A Dangerous Way to Love (Dangerous Bonds Book 3)

by Shani Greene-Dowdell

  “Well—”

  I took a step away, and he pulled me back close to him. The heat from his glare went in through mine and got all inside of me. My breathing went ragged in a span of seconds, and Lord, have mercy. My body started reacting to him with the clenching and unclenching of my vagina. It pulsated pleasurably. My nipples hardened and fought to break free from the black cotton dress I was wearing. I licked my lips that had suddenly become dry.

  “What are you doing, Bruiser?” I had to know what exactly it was that he was doing. Knowing that would guide what it was that I was doing.

  “Trying to protect your stubborn ass. Stop running away from me when you should know by now that I’d be the first to put hot lead in a man over you. I should be the last person you run away from. Now, come on, and let me walk you to your car. I need to check it out before you get in,” he started walking with me in tow. Walking away as if he didn’t just pour passionate hot sex into my eyes from his and pretend that he didn’t.

  Without even trying, Bruiser had taken control of me. His grip of my arm now felt a whole world different than the crazed man earlier. This, my body welcomed.

  “No, I don’t need you to do that. I can protect myself!” My body may have responded favorably to him, but the protection mechanisms in my mind went off loudly, and I resisted the way he made me feel. “I’ve been alive for thirty years. I don’t need you standing over me like I’m a child!”

  “You don’t know what you need, Alise. If you keep behaving the way you do, something bad will happen to you. You need to stop acting like you’re a man because you’re not!” he growled. His tone shook me a little, but I would never let him know that.

  “Bruise, man, what’s going on now?” Jeb asked as he and Tameka walked in our direction. I had never been so glad to see my friend and her husband.

  I spoke up, explaining, “First of all, this man thinks he’s my daddy or something. I left my phone case at the table we were sitting at. I went to get it and came outside, and he started hollering at me like a mad man.”

  “That’s because you shouldn’t be out here in the dark by yourself. Anything could happen to you, and all of your snappy attitude, kicking and screaming wouldn’t be enough to save you,” Bruiser said, grabbing the sides of my face, forcing me to look up into his eyes, as he argued his point.

  Oh. My. My. My. Why did he touch me like that?

  “He does have a point, Alise, especially after that guy tried to attack you tonight,” said Tameka. I wanted to reply to Tameka, but Bruiser’s hands on my face had silenced me.

  “Huh?” was all I could say.

  Bruiser let my face go, and I missed his touch already. I would have been just fine standing there, doing whatever it was we were doing when he was holding the sides of my face. He turned to Tameka and nodded, glad to have an ally in his apparent quest to tell me what I could and couldn’t do with my life.

  “I don’t need saving by anyone, Tameka,” I said, including both Bruiser and Tameka in my ire.

  “Sis, he does have a point,” Tameka reiterated. “It’s better to be on the safe side.”

  “Not you too, Tameka,” I said.

  “Thank you,” Bruiser said to Tameka then turned back to me. “I watched you and your friend to the car earlier and thought you were gone. Then, you show back up alone without anyone to look out for you. What if the guy had been lurking around and watched you leave out and come back in? You have to be more careful than that.”

  “I’ll be fine! Just leave me alone,” I said, not understanding why I said it when another part of me just wanted him to touch my face again.

  Tameka nudged me and mouthed, “Security.” She wanted me to hire Bruiser’s security company. “Do you have a card you could give Alise so that she can hire you when she does gigs at other clubs?” Tameka spoke up in my stead.

  I glared at her.

  I don’t need his card. I won’t use it.

  “No—”

  “Here,” Bruiser cut me off before I could decline, handing his card to me. “It would be best if you hire a guard, and I have some qualified men that work with me.”

  I snatched the card from him while complaining, “If I hire you, I may not be allowed to leave my house.”

  “I’ll let you come out for air sometimes,” Bruiser replied.

  What did he just say?

