Saved by the Outlaw: A Bad Boy Romance

by Alexis Abbott

  After last time when he just ditched me like old meat? I promised myself I'd never go through that again.

  So why am I filled with that weird, dark excitement? Why is my body more convinced that this is something exciting rather than terrifying?

  "What's your name?" the security guard asks, breaking me from my stupor.

  "Sarah," I say softly. "Sarah Fairfax."

  He repeats it before hanging up the phone, motioning for me to follow him to the elevator. We walk in silence as he puts the key into the lock, hitting the 15th floor and escorting me up. The elevator ride seems so long and so short all at once, my heart pumping hard against my ribs.

  I should be at home, sleeping. I should have just tried to sleep after waking up from my nightmare, not trying to convince Dimitri to come clean.

  The chrome elevator doors open and unveils a ritzy hallway, filled with colorful art and muted decorations. The security guard waits for me to leave before descending back to his post.

  My legs are leaden as I make my way to his condo. What am I going to say? 'Hi, Dimitri, are you involved with the Russian Mafia?'

  I shake my head.

  I have to be coy.

  His door is ajar when I finally get to it, but I'm afraid to push in. Once I do, there's no going back.

  How strong do you think you are? I ask myself, but I sneer at the implication. I'm not a coward. I'm not going to run from this.

  I push inwards and see Dimitri just at the edge of my vision, in the kitchen, and I can hear ice clinking into a glass.

  I shut and lock the door behind me and he hands me a drink.

  "I know you can't drink in a club, but I figure if you're waking me up at this hour, you likely need one of these." His grin is devilish, but it's not his words — nor his smirk — that steal my thoughts away.

  It's the fact that he's standing before me in nothing but some loose fitted, cotton pants, and that’s all. His gorgeous chest and arms are completely bared but for the litany of tattoos that mark his skin. Roses and skulls, stars and crosses, all knit together. Separate and yet part of a whole design. It's so many more than when he was younger and I'd last saw him shirtless.

  I must've been staring longer than I expected, because his finger went to my chin and he guided my gaze up.

  "So you've finally decided to give in?" he growls before taking all of his vodka in a single gulp, putting the empty glass on the side table. He has me practically cornered against the locked door, and I can sense his masculine heat radiating off of him.

  I must've woken him because his words have a certain edge, a grittiness that I can barely resist, but I pull back.

  "Dimitri," I groan, taking my own vodka into my mouth, but unlike him, I make a face as it burns down my throat.

  When I open my eyes, he's still looming over me, his lips parted into a feral grin. I don't understand how he does it. During the day he looks professional, clean cut and put together.

  But here in the privacy of his home, shirtless and eyes lit with hunger, it's another side of him altogether. One that drives me wild.

  He's dangerous, Sarah, I plead with myself to remember, but my thoughts are muddied by his presence, and already my resolve is wavering, so the only thing I can do is call back on that anger that I've had within me for over two years.

  I push past him and finish my drink, leaving my emptied glass on the table. The alcohol makes my tongue a little looser, and I spin to look at him.

  "You can't treat me like this," I say, my voice taking on a venomous tone I'm not used to, but he just looks amused.

  I hate it. He should be feeling bad, feeling upset at himself, at me, at whatever.

  So why does he look so damned amused?

  "Treat you like this? You mean, allow you to barge into my home, unannounced, at two in the morning?"

  Well, when he says it like that...

  I have so much anger in me busting to get loose, though, and logic can't possibly fight that.

  "Ever since I started working for you, you've barely even seen me except to torment me," I say, and there's hurt creeping into my voice. And I know it's not even all true. He's seen me plenty. But it's not enough. It's not what I hoped for when I let him back into my life.

  I don't know what I wanted, but it wasn't this.

  "Ahh," he says, padding towards me in his bare feet. "So my little sister is feeling neglected when she's just another employee?" he says, more than asks, and suddenly my back is up against the bar, staring up at him.

  How does he keep cornering me?

