Wife Me Bad Boy (31 page)

“I know you,” she said.

“Yes, you do.”

“You’re the asshole that tried to pick me up in Wolf’s bar.”

I laughed. She hadn’t lost any of her spunk.

“I didn’t try to pick you up,” I said. “If I remember correctly, you were so uptight only a fool would have tried that.”

“Exactly,” she said, smirking.

“Oh, so I’m a fool?”

“Well, you tried
something
.”

I nodded. I’d give her that. “Maybe I did,” I said. “Maybe I did.”

A coy smile crossed her lips. “And now you’re back for more.”

I laughed. “Right. I came here looking for you,” I said, sarcastically.

“Well, you’re here.”

“I was here first.”

“No you weren’t. I watched you come in.”

“You watched me?”

“From the parking lot.”

“Well, aren’t you full of surprises?” I said.

She looked into my eyes and licked her tantalizing lips. Well, fuck me, but she was making a move. She was trying to play me. I had to admire that. She knew what it would take to escape Wolf, and she was willing to pay the price. There’s not a lot of people willing to accept reality when it comes to situations like the one she was in.

Well, if she was going to play me, it wouldn’t come easy. Getting a man mixed up with Wolf Staten was no small feat.

“Last time we met, I promised you we’d fuck like rabbits,” I said. “Now, here you are.”

She looked hurt. She didn’t like it when I spoke like that. She put her drink down and walked straight back to the door she’d entered through. Her hand was on the knob. If I didn’t say something fast, she’d walk right out.

“Wait,” I said. “Don’t go. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“That’s twice you’ve said that to me, like I’m nothing more than a fifty-dollar slut looking to get fucked.”

“You’re right. I was out of line. You had every right to slap me last time we met.”

She looked relieved. I was cutting her some slack, which was what she needed. She came back to her seat.

“Last time we met, you were a massive dick,” she said.

“I know,” I said. “I can’t help it. I was born with it.”

She shook her head. God, I could have died looking into those eyes. She was like an angel from heaven.

“You just can’t stop yourself, can you?”

I shook my head.

She sighed. Then she said, mostly to herself, “size isn’t everything.”

I laughed. I couldn’t believe it. “Was that a joke? Was that a joke from the girl who smacked the shit out of me last time we met?”

She blushed. God, she looked pretty when she blushed..

“You were asking for it.”

“Yes, I was,” I said. “And you didn’t have any trouble dishing it out.”

She shrugged. “I can give you some more if you want.”

“Please don’t. This face is all I’ve got going for me.”

She looked me over, taking in my leathers, my wet hair.

“I’m sure it’s not the
only
thing.”

I laughed again. She was working it. Don’t think for a second I didn’t know I was being played. I knew exactly what was going on. The thing is, I wanted to get played by her.

“What’s your name?” I said.

“You first,” she said.

I shook my head. The poor thing. She had no idea what she was getting into. She was like a lamb to the slaughter. She’d just escaped Wolf. Little did she realize, she was tangling herself up with a monster ten times worse. Believe me when I tell you, whatever she was running from, whatever Wolf tried to force her to do, I would make it look like child’s play. The things I wanted to do to her, she’d cry out for mercy, she’d scream my name, and the more she begged, the harder I’d come.

If it was Wolf’s bedroom antics that she was fleeing, she was in for a rude awakening. I’m a piston-fired, turbo-charged, orgasm machine. I can out-fuck a herd of stallions. I can out-pump a locomotive. If she came to me hoping for mercy, she wouldn’t find any.

She thought she was playing me?
Please
.

It was like taking candy from a baby. She had something I wanted, and I was going to have it. I had to have it.

I put my drink down.

“My name’s Jackson,” I said. “Jackson Jones.”

“Jackson Jones?”

“Jackson-motherfucking-Jones,” I repeated, grinning.

She smiled, and I swear there was a hint of seduction in those lips.

“I’ve got a question for you, Jackson-motherfucking-Jones.”

She could ask anything she liked. All I could think about was bending her over the counter and sliding my bare cock into her naked womb till it throbbed hot semen into her. I wanted to fill her so full of my come it would be dripping down her legs for weeks. I wanted skin to skin, full contact, wet orgasm. I wanted to put a baby inside her. And in exchange for my help, she was going to let me.

