British Bad Boys: Box Set

by Madden-Mills, Ilsa

  He opened his mouth as if to say something but then slammed it shut, his eyes studying me as if he were considering something serious.

  “Do I suck at kissing?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “Tequila breath?” I grimaced.

  “No, no, you kiss great. Bloody incredible. That’s the problem.” He raked a hand through his hair, his face tightening.

  He seemed like a completely different person.

  What was going on?

  “Are you married? Dating someone?” I asked.

  “I’m the Lone Ranger.”

  “Why? Are you a selfish asshole who only cares about himself?”

  He paused. “Yeah.”

  “Well, you’re in luck. That suits me just fine. So shut up and kiss me.”

  A few beats of silence went by as his eyes bored into mine.

  I stiffened. “Fine. I can take a hint. You aren’t interested. Welcome to the club.” I shifted in his lap as if to get up, and his hands tightened around my waist.

  “Wait,” he said, his demeanor softening. “I am interested. Trust me.” He bit his lip in a hot way that was completely manly. “It’s just—when you’re angry later, will you remember that you wanted me to kiss you?”

  “Of course. We’re just having fun.”

  “Are you begging me to kiss you then?” His voice was husky, tinged with a note of familiarity.

  My hands brushed the hair off his forehead, my nails trailing along his cheek. “Is that what you want?”

  “I can’t remember what I want,” he murmured, and his mouth swooped down to capture mine again.

  The sounds of the club faded away and all that mattered were his lips on mine, our tongues tangling. Lingering small kisses as we paused to breathe, then longer ones. His tongue licked my top lip and then he sucked it between his teeth. He owned me, and I lost myself, consumed by the fire that started in my bones and made its way through every part of my body.

  He was the King of Kissing.

  The Supreme Ruler.

  “Remi,” he breathed between a kiss to my lips.

  “Yes,” I replied. He felt it too. This cosmic force bringing us together. The heavens rejoiced, the universe was understood, and all things were possible.

  Magic.

  I didn’t care who saw—Lulu or the bartender or the blue-haired guy. Sparks spread as his mouth left mine to glide across my jawline to my neck, my ultimate weakness, where he sucked hard, then layered the tender spot with soothing kisses and whispers of my name—as if he knew exactly what I liked. He made his way back to my lips and ravaged them again, diving into the recesses, searching, exploring as if he were dying of thirst and I was water.

  Wait.

  Clarity arrived slowly, in bits and pieces, and then all at once as the threads of truth that had been lingering in the back of my mind dawned. Fate. She’s a tricky bitch and the mere change in a footstep, the choice to take a different path, creates a synchronism of moments that align and fall gently into place, like a butterfly that unerringly finds its way home no matter the distance.

  Fate had found me and kicked me in the stomach—hell, she’d just tossed me to the wolves.

  This was not a stranger.

  He’d said my name.

  I tore my lips from his, chest heaving. “You . . . but the tattoo . . . hair . . . Dax Blay?”

  He grinned with a cockiness that now seemed all too familiar. “You can call me Dax. Or Sex Lord. Or Daddy. Whatever floats your boat.”

  I inhaled sharply. How had I been so stupid?

  Hurt lodged in my throat; not that I wasn’t used to his smart remarks, but when pointed directly at me, leftover anger and pain from our past came roaring back to the surface like a newly opened wound.

  Don’t let him under your skin.

  I slapped him on the face. Not as hard as I wanted, but hard enough that my hand stung.

  He gritted his teeth, gave me a hard glare, and lifted his hand to touch his cheek. “You were supposed to not be angry.”

  “Why aren’t you back in Raleigh where you should be?” My fists clenched.

  “Why aren’t you with stuffy old Hartford?” he snapped right back. His eyes flicked to my bare ring finger and then bounced back to my face. “Aren’t you supposed to be married? Why are you running around London kissing random men?”

  “Ah! You knew it was me the entire time,” I huffed. “Once again, you’ve proven I’ve always been a game to you.”

  And that thought cut so deep not even the tequila could dull it.

  “Girls love my games.” His insinuation made a thousand memories bombard my brain.

