Bad Boy's Cinderella: A Sports Romance (5 page)

I
kind of
wanted to kill Reade Lennox—but nicely, like with a string of feathers pulled tight around his throat. Because I’d casually mentioned my dream of working in a restaurant like
Historia
uptown, and now, out of the blue, I had an interview with them for a sous chef position. I hadn’t contacted the restaurant for months, not since I’d dropped a resume in there one desperate Saturday afternoon when I’d been feeling particularly miserable about the whole catering thing.

I’d only mentioned it in passing to Reade, when we rode past it on the way to the party. I’d watched it zoom by, my heart jolting at the sight of it, and I’d stupidly told him, “I’d give anything to cook in that place.”

He’d prodded me little about it, but I hadn’t said much else, and neither had I thought about that throwaway moment since. And now I had a voicemail from the
Historia
head chef, inviting me for an interview.

I had nowhere near enough pride to be angry with Reade, because I wanted this job more than anything, and I wouldn’t have had much chance of even getting a face-to-face meeting without Reade’s help. So instead I wanted to thank him, but in person—except he hadn’t asked me on a second date yet, and I didn’t want to call him first.

What if he decided I wasn’t worth the effort? Because I wasn’t stupid—I knew what dating me meant for him. It had been all too clear in the cold eyes of his father, the sneer of his sister. I was trash in their view, and he was lowering himself right down into the gutter with me.

He didn’t seem to care though. In fact, it was like he wanted to defy his parents’ wishes—whether because he was rebellious at heart, or because he wanted me more than his parents’ approval, I didn’t know. I wished I did. Because it had been a few days now, and still all I could think about was his touch, the intensity of his kiss.

The way he blew up at that poor guy made me worry a little, I couldn’t lie to myself. I’d never been with a guy who would even swat a fly, and my dad had never been the violent type. Could I handle someone like Reade? Was he dangerous? Despite all the unease about his temper, I had to admit though, I felt all tingly and warm about being so fiercely protected. No one had ever stepped up for me like that.

I had one distraction, aside from the upcoming interview—my new roommate. It turned out Jazz, the bartender at the party, had recognized me from a previous catering job. She’d tracked me down on Facebook, friended me, and then seen my woe-is-me post about no one responding to my roommate ad.

It had all happened so quickly that I didn’t even have time to draw a breath, but all of a sudden I went from fearing the next rent payment to cleaning out the spare room for Jazz to move in, and now I had a funky purple-haired alcohol goddess as a roommate, who had already been a thousand times more involved in household business than Mandy would have ever been.

And then, as if my week couldn’t get any better, another dress showed up at the door. “Ooh, someone’s got a secret fan,” Jazz said, bringing the box to the kitchen where I was busy making pastry. “This arrived for you.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You opened it?”

“Little bit,” Jazz said, holding her thumb and forefinger an inch apart. “It’s not my fault! The lid slipped…”

Rolling my eyes, I grabbed a towel to start cleaning the flour and butter off my hands and asked Jazz to open the box and take out the contents.

The dress was navy blue, slightly shimmery, with stretch sleeves made of net material and a revealing cut. Jazz hummed approval. Another pale box was in the package, suspiciously the size of a shoe box. It said Jimmy Choo on top, and inside was a pair of gorgeous four inch stilettos in silver. As if that wasn’t enough, there was also a puffy sleeveless jacket tucked in there too, by Moncler, deepest navy in color. “So hot,” Jazz said, before plucking out the card. “From Reade. Says he’s picking you up tonight at seven-thirty. Says it will be in his convertible, hence the jacket.”

I swallowed, the towel falling to my side, forgotten, as I looked at my mounds of incomplete pastry dishes. “I don’t really have time today…”

“Then you better call and cancel,” Jazz said with a smirk, but I didn’t. Of course I didn’t. I finished my baking in double-quick time and showered, waxed, lotioned, put on my makeup, and slipped into the dress. At seven-thirty on the dot I left my apartment and stepped outside, to face his waiting Aston Martin.

He was torturously handsome, sitting there casually behind the half-million dollar car’s wheel. He looked good enough to eat, even if this particular expensive suit probably wasn’t as fancy as the tux he had on the night of our first date.

