Better When He's Bad

CHAPTER 14 Dovie

I WAS GOING STIR-CRAZY. Five days catching up with my brother was nice, but spending it in the cramped, tiny apartment above Gus’s garage was not. I still wasn’t one hundred percent clear on who Gus was, Race seemed to gloss over the fact that the old mechanic ran Novak’s chop shop for him, but his loyalty was to Bax. According to Race, Gus had had a fling with Bax’s mom back in the day and had taken to both her young sons. Titus had already been older and not so interested in developing a relationship with the very married mechanic, but Bax was a different story. He took to Gus and his knowledge about any kind of automobile like a duck to water. Eventually the affair had petered out, but Race insisted that Gus viewed Bax more as a son than anything else, and there was no way he would compromise our safety by revealing our location because of their relationship. After all, Race had been hiding out here for over a month and no one was the wiser.

The apartment was even smaller than the studio Bax kept in the city, and as much as I honestly adored Race, I was tired of him being my only company. I was also sick of the endless grilling about my feelings for Bax. We were literally tripping over each other, and that, coupled with the heartache I was feeling, was enough to make me want to lose my mind. Luckily most of my teachers had agreed to e-mail me assignments for the week, so I was staying busy using Gus’s old laptop to keep up on my homework. Even with that minor distraction, I couldn’t shake the hollow feeling when I woke up in the middle of the night to reach for that hard body I had so quickly gotten used to being curled around, only to come up empty. I missed him. I knew why he was doing what he was doing, but that didn’t stop me from longing to be back with him—all of him. As much as I missed Shane, there was no denying I missed the gruff and harsh Bax as well. It sucked, and I was doing a piss-poor job of keeping my feelings from Race.

I was ready to get out of there, even if it was not the most advisable way to spend the weekend. Race mentioned that Bax’s brother had convinced him to hold off on taking the video to Novak, that he was trying to come up with a more delicate solution that would hopefully get Race and Bax off the hot seat permanently. He also let it slip that Bax was going back to fight for Nassir, which made bile rise up in my throat. Not only because I hadn’t heard a word from him in a week, but because I knew there was no way Nassir was going to set up a clean fight and he was just asking for trouble and looking to hurt himself. I hated everything about it, but I bit my tongue and refused to give in to the temptation of trying to call and reason with him. He made it clear that now that Race was back on the scene, I was my brother’s responsibility.

I made my way as quietly as I could down the metal stairs that led down to the locker room the guys who worked for Gus used. It was well after the legitimate part of the garage closed for daily business, but that didn’t mean the more lucrative and illegal part of the shop wasn’t running full steam ahead. The first few days I had been scared to come down the stairs, scared one of the mechanics would see me and rat us out to Novak, but whoever Gus was in the grand scheme of things, he was awesome at keeping our location secret. I hadn’t seen another human aside from him and my brother in days.

I peeked around the corner and saw Gus’s gray head bent over something on his desk in his office. After making sure the coast was clear, I tiptoed across the shop floor and knocked on the glass window until he looked up and saw me. He waved me inside and pushed back in his chair so his greasy boots were propped up on the edge of his desk.

“You ready to roll?”

“Yeah. I’m just going to take the bus. The Mustang is too memorable, and if anyone puts two and two together, they’ll realize I was probably with Race.” It was frightening how after only a handful of weeks with Bax, I could draw those kinds of lines between things with zero effort.

“Smart girl. Well, it would probably be smarter to just stay here, but I understand the need to show you’re not giving your life up.”

I blew out a breath that sent a copper curl twisting across my forehead. “I just can’t spend any more time with Race breathing down my neck. I’ll murder him.”

Gus laughed and folded his hands on his portly belly. “He’s been worried about you. Add in the fact you went and got all tangled up with Bax, and he has good reason. Those boys . . .” He shook his head and closed his eyes briefly. “Those boys could run this city if they wanted. Your brother is one of the smartest and most loyal kids I’ve ever come across, and he has an innate sense for when something isn’t right. And Bax”—he sighed—“that kid never got a fair shot, but he is about as ruthless as anyone I’ve ever seen. He has the tools, the mettle to get the dirty work done. Unfortunately, he also has a conscience buried somewhere deep down inside.”