  Me.

  Him.

  Us.

  Seventy-two hours in a small bedroom.

  Kisses. Beautiful, wonderful, endless kisses.

  Love. Lust.

  And then—devastation.

  Darkness.

  “No snappy comeback, Remi?”

  My eyes narrowed and if I could have shot flaming arrows from them, I’d have landed several in his crotch. My eyes touched there and then quickly darted away, but obviously not before he noticed.

  His lip curled. “You still like what you see? Once you’ve had Dax, you never go back.”

  “As usual, your ego is so big it takes up this entire nightclub.”

  He grinned tightly. “Really? I seem to remember you liked how big I was. You couldn’t get enough of my ‘Mr. Argentine Duck’”—he used air quotes—“which you so aptly named after some rare bird with a seventeen-inch cock.”

  He remembered that?

  Of course, he wasn’t seventeen inches—but he wasn’t shabby either.

  My face reddened.

  I changed the topic. “Nice. Just great. Do you have any idea the measures I took to make sure I avoided you at Whitman after you dumped me? Which is hard to do considering it’s a small university,” I said. “I’ve dropped two classes just so I didn’t have to sit in the same room as you. I’ve walked out of the cafeteria if you came in. I’ve left the library right in the middle of a group study session. The only place we saw each other was at parties and formals. And here you are tonight . . . not going by the rules of I never want to talk to you again, Dax.”

  He grunted. “I don’t know about your rules because you never told me, and I swear by all that is holy, I didn’t know it was you on that barstool. Not until that first kiss. I mean, your voice was familiar and you smelled like you, sugary and sweet, sorta like a cookie—and your body”—he raked his eyes over me—“is still rocking the hot curves—”

  “You’re so full of yourself that . . . ” I scrambled for a word. “ . . . I—I can’t even describe you.”

  He crossed his arms. “I see you still think you’re better than everyone else, but you fell in my lap, and don’t think I didn’t see you checking me out in the mirror. You were practically shagging me with your eyes.”

  I cringed. “Only because I didn’t know it was the irreverent self-absorbed waste-of-oxygen-who-expects-all-women-to-worship-at-his-feet that I went to Whitman with. And you’re a Tau.”

  “And you’re an Omega little sister,” he retorted distastefully.

  The blue-haired guy, who’d been listening intently, took a step closer to us, hands waving. “Wait, wait. So you two have a history—like before this Hartford guy?”

  We both glared at him.

  He chortled with glee. “This is bloody hilarious.”

  “No, it’s not, Spider,” Dax said. “All bets are off.”

  The guy snorted. “Never.”

  What bet? His name was Spider?

  Spider turned to me. “I apologize for my cousin. He’s had a hard summer taking care of me. Moving on, how do you know the bastard?”

  I angled my chin. “The girl he was sleeping with at the time caught us together at the frat house. She told her entire sorority I was the reason he broke up with her. Then these—these mean girls proceeded to egg my dorm room door, and the next day my
car was covered in sticky notes with slut written on them, not to mention the entire campus gossiped about me for months—”

  “What the hell?” Dax whipped his mask off, and I bit back a gasp at the full impact of his face. He slayed me, especially with those mercurial gray eyes with thick, black lashes longer than any girl’s.

  He was too gorgeous.

  Too dangerous.

  Too much of everything.

  He was exactly what I needed to avoid.

  A muscle ticked in his jaw. His fists clenched. “Eva-Maria did that to you? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  I’d been too destroyed to look at him, much less talk to him.

  “It wouldn’t have mattered,” I said quietly, remembering.

  Stormy eyes met mine. “I never told a bloody soul about us. And as I recall, you walked out on me. Maybe you should have stuck around for an explanation instead of storming out of my room.”

  Silence settled between us, the tension thick.

  My hands shook, and I put them behind my back.

  “Holy shit.” Spider’s eyes bounced from Dax’s face to mine, obviously taking in the body language between us. “Don’t stop now,” he said. “I’m dying for all the juicy bits.”

