Savage: A Bad Boy Next Door Romance

by Penelope Bloom

  “Nice to meet your daughter,” he says, smoothing his expression and walking off like nothing happened.

  “Remember when you said you’d include me more?” asks Amelia. “Now would be a great time.”

  6

  Chris

  I’m standing outside Lindsey’s door the night after I fucked with her ex at the grocery store. My hand is raised to knock on the door and I’m trying really hard to tell myself it’s just because I’m bored, that messing with her is one of the few things I’ve enjoyed since I came out here. Every time I try to pass that lie off on myself, my bastard brain throws the memory back at me of how tight her little ass felt and how small and fragile she felt with my arm around her. My cock—also a bastard—stirs at the memory.

  I adjust my jeans in annoyance and knock on the door, wincing as I do. I meant what I said to her before I left. I ruin people. Not just the women I've fucked but the people who make the mistake of calling me a friend. Not to mention the people unlucky enough to call me family. I'm not proud of it. I don't set out to do it, either. All I know is when I look at my past, it's littered with people who probably regret knowing me.

  I don’t leave anything good behind in my wake. Most people are superficial. They see my money, recognize my name and my face, and they’ll do anything for fifteen minutes of my attention. Even before I was rich and famous, women would let me get away with just about anything. I could treat them like absolute garbage and they’d still keep coming back. I enjoyed it at first, but all I can think of now is how empty it feels to know that it doesn’t matter to anyone if you’re a royal asshole or the coolest fucking guy on the planet.

  Boo hoo, though, right? Poor me and my life that most people would kill for. It’s a one-man pity party that I know no one would come to, but not many people have lived it. I doubt anyone would pass up the life I’ve had, no matter how hard I’d try to convince them. Most people would love it for a few weeks, maybe even a few months. It doesn’t take long for sex to become meaningless. For the women to become just another face in the crowd. Even having money to buy anything you want becomes tedious. Then you ask yourself the real question: What now?

  Because what else is there when you have it all? What is there when you lose the things you didn’t realize you wanted. When all you’re left with is a pile of glittering, golden shit that you would like nothing more than to burn down if it’d just give you the chance to go back and do it differently.

  I've apparently been on my own too long and had way too fucking long to think about everything, which is another reason I'm distracting myself with my psycho fan neighbor.

  I knock again when no one answers after a few minutes. The door swings open almost immediately.

  Lindsey has her curly hair pulled up into a ponytail and she’s wearing a white t-shirt with no bra as far as I can tell and pajama bottoms.

  My eyes wander down to her tits, which I had little-to-no interest in until touching her in the grocery store flipped a switch inside me. I don’t bother to hide my interest, and she responds by crossing her arms over her chest and glaring until I look back up into her eyes.

  “What?” she asks. “Run out of flour or something? Or did you just forget something mean you were going to say to me?”

  “Sugar,” I say, holding back a grin.

  “What?” she asks, clearly at the edge of her patience but still curious enough not to slam the door in my face.

  “I need a little sugar,” I say, grinning.

  “Oh my God,” she says, slamming the door.

  I catch it with my hand before it closes, leaning in. “Seriously,” I say. “I thought about it, and you did go to all the trouble of finding my address like a stalker. The least I can do is fuck you for your trouble.”

  She screws up her face with the effort of pushing the door shut, but I don’t budge.

  “Is that a no?” I ask.

  She finally stops trying to slam the door and breathes out a long, shuddering breath that’s laced with anger. “I don’t know what this is to you,” she says, waving her finger between the two of us. “Some kind of sick game bored superstars play, or maybe it’s that you’re sad and lonely and it feels better to act like an asshole than it does to face your problems. Whatever it is, you can go back to your shithole cabin and deal with it yourself. Leave me out of it.”

  I plug the door with my foot so I can lean in the doorway and take in the sight of her and her adorably perky nipples. She’d probably be mortified to realize she’s forgetting to cover herself. “Careful,” I say softly.

  “Or what?” she snaps.

  “Or you’re going to go from uninteresting to interesting, and I just might have to make sure I get a taste of what you’re hiding under those pajama bottoms.”

  She looks down, notices her hard nipples and covers them again, which gives me the chance to push into her house and close the door behind me. I recognize the look on her face as she stands there wide-eyed and open-mouthed, utterly speechless.

  “I’ve seen that look,” I say. “You’re scared, but not in the kind of way that makes you want to run. It’s the kind of scared you feel on a roller coaster when it’s climbing toward that first drop, click by agonizing click. You realize you’re already strapped in and there’s no turning back. Your fate is sealed, and you’re about to be in for the ride of your life. It terrifies you, but you couldn’t be more fucking excited.”

  She shakes her head but loses room to back away from me when she bumps into the wall behind her. Her voice is quiet and breathless. "No. I'm just scared because a big ass guy is inside my house."

  "You're feeling your body rebel against your mind," I explain, pressing two fingers to the tender skin of her neck just below her jaw where her pulse thumps against me like rabbit's feet. "Elevated pulse. Body temperature is increasing. I'll take credit for the hard nipples, too. Don't fight it, Lindsey." I let my fingers run down the length of her neck, and her eyes follow them, body still rigid and stiff but melting into something more warm and pliable with every passing second.

