by Nikki Wild
If it made Rizzo feel better to shoot him, then so be it. He’d spent fifteen years trying to make it up to Rizzo for killing his dad and he almost felt a little better now, as if part of his debt had been paid finally. It was insane, but so was the mob.
Before Dante left the cabin, he threw a fresh bone on Bear’s bed and watched with a smile as he dug in, his sharp teeth scraping against the bone, his tail wagging happily. He reached down, scratching his faithful companion’s ears again lovingly.
“Love you, buddy,” he said, before closing the door. He stepped outside, looking around, remembering the scene that day two weeks ago. At the time, he had no idea how everything would turn out. He had no idea if he’d ever have a chance to see Gabby again. He didn’t even know if he would ever be a free man again.
But here he was. More than free. Happy. With a spring in his step and a smile on his face.
It’d been two long weeks since the shooting and today was Gabby’s twenty-first birthday. Thoughts of her had haunted him constantly, but he had forced himself to give her space. She needed time with her family, she didn’t need some guy she barely knew getting in the way.
So, despite the urge to find her and run off to someplace far, far way with her, he’d let her be. He’d already whisked her away once and that hadn’t turned out as well as he’d hoped.
But tonight was different. She’d finally called, her voice sounding far away and shy as she invited him to her birthday party.
He’d accepted with his heart in his throat, feeling like a nervous teenager.
Dante jumped on his bike and made his way down the winding road that led to the freeway that would lead him to Gabby’s apartment in the city.
Forty-five minutes and one stop later and he was driving up to her building.
He pulled the bouquet of pink roses he’d bought along the way out of his bag and made his way up the sidewalk, ignoring the queasiness in his gut.
He knocked on the door, doing his best to man up.
Being nervous was new for him and he hated it. He hadn’t been nervous around a woman in a long time but this wasn’t just any woman.
This was Gabby. He wanted it to be perfect.
Bella flung open the door, looking him up and down with her signature smirk.
“Gabbbbbbbby,” she yelled over her shoulder. There was a huge amount of people filling the apartment behind her. “Your biker is here!”
Bella looked him up and down, her eyes raking over him slowly.
“You clean up pretty good, Dante. And you brought roses, too?” Bella nodded. “Classy move.”
“Hello to you too, Bella,” Dante said, just as Gabby rounded the corner, her curves accentuated by the tight black dress she was wearing. Bella walked away, disappearing into the crowd.
“You look amazing,” he said, handing Gabby the roses.
Dante swallowed hard, resisting the urge to scoop her up into his arms and carry her off to her bedroom. He wasn’t used to this dating shit. He wasn’t used to waiting. He certainly wasn’t used to hanging out with a crowd full of strangers.
“They’re beautiful!” Gabby leaned forward, inhaling their fresh scent. “Thank you,” she said, looking at him shyly.
“Happy birthday,” he whispered.
“Thank you,” she said, “would you like to come in?”
“Do I have to?” he asked, looking past her at the crowd.
She giggled and nodded.
“C’mon, we’ll go to my room,” she replied, grabbing his arm and pulling him inside. She led him down a hallway past the gawking crowd and into her room.
They sat down on the bed and he turned to her, so stoked to finally be in her presence again.
“Have you been okay?” he asked, thankful that they were alone. Her room was feminine and frilly and he felt completely out of place in his leather cut, but he didn’t care. It smelled exactly like Gabby and he loved it.
“Yes,” she replied, nodding. “You?” she asked with a smile.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” he replied.
They sat in awkward silence, and once again, he felt like a schoolboy again. He looked at her, drinking in her beauty, completely at a loss for what to do. He sighed, shaking away his uncertainty.
This was absurd, he thought. I’m fucking Dante Santoro. I’m a fucking man, and that’s how I should act.
“I’ve missed you,” he said gruffly, before pulling Gabby into his arms, his mouth coming down hard on hers. She kissed him back, returning his passion two-fold, having missed his touch as much as he missed hers.
She pulled away after a moment, looking up into his familiar eyes, the smoldering hunger she saw there shooting right through her.
“I owe you everything,” she whispered.
“No, you don’t. You don’t owe me anything, sweetheart,” he replied.
“…and Bear,” she murmured, staring up into his eyes.
“Bear loved every minute of it,” he shrugged. “He’s got a hero complex.”
“And you?” she asked quietly. “Did you love it?”
“Yeah,” he replied, his voice thick with emotion. “I loved it. Most of it.”
“Dante…” she hesitated.
“Yes?”
“What do we do now?” she asked. “This was all so weird. Everything happened so quickly, I didn’t have time to think.”
“What do you want to happen?” he asked.
“I guess I’d like to start over.”
“I don’t know if we can do that, Gabby. We can’t change the past. What happened, happened. And there’s one thing that I can’t start over.”
“What?” she asked.
