Secret Exposure_a bad boy new adult romance novel Page 5

  I lifted the camera to show Tate. Then I just started blinking fast. I wasn’t going to try and talk through him choking me.

  “Jesus Christ,” Max said as he came rushing toward us.

  He and River grabbed Tate’s tree trunk arm and pulled him away from me. Believe me, if Tate wanted to stay there, he would have. But he let Max and River pull him away.

  “You fuck this up and you’re fired,” Tate said.

  “Workplace violence,” I said. “My boss choking me. That’s a hell of a lawsuit, Tate.”

  “Fuck you,” Tate said.

  I smirked. “You cool now?”

  “What the hell did you do?” Tate asked.

  “She looked a little scared,” Max said. “Then she took off.”

  “I showed her the size of my dick,” I said. “She dropped her camera and ran. I’m used to scaring people.”

  Tate stepped forward, and Max got in front of him. “Jesus, Tate. Calm down, man.”

  “I’m not kidding, Maddox,” Tate said. He pointed at me over Max’s shoulder. “You fuck this up, you find a new job.”

  “And the invasion of our privacy?” I asked. “If I need a minute alone, I don’t need the fucking paparazzi barging in on me.”

  “I don’t give a shit,” Tate said. “Whatever you did to her, you better fucking fix it. She’s out there in tears.”

  “Tears?” I asked.

  “Came through the back door and jumped into my arms. What the hell did you say to her?”

  Nothing.

  I said nothing to her.

  I opened my mouth but didn’t say anything to Tate. He was heated. I was heated. There had been worse arguments in St. Skin. We had come to blows many times in the shop. That was just how it went. We were a brotherhood. We cared about what we did. And sometimes emotions got a little wild.

  So it was better to just walk away.

  With the camera in my hand, I left St. Skin.

  I saw Hazel sitting in her car. She looked right at me. I froze for a second. I lifted the camera up like the killer in a horror movie would hold up a severed head.

  I wasn’t going to fucking smile. I wasn’t going to fucking play nice. I was going to be me. That’s what they all wanted. For me to be me.

  But I wanted Hazel to be her. I wanted to know what the hell that freakout was all about.

  I approached the car and half-expected her to just start the car and take off. Lucky for me, she didn’t do that. Instead, she put down the window.

  “Got your camera,” I said.

  “Thanks,” she whispered.

  She reached for the camera, and I pulled it away. “Coffee.”

  “Coffee?”

  She looked at me.

  Hazel with the green eyes.

  Damn those eyes. Damn that color.

  I could see that she had been crying.

  The questions were on the tip of my tongue. Tons of them.

  I held back.

  “Let’s ditch this place and grab coffee,” I said.

  “Maddox…I’m…”

  “Look, you’re just trying to do your job,” I said. “I get that. But there are certain things that don’t belong exposed. Got that?”

  “My job…”

  I turned the camera on. I clicked the button to bring up the first picture. My hand. Then the next picture. Of her.

  “Delete this,” I said. “Right now.”

  “Maddox.”

  “Now.”

  “Do you understand what I’m doing here?”

  “Right now, you’re getting on my nerves. And confusing the hell out of me.”

  “Confusing you? How?”

  I looked at her. Hazel with the green eyes. “You’re standing up to me now. Defiant. Confident in this fucking picture that you know nothing about. But a few minutes ago, you looked ready to collapse just because I came at you. Tate said you were crying. So what is it? Defiant or scared?”

  Hazel reached for her camera. Her hand touched mine for a second. I sucked in a breath as I gritted my teeth.

  Then she looked up at me. “It’s both. Okay?”

  “Both?”

  “Where do you want to get that coffee, Maddox?”

  Just like that I let the camera go. The picture still stored on the memory card.

  Hazel started her car.

  Then I gave her directions.

  She pulled away, and I stood there for a few seconds.

  I rubbed my jaw. I told myself not to get involved. I told myself to just ride this stupid idea out. Let Tate have his moment. Let Hazel take her pictures. It would be over soon enough.

