Lessons In Corruption (The Fallen Men Series Book 1) Page 3

In that second, hands came at me. They pressed me by the shoulders to the wooden exterior of the bar but I didn’t cry out because I knew it was the blond king who held me. The yellow light of a distant street lamp fell across the side of his face, cutting it into black and white relief that made him both staggeringly beautiful and utterly terrifying.

  He stared down at me, studying me without words or care for as long as he wanted to. I let him because apparently, I was having an out of body experience.

  We were breathing in tandem. It was a strange thing to notice, but I loved watching the way our combined breaths mingled together in white clouds in the cool fall night.

  I’d wondered what color his eyes would be but no amount of guessing could have prepared me for the absolute wonder of his gaze. His pupils were a bright, beautifully pale blue shot through with deeper demarcations and spots of brighter hue like imperfections in an ice cube.

  Finally—his lips, too pink for a man, really—opened and I felt anticipation pull my body tight against the wall.

  “Hey,” he said softly.

  I blinked up at him, shocked at the simplicity of his greeting.

  “Hey,” I said back.

  Humor tugged at his mouth. He had more restraint than me. I smiled fully. His eyes tracked every nuance of the expression across my face before they darkened with unmistakable lust.

  “You were in the parking lot of Mac’s Grocer,” he continued as if it were only moments after our bizarre almost encounter three months ago. “Pretty little thing standing dumbstruck beside a piece of shit Honda Civic.”

  Instantly, I bristled. “It’s rude to insult someone’s car.”

  It was his turn to blink, which he did before he tipped back his head and erupted in that clean, bright laughter again.

  I tried not to fall to my knees at the beautiful sound.

  “That’s the truth, babe,” he agreed after he’d settled down. “That’s the damn truth. But I have to say it anyway, that car does not suit a smoke show like you.”

  “Smoke show?”

  This had to be the strangest conversation I’d ever had.

  His eyes sparkled, gleaming such pale a blue they looked almost colorless. “Yeah, babe. You’re too hot for such a shit car.”

  Before I could get annoyed again, he chuckled and dipped down to speak just beside my ear. “Look good on the back of my bike though.”

  A little thrill shot through me. He must have felt the shiver through the hands still cupping my shoulders because they flexed against me in response, pulling me closer so that there was only a sliver of vibrating space between us.

  “I don’t even know you.”

  “Pressed up against me on the back of my bike, you’d get to know me pretty quick,” he retorted.

  His fingers were playing with a lock of my hair, which was incredibly distracting.

  “You know, it’s polite to introduce yourself to a lady before you hold her captive in a back alley,” I explained lightly and even though what I said was true, it didn’t mean that I didn’t like it.

  His grin flashed against his face. He knew I liked it. “Name’s King.”

  I jolted, my eyebrows raised and my mouth open in shock. “Are you making fun of me?”

  He tipped his head to the side. “No.”

  “Your given name is King?”

  What were the odds that my little nickname for him would turn out to be so literal? Then again, what were the odds that I would run into the same man who had radically changed my life three months ago just by being alive, vibrant and beautiful in a way I’d never seen before?

  “King Kyle Garro, babe.”

  “Why in the world would your parents name you that? Talk about unrealistic expectations,” I muttered.

  He laughed again but this time it was low, husky. “Not so unrealistic in my case.”

  Oh.

  His eyes were laughing at me as he leaned even closer. The scent of him, the sweet tang of male sweat, the clean wholesome fragrance of detergent, legitimately made me weak in the knees. I was strangely grateful for the hands pining me to the wall.

  “I was born to be King,” he said, his voice so full of laughter that I wondered he could speak past his humor.

  I snorted before I could catch myself and, because he had my arms pinned so I couldn’t cover my mouth in shocked horror at my uncharacteristic display of rudeness, I widened my eyes at him. “Sorry, that was rude.”

  “That was honest, babe. Don’t worry, I dig it. Besides, you don’t know me yet but soon as you do, you’ll get it, my name and how it fits like a fuckin’ glove.” He grinned at me as he spoke, as he pressed himself even closer so that we were plastered together from thigh to chest.

