Return of the Bad Boy Read online

  I run my hands down to his waist and lift the hem of his t-shirt out of his jeans. I need to be closer to him.

  Obliging me, he helps me remove his t-shirt, and I’m greeted with the most jaw-dropping chest I’ve ever had the pleasure to see. He’s gotten a few more tattoos, and he’s bulked up, and there’s just a little more dark hair over his pectorals. Oh good Lord, I feel faint.

  “You okay?” he asks, as I grip the edges of the desk to steady myself.

  I nod, still dazed and scared but so damn hot. I need him. I need this. I’m like a kid in a candy store, unsure where to go first. His skin is so hot as my lips touch the tattoo of a four-leaf clover over his shoulder, I expect to see steam radiating from it.

  His hands move around my waist, lifting the hem off my camisole up over my head.

  Before, we’d made out and fumbled around under our clothing, but that’s as far as it went. I’d always been self-conscious about my small chest, too, so I usually pushed his hands away and put a stop to things. But now, I can’t stop. I don’t want to stop. I’ve been thinking of this for four years. And maybe I am getting more mature because at this point, I don’t care. I want to feel his skin against mine.

  He casts aside my camisole and gazes at me hungrily. I suck in a breath, feeling an unsure pang of nervousness, but before it can fully materialize, he cups my breast in his hand and brings the nipple to his mouth, sucking it, is tongue working circles on it. I toss my head back and gasp.

  He gently nudges me back on the desk. “You’re so fucking sweet, Katydid,” he murmurs into my skin, reaching for the snap of my cutoffs as he trails kisses down to my abdomen. His fingers find it and expertly work the button, and I feel the fabric loosening. “I need to taste all of you.”

  My breath comes out all uneven. The thought of him tasting me has my body trembling all over with desire and . . . fear. The two emotions are doing a dance inside of me, each vying for top position. This is huge. I think of how long I’ve imagined and wanted this, wanted Dax above me, fucking me, and without warning, the fear pulls the upper hand.

  “Dax. Wait,” I whisper in his ear.

  “I’ve waited for this for four years,” he murmurs, intent, dragging his open mouth down to the button of my cut-offs so I can feel his inviting warm breath on my skin there.

  Holy shit.

  It takes all my willpower to summon the energy to lift myself up and nudge him away. “But I’ve never done that.”

  He stops suddenly and looks at me. “Never?”

  “Don’t look so surprised,” I say, blushing now. My eyes trail to the dirty linoleum floor. “You knew I was before.”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t expect you to stay . . .” He rakes his fingers through his hair. I wish for once he would stop looking like he’s just discovered alien life exists. “All right.”

  He suddenly stands up and grabs for his t-shirt, quickly covering up all those glorious, hard muscles. I straighten on the desk and find my camisole, then slink into it, embarrassed. The truth is, despite four years at college, I never even had a close call. Never even wanted one. It’s like, the day I left Dax, that part of me turned off, and that well of passion he could summon inside me just dried up. Sure, I’d met all kinds of guys—studious types, party-hungry frat-boys, sophisticated graduate teaching assistants—but I never even felt one tenth of what I felt in this room, right now. Was I comparing every single guy I met to Dax Harding? I’d like to say no, but . . .

  Yes. Looking at him now . . . oh, God, yes. Why did I stop him?

  He retrieves the keys from the pockets of his jeans, and it isn’t hard to see his raging erection poking through his jeans. “I should probably take you home, huh?”

  Now, he’s looking at the ground. He’s doing everything possible not to look at me. What the hell?

  “All right,” I answer. Not two minutes ago, I was seriously considering losing my virginity to this man, and now he can’t even make eye contact with me. I slide off the desk, find my camisole and slide it on, and follow him out to his Mustang.

  He blasts the country music loud, so we barely talk on the ride home. To ward off the awkward silence, I play with my phone. Though it’s after midnight, that’s never stopped Fowler from sending me messages, but for once, I have none. When we pull into my driveway, I expect him to turn down the radio so we can talk, but he doesn’t. He just says, “’Night.”

