Just one more can’t hurt…right?
Break on Through, Book 1
Re-belle-ious, free-spirited Lauren Renwick has decided it’s time to trade her wings for roots. That means no more bad boys, no more foolish choices. Yet when she’s stood up on New Year’s Eve, her resolution to stick to her Mama’s Rules for Dating weakens. Especially when she spots sex-in-leather-and-tattoos, Jackson Sullivan.
One look at Lauren, and Jackson is hell-bent on getting her on the back of his Harley and riding straight for his bed. Their night together is an erotic rush that has a new word popping up on his horizon—forever.
Lauren tries to convince herself he’s just one last fling to get bad boys out of her system, yet she finds herself falling hard and fast for a man with a stalker ex and a meddling Irish family. Plus, he has zero chance of passing her uptight parents’ inspection.
Jackson has Lauren’s back, but if she wants all of his heart, she’ll have to meet him halfway—by ditching rules that hold her prisoner, and learning to stand up for what she really wants.
Warning: Contains several highly practical rules for dating—all of which will be broken in the most wicked ways possible, thanks to a domineering alpha male who knows what he wants and isn’t afraid to go after it...rules be damned.
Rule Breaker
Harper Kincaid
Dedication
The likelihood that I’ll ever give an Academy Award speech is basically nil at this point in my life, so in its stead and in honor of my circa-1980s hairbrush and mirror, I’d like to thank the following people:
To my husband, David: Thank you for believing that I can accomplish anything. Your faith in me slayed the dragons of my self-doubt. Oh, and thanks for imposing those deadlines. They really helped this easily distracted woman focus! You’re the love of my life, babe. Always.
To my girls: Being a mother isn’t easy, but being your mother is a joy. Thank you for inspiring me to be the best example I can be. I probably would’ve settled for much less in my life if I didn’t feel I owed it to you both to live to my full potential. Let you know when I get there.
To my moms and dad, Carole, Genie and Phil: I love you all so much and feel grateful I have you in my corner.
To my soul sisters, Lisa, Raina, Erin, Debbie, Patricia, Lara, Jennifer, Withers and Sarah: I feel so lucky to be blessed with your friendship. You get me in a way no one else does and your unconditional encouragement and love deeply humbles me. Thank you.
Lastly to my editor, Jennifer Miller: I can’t thank you enough for taking a chance on a new author and for your encouragement and humor. You helped make a lifelong dream come true.
Chapter One
“Hey, princess, you lost or something?”
I had only been at the bar for a couple of minutes, with my killer Jimmy Choos resting on the foot rail and my just-bought-this-afternoon cocktail dress riding up my thighs while I sat on the shaky-legged barstool. From what I saw when I looked around, I couldn’t blame the guy for thinking I was lost, because I was definitely out of place.
Southern rock blasting from the jukebox. Rabble-rousing around the back pool table. And lots of men and women in leather and denim. Considering I was dressed for martinis and canapés, yeah, it was a safe bet to think I didn’t belong.
I opened my clutch, looked into his curious, chocolate-brown eyes, and replied, “I’m not lost, sweetie. I’m just annoyed.”
I handed him my card and ID (not that I got carded anymore). “So I’ll be needing a drink to cool off, a Moscow mule.” Then, remembering my manners, I added, “Please.”
He stared at me for a few seconds before shaking his head. “Lady, you’re in a biker bar. We don’t serve that yuppie shit in here.”
I arched my eyebrow in response. “Do you even know what’s in a Moscow mule, baby doll?”
His face broke out in a huge smile. “Uh, nope,” he replied, not looking too bothered by his lack of professional knowledge. “And we don’t even have martini glasses here, so don’t bother to order some fruity shit like a cosmopolitan or an appletini.”
