He made quite the small fortune living this life. His bank account attested to that every time he gave it a look. If he quit today, he had enough to buy a decent sized plot of land, find a girl, and start a family without the need to work another day. It would all be easily taken care of. There would be no struggle, no wonder of how to put food on the table.
Find a girl? Start a family? Were these serious thoughts he was having? Could he love someone? If he felt nothing after ending another person’s life, would he be capable of something as simple as love? If a woman knew the amount of blood that was on his hands, could she even fathom loving him?
He didn’t know, but this was one thing the road was good for. Deep thoughts. He rubbed a hand over the scruff that had grown on his face as he considered his line of thought. The thoughts sobered him and twisted up his gut. He reflected on the girl he had left back in the motel, the prostitute.
He spent his free time with women he paid to get him off. How was he supposed to relate to a woman? Would he garner a worthwhile woman? How would he even know how to love her and get her to love him?
He wasn’t a bad looking guy, or so he’d been told. He kept the close-cut hair that was forced upon him at boot camp, but he occasionally sported the beginnings of a beard when the idea of shaving was just something he didn’t want to do. Beards were in now, right? Honestly, he didn’t know.
He hadn’t tried to pick up a woman that he didn’t have to pay for since high school. It was just easier to look for women on street corners. He looked in the rearview mirror. His eyes were a vivid blue that was something chicks were into, or at least the girls he saw commented on them.
Considering his demons, considering what he was, he was surprised at the brightness that looked back at him. Should he be attractive? It didn’t seem right.
It was then that he realized what he wanted. It hadn’t occurred to him before, but he wanted someone. Someone to love and someone who loved him. The idea of having a home and someone to come home to was something that hit him like a brick. It hit almost hard enough that he swerved on the empty road.
Wasn’t that the American dream? A house and a wife with two-point-five kids? Was this why he had no problem doing what he did? Why he didn’t feel anything? Why he was empty? Because he really didn’t have anything? Why hadn’t he considered it before? He hadn’t considered any of that until just now, driving in the predawn hours, going to end the life of some unsuspecting woman.
“This will be the last one,” he said to himself. “It’s time that I stop getting my hands dirty and start working on what I want.” He would just have to let Austin know. Surely, a man who sat in an office and dealt out death safely behind his desk would understand. Austin could have a wife and a family, for all he knew.
He could have a life. Scott didn’t feel like he had one. But he would stop the lifestyle of getting by, pretending to live, and start work on what he wanted, what he deserved to have too.
When he started rolling into Denver, he had the misfortune of hitting five o’clock traffic. The interstate became clogged and his patience for the stop and go traffic was starting to wear on him. He was tired. He would have to get a motel room while he was here because he would definitely need to break for sleep.
With the thought of a bed in mind, he pulled off at the nearest exit, which happened to be downtown. After driving around aimlessly, he stopped at a chain motel. Though he preferred the non-chain variety, he wasn’t going to be picky. He got a room with little fuss, paying in cash. The idea of sleep had him lingering in his rented room for longer than necessary. He thought about showering, about falling onto that bed and getting much-needed sleep.
He had shit to do. He could sleep afterward. The more he loitered here, the longer it would take. First, he needed a lead. He needed to find a trail.
Seeing a bar across the street gave him an idea. He started on foot, going to each bar with his description, looking for some sort of lead. It was just past six when he wandered into a bar that was more than a mile from the motel he was staying at when he picked up the lead he had been looking for.
“Jovy?” a little redheaded waitress eyed him curiously. “That sounds like her. She’s usually in here on Fridays for the bar crawl. We don’t really get a crowd until about ten. She’ll probably be in then.” Curiosity turned to suspicion, though he had already gotten what he was looking for. She was a little late to be protective. “Why you looking for her?”
He found a probable lie, since the mark was female. “I was in here last week and I saw her.” He looked down, playing at being bashful. “We had a couple of dances and I didn’t get her number at the time. I was hoping I’d get lucky tonight.”
The waitress seemed to buy it, though it didn’t stop her from checking him out. “Well. Hopefully, you’ll see her later.”
He nodded and left the bar. There were only a few people there, and the only one who would recognize him was the waitress. She didn’t get his name, and his reasoning for looking for the woman was vague enough. He wouldn’t worry about it. He decided to scope out a perch, somewhere close to the bar, so he wouldn’t have to get close to the mark and he could just pick her off. An office building with a For Rent sign in a window caught his eye. It looked like the perfect nest.