  I’m falling into it too easily, the old habits, the old web I’ve weaved so many times. I’m almost disappointed to see Lindsey falling into it so easily. Even as my own body goes through the practiced motions of undoing her resistance and washing away all the logical reasons screaming at her to stay away. Part of what she said keeps echoing in my mind. It feels better to act like an asshole than it does to face your problems.

  When I look back on my time since I came here and even before that, I can’t help seeing more truth than I’d like to admit in her words. She doesn’t know the half of it. Not even close.

  I bring my thumb to her lip and rub it down, actually feeling my cock stir at the touch of her velvety skin.

  “Stop,” she whispers.

  I don’t realize what she said at first, and my hand slides behind the back of her neck, fingers threading through her hair.

  "Stop!" she says more forcefully, taking my wrist and pushing me away. She holds her hands up to her ears, shoulders bunched in tight and eyes closed as she shakes her head. "Just stop."

  I take a step back, slightly stung by her refusal. It’s sad to admit, maybe, but it’s not something I’ve had a lot of practice dealing with. Maybe it’s part of my facade—I make sure to do all I can to push people away so I won’t be surprised when they leave, so why does it sting that she’s doing exactly that? Because you thought you could turn on the charm for two minutes and make her forget.

  “Your loss,” I say. It’s a sad attempt to cover how badly I really want to feel her under me. Fuck. It’s not like it was in the past. I don’t want to fuck her and walk away. I want the warmth of her skin against mine. I want to wrestle the fight out of her, bending that fiery personality into submission until she is mine and mine alone. Mine to keep.

  I turn my back on her, walking away with a sour twisting in my stomach. I’m letting her get in too deep. I need to find a groupie to fuck these feelings out of my
system or something, because there’s no other explanation for how deeply Lindsey is burrowing into my thoughts. She’s playing the game by different rules than I’m used to.

  Normally I know how it ends. My cock gets wet, she gets an experience she’ll never forget, and then she gets a one-way ticket out of my life. This time, I don’t know how it ends. Hell, I don’t even know if it’s started yet. All I know is the rules are new, and for the first time in months, I feel alive, even if it’s just a little.

  All my good cheer sinks away when I check the text on my phone from Alec.

  Alec (8:33 p.m.): Publisher has a proposal. You’re not going to like it, but we need to talk about it. Call me.

  7

  Lindsey

  I'm typing up a review on my blog when I flinch for what must be the tenth time in the last hour as something loud cracks out through the night outside. It sounds like fireworks or gunshots, and it's definitely coming from the direction of Chris' cabin.

  I lean back in my chair, cracking my fingers and looking out the window toward the sound. I still cringe with shame when I think how I touched myself in the shower last night after Chris had his hands on me. I don’t think I’ve ever been that turned on, which pisses me off to admit. Hating someone shouldn’t be so hard. I tried not caring about him, but that isn’t an easy lie to sell when I spend half my time thinking about him.

  I’ve never met a man who is so hard to pin down and define. Ryan was easy. Despite all his douchebag qualities, he had one real thing going for him: a caveman like devotion to protecting my honor, as dumb as that sounds. If we were at a party and somebody said anything that insulted me or some guy was looking at me wrong, Ryan would blow up on them. I always said I hated it in the moment, and most of me did, but when I look back, it’s probably the only real redeeming quality about him. I was so insecure that I needed his over-the-top shows of devotion to feel secure and safe.

  Other than that, I had him figured out within weeks of dating. If I had bothered to see what was right in front of my eyes, I would’ve known he would set his sights on someone new and more exciting eventually, just like he’ll probably do with Claire after a couple more years.

  Chris though?

  He has too many layers to understand. There’s the guy he wants to show me, the guy who’s quick to tell me to fuck off and get rid of me--the one who doesn’t care about my feelings. Then there’s the part of him I’ve caught glimpses of, a side of him that is protective and almost kind. Like when he stepped in to save me embarrassment when Ryan was a douchebag at the grocery store or when he admitted to appreciating my email. Those two parts don’t match up. He’s either one or the other. Chris can’t not care about my feelings and want to protect them at the same time, and that makes me think the real Chris does care.

  It should be impossible to forgive some of the things he's said and done already, but I keep coming back to that other side of his personality. If that's the real him, why is he trying so hard to convince me it's not? It makes me think there's a good heart hiding behind those tattoos and muscles. Maybe that makes me a sucker. I'm not sure. I just know no amount of mental cheerleading is actually going to motivate me to take the smart path and cut him off.

  Brooke barges into my room without knocking, like usual. "Is that your boyfriend? Because I'm trying to concentrate and he's making it really fucking hard."

  “Join the club,” I say sourly.

  “Hey,” she says. She steps into my room and leans against the wall with crossed arms and a smirk. “That’s the first time you didn’t try to correct me and say he’s not your boyfriend. So you’re finally admitting it?”

  “No.” Amelia took the liberty of filling Brooke in on every grizzly detail about the grocery store incident, and my older sister hasn’t missed a chance to tease me about liking Chris ever since. “I’ve just denied it so many times already it hardly feels worth the effort anymore.”

