The Unexpected Series (Unexpected #1-3) (63 page)

His loud sigh doesn’t surprise me since he doesn’t like when I go to bars without him. “You know I hate when you go out without me.”

I sit up in bed, pulling the sheets over my chest giving him a knowing look. “I’m a big girl, Braden. Why don’t you trust me?”

He shakes his head. “I trust you. It’s everyone else I don’t trust. I don’t want some guy hitting on you.”

“Well, if you trust me then you know that they can flirt all they want but I’m yours.”

He drops his hand and kisses me on the forehead. “Okay, but be safe and call me when you get home,” he says annoyed.

I listen to him walk out the door without saying “I love you”, bag in hand and ready to take on his morning shift, thankful that I will be able to sleep alone tonight.

~~

“S
pill it, Grant!” I say to Noelle over the horrible eighties music playing in the bar.

Noelle Grant is my boss, great friend, and sometimes workout partner. I started working as her assistant for event planning and we hit it off almost immediately. Right now she is going through some major boy drama. She’s stuck between, Jace, a guy she just met and Erin’s brother Trent.

Oh, to be so troubled.

“What’s going on?” Erin asks from across the table, pretending she didn’t get a text from me about it hours earlier.

Erin is a terrible actress. I watch as her doe-ish brown eyes give her away and since she and Noelle are best friends, I know she can’t get away with it. Even I see right through her.

Her short auburn hair is perfect without a strand out of place and her smile lights up the room. I guess having a man that thrills you does that to a woman. From what I heard, Erin and Walker are a fierce couple. Fiercely in love.

“Noelle threw her bag again today and she passed up a chance to go to Maggiano’s with Jace,” I say raising an eyebrow at both ladies. “You know we would have let you bail, right?”

Erin shoves her shoulder into Noelle. “Maggiano’s? You passed up Maggiano’s for us?”

“I didn’t want to go with him,” Noelle responds and shrugs her shoulders when she realizes her slip up and her eyes go wide.

“You didn’t want to go or you didn’t want to go with Jace?” Erin pushes to get her to clarify though we both know the answer.

“So, which is it?” I push Noe a bit more when she doesn’t answer and take a sip out of my drink.

“With Jace!” she shouts causing me to drop my glass back onto the table. “I don’t think it’s working out.”

“Because of Trent,” I state. I know she is having a rough time. Having two men vying for you sounds great until it happens and you don’t know what the hell to do.

“I don’t want to talk about it and even if I did I wouldn’t know where the hell to start,” Noelle sighs into her drink.

She is normally a beautiful, confident woman. Her natural blonde hair matches her delicate skin tone and her blue eyes can turn from business to blissful in seconds. She is the total package. Sexy, secure, successful and yet she has that vulnerable side that has two men salivating over her.

I do envy her though. Not the guy trouble because I don’t even know what to do with the one guy who I do have, but she speaks her mind. She’s herself and never pretends to be anything else.

It seems we are about to drop the subject until a male voice breaks up our all female conversation. “Don’t want to talk about what?”

I look up from my drink, ready to fend off any advances by the just-turned-twenty-one year old boys in this place when my eyes find a sexy God of a man. With blond hair and beautiful green eyes that seem to be only for Noelle, I assume I’m met with one of her men of the hour...Jace.

I glance her way and, for the first time since I’ve met her, Noelle is at a loss for words. Her eyes are wide like a kid who was just caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

“Work,” I jump in to answer, shrugging. “She said no work talk tonight.”

Breathing a sigh of relief, she composes herself and slides out of the booth into Jace’s awaiting arms.

I look away because in their state of relationship, they seem to be more intimate with each other out in public than Braden and I have been lately behind closed doors. I’m almost jealous at the half-hearted hug she gives him.

My eyes shift to the dance floor to watch the drunken people grind on one another, zoning out of the table’s conversation. I know it’s rude. I’ve never met him but I already know that he isn’t good for Noelle. From what Erin has told me, Trent, her brother, has longed for Noelle for years now, whereas Jace treats her like a trophy to be won. Trent, I heard, treats her like a queen.

I’m finishing up the last of my drink when I hear a name I haven’t spoken or heard out loud in years. “...and this is our friend Ryder.”

Time stands still...or travels back years ago to the heat of the summer before my senior year.

My eyes flicker over to see the man Jace just introduced. They bypass someone who looks like he could be Jace’s brother straight to the man standing next to them.

No longer a boy.

All. Fucking. Man.

My heart stops.

It can’t be.

Butterflies that have long since lost their wings start to wreak havoc furiously inside my stomach as if they just emerged from their cocoon. My body heats up under the carnal stare of the dark ocean of blue eyes and I hate it. I want to hate it.

A flashback of his mouth in the crook of my neck, and his hands grabbing onto me for dear life cause me to involuntarily tilt my head back. I can feel his breath all over me.

I break the trance of his unbelieving stare and lower my eyes to take in his body. It’s much thicker than I remember. More muscular yet lean. His biceps flex against the black shirt that shows off the car he used to sneak me around in, reminding me of all the nights they surrounded me.

A smile stretches across his face and heat rises in my cheeks. And then I meet his eyes again. They seem to be looking right through me. Smug, as if though they know me. Like they can see right through the bullshit façade I’ve been putting up for everyone and it instantly angers me.

He doesn’t know me. Not anymore. He lost the right to a long time ago.

Noelle’s voice breaks through my angry thoughts. “This is Erin and this is...”

“Hadley,” Ryder says, his eyes still searing into me. The way my name falls from his lips seems effortless when I can barely think his without breaking a little bit more. I’m pissed and simultaneously turned on. I’m officially a walking contradiction.

In the loudness of the bar silence fills the space around us.