“What is it?” I said.

She hesitated. She was scared. I could tell she’d been crying. I felt a pang of pity for her, but the desire flooding through my veins was stronger.

“Last time you met me, you said you didn’t give a fuck about Wolf Staten.”

“I remember.”

“Well, my question is, did you mean that?”

I let out a little laugh. My words were coming back to haunt me. I’d played it cocky and now she was calling me on it.

“That depends,” I said.

“On what?”

“On what’s in it for me.”

She looked deeply into my eyes as if trying to read my soul. She was on the verge of tears. She needed my help or she was dead. We both knew it. It had taken a lot for her to ask my help, she was a proud woman and I respected her for that.

But I wouldn’t help her for free. That’s not the way it worked. I needed something from her, and I needed her to offer it.

“Well then,” she said, “I guess I have one more question for you.”

“Ask what you want. Believe me, I’ve got nothing to hide.”

She looked into my eyes. “Are you a good man, Jackson Jones?”

It wasn’t a game. It was a serious question and she meant it. Her life depended on it. I looked around the bar. The bartender was cleaning glasses. The other patrons had scarcely noticed her.

“No one’s ever accused me of being a good man,” I said.

“But you know the answer,” she insisted. “Deep down, you know. If you were to die today, what would people say of you? Would they say you were good?”

I looked into those deep, sapphire eyes. They were hypnotizing. She had a strange power over me, a force of attraction that was otherworldly. Maybe it was because death was on my mind, mortality. I don’t know, but something about her felt surreal, like she’d been sent to me from another world.

As my eyes drank her in, a burning rage coursed through my veins like molten metal. I wanted to own her, I wanted to dominate her completely, make her mine.
My property
. I wanted to plunge my cock so deep inside her she’d never even think of another man again. I wanted her to remember my name to her dying day. I wanted to ruin her for all others. It shocked me how violent my passion for her was. I’d never felt that for anyone else.

The simplicity of her question made me answer honestly.

“All I can tell you,” I said, “is that for all the bad I’ve done, I never meant any harm.”

It wasn’t like me to say that. She’d disarmed me. I never gave anyone a glimpse of my true self. It was yet another surprise.

She nodded, as if it was the answer she’d been seeking. She smiled, and it broke my heart to see that smile. She had the face of an angel, and I was going to ruin her.

I wanted to know what had happened to her. The details. What had Wolf and Los Lobos done to her that she’d finally made a run for it? I’d kill them, all twelve of them, or die trying. She didn’t know it yet, but I’d already made up my mind.

And then she said it, those four words that I’d been waiting my entire life to hear. I didn’t even know it till I heard them.

“Will you help me?”

I’ll tell you right now, there are moments in my life I always knew would come. Even as a boy, I knew my destiny would lead to this, a fork in the road, where the decision I made would decide the man I was to be. Everything else in my life would fade in comparison to the importance of this question.

I knew if I said yes, it would mean the end of me. Instinctively, I checked the gun at my hip. Los Lobos, The Wolves. Every one of them would hunt me down until I was dead.

It would only end in one way.

And I didn’t care. I’d give her what she needed. I had to. But she’d give me what I needed too. A life for a life.

“I’ll warn you right now,” I said, “any help from me won’t come for free. Bad things will happen if I get involved. You’ll regret it. I swear to you.”

“Will you hurt me?” she said.

I wanted to tell her something different. I wanted to tell her I was the man she deserved, someone who would save her and ask nothing in return. I wanted to say I’d take her away to a life of happiness and safety. I wanted to tell her she’d have everything she deserved. But I couldn’t. I’m a lot of things, but I’m no liar.

“I’ll destroy you,” I said. “I’ll take the one thing you’ve got to give, and I’ll drink it up like a desert drinks the rain. I’ll ravage you till you beg me to stop. And then, just when you think you can’t take anymore, I’ll ravage you again.”

I’d given her fair warning. If she still wanted my help, it was on her now. I’d told her I’d take everything she had. But I hadn’t told her the one thing I wanted most. I hadn’t told her she’d give me a son.

