Relentless: A Bad Boy Romance (Bertoli Crime Family #1)

by Lauren Landish

  I stopped, realizing that the light from the lamp up ahead was allowing her to see what I looked like for the first time. I reached up with my fingers and felt my face, stopping when my fingers made my right cheek sting. I'd forgotten that the guy wore a ring on his hand. "Oh. I forgot the second guy must have been wearing a ring or something. It caught my face just right. It doesn't feel like much. I'm sure it'll clean up easily enough."

  "You're bleeding like a stuck pig," Abby objected, her face full of concern. "We need to get you patched up, take you to a hospital."

  "I . . . I don't need a hospital. Really. I'm sure it looks a lot worse than it really is," I said. A hospital was the last place I wanted to go. A hospital would mean an explanation, and an explanation could mean involving the cops. "I'll just wash it off when I get back to the apartment. It's not that far. A little hydrogen peroxide, maybe a little bit of gauze, and I'll be fine. I promise."

  "No way, mister," Abby said, sudden strength and confidence blooming in her voice. If I'd thought she had hidden strength before, I'd seriously underestimated her. "That needs to be washed out better than what you can do yourself in the mirror. You sure you won't go to the hospital?"

  "I'm sure," I said. "I . . . I’ve got my reasons."

  She tilted her head, giving me a questioning expression, but she nodded after a moment. "Fine. Then take me back to your place and let me clean you up. It's the least I can do."

  Again, the logical side of me, the side that reminded me that I was a dishonorably discharged former soldier with a felony on my rap sheet, screamed at me to refuse her offer. But the same light that let Abby see my face, let me see her for the first time, and that logical side kept getting drowned out more and more by the voice that told me this was the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen in my entire life. Long, dark blonde hair framed a face that looked like it was carved by the gods.

  Abby was stunning, with dark blue eyes that looked like flawless sapphires sparkling in the street light that seemed to bore straight into my soul. I couldn't resist those eyes and that face even if I wanted to. "All right," I said. "Uh, the place I'm staying is only a little way away. Are you sure you don't want me to call you a cab or something?"

  Don't say yes, don't say yes, the voice in my head that was talking not with logic but with fiery emotion pleaded. When Abby shook her head and instead reached out and took my hand again, it let loose a cheer loud enough that I was sure she could hear it, even if it was invisible and inside my skull.

  "Are you all right, really?" she asked as we walked. "You winced a bit there."

  "Just an unpleasant thought," I said, deflecting my real thoughts. I felt like I was back in junior high school or something, and the cute girl I'd just asked to dance had actually said yes, and I was holding her hand for the very first time. "I guess the cut stings a bit more than I thought it would."

  The rest of our walk seemed to nearly float by. I barely noticed when we reached the edge of Piedmont Park and turned north toward my apartment. "You know, you really handled yourself well," Abby said as we walked. "Where'd you learn all that?"

  "I was in the Army for a while," I said, trying to think of some other way to answer it. "I guess it was just one of those things you learn after a while."

  "Really? How long have you been out?" she asked, giving me a dazzling smile. My heart did a few lurches, along with another part of my body that was also saying it had been a long damn time since he'd had any female attention either. It was so dazzled, in fact, that I barely even noticed the alternative meaning of her question. "I mean, you're rocking two days of beard, so I guessed you’re not in service anymore."

  "I'm not," I quickly said. "I was discharged three months ago."

  I regained my composure with the answer, and knew I didn't want her to probe there anymore. In hoping she wouldn’t talk about my military history any longer, I changed the subject. "What about you? What do you do?"

  "Oh, I'm a senior at Georgia Tech," she said, as if being a student at such a good school was nothing at all. "I'm studying biology and hoping to get into a good grad school program this fall. I'd like to go into nutrition research and food science. So I guess you're not in school, then?"

  "Uh, not right at the moment," I answered, slightly ashamed. After high school, I'd messed around, mostly screwing off in college until enlisting, and had never gotten any formal degree after high school. It took my going to Leavenworth to understand the value of learning. "Oh, here we are."

