STARSTRUCK: A Dark Bad Boy Romance (The Destroyers MC)

by Zoey Parker

  Now I was laying her down in her bed, tugging back the covers as best I could and tucking her into it. She would probably have been more comfortable without the dress from tonight still half on and maybe without my shirt, too, but I couldn’t bring myself to even really consider undressing her.

  I’d had dark thoughts about that for a while now, but she was in no shape for it. She was probably still trying to work out the alcohol in her system, her mind worked up with images of the last two shell-shocking nights.

  So I ultimately settled for taking off her way-too-tall heels and setting them off to the side so she wouldn’t trip on them when she woke up.

  Abby rolled over in bed so that she was on her side, then snuggled up against her pillow, bringing a corner down slightly so that she could clutch it in her sleep. I smiled a little at that, then grabbed the corner of her duvet and pulled it up to cover the rest of her body. She let out a little sigh that, while probably not contentment, might have been relief or a gratefulness to be home.

  For now, I would settle for that.

  I watched her for just a little bit longer. I told myself it was because I wanted to make sure she wasn’t going to wake up, but really, I was just drawn to her. She was a prissy, spoiled princess, I thought, but there was something else there, too. Determination? Strong will? Vulnerability?

  I’d seen it all tonight. It made her a force to be reckoned with—and a delicate flower to be protected.

  Eventually, I turned away from Abby and made to leave the room. There was only the hall light spilling in and I quickly decided to leave that on so that she wouldn’t be without light entirely in the event that she woke up before sunrise.

  I doubt it, I thought mildly, thinking of how she’d slammed drinks at the bar.

  I could have killed her for that. She was only doing it because I told her not to; I was almost positive of it, and maybe I could have lived with that. I didn’t like it, but I could understand a little rebellion now and then. But then she sidled up to that smarmy rapist.

  I had to stop about halfway across the room so that I could catch my breath. That pretty, heavily made-up face of his flashed before my eyes and all I wanted to do was break it. I was about ninety percent sure that I’d broken something—his cheek, his nose, maybe his jaw—and I hoped it scarred horribly. I hoped there was no way to repair whatever damage I’d done.

  More than that, I hoped, but there was nothing I could do about it now. I’d called the cops and I’d gotten Abby out of there.

  Her voice had pulled me out of the rage filled haze that had me pummeling that guy to a bleeding pulp, and if it weren’t for that, I might have killed him. She didn’t know it, but she had saved me as much as I’d saved her.

  I turned slightly to glance one more time behind me at Abby. She was sleeping soundly, if not peacefully. Her brows were drawn, causing the normally smooth skin of her forehead to wrinkle slightly. She still looked beautiful, but troubled. I had hoped that maybe the large amount of alcohol she’d consumed last night would ensure that she slept through without any lingering dreams, but staring at her face now, I didn’t think that was the case.

  Letting out a sigh, I shook my head. What a mess.

  I’m going to have to tell Caleb, I thought miserably, and for a moment, I wasn’t even thinking about the guy who’d attacked her.

  I was thinking about the way her lips pressed to my mouth, soft and needy. Her kiss had been heated, and while she might have been coming to me for something akin to comfort, I knew the moment she touched me that I was going to have to do more than that. I was going to have to devour her. I was going to have to keep her until she was a part of me, pulled inside and locked away with no means of extricating our two independent bodies.

  All of which sounded kind of ridiculous to me under normal circumstances. But standing here in the dark with only a stream of light coming from the hallway as Abby slept curled up in her bed, it made sense.

  And part of me was thinking that that was the thing I was dreading to tell Caleb. Again, he hadn’t given me explicit instructions to stay away from her, but that was mostly because he didn’t have to. He knew any one of his guys with half a brain cell knew better than to get involved with her. And he probably also assumed that Abby wouldn’t have anything to do with whoever he sent over.

  Maybe she won’t, I thought dully, finding myself surprised at how much I disliked the thought.

  I didn’t want Abby to not want me. After the hard-on I’d been sporting most of the day, it was useless to even try to convince myself that I didn’t want her. But I wasn’t a stupid man either. Abby wasn’t the type to come after a guy like me—rough and tumble, all about the rabble and the fight—but she had tonight. The thing about that was, though, was that she was working under a lot of influences. Alcohol. Adrenaline. Fear. And any number of other things. In her mind, maybe it really had been just about comfort. Sure, I’d felt an incredibly intense need for her, but did that mean she really felt the same?

  Possibly, but maybe not.

  Probably not, I corrected myself moodily.

  Sighing again, I shook my head. I had to get out of this room before I found myself pondering all night about her and the things we could never be together. Then she can wake up and find you watching her like a damn stalker, I thought with a small snort.

