Heart of Darkness - A Standalone Bad Boy Romance Novel Read online

  “Christ, have you gained weight or something?” he said, and shook his head.

  I took a deep breath and tried to squirm away from his gaze, casually making a move toward the bedside table. He thrust out his arm and blocked my way. I would have rather died than let my bare body touch him. So I recoiled.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t think I was done talking to you,” he said, with the same twisted mouth.

  “Alex, I will not allow you to bully me like this. I’m going to call the police.”

  The words felt like a miracle to say, but the sad truth is that they weren’t all that magical. He just kept staring at me all the same. His eyes just glided over me again and again. I squeezed my eyes shut as he extended a hand and stroked a long, horrible line down from my ribcage to my navel. I had nowhere to go. I was backed into a corner and couldn’t run. I wanted to cry. He saw my reaction to this and smirked.

  “God, I’m just trying to be nice here, can you not be so rude? You always were so dramatic,” he chuckled, and repeated the same movement, this time drawing it out. The word no stuck in my throat, choking me.

  “Please don’t hurt me,” I mumbled, and instantly hated myself for saying it. Did I have to be so fucking weak? The flash of anger on his face was too quick for me to process. All at once, his fist came flying through the air and landed hard against my cheek, knocking me dizzy. The room spun as I realized with horror: he’d hit me.

  Hard.

  His lips were curled again as he looked at me with disgust.

  “I told you not to flatter yourself. I’m not going to lie, I definitely thought about it on the way over here. You know, for old time’s sake. But fuck me if you’ve turned into a goddam whale. You make everything difficult, you know that? I can’t even bring myself to try.”

  He turned on his heel, kicked the blankets aside and went to stand on the other side of the room.

  Slowly, a painful ache began to radiate through the bones of my cheek, but my fingertips shook so much when I lifted them to touch the skin that I couldn’t tell if I was bleeding or not. For a second, the room went quiet and all I could hear was the pump of my heart in my ears.

  It hurt like hell.

  How the hell had he gotten inside?

  “Why did you have to go and mess everything up, Maddy? Everything was fucking perfect,” he said, and as he screamed that last word he upended my bedside table with a kick and sent it flying across the room, my phone with it. Benji started barking outside. The trouble with stray animals is that they don’t tend to make good guard animals.

  “Please just leave,” I said with a shaky voice.

  His face was dripping with poison as he looked me over, shook his head and slowly backed out of the room.

  Benji was still barking nervously as I heard Alex bluster out of the kitchen and slam the front door. With keen ears, I made out the sounds of him getting into his car, starting the ignition and taking off. I stood frozen all the while, cradling my splitting cheek in one hand, naked, staring down at the discarded blankets that only a moment ago had been a safe cocoon for me, a place where if I closed my eyes and imagined it hard enough, Alex didn’t exist.

  When I was sure he was gone, and when the dogs had stopped fussing outside, I crumpled down onto my knees and scrambled for the bed covers. Wrapping myself in them, I curled onto the floor and cried to myself. Inside my cocoon again, the sobs came jagged and painful, and my chest shuddered with each heave. He was right, of course. I had to face reality. My big stupid romance was with a shady guy who hadn’t even been out of prison for a month. Of course he was using me, what guy in his right mind would go for a woman like me? And I had gained weight, it was true.

  All of it was true.

  I felt my tears flowing hot and seeping into the cotton of the covers. My fingers went to the folds between my legs again, in the darkness of my blanket cocoon, and I tried in vain to find that sweet, heavenly sensation again. To see if the memory of Zack could soothe me now.

  Nothing.

  My body was lifeless.

  I drew my hands back again and clamped my legs closed, focusing instead of the ache in my face. The animals needed their breakfast. Gingko needed her medicine. And I’d probably need 15 minutes to cover up whatever mess he’d left on my face before heading into work, where creatures of all kinds would squawk and whimper for me for eight solid hours. I’d do all of that. I’d find a way. I’d install better security. I’d book an emergency appointment with my therapist. I’d swing by the police station before work.

