I Need A Bad Boy: A Collection of Bad Boy Romances

by Sophie Brooks

  "I wonder if he sleeps in other people's beds."

  I forgot to make his bed…a sense of doom washed over me.

  "I wonder if he steals their favorite workout shirts."

  He noticed…?

  Sharp teeth nipped my shoulder, grabbing the fabric of his light blue t-shirt, and tugged.

  "I wonder if he is Goldilocks. Hmmm?" The purr was back at my ear and I whimpered, my respiration rate increasing.

  "What am I going to do with you, Pearson?"

  I could suggest something…

  The pressure increased and my nose got pushed into the sofa cushion. I couldn't breathe; my face was stuck and I was pinned and there was no air left in my lungs. I started flailing about.

  "What's gotten into you all of a sudden?" I heard him ask, easing off but not letting go.

  I jerked my head up, drawing in a frantic gasp of air, relieved. "Couldn't breathe."

  "Oh. Sorry." He let go of me and turned me onto my back, lying on top of me again.

  "Better?"

  "Yeah. Although there's a deja-vu quality to it." There he was, once again his chin propped on his folded arms, comfortable in his repose on my chest while I struggled for breath. He reminded me of an overgrown cat.

  "So," he started, his tone conversational. "Explain the shirt to me."

  He got me there. I would have been smarter to steal one of his Armani suits and fence it on the street. You'd be amazed what you can actually sell it for, if you know where to go, but I had to go for a ratty old shirt – hell, I had several shirts just like that myself.

  "I didn't think you'd miss it," I sighed. "It's so old."

  "That's precisely why I'd miss it. And it's not something a few crepes is gonna fix, either, Pearson." The way he said my name – that hurt. I had called him by his first name, failing to elicit a reaction of any kind. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?"

  I looked at him, right on top of me but thousands of miles out of reach.

  This guy.

  This guy was just, so… so…

  Special didn't even begin to cover it. Despair at never finding a place in his heart suddenly overcame my desire for him and I had to spend countless moments fighting the dark feeling down. So I borrowed his t-shirt. So what? I'd have given it back eventually. My eyes squinted as I clenched my jaw and next thing he flew off of me. The coffee table was shoved to the side with my laptop teetering off the edge of it. My brother had taught me that move years ago, back when he took wrestling and I was still welcome at home. I was now straddling Rafael, my hands on his shoulders, an inexplicable feeling of anger welling within me as I resisted getting sucked into that bewitching blue gaze.

  "So what. What's so special about this one, Rinaldi?" I retorted, putting an obnoxious amount of emphasis on his last name.

  He returned my stare with nary a waver. "That's the last thing my sister gave me before she died."

  GINGERLY, I let go of his shoulders, shy all of a sudden. I started to get up, but long arms surprised me and I was pulled down into a tight hug.

  "I'm so sorry." My voice was very small. Barely audible.

  He sighed, his head rolled sideways so he didn't have to look at me.

  "Really, I am. I have a whole bunch of washed-out, ratty t-shirts with mountains on them. So I figured… doesn't everyone? There is no way I would notice one of them missing."

  His eyes blinked. "Really? You do?"

  "Yeah. I always get one after I summit a new peak…" A sudden realization hit me like a cement truck, the washed-out pattern on the t-shirt suddenly familiar.

  "Rafael. Did she… did your sister climb?"

  He nodded, jaw locked and tight. I picked up his hand and brought it to my lips, brushing his smooth, office-pampered knuckles with a soft caress. Then I flipped his hand over, satisfied that my memory served me right. He had rough fingertips.

  His hands were smooth like he had never had to do much physical labor – except for his fingertips with their short, blunt nails. Only climbers and guitar-players kept their nails as short as that: if you climbed rocks, you needed a good grip and a nail that was too long was more than just an inconvenience – it was a liability. You break a fancy, long nail while you climb – and with my luck it would hurt like a bitch – then you can't grip the rock well anymore, and boom, you fall. I examined his climbing calluses and beat-up fingernails.

