Twin Flames (The Raven Boys Series Book 1)

by M. A. Lee

  “Damn girl, I have never seen you look at any guy like that before,” Lacy yelled into my ear.

  Shaking my head, I tried to knock some sense back into myself. This wasn’t my scene. This wasn’t the type of guy I typically dated. This wasn’t the place for me.

  But, the problem was, something was stirring deep down inside of me, ignoring all rational thoughts. In that moment, I wanted nothing more than to know about the Raven Boy in front of me.

  Grabbing Lacy’s drink, I chugged the remainder of the contents and then motioned for another bartender, this time a heavy-set balding guy with a nose ring, to bring me the same thing as Lacy had been drinking.

  Shit, I like this,” Lacy laughed. “What has gotten into you?” she asked as she continued to laugh.

  I honestly had no idea, but my world was starting to spin. “Lacy, after I finish my drink, we have to go. Something about this place makes me feel weird,” I said, my eyes still locked on the guy at the end of the bar.

  “Hell yeah, you feel weird, girl you are coming alive. That guy is sexy as hell. It’s about time you loosened up a little,” Lacy said as she paid the bartender for my drink and then handed me the cold glass.

  I took a large drink and then placed the glass back onto the bar with a light thud. I could already feel the tequila beginning to work its magic. Suddenly, a tall, blonde girl wearing black leather pants and a blood red shirt strutted over to the bar and her hand began to caress the guy who I had been ogling over ever since he stepped through the door. My stomach dropped, and I wasn’t sure why. I didn’t even know this guy’s name. I had no claim to him, but watching her slender fingers touch that Raven boy’s skin made something angry inside of me stir. This must be a sign, logic finally making its way to my mind telling me it was time to go. Seeing what I was now staring at, Lacy tensed.

  “Ignore that hussy. Ivy, go over there and talk to him,” she urged.

  “No, I just want to go,” I said, gulping down the remaining alcohol before turning and attempting to leave.

  However, in my hurry to get away from the scene before me, I didn’t see the large man rushing toward the bar. It wasn’t until I collided straight into his helmet, my head hitting the metal hard, that I realized I was falling. I’d like to say I fell with grace, but luck wasn’t on my side tonight.

  2

  Ivy

  “Ivy? Can you hear me?” I was strangely aware that someone was talking to me, even though I couldn’t see anyone in front of me. A sharp pain shot through my body as I could feel the side of my head throbbing.

  Voices and music began to fade in and out as I felt myself coming to. I felt hands under me as I was lifted and carried to another part of the bar. Embarrassment and pain were the only two emotions I could fathom.

  I was placed on the bar as people huddled around me. Lacy handed me a water bottle someone had given her, and I took a sip as I tried to sit up.

  “What happened?” I asked, as I looked around the room and was aware, once more, everyone was staring at me.

  “You got knocked out,” Lacy noted, pointing to the heavyset man who now looked horrified and worried.

  Laughter appeared as a few people, who thought this was hilarious, walked around the bar. I guess since I was alive, they could go back to whatever they were doing before. This just proved this whole night was a bad idea.

  Fuck me.

  “Thanks for putting me on the bar. I’m really sorry I wasn’t paying attention,” I mumbled as I held my hand to my throbbing head.

  “I didn’t carry you,” the man said, pointing to a guy standing by the door. “He did.”

  My head turned to see the Raven Boy I had been so stupidly enamored with.

  “Thanks,” I stated, humiliated at how stupid I must appear to these people.

  Adding in, Lacy walked over to where the guy was standing and held out her hand, introducing herself. “Thank you so much for helping my friend,” she flirted, batting her beautiful blue eyes at him.

  “No problem,” he stated, rubbing his jaw with his hand. “My name is Jameson,” he added before pushing himself off the bar.

  “I’m Ivy,” I said.

  Chuckling, Jameson rubbed the stubble on his jaw with his hand. “Ivy? Huh, like Poison Ivy from the comics?” he gives a lazy wink as he falls onto one of the bar stools.

