Sinful Protector

by Mia Ford

  Sinful Protector

  Mia Ford

  Copyright © 2019 by Mia Ford

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, including electronic or mechanical, without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  This book is a piece of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people.

  If you are reading this book and book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it to the seller and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  Published: Mia Ford 2019

  mia@miafordpublishing.com

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Author’s Note

  Blurb

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Epilogue

  Excerpt

  Author’s Note

  Stay connected with Mia Ford

  Also by Mia Ford

  Author’s Note

  Sinful Protector is a full-length standalone novel. At the end, I’ve included an excerpt from my Amazon TOP 100 and bestselling steamy romance box set Dark Desires.

  Sinful Protector concludes at around 90% on your device.

  Happy Reading!

  XO, Mia Ford

  Blurb

  The moment my eyes met hers, there was nothing stopping me from giving her everything.

  She’s devastatingly beautiful.

  Stubborn.

  Independent.

  I want to protect her from the horrors of the world, if only she’ll let me.

  I can’t leave her alone.

  Not with her abusive ex on the prowl.

  I would give her everything I have.

  And I want her.

  Every part of her shines.

  Her touch is like fire.

  Her eyes draw me in.

  It’s impossible to escape from her, even if I wanted to.

  I’ve lived my life for my bikes, my club and my foster family.

  But now there’s only her.

  I know she thinks otherwise.

  Why else would she hate me after all that we had?

  She’s the only woman I ever loved.

  I want her safe, nothing can hurt her.

  I’ll do anything to get back with her,

  Even if it means following her everywhere.

  Chapter One

  Allison

  I yawn and stumble up the road, dreaming wistfully of the bed that I know is waiting for me. The lights are starting to blur overhead, and the cold asphalt is looking very comfortable.

  I can make it, I remind myself. My apartment isn’t that far from the station.

  However, at this time of night, after an incredibly long and hard day at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, the miles seem to stretch out in front of me forever. I should have taken my friend up on her offer to stay with her for the night; she lives only a block away. But I wanted the comfort of my own bed, and I insisted on walking home.

  “It’s not that far,” I’d insisted.

  I snort. Half an hour ago I was foolish and naïve. Now, as I consider how much further I have to go, I curse my own stupidity. Any bed, now, will be good enough.

  I yawn again and press the heels of my hands against my eyes, trying desperately to keep myself awake. I stumble on the curb and carefully step further onto the path; there might not be any cars right now, but that doesn’t mean I should tempt fate by stumbling onto the road.

  I glance at my watch. It’s eleven o’clock. It isn’t hugely late, but normally I would have been in bed long before now, considering I have classes in the morning. But I got caught up in celebrations with my friends after the end of some brutal in-class exams. A few hours ago, the alcohol I had consumed made me bright-eyed and ready to take on the world. Now, that very same alcohol is sloshing around my system and trying to convince me that sleep is the best thing in the world.

  Damn, I need some coffee.

  I turn a corner and my vision is assaulted by a ridiculously bright light, unexpected after the dim lights on the street. Hazily, I glance at it and blink at the sign. Several moments later, I recognize the building; it’s the small convenience store that’s only a few blocks away from my apartment.

  It’s also, I notice, stumbling to a stop, a 24-7 store.

  I’m almost home, so I should just keep walking. Then I can get into bed and curse every decision I made tonight when I wake up with a roaring hangover.

  But the sight of the bright store makes my stomach rumble. A convenience store sells potato chips, right? The thought of something crunchy and full of salt is incredibly appetizing right now. My feet lead me towards the automatic doors without permission, and I wince as the light gets brighter when I enter the store.

  There’s a single person at the register. She looks up at me, bored, and returns to flicking through some sort of magazine, looking like she would rather be anywhere than here. I can’t say I blame her, especially at this time of night.

  I head for the snacks and pick up a couple of bags of chips. I throw in a bag of candy for good measure and then head toward the coffee machine. I fumble with a paper cup for a second and shove it under the table before flicking a switch.

  I lean forward to smell the dark liquid as it fills up the cup, suddenly very much looking forward to drinking it. A tiny corner of my brain tells me that it’s not a good idea, that I’ll end up bouncing off the walls for hours, but I don’t care. I need this coffee right now. I find a little packet of milk and a few packets of sugar and stir them all in. Then, once I’m done, I put a lid on the cup and carry everything over the counter.

  The girl looks over my purchases, unimpressed.

  “Bit late for a party, don’t you think?” she drawls.