  But for the next few minutes, I just wanted to cry, by myself, inside my blankets.

  Chapter Eight – Zack

  I was surprised to see it. At first, I couldn’t make out what it was, but then it dawned on me: a bruise. The size of my palm and the color of a rain cloud right before it splits, right there on her pretty, milky white cheek. She had spackled layers of beige make up over it but frankly this almost made it worse.

  “Your… your face,” I said, standing in the doorway like an idiot.

  She smiled weakly.

  “Oh, this? Yeah, that’s nothing, I just fell. The dogs, you know, they give me a hard time,” she said, and I wondered if she even wanted me to try and buy such a story.

  Someone had hit her, clear as day. The idea hit me and made me sick on her behalf. I wanted to know who, and why, and where I could find the fucker. I wanted to go back and change my answer to her, the answer to the question she had first given me. I wanted to tell her, of course I’m not a bad man, if that’s what she was really asking. I would never, ever do that to her.

  Instead, I said, “Oh yeah? I’m sure they give you a hard time!” and she smiled some more and invited me in.

  Her home made me feel strange inside. She had a series of mismatched sofas covered in even more clashing throws and rugs. There seemed to be a cat curled into every corner and onto every upholstered surface. A deflated foil balloon hung limply on a stick inside a vase next to the TV. The balloon said you’re a star! in sparkly lettering. The place was run down, seemingly every little crack in the wall or scuffed skirting covered over with a jar of flowers or a Polaroid of her and some smiling girlfriends. How could anyone hit a woman who lived in a home like this?

  “Please excuse the mess,” she said merrily, and went to fetch me a drink, calling out for Jasper as she disappeared into the kitchen. I stood for a moment, taking it all in. Her house. The place she had sat here alone, chatting with me while I was locked up. A mangy looking white tom cat slinked his way against my legs and butted me with his head till I stroked him. I sat down, and sunk deeply into the sofa.

  “I was meaning to ask if your mom had a litter box and stuff or if she needed one…” I heard her yelling from the kitchen. When she appeared in the doorway, it happened. It felt like a light bulb blowing. Like the popping of a firework in the dark. I looked up at her, cat wound round my legs, and she stood there looking back at me, mid-sentence and arms full of cat accessories, and she looked at me.

  I swallowed hard, unable to tear my eyes away from her. Her mouth hung open a little. We were hypnotizing each other, both daring the other to look away. It scared me a little.

  “It’s… it’s good to see you again,” she said, blushing and busying herself with cat stuff again. She was cute when she was embarrassed. Men could never love women, and women could never love men, this much I knew.

  But maybe romance could bloom here, in this run-down single room apartment covered in cat hair, even if only for a heartbeat. And maybe even a fucked up ex-con and a woman with a bruised face could find a few moments of love here, even if those moments only lasted the few seconds we had as we caught each other’s eyes across the living room. Maybe it was over already. My great romance peaked and over already with this woman, starting and finishing in the doorway of her kitchen. What more could I offer, anyway? My bruises, if she knew how to see them, were far uglier to look at than hers.

  She plonked some items down close to the
door and then plonked herself down next to me, denting the ailing sofa in even deeper. We both smiled at this.

  “You big brute, you’re too big for my house,” she said playfully, and in an instant she was in my arms again, and I wanted to weep with how fucking good it felt just to hold her lips in mine, just to taste that sweet tongue darting around my mouth.

  I groaned as her hands went to clasp the back of my neck. I leaned into her, pinning her quivering little body against the sofa and melting into her eager, greedy little mouth. She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. Or tasted. Every last stray critter and broken piece of furniture and mark on her skin… all of it was amazing to me.

  She pulled back and smiled at me with glowing eyes.

  “Thank you so much for taking Jasper off my hands, you don’t know how much it means to me,” she whispered.

  She didn’t really need to thank me. My mom had wanted a pet for ages, and was getting lonely in the house in any case. And she had one kitten too many. It was a practical solution.