I cleared my throat and shifted uneasily on my feet. “It’s not buried that far. I didn’t have to dig too far to get at it.”

The mechanic grinned at me, only it was full of sadness.

“You’re one of the few, then, little lady. You better pray that your brother and Titus get this all figured out before Bax gets impatient and stirs up a hurricane of vengeance. No one will be safe when that boy finally unleashes everything he’s been holding back for the last five years.”

I was surprised. I thought Gus was on Team Bax. The way he was talking now made it sound like the opposite.

“Race told me you were close to Bax.”

“I love the boy like my own, but I don’t mistake that for excusing what I know he’s capable of. God forbid you get hurt—or worse—in the middle of this shit storm brewing. Bax won’t care if it was friend or foe involved, he’ll destroy everyone until nothing is left but dust, and that includes your brother and his.”

I gulped a little. “I think you might have the wrong idea about what kind of relationship we had. He wouldn’t feel compelled to do that because of me.” After all, he had ditched me with Race as soon as the opportunity presented itself.

“Girly, the fact you had any kind of relationship with Bax is more than most people can say. A boy like that doesn’t get attached, because he knows all it’s going to lead to for the other person is heartache and loneliness. The only reason Race got through was because he was willing to go down in a blaze of glory right alongside him. Now you’ve gone and shaken the dynamic all up.”

I didn’t want to think that I was the only reason Race had managed to turn his life around and realized a life of crime wasn’t worth it. I also flat-out just did not believe I had any impact on the choices Bax chose to make one way or the other.

“Well, let’s just hope it doesn’t come to that for anyone. I’d like to have faith that Titus is a good cop and that he can figure something out. That seems like the best option for everyone.”

Gus snorted and let his feet thump to the concrete floor.

“Sure, until your old man decides you’re too much of a liability to his cushy life up on the Hill and goes slumming for another scumbag to take you out. It’s an endless cycle of people trying to clean up messes they should’ve never made in the first place.”

I didn’t know how to reply to that, so I just tucked my hair behind my ear and turned to reach for the door handle. “I hope the cycle ends. It’s exhausting.”

“You’re telling me, little lady. Keep your head up. Lots of dangerous people out there.”

I knew it . . . only the most dangerous one that was out there I wanted to find me. I nodded and whispered a good-bye over my shoulder.

The bus ride was torturous and took forever. I had gotten spoiled being ferried around town in muscle cars that moved at the speed of light. I was going to have to get used to going back to the way things were, where I only had myself to rely on. I was happy to have Race back in my life and I appreciated the sacrifice he had made on my behalf, but I couldn’t get past how readily he had offered up Bax as the sacrificial lamb. It was like everyone in his life knew he was bound to ultimately self-destruct, so whatever he had to endure before then was just his penance to pay. I didn’t like it one bit. For all his faults, and Lord knew there were too many to count, he was also a loyal friend, a devoted son, and a man capable of compassion and kindness, even if it didn’t come naturally to him. He deserved better than the dark role of destructive hooligan everyone seemed to want to automatically cast him in. I knew there was more to him than that, even if no one else did.

When I got to the house, I finally breathed a sigh of relief. The kids were happy to see me, and so was Reeve. I don’t know if it was because I showed up on my own power and not with Bax that had her demeanor more cheery toward me, but whatever it was, I was grateful. Dinner went off without a hitch and only the teen girls asked where the hottie with the badass car was this week. I blew them off and we all settled in for game night after dessert. They were such good kids and they deserved to have a life where they didn’t have to worry about where their next meal was going to come from or if their parents were going to put them out on the streets.

Blake and Lindsey both complained of a tummy ache not long after we started the game of Monopoly. Reeve agreed they could be excused as long as they went right to bed and didn’t mess around on the computer or with their phones. They disappeared and I let myself enjoy the simple pleasure of having the one thing in my life that hadn’t drastically changed since the invasion of Shane Baxter.

Reeve and I put the little kids to bed and alternated showers, and before I knew it, the night was almost over. Since I was still wide-awake with too many things chasing each other around in my head, I told Reeve I would take the first round of bed checks. She readily agreed since she had spent the day at her other job as a hairdresser and looked worn out. I was going to use the ancient desktop computer that was set up in the family room to work on the last of my homework when my phone dinged with a text message. Figuring it was probably Race just checking in with me, I glanced down at the screen and went still when I saw the name of the sender.

