.

  Not anymore.

  The noises from the bedroom stopped and I froze in place. The bedroom door creaked open and Killian poked his head out and narrowed his eyes at me.

  Fifteen minutes ago, I would have been cowed by the look on his face. I would have turned and headed back to the couch and put on my headphones to drown out the sound of him fucking her.

  Not anymore. The cab was waiting. I was done with this.

  “Goodbye,” I snarled, zipping my suitcase with a flourish. “Don’t ever come near me again.”

  His mouth fell open in shock. And before he could recover, before he could start wheedling and worrying at me, insulting me and dragging me down, I was gone.