  And that’s all, folks.

  I feel stupid. Used. Of course it’s what I thought. He just wanted to finally check off his list the one girl from high school he never got a chance to nail. Maybe he doesn’t want to deal with the “emotional baggage” of being someone’s first. I don’t say a word as I push open the door to his Mustang. And I slam it extra hard, with the dim hope that maybe it’ll fall off.

  That’s the only way to get to a guy who cares about nothing unless it has a motor and wheels, right?

  Chapter 6

  Damn. I swore I’d never let Dax Harding drag me into another sleepless night.

  And yet, as the early rays of summer sunlight start to poke their way through my bedroom blinds, I realize how stupid I was.

  Total regret hangover. Why did I go with him last night? I find myself wishing I still had friends from home to text with. If I had kept in touch with Juliet or Nevaeh, maybe they could’ve talked me down from the ledge. They were always so good about painting Dax like a total asshole.

  Turns out, they were right.

  I sigh, thinking of how I left things with them. After the incident that got Dax kicked out of school, they stopped talking to me.

  I thought they’d start talking to me again once they learned Dax and I were no longer on speaking terms, but they never did. My senior year was so lonely, spent going directly to and from high school, taking the “scenic” route so I wouldn’t pass Harding’s Garage on the way. I didn’t have a social life, because no one knew what to make of me. I kept my head down, just waiting for the day I could escape to Boston.

  Once again, I’ve fallen victim to those old memories I tried to sweep under the rug, only the time spent with Dax is dragging it all back into the light once more.

  Coming back to the present, I’m surprised when my phone at my bedside dings with a text message.

  I suck in a breath, hoping it’s Dax apologizing. Fat chance. The funny thing is, as angry as I am with him, all he’d have to do is say a few sweet words, and I’d be his.

  Why am I such a sucker? Dax doesn’t apologize.

  I freeze when I see the name EVAN FOWLER on the top of the text window. Only he would be up with his nose to the grindstone at five on a Sunday morning.

  I open the window and read:

  WHERE THE HELL IS THE MASON DANIEL FILE??????

  My mind is blank. Mason Daniel, Mason Daniel, Mason Daniel. I’ve been so focused on Dax Harding that Mason Daniel won’t compute. I force away the mental image of Dax, standing in front of me with his tattooed chest bare and his muscles flexing, and concentrate.

  Mason Daniel. The Boston pharmaceutical company, one of my firm’s biggest clients. There’s a big case coming up this week, and Rutger Jones, a senior partner and another supreme douchebag, needed me to assemble the brief. I’d done so, photocopying papers into oblivion, even staying late my last night to make sure it was done.

  I type in: I left it on Mr. Jones’ desk on Friday.

  A pause. I see the dancing ellipsis, letting me know he’s typing something back. I brace myself for it.

  HE DOESN’T HAVE IT. YOU NEED TO GET IT TO HIM.

  NOW.

  Nice. All caps, so I can feel him yelling at me, even from a few hundred miles away. I wrack my brain, even though shirtless Dax keeps waltzing his way in there, and eventually my mind is playing all sorts of tricks on me because now I can’t even remember going into Rutger Jones’ office at all.

  I’d stayed at the office until midnight that night, long after everyone was gone, and I’d been so exhausted I almost fell asleep drooling
on my desk. Maybe I’d done all that work and forgotten to put the brief on his desk?

  Fear grips me. A lump the size of Texas plants itself in my throat.

  I’ll come back and find it, I text back.

  Panic. As soon as I finish the text, I open up an internet window on my phone and start checking bus schedules. The only bus depot anywhere near Friesville is in Hampton, the next town over. And shit. It’s Sunday morning, so the bus line is operating at a severely reduced schedule. In fact, there’s only one bus going up there today, in . . . less than an hour.

  Still trying to formulate a plan, I shower faster than I’ve ever showered before, throw on one of the other professional dresses I brought with me, my still-quite-squishy wet pumps, and figure I’ll let my hair air dry. Throwing my purse over my shoulder, I race down the hall, staring at the bus schedule, hoping I can find a way to make that all-important Boston bus.

