Mean Boy: Bad Boy Romance

by Amy Faye

  Wes went in with a low kick, which the karateka took on the thigh seemingly without noticing. The two continued their circling, watching each other, neither giving nor asking any quarter.

  Wes ducked his head, then and when he brought it back up he brought a heavy fist up with it. The Japanese weaved his head back and then suddenly spun and a high kick arced seemingly out of nowhere, clipping Wes hard on the ear. Minami shouted out her disapproval, a feeling under her skin making her feel as if she'd taken the blow herself.

  "Watch out!"

  The fight continued that way. Wes went in, tried to attack, and missed. The Karateka hit another hard blow, but not hard enough to knock Wes to the concrete.

  Wes swallowed down breaths hard, one of his eyes starting to swell shut from where the kick had been reinforced with a back-fist to the eye.

  "What are you doing! Kill him!"

  The shout coming from the crowd came loud and hot, and Minami found herself shouting along with them, words of encouragement and pleading, begging Wes to find something inside himself to win the fight that had gone so badly against him so far.

  Minami watched in slow motion as the next attack coming from Wes sailed wide as the Japanese moved back at the last instant, another high, arcing kick catching Wes right in the face. Wes crumpled to his knees, like someone had cut the marionette's strings, and for a moment she thought the fight was over.

  The Japanese took a long, loping step and started to throw a wide, spinning kick that would ensure the ending, the first aggressive thing he'd done the entire fight. Wes slumped lower, sending the kick sailing high. The fight was over—

  Or, wait. At the last instant, Wes's arms wrapped around the pivot foot, and then he rolled himself over, sending the Japanese to the ground. Wes pulled himself back up to his feet, still clutching at that ankle and twisting.

  The Japanese kicked up his other foot, caught Wes with a hard heel to Wes's sternum, but he didn't let go. In fact, he wrenched hard, as if he was trying to snap the foot off, and the Japanese groaned out his pain and turned over to try to alleviate the pain.

  Wes let out a roar and brought a foot down heavy on the Japanese fighter's hip, adding insult to injury, and started wrenching harder. When he finally let go, the Japanese took a second to try to recover himself, and in that moment Wes moved over and took a firm two-handed grip on the Japanese fighter's hand, pulled up, and sat down.

  The sick cracking sound went through the crowd, deep down into Minami's bones. The screams of pain that followed weren't nearly so biting, nearly so deep inside her, didn't effect her nearly so much as that sound of the man's elbow shattering.

  His shouts of 'give, give' barely made a dent in her. Minami let out a long, unsteady breath, the violence before her an alarming display that she couldn't begin to understand or cope with. Minami pushed herself up from the folding chair and started to move toward the edge of the crowd. Wes could find her out in the parking lot, because she couldn't stay here, not one second longer.

  Minami gulped down air, trying to find the strength to stay standing, the sight of the smaller man's arm snapping, the way that the awful crack went through the crowd…

  Wes found her a while later, sitting on the floor and trying not to think about anything.

  "Are you okay?"

  She looked up at him, saw the way that even after several minutes he was breathing hard, the way that his arms hung limply at his sides—nothing like the way that he'd looked before.

  "You need to get to a hospital, Wes."

  "This?" He gestured with his eyes down at his broken and bruised body. "Nah. I'll be fine."

  "I'm serious—you look bad."

  "Not as bad as the other guy, though."

  Minami's eyes shot closed and she tried desperately not to think about it. "No, not as bad as him."

  Wes reached down to help her up, but Minami thought that he looked like if she blew on him too hard, he might fall over. She took his hand but didn't use it to support her on the way up.

  Minami guided him into the passenger seat of his car, took his keys and started driving him back to his apartment. They drove in silence a while, until finally Wes broke the silence.

  "What about your father?"

  "I told him."

  "Good for you." He laid his head back against the headrest and closed his eyes. "He's not coming after me again, is he?"

  "No."

  Wes smiled. "Good to know. I was serious, you know—about what I said. I want to marry you. I don't have a ring, yet, but…"

  "I know you were serious, Wes. And when you're ready to ask me to marry you, I will."

  She didn't have to look over to see the smile across his face, but when she did, it still felt good.

  "So you're out of the old man's house, huh?" Minami nodded without taking her eyes off the road. "Then you should know—I have trouble. My sister, back in New York. She's…"

  Minami nodded, reaching across the divider in the car and taking Wes's hand.

  New York, huh? She could do with a change of location. And if Wes was willing to go back, it would at least be nice to meet his family—just once.

  Hopefully it wouldn't be so bad as his meeting with hers had gone. She squeezed his hand again before putting both hands back on the wheel.

  "When do we leave?"

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  Her fingers touched his shaft and it twitched. Sarah looked up to gauge his reaction. His eyes were closed, and he leaned back. He seemed to be struggling to keep control of himself. What could he be thinking?

