by Simone Elise
I sighed and lifted my head to look into his calm brown eyes, which stole my breath away. I could immediately see the kindness in them, and something I didn’t expect to see in them: love.
“Do I look like the type of guy that would drag girls to a penthouse for sex?” He dipped his head, locking his eyes with mine. “Do I really take you as the type of guy who would do anything remotely romantic like that?”
I frowned. I just kept staring into his brown eyes. I didn’t need him to say another word, because I knew the answer.
He hadn’t done this before.
“You didn’t have to,” I gushed. “I was happy in the room we were in. I…” I wasn’t sure what else to say, the way he was looking at me right now—it was taking away my voice completely.
The love was so strong in his eyes, and his slight smile was making me giddy. God, this felt like a dream. This moment was too good to be true—this couldn’t be happening. Almost to make sure he was real, I pulled my hand from his, placing it on his cheek, taking the few steps into him.
“You are making me speechless, mister romantic.” I went up on my toes. “You didn’t need to go to so much trouble.”
“Trust me darling, this is only the beginning.” His hands went to the tie of my dressing gown. “You’re mine now.”
“For tonight,” I added, just as he spun me around, and then his hands were slowly stripping the dressing gown off me. A rush of excitement spread through my body as his mouth went to my ear.
“You said you love me?”
My heart was jumping out of my chest. I think the fact my chest was raising and dropping sharply told him how nervous I was.
“Yes,” I finally said, as he freed my arms from the dressing gown, and now I was standing in front of the fire, topless and wearing shorts that weren’t exactly covering much with my back to him.
His hands ran down my bare arms, sending shivers through my system. Was it possible to be breathing so sharply? God, what was he doing to me?
“I never thought I’d get this.” His words were low, almost as if I wasn’t meant to hear them. I turned.
“What?” I asked, not even feeling a need to cover myself. “You thought you wouldn’t get what?”
His hand tucked my hair behind my ear “Someone that actually loves me.”
My face softened. “Brad, everyone loves you.” God, couldn’t he see it? “All the girls have their eye on you. I think the only thing keeping them away is Andrea.”
He started to shake his head. “That’s different.”
“What, their love isn’t good enough?” I arched my eyebrows at him, wanting to hear him explain this one.
His brown eyes stared down into mine. “I’ve never loved them back.” His words were soft, direct and coated in honesty, which sent a shock wave through my body.
Wait…
Did that mean…
My eyes widened…
No, surely not…
It couldn’t be possible…
It was like the mask he kept on around me was gone—it had disappeared. His carefree, expression he usually gave me was gone. For the first time, he was showing an emotion that wasn’t anger or jealousy.
The look on his face, it was like—no, it couldn’t be. He was looking at me like I was the love of his life, like he loved me as much as I loved him.
“I want more than a night.” He took his opportunity to speak while I remained shocked, his hand back on my cheek. “And tonight I’m going to prove to you that I’m worth it.”
I didn’t know what to say. I told him one night. One night. What he wanted. What he was suggesting… it just wasn’t possible, was it? Was there a chance he really wanted to be with me? That we could be together? He was looking at me like I was his love and now that he had me, he never wanted me to leave him.
I opened my mouth. Okay, time to speak some reason.
“Don’t say anything, please?” he stopped me, cutting me off before I could say a word. His other hand went to the side of my face. “Just let me prove to you I can be everything you want. That I’m worth your love.” Nerves were heard in his tone. “Let me pretend, for one night, you are mine and mine forever. Like you’ve already agreed to be mine. As if I’ve already convinced you.”
I saw the love in his eyes, and heard the pleading in his voice. He wanted me. He thought he had to convince me to be his. It was like me being his just for one night was his ultimate dream.
He kissed my cheek as I remained quiet. Then his eyes were locked with mine again, though this time, nerves were painted across his brown eyes. I think he was starting to think he had scared me.
I opened my mouth.
“Just say yes. Just agree to be mine for a night.” he spoke before I could speak again. “Please, Hannah, I want you to be mine.” His hand spread into the side of my hair. “If I had my way, it would be forever, but I want to prove to you first that I’m worth it.”
I opened my mouth again.
“I know I’m old. I know I’m a biker and a girl like you deserves a business man, a high-paying one. But when it comes to money, I can match it—if that makes a difference in your decision tonight. I know I own cars and bikes, not houses. But I’ll sell them all if it’s a deal breaker. I don’t care, I’ll do anything. I promise, I’ll-”
“Brad, stop,” I cut him off. This time I was the one to speak over him. It was time he let me speak, because I already had an answer for him. I took his hands off my face, linking them with mine. I saw the wave of panic across his eyes—he must have taken it as a sign that I was about to crash his dreams.
He had put himself on the line—like I did when I took my top off and told him I was turning men away because they weren’t him. Yeah, I had put myself out there. And now he was doing the same; he’d exposed his feelings, his emotions, and right now it was like I held his heart in my hand and he was ready for me to clench it and possibly destroy him.