  But I was very wrong there.

  This…this was just the beginning.

  9

  HAZEL

  PRESENT DAY

  I stared at the picture that Maddox wanted me to delete. I felt guilt rumble in my gut, knowing I was doing something really wrong to him by looking at it. I had really captured something special, though. The actual picture floating in the air, just slightly turned. The angle was perfect. The meaning was perfect.

  But Maddox wanted nothing to do with it.

  Because of what that picture meant to him.

  I could faintly see the picture within the picture, and it was of a woman. Obviously someone who meant something to him.

  It’s none of your business, Hazel.

  My finger slid to the button with a small trashcan.

  I couldn’t do it though.

  I couldn’t delete it.

  I turned the camera off and looked over my shoulder just in time to see Maddox walking through the door. When he did, it was like everyone stopped what they were doing to look at him. I wondered how many people knew him. How many people he’d tattooed. How many people were in awe of him. How many women in the coffee shop that he slept with.

  Jealousy wasn’t a good fit for me, but Maddox managed to kick that up inside me, along with other feelings that I wasn’t sure of.

  He ordered a coffee and while waiting, and he turned and stared at me. He crossed his arms. He had such big arms. Muscles on top of muscles. His eyes were dark and brooding. Like two lasers pointed right at me.

  And he didn’t move until someone called his name.

  Even when he walked to the table, he had this swagger about him. People moved their chairs without him asking. His entire aura and persona was one of power. Control. Knowing what he wanted. Not afraid of anything.

  Except…well…whatever that picture meant that he was staring at.

  Maybe that’s why he was so mad at me. I had found out something about him that nobody else knew.

  Maddox pulled out his chair and spun it around. He straddled it, his eyes still locked to mine.

  “Here we are,” I said.

  “Did you delete that picture?” Maddox asked.

  “No.”

  “You think this is a game, Hazel? Messing with someone’s private life?”

  “I’m paid to do a job, Maddox. I’m sorry…but I’m also not sorry.”

  “Right. So let me say this again. I go near you, and you melt down. Yet you have the nerve to sit there now and offend me. So, give me the story.”

  I shook my head. “This isn’t about me.”

  Maddox reached across the table and took my hand. I jumped and felt a warm shiver run up my arm and through my body.

  “You’re wrong, sugar,” Maddox said. “This is all about you. You’re digging into our private stuff because you’ve got your own. You want to know about the tattoo on my ass? Tell me about the one on your hip. You want to know about that picture you took? The picture I was looking at? Then tell me why you’re afraid of me, yet you can’t get away from me.”

  He ran his thumb across the back of my hand, sending more warm pulses through my body. It was so instantaneous. It scared the hell out of me.

  I took my hand away. I forced a gulp of coffee, even though it was a little too hot. My eyes watered. I looked away.

  “I was drunk,” Maddox sa
id.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I was drunk. I was hanging with some friends. We were playing cards. I was trying to impress this woman. She had been kind of flirting all night. I lost all my money playing cards. I wanted one more hand. So I made a deal. If I lose, they pick a tattoo and get it on my ass. I only did it to impress this lady. I lost the hand. They chose the lips, and me being a man of my word, I dropped my jeans and got right on the poker table. Ass up.”

  “What happened to the woman?” I asked.

  Maddox smirked. “Am I sensing jealousy?”

  “Just curious.”

  “Right. She ended up remembering to put on her engagement and wedding rings right after I got my ass tattooed. Her husband ran the poker games, and they cleaned up really nice with a lot of my cash. So, I walked away, broke, horny, and wearing a souvenir on my ass.”

  Maddox drank from his coffee.

  He spoke like he didn’t have a regret in the world.

  “Wow. That’s a good story. Much better than mine.”

  “So tell me yours,” he said.

  “I was eighteen. Defiant. Wanted to do something crazy. I didn’t like the taste of cigarettes. I was too scared to try drugs because I had a friend lose her life to them. And I refused to drink.”