  "I don't want to be treated any different," I protest, but I know it's a lie, and from the way his grin is growing, so does he.

  His hand goes to my throat, his thumb pressing against the hollow as his brown eyes bore into mine.

  "That sounds like you want to be treated different," he coos, and my nipples stiffen. I wish I'd worn a bra, but I had been in such a rush, and now the faint outline of my arousal was embarrassingly visible.

  I can't think with his rough hand pressing into me, but his presence is suffocating and I can't get away.

  "I don't," I feebly protest, but my heart is racing so fast I can barely make sense of my thoughts. I never should have come here. I should've stayed curled up in bed.

  His other hand reaches out, touching along my hip, creeping up under my t-shirt.

  "So why are you here, Sarah, begging for me to stop tormenting you?" His eyes are lit with lust, and he moves in towards me so that his body is nearly touching mine. I can remember so vividly the last time he had me in a position like this, and the things he did to make my body sing.

  But I swore to myself I'd never let that happen again after he left me broken hearted the morning after.

  I slap his hands away and stalk to his living room, spinning about to glare at him.

  "I'm not some disposable toy you can play with and forget about, Dimitri, despite what you may think!"

  He laughs as he pursues me, like an animal playing with his prey.

  "That's not what happened last time," he says, and he keeps walking towards me as I keep backing up. My ass presses against the couch's armrest, and I'm forced to stop as he moves even closer. "And you can't tell me you didn't enjoy it."

  A flush goes across my cheeks, and I know he's right. I did enjoy it until the next morning, and then everything was a mess. The memory brings a heat to my body that isn't welcome, though. I'm trying to remain strong, to confront him about... what?

  About the money, I remind myself, but I know that isn't what this is about. The money could've waited until Monday.

  The truth of the matter is the memory of him and Slava beating up that guy made my body wet. It filled me with anger and arousal that I haven't felt in years, and I needed to see him before logic could kick in.

  "I didn't," I lie to him, and he grabs a fist full of the front of my t-shirt, tugging me near him as he glares down at me.

  "Then why'd your lip twitch?" he asks and I regret lying to him. He knows how I look when I lie. The little, hidden tells that no one else knows to look for, but he does.

  "Nothing," I murmur, but I'm losing. I know I'm losing.

  I want to lose.

  Maybe that's what this is all about. Losing. Giving into passion. Letting myself feel something so intensely once more.

  He steps closer, and my torso bends back over the couch, held there so precariously as his legs press between mine.

  "Why'd you really come here, Sarah?" he growls, and the words remind me of just how wrong this is. For years we lived under the same roof, growing up together.

  Why does he make my blood run so hot, then? Why can't I deny how badly I want him? Why didn't I ever find another man I was interested in?

  His free hand snakes up my side once more.

  "If you want me to stop, just say the word," he grins, and I know the word he's referring to instantly. It was a silly thing we came up with when we would wrestle as kids. A childish safeword. Uncle. That's
all I have to say to admit defeat and get him to back off.

  So why doesn't the word come to my mouth immediately as his rough hand starts teasing up over my delicate ribs, playing them like an instrument? My eyes flutter shut and I try to back up, but there's nowhere to go.

  "Stop," I murmur, the sound so lusty.

  His lips go to my ear, warm breath washing over it, "That's not the word."

  My fingers dig into the leather upholstery of the sofa and I tip backwards, but he catches me, his hand going to my thigh and holding me there as he shifts in and I feel that throbbing heat against me. Separated by cotton and denim, but nonetheless, it’s there, and it’s burning for me.

  We never went all the way, and I swore to myself I'd never be in a situation like that with him again, but I'm helpless to stop.

  He might be in the mob, I beg myself to remember. Beating people up is just the beginning. He's a monster Sarah.

  But my body doesn't seem to care. I need him. Just one night, just to get him out of my brain. To forget all of those what-could-have-beens from circling in my mind for the next two years. Even if he broke my heart, he's still claimed it, and this is the only way to reclaim it, I feebly argue with myself.

