Begging for Bad Boys

by Willow Winters

“Tell me about.” Her voice was soft, the sound of a woman who was on the verge of breaking down. A woman realizing that she had nowhere to go, nowhere to turn, and no friends to lean on. Maybe that was why she'd opened the door to me today—she knew she needed some help. Or, at least somebody who'd listen—give her a friendly ear to bend and a shoulder to cry on. Hell, if she did need a shoulder to cry on, I was more than willing. I'd made that perfectly clear.

  Although, I was going to have to play her game and keep pressing and pressing until she finally just accepted my presence and opened up to me about whatever was on her mind. But there was no way in hell she was going to ask for my help or ask for my permission to swap shitty life stories. That wasn't her style—as I was coming to discover.

  “Listen, I'm serious about taking you anywhere you need to go,” I said. “I'll even sit at the damn mall while you do your thing. Just tell me where you wanna go, and I'll make sure you get there.”

  “Why?” she asked, tears welling up in her eyes.

  “Why what?”

  “Why are you being so nice to me?” she asked. “You don't know me. You don't owe me a damn thing. But you're going out of your way to be nice to me. To do things for me.”

  It was a good question, to be honest. It was one I'd thought about but hadn't quite figured out myself. I had a few theories, but I tried to avoid thinking about it too much. It was one of those things where I saw a woman in trouble and without stopping to think about all the angles and ramifications. I'd just acted to help where I could.

  I had a bad reputation around Milling—some of it earned and well deserved—and I knew some of my brothers were the same way. I'd seen them stop to help motorists who were stranded, and once I saw one of my guys literally get off his bike and help a little old lady across the street. She'd been so pleased, she pulled him down to her level and gave him a kiss on the cheek. He'd blushed and then mounted up and rode off, believing that nobody saw the big, badass, tatted down biker dude help a little old woman.

  Stuff like that made me smile. But I also had to hide that sort of thing from the club. After all, I had a reputation to maintain and uphold.

  “Why, Jameson?” she asked again softly.

  “Because I saw a woman on the side of the road who needed help but was too afraid to ask for it,” I replied. “I've seen too many women get hurt—or die—because there was no one there to help them when they needed it most. And I really don’t want that to happen to you if I can help it. That's not the kind of man I am.”

  “Die? Seriously?”

  “Yeah. Die. And I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “So, it really wasn't just because I was wearing heels and a short skirt?”

  “Nope. But that might’ve helped,” I said, winking at her. “I am, after all, a warm-blooded man.”

  Isabelle laughed. It was a soft laugh, one that could barely be heard over the clattering of the air conditioner, but she laughed nonetheless. It was the first time I'd seen anything resembling a positive emotion from her in days. And I had to admit, it felt like a giant step forward.

  And best of all, she was talking to me. That had to count for something, right?

  We were definitely making progress. It wasn't necessarily swift, and it was fragile as hell, but it was progress. There were smiles and a conversation. I felt good about my prospects with Isabelle in that moment, better than I had since the day I'd met her.

  Chapter 10

  Isabelle

  I surprised myself by opening the door for him. That wasn’t my intention. In fact, it was the last thing I wanted to do. Jameson was most definitely not the sort of trouble I needed—or wanted. And when I heard his bike rumble into the parking lot, I had fully intended to sit in my room and pretend I wasn't here. Content to let him knock until his knuckles were bleeding, and he gave up and left.

  But the truth of the matter was—I was hungry. Ravenous. I could have eaten a dozen cheeseburgers and still wanted more. The fact that he had food in his hand made him so much more appealing. Even if the food left wet, greasy stains on the outside of the paper bag he was carrying.

  I was tired of being hungry and alone as well. A loneliness magnified by the fact that I was stuck in a motel out in the middle of the fucking desert, so far from home with no phone, no transportation, and no one to talk to. Not that I wanted to talk to him, but he had food. One problem solved.

