Shattered (A Bad Boy Romance Novel)

by Natalie Baird

  The throbbing wetness between my legs cried out for Anderson’s touch. As usual, he didn’t disappoint. Pushing me against the mirrored wall, Anderson sank to his knees before me, pushing my knees up and out, as far as they could go. I watched, wide-eyed, as he grinned at me and lowered those firm lips to my hot, wet slit. A low moaned escaped my lips as he flattened his masterful tongue against me, licking all along the length of my eager opening. He ran his tongue over my flesh in with slow determination, caressing every fold of me. Finally, his beautiful lips closed around that aching nub and unleashed a sensation of unspeakable pleasure. A huge spasm coursed through my body as he flicked his tongue against that swollen button, driving me out of my mind.

  I tangled my fingers in his curls, pulling his mouth ever closer to me. He licked and sucked with fervor, my pleasure turning him on all the more. I bucked my hips against his glorious mouth, letting myself be subsumed by the unimaginable satisfaction he was giving me. Just as I thought I couldn’t possibly handle more sensation, Anderson slid two thick fingers into me, flexing against my slick, silky flesh. I let out a moan that echoed against the marble walls as my passion built inside me. In my bliss, I reached for Anderson’s throbbing erection and wrapped my hands around its massive width. He groaned, low in his throat, as I worked my hands up and down the length of him. He’d already grown long and stiff from pleasuring me, but as I caressed him, he became even more rock solid in my hands.

  As I came down from the peak of my orgasm, Anderson wrapped his arms around the small of my back. I slid my legs around him as he pulled me from the counter, suspended just above his throbbing member. He wrenched open the shower door and a wall of steam came to greet us, to draw us in. He carried me into the big glass stall, all but shattering the door behind us. The water was scorching hot, but the burn was fantastic. I lowered myself from Anderson’s arms and leaned back against the tile wall, the water coursed through my hair and down my shoulders. For a moment, he simply stood across from me, taking in the sight of me wet and wanting before him. His member was standing straight up, pointing toward me like a compass toward true north. My legs were trembling with desire—it was a miracle that I could stay upright at all.

  Slowly, Anderson closed the space between our bodies. He made his way into the hot spray of water, and I watched as rivulets ran down his swollen muscles, over his fine chest and firm thighs. He drew up before me, and I couldn’t help myself. I took his lengthy manhood between my hands again, savoring the thick feel of him. He closed his eyes and planted his hands above me on the shower wall. As he leaned into my caresses, my breasts billowed against his hard chest. We breathed heavily against each other as I worked him into a frenzy with my hands. Finally, when neither of us could stand it a moment longer, Anderson knocked my hands away and guided himself to my aching entry.

  He thrust himself inside of me, pinning me against the wall with the force of his desire. I held onto to his bulging arms for support as I cried out. He drew back and drove in again, opening and filling the very deepest parts of me. His pummeling thrusts came hard and fast, and I burrowed my face into his neck, moaning uncontrollably. I could feel his every muscle begin to tense as he barreled toward orgasm. He seemed to grow longer with every passing thrust.

  Anderson drew back until I held just the tip of him inside of me. Our eyes locked, and time seemed to stand still. Then, with a howl of pure bliss, he drove up inside of me one final time, colliding with that spot behind my navel that was the key to my ecstasy. Our voices twined together, bouncing off the walls and creating a cacophonous symphony. I felt Anderson pulse within me, and felt warmth surging and spreading through my body. I held him tightly as he came, clinging onto him for all I was worth.

  As the sensation passed through us and Anderson slipped out from inside of me, we stayed locked in each others’ arms beneath the steamy stream. Our breaths were coming fast, and my every cell seemed to be trembling with the force of Anderson’s attentions. I never felt as spent and as rapturously fulfilled as I did after making love to him. I blinked up in the warm mist toward his endlessly deep eyes. Anderson cupped my chin and brought my lips to his, kissing me long and hard as the water cascaded around us.

