by Leah Wilde
“Stop,” I hissed. I felt my face flushing. “And yes, I could use some extra credit. What do I have to do to get an A?”
He smiled. “You don’t want to know what you have to do to get an A.” He took his feet off the desk and sat forward in the chair.
“Mmmm, but what if I said I did want to know, Dr. Noll? What would you tell me?” I continued teasing. I liked this game, pretending he was the professor. It had been a year, and I felt like there were still things he could teach me about my body and about pleasure in general.
“I would tell you that you need to read my new book, Ms. Danvers,” he continued playing along.
“Really? What’s it about?” I asked him, noticing that his hand rested on the cover of the book on my desk.
“It’s about discovering pleasure by letting our guards down and enjoying our bodies,” he said. “I’ll be happy to autograph a copy for you.”
“Funny,” I said. I didn’t have anything else to say or anywhere else I could take the joke.
“I thought so. Hey, maybe you could help me write that book, actually,” he said.
“Maybe. We’ll see. So, are we going to dinner, or what?” I asked, leaning across my desk to him.
“Maybe. I don’t know. Hey, what do you think your surprise is?” he asked as he stood up and started around the desk.
“It’s a surprise,” I told him. He knew damn well what I wanted it to be. I wanted his surprise to be a damn ring, a nice, fat, juicy diamond ring that looked just as good as he did in that suit.
“It’s no fun when you don’t play along,” he teased.
He put an arm around my waist and walked me out of my office.
“Come with me, Dr. Danvers. Our chariot awaits.”
Downstairs, stepping out of the history building, I saw that he had a car waiting for me, complete with a driver. I didn’t want to ask where he’d gotten the money or which one of us was paying for it. Asking questions with Gage was sometimes like looking a gift horse in the mouth. Sometimes things were just too good to be true. Or legal. And I had learned the hard way that I was better off not knowing which was which.
The driver wore a tux and held the back door open for us to get in. I slid in first, sliding across to the driver’s side. Gage slid in beside me, and the driver closed the door.
Butterflies sprang up in my stomach. I’d been racking my brain all day trying to figure out what kind of surprise would require us going to a five-star restaurant and pulling out all the stops like he was. There was only one thing it could be, and if it turned out to be anything else, I’d already told myself I was going to stab him to death right there at the table. When they asked me why I did it, I would just tell them he drove me crazy, and that I was already hormonal because of a surprise I’d been keeping from him for about a month or so.
I had been waiting for the perfect time to tell him, and it never seemed to be right. There was always something else going on. Tonight, I told myself.
“What are you thinking about?” Gage asked, jerking me out of my thoughts. I realized I’d been staring out the window.
“Just thinking about what your surprise is going to be, thinking about what I want it to be,” I answered him, perhaps a little too honestly, but I’d been after him about it long enough now that I felt like it didn’t matter. I felt like he should have expected the comments and suggestions at this point.
“Well, I hope I don’t disappoint you tonight.” He turned and looked forward.
Then again, if it wasn’t a ring, my insistence on wanting a ring from him would probably just serve to make him think I was disappointed when it turned out to be something else. I grabbed his arm and pulled myself close to him.
“I don’t care what it is, baby. You know I’ll be happy with whatever you get me, because it’s from you. I don’t want you to think that’s all I want, okay? I’m just messing with you.” I put a finger under his chin and turned his face to mine.
I kissed him in the backseat of the car. Our lips worked together passionately, and our mouths opened. I could taste his breath as his tongue probed into my mouth. I even tried to judge by the way he was kissing me if it was going to be a ring or not. His kiss was deeply passionate, the controlling way he kissed me when his desire was hard between his legs.
I took his passion as a good sign and kissed him back, answering his passion and desire with my own. I dug my hand into his hair. I squeezed my legs together in my tight little skirt, trying to contain the wet, aching desire growing between them.
I didn’t want to go to dinner anymore. I wanted him to tell the driver to pull over into a dark, abandoned parking lot so we could make love in the backseat of the car like a couple of horny teenagers after prom, eager to explore each other’s bodies and enjoy the love they felt for each other.
I just wanted him inside me again. It had been over a year, and every time I saw him, every time I kissed him, every time we touched, I wanted to fuck his brains out. I reached down between his legs and rubbed the hardening shaft behind the thin fabric.
He grabbed my thin wrist gently and pulled away from our kiss.
“Not yet, baby,” he said with a suggestive laugh. “You can’t have dessert before your dinner.”
“Oh, so that’s dessert?” I asked him. “So you must be pretty sure of this surprise of yours,” I teased.
It was a damn ring. I knew it. There was no way it could have been anything else. I felt myself throbbing for him now. I could feel my heart pulsing inside of me. He was going to propose to me at dinner. I knew it! I just had to play dumb until after he popped the question, or else I risked ruining his surprise. I wanted him to think I was really surprised.