  We both sat down at the small table in the motel room, and he handed me a breakfast sandwich. Breakfast was peaceful—with a side order of awkwardness tossed in for good measure. I watched him watching me, glaring at the bruise below my eye.

  Jameson was trying to appear like he wasn't gawking, but he was staring right at it. He'd always turn away when I caught him looking. And for a while, we'd managed to avoid the elephant in the room. But then that truce was shattered, and the elephant was allowed out of its cage to run free—where it trampled over everything in its path, of course.

  “Who hit you? Was it someone you trusted?” he finally asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did someone you trust do this to you? You know friend, family? Husband?” he asked, reaching across the table he stroked my cheek, causing me to flinch. “Woah, hold on. I’ll never hurt you. These hands are made for lovin’, sweetheart.”

  Heat rose in my cheeks, and I looked down, avoiding his gaze. “Yes.” I surprised myself by answering the question—something else I hadn't intended to do.

  Who'd done it to me wasn't any of his business. But the word just slipped from my lips before I could stop it. And once it had escaped, it unlocked something deep inside of me, because so did the tears.

  They came hard and fast, and my body was suddenly racked with sobs, my breath coming in heaving, choked gasps. I was mortified that I allowed myself to cry like that in front of him, but he'd finally managed to rip the band-aid off the wound he'd been messing with for days. I was swamped beneath a flood of emotions and couldn't find my way back to the shores of calm—or at least, what passed for calm in my sorry life.

  Jameson dropped his sandwich, stood up and rounded the table to sit on the edge of the bed nearest to the table and wrapped his arm around me, pulling me in close. He held me pressed against his body as I wept. I buried my face in his chest and let the tears fall.

  It was overwhelming as hell and I was having trouble processing it all—as well as trying to figure out what to do with all that emotional energy. I wasn't used to letting it all out like that. I was used to holding it in, never letting anybody see beneath the big girl mask I projected to the world. I was used to being tightly in control of my emotions and only letting people see what I chose to let them see.

  He’d opened the Pandora's Box of emotion deep down inside of me and I had no control over what came bursting out. What made it worse was now that it was open—I wasn't sure how I was going to get it stuffed back in there again. You couldn’t put toothpaste back in the tube, you know.

  “Who was it?” Jameson asked, gritting his teeth as if he were either angry or in pain—but given the conversation we were having, I was relatively certain it was anger.

  “My ex-boyfriend—Scott,” I said, still surprised I was talking about it all, let alone with a full-blown biker-thug.

  For some reason, though—reasons I couldn't come close to identifying—it just felt natural to open up to him. To tell him these things. It was like, now that I had started crying on his shoulder, I felt like I could suddenly start flapping my jaws and spilling my guts, too. I hardly knew him, and yet, suddenly, I was telling him about Scott. And the biggest shock to me, was that I even felt comfortable doing so. Would wonders never cease? Or was I just so desperate to unburden myself of all these lies and all this misery, that I finally opened the gates to the one person who persisted in trying to get through them?

  “He hit you?”

  I nodded, wiping my eyes.

  “Was this the first time he'd done it?” he asked softly. “The first time
he'd hurt you?”

  I shook my head, hanging my head down low. “No, but it's the last time he's going to do it.”

  “Good girl,” he said, stroking my hair as he held me close. “Good girl. Don't go back, no matter what he tells you. No matter how convincing and sweet he sounds. No matter how much he's promised you he's changed and that it'll never happen again. Because let me tell you, he’ll do it again. They always do it again. With scumbags like him, it's never a matter of if. It's always a matter of when.”

  This didn't sound like the same man I'd known over the last day or so. Not at all. His voice was soothing, protective. It was full of caring and compassion. I could see the empathy for me in his eyes. It wasn't pity—I'd been wrong to think so. It was empathy and concern.

  I found his presence comforting. It was a strange turn of events, given how we'd started. I honestly didn't think I’d ever be comfortable around him. I honestly didn't think I'd even want to be around him at all. And yet, I did.

