A Hard Life: Alpha on Parole (Craving Older Bad Boys)

by Lexi Hunter

  Contents

  COPYRIGHT

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  EPILOGUE

  EXCERPT: Still Living Hard: Caught by the Seal

  EXCERPT: Mr. Bad Boy: Teacher's Pet

  EXCERPT: A Bad Boy Surprise: Father's Billionaire Friend

  COPYRIGHT

  Copyright © Lexi Hunter

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  A Hard Life: Alpha on Parole

  CHAPTER 1

  Haunted

  MY FLASHLIGHT WENT out and I panicked. The darkness was too much for me. Things squeaked from every corner of the room. Mice would have been welcome compared to the other images my mind was busy creating. If Aaron had been here, it would've been fine. I could have clung to him and buried my face against his neck, smelling his cologne and turning my nightmares into a fantasy. But I'd lost him somewhere between the first and third floors.

  Where the hell did he go?

  I snapped my head in the direction of a new sound but saw nothing except empty space. Moonlight crept in through cracked windows, but only in fine threads of light that were too thin and small to survive on their own. They were absorbed into the darkness almost instantly.

  Aaron had been right behind me when we were climbing the stairs. Brie had been in front, leading the charge as usual, and then they'd both disappeared. I'd thought she was going to the basement to smoke up with Derek and Mikey so I could be alone with Aaron. I knew it sounded weird to Brie when I told her I wanted our first time together to be in this old haunted house, but Aaron was a ghost story addict. He had fantasies about stuff like this. Just because abandoned houses had never been my thing, that didn't mean it couldn't be perfect. If Aaron found them exciting, then why not? Who was I to judge someone's fetish?

  Walking around alone in a house that was supposed to be filled with assorted demons and entities was scaring me so much that my body temperature had dropped to that of an ice cube. But then, first times were always frightening. Weren't they? We just had to find a spot together, alone, and everything would be fine.

  My flashlight flickered back on and relief washed over me. I scanned the empty room layered with debris and wondered how the police didn't have twenty-four-hour security here, especially with all the kids who broke in to party. What was it about abandoned homes that made people want to drink, do drugs, and have sex? I stifled a giggle, realizing I was part of that category now.

  There was a noise from down the hall. Aaron. I recognized the tone of his voice even if I couldn't make out what he was saying. Thank God. I ran my fingers through my long hair, glad for the recent blonde highlights even though they probably wouldn't be visible in the dark. There was another sound. This one was different. Richer. More... illicit.

  I listened closer. It sounded like Aaron was working out. I knew jocks liked to take advantage of downtime, exercising in spaces without any equipment whenever the opportunity presented itself, but this was ridiculous. I guess he was still secretly hoping to get drafted, but his college football days hadn't exactly garnered much interest from the pro-ball guys. I felt bad for him. Hell, right now, I felt bad for me. Three days after graduating college and Aaron was still more concerned with his exercise routine than with me.

  I knew it wasn't my body. He was always trying to get in my pants. I didn't blame him. My curvy hips and full breasts were the fantasies of most men. I was glad I wasn't a size zero, like Brie. Men liked something to hold onto, and with me, they had a handful. Tonight, Aaron was going to be the first man I had ever permitted to taste that handful.

  I peeled off my panties, glad that I'd thought to wear a skirt, and followed the sounds down the hall. The door stood open—most of the rooms didn't even have doors—and I walked right in. Aaron only turned his head when I gasped. He jumped off Brie, who had her legs wrapped around him like he was some new form of exercise equipment.

  "Shit!" he shouted.

  Brie jumped up, searching frantically for her jeans.

  "What the hell?" I cried.

  Aaron reached for my arm. "It's not what you think."

  I blinked, unable to believe Aaron would say something so ridiculous. "You had your..." I stumbled over my words, "dick in her! What do you mean it's not what I think?"

  "It was an accident," Brie said, finally finding her clothes and pulling them back on.

  "As in you accidentally fell into each other," I screamed. Their image was permanently burned into my brain. I only hoped it wouldn't do any damage. I turned to leave. There was a hunk of something on the floor that looked like a melted frying pan and my foot caught it in the dark. I tripped and skinned my knees, my skirt riding up and giving Brie and Aaron a great view of my ass.

  Aaron paused a second, uncertain what to make of my bare bottom. I wasn't one of those girls who walked around without panties on. Brie knew what I'd been planning for tonight, though, and even in the dark, I could see her face go red.

  Good. At least she feels some shame.

  Though whatever she felt would never be enough.

  "No!" I shouted, waving off Aaron's hands as he tried to help me up. "Leave me alone." I pulled my skirt down and tried to stand without falling again.

  There was a commotion from downstairs and I thought Derek and Mikey were running up to see what was happening.

  "Who's there?" a voice asked from the darkness. It wasn't Derek or Mikey, and for one crazy second, I thought a ghost or two had decided to make themselves known to us.

  Suddenly, there was movement everywhere. "Don't move. Police." Oh fuck.

