The next time I woke he was gone. A familiar sinking sensation seized me, and I bolted upright, hugging the sheet to my chest. My gaze shot around the room. Dawn peeked at the edges of my curtains. I slowly eased from the bed and walked from my room into the small sitting area, my feet padding silently on the carpet. That’s when I heard water running.
That’s when I realized he was taking a shower.
That’s when a steady calm came over me and I knew.
I needed to seize this chance and leave. Avoid the awkward good-bye and the uneasy farewell where we were compelled to say things we didn’t mean.
Dropping my sheet, I turned and fled into my room, wondering if I could pack and be out of here in less than five minutes.
It took me seven minutes, but brushing my teeth felt very necessary and was worth the extra two.
I pulled my hair into a messy ponytail and tossed everything in my luggage and was out the door to the sound of the shower still running. Lucky for me he enjoyed long showers.
Except as I stumbled across the lobby to ask the doorman to hail me a cab, I didn’t feel lucky. I felt . . . sad. Like I was leaving a part of me behind. A part of myself I had just found. Even though I knew that was irrational and fanciful and the kind of stuff a hopeless dreamer would believe, I definitely felt unlucky.
I arrived well before my flight departure time, so I didn’t have an assigned gate yet, but I still got rid of my bag and went through security. Less harried, I found a bathroom and tried to tidy my decidedly untidy appearance. I even applied minimal makeup, hoping that would make me feel more collected. Following that, I found a coffee shop. An injection of caffeine would make me feel more me. I never skipped my morning coffee.
I sat at a corner table with a view of the airport. People walked past, hurrying to either catch a plane or get back home. I was eager for neither. My hands wrapped around my coffee cup, holding tightly as though that might stop them from shaking. I sipped the hot brew for a few minutes, but the caffeine did nothing to steady my nerves.
A waitress came by and I ordered an iced scone, hoping the decadent fare would make me feel better. It failed to offer the usual comfort, however, and sat like a rock in my stomach. I didn’t even feel up to browsing the airport bookstores for copies of my book. That always cheered me up. It was one thing to see your book in print and a completely separate thrill to see it in an airport bookstore.
I couldn’t help thinking about Luca and wondering at his reaction when he discovered I’d left. Would he be very annoyed or relieved? I’d saved us from an uncomfortable situation, after all. Certainly, he would realize that even if he was initially annoyed that I subverted his protection services again. He’d get over it and so would I.
Eventually, we would both look back on this with fond recollection—like a wonderful vacation with a wonderful friend. No regrets.
The coffee shop had a small TV. I settled into my seat and tried to distract myself by watching it. It didn’t work. Every movement, every shift in my seat only served to remind me of my night with Luca. The telltale signs were there, fresh and sharp as a blade against my skin.
My body was sore. My sex still throbbed. My breasts felt heavy, nipples raw and chafing against the inside of my bra. The tiny hairs on my skin quivered as though I’d been shocked with electricity. The flow of blood in my veins felt thicker, hotter. I was aware of myself in a way I never had been before. Each part, each piece of me, felt like its own entity. Its own living being separate from the rest of me.
It would all fade. I knew that. Wilt to memory.
I frowned as I sipped my coffee, sad at the sudden idea that as fresh as last night was now, I’d forget his scent, his taste, the pulse and fullness of him inside me.
My gate was finally posted, and after a little while I gathered my handbag and headed that way. It was a big airport. I wanted to give myself plenty of time. I strolled at any easy pace, letting myself be distracted by the sights, drifting into shops that looked mildly interesting.
I eventually located my gate and took a seat, waiting for boarding to begin, letting the minutes tick by as I tried to get excited. I was going to Paris. That should be the only thing on my mind. I should be brimming with excitement. I was a short plane ride to Paris. My French publicist would collect me at the airport and from there, my French adventure would begin. I had five days in Paris. It should have been the only thing that mattered right then.
Boarding began and they called my row. I fell in line and was soon settling into my seat. Buckled in, I did a quick browse through my phone, sending a quick update to my mom, letting her know where I was headed.
A body dropped down beside me.
My phone slipped from my fingers, tumbling to the small gap of floor at my feet. We bent at the same time to retrieve my phone and our heads collided.
“Ow.” I came up, rubbing my skull, then my breath lodged in my throat.
It couldn’t be.
But it was.
“What are you doing here?” I blurted, embarrassment and hope and desire tangling and knotted messily in my chest.
Luca deftly claimed my phone and handed it to me. “Going to Paris.”
“P-Paris?” I gawked at Luca’s face. Light from the window behind me cast his good looks into stark focus. “With me?”
“Of course with you.”
He was serious. He was on this plane. I blinked several times, processing that he was beside me and what it could mean.
I moistened my lips. “Did Melani extend your contract to—”
“This has nothing to do with your publisher. I’m here on my own.” He took a breath, his gaze steadily fixed on my face. “I’m here for you.”
I’m here for you.
