Heavy: A Bad Boy Next Door Romance

by Amelia Wilde

  That will have to wait.

  When we get to Sawyer’s car, he opens my door for me. “I’ll just drop you off at your house, and then—”

  I have one foot in the car. “No.” It comes out in a more forceful tone than I was planning, and Sawyer does a double-take.

  His eyes locked on mine, he takes a deep breath. “What do you mean?”

  “Is my house on the way to where you have to go?”

  “No. It’s in the opposite direction. But that’s not—”

  “Then just take me with you. If it’s fifteen minutes, you can do whatever you have to do, and then we can find somewhere to eat this. It smells really good.” I hold the bag up closer to his face, but he doesn’t move toward it, not even a flinch.

  “You can’t come with me.”

  “It doesn’t make sense to drive all the way back to Greenville. It’ll be another hour before you can get whatever it is you need to do out of the way.”

  Sawyer presses his lips into a thin line, his eyes boring into mine. A muscle in his jaw twitches, but the longer the silence goes, the better chance I have of him caving in. Whatever he has to do, it’s putting the pressure on. It’s ridiculous to waste time dropping me off like I’m some high school kid.

  “I’ll wait in the car,” I say in my most reasonable tone. “I won’t bother you at all.” Then I give him a big smile, letting the conversation from earlier paint itself all over my face, dance from my eyes. “Then we can get back to our date.”

  There’s another long silence, and then something in his face shifts. He must have done the math and realized that going out of the way to take me home is stupid, or else he wants to get back to our date as much as I do.

  “Damn it.” It’s almost a growl, a frustrated growl, and my entire body is frozen in suspense, waiting to see what he’s going to say next. Is he going to take me with him? I don’t think I’ve ever been this gutsy in my life. “Fine.” The word falls onto my ears and sends another spike of adrenaline shooting through my veins. “Get in. But Zelda?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You’re taking a big risk.”

  Chapter 26

  Sawyer

  Zelda might be taking a big risk, but I’m taking a bigger one. Domino does not approve of ride-alongs. I’ve never taken anyone on a job before. I’ve never wanted to. But even if I did, I wouldn’t be stupid enough to think that he’d be fine with it.

  For one thing, people with no experience in what I’m about to do are bound to get themselves in trouble if anything goes down. Most of the time, nothing happens—not to me, anyway. But I’ve had a couple runners, a couple of interruptions, and it’s best if there’s not another person waiting around outside, no one to get in the way.

  And it’s best if there are as few witnesses as possible. No witnesses is even better.

  I almost turn around and head straight back to Greenville the moment we pull out of the restaurant parking lot. This is fucking stupid. This is so damn stupid. It’s Zelda sitting in the passenger seat, not some worthless idiot from one of Domino’s parties. If anything happens to her…

  But nothing is going to happen to her. This is a rush job, and the rush jobs that Domino sends me on are never particularly risky. If he wants to collect his money fast, we’re probably talking about some college kid who’s playing around with him, acting coy about it. The address he gave me is located in an area I recognize. There are a bunch of rental houses there that people from one of the community colleges rent out by the semester.

  She’s right about one thing. I’ll be pissed as hell if I drive twenty minutes each way to take her home and then this job takes five, and I’ve wasted most of the rest of the evening. For whatever reason, she doesn’t like to stay out too late. Her apartment is supposedly pretty much separated from the rest of the house, but her parents must be obnoxious as fuck, enough so that she doesn’t want to disturb them or ruffle any feathers.

  And there’s always the matter of Domino, who put a ticking fucking clock on this. The minutes don’t add up, either way. I don’t have time to drive her home and get this done in an hour. I should have—

  It’s too late for that now.

  I keep my grip steady on the wheel, but my instinct is to crush it beneath my palms. Zelda sits silently in the passenger seat, looking out the window at the trees flying by on the side of the highway.

  “How far did you say?” She turns toward me, her face illuminated by the glow from the radio console.

  “Fifteen minutes. Maybe a little faster.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see her open her mouth like she’s going to ask a question, but then she doesn’t. She just turns her eyes forward and continues watching the road.

  It’s not five minutes before we turn off the highway and descend into the outer edges of the neighborhood we’re visiting. There’s a gas station right off the exit. I pull into the parking lot and park in one of the spots situated right in front of the store.

  Zelda doesn’t ask a single question when I pull out my phone and bring up the Maps app. She just rearranges the bag from the restaurant at her feet and folds her hands in her lap, keeping her breath measured. In the reflection of the lights from the gas station, I can see that her cheeks are a little flushed, and I want to put the pad of my thumb up against that color, up against that softness, and then put the rest of my hand behind her head, pull her over to me…

  But I can’t. I have to get this bullshit over with, get Domino off my back, and keep myself out of trouble.

  And after this, I can’t fuck up again. Every glance at Zelda makes me more sure than ever that I have to do something else with my life, have to extricate myself from Domino’s grip, have to do it without getting maimed or killed.

  This is a bad fucking job, for a bad fucking person, and if I’m going to see her any more—

  I push the morbid thoughts out of my head and punch in the address for the house I’m supposed to be visiting.

