Wet Work: A Dark Bad Boy Romance Page 14

  As I rose, she then placed her hands on the back of the sofa and presented her lovely ass to me, smiling over her shoulders as she gave it an inviting jiggle. I smiled as I slid into her again, my head flinging back in pleasure. I was rough, passionate and wild—fucking her without restriction or hesitation. She fucked me back like there was nothing to lose, and I had a feeling that concept was so close to the truth it was scary.

  As she climaxed a third time I lost it, coming with a growl as she moaned softly, her legs sagging as her release sapped her strength. When we finished, Leah closed her eyes, and it was as if for once the woman was a hell of a lot more satisfied than the man.

  We tumbled back to the couch, panting. Our skin was slick with sweat, and I was spent. I couldn’t remember when sex had ever taken that much out of me.

  “Thank you,” she said in a hoarse voice.

  “Don’t thank me.” It was hard for me to see sex as a favor when it felt like I was the one that was taking advantage of her. She had instigated it, but it felt like this was just another step where I was using her.

  We got dressed. Though I tried, Leah didn’t want to cuddle or hug or kiss or anything that showed affection. As I finished dressing, she opened the door for me and smiled. She had no regret, but it felt a little distant as well, like this wasn’t personal to her. I tried not to take it personally that I was being kicked in the ass. After all, I’d done similar plenty of times, but it was different when it was my ass that was being kicked out.

  As I rode away, I tried to make sense of what I was feeling. Usually, I got irritated with a woman when she was all clingy after we fucked because to me it was meaningless. Now that I’d finally found a woman who was willing to have meaningless sex with me, I felt like I wanted more.

  Leah wasn’t just some woman, though. She was more than her value as a piece of information. Leah was a great woman without any of that shit. I was falling for her. I had to admit that to myself. I knew we couldn’t be anything so I would keep myself guarded, but the one thing I knew was that I wasn’t going to abandon her now if she needed me, no matter in which way she needed to use me.

  I would let her use me because, for the first time, she was someone I didn’t want to use.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  For three days after I saw Leah, I was in a terrible mood. The other club members stayed away from me as if I would bite if they came too close. The concept wasn’t all that foreign, and even Butch was careful around me. I had to check in with him so he couldn’t exactly ignore me, but he did his best in every other aspect.

  It was good to know that they still respected me or feared me in some way or another. I’d been starting to doubt that. I just didn’t know what it was that was getting to me. This whole thing with Leah, as much as it was my fault in a way, wasn’t enough to warrant a mood like this.

  I walked into the Rat and Parrot and sat down at the bar. The idea was to get myself as drunk as I possibly could, as fast as I possibly could, and then find my way home, alone or with company… although, the idea of finding some woman to fuck tasted foul in my mouth. I didn’t want just any woman; I wanted Leah. And not the Leah that I knew now, but the Leah I met before when she was still coping with her life.

  Conrad came over to me and looked like he was irritated that I was there—a point for me as he couldn’t refuse to serve me.

  “I want brandy,” I said. “It would do you good to keep a bottle on hand.”

  Conrad raised an eyebrow at me. It didn’t bother me. I was immune to judgment, especially from him.

  “I take it your lady friend is not joining you if you’re planning on getting shitfaced.” I glared at him. He shrugged. “Maybe that’s not such a bad thing, right? She really is too good for you.”

  I didn’t even have to be drunk to be pissed off at him. I wanted to reach over the bar and grab him by the shirt. I wanted to threaten him with his life.

  “Just bring me the fucking drink,” I sneered instead. Who said I couldn’t be human?

  Conrad shrugged and walked away to do as I asked. He had to keep his mouth shut if he wanted me to keep behaving. If he let me get tanked and kept his opinions to himself, we’d get along just fine.

  When he returned with my glass, I sucked down the contents in one go, banged the glass hard on the bar, and sneered as the brandy burned down my throat. I pushed the empty glass toward Conrad who raised his eyebrows again in a look that I guess meant something along the lines of you-weren’t-kidding. He poured another splash of brandy into the glass and slowly I felt my veins catch alight from the alcohol that was already in my system. This was exactly what I was looking for. I needed more of this. I needed to feel more of it.

  I drank, and Conrad poured, and we fell into a wordless rhythm that worked for me. After what must have been half a bottle I finally felt like I was floating and that horrible, nagging feeling that I was stuck in the middle of was starting to disappear. It had taken a lot.

  “You feeling better?” Conrad asked a while later. I looked at him. The edges of him were starting to blur, and it looked like he was swaying from side to side.

  “I don’t know.”

  He looked at me for a long time.

  “What are you looking at?” My voice sounded as irritated and cold as I felt. At least, I didn’t sound drunk yet. I was on edge, and I wanted a fight. Conrad was asking for one. He would make a great recipient.

  “I’m trying to see what it is about you that she likes.”