  “Just doing my job, ma’am,” I said and playfully saluted, and she giggled. Just as I leaned in to kiss her again, I heard her screen door bang open behind me.

  A strange voice.

  “Maddy? Maddy are you home?”

  Her muscles tightened so quickly in my hands I thought they’d snap. Her eyes went wide and wild and she froze. I was about to ask her if she was expecting someone when the voice came again, and her eyes shot to a point right behind me. I spun around to see a man standing in the living room. My mind raced.

  “Baby…?” his voice trailed off as we both took one another in. I had been trained for this. For these high-cortisol moments where one strange moment seems to stretch out forever. I thought of the blue and yellow mark on her face. In that split second, I twisted my body round to position myself between him and her, throwing my weight into my thigh muscles so I could spring up quickly.

  There was the entrance I had come through, behind him, likely one in the kitchen and if this was the kind of built-in-the-80s house I thought it could be, there’d be a cheap frosted glass fitting in the bathroom that could be kicked clean out in an emergency. There was a glass ornament to her left that I could wield if necessary, but I had a better chance of taking him directly, since he wasn’t armed and a good few inches shorter than me. Low-ish muscle tone, no tats, civilian dress and no defensive posturing. I could have him pinned to the floor in less than six seconds.

  “Who the fuck…?” he started saying, and I realized she was cowering a little behind me. It was him, no question. The guy that had hit her. I stood up and puffed my chest a little. I didn’t want to let her know it, but I would relish giving this guy an ass-kicking, if he asked for it. I slowly extended my hand, not taking my eyes off him.

  “Zack Hunter. Nice to meet you. And you are?”

  I knew all about guys like this. Wiry little shits with attitudes better suited to snappy handbag Pomeranians than grown men. I’d patrolled with some of them, too, and they were all talk and hot air until it came down to actually backing it all up with action. How had such a beautiful woman gotten involved with him?

  He smirked at me and peered round my shoulder to glare at her.

  “Baby? Are you kidding me? This guy?” he laughed and then lifted his eyebrow at me. “She tell you she already has a boyfriend, shithead?”

  I felt Maddy’s little hands rise up and touch the small of my back. I can’t describe it, but that little touch alone, so soft and tentative …well, it broke my heart.

  “Zack, he’s not my boyfriend,” she peeped from behind me. “We already broke up. A long time ago.”

  “I think you’d better leave,” I said, voice calm.

  The air crackled a little as I felt him gathering his courage. Predictably, he lunged forward with flat hands and shoved my shoulders. I barely moved, and simply took a step towards him, clenched fists to my side. I peered at him through narrowed eyes and said slowly, with as much threat as I could squeeze into my voice.

  “We can do this if you want, but it will not go well for you…”

  It was faint and lightning quick, but I could have spotted it a mile away: that brief, panicked flutter across his face as he realized I meant it. But he was bluffing hard, and stood his ground. I didn’t need to look to tell that Maddy had already dashed off and was now pinned against the wall, watching us with horror. I hated to think of her being used to any of this crap. I might have been a no-good kind of guy with tattoos and a bad reputation, but in that moment, I wasn’t going to stand by and let that asshole get his way.

  When he took a swipe at me, I dodged it and returned a jab right back at him, just a warning clip on the rim of his chin. He staggered back a little but with a righteous fury, he came pummeling back at me, stabbing left and right at me like a drunk kid in a club. I dipped to the right, twisted his arm behind him and pinned his back against the front of my chest, pulling him in to a hard half nelson with my other arm. It was almost too easy.

  I briefly caught sight of Maddy, both hands clasped up to her mouth and her eyes wide, too scared to even yell at us to stop. The cats scattered.

  “Did you fucking hit her?” I hissed into his ear, and I felt his body inhale as he gathered his strength, dropped his weight and tried to slip out of my hold. Gritting my teeth, I squeezed him hard, released him and shoved him away from me, sending him reeling and stumbling to catch his footing again.

