Billionaires, Bad Boys, and Alpha Males (15 page)

“Fuck off.”

His hand tightened,
and now her wrist hurt.
 
There was a
searing pain.
 
“Listen, I can make
things worse than you could ever imagine if you try and mess with me,” he told
her.
 
“Don’t go down this road,
baby.
 
I’m warning you.”

“Caelyn?”

The voice that called
out was from behind them.
 
Jayson
turned around and looked at the person.
 
“Who are you?” Jayson said.

And that’s when
Caelyn saw who had spoken.
 
Relief
flooded her instantly.
 
Elijah was
standing there, as if he’d somehow known that she needed him right at this
moment, as if he’d heard her and come running.
 
His expression was strangely calm.
 
“I’m a friend of Caelyn’s,” he said
simply.
 
“Who are you?”
 

“Oh, that’s
funny—you’re her friend.
 
Well, she’s my girlfriend.”

“You must be Jayson,”
Elijah smiled.
 
“I’ve heard a lot
about you.”
 
He walked towards them
casually.

“Good things, I
hope?”
 
Jayson turned and looked at
her with his dead eyes.

Suddenly, Elijah
sprang forward.
 
Within fractions of
a second, he’d grabbed Jayson by his shirt and thrown him into the wall.
 
Jayson’s head collided with a vicious thud,
and as he came bouncing off, Elijah hit him in the belly with a hard punch,
doubling him over.

Caelyn let out a
startled yell.

Elijah was like a man
possessed.
 
He smashed Jayson in the
face with a series of uppercuts and then, when Jayson fell to the floor, he
jumped on top of him and started punching him over and over again.

There was blood
everywhere.
 
So much blood, Caelyn
had never seen anything like it.
 
She tried to drag Elijah off.

A group of people had
formed in the hallway, but they were too frightened of the violence to step in.

“Stop,” Caelyn cried.
 
“That’s enough.
 
Please, Elijah.”

Finally, Elijah got
up. Then he looked at her.
 
“I’ll
never let anybody hurt you again.
 
I
told you that,” he said.

She nodded, unable to
even speak after what had just happened.

Moments later, two
policemen were pushing through the crowd.
 
One of them immediately grabbed Elijah while the other knelt down to
check Jayson, who was moaning and kicking his legs slowly, trying to get up.

“Stay down, we need
to check you over,” the cop said.

Elijah was being
arrested.

“Put your hands
behind your back, son,” the cop told him.
 
Elijah complied obediently.
 
He looked at Caelyn and sort of shrugged, as if to say, what can you do?

The cop on the ground
grabbed the radio off his lapel.
 
“We need an ambulance at Mean Margaritas.
 
Repeat, we need an ambulance as soon as
possible, over.”

Caelyn stumbled out
of the way, as they led Elijah out of the restaurant in handcuffs.

***

Hours later, she was
sitting in the police station.
 
She’d already given a verbal report to three or four different
officers.
 
She’d had to tell them
the truth—that she’d been raped by Jayson and that Elijah knew about it.

She explained that
Elijah had been defending her, thinking she was in danger when he saw Jayson
cornering her in the restaurant.
 
And in fact, she had felt threatened by Jayson at the time.

What was going to
come of her statements, she didn’t know.
 

She was sitting in a
small room, feeling like she was guilty of something.
 
She’d been waiting for over an hour when
one of the detectives she’d spoken with knocked and came back inside the room.

“Are you okay?
 
Do you need some water?” he asked.

“I’m okay,” she
said.
 
“I just want to go home.”

“And where is home?”

She didn’t
answer.
 
“I’m not sure right now.”

The detective sat
down.
 
“How well do you know
Elijah?” he asked.

She thought about
it.
 
“I guess not very well.”

“He’s been traveling
under a fake identity,” he said.
 
“Calling himself Jake Daniels, which is actually his brother’s
name.
 
Were you aware of that?”

She shook her head
almost imperceptibly.
 
She had known
a part of that story, just not all of it.

“And were you aware
that he’s been incarcerated previously?”

“No,” she said, her
insides feeling as though they were filling with ice water.

“Well, he has
been.
 
A few times, starting at a
very young age.
 
This last time, he
went to jail for over a year for grand larceny.
 
Leaving Massachusetts, he is also now in
violation of his parole.”

“I didn’t know any of
that.
 
All I know is that he picked
me up when my car was broken down, and he drove me to Florida.
 
He never hurt me or did anything
inappropriate.”

“Until he beat that
man a few hours ago,” the detective said.

She looked down at
the table.
 
“That’s right.”

“Well, you’re free to
go, ma’am.
 
You haven’t done
anything wrong, that I can see.
 
We’ve alerted the Boston police about your claims against Jayson
Reynolds, and you can take the matter up with them if and when you return.”

“Okay,” she
said.
 
“And what about Elijah?”

The detective glared
at her, his eyes narrowing.
 
“You’re
very concerned about him, I see.”
 
He breathed out heavily through his nostrils and flipped open his manila
folder.
 
“As of tomorrow, he’ll be
shipped back to Massachusetts to deal with his parole violation, and likely
they’ll handle the charges against Mister Reynolds as well.”