  When the directions come up on the screen, my heart drops into my stomach. “Shit.”

  “What is it?” Zelda’s voice is soft, curious.

  “I had the address wrong in my head.” It’s not in the nice part of this area. It’s definitely in the shadier part. Still, this should be an in-and-out job. I don’t have time to drive her home now and still get back within the hour, and something tells me I shouldn’t be screwing around and testing Domino right now.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It’s not going to be in a nice neighborhood.”

  “Okay.”

  I shove my phone into one of the cup holders, reverse out of the parking place, and then shift the car back into drive and head back out onto the street. Zelda is sitting up now, her shoulders tense. I don’t need to tell her that this is dangerous. She just knows.

  I pull up to the curb half a block before the address. Only a dumbass parks right in front of the place he’s targeting. For city jobs, I almost never drive, so this is different. I don’t want Zelda out of my sight, though, so I park closer than I normally would otherwise.

  We sit quietly for a minute while I watch the house, at least as well as I can from two houses away. After about thirty seconds, a cab pulls up to the curb and the front door opens, letting out three people into the night. They seem drunk already, their voices carrying, and they pile into the back of the cab.

  As soon as it pulls away, I take in a breath and let it back out again. I wish I was wearing my regular fucking clothes, but there’s nothing I can do about it now.

  “You have to stay in the car.” At the tone of my voice, Zelda turns toward me, her eyes huge. “Don’t get out for anything. Or anyone. Understand?”

  “Okay.”

  “Swear to me that you won’t get out of the car.”

  A tiny smile quirks the corner of Zelda’s lips, but I think it’s more from nervousness than anything else. “I swear.”

  “If I’m not back in fifteen minutes, drive home.”

>   “But what about—”

  “There’s nothing to argue about.” My voice comes out with a hardened edge, and I dial it back a degree. This isn’t her fault. This is just a fucked-up circumstance of my life. “Fifteen minutes, Zelda. Then you drive away.”

  Her mouth turns down a little bit, and fear takes over the expression of excitement in her face. But to her credit, she keeps it cool.

  “Then I drive away.”

  I put my hand on the door handle, but Zelda stops me.

  “Sawyer?”

  “Yeah?”

  She opens those perfect lips. “Hurry back.”

  Chapter 27

  Zelda

  Sawyer steps out of the car and closes the driver’s side door behind him. I can’t take my eyes off him as he comes around the front of the vehicle and stands by the passenger side window. My heart beats up into my throat. His face is hard and focused, and he jabs a finger down toward the lock.

  “Lock it, Zelda.” His voice is only slightly muffled by the window.

  But I can’t take it.

  I push the door open and he leaps back to make room. “What are you—?”

  I’m with him in one step, wrapping my arms around his neck, pulling his face toward mine. Our lips crash together. He tastes like sweet wine and winter, something hot and cold all at once.

  It takes him one heartbeat to react, and then his hands wrap around the back of my head, holding me tightly, and his tongue demands entry into my mouth. It’s so hot, so unrestrained, and it feels so right, that I can’t hold back the moan that rises up out of me. The heat and wetness that’s still aching between my legs pulses, and I press my hips up against the hardness of his body.

  He backs me up until my spine is pressed against the back door of the car and leans into it, the cool metal a sharp contrast from his body heat, and I want him to get back in the car with me, right now.

  Instead, he breaks the kiss, tugging me upright and then sliding his hands down over my shoulders and to my waist before letting go. He holds the back of his hand to his lips, and when he looks at me again, his eyes burn like flowing lava right into my center.

  “Shit,” he says, turning his head to look down the street, first one way, and then the other. “Holy shit.”

  It takes him inhaling a big, long, steadying breath to collect himself, and then he puts a hand on the passenger side door handle. “Fifteen minutes.”

  I don’t say anything. I can’t. My entire body is trembling with need and fear. I don’t know what his job is, but most of me, in this moment, doesn’t care. All I care about is that he gets it over with quickly and gets back to me as fast as he can.

  I slide into the car and sit, pulling my legs in, being careful not to smash the bag of food. He shuts the door behind me, and then shoves his hands into his pocket and waits. I reach up and press down on the lock button, and all the locks in the car click into place.

  “Fifteen minutes.” I voice it through the window, and he gives me a sharp nod, then turns away.

  Sawyer doesn’t rush toward the house, but his walk is purposeful. He’s a man with somewhere to go, somewhere to be. I keep my eyes fixated on him as he strides down the sidewalk toward a blue house that definitely could use a fresh coat of paint. He doesn’t raise a hand to knock on the door. Instead, he just opens it and steps inside.

  I sag back into my seat and put my fingertips to my lips. They’re a little puffy with the intensity of his kisses, but it feels so damn good. I’m wet, too, and I press my thighs together, just trying to contain myself.

  The high from the kiss—oh, my God, a hell of a first kiss—lasts for five minutes, but as the quiet around the car sets in, the warmth starts to wear off. It’s not actually getting colder inside the car. I don’t think it is, anyway. That doesn’t stop me from wrapping my coat a little tighter around my shoulders.