  My stomach cinches and something deep inside of me stirs. “Sure, you can think of me like that. If you mess with me, I can make you feel like you have been poisoned,” I say with a quirk of my brow.

  Jameson throws his head back and lets out a loud belly laugh. “Well, damn, you have spunk,” he counters before turning in his seat to leave.

  Noticing the quick exchange between us, Lacy refuses to let it go that easily.

  “Do you work here?” she asked, trying to capture Jameson before he can retreat. Part of me wants to smack her and part of me wants to thank her.

  “Sorta. I own it with my brothers. Sort of a family heirloom, you could say. I fix bikes, I work for a mechanic just down the street,” Jameson said.

  Lacy lifted her eyes and smiled in my direction. Very subtle. “So, it looks like all the Raven Boys are sexy and helpful,” she said, batting her eyes over at Drake.

  Rolling my eyes, I knew Lacy was now pushed past her limit. This guy who was sexy, charming, and had a little bad boy in him, had just ignited something inside Lacy. I could see it on her face as she smiled up at him, her eyes dancing.

  “I have an apartment upstairs; do you all want to go up there and allow your friend to rest?” Drake offered.

  “I am fine,” I interrupted, my tone bitchier than I had expected. The last thing I needed to do right now was listen to Lacy and this guy flirt or go up to some random guy’s apartment. My head was killing me and I wanted to get back to our apartment and sleep, if nothing more than to forget this night had ever happened.

  “You are so sweet to offer, but I should probably get Ivy home,” Lacy stated, giving me a glare.

  Watching her closely, a deep smirk appeared across Drake’s face. He was obviously turned on and impressed by Lacy’s forwardness. Oh boy, he didn’t even know the half of it.

  “Well, maybe I can show you it sometimes,” Drake stated, his words offering more than just a tour of his apartment.

  “I’d love that. Maybe you need to call me,” Lacy stated, taking Drake’s phone from his pocket. His eyes gleamed with lust as he was captivated by every stroke of her fingers on his phone. When she was done, she slid the phone back inside his back pocket and sashayed toward the exit. Turning and offering a slight wave, Lacy mustered the most seductive voice she could create, “I hope you call.”

  Sitting up, I slid off the bar and hoped to get out of there without any more disasters.

  “Hey, maybe you should sit a little while longer,” a deep voice rang from beside me. I turned to see Jameson watching me carefully.

  “I am fine,” I stated a little too rudely.

  “Look, you don’t have to leave yet. Sorry if we scared you,” he said, his eyes reflecting someone who sincerely felt sorry. Seeing this, I turned off my bitch attitude and allowed him to help me.

  “Thanks,” I mumbled as he helped me sit on a barstool.

  I looked around and didn’t see the blonde anywhere in sight. “I didn’t mean to ruin your date,” I said as I continued to rub my forehead.

  “My what?” Jameson laughed.

  This time, Drake turned and looked at me too. “You must have hit your head really hard. Jameson here doesn’t date.”

  “Oh sorry,” I stated, feeling mortified again. “I just saw you with a girl and I…”

  Cutting me off, Drake laughed. “That was just Angie. She comes in here every night trying to leave with one of us. She’s been after me, Jameson, and our other brothers Micah and Brody,” he said, pointing to the other guys who were busy opening beers for themselves behind the bar.

  “Here, take these,” Drake said as he handed me Tylenol. I took
the pills and, again, thanked him.

  Placing his hand on my forehead, Jameson leaned in so close, I could smell his minty aftershave and feel the heat radiating off his body. “Looks like it will bruise though.”

  “Oh, yeah.” I could feel a small bump already beginning to rise as I felt the spot that was still throbbing. Sparks were igniting inside of me and I felt like I might just go up in flames.

  “Let’s go,” I said to Lacy who was standing by the doorway texting someone on her phone. I was sure it was Drake.

  Jameson watched me with curious eyes as I made my way through the thick crowd and to the entrance. Everyone had gone back to drinking and talking and I was so glad to be invisible to them.

