Wild Read online

  “The electricity, the nervous energy?”

  “Oh yeah, my man. You definitely feel it too.”

  It goes without saying I do, but I don’t know what it means in this mid-size college town. Does it mean shit’s about to hit the fan or are we just in for a crazier than normal night? “There’s definitely something bubbling under the surface,” I agree with him as I gaze out over the crowd.

  “Can I get a Coors?” I hear from my left. Going through the motions, I get the drink requested and deliver it, but my eyes aren’t on the person I gave it to; instead they’re canvasing everything.

  I’m not exactly sure what I’m waiting for, but I’ll know it when I see it. Of that I have no question. Glancing at my cell, I see it’s going on midnight and I wonder if Addie’s going to show. After what happened in Skunk’s apartment I have my doubts.

  That’s when I feel it, a shiver up my spine, an awareness I know I can quickly become accustomed to. Turning to face the door, I see Addie strutting through the entrance. For some people, strut would be too strong a word, but not for her. She walks into this place like she owns it, and maybe in some way she does. Everyone here knows who she is, knows her family, and exactly what she represents.

  Nothing like me. I left Mississippi with a total of no money in my wallet, the clothes on my back, and a few changes in my saddlebags. There’d been no one there to see me off, no one to text or call when I got in trouble, and right now there’s not one person I can think of who’ll be looking for me. The moment my grandpa died months ago was the last moment anyone gave a shit about me, and the last moment I gave a shit about them. Swallowing against the lump in my throat (how long does it take you to get over this stuff?), I glance at Addie. Her face is cool as she walks to the other side of the bar. Part of me thinks she does it on purpose, to stay farther away from me. Maybe though, she’s one of those chicks who likes to play hard to get. That vibe flows off her in waves.

  Beside me Skunk chuckles. “You like her?”

  “Nah.” I shake my head. “Physical reaction. You know, she makes my dick hard because she’s so far out of my league.”

  Skunk takes a drag off what looks to be a normal cigarette for once. “Trust me when I say while she’s up there, once you get to know the real Addie, not this affected princess act she’s throwing off for everyone, she may not be as far out of your league as you think.”

  Those words intrigue me, they make me want to get to know her better, make me very interested in why she acts this way. My eyes follow her closely around the room. I tell myself it’s not because I want to look my fill, it’s because I want to make sure she’s safe. But there’s something else I notice.

  Her eyes follow me too.

  Addie

  We don’t make boys like him in Kentucky. Those words roll around in my mind as I watch Wild at the bar. I hope my gaze is more discreet than his, but if I’m being honest, I like the blatant way he’s watching me. Eating me up with his eyes is a term I’ve heard more often than not, usually by couples in the clubhouse. Can’t say I ever really knew what that meant until right now. There’s a feeling of me being prey and him being predator as I make my rounds. The difference here? I want to be caught.

  Many people wave to me, shout words of greeting, a few even try to stand next to me and touch me, but I don’t pay them any attention. My attention is locked on the man behind the bar. The way his dark hair falls in his face as he wipes out the glasses, then wipes off the wood of the bar top. I’ve wanted to ask Jagger and Layne about him, but I haven’t had the guts yet. Part of me knows they’ll go to Dad, and while I don’t want to have to explain myself, the other part of me is dying to know.

  I slow my roll as I get closer to the bar. Closer to him, and his dark eyes, tattoos on his arms, dark hair that’s beginning to curl.

  “What can I get you? Crown and Coke?” His accent is more pronounced than those around here, his voice deeper than any other man’s I’ve encountered so far in my life.

  “You remembered.” I give him a slight smile.

  “You’re kinda hard to forget.”

  My heart beats faster. Is he flirting with me? Guys, men, don’t flirt with me because they know who I’m attached to, they know Heaven Hill rolls deep and they’re always too afraid of any blowback. This guy though, he isn’t from around here. Doesn’t know my parents adopted me, doesn’t know my beginnings were humble as fuck. When I look into his eyes, I don’t see at all the little pit of pity I see in everyone else’s. Against my better judgement, I hop up on the stool and lean against the counter top.

