Chapter One

Lia

 

I slammed the empty glass down on the bar and gestured for the barman to pour another. Beside me, I could feel the frown my cousin Anna shot me, but I chose to ignore her. One more shot of tequila and I might even forget she was there.

“Lia…” she began.

I waved her away as the barman poured another shot, shooting me a wink as he did. I grinned at him in return, pulling out the sexiest, most flirtatious smile I owned. Or what I hoped was flirty and not just sleazy.

“Lia…”

“Oh lighten up, Anna,” I snapped, turning my attention to her. “I didn’t move to this town so you could babysit me. I’m a big girl. I can look after myself.”

As if to prove my point, I raised the shot, smiled brightly at her, and downed it, wincing a little as the fiery liquid burned my throat. Anna’s frown deepened.

“I’m all for having fun Lia,” she said, “and God knows I’m in no position to judge…”

I nodded. “That’s right. So don’t judge.”

“But… I mean, have you even been drunk before?”

Now it was my turn to frown. “Sure I have.”

She tilted her head and stared at me pointedly.

“Well, I’ve been tipsy,” I admitted. “Same thing.”

“It’s not the same thing,” she countered as she gestured for the barman, ordering me a soda water. “Drink this. And wait here. I need to use the bathroom.”

I smiled brightly at her and sipped the soda water like the good girl I was, even though I really wanted another tequila shot.

But I’d always been a good girl. Always played by the rules and did exactly what was expected of me. Going to college and becoming an elementary school teacher, dating and then getting engaged to my high school sweetheart, whom my parents adored. I barely drank, never smoked, and rarely even swore. When Declan and I got engaged, we celebrated by making love in the pool room at his parents’ house. His parents were overseas, so there was no chance of being caught, or we wouldn’t have done something so risqué.

And yet I wanted something risqué. I wanted the thrill of being caught having sex.

Declan was sweet, but I wanted something more. Something basal and primal. Something dangerous and sexual and…

Something exactly like that guy across the bar.

The guy who was staring at me.

A tiny thrill ran up my spine. Normally, guys like that didn’t look at me, and normally when guys like that did look at me, I turned the other way. But not tonight. Not now. I was emboldened by drink, I was excited by a new life, and I was determined to find what I’d been missing all these years. Some kind of excitement, something wild and free and spontaneous.

“Do not tell me you are making eyes at Jacob McGaren.”

I glanced up at Anna, who I hadn’t heard return. She positioned herself in front of me so I had to look around her to get a glimpse of the guy again. “Who?”

She shook her head. “Jacob McGaren. Seriously, Lia, look away. You do not want his attention.”

“Really?” I wasn’t so sure of that. “Why not?”

“Because the guy is bad news.” She frowned. “He used to own that tattoo parlor in town but had to sell it to pay off his junkie wife’s debts.”

“He’s married?” Disappointment swirled in my stomach. I was looking for excitement, but I wasn’t looking to be a home wrecker.

“Not anymore. Although she’s around and still causes trouble. Now he’s a single dad who not only has two little girls but a sick mother to look after.”

I looked back at the guy who sipped his beer, watching me carefully. Next to him stood a woman in her mid- to late-twenties with bleach-blonde hair and an arm full of tattoos. She had a beer in hand and was talking animatedly, although he didn’t seem to be paying her too much attention.

“Sounds like a decent guy,” I replied.

“He is now. But he’s had his fair share of drama. His family are dead beats, his brothers have spent the last ten years in and out of prison, and his dad died inside. They’re into anything criminal—drugs, car stealing, break and enters—you name it, they’re into it.”

I took in the hard planes of Jacob McGaren’s face that were obvious even from across the bar, and the thick, corded muscles in his arms. He was dressed in a button-down shirt, but around his neck the various tattoos were visible, indicating he was covered in some serious ink. I shivered. I’d always been fascinated by tattoos. I had suggested to Declan once that we get matching ones, but he’d laughed as if it were the most ridiculous statement ever and reminded me how disappointed my parents would be if I got a tattoo.