She looked at me. She looked around the bar. She turned and looked back at the door, weighing the alternative. Then she answered.

“I don’t have a choice,” she said. “You can take what you want. You can use me to the last drop. Just help me.”

“All right,” I said. “But when the dust settles, remember it was you who came to me.”

“I’ll remember.”

“And I warned you.”

“I won’t forget it.”

“You asked if I’m a good man. The truth is, I’m not a good man. I’m bad. Bad to the bone.”

Chapter 4

Faith

W
HAT I’M ABOUT TO TELL YOU,
it isn’t pretty.

Can I adequately explain it? No.

Can I put it in a way that will make me come across as anything other than a complete whore? I doubt it.

But the truth is more important than perceptions, and the truth is what happened to me, the decisions in my life that led to that fateful night, and the consequences I’ll have to live with till the day I die.

So, the truth.

The truth is, I’d been standing in that motel parking lot for over an hour when Jackson pulled in. I had no idea where I was. All I knew was that I was still in Nevada, and that wasn’t far enough.

It was raining and I was soaked to the skin. I was shivering. I had nowhere to go, no one to turn to. I took shelter under a big sequoia and watched the men who came and went from the bar.

I’d know him when I saw him
—that’s what I told myself. I just had to wait. God would help me. He had to.

And all I had to do was throw away everything I’d ever hoped for, sacrifice myself on the altar of fate, and pray I didn’t get into something even worse than the life I was trying to escape.

It sounds crazy, and maybe it was, but until you’re in that situation, you can’t understand the fear that led me to that parking lot.

Wolf Staten was a powerful man. A ruthless man. He made the rules, and my job was to obey. Earlier that night, he’d told me he was going to lock me up in a secret apartment of his villa. No one but him would ever be able to look at me again. He said it was because he loved me so much, because I was so precious to him.

And a part of me wanted to believe him. As a girl I’d always dreamed of being someone’s princess, of being so desired by a man that he couldn’t bear the thought of other men looking at me. But my life with Wolf wasn’t that. The way he treated me was not the way a prince treated a princess. The longer I stayed, the worse it got. The jealousy and possessiveness eclipsed all else. The violence finally knocked reality into me. There was no room for love in that place. Even locked inside a prison, he’d find reasons to punish me, to brutalize me. And if I ever had his child, that baby’s life would be a living hell.

That’s what gave me the courage to take my life into my own hands. Scarcely two hours earlier, I slipped out of the party he threw in my honor. It was supposed to be my farewell to the world, the last time anyone but him would ever see me.

Fuck. That.

Fuck all of them.

Everyone at that party, all twelve members of Los Lobos, all our so-called friends, knew I was going to be locked up forever. And none of them even batted an eye. None of them raised a finger. In fact, they approved of it. Such was life with Los Lobos. I’d heard rumors before of the men locking away their families, treating their women like prisoners and slaves. I’d refused to believe it. Now I knew it was true. Wolf wanted me to live the rest of my life in a windowless bunker.

Like I already said. Fuck. That.

When I fled the mountaintop villa, I had no idea where I was going. I ran through the forest like a deer hunted by dogs. I fell on the rocks. I slid down the gullies. And when I reached the highway, I didn’t care who picked me up. I didn’t care what direction they were headed. I didn’t ask. I just climbed in and sat silently. I would go anywhere, with anyone. Nothing could be as bad as the life planned for me by Wolf.

Los Lobos is not a nice gang to be mixed up with. They earn their livelihood off the pain and suffering of others. They’re the worst kind of criminals. And the fact I was dating their leader was no one’s fault but my own. It was my own deeds, my own mistakes, that got me into that place. And it would be my own decisions that would get me out. That’s why I decided to do anything that needed to be done to escape.
Anything
.

Slipping into the clutches of Los Lobos had been so simple. And once I was in, there was no way back out. I’d seen the warning signs. I’d realized my mistake long before. Wolf cheated on me, he beat me, he routinely degraded and humiliated me in front of his gang members. He robbed me of all power, silenced my voice, and when he found out I wanted to leave, he built a concrete compound to keep me prisoner.