Fugitive: A Bad Boy Romance (Northbridge Nights Book 2) (5 page)

* * *

W
e hit
the road around eight, after Kieran bought some clothes for me at a convenience store and we gorged ourselves on bacon and eggs at the diner nearby. All that grease and even the coffee couldn't quite wake me up though. I was nursing one of the worst hangovers I'd ever had.

Stopping once in a while to check his phone, Kieran made most of the trip in silence. I was so groggy I fell into a half-sleep, startling every few minutes, terrified at the thought of falling off a bike going seventy-five miles an hour.

When we arrived at Westport Go-Kart Racing, I could barely stand up. My bones had turned to mush during the ride and I could barely support my own body weight. I let out a drawn-out sigh when I suddenly realized I was getting married in six days. Everything was already planned down to the last detail. Lavish floral arrangements, check. Award-winning caterers, check. Live, four-string quartet, check. My rehearsal dinner was tomorrow night for God's sakes! All my relatives were flying in to see us. And here I was going go-karting with a stranger. What the hell was wrong with me?

“You okay?” Kieran asked.

“I'm fine.”

“What are you thinking about?”

“Nothing,” I said, smoothing out my wrinkled new hoodie. It had “Northbridge Rocks!” printed in bubble letters across the front. That's what I got for choosing a new wardrobe at the E-Z Mart. At least it was warm. And I finally had proper pants. Yay. What wasn’t ‘yay’ about this situation was the dark and mysterious man standing beside me. I didn’t know the first thing about him, other than the fact that he had a smoking hot bod. And that he was crazy reckless.

“Your nostrils flare when you're stressed out,” Kieran pointed out. “Tell me, what's got your panties in a twist this time?”

“I'm getting married in six days. I shouldn't be here.” My voice dripped with guilt.

“We've come all this way,” Kieran said. “Don't tell me you want to back out now?”

It was true. We were already at the front gate. Bold, red and yellow font and exhilarated screams beckoned me inside.

“I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Kieran, but I just can't. You were right about me. I like staying in my little safe bubble. With books and familiar faces and a boring, routine job. I’ve spent my entire life building my reputation, my career, laying down roots. I’m comfortable. This—this isn't me. Please drive me back.”

Kieran's eyes darkened. “After everything I said, you still want to crawl back into your safe zone.”

“I—”

“Come on, let's go,” Kieran said, not putting up a fight. He hopped back on his bike and revved the engine so hard I thought my eardrums were about to explode. Then he blazed down the highway going twice the speed limit and I felt as if my heart was getting ripped out of my bloody chest.

He was trying to get both of us killed! Or at least arrested. Strands of my hair flew into my mouth and I tried in vain to spit them out. The wind was so sharp I couldn't breathe. I wanted to call him angry names and throw a tantrum, but I couldn't even do that. I knew Kieran was trying to teach me a lesson about living on the wild side, but all I felt was terrified and homesick. Gone were the jokes, the laughter. A sullenness washed over both of us; one we didn't attempt to fix.

Even when we made a pitstop for lunch, Kieran didn't say anything to me. He just bought me a $4.99 ham sandwich and we ate in silence. He didn't even look at me; just hunched his shoulders and stared out at farmland in the distance. I could see the disappointment in his body language.

Who did he think he was?

I didn't owe him anything.

I didn't care what he thought of me.

He had no right to barge into my life and try to change me. I was happy with my life, and I didn't need some tatted up stranger with a nipple piercing to tell me otherwise.

By the time Kieran dropped me off at my apartment, the one I shared with Rob, I resolved to never see him again. I'd narrowly escaped death, and I never wanted to be this reckless again. In fact, if I caught sight of his smug face around town, I'd go out of my way to avoid him. Kieran was poison, and I wasn't about to let him contaminate my pristine, picture-perfect life.

One night of crazy with him was
more
than enough.

“Thanks for bringing me back,” I said, already hopping up the stairs to my place.

“See you around, Rachelle.”

“Mmhm,” I said, avoiding his gaze.

He was gone moments later and I finally let out the sigh I'd been holding all night.

I'd survived one hell of a night, and I never wanted to go through something like that again.

I liked normal. Nothing wrong with having a normal life, normal job and a normal partner. I wouldn't want it any other way.

I bent down, retrieved my back-up key from underneath the flowerpot, and let myself inside.

I was home now. And I was safe.

