Bound to the Bad Boy

by Molly Ann Wishlade

  “Good morning. Can I help you?”

  The man moved closer to the door and Megan instinctively took a step back, which meant that the door swung wide. He took it as an unspoken invitation and stepped over the threshold.

  “Are you…you’re not…Megan Agnelli?” He eyed her naked legs and her perfectly polished toenails. He licked his lips and Megan shivered. There was something familiar about him now she could see him up close.

  “I am.”

  “Woo hoo!” He clapped his hands. “After all these years. You don’t remember me, do ya?”

  She shook her head. Not who he was but the feeling of unease she recalled. Yes.

  “I’m Gil Creedy.”

  The principal’s son.

  “I haven’t seen you since we all went off to college. How are ya?” His eyes were black with interest and a predatory hunger that turned Megan’s stomach. She remembered Gil Creedy all too well. The name and the face fit together now. He was older, fatter. He’d been a few years above her in high school. He was a bully then and it seemed like he hadn’t changed at all. A football player who went off to college on a grant from one of the big city NFL teams, he was tall and broad. He dwarfed Megan and she felt smaller by the second. Powerless. Afraid.

  “I’m fine thank you, but I’m really busy. I have an appointment so I have to…uh…get going soon.”

  He looked her up and down. “What…like that?”

  “No…of course not…I have to go get ready.”

  “Wait!” He held up a large hand. Megan noticed that the fingers were tattooed with different symbols. She wasn’t sure what they were but they seemed angry. Like him. “What’re you doing here at Matt’s place, anyways? He ain’t here, clearly.”

  “He’ll be back soon.”

  “Well I ain’t so sure about that, pretty lady. I think you’re lying to ol’ Gil.” He reached out and brushed a lock of her hair from her face. She winced.

  “Look, you need to go. When Matt gets back I’ll tell him you called. What exactly did you want to see him about?”

  Megan couldn’t imagine what Gil and Matt could have to discuss. They hadn’t got on in school and for all she knew, Gil had been away in college, graduated and now probably played football. He certainly had the build. With those muscles, he must be able to bench-press his own weight. But it was not with admiration that she thought this. Not at all. He made her uncomfortable and his strength alarmed her.

  “Are you two screwing around again? Is that it?” Gil opened his eyes wide and Megan saw a small muscle twitching at the crease of his jaw. What did he want? Her heart fluttered and she took a deep breath. She had to show him that she wasn’t afraid. Men like him preyed on a woman’s fear.

  “Matt and I are…together. Yes.”

  “Really? Or is he just using you while you’re in town? Ya know, a handsome biker like that…he’s always got a bunch of groupies hanging around him. Bet he’s poking a different hole every night. Doubt you’re anything special to him…” Gil raised his eyebrows.

  Megan looked down. What if he was right? Perhaps Matt really didn’t care anymore. She knew that he’d be popular amongst the hangers-on at the mcc and she’d tried to push the thought aside. Matt being with another woman was an image too hurtful, too abhorrent to deal with.

  So what was she doing here? Leaving her nice, quiet and orderly life to be with a renowned bad-boy biker again. Her new life was safe. It was calm. It was boring but at least she didn’t have to deal with all of this. All the old fears and passions and intensity. It was just too much.

  “Why don’t you just go!” she shouted at Gil and pointed at the door. He walked towards it. Thank goodness. He was going to leave. But just as she let out a sigh of relief, he placed a hand on the door and slammed it shut. Then he turned towards her. His grin wide. His eyes blazing with fury. His hands outstretched.

  She backed away. Bumped into the couch. No… No.

  “What do you want?” Her lip trembled and she cursed her fragility.

  “A piece of your sweet little cunt,” he muttered. “If you’re giving it to Matt, then I want it too. He owes me.”

  “What? But why?”

  “It’s his damned fault that I went down.” He reached her and took hold of her shoulders. She felt the power behind his hands. He could snap her like a twig if he wanted. She was fragile. Tiny compared to him. He pressed his face against hers. She recoiled as his beer soaked breath wafted over her. She fought a scream as he dug his fingertips into her flesh.