  Wordlessly, miraculously, we fell to washing each other. Of all the things we’d done together in the week of our acquaintance, this was perhaps the most personal, the most sensual. We rubbed our sudsy hands over each other’s bodies. My fingers worked and caressed his every muscle, every firm expanse of skin and sinew. His strong hands cupped my curves, working over my skin and leaving trails of heat wherever they touched. I giggled as I massaged shampoo into his curls, washing away the sweat that had collected there during his hours at the gym. We stayed under the hot stream of water until our fingers were seamed and our skin was scrubbed clean.

  Anderson brought me a towel and wrapped me up, pulling me against his body once more. I melted into his embrace, our naked bodies separated by only the soft bath towels. The mirrors all around us were fogged up, the air heavy with steam. The warm air of the apartment seemed downright chilly as we headed into the bedroom to change into something more substantial than a pair of towels. The day was creeping along, and I decided to choose a dress for that evening’s fight.

  “What do you think,” I asked, holding up another, even shorter red dress with a fringed hem, “Would this be good for tonight?”

  Anderson appraised the dress as he pulled on a pair of perfectly cut jeans. “What were you wearing the first night?” he asked.

  “That other red dress,” I said, “You know the one.”

  “Right,” he said, “Well, you can’t wear red twice in a row. That’s bad luck.”

  “Bad luck?” I asked, surprised. “What are you, superstitious?”

  “I wouldn’t call it superstition,” Anderson said, pulling a back tee shirt over his head, “I just don’t like to take chances about these kinds of things.”

  “These kinds of things? Like the color of my dress?” I laughed, “That seems like a pretty arbitrary thing to worry about.”

  “Maybe,” Anderson said, “But I’ve been breaking quite a few of my good luck rituals these days. I want to make sure that I hold on to at least a couple. So, no. You can’t wear red two nights in a row.”

  “What rituals?” I asked, looking for another dress that might be appropriate for the fight.

  “Well...” Anderson started, “I’ve never exactly, uh...seen anyone so close to a fight. If you know what I mean.”

  “I don’t,” I said.

  “I, uh...haven’t ever lived with a woman while I was preparing for a fight,” Anderson said, “And I’ve certainly never slept with anyone so often, leading up to a match.”

  I looked over at him in surprise. “But Anderson,” I said, “We just...we’ve been...”

  “I know,” he laughed, “Throwing caution to the wind, right?”

  “I don’t want to be your bad luck charm,” I said quickly, forgetting about my wardrobe. “Anderson, what if you lose a fight because of me? I could never forgive myself. You’d be kicked out of the league, your whole livelihood—”

  “Hey, hey,” he said, coming toward me, “Listen to yourself for a minute. You don’t honestly think that being here with you is going to mess me up in the ring, do you?”

  But I could hear the worry in his voice. “You have no way of knowing,” I said. “What if I distract...” I trailed off, a sudden realization stealing the words from my mouth.

  The night of the last fight, Anderson had been embroiled in his match...until one moment, he happened to look up into the crowd. He’d stopped paying attention to the fight to find me up above and give me a smile. In the brief time he was unfocused, his opponent had landed an excellent blow, his one and only of the fight. Anderson would never have been hit if he hadn’t taken a moment to look for me. It was my fault that the other fighter had been able to drop Anderson to the sand. And from that moment on, there had been silence from the other side of the box whe
re I’d been sitting.

  That was why Robert had turned cold to me. He’d seen that Anderson let himself get distracted by my presence. He knew that it was my fault. No wonder he had been so angry. If Anderson had been hit a little harder, he could have lost his spot in the league entirely. To Robert, I was bad news. A distraction. Someone to be hated and rid of as soon as possible.

  “Kaela,” Anderson said, “Are you OK?”

