Heavy: A Bad Boy Next Door Romance

by Amelia Wilde

  She smiles at me in the mirror. “I would never think that.”

  Something in the deepest part of me relaxes, and I plant one more kiss on her cheek, hang the towel on the hook by the shower, and move past her, back into the apartment.

  Zelda doesn't linger long and appears a few minutes later with her hair gently swept back in a ponytail. I’m just pulling my shirt over my head and watching the sway of her hips as she walks across the room, a satisfied smile on her face as she goes.

  At the dresser, she chooses panties and a bra, and puts them on. I want my hands all over her again. I want to lose myself in her again. And I never, never want to be found.

  “You’re getting dressed.”

  She gasps a little, like she’s surprised to find herself with clothes on, and it makes me laugh, my chest feeling slightly lighter. “Don’t you want to go out?”

  “Go out…or stay in.”

  I cross to her and put my palm against the smooth skin of her neck, stroking it down until my fingers meet her bra strap. She closes her eyes when I start to slide it off her shoulder, and she shivers when I kiss right on the line where the bra strap used to be.

  “If you keep this up…” Her voice is low and breathy. “This is going to be the rest of the day.”

  I lean toward her and drop my voice. “What the hell would be wrong with that?”

  She leans into me, giving in, and my cock is harder than steel.

  Right up until my phone buzzes in my pocket.

  With a growl of frustration I step back, Zelda’s worried eyes on my face, and wrench it out of my pocket.

  It’s fucking Domino.

  “I’m busy.” I snap the words into my phone, forgetting myself, drunk on her.

  Domino lets the silence hang for three heartbeats, just long enough to tell me he’s not fucking happy.

  “Is that so?”

  It’s a deadly question, and he and I both know it. I step farther away from Zelda, like keeping the phone away from her can protect her from the scumbag life I lead. The apology tastes bitter in my mouth. “I’m sorry, D. Things here are stressful.”

  He moves on, voice clipped. “That’s too bad. There’s an individual I need you to take care of. Sometime in the next couple of hours.”

  “Where at?”

  He names an address that’s so damn far away he might as well pay the house call himself. It’s literally around the block from his main place, and any one of his people could go there. The guy who lives there is a pushover, and it hits me all at once that this is the kind of bullshit he’s going to put me through to teach me a lesson about taking time off, for daring to be this far away from him.

  Irritation surges in my chest, and I turn back toward Zelda. She’s putting her bra strap back in place, and when she catches my gaze, she looks down and turns back toward the dresser. She’s got herself dressed in yoga pants and a top in what seems like an instant.

  Well, fuck. Going back to bed looks like it’s off the table, and her mouth is pressed into a thin, serious line, searching my face for any sign of what’s happening in this phone call. I must not look very pleased. I must look fucking irate. I try to force a smile onto my face, but her frown only deepens.

  I don’t want to see her frowning. I don’t want to be in this position.

  That’s when I say it.

  “No.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “No, Domino. I’m not available.” My jaw tightens, teeth coming together with a click. I’m already at the very edge of the precipice, and fuck this, I’m going over. “I’m done.”

  Domino’s tone is suddenly conversational. “Tell me more about this, Sawyer.”

  I’ve heard him say this to other people before, in worse situations, and it never goes well. The talking always turns violent. The explanations never do anything.

  They weren’t worse. They were the exact situation I’m in now, that I’m putting myself in with every word that comes out of my mouth.

  But I’m not going to back down now. I’m sick of backing down. I’m sick of being a younger version of my father. My stomach roils at the thought, turns and twists. That’s what I’m doing, working for Domino, even if I’ve never let myself see it before. It’s just not my family I’m beating up.

  “There’s nothing else to say. I’m done. I’m not coming back. Don’t call me again.”

  Then, with so much force the phone almost snaps in my grip, I end the call. I hang up on him.

  Now comes the waiting.