Hell, I was already surprised that he was even thinking about it. I didn’t know he’d even been planning it, sneaky bastard. But that was okay. I was going to floor him with my own surprise after he asked me to marry him. Of course I was going to say yes. I was going to scream it in the restaurant and again all night in bed as he pumped me full of himself again and again to celebrate our engagement and our growing family.
Damn it. I didn’t want to go to dinner. I wanted to skip the restaurant and the food. I wanted to go home, let him propose to me under the night sky and then make sweet, passionate love all night with the love of my life.
The car slowed, and we pulled up to the curb in front of a brightly lit hotel underneath an old, prestigious hotel. The walls of the restaurant were all glass in front, and I could see the bright gold and white light and linens inside.
Yep, I thought, he’s about to propose to me, and then I’m going to whisper in his ear that we’re pregnant.
We walked up the steps to the restaurant arm in arm, and I couldn’t help but feel like we were walking into our future together.
THE END
WED TO THE BIKER: Hellhounds MC [Sample Preview]
I’M STUCK AT THE ALTAR WITH MY WORST NIGHTMARE.
All I ever wanted was to get out of this life.
No more bikers, no more leather, no more crime.
But being the daughter of an MC president means that trouble is never far behind.
When I’m attacked by a mysterious man on the eve of my final semester in college, I know exactly where to go for answers:
Back home to dear old Daddy.
But going back there gives me more than I’d bargained for.
Before I can stop it, everything is going wrong.
Betrayal abounding.
Enemies approaching.
Cancer devouring my father’s body.
And when he dies, he leaves me with one last gift…
A marriage I never asked for.
Now, I’m gazing through a white veil at a hulking, tattooed brute of a man.
He looks like he wants to eat me or break me, whichever comes first.
And yet, part of me wants him to claim every inch of my body…
I just wanted a normal life.
But there’s no such thing as normal wh
en you’re wed to a biker.
Chapter 1
If it hadn’t been raining, Kelly might have seen the man following her. The fact that it was eight o’clock, and long since dark, wasn’t counting in her favor either. With the tenacity of an Oregon native, and the arrogance of a college student, Kelly navigated the long, fat body of her ’95 Buick into the assigned space at the college apartments, unaware of the SUV that pulled into a spot two rows over and one row back.
Like any sensible woman who had access to a newspaper, she tucked her keys between her fingers before checking her cell phone. Three unread messages were glaring up at her. The first was from the school, notifying her that the entire campus, including the apartments, would be closed starting Saturday, and that anything left behind would be property of the school.
“Yeah,” Kelly muttered to the message, “because you certainly don’t have enough of me as it is.”
The second message was from Monica, or as Kelly liked to call her, the good roommate. While most of the text was emojis, Kelly understood that the dark-haired vixen was currently enjoying her first week back at home, and that Kelly should stop being boring and hurry up and join her.
But Kelly liked boring. Her childhood had been exciting enough; boring was just the speed she wanted to go for the foreseeable future.
I’ll be there soon, she messaged back. Try not to break any hearts before I get there.
The third message was from Brandy, also known as the bad roommate. The wild-haired girl seemed to dislike bathing, communicating, or eating her own food. It didn’t seem to matter how many times Kelly wrote her name on something; bits and pieces of it—and sometimes the entire thing—always seemed to vanish anyways. Kelly knew it couldn't be Monica. That girl consumed nothing but liquor, liquor, and more liquor.
Did I leave anything behind? Brandy asked.
Kelly didn’t think so, but she didn’t much want to look. Brandy’s bathing issues meant that her room had a certain unpleasant odor.
I’ll look, she texted back.
With a sigh she carefully tucked the phone inside her backpack, safe from the rain. It rested between Anatomy of Canines and Internal Veterinary Medicine, Fourth Edition.
To be fair, Kelly’s thoughts weren’t really on the rain. That was just a mild annoyance. They weren’t even on the last slice of lasagna waiting for her in the fridge, or the promise of the apartment being all hers for the next two days. Instead, they were focused on next semester which was supposed to be her last semester, and how she was going to pay for it.
Being frugal wasn’t going to help her. How much more frugal could I possibly be? she thought to herself as she took her first step out into the rain. The backpack hung heavily over one shoulder. The college diet of ramen noodles, store brand chips, and Vienna sausages had kept her figure slim and petite, although not necessarily by choice. Every paycheck from the Charmichael Veterinary Clinic had been deposited and cataloged, and though she was grateful for Dr. Carmichael's willingness to work around her insane schedule this year, minimum wage wasn’t going to pay for her final weeks of college. Hell, it wasn’t even going to pay for her books.
The fact of the matter was her savings had paid most of the way, and now they were all gone. If she was very diligent, the money ferreted away in her savings account would be just enough to pay for her share of the rent and the books that she would need to finish her degree. Then, with a little luck, she’d be one step closer to having her own practice.
