Smoke: A Bad Boy Romance

by Paula Cox

There’s a pause and I wonder if I’ve got it wrong.

  But then Cleft screams: “Piece of shit!”

  He won’t shoot me, so he tries to do the only other thing he can. He lifts the gun and makes to smack me over the head with it. Eyes closed, I feel every movement, the sensation of the gun being pulled away from me, the way Cleft’s breathing gets quicker and quicker. Half a second—he brings the gun down.

  I lurch to the side and the gun smacks harmlessly against the chair. I jump up and punch him so hard in the face blood explodes like a burst watermelon, pouring down his shirtfront. I’m on him in a second, wrenching the gun from his grip. The other man, taken off guard, tries to lift his gun to aim it at me. Two shots. Pop-pop. And Cleft and his friend are dead, headshots, lying like sacks of potatoes on the floor.

  And I’d kill a thousand more to protect Felicity, I think.

  I quickly grab the rifle and look through the scope at Mr. Black. He’s looking straight at me, mouth set in a determined grimace. I watch as he swings the rifle in a wide arc, aiming right for Felicity.

  “No fucking way,” I growl.

  Before I met Felicity, I never would have dreamed I’d do what I’m about to do. It would’ve sounded like a joke, a twisted joke that made little sense. The Man in Black is my employer. The Man in Black is the man who pays my bills. The Man in Black is the reason I have almost one million in cash stashed away. I’ve known the Man in Black almost as long as I’ve known Bear. But none of that matters anymore. He’s pointing a gun straight at Felicity. I can’t have that.

  I pull the trigger, but a split-second before I do, he manages to get a shot off. A window in the party room smashes. Even from up here, I hear the screams. Mr. Black slumps forward, a bullet hole in his head, blood spilling onto his rifle. I look at him for half a second, thinking: You played the game, sir, and you lost.

  And then I’m on my feet, charging down the stairs and out onto the street. A shot cut through the party. Felicity . . .

  If she’s been hit, I’ll never forgive myself. If she’s been hit, I’ll take my own life, make no mistake. I love her more than I’ve ever cared for anything or anybody. If that bastard has killed her.

  I sprint across the street, traffic swerving around me, people mashing their horns. The air fills with the sound of curses and honking. I ignore it all and sprint into the hotel room, glancing around. I know that any moment now, Felicity could be bleeding out. On her back, blood gushing from her mouth. I should’ve shot sooner, I think. Goddamn it! Why didn’t I shoot sooner?

  “Sir,” the receptionist says, as I spring toward the door guarded by two Secret Service agents. “Sir, you can’t go that way.”

  The agents step into my path. I don’t want to hurt them. These aren’t men who’re part of the life. So I don’t. I just do something they don’t expect. I bow my head and bull-rush them. The men—clean-shaven, tidy-haired, with a military look about them, but not the hardened, mercenary look of Mr. Black’s men—let out a yelp and step aside reflexively. After a moment, they realize what they’ve done and jump after me.

  But they’re too late. I crash through the door and look around the room.

  It’s chaos. I can’t see anything. I push through politicians, wading through the crowd.

  “Get him!” somebody screams.

  Finally, I reach the front of the crowd.

  I stop, heart hammering in my chest. Felicity and her father stand huddled close together, unharmed. I look at the shattered window, follow the path the bullet must’ve taken. There, low on the stage, I see the shredded wood where Mr. Black’s shot missed. Gasping, I stare at Felicity. Her head is bowed, but at the sound of the mayhem, she looks up. When she sees me her eyes go wide and her hands begin to shake.

  “Felicity,” I say. “I love you. I couldn’t let—”

  A Secret Service agent barrels into me, taking me clean off my feet and slamming me into the ground. The crowd lets out a scream as three, four, five agents begin laying into me; the two I charged past at the door are the angriest and pound my face and my arms with heavy fists. I grunt as their strikes hit me, but I’m too relieved to see Felicity unharmed to fight back. Blood pours down me and old wounds reopen.

  So what? I think in the midst of the beating. Felicity is alive. Mr. Black is dead. That’s all that matters.

  Then Felicity’s voice cuts through the pain. “Stop that!” she screams. “I am the daughter of the ambassador and you are Secret Service agents and I order you to stop, right now!”

  Reluctantly, the men stop beating me. One of them grabs me by the wrists and pulls me to my feet. I can hardly see. Blood drips down my forehead and covers my eyes.

  But none of that matters. Felicity is alive and her would-be killer is dead. She is safe. Bleeding or not, wounded or not, in agony or not, I have saved her.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Felicity

  Roma’s body sags between four Secret Service agents, his face a bloody pulp. But when he looks up at me, I see that he is smiling. He breathes shallowly and his clothes are covered in blood, but the smile outshines all of that. The entire room is turned toward him, all of them no doubt expecting him to be the culprit. But I know Roma. He’s a professional. If he was the one who fired off the shot, Dad would be dead. No, somebody else must’ve fired it. And even if, by some twist of fate, he had missed, he wouldn’t run down here and cause this scene. He’d run before anybody knew what happened.