  The Mayfair Tower is one of the best high-rise apartment complexes in Midtown Atlanta, and the look in Abby's eye as I led her inside sent chills up and down my spine. "Wow, this place is amazing. You really live here?"

  "For now," I said, unwilling to say that I was merely house sitting. I wasn't an official resident, just a guest, which is why I didn't avail myself of most of the facilities in the building. The most I'd done was sneak in a couple of workouts in the fitness center during the dead of night when no one else was around to wonder who the tattooed stranger was. I would sometimes also go down and grab the newspaper from the front desk when it was a day old, looking for the classified section. In a high rise where most of the cars were under two years old, and most of the residents I'd seen had the appearance of wearing suits that probably cost more money than I'd seen in years, it was the better choice. The less I stuck out around the place, the better, I thought. "Here, let's take the elevator."

  There was a comfortable silence as we took the elevator up, and I could sense a growing tension between us. It might have been a long time since I'd seen the look, but I recognized it in Abby's eyes. She thought I was attractive, and I think she also recognized that I found her stunning as well. Still, her dress, her shoes, even her purse and the way she wore her hair screamed high class and money to me. I may have been just out of jail and I may have been growing increasingly horny, but there was no way that a girl like that ended up with a guy like me. Not long-term, at least. She might want me to give it to her one time, just so she could say she’d fucked a bad boy, but that’s it.

  If there was one thing that my time in the Army and my time in Leavenworth had tried to drill into me, it was that for guys like me, there were no happily ever afters. I'd been born to a hard working miner who'd tried to raise me and two siblings on just what he could dig out of the ground. And while I'd not always been the best son in the world, I'd done my best to try and make myself better. But guys like me don't get a happily ever after. We get an hourly job that breaks our back while we dream of having a bigger television to take up the corner space in the double-wide trailer that's busting our checking account every month. That was a lucky ending for guys like me. Girls like Abby Rawlings never figured into our fates. Still, I couldn't repress the little ember of hope that was burning in my chest. It was why I didn't stop, and with the way Abby looked at me, I couldn't stop either way.

  "Here we are," I said when the elevator stopped. I led her down the short hallway to the door, unlocking it and holding it open for her. "It's really not much, just a studio, but it's good for me."

  I knew I was downplaying things, but I didn't know what else to say. The floor plan was called a Stratford, and for the Mayfair Tower, it actually was the least expensive and smallest of the apartments or condos in the place. Who knew what the hell Chris Lake paid in yearly fees? Still, compared to the cell I'd had in Leavenworth, which I shared with another man, the condo still seemed immense to me.

  "It's more than good. This is really something else,” Abby said as she looked around. "What's that, a sixty-inch TV?"

  "I'm not sure. I don't watch it all that much," I said. In Leavenworth, TV was one of the few means to pass the time when you were indoors, and I'd had more than my fill of it. Reading, on the other hand, I couldn't get enough of. I'd come to value the knowledge contained in books, and I found them infinitely more interesting than watching reruns of cable programs—at least those the guards thought we were cleared to view. I wished that I’d been th
at way back in school. “I think so though."

  "Daddy and I . . .” Abby started before pausing, something causing her to grow quiet. I heard the way she said the word Daddy, and knew that whatever her strength was, she was still at least a bit of a daddy's girl. I just hoped that didn't come with daddy issues as well. I couldn't handle that. "It doesn't matter. Come on, let's get that cut cleaned up."

  "And while we’re at it, let’s take a look at that ankle,” I said. I watched her limp when we walked, and while it wasn't bad, I didn't want her to keep putting pressure on it. "You've been hiding it pretty well, but you were limping across the lobby. I could hear it in the sound of your high heels on the tile."

  Abby smiled shyly and nodded. "Okay. Do you mind if I take them off here? I'm more comfortable barefoot anyway."