He found his way back to the pick-up truck that brought him to Denver and took his time setting up, getting his rifle set up and gathering snacks for the wait. He had time to kill getting ready for his target.
Click HERE to continue reading Lethal Seduction: A CIA Romantic Suspense
Excerpt From Tempting Me
Excerpt from Tempting Me: A Bad Boy Romance
“I’m a Yoga instructor”
I didn’t ask her what she did, but I’m glad she shared. I was on the fence about going home with her. But now that I know she spends her days working on her body and training it to stretch in weird and wonderful ways, I am sold.
Whiskey alone isn’t cutting it after a day like today. An evening of fun with a limber and eager blonde is exactly what I need to get back on my game. I close out the tab and lead her out onto the street. These kinds of after hours’ bars exist for hook-ups.
“Is your place close?” I ask.
“Just three blocks from here.”
“Great; we’ll walk.”
This hook-up is just what the doctor ordered. Not just because I’m not my usual charming self when I don’t get laid everyday but because I need to get that smoking brunette out of my head, and the best way I know to shake trouble is to have a bout of no holds-barred sex with a hot woman who is ready, willing, and able.
Yoga girl is all of the above. And it doesn’t matter that I can’t remember her name as long as it isn’t Aria.
The night air feels good and she’s up for walking, which I’m thankful for. I like a clear head both in myself, and the woman I’m going to have sex with. She lives in a walk-up that is, in fact, exactly three blocks from the bar. She is all over me the moment we enter the stairwell. She strokes my growing erection over my jeans, with almost too much enthusiasm.
“Whoa there, let’s slow this down,” I tell her.
The stairwell is damp and smells rank. I can hear the infamous New York rats scurrying across the cement landing we are on. I hope the state of the stairs is not a sign of things to come in her apartment.
“I don’t want to slow down,” she whines but she does, nonetheless, take her hand off my crotch.
We arrive at her door and she starts pawing at me again. I resist the urge to push her off of me. I may have been premature in believing this is what I need tonight. But I’m here, and she’s hot for me. It would be a shame to let the whole evening go to waste.
“Ooh, your muscles are so big,” she coos in my ear.
If I had a dollar for every time a girl told me that, I wouldn’t need to strip anymore.
“That’s right baby. Open the door and you can feel them for yourself.”
I really want to get out of the h
allway and into her apartment. This building is like something from a novel, documenting the plight of immigrants in the 1940s.
She doesn’t turn any lights on but leads me straight to her bedroom. In one swift movement, her little black dress is off and on the floor. She has nothing on underneath and I am at full attention.
“What’s taking you so long?” She makes a move for my jeans.
“Take it easy, baby.” Did she ever tell me her name?
She crawls up onto the bed and faces me. She crosses her arms under her jutting breasts and props them up high to emphasize her cleavage.
“Don’t make me wait anymore,” she pouts.
I want her to stop talking, but I get her point. I don’t want to wait anymore either.
I join her on the bed and gently push her on to her back. I start at her high perky breasts and slowly explore my way down her flat stomach. She writhes and moans with abandon beneath me.
“Go down on me, go down on me. I need to come.”
This girl is ripe for the picking, but I’m not even close to ready to bring her to climax. I slow my route to her slit, and cup her breasts. Her nipples are as hard and peaked as the Himalayas and I pinch them with just enough pressure to make her yelp for more. She flings one of her long toned legs behind her head and rubs her wet pussy against my chest. With such easy access being granted, I have no choice but to go down and give her the release she has been begging for. She moans and yells so loud, I fear a neighbor will call the police. I hold her leg in place behind her head and roll on a condom with one hand and then thrust into her.
I feel my own release coming and with it, my misgivings over the exchange with Aria begin disappearing. What does it matter in the end? I will never see her again and under no circumstances will I ever open myself up like that to another woman.
I’m not sure when I fell asleep, but I wake up in a cold sweat, my heart pounding a staccato drumbeat against my ribs. I had that damn recurring dream again. Correct that; I had that damn recurring nightmare again. It’s always the same. I wake up in the dingy small bedroom of my youth; the twin bed, film and band posters on the wall, stained ceiling. My mom and dad’s trailer, the only home I knew for the first seventeen years of my life. In the nightmare, I am right back there and the last five years have all been a fantasy. I’m still pale, skinny, broke, and most of all, clueless about girls.