  Forcing myself to turn away from her again—with finality this time—I made my way to the door again. But again, I didn’t quite make it through. Except that this time it wasn’t Abby who had stopped me, catching my attention. Instead, it was something sitting on her vanity. I wouldn’t have seen it at all except that the light was falling just right, slanted just so, that it caught a pile on her desk that wasn’t a hairbrush or makeup or any of the other usual things.

  It was a stack of letters.

  Frowning, I was about to shrug it off—what did I care if she was into snail mail correspondence? She was an actress; they did that sort of thing—when I noticed the bright red of one of the letters, the one on top.

  Detouring from my path to the door, I went to the vanity. I glanced at Abby to make sure she was still asleep, because I wasn’t stupid. Whatever might or might not have been happening between us, there was no denying that she wouldn’t be pleased to find me snooping around in her personal things.

  As I got close enough to actually see what the red was, I froze. My jaw tensed as I clenched my teeth tightly together and my hands balled into tight fists at my side. Anger raced through me like acid and hot, liquid metal. It was mostly illegible, so I couldn’t read the whole letter—only a few words were in that bright red color, like her lipstick, almost to the shade—but I could read the huge block lettering that was bigger and bolder than the rest.

  I LOVE YOU, ABBY, it said, and a little farther down, in the same damn letter, it read DIE, YOU STUPID BITCH.

  I hesitated only a moment longer. To catch my breath, to steady my anger, and to war with myself over whether or not Abby would ever tell me about the awful words that were lingering on her dresser. I finally decided that she wouldn’t and sensed that this letter was important. I snatched it off the desk before I could rethink it and told myself that this was for the best.

  If I was going to protect her, I needed to know what was really going on.

  Shoving it down into the depths of my pockets, not caring that it crumpled slightly as I did, I finished my way to the door and stepped out into the hallway. I left her door open for the light, then began checking rooms. It was a goddamn mansion so it took a while to check all of them, but it was important for me to do so. I wanted to make sure that not only was no one inside, but also that no one could get inside.

  No open doors.

  No open windows.

  Everything locked.

  Once I was satisfied that the place was all kinds of locked up, I went back to Abby’s room. I peeked in on her—she was still asleep and her forehead had thankfully smoothed out some—and when I felt confident that she was okay, di
pped back out to the room right across from hers. If I left the door open and dragged the bed over a bit, I could see directly into her room from that one. If anyone showed up, I could be ready. I shucked off my shoes, but left my pants on because I didn’t have anything to change into, and I felt the need to stay at least partially clothed.

  Whether that was for Abby’s sake or mine, I didn’t know.

  I lay down on the plush bed in that spare room and willed myself to sleep, but it was no use. I stared at the ceiling with too awake eyes that burned despite my body’s unwillingness to sleep. It was going to be a long day tomorrow.

  Chapter Seven

  Abby

  The first thing I noticed was the pounding. That was always the first thing you noticed when hungover. Your head would be pounding with this splitting sensation that drove you up the wall. It was enough to make you move around and get out of bed, but as soon as you did, it got worse.

  Which was why I tried to linger in my bed for as long as I could.

  And that was the second thing I noticed. I’m in my own bed. That sent all kinds of strange, quick emotions through me. One was panic, because as I realized I had not fallen asleep in my bed last night. I realized that someone had to have moved me there. With that came flashbacks from the previous night. How drunk I’d been, how uncharming my pretty boy attempted rapist had been. How I’d tried to get away.

  I shuddered and finally scrambled out of bed despite my head feeling like it was going to split open at any moment so that I could stumble to the master bath that was thankfully located in my room. I went directly to the toilet and emptied whatever contents lingered in my stomach. It wasn’t much, but it smelled slightly of alcohol.

  Not a pleasant thing first thing in the morning, but then neither were the flashing images of that damned man.

  I couldn’t recall everything from last night. I’d gotten so hammered so quickly that I doubted I ever would.

  No big loss there, I thought bitterly. At least I wouldn’t have to live with a lot of memories of that asshole. It wasn’t as good as it having never happened at all, but it made me feel marginally better. At least I told myself it did. In reality, not remembering was almost just as bad as having it actually happen. Not quite, but close.

  It was strange how not knowing something could be devastating.

  When I was finally sure that my stomach was empty, I slowly got up. My face felt flushed and kind of gross—I realized that I hadn’t had the chance to wash off my makeup from the previous night. As I got to the mirror, I saw that my makeup was mostly intact, since it was waterproof and theoretically smear proof it had weathered the night fairly well. Unfortunately, it was still day old makeup and I looked like hell warmed over.

  I was flushed thanks to the early morning vomiting and my eyes were rimmed in red. I could recall crying on and off the night before, which was not encouraging.

