Her Bad Boy Read online

  In truth, what Daughtry was doing wasn't much different from what he did, but then, he hadn't taken an oath to protect and serve. The taxpayers didn't pay his salary, and, although he had definitely committed crimes in his time, none of which were against women—certainly nothing like what he had personally done to Allie.

  "Did you wonder why I really hadn't done much about the way you jumped me that night, Bove?" the chief asked expansively when the two of them stood about ten feet apart from each other.

  "I was trying to stop you from molesting and probably raping a woman, if you were given the opportunity," Lucas returned much more calmly than he felt.

  "Ah, yes. Your little whore. Is she as good a piece of ass as she felt like to me? Nice boobs, those." he asked, turning to laugh with his compatriot.

  Although the memory of the livid bruises on the underside of Allie's breasts flashed through his mind, he held his tongue, knowing that the other man was just trying to bait him.

  "You shot pretty high above your station with her, didn't you? Or was that your plan all along? To try to get close to someone in the D.A.'s office, hope to get them to spin things your way?"

  "What do you want, Daughtry?" His patience was wearing very thin.

  "She's compromised herself with you. Multiple times."

  He flung a manila envelope towards him that he reached down and opened. It contained pictures of them together—in the garage, at the diner, at his place when she returned the gifts—a shot that deliberately looked as if he was giving her those things rather than her returning them—at the restaurant that he was late to and, somehow, one of her stretched up by the tree.

  "She's got to go, I'm afraid. Nothing else I can do. Too bad, too. She's good. Probably could have made D.A. in another few years, when old Perry retires, if she had a few friends to help her along the way." His reluctant act could use a lot of work.

  Lucas knew that it would kill Allie to lose the job she'd worked so hard to get, and, in the same instant, he knew that he had to do anything he could to prevent that from happening.

  Chapter 8

  Allie was feeling unusually good that day. Work was coming along well; she'd succeeded in her quest to change some things about her life that had resulted in her having one of the sexiest men on the planet in her bed on what was becoming a relatively regular basis—despite their challenges, and every time they could possibly work it out.

  She was learning a lot about herself from him, and he was proving to be the best possible teacher for her, with the ability to be infinitely kind, but also calculatingly, enticingly cruel. He encouraged her to work on changing what she could, what she wanted to, but didn't demand that she do any of it in order to accommodate him, although he did institute rules that would require that she do some things that made her a bit uncomfortable or pushed her rigidly well-ordered, anal retentive buttons. Like eliminating the fifteen-minute rule. Not just for him, but for everyone.

  "I can't believe you have any friends at all, considering how badly you treat them. I can at least whip your behind when you try to talk to me as if you've never been late in your life."

  "I haven't been!" she protested. They were in bed, and she was trying to lean away from him, although he wouldn't allow her to. "The extremely few times I've been late, it's been someone else's fault—they were late picking me up when they were giving me a ride or something like that."

  "And did you expect that the person you were meeting, when you were late, was going to act like an asshole when you got there?" he pressed.

  "Well, if she or he had, I would have understood perfectly."

  "Yes, well, I am the person you have to worry about the most, and I would not, as I'm sure you realize, by now." A big hand came down to pat a bottom that she would have sworn was still sore, even a week later.

  "Humph. I still don't see why—"

  Lucas' eyebrows rose to his hairline. "That's enough, young lady. You have been given a rule, and I expect you to obey it. It is non-negotiable."

  She glared but answered in the manner he prescribed, "Yes, Sir," although her tone was less meek and obedient than pouting and petulant.

  And Lucas wasn't going to have that, rising with the speed of a snake to tug her over his knee on the bed. "Do we need to have another discussion about your demeanor towards me, little miss?" he asked, his hand lying threateningly over her backside.

  Her response was immediate and downright obsequious. "No, no—I'm sorry, Sir. Please don't spank me."

  Lucas loved the balance he had found in her. She still resisted him actively sometimes, and he hoped she never stopped doing so, but lately, as the spankings had become less of a novelty, as well as less sporadic and more regular, such that her bottom was always either fresh from a spanking or only a day or so into recovering from one, she had become more obedient—overall—in order to avoid them, which was exactly what he wanted.

  But instead of spanking her this time, he had hooked his legs through hers and spread them both wide, leaving her exposed, reaching his hand down to fondle and tease her.

  Allie was incredibly enamored of him as a lover and a dom—he handled her perfectly. He wasn't overly controlling; he didn't try to stop her from seeing people or going out. In fact, he encouraged it, and he encouraged her independence as well as the journey she had begun to force herself out of the boundaries she had placed on herself.

  But he did control her—quite tightly—when they were together, with an intoxicating combination of loving, gentlemanly tendencies mixed with a large dose of strict, demanding dom. She had no experience of a man who was quite as sexual as he was. He was positively insatiable, and—far from being irritated or put out or ever trying to talk him out of it—she preened that he wanted her so frequently, even though she was often quite as sore in front as she was in back.