  Not overthinking it much, I succumbed to a sudden urge to kiss his roughened fingers, one by one. First one hand, then the other; our eyes locked and the blue of his irises looked almost iridescent, small specks of silver lifting the color of his iris pattern. I lay down next to him on the carpet, my arm draped over his chest and my leg slung over his thigh, pressing my face into his shoulder. Some time passed and his breathing leveled out again. When I didn‘t need to pretend I could not see the tears because they had finally dried, I stirred next to him.

  "Would you like to tell me what happened?"

  WE SAT at the dining room table, facing one another, our legs carefully retracted under our respective chairs. I scooped up another helping of jasmine rice and sag paneer, the creamy-smooth spinach redolent of coriander and the flat nan bread buttery and supple in my hand. The fragrant spices tickled my nostrils and I swallowed.

  “This is so good,” I said, heaping another forkful of rice onto a bite-sized piece of flat bread and topping it off with the green spinach goo. A piece of soft, white cheese peeked through the green and I inhaled the fragrant spices before leaning over the plate to eat the overstuffed morsel.

  Thank you, Vicki, for remembering my favorite food ever.

  "How did you know what I'd like?" I asked him, hiding a smile, playing coy.

  "I have my ways," he said, not quite smirking, watching me eat with undisguised satisfaction. The heavy mood from before hadn't quite lifted yet, though, and I observed him carefully from underneath my eyelashes. He sat up straight and strong, his fork toying with a shrimp in the mild and creamy tikki masala sauce, its color orange with saffron and tomato. His rice was mostly untouched. There was a frown mark between his sharp, angled eyebrows; his jaw was still tight, his mouth a straight line.

  Time to try another tack.

  "Tell me about Celia and her climbing."

  He reached for his beer and sucked some down.

  "Celia was all I had left of my family. My older sister. A bit overbearing, but she meant well, you know? Her only focus was climbing, really. She wanted to go pro and live off endorsements and write articles for climbing magazines, but the field's just too competitive. Everyone wants to do that."

  I nodded. "Yeah." She'd been chasing the ultimate rock-bum's dream.

  "The shirt you're wearing is one of the two she bought in a small Sierra Nevada gift shop right after she climbed Mt. Whitney. She'd been eighteen then. It was her first big climb. She did a route graded as 5.4 III. Does that mean anything?"

  "If you fall you die, you better have a partner and good gear; takes experience, expect half a day to get up."

  "Okay. Whatever… I haven't made it to that level yet. Just, she gave me the shirt 'cause she bought it way too big and she'd been clearing some old things out. She'd been so happy and so proud, way back then. She'd climbed that, and El Capitan, and all kinds of nasty, notorious faces, and few years back she started to solo it. With safety gear, you understand, but still, climbing alone was risky and I always worried about her. She was chasing her goal a bit too hard, I thought, so I got her an accounting job with Provoid Brothers. That's what she went to school for."

  My eyebrows quirked up in interest. There have been several deaths in the accounting department of Provoid Brothers before the company went under. Three accidents, two suicides. He saw my reaction and nodded.

  "Yeah. Well, not too long after she started working there, just part-time so she could take long weekends and climb, she and Blaine Kirby got together. He was the VP of our collections department, reporting to the VP of Operations so he had been pretty high
up the ladder.” Rafael paused and took a drink of beer. He looked like he was going to say more but then thought better of it, and continued. “They'd go out climbing on the weekends. He'd never done it before; she was teaching him. I hardly saw any of her when she was going out with Kirby." Raf drained the rest of his beer and I got up, walked to the kitchen and got us two more cold bottles. He accepted his drink with a nod, twisting the cap off with a firm, angry gesture.

  "Just about when things were starting to go to shit at Provoid Brothers – it had been a total media circus, mind you - they went on an easy, level 3 climb off to the Adirondacks. It was an easy weekend trip, the wall wasn't too tall nor too hard. She could have free-climbed it solo if she wanted to."

