Resisting the Bad Boy - A Standalone Bad Boy Romance Read online

  © Copyright 2016 by Gabi Moore - All rights reserved.

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  RESISTING THE BAD BOY

  - He Was Everything I Thought I Didn’t Need

  By: Gabi Moore

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  FANTASY/SCI-FI:

  Manipulator Of Elements – A Young Adult Urban Fantasy

  Wicked Legacy – An Urban Fantasy

  Chosen – A Sci-Fi

  Faerie Rift – An Adult Urban Fantasy

  A New Dawn – A Young Adult Urban Fantasy

  STEAMY CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE:

  HEART OF DARKNESS

  BREAK

  TEMPTATION

  MANHANDLED

  BARE HANDS

  ABSOLUTION

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  RESISTING THE BAD BOY

  - He was everything I thought I didn’t need

  By Gabi Moore

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  Prologue

  All around me, the lights dimmed and flickered out. I was in the dark belly of the castle, sealed in the bedchamber of the beast, kneeling on an immense four-poster bed, in a long white heirloom night dress… and now, the time had come.

  He had admired my skill on the piano, and my long slender neck. He had given me rubies and diamond choker necklaces to wear when I danced for him. I had made such a pretty bride. They all said so. I had danced so sweetly and smiled and nodded and charmed the family that had travelled for miles to see me. I had held their heavy gifts in my hands and eaten petit fours and… and now, the time had finally come.

  I would consummate my marriage and become lady of this great manor. This part would hurt, that much I knew, but I tried not to think about it too much. These were ugly things. But necessary things.

  My husband of one day stood before me, undershirt rolled up at the sleeves to reveal thick, hairy forearms. In this light, you could barely tell that his beard was ever so slightly blue. Indigo colored. Like it had been dipped in ink. The kind of blue that could be rounded down to black if you weren’t paying too much attention.

  I hadn’t been paying much attention.

  The look in his eyes frightened me. But the chamber was so beautiful. And my nightgown was antique, and the fine lace so exquisite. So I lay back and spread my legs when he told me to. I turned my head to the side and tried not to let him see the tear roll from my eye.

  He flung off his heavy trousers and stood before me, each thigh a tree trunk. His lips curled into a cruel smile as he looked at my bare, white thighs under the thin night dress. The bed dipped and creaked under his weight as he climbed onto me, caged me in with a rough arm on either side of my neck. He was like an animal. The kind of animal that bends and hulks over its kill, sinking its teeth into the flesh it fought for, fair and square.

  He pulled the night dress up and bunched it around my neck. His cock, a dangerous shade of red, and thick, thumped heavy onto my bare belly, and without any finesse he stuffed it inside me, guiding the heft of it in deep with a brutal flick of his strong, punishing hips.

  I yelped.

  His lips curled again as he peered down at me.

  The room around me disappeared into blackness.

  Once a great castle, the interior walls of this place had long since crumbled. The floor had lost its gleam, and it no longer had the shine it undoubtedly did so many lifetimes ago, when my husband’s ancestors had conceived and birthed long, zigzagging lines of their aristocratic progeny, right here on this very bed. The Persian carpets had been here for centuries, their pile ground flat and their bright colors blurred into dreams now and only the distant memory of glory. The silver candle holders still had a little sadness in them, too, evidence from when they were looted from ancient churches, long ago in a time well before anyone even cared to remember any more.

  I was alone in this great room with only the obscene sound of air rushing into and out of his body. I tried not to think about it. I was a virtuous woman. I focused on the tiny carved cherub on the cupboard handle of the dresser. On the little folded cleft made by the crinkle of the sheet right beside my head. On the oval freckle on his meaty bicep. He shivered and growled, and exploded wet inside me. I squeezed my eyes shut as he pulled out and rolled over beside me, the mattress groaning. It stung.

  The light around me changed to a brilliant red. Like thrumming, transparent paint. It dripped down over me and my white nightdress, turning everything scarlet. Eerie music played, louder and louder. I gazed out into the darkness and staring back at me were the wet eyes of dozens of expectant faces, watching closely.

  The time had come.

  I had been wed to the beast.

  I looked down at my stained nightdress and touched it with a shaking hand. My husband, now sated and bored, swiftly fell asleep beside me. On a picnic once he had given me a tiny porcelain tortoise, and told me I could have a fine white pony to ride, and furs, and tiny china cups painted with orchids, and whatever I wanted.

  I clamped shut my legs to dull the ache there, and hung my head.

  Chapter One

  September 14, 2013

  “Oh my god, you’re such a slag,” she said, and laughed. “It looks like a Jackson Pollock painting.”

  I looked down at the dried white splatters on the front of my red velvet skirt. Though my head was fuzzy and the light in the room was dark, I could see it too. It did look like a painting.

  “Funny thing is, I think his name actually was Jack,” I giggled, and turned my hips from side to side to admire the stains.