My heart hammered like a drum in my chest. “You’re here for . . . me?” He’d grabbed his passport, bought a ticket and was on this plane with me. He’d done all that for me.
A smile kicked up one corner of his beautiful mouth. “Are you just going to repeat everything I say?”
“I—I . . .” I could not speak, apparently. I was too stunned at the sight of him. Too stunned to have him right here beside me, crowding me in the tight area of our two-seat row. I swallowed thickly and managed to spit out some words. “Is this something you do?” Was it a casual thing for him to hook up with women and then chase after them because his itch wasn’t fully satisfied yet?
“Vee. I’m not an impulsive person.” He dragged a hand through his hair, sending locks flying haphazardly in every direction, making him appear younger, more genuine. There was nothing fake about him. “My whole life I’ve been this organized individual. Someone who stays in the lines. Who follows rules. But with you, I’ve broken them.”
He turned to fully face me in the narrow space—the space that suddenly seemed all the tighter with his big body occupying it. “With you I would break every rule.” He seized my hand then, his gaze intent on my face. “Are you ready to say goodbye? Do you never want to be with me again?” Pause. He shook his head as though that would be something terrible indeed, but he would accept it if that’s what I wanted. He was a man who kept people safe. He would never do anything that went against my wishes. He took another breath. “Or do you want to see where this thing goes?”
Not only could I not speak. I couldn’t breathe. Could only think: yes yes yes yes.
I want to see where this thing goes.
I didn’t need him, I realized. That was my mistake before. The old me always felt like I needed one of my exes. I didn’t need Luca. But I wanted him. And that was okay. It was okay to have someone. It was not weakness. I was fine without him, but I could be better with him.
He continued, “If you want me to leave, just say so. I can still get off this plane. I’ll go.”
“No,” I whispered. “Don’t go.”
It was hard to believe, but there was something between us—a definite thing. I felt it. He felt it. And I was not ready to let go of it. Not yet.
Maybe even more unbelievable . . . maybe not ever.
He closed the few inches between us and kissed me. His hand slid along my face, fingers and palms rasping my cheek as our mouths fused, tasting and taking and branding. I’d been kissed a lot of times, but this felt different. It felt a lot like forever.
He came up after a long moment to the tune of the flight attendants announcing the closing of the airplane’s doors. I smiled at him.
He smiled down at me. “You know the convenient thing about being a writer?”
“What’s that?”
“You can do it from anywhere . . . live anywhere.”
My smile deepened and I asked lightly, “Is that a fact?”
“Yes. Someone told me that once.”
“Well,” I said, nodding in agreement, my chest swelling, elation rising up inside me. “That is very convenient.”
Also by Sophie Jordan
CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE
* * *
Devil’s Rock
All Chained Up
Hell Breaks Loose
Fury on Fire
Beautiful Lawman
Beautiful Sinner
* * *
The Ivy Chronicles
Foreplay
Tease
Wild
* * *
First Fifty Times (Anthology)
HISTORICAL ROMANCE
* * *
The Rogue Files
While The Duke Was Sleeping
The Scandal of It All
The Duke Buys A Bride
This Scot Of Mine
The Duke's Stolen Bride
The Virgin and the Rogue
The Duke Effect
* * *
The Debutante Files
A Good Debutante's Guide to Ruin
An Heiress for All Seasons (novella)
All The Ways To Ruin A Rogue
* * *
The Forgotten Princess
Wicked In Your Arms
Lessons From A Scandalous Bride
The Earl In My Bed (Novella)
How To Lose A Bride In One Night
* * *
The Penwich School for Virtuous Girls
Sins Of A Wicked Duke
In Scandal They Wed
Wicked Nights With A Lover
* * *
The Derrings
Once Upon A Wedding Night
Too Wicked To Tame
One Night With You
Surrender To Me
* * *
How The Dukes Stole Christmas (Anthology)
YOUNG ADULT
* * *
Standalone Novels
The Me I Meant To Be
Kissing Lessons
Sixteen Scandals
* * *
Reign of Shadows
Reign of Shadows
Rise of Fire
* * *
Uninvited
Uninvited
Unleashed
* * *
Firelight
Firelight
Vanish
Hidden
Breathless (Novella)
About the Author
Sophie Jordan grew up in the Texas hill country where she wove fantasies of dragons, warriors, and princesses. A former high school English teacher, she's a New York Times, USA Today and international bestselling author. She now lives in Houston with her family. When she's not writing, she spends her time overloading on caffeine (lattes and Diet cherry Coke preferred), talking plotlines with anyone who will listen (including her kids), and cramming her DVR with true-crime and reality-TV shows.
* * *
Visit her at sophiejordan.net, or sign up for her newsletter at bit.ly/SophieNews.
Not a Bad Boy
Louisa Edwards
Chapter One
I yawned and reached down to unsnap Pilot’s leash, my fingers slipping against the clasp of his leather collar. The next thing I knew, I was lurching forward as Pilot jerked from my grasp to race across the sun-dappled expanse of Primrose Hill, barking his head off like the maniac he was.