  I rolled my eyes, and the world began to shift to the right. “Are you back on that? You’ve seen her once.” My tongue felt numb and swollen, liked I’d chewed a bee.

  Conrad nodded, or at least I think he nodded. Either that or his head was loose. “I’m sure you’ll agree, with a girl like her, once is more than enough.”

  He had a point there, but I wasn’t going to let him think about her. She was mine.

  “So what’s your problem?”

  Conrad leaned on the counter with both his arms and looked at me. I knew he was going to say something that was going to push my buttons. He was wearing that face, and I knew from history what that face meant.

  “I was just trying to see what she sees in you.”

  “Do you think after you saw her once that you know what kind of person she needs in her life?” I was getting closer and closer to losing control. Conrad should have known that about me. Maybe he did. Maybe he was itching for a fight, too.

  “I’m just saying that it might not be a bad idea for her to keep her options open. You don’t know that better is out there when you haven’t tasted it, right?”

  “What the hell are you playing at?” I asked.

  Conrad grinned at me, and I remembered what it used to be like when we were friends—when we used to look for fights like this together. I had gone down a different road, but that didn’t mean that at our core Conrad and I weren’t still very much the same.

  He didn’t answer my question. Instead, he turned his back on me. Bad idea.

  I hurled myself across the bar and onto Conrad’s back, tackling him to the floor stained with alcohol. I pressed his face into the tiles.

  “You stay away from her. Do you hear me?” I snarled as I knelt on his neck. “She’s not in a place where she can deal with someone like you, and I’m not going to let any-fucking-thing happen to her! No matter what it takes! I’ll die for her! I’ll give up the fucking club for her!”

  Conrad squirmed until I said the last sentence. He quieted, and I finally let go of him, backing up. I nearly lost my balance when I got to my feet and grabbed onto the bar to stop the world from spinning. I looked around. A few students were looking at me in shock. Conrad stood up next to me, wiping his face with a cloth.

  “Jesus, Pax. I didn’t know you were this serious about her.”

  I shook my head. “I’m not.”

  Conrad snorted. “Yeah, right. You’re always fucking any girl you can find, and now you’re suddenly attacking me because
you’re possessive? Since when do you give a shit?”

  I tried to figure out what he was saying, but the booze made it hard to think. The truth was, his words sounded an awful lot like he was right. I was reacting to him because I wanted Leah all to myself, and not just for the sake of fucking her. I’d said it myself; I’d keep her safe. I’d give up the club for her.

  Maybe that was what was eating at me. Nothing in my life had ever been important enough for me to consider sacrificing the club. When I had to choose, I would always choose the Venom Chasers because they were my family. But Leah was something else.

  “I just want to make sure she’s alright.”

  I climbed back over the bar because walking around was too easy and dignified, and nearly fell off the other side, but I made it safely and sat back down on my stool. Conrad poured me another drink without me asking, and I nodded in thanks. The air of tension between us had dissipated now that I’d gotten it out of my system.

  “I was just messing with you,” Conrad said, “but you were about ready to kill me for her.”

  I didn’t respond. I wasn’t sure what to say. I was starting to realize what my problem was. I was disappointed in myself. On the one hand, I was willing to give up the only thing that I’d cared about— the Venom Chasers. On the other hand, I was curious to know how that could have happened. I’d been told so many times by women who wanted more than just a good lay that I was a selfish bastard, that I didn’t have a heart.

  I had started to believe them. If I didn’t have a heart, I could do whatever I wanted and not get hurt. I’d gone into this with Leah with the same attitude, but I was starting to see that I’d been wrong. I had a heart, and she’d found it, and now I was in trouble.

  She was starting to fuck with my plans. I had dreams about being the club leader one day. Intel was my job, and I was good at it. Now, I was mooning over some girl, and people like Conrad were starting to see it.

  What the hell was I going to do now?

  Chapter Twenty-three

  It was getting worse—the insomnia, the nightmares—and my depression seemed to drag me down further than I’ve ever been before. Abby had given up on me. It hurt to think that my best friend had walked away to leave me to fend for myself, but a big part of me just didn’t care. She’d tried, but she was no different than anyone else. She didn’t understand. Nobody did. She had a life she was building, a life that was still perfectly intact, and she’d cut me free before I dragged her down with me.

  I liked it when people left me alone. I was better at being alone. I didn’t dress up so I couldn’t go out into public, and I couldn’t go out into public because I didn’t dress up. I knew I sounded ridiculous, but it was how I felt, and no one could change that. No one could tell me I was wrong for feeling what I felt because I had a right to my own emotions.

  The doorbell rang for the first time in four days. Everyone had left me alone, and I’d liked it for the most part. Now, I was nervous. What if it was my boss coming to fetch me, to drag me back to the lab? What if it was Abby asking me if I wanted to go out? What if it was Pax? I looked like shit; I didn’t want to be like this in front of him, or anyone.

