Badd Motherf*cker, Page 4

  If I can't indulge without guilt on what was supposed to be my wedding night, which had turned into the worst night of my life, then when can I?

  When I finished the burger, I got busy on the fries and the beer, finally willing myself to slow down and take a breath. Embarrassingly, I noticed the gorgeous tatted-up bear-dude wasn't even halfway through his burger, yet.

  I stared at him, silently daring him to say something about my table manners.

  He just popped a fry into his mouth and washed it down with beer. "Hey, don't look at me like that. A chick who can dig into a cheeseburger like that is all right in my book. Plus, if you don't mind me saying so, you look like you're sporting a wicked hangover, and nothing cures that like good, greasy bar food."

  "I'm not sure if I'm still drunk, or drunk again," I admitted. "Both, probably. And yeah, the food is doing wonders for my mother of all bitch hangover headaches."

  "Finish the beer and I'll pour you another. No sense wavering between hung over or drunk, right?"

  "As long as you know somewhere I can crash when I need to pass out, then keep pouring them."

  "Gotcha covered, angel," he said, a sly look on his face.

  I shot him a glare. "Angel?" Then the smirk on his lips registered, and I shot to my feet, knocking the stool over, and got in his handsome, rugged face. "Listen here, motherfucker, if you think you're getting me out of this dress just 'cause you make a decent cheeseburger, you'd better think again. You do not want any of this, and it's not on offer, so back the fuck off."

  He raised his hands and eyebrows. "Whoa, lady, chill. Not what I meant." He tipped his head to one side, that smirk on his face again. "I mean, yeah, I ain't gonna lie, I'd love to see you out of that dress. But it's obvious that you're drinking to forget, and I may be an asshole, but I'm not that asshole. There are a couple of hotels not too far from here. I can drop you off, if you want. 'Course, it's tourist season, and even in this shitty weather, I'm guessing they'll be mostly booked by this point. And I've been drinking, so driving may not be the best option."

  I sat down, knowing I'd blown up a little prematurely, but I was not about to apologize for it. "So what are my options then?"

  He stuck a finger up at the ceiling. "Three bedrooms up there, and I'm only using one. They've all got sturdy locks and their own bathrooms. If you need to crash and sleep your hangover off, you're welcome to one."

  "Alone?"

  He nodded. "Like I said, I'm not that big of an asshole. But you only get one free night."

  "Then you start charging?"

  "Then I start hitting on you." He grinned widely. "You're welcome to stay free as long as you want."

  "But I'll have to deal with your slimy advances?"

  He toyed with a fry, and his deep chocolate brown eyes fixed on mine, and good fucking grief, those eyes were deep, vivid, full of life and promise and heat. "Angel, there won't be nothin' slimy about it. Trust me on that." And damn me, but I believed him. Which was a problem. "'Course, those bedrooms are gonna get awful crowded awful soon."

  I scrunched my nose in confusion. "What's that mean?"

  He sighed, and tapped a stack of papers on the bar. "Means my dead little bar is about to be drowning in Badd brothers."

  "I'm still not following."

  He indicated the hand-carved wooden sign over the mirror on the rear wall: Badd's Bar and Grill. "I'm Sebastian Badd. This is my bar, and I've got seven brothers all about to converge on this place." He said this with a wince like he wasn't entirely overjoyed at the prospect.

  I choked. There were seven more like him? "Your brothers...do they all look like you?" I couldn't help asking. I really couldn't.

  He shot me the smirk again. "I'm the oldest, and the sexiest. The rest are ugly fucking trolls and orcs and ogres of the worst sort. You'll hate 'em. Especially Zane, the next oldest. He's real ugly."

  "You don't like your brothers?"

  "Nah, I love 'em." He lifted a shoulder. "It's just complicated. They're my brothers, and I love 'em, but let's just say they're not going to be happy to be here. We're all big dudes and this is a small space, so it's gonna get...interesting."

  The odd thing about this whole conversation was the unspoken assumption that I'd be around to meet them.

