Unleashed (A Bad Boy Stepbrother Romance) (15 page)

I do give a fuck.

I do care.

That’s the truth of it. I care, and I care a lot.

She stole my attention the very first time I saw her at the beginning of the school year. I had to make up my credits after taking a year out to fight.

I tore through that tour. Went sixteen and nil. All wins, no losses.

But Cassie… that first time I saw her, she was sitting right at the front of class, back rigidly erect, her mocha-brown hair neatly parted, so straight like it was ironed.

And there I was, uniform shirt untucked, top button undone, tie loose, and a whole lot of don’t-give-a-fuck in my attitude.

It was a fancy school, but fuck uniforms forever.

Except on the girls. Except on Cassie. She made it look good. Everything was so neat, so proper, so tidy. Every blouse had no creases, every skirt worn to knee-length. She had her socks pulled up, and her shoes were always shiny.

God, to get that skirt up her thighs… to tear that blouse open… the thought of it makes me rock hard in an instant.

I don’t know if it’s weird that I want to take that innocence, that steadfast purity. I don’t know if that makes me an asshole.

All I know is that I want her. Want to taste every inch of her body, want to hold her in my hands, pin her against a wall.

Want to hear her moan my name, throw her head back against me while I drive into her from behind.

But more than that… I want to know her, what makes her tick.

She’s like me and she doesn’t even know it.

Driven, determined, competitive. She’s all fire, all motor. Like me. Be it wrestling, or cage fighting, or even boxing, I give it my all, go right to the end.

I never half-ass it.

And neither does she.

But all year Cassie barely even looked at me. I can remember it to this day. All the other girls in the classroom did, of course. But those girls weren’t my type.

Truth be told, once I met Cassie, nobody was my type anymore.

And that, there, is something that scares me. It’s a little secret I have, but you’d never fucking know it by looking at me.

I’ve not been with a girl since I saw Cassie that very first day of term.

Before that, sure, it was four new girls a week, never the same one twice. Well, maybe once or twice if she was real good.

But once I met Cassie… it was like all of that interest just drained out of me. I only wanted her.

Her eyes had wiped over me like I wasn’t even something to be acknowledged, and then they had gone right back to her textbook. There might have been a mild look of disgust on her face, like she’d just tasted something foul.

It was perfect. A girl seemingly immune to me. It wasn’t born out of insecurity, but out of
contempt!
God, that’s sexy.

I read the page header of her textbook as I walked to my customary seat at the back of the class:
A Brief History of Political Science.

I didn’t even fucking know that our school had political science electives.

And now I’m walking with her along Sunset Way, and the sound of the surf is in my ears, and the smell of salt is on the air, and I’m waiting for her to tell me to go, because I will if she does.

I don’t know why, exactly, but I will.

But she doesn’t say it. And we just keep walking. She veers onto the beach, and I walk there with her, feeling the soft sand beneath my shoes.

I feel it inside me, as I pull another drag from my cigarette, this growing ball of energy. I feel like I’ve got a fireball inside my gut, and it’s going to burst me at the seams.

She does things to me. Fuck, she really does.

And… and I like it. I like it and I hate it. If this was any other chick I just wouldn’t fucking care. But look at me, walking on the fucking
beach
in the late afternoon with her.

I never thought I’d be a cliché.

Jesus, if we were holding hands you could put us on a fucking advertisement!

“My father
is
a prick,” she says after a moment.

“Hey, it’s like a checklist,” I say. “Box one, daddy issues.
Check.
” I tick it off with my finger.

She scowls at me.

I don’t even know why I said it. It just came out of my mouth. I shrug. That’s who I am, why the fuck should I apologize for it?

“If you think I’ve got daddy issues, then you’ve got oedipal issues.” She flashes her eyes at me, challenging me. She thinks I don’t know what she’s talking about. It’s cute.

“No I don’t,” I say. “And that shit’s pretty much been debunked.”

“You know, for a dumbass jock, you have a surprising vocabulary.”

“I’m not a jock,” I say. “I don’t give a fuck about all that.”

“Right,” she says, rolling her eyes. I just grin at her again. “You don’t give a fuck. Tell me something new. But you
were
a school athlete. Wrestling champion, and you were quarterback of the football team? Seems pretty jockish to me.”

“Hey, I take care of my body. I’m better than everyone else at every sport. It was easy credits. I had half the school watching me at
practice
.”

“You’re so full of yourself.”

“So are you, just in a different way.”

“I am not full of myself!” she shouts.

That
got a rise out of her…

“Really?” I challenge, walking in front of her and turning around. I’m walking backwards now, and I see her eyes roam up and down my body. I can see she’s trying not to meet my eyes. It’s… it’s hot. She’s hot.

Now with the gown off, I can see the shape of her body. God, she’s got some hips on her, and thighs I’d caress for hours.

And her ass… she’s got it there, alright. It’s big, and it makes my hands feel empty.

She’s no Barbie-doll or fashion model. She’s got curves, and I love ’em. Just thinking about running my hands down her sides, over her hips, down the insides of her thighs… I’m straining to contain myself.

I don’t know exactly what it is about her, but she’s special, different. She’s got me all wound-up and she doesn’t even know it.

“Really,” she sniffs, looking toward the sea. “I’m definitely not full of myself.”

“Well, let me think. Today you’ve called me an idiot something like seven times, stupid maybe three times, and basically all your insults have been aimed at my intelligence. I’d say you’re pretty up yourself in a very particular way.”

“What, you a psychologist now?”

“See, you did it again. And I don’t have to be. Any
idiot
could see it.” I wink at her, and to my total surprise, I see just a flicker of a smile.

“You know, Chance, you’re not as interesting as you think you are.”

“I’m certainly more interesting than
you
thought I was,” I say.

“Try again,” she says, narrowing her eyes.

I take out a box of mints. I rattle it, but she just shakes her head, so I shrug, and pop two into my mouth.

She takes a deep breath, and I prepare myself for a lot of words.

“You think you’re like this mystery to be unraveled. Some kind of enigma. You think that girls like you not because you’re the quote-unquote
bad boy
on the outside… stop laughing.”

But I can’t help myself. She even did the finger air-quote gesture.

“You think you’re all hard on the outside and that actually you’re this interesting person on the inside and that everybody is just dying to puzzle you out, dying to unlock the
true you
.”

“Now
you
sound like the psychologist.”

“I’ve met your type before.”

“No you haven’t.”

“Yes I have.”

“Really?” I say, and I know I’m going to hate myself for letting the next words fly out of my mouth. But I do, because that’s me.

“How many guys like me want to spend time talking to you?”