  "Mi casa es su casa," I said, trying to force casualness. I hoped that it would calm the raging inferno that was building inside me, growing larger and larger each second I saw her in the full light of the apartment. If I thought she was stunning in the park, in the apartment, fully illuminated in the tastefully recessed track lighting LEDs that cast a glow around the room, she was ethereal. I'd never seen a more beautiful woman in my life. Barefoot, she came up to just below my chin, and her figure still concealed underneath her dress was the sort of thing artists dreamed of. She didn't seem to notice my growing desire, however, and glanced toward the back of the studio.

  "I assume your stuff is in the bathroom," Abby said, looking around, her hair tossing lightly side to side. I knew instantly that when she wasn't dressed up, she was the sort of girl who liked to keep it in a ponytail. Unfortunately for me, ponytails are a major turn on, and the idea of wrapping that spun gold hair around my fingers caused my cock to surge in my pants to nearly bursting. "Or do you want me to play hide and go seek?"

  I noticed that her skin was slightly flushed, and her joke was as forced as my casualness, but still, both of us smiled and I shook my head. Maybe she was feeling it as much as I was? Fresh hope flared in my chest. "Come on."

  The bathroom was just after the kitchen in the L-shaped design of the studio apartment, and I found a bottle of antiseptic spray inside the medicine cabinet after rooting around for a few seconds. "Here," I said, handing it to her. "No peroxide, but this should do."

  "All right then, off with your hood," Abby said. She grinned at the slightly macabre joke, her lips curling up in the most enchanting bow I could imagine. "You're already bleeding onto it, and you need to get some cold water on that fabric or else it’s going to be ruined."

  An electric thrill ran through me as I let her peel my shirt up and over my head, leaving me in just my jeans and boots. Abby had turned to toss my shirt through the open door to the laundry room beyond the bathroom, so when she turned back, her startled pause when she saw my upper body for the first time actually caused me to blush. She reached toward me before pulling her hand back, suddenly realizing that she hadn't asked permission. "Wow."

  I tried not to let it show that I was pleased with her unexpected compliment, but I couldn't help it.

  Abby blinked and shook her head, tearing her eyes from my torso to look up at my face and taking the bottle of antiseptic in her hand. "Okay, hold still," she said, moving close enough that I could almost feel the heat of her presence against the skin of my upper body. "I'll try and be gentle."

  Unfortunately for Abby, the button she'd originally taken to be a weak spray turned out to be much stronger than either of us anticipated, and the resultant shot of mist not only got my cut, but also my left eye. "Ow, shit!" I gasped, immediately closing my eye and turning around. I planted my hands on the countertop, my fingers digging into the curve made by the marble of the sink. "Fuck!"

  "I . . . I’m sorry!" Abby said, her voice apologetic. I was blind and in pain, but she sounded just as hurt as I was. "God, I'm so sorry!"

  "No . . . it's okay," I said, tears running down my face. "You didn't mean to, and I should’ve closed my eye."

  "Hold still," she said, putting her hands on my shoulders. I stilled, a blissful calm almost coursing from her touch into my body, as if she were some sort of magical being. "Keep your eyes closed."

  I heard the water in the sink turn on, and a minute later, the cool bliss of a wet washcloth pressed against my injured eye. "Here," I heard Abby say as she gently wiped my eye and down my cheek. "I'm so sorry, Dane. You go and save my life, and I try and repay you by blinding you."

  "You didn't mean to, and you don't need to repay me," I said. The pain was lessening. I turned away from the sink and reached up, putting my hand over hers to hold the compress against my eye. Her hand didn't move though, and I could feel how close she was to me. "Just let it flush out a bit, and I'll be fine. You just surprised me, that's all."

  In the silence that followed, which was now tense not because we wanted to be apart, but instead because of the unspoken desire to be closer, I could hear her breath quicken. In the reddish darkness of my still tightly shut eyes, I almost thought I could hear her heartbeat. "Dane?"

  "Yes?"

  "What are those tattoos for?" she asked, her free hand coming up to rest on the ink that adorned my chest and arms. "There are quite a few of them."

  " I got most of them in the Army," I said, trying to remember in my mind's eye what her fingers were touching. The truth was, some of them were from before the Army, a few were in service, but a lot of the others were from my time at Leavenworth. Every prisoner has their own little way of telling the administration to fuck off, and for me, it was ink. There had been a Specialist from the 10th Mountain division locked up with me who was quite the amateur artist, even though he didn't always have access to the best supplies. "I think that one is my jump wings. The parachute, right?"

