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

  Deacon picks up another bottle, tosses it in their direction. “Just get the fuck out of here, will you?”

  The two brothers go off giggling and shoving one another.

  Deacon and I sit there silently watching the fire for a while.

  Finally, I break the silence. “You really care for them, don’t you?”

  He kicks a can into the fire. “Who, Dumb and Dumber?”

  I tuck my legs up under myself. “You’re not fooling me. You’re soft as cotton candy under all that muscle and bravado.”

  He glances down between his legs. “You sure?”

  I push away the thought of his hard cock. “You’re deflecting again.”

  “Am not.”

  “Are too.” I shift in my chair again, an odd heat gathering between my legs that has nothing to do with the fire. “I dig it, you know.”

  “Dig it like Samuel L. Jackson digs it?”

  “I respect what you’re doing,” I correct. “It can’t have been easy.”

  He takes a pull of his beer. “It wasn’t. You ask a lot of questions.”

  “You told me you prefer women of action.”

  He looks across. “I do.”

  The air’s electric between us, charged. It would take seconds to close the distance between us, to jump into this lap and take his zipper down, kiss him while he slowly slides himself inside me.

  Holy Horndog, Batman.

  Why do I feel like this? Why this man? This… I don’t know what he is. A trouble-maker, someone who’s lost their way, a vagabond, family patriarch? It seems I still haven’t met the true Deacon Hunt and until I do I’m better off not allowing myself to fall for him, to take those final steps towards hot, skin-on-skin sex only a bad boy alpha male like him can deliver.

  The moment passes and we resume watching the fire.

  I don’t know what I see in those flames, perhaps my old life burning away, the last embers of it trying to stay alive but soon to be snuffed out. For the first time in a long time I truly don’t know what tomorrow will bring only that I’m excited to find out.

  *

  We train in the pool in the morning, the brothers deciding it’s too flat to head out and instead standing on the sidelines hollering and heckling.

  It doesn’t stop as we head back inside. Bo and Razor decide to fight it out in darts down at the pub. I’m exhausted. It seems all I want to do is sleep these days—train all day, work all night. It’s taking it out of me.

  You could have done this back home, you know?

  There’s no Deacon back home, my mind retorts, my clit twitching in agreement.

  “I’m going to hang here,” says Deacon. “I’ll be in my room. Oh, and Lux.” He taps a piece of paper on the table. “Someone named Jason called earlier this morning, left his number if you need it.”

  Bo makes kissing sounds… before Deacon clips him in the ear.

  “Keep walking, fucker.”

  I watch two brothers go out the window, wait for Deacon’s door to close before dialing the number.

  As before, the ringtone seems endless before Jason picks up.

  “Jason, hi,” I start, sure to keep my voice as quiet as possible.

  “Luxy Lux. How you been?”

  “Good. Really good. What you got for me?”

  He huffs. “So, I had a look into your boys.”

  “And?”

  “Ain’t nobody by those names ever lived in Newport, let alone California. I searched cross-checked ‘Razor’, ‘Bo’ and ‘Deacon’, but the only matches were for a Deacon Hunt in Alabama, and he died in 1977. I can’t imagine that’s who you’re looking for.”

  I’m practically whispering, phone cupped close to my mouth. “So they’re ghosts. Is that what you’re telling me?”

  “That’s what I’m telling you. Whoever these guys are, they’re hiding something. The problem’s what, and why.”

  “Thanks. I’ll look into it.”

  “Anything else I can help you with?”

  “A couple of Baby Ruths would be nice.”

  “They don’t have chocolate over there?”

  “They don’t seem to share our fascination with peanut-chocolate treats, sadly.”

  “I’ve always wanted to visit Australia, you know. Seen any kangaroos?”

  I laugh. “The only furry creatures you’ll find around here live down at the pub.”

  “The pub?”

  “The bar.” Jesus, this place really is starting to take me over.

  “Right. You stay safe, you hear.”

  “I will,” but even as I say it I can’t help the small pang of suspicion that’s begun to grow inside me.