  My mouth tightened. I sighed and looked at Spider. “The usual story: a freshman girl falls for the experienced fraternity boy who only wants a one-night stand.”

  “That so?” Spider asked Dax, swinging his head back to him.

  “That’s your version, Remi,” he said, his face inscrutable, impossible to read.

  My eyes swept over the sharp contours of his face, taking in the expressive eyes I’d lost myself in three years ago; the sensual lips that had owned me. Indeed, he was beautiful. He was soul-wrenchingly hot, the kind of guy you’d beg to love you—only I didn’t beg anyone. I swallowed, forcing myself to look away from him. I focused on Spider. “The truth is, I was one in a long line of girls he dated that year. I lost count after number forty-two.”

  Spider threw his head back and laughed, his spiky blue hair glinting under the lights. “Seriously? This guy? He hasn’t had a girl all summer.”

  “Bloody hell, you’re exaggerating,” Dax muttered at me, a dark expression on his face. “And how would you know how many girls I was with? You spying on me?”

  “Ha. As if.”

  “Whatever.” His arms brushed against my chest as he went to pick up his drink on the bar.

  Crap! I was still in his lap.

  I scrambled off his legs, but winced as my right foot hit the floor. My ankle. Of course, it started throbbing. I must have hurt it more than I’d realized. Welcome to my life.

  Sucking in a sharp breath to hold in the pain, I limped over to my shoe, which thankfully some kind person had placed near the edge of the dance floor. Maneuvering carefully, I bent down and managed to snag it. I took the other one off and held both shoes with one hand.

  “What’s wrong with your ankle?” Dax had risen up from his seat and followed me. “Are you hurt? Why didn’t you say something?”

  I cut my eyes at him. “Why? Would you have been nicer?”

  His lashes dropped. Opened. “I don’t wish you any pain, Remi.”

  Why did his voice have to sound so concerned?

  Why did he have to be hotter than summer at high noon?

  Why, why, why had I kissed him?

  I did not want to get sucked into his vortex again.

  “I’m fine.” I hobbled back to the bar and grabbed my clutch. Mike was nowhere to be seen, so I pulled out a handful of twenty-pound notes and left them on the bar, hoping that covered the tequila and a reasonable tip, even though the guidebook had said the bartenders in London didn’t rely on tips.

  I grabbed the bottle of alcohol and snuggled it close.

  Dax was next to me the entire time. Watching.

  “Stop hovering,” I told him.

  He moved to stand in front of me, resolve written on his face. And perhaps regret. “Remi, wait. Don’t leave like this. You’re obviously hurt from falling and upset at seeing me, and I—dammit—the truth is I never would have kissed you the first time if I’d known it was you. For real.”

  “Because I’m that awful?” Pain swirled in my chest. He’d never wanted me the way I’d wanted him.

  “No. Because I wouldn’t want to trick you.” He sighed and held his hands out. “Look, everything else aside, I’m a gentleman, whether you believe it or not. My mum taught me to make sure a lady gets home and that she’s safe. At least let me call you a cab or grab Hartford. Is he here somewhere?” He pulled out his cell.

  I propped myself against the bar to take the pressure off my foot. “You really don’t know, do you?”

  “Know what?” His brow wrinkled.

  I bit my lip and stared at the floor, feeling that familiar embarrassment I’d experienced since I’d had to explain to people that Hartford had changed his mind about getting married.

  “What am I missing?” His voice had lowered. Grown intense. Narrowed eyes flicked down to my bare finger again. “Why aren’t you wearing your engagement ring? Did he hurt you?” He took a step in closer, his hand tentatively reaching for mine but then dropping to rest by his side when I pulled away.

  “No, it’s not like that.” I straightened my spine, tired of being sad about Hartford. “He—he—dumped me two weeks before the wedding. He said he needed some time to clear his head—a break.” I laughed, but it wasn’t real. “And we all know what a break means, right?”

  His eyes widened, and maybe I saw sympathy there, but I ignored it. I didn’t want his pity.

