Free Bad Girl by Night by Lacey Alexander Page B

from time to time, it seemed stupid to care who was in charge. And yet, he needed some control, too. At the very least, he needed an even playing field. He wasn’t used to being with a girl so aggressive and commanding in the bedroom—or anywhere else he’d ever fucked someone.
    He wasn’t oblivious to the fact that, his whole life, he’d picked girls who were just a little bit submissive, or at least not dominant. He’d always had control issues, especially with sex—but he’d always thought he’d handled it pretty capably. Yet now he was forced to realize that . . . well, maybe he’d handled it only by gravitating to girls who weren’t so bold—and now that he’d finally been confronted with one who was, that’s when he’d found himself consumed with the driving urge to make sure things went the way he wanted. He’d gotten edgy, tense. And then an old, familiar surge of self-preservation had kicked in, along with an archaic compulsion to . . . be a man—a big, strong, masculine man.
    There had been those moments when Colt had pulled away and Jake had unwittingly found himself in a weird, silent sort of sexual struggle with her. Partly because he’d ended up pretty drunk by the time she’d invited herself and Colt back to his room, and he’d been acting on pure instinct. But partly because . . . of that need for some control. He’d needed to get her under him. He’d needed to feel a little power over her. And when he’d begun to feel her dominating him, something in him had instinctively rebelled. Finally turning her over in the bed, fucking her the way he wanted to fuck her, had been deeply satisfying.
    Now, of course, he knew that he hadn’t been imagining those few softer expressions in her eyes. He hadn’t realized it at the time, but they’d been like chinks in her armor. And if he’d had the time to chip all that metal away, what he’d have found underneath was . . . this . Carly Winters. A girl who clearly tried to look plain, almost tomboyish—but she didn’t quite succeed. She couldn’t. Her eyes were too large and expressive and pretty, her lips too lush, her body too curvy, even in that T-shirt. A girl who—each time he’d met her—appeared to have something to hide.
    So who was she really? The confident bombshell? Or the uncomfortable, nervous plain Jane? Or was she neither of them at all?
    What had she come to Traverse City looking for? Sex, obviously. But had there been something more on her agenda? And had she gotten it?
    Shit. Maybe none of it matters if the girl wants to shut you out of her life.
    He ran a hand back through his hair in frustration, the sun making him too hot in his dark uniform.
    Of course, she might want him out of her life, but he couldn’t be completely. Turnbridge was a small town. And getting smaller by the second, it seemed.
    Maybe most guys wouldn’t care so much about what had happened—but Jake was big on honesty. He didn’t like feeling misled. Or being treated like a jerk when he hadn’t been one. Could be that it embarrassed her to see him again, but damn—why did she have to be so cold? The more he thought about it, wrapping his mind around what had just happened, the more it pissed him off.
    Still . . . if she wanted nothing to do with him, if she wouldn’t even give him the courtesy of five minutes, what could he do besides leave her the hell alone? He wasn’t the stalker type and he wasn’t about to start now.
    He had some news for her, though. It didn’t matter if he left her alone for the next fifty years—he’d never forget that night. He’d never forget the naughty things she’d done to him; he’d never forget the hot pleasures she’d delivered. And he’d never forget the raging heat that had risen in him unbidden when she’d pushed him to the brink and almost made him lose control just in order to take some of it back.
     
     
    C arly ate her lunch in the shop’s back room, or tried to anyway. She’d lost her appetite.