Give Me a Reason (Redemption Hills 1)

Lures that drew you toward temptation.

He wasn’t as thick as the bouncers. Instead, he was slender and tall, his frame rippling with fierce, sinewy muscle. Somehow, it made him appear even more intimidating.

Ink covered most of his exposed flesh. It rode out from under the sleeves of his leather jacket and onto the back of his hands and over his knuckles. More climbed from the neck of his tee and rolled up his throat where the designs disappeared behind his ears.

And there he stood, taking me in with a face that was cut into the most distinct, unforgettable lines. This daunting, terrifying beauty.

I wasn’t sure I’d ever encountered a man as electrifying.

As darkly alluring.

A jumpstart to the senses.

As hard as I tried, the only soft thing I could find about him were his plush, pouty lips—that was if you could look past the sneer they seemed to be permanently curled into.

I could feel it shivering across my skin and shouting from my soul.

This boy was bad.

Bone deep.

And there I stood, the fool begging him for a chance. “I’ll do whatever it takes.”

Wrong thing to say because he cracked a smirk. “Ah, I see how it is, Kitten. You like to play with fire.”

“I don’t,” I told him. Honestly. Truthfully.

I didn’t want any trouble, and he clearly had plenty of it to offer.

I just wanted a job.

No matter if he made my belly quiver and my fingers tremble. No matter if he stirred something inside me that had been dead for a long, long time.

His gaze raked me again.

Calculating.

Analyzing.

Then he jutted his chin. “Follow me.”

Spinning on his heel, he started across the bar without further warning.

This guy gave me whiplash.

I scrambled to follow. “Where are we going?”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he parted the crowd as if every person there felt him coming.

I tried to keep up as we crossed the bottom floor of the bar that was completely packed.

Anticipation high. Inhibitions freed. People letting go while salivating for the band that was setting up on stage.

I peeked to the side as if I were looking for a buoy. For a raft in the middle of a stormy, toiling sea.

My attention landed on the bartender who’d let me set up post for the entire day. He’d been kind to me, but right then, he was grinning the smuggest grin I’d ever seen.

The kind that screamed, sucker.

I didn’t know if it was meant for me or the man who cut a path to the opposite end of the bar.

Mr. Lawson hooked a left into a narrow, dank hallway. There was a sign at the side that read employees only. I skated around the sharp corner, clutching my purse to my chest and rushing to keep up while my heels slid on the slick concrete floor.

Great.

Scoring all the points.

A second later, he suddenly stopped to toss open a door to the right. He held it open as he spun back to look at me.

On a gasp, I skidded to a stop, unable to keep up with the turbulence vibrating through the dense air.

Still standing in the dim shadows, he quirked a brow. “So, tell me Eden Murphy, is it the thrill or the money? Trying to piss off your daddy?”

Those sooty eyes gleamed and glowed with the challenge.

Wow. I wanted to tell this guy where to shove it.

The only reason I was there was because I was trying to save my daddy.

My daddy who was in dire straits.

And I would do absolutely anything to help the man who’d sacrificed so much. The one who would do anything for me. Lift me up. Support me. Hold me.

Now, it was my turn to return the favor. But this jerk didn’t deserve an explanation, no matter how gorgeous he was.

I gulped down the irritation and anxiety.

“I told you I needed this job. The answer to that should be obvious.”

“And I also told you that you don’t belong. Plenty of other jobs in the city.”

Hurt curled through my senses. Of course, a guy who was clearly rolling in it would spout it as truth.

“Are there?” I couldn’t help but sneer it.

Those fierce eyes sheared through me as if I were standing there bare, dragging from my eyes and down my quivering throat to where my trembling hands were clutching my purse.

Down, down, down, along the length of my legs exposed by my pencil skirt, to my heels, before he was somehow both leisurely and voraciously dragging them back up.

Shivers raced beneath the unabashed perusal, my stomach churning with a mix of revulsion and fascination.

The man was nothing but a smolder when his gaze met with mine.

“I’d take you as the type who’d show more…caution.” He said it like an insult.

“You think you scare me?” I spat the words like they could become steel around me. A hedge of protection.