  “Since the honeymoon was nonrefundable, I came here with Lulu, mostly to get away from the stares and my mom.” I paused, letting it all come out. “Now I don’t even have a place to live. And then there’s my autistic brother, Malcolm—I help take care of him part-time, and I don’t want to even think about my classes this fall or applying to graduate school. I had a great plan, you know—the plan. Marry a responsible, nice guy, get my doctorate, discover a new bird species, take care of Malcolm, have four kids, but guess what? My plan is shit. My goals are shit. Even my back-up plan sucks. It’s flawed because the perfect guy decided I’m not the perfect choice for him.” My voice cracked, but I yanked it back.

  “Where’s Lulu?” His voice was gentle, surprising me.

  “She’s having a great time—like I should be. Instead of my honeymoon, I’m in some skanky, mask-wearing club where even the walls probably have a venereal disease. I’m supposed to be taking romantic walks in Hyde Park—or at least having incredible sex.”

  “I’m sorry, Remi.”

  I cupped my cheeks, feeling the hotness. “I don’t even know why I’m babbling about this to you. We don’t even like each other. Please move out of my way.”

  “No.”

  “Yes,” I snapped and pushed against the brick wall of his chest to get him out of my path. He didn’t budge.

  “I’m not bloody leaving you.”

  “You’re freaking bossy,” I bit out.

  “You liked it once.” A shadow crossed his face.

  I had. I’d loved giving control over to someone. I’m yours, Dax. Do what you want.

  I pivoted to go the other way, the sudden movement causing red-hot pain to ricochet around my ankle. “Ouchhhh!” I hopped on one foot and clutched the side of the bar so I wouldn’t fall flat on my face.

  “Christ, you can barely walk,” Dax huffed in exasperation, as strong forearms went under my legs and he swept me off my feet, hefting me up.

  “What are you doing?” I cried, struggling to juggle my bag, shoes, and tequila as he lifted me.

  “Carrying you.”

  “Put me down,” I said breathlessly. His closeness was wreaking havoc with my earlier anger.

  He shook his head. “I’m starting to think you planned all this just so you could hang out with me.”

  “In your dreams.”

  Moments of heavy silence passed as he stared dow
n at me.

  “What?” I glared at him.

  He ignored my glare, a weird expression on his face. “I’ve had a few dreams about you,” he said.

  “Nightmares?” I said smartly, but the butterflies in my stomach went crazy at the thought of him thinking about me. I shot them down one by one.

  He continued. “There’s one where you’re wearing this mermaid costume, only you have human legs and copper-red hair. Of course, I’m riding on a kick-ass stallion as I chase you down the beach. You’re screaming bloody murder—‘help me, help me’— but you have a gleam in your eyes . . . you want me to catch you. I put you on my horse and carry you to my cave where you scream my name at least a hundred times. In ecstasy.”

  My mouth had fallen open during his vivid, detailed description. “You dreamed about me as Ariel?”

  “Who?”

  “The Little Mermaid—the Disney movie?”

  “I don’t watch Disney.”

  I blinked. “You’re just messing with me, right?” Because that wouldn’t make sense. Why would he even think about me, much less dream about me? He’d forgotten about me as soon as the next girl had hopped in his bed.

  He didn’t answer me, his legs moving through the crowd.

  People scurried out of our way as he barreled through them, a hard look on his face. Using broad shoulders, he maneuvered his way to the stairs at the back left of the club. No one looked remotely surprised to see a man carrying a woman around the dark club. Another strike against this place.

  I looked over his shoulder to see Spider following behind us, a smirk on his face. He seemed vaguely familiar, but at this point, I didn’t care who he was. The most important thing in my head was the fact that Dax Blay was carting me around like a sack of potatoes. And I kinda liked it.

  Straining, I squirmed to not rest against his magnificent chest, but in the end I gave in to the comfort of his hold and rested my cheek against him. My one free hand encircled his bicep to hang on, and his eyes looked down at me, a questioning look on his face. His expression softened, making my pulse skip a beat.

  God. What was it about him that made me so weak?

  The answer was simple: Dax Blay was my Achilles heel, my one vulnerability.

  “Don’t think that things are okay just because you’re helping me.”