  I swiftly opened the door and allowed the cool night air to settle my flaming nerves. Following behind me, Lacy was yelling something back to Drake as I drug her out the door. I needed the air to put out the flames that Jameson had caused in me. He was hot as hell, but I couldn’t pursue anything with him. Our worlds were just too different. He owned a biker bar. I was a college student working on a literary degree. Nothing could be more opposite than us. Still though, as I looked around the parking lot full of massive motorcycles, I couldn’t help but smile inside at the feeling of excitement and something else building.

  3

  Jameson

  Damn, if she wasn’t the hottest thing I had ever seen.

  Sure, hot chicks came in and out of the bar and clubhouse daily, but no one had ever stumped me like she did.

  Everything about her was wrong. Her hairstyle. Her preppy clothes. Her fearful eyes. She was so wrong for this place but at the same time, something about her being here felt so right.

  I had to give it to her though, Ivy had balls. Most girls that looked like her would have run away screaming after seeing a bunch of bikers in leather vests drinking, but not Ivy. She stepped in with her friend and she owned the control of the room, even if she didn’t realize it. It was funny too, because I watched my brother Drake drool all over her friend. I guess two Raven Boys were lucky tonight.

  Even now, as I ride my bike around town to cool off, I can’t get Ivy out of my mind. Her long, caramel colored hair looked fucking delicious. And her eyes..those eyes seemed to mesmerize me, making me want to search through them into her soul.

  I laughed a little to myself as I thought about how sassy she had been.

  I rubbed the stubble on my jaw. “Ivy? Huh, like Poison Ivy from the comics?” I couldn’t help but give her a lazy wink as I fell onto one of the bar stools.

  Narrowing her eyes at me, I could tell Ivy was about to give it back to me real good. “Sure, you can think of me like that. If you mess with me, I can make you feel like you have been poisoned,” she said with a quirk raise of her brow.

  I swear I felt my heart stop. I had never had a girl smart back to me before. I kind of liked it.

  Fuck, what is happening to me?

  I allow the cool air to sweep through my hair as I push the accelerator and the bike jumps a little. I need speed. I need the rush of feeling the wind blowing through me. This is my release the way I calm down after a long night at the shop where I am a mechanic or when I have had too many girls chasing after me. But tonight, is different.

  I need to think. I have no idea what these emotions are that are threatening to create a tornado inside my brain. My dick had come to full attention at the sight of Ivy, but so had my heart. I swear I felt it beat for the first time in a very, very long time.

  I knew I would regret the decision I was about to make. I knew my brothers and buddies would give me shit for weeks. But I didn’t care. I had to get to know Ivy and to understand what this spell was she had on me.

  4

  Ivy

  Sitting at my small desk Monday morning, I could still feel the bump on my head from the little spill I took the other night. Thankfully, the throbbing had stopped, but when I brushed my hands through my hair, I could still see the rosy pink mark and feel the raised skin to remind me that I had indeed, passed out in front of a group of people. Trying to suppress a yawn, I covered my mouth with my hands so no one in the class could hear me.

  I had found myself fantasizing about the black haired, dark-eyed, walking sex god that I had met at the biker bar. Jameson’s face seemed to taunt my body with an unfair desire that I couldn’t control. Now, I am not a prude by any means, but what I had allowed this man to do to me, still made me shiver as I sat in my chair. Clear images of Jameson pulling my hair as he mounted me from behind had me screaming his name in pure ecstasy. I had awoken that morning in a pool of sweat from my own lust filled fever and my hallucinations haunted my brain as I tried to focus on my professor and not the delightfully naughty things, I had allowed him to do to me. This problem was, he was the last man I knew I should be fantasizing about.

  I had made up my mind after high school that I was going to go to college, get a good job, and start my life before allowing anyone to interfere with my plans. My family life growing up had been difficult...at best.

