Damon:A Bad Boy MC Romance Novel(49)

"Got something to do with this?" he'd asked when he'd brushed his  fingers against my forehead. My mind dragged behind him, trying to  figure out what he was asking, the small amount of alcohol I'd had  mingling with the unusually fatty and carbohydrate-laden meal I was  eating to create a general feeling of confusion in me. Alright, so I was  confused for more reasons than just the booze and burger, but I didn't  want to admit it at the time.

"It's a birthmark," I blurted out, flinching even as I said it. Of all  the stupid excuses I'd made for the marks Jeremy left on me, that was,  without a doubt, the stupidest to ever cross my lips. The stranger's  eyebrows raised in half-amusement, half-concern.

"Is that so?" he said, his voice low and sultry. I gulped down more of  my drink, realizing with no small dismay that it was the last gulp  –  I'd  downed the whole thing in a matter of minutes. And for someone who  never drank … well, you can imagine how that might have affected me. I  felt warm all over, and suddenly a lot friendlier.

"Actually, no," I said, hearing the slightest slur in my words. What are you doing, Gabriella? One part of me asked.

Getting what I fucking want for once, said that other voice, that new  voice. And even if my real voice was slurring, that voice seemed  straight sober.

"That's exactly the reason I'm here," I heard myself say. "I'm ditching the guy who did it."

"Well, if I ever heard something that called for a damn drink, that's  it," the stranger said, flashing me another crooked grin. They have yet  to invent a word to describe what happened in my pants, or my surprise  at the feeling. He pounded on the bar, attracting the attention of the  bartender and making an "another" gesture with his hand. She obliged,  but not without a sour look in his direction. He offered me his hand,  not turning to me, snaking his hand underneath his shoulder in a  nonchalant way that was confusingly suave.

"Reign," he said. "Like a king, not the weather."

"What?" I asked, stupidly, taking his hand in a limp shake that belied  the sharp, short shock that went through me when we touched.

"My name," he said, looking at me out of the corner of his eye. I could  only make out one side of his face, but I could see the grin on him  stretching from ear to ear. I blushed.

"Gabriella," I said. Gabby, said that new voice in me. But not yet; I couldn't, not yet.

I have another confession to make, dear reader. Jeremy was not only my  first and only husband, and the first and only man I'd ever let raise  his hand against me, he was also my first and only lover.

And in the five years we'd been sleeping together, he'd never once made me come.

He'd gotten me close, a few times, but he seemed to enjoy keeping me in a  perpetual state of sexual limbo. For that matter, I'd never been one to  masturbate. That, at least, had nothing to do with Jeremy.

I'd just always wanted to be able to orgasm with someone I loved, and I  thought that if I masturbated I might "desensitize" myself to that sort  of touch. Even when it became clear, throughout the marriage, that  Jeremy was never going to give me the sort of release they write about  in romance novels and talk about in Cosmo, I didn't think it was going  to help the situation if I took it upon myself to get the job done.

At 27, you could say I was long overdue for it.         

     



 

And what I'd felt when the stranger touched me, when he looked at  me … that spark, like a shaft of light jolting through me, told me that  even though I had just met him, and certainly didn't love him, he had  the potential to give me what Jeremy never had.

And that new voice inside me was hungry for it.

"Hey," the stranger said, turning to me somewhat abruptly from the bar.  "If you had a theme park, what kind would you have? What would the theme  be, rides and stuff?"

I drew a deep breath in surprise. What kind of question was that?  Especially after … well, it didn't seem like quite the normal response to  an admission like mine.

"Well … I don't know. Um … " I said, brain stuttering along. He was looking  at me patiently, a smile on his face that just begged to be returned. So  I did. You know how they say that when you're not happy you should just  smile, and it will fool your brain into feeling happy? I can attest to  that, from that experience. Smiling at him put me at ease, made it okay  that I was totally blindsided by his question and must have seemed  pretty stupid as I racked my brain for a clever answer. Everything, it  seemed, was easy with this guy.