  I ignore her, unwilling to admit that I’m buying all this for myself. She shrugs at my silence and rings everything up, uncaring.

  “That’ll be sixteen dollars,” she says.

  I swipe my card through the machine on the counter, and she puts my food in a plastic bag. As soon as she hands it over, she picks up her magazine and goes back to ignoring me, despite the fact that I’m still in front of her.

  Rolling my eyes at her rudeness, I pick up my purchases and leave the store. I sip my coffee as the automatic doors open.

  “Mm,” I hum in appreciation.

  The warmth of the drink seeps through me, chasing away the cold chill of the night. I sigh and stand there for a second, basking in the cozy feeling. The coffee in one hand and the bag swinging from my other lifts my spirits, and there’s an extra spring in my step as I turn away from the shop and start to head home.

/>   I don’t get more than five steps, however, before a shape looms out of the darkness. Startled, I stop, and the figure stops too, just as surprised to see me as I am to see them.

  “Jesse?” I burst out, blinking wildly.

  Jesse Willis stares back at me, mouth slightly open. His hair is disheveled and he’s loosely gripping an almost-empty bottle by its neck. From his dilated pupils and the flush on his skin, I can tell that he’s been drinking quite heavily.

  Jesse is the last person I want to see right now. I haven’t seen him in weeks, not since our loud and very public break-up.

  “Allie?” he asks, squinting at me. “That you?”

  I wish I hadn’t said anything, now. Maybe I could have pretended not to know him and scurried away, but I’ve already said his name. The good feelings that I had gotten from the coffee swiftly disappear.

  Jesse and I had had a tempestuous relationship. His temper and my stubbornness had clashed frequently, until it wasn’t unusual to see us screaming at each other, whether we were at home, on the bus, in restaurants or on the college grounds. If I’m honest, we should never have lasted as long as we did, but I stuck it out in a relationship for two very long years. Eventually, though, enough was enough; we weren’t doing each other any good; all we were doing was torturing each other.

  Jesse, unfortunately, hadn’t been on the same page as me. He hadn’t taken the revelation that I wanted to break up very well and, at the time, I didn’t understand why; he was just as cruel to me as I was to him. There was no way he still wanted to be with me any longer.

  In the weeks since we broke up, I’ve come to understand that it was a possessive thing. Jesse was always very possessive, which is just one thing that caused several arguments between us. He didn’t actually like being in a relationship with me any longer, but I was his and losing me was hard.

  He tried to convince me to change my mind several days after the break-up. He followed me all the way to the grocery store, shouting at me all the time. When I still refused to get back together with him, he had knocked over an entire display of soup cans and stormed away.

  It was the last I had seen of him until tonight.

  “How have you been?” I ask politely.

  He scowls, surprise quickly being replaced by anger.

  “You think you have the fucking right to ask me that?” he demands, and I sigh quietly.

  Here we go again.

  “Sorry,” I try. It’s against my nature to back down, but it’s late and I’m tired, and I just really don’t want to deal with this right now. “I’ll get out of your face. Have a nice night, Jesse.”

  I turn to go.

  “Wait!”

  I debate not stopping. I don’t owe Jesse anything. Our relationship had been bad from start to finish, and we were better off never seeing each other again.

  But the desperate quality in his voice makes me pause and I sigh before turning around.

  “What?” I ask tiredly.

  There’s a wretched look on his face. Once upon a time, right at the very beginning of our relationship, that expression might have tugged on my heartstrings. Now, I just raise an eyebrow at him, unimpressed.

  “Allie… Allison,” he says, and I blink at his use of my full name; it’s been a long time since he’s used anything other than my nickname. “I just… I’m a mess. Things haven’t been right since you left, see? I’m drinking all the time, I can’t get a job…”

  My mouth runs before I can stop it.

  “How is that different to what you were like when we were together?” I ask.

  Damnit, so much for keeping things peaceful.

  His expression drops in surprise, as though he doesn’t understand how I could say something like that to him. It’s ironic, especially considering that I’ve said a lot worse to him over the course of our relationship.

  Don’t keep talking, I tell myself sternly, the logical part of my mind rising up and attempting to take over. Don’t say anything else. He’s drunk, you’re drunk; just walk away.

  Unfortunately, I’ve never been the greatest at listening to logic, even while sober. With alcohol flushing my system, my loose tongue begins to move before I can even think about stopping it.