  When I’m in the living room, I’m startled by a snore.

  I look up, and nearly jump to the ceiling until I realize it’s just my dad. He’s lying on a sheet, on our old flowered sofa, still wearing his running clothes from last night. His face is unshaven and without his glasses, he looks so much younger and more vulnerable.

  Is this where he sleeps now?

  Suddenly my phone starts to ring. I quickly silence it and my heart jumps into my throat as I realize it’s the same number that called me last night.

  Dax.

  Why is he calling me? I wonder. I thought, based on the way things ended last night, he’d never call me again. Then I remember he has my car hostage, and this probably has something to do with that.

  I duck into the kitchen pantry and close the door. “Hello?”

  “Hey,” he says gruffly. “Did I wake you?”

  “No,” I say, trying to get a hold of my pulse. Everything happening in Boston suddenly falls away, and I realize my pulse is skittering around in my body at the memory of Dax kissing me, touching me, running his hot tongue down my abdomen . . .

  My phone dings again with a message, and all I can think is that it’s got to be Fowler. I check it on the screen and sigh. Good. Let me know when he has it.

  No all-caps. Small victory. As much as I want to see where things will go with Dax, I have to get to Boston, stat. “I’m a little busy. Did you need something?” I ask him casually.

  “That’s what I called to ask you,” he says. “Did you need your loaner for today?”

  I pause, unable to respond. I thought he never wanted to see me again, now that he knew I still had a giant V branded on my forehead. I should’ve realized. This is classic Dax, never doing the expected thing.

  And it’s freaking annoying as hell.

  “Can you just stop already?” I mutter. “Based on the way you treated me last night, I thought you never wanted to talk to me again.”

  I want apologies. I want him to admit he was an asshole. But that’s not Dax. He’s silent for a minute. “So, is that a no?”

  Ugh. I gnaw on my lip for a moment, considering my options. I swear, I hate him. Passionately. Too passionately. It was always that way—him getting me incensed and then acting like he had no idea why. I’ve always been shy, but not around him. He pushes my buttons like no one else can.

  Before I can reel them in, the words escape my mouth: “Can you get me to Hampton by nine?”

  Oh, hell, what did I say that for? My parents will kill me. They can just as easily drive me to the bus station. I don’t need Dax.

  “Hampton. Sure. Where at?”

  “The bus station. I need to catch a bus to Boston,” I explain, stuffing my bag with granola bars for the trip.

  “I said I’d take you,” he says in that sex-oozing voice of his. “All the way.”

  All the way. We might’ve gone all the way last night, if I hadn’t told him to stop. Butterflies dance in my abdomen, and I’m back to thinking of his mouth on my skin. Oh, god. As much as I hate him, as infuriating as he can be, I realize in an instant that nothing in my life up to now even comes close to the bliss I’d felt at that moment, when his tongue was tracing lazy circles around my breast.

  I want that feeling again. Desperately. Rabidly.

  But I’m the virgin. He’s not going to touch the virgin. I might as well have said I had leprosy. “Why?” I ask, suspiciously. “What’s in it for you?”

  “What do you mean, what’s in it for me? You don’t think I can do something nice for someone without wanting anything in return?”

  “No,” I answer. “Actually, after last night, I thought you hated me.”

  He chuckles. “Maybe that’s what I wanted you to think.”

  I groan. He has to know what he’s doing to me. He’s done it to hundreds of other girls. He’s probably having fun with this. Teasing the only girl who has been in his presence longer than five minutes and managed to keep her virginity. I’m like his freaky little test-tube experiment.

  And if he’s using me for fun, the least I can do is use him for a ride to Boston. I’m considering it when he says, “You just caught me off guard. But it’s all good.”

  “It is?” That’s not what the look on his face said last night. “You know Boston’s five hours away, right?”

  “Yep. It’s all good.”