  I frowned. "Wait, you mean…"

  "Yeah. Like with no safety gear at all. She was that good. I know it's not good practice but she and her buddies did that at times, just for the thrill of it."

  "Did she have a death-wish?" My voice was quiet and serious as I asked.

  "No." Raf shook his head. "No, she seemed happy. Real happy. Young, in love... she had so much to live for, you know?" He turned his head and studied the curtains to the living room balcony for a good long while. I gave him some time; when he turned his gaze back to his beer bottle, I prodded again.

  "So. What happened?"

  "She was the lead climber and Kirby was supposed to be belaying her. Except she fell. Just three feet before she reached the top, too. She died at the scene. Eighty feet is pretty high up when you crash on the rocks below."

  "That's pretty high up for an easy climb," I commented.

  "Yeah…I drove out to see it. There were ledges and stuff – lots of places with good cover. She fell off the one and only possible place where there was nothing to catch her on the way down."

  "And Kirby?"

  "He made it to the top on his own and walked down the easy side of the mountain. There's no cell signal out there; no witnesses. There's no way to tell what really happened."

  I took a sip of my lemon water, shoving my food aside. To climb with someone was to put your life in his or her hands - especially if you climbed the lead.

  "So he was belaying her – and when she fell, he didn't arrest the fall?"

  Rafael's face was still, as still as though carved of stone.

  "He said the rope just slipped between his fingers. He didn't know what went wrong. He seemed really broken up over it, too." Raf was staring at the table, a furrow between his eyebrows, the beer cap flipping in his fingers. Up and down, up and down.

  "Do you know what type of a belaying device she was using?" I asked. Depending on what they had been using, that would have made a difference, especially if a beginner panicked.

  "It's there somewhere. In her things, y'know." He waved his hand around as though we were at his place, surrounded by countless boxes of Celia’s things. "I started climbing two months after she passed, just to see if I could figure out what might have gone wrong. Never had the time to dig into it, though. I've been working crazy hours when we got our little company launched… you have no idea what that's like. There’re nights I sleep at the office and shower at the gym across the street…" He let his voice drift off, suddenly looking worse for the wear.

  "What did the police say?"

  "An accident. While doing an extreme sport, they said. As though she'd been asking for it." Anger seethed under the surface of his tight, controlled expression.

  "So her gear's in one of those boxes?"

  "Yeah. It's all her stuff. I don't know what to do with it."

  A change of topic was in order.

  "You still climb, Rafael?"

  "I try. When I have the time - you know, to figure out what happened. To carry it on."

  Slowly, I pushed my chair away from the table. My eyes locked with his as I grasped the bottom hem of the venerable, old t-shirt and eased it over my shoulders. My black sports bra peeked from underneath.

  "Pearson…what the hell you think you're doin'?"

  My face was now hidden by his shirt, so I could allow myself a self-satisfied smirk as I flexed my toned abs just a bit. I wiggled some and the garment finally fell off my arms. I shook it, turned it right-side out, and folded it.

  "Here. I'm giving it back."

  Raf outstretched his hand and accepted the small, still-warm bundle. As I headed for my bedroom to put something else on, I heard a broken, ragged moan escape him. I spun around.

  Raf Rinaldi was sitting at my dining room table, his face buried in the shirt I just removed. The little, unintended sound was like a Siren's call and, heedless of the rocks I was about to be dashed upon, I followed it, unwilling to stop myself.

  MY HANDS touched his shoulders from behind; his warmth felt ample and generous as my palms felt a hint of his defined deltoids under the scratchy linen of his white shirt.

  "You okay?" I whispered, letting my fingers stroke him from his shoulder points all the way up his corded neck, bumping over the stand-up collar in my way. He gave a slight shiver and leaned back into me. Placing the blue t-shirt on the table before him, he let his hands touch mine. His fingers stroked my forearms, travelling all the way up to my shoulders and I leaned into his touch, wrapping my arms around his neck.

  "Hey…" I whispered right by his ear, letting my warm, moist breath tickle the sensitive tissue. "Can I take some of this away, at least for a little while?"

