Heart of a Savage Read online

  “Too much, Nico,” I hear my trainer, Mark, say.

  If he meant to sound serious, he failed. I turn to where he’s standing and before I can open my mouth, I feel . . . weird. It feels like somebody’s watching me. I turn my head and scan the crowd. About 90 percent of the people in here are watching us, so I’m not sure why I get this feeling. No set of eyes jump out at me, but I can’t knock the feeling and that pisses me off.

  “For real this time, Nico. Joey, put him through the motions,” Mark says.

  AS I STARE AT the text on my phone, I hum along to Stay by Tyrese. I can’t decide if I want to dwell on the fact that Tyrese should go back to his roots and make more music like this or that Janae has randomly sent me a text saying she misses me. That’s it. She misses me. Nothing telling me where she is, exactly why she left, nothing. If Jax were here, he’d snatch my phone and block her number before going into a spiel about why she’s not good for me. I know she’s not good for me. That’s why I never tried to find her after she left. That doesn’t stop me from wanting answers though. It also doesn’t stop this from fucking up my night. I shake my head and toss the phone onto my desk. This definitely isn’t a night to dwell on ghosts and Tyrese will stop singing this song in another minute or so. I glance at my watch, before deciding I’ll have the guys meet up for a drink. It’s only nine at night and, technically, it’s my night to stay on site, but anybody coming this late already has a membership and a key fob, so I don’t really need to be here.

  I shut down the computer and grab my bag before slipping my headphones on and head for the door. Van is the first to respond to my text invitation with “fuck yeah, dibs on all the groupies you turn away, broke dick bastard.” Law is quick to follow with “whosoever is unable to get a fully functional erection is buying.” The rest of them chime in with asshole responses and by the time I make it to the door, I’m wondering why I’m friends with any of them. The answer floods my thoughts no matter how hard I try to block it. Janae. We were supposed to get married. Instead, I was left with a fucking “Dear John” letter saying she was sorry. Nothing else, just that she was sorry. Straight to the point. The world’s shittiest breakup letter. That day reminds me of why I keep idiots as friends. The venue was booked, food catered, people had come on the special day for a show. Instead of a blushing bride coming down the aisle to “The Wedding March,” our guests got five men coming down the aisle while dancing to Meeting in My Bedroom by Silk, Feenin’ by Jodeci, Bump n Grind by R. Kelly, and even fucking Partition by Beyoncé. My poor Nana was scandalized, but that didn’t stop her from joining in to throwing money at Jax as he jerked his hips to the bass filled beat of Partition.

  The night before my wedding day was the last time I’d been able to have an erection that actually worked—and by work I mean have a happy ending. We’d gone to a strip club and things had gotten intense with the ladies as they danced and stripping for our enjoyment. I’d done what any sensible 27-year-old groom surrounded by strippers would have done – rub one out in the men’s room of the strip club. Classy, I know. That was about eleven months ago. Since then, I’ve had plenty of erections. Finishing the job has been nonexistent. I guess being stood up at the altar will do that to a guy, fuck up his psyche or some shit like that.

  As I lock the door Tyrese and one of The Isley Brothers are extolling the virtues of having a girl who loves them. Why the fuck did he think it was a good idea to team up with Tank and Ginuwine? Something small and soft touches my forearm and I barely resist the urge to jump a mile because, what the fuck, I see a hand. A hand with long, slender fingers and neon pink nail polish, sharp in its contrast to the smooth, mahogany skin. I follow an arm covered by a leather jacket to a face with big brown eyes, stretched wide as they look up at me, a small nose, and luscious lips. Her brown eyes are surrounded by long, dark lashes and arched eyebrows. They’re beautiful. She could be beautiful. She’s not though. There’s something blocking it and against my better judgment I want to know what it is. A beanie covers her head, but short black hair peeks out from one side. Those luscious lips move and I remember I still have my headphones on, but I also remember that since Janae, I hate being touched. I should really go talk to someone about these issues I’m having, but I’m a guy. Soooooo . . . I look back down at the hand that’s still on my forearm and she quickly pulls it back before dropping her gaze to the ground. I slip my headphones off just as she speaks again.