  I shook my head to dislodge my fears. There was no way I could articulate my concern to him. Robert had been like a father to him, and I knew that Anderson held his opinions in very high esteem. If I voiced my worry, maybe Anderson would be convinced. If Robert thought that I was a jinx, Anderson might come to feel that way too. I decided to keep mum. Surely, that night’s fight would be far more successful. If it went off without a hitch, Robert would have no reason to suspect that I was throwing off Anderson’s fighting. I forced my lips into a smile and looked up into Anderson’s troubled face.

  “I’m fine,” I said, “I just...I can’t figure out which dress to wear! Why don’t you pick it for me...?”

  I prepared for the match, fighting to keep a cheerful smile on my face. The last thing I wanted to do was plant a seed of doubt in Anderson’s head before a big match. For his part, Anderson remained oblivious to the anxiety that was gnawing away at me. As the fight approached, his focus narrowed sharply. He was already channeling all of his attention and energy toward the altercation that was soon to come. Watching him get in the zone for his fight was fascinating—I was entranced by the way his mind and body worked together. He’d been so finely trained that watching him get ready for a fight was like listening to an orchestra tuning up before a symphony. All of his muscles were preparing for the brawl, arranging and coordinating. No wonder sex with him was so an incredible. When we made love, I was the focus of all that brilliant energy. How did I get so lucky...I could never presume to guess.

  In the end I settled on a tight black dress with a fine lacy overlay. The back of the dress was cutout, leaving the curve of my spine and twin wingtips of my shoulder blades bare. Anderson came up behind me as I made up my face in the mirror and placed his powerful hands on my hips. I could see his eyes in the mirror, could see that they were drinking in the sight of me with desperate desire.

  “You’d better not sit too close to the ring tonight,” he said, his fingers tightening against my skin, “I’ll get too distracted by how amazing you look.”

  “Don’t even joke,” I told him, brushing mascara onto my eyelashes. Suddenly, a thought occurred to me, a possible fix. “You know,” I said, “I could always stay here, if you think that having me at the match will mess things up.”

  A troubled look clouded Anderson’s face. “Skip the fight?” he said, “You want to skip the fight?”

  “No, no,” I said, turning toward him, “I just wanted to offer. In case you’d rather I didn’t come.”

  “Why wouldn’t I want you to come?” Anderson asked angrily.

  “I don't know, I just thought it might be better...” I said, shocked by his anger.

  “Is there something wrong?” Anderson asked, taking a step closer, “Did something happen at the last fight that you didn’t mention?”

  I thought about Robert’s angry gaze, the way he’d turned cold the moment Anderson had been knocked down. I wanted to tell Anderson all about my suspicions, but still I was hesitant. “I don’t want to get inside your head right before the match,” I said.

  “But there is something?” Anderson pressed.

  “Well...Yeah, I suppose.”

  “Tell me,” he said.

  “Anderson—”

  “Tell me what’s bothering you, Kaela. I’ll be dwelling on it all night unless you come out and say what’s on your mind.”

  I took a deep breath, knowing that there was no way to get out of talking this thing through. “OK,” I started, “Remember last week, during the fight against Maelstrom...When he was down for a second, you looked up into the stands and gave me a little smile.”

  “I thought you’d like that,” Anderson said, placing his hands on the counter to either side of me.

  “I did,” I assured him, “But...right after that, Maelstrom took you down.”

  “Yeah,” Anderson said, a note of defensiveness creeping into his voice.

  “Well...It kind of seemed like...Maybe you got taken down because I was distracting you.”

  “I don’t get distracted,” Anderson snapped, looking at me darkly.

  “Right,” I said, trying to keep the conversation from spinning out of control, “It’s just...Robert seemed really pissed off by the whole thing. Like maybe it was a mistake for me to be there.”

  “He said that?” Anderson said, shocked.

  “No, not out loud,” I said, “He just looked so angry. He was really nice to me when I got there, but after that hit...”

  “I’m sure it’s all in your head,” Anderson said. But I could tell that the idea had stuck with him. It was just as I’d feared.

  “Forget I mentioned it,” I urged him, “I’m probably just being a little sensitive. I was kind of self-conscious, being the new girl and all.”