  Sarah wrapped her fingers around it, gave it an experimental tug. Jason's face lost the mask of composure for a moment and he inhaled sharply. She moved her hand again and he sucked in a breath. Was she doing this to him? Such a powerful, attractive man, brought to his knees by her?

  She kept her eyes on his face as she ducked her head in, kissing the tip. His skin tasted salty on her lips. His body jerked when he felt her mouth on him, but she ignored her doubts. Her lips had to stretch just a little to accommodate his size, perhaps too generous, but she pushed past her discomfort.

  This wasn't about her, this was about him, and making him feel good. Making him feel like it was worthwhile. She looked up again to gauge his reaction. The way that his hands searched for anything to get ahold of, the way that his expression was forced into that same neutral mask, all said that she was doing something right.

  Sarah started moving slowly. As she began to move back on she enjoyed the way that his hips jerked ever so slightly, trying to meet her movements, an uncontrollable thrust to try to get deeper. It filled her throat and for a moment she was afraid that she was going to choke—and then he relented, pulling back until he was nearly out of her mouth completely.

  She ran her tongue along its length, enjoying the movements of his hips as she pleased him. She couldn't resist asking, "does that feel good?"

  His ragged breathing was her only reply, so she took it in her hand, giving it another experimental tug before she took it back into her mouth
. She enjoyed the way that he moved, the way that she felt as if she was the center of his world as she sucked his cock. If this was how all women felt doing this, why would they ever want to stop?

  "You can stop," he groaned above her. "I'm going to—"

  Sarah didn't stop. Her tongue moved in time with the bobbing of her head, sucking hard, until she felt him jerk once, twice, harder than before. She knew what was happening only a half-second before he came, the salty, bitter taste filling her mouth. She swallowed.

  She leaned back until she was sitting on the ground. She'd calmed down, now, she realized. Something about the way that Jason had seemed to enjoy what she'd done for him so much had set her back onto her feet. Now that she was looking around, there was something strange about this place.

  It had seemed abandoned, at first. Yet, now that she was looking, most of the trash had been moved off to one side, the floors cleaned. Was this where Jason and Isaiah had been staying when they were in the city? The mattresses, laying in the opposite corner, seemed to confirm.

  She looked back up at James, who seemed to finally be regaining his composure. "I think we're even, now," she said.

  He smiled, a feral grin that showed off his teeth. Halfway a smile, but halfway a threat, she realized. It set her on edge. He was inhumanly attractive. She'd known that the moment she saw him. Those powerfully blue eyes seemed to see right through her.

  1

  Sarah Lincoln was coming home from a long day at work, so she didn't notice the men who were approaching her until they were already too close for her to do anything about what happened next.

  They were shambling slowly, like they were tired from a long workout, or had been drinking, which wasn't all that strange because she took a back alley from the train station and it wasn't unusual to find people who didn't want to get the cops called on them for public drunkenness.

  What was unusual was the way they grabbed her, almost in unison. They weren't fast, even as their hands balled up her jacket and started to shove against the wall. She might have been able to outrun them. But their grip was too tight, and as she looked past she could see two more coming up.

  A voice shouted in the darkness. "Get back!" The shambling things didn't get back, though. They didn't even look as if they'd heard whoever it was. Then they started to lean into her, their hot, disgusting breath on her neck.

  Sarah didn't question what the two men who ran up were doing. It was obvious from the outset that they'd come to rescue her. When she saw a flash of steel, though, a shock went up her spine. Jesus Christ, was that a knife?

  His arm wrapped around the ghoul's neck and pulled back. She didn't have to see his hand to know that he'd just driven the knife in to the hilt. Whatever the things that were threatening her were, she knew, they weren't human.

  They looked human, wore clothes. She'd mistaken them for men, but something about the way they moved, about the way that their eyes seemed not to focus, set them apart from any human that Sarah had ever known.

  "Are you hurt?"

  It took a long moment for the question to register in Sarah's mind, like he'd spoken a foreign language she had learned in high school. She was too afraid, and too caught up in her panic.

  What brought her out, helped her regain her control, wasn't the soothing way that he asked, wasn't the violent dispatch of the monstrous creatures that had attacked her, nor the way that the second man continued on to dispatch the other two as easily as they had the first.

  It was his eyes. They were tired eyes, the sort of eyes of most of the regulars at the library. The deep blue color, almost unnaturally blue. The sort of blue eyes that she only saw on film stars. The way he looked at her was strange, until she registered what she was seeing.

  Desire.

  She hadn't seen the look on many men's faces, not since high school when she'd known boys who would look at any girl like that. Sarah's breath came out shaky and she played back the last moments in her head, finally heard the question he asked.

  "I don't think so," she answered.

  Was that the right thing to say? She didn't feel any pain, but she wasn't sure that she felt anything at all. That was until his hands moved and touched her skin. Then she knew that she could feel, that she was intensely sensitive.

