Annabelle

 

I had been home for a grand total of three days. My last semester at college had been so bad that I was seriously considering dropping out. I’d been keeping that little tidbit of happiness to myself since arriving home in Mount Rose, but I should have known it would have gotten out eventually. My father wasn’t the type to resist poking and prodding until he got whatever information he was looking for.

 

Probably it made him a good businessman, but I had always thought it had made him a terrible father.

 

“It’s a really good school and I expect your performance to improve next fall,” my father told me as he combed back his thick salt and pepper hair. He was attractive, despite being in his early sixties. That was because my father was all about appearances, about taking care of his body so he looked like the suave, charming ladies’ man that the Mount Rose population seemed to appreciate so much.

 

I, however, didn’t appreciate it.

 

“The school is fine, Dad,” I told him, folding my arms across my chest. I was still wearing that pearly white dress from dinner that evening, looking like the sweet little angel that he liked to sell to the public, especially during re-election years. It was itchy from the sheer overlay on the silky fabric and made me want to fidget. “But I really wanted to talk to you about that University of Arizona program.”

 

He snorted, loosening his tie. We were home, so he could let out some slack from his otherwise immaculate appearance, though I never saw him really tone it down. Even his workout attire looked like it belonged on a high-end model—or on a store mannequin. “We’ve been over this,” he told me, and I felt myself sag. We had been over this. It never ended well. “Arizona is halfway across the country and its business program isn’t half as good as the one at Rose University.”

 

I gritted my teeth because it was the only thing I could do to keep from screaming at him. I’d told him a thousand times that I didn’t want to study business, but would he listen? “Dad, they have a really decent minor program, and I can major in nursing—”

 

“I don’t know where you got that stupid idea from, but you are not going to spend your life working around sick people all day. You’re going to come back home, settle down with a nice young man, and run the family business. This has always been the plan, sweetie.”

 

He said it all without so much as glancing at me. Instead he slipped off his tie and hung it on one of the hooks in his closet. Then he took off his jacket and hung it over the door and took off his vest, too. Next, he worked his cufflinks until he had them undone, too, and placed them carefully in the jewelry box on the vanity. All of this he did automatically, familiarly, making him look like some robot just going through the motions because that was all his programming allowed for him to do.

 

I hated it. With everything that was me, I hated it.

 

“Not my plan!” I finally bit out, turning on my heel to storm off.

 

But of course, he wasn’t going to let me get the last word. “Don’t you walk away from me, Annabelle Catherine Louis! We’re not finished!”

 

I cringed at the use of my full name. Like I was five all over again and throwing a tantrum because my teddy bear tea party was interrupted by one of daddy’s business friends. “Yes, we are!” I threw back over my shoulder, marching towards my bedroom. Before I slammed the door, I swiveled to face him and shouted, “I am not going back to Rose University! And I’m not running your stupid business!” Then I slammed it in his face even as he started yelling back at me.

 

I heard him through the door for a little while, his voice growing angrier with every word, but I ignored what he was saying altogether. It was the same old crap anyway. Go to college, study business. Come home and get married to one of my rich friend’s sons. Run the family business, get knocked up, start a family, smile pretty.

 

Blah, blah, blah.

 

I didn’t care about any of that. Not in the least. I had no interest in running the family business. How was I supposed to be interested in running some trucking company? Hell, it would probably have been more interesting to do the driving.

 

Muttering about my father’s unjust tyranny, I began tearing off my dress, tugging at the zipper in the back and jerking the sleeves down off my shoulders. I stepped out of the thing, leaving it puddled on the floor at my feet so I was standing in my bedroom in only my kitten heels and my underwear. It was white but lacy since that was the only way I was getting away with any kind of sexy in that dress.

 

“This is so unfair!” I griped, beginning to pace my room.

 

After a while, my father yelled out a final decree, “You will go to college next year!” then stomped off down the hall, slamming his own door.

 

I took a moment to glare, then resumed my pacing. All I wanted was out of my father’s house. Well, out of his house and a free ticket to a nursing school with excellent accreditation. And maybe that was asking for a lot, but he was griping about sending me to college and doing better and making something of myself, but that was what I wanted to do all along! I just didn’t want to do it the same way he did.