  Chapter 37

  Zelda

  Sawyer’s face is bright with anger and relief and so many other things that it’s hard to put a finger on exactly what he’s feeling, and I’m not sure I want to know.

  He shoves his phone back into his pocket. His mouth curves up into a smile that flickers away and then returns.

  “You’re dressed.”

  “It—” I don’t know what to say. My heart pounds against my ribs. At first, I thought he might be getting a call from someone in his family. But no. That wasn’t it at all. “It seemed like a serious call, like I should—I should be ready to go.”

  “Good call.” Sawyer runs a hand through his hair. “Where did you want to go? Out? Where?” He laughs, and the sound reverberates through my core. “We can go fucking anywhere. I don’t have anywhere to be. Do you have anywhere to be?”

  “Did you just quit your job?” That’s what it sounded like, a person quitting his job—an unhappy person quitting his job. But Sawyer’s job isn’t like everyone else’s. There are consequences to this kind of thing. There has to be. Even I know that, and I work at a library, where Mrs. Sanders frowning deeply at me would probably be the worst-case scenario if I was to quit.

  “Yeah.” He crosses the room again and sweeps me up into his arms, kissing me hard and fast and deep. When he pulls back, he’s got a big smile on his face, a reckless grin. “Let’s go to the movies. Is there anything you want to see?”

  “I don’t—” I laugh out loud. “I don’t know! I haven’t been to the movies in forever.”

  “Grab your purse. I’m going to buy you all the popcorn you can possibly eat.”

  He turns around, heading for the back door. Where is my purse? Abandoned somewhere by my desk. I scoop it up and drop my phone into it.

  “You ready?” He’s smiling by the door, but something about his expression sends a chill down my spine. Can this really be the end of his work in the city? Does he have a plan for what comes next?

  And what is his boss going to do to him? Sawyer isn’t a pushover, but a man who hires people to beat other people into submission can definitely hire more.

  “More than ready.” My chest goes tight with the fact that Sawyer took that call inside my parents’ house. It’s not like I think he was being tracked, but can you ever really be sure? Cell phones today aren’t the plastic pieces of junk they were when I was in school. If Sawyer’s boss had anything to do with his phone…

  I feel like I’m back on the edge of that ravine, teetering drunk, laughing too loud because I know this is a bad idea, I know that something bad could happen, but I’m doing it anyway. And Sawyer is the man who’s tempting me closer and closer to the edge, to plummeting off, even if he thinks it’ll be all right.

  I want to get out of here, just in case.

  “More than ready.”

  He leads the way out.

  We sit in a movie theater and I hardly see the film, but at least the popcorn is salty and hot and good. I eat it compulsively, by the handful, trying to slow down but failing.

  “Wow,” Sawyer whispers when the bucket is gone. “You love popcorn.”

  “I really do.” I also love staying safe. I don’t know what I was thinking, hoping for something to shake up my life, hoping to leave all this behind.

  For what, anyway? A life where I never knew what was going to happen?

  My hands tremble around the empty popcorn container. What’s wrong with me? I wanted to be with Sawyer. I
couldn’t keep my hands off of him. And he’s not—he’s not some kind of criminal. He’s always been a gentlemen. To me.

  But he is some kind of criminal. There’s no way that his work all these years was inside the bounds of the law.

  It’s over now. I take in a deep breath and let it out. It’s over now, and he’s going to—

  Well, I don’t know. I didn’t ask, and we didn’t talk about it, we just came to the theater and chose a movie. It’s the big theater, halfway between Greenville and the city, and they have twenty screens. The moment the lights dimmed, I felt my shoulders relax. Even if his boss is coming for us now, he’s never going to find us in this movie theater.

  Is that really what might happen? Could his drug dealer boss come after Sawyer for retribution? Could I be caught in the crossfire? Is this actually a reality I’m willing to live in?

  Do I have any other choice?

