Chapter 1
Chapter One
XANDER
The temporary fog of my release was already beginning to fade as I rolled off the woman beneath me and collapsed onto my back.
I couldn’t afford many vices, not with the darkness I had lurking just below the surface.
Most days, it felt like I was holding on to my sanity by the tips of my fingers, so I had to remain as clear-headed as possible.
That meant drugs were out of the question, and I couldn’t risk much more than a slight buzz when it came to booze.
That left sex as my only means of escape, and even that wasn’t cutting it anymore. Used to be, I got off and could get at least five minutes of relief from the war zone in my head. Now it was barely a handful of seconds before the darkness came creeping back in.
“Damn, baby, that was incredible. As usual.” The woman next to me shifted to her side and leaned in as if she was about to kiss me.
Grabbing hold of her wrist before it could land on my chest, I scowled and warned, “You know the rules, Mallory,” before sitting up and swinging my legs over the side of the bed.
“Of course. How could I possibly forget your rules?” she said to my back, her tone laced heavily with sarcasm. “You can fuck me, but kissing is out of the question. Silly me.”
A beleaguered sigh slipped past my lips as I scrubbed at my face. “You know exactly what this is,” I muttered without turning to look at her. “I was straight with you from the beginning.”
“Yeah, I guess you were. But I just thought that, since we’ve been playing this game for two months now, maybe something had changed.”
“It hasn’t,” I answered swiftly and bluntly, pushing to my feet and heading to the bathroom to deal with the condom. After washing up, I rested my hands on the basin and took a few deep, fortifying breaths to try and tamp down my frustration.
I was pissed at Mallory for playing this game, but I was more pissed at myself for ignoring the warning signs I’d been seeing for a while now.
Things with Mallory started the same as all my hookups.
I picked her up at Rebels, a seedy, run-down biker bar just outside of town; brought her home, and fucked her.
I got her number simply because she was a good lay, but I made it clear I wasn’t up for more than a couple orgasms a month.
Our relationship—if you could call it that—consisted of me sending perfunctory text messages whenever the mood to get off struck, which wasn’t nearly as often as one would think.
They normally read along the lines of You free tonight?
followed by, My place. 10:00 if she answered in the affirmative. And that was all there was to it.
When I started getting messages from her asking if I wanted to do dinner or maybe meet up for a drink at The Tap Room—the local bar most everyone in Hope Valley frequented, which was reason enough for me to avoid it—I didn’t bother replying.
I didn’t date. I didn’t do romance. If a woman was looking for hearts and flowers, I most certainly wasn’t her guy.
But it never failed that the chick would get it in her head that she could save me.
More times than not, they convinced themselves they were the ones who could heal my soul.
When that happened, it was time to cut them loose.
And it appeared that my time with Mallory was officially up.
Avoiding my reflection, I turned my back on the mirror and started out of the bathroom.
I was hoping Mallory would be dressed and ready to go by the time I hit the bedroom but I wasn’t so lucky.
I avoided confrontation as often as possible.
Hell, with the exception of work and times like this, I tried to avoid human contact all together, but it looked like tonight was going to be chock-full of discomfort.
Moving to my discarded boxer briefs on the floor, I slipped my feet into the holes and began pulling them up to cover my junk as Mallory sat up straight, wrapping the sheet around her breasts. “Xander—”
“It’s late. I need to crash.”
“All right.” I thought that would be it, that she’d get the hint and leave, but no such luck. “You know, I could stay. I mean, I could sleep here. Then maybe in the morning—”
“No.”
I saw her freeze out of the corner of my eye but didn’t acknowledge it as I slid on a pair of sleep pants.
After several moments of silence that grew thick with tension, she spoke. “No?” she asked in bewilderment. “Are you fucking kidding me? You’re kicking me out?”
Was she for real? In the two months we’d been screwing she’d never once been invited to stay the night.
I’d made it crystal clear I didn’t do that either, so why she’d decided to take offense to it now was beyond me.
Then again, pretty much everything regarding women was beyond me, and I’d stopped trying to understand them a lifetime ago.
“Christ,” I grunted, dragging my hands through my hair before bracing them on my hips and finally meeting her gaze head-on. “This isn’t workin’ for me anymore. I think it’s probably best we end it here and now.”
The truth was, even if I had been the kind of man to do a relationship, it wouldn’t have been with a woman like Mallory.
