Rough Ride: A Small Town Bad Boy Romance

I'm not a fool to think that Izzy hasn't told her best friend about what happened this morning between us. They've been inseparable since grade school. Almost as inseparable as Izzy and I had once been.

“Izzy, I'm driving you home.” My gaze lands on hers, intense and stern.

She stands there, very still, her eyes burning with defiance. She wants to tell me no. She wants to convince herself that she doesn't want me to take her home.

Finally, with one fleeting gaze over to her friend, she gives an encouraging nod. “It's fine,” she assures Emily. “You just got here. I knew I shouldn't have come tonight.” She glares down at Chad, who’s made it up onto his knees, still cursing a slurred streak of incoherent words, then raises her head to stare at me with glazed eyes. It makes me wonder if I'm not part of the reason she wishes she hadn't shown up. “What about your friends?” she asks me. “I find it hard to believe you came alone.”

The corner of my mouth turns up at that. I'm trying to decide whether she's insulting me by assuming I came with another woman after what we'd just done this morning, but, really, it doesn't matter. Because she is even drunker than I thought she was. Maybe even drunker than Chad. She's always been able to hold her liquor well, but her staggering gait and glassy eyes tell me everything I need to know. “Give me two minutes to talk to Blake and Rodney, then I'm taking you home.”

Chapter Five

Isabelle

I’d known in the pit of my stomach that it was a bad idea to go to Tonk’s tonight. I think my subconscious knew Jace would be there, even if I didn’t want to outwardly admit it. Hell, where else would he be on a Friday night? Home, alone? That just wasn’t his style.

It was, however, his style to feel he needed to defend me, therefore starting a bar fight without so much as batting an eyelash. If Chad hadn’t been so damn—

Christ, how did tonight go so wrong? I was supposed to just go for a couple drinks with Emily, pretend my rendezvous with Jace never happened, and blow off a little steam. Instead, I drank more than a couple drinks before Emily even got to my house, got confronted by Chad for the umpteenth time about rekindling our less-than-stellar romance (just like he does every time he drinks), and ended up standing by while Jace knocked Chad on his ass.

Now, I’m in the passenger seat of Jace’s jacked-up Ford pickup, and he’s just killed the engine after pulling it into my driveway.

I’m alone with him. Again.

“You’re pretty quiet.” His voice breaks the utter silence between us.

“My mind is full of a thousand things,” I confess. “But I can’t seem to think ‘em all through.”

“I think that’s the definition of drunkenness, Izzy.”

I whirl around to face him, and everything seems to move with me, making me feel unsteady. “You think you’re so funny, don’t you?”

Even with the edge in my tone, Jace’s smile doesn’t waver. “Sometimes. Let’s get you into the house.”

He pulls open the driver’s side door, but I reach across to hold him in his seat. “I don’t need your help. But thanks for the ride.”

Humor is still glinting in his eyes, even in only the glow of the dashboard lights, but he nods. “Whatever you say, Izzy,” he says laughingly. “And, you’re welcome.”

I have the urge to slap the amused smirk off his face, but I can’t seem to get beyond the sexiness of his faintly upturned lips and the heat of his arm radiating through his shirt beneath my fingertips. Even through my muddled brain, one thought manages to make it through loud and clear. Get out of the fucking truck, Isabelle.

I do exactly that. No more words, no more glances in his direction. It’s safer that way.

At least, I’ve convinced myself it is until I trip forward while trying to pull my house keys out of my purse at the same time I make my way up the first couple steps of the rickety porch in front of my house.

I careen forward, but I’m immediately caught from behind, two strong arms clasping around my waist to hold me upright.

“Easy now.” Jace’s voice is soft, encouraging. “I’ve got you.”

My heart is pounding furiously, both from the shock of his presence and the heat now emanating through his chest into my back as he pulls me against him. And, all I can think is, Yes, Jace. Yes, you do.

It unnerves the hell out of me.

I fumble to get the door unlocked. The lock sticks sometimes, and I’m too consumed by my plight to avoid eye contact with him to focus clearly on getting the key jiggled the right way to work. Jace’s hand covers mine as he takes the key ring from me and opens the door with only a turn of the key and a rough jerk of the doorknob.

I don’t reach out to get the keys back, too worried I’ll touch him again. Instead, I go inside ahead of him, leaning one hand against the inside wall as I struggle to get my turquoise Ariat boots off. My favorite boots. They’re my prized possession, a gift I got from—

“Can’t believe you still kept those,” Jace says behind me. “I kind of thought they’d have been burned in a barrel somewhere a long time ago.”

I get the boots off my feet and turn to face him. Big mistake. Even in the dim light of my tiny kitchen, I can see the smoldering significance within them. The remembrance. “Nah, I love these boots.”