  I sucked in a breath. His piercing brown eyes were incredibly erotic, his lips lickable, and everything about him morphed into tall, dark, and ‘fuck me, please’ right then and right there. I turned on my heels and hurried to my car and got in. I started the engine, quickly looked at Bruiser, and then looked at Tameka. I didn’t want Bruiser to know that his words affected me, but they did. Looking into his eyes would surely give me away. I shot Tameka an ‘I’m going to get you’ glare and took off.

  Bruiser rushed to his car, fired it up, and followed me all the way home. He sat by the curb and watched me walk up the stairway leading to my front door. I turned back to see him still watching me. He killed his engine and turned off his lights. I was in disbelief. He was planning to sit out here. This is too much. With him following me home like this, it was hard to tell who was really my stalker.

  Suddenly, Bruiser peeled his eyes away from mine. His attention went to a white Range Rover parked a few houses down. The vehicle’s lights were out, but a shadowy figure could be seen sitting in the driver’s seat.

  Bruiser got out of his car and walked toward the vehicle, moving his hand around to his back to hover over his gun as he walked. The driver started the engine and drove off down the street like he was in a high-speed chase.

  Well, hell… That blew the theory of having two stalkers.

  Bruiser sent me an ‘I told you so’ victory look.

  “That was him,” he said. “Now, go inside and get some sleep. I’ll camp out here for a while.” With that, he got back in his truck and pulled out his cell phone.

  I went inside and slammed the door shut behind me. What was going on tonight? It seemed like all the peace and restoration I had fought so hard for in my life had slipped away in a matter of hours.

  Chapter Five

  Van

  The Chamber

  2:46 a.m.

  And I love you back…

  She loved me. Remembering how she said the words, soft and sweet, helped to lull me into a peaceful rest. Sleep was upon me. Like a runner handing off the baton to his partner, I had my hand extended, ready to grab sleep into my grip. As much as I reached for the baton, sleep had run right past me, continuing the race without me. Tapping sounds at my front door pulled me from my near slumber. Raven showing up at the door and appearing in her life-form was becoming the norm. But the knocking was louder than ever before tonight. So loud that it sounded real this time. Someone was actually at the door.

  Raven.

  Could she be coming back home for real this time? She was. My Raven was coming back to me. I sprang out of bed and took the steps two at a time, heading to the front door. I don’t even know how I managed to always keep so much faith in the idea that we would reunite once more, but I still had hope. Just as I hoped not to be let down yet again. Seeing Raven’s ghost, only to have her disappear, would burn my soul for the thousandth time.

  I braced myself for whatever was on the other side. Be still heart, I silently told the organ thumping against my chest. I peeked outside and saw the shadow of a giant person wearing all black.

  “Who is it?” I asked.

  There was no answer, only more knocking.

  I opened the door, ready for whatever. I was stunned to see that it was the bouncer, Bruiser, from Club Elite, standing on the other side of the threshold. When he threw me out of the club earlier tonight, the club’s owner kept calling him Bruiser. That’s how I knew his name.

  “What the fuck are you doing at my house?” I asked, my tone immediately going into a raging roar. He had some nerve showing up here.

  “You followed Alise home tonight. I�
�m here to let you know that’s not to happen again.”

  “What I do is no business of yours. I can drive anywhere I want to in this city or yours,” I replied.

  “Oh yeah?” His vein-filled hands unfolded and folded into fists. Each time they folded, veins pulsated, and knuckles cracked. The glare in his dark eyes could cut into metal. Blood visibly throbbed as it pumped through the veins of his thick neck.

  He was a giant compared to my slim weight. He looked to be about two hundred pounds and six feet four. Though I was a tall man at six feet even, I wasn’t ready to square off with him again. I did it anyway. He might have been this cock-diesel strong and physically imposing guy, but he had come to my place of residence. I was not about to back down in my own home.

  “Raven is my business.” I caught myself. “I mean, Alise is a grown woman, and she’s single.” I’d checked her social media profiles and knew she wasn’t dating anyone. This guy was just a man who obviously wanted her as much as I did. “You have no claim over who can and cannot come to see her. If I come to her house again, what in the hell will you do about it?”