  “Yeah,” Anderson said, straightening up, “That makes sense.”

  “I’ll be there tonight,” I told him, laying my hands on his chest. “I’ll be there to support you, no matter what.”

  “It’s going to be a tough match tonight,” he said, “Brayden Fusco is not an easy fighter to take down. The guy’s record is almost spotless in the affiliate leagues.”

  “Not after tonight, it won’t be,” I said, trying to boost his confidence.

  “Why don’t you finish getting ready,” Anderson said, walking out of the bathroom, “I’m going to fix something to eat before the match.”

  He walked away from me, a foreign tension rippling through his shoulders and back. I bit my lip anxiously, turning back toward the mirror. Had I been wrong to tell him what I’d been thinking? There was no taking my words back, of course, but a creeping dread had started to take root within me. I’d been so excited about the fight that morning, but now I was having doubts. I could only pray that the night would go well, and go in our favor. Otherwise, Anderson might adopt Robert’s view and come to think of me as a burden.

  I scowled at myself in the mirror and I curled my hair between my fingers. Surely I was just being overly sensitive. Robert probably hadn’t even been mad at me that first night. Probably, he’d just been worried for Anderson, miffed about how the fight was going. That didn’t mean that he was angry with me personally. I knew that I’d see him at the fight later that evening, and decided to straighten things out. After all, Robert was one of the most important people in Anderson’s life—I wanted to be on good terms with him.

  Chapter Seven

  Finally, the night was upon us. Anderson and I set out from the apartment together and headed downtown once more. A limo was waiting on the curb for us as we walked out of the building. Anderson held the door open for me, ever the gentleman, and I climbed inside the vehicle.

  “Hello Kaela,” said a voice from the backseat.

  I let out a shrill scream and flattened myself against the seat, peering into the darkness. Anderson lunged into the car after me, ready for a fight. I watched his expression morph from outraged to amused as he looked to see who was waiting for us.

  “Robert,” he said, relieved. My vision stopped swimming with panic, and the three figures sitting across from me in the limo came into focus. Robert Hunt was there, flanked by his two body guards once again. A steely smile was plastered onto his face, and I could tell that he had hoped not to see me again.

  “I hope you don’t mind us coming along for the ride,” Robert said to Anderson.

  “It’s your limo,” Anderson replied.

  The car pulled away from the curb and carried us through the city. A moment of tense silence fell over us, suffocating me where I sat. But for all the negativity streaming from Rob
ert’s direction, Anderson didn’t seem to notice one bit.

  “I figured you’d just meet us after the match,” Anderson said to Robert.

  “Oh, I just wanted to touch base with you beforehand,” Robert responded. “I didn’t expect to be graced with Kaela’s presence.”

  “You didn’t?” I asked, my voice very small.

  “Why didn’t you think Kaela would be coming?” Anderson asked.

  Robert smiled, baring his two perfect rows of pearly whites. “Well, it didn’t seem like you were very interested in the last match,” he said to me.

  Anderson looked to me, hurt by the suggestion. “I was very interested,” I said firmly.

  “But surely the violence made you a bit squeamish?” Robert pressed.

  “Not at all,” I told him. I knew what he was up to. He was trying to turn Anderson against me, trying to convince him that I didn’t care about his passion. Well, I wasn’t going to let some bully get the best of me, even if he was a particularly terrifying and powerful bully.

  “My mistake,” Robert drawled, leaning back in his seat, “I must have imagined it.”

  The conversation fell to shop talk as we continued on, and I let my eyes gaze despondently out the window. I didn’t know what I’d done to earn Robert’s contempt, but it was beginning to wear on me. I felt separated from Anderson in a new, uncomfortable way. I had a feeling that Anderson’s devotion to Robert ran much deeper than I’d first thought, and vice versa. I had let myself imagine that I was the person closest to Anderson, but suddenly I felt doubtful. How many women had Robert watched come and go from Anderson’s life? Was I just another passing fling?