You got two loose chicks running from the hen house, Copper-Top.

I blinked dumbly at the screen and didn’t bother to write him back. I hit the call button and went out onto the front porch.

“What are you talking about?”

I didn’t even give him a chance to say hello. I was both elated and taken apart by the sound of his voice.

“Two girls just hopped out of the upstairs window and are standing on the corner a block over from the house. Just thought you would want to know.”

“Where are you? The windows have alarms on them.”

He laughed and it sounded bitter. “Come on, Dovie. These kids don’t want to be locked up in that house twenty-four/seven, even if it’s the best place for them. They get creative and learn ways around the rules. I’m gonna scoop them up and drop them off.”

“Bax—”

“See you in a second, Copper-Top.”

My heart was thundering in my chest, and a mixture of joy and rage was making my blood almost too hot to be comfortable under my skin. Five minutes later, the bumblebee-painted car came to a screeching halt in front of the house and Blake and Lindsey came shuffling out of the back. I crossed my arms over my chest and gave them both the evil eye. Instead of looking chagrined or ashamed, they both looked defiant and annoyed. Bax followed them up to the steps and lifted an eyebrow at me. I ignored him and focused on the girls.

“How did you get past the alarm?”

They both just glared at me and I sighed.

“Do you really want me to write this up? Do either of you want this in your case file? This house is based on good faith and the honest desire to learn skills that will make you seamlessly fit into a family. If you don’t want to be here, there are plenty of other kids in the Point who would appreciate the opportunity to get off the streets and have a roof over their heads.”

They shared a look and then looked between me and Bax. “We just wanted to go to a party. Some kids up on the Hill are having a huge kegger because their parents are out of town. Being stuck in this house every day, being reminded that no one wants us, is boring and it gets old, Dovie.” Blake’s voice cracked and Lindsey reached out to wrap an arm around her shoulders.

I opened my mouth to tell them I understood, that we would talk about it later, but Bax beat me to it.

His voice was cold and there was no apology in it when he told them, “Do you have any idea what happens to girls like you when you try and mess around with kids from the Hill? You’re nothing but trash to them; they would use you, humiliate you, and then throw you away the second they were done. The only reason kids from the Hill invite kids from the Point to a party is so they have someone there they can hurt and use with zero repercussions.”

I saw both the girls shiver, but Lindsey narrowed her eyes at him and snapped, “Like kids from the Point are any better? All anyone out here cares about is looking out for themselves.”

Bax nodded. “Damn straight, that’s the only way you’re going to make it out alive.”

“All right, enough. You two go in and wake Reeve up. Tell her you’re sleeping in our room since you disabled the alarm in yours. Tell her I’ll be in shortly.”

They looked at Bax and then back at me. “We were just trying to have some fun.”

Bax snorted. “Fun has no place in this life. You might as well learn that now.”

Blake bared her teeth and pushed past me to the front door. “Your boyfriend is a dick, Dovie. You could do better, even if he is hot.”

I waited until the door slammed closed and I could hear Reeve’s irritated voice coming from the living room before making my way down the steps so I was standing toe-to-toe with Bax. I had to tilt my head back to look him in the eye, and when I did, all I could see was a darkness deeper and more liquid than the night sky.

“What are you doing here, Bax?”

“Nice sweatshirt, Copper-Top.” I hadn’t taken it off since the night I walked out of his apartment with it on—not that I was going to tell him that.

“Those girls have a rough enough time as it is. Sooner or later, they’re going to age out of the system and be on their own. You don’t have to remind them that life is always going to be an uphill battle. They should get to enjoy being teenagers.”

“Why? We didn’t.”

“And look how disgustingly well adjusted and happy we are.” I couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of my voice. “What are you doing here?” I was going to keep asking until he gave me an answer.

“I was just in the neighborhood.”

