Still a Bad Boy: A New Adult Romantic Suspense Read online

  Some loudmouth asshole and his whore girlfriend were standing over Kendall, with a waiter nearby. They were all talking at once, pointing fingers. The guy was talking about respect and was getting more and more in Kendall’s face even as Coralie arrived and tried to pull him back.

  “I didn’t pay five hundred dollars a seat to reserve a table just so I would have to look at the damn help eating in the same room. I didn’t know Luc Monette’s was giving out coupons now.”

  Kendall looked terrified, like she was reliving some schoolyard bullying memory. Worst of all, there was this… acceptance on her face, in the near-sobbing quiver of her lip. It was almost as if life dished up this kind of shame to her all the time and nothing ever changed. Nobody ever helped.

  A sexy girl like her should have had the world eating out of the palm of her hand. That light I saw in her eyes when she noticed me checking her out shouldn’t be extinguishable by the likes of these people.

  I was surprised at how much that affected me. I wasn’t surprised at how murderously fucking pissed off I was.

  “Who. The. FUCK. Do you think you’re talking to?”

  What little conversation in the room that had survived this long promptly ceased as the whore yelped in surprise and the two of them both startled. The guy whirled around in surprise.

  After sizing me up for a second, he came to the wrong conclusion, and pointed at Kendall. “This b-”

  “You better rethink what you’re about to say, motherfucker. What happened, Kendall?” I asked without taking my eyes of this dude, all puffed up like he was going to take a swing. I fucking hoped he did.

  “She spilled my wine on me,” Kendall said, quietly. Almost apologetically.

  “So what are you doing getting in her face?” I asked. “Actually, don’t answer that, because I don’t give a fuck. Get down on your hands and knees, lick her shoes, and beg for forgiveness. Pray to the god of worthless cocksuckers she grants it.”

  The asshole looked ready to tell me to fuck off, and I stepped right in close to him until our noses were almost touching. “Five hundred dollars is a big price tag to come here and end up eating your own teeth, bitch.”

  I could feel this energy heating up inside of me, flooding my muscles with adrenaline like it did before every fight. On a hair trigger, I waited for the release. I was ready to explode at any sudden movement.

  By the time I was done, his own mother would run for the hills at the sight of him. I was pissed beyond words at the news Lorenzo had just dropped on me, and this nobody was going to bear the brunt of it.

  “Kick his ass, Mike,” said his piece of fluff.

  But then, sometimes people surprise you. His eyebrows twitched a bit as he lost nerve and backed down, slowly lowering himself to his hands and knees in front of Kendall.

  No self-respecting man ever literally licked somebody’s shoes, but that’s what Mike did. For a second my rage threatened to boil over, as if he had robbed me of a fight specifically to piss me off. I almost kicked him in the head right there, he was at the right height for it now.

  “Please forgive me,” he mumbled to my date.

  Kendall’s mouth was opening and closing like a goldfish as she tried to find the words. Honestly, how could the hottest woman in the room stand to have these pretentious cunts look down on her?

  Tell him to stand up and fight like a man, I thought.

  “It’s OK, it’s OK! Please stop!” she managed to blurt out.

  Mike got up and murmured something at me that was probably an apology as the blonde arm candy belittled him.

  “You should fuck off, if you know what’s good for you,” I said. “Take that noisy bitch with you.”

  “C’mon, Liv,” said Mike, reaching for Liv’s arm and heading towards the front.

  She stumbled after him, spouting words of disbelief, and I turned to watch them go. Not a single pair of eyes in the entire restaurant was on their own food, they were all on us, and it was deathly silent.

  “Anybody else got a fuckin’ problem?” I asked.

  Instantly, not a single pair of eyes was on us, they were all trained determinedly on their own plates.

  I was practically shaking with pent-up energy when I sat down again and waved Coralie away. Across the table, Kendall was wearing her heart on her sleeve.