 

I’d considered just going off on my own and winging it and had even run away from home one summer after I’d returned from boarding school to find my father married to some trailer park hussy with a nineteen-year-old son who I’d, thank god, never met. That hadn’t gone so well and I’d been grounded for a year afterwards, but the idea of taking off hadn’t left me since.

 

One of these days I’d do it; I’d been promising myself since then. Yeah right, I thought miserably, plopping down onto my queen-sized bed with the lacy pink duvet. I didn’t know the first thing about living on my own. No money, no job, not even a car—I was sure dad would have that taken away instantly if I tried to get out. No, if I wanted the money that came from my father’s lucrative business, I’d have to play things his way and eventually run said business.

 

Except I was terrible at all things business. That was my decided major—decided by counselors and my father, not me—and I had bombed enough of my classes this last semester to get myself on academic probation.

 

Father was not happy to say the least, but what did he expect?

 

I was still fuming about my rotten luck when I got the text message from Raquel.

 

Tonight. Devil’s Night. Dress to impress.

 

I felt a smile slip over my features. I knew just how to get back at my father and how to remind him that, whatever he thought or felt, I was old enough to make my own choices.

 

***

 

Hours later, I was putting the finishing touches on my makeup—dark, smoky, with a streak of popping cherry red on my lips—when I got the next text message. It was Raquel again, letting me know she was outside and down the street to avoid immediate detection.

 

I went to my window and shoved it open. I shoved The Gentle Caress of Business: How To Be a Suave Entrepreneur In Today’s Economy into the windowsill with some satisfaction.

 

About time I found something useful to do with the damn thing, I thought in all seriousness. I had cracked it maybe twice in my last year at school and the gibberish inside was so bad that I’d quickly decided it wasn’t worth the effort of even trying to figure it out.

 

Three hundred dollars down the drain for absolutely nothing. And could I sell it back? Of course not. They wouldn’t be using the book for the coming year, meaning they wouldn’t buy it back. Not that it was any of my money. Daddy was footing the bill for this one, as right he should. After all, I didn’t want to go to business school. This was his dream; he could pay for it.

 

The book would keep the window open tonight just enough that I could climb back through when I got home without having to worry anything about it. This had all been so much easier at our last house—I’d had a ground floor bedroom instead of a second story one. After the death of my stepmother, we’d moved. Dad said something about being heartbroken, but I was pretty sure it was only an excuse to have a bigger, better house. He was like that, mixing emotions with other, ulterior motives.

 

My stepmother had been gorgeous with thick dark brown hair and deep, seductive eyes. Top it off with a smile that could charm a blind man and a set of huge breasts that were maybe real, maybe not, and it was easy to see why he’d been taken with her. But I’d always resented the marriage.

 

I tried not to think of her like that, some part of me sure it was unfair. Good for her for marrying up, right? But it was hard to see that perspective most of the time. She had been all looks and no breeding, meaning that my father had married her for her looks, because he was all about pedigree. He claimed love, but I knew my father well enough at that point to know better.

 

He was just interested in banging something closer in age than my own mother had been.

 

I felt myself tearing up at the memory of my mom, a sweet woman who had played the role of rich stay at home mom to a T. She’d made delicious double chocolate chip cookies and she’d pick me up from school every day. I was ten when she died and around fourteen when Gabrielle, my stepmother, had taken her place. Maybe that was why I could just never forgive her.

 

How could I forgive anyone trying to replace my mother?

 

With force, I shoved the thoughts aside. If my dad wanted to use grief to move to a bigger house, what did I care? If he wanted to sleep with a woman half his age, go for it. It no longer matters to me, I told myself firmly.

 

Throwing my right leg out the window, I straddled the sill, wishing for a second I were wearing sweats or something rather than the clingy, low-slung jeans. And the heels, damn it, they did not make my job easier. Beauty is pain and all that.

 

I felt around until I got a foot stuffed into the trellis. When I felt secure, I pulled my other leg out, using my arms to hold myself until I could begin my decent. The window slipped down quickly after that and slammed down hard onto my textbook.

 

I grinned smugly.

 

I climbed the rest of the way down the trellis, finally dropping down to the grass on the front lawn. Making sure no one was around and that my dad wasn’t sitting at a window somewhere watching me, I made my escape. Quickly, I darted across the lush lawn and made for the front gate. I opened it up, wincing as it squeaked, then ran down the street to the red Mustang that was parked just a little way up.

