by Lexi Hunter
CHAPTER 10
Morning
IT WAS STILL dark. After midnight for sure. I really had no idea beyond the blackness of the sky. With all that had happened tonight, I knew it couldn't be any earlier. My eyes scanned the room, searching for Colt. It was dark in the bedroom, but music drifted up from downstairs through the closed door. I got out of Colt's bed and searched for my clothes. They lay in a neat pile on his dresser and I wriggled into them, wondering how long I'd been asleep.
I went downstairs and was astonished to find Colt in the kitchen, cooking eggs and singing along with some old crooner about finding love on the corner. I giggled as his hips swished to the music. He turned around, startled.
"Hello, beautiful," Colt said, taking two giant steps towards me and wrapping his arms around me, catching me off guard. He picked me up so that my feet dangled inches off the floor, then spun me around with a big smile on his face.
"Colt," I shouted, giggling. "I'm getting dizzy."
He put me down and kissed me. I was glad to find the same passion behind the kiss that I'd felt earlier. I'd heard a lot about one night stands and knew with a kiss like that Colt and I did not fall into that category.
He put an arm around me and steered me towards the stove. "How do you like your eggs?" he asked.
"Sunny side up," I said.
He nodded. "And toast? White or wheat?"
"Both," I giggled.
He raised an eyebrow, "I'm not made out of money you know." If this had been the old Colt I probably would have thought he hated me even more for trying to take advantage of him and eat all his food, but now I laughed, and when he joined me it made my heart skip.
"Isn't it a little late for eggs?" I asked.
"Don't you mean a little early?" he said, wrapping his arm tighter around my shoulder and cracking open an egg with one hand.
"What do you mean?" I asked. "What time is it?"
"About four," he said.
I jumped out of his arms and he dropped an egg on the floor. "In the morning?"
"Yeah." He saw the panic in my eyes and realized I was worried. "It's okay. I called your father at the poker game to tell him he left his phone in my satchel and he said he was gonna crash there. Asked me to call you and let you know, since I had his phone. He couldn't remember your cell number."
I relaxed again. "In that case, I suppose I have time for eggs and other."
Colt raised an eyebrow. "Other?" he asked. "Define other."
I kissed his lips, swirling my tongue inside his mouth.
"In that case," Colt said, "I think I'll have a big side of other to go with my toast."
EPILOGUE
Home
"HONEY, WE'RE SO sorry we missed your graduation." My mother shouted into the phone as if I couldn't hear her.
My stepdad's voice sounded in the background, "Let me talk to her."
Mom must've pushed him away because I heard a muffled hrmph and then my stepdad was silent.
"We sent a plane ticket to your father. We've got your room all set up." I let Mom prattle on for another minute before finally deciding to give them the news.
"Mom, I'm staying with Dad."
She was silent a moment. I knew the only reason she'd even called now was because she felt guilt, not because she really wanted me with her in Paris. "I'm sorry honey, I didn't catch that. It sounded like you said you were staying with your father."
"I did."
My Mom put her hand over the phone and said something to Ryan. She must've given him permission to talk to me—more likely demanded that he talk to me—because suddenly his voice chirped loudly through the line. I had to hold the phone away from my ear.
My dad sat at the dining room table with Colt. They were both watching me and both pretending not to.
"Maddie," Ryan said. "I'm so sorry we missed your graduation."
"Mom already said that."
"Oh, well I'm saying it again. We want you to come out here. Really we do. We don't want to bother your father any more than we already have."
"Dad already said I could stay." He looked up from his newspaper and winked at me. "Anyways, I'm twenty-one. Not a child. I can do as I please."
Colt winked at me too now, when he knew my dad wasn't looking.
Turns out Dad was a lot cooler than I had thought when I'd first moved in with him. Oh, I would never tell him about me and Colt. I didn't think there was a father alive who would be that cool, but now that we'd both loosened up a little, he was actually pretty fun. For three months I'd gone on about his Bingo playing and his old guy habits. Turns out he didn't even play Bingo. Just cards. And as for poker, he was really, really good. He won tons of money all the time and he was teaching me his tricks.
I kept thinking this thing with Colt was a fling... that I'd wake up one day and realize it was all over. But every day I woke up more infatuated than ever.
Suddenly, my mom was back on the line.
"Does this have anything to do with Erik?" my Mom asked.
"No. Erik and I broke up. This is something that I want to do for me. I'll come visit you guys. I still want to see the Eiffel Tower, but I'm not moving anywhere."
I could picture Mom with her hand over her mouth, acting upset but secretly happy. My stepdad would be more upset than she was, but he'd get over it. He had work and Mom to keep him busy and that was more than most people could handle.