  “And if you do go back,” he continued, “you may not get out of it alive next time. I've seen it happen all too often.”

  Without meaning to, I figured he'd just told me what had happened to his mom. As I looked up at him, I saw tears shining in his eyes, but he pushed them away and smiled at me, putting on that familiar cocky smirk he usually wore. But the more he spoke, the more I was beginning to see that smirk he had plastered on his face was little more than a disguise. A front. He was busy putting up his mental and emotional walls—much like I did. Our reasoning was very different, but the effect was the same—we were both different people than we pretended to be. Than we let the world see.

  And now that I'd seen past them, beyond his walls, I saw them—and him—for what they were. Saw that we were far more alike than I'd ever thought possible.

  And I knew much of that confidence, swagger, and cockiness he walked around with were little more than a facade to keep people from seeing him for who he really was. To keep people from seeing that deep down, he was a kind, caring man. Of course, he had a tough exterior and a rough around the edges personality, but deep down inside of him, there was a good man. I could sense it. See it.

  “So, this Scott asshole, how long were you two together?” Jameson asked.

  “Little over a year,” I said, pulling myself away from Jameson's embrace.

  I sat up and suddenly felt very awkward about being that close to him in the first place. I cleared my throat, straightened my top, and tried to regain some measure of composure. He simply sat there, looking at me with a soft, gentle, and patient expression on his face. He wanted to hear my story, but he was willing to let me tell it in my own time.

  “Can you believe I moved all the way from the East Coast to be with that fuckwad?” I asked, barking out a laugh. “Makes me want to kick my own ass all the way back home for being so gullible and stupid.”

  “I'm sure you had no idea it was going to turn out like this.”

  “Not a clue,” I said, sitting back down at the table. I avoided his gaze as he got up from the bed and sat down across from me at the table. “My parents loved the douchebag, too, but they only loved him because he was loaded. That's all they care about anyway—money and prestige. Don't get me wrong, I like nice things—shoes, clothes—but those aren't my all-consuming passions in life. I want a little more in a guy than just a fat bank account. That was something I wished my folks had understood. Something I wish they'd wanted for me. They sort of pushed me his way, telling me that he'd take good care of me, and that I needed to appreciate everything he was doing for me.”

  “Well, pretty lady, I don't know anything about either of those things,” Jameson said, scratching at the stubble on his chin.

  I couldn't help myself from stealing a glance. He really was incredibly attractive, in that dirty, gritty, bad boy way. He most definitely wasn't the clean-cut, business-man, country club prick-type that Scott was. To me, there was a lot more to life than the amount of money in your bank account. Sure, I wanted to be comfortable and secure, but I didn't need to be filthy, stinking rich to be happy. Money wasn't the key to my heart or a condition of my happiness.

  Apparently, my folks did not see the need to be happy—not when you could be filthy rich. It made me sometimes wonder if I'd been adopted. I didn't know how I could have parents with such a different system of values and beliefs than I had. Or maybe, I had developed my system of values and beliefs because of them.

  “So, what about you?” I asked, casually. “Got a girl?”

  Jameson shrugged. “I did, he said. “But we ended things recently.”

  “Why?”

  “I dunno,” he said. “Bad fit? Cosmic realignment? Murphy's Law? Shit happens? Take your pick.”

  I stared at him for a long time before asking, “You cheated on her, didn't you?”

  “Fuck no,” he said, pulling another breakfast sandwich from the bag, offering another to me as well. “She was completely cracked out—though, she hid that little fact from me. Hid that habit. Which was smart thinking. If I’d known she was on the shit, I would have never hooked up with her in the first place. If she'd started using after we got together, I would’ve cut her ass loose right then and there. I don't fuck with that shit. That's not my deal.

  “I don't mind partying and dabbling in weed or some lightweight shit like that, but she was into the serious, hardcore stuff. Way too hard for me. Hard enough that if I took it, I'd be a little worried about my own safety. I'm no prude, but I'm not going to deal with somebody doing that kind of shit. I don't have time for it. I told her to get clean. Told her I’d help her, do whatever she needed, or I was done.”