  I finished the last of my fries and washed them down with the last of my beer, and then stood up--somewhat unsteadily, it must be admitted. I fumbled for my purse, and then remembered I'd given the pilot half of my cash. Which left me with six hundred dollars...and credit cards that were all maxed out paying for the wedding and the honeymoon and my dress. Dad had helped, and Michael had put money in for the honeymoon too, and had paid for the catering, but I'd fronted the bulk of the bills. I had some savings, but it wouldn't last me forever.

  Since I had limited cash, I dug out the only credit card I had that still had a little room left on it, and extended it to him. "Here, put it all on this."

  He just eyed me, amused. "Not takin' your money, angel. It's on the house."

  "I don't want your charity, and I'm not sleeping with you."

  He stood up and moved to stand over me. God, he was tall. And those eyes of his bored into me, intense, fierce, primal. "It's not charity, and I'm not trying to get under that sexy fuckin' dress of yours."

  "Kind of feels like you're trying," I said.

  He sidled closer, so close I could feel his body heat, smell his masculine scent, so close I had to stare up at him, and my heart thundered in my chest at his proximity. "Honey, if I was tryin', you'd know, because you'd be naked and screaming my name. I'd have you on that bar, those creamy thighs of yours spread open and my tongue on your clit."

  Well. Shit.

  I squirmed, ached, and then remembered my anger.

  "Fuck you, you goddamn orc." I turned away, shoving my credit card back into my purse and stomped out of the bar and into the rain.

  I stumbled, my heel catching on something, sending me to the ground on my hands and knees. Mud splashed up, soaking my dress, my face, my hands. So much for a dramatic exit. I looked up and saw the rest of Ketchikan, mostly dark, with something huge and dark and bulky in the distance. Everything looked so far away, and I had no idea where any of the hotels were. I'd only found the bar because it was the only place with lights on close to where the pilot had dropped me off.

  And now I was wetter than I'd ever been, drunk again, covered in mud, and fighting tears.

  I sat down in the mud, tried to wipe it off my face with my hands, but my hands were covered in mud, and--

  I'd promised myself the breakdown I'd had in the truck back in Seattle was the only one I'd allow myself, but apparently I'd lied to myself.

  Because I was crying again.

  Hard.

  But now I was alone in the mud, sitting in the rain, with no Dad to comfort me.

  Why had I run away?

  What had I been thinking?

  No job--I'd quit my job at the law firm I clerked at since they wouldn't give me enough time off for my honeymoon, and I'd had plenty of other offers in my field. I'd been confident I'd be able to find a new job when I got back, and had even sent out my resume to a few likely places. Except now I was in Ketchikan, Alaska with four maxed-out credit cards, limited savings, no job, no car, no family except Dad, no return flight available till who knew when, even if I could afford it and, oh yeah, my fiance had been fucking my bridesmaid minutes before I was supposed to walk down the aisle to him.

  I gave in and let myself sob.

  And then I heard his footsteps in the mud, glanced over to see his massive boots squishing though the mud, faded jeans dappled by the rain, and then he was kneeling beside me, hair dampening with every passing second, but he seemed not to care. He reached out a big paw, wiped the mud off of my face and wiped it on his jeans. He wasn't smiling, but there was something awfully like compassion on his face, which only made me even more unreasonably angry.

  "Leave me alone," I said. "I don't need your help."

  "To
o bad," he said, sliding his arms around me and lifting me effortlessly, "because you're getting it, like it or not, want it or not."

  "Put me down, you orc."

  He was too close, and I was full-on drunk again, and I hated him because he was fucking gorgeous and he could cook and he poured scotch with a heavy hand and he was gorgeous--did I already say that?--and he had tattoos and I'd always had a secret thing for tattoos, and he could pick me up easily, even though I'm not really dainty. I'm not, like, big, but I'm not small either.

  He carried me easily across the muddy street, through a doorway, and up a set of stairs.

  He kicked open a door, flicked on a light somehow, and then set me on my feet. We were in a bedroom, but that was all I could manage to make out through the onset of double vision.

  "Can you manage from here?"

  I nodded sloppily. "Sure, sure. No problem. Just gonna go to sleep."

  He caught me before I fell over. "Angel, you're soaked, covered in mud, and wasted. You can't just go to sleep."

  "Sure I can."