  Six minutes. Sawyer has nine more minutes to get back here. I try to force myself to relax, but I can’t. I lean forward, toward the dashboard, eyes glued to the house. Is that a shadow in one of the upper windows? Irritation spikes in my chest. Damn these people with curtains. On the other hand, lingering too long thinking about what Sawyer’s job actually is makes my stomach turn over. He’s not a killer.

  No. He’s not a killer, but I take another look around and the sensible me hits with full force. He’s not a killer, but we’re in a shady part of town at nine in the evening, and he just walked into someone’s house without knocking.

  It didn’t matter to me before what he did, not when I was getting off on thoughts of him as I was lying in my bed in the safety of my parents’ basement, but now that I’m sitting in his car parked by the curb in a neighborhood I’ve never been to, this detail matters a lot more.

  A drug dealer? That wouldn’t exactly be security. Was he lying when he told me he worked in security? I knew he was hiding something, but I didn’t think he was telling me a total lie. But this kind of house, in this kind of neighborhood, it’s obviously not a legitimate and legal business he’s working for, is it?

  I resolve to make him tell me as soon as he gets back.

  Seven minutes.

  Eight.

  I grip my phone tightly in my hand. The minutes are going by too quickly. I don’t want to have to drive away without him. What the hell would have happened to him if he’s not back in time and I have to drive away? I open up my social media apps and scroll through the feeds without a single thing registering to me.

  A sharp tap on the window inches from my head makes me jump so high my head almost hits the roof of the car.

  My first instinct is to turn my head away, pretending to hide from whoever’s knocking, as if it’s just some kind of bad dream, but I force myself to turn and look. I didn’t see anyone coming from the front of the car. I should have been paying more attention.

  The guy outside my window isn’t Sawyer. It isn’t anyone I know, and when he grins at me, my blood goes cold. His teeth are crooked, but perfectly white. The look in his eyes turns my stomach.

  “Hey, sweetheart.” His voice is nothing like Sawyer’s, and the hair on the back of my neck stands up. I take a deep breath. The car is locked. I glance down to confirm. Yes. It’s locked.

  I give him a tight-lipped smile and look forward, hoping he’ll just go on to wherever he’s headed, but he taps again on the window, louder this time.

  “Who are you with?”

  What kind of person goes up to random cars parked on the street and starts questioning people? What kind of neighborhood is this?

  I swallow hard. “A friend.”

  “Where is he?”

  I don’t know what this is about. I just want him to go away. Please go away.

  “I said, where is he?” The smile vanishes, and he’s yelling now. It doesn’t sound any less threatening from behind the glass.

  “He had to run and get something.” It takes everything I have not to start crying. “He's coming back any minute now.”

  “You shouldn’t be out here.” The angry expression on this asshole’s face—this towering, too-thin asshole—is replaced by a smile that’s so disgusting, I’m almost sick to my stomach. “You should come with me.”

  “Go away.”

  He laughs. “It’s not a good neighborhood, sweetheart. You’re not safe out here.”

  How long has it been? I don’t dare take my eyes off him, don’t dare look at my phone. I’m in a dress. What if he tries to get in while I’m climbing into the driver’s seat?

  I open my mouth to tell him to go away again, but that’s when he takes his hand away from his side.

  He’s holding a big chunk of concrete. It looks like it came from the curb.

  What the hell?

  I can feel the blood drain from my face, but I can’t force any words out as he lifts the concrete up in both hands. Oh, my God. Oh, my God, he’s going to break the window and kidnap me. Oh, my—

  I take in a big breath to scream, but then a hand wraps around the guy�
�s wrist and the concrete drops from his hands, right onto his foot.

  “Fuck!” He shouts the word, but there’s worse coming, because Sawyer changes his grip, one hand tearing to grab the front of his shirt, the other speeding toward the guy’s face with a precision that would look almost beautiful if it wasn’t so damn scary.

  The punch connects, and the guy’s head snaps to the side, but Sawyer isn’t done. He has the guy by the shoulders like a rag doll, and he brings a knee up into his gut, once, twice, three times. I get a glimpse of Sawyer’s face. It’s stone-cold, emotionless.

  He’s going to kill him.

  I barely have time to think the thought before Sawyer takes one of the guy’s wrists in his hands and wrenches it backward, pinning it up high on the guy’s back.

  “Stop!” It’s a painful cry, but Sawyer doesn’t stop. He walks the guy down the block, toward the house he was just at. I can’t make out his words, but I know he’s saying something to the guy, as he’s shoving him forward. Just when I think he’s walking him out of sight to finish him off, he gives the guy’s arm another hard wrench. Another cry of pain that I can hear all the way in the car. Then Sawyer drops him to the ground where the guy curls up into a ball. Sawyer turns his back on him, sprinting back to the car.

  I unlock the doors when he’s three feet away from me, and he yanks open the driver’s side door and jumps in, turning on the engine with one last violent motion. Then his blue eyes are on mine and his hands are on my face.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Sawyer,” I gasp, and it takes me a full minute to fill in the gaps in my brain. “What the hell was that?”

  Chapter 28

  Sawyer

  She’s all right, but she’s scared out of her mind. I’m not surprised.

  I’m not surprised at all. I’m furious.

  But not at Zelda.