"Well, honey, if you're sure..." my mom said.
"I am."
She hung on in silence as if I might change my mind in the next minute. I finally hung up and joined Colt and Dad at the table.
Colt scooched his chair a hair closer to mine and reached under it to take my hand. It was warm and I felt his blood pulse under his skin. When I rubbed my finger against his I felt his pulse quicken and miss a beat.
"I'm running to the store. Colt, you coming?"
"Think I'll stay here if you don't mind. My leg hurts."
Dad shrugged and grabbed his keys. "I've got a new lesson for you tonight, Maddie. The guys are coming over here and we're gonna get you in the game."
"You think I'm ready?"
"Gotta play the game to learn it," he said and walked out.
Colt leaned in and kissed me when he was gone. "You know, I've always wanted to see Paris. Maybe I can be your chaperone. You're awfully young to be on your own in a strange city."
I leaned into him and drew his mouth towards me. "Shut up and kiss me, old man."
***
Thanks for reading Still a Bad Boy: My Alpha Rider!
Lexi Hunter writes unbridled romances that explore the wild side in all of us. Who doesn't like a happily ever after? A little bit of naughty never hurt anyone. So slip on in and leave your inhibitions at the door. Remember...
...It's WILD inside...
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EXCERPT: Still Living Hard: Caught by the Seal
PRELUDE
Confession
THE ANTIQUE SMELL of the tiny phone booth-like structure made me feel old and claustrophobic. I knelt down and made the sign I'd seen others do so many times in the movies. I hoped I was doing it right. In my twenty-one years, I'd never stepped foot inside a church. My parents didn't believe in religion. If it didn't make them money, then they weren't interested. A soft thud sounded from the adjoining booth and a small screen slid back to reveal patches of white skin and dim light.
I swished my dark hair behind my head and kept my eyes cast down as if this priest could see through walls. My porcelain skin almost glowed in the darkness of the booth where I knelt.
"Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned."
A deep voice responded, kind but perfunctory: "How long has it been since your last confession, my child?"
; "Um... I've never confessed before."
"Never?" He could not hide his surprise.
"Well, I don't really go to church. My parents aren't very religious. A friend of mine goes here."
"I see." I could feel his eyes squinting through the screen, searching with renewed interest. Goosebumps broke out on my arms as a soft breeze blew past me. Why did I feel naked?
"How old are you my child?"
"I just turned twenty-one."
A soft chuckle sprung from the back of the priest's throat, driving a tinge of annoyance through my blood. Is he laughing at me?
"You're much too young to have done anything of serious consequence."
"Oh, Father... I wish that were true."
"Alright." I could hear the indulgent smile in his voice. "What is it that you would like to confess?"
I didn't know how to say it... I hadn't told anyone. No one would have understood. I took a deep breath, held it, then exhaled my confession:
"I seduced my father's best friend!"
CHAPTER 1
Milestones
I WOKE UP on my twenty-first birthday, hot and achy. Grandfather's guest room was much too warm (he kept the thermostat well above seventy-five) and the bed was more than uncomfortable. I still didn't understand why, at the age of twenty-one, my parents felt I needed a babysitter while they were on their cruise.
The thought of their untimely vacation still stung. Though I hadn't admitted it to anyone, my feelings had been deeply hurt by their absence on what most people considered a milestone birthday. That, coupled with their insistence that I stay with Grandfather, left me bitter when I should have been euphoric. I pictured my father's face as he told me that he and Mom wouldn't be here.
"I'm sorry Kaitlyn. We booked the trip without thinking." I knew he felt guilty but his eyes sparkled too much for genuine sorrow. He looked like a kid at Christmas. "Your mom found a great deal. Half price you know. That's really difficult to find these days." He spit the words out in a high-toned voice that betrayed excitement.
I tried to smile. "It's fine Dad." My lips gave me away, though. I turned my head a tad too slow to hide the tremble of my bottom lip. A thick lump rose in my throat.
I heard Dad inhale, deep and steady, then blow it back out. "If it's that important to you, Katie, maybe we can change—"
That's when Mom burst into the kitchen, her smile almost as dazzling as her bleached hair. She took one look at me and my father and assessed the situation.
"Kaitlyn, you're a grown girl now and don't need us to stay with you every second of the day. You're about to graduate college. You're twenty-one."
"Not yet," I interrupted. "That's kind of the point. How can you guys miss my birthday?"