  He grinds against me, and I know he thinks he's winning.

  He knows he's winning.

  My protests are getting so weak and pathetic, but when his mouth crashes against mine, and I can taste the vodka on him, my world suddenly feels peaceful. Like the eye of the storm. Knowing it still swirls around me, and yet I have a moment of bliss in the middle of torment.

  My tongue presses against his, eager to taste him, to feel his lips and tongue tango with mine.

  "You know I like it when you pretend you don't want this," he growls and I'm losing myself to him, and fast. I've no thoughts left but for that throbbing member pinned between us, the way my legs are spreading around him.

  I swallow, and his mouth is on mine once again, and suddenly the tempest within rages. There's no holding it back anymore, no hiding just how turned on I am.

  He lets go of my thigh and his hand travels beneath my shirt, finding my bare breasts beneath. He lets out a moan that reverberates through me, and I can't help the fact that my nipples stiffen, prodding his hard digits.

  "You should've given in earlier," he says, tugging on my nipple in a teasing, playful manner that belies his hard muscles and deadly gaze.

  I'm scared. I'm scared of him, of what he's into. There's no denying that.

  But even more frightening is how those fears ignite my passions rather than extinguishing them.

  I moan and there's nothing that I can do to hide it as I wrap my legs around his waist, feeling him begin to gently grind against me. I've seen him nude before, spied on him as he changed, grazed my fingers against it the last time I saw him, but this is something new altogether.

  The fire between us hasn't dimmed at all, and instead, is burning hotter than ever.

  He bites my lip, tugging on it, and that little spark of pain leaves me shivering.

  "Tell me you want it, Sarah," he growls, and punctuates his words with an extra little grind.

  My mind is a haze, filled with lust and arousal. He's my step-brother, my boss, and I know this is all so fucking wrong. I should run away from him, from his mother, from all this shit that's come into my life because of them.

  But instead, I'm moaning out the words, "I want you," and sounding like a craven beast.

  I have to stop this. I have to stop before this goes too far, before I go too far. I'm losing my mind, and he's the culprit, but he's making me burn like wildfire and when he pushes me back onto the couch, I feel so small. So delicate in his brutish grasp.

  His weight presses down on me, and he's solid muscle against me, pinning me into the soft, leather couch.

  His mouth trails down my throat, peppering kisses there, and I'm breathing hard, struggling not to get wrapped up in how his kisses send sparks from my stomach, down to my clit.

  "Stop," I gasp again, his stubble running down between my clavicles, his fingers pulling down my shirt as his mouth heads towards my swollen, pink nipple. I'm so turned on, it's ridiculous. It feels like my panties have melted off, and I arch my back as he refuses to listen to me.

  Because you didn't use the word, I chide myself, but even knowing that, I'm reluctant to say it.

  I don't want him to stop.

  His fingers work the button on my jeans, and I'm so close to that edge of no return. I can just do it. See what I missed out on two years ago, feel him take my virginity from me.

  Heat builds in my stomach with such intensity as I think about what his hands and body would feel like, claiming me for his own.

  Does he even want that? You're just a conquest. Forbidden fruit that means less than nothing to him.

  That thought is the one that brings that terrible word to my lips.

  "Uncle," I gasp out, just as I feel his fingers brush against the top of my panties, and then it all stops. He pulls away from me, standing and staring down at me with quickened breath and a desperate throbbing beneath his thin, cotton pants.

  His eyes are stormy and dangerous, and even though he's stopped, it looks like he's barely restraining himself. Like he's just going to throw himself on top of me and take me anyways.

  But then he turns back to the bar, pouring himself up a vodka. The hard lines of his muscles are more prominent, the tattoos along his back stretched taut with his tension.

  "Here's a hint, Sarah. You show up at two in the morning for a booty call and then withhold the booty, bad things happen. You're just lucky—"

  "Lucky what?" I hiss at him as I leap from the couch, fixing my jeans buttons and shirt as I glare at him. All my lust and desire still runs molten through my veins, but now it's turned to rage. "Lucky you don't force yourself on me?"