 

Raquel was seated in front and popped the door open for me. She gave me a once over, then whistled between her teeth, ignoring her gum. “Hell of an outfit you threw on tonight.”

 

I poked my tongue out at her. “You said Devil’s Night. What did you think I was going to put on?”

 

“Something that covered your tits,” Megan joked from the backseat, tugging at my t-shirt. It was ripped, too, the tears showing off my cleavage and displaying hints of the hot pink bra I had on underneath.

 

I swatted her hand away, but laughed anyway. Both of the other girls were dressed much the same, Raquel with leather pants and a red crop top that looked like it might have been borrowed from the movie Grease and Megan with her miniskirt so short that I’d know what color panties she was wearing by the end of the night. That was the point of Devil’s Night, something the three of us had come up with our junior year of high school. It was a night of fun, of being wild and crazy and trashy when the rest of our lives were all about being perfect little angels. Tonight was about going to the bar and doing shots. Tonight was about picking a man at the bar and riding him until he came. Tonight was about rebellion, and damn it all if I wasn’t good at it.

 

We pulled up outside of a roadhouse called No Man’s Land. The place was as close to seedy as Mount Rose could get and it was only a very obvious set of loophole laws that let the bar get away with operating in the first place. My father had been campaigning to get the place shut down for years, ever since his first election, but people weren’t having it. Everyone liked to pretend like they were the upper class, high end, didn’t do anything trashy bunch, but in the end, everyone liked to let loose once in a while.

 

Which was why we had to be a little careful, but not very.

 

Raquel drove around the little place before finding a parking lot off to the side. It was packed, with half a dozen motorcycles at least. It made me tremble with anticipation.

 

Bikers were my favorite. Dirty, brawling, muscular bikers. The kind that liked black leather and tattoos and doing dirty things in bed. I was sure to find someone to piss my father off with tonight. Not that he ever had to find out, of course, but if he did, I wanted him to know I’d picked an especially uncouth ruffian. He’d hate that.

 

We walked up to the bar and flashed nothing but smiles at the huge, burly man sitting at the side. A bouncer, but he didn’t care about ages. So long as no one caused trouble, we could stay. The moment we picked a fight—or the cops got called—we were out of there like a bat out of hell. There were laws and then there were rules. If you wanted to break the law, you had to follow the rules.

 

As soon as I stepped into the dingy little place, I felt the intensity of it. The energy wrapped itself around me like smoke. There were people all over the place, laughing and drinking, looking like they were constantly on the verge of starting a fight with one another.

 

I loved it.

 

And what I loved even more than that was the sense that someone was watching me. I felt the intensity of the gaze before I spotted who it belonged to. It was the kind of look that slipped over your body like a pair of hands—measured and curious, tugging at clothing and hair, squeezing at supple flesh. It was almost as good as an actual man standing in front of me, dragging his calloused hands over my body.

 

Almost.

 

I searched out the heated gaze, glancing around the bar until I spotted a man sitting at a table on the other side of the room. The first thing I noticed was that he was absolutely gorgeous. His hair was dark and thick, just barely tickling the back of his neck and hanging ruefully down into his eyes which were equally dark and framed by thick lashes. His muscles rippled beneath his tight t-shirt and I felt a little thrill run through me at the sight of his tight leather pants. Maybe it was my imagination or my own desire, but I imagined that they were extra tight in the crotch.

 

The second thing I noticed was the curling tattoo on his bicep. A rose. Anyone who didn’t know anything about this town might think it was an odd choice for a badass biker to get. A rose? What sort of tough guy got a rose? But this wasn’t just any rose. It was a fully bloomed red rose with blood dripping off its petals and a skull woven into the silky folds. The curling stem was like a dagger, poised to strike, to kill at the first available moment. And beneath the rose read Reaper’s Thorns.

 

A shudder of anticipation raced through me and I thought, Perfect.

 

There was only one thing that made a sexy, wrong side of the tracks bad boy even more appealing to me: being a member of the Reaper’s Thorns. Why? Because they were my father’s nemesis. He’d been trying to get rid of them since before even this shitty little roadhouse. They were the bane of his existence, the thing that brought in the crime and drugs and whatever else he deemed bad. Like our sleepy little town was incapable of doing any of that stuff on its own.

