Wrecked: A Bad Boy Outlaw Romance (with bonus novel!) Read online

  I roll my eyes and keep pouring.

  What were you thinking?

  The phone goes. I pick it up with one hand and tuck it against the crook of my neck and shoulder.

  It’s Deacon. “Hey.”

  “To what do I owe this?”

  A glass smashes, someone calling ‘more beer!’

  Deacon sounds concerned. “Everything alright over there?”

  I continue to pull beers. I pass one over, my cherry-faced customer looking far from pleased at the lack of head on it. “Actually, it’s kind of insane right now. A bus-load of football players managed to get lost out there and decided to storm the place. Sarah’s gone home sick, so it’s just me.”

  “Where’s my fucking beer?!” a guy shouts down the bar. “How about you get off the fucking phone and put that cute little ass to work, huh?”

  Deacon flares up. “I’m coming over right now.”

  “I don’t want a fight, Deacon. I’ve got enough on my hands without handing the bar back to Sarah in pieces.”

  “I’ll help you serve.”

  Now it’s me laughing. “You? Behind the bar. That would be a change.”

  “Do your best. I’ll be there in five.”

  He hangs up.

  Here we go.

  True to his word, Deacon arrives in exactly five minutes, pulling next to me behind the bar and throwing a towel over his shoulder. He looks my way, winks and takes a glass. He pulls a beer like a pro, sliding it up to the customer, who pushes it away. “I wanted hot tits here to serve me, boy-o.”

  Oh fuck. Wrong thing to say, but surprisingly, Deacon keeps his cool. He leans across to the guy, gets right in his face. “You want a beer or not?”

  Begrudgingly, Mr. Angry takes his beer and heads down the back to join his friends, all of whom have burst into an impromptu performance of Five Hundred Miles by The Pretenders.

  I look across, shouting “You’ve done this before, haven’t you?”

  He shrugs but can’t help the smirk. “I help Sarah out on occasion, did a little bar-tending back in my day.”

  “‘Back in your day.’ It’s not like you’re looking to retire, is it?”

  He winks. “Don’t let this handsome face deceive you.”

  I poke my tongue out, stashing a wad of bills into the till. “Just shut up and pour.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Half an hour later and we’ve managed to get on top of things. These footballers might be oversized, sweaty jerks, but they’re not short of a dollar. I can barely close the register it’s so full.

  Come eleven PM and they’re standing in a circle singing the Australian anthem, hands to their chests.

  Deacon comes up beside me cleaning a glass. “And I thought Americans were the patriotic ones.” He flicks his head towards them. “What do you think? Would you go one of these guys?”

  I laugh. “‘Go’ one of them? I’m not into the whole more-muscle-than-brains thing.”

  He flexes his biceps, taps his forehead. “What about a guy with the best of both worlds?”

  I jump behind him and whip him in the ass with my towel. It makes a solid crack.

  He looks at me shocked. “That was a dirty play.”

  I mock-pout. “I’m all about the dirty play, baby.”

  “I bet you are. Here.”

  Deacon takes a bottle of Jack and adds a finger or two to a tumbler, adding coke on top. He slides it across the bar to me. “On the house, dirty girl.”

  “I don’t think Sarah would be too pleased about that.”

  Deacon smiles, reaching into his pocket and slipping a hundred dollar bill into the cash register. “That should cover it. Now drink up. Everything’s a little better when you’re drunk.”

  “Not sex.”

  His eyes burn. “I beg to differ.”

  I roll my own and pick up the tumbler. I haven’t had a Jack and Coke since I was back in college, haven’t had drunk sex since those halcyon days either. Something tells me sex with Deacon is always great regardless of his state of inebriation—dirty, rough, primal pounding. My core tightens with the thought. Careful now, Lux. You’ll wet more than your panties thinking like that.

  The funny thing is, the Deacon I’ve come to know is so far removed from the asshole surfer I first encountered at Shipstern Bluff when I arrived. He thinks, he feels. He fucks.