  “Listen, you crazy little shit.” Bruiser closed the space between us and his voice boomed as he said through gritted teeth, “If one thing happens to her, a hair harmed on her head, her feelings get hurt, the stray animals that live around her place feel threatened, anything, I will slice you in half and bury you on different sides of Alabama, so that you’ll never be whole again. You understand where I’m going with this?”

  “Get away from my house threatening me, right no—”

  My next words were thrust back into my throat when he sidestepped me and wrapped his humongous gun around my throat. And by gun, I mean his big, raging muscular arm that was as hard as pure metal. I didn’t see it coming.

  I struggled to free myself from his hold. His strength was that of a machine. The kind of dangerous machine that a person lost limbs in, once they got entangled in it. One could lose their life dealing with this type of machinery.

  I swung around and a punch connected with his jaw. His big arms only wrapped tighter around me. No matter how many times I connected with his flesh, he would not let go. My punches weren’t affecting him, and I didn’t know what to do to save my life. I guessed this was it. I was going to join my Raven. It was suiting that it happened this way. I, in search of just a few more moments with her, clashed with a man who would choke me to death.

  Just as I was about to pass out in his arms, I dropped to the ground in a loud thud. He kneeled down beside me and wrapped his hand around my neck as I gasped for air.

  “When I say stay away from Alise, I’m not asking. Come near her again, and you won’t get another chance.” He walked over the threshold and back down my gravelly driveway to a still-running black F250 and hopped in.

  Perched down in a squatted position, I steadied my legs so that I could make a dash to my gun inside the table in the foyer. I didn’t make it in time before he was out of my line of vision and pulling out onto the main road.

  Bruiser had won this fight, but the winner of the battle was what mattered. She would be mine. Keeping me away from what my heart desired most was out of the question. No fucking way in hell would I stay away from her. Raven was mine, and so was Alise.

  I grabbed the door but stopped before slamming it shut. Raven appeared before me, beguiling my sad mood into a much more jovial one. I smiled.

  “Raven?”

  “You are no match for him, you know?” she replied beratingly. “It sucks to be done that way… the way you did me.”

  A sob escaped me. I didn’t even know it was in me to cry at that moment. With everything weighing on me, and now hearing Raven’s judgments, I let go. My emotions ran down my face and onto my shirt. It hurt so bad to be here in this big house…without her.

  “Raven,” I said through whimpering and shaky lips. “Why are you doing me like this? All I want to do is love you.”

  Her voice grew deeper, darker when she said, “Nevermore.”

  “Go then! Just go!” I yelled. “You’re not even real. You can’t make me feel bad when you’ll be a husk of bones in just a few seconds,” I said in a gruff. I hated taunting her, the woman I made a ghost when all I really wanted to do was get another chance to love her again.

  “That, I will be,” she said, accepting her fate. “But you will forever be a man who killed the woman you claimed to love. You did this to me. You did this to me. You did this to me.”

  That sentence lingered in the air long after she disappeared, long after I slammed the door shut, leaving her husk on the other side of the threshold.

  “It’s all in my head. Raven is dead. She’s not coming here for real. It’s all in my head.”

  I was a logical human being who came from a long line of smart men. I owned an online marketing business. I made five figures a month from the luxury of my home. I had studied and mastered the art of selling online and worked my way up to bringing in fifty thousand a month. The other part of my wealth came when my grandparents gifted me a three million dollar piece of property with over three hundred acres. The last thing I should be doing was being bullied by a ghost.

  I looked around the living room. An open window caused the curtains to move slowly. The flowing fabric resembled the long, lacy train of Raven’s wedding dress. She had been so beautiful that day. The most beautiful woman in the world.

  My eyes found Raven’s picture, sitting lonely on the mantle. It spoke to me as if her soul was inside of the four corners of that frame.

  “Nevermore.”