I leaned in, noticing his eyes trailing from my face down to my cleavage, which was hoisted up and forward like a wench’s bosom in a Renaissance faire. I blushed because, for a second there, I had forgotten I was even wearing this fancy getup, which was a shocker considering it felt like a clamp around my middle. Since I was fair-skinned, I knew the bartender couldn’t help but notice my flesh turn pink, which only served to make me feel even more self-conscious. That said, I wasn’t about to let him fluster me. I was a former beauty queen, albeit a highly reluctant one at the time, but nonetheless, a beauty queen trained to steel under pressure. So, I straightened my spine and continued. “A Moscow mule is simply vodka with ginger beer and lime juice. It comes in a chilled, copper mug, not in a martini glass. Not so fancy, right?”
He chuckled while wiping down the bar. “Tell ya what, your highness. I don’t have ginger beer, but I have ginger ale. And the only copper around here’s in the wiring, but I’ll do my best with what I’ve got. Sound good?”
Another compromise in a completely compromised evening. I let out a heavy sigh. “Sure thing, brown eyes.”
He watched me for a couple beats and then started making my drink. “So what brings a classy lady like you here on New Year’s Eve? Can’t imagine Sully’s was where you’d thought you’d end up tonight.”
I watched him as he tossed and squeezed my concoction together, and while I certainly didn’t consider myself old by any stretch, he looked like he was right out of high school. I knew he had to be older in order to be a bartender, but I still wasn’t up to pouring my heart out to Doogie Howser.
He placed my drink in front of me, and I immediately took a big sip. “It’s pretty good, especially considering you’ve never made a Moscow mule before,” I said, giving him a compliment and a redirect. “Have you worked here long?”
He smirked and shook his head. “Don’t feel like talking about it?”
I took another sip—actually, more like a gulp. “Nope. Don’t feel like talking ’bout it or remembering it. But I appreciate the attempts at bartender banter. I’ll have another one of these too before you break up your next barroom brawl.”
“Sure thing, princess.” He made me another and then moved on to other customers. Usually being called a princess would’ve compelled me to make a snarky comment, but compared to the other ladies-in-waiting at the bar that night—and I’m using that term kindly—I wasn’t just a princess, I was a queen. An overdressed, dateless queen, alone on New Year’s Eve.
This only served to remind me that it was exactly this time last year when I had made the New Year’s resolution to stop dating the Mr. Right-Nows and find my own Mr. Right. And up until a few hours ago, I thought I was closer to that goal. Now, I was back to square one.
To answer your question, yes, I was feeling very sorry for myself. I knew it was unbecoming, but considering I come from a long and colorful line of Southerners, I was comfortable saying, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”
As I pounded through my two drinks, which was still too much alcohol for my five-foot-three-inch frame with no dinner in my stomach, I forced myself to recollect my night and what a complete mess it had turned out to be. Earlier I had bought an outfit way out of my clothing-budget range, managed to tame the long-blonde-haired beast on my head by blowing it out stick-straight, done my make-up to accentuate my green eyes, and waited for my boyfriend to show.
He never did.
I had been promised not just a great New Year’s Eve of dinner and dancing, but a whole weekend of just him and me. Keith and I h
ad been dating for about six months, but due to his constant traveling for work, it felt like a lot less because I didn’t get to see him much.
If I were to be brutally honest with myself, Keith was far from the love of my life, but I was trying to fall for him, mostly because the Southern Belle Mafia also known as the women in my family had finally ganged up on me, for what they lovingly coined a “Life Choice Intervention”. They urged me to stop living “like you’ve got nothin’ but time”, “stop your doodlin’” (I worked as a mural artist) and “get a real job”, stop subletting rooms all over the country, and find a man who’ll “give ya good stock for babies”.
Yep, I swear, they actually said that. This was also when they introduced me to Mama’s Rules. Because I happened to be a woman alive in the twenty-first century, I balked at her rules when she first read them off to me, thinking they were the most insulting, archaic and manipulative piece of propaganda I’d ever heard.
My mama was unfazed by my arguments. “Now, Lauren Elizabeth,” she started in with me, “I understand that your happiness does not depend on your finding the right man to settle down with, but you can’t sit there and tell me jumping from one beau to another still holds the same appeal for you as it did when you were in college.” Hate to admit it, but she had me there.