  I wobbled, because with every passing second, the food, the scotch, the beer, and the exhaustion and the heartache were all catching up to me, and pulling me under. I couldn't stop it and I didn't care about anything but being warm and dry and horizontal, which were the direct opposites of everything I was at that moment.

  "Goddamn it," I heard him murmur under his breath, and then I felt him guide me with his big hard warm hands on my waist toward the multiple darkened doorways spinning in kaleidoscope circles that I assumed was the bathroom.

  The lights went on, and I heard a shower start. I was sleepy. So sleepy, and so drunk. And so heartbroken. It hurt, goddamn it...it hurt.

  Then he was in front of me. "Hey, stay with me, angel."

  "My name is Dru, handsome orc-man. Dru. D-R-U. Dru."

  "Okay, got it. Dru." His face wove and spun in front of me. "You desperately need to shower. You're gonna catch a cold. But you're also completely shitfaced."

  "Yes. Yes I am. I am very, very shitfaced. Thank you for that, by the way."

  "No problem. Glad I could help." He held me by the shoulders to keep me upright. "But I need you to pay attention to me, okay?"

  I nodded, sort of. "'Kay. What's up, buttercup?"

  "I'm going to help you get undressed, and I'm going to help you shower, because there's nobody else."

  "The fuck you are." I managed to work up a good glare. "You just want to get your sexy paws on me."

  I caught his grin before my ability to focus on him went to shit. "Absolutely I do. When you're sober, and in your right frame of mind. Right now, I'm exercising my gentleman manners, which are pretty fuckin' rusty, I must admit. I won't be copping any feels, but I will be taking a few good looks as payment, all right?"

  I tried to stare at him, to get his measure, but shit, I was absolutely plastered and couldn't even manage to make out one of him, let alone decide whether or not I was going to wake up with a sore pussy from being taken advantage of while drunk. Somehow, though, I didn't get that feeling from him. I was being stupid, and I knew it, but I was drunk enough not to care. If I was going to get taken advantage of while hammered, at least he was hot. Hopefully I'd remember some of it, and hopefully it'd be good.

  "Whatever. Just make it good, okay?"

  He moved around behind me without letting go of me and fumbled with the hidden zipper of my dress. "Make what good?"

  "When you take advantage of my drunk ass."

  He had my zipper open to mid-back, paused, and spun me around. Roughly, harshly, and good thing he had a strong grip on me because I would've gone down otherwise, and I don't mean on him, I mean to the floor--Dru go boom.

  He was angry. "Listen, Dru. I know I'm just a tatted-up bartender from the ass-end of nowhere, and I get I'm kinda rough lookin'. But I have never and will never take advantage of a drunk chick. Got it? You got nothin' to fear from me. Your virtue is safe as houses, all right?"

  I cackled. "Virtue? That's rich. I lost my virtue to Jimmy Irvin in the back of his pickup after freshman prom." I saw, even through my drunken and spinning haze, that he wasn't amused. "Sorry. You said your name is Sebastian, right?"

  He turned me back around--gently this time--and finished undoing my zipper. "Yeah, my name is Sebastian."

  Now that I was unzipped all the way, I felt free, finally. "Jesus, that thing was tight." I experimented, taking deep lungfuls of oxygen, reveling in the freedom to fully expand my lungs for the first time in god knows how many hours. "Look, I'm sorry I offended you. But put yourself in my position for a second. You know you're a good dude who won't take advantage of sloppy drunk heartbroken should-have-been brides, but I don't know that."

  He was watching me in the mirror, I could tell, and his eyes were glued to my tits with every breath I took. I wasn't wearing a bra. I was wearing panties, but they weren't much more than scraps of lace that could barely be called a thong.

  My heart was pounding in my chest, and other parts of me were sitting up and taking notice of the fact that I was in a bathroom, my dress unzipped, tits one big breath from spilling free, and the man standing behind me was the drop-dead sexiest man I'd ever seen. And he was, even to my boozy, fatigued observational skills, attracted to me.

  But I couldn't stand up straight without his help, couldn't even see straight. If he let go of me, I'd topple sideways, probably whack my head on the counter and would need stitches, and god only knew what kind of medical facilities they had in this town I was in, which, I suddenly remembered, I knew absolutely nothing about. I didn't even know, geographically, where in Alaska I was.