  One of the things he had taken control of immediately about her was something she had always wanted someone to take in hand for her. He ruthlessly controlled her pleasure. Now that they were together, she was absolutely as insatiable as he was—probably more so, since she was capable of infinite climaxes.

  But he doled them out sparingly, usually as a reward for good behavior, and, since she was still learning how to please him in a lot of ways, she found that she was often still throbbing in dire need of release when he patted her bottom and sent her off to work in the morning. This led to her being downright distracted at work, shifting in her chair, worrying that she was going to leave a dark spot on her chair, and generally showing the unmistakable signs of being terribly horny.

  Laura, of course, noticed immediately when they went out for dinner the first time since she and Lucas had gotten together.

  Allie had checked in with Lucas about whether it was okay for her to go out with her friend rather than coming right home to him after work—not that he usually cared—but she liked doing that, and if he had said no, she would have obeyed him.

  He had been surprisingly distracted during their phone call, as if he was concentrating hard on something and she was interrupting him, but he didn't want to blow her off. "Hi, kitten. That's fine with me—I have somewhere to be this evening, too."

  "Ah. Okay. If you're not home, I'll call you when I get to your place—although it's likely to be late—Laura's a chatterbox."

  It took him a few seconds to respond, then he said, "I might well be late, too, although I don't know. Good girl for checking in. Text me when you get home. I love you."

  She had been used to him devoting all of his attention to her when she was with him, but she knew that wasn't realistic to expect all the time, so she tried not worry that he sounded distant. After all, he'd praised her and even told her that he loved her, and they were going to be together tonight.

  She had said, "Me, too," which was as close as she could come at the moment. and he seemed fine with it. "Be careful," she added.

  Allie could hear his smile as he said, "Always. You, too. Gotta go, little one. See you tonight."

>   The two women arrived at the same time outside on the sidewalk—right when their reservation was for, so they didn't get any time to chat beforehand. Once they were brought to their table, which was a small private one Laura had specifically requested at the back, away from most of the rest of the tables, they took their seats and then their waitress descended on them, asking what they wanted to drink.

  Laura looked her straight in the eye and said, "Go away. I'll call you when we want you."

  The poor girl looked flustered, but Laura did not relent.

  As soon as she was gone, she leaned over the table and got directly into Allie's startled face. "Spill. From the beginning. I want to hear every hot, horny, NSFW moment—I don't care if we have to camp out here 'til midnight. You've been avoiding my calls, ducking my emails and ignoring my texts. I am at the end of my rope—I need to know exactly what's going on!"

  Allie played coy, batting her eyelashes at her friend. "Why, whatever could you mean, Laura?"

  Laura banged her hand down on the table for emphasis. "I'm not kidding, sister! I'm perimenopausal and I'm hopped up on E.R.T. My lady bits are like the Sahara at the moment—all dried up and no one around for miles. I have to live vicariously through you. Now start talking, and for once, I don't mean about the food you're eating!" She actually held a breadstick to her friend's throat threateningly, which had the both of them laughing uproariously.

  "Well…"

  It was so unusual for her to have sex stuff to talk about that Allie actually relished it enormously. Their positions had only ever been reversed.

  And she told her everything—she just started talking and kept talking all throughout dinner, with Laura ruthlessly controlling the poor intimidated waitress and the slow progress of their meal.

  "Is she going to be all right?" Allie asked when the poor girl delivered their coffees, rattling the cups against the saucers nervously, fit to break them.

  Laura shrugged. "She's young—she'll be fine, and I'll over tip the crap out of her. That'll ease her nerves. Keep talking, but be thinking about what you want for dessert."

  By the time she finished her homemade mile high chocolate cake and Laura her homemade coconut cream pie, she was telling her friend about the phone call today.

  The older woman leaned back in her chair and sighed contentedly. "If he's only letting you come sparingly, it's no wonder you fidgeted through dinner! You must be as horny as I am! But that was still wonderful!"

  Allie eyed her wryly. "Wanna cigarette?"

  "Practically," Laura laughed. "But the big question is, are you happy?"

  "Blissfully."

  "And is he happy?"

  She paused for only a second before answering, "I think he is, yes, maybe even more than I am, because he told me that he loved me, and I…didn't say it back."

  That caught Laura's attention. "Because you don't feel it or because you feel guilty about it or what?"

  "Because I'm not quite ready to. I'm working on letting go of the guilt about all of this, but it's hard."

  "Good for you! You deserve some of this kind of happiness in your life! It's short—you gotta get yours! I wish you both well."

  Allie wanted to be happy—in general and at her friend's happiness for her—but she groaned. "I wish I thought it was going to turn out well, but, realistically that's not likely to happen."

  "Why not?" Laura sounded almost insulted.

  Her eyebrow rose. "Heard of many mobsters marrying the D.A.s who are trying to nab them living happily ever after lately?"

  "No, but—"

  "No. There aren't any buts. It's doomed, and I think we're both just trying to get as much as possible out of it while we can."

  "That's thoroughly depressing."

  Allie took a sip of her coffee. "Yeah, but it's the truth."

  "The truth is overrated. It sucks. I vote for true love!"