“I love you, Gabby,” he said, pulling her into his arms. “I’ve loved you for a long time. At first, it was just a fantasy. A boy’s childhood obsession. But then you came back. And now here you are. You’re not just a fantasy. You’re real. And I fuckin’ love you, Gabby. I need you in my life, I need you to be mine. I can’t just start all over. A love like this can’t just be turned off and on.”
“Dante, I —,” she began to reply, but his kiss silenced her. She melted into him, loving him back, needing him just as much as he needed her. His kiss transported her, lifting her heart with joy and sending sparks of electric desire through her limbs, just as it had before.
She knew she could be in for a rough ride with Dante. She barely knew him, but she did sense that he was a lot like her father.
Stubborn. Prideful. Mysterious.
But there was more to him than that. He was gentle but he knew when to be assertive, he was tough as nails but he wasn’t afraid to show her his vulnerable side, he was a good man that had put his own life on the line to save hers.
When life throws someone like that in your path over and over, eventually you listen. You stop fighting.
His kiss woke something inside of her that she’d tucked away for the last few weeks. She’d been worried sick about her father and was so happy that he’d been released from the hospital.
But today was her birthday. And she was ready to celebrate.
And Dante was her present.
Right here in her bedroom.
In the flesh. Safe. In one piece. Wrapped up in leather, tattoos, and delicious rugged masculinity.
They weren’t hiding. They weren’t on the run. They weren’t in danger.
That was all in the past. That was all over.
Now they were just two normal people, enjoying a nice, normal kiss, with their entire lives spread out before them.
Gabby tore her mouth from his and walked over to her bedroom door. She turned the lock with a slow smile, her stomach quivering with happiness.
She turned around, her eyes colliding with Dante’s.
He opened his welcoming arms with a lustful grin, and she walked right into her future.
You’re still not done! Turn the page for something a little different, my bestselling sports romance, PLAYED! I love sharing some extras with my fans and I hope you lov
e it!
-Nikki xoxoxo
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Novels by Nikki Wild
Bad Boy Fighters:
KNOCKOUT (A Bad Boy MMA Romance)
Bad Boy Bikers:
Saving Landon (A Bad Boy Biker Romance)
Saved by the Bad Boy (A Devil’s Dragons Biker Romance)
British Bad Boys:
Royal Prick (A Bad Boy British Romance)
Arrogant Brit (A Bad Boy British Sports Romance)
Rock Hard (A Bad Boy British Rockstar Romance)
Played (A Bad Boy British Romance)
Bad Boy Rockstars:
Illicit Behavior (A Bad Boy Rockstar Romance)
Rock Hard (A Bad Boy British Rockstar Romance)
Bad Boy Stepbrothers:
Lust (A Bad Boy Stepbrother Romance)
Richard (A Bad Boy Stepbrother Romance)
Bad Boy Billionaires:
Protect And Serve (A Bad Boy Billionaire Romance)
Part II
Bonus Novel 6: PLAYED (A British Bad Boy Romance)
Copyright
PLAYED
A BRITISH BAD BOY ROMANCE
By Nikki Wild
Copyright 2015 Nikki Wild
All Rights Reserved
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Prologue
Lex
My name is Alexander Lambert, but you can call me Lex… after all, everyone else in Great Britain does. My rabid fans, the sportscasters, and the tabloids know me by a slightly different name: “Lightning Lex Lambert.”
You see, I’m kind of a big fucking deal.
For the last twelve years, I’ve been rising in the football world – or soccer, as the Americans call it, rather incorrectly I’ll quickly add.
I’ve paid my dues, playing in some of the most prestigious teams to grace the great echelons of English football might: some junior teams, Manchester United, Galaxy League, a few seasons here and there with an underdog or two… and now the National team.
Which means one thing:
I’m a World Cup caliber player.
The greatest sport on Earth, watched with borderline zealotry by over a hundred countries, all culminating in a grand championship that draws audiences over hundreds of millions. The sheer marketing dollars spent on that tournament outperforms the gross domestic product of smaller countries, every single year, and it’s only getting bigger and bigger.
And right there on the field?
Me.
Lex Fucking Lambert, star player and team captain of the English National Team. I am the best of the best, a regular household name in my home country. My signature alone is a prized commodity in the realm of sports merchandising. Signed headshots fetch for thousands of dollars on eBay, especially since I’ve only signed maybe twenty or thirty of them in my entire life.
My reputation for fearless, combative ball is legendary among discussions of the sport. When I step out under the lights and look down my hardened, take-no-prisoners enemies on the field, they quake with fear.
I’m known off the field as well, although that preceding reputation is slightly different… and even more fun.
Let’s just say that playing it family friendly is a damned good waste of ridiculous fame, staggeringly impeccable physique, and my particular breed of effortlessly rugged features…
I might have been caught in the tabloids a few times with some hot, nameless piece of ass. Or, you know, maybe a lot more than a few.