  There was fear there, a certain shock at the promises my body language and tone had just made to our dear friend Mike, but overwhelmingly she was looking at me with awe. She was looking at me like I was some kind of hero.

  I was nothing of the sort, but I could see myself reflected in her eyes. In them I was practically wearing shining armor and riding a white horse while lightning shot out of my sword.

  “Th-thank you,” she said, so quietly that I could barely even hear her in the near-silence of the stunned restaurant.

  Her hair, naturally lush and dark, shone and flowed over her shoulders, some of it grouping together in curls and ringlets. She may not have much money, but she had movie-star hair, and my eyes followed it down until I saw she had undone the top button of her shirt.

  There was no doubt in my mind it had been done for my benefit. Shy as she was, it seemed she’d made a decision while I was outside, decided to give me exactly what I wanted.

  She couldn’t know how much I wanted, though. At this point, denied a fight, I needed to release this energy and I bet Kendall had the most perfect little pussy to take it all.

  I’d been thinking about fucking her from the moment I laid eyes on her, hadn’t I? It was time to stop teasing myself with this prize. It was time to fuck this little teen within an inch of her life.

  Chapter 7

  Kendall

  He stood up for me. For the first time in my life, somebody thought I was worth standing up for. I was still shaking from the shock. Things had moved so quickly from being ridiculed, to the entire situation being reversed, my head was spinning.

  When that man and woman were standing over me, mocking me, I was scared. However, that was nothing compared to the way Jace terrified them.

  When most people thought of Jace Barlow, they thought of the multi-millionaire sitting in his office running a diverse portfolio of companies. As the head of such an empire, they probably thought he was decisive at the very least.

  Well, that was the understatement of the century. They didn’t know the half of it. I’d just been given a glimpse under the hood, at the unrelenting power that drove Jace to the heights he had achieved.

  It was intoxicating. Imagine going through life like that, knowing that you’re coming through like a freight train and people better get on board or get out of the way if they don’t want to get pulverized.

  When he sat down, he looked like he was still on edge from the encounter himself. So full of energy, he was practically buzzing with it.

  “Th-thank you,” I squeaked.

  His eyes! His eyes! They were on me again, drinking up all the bare skin they could see with no apologies for it.

  I remembered the button I’d undone and felt an electric pulse of excitement make my skin tingle as his gaze lingered there. When he brought his eyes back up to mine, that delicious sensation seemed to gather between my legs and I could feel my heart rate climbing.

  “Fuck this, c’mon,” he said, standing again.

  “What is…” I began as he took my hand and I was pulled to my feet.

  Jace ushered me in front of him towards the back of the restaurant, where the woman from the front desk was talking to the waiter who had been leading that couple, Mike and Liv, to their table. Not too far behind them were the doors that presumably led to the kitchen.

  “Sorry, sir, ma’am, I was just on my way over to see if there was anything I could-” began the waiter.

  “Not now,” said Jace, still urging me forward in the direction of the doors.

  “Sir, you can’t-”

  “It’s OK, Donovan. Mr. Barlow has an arrangement with the owner.”

  Poor Donovan didn’t
seem to be having much of a day for getting full sentences out. Before I knew it we were through the doors and at the edge of a busy kitchen with celebrity chef, Luc Monette himself, barking orders through the steam and smoke.

  A couple people glanced up from what they were doing as we rushed through, Jace steering me to the right, but nobody said a word. Just around the corner from the kitchen was another door, and Jace reached out ahead of me to turn the handle, pulling it open and pushing me through with his hand on the small of my back.

  I wasn’t sure what I had been expecting, an office or a rear exit perhaps, but this was a dimly lit storage room. Shelves upon shelves of ingredients lined the walls on all sides, but other than that there was nothing in there except Jace and me.

  Turning to face him with a confused expression, I saw him close the door and then advance on me with such hunger on his face that my question faltered before it could escape me.