She looked at me, her eyes growing red. "What can I do? Don't I deserve a vacation?" She could tell I wasn't buying it. "Half price, Kaitlyn," she said, trying a different approach. "They were half price!" There was an awkward pause while she tried to come up with a way to fix this that didn't involve too much exertion on her part. "Would a hundred bucks do anything for you?"
The idea to stay with Grandfather had also Mom's. Of course it had. I was more than old enough to stay alone at the house, but that didn't mean my mother trusted me there. She had too many highly breakable antiques. They were her babies. More precious than her own family. I was twenty-one, little better than an adolescent.
It was times like these I wished I'd gone away to school. So how did my mom get me to stay with grandfather during their trip? Easy. She guilted me into it, of course. Mom was an expert at manipulation.
"He's so old, Kaitlyn. He could fall at any time. What if he broke his hip and died? How would you feel then? Do you want your grandfather to die?"
I'd pointed out that people didn't die from broken hips, but that had only sent her into a flurry of fake tears designed to get me to do what she wanted. I was twenty-one and still falling for the same old shit.
Grandpa really was having a harder time getting around the closer he got to seventy-five, though, which for him marked the "point of no return," as he liked to call it. I could hear his voice inside my head, discounting his increasing age—Two more years Kaitlyn, two more. I ain't there yet, don't shortchange me—and most days it felt like I was babysitting him. But then that was the idea.
I rolled around grandpa's spare bed, trying to find a spot that didn't make my body sore. I couldn't blame Grandfather's rock hard bed alone for my aching back. I'd been tossing and turning all night thinking about him. Daxton Hunter. My dad's best friend and my only consolation prize for being stuck here at grandpa's. I knew I was bound to run into him while visiting.
Daxton was only forty, and he was everything my own father wasn't. I don’t know whether it was the years he'd spent as a Navy Seal that had kept his body chiseled and golden or the motorcycles he chose to ride—there was something so sensual about the swift flash of chrome as Daxton roared up our driveway—but where my father and grandfather seemed old and feeble, Daxton was young and vibrant. Where my dad pooped out long before nine o'clock, Dax could keep going until the wee small hours.
I'd often wondered how it was possible that two so seemingly different people could be friends, but then I'd remember that father had joined the Navy at the same time as Daxton. Father had barely made it through basic, though, while Daxton had been recruited to one of the most elite teams of soldiers ever created. Still, they'd spent a lot of time together in Afghanistan. Daxton had even saved my father's life when a tanker exploded. He'd been a part of the family ever since.
It wasn't just Daxton's masculinity that made my own body tingle whenever he was around—the man was a knockout. When other men looked at themselves in the mirror, it was Daxton they pictured. Whether or not they'd ever laid eyes on him before didn't matter, Daxton was simply the ideal man that all others aspired to be.
With rock hard abs that dipped in and out in wild waves of muscle, men in their twenties looked at Daxton with burning jealousy. Long, dark hair with fell from his head in lush ripples I longed to run my hands through. I just knew it would be soft and silky if I were to reach out and touch it. The perfect contrast to his hard, hot body.
Daxton was at our house all the time. He was at Grandfather's almost as often. Grandfather had a giant pool in his backyard which Daxton used frequently. My grandfather had a soft spot for him since he'd saved my dad's life, and Dax had free rein to use the pool as often as he wished. He even had a key to Grandfather's house.
The funny thing was, as often as Dax was over, he'd never get more than his feet into the pool. He'd sit on the edge of it, staring into the water with a faraway look that made my heart ache for him. Once, I'd asked my father about it, and he'd told me that Dax had some sort of "accident" when he was in the war. He didn't know the details, though, or if he did, he didn't share them with me.
My phone buzzed on my nightstand, breaking my fantasy. I cast an annoyed look in its direction, knowing it was Ethan. He hadn't stopped texting me since I'd left him in the parking lot of IHOP two weeks ago. I didn't know why he was still bothering with me, except that he was a control freak who couldn't take no for an answer. My hand instinctively went to the cheek which still bore the dark purple bruise from where he'd slammed my face into the car door
No girl in their right mind would have anything to do with Ethan. Especially not me. Especially not after catching him in the backseat of my Chevy with Brittany Meyers just before I turned twenty-one. Talk about a double whammy. First, my parents abandon me, then Ethan betrays me.
What was it that he'd said when I'd opened the door to my Cavalier and found them together? Oh yeah, "Fuck off, we're not through." When I'd refused to let him get away with that, he'd gotten out of the car and knocked my head into the door.
***
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EXCERPT: A Hard Life: Alpha on Parole
CHAPTER 1
Haunted
MY F
LASHLIGHT 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.