  CHAPTER TEN

  DEACON

  No one asked Lux to become our live-in chef, but she seems to have taken on the role regardless, even offering to help paint the back room on the weekend. She wanted to give me cash from work, pay for her board, but I wouldn’t have it. She almost feels like family, which is precisely why I can’t let my dick rule my head.

  I look to Razor. “Where’s Bo?”

  Razor lifts his shoulders, stuffing toast into his face. Oddly, we’ve become fond of Vegemite over these last few months. It seems the trick is to be sparing with it, not suck it down by the spoonful. “Don’t know, bro. He took off late last night and hasn’t come home yet.”

  It’s odd. We always tell each other where we’re going. “He didn’t say where he was headed?”

  Another shrug. “Beats me. Midnight booty call with Mrs. McLoughlin for all I know.”

  While I try to brain bleach that image out, I notice Lux is watching us.

  I look out the windows, the clouds growing even greyer, but that ain’t going to stop us spending time together.

  I stand. “Grab your board, Hollywood. We’re going out.”

  *

  Bo’s leaning against the railing when we return, a beer between his hands.

  “Hey,” Lux waves.

  “Hey,” he replies.

  “I’ll meet you inside,” I tell her. “Don’t use all the hot water, you hear?”

  She salutes. “Yes, Dad,” heading inside.

  I place my board down and draw Bo into the corner of the verandah. “Where the fuck were you last night? Razor said you went out late.”

  Bo shakes his head. “Fucking Razor, the dibber-dobber.”

  “Where were you?” I press.

  “Easy. It was for the greater good.”

  I tighten. “What was for the greater good?”

  He lowers his voice, watching the door. “Our friend, the peeping tom? He won’t be bothering us anymore.”

  Shit. I come closer. “What the fuck did you do?”

  Bo takes a deep breath before speaking. “I went over there to the motel and sorted him out, gave him a real working over. He knows nothing about us. He wanted her, wanted to take her, fuck her, whatever—sick fuck, but I laid down the law, let him know he was not fucking welcome.”

  I prod him in the chest. “You should have talked to me first.”

  Bo puts his hands up. “You always said we have to protect our own. Lux is part of that now. I wasn’t about to let that cocksucker, what? Snatch her, rape her? Who knows what he fucking wanted?”

  “He didn’t tell you?”

  Bo laughs, almost seems proud. “Not with a mouth full of blood. The guy might have looked like a Hell’s Angel, but he was a pussy like all the others. He fucking begged me, offered me cash not to break his jaw.”

  “Did you?”

  He shakes his head, holding up his hands. “I did it old school, pounding him like a bag of fucking meat until he was blubbering like a baby on the bathroom floor.”

  There was a time before all this when Bo was the quietest of us, when he wouldn’t have dreamed of getting involved in an actual fight. Things have changed. They’ve changed because of me and my actions. I can’t say it’s been for the better.

  I have to ask. “Is he…?”

  Bo leaps back. “No
. No. Jesus, I didn’t go that far.”

  “He’s gone then?”

  “Watched him go myself. We got lucky.”

  I grab him by the shirt, can’t place where this sudden burst of anger is coming from. “Lucky? Fuck. You put us all at risk.”

  “I was only trying to protect us, protect her.”

  I let him go. “Did you leave any evidence?”

  He tilts his head. “You taught me better than that, bro.”

  I clap him on the shoulder. “Okay. It’s done. Let’s just forget about it.”

  “What’s done?”

  Fucking Sergeant Bill fucking Wilson walks around the corner of the house, stopping below us with his hands behind his back. He’s out of uniform, but that doesn’t mean he’s not on the job.

  “Nothing, officer,” says Bo. “We were just having a quiet family chat.”

  The sergeant looks down at his feet before looking up. “Say, you boys haven’t seen an individual around,” he points to his neck, “tattoo of a crown of thorns here, real lowlife looking?”.

  I cut a glance to Bo. “Can’t say we have. Why’s that?”