  Maddy was in the next room over now, fumbling with her phone.

  “You want more? Or are you gonna fuck off already?” I said, taking threatening steps towards him.

  I would do it, too. I would kick the shit out of this guy if he didn’t stand down. Before he had wiped the spittle from his smirking face, he took another sloppy lunge at me, sending a glancing blow against my left ear, making it ring out. Good. At least the little fucker had some fight in him. I smiled and went for him, plowing into his ribs with my fists, then raising a swift knee to his flank and digging it in deep, bringing him crumpled down into a heap on the floor. A bead of blood crawled out from the corner of his twisted mouth.

  “You want more? Buddy, I could go all day,” I said and towered over him as he coughed a little, clutching at his guts. Taking a beating was second nature to me, but men like him? Arrogant little pricks like him? I always enjoyed watching that cockiness slip from them a little when they quickly realized how close they were to getting their asses handed to them.

  He raised a hand and lifted a fuming face to glare up at me.

  “Where the fuck did you find this guy, Maddy?” he spat, and staggered towards the door.

  Maddy was far off in the corner of the adjoining room, her little eyebrows twisted up in fright, both hands clutching her phone.

  “He’s a bad guy, Alex! He’s just gotten out of jail. I mean it. You better not try anything!” came her voice from the other room.

  I tried not to smile at this.

  “Well, you heard her,” I said and shrugged at him, a wry smile escaping my lips.

  “I’ve called the police, Alex. You can’t come here ever again,” she said, and what was left of my heart broke even further. The asshole waved a dismissive hand and made for the door, kicking a small dog out the way and clutching at his middle.

  “The next time you come back here again and bother Maddy, you won’t be walking out, you’ll be leaving in a body bag,” I said quietly.

  I could still feel the blows ringing against my knuckles. I swallowed the wave of adrenaline down. I meant every single word. He eyed me cautiously for a moment and stumbled out, spitting a little blood and cursing under his breath.

  When I was sure he was gone, I turned to see her face melt almost instantly into tears. I rushed over and held her head between my hands. She was sobbing so loudly I couldn’t make out what she was trying to say.

  “Hey… hey relax, it’s all over now. Shhh… it’s OK now.”

  I was truly shocked by her reaction. I had so many
questions. I hated the thought that she had suffered a problem that a swift ass-kicking could have solved in a minute and a half. Who the hell was this clown? How long had she been suffering like this? Had he hit her a lot?

  One look at her face, though, and I knew that my questions could wait. She collapsed against my chest and cried hard for a moment, and I stood still with her in the silent room, my arms wrapped right the way around her.

  And I felt something.

  I don’t know what it was, but it felt good. It wasn’t the satisfying crack of my fist against his bones, or the submissive look he had given me as he slunk out. It wasn’t the fact that she didn’t have to deal with him by herself anymore. It wasn’t the sweet sense of calm washing over us both now.

  But it was something.

  It crept through me slowly at first and then all at once. With her pressed up hard against me, I felt my cock stiffen.

  Chapter Nine – Madeleine

  I don’t know when my life turned into a Maury show. Or some kind of TV drama with a muscled man beating away intruders and then kissing me passionately once he’d defended my honor. But it was happening nonetheless.

  And I kind of liked it.

  It was all happening so fast that I didn’t have time to stop and think. I watched as he quickly went outside, then came back in again, locking the door behind him. The phone fell from my trembling hands and I threw myself into his arms, and he held me so tight that I could still feel the fight in him, still feel his strong heart banging inside his chest and against mine, and the heat in his hard arms, and how everything about him seemed coiled so amazingly tight, and something about it all made the tears come, and soon I was crying like a baby against his cheek.

  There wasn’t a concealer or heavy-duty powder strong enough to cover up the nasty fact of Alex in my life. But Zack had seen that ugly face of my life and… he hadn’t run. He had stayed. Not only stayed, but stayed and helped me. The thought alone made it hard for me to stop crying.