  “Um, King, you’re a little close given that I literally just met you,” I muttered.

  I tried to shift away but the movement just made my breasts brush back and forth over his hard chest. His eyes darkened at my wiggling and one hand slid from my shoulder, past the outer edge of my breasts to curl around my hip.

  “Like the feel of you against me.”

  I’d never met such a brazen man in my life. People weren’t allowed to touch strangers like that, to say whatever crossed their mind. There were rules in modern society. But it seemed King Kyle Garro was cool with breaking them.

  “Do you have no shame?” I asked.

  He took in my tilted head, the earnest set of my features and didn’t bother to keep himself from laughing at me. “Nah, never seemed like a great thing to have.”

  Well, I couldn’t argue with that.

  “That’s fair,” I said.

  His gorgeous, crystal clear eyes sparkled like they were faceted. “Yeah.”

  We stared at each other for a long time. He pressed so close to me that I could feel his heart beating. His pulse was a slow, hard drumbeat, whereas mine pattered wildly in my chest. He held me tightly, stared at me intimately as if he had a right to me, and more, as if he had been holding me and staring at me all our lives.

  It was disconcerting only a bit more than it was enthralling and both emotions overwhelmed me.

  “Are we going to do this all night? I’ve got colleagues inside waiting for me,” I finally said, going for sassy but failing because my voice was breathy.

  He grinned at me and up close to it like I was, it almost knocked me out with its perfection. I’d never seen such a beautiful smile, not even in a movie or a magazine.

  “Could do this all night, for sure, but I’d rather have your fine ass on the back of my bike. Let me take you for a ride.”

  “A ride?”

  He chuckled, but I caught the flash of erotic excitement in his eyes. “Yeah, a ride on my bike. It’s a good night for it. You ever been up the Sea to Sky?”

  He was referring to the Sea to Sky highway that started at the border to the United States, ran through Vancouver, Entrance, Whistler and all the way up to Lillooet. It was one of the most beautiful drives in the world, threading as it did all the way up the coast of British Columbia before it disappeared into the mountains. I’d followed it up to Entrance where it settled just north of Vancouver, but I’d yet to drive any further.

  So, I said, “No.”

  “You ever been on the back of a bike?”

  “No.”

  This time a grin so wicked that my heart lost a beat to its beauty. “Lookin’ forward to breakin’ your cherry, babe.”

  He laughed at my scowl as he unpeeled himself from me and then me from the wall. I was opening my mouth to scold him when he reached out to smooth a hank of golden brown hair back from my face.

  “Got a lot of hair, babe,” he said.

  “Ugh, yeah,” I answered.

  “Looks good.”

  “Um, thanks,” I murmured, caught up in the warmth of his small grin.

  “Right, you go in there, tell your girls that you’re heading out and I’ll meet you out front in five.”

  “Ah…” I hummed, uncomfortable with the entire situation now that h
is delicious body wasn’t pressed up against mine and his yummy hormones weren’t messing with my brain.

  “No ‘ah’ about it. Get in there, get set and let’s fuckin’ go. Meet you out front in five, babe, yeah?” he ordered, leaning forward to grab the back of my neck and bring me close so that we were nearly nose to nose again.

  I made the mistake of inhaling, taking in a deep lungful of that heady fresh laundry and male musk scent of his.

  “Yeah,” I agreed.

  He squeezed my neck, grinned into my face and stepped away so quickly that I nearly fell forward. He was laughing softly, hands in his pockets, as he walked away around the corner. I blinked after him for a minute, chewing my bottom lip and worrying.

  I’d moved to Entrance to get away from my boring, strictly regimented life. I’d never been hit on in a bar, never kissed a stranger, never rode on the back of a motorcycle or done anything I shouldn’t have done. I was so dull, it was a wonder that I didn’t put myself to sleep.