  “Is that so?” I flirt back with him.

  “Yeah.” He grins, but I can’t tell if there’s a dimple in his cheek or not. He’s got patchy facial hair covering parts of his skin. “Not many women would insult my manhood, come into the bar, and ask me for a drink.”

  My face burns bright as I think back to this morning. Maybe what I’d said to him was a little harsh. “I won’t apologize, but maybe you can give me another shot to see what you’re packing.”

  His eyebrows raise into his hairline, like that was the last thing he expected me to say. Honestly, it was one of the last things I expected to say. Not many men get my interest, because most of them are scared by the club, or put off by me. This one though? He doesn’t seem like he would scare easily, and he gives it right back when I’m being my normal self.

  “You serious?”

  I think back to the last guy I semi-dated. He’d wanted to impress my dad more than he’d wanted to impress me, and let’s just say I never got off with him. Truth is, I’ve never gotten off with anyone other than myself before. There’s a piece of my brain that’s never been able to let my guard down, never let anyone get too close, because I always wonder about their motives. This guy, though? I don’t wonder about them at all. A stranger in town? Not sure if he’s going to stay? This shit is perfect.

  “Yeah, I’m serious,” and I realize as I speak the words, how serious I am.

  He continues to clean out the glasses, the only indication he was shocked at my suggestion were his raised eyebrows. “I’m here for a few more hours,” he explains.

  “I’m here for a few more hours too.” I give him a wink, taking a drink of my Crown and Coke. “And I have a roommate, but she’s so far up her boyfriend’s ass, I can guarantee she won’t be home tonight. Want me to text her to make sure? I bet my bed is much bigger than yours.”

  “Probably don’t have the stench of week-old weed either,” he laughs as he throws a glare at Skunk.

  “Let me text her.”

  A: Hey, are you planning on coming home tonight? Or are you still spending the entire weekend with Rem? Trying to decide if I wanna stay home or go hang out with some friends. If you and Remy are gonna come home and need some time alone, I’ll hang.

  There, that shouldn’t give her any indication of what I’m planning and actually throws the ball in her court. I’m almost nervous as I wait for Tatum’s reply.

  T: Staying with him tonight! See you tomorrow afternoon toots! Hair appointment! Don’t forget!! Love you!

  A: See ya there! Love you, too! Wrap it up and all…

  I love giving her shit. If she showed up pregnant right now, let’s just say I can’t imagine the beat down that would take place. Grinning, I stick my phone in my pocket.

  “We’re good. She’s staying with her boyfriend. I’m all yours.”

  As I say those words, I realize how much I actually mean them. For once I don’t want to be the person who makes the decisions. I don’t want to be the strong one, the one who pretends like they have it all together when inside they’re dying and can’t feel shit.

  Tonight I wanna feel. Pleasure. Pain. At this point I don’t care. I just wanna feel and all my instincts are telling me this man is the one to do it. And I can’t fucking wait.

  Six

  Wild

  “You want another one?” I ask Addie as she finishes off her second Crown and Coke. She’s sat
here all night, those dark eyes of hers following me as I work at the bar. Watching intently as I deliver drinks to waitresses who’ve dropped orders off, and the lonely fuckers who crowd around the table top every night. Even though I’ve only been here for a short amount of time I’ve gotten to know some of them. The way they come in here every night to numb their pain gets to me. Makes me wonder if that’s how I’ll end up – an old man, alone with no family nursing a lowball of Jack every night – which if you want to look deep is probably why I’ve taken Addie up so easily on her offer.

  One night that I don’t have to spend alone in some foreign fucking apartment that stinks. A mattress, the origins of which I don’t know. Someone could have died on it, for all the background I was given. None of the shit I have besides my bike and the clothes on my back are mine, but maybe just for one night I can have her. That’s what I’m telling myself anyway. Dumb bastard that I am.