  As I began to rake through my hair, I realized that Kade had been there through it all. Most of it anyway, I amended silently. I couldn’t recall a lot of specifics, but I could remember how he’d carried me. He’d carried me and given me his jacket—then later his shirt.

  I felt marginally embarrassed and paused the brushing of my teeth so I could wince. I’d made a real fool of myself the night before, but he’d taken it all in stride. He hadn’t been angry—well, not with me anyway—and he hadn’t been judgmental. He’d been sweet and comforting, taking care of me while I sobbed and looked like a total wreck.

  I shook my head, then began with renewed vigor to brush my teeth. I was going to shower this morning. Shower and wash out my hair, which probably still smelled of party. Scrub the horrible lingering makeup off my face and then scrub at my skin until it was pink and shiny.

  I wanted the lingering remnants of that asshole off of me. And this dress, which I was pleased to notice I was still wearing beneath Kade’s shirt, was going to be burned. Actually, maybe torn up first. Yes, shredded and then burned and then the charred remains buried six feet under in my garden. Maybe beneath the roses.

  It wouldn’t be enough, I was sure, but it would be a start. I was reeling from the fact that that had even happened to me.

  How had this happened to me?

  I was being stupid, I admonished myself, rinsing out my mouth. And it was true, I had been stupid. I knew all the rhetoric around women who had been assaulted. How there was victim blaming on top of the victim doing the actual blaming of herself. There was all this guilt and self-hatred and the feeling that it was just all your fault.

  Well, I didn’t want to feel like that. I knew that it wasn’t my fault, whatever poor decision I had made. But even as I knew that in my mind, I couldn’t quite convince the rest of me to believe it.

  How stupid are you, Abby Woodard?

  I shoved the thought aside, then stripped out of my clothing. As I removed Kade’s shirt, I caught the smell of smoke and something else that was identifiably him. It shot a flood of warmth through me, comforting in a way that I didn’t think anything could be ever again.

  With it came more memories of the night before. But at least this time they were pleasant. I could remember crawling into Kade’s lap, leaning down. I remembered the kiss that had started innocently enough and turned into a blazing wildfire that couldn’t be stopped.

  I shuddered with pleasure at the memory of it.

  I was slightly at odds with myself about it. The memory of it was so good, so deliciously wonderful and pleasant that I couldn’t help but want more of it. And not just that. It made me want to go farther, to explore more things with him, and while some of that was a lingering need to be comforted and safe—who knew he would end up being the provider of those things?—there was more to it, too. I just wanted him, and right now, that made me feel a little bad about it.

  Was I supposed to be feeling like that so soon after what had happened last night?

  I wasn’t sure and I didn’t think I could work through it right that minute. My head was still pounding and I still felt gross in ways I never had before. Turning the water on high and hot, I let it steam up the bathroom before stepping in. The water was hot enough that it pricked at my skin and made me flinch and then stretch a little under the slight pain of it. But as my body got used to the extreme temperature, I began to relax. Slowly but surely the water washed away so much of the grime from the night before.

  I scrubbed the makeup off my face half a dozen times it seemed, then brushed my teeth again for good measure. Grabbing the shampoo, I washed my hair twice, then conditioned it. Then I decided it wasn’t clean enough and I repeated the whole process. After that, I was doing things just for an excuse to stay in the shower for longer.

  Shaved my legs. Combed my hair in the shower. Washed my face again. Brushed my teeth one last time.

  Finally, I just had to accept that it was time to get out. I was beet red and a little dizzy when I finally did just that, but I still felt better than I had. Or at least I felt cleaner anyway. I towel dried and wrapped up my hair. My clothes were lingering on the floor of the bathroom and I cringed slightly at the sight of the dress.

  Definitely burn it.

  I kicked it away from me behind the door as I stepped back into my room and rummaged through my closet for something to wear.

  Something modest and comfortable. Like sweats, but not those track suit kinds from Victoria’s Secret. I wanted something that hid my petite frame for once. This morning, I didn’t want to be noticed.

  I finally settled on an oversized shirt that I’d stolen from Uncle Caleb years ago and a pair of sweats that were a size too big and thus hung about my hips loosely. I had to tie them to keep them up, but they covered all of my legs and folded over the tops of my feet, too.

  I felt better hiding, and worse at the same time.

  I’ll be brave later, I promised myself.

  Padding to my bedroom door, I noticed that it was open and that the door to the room across from it was, too. I could see the bed, which was not where i
t had been before, I was almost positive. Had April moved things around in that room recently? I wondered, going out into the hall. I went to the stairs, wondering where Kade was.

  Had he left? Surely not; Caleb had made it clear that he was going to be stuck to me like glue whether either of us liked it or not. That meant staying here at the house with me. Yet even as I reminded myself of these details, I frowned as a nagging sensation swept me. Had he decided he was fed up? Was last night just too much drama, too much stupidity?