  Although she flashed her friend a smile, she knew that what she'd said was the crux of the situation, that she and Lucas had to do exactly what she'd said they were already doing—take what they can while they could before the whole thing blew up in their faces.

  Despite the downturn in the conversational tone, she was upbeat and happy when she hugged Laura goodbye and headed home, because she was going to see him. By the time she was at the gate, her body was thrumming in readiness for him and whatever he had planned for them this evening.

  She parked her car in one of the private spots not too far from the door and hurried towards it, to be met by Joey Zullo, Lucas' worshipful chief cook and bottle washer, before she could even get to it.

  "Hi, Joey!" She smiled up at him.

  But, surprisingly, he didn't smile back, nodding much too formally since they had been on a first name basis for a while now. "Miss Barstow."

  She took a step towards him, and he mirrored it, refusing to budge, doing the same thing when she moved to the left and right.

  Then she stopped and took a step back from him, a chill descending over her as she said the words out loud that she knew in her heart were true, but addressed them to his fine leather oxfords. "I take it I have become, for some reason I will probably never know, persona non-grata, then?"

  Joey raised his arms, wishing he could hug her without ending up dead, but then he dropped them again. "I'm sorry, Miss Barstow. I'm just following orders."

  She could tell by the emotion in his voice that he truly was sorry.

  "I know, Joey, and I'm sorry you have to do this. Is this a permanent situation, do you think, or—" she began, cutting herself off rather than putting him in that awkward position. Besides, it didn't really matter whether Lucas thought it was permanent or not.

  He had made it permanent by treating her in this cowardly manner, discharging her from his life for no apparent reason and not even having the basic courtesy to be the one to tell her about it.

  Basic courtesy, she almost snorted out loud. She was actually standing there, expecting basic courtesy from a mobster.

  With a quick, "Thank you, Joey," she turned around and headed back to her car, so stunned she couldn't even cry.

  "Miss Barstow, would you like me to drive you home?" Joey called after her.

  But she didn't answer him. She got in her car—not even peeling out or anything—calmly and sedately driving away, never having seen the man who was gazing out at her longingly from behind the curtains in his library.

  When she arrived home, she got into her most comfortable clothes and walked methodically through the house with a box in her hand, dropping anything into it that he had given her. The blue dress went in there, a copy of his grandmother's recipe for sauce, the handbag and the perfume and the phone case, the DVDs of Star Trek: TOS he'd gifted her with, as well as a shopping bag, full of various sex toys that she knew she would never use again.

  Allie stood and stared down at it for a long moment, the detritus of a failed relationship. There were a few things she'd left at his place that she wanted back, so she included a hand-written letter addressed to Joey—her point of contact with him, apparently—which she put in there, too. Then she taped it all together, addressed it to Lucas, care of Joey, and put it by the door to take to UPS in the morning. And that was that.

  But she didn't cry. A kind of veil of numbness descended over her during the next couple of months, instead. She went to work. She ate, although not very much. She even went out on Friday nights with the gang and had a drink, although she very carefully limited it to one, and she always ordered an appetizer and got herself an Uber. She went shopping with Laura and even continued to push herself out of her comfort zone a bit at a time, actually taking a few days of vacation to go up to Oregon to see a college friend who had just had a baby.

  The tears didn't hit her until much later, and at the worst possible moment—when he was sitting across from her in the court room.

  They had done it—they had gotten him dead to rights on credit card fraud using skimmers—little devices that could be attached—almost unde
tectably—to a card reader at a retail establishment or ATM that recorded the information on the card, tracing the trail the long way back all the way to him.

  Although Perry was there, at the table with them, she was the lead on this case, and therefore, was expected to deliver the opening argument. She'd never had such an attack of nerves about speaking in front of a crowd in her life. She was, of course, ultra-prepared, and all of her ducks were in very neat rows.

  But then she'd never had to deliver a speech in front of her ex-lover before, nor one that was likely to be the start of something that was going to put him away for a very long time. Still, she forced herself to rise from the table, walk out to stand before the judge and the jury and begin.

  "Ladies and gentlemen," she said. "My name is Allyria Barstow." She could hear him saying her name in that passionately demanding way of his in the back of her head, but did her best to ignore it. "And I am here to prove to you that this man…" she came to stand in front of Lucas, barely able to force herself to look at him as her eyes flooded with tears, but hoping that no one would notice "…is…"

  Her entire body flushed hot all of a sudden as the tears flowed down her face, and she couldn't seem to get the next word out.

  "Is…" She tried again, smiling weakly now as she began to feel worse and worse, while crying harder and harder. Allie opened her mouth to start over, and as soon as she did, she knew it was not at all a good idea, clamping her hand over it instead and literally running out of the courtroom to the nearest ladies' room, where she forcibly divested herself of the meager contents of her breakfast—some weak tea and a stale doughnut, all while crying her heart out.

  Laura happened to be there that morning—she was the only one on her side of things that knew that they had been involved, and although Allie was as staunch as ever in her faith in herself and her ability to go through with this, Laura had her own, serious doubts about that, so she decided to watch, hoping she was wrong.