  “Why?”

  “I…” I looked down. “I just didn’t want to drink. So I got a tattoo.”

  “Stand up and let me see it,” he said.

  So demanding. His voice powerful. No fear.

  “Uh, no.”

  “Uh, yes,” he said.

  “Maddox…”

  “If you don’t show me your tattoo, I’m going to stand up and drop my pants. I’m going to show you my tattoo again. Right in front of everyone here.”

  He was serious.

  I was shocked.

  I looked around the place.

  Maddox then stood up. Without a care in the world, he grabbed at his belt buckle.

  “Okay!” I hissed. “Wait!”

  I stood up. Nobody was watching us, but I felt like they all were.

  Slowly, I lifted my shirt just enough to show him the stupid moon-and-stars tattoo I got when I was eighteen.

  “Not bad,” he said. “I could touch that up for you.”

  “Touch it up?”

  “Yeah,” Maddox said.

  He stood up and walked around the table. Next thing I knew, his left hand was against my left side while the pointer finger of his right hand started to trace my only tattoo.

  “You could tell it wasn’t good quality ink,” Maddox said. “There’s some fading, but that could be fixed. Just fresh ink, sugar.”

  I was breathless for a few seconds, his touch to my skin making me warmer than I could remember in a long time. Maybe warmer than I’d ever been in my life.

  Maddox looked at me. “Okay?”

  “Okay,” I whispered.

  “So, if you ever want me to take care of that for you, I will.”

  “Okay.”

  He took his hand away. Then he grabbed my shirt and pulled it down with a quick tug. Everything about him was so bold and right in your face. He leaned back and grabbed his coffee from the table.

  “For the record, sugar, I don’t know what you made you get all jumpy back there in the shop, but I would never do anything to hurt you. I would never hurt any woman. I’ve broken a lot of hearts in my life, but never the outside. Okay?”

  He started to walk away.

  My hand shot out, and I grabbed for his wrist but missed. I had a handful of his shirt, my fingers touching what felt like hard stomach muscle under his t-shirt.

  I felt like my knees were going to give way.

  “Maddox,” I whispered. “I didn’t mean to offend you. The camera…”

  “I would never break your camera,” he said. “Your heart? Probably. But not your camera. At least that camera is honest.”

  Maddox then put his hand to mine and released my grip on his shirt.

  I stood and watched him walk away.

  Our little scene had garnered plenty of attraction from the people in the coffee shop. But I ignored them all. I just watched Maddox as he left.

  I felt empty.

  I felt like I let him down but had no idea why I cared.

  I grabbed for my camera, turned it on, and found the picture of the picture. The one he wanted me to delete. I licked my lips and slid my finger to the trashcan button.

  I hit it. I confirmed the deletion of the picture.

  And just like that, the picture was gone.

  I never deleted pictures. Ever.

  But for some fucked-up reason, I didn’t want Maddox to ‘delete’ his trust in me.

  10

  MADDOX

  PRESENT DAY

  I heard the smack of the pool balls and cringed. For some damn reason tonight, it was like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. I finished off another cold beer and slid my glass to the edge of the bar where Pecker waited with an open hand. He grabbed the glass, spun, filled it back up, spun again, and slid it to me. A little foam and beer leaked over the edge. I grabbed the mug and threw it back like it was my last drink.

  “Good day, huh?” Pecker asked.

  “Wonderful day,” I said.

  “That one’s on the boss-man,” Pecker said.

  I looked back and saw Tate shooting pool with Max.

  “He’s picking up the entire tab,” Pecker said, regaining my attention.

  “Kiss-ass,” I muttered.

  Pecker laughed. “Trouble in the paradise of St. Skin?”

  “You’re not getting bar gossip out of me, Pecker,” I said. “But you can get me something to eat.”

  “I’m not a fucking waiter.”

  “You own the bar.”