  God, I shouldn’t be thinking this way at all, and guys like Deacon? You can dress them up and comb their hair all you want, but that’s never going to stop them being bad. Trouble’s in their DNA.

  The bus driver enters and cups his hands around his mouth, announcing the bus is back in order. There’s a boisterous cheer from the football players. They head out in a pack cheering and singing, no doubt the entire town of Finke awake by now.

  I look down at my watch. Midnight on the dot.

  Another glass smashes. I flinch.

  I look around. The place is trashed.

  Deacon grabs a broom from under the counter. “Come on.”

  It’s certainly easier with two people. Before long the place is looking good as new save for the sweat-and-beer odor that seems to permeate every surface.

  Deacon locks the front door and sits up on the bar, patting the spot next to himself.

  I jump up, legs kicking in the open air, hands gripping the edge of the bar. “Quite a night.”

  He swings himself backwards and runs his finger along the kaleidoscope of bottles at the rear of the bar. “What’s your poison? Sex on the beach? Fuzzy fuck shot? Blow job? Pink Wink? Kiss On The Lips?”

  I choke, coughing. “Excuse me?”

  “Cocktails. What’s your fancy, or do you prefer something a little more bespoke for that refined palate of yours?”

  “It’s midnight, I’m exhausted and you want to make me a cocktail?”

  “Hell, yes.”

  I’m too tired to argue. Thanks to training my arms feel like they’re lead, my legs just wrecking balls swinging back and forth. “Fine. Surprise me.”

  I bring a leg underneath myself on the top of the bar and watch him work. I think he was downplaying the fact he used to bartend. The guy’s Tom Cruise in Cocktail, flaring bottles, tossing them behind his back and up in the air.

  He turns, holding a shot glass out.

  I take it, holding it up to the light. “And what, do tell, is this called?”

  He leans against the back of the bar with arms crossed, biceps thick, his shirt struggling to contain their girth. “Dick in the dirt.”

  “Charming.”

  “Bacardi, Schnapps, Jager, Turkey and grenadine. It’ll put hair on your chest, that’s for sure.”

  “Can’t say you’re making it any more appealing.”

  “Just take the damn shot, will you.”

  I kick the shot back and slam the glass down, coughing and spluttering. “Whoa. Quite a kick.”

  He finishes pouring another, handing it over. “A wet pussy, to wash it down.”

  I’m shaking my head as I take it off his hand. “You’re not going to join me?”

  He picks up a similarly colored shot of his own, clinking it against my glass. “To first times.”

  I laugh. “To first times.”

  The ‘wet pussy’ is a little more manageable, but by the time we’ve worked our way through a G-spot and Junk in Da Trunk, I’m well on my way to full drunk, tipsy in the extreme.

  We both stand facing each other behind the bar, the lighting dim and Deacon somehow looking better and better by the second.

  Any filter I had is lost. “Sarah is going to kick your ass when she finds all her shit gone,” I slur.

  Deacon leans close. I don’t think the shots are having any effect on him. He takes out another hundred and opens the till, tucking it in.”

  I pick up another shot, bright yellow, and down it. “You never told me where all this mystery money is coming from, big boy?”

  “Big boy?” he laughs, “and here thinking girls didn’t care about size”.


  “Shut up and answer the question, cowboy.”

  He smiles, close to cracking up. “Okay. We inherited it.”

  I throw my hands around, the shot glass that was in my hand collecting the wall somewhere to the right. “From who? Scrooge McDuck-a-Luck?”

  Good one, Luxy.

  I really laugh at this. It’s hilarious.

  “Our parents,” Deacon continues. “Remember how I said they were super rich? When they passed, everything fell to me, including the responsibility of looking after Dumb and Dumber.”

  I roll my eyes, the lights above swinging back and forth, the two Deacons staring back at me too serious for this time of night. “Way to kill the mood.”

  “The mood?”

  “You’re giving me all sexy eyes and big arms. Don’t you deny it, baby.”

  He takes my flailing arms and places them by my sides, his fingers hot around my wrists and his body so close I can scent his masculinity, the soap and sandalwood, salt and Sex Wax. “How about we ease up on the cocktails.”