  He stood and turned, every movement slow and deliberate. The chair pushed to the side and our eyes met as he turned. His hands travelled from my shoulders on down to my abs, my waist, my back – he explored my curves with those large, strong hands, the scratching of his roughened finger pads an exclamation mark in the wake of his hot, heavy touch. His adventurous fingers subdued the front clasp of my bra; a cold rush of air met warm skin. I gasped as his gentle fingers traced my curves. When he brushed my nipple, my knees almost buckled.

  "You could comfort me in my grief," he said, his mouth on my neck, his fingers running through the waterfall of my loose, dark blonde hair.

  He whispered something so quietly I didn't think it was meant for my ears at all:

  "Goldilocks…"

  CHAPTER 8

  We stood, facing one another in an uneasy détente. His hands set my skin aflame with desire and, for the first time, I thought that perhaps taking my shirt off in front of Rafael Rinaldi gave me more than I had bargained for. His fingers traced my heaving ribs, thumbs running up between my breasts as his fingers caressed my tender curves.

  His faint whisper was still on my mind:

  “Goldilocks…”

  Here was the man of my dreams, tall and handsome and just a bit over the line of dangerous, and he dared to compare me to a little girl. My woman-powered hackles raised immediately.

  “Oh shut it, Rinaldi,” I sighed, frowning, and took a step back. He quirked his eyebrow at me. “What?”

  “No incompetent nicknames.”

  He took a step closer to me, closing the distance between us. “Your hair is so rich and gold, like the sweetest honey any bear would love to taste. You break into houses and make yourself comfortable. You’re cute. It suits you.”

  I elbowed him, surprised when he oomphed and bent over, his hands on his solar plexus. I must have hit him dead on.

  “Pearson…you…That was a bitchy thing to do.”

  “You started it.”

  “Okay, then. I should be going home. I don’t need this kind of crap from yet another ungrateful malcontent today.” He grabbed his blue t-shirt off the table and headed for the door. The man of my dreams was about to put his shoes on and step out of my apartment, out of my life. Getting him here to begin with took me almost a week, and now I’ve blown it.

  Shit.

  “I’d like you to stay...”

  He stopped.

  “I’m sorry,” I added, feeling just a bit contrite. “That landed in a bad place. I didn’t mean it to hurt… not so much, anyway.”

  He turned around, eying m
e up and down as I stood there in my unhooked bra, my thumbs over the waistband of his black, silk shorts. He didn’t say anything so I continued.

  “I’m sorry if you didn’t enjoy my company last time around. You’re… you’re just a little too well-endowed for that sort of a thing… you know?”

  His eyes darkened and I saw his breath deepen; he was focused on my lips as I spoke.

  “I just loved sliding my tongue down like that, though. You were so incredibly smooth… and hard… and hot.”

  “Pearson.” He mangled my name into a promising growl as he closed the distance between us, the precious t-shirt discarded in passing. His large, warm hands slid up my sides, and he pushed my shoulders into the wall behind me and leaned in to capture my lips with his own. Our kiss was simple; not a lot of tongue. It was a makeup kiss and we both knew it.

  “I’ll stay if you want me to,” he exhaled, sharing his moist breath with me. I felt his back through that fine, tailored linen. Strong erectors, defined deltoids.

  Twist my arm.

  “Only if you really want to.” My voice was almost muffled by his shirt as I inhaled, savoring the scent of his left armpit. Oh God, that man and his heady scent of spice and musk that inundated me, almost making me faint with want. Burrowing my nose in there would have been too undignified, so I settled for dizzying, deep breaths of air.

  “You okay? Are you hyperventilating?”

  Heat flooded my face as I looked up, eyes glazed and lips parted.

  “I…I just love the way you smell. You’re like catnip - and I’m the cat.”

  His eyes widened in sudden understanding.

  “Is that why…” he kissed my nose, “the hamper in my room…”

  “And the aftershave in your bathroom,” I admitted, melting into him, my knee brushing his powerful thighs. “And your pillow…”