  “I’m sorry. I was trying to ask you about the gym, but I knew you couldn’t hear me.”

  And Junior has decided he likes her fucking voice. Soft and sweet and conveying utter innocence, even with her mumbling like she’s scared out of her mind. I would contribute that to my size, but she’s pretty tall for a chick. I’d say about 5’ 9” at least. Not to mention that chicks seem to be more turned on by my size than afraid of it. Being bigger means I can protect them. Not her though. I expect her to run for safety at any moment. She hasn’t made eye contact since I initially turned to her and she’s fidgeting. I take in her clothes, which look like they could be expensive, and I notice that she’s skinny as hell. No hips, no ass, no tits, just slim and athletic. So why in the hell is Junior stepping up to full throttle? The icing on the cake? I feel beads of pre-cum. Eleven months dry as the desert and this timid little boy-girl is un-manning me. That gets my blood boiling and for a second causes me to question my masculinity, which is totally unacceptable. Did I just say totally? This girl is destroying my vibe.

  “What the fuck are you doing creeping around here this late at night?”

  She squeaks. Literally jumps a foot in the air and squeaks like a scared little mouse. Granted, I did snap at her, but come on. Really? I glance around the parking lot and around the building. She can’t be out here by herself, but there is no one else and I don’t even see a car. When I look back at her, she’s hugging herself and slowly backing away. I reach out and grab her by both arms and she whimpers, her face a mask of terror. What the fuck?

  “Please,” she begs. “I’m s-sorry. I-I only wanted to ask about the gym. I’ll leave. I promise.”

  “You think I’m going to hurt you?” I try to keep the growl from my voice, but I can’t. Everything about this girl is irking the fuck out of me. Why would I want to hurt her and why in the hell is she so scared when she sought me out? She shrugs her shoulders in answer and although she tries to cower away, she doesn’t physically try to get free. Now I’m upset and confused. Either she’s scared or she isn’t. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m going to let you go and you’re not going to run, okay? You’re going to tell me what you’re doing out here and why you’re alone.” She nods her head in agreement and I let her go. She keeps her eyes trained on the ground and that gets to me even more.

  “How’d you get here?”

  “I walked . . . from the bus.”

  “Why?” The bus stop is roughly a quarter-mile from here. This isn’t a bad neighborhood, I made sure of that when I picked the location, but she’s a female and no place is really safe for her to be alone at night. But shit, why do I even care? Why does her being here, alone, unsafe, bother me so much?

  “The gym.”

  Captain Obvious. Of course she’s here for the gym. She’s literally at the gym. And why is she still mumbling? “Why?”

  “I looked online. It said you have self-defense classes.”

  At no point would I have considered that to be her reason. She’s asking about self-defense classes and yet she’s here alone this late at night. She risks a glance at me just as a pick-up truck pulls into the parking space in front of where we stand. I groan because I know that as scared as she is, it’s about to get ten times worse. I glance back at her and see that her eyes are stretched even wider than they were and her little hands are clenched into fists. That tells me two things. The first I already knew, she’s scared shitless. The second is a surprise. She’s no longer fidgeting. Her feet are planted shoulder-width apart with the right foot half a step forward. Her fist
s have inched forward slightly from her sides, and her brow is slightly furrowed. This timid little mouse has the instincts of a fighter. They may be buried extremely deep down inside her, but it’s there.

  “Don’t worry,” I say. “If they bother you, I’ll kick their asses.”

  Fuck me, why did I just say that?

  “Seriously, we’re still on this shit?” Cade asks once he’s out of the truck.

  “Get the fuck over it, Whitey-white-white. Your dick isn’t going to work. That bitch, Janae, broke it, so quit being selfish and let us go to the bar to get your groupies,” Van says as he hops out of the passenger side.

  If I wasn’t used to them coming at me like this I’d be embarrassed. Instead, I feel the chick, whose name I don’t even know, move closer to me and fuck if that doesn’t cause more pre-cum to ooze.

  “I said I’d go home and change before meeting y’all there. Why are y’all here?”