  “What do you mean…went down?” Keep him talking. Maybe he won’t hurt you then. Oh Matt, where are you?

  “To jail, you stupid bitch!”

  “Jail?”

  “Yeah. Your darlin’ boyfriend got off, didn’t he? His stupid biker friends got my alibi to change her damned story.” His face reddened.

  “But…but Matt was put in jail for a crime he didn’t commit. He…oh.” She covered her mouth with her hand. So Gil had been the one guilty of the janitor’s death. Poor Mr. Riley. His sixteen-year-old daughter had committed suicide following an alleged assault and the abuser had never been named because she’d backed off before it had ever gotten to court. But just weeks after her death, Mr. Riley had died in a house fire. The forensics had concluded that it was an arson attack and somehow, probably due to some corruption somewhere along the line, Matt had been accused of the crime. At the time, Megan had been in her final year of college and she hadn’t wanted to process the details. Matt, guilty of murder…or even manslaughter, had just been too awful a thought. So she had stayed away. Let him deal with all of it alone.

  Oh, Matt…

  “Yes, Megan. I set fire to Riley’s house. He kept on and on trying to blacken my reputation. Every time I came back to Cherub to see my folks, he’d find me out and do his best to get me all worked up. He wanted me to assault him so that he could have me thrown in jail. Seems he was jealous of my success with the NFL. But I was too clever, see.” He tapped his nose with a finger and his cold blue eyes glinted. “I got rid of him before he could wind me up enough to throw a punch in a public place.”

  He was openly boasting about killing a man. What would he do to her, if he were this angry with Matt?

  “So…you…uh…Sandy Riley?” Megan lifted her hands and crossed them over her chest. She wanted to drop to the floor and curl up in a tiny ball but she could barely move.

  He nodded. Grinning again. He was clearly proud of what he’d done to Sandy. Proud of what he’d done to Mr. Riley. This man was a murderer and a rapist.

  “Whenever I came back, she was always hanging around, flaunting her tight little ass and flashing her titties. Sweet sixteen. So, one day, I gave her a lift and believe me, the girl had the surprise of her life when I didn’t just want to settle for second base. What did she expect from a grown man? I’ve got needs.”

  “How…how are you out?” she squeaked, her throat constricting with terror.

  “My alibi let me down but there was no real conclusive evidence of murder. No DNA. They lowered the charge to manslaughter. I served almost three years and they let me out for good behavior. Psychologist said I wasn’t a real danger anyways and they gave me parole. So here I am. Come to visit my old friend Matt. But look at what I got instead.” He ran his thick tongue over his fat lips. “I got a pretty little parcel of pussy and I’m wondering now if you’re a real redhead. Shall I take a peek?”

  “No!” Megan gasped and ducked away from him. She raced across the lounge and grabbed the front door handle. She swung it wide and ran out of the door and down the steps. She heard Gil’s roar of fury and his heavy footsteps as he pursued her down the driveway. Adrenalin surged through her, driving her forwards and away from the brute at her heels.

  She ran and ran. Terror dried her throat and threatened to choke her but she knew that if she faltered, she would be shown no mercy. She would suffer the same fate as Sandy Riley.

  Her heart leapt at a familiar sound: the roar of motorc
ycle engines. She saw the dust flying up on the road ahead. Matt was coming. Matt and the Night Warriors. Clad in black leather, the knights upon their ebony chargers. Just in time. She kept running, her arms swinging at her sides and her feet pounding the hard ground. Her naked toes were torn apart by the stones of the road, Matt’s oversized t-shirt was whipped around her by the wind and her lungs burned with effort. She was terrified but now she would be safe.

  Safe with Matt.

  ****

  Matt squinted at the road ahead of him. What was that?

  A figure was racing towards them. Arms waving madly. Bare feet pounding the dust. Red hair whipped around her head by the breeze.