  His skin burned against hers, lighting a fire inside her. Sarah couldn't help but lean into that touch, to want to feel more of it. She had thought that she didn't feel anything for men. As if it was never going to happen for her. The fact that she was never going to want to try sex again was something she'd accepted a long time ago.

  But now she wasn't so sure.

  "Are you sure? Not a scratch, nothing?"

  It was the second man's voice, low and powerful. Sarah felt her knees go weak. The intensity of his gaze her made her stomach do a flip. He studied her neck with his eyes, his hands making a quick path up and down her clothing like a police officer doing a pat-down.

  He spoke more to his partner than to her. "I think we got here just in time."

  "Are you going to be alright?" The first one, with his powerfully blue eyes, looked at her, ignoring the comment of his friend.

  "You saved my life," Sarah cried, the weight of what had happened finally dawning on her. It was too much for her to think about all at once. How was she going to be alright? What the hell had attacked her? How was any of this possible?

  "Do you need us to walk you home? We need to talk."

  Sarah couldn't speak. It was all too much. She nodded her head and tried to gulp down a breath.

  The second man, the man whose intensity had overwhelmed her so completely, turned the moment her head started to move. He stalked ahead, and she watched the way that his hips moved as he walked. Even in heavy autumn clothing he looked she could see the way that he moved, could see how naturally and how comfortably every step was.

  He looked as if he were more in tune with his body than she would ever be, Sarah thought. The way that he slunk up to corners, peered around them, his body tensed up like a snake coiling to strike. The easy movement from left to right of his head, never surprised. She and his partner took up the rear, his arm around her shoulders.

  She didn't even know their names, she realized, as they turned and finally came out near the front door of her apartment. She walked past the doorman, never thinking about how the three of them might look to an outsider. She wasn't thinking about much of anything except getting back to her apartment. Where it was safe.

  As soon as she got back, all of this would be a bad dream. All of it, she hoped, except for these two.

  Sarah's mind barely registered when they got into her apartment and laid her down on the sofa. The dark-haired one paced back and forth, something clearly upsetting him. The one with blue eyes, on the other hand, after all his interest in whether or not she was alright, seemed ready to go immediately.

  "Introductions," said the dark-haired, intense man after a long moment of thought. "My name is Isaiah, this is my partner, Jason. Do you know what just happened to you?"

  "Those men, they tried to attack me. I could've been… or worse."

  "Those weren't men," Jason corrected immediately. "And not just because 'real men don't attack women.'" He seemed to silently laugh at his own crude joke.

  "Those were ghouls. The soul of a vampire—"

  "Wait, what?" Sarah sat up. "Vampire? You're pulling my leg. Is someone going to pop out with a camera? Did Lana put you up to this?"

  "It's not a joke, miss Lincoln. I'm afraid it's very serious. You were attacked by the servants of a vampire tonight, who intended to bring you, sedated, to his lair, where he would then brutally murder you for his own pleasure and drink your blood"

  "That's very dramatic," she said, still half-teasing. It sounded like he was serious, but what Isaiah said was insane. Eventually, she knew, shed figure out what the real game was and then she'd understand whether or not he was serious. Until then, she just had to humor him.

  Isaiah crouched down befo
re her. Now that he was this close, it was a wonder that she'd ever laughed at him. He didn't look like the sort of man that women laughed at. He was handsome, to say the least, but more than that, she was immediately reminded of how his gaze seemed to pierce straight through her.

  As if he could see inside her, could see the fear, and see how she doubted him.

  "It is dramatic," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "It's dramatic and unpleasant and my associate and I have seen more than one woman like yourself end up dead by the end of the night when they ignored our advice."

  "They probably deserved it, though, to be fair," piped up the other. "They didn't listen to the experts, they ignored the signs… You look like a smart girl, though. I'm sure you can figure it out for yourself. Let's go, Isaiah. She doesn't want us here, it's not our place to stay and force her to believe us."

  He shot that same intense stare at Jason. The smaller man scowled back, clearly frustrated by something.

  "So you and your friend hunt… monsters?"

  "Vampires. We're very specialized. It's too easy to get in over your head when you start going after anything you can find. Much easier to know what you're up against."

  "And… do you? Know what you're up against?"

  "We know who's after you, and we know that you don't want to have someone like that taking a special interest," he said softly.

  "Do you know a Victor Reagan?" Jason's voice was lower, now.

  "The guy from TV?"

  "Not exactly." Jason moved behind the couch, and Sarah was acutely aware of how close the two of them were. How it made her body feel. "He controls half the channels on the air right now. Along with two other men, the three of them make up almost any news or entertainment you can get in the city. Or most other cities, for that matter."

  "What does he want with me, though? Couldn't he have anyone he wanted come to him, with an engraved invitation?"