  I look into his face and feel warmth bloom across my chest.

  Then Dad touches my arm. “Felicity,” he says, voice sharp. “Do you know this man?”

  “He just charged in here,” one of the Secret Service men says. The man’s teeth are gritted. He’s the one who beat Roma the most savagely, I remember. “Charged right past us. He must have something to do with the gunshot.”

  My mind spins over and over, searching for an explanation. They’ll take him and throw him in prison, but not just regular prison. They’ll arrest him for treason and put him in a tiny windowless cell where he’ll grow old alone and frightened. Come on, I tell myself. He saved you. Now it’s your turn to save him. Because I’m sure he saved me. I’m sure that’s the reason he’s here.

  “Felicity,” Dad says. “He used your name. He said he loved you. Why would a man with the gall to charge into this private party, minutes after a gunshot almost killed me, say that?”

  My mouth falls open as I search for words. I need to say something which will cause them to release him, without question.

  Suddenly, more Secret Service men burst into the room. “We found the shooter,” one of them says. “An old man in a black suit across the way. The trajectory lines up perfectly.”

  “So this man isn’t the shooter?” Dad asks.

  “Not by the looks of it,” the man replies.

  “Then who is he, why is he here, and how does he know my daughter’s name?”

  Roma looks at me and I see the way this could easily go. I’ll remain silent and he’ll be carted away from me. They’ll search his name and find nothing. He hasn’t been on the system since he was a kid, maybe not even then. They’ll interrogate him, but Roma is tough. He won’t give anything up. But that won’t stop them holding him indefinitely.

  I realize that everybody is watching me.

  Yes! I think, when the idea comes into my head.

  “He’s my husband,” I say.

  A smile touches Roma’s lips.

  “Your . . . what?” Dad gasps.

  “My husband,” I say with more confidence. “I met him in France and we were married. I was going to tell you after the party. I didn’t want to worry you. He asked if he could come—he was there when I was kidnapped and he didn’t want to let me out of his sight—but I told him it would only confuse matters. He waited across the street instead.”

  Roma nods. “When I heard the gunshot,” he says, “I assumed the worst. I needed to see my wife.”

  Dad looks from me to Roma, from Roma to me. I k
now he’s concerned about the gunshot, about the sequence of events. But first and foremost Dad is a politician. I know what’s concerning him more than the gunshot and the chaos is the political repercussions. Secret Service just savagely beat a man who is, as far as everybody now knows, just a man who wanted to make sure his wife was safe.

  I step forward, closing the distance between me and Roma.

  “Let go of him,” I say to the Secret Service.

  “Ma’am,” the man who beat him says. “I don’t think that’s such a good—”

  “He is my husband and you just beat him within an inch of his life,” I interrupt. “How dare you tell me what is and is not a good idea?”

  “Let go of him,” Dad says from behind me. “My daughter wants to tend to her husband.”

  The Secret Service step back. Roma, unsteady on his feet, tumbles forward into my arms. I hug him close to me, supporting him, and he wraps his arms around me and squeezes me tightly against him, as though he is afraid I might float away.

  “It was Mr. Black,” he whispers in my ear. “He was the one who fired the shot. They tried to make me, but . . . I killed him,” he finishes, words blurred by the blood. “I couldn’t let anything happen to you. I love you, Felicity. That’s the truth. I love you more than I’ve loved anything in my entire life.”

  “Hush,” I say, stroking the back of his head. I kiss him on the cheek, softly, so I don’t hurt his wounds.

  I turn to Dad. “We need to get him cleaned up. He didn’t deserve that.”

  “No,” Dad says, looking sternly at Secret Service. “No, he did not. You, go and get a paramedic.”

  The crowd begins to disperse and I lead Roma to the stage, sit him down, leaning him against it. He smiles up at me, reaches out his hands for my face. I sit next to him and we hold each other.

  “You came back for me,” I say.

  “Are you glad I did?” he asks.

  I bring his hand to my lips and kiss it softly. “I wished for it,” I say.

  Dad leans down beside us. “Where’s your ring?” he says.

  I smile at Roma. “He couldn’t afford one. But he did make a special purchase to win me.”

  Roma grins.

  Dad shakes his head, bemused, and a moment later the paramedic is weaving through the crowd.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Roma

  “Getting tired, Mrs. Roma?” I laugh, as Felicity pants beside me.

  “Mrs. Roma.” Felicity grins, blowing air from red cheeks.

  It’s been one month since the shooting, since Mr. Black died, and in that time Felicity and I have barely been apart. We stayed in the States for around a week, in an apartment I rented just for privacy. We did nothing but make love and order in food and watch movies. It was only a week, but it felt like a year compressed down into seven days. We made love five times a day until we were both tired and spent. Felicity tended to my wounds and we fell deeper in love until the bloodshed seemed like a distant memory.