  Is he going to ki-

  Jace Barlow cradled my head with both hands, his fingers burying themselves in my hair as he tilted my head up and pressed his lips against mine. I opened my mouth to gasp in surprise but, as he was already mid-kiss, it only allowed him to kiss me more deeply.

  Even though he was leaning down, I was still up on the balls of my feet to meet his kiss. That thrill of excitement I’d been feeling ever since I felt his eyes on me grew to a powerful flutter that made me breathe in short shallow bursts as a million butterflies rioted inside my belly.

  Jace kept up his momentum and I was forced awkwardly backwards, our lips never losing contact with each other. My hands were on his stomach, feeling those washboard abs through his shirt as he steered me wherever he wanted to go, while giving me a kiss more urgent and primal than I had ever dreamed a kiss could be.

  One of his hands pushed harder than the other, and we went around a corner in a gap between two shelves until I felt my back hit the wall. Jace didn’t stop kissing me, if anything he kissed me harder now that I had nowhere to escape, forcing my mouth wide open and curling one hand around the back of my head, as he let the other hand trail down my arm, coming to rest at my hip.

  His knee pushed between my legs and his whole body was pressed up against me, pinning me against the wall, before he let our lips part. One time, I ran a half-marathon, I thought I was more breathless now, in this moment.

  My chest heaved against him and I stared up into his eyes, almost mesmerized by their intensity, their glowing desire. Every breath I took, his scent filled my world. Expensive cologne, money, and a faint undertone of masculine musk blended with the smell of some cinnamon on the shelf next to us. It was a heady mixture.

  I felt a pang of fear when his hand on my hip curled around to cup my rear end though my skirt. Flirt with him, my boss said, but this was quickly going beyond that, if it hadn’t already.

  “You are sexy as fuck, Kendall,” he said, giving my ass a hard squeeze.

  His intensity was almost enough to wash away a lifetime of self-consciousness, a lifetime of sexual invisibility, but how was I supposed to respond to that?

  All my life, I’d dreamed of being wooed with flowers, maybe a nice poem and a compliment about my eyes. This was nothing like that, this was raw lust, it was hot like standing in front of a furnace and I was completely out of my element.

  “Uh… thanks?”

  My uncertainty was blatant in my voice, and I hated the inexperience that put it there. My sisters would know what to do in this situation, and my friends would too.

  Jace bent down to kiss me again, and I had no choice but to let him take the lead. My jaw worked in time with his, my head tilted and moved in rhythm with him. I felt the tip of his tongue touch mine and moaned softly in the midst of the kiss, surprised at the gentle touch in the middle of that wanton passion.

  It was like a drug, feeling all that attention focused on me from a man like Jace. I was supposed to be here getting the kind of interview that would make or break my career, but the mysterious multi-millionaire seemed to have a one-track mind, and he was intent on taking me along for the ride. Where was that professionalism I’d been so worried about earlier?

  His hand left my ass, sliding around to my side again and heading up towards the small swell of my breast. This was going so fast, an edge of panic made my heart beat even faster, and I put my hand on his wrist, holding his arm down before he could make it all the way.

  He didn’t even pause, he grabbed my wrist and pushed it down, down, down, and I realized only a fraction of a second before it happened what he was doing. Before I could react, he held my hand against a huge bulge at the front of his pants.

  I broke the kiss and looked down with a quiet yelp of surprise. I couldn’t see anything, our bodies were still pressed too close, but I was jolted by another spark of that electric excitement between my legs, stronger than any of the others.

  I’d never seen what was under my hand in real life, let alone felt one. I supposed I still hadn’t seen one, but the very shape of it, the hardness, spoke to my body without words, and my body spoke back.

  This is IT! This is what you’ve been missing your whole life!

  I could feel my hand shaking, trapped between Jace’s palm and his manhood as he held me there, moving my arm up and down almost imperceptibly to stroke his hard shaft through his pants, using me for his own needs. An ancient, animalistic, part of my brain was screaming with desire, shouting down my inhibitions and better judgements.