  “That’s all you have to say? Forget it. I’m not letting you drive me that far.”

  “Fuck that. I’m taking you. It’s final.”

  I grit my teeth. “And do we have to listen to country the whole way?”

  I expect him to say it’s all good again, but instead, he says, “Not if you play your cards right.”

  Whatever thought that was in my head just flies right out. He’s so blatantly toying with his virgin test-tube girl, it’s not even funny. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I snap, checking the time. Shit, if I don’t get on the road soon I’ll be toast. “Forget it. Whatever. Pick me up in ten minutes?”

  “As you wish.”

  Great, now he’s going and quoting my favorite movie.

  I fluff my hair in the mirror in the foyer and apply more lip-gloss. My father is still snoring on the couch—thank god—so I scrawl a vague note to my parents telling them I’ve gone to the city to put out a fire at the office. When Dax’s car pulls up in front of my house, ten minutes later as promised, I quietly escape outside, holding my pumps in my hands so I don’t make too much noise click-click-clicking down the driveway to his Mustang. I slide into the seat and look over at him.

  Oh my goodness. Even in the morning, he’s beautiful. He’s wearing his trademark jeans and a black t-shirt, stretched tight over his chest, and heavy work boots, same as always…but why does even his sameness always take my breath away?

  “Nice dress,” he drawls, eyes lingering not on my dress but lower, on my bare thighs.

  “Thanks,” I say, throwing my shoes and purse on the floor and digging my toes into the plush floor mat. The dress is supposed to be professional, but since I’m long-legged it stops mid-thigh. Nestled in his bucket seat, I pull at the bottom hem but it still leaves most of my legs exposed.

  As he pulls away from my house, he downshifts, and his hand drops possessively on my thigh.

  He’s done that before, but this time, I let out a gasp. His fingers trail their way up the skirt of my dress, dangerously close. If he keeps this up, I won’t even be a virgin by the time we cross state lines. I point to his hand. “So,” I say breathlessly, “does this mean you’re okay with what I told you last night?”

  He doesn’t miss a beat. “Why not? It’s a temporary condition,” he says with a grin.

  “Oh, I know,” I say. “Virgins don’t stay that way for long when Dax Harding is in the room.”

  He gives me shrug. “You and I were together five months, Katydid. Did I ever pressure you?”

  Dax and I were together the winter into Spring. Most of that, we spent talking and flirting. He kissed me in my bedroom, and then left. When I decided that was too dangerous, I’d sneak out the f
ront door, and meet him in the yard, under the tree, in the place farthest from my parents’ bedroom. I couldn’t get enough of him; my body kept screaming more, more. When it got warmer and the days stretched longer, we went out to the field behind the garage and spent long late afternoons after school lying on a blanket, making out. I remember my fingers trailing their way under his t-shirt, reaching for the buckle of his jeans, wanting more, wanting so much more, even then.

  I swallow. “No,” I murmur.

  As quiet and shy as I usually am, I was the reason Dax and I got together the first time.

  Once the shocks on my car got fixed, I didn’t have to see him again, except as a face in the hallway, whenever he decided to grace the school with his presence.

  But from that very first ride with him to school, I was hooked. I’ve never taken drugs, but because of Dax, I understand the addict. Before him, I’d never so much as had a conversation with a guy, much less a smoking hot, dangerous one like Dax. As threatening as he was to all my friends, he was magnetic to me. I was silent during that first ride to school with him, because my heart was firmly planted in my throat. Still, I kept taking glances at his hand on the stick shift, at the dark hairs on his arm, leading their way up to his muscular forearm, thinking, I could get used to this. God, let me have a chance to get used to this.

  As we approached the high school, he asked me what class I had first, and I responded Honors English. And then he said, with a challenge in his eyes, “Do you ever get tired of just reading about things?”

  That was it. All day long, I replayed those words over and over again in my mind. Truth was, I was tired. Tired of being the good girl and doing everything everyone told me. Everyone knew Katie Donahue was going to fall in line and do as she was told.

  And I wanted different.