  He spins, his hand grasping my shoulder as he glowers down at me, pointing at me with the glass still in his hands.

  "I would never hurt you, Sarah," he swears with so much conviction I'd believe him — that is, if he didn't leave me broken hearted before.

  "Hah!" I laugh, not buying his delusions. Not this time. "Like you didn't hurt me last time?"

  "If you remember, I was the one that left unfulfilled last time," he says, his grasp not lightening on my shoulder.

  "I was scared, Dimitri! We're not supposed to happen. That was never supposed to happen."

  "What, it's okay for you to spy on me, take pictures of me naked, but the second I show interest in you, it's suddenly wrong?"

  My skin grows hotter, and I know my face must be a bright red. Anger and embarrassment battle for dominance.

  "I was wrong to take pictures of you," I say through gritted teeth.

  "Damn fucking right you were."

  "You were wrong not to call me after... after we hooked up."

  "I told you," he says with narrowed eyes. "Things got busy."

  "What the fuck could possibly make you forget I exist for two years?" I yell, tears threatening to spill. I blink faster, begging myself not to lose my cool, but it's a battle that I can't win.

  He softens a little, that tough guy act melting back into the side of Dimitri I used to know so well. That gentleness, the desire to protect me. I knew — before I was kicked out — that he'd have done anything to protect me. But he proved me wrong.

  "If I could have done anything not to cut you out of my life, I would have," he swears, and his conviction...

  I believe him.

  Don't be stupid, Sarah, I plead with myself, but I want so badly for him not to have hurt me as bad as he did.

  "You broke my fucking heart," I sob, and I can see him cringe. He doesn't brush it off this time, doesn't act like those words don't cut through him, and his hands loosen on my shoulder.

  "I shouldn't have let you get wrapped back up in me," he says, and the words make me bristle. As if he knew this is how it would all play out, that I'd find myself lusting for him once more. "I never shoul
d've hired you on. Just let you go do your thing, live your life."

  The dam has broken and tears stream down my cheeks.

  "Are you firing me?"

  He sighs, leaning against the bar, his back facing me. "I should."

  A sob makes me hiccough, and there's a burning sensation in my lungs. I can't catch my breath, so many emotions spinning through me that I can barely feel one before it's replaced with another.

  "Don't," I whimper, reaching out and touching his wrist. What am I doing? I should just let him do it. Rebecca will be pissed at me for not going through with it, but there's nothing I can do if Dimitri decides to fire me.

  "I can't," he says, and he sounds so defeated and exhausted. Maybe not seeing my face makes it easier to talk honestly, without all of his cruel teases and smart-ass jabs. "When I saw you in the coffee shop, you looked unreal. Like out of a dream," he sighs.

  I stand behind him silently, withdrawing my hand, but he captures it in his and he tugs me in against him, forcing my hand to his chest as he turns back around.

  He guides my fingers, and I find a pucker in his skin, a strange scar I hadn't noticed in the dim light. "Do you know what this is?"

  "No," I whisper.

  "It's a bullet wound," he says, releasing my hand. "There's another on my back." I step back and, true to his words, there's another scar. So small, yet it leaves me with such a feeling of dread.

  What's he gotten himself into?

  He turns and looks down at me, his gaze a stormy sea.

  "I'm going to fuck your life up if you let me," he swears, and those words send a jolt of excitement and fear through me. "I'm not going to lie. I want you. Need you. But I can't have you, not without repercussions."

  "We knew that already," I say, trying to hold in my emotions. "We knew we could never be a thing. Rebecca... she'd flip. And... it's wrong," I manage, and he reaches out, his fingers coiling through my hair.

  "It's more than that," he says with a scowl, but he's looking at my lips, as if he can't tear his eyes away. "It's dangerous."

  "Let me help," I say softly, but he shakes his head, and I know this is one point not worth arguing.

  I step backwards, away from his touch, away from the temptations he's risen within me.