ESCORT: A Dark Bad Boy Romance Read online

  Or maybe I was just too exhausted to think straight. It had been an insane few days, after all. One minute I was walking down the sidewalk in New Orleans, the next I was being bound and blindfolded as sweaty men hauled me into an unmarked van and smuggled me a thousand miles away from the only family I had left. After that had been a blur of masking and unmasking, being shuffled around from one place to another, and the endless groping by the two pigs we’d left in the dust.

  I was thankful to get away from those animals. But part of me wondered if I’d been picked up by something worse.

  I looked at the man in front of me. I could feel his abs flex against my hands every time we hit a bump in the road. His back was broad beneath the leather he wore, and muscular to the touch. Stitched across the back of the jacket was a massive winged skull, with the words “Inked Angels MC” blocked over the top.

  I felt the growl of the bike lower as the wind downshifted a notch. We were slowing down. I looked up to see we were pulling into the parking lot of a diner. The sun was setting behind the mountains over in the distance. My ears were ringing and my body ached from the hours spent on the back of the bike. I groaned as I awkwardly stumbled off the bike and tried to start working out the kinks in my neck.

  The biker didn’t look at me as he snatched the key from the ignition and strode towards the door. I stood where I was. I needed some answers, and I couldn’t keep getting ignored. Just before he reached the entrance to the restaurant, he stopped and looked back. He raised an eyebrow when he saw I hadn’t followed him.

  “Coming?” he asked sarcastically.

  “Not until you tell me who you are and where we’re going,” I shot back. “And unlock my wrists, too.”

  His eyes surged. I wondered if I’d pissed him off. He could break me without a second’s hesitation; I knew that without even thinking about it. It was obvious that he knew how to handle himself, and it was equally obvious that he didn’t tolerate any shit. I gulped. He paced back to where I stood planted and shivering in the dusk.

  He came to stand in front of me. I could feel his breath on my face.

  “I’m Ember. I’m taking you home. And I’m not unlocking your wrists.” His tone left no room for arguing. “Now, you can either come inside and eat with me, or you can stay here and freeze to death. Whatever you want is fine with me, but those are your only two choices. Cool? Cool.”

  He pivoted on his heel without another word and walked inside. I could see him settling down at a table by the window, leaning back and cracking open a menu. The hostess gave him the most obvious doe eyes I’d ever seen in my life. This man – Ember, I thought to myself, his name is Ember – really did command attention everywhere he went.

  A shiver raced down my spine. I wasn’t sure whether it was from the growing cold or the man who’d rescued me. Before I could chase my mind, I hustled through the door.

  No one except the hostess looked up as I entered. She gave me a once-over and, aside from a weird glance at the handcuffs around my hands, seemed to deem me non-threatening. I lowered my eyes and kept walking, sliding into the booth across from Ember as the chains clanked against the plastic table top.

  He didn’t look up from the menu. “Was starting to wonder if you were coming in or not,” he said after a moment. His voice was cool and measured, like he did this kind of thing – escorting strange girls across the Mexican desert – all the time.

  “Is this fun for you?” I asked. I was feeling more aggressive than usual. The whirlwind nightmare of this whole experience had put some fire in my belly. Forget being the same old passive Selena. It was time to stop letting the world push me around.

  Ember looked up. He shrugged. “Parts of it.”

  “Which parts, exactly?” I demanded. “The part where I get kidnapped and driven into the middle of nowhere? The part where two creepy men I’ve never met before point a gun at my head and feel up every inch of me? Or the part where I get traded for a bag full of money in the middle of the desert like I’m some whore?”

  His eyes flashed. “You’re cute when you’re angry.”

  I nearly exploded. “Have you been listening to a word I just said? Are you insane?”

  “In fact, if you pulled your hair back, you’d be pretty damn sexy.”

  I was flabbergasted. Here I was, clearly on the brink of a breakdown, and this crazy moron was giving me style advice.

  “Do you think I care what you think of how I look? I just want to go home. That’s all. Take me home now.” The bossy voice coming out of my mouth felt a little strange, but I felt good about finally taking the reins. Enough getting pushed around by things I didn’t understand. Enough of men doing whatever they wanted with me.

  Ember leaned back, shrugged, and returned to looking at the menu. “Can’t do that.”

  “Why not?” I exclaimed.

  “I’m tired.”

  “You’re tired?” I wanted to pull my hair out by the roots. This was worse than being trapped with the cartel. They at least were understandable in what they wanted. This man sitting across from me was an infuriating mystery.

  A waiter walked up and stood by our table with a pen and pad, ready to take down our orders. “What do you think?” Ember asked me, “Pancakes or eggs?”

  “What the fuck do I care?” I snapped back.

  “You’re right. Eggs it is.” He turned to the waiter. “I’ll have the scrambled eggs. And she’ll have a bagel and a coffee.” Ember eyed me, measuring me up. “Sugar, no cream.”