Since I was Mallory Pritchard, and I’ve never had any kind of luck that wasn’t bad, I lost my balance completely. I went down. And all I could think, as my ass hit the damp grass, was of course.
Of freaking course, because when I winced and turned my head, not only could I see my ridiculous Irish wolfhound/Airedale terrier/Who-The-Hell-Knows mix capering around a magnificently uninterested pit bull, I also caught a glimpse of the other dog’s owner.
And holy shit. My heart, which was still pounding from my abrupt collision with the earth, suddenly ramped up to cardiac event levels of beating.
The man currently scanning the grassy hill above Regent’s Park for the dummy who couldn’t control her dog was Ian Hale.
Ian Hale, last year’s Sexiest Man Alive. Ian Hale, star of the biggest action movie franchise in the world. Ian Hale, the man my sister had joked was the reason I moved to London.
“Admit it,” I remembered Samantha saying, her voice determinedly light and playful. “You’re a writer, you could live anywhere. You picked London hoping to run into Ian Hale.”
I’d confined my response to a sigh, because there were about a million things wrong with that statement but it would take a lot of energy to argue them all. And back then I didn’t have the energy to do much more than get up in the morning to let Pilot out to pee in the postage stamp backyard of our parents’ Brooklyn townhouse.
But I didn’t want to make Samantha worry about me, at least not more than she already was, so I said, “Actually, I can’t work from anywhere in the world, because I’m researching the history of cookbook writing, and the British Museum holds the best collection of the first commercially available cookbooks by women, so that’s where I’m going.”
“Right,” Samantha agreed. “Potential Ian Hale sightings are just a bonus.”
At the time, I’d only sighed again and gone back to packing. I mean, I’d lived in New York City my entire adult life. Celebrity sightings weren’t exactly anything new to me. I once saw Kevin Bacon trying on scarves at a Gap on the Upper West Side. He was short. “Come on. Ian Hale is probably a troll in person.”
“I bet Ian Hale is as good-looking as he seems on-screen.”
“No one could be as good-looking as Ian Hale seems on-screen.” I grabbed the book off my bedside table and chucked it into my carry-on. It was the nonfiction title currently burning up the bestseller lists, Self Love, and it was all about how women didn’t need men for anything. Perfect reading material for my new life in London. “He’s probably an asshole in person. And short. I bet he’s a short asshole. They always are.”
“You don’t believe that.” Samantha gave me the knowingly scornful look of an older sister who used to trick me into putting peas up my nose as a toddler. “You’re a romantic.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I insisted. “Because I’m not going to run into him. And even if I did, I don’t gawk at celebrities. I ignore them, like a good New Yorker.”
But right here and right now, lying on my back on the grass with the wind knocked out of me and an actual, honest to God movie star leading my scruffy mutt over with one big hand on Pilot’s collar, Ian Hale was impossible to ignore.
He loomed up, the huge, dark outline of his shoulders blocking the sun, and I shivered. Breath returned to my lungs in a whoosh, and I gasped in air like a landed trout struggling on the ground. I couldn’t make out his expression against the glare. His face was all shadows and angles, and I had a fleeting moment to wonder if I’d been mistaken—it wasn’t Ian Hale, after all. That was ridiculous. I must have hit my head.
And then he spoke. His voice curled through my chest like smoke, and I knew I wasn’t mistaken. I’d heard that voice before—shouting in anger, broken and brooding, barking commands and whispering tenderness in a darkened movie theater to a captivated audience.
It was Ian Hale. And as he stared down at me on the top of Primrose Hill, in the watery
morning sunlight with all of London laid out at our feet, he said, “Is this your dog?”
Pilot stuck his head down and panted happily into my face, his black whiskers tickling over my forehead and cheeks. I had to squeeze my eyes shut to avoid being blinded by drool. This wasn’t exactly how my Ian Hale fantasies usually began. “I’m so sorry. He’s a menace.”
Instead of agreeing with me, Ian Hale paused. His knuckles whitened where he gripped Pilot’s collar, and I was pretty sure I could hear a frown in his voice when he said, “He’s not. He’s a good boy. Just a little high spirits, innit.”
The accent. Oh my God, delicious. Less posh than what he did as Zeus in the Mount Olympus movies, with a rough undertone that sent a shudder down my spine. My spine, which was still pressed against the dewy wet grass. I flopped around awkwardly and somehow made it up to a kneeling position. I was sure my face was a lovely shade of red; I could feel wispy curls escaping my bun and sticking to my cheeks.
I probably shouldn’t have quit Pilates just because it was something Tony and I used to do together.
Well. I also quit because I hated it, and I’d rather spend an hour on the couch cuddling my dog and working my way through a bag of white cheddar popcorn than grunting on a table and activating my nonexistent core. But the Tony thing didn’t help.
Naughty Brits: An Anthology Page 24