As I approached, he got out of his seat and came around to open the door for me.

“So you like the new dress?” he asked me as I settled in.

“It’s beautiful, but you need to stop buying them for me.”

“Why? I like spending my money on sexy things,” he said, eyes twinkling with obviously filthy thoughts, “and giving them to sexy people.”

I couldn’t help but scoff at that, even as my stomach did a pleasant sort of twist at his words. “Buy a lot of dresses for girls, do you?”

As we rode to the restaurant, and I appreciated the warmness of the puffy down jacket, I saw him considering me a long moment, fingers playing along the steering wheel, his eyes roving sideways over my body, trying to concentrate on driving at the same time. Then he drew in a sharp breath and said, “I haven’t bought anything for a woman in a long time, actually,” and I didn’t know if I could believe him or not. Not with his reputation.

“I’m going to take that as a compliment, I think,” I said. “You better concentrate on driving there, if you don’t want to get us into an accident.”

“Good idea,” he allowed, then floored the gas pedal, making me swallow my breath from excitement.

“I’ve always wanted to feel what it’s like to drive a car like this at 100 miles per hour,” I confessed breathlessly.

“Then I’ll have to take you out on the open road some day and let you have fun with it,” he promised.

At the restaurant, I drew him into a conversation about his job, but it was obvious he was carefully avoiding any talk of his team’s current problems, even if he clearly enjoyed talking about football, his passion.

Over the main courses, he turned the tables, asked me about catering, my career, how I ended up doing what I did. I found myself confiding in him, my displeasure, how unsatisfied I felt with my business. “I got an interview at Historia,” I told him, laying my fork down on my empty plate. “I know you had a hand in it.”

“You got that interview on your own merit.” He dabbed a napkin at his mouth, reaching for the wine bottle to top us both up. “I just made the head chef aware of you.”

“Well thank you,” I said, and at his sharp look, his eyebrows raised in surprise, I smirked and added, “What? You were expecting a fight?”

“I just…” He shrugged and finished pouring our glasses. “I wasn’t sure how my interference would come across,” he said carefully, and I turned my smirk into a smile for him.

“I’m not too proud to admit that I need a little help right now,” I said. Reaching for my glass, running my finger around the rim of it, I muttered, “Things haven’t been going great for me.”

His hand came down on mine, and I looked up into his soft eyes. “So let me help,” he said, and I turned my hand over, linking my fingers with his.

“You already are.”

We skipped dessert, choosing instead to polish off the wine and talk, discussing everything and nothing and basking in each other’s company. It was shockingly easy to talk to him, I realized, and I found myself drawn closer to him as time passed, my chair scooting across by inches and our legs touching beneath the table. More than once, his hands snaked under the hem of my dress, drawing nearer and nearer to the line of my underwear, but he always stopped just an inch short. He certainly knew how to seduce a woman into his charms.

I was flushed with wine and pleasure as we left the restaurant, and I felt a wave of heat roll over my whole body as he looped an arm around my waist and drew me near, close enough to speak quietly, a private moment out in the street, in the cold air I could barely feel.

“How about a walk before I take you home?” he asked, and I raised my hands to his chest, arching into him just slightly.

“Yeah, we could…” I said, breathed almost, as the world drifted around me and moonlight lit him up like a dream. “Or we could go back to your place. For that drink?”

It was the wine making me bold, or the heat wrapping around us, and I didn’t care, and neither did I think I would make a different decision under more sensible conditions. I wanted him, for a while now, and I didn’t see any reason why I should wait.

So what if it was a difficult situation with his family, and the whole mess with my dad, and the fact that he lived his life in a spotlight? Who cared if I wasn’t entirely sure what tomorrow would bring? I’d never felt as protected as when I was with him, and I was sure I could rein his anger in, with time. Right now, in this moment, I wanted to strip him bare and taste his skin, learn what made him breathless.

His eyes darkened wickedly, and he fisted his hands in the small of my back to draw me nearer, pulling me right against his hot, hard body. “You know if you come to my place tonight,” he said lowly, “I’m gonna have to take this dress off you.”