  The waiter nodded and left. “Is this your thing?” I asked Ember. “You just pick up kidnapped girls and take them to a diner and then order their food for them? Like we’re on a date?”

  “That’d be a pretty shitty date, if you ask me.”

  “Does this work for you often?”

  “Depends.” He leaned forward. “Is it working?” A cocky grin was smeared across his face.

  “Unbelievable,” I sighed, shaking my head. “Un-fucking-believable. Who do you think you are?”

  “Didn’t we do this already? I’m Ember, I’m taking you home, I’m not unlocking your wrists. Yeah, I remember now – we did do this already.”

  I felt a scream bubbling in my throat. The world was just too much to comprehend sometimes, and this was definitely one of those moments. I was sitting across from this enigmatic Adonis in who-the-fuck-knows-where, still handcuffed, and he wanted to flirt.

  “You must be a big hit with the girls back… back wherever you’re from,” I told him.

  “Houston,” he said. “And I’m a huge hit.”

  “Is that so?”

  “It is.”

  “And why is that? The good looks? The charm?”

  “So you think I’m good-looking and charming? That’s nice of you. This relationship is getting off to a great start.”

  I had to bite my lip to stop from laughing. There was no stopping him. He was a force of nature. Cockiness rolled off of him in waves, but I was getting swept up in it, almost against my will.

  I’d met his type before. There were always frat boys in college who strolled campus like they owned the whole place. Ember had the same impenetrable swagger as them, like he was God’s gift to women and you couldn’t convince him otherwise. The more he talked, the more I felt like I knew exactly who he was: a shallow user, someone who picked up and discarded women like outfits of the day. As much as his charm tickled part of me, there was a creeping coldness in my chest. I didn’t want anything to do with someone like this. I wanted to be brought home so I could resume my life. I felt sure that this overconfident bad boy had no place in it.

  The waiter brought our food and set it down in front of us. “Can I get anything else for you and this… tramp?” he sneered.

  Everything happened too fast for me to process at first. There was a whirl of motion as Ember leaped up from his chair, twisted the man’s arm behind his back, and slammed his head into the table. Dishes fell to the floor and broke, sending shards of porcelain skit
tering across the tile floor.

  Heads whipped around to see what the commotion was all about. Ember pressed the heel of his hand against the waiter’s temple while he kept the arm pinned against his back with the other.

  “What the fuck did you just call her?” he hissed in the sobbing man’s ear. The whole diner was silent.

  “I’m – I’m sorry,” he blubbered.

  “I didn’t ask you to say you’re sorry. I asked you what you called her.”

  “I…I called her a, uh, a tramp.”

  “That’s what I thought you said. You made a mistake, asshole.”

  The man wailed as Ember applied more force to his skull. I could see tears streaming and pooling on the plastic surface of the table.

  “Do you think she’s a tramp?” Ember asked.

  “No! No, I’m sorry,” the waiter mumbled.

  “She isn’t a tramp; do you understand that? She is a woman, and her pinky toe is worth more than your entire pathetic life. Do you agree?”

  “Yes, yes, I’m sorry, please let me go.” The tears were fast and thick.

  Ember hauled the man up with a fistful of his hair. “I don’t think so,” he said. “First, you’re going to get on your knees and ask Selena here to forgive you.” He kicked the back of the waiter’s knees. He fell to the tile as his body heaved with sobs.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am. Please forgive me,” he said between hiccups and bubbles of snot. “Please, I’m so sorry.”

  Ember still held the man up by his hair. “Lick her shoes,” he said. “Let her know that you are nothing compared to her.” He poked him in the back of the head and the man collapsed forward. He picked up my foot between his trembling hands and, extending his tongue, licked the sole quickly.

  “Now get the fuck out of here,” Ember said, prodding a boot into the waiter’s ribs. “We’ll take our food to go.” He smoothed his hair back, settled his jacket on his shoulders, and sat down.

  No one had said a word. Ember looked around, and everybody hurriedly stuffed their faces back into their menus, too afraid even to make eye contact.

  He looked at me. I was in shock, too stunned to move or say anything. “I’m sorry you had to see that,” he said. “Are you okay?”

  “Ye-yes,” I said, stumbling over my words. “I’m fine.”

  My mind was racing. What the hell was that? This man had seemed so simple and clear-cut just moments ago. Now he was a mystery again. I didn’t know what to think. At first, I’d been just cargo to him, something to be shipped across the border. But you didn’t defend cargo’s honor when people insulted it, did you?

  Or was this all just normal for him? I didn’t know anything about the man I was now stuck alongside. His name was Ember, he was from Houston, he was in the Inked Angels MC. Besides those tidbits, I didn’t have much to go on. He’d seemed like your run-of-the-mill douche bag playboy, but after that whole display, he didn’t fit into any mold I’d ever come across before.

  The waiter came running over to us, holding a bag with our food in it. His face was burning red with shame. He tried to drop the bag and scurry away, but Ember seized his wrist. He stared the man straight in the face as he wedged a fifty-dollar bill between his fingers. “Keep the change,” he whispered. I thought the poor guy was going to wet himself right there in front of us. He scampered back to the kitchen.