  Now, we’re back in France, finishing the backpacking holiday for our honeymoon.

  “You need to get a second name,” she says.

  “Never had need of one before you,” I reply.

  She punches me playfully in the shoulder. “Well, you do now.”

  The sun is high in the sky, bathing down upon us, as we walk past the street beside which we first made love. Felicity wanders over to it and touches the dents I made when I punched it. “They’re deep,” she says. “I don’t think many men are so strong to leave deep gashes in trees, Roma.”

  I shrug. “I was just angry, is all.”

  I join her at the tree, wrap my arms around her waist, press my crotch into her. She turns and kisses me on the lips. Passion explodes between us and we make love, right there, under the sunlight and in view of the village. When we’re done and we’re both smiling like fools, we make out way down the hill and to Bear’s cottage.

  Felicity and I gasp in unison when we see Bear, hefting a load of bricks on his shoulder, shirtless with sweat pouring down him. His gaze snaps up when he sees us and he drops the bricks. They thud to the earth and in four large steps he’s on us. He envelops both of us in a wide embrace.

  “You stink, man.” I laugh, patting him on the back.

  The cottage is a quarter-built, the remains in a large pile beside it.

  Felicity rests her head on Bear’s shoulder. My heart warms at that, the warmth of a man seeing his father and wife forming a father-daughter relationship.

  “I’m damn glad to see you both,” Bear says, stepping back and grinning. “Damn glad, you have no idea.” He pats me on the shoulder. “Hear you did it for Mr. Black.”

  I nod. “That’s behind us now,” I say. I wrap my arm around Felicity’s shoulders and she leans into me. “They beat me bloody, damn near killed me, but Felicity saved me.”

  “Is that so?” Bear smiles. “Bet there’s a tale in that.”

  He leads us to a pile of bricks, which form a sort of primitive campsite and we all sit down under the sunlight. I take bottles of water and sandwiches from my bag and hand them out. Felicity and I tell Bear what happened after he left. When we’re done, Bear’s grin couldn’t be wider.

  “So you saved him by making him your husband? Smart, girl, smart.”

  “We didn’t expect to see you here,” Felicity says.

  “I heard about Mr. Black, reckoned no bastard’d be coming after me now, so I thought, why not? Aye, oh, by the way, Roma, that man whose pick-up you stole, you’re square. Gave him three-thousand euros and he forgot the whole thing.”

  I reach into my pocket and take out the money, make to hand it to Bear. He closes my fingers over it with his giant paw. “I said I sorted it. You’re married. You need to hold onto your money.”

  I nod and put the money back into my pocket.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Felicity

  I hope. That is what I do. I hope and I hope. But this is the first time in my life when I feel like I’ve arrived. I’m not hoping for anything anymore. We’re here; I’m living it.

  We sit in the sun, tired and relaxed, and then I turn to Roma. The wounds on his face have healed and he looks stronger and more capable than ever. I think of all the sweet, close moments we’ve shared over this past month, all the times we’ve made love, and tingles move over my skin. If this isn’t love, I think, I don’t know what is.

  “So you’re not officially married, eh?” Bear says.

  “Not officially, no,” Roma says. “What’s that smile about?”

  Bear is grinning ear to ear. “I’m ordained,” he says. “The village over the hill did it. I’ve already married a few people. I can do you two, if you like, make it official.”

  Roma turns to me, a question in his blue eyes. A blue which is now brighter, full of life and love, the blue of a changed man. I don’t answer with words. Instead, I climb to my feet, walk to where he sits, and drop onto his lap, splitting my legs over his waist. I lean down and kiss him passionately on the lips. Bear turns away, shielding his eyes.

  “I’m not seeing a thing,” he laughs. “But I’ll take that as a yes.”

  “What do you think?” I say, when the kiss is over. Our bodies are alive to each other.

  “I think we should stay here and help Bear rebuild, build something up instead of breaking it down. And I think we should get married tomorrow morning, at dawn.”

  He brings his hands up my back, gripping me hard, and I’ve never felt more secure.

  “That sounds good to me,” I smile.

  We kiss again and Roma lifts me to my feet, standing up.

  “I love you more than anything, Felicity,” he says.

  He kneels down, takes a daisy from the grass, and wraps it into a ring. He does this with tenderness. Then he slips the daisy onto my finger.

  “I love you, too.”

  Our kiss is long, hot, perfect.

  THE END

  Read on for a preview of Torched!

 
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  Preview of Torched

  Chapter One

  Hope

  As I shuffle by the table where the Satan’s Martyrs sit, a shortish, fattish man calls out to me: “Hey sweetheart, how about a kiss with that beer?”

  How about a slap instead? I think.

  But I just giggle, because being a waitress sometimes means you have to giggle when you get heckled like that. It sucks, but nobody ever said that life was fair. I weave through the tables with trays balanced in my hands, propped on my forearms, and cradled in between my inner-elbows. For somebody who doesn’t really want to be a waitress, I’ve definitely picked up a few tricks, that’s for sure.