  “We thought you were pranking us. You never volunteer to go out anymore and definitely not for a drink,” Jax says.

  I didn’t even realize he was in the truck, so I look inside to make sure no one else will pop out. They’re like fucking clowns coming out of a tiny toy car.

  “Top of the morning to ya, sunshine,” Van says as he smiles at the chick now plastered to my side.

  It seems that every time one of them exits the truck she takes a step closer and pre-cum just squirts out of me. I have no control over myself. If I weren’t so stunned and pissed, I’d take the time to consider what this actually means. Instead I can only think, “Good lord she’s fucking skinny.” My dick has obviously lost his mind. We could never be with her. We prefer chicks with at least a little meat on their bones. We’re too fucking big for anything else. And that’s not us bragging. That’s just logic. At 6’ 4”, 264 lbs, we need that extra cushion or no one is going to enjoy anything. A chick her size wouldn’t be able to handle us.

  “It’s nearly ten at night, shithead, not morning,” Cade says. “Who’s this?” he asks, jerking his head in her direction.

  “Caden, Vance, Jackson,” I say pointing each of them out, not even sure if she’s looking at us or the ground, which is obviously much more interesting, “This is - ” I pause. How do I not know her name at this point?

  “Bai-Rochelle. My name is Rochelle.”

  “Well that’s obviously a lie, Bai-Rochelle,” Van says.

  World’s best friends, these guys. She drops her eyes again, but I raise her head with a finger to the bottom of her chin. “Head up,” I murmur so only she can hear.

  “Holy shit! What the fuck am I seeing?” Jax demands, voice incredulous.

  “A very shy chick, I think. What you doing here, sweetheart?” Van asks.

  “She wants to take the self-defense classes,” I answer for her, not liking him calling her ‘sweetheart.’ He raises an eyebrow, but says nothing.

  “Does she realize she’s about six hours late?” Cade asks.

  She’s standing right here, but he’s right. The self-defense classes are at 4 PM, some days 5 PM. The way we see it, if they need to take a self-defense class, they need to do it during the daylight hours. Before I can say anything else, Jax pipes up again.

  “I’m going to say this again, for those not paying attention. What the fuck am I seeing here?”

  He gestures to my crotch, where there’s not only an erection, but all that pre-cum? Yup, big ass wet spot. Note to self, burn all light blue gym shorts. Second note to self, these fuckers can actually still embarrass me. Thankfully, she’s moved so far away from them that she’s partially behind me and can’t see what they’re all now cheering and excited about. It’s my dick. You’d think I’d be the one this hyped up, but nope—still embarrassed. Even more so because it’s the effect of this way too skinny, and way too timid for my lifestyle chick. We’d never fucking work and therefore it’s a waste of absolutely awesome bodily fluids.

  “How about we give you a ride home, make sure you get there safely and then you can come back tomorrow at 4 for the class?” I suggest.

  Her eyes jump to me and I see pure panic. I’m not the only one though. All the laughing and joking stops. This chick is terrorized by something and the protector in all of us has reared its head. We may break a few hearts unintentionally, but this is something none of us would do.

  “Tell us. Tell us who put that look on your face and I promise we’ll make him stop,” Jax growls.

  Jax. The most laid back of all of us is already willing to hurt someone for just the look in her eyes. Nothing gets to Jax. He’s too damn pretty to get upset about anything. Yet fierceness blazes in his eyes.

  “I don’t . . . you can’t . . .” She stops and expels a deep breath trying to calm herself, that fighter peeking out again. “I can pay you. However much it costs. It has to be at this time though. Well, nine is better, but I can push it to this late if we do half an hour only.”

  Four sets of eyes stare at her in silence. I know my brothers and I know we think alike in certain situations. I’d bet anything that, like me, they’re searching her exposed skin for bruises. None are visible, so that means whoever is abusing her is keeping it to body parts that she will cover, especially in this colder weather. Considering the way she keeps trying to make herself smaller, it may even be mental abuse.

  “Rochelle,” Van says while making air quotes. Fucking asshole. “If you don’t come to the classes there’s no telling who’ll be here this late. There’s no schedule for who stays and sometimes no one stays at all past 7 PM.”