“I’m kinda counting on it,” I said without hesitation, and something like a growl rumbled in his throat in the instant before he crashed his lips to mine.

He kissed me hard and deep for a few intense, breathless moments before pulling away and tugging me over to the car. Once inside, he pretended to drive as carefully as he could, speeding up on long stretches as if unable to wait any longer.

Briefly, with my heart stuttering, I couldn’t help but wonder about how many other women Reade had had in this car.

I knew there were many girls here before me, but it still left me a little uneasy, knowing I was sitting in the same place as countless other conquests, awaiting the touch of the same man.

Maybe this was all routine for him.

Maybe I wasn’t even—

“Hey.” He touched my cheek, bringing my gaze to his. “Where’d you go?”

“Nowhere,” I said with a tight smile. “I’m fine.” I tried to lean into him, to kiss away my doubts when we stopped at a light, but he held me at a distance, obviously trying to control his own impulses.

I sighed and slumped a little. “I’m just being silly,” I said, leaning into his touch on my face, his thumb stroking my cheekbone. “I know someone like you has probably had a lot of women in this seat, and I’m fine with it—I just—”

“Kylie.”

I licked my dry lips, breathed in a shuddery breath.

“I’ve never brought a woman back to my place before,” he said, and I blinked at him.

“What?” That was impossible. I’d seen the dozens of articles about his various conquests, knew of his reputation. There was no smoke without fire, and I found myself scoffing at the ridiculousness of it. “I don’t believe you.”

He raised an eyebrow, said, “It’s true,” and dropped his hand from my face to find my fingers and linked his own with them. “My house is my sanctuary,” he added. “I don’t let many people in.”

I looked into his eyes, searching for the lie. Instead, I found nothing but open sincerity. It made my heart throb. “So why me?”

The answer didn’t come, not with words. He looked at me, and as if on queue, another stoplight turned red. He kissed me, and it was the softest, most tender kiss I’d ever felt, with the lingering cling of lips, the gentle glide of tongue. It was enough, and with fluttering butterflies spilling into my chest, I kissed him back, all doubts falling away, leaving me with nothing but desire and something that felt suspiciously like dangerous emotion.

The light turned green after minutes of teenager-style making out and, with my lips kiss-swollen and damp, I was giggling as I stumbled out of his car a few moments later, in front of his home, clinging on to him and marveling at the size of his house. My shoe caught in the doorframe of the low convertible, but I let it slip, thinking I would grab it when I was ready to go home. The other shoe was pinching my toes anyway, so I slipped it off and held it in my hand as we walked up to his door. His house was all on one level but it was a wide, sprawling picture of dark wood and glass, and even in the night, shrouded by darkness, the place had an unmistakable glow to it, almost as if it was fully aware of how much it was worth.

“You should definitely bring people here more often,” I said, staring at it all, and Reade laughed.

“You sure about that?” He took my hand and led me towards the front door, while I mentally kicked myself over how I’d practically just suggested he invite other women home with him.

“Well, you know,” I said awkwardly as I waited for him to unlock the door. “Guys. Hanging out. Work colleagues maybe.”

He smirked at me. “Jealousy’s a good look on you,” he said, and I felt myself turn beet red as the flush burned through my cheeks.

“Hey, you’re not gonna murder me, are you?” I asked jokingly, bouncing on my toes a little.

He opened the door and pinned me with a flat look. “Shut up and get inside,” he said, fond amusement in his tone, but I barely made it two steps through the door before he grabbed my arm and yanked me back, pulled me into a kiss as he kicked the door shut and draped us in darkness, lit only by the moonlight spilling through the floor-to-ceiling windows.

I muffled a moan against his mouth and stumbled over my feet a little as I tried to regain balance, him giving me no time to get my bearings as he started walking me backwards.

I hit a wall and he turned us and I hit another, and he pinned me to it, lifted my hands above my head, held them still in one of his massive hands and trailed the other down my throat and the center of my chest, to the zipper fastened between my breasts. In one slow, torturous move, while catching my bottom lip between his teeth, he lowered the zipper all the way down until the dress fell open for him, revealing my bra and panties, my body, all of me for his hungry gaze.