“
Y
ou don’t like me
, I don't like you.” Those were the first words Mya Alvarez ever said to me. And she'd meant them. She was a 5'5”, forty-something, curvy Hispanic woman who bossed around 6'2” me like she owned me. And in a way, I guess she did. “You report to me every Friday at noon. If you can't make it, call me beforehand to reschedule. If you don't show up, I'll be paying you a visit.”

All I could do was nod while she filled out the papers. Her black hair was done up in a no-nonsense bun and she wore a too-tight white blouse. Most importantly, she definitely had a stick or two shoved up her ass.

“I don't enjoy dealing with people like you, but I will fuck you up and send you packing if you ever cross the line with me. Got it?”

“Yes ma'am,” I said, staring into her beady eyes. She looked like a goddamn hawk. And people like me were her prey.

That had been over six months ago.

She lived up to her word. Our visits never got friendlier than the first one. She didn't ask about how I was doing because she didn't care. Our relationship was strictly professional, and we both hated each other.

I was fine with that.

I looked over at Mya, who was scribbling something on a piece of paper. Tonight, she was wearing a heavy black trench coat and combat boots. Her hair was braided and pinned up, and as usual, she had a scowl on her face. Once in a while, she'd chew on her pen cap. The thing was filthy and covered in teeth marks. Mya had decided to pay a surprise visit to my place tonight. It was almost ten p.m. and I was exhausted from staying up with Rachelle the night before. Dark rings circled my hollow, bloodshot eyes. My tongue felt like sandpaper in my mouth. Thank God Mya didn't come over last night, or else I would've been fucked. A curfew violation would've sent me, as Mya would say, “back to the shit hole”.

“Anything you want to tell me, Kieran?” she asked, eyeballing my barren bedroom before her gaze finally rested on my bunk bed.

I shook my head and dug my thumbs into my jean pockets. “No.”

My room was so tiny, the two of us barely had any standing room. One grimy window behind me let in absolutely no natural light because it was covered in so much mold and dust. I had no furniture of my own, not even a rug beneath my feet.

The radiator in the corner was acting up again, churning the stale air into a sweltering inferno. Beads of sweat rolled down the sides of my face, slithering under my damp collar. I coughed.

Mya’s face betrayed nothing; she was an enigma I’d never figure out. “I'll need to do a quick search,” she said. “Hands up against the wall.”

“Of course.” I turned to the wall and pressed my palms against the rough plaster.

Mya did a thorough pat-down, lingering between my legs for an extra millisecond before moving on to my bed. Lifting up the mattresses and rifling through my drawers, she sent plumes of dust flying. Mya was a woman on a mission. What did she expect to find? She shook my pillow out from its yellowed case.
As if I'd be dumb enough to hide anything in here.
As the raid continued, I didn't dare make a sound.
Let her search. She won’t find anything.
After a few minutes, Mya said, “Looks good, Mahoney. You been going to work?”

“Yes,” I lied.

“I'll be calling your employers next week to check on your progress.”

I swallowed hard. “Okay.”

“'Night, Mahoney,” Mya said, opening the door.

“Night, Ma'am.”

Then, just like that, she was gone.

Her weekly visits were unexpected cyclones that left bunched up sheets, wrinkled clothes and scattered papers in its wake. I didn’t mind. As long as she was happy, I was safe. I'd made it through another week. But just barely. I'd taken more risks this week. Broke almost all the rules. I went to a club. Then a casino. Bought a fucking unlicensed gun. And I even called Bianca. I was walking on a tightrope with no harness. If I fell this time, I'd score a one-way ticket back to hell.

Rachelle was right. I was an adrenaline junkie. Always have been. I once broke my leg falling out of a tree. I’d been trying to whack a hornet’s nest with a baseball bat…treating it like a fucking piñata. Hell, my impulsive behavior was what got me in deep shit in the first place. Sadly, ten years couldn’t teach this old dog any new tricks.

Mya said I couldn’t leave Northbridge.

Fuck Mya.

I was still going to risk anything and everything, including my life, to see Kara.

I made $1600 net last night, which brought my total up to $10,600. Not bad. As soon as I hit my goal of $12,000, I was high-tailing it out of here, Mya be damned. I didn't give a fuck about the consequences.

Kara was waiting for me.

She needed me.

I'd give her the best goddamn surprise of her life...

Then of course, there was Rachelle.