  Let him do what he wants, it said.

  The tall, dark, and tattooed man let go of my wrist. As I looked back up at him I saw the corner of his mouth raise in a self-assured smile as I left my hand on that hard bulge of his, and even kept on stroking it a little.

  “Good girl,” he whispered.

  He was so close to me, every breath he took puffed out warmly on my face, as mine did to him, and he resumed that upward exploration across my stomach, heading towards my breasts.

  As he got closer and closer, my brows knitted in apprehension. Would he be disappointed if, when he touched them, he found that, yes, they really were as small as they looked?

  I felt his fingertips tracing the underside of my left breast, and then his palm was over the entire thing, giving it a squeeze almost as hard as when he had grabbed my ass. I watched his face for signs of being let down, but he didn’t seem to be.

  When he let out a deep sigh of appreciation, I could have almost cried with relief. I pushed my chest against his hand as he continued to squeeze me, and my nipples were so hard they almost hurt every time he did it.

  What was this feeling? Was this what it was like to feel… sexy? Wanted? Desired? I could have swam in this euphoria forever.

  His other hand moved from behind my head and without warning, he ripped my shirt apart, sending buttons flying in every direction.

  “Hey…” I protested, weakly.

  With a snap of his fingers behind my back, like a magician’s trick, I felt my strapless bra go loose and the cool air on my skin where it had hugged so tightly. He pulled away for a second, letting it drop to the floor, exposing my breasts to him for the first time. To anyone for the first time.

  “Oh fuck yeah…” he breathed, dispelling my next wave of insecurity before it could even crest.

  Leaning down even lower, he took one of my pink tips into his mouth and sucked it in, flicking his tongue across it and making me squeal quietly. I ran the fingers of my spare hand through the hair on the back of his head, cradling him against me and pushing myself against him as hard as I could.

  Every flick of his tongue, of which there were countless, sent a spark of pleasure into my body and elicited a similar sensation from between my legs, both seeming to feed a ball of ecstasy that was growing in my belly. When he moved his head back, pulling my nipple a little before it popped out of his mouth, I offered the other, eager to repeat the experience.

  His stubble was rough against the soft skin of my breast, contrasting with the wetness of his tongue in a way I cou
ld never have anticipated. As he sent surge after surge of intoxicating pleasure into me, my other nipple, hard and wet, cooled in the air.

  Over the years, without anybody else to do it for me, I’d… taken things into my own hands before, to say the least. Nothing that I’d done alone in my room in the dark could compare to what I felt growing inside me at this moment.

  Without having even been touched between the legs, Jace was making me more excited than a million lonely fantasies ever had. The only thing holding me back from climaxing was the thought of how embarrassing it might be.

  If I did that, he would know I’d never been with anybody. He would know I wasn’t a sexual conquest to be prized. That was what guys liked, wasn’t it? The girls everybody wanted?

  Almost as if he read my mind, Jace stopped sucking my nipple and stood almost to his full height again, drawing me upwards in another deep kiss as my bare nipples rubbed against the front of his shirt.

  I felt his hands moving between us as he unbuttoned that shirt and shrugged it off while our lips were locked together, and then my hard nipples were pressed against his bare skin. Tentatively, I let my hands roam all over his torso, feeling the power in those rock hard muscles.

  When our lips parted, I let myself look at that body. Up close and personal, I could clearly see those same tattoos I’d spotted during my afternoon of research on the internet and those muscles that looked like he’d been sculpted from stone. I could also see various scars that hadn’t shown up in the long-distance photos. He had more than I could imagine any other businessman having.

  I looked up and felt a flush rising on my cheeks when I saw he was watching me explore him. It was like he knew he had me hook, line and sinker.

  Jace lowered his lips to my neck and sucked hard enough that I imagined there was no escaping a love bite I’d have to explain at work the next day. Work! This could cost me my internship! Oh my gosh, this whole night was dangerous… but he was so damn hot!