Wanted: A Bad Boy Romance Read online

  WANTED

  A Bad Boy Romance

  MAYA HAWK

  * COPYRIGHT 2015 MAYA HAWK * ALL RIGHTS RESERVED *

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions through Amazon.

  This is a work of pure fiction. Names, places, and incidents are solely a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, events, or locations is coincidental and unintended.

  To my readers –

  Completely awed and inspired by your rabid support with my first novel.

  This one’s for you.

  Maya

  Also by Maya

  PIERCED

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  DESCRIPTION

  JORDANA

  I don’t know why bad things happen to good people, and I don’t know what makes good people do bad things. All I know is my past and future intersected the day I met Titan Blackstone. He’s aloof and cryptic, cold and unfeeling. We’re cut from two entirely different cloths. I’m patient and forgiving. He’s distant and callous.

  I’m intrigued. Confused. Awestruck. Overwhelmed with sheer infatuation. Obsessing over the one thing I can’t have.

  And yet I’m drawn like a moth to his flame, addicted to the burn because it’s the only thing that makes me feel alive.

  TITAN

  I’m damaged goods, baby. Bitter. Angry. A convicted felon on a warpath.

  I have no intentions of changing for anyone, and looking out for number one is my only priority.

  Five years locked up and the first thing I see on the other side is her - some goody-two shoes parole-office intern attempting to satisfy her newly discovered rebellious side with a taste of bad boy.

  She doesn’t belong in my world but she’s as stubborn as she is gorgeous, and I kind of like the way she makes me feel…

  Wanted.

  But I’m a man on a mission. I have business to attend to now that I’m free, and if Jordana’s smart, she’ll move on. But if I’m smart, I’ll never let her go…

  AUTHOR’S NOTE: This is a full-length, standalone romance with HEA and no cliffhanger.

  Read Me!

  For a limited time, this edition of WANTED includes a bonus copy of my first novel, PIERCED, which was an Amazon Top 100 Best Seller in July 2015! Please note that WANTED ends around 60% (but rest assured it is a full-length, standalone romance novel)! You do not need to read PIERCED first, but you can if you want. The decision is yours, so choose wisely…C--k-pierced OB-GYN or tatted and muscled convict?

  Love,

  Maya

  CHAPTER ONE – TITAN

  “Inmate Titan Blackstone. Roll up.”

  I rise from the flat mattress I’ve called home for the last five years and stand back as the corrections officer unlocks my cell. My fists clench at my sides, but I’m not angry. I’m not even nervous.

  I’m ready.

  They say being locked away gives a man time to think. I was supposed to spend those years reflecting on the pain and suffering I’d caused. Instead I spent that time ruminating on the pain and suffering my victim caused my family.

  My rage burned harder, faster, and deeper than ever with each passing day behind bars. Being locked up like a caged animal only intensified it. Years of pumping iron and fighting for status and territory in the yard have made me an even more brutal force to be reckoned with. My jumpsuit barely contains my steel barrel chest and my shoulders have hardened like smooth stone.

  I didn’t sleep at all last night. Then again, I rarely sleep.

  “You have any dress outs?” Another correction officer asks as we approach receiving and discharge. Her dark beady eyes offer neither sympathy nor excitement as she stares down from behind wire-rim glasses. This is just another day in the office for her, but for me, this is where everything changes.

  The beginning of an end.

  “No,” I say, quite positive my father, Dr. Lewis Blackstone, hasn’t taken time from his busy surgical schedule to shop for release-day clothes for me.

  Another C.O. approaches from behind with a plastic bag of clothes. “You can wear these.”

  “Do you have a ride?” the first C.O. asks, signing a white form and sliding it across the counter toward me. “Sign here.”

  “I called my dad last week. He said he’d send someone.”

  “We can provide you with a bus ticket if you need a ride,” she says, taking the paper and tearing off the carbon copy. She hands me a packet with my name and inmate number scribbled on top. “Your parole officer’s information is inside. He’ll be contacting you to set up a meeting sometime this week.”

  A guard by the doorway peers at me from his perch, his hands resting on his duty belt. He lifts his thick-knuckled fingers and curls them in his direction, motioning for me to head his way.

  “You can change in there.” He motions toward a small bathroom. “Your ride is here.”

  I glance out the reinforced window expecting to see a taxi sent by my father. Instead I see a raven-haired girl sitting in a bright red Toyota Corolla.

  “Your girlfriend?” he asks, like it’s any of his business. The guards are invasive like that. Privacy isn’t allowed here in any shape or form. His lips inch into a dirty smile.

  The last thing I need to divulge right now is that I have no fucking idea who this woman is.

  He shakes his head and wears his smug half-smile like it’s part of his shit-brown uniform.

  “She said she’s here to pick up Titan Blackstone. You’re Titan Blackstone,” he says.

  I head into the bathroom and change into the sack of donated clothes I’ve been provided: tight, torn blue jeans, a white wife-beater, and a rainbow-hued Hawaiian button down.

  You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.

  I swallow the hard ball of pride that’s lodged itself into my throat and suck it up. My dignity will have to make itself known by the way I walk, the way I carry myself. Fuck this Hawaiian shirt. It’s coming off the second I get off the grounds.