 

Dumb, considering that you couldn’t have much of a drug business if no one wanted to buy any of it. But I didn’t bother arguing that. Instead, I just deliberately sought out the dangerous and sexy men of the Reaper’s Thorns.

 

I hadn’t let any of them into my panties before, but I had been spending a lot of pointless time at school and we hadn’t had a Devil’s Night since our senior year.

 

Never too late to start, I thought with glee.

 

I let my eyes roam over him, admiring his flat stomach and his bulging biceps. He was lounging back in his chair, facing me, his dark eyes smoldering with a heat that told me he wanted to do bad, bad things to me. Dirty things. I shivered at that heat and felt myself leaning towards it at the exact same time. I wanted him to do the things he was thinking of. All of them.

 

“I’m going to go get us some drinks!” Raquel yelled eagerly in my ear before peeling off to head to the bar.

 

Megan let out a whoop of victory and was about to turn to head to the bar with Raquel, but I grabbed her before she got the chance, quickly making up my mind for a pick of the night.

 

I pulled Megan close to me so I could whisper in her ear. She leaned towards my lips to hear me better. “You see that guy in the back? The one who’s staring?”

 

It took her a minute to look around and try to figure out who I was talking about. But as soon as she figured it out, I could practically hear her grin as she said, “The one with the bulge in his leather pants?”

 

I laughed softly, pleased that she’d noticed, too. It told me that I wasn’t just imagining it because I wanted it to be there. “That’s the one.”

 

“Is he your pick for the night?” she asked me curiously, dragging her eyes over him, assessing him.

 

I nodded. Technically, you didn’t have to call your pick for the night. You could have whoever you wanted in the bar and it didn’t matter if he’d been with one of your friends before or he was just a stranger passing through. But at the end of junior year during a Devil’s Night, Raquel and Megan had ended up hitting on the same guy throughout the night. It was a friendly rivalry, but not one we liked to repeat. Neither of them said it outright, but little hints dropped here and there had suggested that maybe they’d shared the man—I didn’t know if that meant at the same time and was never brave enough to ask.

 

Either way, I’d decided that calling my pick was the smartest move and the girls had agreed. Now, we did it most times.

 

“He’s sexy,” she commented, then laughed. “You think you can get him?”

 

“You doubt me?” I asked, mock affronted.

 

She laughed. “I’m just saying he’s quite a catch. And I’m maybe betting you can’t bag him.”

 

Spurred on by her bet and by my memory of my father’s stern and unfair control of every aspect of my life, I decided immediately to up my game.

 

I’m going to win that bet tonight.

 

I turned my head slightly to make sure he was still watching me. He was. Letting a sultry smile slide across my plump lips, I leaned closer to Megan. I put a delicate hand on her hip, hooking it into the waistband of her mini skirt. She rose a single eyebrow in surprise, but didn’t shove me off or tell me to knock it off. Instead, her smile matched mine.

 

“Oh, you’re going to play hardball tonight, are you?” she commented as I got closer to her until I was all but pressed up against her body.

 

I put my lips right beside her ear, licked along her lobe, and said, “Yep.”

 

She laughed riotously at this. “Jeez, your dad really pissed you off tonight. Oh well. Fine by me. Let me know if you want a hot make out session to get your boy warmed up—or if you’re interested in something more fun. Otherwise, I’m going to go get a drink. Don’t forget our little bet.”

 

Looking over at him again, I saw that he looked strained and that one of his large hands was reaching down to adjust himself. It made my smile widen. My little moment with Megan had worked him up a bit I could tell.

 

I wasn’t really into girls like that, though Megan could go either way depending on the night and her mood. And if it meant I could reel him in for certain, I would make out with Megan for a bit. A bet was a bet and I was all about winning. And tonight, it was about a little more than that, too. It was about showing my father that he couldn’t control me. And I didn’t think there was any man in this room better equipped to help than that sultry man across the way. I just needed a plan.

 

I skirted around the edges of the group, stopping to flirt with someone here and there or to grab a drink with Megan and Raquel. But the entire time, I kept my eyes on my dangerous Thorn. I let my eyes slide over his body and linger on his crotch whenever I knew he was looking—which seemed to be always. I’d lick my lips and arch my back, causing my butt to stick out and my breasts to push forward.

 

But I didn’t approach him. No, the key to snagging a guy wasn’t in approaching him. It was in letting him come to you.

 

And finally, he did.