  There was a rush of flashlights and an army of footsteps invaded the empty room. We were surrounded.

  CHAPTER 2

  Criminal

  I DIDN'T KNOW what was more embarrassing, having my parents get a phone call from their twenty-one-year-old daughter in the middle of the night informing them she'd been arrested, or explaining to the female officer why I wasn't wearing any underwear.

  "I'm only asking because we have to check and make sure nothing happened that you didn't want to happen," she said.

  Thank God the officer was a woman. When I told her about finding Brie and Aaron together, she took pity on me. I hadn't been caught smoking any weed with Mikey and Derek, so my charges weren't as bad. Trespassing.

  I blushed. "You don't have to tell my parents about the, er, underwear thing, right?"

  She looked at me and smiled. There were slight creases around her eyes, but otherwise, they were soft and sympathetic. "You're twenty-one. Technically, we don't have to tell your parents about any of this if you don't want us to."

  I considered that a second, wondering if there was some way I could live through this night without having to tell my parents. But who else was I gonna call? I still lived at home, for crying out loud. They came to get me and let me have it when I got home. They were so disappointed. They couldn't believe I'd do something so stupid. Yada yada yada. All the typic
al parent stuff designed to guilt trip you and make you think about your actions.

  Later that night, after my parents had finally decided I could go to sleep, I thought about how stupid I'd been to ever trust Aaron. All men were dogs. It was a theme that came up over and over again in songs and movies.

  You can't trust men. Love hurts.

  I told myself that I would never again trust anyone like I'd trusted Aaron. Love was now a thing of the past, something to be deleted and sent to the trash bin. It made my stomach queasy to think how ready I'd been to give my body to him. Aaron and Brie didn't even have enough respect for me to wait till they were alone. What a fool I'd been.

  I started having doubts that I'd never had before. Brie was a twig. Maybe I'd been wrong all this time about what, exactly, Aaron was into. I'd always assumed he liked a voluptuous woman with a fleshy round ass and shapely hips. But maybe I'd been wrong. Maybe he liked a size zero.

  My parents hired a lawyer for me, some guy they saw on TV in a bad infomercial who said it was "easy peasy, nothin' but breezy" to get me off with nothing but a little community service time. Turns out he was right. One hundred hours of community service and a month of probation. I could live with that.

  My parents, however, didn't think that was enough. They insisted I needed a good influence in my life. A positive role model. Apparently, my grandfather was the perfect person for the job. He was a war veteran, and it would do me good, they said, to be around someone with life experience. Someone who could help me set goals for the future.

  They expected me to go to his house every day during the summer when I wasn't doing my community service and clean, run errands, or whatever he needed. Basically, I was assigned to be his maid.

  I argued with this. After all, at twenty-one, I was no longer a child. I didn't see how they could ground me. I had just graduated college. Guess what my dad said. "My house, my rules." I was given the choice to either move out on my own or do my parents' bidding. I had a part-time job working at a bookstore, so I didn't think I was gonna be moving out any time soon. I sighed and consented to help my grandfather.

  My dad's best friend was also gonna be coming around to help out the old man. Liam had been traveling in Europe for the last eight years, but now he was back. He was a contractor or something and was going to help my grandfather with some much needed repairs to his home.

  I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen Liam. I think I was twelve. I remembered him as being overweight with ugly skin. Maybe he had some good stories about Europe he could tell me. I wondered what he'd been doing over there for eight years, anyway.

  At least I wouldn't be alone with Grandfather. And I figured it was better than my parents kicking me out of the house. I didn't have a boyfriend or best friend anymore after what had happened, so it wasn't like I had anything better to do this summer. Me, Grandpa, and Liam. It was going to be interesting.

  CHAPTER 3

  Liam

  GRANDPA'S SHOPPING LIST was ridiculously long. You'd think the man never went to the store. I wondered if maybe he was plumping it up just for my sake, wanting to make more work for me than there ought to be. I pulled some adult diapers off the shelf and added them to the cart, cringing at just how much I was learning about my Grandfather. The phrase too much information did not seem to be a part of his repertoire.

  The first day with him had been okay, sort of. He'd gone over his schedule with me: doctors' appointments, bingo days, all the stuff you'd think was typical of a seventy-year-old man. Today, however—Day Two—Grandpa had suddenly put me to work. I had cleaned his kitchen in the morning, scrubbing his floor until my fingers pruned. He watched the whole time, critiquing my scrubbing technique.

  "You have to press harder or that dirt will NEVER COME OFF," he'd shouted.

  I'd wondered if he was aware of how loud he'd been screaming. Had he and my parents planned this? Maybe they'd thought I'd learn my lesson better if Grandpa gave me the drill sergeant routine. Or were his hearing aid batteries just running low? I didn't think it would be wise to ask. And I hadn't seen Liam once. I'd been counting on hearing wild tales of some juicy European love trysts I could go home with and dream about, but Liam was nowhere to be found.

  "Ew! Grandpa, what is this stuff?" I'd asked, pointing to something hard and green stuck to his floor.