“Thank you for
telling me,” she said.

“Mister Reynolds,
just so you know, has been released from the hospital already, having sustained
only superficial injuries.
 
As far
as I know, he’s now returning to Boston as well.”

Caelyn’s mouth was
dry and she was shaking.
 
“I
understand,” she whispered.

“Good luck, ma’am,”
he said, rising from his chair and opening the door for her to leave.

When she left the
police station, there was nobody waiting for her.
 
Nowhere to go.
 
Although, she remembered she still had
her room at the Seaside Motel.
 
She
would have to stay there tonight, as she certainly wasn’t going to be welcome
at Kenzie’s home after what had happened at the restaurant.

And then what? Caelyn
thought.
 

They were bringing
Elijah back to Massachusetts because of what he’d done to protect her.

And she realized that
she wanted to be there for Elijah.
 
Whatever that meant.

There was only one
way to get home.
 
She had no money
for a flight.
 
She had no options
left.

Without bothering to
debate it internally, Caelyn pulled out her cell phone and dialed the one
number she didn’t want to dial.

“Hello, Mom?” she
said into the phone.
 
“It’s me.
 
I have something I need to tell you.”

THE END
OF BOOK 1 OF NAKED

BAD (NAKED, BOOK 2)

by Kelly Favor

©
2014,
all rights reserved.

It was strange coming
back to The Seaside Motel after everything that had happened.
 

Opening the door and
walking inside was almost like going back in time.
 
Elijah’s note was still on the table
where Caelyn had left it that morning before heading off to her first (and
apparently last) day of waitressing in Florida.

The blanket and
pillow Elijah had used were on the bed, exactly where he’d tossed them that
morning before leaving.
 
Caelyn felt
a sudden and intense feeling of sadness rush through her, almost like a
physical cramp.

If only Elijah could
just walk out of the bathroom and give her one of his little grins.
 
She could almost picture him doing it,
making some joke about the ugly carpeting in the room or perhaps one of the
strange people that were staying next door.

Caelyn smiled, just
thinking about him goofing around, and the way his eyes crinkled up a certain
way when he found something funny.
 
But then her smile faded as she remembered that none of this was real.
 
Elijah wasn’t going to walk out of the
bathroom.
 
He’d been taken to jail,
and Jayson’s powerful connections would probably make sure that Elijah stayed
in jail for a very long time.

 
The cramp of sadness came back worse than
before.
 
The room was quiet and depressing
without Elijah there to lighten the mood and make it feel like home.

She hadn’t noticed
that at the other hotel.
 
She hadn’t
realized that his presence alone could make the darkest corners seem bright and
somehow hopeful.

Caelyn lay down on
the bed next to Elijah’s old blanket and pillow, pulling them against her,
pushing her nose against the pillow.
 
The blanket was green and scratchy against her skin.
 
She tried to inhale his scent, tried to
be close to him again in some way.

And then the tears
came, and they came stronger than expected.

She cried for a lot
of reasons.
 

The phone call to her
mother had been unpleasant to say the least.
 
Even thinking about it was
unpleasant.
 
Standing on the steps
outside the police station, feeling as alone as she’d ever felt.

Her mother’s voice
had come on the line, initially happy to hear from Caelyn, but then growing
increasingly confused.

“Florida?” her mother
had asked, at least four or five times.

“Yes, Mom,
Florida.
 
I’m stuck in Florida.
 
Can you book me a ticket home?”

“But I don’t
understand.
 
What are you doing
there, Caelyn?” her mother had said, almost pleading for an answer that would
make sense of things.
 
Pleading to
hear something that wouldn’t force her to totally change what she thought of
Caelyn as a person—because the Caelyn she knew would never just drop
everything and run off to Florida.

Caelyn hadn’t given
her mother an answer as to why she’d left Boston and driven hundreds of miles
away without telling anyone.

The phone call had
been as short as she could possibly make it.
 
She wasn’t ready to talk about
everything that had happened, she just needed to get back to Boston.

But you’re only going back because of him.

Snapping out of her
memory of the dreaded phone call, Caelyn knew that it was true.
 
She wasn’t going back because she was
out of money, scared to be in Florida on her own, or because she wanted to
return to college.

She was going home
because a guy she’d known for less than a week might be sentenced to jail in
Massachusetts.
 
And whether Elijah
was in or out of jail, Caelyn knew she had to be there to help him.

It sounded crazy, but
it was the truth.

She lay in bed for a
long time, her head on the pillow Elijah had used, wrapping her arms around
that old blanket, and thinking of him.
 
What he’d done for her in the restaurant—it had been horrifying
and violent and…heroic.

Caelyn knew that he’d
only been defending her from the man who’d hurt her beyond belief.
 
She couldn’t be angry with Elijah for
trying to protect her, even if he’d gone too far in doing so.
 

Elijah had destroyed
Jayson as if he were nothing, thrown him around like a tiny ragdoll.
 
She didn’t know how he’d done it,
either, because Jayson was no skinny, wilting flower.
 
Jayson was a very big, very strong guy,
and she would have guessed that he knew how to handle himself in a fight.