Bad Boy Blues(68)

Only there’s one thing I totally ignored before.

I’m his prize, his most adored possession but only for now.

Only as long as he’s here.





Mine.

My prize.

She is my prize.

She. Is. My prize.





I’m his prize.

I’m someone’s prize. His.

I haven’t stopped smiling ever since he said that yesterday, after he made me come so spectacularly. And then, he straightened up my dress and I washed up in his bathroom, redid my hair and smoothed the wrinkles out of my dress before leaving his room.

Exactly like he told me I’d do.

He’s going to be here any minute. I’m watching the back door at the end of the hallway like it will burst open by itself and he’ll emerge all tall and handsome.

It should scare me that I didn’t even think of it, of someone seeing him getting in and out. I should have.

For all my rule-breaking, this job is important to me. This is the only thing I have that will get me back my house. The place filled with my parents’ memories. I can picture them in the living room, at the island in the kitchen, on the stairs, in the backyard.

In that house, they are alive and I’m not an orphan.

So yeah, I should’ve thought of all the details before inviting him over. But is it crazy that I find it sweet that he thought of them? That he wanted to protect me?

At seven o’ clock, the knock sounds.

He’s here.

I can tell by his knock. It’s loud and short. More like a pound. I rush to the door and throw it open.

Zach’s face is bowed but he lifts his eyes to look at me. I give him a blinding smile.

“You came.”

He takes a few seconds to check me out and my toes curl, his eyes moving up and down. I kinda dressed up for him. Nothing crazy. Just a form-fitting top that shows off my breasts and tiny shorts.

“Well, you did threaten to call the cops on me,” he drawls, bringing his eyes back up to mine. “And fuck up my bike. And no one touches my bike. So here I am.”

I chuckle. “Really? For the bike? Don’t you think you love it a little too much?”

He’s had his bike for nearly as long as I’ve known him. Numerous times, I’d imagine doing something drastic to it just to mess with him. A few times I even came close.

“I think I love her just enough.”

Good thing I was holding on to the edge of the door or I would’ve toppled over. I swear his love went down to my knees, making them weak. That and the way he’s been watching me ever since he arrived.

Like he can’t get enough of me.

“Are we going to stand here all day or are you gonna invite me in?” he asks when I don’t say anything.

I shake my head and step aside. “Yeah. Come on in.”

His boots click as they cross over the threshold and something about that makes me flush. It also makes me restless and talkative.

“So you’re one of those guys.”

Zach turns around to face me as I shut the door. “What guys?”

“Who call their mode of transportation a she.” I walk to the kitchen where I’ve set up all the books and things that we’re going to use tonight as I keep babbling, “It’s a little crazy, I think. It’s just a bike. I mean, I have a car. I love that car even though I’m a little scared of it right now. But I don’t call it a he. I just call it an it, you know. Oh, and the guys who name their cars? Ugh. How pathetic do you have to be to do that? Right? It’s like –”

“I have a name for my bike.”

My eyes almost pop out and I press my lips together, grimacing.

Why do I keep saying the wrong things around him?

I spin around and find him almost right behind me. “You do?”

“Yes.”

“What is it?”

He takes a step toward me and I press against the edge of the island. “Blue.”

“What?”

“I call it Blue.”

Zach’s crowding me now. His big, tall body is bent to the shape of mine. I feel his thighs pressed up against my slightly open ones and I hear my own pulse in my ears. Racing, racing and roaring.

“You call your bike Blue?”

“Uh-huh.”

“But it’s black.”

“So?”

“I…” I frown and for some reason, he finds it funny. He finds it a reason to bend down and kiss my blue hair softly.

My eyes fall shut on a sigh.

“Speechless, finally,” he whispers to my hair. “And all it took was one simple fact.”

Narrowing my eyes, I put a hand on his stomach – the stomach that I was kind of riding yesterday – and give him a push.

He leans back and I say, “Very funny. Why do you call your bike by a name that you call me? And while we’re on the subject, let’s talk about why do you call me Blue?”

Zach throws a look at my hair and shrugs. “Yeah, that is a mystery.”

“I didn’t get blue hair until the eighth grade. You’ve been calling me Blue since day one.”

“Your point?”

“Why don’t you ever call me Cleo?” I burst out with a question that I didn’t even know I had.