5





How many stories start by spotting someone across a bar? Taking a chance  on them? Maybe just for the night, maybe for a night and a morning, but  maybe …

Reign watched the girl, who was clearly enjoying the absolute hell out  of her burger. Enjoying it so much, you'd think she'd never had red meat  or cheese before. She had beautiful, long black hair that waved gently  around her face, which just seemed so damn … kissable. She was a thicker  girl, but that only made him like her more. A lot more. He thought about  what it would be like to run his hands down her sides, pry open her  beautiful, soft thighs …

He couldn't see, in the dimness and the distance, the welt above her eye  that would, soon, tell him everything he needed to know about how she'd  come to be there.

He could only see her expression of unadulterated pleasure as she ate,  like a child indulging in a stolen cookie from the cookie jar, the way  she closed her eyes, breathed through her nose, with each bite. He bit  his own lips reflexively.

I'd like to take a bite of you, he thought, watching her, hoping his  energy would reach her somehow. It didn't, obviously, but he wasn't shy.  There was no reason to be shy. If she rejected him, so what? If she  didn't …

Well, they'd both have a hell of a night. He'd make sure of it.

And who knew? Maybe it wouldn't just be a night …

But Reign shook that possibility from his head, knowing that, just like  every other girl who came in and out of his life, she would just be  around for a while. And what did he want some girl clinging around him  for, anyway? He didn't need an old lady. Not yet.

Though he wondered how she'd look in leather, hair windblown as they rolled down the highway …

"Honey," Reign said, calling to the bartender who'd served the girl her  burger. "I wanna buy that girl a drink. What do you think? Rum and  coke?"

"Ummm, anything virgin's more like it, buddy. She's jumpy as a  jackrabbit on a coke binge, and twice as cagey," Honey said, her  disapproval of Reign's choice for the night coming through her eyes.

"Make it a strong rum and coke, then," Reign said, rapping on the bar  and shooting her a "don't-stick-your-nose-in-this" look. Honey shrugged  and made the drink, delivering it to the girl, who looked surprised,  then nervous, then embarrassed. She looked over in Reign's direction,  and he saw the unmistakable flicker of "holy shit" that crossed her  face.

And then the wave.

And then, locked in like a photon torpedo, he made his move.

As he got closer and her face grew clearer, he saw the bruise above her  eye for the first time. She was guzzling the drink heartily; that didn't  necessarily make him happy to see, since he preferred to spend his time  with girls who could actually think for themselves and weren't puking  on their shoes, but as his mind put together the puzzle pieces (the way  she'd been eating, the bruise, her very presence in the bar in the first  place), he thought she needed that drink more than even she knew.

She'd need a lot of things.

And even if she refused some of what he wanted to offer, the sexy stuff,  he knew he'd still want to help her get what she needed in any way he  could.

After all, he'd been in much the same place as her when he'd come to  Ditcher's Valley, all those years ago. Running away from a broken home  where fists flew more often than kisses. And he'd been lucky to be taken  in, taken care of, set back on his feet and given the chance to find  himself, be happy.         

     



 

And he was interested in paying that forward, whenever he could.

Starting with another drink for Ms. Gorgeous Runaway over here. And maybe a touch that wouldn't hurt, if she'd let him.

He hoped, harder than ever as he took in her voluptuous body, that she would.





6





" … and a bike ride on Mars thing, with a Led Zeppelin laser show, you  know, anti-gravity bike riding in space. Gravitron, of course. And … a  Martian photo booth. Martian laser tag, maybe you have to fight evil  aliens who want to eat you. A zero-gravity bar, powdered vodka and all  that shit. Anti-gravity sex room!"

"Stop, stop, please! Reign's Grown Up Space Camp … I can't!" I said,  snorting, acting quite unladylike, my hand over my mouth to try and  control myself. I almost thought I was going to wet my pants from  laughing so hard.