  “She chose the drugs?”

  “Yep,” he said, staring off in the distance.

  I could see the bitterness in his eyes—not that he was doing a whole lot to cover it up. His eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched as he opened and closed his fists. I could see the pain in his eyes—dark and abiding—roiling with his gut. He'd let himself cry, and that was what told me that he'd cared about her. More so than he was willing to admit. He was so casual and flippant about it, but I knew better.

  “I don't get it. But hey, she made her bed, right?” he said through teeth he was doing his best to avoid gritting. “Now she has to lie in it. You don't do anything like that, do you? You're not into the hardcore shit?”

  “Hell no,” I said. “Besides alcohol—which is still pretty rare for me—I'm as clean as they come.”

  “Thought so,” he said.

  “Hey, what's that supposed to mean?”

  “It means I can tell you're a good, wholesome girl. You didn't seem the type to me.”

  “The type?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “The type who was into that sort of shit,” he said. “To me, you seem like the kind of girl who just fell in love with the wrong kind of man and got caught up in some really bad shit. That's all. I didn't mean anything negative by it. In fact, if you want my honest opinion, I think that's a really big positive. For whatever that's worth.”

  “Well maybe you don't know me too well, then,” I said, holding my head up high as I said it. “Maybe I'm not the good, wholesome girl you think I am. Maybe I've got a real dark side that you don't see.”

  He raised a dark eyebrow in my direction, and I lost it, breaking down in laughter over the way he looked at me.

  “Fine, fine, maybe you're right. I'm a good girl. Too good sometimes,” I said. “But I can't help it. It's how I was raised. It's kind of ingrained in me. Some things I've been able to set aside and evolve from, but the drinking and drugs thing is something that's stuck with me my whole life. Like you said, it's not my deal.”

  “Ain't nothing wrong with that,” Jameson said with a smile. “Nothing at all. I think sometimes people get too caught up and focus on all the wrong shit. Sometimes, they use the drink and drugs as a way to cope. A way to escape the shit they're in. That's why I'm glad you're getting out of that situation, Isabelle. I really am. You
deserve more than what that asshole could have ever given you. I swear it.”

  I felt my cheeks flush with color, and I just wanted to change the subject as quickly as possible. I didn't take things like compliments or flattery very well. Never had. I wasn't the kind of person who like to be praised or have somebody's focus entirely on me. It always made me feel uncomfortable. Exposed.

  “So, do you mean what you said? About taking me shopping?” I grinned maniacally. “Because I'll give you a chance to revoke that now before it's too late and you're stuck inside a Macy's with me.”

  “Nah, I meant it,” he said. “I'll do what I can to make your stay in Milling as comfortable as possible. Make sure you're looked after. And once your car is back up and running, you can get the hell out of here and hopefully build a better life for yourself—wherever you might land.”

  “Definitely not Milling,” I muttered.

  “I don't blame you, but I have to say—the town ain't so bad, once you get used to it. It's a bit small and can be a bit backward at times, but this place is filled with good people. It's a really good community—once you get know them, you can see it for yourself.”

  “I doubt I'll be around long enough for all that,” I said.

  “Yeah, you're probably right,” he said.

  “Mind if I step outside for a smoke? You can get all dolled up or whatever, then we can head out?”

  “Sounds good,” I said, watching as he picked up all the sandwich bags and disposed of them. His ass in those jeans was something straight out of my dreams, I swear. As he went to step outside, I met him at the door and I stood a little too close to him. He cocked his head and look at me questioningly.

  I offered him a smile and leaned forward to kiss him on the cheek—coming a little closer to those sexy, scrumptious lips of his than I'd intended. But I managed to pull away and plant a gently kiss right on his stubbly cheek instead.

  “I mean it. Thank you. For everything.”

  His smile was warm, genuine, and surprised. He was obviously not the kind of man used to being thanked for anything.