  “Ready to go?” Ember asked me. I nodded and we stood up to leave. Ember offered the other diners a cheery wave as we walked out the door.

  Was he a maniac? A thug? A playboy? A businessman? There was no way to know. I knew only one thing for sure: I’d never met anyone like Ember.

  We mounted the bike and drove to a dusty motel a few miles down the road. He left me on the bike as he walked into the front office before emerging a couple minutes later with a key in his hand. “This way,” he said, extending an elbow to assist me off the motorcycle. I followed him to one of the rooms. He jiggled the key in the lock, turned it, and held the door open for me. I walked in first.

  It was a standard hotel room. Bathroom, beat-up old TV, a nightstand, one bed. I turned to him. “One bed?”

  “All they had,” he said.

  “I can’t.” I didn’t trust myself anywhere near him, not after that little stunt in the diner. This man was unhinged and unpredictable, and I was gonna do my damndest to stay as far away from him as humanly possible. That sure as hell ruled out sleeping together.

  “Suit yourself,” he shrugged, stripping off his jacket and boots. The shirt underneath hugged his biceps. I saw one vein winding along the shelf of muscle that flexed with every small motion he made. What a body… I had to cut that train of thought off before it even left the station. Who knew where it would lead? Nowhere good, that’s for certain. “Floor is gonna be mighty uncomfortable, though.”

  “Why would I be on the floor?”

  “Well, Princess Selena, I’m sleeping in the bed. If you’re not going to sleep with me, then I don’t see many other options besides the floor.”

  “You’re sleeping on the floor. I get the bed.”

  Ember laughed. “The day I let a woman tell me what to do is the day I drive up to the edge of a cliff and then just keep on going, honey.”

  That fucking smile. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to slap it off his face or shove it between my legs – No. None of those thoughts. He was gorgeous, yes, and he had an energy that honestly made my insides squirm whenever he spoke, but no. Wasn’t gonna happen.

  He examined a grease smudge on his t-shirt. “I’m gonna take a shower,” he announced. He swept a grandiose hand across the room. “Make yourself at home, darling.” Then he strode into the bathroom and shut the door.

  I heard the showerhead spring to life as I sat down on the edge of the bed. “What a fucking day,” I muttered to myself. How was anyone supposed to cope with a day like this? From captivity to a literal Mexican standoff to witnessing a strange, beautiful man defend my femininity against a diner waiter in the middle of nowhere – this was one for the record books. And to top it all off, I was still handcuffed. Good Lord, I was a mess. I could barely keep the world straight.

  I fell back on the comforter and closed my eyes. The shower droned on in the background. As much as I wanted to sleep and let unconsciousness take all my problems away, I was still too wired. Instead, images floated through my head.

  Daddy, shaking his head and saying, “Not a chance, Selena. Don’t ask me again.” That lip curl of his.

  Later, the twin adrenaline of fear and excitement pumping through my veins as I counted the bills in his wallet. One thousand, two thousand, three thousand… It was enough to buy the flight and still have plenty left over…

  The scene in my mind’s eye changed.

  Ember, pushing me onto the hood of a car. His hands, dancing up my thighs, urging my knees apart. His tongue, sliding across my hip, tugging aside the sheer mesh of my underwear to lick delicately at my hot center beneath.

  The sound of the shower cutting off startled me. I tried to sit up straight and jerk my hand out from between my legs before Ember could see, but he emerged too quickly. The smile that broke across his face when he saw I’d been touching myself was maddeningly pleased.

  “Thought so,” he smirked.

  “You didn’t see anything,” I stammered. His grin grew another notch as my cheeks flushed.

  “No? Because I’m pretty sure I saw you touching yourself. In fact,” he continued as he took a step closer, “I’m positive that’s what I saw.”

  I watched as water droplets slid over his brawny chest. His abs stood out in stark relief. The tattoos that covered his shoulders were dark and winding. I thought about tracing my tongue over them while my hands stroked his length.

  “No,” I protested weakly. I didn’t even believe myself at this point. I didn’t know why I was trying to continue to lie. “That’s not what it was.”

  Ember reached out and pulled me to my feet by one wrist. He didn’t say a word as he brought m
e close to him. My chest brushed against his. Our breath mingled. My heart thudded hard in my chest.

  He’s crazy, I tried to tell myself, but that thought slipped away easily.

  He’s a pig, just like the men from the cartel, I tried again. But I knew that wasn’t true.

  He’s beautiful. There, that was it; that was real. He was beautiful and I wanted him. I wanted to feel his lips on my neck and his hands teasing my clothing away from my body. He was everything dangerous and wrong, but I craved him anyways.

  When he leaned down and kissed me, I let him.

  I pushed my lips against his. The warmth was perfect, exactly how I’d imagined when I first saw him. His mouth was soft as I explored it with my tongue, letting it roam across his as our hands slid down each other’s bodies.