  So, with renewed energy and a kick of pure enthusiasm, I skipped into the bar to tell my new friends that I was leaving. When I approached our group of tall tables, everyone was still there but they’d collected a few more people. One of them was crowding Tay—which was easy to do considering her size and then, considering his own—and he wore a black leather vest embroidered with the image of a skull that dissolved into brilliantly detailed angel wings. It was a striking and disturbing image, almost too beautiful to represent a motorcycle club. The ‘Fallen MC’ was patched above the winged-skull and, if there had been any doubt, when the tall man turned towards me as I approached, it was obvious that he belonged to the outlaw band of brothers that silently ruled the province. This was obvious because he was a tall, broad-shouldered man with aggressive muscles that bulged under his black tee, a thick albeit beautifully groomed beard that partially hid the massive scar that sliced from the top of his left eye, ran behind a black eye patch and reemerged across his cheek to disappear in the hair covering his jaw. I’d never seen a man with such a disfiguring scar, let alone a man without an eye and I was struck dumb not with horror but curiosity. I’d learned a long time ago that my curiosity could get me in some serious trouble, so I quickly composed myself and walked up to the duo as if they were my best friends.

  The one-eyed man stared me down with his single, dark brown eye as if daring me to be disturbed. I had the feeling he enjoyed frightening people.

  I smiled at him. “Hi, you must be Cy. I’m Cressida Irons. It’s nice to meet a friend of Tayline’s.”

  Cy stared at me for what felt like forever before his glare lessened—though didn’t leave completely—and he tipped his chin at me. I realized that it was the only acknowledgment I was going to get and I was okay with that.

  When I turned to look at Tay, she was trying to rein in a smile.

  “I’m leaving,” I said, glad that Tay had her beau to distract her from my departure and that Rainbow was nowhere to be seen.

  I’d only known them a day, but I had a feeling those two had already inducted me into their sacred sisterhood and I also had a feeling they didn’t mess around with their girl’s-night-out commandments so letting a fellow girl friend leave on the back of some stranger’s motorcycle would probably not be okay with them.

  There was a small voice of reason in the back of my head that reminded me of the last time I’d left a bar with a random stranger. If no one had known where I’d gone, that night would have ended a lot differently for me. A lot worse.

  So, I quickly leaned in to tell Tay, “I’m going on a ride with one of the bikers. Say bye to Rainbow for me. I’ll text you when I get home safe, okay?”

  “You have my number,” she said but she looked uneasy. “Which biker?”

  Before I could answer, Cy moved closer to her, knocking her knees apart with his wide hips so he could settle between them. When she struggled slightly, his hands clamped down on her hips to still her.

  His woman secured, Cy looked at me and grunted, “Leavin’ too. Later.”

  I smiled again at him, this time genuinely because I thought he was funny. “Later,” I echoed with a chin lift before I grabbed my purse from Tay’s chair and headed out the front doors.

  In the moment when I was pushing the door open, I worried that King had decided not to give me a ride, that he realized he was wasting his time on a no-fun, dull-as-death woman who wouldn’t know how to live even if she was given a second lease on life. The panic that followed that highly depressing thought swept through me, spiking my adrenaline so that I ended up pushing the door too hard and spilling out into the street with what looked like—and was—desperation.

  Happily, and unhappily because I had just made a fool of myself, King was there. He sat on his huge Harley in the exact same pose he had that day in the parking lot. He was even wearing the same outfit, worn jeans that fit him like a woman’s dream, clunky motorcycle boots that were surprisingly sexy, and a new tee, this one a dark grey that made his pale eyes glow like mercury.

  He was smiling arrogantly when my gaze finally landed on his.

  “Got your fill?” he asked.

  Heat flooded my cheeks.

  First, I literally trip on my way to see him and then I get caught ogling him.

  God, I was such a dork.

  I pushed my hair back behind my ears and shrugged helplessly as I explained, “I’m a massive dork.”

  I watched him throw his head back, and when I say throw, I mean he thrust it back with such force that I worried he would topple backwards over the bike, then he proceeded to laugh uproariously at me for a good thirty seconds.