  Pecker reached under the bar and grabbed a small, grease- and fingerprint- stained menu. It was handwritten and laminated. Everything was cheap, just like the bar and just like Pecker. But Little Mikey’s was a staple in Hundred Falls Valley. A place to kick back, relax, forget about the day, and try to avoid trouble.

  Except sometimes, trouble came looking for you.

  I stood at the side of the pool table as Tate lined up his shot. “Eight ball, corner. Then you owe me twenty bucks, Max.”

  “No chance,” Max said. “You’re drunk, and the angle is…”

  Tate shut his eyes like a cocky bastard and took the shot. The eight ball flew into the corner, and the cue ball stood still. A thing of beauty.

  “Fuck,” Max said. He reached into his pocket and threw a folded twenty on the table.

  Tate looked at me. Then he said, “Max, take your twenty and go get us a round. The three of us.”

  “Thought you were picking up the tab,” I said with a smirk.

  “I am,” Tate said. “Playing pool, taking everyone’s cash.”

  “God forbid you part with your own money.”

  Tate laughed. “You’re in rare form today, Maddox. Any reason why?”

  “Nope.”

  “Hey, about that shit that went down with us,” Tate said. He put his pool stick on the table, made fists, and leaned on the table. The glow of the light above the table cascaded across his face. He looked like a biker about to set up a murder. “That was a few days ago. We’re solid on that, right?”

  “You mean you choking me?”

  “You mean you almost chasing away Hazel?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Okay. Are we good?”

  “We’re good,” I said.

  Tate nodded. “I’m doing this for good reason. I spent my life losing my memories, Maddox. Don’t ask what that exactly means, okay? But this thing we’ve built. This fucking business. I mean, if I signed the TV deal, it’s seven figures. Fucking millions, just waiting.”

  “Is this your way of ‘capturing the essence’ before you let some suit and tie executives tear us apart by hiring writers to appeal to the masses while they sit on their couch and watch us tattoo people and fight each other?”

>   “I haven’t decided yet,” Tate said. “So do me a fucking favor and don’t bother Hazel. Anything that’s really private to you, leave home.”

  “Not a problem, Tate. In fact, I haven’t talked to her since all that went down. She’s been almost avoiding me.”

  “Then you should be smiling,” Tate said. Then a devilish grin climbed across his face. “But you’re not.”

  I opened my mouth to tell him to fuck off when Max returned with three beers. He put them on the pool table.

  I grabbed one and nodded to the table. “Pecker will freak out if he sees mugs on the table.”

  “Pecker doesn’t leave the bar,” Max said. “I bet he has a piss-bucket back there.”

  “So that’s the lovely smell in the air,” I said.

  Tate and Max laughed.

  I looked around the bar. And as luck would have it, my eyes locked for a split second with the biggest asshole in town, a guy named Dirt. I could tell he was in a bad mood. He threw his pool stick on the table he was playing on. He had two of his boys with him and four women. That meant it was time to show off a little. See who had the bigger dick.

  Honestly, I should have just walked out of the bar right then and there. But it was Tate’s fault. Fucking bringing up Hazel and that bullshit. I couldn’t believe she was throwing me the cold shoulder. Fucking ignoring me. Yeah, I wanted her to leave me alone, but I didn’t think she actually would.

  In other words, I wasn’t in a good mood, and if Dirt wanted to get his jaw cracked, I was the man to do it.

  Dirt took the first step toward me.

  “Company,” Max announced.

  “Shit,” Tate said. “Maddox…”

  “Shut up, Tate,” I said.

  Dirt had a problem with all of us. He and Cass tangled too many times. But ever since Cass settled down, Dirt had his eyes on me. Like some punk bully in grade school, he needed a smack to the jaw to remember that he wasn’t the biggest and baddest person in the bar.

  “What’s with the look?” Dirt asked. “Huh? You want to fuck one of my ladies here? Or is it me? I know that about you, Maddox. I see the way you act. I bet you’d like to fuck with me.”

  I laughed and shook my head.

  “What’s so fucking funny?” Dirt asked. “Huh?”