“Yeah, right. I’m fine. No creepy-crawlers are coming out of the woodwork. You don’t need to be bothered keeping an eye out for me. I hear you have better ways to spend your time.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’m hiding out in a tiny little apartment with Race while you’re arranging another fight with Nassir. Seems like you couldn’t wait to get back to right where you were. How’s Roxie? I’m sure she’s back on the agenda as well.”

I didn’t want the hurt I was feeling to come through in my voice, but there was no stopping it. I felt like he had cast me off, and it stung.

He looked at me like I was speaking to him in French. “What are you talking about, Dovie? I haven’t seen Roxie, and what I have going on with Nassir is keeping me from making a mistake we’ll both regret.”

I narrowed my eyes at him, not sure I believed him. “What kind of mistake?”

He threw his hands up in the air and tilted his head back so that he was practically yelling at the midnight-colored sky.

“Jesus, Dovie, are you serious right now?”

I was confused. I didn’t understand what his choice to suffer at one of Nassir’s rigged fights had to do with me. I wanted him to spell it out for me, to let me inside that complicated mind that had too many twists and turns for the average person to follow. He made it simple for me. He let loose a flurry of nasty swearwords and then closed the sparse distance between the two of us.

His hands slid into my hair at my temples and his mouth crashed down on mine with the force of everything that made him so dark and dangerous to begin with. I wrapped my fingers around those chains inked on his wrists and kissed him back. He was scary, he was overwhelming, and he was everything about this life that I wanted to get away from, but when he rubbed his tongue along the seam of my lips asking for entrance, it felt more like welcoming him home than it did like kissing him back. I groaned against the pressure and the bite of teeth on my lower lip. He was trying to eat me up and I had no desire to stop him. I missed him so much.

I felt his fingers curl around the back of my skull as he tried to pull me closer, but the front door swung open and Reeve’s heavy footsteps thudded behind us. I reluctantly pulled away and glanced at her over my shoulder. She looked mad.

“I put the girls in our room and looked at the alarm in their room. They cut the wires.”

I nodded and felt Bax try and untangle himself from my hair. I refused to let go of his tattooed wrists.

“Give me a couple minutes, Reeve. I’ll be in shortly.”

“He shouldn’t be here, Dovie, and he shouldn’t be here with you.”

“Just give me a minute.”

I heard her sigh and the door close behind her. Bax pulled at his hands but I still didn’t let him go. I could feel his pulse fluttering under the gentle pressure of my fingertips.

“I gotta go, Copper-Top, while I still can.”

I bit my bottom lip and looked up at him with beseeching eyes. “Did you miss me at all this week, Bax? Did you roll over and reach for me at night? Did you wake up and wonder why you were alone? Did you think about me at all when you went to see Nassir? Do you even care that it’ll break my heart if something happens to you in one of those dirty fights?”

My voice broke and I could feel a veil of moisture slide over my eyes.

“Do you want the truth, or do you want me to lie to you?”

I sort of hated and loved how he liked to throw all our earlier conversations back in my face.

“Lie to me.” I whispered it and he yanked me against his chest and buried his nose in the top of my head. I felt his chest expand and fall against my cheek.

“Not one time. I didn’t think about you one single time this entire week. Is that what you want me to say? Will that make you realize this isn’t what you want and most definitely not what you need?”

What it did was fill that hollow part inside of me that had been gaping and yawning open since he had sent me off with Race. I let go of his wrists and reached up to wrap my arms as tightly as I could around his neck. I saw his Adam’s apple slide up and down in his throat in response.

“Take me somewhere?”

“What? You can’t leave, you’ll get in trouble. The babe with the black hair clearly hates my guts and she’ll turn you in for ditching the kids.”

I blinked at him. As much as I loved the kids and appreciated my job here at the home, the time I had with him was fleeting and precious and I wasn’t going to be foolish and squander it.

“Don’t care. I want to be with you.”

I did, so bad. I felt like I had a fever. My skin was too tight, my breath was coming in short, hard pants, and all I wanted to do was melt into his dark gaze. For a second, I thought he was going to argue, to once again try and push me away from him for my own good, but he didn’t. He ran his hand from the back of my neck to the curve of my ass and gave the rounded flesh a smart smack with the flat of his hand.

“All right, rule breaker, let’s go.”