  “Your drinking was one of the reasons I left you,” I tell him. “You spent more time drunk than you did sober, and half our arguments started because you said something stupid while you were drinking. Then there was the fact that you couldn’t keep jobs because you went to work while you were either drunk or hungover, and you spent the entire time you were there complaining about how much you didn’t want to be there. Then there were the disgusting things you would say to me all the time, calling me a whore and a slut and bitch and anything else that entered your mind.”

  “You gave as good as you got!” Jesse protests, finally finding his tongue to defend himself, though he still looks shell-shocked.

  I wonder, vaguely, what will happen when his surprise wears off. I don’t think it will be anything good.

  I consider what he says, however, and then nod, conceding the point. I’ve always been headstrong, and I certainly didn’t just take it when Jesse started insulting me.

  “Yeah,” I admit. “I did. Sometimes I started the arguments, too.” I give him a severe look. “But hasn’t that told you anything, Jesse? We weren’t good for each other. We spent every day angry at each other, or shouting at each other, until I don’t think either of us remembered why we wanted to be together in the first place.”

  Jesse opens his mouth as though to argue this, and then slams it closed again, a conflicted expression on his face. Is he actually thinking this through? Is he finally going to see what I do and realize that our relationship had always been doomed to failure?

  “Jesse, once upon a time we did love each other,” I say gently with a sigh. “Maybe. We stayed together for a reason, after all. But we stayed together for too long, far longer than we should have, and we almost destroyed each other in the process. I’m not saying it’s been easy; we were together for two years, and now I have to adjust to living on my own, and so do you.”

  “But…” Jesse seems lost. I try and smile at him, my fleeting anger gone; I had chosen this man a long time ago and I didn’t want to see him suffering. “I need you.”

  “You don’t,” I deny. “What you need is to get back on your feet and keep moving forward. And you can do that without me.”

  For a split second, I think I’ve done it. He’s staring at me, his shoulders trembling slightly. Were we really, finally, at the end of it all? Were we both on the same page, agreeing that our awful relationship should never have lasted as long as it did? Could we really walk away from this with amicability?

  Then rage washes over his face and I regret hoping for even a moment.

  “No,” he says. I don’t know if it’s him or the alcohol talking, but I guess it doesn’t matter; these days, they’re one and the same. “No, I don’t accept this. Things were better when you were there. I need you.”

  Irritation rises in me, and, this time, I don’t even try to push it away.

  “No, what you need is the money I gave you, which you squandered on drugs and alcohol,” I snap.

  I’m so over this conversation. No matter what I do, Jesse isn’t going to accept the end of our relationship. Fine, I’m not going to stand here, this late at night, and try and convince him otherwise. I have a warm bed to get into, chips to eat, and classes to be up for tomorrow.

  Jesse can live in his deluded world. I want no part of it anymore.

  “Whatever, Jesse,” I say with a sigh, rubbing my hand over my forehead. Jesse is all but vibrating in rage in front of me, his hands clenching and unclenching. “It doesn’t matter. I left you weeks ago, for my own reasons. I’m not going back.”

  A high flush steals over Jesse’s cheeks. I vaguely remember the last time he looked this angry; it was only a month before we broke up, and it had started the worst argument we had ever had. After that, I kn
ew that we were done, and I spent the next several weeks sorting my things from his, looking for a new place to live and convincing myself that I was doing the right thing for both of us.

  Jesse’s fists clench and he lifts them up in a threatening manner. I eye him, bored; one thing that I can say about Jesse is that, despite the arguments and the insults and the drinking, he has never once physically harmed me. He’s knocked over lamps, kicked down tables and chairs and punched walls, but he has never turned on me. So I’m not worried, at all, as his entire body tenses. He’s no doubt going to shout for a little while and then storm away, cursing up a storm as he lets the entire world know about his displeasure.

  I blink. All of a sudden, Jesse is charging at me, and I dimly note that the expression on his face, half-mad, is one I’ve never seen before. His hands are outstretched and he grabs my shoulders and pushes me back. My back hits the fence behind me with a clang that sounds terribly loud in the darkness, and I can smell the alcohol on Jesse’s breath as he leans in closer to me.

  “You fucking bitch,” he hisses.

  It’s then that I realize, stunned, that I’ve miscalculated. I determined Jesse’s reactions based on the man I knew while we were dating. I forgot to factor in a Jesse that hasn’t taken our break-up as well as I had hoped.

  “Jesse…” I start.

  His fingers dig into my shoulders and I wince, closing my mouth.