Hawk (Sex and Bullets 2)

Since I figured out that anyone who came too close to me could get hurt.

That was when I was sent to live with my grandfather and was assigned a tutor. When I learned how to fix and ride motorcycles, cook meals and mend socks and clean. How to be a human being.

Slender fingers comb through my hair, and I flinch. The fingers still, then move again, stroking the hair out of my face.

Hell, this feels nice, like a distant memory. Did my mom do that when I was little? Feels like centuries since I was a kid.

And then finally my brain catches up with everything, and I lift my head from Hot Body’s lap.

“Fuck. You’re still here.” Groaning, I push myself to a sitting position and rub a hand over my face. “Why the fuck are you still here?”

After what I did. After doing my best to hurt you.

She shakes her head and gathers in her long legs to hug her knees. “You passed out. I wasn’t leaving you like that.”

“Yeah, you should have.” But something hot is worming its way into my chest. If I let it, it can break me to pieces.

“You. Bastard.” She sniffs and gets to her feet, glowering down at me. “Fuck you. I don’t answer to you.”

Ah yes. All fire. Always liked that about her. “Don’t be stupid, girl. This is for your own good.”

“Don’t pa

tronize me. As if you know what you’re doing, dealing with gangsters.” She lifts her chin in challenge, and hell, she’s right. “I’m going. Waste your life, if that’s what you want. Destroy other people’s dreams. I thought you were a decent human being. I was wrong. I’ll never forgive you for this.”

There. Mission accomplished. She hates me.

It shouldn’t sting so much, now, should it? It’s good that she will go, get to safety, get herself out of this nest of vipers I was born into.

Damn, I knew I shouldn’t have fucked her the first time we met. She’s a nice girl, innocent. She’s a goddamn college student, her attention divided between her classes and having fun with her friends.

But when I saw her that night, crying after that asshole of a boyfriend had broken up with her while on the arm of another woman, well…

She had fire in her, even then. And she was so damn pretty. I couldn’t look, couldn’t walk away.

So here we are because of that decision, a decision I made over and over, every time we met. Because she’s hot. And warm. Because the thought of her makes me smile, makes my body hard and eager.

Because I like her.

And that’s something I need to forget about, like every time.

Chapter Six

Layla

Douchebag. I thought I knew enough about him to care if he lives or dies, but there you go. He’s right. I’m stupid.

Stupid to think a man like Hawk—oh, excuse me, Jamie Fleming, heir to the Fleming Empire, millionaire, and notorious bad boy, could be a good guy.

A guy who flirts with the mafia. A guy who’d turn in his own folks to become the top dog.

That’s not the guy who took care of me when my asshole boyfriend cheated on me and dumped me.

He never was that guy. Dodo was right when she said I should cut loose and run. That guys like him are sharks and only care about some fun and then leave you. Not that she said it in those precise words, but she did say millionaires can’t be trusted.

And I… I always sort of hoped he’d change his mind about this thing between us. That he’d decide he wanted more. More of me.

Guess not. Ten points for Dodo.