  Seriously, I counted.

  When he was done, he wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and then grinned at me. “You’re easily the funniest woman I’ve ever met.”

  “You obviously don’t know a lot of women,” I countered.

  His lids lowered and his eyes lost their sparkle as they heated. “Babe, I think we both know that I’ve known a fuckuva lot of women.”

  Yeah, I didn’t doubt that. The man looked like a Greek god. There was no way someone that good looking remained without a bedmate for long.

  Still…

  “You may have made your point but now I don’t really want to get on the back of your bike.”

  His lips twitched but he bit his lip to hide the grin. Even though it was a poor attempt to veil his obvious amusement with me, I was glad because I’d adopted my Serious Teacher Pose, hands on hips, weight on one leg with the other extended so I could tap my high heeled toe, and chin tilted down so that I could glower through my lashes. If he didn’t take that seriously then I knew I would never stand a chance of making him listen to me.

  “Babe,” he said, as if that negated all of my doubts.

  It didn’t. At least, not really. I did like it when he called me babe, even if it was because he didn’t know my name.

  “You don’t even know my name!” I accused, shocked that I’d only just noticed.

  “Yeah.”

  “You’ve been calling me babe because you don’t even know my name and here I was, liking that you called me babe,” I explained with my hands now fisted on my hips.

  He cocked his head as he stared at me, still smiling. “Don’t see the problem if you like it.”

  “But you probably call every girl babe,” I pointed out. “And you probably don’t know their real names either.”

  His lip twitch was my only answer.

  I made a noise of frustration, something between a low shriek and a growl, and turned on my heel to go back inside.

  “Babe,” he called, proving that he had serious nerve. “You like being called babe by any guy?”

  I hesitated, not understanding where he was coming from. “Not particularly.”

  It was kind of misogynistic, I guessed, but, truthfully, no one had ever called me that before.

  “Right. But you like it when I call you babe.”

  It went without saying—because I had
already said it to him—that I did.

  “Babe,” he repeated, humor vibrant in his words as he held out a spare helmet for me. “Get over here and get on the back of my bike.”

  I could feel the war raging inside my chest. It wasn’t the sane or safe choice to get on the back of a bike with a complete stranger who, while out of this world beautiful, could easily overpower me if that was his intention. My heart rallied against that logic, pointing enthusiastically at his aforementioned beautiful face and his pure, bright smile. A man like that would never take advantage of a woman, right?

  Besides, my heart had longed for such romance for a very long time and here was an opportunity to literally ride off into the night with a handsome stranger. I mean, come on. How much better could it get?

  In the end though, it was my gut that decided things for me. It was the same feeling I’d had when we were breathing the same air. My skin prickled, waiting for the touch of his strong hands, my nipples pebbled in anticipation of being pressed up against the cool leather of his back. The animal side of me, one that I had seen in so many other humans but never felt myself, called out to him.

  I heeded that call even though I knew listening to instinct over reason would probably get me in trouble.

  I knew it, and I wanted it.

  So, without a word, I turned and made my way over to the bike. With an easiness that hid my unfamiliarity with motorcycles, I swung my leg over the silver and black beast and settled myself on the perch just behind him. The skirt of my dress rode high on my thighs so that only my underwear separated my core from King’s broad back.

  I shivered as he tugged my arms around his slim torso and I fell flush against him.

  “Don’t be afraid to scratch or bite me if you get scared,” he said over his shoulder.

  I didn’t have to look at his face to know he was smiling.

  “I won’t get scared,” I lied.

  “Don’t be afraid to scratch or bite me all the same,” he retorted.

  Before I could say anything, although I had absolutely no idea how to respond to that, the bike came to life with a low roar and King was pushing off the ground and into motion. We turned off Main Street immediately and found ourselves on a long backwoods road that led us directly onto the highway. As soon as we hit the open road, King let out a loud, carefree shout and gunned us forward. My arms convulsed around him in fear.