  “Bitch, are you still high?” She took a swig of her beer. “His name was John.”

  “John? Are you sure?”

  “Oh my God, Nyx.”

  “No, I’m serious though. Wasn’t it Jack?” I reached out and took her beer from her, and drained the bottle. Of its own accord, my arm flexed outward and I threw it hard against the concrete floor, smashing the amber glass into tiny pieces and leaving a wet spill on the floor of the same shape as the one on my skirt.

  “Well, fuck, maybe it was a John and a Jack,” she laughed, “I wouldn’t put it past you.”

  The beanbag I was curled up inside held me like an embrace, like a big soft leather hand cradling me. I looked down again at the cum stains on my skirt as though I was peering into a crystal ball, trying to decipher which boy had been responsible. I was pretty sure I hadn’t met a John that evening. Or had I?

  “Whatever. Jizz is jizz, right?” I s
aid, and she snickered again, this time, her pretty face going red.

  Leah was, as she loved telling everyone, half Nigerian, half Swedish and 100% bad bitch. She had scary looking red dreadlocks, a pair of tits that started conversations with strangers in clubs, and a baby face I never saw without layers of fearsome makeup. She was also my best friend, and had called me ‘slag’ roughly once a minute over the entire course of our friendship.

  My head spun. The music was still thumping but it was probably close to 3am and I was coming down now, the wobbly edges of my vision settling down and the rubbery feeling in my limbs slowly disappearing.

  “Oh no, no, no, don’t fade on me now, Nyx, go on then, get us another beer?” she said and looked me up and down.

  “Beer? I’m a bit skint just now, Leah, Jesus.”

  I vaguely became aware of a tall figure approaching us on our beanbags.

  “Ladies, what’s this? Making a mess are we?” said a deep male voice.

  Leah giggled, the glitter on her chocolatey cheekbones making her seem for a moment like a very jolly Christmas ornament. I lifted my head and tried to make out whom it was, but the strobe lights behind him turned him into nothing more than a black silhouette, a crown of yellow and pink beams shooting out from behind him.

  “You wouldn’t happen to be called Jack, would you, love?” I asked, hearing myself slur the words. Leah giggled and covered her face.

  The guy said nothing and kept staring down at us.

  “Or John, are you John perhaps, hm?”

  Leah burst out laughing.

  “Neither, I’m afraid,” said the voice. I was having a hard time deciding on his tone of voice. Suddenly, the tall figure dropped down onto his haunches and in the darkness I started to make out the features on his face.

  “Oh shit! Leah, you daft cow, it’s Matt!” I squealed and clapped my hands on my thighs. All at once I remembered. We had come here with him. He had stared at my fishnets all on the Tube ride here and we had laughed and he had bought us all a round. That had seemed to be a whole lifetime ago.

  “Matt, I’m going to smack you if you start talking about going home,” Leah said, and was all of a sudden squinting down at her phone, trying to make sense of the string of text bubbles on the screen.

  “Leah,” he said, still crouching down, “sweetie, I think it’s time to go home.” Leah reached over and slapped his arm, and he pretended to wince in pain.

  “No, seriously,” he said. “It’s winding down here, shall we clear off?” I marveled at how clear and calm he seemed. Good old Matt. Strong, sober, stable Matt.

  “But we were just wondering about getting another round…” I said and played at twirling my hair at him. He looked down at the smashed bottle on the concrete floor and lifted his eyebrows.

  “Well look and what you’ve gone and done with the last one you had,” he said. I suddenly felt indescribably sad. His gaze lingered on my skirt and he frowned quickly.

  “What’s… what’s that?” he asked, and I heard Leah break out into giggles again.

  “It’s like this, yeah? You know that movie Memento? Where the guy can’t, like, remember who he is or nufink? So he leaves himself clues and things, yeah? Well, Nyx and I were trying to figure out who jizzed on her skirt, seeing as she can’t remember what happened two minutes ago…”

  “Shut up, Leah, that doesn’t even make sense,” I said and tried to stand up, staggering like Bambi in heels.

  Matt scowled at me and wiped his face, then grabbed me round my middle and hoisted me up in one swift movement, throwing me over his shoulder. My hair hung long down his back and my legs dangled down the front of his chest, each of my shoes hanging limply off my feet.

  “Oh my God, Matt, that is like, so hot,” Leah said and gawped. “You’re like a fireman or sumfink.”

  “Get your coat, Leah, we’re leaving.”

  I don’t remember everything that happened to get us out of that warehouse party and out into the street. I don’t remember how we made our way back to the street and caught a taxi, or figured out how to get home again, although I know we must have done it somehow.

  What I can remember is being bunched up in the back seat, draped over Matt’s lap as I bawled about how sorry I was for smashing the beer bottle, and how I swore I’d never do it again. Leah sat opposite us tapping away on her phone and some other guy sat in the front seat, a guy I didn’t recognize. John? Jack? I was beyond caring.