  The door at the back of the theater bangs open, letting a burst of light in, and I whip my head around, gasping out loud. The sound is mostly covered by the laughter of everyone else in the theater—the movie is a cross between a romantic comedy and a post-apocalypse thing that I haven’t really been following—but Sawyer notices.

  “Zelda.” He reaches over and takes the popcorn bucket from my hands, putting it carefully into the seat beside him. “Are you okay?”

  “What are you going to do?” I try to keep my voice at a level whisper, but it’s an effort.

  “About what?”

  There’s nobody sitting right behind us, thank God.

  “Your job. Your boss—isn’t he angry? Is he going to—?”

  Understanding flies across his face, and in one steady movement he flips up the armrest divided between us and wraps his muscular arm around me, pulling me in, squeezing me tight for a long set of heartbeats. He might represent the biggest danger of my life—bigger than Eric, bigger than that ravine—but my body responds, the tension going out of my muscles in spite of myself. My heart starts to slow, settle in.

  “You don’t have to worry about that,” Sawyer says softly into my ear, leaning back against his chair, his arm still firmly around me. “I’ll deal with him the next time I go back into the city. In the meantime—” Another squeeze. “We should talk about what we could do if I stay.”

  “If you stay?”

  I can feel him smiling, his cheeks tensing on the crown of my head. “When I stay.”

  For a few minutes, it’s all right.

  But then my heart picks up again.

  What if it’s not?

  Chapter 38

  Sawyer

  One day goes by, and two, and then a third, with no word from Domino.

  It makes me uneasy as hell.

  I need to make a move to go back into the city and get my stuff from my apartment, and probably get the money I have stashed away in my safety deposit box there. But I’ve been staying around, day after day, because I can’t tear myself away from Zelda.

  I’ve made a couple more visits to my dad’s house. Short ones, when Jem is there usually, and he seems to be rallying a little bit. It’s just that my mind is consumed with an excitement I’m not used to feeling. I’m stuck in this weird limbo, waiting for the rest of my life—my life after Domino, after beating people up for a living—to start. My life with Zelda. But I still have one foot planted firmly in the past.

  Tonight was a big fucking night, by any standards. Tonight was the night that Zelda’s mom invited me over for dinner.

  She caught us while I was walking her home from the library. It’s nice enough now that she walks when she can, but lately there’s been a nervous energy in her face when she talks about walking, so I go with her before her shift and meet her there on the way home. Today, her mom was outside when we got to the driveway and came over with a wide grin on her face. My heart got a strange ache when she came over, because she looks a lot like Zelda—same blonde hair, same delicate curves to her face. It was like looking into the damn future, and for once it didn’t make me nervous.

  “You must be the mystery man,” she’d said, putting down a gardening tool and coming over. Zelda went scarlet next to me and tried to hide it.

  I gave her my best charming grin. “I’m not very mysterious.”

  Her eyes darted down over my tattoos, but nothing changed in her face. Good sign or bad? I had no idea.

  “Do you have any mystery plans for dinner?” She even had the same smile as Zelda, taken down a few hundred watts.

  My aunt usually makes dinner, but I wanted to prove to Zelda that I could fit in with her regular world—that it’s not always cloak and dagger shit and shady neighborhoods. “Not tonight.”

  “You should both come!” Zelda’s mom said, and I saw the small smile on Zelda’s face.

  “I do have a lot of work,” Zelda sighed.

  “Spare us forty-five minutes for dinner, daughter of mine,” her mom said, reaching a hand out to her shoulder. “If you can.”

  “Okay.” Then Zelda had looked up at me. “Are you free?”

  “I wouldn’t miss it.”

  We’d sat around the table upstairs at her parents’ house for an hour. Zelda’s dad, a quiet guy with gray hair and searching brown eyes, asked quiet questions. I told them about how I was leaving my job in the city and considering coming back to Greenville permanently.

  Zelda’s dad had frowned at that. “Zelda’s only a few months out from completing her master’s program.”

  “Oh?”