  The doorbell kept ringing until I had to answer it, so I walked downstairs and opened the door. It was Pax, and I felt immediately self-conscious. My shirt wasn’t clean, and I was wearing my fat pants—the jeans I put on when I feel frumpy. Eating had become something of a hobby.

  “How are you?” Pax asked, and the way he looked at me made me feel like he genuinely wanted to know, like he was concerned.

  I shrugged. “I’m okay.” He didn’t look like he believed me. “Can I help you?” I was being rude, but I didn’t want to talk to him. I didn’t want to sleep with him. The last time had helped me but not enough, and this time I was disgusting.

  “I want to talk to you,” he said.

  I frowned. “About what?”

  Pax shrugged. “About me. There’re some things about me you don’t know, and I feel like it’s wrong to keep it from you anymore. I want to talk to you and tell you what I’m about.”

  I hesitated. I didn’t want to invite him in. I didn’t want him to tell me whatever it was that he was going to tell me. I wasn’t sure what I wanted, but it wasn’t this.

  “It’s not going to lead into anything. I just need to come clean with you.”

  I waited for him to tell me that I must know what that feels like, for him to appeal to my sympathetic side. I decided I wouldn’t be sympathetic. But he didn’t. He simply stood there, forcing me to either invite him in or shut the door in his face.

  He looked at me with those drowning deep eyes of his, and I felt like I didn’t have a choice. I couldn’t turn him away when he was being so sincere. I nodded without saying anything and stepped to the side.

  Pax walked into my house like he belonged there, and it was nice in a way I hadn’t expected. At the same time, it made me uncomfortable. He was getting very close. He sat down on the couch and looked at me expectantly.

  “Coffee?” I asked, and then remembered I was out as I hadn’t been to the store. “Wait, there’s no coffee. Tea?”

  He shook his head. “I just want to talk. I won’t stay long.”

  I took a deep breath and sat down. I had a feeling this wasn’t going to be a normal conversation, and it made me a little nervous. Then again, what wasn’t I nervous about these days?

  Pax took a deep breath, too. Was this going to be harder for him than for me? What could it possibly be when he seemed like the kind of person who was always on top of the world? Pax was invincible in my eyes. He was a badass biker clad in leather and immune to the weight of the world. That was how he’d come across since day one. He was the exact opposite of me.

  “I wanted to talk to you about me,” he finally said, and I was pulled out of my own thoughts. “I’ve found out a lot about you since we met but I haven’t told you anything about me. I feel like you should know who I am.”

  I frowned. “This sounds so serious.”

  Pax shrugged and then nodded. “I guess it is, in a way. Nothing too serious, of course,” he added as if I was already getting the wrong idea. I tucked my feet underneath me on the couch and leaned back. “You see what I look like,” he started. Of course, I’d noticed him. He was drop dead gorgeous.

  “I’m not just a biker, I’m part of a biking club called the Venom Chasers.”

  Oh… that’s what he meant by ‘what he looked like.’ “The Venom Chasers?” I wanted him to keep talking. It was nice hearing who he was. It was distracting, and that is what made me feel better. Distractions.

  “Yeah. We’re a motorcycle club, and we’re not…” He took another deep breath. “We’re not always on the right side of the law.”

  “Okay.” I didn’t understand what he was getting at.

  “I’m trying to tell you that sometimes we do bad things.”

  I looked at him without saying something for a while. Bad things… “Do you mean your gang does bad things, or you do them too? You personally?”

  He shrugged. “Same thing.”

  I had to admit it came as a shock. I’d expected him to be a guardian angel in disguise. That was ridiculous of me. Somewhere deep down I must have known that someone that looked like him wasn’t the perfect guy, even when he treated me in the right way.

  “Why’re you telling me this?”

  He picked at his fingernails, his face expressionless and impossible to read.

  “I just wanted you to know who I was. I wanted you to know that I’m not the white knight in shining armor.”

  Was this because I’d asked him to sleep with me to forget? He’d been the one who said he’d wanted to help. I nodded, looking down at my own hands, not sure how to respond. We sat in silence for a while.

  “What do they do?” I asked finally. “Your Venom Chasers?”

  He winced like that was the one question he didn’t want me to ask, but he opened his mouth to give me my answer, anyway.
That was admirable.

  “Everything from moving smack and blow to dealing justice.”

  He looked like he hoped he was too cryptic for me to understand that they dealt in drugs and violence on a regular basis. Maybe under normal circumstances that wouldn’t have bothered me so much, but considering that my downward spiral had been because of a body that could only have been the result of violence, his information made me sit up and notice.

  “Why’re you telling me this?” I asked again. Pax looked at me, and I couldn’t read the expression on his face. For a moment, I thought he wasn’t going to answer me at all, but then he spoke.

  “Because you deserve to know who I am in the same ways I’ve gotten to know who you are. And, well, I’ve started to care for you.”