  The guard stifles a smile the second I emerge. I’d punch him across his stupid mouth if I weren’t minutes away from tasting freedom. He walks me out to the pick up lane, where the dark haired girl climbs out of her car and walks around to meet us. I’ve never seen this broad in my life, but damn if it takes every ounce of me not to get hard right here, right now because she’s fucking sex on legs.

  And it’s not because I haven’t seen a fuckable woman in five long years. This chick is straight up sexy as hell. Full, juicy lips. Shiny, black hair that drips down her deep caramel shoulders. Dark, almond-shaped eyes. She’s the whole package with a side of tits, hips, and ass.

  I lick my lips and drink her in like a shameless manwhore who hasn’t felt the touch of a woman in far too long. A hint of her smooth stomach peeks out from between her tank top and the top of her jeans, and her bra hardly contains her generous cleavage.

  If I were a recovering crack addict, this woman would make me relapse so hard.

  “I’m Jordana,” she says, extending her hand like we’re in some sort of job interview. She pulls her shoulders back, inadvertently pressing her tits out to say ‘hello’ as well. “Your stepsister.”

  Stepsister?

  The guard’s eyes dart from her face to mine and back.

  “Ah, ye
s. I’ve heard about you,” I lie. “Dad mentioned you the last time we talked.”

  I glance out to the busy highway where cars zip past. I want to be there. In the car. Leaving this place. I’ll worry about the details of my father’s new marriage in a moment. The last thing I need is this guard to throw a wrench in my plan by raising a stink about the fact that I’m leaving with a complete stranger.

  Everything’s a red fucking flag to these ass hats.

  “Better be going,” I say, brushing past her and reaching for the passenger handle of her Toyota. She skips around back and climbs in next to me. My hand finds the recline lever, and I sit back, inhaling a lungful of the coconut car freshener wafting from the palm tree hanging from her rear-view mirror. It’s nice to smell something that isn’t bleach or must or the dirty cock and balls of my cellmate.

  “Buckle up,” she says with a smile, revealing a row of perfectly straight, white teeth. She’s sweet. Too fucking sweet. Filled with saccharine, butterflies, and rainbows. “Lewis talks about you all the time.”

  She pulls out of the pick up lane, flies through a green light, and merges onto the highway.

  “You don’t have to lie,” I say. “What was your name again?”

  “Jordana.” She says it slowly, like, “Jor…dan…uh.”

  “Dad didn’t tell me he got married.” My fingers twitch.

  Mom and Taylor died five years ago. I suppose he had to move on, but it would’ve been nice to get a heads up from the bastard.

  “Well, they’re not technically married. Not yet. They’re engaged,” Jordana turns toward me, cocking her head to the side like an adorable cheerleader.

  “Since when?”

  She glances back toward the road. “It was last year. Maybe around Christmas?”

  The fifth anniversary of Mom and Taylor’s deaths. How poignant.

  “When’s the wedding?” Not that I care, but it’d be nice to know these kinds of things.

  She lifts a single shoulder. “Soon? I don’t know. They’re obsessed with each other. I’m not exactly thrilled about this whole thing either, just so you know. But I’ve never seen her so happy, and it’s been a rough few years for her, so I don’t say much about it.”

  “What’s your mom’s name?” I ask, rolling down the window and basking in the fresh air and sunshine. I’d stick my head out the window like a dog, but I’m too cool for that shit.

  “Laticia,” she says. “My mom’s a professor at Holy Hope College. Our parents met in a support group for the grieving. Specifically for people who’ve lost children.”

  She says it carefully but matter-of-factly. I don’t sense rage or anger behind her words, which tells me she’s the kind of girl who lets life happen to her and doesn’t fight back.

  I’ve got news for her. I’m a fighter. I fight for what I believe in. I refuse to lie down and let life fuck me in the ass. Didn’t do it in prison, sure as hell not doing it on the outside.

  “Who’d you lose?” I don’t have time to choose my words carefully, like she does.

  Her hands grip the steering wheel and she pulls in a quick breath. “My brother. Jerome. He was beaten outside a bar a few year ago. We’re not sure if it was a hate crime or a random act of violence, but no one’s been able to find the perpetrator.”

  “Sorry.” I hate that word. It’s too light. Not nearly heavy enough to numb the sting.

  “I’m sorry about your mom and sister,” she says, pressing her lips together. “Your dad has a whole notebook full of articles. He has the ones about you too. About what you did.”

  “He’s lucky I didn’t kill the sorry bastard.”

  It was my intention. I wanted to kill the drunk son of a bitch who crashed into my mom and sister on their way home from the mall Christmas Eve. I’ll never forget looking into his eyes as he begged for his life. I offered him one final blow, his face already blackened, bruised, and bloody, and dropped him on the frozen concrete outside the local bar he’d just crawled out of after I stalked him like a lion hunting a gazelle.

  He was awaiting trial for vehicular homicide, released on bail. Rumor had it he was going to serve thirty years and be free as a bird, less if he was released for good behavior. A lifetime behind bars never would’ve been enough. Our state has a track record of being particularly easy on drunk drivers. I consider it a fault line, a crack in the system.