My mother had even gone so far as to print the rules out and pin them to my vision board in my home office during her last visit. While I was far from the New-Agey type, I took my vision board seriously; it was where I kept words and pictures of what I wanted for my life. Even though I rolled my eyes at her at the time, they were still there. Ironically, after I read them, I realized I had spent much of my dating life doing the exact opposite of her suggestions.
Mama’s Rules for Dating
(Leading to Marriage, Lauren, NOT Shacking Up in Sin)
1. Don’t rush into sex—wait until you have a firm commitment.
2. Always leave him wanting more of you—limit how often you see him.
3. Keep the mood light—don’t share what upsets you too soon.
4. Listen to what your family thinks of him.
5. Don’t say I love you first.
So after the family “intervention”, I acquiesced and, surprisingly, I found I liked being settled. Through a friend of a friend, I had found my job in the Washington DC metro area, as a mural artist for an internationally known interior design firm. I bought the cutest li’l bungalow house through my realtor/bestie, Myer, and my love life was the final installment in my life makeover plan. I thought Keith would have a key part to play in this goal. That was why I was really looking forward to that weekend—I felt that by spending both Christmas and New Year’s together, maybe we were becoming more serious. It was also why I was stunned by the call I got.
“I don’t know how to tell you this, Lauren, so I’m just going to say it,” he’d said into the phone. “I’m getting back together with Leslie. I know the timing of this is lousy, but I didn’t want to lead you on. I’m really sorry.”
I knew about Leslie, his ex-wife, the woman who supposedly made Keith feel like nothing he was, or could provide, was ever good enough. Turns out that swimming in the dating pool since their divorce made her realize how good she had it. Now she wanted him back, to make up for the ten years of taking him for granted.
I mumbled something about wishing them happiness and hung up as fast as possible. I didn’t mean it, of course, but I was raised by a long line of Southern ladies, and for them being polite most always won out over being direct. Also, let’s be honest, the last thing I wanted was to prolong my embarrassment and to have him hear the disappointment in my voice. Saving a shred of my pride was more important than telling him what a colossal asshat he was for dumping me on the most epic date night of the year.
Then I made an even bigger mistake: I called my mother. Of course she and my father were home on New Year’s Eve. They’d been married for forty-two years and were more than content being homebodies, just enjoying their own company no matter what the occasion.
“Now, sugarplum,” she soothed, “listen to your mama. Don’t fret over that mess of a man. Think of Keith as your practice run.”
“Mama, I’m twenty-seven years old and not exactly a virgin. How much more practice do I need?”
“Hush now,” she sharply answered in that tone she got when we weren’t minding her right. “I meant practicing the rules, baby girl. Up ’til now, you looked at men and dating as some kind of carnival ride. I never heard you talk about settling down with any of ’em. Now you are, and I say better late than never. So, slap the dust off your britches and get back out there.”
Needless to say, I did get out there—off the phone and out of my house as fast as I could, but I’m also thinking a down-and-dirty but cool-as-hell biker bar wasn’t what she had in mind when she told me to get out and mingle. In fact, I’m sure she would have thrown herself on her bed and thrashed around on it, telling me she was “practicing for when I’m rollin’ in my grave over you, Lauren Elizabeth!”
Yes, my mama had a flair for the dramatic.
Fortunately for my girlfriends, they all had dates. Even my former-realtor-now-best friend, Myer, and her gorgeous husband (and high school sweetheart), Wade, were out. Unfortunately for me, I had no one to hang with for my last-minute New Year’s Eve apocalypse. As I was driving around, I purposefully avoided all my usual favorites and went for a bar out of town and away from anyone who might know me.
Why I picked Sully’s, I have no idea. I guess I figured I would have zero chance of bumping into anyone I knew, and I was right.
The alcohol went straight to my head, and I chastised myself for drinking on a nearly empty stomach. So I took a break from my personal pity party and scanned the room.