There was a reason I picked women like her when the itch became too unbearable not to scratch.
I frequented bars like Rebels and other shitholes because they catered to a certain kind of audience.
If The Tap Room was the cool, laid back hot spot where everyone wanted to be, Rebels was the complete opposite.
There were only two reasons a man went to a bar like that.
Because he wanted a quick, no-strings fuck, or he was looking to spill another man’s blood. Sometimes both in one night.
Women went to those kinds of shitholes because they got off on the danger of hooking up with men like me. They enjoyed walking that dark edge. The thrill mixed with a hint of fear got them off harder than any normal guy could, and they craved that taste of wild.
Mallory was definitely that kind of woman.
There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that she wouldn’t have gone home alone that night a couple months back, even if it hadn’t been with me.
She hadn’t been at Rebels to kick back and take a load off.
She was there hunting. She was looking to get laid, and I was the most enticing offer of the evening.
I didn’t judge a woman for knowing what she wanted and being free enough to enjoy herself in whatever way. Men and women alike had every right to get off however they wanted without any stipulations or stigmas. I had no problem with that.
What I did have a problem with was when they tried to change the state of play because they’d gone into it with a hidden agenda, hoping to get more from a man than was promised.
“End it,” she repeated.
“Yes.”
“Because this isn’t working for you anymore.”
She added finger quotes to ‘working’, and it took everything I had not to roll my eyes. “That’s right.”
That set her into motion. In a flurry of uncoordinated, jerky movements, she shot from the bed, ripping the sheet from the mattress and taking it with her as she darted around the room, gathering her clothes and ranting all the while.
“I can’t believe I wasted two months on you!
” She paused in her task of dressing long enough to shoot me a killing look, curling her top lip up in disgust. “So not worth it. Stringing me along this whole time,” she muttered as she pulled on the microscopic skirt she’d shown up in a few hours ago. “What an asshole!”
“Just to say, we’ve seen each other, what, five, maybe six times?” I asked, feeling the need to point out the flaw in her accusation. “I’d text, you’d show, we’d fuck, then you’d go home. How the hell is that me stringin’ you along?”
“I would have stayed if you’d given me even a hint that was what you wanted,” she fired back, losing some of her steam in the face of my logic.
“But I didn’t,” I pointed out. “And again, that just proves I wasn’t stringin’ you along.
It showed you exactly where we stood, that being where I told you we’d stand right before you agreed to go home with me that night at Rebels.
I told you exactly what I had to give, that being a couple orgasms, and that was it.
If you didn’t like it, you didn’t have to show every time I texted.
Hate to say it, darlin’, but that’s on you. ”
Her lips thinned in a tight, unhappy line as she glared at me. I could see the wheels moving behind her eyes. She wanted to be pissed at me, wanted this whole thing to be my fault, and she wasn’t going to back down, no matter what.
“You know, I feel sorry for you,” she clipped as she finished strapping her bra into place.
I remained completely silent as she finished donning the rest of her clothes, waiting to see what she said next.
“You’re letting something great walk out the door because you’re all kinds of fucked up.
I don’t know what your deal is, Xander, but if you don’t get your shit straight, the rest of your life is gonna be sad and lonely. ”
I crossed my arms over my chest and watched as she slipped on her ridiculously high heels and stomped over to grab her purse off the dresser.
I didn’t bother speaking. After all, there was nothing to say, really.
She was right. I was all kinds of fucked up.
I knew that. And I wasn’t going to bother pointing out that there was no hope I’d ever get straight.
I’d accepted the fact I was destined to be alone for the rest of my life a long time ago.
No woman deserved being tied to the likes of me for the long haul, even if they thought that was what they wanted.
Mallory started for the bedroom door but stopped to look back and issue her parting shot.
“I pity the woman you end up falling for. It’ll happen, Xander.
When you least expect it, some poor, unsuspecting woman’ll cross your path and you’ll fall head over heels.
I just hope she’s smart enough to run, ’cause a fucked-up asshole like you will ruin her life. ”
With that, she turned and stormed out. A second later I heard the front door slam shut. Only then did I move, going through my place to lock up and kill all the lights. Then I fell into bed, hoping the darkness inside me would let up long enough to let me get a few hours of sleep.
What I didn’t do was think about Mallory’s last words. There was no point, because I knew the truth.
I was never going to fall in love.
Not again.