  Megan…

  He accelerated, keen to reach her as soon as possible.

  Something off to her left caught his eye. Who the hell…it was Gil Creedy. Hot on Megan’s heels. A bike roared up alongside him and Moonshine waved at the figure pursuing Megan. Matt nodded and Moonshine waved a few of their crew to branch off with him.

  Creedy must have realized that he was in trouble because he suddenly changed direction and started running away from the road, off into a field. But Matt focused on getting to Megan. His charter would take care of the murdering rapist.

  Matt slowed down as he reached Megan and pulled in to the side of the road. He jumped off the bike and opened his arms. She fell into them, sobbing into his leather jacket. He held her, his own heart beating as quickly as hers, his mind racing with the possibilities of what could have occurred if Gil had caught her.

  He rocked her, stroking her hair gently until she calmed down.

  “Megan?”

  She nodded, sniffing.

  “Did he hurt you?”

  “No.” Her bottom lip trembled and Matt’s heart was filled with love. All he wanted to do was to protect Megan and to love her for the rest of his life.

  “Are you okay?” He kissed her forehead, her cheeks and her lips, tasting her salty tears and fighting the black anger that surged in his gut, yearning to punish Gil Creedy for daring to try to mess with his woman. His Megan. His sub.

  “Let me take you on up to the house, sweetheart. You’re in shock. You need to rest.”

  She looked up at him with her big tearful eyes like green pools after a rainstorm and shook her head.

  “No, Matt.”

  “What do you mean? You’re shaking like a jelly, sweetheart. You need to sit down.”

  “I can’t come home with you, Matt.”

  His heart plummeted.

  “But, Megan…”

  She held up a hand.

  “I need to collect my things, yes. But I can’t do this. This…” She shrugged her shoulders and gestured towards his house then towards his friends who now headed their way with Gil Creedy draped across the back of Moonshine’s bike. “I just can’t sign up for all of this again.”

  Matt took a deep breath as his world came crashing down around him. His heart ached with the fierce pain of loss and his throat burned with constricting grief.

  He had thought that he might be able to win her back. To prove how much he loved her and that he could offer a good life. But yet again, Gil Creedy had come along and taken all that he had and scattered it like ashes across what now seemed like a barren future. But perhaps Megan was right. Maybe she couldn’t do it all again. She had sampled a very different kind of life and perhaps being his old lady, his lover, his sub, was no longer what she wanted.

  Though it wrenched him apart and his limbs now shook as if he was being drawn on the rack, he knew that he had to let her go. It wasn’t right to force her into a life that she no longer wanted and perhaps he had to accept that it really was time to let her go.

  Chapter Eleven

  Megan had extended her stay at the hotel. She had phoned the library and spoken to her boss, citing personal reasons and asked to use up her holiday allowance for that year. The older woman had been understanding and told her to take as long as she needed. They weren’t exactly rushed off their feet. It had been a huge relief. Megan just wasn’t up to going back to the city just yet. She had a few things left that she needed to do in Cherub.

  The two extra weeks of vacation time had passed in a blur of sleeping, walking and crying. She had visited her old childhood haunts and spent a lot of time thinking about what her youth had been like, what she had wanted then and what she wanted now. No one had ever said that life would be easy. Her parents were good people but not traditional in their childrearing techniques. They had often left her to her own devices, believing that children should grow and experience the world as it really was without the hindrance of overprotective parenting. She had often wished that they had been more traditional, set her some boundaries and spent more time showing her that they cared. Maybe then, she wouldn’t have been so needy for Matt. Perhaps she could have enjoyed their young love without becoming so intense about it.

  She could see it clearly now. She had been obsessed with him. Needy for him in a way that suffocated her. Being away at college had made her heady with a sense of liberty. But that freedom had not been all it had initially seemed, and life without Matt’s love and protection had actually been quite empty. Lonely. Miserable.