I wondered how many tattoos Jacob McGaren had and what he looked like without his clothes on. Another shiver ran up my spine.

“Seriously, Lia,” Anna said earnestly now, drawing my attention back to her. “You came here for a fresh start. To get away from all that shit back home. Not create more drama.”

She was right. She was very right and I was glad I had Anna, my cousin and best friend, here to remind me. I was here to make a new life for myself, to get away from everything that happened in the past few months. My broken engagement, my broken heart, a fiancé still desperate for a reconciliation and parents who were devastated that their good girl was no longer playing by the rules. Not that I had done anything particularly dramatic. I’d merely called off my wedding twenty-four hours beforehand and then upped and moved interstate to live with Anna.

I’d had enough drama in the last few months. I didn’t need anymore.

“Oh damn,” Anna said, pulling out her phone and staring at it. “It’s Ellis. Give me a minute, okay?”

I nodded and watched as she made her way out of the bar to talk to her boyfriend. I sighed. Anna had her own issues with her possessive, jealous boyfriend. She really didn’t need me to make any more drama for her.

With Anna gone, I turned my attention to the crowded bar. It was a Friday night and busy, with all the tables full and the standing room busy. A band played on the small stage, belting out a familiar Foo Fighters song, and there were a bunch of girls on the dancefloor, dancing with abandon, not even caring who was watching them. I watched them. I watched them and wondered what it would be like to, for once, not worry about what anyone thought of me. To dance like that, so wanton and sexy.

I sighed. It was how I’d always been, for as long as I could remember. I liked to please people. The idea of someone not liking me, not thinking good things about me, or being disappointed in me? Well … I couldn’t think of anything worse.

Immediately, my thoughts turned to Declan and that familiar sick feeling curdled in my stomach. I’d disappointed him. I’d hurt him. I tried to remind myself that he’d hurt me first, sleeping with one of my bridesmaids only weeks before the wedding. I’d done the right thing in calling the whole thing off, but I couldn’t help the guilt that swirled. He’d made a mistake, yes, and he’d apologized profusely, but it was me who’d canceled everything. It was me who’d cost my parents thousands of dollars by refusing to marry Declan, who’d made my mother cry, who’d embarrassed my family by canceling the wedding like that. I could have gone through with it. I could have forgiven Declan, but somehow … I just couldn’t.

Whenever I thought about the reasons for calling off the wedding, it wasn’t because I pictured him cheating on me with Becky. It was because I remembered making love to him on the night we got engaged. How slow and tender he’d been, how he kissed me gently, and how I’d been left feeling somewhat disappointed when it was all over. I mean we’d had sex plenty of times before and it had always been the same—missionary, per functionary, sweet… I guess I’d just been hoping that by changing our relationship status our sex would ramp up a bit too.

“You need to stop thinking about whatever it is you’re thinking.”

I jumped at the deep, masculine voice in my ear and the warm brush of breath on my neck. I guessed who it was before I looked up, having already matched the voice to the darkly handsome man I’d seen across the bar. Jacob McGaren.

Color fled up my throat and stained my cheeks as I looked up into the bluest eyes I’d ever seen. I hadn’t been expecting that. From across the bar, it’d been difficult to see eye color, but with his almost black hair and darkly tanned skin, I’d expected him to have dark eyes to match. Not eyes as blue as the morning sky that made my stomach do tiny little cartwheels.

“Oh… I was just thinking…” I stammered, unsure what to say. I couldn’t really tell him I was thinking about the disappointing sex I’d had with my ex-fiancé.

He shook his head. “Don’t. Whatever it was made you look sad. And I want to see you smile again.”

I smiled and he laughed. “Wow. That was easy! You always do as you’re told?”

If only he knew. I turned back to the bar. “Pretty much.”

He nodded as if that made complete sense. “Let me buy you a drink.”

I glanced around, looking for Anna. “I told my cousin I wouldn’t drink anymore.”

“Anna’s your cousin? Well, I wouldn’t listen to drinking advice from Anna.” He frowned. “And besides, I want to see you smile again.”