  She’d nodded affirmatively off to my right.

  “She won’t be staying much longer after that, I don’t suppose.”

  Zelda had paused at that, forkful of spaghetti halfway to her mouth. “I won’t?”

  “Well, no.” Her dad had let out a little laugh. “You can’t stay here and do anything big career-wise.” He held up both his hands. “I love that new library. I really do. But my Zee can’t waste away there like that Sanders woman. She’s destined for bigger things.”

  Zelda had finished the bite, but her eyes were glowing.

  Now, curled around her in bed, it comes back to me, the surprised look on her face, the way she didn’t seem to see her dad’s words coming. My lungs have just regained capacity after slow, quiet lovemaking that turned into a little bit of a frenzied fuck there at the end, Zelda’s nails digging into my shoulders.

  She sighs in my arms and stretches out under the sheets. “I hope they didn’t hear.”

  “I think you were pretty quiet. Plus…” I lean down and kiss her temple. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they put some insulation in during the renovation.”

  Zelda grimaces. “No. I can hear everything that goes on upstairs.”

  “Well, you were pretty quiet, then.”

  She takes another breath in and lets it out. “We’ll need somewhere else to go if you’re—if you’re going to stay.” Those green eyes are on mine, and I’m pulled in, falling, every second, a little harder, a little farther.

  “I’m going to stay.”

  “You don’t have to, you know.”

  “Things are…” What’s the best way to say this? “Things are different now. I need a break from the city. Some time to figure out what the hell I’m going to do.”

  “Yeah, I bet.” She bites her lip. “Have you heard from your boss?”

  “No.” I frown, but cover it up as fast as I can. “No, I haven’t heard from him at all.”

  “Is that a good sign?”

  I shrug my shoulders. “Speaking of good signs—you looked pretty happy about what your dad said earlier.”

  “About leaving town?” A little grin comes back to her face.

  “Yeah.”

  “I don’t know why I was so surprised by that,” Zelda says, her gaze going off into the distance. “Maybe I was wrong about how they felt all this time.”

  “I’m sure they still worry about you. But you’re not—” I laugh. “You’re definitely not a helpless teenager anymore. You make good decisions.”<
br />
  “Are you a good decision?”

  I press my lips against her cheekbone. “Am I really the best person to ask that question?”

  “I guess not.” She sighs. “I think you’re a good decision. As long as…”

  “As long as what?”

  “Look.” She pushes herself up on one elbow so she can look down into my eyes. “This is…pretty new still. I’m the last person who wants to give any kind of ultimatum, or take this too far before—”

  “Just so you know, you can’t take this too far.” I trace my finger down the line of her shoulder to her elbow.

  “I can’t?” A pink hue comes to Zelda’s cheeks.

  “I like what’s happening with us. I like it almost too much.” I grin at her. “I hope you take it a lot farther than this.”

  She smiles and my heart expands. “Okay, but…I just don’t think it’ll work if you’re planning to go back to the city and…and do that kind of job anymore. It’s not—” She shakes her head, looking down.

  “Hey.” When her eyes meet mine again, I’m not smiling. I’m dead serious. “I’m done with that. You don’t have to w—”

  I don’t even get the word out before there’s a loud bang at the entrance to the basement, like someone kicking the door in.

  Chapter 39

  Zelda

  Sawyer is upright in an instant, and I clutch at the sheets and comforter like an idiot, like covering my breasts is going to do anything to help resolve whatever situation this is. It’s spring verging on summer, not the middle of winter, and there’s nothing that would make that door open like that, unless my parents decided to conduct a raid, which they would never do. They’ve been asleep for hours on the second floor of the house, two floors and what seems now like miles away. It’s the middle of the night, and someone—

  Someone is breaking into my apartment.

  Sawyer reaches for his boxers and throws me his shirt, and I can see in the tension of every muscle that he’s getting ready to take somebody apart, getting ready to put himself between me and whoever is out there.