  If the sergeant did overhear us, he’s not letting on. “I got word someone matching that description was seen in the area, some fucking criminal.”

  “Who?” I ask.

  The sergeant smiles weakly. “Nasty rapist scum, missed parole back in the big city.”

  I exchange another look with Bo. “And you thought because, what, we have tattoos we might know them?”

  The sergeant’s a pretty shit cop if he didn’t notice the stranger in town, his fucking stolen car at the motel. Then again, between the pub and his desk, the sergeant doesn’t seem to get out much. Drifters and dirt-bags come and go from Finke all the time. Maybe our friend really did go unnoticed.

  The sergeant continues to smile up at us. “As they say, like attracts like.”

  “As we said,” Bo spits down, “we ain’t seem him”.

  “Who said it was a him?”

  The sergeant gives a small salute. “See you around, boys.”

  We watch him walk off just as Lux pokes her head through the front door. “Everything alright?”

  “Sure is,” I reply, but I can’t help the sickening foreboding that has set up shop deep inside my gut. Maybe we did get lucky. The stranger wasn’t here to hunt us, but he was here to do harm. Better for us if he’s as far away as possible. All kinds of horrors lurk in the shadows around here. Sometimes they need to be flushed out. Perhaps Bo should have taken him out, one less rapist clogging up the world.

  I need a distraction. “Say,” I call to Lux before she disappears inside, “how do you feel about a midnight dip?”

  *

  It’s a cloudless night, the moon casting a silvery staircase over the swell. I ease on the throttle and bring us around into the bay.

  Lux blows into her hands.

  I cut the throttle and drop anchor, watch as it disappears down into the black. “You nervous?”

  “Nervous, cold—same thing, isn’t it?”

  I nod to the sky. “Just remember, the darkest nights produce the brightest stars”.

  She laughs into her hands. “My god. Where did you pick that one up from?”

  “It’s working, isn’t it? I bet you’re wet already,” I look over the side of the boat, “or at least you will be soon enough. You ready?”

  Her eyes are pearly saucers in the moonlight. She looks ethereal, beautiful. “Let’s do this.”

  I check through the gear—the tanks, the regulators. It’s good to go. I help her get everything into position before spitting into my mask and moving the saliva around. I sling it over my head, hold up my thumb. She nods, sitting on the edge of the inflatable.

  I sit next to her, back to the water, reach over and switch her light on. I turn on my own and place the regulator in my mouth. She does the same.

  I nod. One. Two. Three.

  We both fall back into the water, diving into the icy depths of the ocean.

  Most people are terrified of the water at night, but I’ve always found it oddly calming. There’s something about the silence and darkness that makes it comforting—the rest of the world shut out and only an alien landscape left free of worldly worries.

  I sweep the light around, a school of whiting swirling ahead.

  I look back. Lux glides smoothly behind me, flashlight beam scanning left and right. I point into the distance. She gives a thumbs-up in acknowledgement.

  The nursery lies a short distance out from the point. It doesn’t take us long to spot the first shark. As expected, it’s a great white, maybe four or five feet, a juvenile. Still, Lux freezes.

  I swim back and take her free hand, direct my torch back to the shark. It circles above, its underside pale and smooth, the beady eyes of a master predator unmoving. It’s beautiful here in its natural habitat.

  I feel the water shift behind us, turning to find a much larger white, twelve feet or more, coasting by. It pays us no attention, the light averting it more than anything else.

  I see Lux watching it with eyes wide and alert. I squeeze her hand and she squeezes back, only the intermittent psssht of our regulators audible.

  The two sharks swim past the lights. Hand in hand, I direct us to a small opening in the rocks running under the point. It’s narrow. I push Lux ahead of me, hands on her ass as I guide her to the surface.

  We break through at the same time.

  Lux lets the regulator fall from her mouth, staring up at the domed ceiling of the sea cave in wonder. Treading water, she breathes heavily, words rushed. “You never told me about this.”