  My dad had left my mom when I was sixteen. My brother Aiden and I came home from school to find his bags packed sitting in the kitchen and my mom crying at the table. We were just as shocked as she was. After he left, my life seemed to spiral out of control. My mom sank herself into a deep depression of alcohol and work. My dad married the mistress he had left my mom for and stopped being my dad. She had two young sons and he quickly stepped in as their dad leaving my brother and I out in the dust. He expected me to accept the woman who destroyed my family, but I just couldn't. The day my dad brought her into our lives, I had lost everything. Even my brother. Aiden couldn’t stand the fact that my dad left, and he began to blame my mom. I would watch in horror as he disrespected her in front of our family and friends and belittled her more and more each day. He was so desperate for dad’s attention that he set out to prove himself as the ‘golden’ child. While dad seemed to notice him more than me, neither of us seemed to get our dad back.

  Aiden soon grew to become more and more like my dad. He became an arrogant asshole who seemed to have something to prove to the world. He began disrespecting our mom, treating women like nothing more than sex toys, and argued with anyone who would speak to him. We quickly grew apart and of course, he blamed me for the separation. Even when he was arrested for public intoxication, he still found a way to push the blame on others instead of taking ownership of his actions. Anything in my life that made me happy was wrong. My friends were wrong. My boyfriends were wrong. Everything about me was wrong.

  I decided my senior year of high school that I was tired of fighting for people to be in my life. If they loved and accepted me, they would make an effort to be in my life. When they didn’t fight for me, I decided to fight for me instead. So, I applied for college out of state, took my inheritance money from my grandparents, and never looked back. Only Lacy knew about my past and I intended to keep it that way. Allowing anyone to know about my past would make me vulnerable and I would never rely on anyone else for my own happiness again.

  Meeting Jameson, I saw a glimpse of someone who didn’t care what others thought of him. He had a confidence about him that was strong, not arrogant like the other men in my life. I couldn’t help but laugh a little to myself just thinking of my twisted family. They would never approve of anyone like Jameson. He was strong and spoke the truth; everything they seemed to be against.

  Shaking off thoughts of Jameson and my family, I prepared myself for a boring, one-hour lecture. After class, Lacy and I stopped and had a pizza at a local pizzeria on campus and then went home where I began working on homework. I was thankful my paternal grandparents had left me a college fund before they died. I didn’t need to work and could focus on school. From my bedroom, where I was working at my desk, I could hear Lacy on her phone in the small living room area of our apartment. She was giggling and talking in her sexy tone that meant she was talking to a guy. Rolling my eyes, I plugged in my headphones and hit play, allowing C
oldplay to drown out Lacy for the time being. Even though I loved Lacy, she could also be a total pain in the ass.

  “So, remember that guy Drake?” Lacy asked, as she curled her hair, sitting on top of the bathroom vanity. She was casually dressed in a pair of denim blue jeans and a flirty lavender top as she watched me through the vanity mirror. It had been a week since my little incident at the biker bar and I wanted nothing more than to forget about that night.

  Lacy stopped in the narrow hallway and I watched her reflection in the mirror. “Yes, I remember him,” I stated flatly. “I wish I could forget about the night we met him,” I added, continuing down the hall to my room. My mind had become so obsessed with Jameson, it was like I couldn’t focus on anything else.

  “Well, he called and asked me out tonight,” she said, winding a strand of her beautiful hair around the base of the iron.

  “Fun,” I said, as pretended to be interested in a chapter on criminal psychology.

  Lacy paused in the mirror, and I could see her watching me from where she sat. “Well,” she began as she put down the iron and began teasing through her long locks. “He asked if I wanted to meet him for drinks at a bar here on campus. He said he could bring his brother, you know the one you were lusting over and eye fucking,” she teased.

  Laughing, I threw my pen down and stopped taking notes. “I doubt that,” I replied.

  Lacy walked into my room and began sorting through my closet. I sat on my bed and watched her with curiosity. She had a million sexy things to wear, I had no idea why she would want to go through my closet. My taste in clothes was much simpler compared to hers.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Looking for something for you to wear,” she said, her back still to me as she continued to push around my outfits.

  Arching my eyebrows, I looked at Lacy like she had lost her mind. “Why would I need to change?” I asked. I had no plans for the evening.