  "Yeah," her voice, thick and a bit deeper, said. She was feeling it too, and I was quickly losing any resistance to wanting to pull her closer. She may have been untouchable. She may have been a bit younger than me and most likely the worst mistake since I'd permanently fucked my life up with a single act in Iraq, but if I was going to be damned, there were a lot of worse ways to go than what I wanted at that moment. "What about the others?"

  I took the compress away from my eye, blinking as light returned. The first thing I saw was Abby's beautiful face, and without an instant's hesitation or reconsideration, I knew that I was going to fuck her. I pulled her closer to me, my hand coming to her waist, our lips coming together, and I happily fell into damnation again.

  Chapter 3

  Abby

  When I first saw Dane in the street light, it was hard to put my finger on what exactly was so fascinating about him. Obviously, I’d been impressed that he’d come to my aid and how he'd beaten up my attackers so easily. Two-on-one fights usually end up with the one getting his ass kicked. But when the light from the streetlamp let me get more of a look under his hood, there was something more about the way he looked that excited me.

  Dane was certainly handsome, but it was a dark, brooding handsomeness that I wasn't used to seeing. I'd gotten used to well-groomed, slickly laid back guys who looked like they'd never really worked a hard day's labor in their lives. They were basically weak, pretty boys, and Dane was different. Black eyebrows shaded gray eyes that looked like they could either be expressive and clear or stormy and intimidating. His face was lean, with a steely tension to his features that spoke of great strength, but his mouth was large and sensual, and even with the furrow on his cheek pulling up at one corner, expressive. His short beard made him look just a bit scruffy, but in not a bad way. He looked like the sort of man who was made for a motorcycle.

  "I'm not a very good man," Dane said, and in that moment, I saw something even more appealing than his dark handsomeness. I saw introspection, and yes, a bit of a haunted soul.

  I'll admit, I'm a lucky girl when it came to the looks department. A lot of it came from Mom, who I wish I had gotten to know better before she died. In looking at the old pictures of her, though, her high school
and college graduation photos that Daddy still kept in the family room of the house, I looked a lot like her once you account for the change in hairstyles and fashion. My hair was a shade darker though, probably because of Daddy's influence, although I'd gotten a bit of his height too. While I'm no starter for the basketball team, Mom was so short that she was nearly a gymnast.

  So with my looks, even as intimidating as Daddy is, I'd had guys compliment me. The biggest problem most of them had was that they were insecure and tried to hide it by being cocky as all get out. I'd had guys try to strut past me with their chests puffed out or try to show off their clothes or their cars like peacocks at the zoo. One look in their eyes, however, told me that they were insecure little boys trying to mask imperfection behind a cocky strut of perfection.

  Dane wasn't like that at all. He was up front with his flaws, and in his eyes I saw that he was, despite his protests, more of a man than anyone I'd ever met at Georgia Tech. When we got back to his place, though, I was floored. Sure, it was a studio, but the Mayfair Tower was one of those types of places that a guy around my age would be bragging about. It was furnished tastefully, though it looked like he'd recently done a major change in decor—something about the way the furniture was arranged in the living area and the way the couch didn't quite jive with the impression I got of Dane on the way from the park, I think. It was like there was the real Dane, and one that maybe he'd recently left behind or something.

  Most of it was the contrast between his belongings. For example, the couch that he used to separate the living room area from the bed area of the studio was real leather, and while I didn't know the designer, it looked like one of those sofas that got used in photo spreads for magazines and had price tags in the thousands of dollars. On the other hand, Dane's jeans were off the rack Old Navy, and his boots I couldn't even identify. I wondered if perhaps Dane had fallen on some hard times, or if maybe he'd come into a windfall, and that was why he hadn't bragged about his living accommodations. He led me into the bathroom, and it didn't really matter. I focused instead on the task at hand, cleaning his cheek.