  Sebastian's hands touched my shoulders. "Dru? You gonna puke?"

  I shook my head. "No, no. Just...it's been a really long day and it's all sort of catching up to me."

  "Gonna cry again? 'Cause I'm not sure how to handle that shit."

  "No. I just...I need a shower." I met his eyes in the mirror, or tried to. All I managed was to look sort of in his general direction or, at least, in the direction of the two or three of him that were rotating in front of me.

  "You got it?"

  I pushed myself upright, kept one hand on the counter, and tried to wiggle out of the dress. But considering it had taken all three of my bridesmaids almost an hour to get me into it, my chances of getting out of it alone while wasted were...well...not great.

  "Shit," I mumbled. "You're gonna have to help me. But if you touch my tits, I'll punch you. And Sebastian?" I glared in his direction best I could. "Trust me when I say you don't want me to punch you. I'm Irish, and I'm the daughter of a Marine Corps drill instructor. I can lay you out, okay?"

  He seemed impressed, or at least, that's what my admittedly compromised ability to read facial expressions informed me. "I'll be on my best behavior, I swear."

  This was a fucked up situation.

  But I'd gotten myself into this mess, and Dad had taught me to always accept responsibility for my actions, and to just take what came best I could and deal with shit without flinching.

  Do what you gotta do, and deal with the emotions of it later, Dad always said.

  Do what I gotta do.

  I put both hands on the counter, steadied myself, and looked at him in the mirror. "Help me out of this stupid dress, Sebastian."

  4

  Sebastian

  Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

  This was bad. I mean, it was goddamned amazing, but...it was bad. This girl was barely holding it together. I wasn't about to ask what had happened, but it hadn't been good. The way she'd just...broken down...out in the street--it put a fire in my belly, man. Pissed me the fuck off. Who could do something to a girl like that bad enough to make her break that way? She struck me as strong, tough, a take-no-shit sort of girl. She didn't break easy. But out there in the mud? She just shattered. Alone. Broken-hearted. And I guess I was a sucker, because I couldn't leave her out there. It was obvious she was in no condition to be left alone, and I'd fed her the scot
ch, which meant she was my problem now.

  And now here she was, sexy as fuck, covered in mud, obliterated, fighting another breakdown, so exhausted she had circles under her eyes, and fuck, so goddamn beautiful. Wet, muddy, straggly auburn-red hair sticking to her face and her bare shoulders, that sexy-as-sin wedding dress all splattered with mud and drooping under her big, lush, cream and ivory tits, her nipples and areolae playing peek-a-boo, hips like fuckin' magnets for my hands, and her ass--Jesus Christ, that ass. Round, full, juicy as a peach. But she was a fuckin' wreck. I couldn't do a damn thing. Couldn't touch. Couldn't put my lips to that creamy skin of hers, couldn't kiss away her heartbreak, couldn't fuck her so good, so hard, for so long she'd forget the name of whatever asshole had shredded her heart.

  I had to be a gentleman.

  And that wasn't me.

  I drank, I fucked, and I tended bar. I didn't do the gentleman shit. The women who came through the bar were looking for one thing, just like me. A quick, simple, easy bang. No strings, no emotions, just bodily release and feeling good for a while. I didn't have to bother caring what they liked or thought or felt. I could read their body's reaction to what I was doing like a book, and I got them off, and they went back to their vacation, feeling dirty for having slummed it with the local bartender.

  This chick wasn't like that.

  She was class. The dress had to be worth a mint, just like the shoes she'd left on the floor of my bar and that purse on the floor of the bedroom. But it wasn't the money. She was no rich bitch; I could smell those, and I'd fucked plenty of 'em. She was just...class. She didn't fuck randoms. She didn't do hookups.

  Whatthefuck was I thinking? I couldn't fuck this girl. No way, no how, never. She wasn't meant for me. I had to tame the beast in my pants, get her clean, and let her pass the hell out.

  Internal scolding finished, I steeled myself, summoned all the self-control I possessed, and set to work helping the sexiest woman I'd ever seen out of her wedding dress...knowing I wouldn't be setting a finger on a single inch of her perfect fuckin' skin.