“You already have my answer.” I guided his hands to my shorts. “You already said it, Brad, before, in the other room.” I didn’t care about his age, I didn’t care about money. “My body says it, the mark on my neck says it. I’ve even been saying it. I’m yours.” My mouth went to his ear. “So claim what is yours.”
I’d been offering him body earlier, and now I was basically offering him everything I had.
The biggest grin spread across his face; one of delight and mischief. A squeal left my lips as he lifted me up, and I locked my legs around his waist.
“You know I’ve tried to be a gentleman.” He planted a kiss on my neck, walking us into the bedroom. “But that ends here.”
I laughed. “Since when have you ever been a gentleman?” That was one word I wouldn’t use to explain Brad.
I pictured a gentleman as a business man. Not a man that got his hands dirty with grease and oil, and not just that type of dirty—he lived life dirty, in a club society deemed as fit for only criminals.
“I have been by not openly staring at your breasts. I’ve tried hard to keep the thoughts of what I want to do to your naked breasts out of my mind.” His lips were off my neck, one hand going off me and flicking on the light.
I squinted from the sudden light. “Why did you do that?’
“Cause I’m going to explore every inch of your body.” He then adjusted the lights till they were at the brightest. “I want to see your every quality.”
I giggled. “And flaws?”
“Darling, you don’t have any.”
Suddenly a little burst of nerves went through my body. About my breasts. He wouldn’t feel it, would he? The lump. My mind started to panic—what if he did? Then I reminded myself that I felt it by chance. So how would he be able to? Not without positioning my arm in a certain direction. The type of position that wasn’t normal but maybe I had to put in a precaution just in case.
But then the chance of me extending my arm at that angle- hell, the only reason I was in that p
osition to begin with was because I slipped in the shower. I actually thought I had imagined the lump being there when I felt it.
When I went and got it looked at, the doctor couldn’t even feel it in the exam. She sent me for an ultrasound for my ‘peace of mind’. But I knew. Deep down I knew something was wrong.
“Darling? You okay?”
My thoughts had taken me from the moment completely. I blinked a few times and then looked back into Brad’s concerned eyes.
I nodded my head. Yep. I was okay. Then his words about no longer being a gentleman ran through my mind.
“So, if all this time you’ve been being a gentleman, what should I expect now?” I locked my eyes with Brad’s—could he see my excitement?
“The outlaw.”
Chapter Thirteen
Layla
I always thought you are as weak as you let yourself be and you are as strong as the front you put up, and if my real Dad taught me anything, it was to never ever let someone get close. So right now, as Tyson asked me to ask him a question, I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
He had proven to me what type of person he was. And it wasn’t the type of person I wanted in my life.
I didn’t want someone that didn’t trust me, someone that listened to rumors and then took their anger out on me or ignored me.
Dad, or Rex, as I called him, my birth father, told me one thing, and it was the only advice I ever listened to. Still to this day I don’t really listen to anyone because of that advice.
His advice was to judge a person’s actions, not their image.
It was his advice that let me trust Cyrus. Even though his image was rough, criminal, biker. But his actions showed love, passion, loyalty and dedication.
Tyson’s actions didn’t speak very well for him. Namely his action of cutting me off like I was a dead body part. Ignoring me. Treating me like shit.
He wanted me to forget that and trust him? All because he thought I had got it on with one of his brothers? So what if I had? I wasn’t his. I wasn’t his girlfriend and my actions were my own.
“Come on, Layla, I’m trying here.” He crossed his arms, looking like he was in pain by putting himself out there. Well, now he knew how I felt when I put myself on the line to talk to him only to be shut down.
He was trying. But his actions had already told me what he was really like. He was jealous. He judged before he asked a question. And he thought of me as property. I didn’t care that he was covered in tattoos that I could see. I didn’t care that he rode for the most dangerous motorcycle club in the country. I didn’t judge him by the image he showed the world. I judged actions.
And I never gave anyone a second chance once I’d seen their actions. So right now, he was asking a lot of me.
He was asking me to go against my better judgment. He was asking me to go against what I’ve always lived by. He wanted me to go against my real dad’s advice.
Could I just once—once only—give someone a second try? Acknowledge his actions but give him a second shot to give me new actions to judge?
Opening himself up to me—that was an action. That showed he was really trying.
I sighed. “Okay.” If I regretted this, I swear I’d never speak to him again.
He grinned. “What’s your question?”
His dad was nearly as terrifying as my real dad. So I did have a question. But I didn’t feel right to ask him. It was best to keep it light.
“Why don’t you have a biker name?” That was light, right? I don’t know. I didn’t do the whole ‘get to know someone’ thing. I didn’t do friends. Having one friend was rare for me. Hannah was my one friend. I still don’t know how we managed to get so close.
“Can’t really live up to the Reaper, so why bother?” he shrugged.
“Well, I’ve been referring to you as Satan. I think you live up to being his son very well.”
He shook his head, looking angry at himself. “Satan. I really made an impression,” he muttered, sounding disappointed but angry at the same time.
I arched my eyebrows. Yep. He sure had.