By the pool table were a bunch of rough-as-leather motorcycle riders, getting loud and throwing down bets on the pool table. There were more than a couple of hookups going on in the darkened corners with the occasional flash of flesh making an appearance. Even though I was surprised by the blatant PDA, I also couldn’t help but envy them. At least they had someone worth sweating with on New Year’s Eve.
I straightened my dress and glanced up, only to find the most beautiful man I’d ever seen walking straight toward me. His gaze was intense, and he was tall with broad shoulders that ate up the space around him as he moved. His hair was jet black and even with the poor lighting, I could tell it was glossy like silk. I liked that it wasn’t too long or too short, and it had this sexy, messy way about it, like he just rolled out of bed after having mind-blowing sex. I couldn’t tell the color of his eyes, but I could still determine he had an amazing mouth and a rugged face. Pure masculine beauty wearing faded blue jeans, a henley shirt that was snug enough to highlight his muscular frame, and well-worn motorcycle boots.
Bad-boy sex on legs.
Exactly the kind of man I was trying to avoid those days.
He was totally gorgeous and definitely intense, with the way he stared at me like a gazelle on an open plain that was seconds away from being devoured. Nothing was distracting him from getting from across the room right to me.
As he approached where I was seated, he gave the bartender a quick chin lift. The bartender reciprocated the manly greeting, poured a finger of whiskey in a glass and handed it to him. I noticed that even when Mr. Sex on Legs reached for his drink, he did it without taking his eyes off me for a second.
“Hey,” he said with a voice as rough as gravel. “What’s your name?”
Oh sweet Jesus, don’t tempt me with a rough-and-ready biker god who is on a well-acquainted, knows-my-drink-without-asking basis with the bartender. Bad enough he exuded sex and sin, which was my weakness. Definitely didn’t need a man with Johnny Walker or Jim Beam riding on his back.
I gave him a perfunctory glance. “Doesn’t matter my name. I’m not staying here long enough for us to get acquainted.�
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Two of his fingers propped my chin up, forcing me to look at him. Damn it, he really was the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen. He had blue eyes. No, not just blue eyes, but go-on-vacation-and-do-laps-in-the-warm-Caribbean-Ocean blue eyes. And those eyes were scalding hot on me, burning me whole. And I knew that look. It meant I needed to get out of there, fast, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to escape the smoldering, hot-guy tractor beam that was pulling me in.
“Listen.” I sighed, trying my hardest to pretend he had no effect on me. I backed my chin away from his hand. “You are definitely a scrumptious treat, but I’m not sampling tonight, if you get my meaning. Nothing personal.”
He threw his head back and laughed loud and deep, the vibration humming through my body.
“Fuckin’ gorgeous and funny. Makes it even better.”
“Um.” I stalled, feeling confused. “Makes what better?”
He looked at me as if the answer were obvious. “The promise of you, babe.”
He took a sip of his drink and waited patiently for my response, which I couldn’t give him, wouldn’t give him, because the last thing I wanted was for him to hear in my shaky voice how his eyes, his words, his smoldering looks were affecting me, making me flush all over. Like a goddamn schoolgirl.
His were not the only eyes on me. I could feel a different kind of heat, the fury of women who wanted me dead. Across the room a bunch of them were seated at some of the rounds and in the booths, and they’d been watching us intently ever since he crossed the room to me.
“Wouldn’t one of your biker babes—” I pointed over to the herd with my chin, “—be a better bet to score with before midnight? They certainly seem…anxious that you’re over here.”
He smirked, his gaze traveling from my eyes to my mouth and back. “That’s like shooting fish in a barrel. No fun in that.”
“I get the feeling they think you belong to them. And the way the barkeep knows your drink tells me you’ve hung out on these barstools way more than I’m comfortable with. Again, nothing personal, but I’m going to make sure this year is the year I start living right. And gorgeous?” I drawled while placing my hand on my hip. “You’ve got bad decision written all over you.”
Rule Breaker Page 1