  “I shouldn’t.” She resituates herself on the stool. “Especially if I want to drive home.”

  “I’ll take you,” the offer is out before I can stop it. “I have my bike. We’ll make sure your SUV gets home. I’ll put Skunk on it.”

  Her eyes, dark like mine, go wide. Given who she is, and what I’ve learned about her since I came to this town, I can tell she knows exactly what it means when a man offers to let a woman ride on the back of his bike. I don’t go offering that spot to just anyone, but this chick? There’s something about her that I want to get to know better. Something more I want to find out, and damned if I’m going to let her get away any time soon.

  A small grin lifts the left side of her face. “Okay, if that’s what you want, I’ll ride with you.”

  That shit is exactly what I want. “Good, we’re about to close up, and Skunk said he’d take over what I normally do. So we can be out in a few minutes.”

  “I’m just gonna go to the bathroom real quick.” She hops up from the stool.

  “No.” I stop her with a deepness in my voice. “Don’t go to the public ones. There’s one back here that only we use. It’s clean and safe.”

  I come around the edge of the bar, lifting it as I escort her into the employee area. The end of the night is usually the worst. People have been drinking, and for some reason they feel as if they’re entitled to have someone spend the night with them. More than once we’ve had to help both men and women fight off unwanted attention, and the bathrooms are the easiest place for someone to fall prey. I don’t want that for her, and I’ll be damned if I put her in harm’s way like that. Putting my hand on the small of her back, I push her toward the break room where the bathroom is, and even though it’s a one-seater, I watch as she closes the door, and then stand guard. Even some of the workers in this place are dangerous and that’s not something I want her to ever be a part of.

  It feels like forever she stays behind the closed door, when in actuality it’s probably only a few minutes, but I’m excited to get her out of here. Judging by the semi I’m already sporting, my body is ready to get her out of here too. When she comes out, a shy smile on her face, I put my hand right back where it was before, and push her toward the employee parking lot.

  Turning her to my bike, I grab my leather jacket from the saddlebag, offering her a hoodie that she puts on over her clothes. It’s colder than I’m used to, and while some would say Kentucky doesn’t get bone-chilling, to someone from deep in Mississippi the forty-degree weather might as well be the Antarctic. We both get on, her wrapping her arms tightly around my waist. “Sorry, but I don’t do helmets.”

  “Neither do I.” Her answer is muffled where she’s buried her head in the leather of my jacket.

  I start the bike, causing her to tighten her arms around me, and off we go. “You’ll have to give me directions,” I shout as I come to the edge of the parking lot.

  “Left,” she yells to be heard, and then buries her head right back where it was.

  There’s something comforting about having this woman wrapped around me. A softness I haven’t felt in years, a peace I’ve never felt. My grandpa used to say there was a calm to every wild, and that’s when you knew you had the right woman. I can’t help but chuckle. Because my name is Wild, every woman tried to be my calm. Some have given me the soft, but so far in my life no one’s ever given me the peace. But right now, my mind isn’t running a hundred miles an hour, I’m not looking over my back for someone to stab me. For the first time in forever, I hear nothing but the wind rushing by my ears and the masculine hum of the bike between my thighs. Feeling is a whole other story. Her small arms around my waist, her hand gripping my shirt under my jacket, her head tucked into my neck. She’s wrapped herself around me and fuck if I don’t want her to do this all the time.

  Eventually we arrive at a nice-looking apartment complex. One I’m sure her parents probably pay for, which causes a pain my gut. Never had that, but I’m happy for her, because she deserves that. Everyone deserves parents who love them. Not ones who drop them off with their grandpa and never get the chance to make it back.

  Nope.

  Not going there tonight. I take those memories and lock those fuckers down tight. My past doesn’t define me. My past doesn’t define me. That’s what that therapist had told me to say all those years ago. Fuck if I’m not still trying to figure out what those word mean, exactly.

  “We’re in this building.” She grabs my hand.