  I start leading us to the edge. “I wanted it to be a surprise.”

  I take off my mask and tank, heaving it up onto a platform of rock. I pull myself up and reach down, taking Lux’s gear before pulling her from the water to stand beside me.

  She looks up where, thirty feet above, a small opening in the roof of the cave sends a muted column of light beaming into the pool we emerged from, casting it in mercurial light.

  I place my hands on my hips, more than warm enough in this wetsuit now the initial shock has passed. “You’re shaking.” I reach out and pull her against me, feel the way her heart pounds against my chest even through the thick neoprene.

  She doesn’t protest. “I’ve seen sharks in the wild before, during the day, but never like that.”

  “Sharks hunt at night, but they’re one of the most misunderstood creatures in the world. You respect them, they respect you.”

  “Until you become their next meal,” she finishes.

  I smile, look down into those rain-blue eyes and I know this is my future, my life. When I look at Lux my past is forgiven and forgotten. I can be the man I want to be.

  We stare, holding each other’s gaze.

  We don’t move a muscle, savoring the moment.

  The whisper of the ocean plays out around us, a deep and driving desire suddenly overwhelming me until I have no choice but to take action, to make her mine.

  I take her by the back of the neck and pull her into it. It’s a kiss that tastes of sweat and seawater and sex, a delicate mingling of mutual desire. She abandons herself to it, pressing her tongue against my own and letting it play there wet and warm. When we finally break, she pants, one trembling breath after another as I push an errant tendril of hair from her face.

  It’s happening and you are powerless to stop it. Why would you? You deserve to be happy just as much as anyone else, more perhaps.

  My head’s talking, but my body is already across the line, my cock painfully hard, its fleshy head thinking only about pressing itself between her lips and running deep, fucking her full.

  As I touch her, I know this is what I have been longing for since the very start, since the first time I breathed life back into her and we became one, connected for all time. In this moment I don’t ever want anyone else—something I never thought I’d say, not after…

  “Hell
o,” I say, as if we were meeting for the very first time.

  “Hello,” she replies, hand running between us.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  LUX

  We kiss hard, his hand gripping the back of my neck tight, the other reaching for the zip at my back and pulling, peeling away my wetsuit until it hangs heavy around my hips, my nipples brushing against the wet neoprene of his suit.

  He takes a breast in his hand, lets the weight of it conform to his hand, my nipple rising against his palm stiff and needy.

  Never breaking the kiss, he reaches back and draws his own zipper down, pulling his arms out of his wetsuit and lifting me under the ass, holding me afloat as our bare chests rub and press, my pussy growing warm and wet against him.

  We break apart and I fight for oxygen gazing into his verdant eyes, my exposed skin thick with goose bumps and electric anticipation.

  He kneels before me and tugs the wetsuit from my body, helps me to step out of it before lifting me once more and placing me onto the rock, cold and wet against my back. There, he lies between my legs, eyes watching mine, light kisses slowly trailing down my neck, my breasts, my stomach, working lower and lower until I can feel his breath, hot and heavy, between my legs.

  There’s a bright sheen of moisture on my thighs exposed by the moonlight. I can smell my excitement, my arousal filling the air, beckoning him to take me, caress me, kiss me in my most intimate place.

  He starts with little love bites against the clammy flesh of my inner thighs, slowly working his way towards the molten heat between them. His fingers run to my core, searching and probing, parting my flesh before lodging themselves deep in welcoming sex.

  I gulp in air, bent as a bow, looking down to concentrate on the sight of this man, this god, drawing to the cleft between my buttocks and slowly, leisurely, licking his way upwards until his tongue is wrapped around the sensitive button of my clit.

  The texture of his tongue is incredible. He licks with the flat of it, the tip, always moving, always shifting and adding more pressure, less, until the sides of my thighs are slick and warm.

  I tilt my head back and catch what air I can. His fingers slide as far as they can inside my body. I feel their entry like an electric shock, the way they curl and press against the roof and the sensitive walls of my pussy. It tightens around them, a noose.