Bradford Bastard (Bradford Bastard 1)

His hand slides up and clutches the back of my neck, holding me so close that I feel his breath brushing over my cheek. “I don’t even know what I was going to do. I saw red and couldn’t stop.”

“I know, but you did stop.”

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “You stopped me. If it weren’t for you …”

He leaves his comment hanging in the air and a weight drops down over my shoulders, imagining how this could have ended. “You stopped, Tanner,” I tell him. “You eased up on the brake, you pulled off to the curb. You did that, not me. You’re stronger than you give yourself credit for.”

A soft smile pulls at the corner of his lips, and it takes me a moment to realize he pities himself, or maybe me for thinking so highly of him. “Nobody has ever kept me grounded in the way you do. Not the boys, not my mom or Addie, only you.”

I swallow hard, feeling the whole weight of his heart in the palm of my hands. I’ve never seen him so open like this, so broken yet so strong. Leaning in, I brush my lips over his and he captures them in a gentle, lingering kiss. “Tanner?” I question when he finally releases me. His eyes come to mine and I move my hand around his big shoulder and down to his chest. “Take me home.”

And just like that, he swings me around on his bike and takes off. My arms coil tightly around his waist as the bike rumbles beneath me, moving us onto the road and whipping around to send us back toward Bradford.

Chapter 32

BRIELLE

“Tanner’s so hot and cold that it’s impossible to tell where we stand. I wish I could just enter his brain and figure it out,” I tell Ilaria as I walk out of her place on Wednesday afternoon, desperate to get home after I realized Tanner would be finishing up with football practice soon.

Shit, that makes me sound desperate, but this connection between us … I can’t explain it. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. Every spare moment is spent with him, and if I’m not with him, I’m thinking about just how good it is when I am.

Ilaria laughs, gripping on to the handle and hovering in the doorway. “You know, over the past few years that I’ve been going to school with the guy, I’ve never once seen him so taken by a girl before, so obviously your little we secretly hate each other act is paying off.”

Rolling my eyes, I take off down the path toward my car on the curb. “We do hate each other,” I tell her, both of us knowing damn well I’m lying. There may have been a time where Tanner Morgan was the bane of my existence, but over the past week or so … things have shifted.

“Uh-huh.”

“When he admits this is something more, I will,” I laugh. “Until then, he’s nothing but my asshole neighbor who I secretly fantasize about barging in on me in the shower.”

Ilaria shakes her head, grinning back at me. “You’re playing a dangerous game, Bri. Tanner is famous for being a prick. The only way you’re getting something out of him is if you hire an exorcist.”

I laugh as I reach my Honda, my hand hovering over the handle. “Trust me, it’s not that hard to get something to come spurting out of him.”

A booming laugh tears from the back of her throat. “Girl, I need a guy like Tanner who’s going to make me scream at him one minute and rail me the next,” she says. “What are those things you blow to make a wish?”

A smirk stretches across my face as I open my car door. “You mean a sugar daddy?”

“That is so wrong,” she calls after me. “So fucking wrong.”

I hold my hand up to wave bye before hitting the gas and taking off down the street. Ilaria doesn’t live too far from Orlando’s place, maybe only a few minutes. Her parents are filthy rich and they come from old money, so they have that classic too good for everyone vibe, and honestly, I don’t think they like me very much. They probably assume I’m here to screw them out of their wealth, just as everyone else does.

Turning onto my street, I sail down the road and am just starting to vibe with Halestorm’s ‘I Get Off’ when a familiar black Charger comes screaming down the road. My eyes widen and I get a flash of his face, so full of determination and anger, but it’s too late.

Colby’s Charger T-bones me, smashing into the side of my Civic, and I scream as I’m thrashed around inside my car. Colby doesn’t ease up, and the Charger forces me across the street as I frantically hold onto the steering wheel, desperately trying to brace myself.