He gave me a quick, one-armed hug and hauled me off to the Runner. I slid into the passenger seat just in time to see Reeve shaking her head at me in the reflection of the front window. I would regret it later. Right now all I had was this moment and this man who was so hard to hold on to.

We drove in silence for a solid ten minutes, leaving the city behind. I didn’t want to ruin the mood, didn’t want to make him question his choice to take me away, but my curiosity got the better of me and I had to know. “Where exactly are we going?”

I thought he would’ve just taken me to the apartment in the city since it was the closest to the group home, but he was winding the noisy car up into the mountains well past the Hill and a world away from the Point.

“I know this place. When I was younger and people still thought they could beat me in a street race, we used to come up here and let the cars run full-out. It’s quiet and the ride up there is quiet, peaceful even. I figure since neither one of us knows what life is going to look like in the next few days, I can give us one nice memory to take away from it all.”

I wanted to tell him how sad that was, how depressing it sounded, but I knew coming from him, he was telling me that I mattered. For him, that was as close to an admission that I mattered as much to him as he did to me as I was likely to get. I just kept my mouth shut, put a hand on his hard thigh, and let him take me up somewhere in the night.

The drive really was lovely. Well, what I could see of it as it raced by in a dark blur out the window. The trees were eerie shadows in the dark, and the rumble of the giant motor was almost enough to lure me to sleep. I had too much tension, too much desire coiling inside me, to fully relax. I wanted to tell him just to pull over to the side of the road and let me jump him, but he seemed focused on the final destination, and I wanted to let him have that.

He finally pulled to a stop twenty minutes later. The car rumbled to a stop and he turned to look at me in the deathly silent interior. He reached out and used a finger to push some of my curls out of my face. “Come on.”

He opened the door and I followed him out. I was glad I had his hoodie since this high up the night air was a little chilly. When I rounded the hood of the car and stopped next to where he was leaning, I felt the air rush out of my lungs. The view was amazing. The lights from the Point and the Hill twinkled like little stars that had been forced down from the sky. From up here, none of the ugliness that lurked down below could be seen. It was like this place was untouchable.

Bax put an arm around my shoulders and pulled me to his side. I felt his lips brush across my forehead and I smelled the barest hint of the last cigarette he had smoked.

“Race and I used to come up here and get high. This bluff is the perfect spot to line two cars up and then race down the mountain. I won the title to more than one sweet ride up here.”

I put my arm around his lean waist and buried my nose in the crook of his neck.

“What about girls? Did you bring all of your conquests up here?” Jealousy was evident in my voice but I didn’t care. I hated the thought of him cuddled up with some random girl before that magnificent view, and I wasn’t scared for him to know it.

“Conquest implies I had to work at it. Back then it didn’t matter. Chicks were interchangeable, and the idea that I had to put any kind of effort into getting laid never even occurred to me. So no, Dovie, you are the only girl I’ve ever brought up here.”

He shifted me around so I was pressed up against the hood of the car. His hands were pressed on the cold metal on either side of my hips.

“When I finally finished this car, got the restoration done and got it back from Gus’s paint guy, I swore that I had never seen anything more beautiful. I thought the Runner was my reward, my trophy for being such a badass. I barely had her for a week when I ended up locked up.”

He leaned more fully into me, making me spread my legs so he could wedge himself between them. He put his hands on my ass and gave me a little boost so I was actually sitting on the hood with my legs wrapped around him.

“Are you going to try and tell me that changed when you saw me? That I was the most beautiful thing you had ever seen?”

He grinned down at me, his teeth flashing white in the dark. “No. I thought you were ordinary. I didn’t understand why Race was risking everything for you.”

Well, that was a bit of an ego diffuser, but there was no escaping the heat burning down at me from his gaze.

“And then you opened your mouth. All that love, all that loyalty, all the innocence, even though life had kicked you around time and time again, and all I wanted to do was let some of that sweetness and light touch me. I’ve never had very clean hands, but the first time I touched you, that first gasp out of that perfect mouth, the first time I thrust into you, God, Dovie, you made me feel like I was the king in a land of second chances.”