  I swing my head forward and manage to head butt him somehow. “Ow.”

  He rubs his forehead laughing before his eyes lock with mine.

  I freeze. Oh oh. He’s giving you the sexy Jesus eyes again. Powers of resistance slipping.

  We’ve slept together, countless times now, so why does this feel so strange, like a first kiss all over again?

  I spread my legs a little if only to ease up on the sudden tension and heat building between them.

  He releases my wrists and places one hand on the swell of my hip, using the other to push an escaped strand of hair over the back of my ear, his face closer and closer, so so close. “You’re fucking beautiful, you know.”

  “You’re not yourself bad.” Did that even come out right?

  He smiles again, the bad boy James Dean show broken for a second. “You really think so?”

  I look around. The whole place is lurching and rolling. “Can we get off this ship soon?” I ask.

  He raises an eyebrow. “You want to get off, do you? I suppose I can help with that.”

  I stumble forward, hands fanning out on his marble chest. I flick my eyes up to his, my lips parted and open, my breathing coming in short pants and my pussy turned into the Pacific below. One of my hands slides down his chest, keeps going until it tucks into his trousers, my fingers fishing for his cock and finding it hard and ready. He watches me carefully.

  I run my hand down until I’m cupping his balls. “So soft.”

  “That’s not how I’d describe it.”

  His hands run down the back of my jeans, cupping my ass. He lifts me onto the bar, our eyes level and wanton.

  Holy fuck. I’ve never been so horny. I lightly pump his cock in his pants, love the silky way it twitches hot in my grip.

  I lean forward, eyes closed, the kiss imminent, but just when I expect to feel his lips in mine, gravity begins to disappear. I’ve tried to kiss his face, but it seems I’ve ended up about six inches to the right, nothing but air.

  He catches me before I fall off the bar completely, hoisting me over his shoulder. Dimly, I hear him speak. “Let’s find a bed before you wind up with facial injuries.”

  I’m too busy checking out his ass. I bring my hand up and swat it, the spanking sound it makes highly satisfying. I really want to do it again, but the ship’s turning and sleep’s beckoning.

  I look down at the way his ass cheeks roll together under his jeans, his boots scuffing in the gravel outside.

  Sleep, my concrete head commands, so I submit. The last thing I see as I lift my head is the pub growing smaller and smaller, a black smudge in the night.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  DEACON

  Caught in the morning light, her hair fanned out on my pillow, she’s beyond beautiful. She’s going to have a killer headache when she wakes up, though. Note to self: Lightweight drinker.

  I’m watching her when my eyes lift to the photos on the wall, to one in particular—to her.

  I look at the picture, at the woman there who could almost double for Lux. The woman that was almost my wife until she was taken from me, and what could you do about it? Fucking nothing. That’s what.

  Doubt begins to creep back into my head. What are you doing, my friend? You’ve had your fun. Let her go.

  I can’t, but the voice grows louder in my head, the picture damning.

  What if you lose her too? Would you be able to forgive yourself?

  Like I said, people will come, people who want to hurt me and anyone close to me. What the fuck am I going to do then, if she does get hurt, killed, because her association to me?

  Fuck.

  I look between her and the picture and the voice grows, louder and louder and louder until there’s only one way out.

  You have to let her go, push her away.

  I don’t know if I can do it. We’ve grown so close. I think of life without her and…

  You have to. It really is true. If you love something, you have to let it go.

  Love—It’s always been such an abstract fucking concept to me. I’ve only felt it twice, only believed it then and now, which is why it has to happen.

  If I strip away the emotion, my head’s right. She will never be safe with me. I can’t have her death on my conscience too.

  I take a deep breath and exhale.

  Today.

  Today we break up.

  *

  An ugly wave rises from the back of the set, a definite close-out.

  “Go,” I command.

  Lux looks to me, dubious. “Are you sure?”

  “Fucking go!” I yell.