One day, somewhere, a main street window was going to say Forster Veterinary Medicine, and it was going to be a really good day.
“Kelly! Hey, Kelly! Hey!”
The voice that broke through her dreams of an office bearing her name was young, enthusiastic, and male. With a sigh, Kelly paused just inside the awning to her apartment building as a guy who was more leg than torso came sauntering up. She could almost see him telling himself to play it cool. Grant, freshman science major and digital chess master, may learn to be cool one day, but today was not that day.
“How ya doin?” Water droplets were collecting on the bony tops of his gaunt cheeks, exaggerating his pasty coloring. Kelly, pale as she was, didn’t have much of a right to think of anyone as pasty, but at least she looked like she’d seen the sun once or twice since the day she was born.
“I’m fine, Grant,” she answered, hauling her backpack higher up on her back. The rain was graduating into a storm and she wanted to get inside to the calm sanctity of pasta and Parmesan cheese. “How are you?”
“Good, good, I’m…uh…I’m gonna be heading home tomorrow. I was wondering if you were busy tonight. Maybe, uh, well, maybe we could hang out. You know, just chill or something. I dunno.”
If he was going for cool, he lost it sometime right after the second good. She tried to put on her politest smile, but Kelly was pretty sure it looked more tired than nice. He wasn’t the first college guy to zero in on her. They took one look at her blonde hair and blue eyes and, for reasons beyond her understanding, got all sorts of ideas.
“Sorry,” she offered. It was amazing how much that one word could deflate a person. “But I need to pack. I have to head out first thing in the morning. So, you know…”
“Where are you going?” he asked, trying to lean causally against the outdoor railing. It might have worked if the water running off the awning roof wasn’t puddling on his shoulders.
“Monica is letting me crash with her for the summer in Florence. Her family has a lake house there and, you know.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “That sounds cool. Real cool.”
“Uh-huh.” She gave him a moment to realize that he was being brushed off, but he didn’t seem to get it. “So yeah, I’m going to go do that packing thing and all that.”
“Oh yeah. Right. I mean. Well, maybe I could help. I’m strong, you know.”
Kelly wondered what his scale of comparison was, looking over his slender arms and bird chest. It wasn’t that she was shallow; after all, she’d have no problem dating a guy with Grant’s teenage boy build, so long as they had something in common. But while Grant might also be enthusiastic about science, that was where it all ended. He wanted to be a proctologist. There were plenty of eighteen-year-old guys who wanted to study butts for a living, but only Grant was taking it to the next level.
“No, thanks, I’ve got it.”
“No, really, I could help!”
“Grant—”
He put a hand on her shoulder and she jerked it free. Suddenly everything that was annoying her, frustrating her, terrifying her, came roaring up to the surface. She snapped, “Grant, my Aikido might be a little rusty, but I’m willing to work it out if you don’t back off.”
He gave her a look that was part anger, part embarrassment. “Fine, man, don’t gotta be a bitch about it.”
“Yeah,” she said, brandishing her keys at him, “apparently I do.”
He whirled away from her and stormed off into the cold wet night. His shoulders were slumped and the rain was dripping off his nose. He looked pathetic. A small part of her felt bad, but it wasn’t enough to invite him up to her place.
When she turned back to her apartment, the door to the SUV opened. She didn’t notice. She didn’t notice when a large, masculine shape followed her steps up the first and second flights of stairs. Irritation at the world had narrowed her focus down to just a few things: pasta, packing, and an evening all to herself.
“Kelly Forster?”
“Hmm?” She was half turned when she felt the kiss of a blade against her throat. It was cold and sharp. A single drop of water shimmered like a diamond as it danced down the blade and over a hand. It was a man’s hand, strong and thick-fingered. Veins stood out beneath the kind of golden brown skin you either got by accident of birth, or accident of wealth. The first finger had seven crosses tattooed in black ink lined up down the digit.
Crosses, she knew without thinking, meant kills.
“You even think about
screaming for help and I will slit your pretty throat. Do you understand?”
She nodded once. A lock of hair too dark to be her own fell over her shoulder. A second arm snaked around her belly. She felt her stomach turn to lead, sick and heavy.
The arm flexed and she stumbled back against a body. Kelly could hear her heartbeat pounding behind her eyes. This wasn’t a pale, scrawny college boy. This was a man. She struggled as much as the knife would let her, but his grip was unrelenting. This was the form of someone who knew how to use their body like a weapon. She swallowed hard, which only made her feel the blade that much more.
“Open the door.” His voice was thick with Latin roots. “Slowly.”
Kelly hesitated. More than anything, she didn’t want him in her apartment, where he could do in private whatever it was he was thinking of doing right now. The lack of space between him and her door, however, was doing nothing but giving him every advantage. With hands that shook like leaves in the wind, she unlocked the door to her too-empty apartment.