  “He has a scrapbook of clippings?” I ask. It doesn’t sound like my father.

  Jordana nods. “Several. He was kind of obsessed. Now he’s just kind of…obsessed with my mom.”

  I imagine my father putting in his twelve hours at the hospital, coming home to a dinner of takeout and the echoes of an empty house once filled with family, and pouring over newspaper articles.

  Maybe it helped him bide the time.

  “My mom was the same way when my brother was killed,” Jordana says. “She’s got at least five binders about Jerome. Any newspaper or internet article she could find, she’d put in there. They’re two of a kind, our parents.”

  I place my hand up. I don’t want to hear another word about how perfect Laticia is for my father.

  I catch a glimpse of the bright yellow of my sleeve and suddenly remember how I look. My fingers work the buttons of the Hawaiian hot mess I’m wearing until I’m free. Yanking it off my shoulders, I toss it out the window, watching in the side mirror as it flits and rolls down the highway and stops between a thicket of weeds.

  “Why’d you do that? You looked really good in yellow.” Jordana bites away a smile. And then I catch her gaze falling toward my shoulders before snapping back toward the road.

  Much better.

  We merge onto a stretch of highway I haven’t seen in years. In twenty-seven minutes, we’ll be pulling into the tree-lined drive of the Blackstone residence.

  Jordana reaches for the knob of the radio, tuning it to some pop station that makes my ears want to bleed. The second her hand returns to the wheel, I lean over and change it.

  “Hey,” she says. Her hand shoots to mine, covering my knuckles with her delicate palm. Her nails are colored in some bubblegum pink color that reminds me of Pepto-Bismol. “I liked that song.”

  “I didn’t.”

  I lean back, pressing my shoulder against the glass of the passenger door and staring out at the Kansas cornfields that pass us by.

  I expect her to switch the station back, but she doesn’t. She’s probably feeling sorry for me, remembering I haven’t had access to a lot of things over the last five years. I don’t like the way her pitied stare weighs me down.

  “Stop feeling sorry for me.” I clear my throat.

  She whips toward me, her dark hair cascading down her bare shoulders. “What are you talking about?”

  “I can feel it.” I shake my head. “I can feel you feeling sorry for me. Don’t. Just…don’t. I changed your station. You should turn it back.”

  “It’s not a big deal.”

  “It is a big deal. When someone disrespects you, you shouldn’t take it lying down.”

  Jordana laughs. “It was a song. I’m sure I have it on my iPhone. I can listen to it whenever I want.”

  “Don’t be a pushover, Joanna.”

  “Jordana.”

  “Whatever your name is.”

  “Now that was rude.” She huffs as she angles her nose up into the air.

  I tilt my head, a shit-eating grin consuming my face. The only names I care to learn are the ones attached to a beautiful pussy.

  God, I’d kill for some fucking pussy right now.

  Hot.

  Tight.

  Wet.

  Addictive in every possible way.

  It’s not right to deprive a twenty-something man with a sex drive higher than fuck for five years.

  “If I’m not fucking you, your name doesn’t really matter,” I say with a huff. It’s just how my brain works. “If I’m being honest, sis.”

  Her hand flies over her mouth, as if I’ve just muttered the un
speakable in her presence. She should slap me right now. I’d allow it. I’m an asshole, and I deserve it.

  “You’re going to let me talk to you like that?” An incredulous laugh escapes my mouth. This girl is a fucking pushover.

  Her fingers wrap so tight around her steering wheel her knuckles turn white. I watch as her lips rub together, pressed hard into a straight line until she swallows.

  “Are you afraid of me?” I lean into her, pulling in a lungful of her fruity, floral body spray. She’s completely harmless. Naïve. Mary-fucking-sunshine. “You are. You’re afraid of me.”

  “Why would I be scared of you?” There’s a mild shake in her words.

  “Because I just served time for damn near killing a man. Because I look like I can bench a fucking half-ton truck, and I’m covered in tats,” I say, dragging my finger across the black ink that jackets my left bicep. “That and I’m not afraid to speak the truth. I have no filter. I’ll say whatever I want, whenever I want, even if it makes people uncomfortable.”

  “That’s called rudeness,” she says. “It’s nothing worth bragging about.”

  “It’s called being real.” I roll my window down even more, welcoming the fresh air as if I’ve spent the last five years drowning. “You should try it sometime.”

  “I’m real,” she says. “I just have manners.”

  I shake my head, grinning. It’s fun getting her going, especially after spending years having to keep my opinions to myself unless I felt like getting into a brawl with a guy from another gang. They always ended with the other guy face-planted and seeing stars and me going to solitary confinement for twenty-four hours.

  And then I realized no big-mouthed moron was worth sacrificing my chances of getting out for good behavior.

  The Toyota pulls toward Blue Pond Drive, veering left and heading toward the white lake house at the end of the cul-de-sac. It looks exactly the way it did the day I got hauled off in the back of a squad car. Every tree, every bush, every flowering plant – all of it was exactly the way my mother left it before she died. My father hadn’t swapped out a single red rosebush.