  If she moves any closer to me things will become a lot more interesting and we’ll have to test that theory about her handling my size. It’s madness, but I’m really okay with that. She glances up at me, but drops her gaze too quickly for me to read the question in her eyes. Her fingers grip my hoodie and she moves further behind me. Pretty soon I won’t be able to see her. I wonder if she even realizes she touching me. Wait. She’s touching me. Why am I not freaking out? I look up and see Cade wearing a smirk as he looks from me to her. Shit. What’s happening right now?

  “Please don’t be mad,” she begs, her gaze flitting between Jax and Van, “you’re not big enough. I’ll call first and make sure it’s Caden or you,” she says with a quick glance in my direction.

  Huh. She doesn’t know my name, either. I think I’m insulted. Come to think of it, she doesn’t seem like she recognizes any of us and that’s fucking unheard of in this area. “Dominic,” I tell her.

  “Dominic,” she parrots back as though testing my name on her lips.

  Yup, you guessed it. Fucking pre-cum.

  “I’ll call first, if it’s one of you, I’ll come.”

  Before any of us can respond, she’s gone, hurrying towards the bus stop and, coincidentally, the approaching bus. Like a hive mind, all four of us follow without prompting. Once she’s safely on the bus, I turn away and head for the truck. Her words finally penetrate my surprise of her not knowing me. She said Jax and Van weren’t big enough. They’re both middleweights. She said it had to be me or Cade. Cade is a light heavyweight. That can only mean one thing. The bastard she’s afraid of is a big son of a bitch.

  ROCHELLE? I SILENTLY question myself as I pull the cake pan from the scorching heat of the oven. A cloud of hazelnut steam hits me square in the face, mingled with the scent of the still baking butterscotch. Whoever created double ovens was a pure genius and I thank them in times like this when I’m nervous and need to bake to get my mind off of it. The reason behind my nervousness? It’s been over a week since the day I went to the gym. Today will be the first time I show my face there again and all I can think about is the fact that I told them my name was Rochelle. Well, that’s not all I can think about, but it’s a pretty big issue since my name is, obviously, not Rochelle.

  When I was in third grade, I decided Rochelle was so much better than Bailey and from that day forward that’s what I would be known as. For two weeks straight, I wrote my name as Rochelle on all my assig
nments and ignored the hell out of my teacher unless she addressed me by that name. I told everyone at school that was my name and it made me “cool” because, let’s face it, kids never changed their name just because. I was thrilled to show my mom the A+ I’d gotten on my geography test. There was one major flaw with my test though – I’d written in big, bold, all capital letters, Rochelle Ross. Of course, I’d kept my last name. My mom had calmly asked me who in the hell Rochelle was. When I couldn’t give her an answer, she suspected I’d swapped tests with someone at school since I’d always been horrible with geography. To this day, me, geography and even directions don’t mix well. Tell me to go south and I’ll need a compass. She’d called my teacher and when she finally got the whole story she lit into my ass. When it was all said and done, she told me that I was Bailey and I’d never be anyone else, so be happy with who I was. Good advice, but I still wanted to be Rochelle, so at least once a week, I wrote that name on my assignments. Seventeen years later I, apparently, still wanted to be Rochelle.

  I shook my head and giggled to myself as I mixed the sea salt into the caramel while waiting for the butter cake to cool. As I worked, I let my mind drift back to the other thing I couldn’t stop thinking about. Or should I say person? That day I’d watched him at the gym while he fought with the pretty one. It didn’t look like an equal fight, but everyone around them had been laughing, so maybe they’d been joking. From my spot near the entrance, I’d basically stalked him, but I didn’t feel bad about it considering the number of women who’d stopped their own workouts to openly gawk at him. When he’d stopped moving and looked around, I ran out of fear of being caught staring. It’d made absolutely no sense, since everyone else was staring, but I’d still ran. I’d waited in the café across the street for him to come out, and before I knew it, they were closing and he’d still not left. I’d hovered near the entrance for two more hours before deciding to go in and by that time he was at the door. I’d always had trouble speaking to guys, but I’d been a bumbling idiot in his presence.