  She turns and paddles hard, but the wave is buckling before it even gets going. I see her go down from the very top, a slab of water hammering her into the reef.

  I watch the wash and plead. Surface. Surface.

  She does, spluttering and coughing, thankfully no coming waves to take her out again.

  She paddles over clearly furious. “Why did you make me take that?”

  “You need to know what it’s like to wipe out, what it’s like to call a dud.”

  “I almost got dragged across the reef. Is that what you want? Me, bloody and broken?”

  “Maybe.”

  She shakes her head. “What the hell is going on with you today? Is it because of last night? I’m sorry. I don’t drink much.”

  I laugh. “You think I’m pissed off because we didn’t fuck?”

  “I don’t want to do it drunk, Deacon. I have sex with you with all senses firing, special, like always.”

  “Special,” I scoff, the lie burning my lips. “I’m out of here.” I turn and paddle into the first wave of the next set, dropping to the bottom of it fast and riding it out of the impact zone.

  I’m starting my way up the beach when I hear her behind me.

  “Wait. Talk to me. Deacon!” she shouts over the din, running up the beach to catch me.

  I turn fast, almost hitting her with my board. “What? What the fuck is it?” The anger in my voice is strong, physical.

  She takes a step back and for the first time I see fear in her eyes, but that’s good. She needs to fear me. It’s the only way. “I don’t understand. We were fine, incredible, and now you’re flipping out, completely someone else? It doesn’t make any sense. What happened?”

  I stab my finger at her. “I’m simply seeing clearly.”

  “And what do you see?”

  I don’t want to say it, but my mouth is moving and soon the words have left my lips. “A talentless Playboy bunny who’s better off back in Cali-fucking-fornia.”

  The hurt’s all over her face, but she doesn’t buy it. “What the hell is wrong with you? This isn’t you at all.”

  I jump towards her. “How the fuck would you know what I am? You think just because we screwed a couple of times we’re somehow soulmates, that we’re going to go home and get married, start a family and buy an SUV to cart them around in. If that’s what
you’re thinking, you’re delusional. If that’s what you’re thinking, you don’t know me at all.”

  Keep going.

  I shake my head, the water fanning out but the action does nothing to relive the sudden migraine crushing my skull. “Jason, your cop friend? Why did you have him look into us?”

  That gets her. “How did you…?”

  I laugh, looking up to a murky sky. “Does it matter? I have contacts too, you know.”

  “You don’t even have the internet.”

  “I don’t need it to know you’re sticking your nose in places where it doesn’t belong, dangerous fucking places.”

  She throws her arms wide, drops her board and walks closer, the rain whipping across her face, her hair stuck to her cheeks in flaxen tendrils. “How many times do I have to say it? I. Can. Handle. Myself. I called a friend, yes. I had him run your names to be on the safe side, to get an idea of who these guys I’m staying with are, and you know what? You’re ghosts. You don’t exist.”

  “And that’s a problem?”

  She replies “Yes,” but she doesn’t sound sure.

  “We’re ghosts for a reason.”

  “So tell me?” she pleads, pounding against my chest with her hand. “Tell me so I can help, understand, fucking something?”

  I let the blows fall. “I can’t and, frankly, I don’t want to.”

  Lux wipes away tears, rain, the ocean, ten types of water and all of it salty. “I thought you trusted me.”

  It’s killing me to do this to her, but it has to be done.

  “I barely know you.” The words are poison in my mouth, acidic.

  She looks to the ground, sniffs back more tears. Even when she’s sad she’s adorable. “Is this really what it’s come to? I told you the first time we met and I’m getting really, really fucking sick of saying it over and over and over again—I can handle myself. Whatever you’re mixed up in, we can face it together, right?”

  No.

  I’m not going to put someone I love in danger, even if it means kissing happiness goodbye forever. If Lux got hurt, killed, because of me I could never forgive myself. Enough people have paid for my crimes already. “You have no idea. You think we have something special, a connection?” A pause, don’t even know if I can do, but I’m in too deep now. “Honestly? You’re just another fuck, another pussy.”