  Matt stroked my hair and told me to calm down, and soon I remember telling him how beautiful the light was. That the streetlights were trapped in the water droplets on the taxi window, and why wouldn’t he just look and see how beautiful they were?

  When they dropped me off at my flat, Matt seemed irritated and told me to message everyone in the morning. The taxi sped off and I stood alone in the street for a while, looking at the lights reflected in the puddles.

  I wobbled inside, clutching my sequined bag under my arm and wondering if there was something sticky in my hair. The house was deathly quiet. I walked slowly down the hallway and tried to get my eyes adjusted to the light. Mom and dad may still be out, but My aunt Lila had been staying with us for a while in the spare bedroom. Her marriage had gone tits up and she had come to live with us for a while. It certainly made these late nights a little harder to pull off quietly.

  I removed my heels and one by one, I took the stairs, stockinged feet on the carpet. I reached the top of the landing, threw down my coat and bag and turned on the bathroom light.

  Fuck, did I look a fright.

  My makeup had smeared. My skin looked pasty and flushed. My hair was flat in the middle and fuzzing at the tips. And there it was, plain as day on my skirt: Jackson Pollock. The mystery cum. A gift of liquid DNA from a shadowy suitor in the night. Had I sucked him off? My lipstick still looked pretty good. God, I really was a slag.

  The thought of peeling off all my clothes, having a shower, removing my makeup and detangling my hair seemed Herculean. I sighed and turned around. I’d sort it all out tomorrow. I just wanted to sleep. As I turned and made for my bedroom I saw aunt Lila standing in the doorway of the guest room, in yoga pants and a Snoopy sleep shirt, her blank face staring hard at me.

  I didn’t know what to say. Her eyes travelled down and up my body, and got caught on the red skirt with the white. I was little red riding hood after the wolf had gotten hold of her. A sticky lace shape, in Valentine colors. It was a cum nebula in a deep red, velvety sky. Kind of, almost, very nearly pretty.

  Aunt Lila just looked at me with horror. I watched her chest rise and fall as she took a breath and tried to gather herself.

  “It’s late, Nyx,” she said, as though it took all the patience in the world to muster those words. “This is the last time. The last time. For God’s sake clean yourself up.”

  I looked down at myself. She was right of course. It wasn’t a nebula. It wasn’t lace, and I wasn’t red riding hood. It was cum and I was a disobedient 18-year-old who made too much noise when she crawled in on a Friday night, reeking of booze. Of course.

  Shame washed over me. A new feeling.

  She turned and closed the door. I wished she had at least slammed it. I stood there, in the harsh bathroom light, trying to think. Mum and dad had never cared that I was a little …exuberant. Hell, they were frequently out themselves until all hours. I thought of peeking into their room and seeing if they were still awake, but thought better of it. I could just see them tomorrow. We’d have a late morning and dad would make us coffee and Nutella toast with sliced bananas.

  I clicked off the light and skulked back to my room. I couldn’t know it at the time, but it was, in fact, ‘the last time’.

  I lay in bed that night till dawn, my head buzzing even though I felt raw and nauseas and tired beyond belief. Though my head was still spinning and my limbs ached, I was seeing something with painful clarity. I didn’t know it at the time, but the spell broke for me that day, in the stairwell.

  Chapter T
wo

  September 1, 2015

  Two Years Later

  Fast forward two years and I had cleaned myself up, so to speak.

  Really.

  The green tips of my hair grew further and further from my scalp until one day I chopped them off cleanly and went with a short, natural brown bob that felt like it didn’t belong on me for a whole week afterwards. I started wearing my nails short and buffed them in the shower till they went pink and hurt. I cleaned out my closet, threw away three quarters of everything I owned and sat patiently in session after session of group therapy, talking about my transgressions as though only a younger, stupider version of myself had done them, and not me.

  “My mom and dad died instantly in a serious car crash two years ago,” was enough to shut people up. People assumed that this is why I was ‘acting up’, and for a while I was happy to let them. Wasn’t it true? How the fuck should I know. They were just there, and then they weren’t. I didn’t feel sad. In fact, I spent many blank hours in the bathtub, sucking water into my belly button, pushing it out again, wishing I could feel sad. Or anything. But I just took a step away from life. Life simply went two-dimensional and lost its color. The way you zoom out of a flashback in a movie, like everything you’ve just watched was just a memory, just a dream in the past.

  Now it was just me and aunt Lila. Guilty survivors, as it were.

  “Now don’t go all ridiculous on me,” she said, “this is a very intensive course, Nyx. You’ll actually be working, it’s not a big picnic.”

  My aunt Lila was a woman who looked as though she might have been a real knockout once, but long ago in the past, and maybe when men had different tastes in women. She wore expensive but boring looking organic cotton print slacks and tasteful shirts. I had seen those shirts on the washing line, and wondered at the point of printing an extravagant band of yellow or blue, but on the inside of the hem, where nobody would ever see it.