I take in the unfamiliar surroundings, and breathe a sigh of relief that it’s not the trailer. Then I curse myself for not going home after the evening’s entertainment. Once sex was over and yoga girl was fast asleep in sexed-out bliss, I should have hit the road. But uncharacteristically, I fell asleep. Now, here I am, still in her bed, and she has her legs wrapped around me so tightly that it’s like waking up with a boa constrictor using me as a pillow.
Despite my desire to escape before she wakes up, morning wood is getting the better of me. Especially when I can’t help but recall how she flung her leg behind her head so I could have better access to her damp entrance when I went down on her. So yeah, last night was hot, but not so hot that I don’t regret staying the night.
She is starting to stir, which means it’s time to make my escape. She rolls onto her back and I allow myself a last appreciative look at her toned body before I jump out of bed.
Fortune favors me this morning and I am dressed and out of the bedroom without the yoga superstar waking up. Maybe it wasn’t so terrible that I spent the night here after all. I leave her a short but sweet note on the entry table, to thank her for an unforgettable experience. And I am out of there. If I remember our walk here last night correctly, I am only a couple of blocks from my favorite coffee shop and then two more blocks from my own apartment.
If you told me when I was seventeen and still living in my parent’s trailer that I would have a glass-walled steam shower in an apartment in Manhattan, I wouldn’t have believed it. My parents and I shared a bathroom and by the time I got my turn, there was no hot water left and never any water pressure.
If someone told me that my morning routine would include shaving and buffing my entire body, and I mean absolutely every part of my body, I would think the person completely insane. But things change, and for the better. My body is my business now and I have to take care of every aspect of it.
I love my apartment and I love that it is just me living here. It is a one bedroom, and has an open floor plan. The space isn’t huge, but it’s not like I will need a larger place. I intend to stay single and this place suits me perfectly.
I never bring women back to my place. I don’t care that it would only be for a night. This is my sanctuary and I don’t need some desperate chick showing up at my door looking for seconds, or worse, a relationship. I’m not saying that no one from the club or bar has managed to track me down, but I like to keep it difficult.
It’s already eleven by the time I finish in the bathroom. Now mind you, all that time is not spent on getting myself perfect for the club. When you work as late as I do, eleven is breakfast time. I whip up an omelet and some bacon. I almost always have an omelet in the morning. Not just because it’s the best food to cure a hangover and gets me fueled for the gym, but because it’s the one thing my mom would make for my dad and me on the rare Sunday morning when everyone was home. Her omelets consisted of as many eggs as she had and whatever was in the fridge. My friend Juan told me that his mom did the same thing only she called it, “juevos rancheros” instead of “omelets du jour.” It wasn’t until I moved to the city that I learned “du jour” meant “of the day,” or in trailer park speak, “whatever is on sale at the market.”
Alone in my kitchen, my mind keeps jumping back to the girl from last night. Not yoga girl from the bar, but the pretty bachelorette, Aria. My parents seemed to think that living in a trailer and making Sunday breakfast out of anything that was still edible was good enough. All I could see growing up were two people that worked themselves to the bone and had little, if anything, to show for it. I wonder what Aria would think of the trailer? She’s so privileged, she has probably never seen a trailer, except in the movies.
When I wasn’t yet seventeen, my friend told me about his cousin that was making six figures as a stripper. I knew then and there that stripping was my ticket out. I started hitting the gym, discovered tanning salons, and the rest is history.
The last five years have been nothing but easy money and easy women. I dance six nights a week and almost never spend a night alone. I know the ladies are just into me because of my looks and my reputation in the bedroom, but still, I never let a night end without the woman du jour being satisfied, often multiple times.
All those women, and it is a blue-eyed brunette, who is getting married in a week no less, that cast her spell over me. I wish I had never sat down to talk to her, but she was just too gorgeous not to approach. The second I figured out she was not the kind of girl who would be interested in one last fling before getting married, I should have left. Instead, I told her to come find me if she doesn’t go through with the wedding. What the hell? I guess I’m supposed to sit at home and pine away for her like a chick from a romance novel. But I’ve got news for her. That was a slip up. It was a moment of weakness and nothing more. And who can blame me for getting a little weak when I was lost in those blue, blue eyes.
Click HERE to continue reading Tempting Me: A Bad Boy Romance
Deadly Ink: A Dark Mafia Romance (Omerta Series Book 3) Page 14