  A deafening silence followed. There was no more fluttering of the curtains. Not a peep or a sound could be heard anywhere in the house. She was gone.

  After a long soul-cleansing cry, I went back to my bedroom and fell asleep without looking out of my window, without tossing and turning, without thinking about anything at all.

  ✦

  I woke up early the next morning and headed to my desk. I turned on the computer and focused my mind on work. I hadn’t worked my business since I laid eyes on Alise. Bruiser was right about one thing. I had gone to her house to see her one more time. I parked down the street and watched her walk onto her porch. She was easy to find because she had a public phone line, and her address was attached to it. What Bruiser was wrong about was me staying away. Now that I had laid my eyes on her, stood in her space, and breathed her wonderful vanilla scent into my lungs, I was compelled to explore where things could go between us. Namely, her being my wife.

  I pulled up Facebook and went to her page. She had posted some pictures from the event last night. I smiled. She looked beautiful, as always. Joy covered her face as she snapped shots with her friends. She also posted a link to her new song that was doing well on iTunes. “Love Me Again” was sitting at number six.

  I downloaded a copy of it and pressed play. As I listened to the song, I went back to the song’s page and ordered a thousand more copies to use as giveaways for my email list. It was a heartfelt song that deserved more listeners, and I would use every drop of my influence to get it in more people’s headphones.

  “That should help you hit number one, baby,” I said, thinking about how her radiant features would perk up into a smile when her sales spiked. “You deserve it.”

  I smiled, but remembering Bruiser’s visit from last night quickly wiped that smile away. The way Bruiser lusted after what was mine made the vein in the middle of my forehead pulse. He dared to come to my house and threaten me. Something had to be done about him.

  I got up, went to the bathroom, brushed my teeth, and put on a t-shirt. I came back down to my study, hoping my mind was clear enough to get some real work done. I opened my Amazon analytics page, and hundreds of products lit up the screen. I stared at the monitor until the figures started running together.

  Clicking off of Amazon and back to Facebook, I stalked Alise’s page for hours. Stopping to listen to a cover of Juris Fernandez’s “Forevermore,” I was about to leave
a comment when I thought better of it. I quickly created a fake profile for a woman named Jessica Newman. I left a comment on that song and some of her photos. I then inboxed her.

  Jessica Newman: Hey, Alise. I love your work. I’m your biggest fan.

  I pressed send and was shocked when she responded five minutes later.

  Alise GoldenSongstress: Awww, thank you, Jessica. I appreciate your support. My biggest fan, wow. I take it that means you’ve listened to “Love Me Again?”

  Jessica Newman: Of course, and your voice is so beautiful on that song. It always is so, so beautiful. You have a cover of Forevermore on your page. I love it, too. What inspired you to cover that song?”

  Alise GoldenSongstress: It’s a long story. But I’ll say one thing, men. I was in love with someone who was supposed to be my forevermore, but if you’ve been following my original songs, you already know what happened to me in the love department.

  Jessica Newman: Yeah… I know where you’re coming from. I know very well how easy it is to love and lose someone. You will find love soon. Hell, he’s probably already someone that’s trying to get your attention.

  Alise GoldenSongstress: Awww, that would be great, Jessica. We’ll see.

  Jessica Newman: Great talking to you. Well, keep up the great work. [heart emoji]

  Alise GoldenSongstress: Thank you so much. Glad you reached out.

  After chatting with Alise, I clicked over to iTunes and downloaded her entire catalog. She had seven singles in the app’s store. They were all packaged with high-quality images and designs, and she had excellent reviews. The more I dug into her world to find out about her, the more I was amazed by Alise. She was a remarkable woman.

  For the next thirty minutes, I took the journey through her music as she described her past love experiences in detail—a friend to lover who was unfaithful, a man who didn’t support her dreams, a man who wanted her for her money. I would never do such a warm and loving soul like Alise that way. The more I listened to her music, the more I was convinced we were destined to be together. I was the man who could end her string of misery. It was time to become one.