What can I say? I’m a handsome piece, and I know how to wear a tailored suit… and as it turns out, the women go crazy for that kind of thing.
They all fancy a shag with Lex.
I had it all – the looks, the game, the prestige, and the effortless, thirsty pussy thrown at me every time I walked into a bar. Life was great, and the sex on demand was even better. But I lacked one thing, and I knew exactly what it was.
The big money.
You might have never heard of the Patrovo Corporation, but they’re a bigger deal in Jolly Ole England than me.
Hard to imagine, I’m sure.
Pretty much everything from top-tier, high-end sneakers to household boxes of oat cereal are owned by some subsidiary company that eventually bows to the Patrovo Corporation, no matter how high up the food chain you have to go. They have their grubby little fingers in goddamn everything… and they dish out one multi-million dollar corporate sponsorships to one lucky star athlete per year… the best of the best.
In case you’d forgotten… that’s me.
I wanted that contract with every fiber of my being. I burned for it. Nobody else deserved it more than me. I was already a pop culture celebrity, known and beloved by the entire country… and I had the skills to back it up.
That money belonged to me.
Which made this little conversation all the more upsetting…
“You do realize why you’re not getting the sponsorship, yeah?” Jess casually asked as she sipped from her frothing pint of dark ale.
She and I were sitting across from each other at a small, private bar-top table in my favourite pub, The Grinning Twig. It was one of the few watering holes that held my authority in such reverence that I could sneak through the back and sit in a private room with a lips-sealed, mum’s the word bartender.
Jess continued, setting her glass down and wiping the froth from her lips with the back of her hand. “I mean, even you aren’t that dull in the head, Lex. Surely, you’ve figured it out by now.”
“Go ahead, then,” I growled in slight protest; I set my own glass down against the bar with a clatter that rang a little too loudly. My private bartender glanced up from wiping out the mug in his hands, but when it was clear that I didn’t give a rat’s arse about him, he soon resumed his work.
One look at Jess’s face, and my mind quickly changed. “Wait, no. You’re doing that sodding smirk of yours. Don’t do the smirk.”
“What smirk?” She asked innocently, her eyes flashing wild with mischievousness. “Couldn’t possibly know what you’re talking about…”
“You’re doing it right now,” I repeated, my voice gravelly with mounting frustration. “I know that smirk. That’s the smirk you give that rambunctious, shit-assed pup of yours when he’s misbehaving.”
Of course, I wasn’t referring to a dog. Jess didn’t own a dog. What she did own was a taste for men barely old enough to move out of their mummy’s house… this month, he was a sniveling, spineless punk wannabe.
Kept on a leash like any good dog, Timothy was a scrawny little fuck… a wet-behind-the-ears kid just tall enough to pull off a leather jacket. Even that took a little convincing.
Ignoring my criticism of her fuck-buddy choices, Jess’s smirk widened, and she reclined against the bar stool, crossing her arms.
“You know what I’m going to say.”
“Let’s pretend that I don’t,” I insisted.
I didn’t like being toyed with, and she knew that. The two people I needed to confide in at times like this were my best friend, and my publicist.
Life put both in the same fucking woman.
What a lucky sod that made me.
Jess watched me for a moment, choosing her words and judging my reactions before finally cutting loose. “Lex, the Patrovo Corporation invests a lot of money into proper brand representation. The athletes they slap on the boxes of cereal, or put i
n their stupid shoe commercials, they need those athletes to protect their interests.”
“I’m well aware,” I gruffly reminded her.
Jess raised an eyebrow. “I understand that. But what you’ve got to realize is that Brett Barker plays it safe as shit. His choice is going to be careful, calculated, and definitely not you.”
“I’m safe,” I protested, lifting my arms in protest before clasping the fingers behind my head. “Safe as they come.”
“Safe doesn’t get their photos slapped across a six-page major spread,” she grumbled, reaching into her purse to whip out a creased tabloid. She shoved it towards me, and I lazily leaned back forwards and rifled through the pages.
Sure, I was on the cover again. No big deal.
“I don’t see what you’re–”
Then I stopped, glancing at the photos. Seemed like the paparazzi fucks had stalked me to a hotel balcony, where I’d been photographed with my arms around two lovely little ladies.
I remembered them. Not their names, of course, but I recalled the three nights of glorious, hardcore lovemaking we’d had together… and how jealous the gods must have been in their various pantheons.
Of course, that didn’t matter now.
Not when I was staring at various blurry pictures, showing under no arguable terms that I was kissing one with another on her knees in front of me at cock level. In another candid photo, they were kissing for my entertainment… and in yet another, they were both at cock level in front of me, with my proud face held high and each palm resting on their heads...
Yeah, I’d almost forgotten how good those few days had been. Cor blimey, were they voracious in the hotel bed... and in the shower… and on the balcony, as the paparazzi apparently noticed.