  "Not sure," he'd said. "I think maybe it's ketchup."

  At least now, at the store, I was away from him. But I found myself wishing my community service hours were longer each day. I'd rather be picking up trash from the side of the road than helping Grandpa like this.

  Driving back to Grandfather's from the store I couldn't stop myself from thinking about the mess that had gotten me here in the first place. Aaron and I had been going together for almost a year. How could he have picked the one night that I was finally ready to give myself to him as the night he decided to cheat on me?

  A new thought occurred to me. One that made my stomach churn.

  I slammed on the breaks and pulled my car off to the side of the road, trying to stop the rising hysteria bubbling over in me. Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes. I'd thought I was done shedding tears over those two, but I guess I'd been wrong.

  What made me think that had been the first time Aaron ever cheated on me?

  I pulled my phone from my purse and stared at it. I knew I shouldn't call. You ever get that nagging feeling that tells you not to do something, but part of you wants to do it anyway? Like a dieter about to break their diet and eat a hot fudge sundae? Something that big is not just a simple deviation from your diet, it's quitting the diet altogether. It's something you'll regret tomorrow.

  I'd told myself I would never speak to either of them again. It had been over a month, what did it matter now anyway? But that nagging feeling was there now, in the back of my head. Only instead of urging me away from the hot fudge sundae, it was telling me to devour it. I took a deep breath and dialed Brie.

  "Hello?" she answered.

  "Hi Brie," I said, trying to sound calm.

  "Jackie?" It was hard not to hear the shock in her voice.

  "Yeah."

  "Oh my God. Jackie! I'm so glad you called. I've missed you so much."

  She sounded sincere enough, but I didn't care. I was only calling for one reason.

  "Brie," I said, clearing my throat, "I need you to tell me something."

  "Of course, anything." I could hear the optimism in her voice. She was hoping I'd decided to be friends with her again. Tough shit.

  "Was that night at the abandoned house..." I hesitated. Was I sure I wanted to know this? What difference could it make? I wasn't going to be hanging out with Brie anytime soon, and I sure as hell wasn't going to be seeing Aaron. Still, I had to know. Now that the thought had occurred to me it would eat away at me until I knew the truth.

  "Was that night at the house the first time you and Aaron had ever... you know, been together?"

  I heard the hesitation in her answer. "Yes," she said.

  But she was lying. I'd guessed the truth in the half second of silence she'd taken to answer me. Anger simmered deep inside my chest, making my blood burn. "Just tell me," I growled. "How long?"

  She hesitated again and I heard her whisper something to someone. "Is Aaron there with you?" I asked, incredulous.

  "No." She was still lying.

  "How long?" I asked her, seething.

  She let out a long sigh. "Not long, really. Just a month or two." Then, much lower, almost under her breath, "Or six."

  Six months? Aaron and Brie had been having sex together for half the time Aaron and I were dating?

  I hung up on her. My phone rang immediately and I turned it off. I was never talking to either of them again. If there had been any doubt before, this clinched it.

  I started my car again and headed back towards Grandfather's, wondering what was better about Brie than me. I looked in the rearview mirror. I was attractive.

  Wasn't I?

  I had
long, blonde hair that curled at the ends and blue eyes that looked like the sky at midafternoon. I thought guys liked blonde hair and blue eyes. My D cups were one of my best features, full and round with milky skin that felt like velvet. Pushed together in my bra, they created tons of cleavage where Brie had none. So why then, had Aaron done it?

  Because I'm not nearly as attractive as I think I am.

  The answer hung in the air and no one dared to contradict it.

  I was actually relieved when I got back to my grandfather's, grateful for the distraction. There was a motorcycle sitting in his driveway and I wondered who it could belonged to. It was all shiny and hard, with black paint and polished chrome so bright it could blind a person.

  I opened the door to Grandfather's holding a bag of groceries, several more still in the trunk of my car. A voice from the kitchen carried through the air. It wasn't Grandpa's scraggly, rotting voice. This one was deep and powerful, with a hardened edge to it that made my body wet.

  "Grandpa?" I called out, wondering who else was here.

  "In the kitchen," he called.

  I walked to the tiny room with bland wallpaper and yellowed tile that I'd spent hours scrubbing this morning. Grandfather sat across from a man with his back to me, two cups of coffee spread between them. All I could see was shiny dark hair, the color of coal. It was shaggy and tousled, a rugged windblown look. This was clearly the man who'd rode in on the motorcycle.

  Even from behind, I could tell this guy was well built. He wasn't wearing the standard motorcycle jacket and one bare arm sat propped on the table, clutching his coffee mug. It was covered in dark tattoos, but under those tattoos laid smooth, tan muscle. My limbs trembled. Warm electric energy crawled towards me through the air, ready to lash out and invade my every fissure. The energy was hard. Lustful. Aggressive.

  "You get everything?" Grandpa asked.

  "Yeah," I murmured, trying to pull my tongue back in.

  He squinted at the bag in my arms. "That doesn't look like everything."