Fuck me, she was something else. 5’10” at least, likely a C-cup, silky, long black hair, chestnut eyes and legs that went on forever. Feisty, sassy, gorgeous...and
engaged.
I'd definitely missed the boat on that one. I had a feeling she’d be the object of my fantasies for a
long time.
Rachelle was the first woman I'd touched in almost ten years. Ten! And damn it, I wanted to kiss that soft skin everywhere. Show her what it felt like to be with a real man. Show her what ecstasy really felt like. Tease her until she begged for my cock, and then tease her some more.

The first time I felt her curves on the dance floor, I was a goner. The minute I pressed up against her body, I was fucking
sprung
and hard as a rock
.
No one had ever intoxicated me so hard so fast. In the river, I wanted to push her down on the beach and tongue-fuck her until she came in my mouth. At the motel, I wanted to strip off her clothes and her inhibitions and feel her juicy lips wrapped around my cock. When she was riding with me, I wanted her to ride on top of me. I wanted her to fucking melt against me.

I had it bad.

She was a drug. A highly desirable, very addictive, 100% off-limits drug. And I was head-over-heels in lust with her.

I'd never been good at staying away from forbidden fruit. And it wasn’t as if ‘off-limits’ ever stopped me from trying before.

But of course, I wasn't a savage.

I might've done plenty of things I wasn't proud of in my life, but I'd always been a gentleman when it mattered. Except at Dalton River. I wanted so desperately for her to come swimming that I pushed her into the water. I’d been a fucking arrogant bastard. Later, at the motel, I carried my flirting a tad too far as well. But, I didn't take advantage of her, though I probably could have. I could tell by her body language that she wanted me, even though her words indicated otherwise. If she wasn’t engaged, the other night would’ve ended up with me balls-deep inside her. No doubt about it. I would’ve given her triple-Os before I finished inside her.

I was so just so fucking hungry.

Ten years of just me and my hand.

Beating off to Playboy and Baywatch.

It had been too fucking long. A sex-starved man made poor life choices.

But Rachelle? She was too innocent for me—too pure to be my first after a decade of abstinence anyway. She deserved better than someone like me. I tried to coax her into living her life to the fullest, but she just withdrew into herself. She and I obviously shared polar opposite life philosophies. She avoided danger, whereas danger was my middle name…

I wished I could see her again, spend more time with her...but judging by the way she looked when we parted ways, that was probably never going to happen again.

I didn't have time to dwell on any of that. I really didn't. I wished I could pursue her, but the timing was all wrong. We could never be; it just wasn't in the stars.

I had one week left before Mya found out I was unemployed. The Lucky Dragon fired me last week when they found out the truth about me. I was almost glad; the hours were shit, the pay was shit and the boss was a screeching, racist lunatic.

Terri Hanover's offer had been a godsend. Cameron had set it up. Of course, he had no idea why I needed this money. As half-brothers, we were never close. During the last ten years, Cam visited me only a handful of times. Maybe he was ashamed to call me his brother. Or just too busy with life. Whatever the reason, I was still glad he gave me a ride from Maxfield to Trombly House, Northbridge’s ‘finest’ halfway house. Six months ago, Cameron had offered me some emergency cash for food and shelter, and I took it, even though the handout bruised my ego. Beggars couldn’t be choosers.
Since then, I’d seen him three more times. Twice to ask for more money (I didn’t want to use any of my savings if I could help it), and once to eat at a fancy restaurant owned by Cameron’s new girlfriend, Serenity. When Cam told me that Terri was looking for someone to entertain her best friend…I immediately volunteered. The thousand bucks Terri paid me was the easiest thousand bucks I'd ever made. Valuable cash to add to my stockpile.

Only one week left.

I needed to get my shit together and head to Seattle. Kara and Bianca were waiting for me.

That meant no fantasizing about the lush, Asian goddess I'd spent one hell of a night with. I was on a mission, and I couldn't afford to get side-tracked. Not even for someone as tempting as Rachelle.

Besides, Rachelle was getting married in a week. Probably to some stuck-up suit who only wanted to use her as arm candy. Robert what's-his-face. He seemed controlling and manipulative, and not nearly good enough to be Rachelle’s husband. I hoped they'd be happy together. Build a great life together. Rachelle deserved nothing less.

Flattening to the ground, I pulled up the loose floorboard under my bed. A plume of dust rose as I tossed the plank aside. Groping around, I pulled out the large black garbage bag and set it down by my feet. It landed with a dull thud. I unwrapped the twist-tie cinching the package together and pulled the bag open. Inside was a misshapen tupperware container holding over ten grand in cash. On top of it rested a Glock 22.

I had cash, a gun, and a bike.

Try to stop me, Mya.