He sighed and looked me in the eye. “Business question, how much take from each front?”
“Depends on the front. We averaged twenty grand last week. But our drug shipment is due. So it will go up once we get paid.”
“You really know the details, don’t you?”
I tilted my head, staring up at him. “That’s why I’m here and not my dad.”
“Your dad is nearly as terrifying as mine.”
No. He was wrong. My real dad even sent a shiver down Reaper’s spine. Cyrus was upstanding when compared to Rex. But I nodded my head.
“Okay, personal question, shoot.” He uncrossed his arms and took my hand. “We’re relocating. Dad’s study gives me the creeps.”
“Why?”
“Is that your question?”
I followed behind him, hating the fact that I liked him holding my hand. “Yep, sure. It can be.”
“Well, when I was little I used to be called in there to be told off.”
“I can only imagine you as a child. You would be a terror.”
“I wasn’t!”
“Sure, you weren’t.”
“Well, I bet you were clumsy.” He looked back at me. “And misplaced a lot of shit.”
My mouth fell open. “How the hell would you know that?”
“You walk so careful it’s almost as if you are scared of falling. Like you have face planted more than a few times. And you are forever walking up to class missing something.”
So he might have been ignoring me but he was still monitoring me. “I hate being watched.” It was a fact.
The corner of his lips twitched up. “Pity everyone is watching you, then.”
“What do you mean by that?” I asked as we walked into a very expensive and well-decorated lounge room.
I pulled my hand from his. We were here now. I didn’t need to be guided. I could have followed him to begin with. I didn’t need him to hold my hand. But why had I liked it so much? He was everything I swore not to fall for.
“Everyone at school is watching you.” He lit up a cigarette, sitting down in the middle of the couch. “Well, all the males are.”
I frowned for a second, not understanding, and then remembered what he’d said. He thought people were watching me.
“I would have noticed.” I looked at the spot next to him. How rude would it be if I sat in one of the recliners?
“Have you noticed how Jed always leaves his science book behind?” He tilted his head, looking up at me.
“So?”
“So, he always has to share yours. He always has to brush his leg against you and last science class he insisted on tying your hair back when you had gloves on.”
“So, he’s nice? I don’t get how that automatically puts him down as watching me.” I looked at the couch one more time. Maybe I’d just stand.
Tyson grinned. “Does he look like a nice guy?”
An image of Jed ran through my head. His shaved head, pierced tongue and lip. He was always wearing black and greys. We had made some small conversation and his life seemed to revolve around parties and alcohol.
But I didn’t judge people by their image. I judged them by their actions. Jed was always friendly, and made an effort to catch me up in class when I wasn’t paying attention. Sometimes I think he only paid attention to tell me the details.
Whenever we did experiments, he knew I didn’t do blood and gore and so he’d take over. He was nice.
Sure, maybe his image screamed bad boy and to stay away from him, but to me, he was nice.
“I like him.” I crossed my arms. “He isn’t moody or selfish. He always makes an effort with me. And when he tied my hair back, I was thankful.” I stared back at Tyson. And that was all I was sharing with him.
“Okay, if he is a nice guy, then what to call Ethan?”
“A
flirt.” One I could handle and have been handling. “And really good in gym.”
“Yeah, you two are always paired up together. Your doing or his?” He sounded way too interested in the answer.
“His.”
He arched his eyebrows like that proved something. “You’ve got nearly every male following you around school.” He pointed his cigarette at me. “You are worse than my sisters.”
“Hannah and Eve are stunning. And I don’t have males following me.”
“You can’t even go have a smoke in peace. Suddenly half the male population at school is smoking.” He gestured his cigarette at me, which I took.
“Do you do anything else at school, apart from watch me?” I exhaled a mouthful of smoke. For some reason, smoking always calmed me. Maybe it was the inhaling and exhaling. I don’t know how but it did. I was feeling relaxed after one inhale on his cigarette.
“You’re more interesting. Like last Tuesday, when that teacher made a move on you, and you—well, we both know what you did.” He grinned.
“If you saw that, why didn’t you step in?! I thought I was alone!”
“I was about to when you punched him and broke his nose.”
Mr. Haywood was a worthless worm. Who makes a move on a student? I narrowed my eyes at Tyson. “So why were you there?”
Mr. Haywood had asked to speak to me alone in his office. He had left the door open, which must have been how Tyson saw what happened. What an idiot of a teacher he was. If you are going to make a stupid move on a student, at least close the door.
“I heard him ask you. I know what he’s like. Made a move on Eve. Dad gave him a few broken ribs for it. Then got him kicked out for two years. This is his first year back.”
I handed him back the cigarette. “Well, you didn’t need to look out for me. I’m more than capable.”
“Clearly. I know two guys you’ve punched up now.”
“Cameron got my left hook. So he doesn’t count.”
“Because your right can break bones?”
“Exactly.” I found myself smiling and my eyes glanced at the spot he was leaving open for me. I could just sit in a recliner or I could keep standing. Either option was better than being close to him. “So, business question?” I brought us back to the topic and off the topic of me.