I was stunned. He wasn’t much of a talker in the best of times, but man, when he put his mind into it, he had a way with words that was incomparable. I wanted to tell him how I felt about him, to give him some kind of reason to think before throwing himself to the wolves, but my heart was in my throat and no words were getting around it. Besides, he was unzipping the front of the hoodie and using one of his hands to push me farther back so I was laid out on the hood of his prized possession. I shivered more at the look in his eyes than at the night air popping across my skin as he yanked open the buttons on my flannel shirt. His progress was stopped by the hook of my bra digging into my back, but he maneuvered me enough that he could get it open and loose enough to shove out of his way.

The contrast between the brisk air touching my naked skin and the heat inside the suction of his mouth was enough to make me gasp. I dug my hands into his scalp and arched my back up off the metal under me. I muttered his name as he dragged wet kisses across my chest and treated my other breast to the same treatment he had lavished on the first one. I wound a hand around the back of his neck and held him to me like I was never going to let him go. When he finally lifted his head after sucking and licking and biting all of me that was exposed, I yanked him down to my mouth for a kiss that left no doubt how I felt about him.

Every single bit of fear, love, panic, passion, unease, and everything else he always churned up inside me tasted bitter and sweet as I begged him with my lips and tongue to let this matter enough for him to make better decisions. I pulled desperately at his long-sleeved T-shirt until his naked chest was pressed against my own, his heart telling mine a story as they thundered against each other.

He was so beautiful, dark and wild, just like the night around us. He kissed me on the side of the neck then sank his teeth into the soft skin of my earlobe and chuckled into my ear.

“Normally I think it’s pretty cute you dress like a dude, but in the current circumstance, I think I would be willing to sacrifice my left nut for you to be in a short-ass skirt.”

He trailed his strong fingers over the quivering skin of my belly and stopped to slide the button on my jeans out of the loop. He kissed my shoulder and used his arms to lever himself up and off of me so he could take a step back. His eyes trailed over me and I saw his breath shudder out of his lungs. He gave his head a shake.

“I didn’t think there was anything in the world that could make this car better. I was so wrong.”

He was going to make me cry. “Shane . . .”

He hooked his thumbs under the edge of my jeans and my panties and yanked them down my legs at the same time. Being that exposed to the air suddenly made me shiver, but he was only gone as long as it took him to shove his pants down around his hips and cover himself in latex.

“I think my greatest fantasy just became you in nothing but my hoodie. Copper-Top, you are the prettiest thing I have ever seen.”

I wanted to be his fantasy. I wanted to be his reason for him to get past the fatalistic attitude that seemed to be his default. I wanted him to want me enough to let Bax take a backseat once in a while so I could enjoy everything Shane brought to the table. He lifted one of my legs up and wrapped it around his uninjured side while I curled both my hands up around his broad shoulders. I loved the feel of his muscles as my hands moved across his back, I loved the way his eyes blazed all his intensity and determination into mine. When he first slid into me and my body reacted by clasping down on him, hard, it was him who let out the first gasp.

My skin pebbled up, but not because I was cold anymore. I was on fire, everywhere we touched, all the places on the inside where he dragged and pulled on sensitive flesh, I felt like I was going to combust. He kissed me again, used his tongue to mimic the motion his hips were making below. The double stimulation was a lot, my body was already primed, my heart already open, and when he took my hand and put it between us, it only took the simplest touch, the lightest pressure from my own fingers to push me over the edge. I called his name into his mouth and felt him increase the leisurely pace he had initially set.

He put a knee on the bumper of the car and I felt him lean fully into me. I dug my fingers into the bunched cords of his neck and held on as he thrust and pounded into me like he was trying to imprint me forever onto the paint job of his car. He sealed his mouth over mine and groaned into my mouth as he reached the point of no return and released himself into the night and my welcoming body. There had never been a moment in my life when I had felt such rightness and such peace. I hugged him to me and rubbed my cheek against his prickly one.

We stayed like that for a long time, until the chill of the metal from the car made me start to shiver against him. He groaned as he pulled out of me and helped me situate myself since it took more work than him just pulling his pants back up. He pulled me back to the edge of the hood and zipped the front of his sweatshirt back up. Then he bent down and kissed the corner of my mouth.

It made me want to cry because even though he didn’t say it, I could feel it in him again. That was Bax letting Shane kiss me good-bye.