  Being with him again had been amazing. They were obviously older and wiser but it was still just as exciting and stimulating as it had always been. But better. Because she had felt more in control. Ironic really, as she had surrendered control to Matt, but that had been her choice and she knew that it was safe. She had always been safe with him.

  He had always treasured her and cherished her heart.

  Her real fears lay back in her youth. Being so consumed by love and passion was something that she found daunting, but it was, in all honesty, the only time she had felt truly alive. And she wanted to feel alive. Again.

  Matt had the ability to bring her to awareness of herself, and of the world around them. She wanted to take that bright state of consciousness and to hold it tight for the rest of her life. To see the world in all of its vivid clarity.

  But guilt and concern gnawed at her. She had seen his hurt expression when she had told him she could no longer be with him. She had heard his heart breaking in two when he had dropped her at the hotel and kissed her gently goodbye. The warmth and tenderness of that final kiss had nearly driven her insane.

  In the following fortnight, he had stayed away. He must have known that she was still there but he hadn’t tried to approach her. Or contact her. Or even just see her from a distance.

  It made her heart heavy and she found that she sighed repeatedly, as if trying to fill her lungs with the oxygen they so badly needed. As if she couldn’t breathe without Matt because the pain of her loss crushed her chest like a heavy boulder.

  Is he as important to me as oxygen, then?

  Will he even want me now?

  Had he given up on her? Was his distance a sign that she had blown it completely with him?

  Is it finally over?

  She sat on the bed and pulled on her hiking boots. Before she left, she had one place she still needed to visit. She had to go up to the old cabin where she had spent so much of her childhood. It was a special place and she had a lot of good memories from her time there.

  She had waited until now to go there because she needed to feel strong enough to confront her grief. If she had lost Matt forever, then she would have to deal with it, but returning to the place where they’d first made love would be tough, if she wasn’t fully prepared.

  So today was the day.

  She’d asked the hotel manager for a picnic lunch, which she now stuffed into a backpack with her waterproof jacket. She pulled her hair up into a high ponytail and applied some sunscreen to her face and a dash of lip-balm.

  She was ready.

  Ready to say goodbye to her past and, if she really had no other choice, then to her bad boy.

  ****

  Megan peered up through the trees. The sunlight fell through the gaps in the lush green like golden laser beam
s. The woodland was alive with birdsong and it lifted her heart, making her feel the old joy of her youth. She breathed deeply, enjoying the fresh air with its earthy yet invigorating aromas. Why had she stayed away from here for so long when it was such a good place to be?

  She blinked away the tears that made a sudden arrival and strode onwards. She was nearly at the old cabin. It wouldn’t take long to get there then she could sit in her old spot, eat her picnic lunch and clear her head. Focus on letting the past go.

  She could have taken the old road that led up to the retreat but she had wanted to walk. Living in the city meant that she didn’t get the kind of natural exercise that she had always enjoyed. Rambling through the woods, observing nature at its best was her favorite way to keep fit. Taking care not to disturb any hormonal bears, of course. But she hadn’t been afraid of the big black creatures. Growing up around them and seeing her parents’ enthusiasm for all animals, especially bears, had taught her respect and admiration for all living things. Their philosophy had stayed with her and, of course, they had taught her a few tricks to help her to deal with bumping into any wildlife that may react with hostility.

  Not going to be a problem today, I hope…

  She rounded the last bend and the small clearing with its log cabin came into view. The giant trees she had stared at for hours on end still dwarfed the clearing. The tree swing her father had made for her out of a length of rope and an old tire still swayed in the gentle breeze. The rickety picnic bench where she had completed her schoolwork on so many hot afternoons still stood in the shadows.

  Her heart leapt and the tears blurred her vision again.

  Damn all this emotion.

  It’s your own fault. You decided to come up here.

  I did.

  She could almost hear her childish laughter as her father pointed out a bear cub in the undergrowth, its protective mother nearby. She could almost see her mother clad in khaki, her long red hair tucked under a baseball cap as she used her treasured camera to photograph her beloved bears. She could almost feel their love.