“You two know each other?” Jace asks seemingly uncomfortable, and his brother snickers.

Neither of us says a word, silently daring the other to speak.

Ryder breaks first quirking a brow up at me. “Do we?”

“No,” I answer without hesitation. “I don’t know him at all.”

Because I don’t. What I thought I knew wasn’t true. He lied. He schemed, and he lied again. I spent years trying to forget him yet he never left my thoughts.

Our exchange seems to make everyone uneasy. I decide to leave the table, but before I have a chance to jump up Ryder slides in next to me.

My body turns electric. I’m at war with my emotions and my hormones. I hate him, but my reaction to the brush of his leg on mine says otherwise.

“You have no idea how happy I am to see you,” he says while sliding his hand over mine in the gentlest of touches.

I push him away as the spark strikes. Whether it’s an angry spark or not, I’m unsure.

“Hadley, look at me.” He pleads but I continue ignoring him while looking down at my phone, acting as though I’m more interested in my email than I actually am.

“Hadley,” Noelle calls out. I look up at her. She seems just as uncomfortable as she sits next to Jace. “Is Braden coming?”

The look in her eyes tells me she is trying to help the situation I’m in.

I’ve never spoken to her about Ryder. There was no reason to. He was my first love...my first everything but he ruined it with just three sentences. It’s amazing how much words can skew your world. Change you for life. I get what she is doing...and I’ll play along. “No, but I told him I’d meet him at home later,” I lie shooting her a wink.

Ryder stiffens next to me. “Braden?” he questions, but his words are directed towards Noelle.

“Her boyfriend,” she says looking at his hand next to mine.

“Braden?” He repeats to me once Noelle and Jace travel onto the dance floor and the man who I now know as Jace’s twin, AJ, moves next to Erin.

I ignore Ryder, taking the first sip of a new drink the server brought me. My finger glides along the edge of the rim as I watch Erin eye Noelle across the room.

I chuckle as I wonder how later is going to play out since Erin gave Trent the inside info on our whereabouts tonight.

“Spark.” Ryder’s firm tone calls me when I don’t respond to him.

I turn my angry gaze towards him. His head jerks back at the ferociousness of my stare. “Don’t call me that!”

“Braden. Is he really your boyfriend?”

His question irks me.

“Yes!” I yell pushing on him until he hits the edge of the booth and scrambles to his feet. “I wouldn’t lie,” I say looking up directly in his eyes. “That’s your thing.”

I slide out before he can say another word and throw my purse over my shoulder headed for the bathroom. I need to get away from him and fast.

I lock myself in a stall, throwing my head against the metal door as tears prick the sides of my eyes, threatening to spill over. Seeing him here, again, unexpectedly brings the bad memories of the last time I saw him to the surface. The reason why I couldn’t trust any man becomes fresh in my mind. I wipe a rogue tear away and straighten my back.

If I was looking for a sign that I needed to try to work through my issues with Braden, I found it clear as day at The Cubby Bear North.

Braden would never break my heart the way Ryder did. It’s secure. He is nothing like Ryder, and that is exactly why I should stay with him.

I
t’s been a long time and Hadley still looks just as beautiful as I remember. Her soft skin glows even under the flashing lights of the bar. Her hair, darker and much longer than I remember, falls down over the breasts that I’ve never forgotten the feeling of underneath my fingertips. Her passionate stare still pierces through me, but I could see the lust behind them...she remembers too. No woman has had this effect on me. Not since Hadley walked, no disappeared, out of my life.

One day, seven years ago, I am getting ready to let my asshole parents know that I’m in love with their nemesis’ daughter and the next she is gone. Vanished. Her mom and dad even refused to look my way when I went to her house after my numerous texts went unanswered and Emie, her best friend, didn’t have a clue where she went.

I searched for her. I did. I was in love with her. I wanted to spend my life with her. Go to the same college as Hadley and build a foundation with her. She took that from me without as much as a Dear John letter. Never responded to my emails. I spent a long time trying to figure out why she did it. What I did. No one could give me the answers I was looking for.

Maybe she never did love me.

It took me four years before a girl ever got more than sex from me and even that didn’t last long. At the frat house, I took each opportunity I had to get laid but never once was my heart in it. Not like it was with Hadley. I’d just use them to mourn the loss of her. I knew that and I made sure they did too.

Yea, I sound like a pussy, but when someone as fascinating as Hadley Chase comes into your world, loves you unconditionally, knows you better than anyone else, and then takes off nothing is ever the same.

Ever.

I should be pissed at the sight of her but all I feel is relief at finally seeing her again.

I excuse myself from the table and head in the direction of where Hadley squeezed her way through the throngs of people. I find a long hallway that leads to the bathrooms. Assuming she is in there I stop and I lean my head back against the wall and close my eyes.

The image of my first glance at her in almost a decade flashes across the darkness created by the back of my eyelids. How utterly stunning she looked staring off into the distance. That was until Jace introduced me. I watched her body go rigid and her teeth clench. Her green irises dilated in disbelief as they met mine.

All the hurt I felt from her leaving me without a word dissipated and I just needed to touch her. To feel that she was real.

My palms are slick with sweat and my heart is beating so fast that it’s creating a thumping that reverberates through my body and pounds in my ears. I feel like that high school kid again, nervous to ask her out or kiss her for the first time. My dick twitches mentally recalling the memory of my hands touching her body. The first time she trusted me fully. The night she gave herself to me.

Her satin skin feels incredible underneath my touch. My hands glide up her smooth legs as she wiggles beneath me, daring my fingers to climb higher. When they do, they’re met with warmth. Her hips rise begging for my digits to enter her. I’d give her anything she asks for, silent or aloud. They slip in easily. It’s amazing how ready for me she can be with just a few strokes.