  "Mhm," Brooke says. "Well, it's your choice. You can either go up there and ask him to knock it off or I will, and if he's not your boyfriend, I may take a nibble while I'm up there just so I can say I kissed a superstar."

  I laugh. “Might as well put your face in a bear trap.”

  “And you would know, would you?” she asks with an arched eyebrow.

  “Brooke,” I growl. “I haven’t kissed him. He’s not my boyfriend. But it’s fine. I’ll go tell him to keep it down.” I push away from my desk and stand up, trying to look confident even though my heart is already pounding at the thought of seeing him again after our last encounter.

  She’s watching me with a skeptical but amused expression.

  “What?” I ask.

  “I just think it’s funny that when I talked about kissing him, you suddenly decided you were willing to stop working to go talk to him. You never stop working until you’re done.”

  “Yeah, well you try working while it sounds like someone is having a gunfight in the backyard.”

  “Mhm,” she says with an obnoxiously knowing smile.

  I make a dismissive sound, pushing past her and grabbing my coat before I head outside. I spend the entire walk through the darkened woods mentally re-running all the obnoxious things Chris has done since I met him. I’m just hoping I can keep myself from turning into a melted puddle of fangirl by holding onto whatever anger I can. Unfortunately, my reruns are continually interrupted by the way his touch sends shivers up and down my spine. Not to mention how my stupid heart was warmed by him stepping in to defend me when I was making a fool of myself in front of Ryan and Claire—even if he claims it was just for his own enjoyment.

  More than that, I keep seeing the look in his eyes when he seems to let his guard down, as if the real Chris is hidden by a mask and wants to come out.

  I haven’t thought about the manuscript much since I saw him throw it away that second night I forced my way into his cabin like the psycho he claims I am. It comes back to me now, and I regret letting it go so easily. Part of me is still very much tempted to press him about the manuscript, even now, but I don’t think my self-respect could survive it. I’ve already put myself out there multiple times since meeting him and been told to fuck off for my efforts., Rebuilding my self-esteem is going to be hard enough as it is.

  When I get closer to his house, I'm more sure the sound is coming from a gun and not fireworks. I hear the initial crack and the echoes as they split through the forest, bouncing back in fragments as the sound waves collide with tree after tree. I slow my approach to a near crawl, peeking around every tree before I move closer like a soldier in a war zone. I don't know what the hell he's doing, but I'm definitely not in the mood to get shot tonight. It's a sad testament to how bad I already have it for him that I'm actually heading toward the sound of gunfire to speak with him.

  I catch a glimpse of his back as he aims a rifle into the darkness with one hand, beer clutched in the other, and squeezes off three shots without making any particular effort to aim. I’m thankful he’s at least sober enough to have the sense to aim up the mountain, where there are no houses he might risk hitting.

  “Chris!” I yell when he sets the gun down on a tree stump and fishes for more bullets in his pocket.

  He turns toward me. I expect to see the slack features of someone who is sloppy drunk, but he looks startlingly sober. “Fuck off,” he says, still jamming bullets into his rifle.

  “Would you put your gun down?” I ask, scampering from the tree beside his cabin to the cabin itself, where I shield myself behind the wall and peek out, ready to duck for cover if he starts waving the gun around.

  “It’s my property,” he says.

  “Okay, but—”

  I have to plug my ears as he aims up the mountain and fires off a few more shots, leaving my ears ringing.

  He searches for more bullets in his pocket but thankfully seems to be out, because he pulls out an empty hand and starts walking back toward the cabin, draining the last of his beer before slinging it toward a tree where it
shatters.

  “Are you done?” I ask, creeping out from my hiding spot.

  “Just need to find more bullets,” he says.

  I roll my eyes, following him into the cabin.

  His foot catches on the coffee table and sends him crashing to the floor with a surprisingly loud thump. How much does the man weigh? Jesus…

  I wait a second, eyebrows furrowed as I try to decide if I should help him up or just make sure he didn’t break anything in his thick head before I head home and let him sleep it off.

  He doesn’t move, except to take a long, shuddering breath with his eyes closed peacefully like he just laid down for the comfiest nap in history instead of face-planting and knocking himself out.

  I kneel beside him, lifting his head—which is also surprisingly heavy—and I check him for any injuries. There’s a small cut on his hairline but small or not, it’s bleeding like crazy. Cuts on the head always bleed more than usual, so it’s probably not as bad as it looks, but I’m not going to leave him drunk and bleeding on his own floor. I decide I’m doing it to save the part of him that writes beautiful words, not the caveman part.

  I kneel down like I'm about to try to squat ten times my bodyweight, which I might as well be doing because when I jam my hands under him and try to lift, all I manage is to roll his shoulder up slightly.

  I spot a broom leaning against the wall in the kitchen. Unsurprisingly, it looks like it has never been used. I grab it and wedge the broom under his chest and then pull down on it, trying to use the leverage to flip him, but after a few seconds of straining, the plastic handle gives out and bends in half. I rip it free and throw it down on the ground in frustration.

  “You’re even obnoxious when you’re unconscious,” I say.