  She fucking grabs my hand.

  I’m not sure if she knows what she’s doing, if she means to make the contact, but that contact travels all over my body. It’s an awareness I’ve never felt with another person before, much less a woman. As we get to the door, she pulls out a keycard, swiping the entrance.

  “Nice security.”

  “Yeah.” She glances over her shoulder. “Dad’s pretty hardcore about it.”

  It’s on the tip of my tongue to say if I had a daughter who looked like her, I would be hardcore about it too, but it’s not my place and this isn’t the time.

  “Up these steps.” She never lets go of my fingers, holding onto them as two people pass by us on the stairs, I situate myself behind her, and all she does is adjust the damn hold. She’s killing me.

  The walkway is brightly lit, smells fresh, and the paint looks like it’s redone every year. This is definitely the kind of place I would expect a girl like her to live. She pulls me down the hallway until she comes to a stop in front of a door. Apartment number three-sixty-four. Another lock is undone, another keycard swiped, and then we’re inside. She flips on a few lights, throwing her purse onto a couch.

  “Home sweet home.”

  Compared to some of the places I’ve been, this could be a New York City penthouse, but I don’t say that to her, don’t want her to realize how far down she’s slumming it with me. “It’s really nice.”

  “Yeah, I don’t know how long I’ll be here for, but I do love it.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  A flash of unease filters across her eyes. “My best friend and roommate, Tatum? She’s totally in love with the guy she’s seeing. I mean they are the perfect couple. I have a feeling she’s going to move in with him soon. So that means I’ll need to either get a one-bedroom or find another roommate. My parents help me pay my portion of the rent, but I can’t ask them to pay a whole other person’s, ya know?”

  “Why do you seem so sad about that?” The melancholy is reverberating off her in waves.

  “It’s stupid.” She blushes as she ducks her head, but I can see the sheen of tears in those eyes of hers.

  “No, not stupid if it makes you feel something. Nothing that makes you feel is ever stupid. Maybe the feeling is, but not the sentiment.”

  “She and I moved in here and we had all these plans. Like how we were going to decorate, and the trip we’d be taking this summer, all this shit.” She runs her hands through her hair. “And we did some of it. We’ve decorated, but since she and Remy hooked up, she’s not once mentioned the summer trip. She’s stoppe
d buying things for the apartment. Almost like it’s been pushed aside for more important things. Like Remy.” She’s quiet for a minute. Back when we first moved in, I never spent a night alone here. Now? She’s only here a few nights a week, and even then she’s texting him or FaceTiming him. Like I get it, they’re really into each other.” She pushes against her eyes. “But sometimes I need a friend.”

  Walking over to her, I tentatively reach out, cupping her jaw with the palm of my hand. “Sometimes I need a friend too.”

  She sniffles. “Maybe we can be that friend for each other?”

  “You ever need me, Addie? I’m here.” I can’t believe this shit coming out of my mouth. I had no plans of staying in this fucking town. Bowling Green was going to be an image in my memory in the next two weeks. That’s how much longer it’s going to take me to pay my bike off. But now? One night with her? All those plans have been thrown away, burned in a fire, never to be thought of again.

  “Do you mean that?” Her fingers grip my wrist tightly.

  “Yeah.” I lean in, kissing her on the forehead. “Yeah I do.” Deciding not to wait any longer, I crush her mouth into mine, and together we make our way across the living room, to what I assume is her bedroom, not even coming up for air.

  When I look back at the important moments of my life, this will be one of them. Some random night, I gave a chick a ride home from the bar, and fuck if it didn’t change my life.

  That shit will possibly be written on my grave, and ya know? I’m totally okay with that.

  Seven

  Wild

  I crush her mouth to mine, plunging my tongue into the recesses. She answers back, digging her fingers into the skin at my ribs, letting me take her weight as we stumble and my back hits a wall.

  “This doesn’t have to be crazy,” I murmur as we break apart, each trying to calm our breathing. “We can take our time.”