“Well…” I hesitated. Anna would say I shouldn’t encourage him, that he was bad news and I didn’t need the drama. And Anna would be right and I would normally do what Anna said. Or Declan. Or my parents. Or my teachers. But right now, Anna wasn’t here. Nor was Declan, nor were my parents. It was just me, and for once I could make my own decisions.

Jacob gestured for the bartender, not giving me any choice in the matter.

****

The cold brick wall pressed into my back as Jacob slammed his mouth down on mine at the same time his hips rocked against me. He tasted like bourbon and mint. Desire, which had been stirring all night, exploded in my core, and heat began to spread through my body, chasing away the evening chill.

His mouth slanted, forcing mine open. Then his tongue tangled with mine and he was biting and sucking on me as if he couldn’t get enough. I returned his kisses, almost struggling to keep up beneath his desperate onslaught. I’d never been kissed this way.

Desperately. Passionately.

His hard body, pressed against the length of mine, thrummed with warmth and energy. He worked out, that much I was aware of as I took in the hard muscles that contrasted against my soft curves. My breasts were crushed against his solid chest, my butt against the cold brick wall behind us. I began to feel heady, almost dizzy, under the intensity of his kiss and the feeling of being utterly consumed by him. It was as if I were on the cliff edge, about to leap into something hot and fiery. And I wanted to jump, I wanted to jump so badly I actually began to ache with desire.

I had never ached with desire. I was twenty-five years old and I had never felt this way. I had never felt as if I might spontaneously combust beneath someone’s kisses, someone’s touch.

Jacob hands were braced on either side of me, almost shielding me, but now they moved, traveling the length of my body, over my shoulders, down my breasts, along my hips, and around my butt. He jerked me even harder against him and I heard a sound, almost like a tiny whimper or moan and realized, with a start, that it came from me.

“I want to take you home,” he whispered against my mouth. “I want to take you home and fuck you senseless.”

Something turned over in my stomach and that ache begin to build. I wanted that too. I wanted him to take me home and make feel more. More of what I had never felt before. I’d never been kissed like this before, I’d never been so brutally kissed in the cold, outside a bar, down an alley like this before. And I wanted more.

“But I can’t…” he murmured.

I stilled. Confused. But he just said…? “Wh-why?”

“I have my kids at home,” he whispered. “I don’t take girls back.”

His words and the way he spoke them made my heart swell a little. Over the past thirty minutes, before I’d found myself brazenly embraced with a man I barely knew. I had talked with Jacob. Mostly it was me flirting, but he’d shared a little about his girls with me, enough for me to get the sense that he loved them more than life itself. And the very fact he didn’t take girls back home, well, that just endeared him to me even more.

And at least he hadn’t changed his mind. He wanted me still.

“We … we can … go back to my place…” I stammered through his kisses, breathless, panting and heated with so much desire I thought I might explode. I wasn’t sure I would make it across town to the place I shared with Anna.

He nodded and then we were moving, Jacob’s hand locked against mine as he pulled me with him so fast I nearly had to run to keep up with him. We reached a battered old Toyota that was a faded red color. He unlocked it and opened the door for me, and I had my first moment of hesitation. And it was hesitation that shamed me.

Declan drove a Mercedes.

Jacob looked me. “Lia?”

I flicked my gaze back to him, shocked by the snobbish, judgemental thoughts which had suddenly jumped into my head.

Since when did I care what kind of car anyone drove? Since when did I judge someone simply because they had, or didn’t have, money? Jacob was obviously a good man. Anna had said that not only was he raising two daughters on his own but he also looked after his sick mother. He couldn’t afford things like fancy cars, and I shouldn’t have expected him to.

Besides, it was just one night. I wasn’t planning on moving in with him and becoming stepmom to his two kids. What did I care what sort of car he drove?

Still. Even as I slid into passenger seat and he closed the door, going around to the driver’s side to climb in, I couldn’t help feeling chastened by my thoughts.

When, and how, had I become so snobby?