Chapter Two
Malcolm
It’s just my luck that the first time I met the hottest guy in the city of Seattle, I was on the edge of tears.
Him? He was staring me up and down with thislookin his eyes. He was grinning to himself like a cat who just found an injured mouse. He was cracking his knuckles, one at a time, and he was grinning so damn cocky, my knees started to wobble.
He was trouble with a sexy smirk.
“What’s got a prince like you looking so sad?” Trouble asked.
A prince? I didn’t know if that was a good thing. I guess most people would have wanted to be royalty, but I wasn’t so sure he was calling me rich or powerful. It sounded closer to the way I used to get teased and bullied.Goody-two-shoes. Eagle Scout. Teacher’s pet.Prince.Like I was so uptight, so prim and proper, this hot guy in a black leather jacket could tell it just by glancing at me.
And Trouble kept glancing. Standing on the corner of that shady street, he was looking at me with eyes as bright as the autumn leaves in the trees. With his sharp cheekbones and a gaze so intense I was already blushing, he stared at me, long and hard.
It scared me, the way Trouble looked at me.
“Rough day,” I manage to mutter, my voice coming out shaky. I pushed my glasses back to wipe away the tears in the corner of my eyes, then cleared my throat. “Just looking for an apartment. I’m fine,” I added weakly.
And it’s true. I was fine.
Kind of.
I just needed to find a new place to live. Having to find a new apartment was a totally normal thing that people did every day, not some major life disaster and definitely not a reason to stand on the corner crying. The problem was, my last apartment had been my home ever since I graduated college a couple years earlier. It was my sanctuary in the city, in a great location with manageable rent, and not far from the library where I worked. But then the landlords had hitched up the price considerably, and this godawful construction had started on the building, and the heat and air conditioning had stopped working, and the maintenance requests had all gone unanswered…
After a few months of calling the realty management company and getting nowhere, I hit the streets, looking at one overpriced option after another. This latest rental had seemed like it might be the answer to my problems, but then I had shown up and seen it was located directly above a skeezy bar. Even in the middle of the day, there were a few motorcycles parked outside of the Steel Rose and grating music blasting from inside.
No way I could live above a place like that. I liked order, and calm, and quiet, and I would have none of those things if I lived above a dive bar.
At least it explained why the apartment was so cheap. Once I realized it was another wasted trip and that I was still failing at finding a new home, the exhaustion of the search overwhelmed me, leading to my pathetic scene on the street outside. I just felt so defeated by the whole thing, like I’d be stuck living in overpriced, noisy apartments forever.
Damn it, Malcolm. Who cries about something like this?
But I couldn’t tell any of that to Trouble. He was the same age as me, but with his cocky attitude and cool charm, I immediately felt like he had all the power. He wouldn’t be scared off by some rowdy bar. Hell, he might even have been standing there to view the apartment himself. With the sleeves of his jacket pushed up, I could see the tattoos of barbed wire and flowers trailing up his arm. Trouble would probably end up a regular at that bar, I figured, if he wasn’t already.
“My name’s Gunner,” he said, stepping forward. I noticed the way his tight jeans hung low off his hips and then tried to act like I didn’t notice that.
“Malcolm.”
He gestured toward thefor rentsign above the bar. “That place doesn’t work for you?”
I shook my head quickly. “Not quite,” I muttered.
Then he noticed me glancing at the bar again. “What?” Gunner asked. “You don’t want to live above a joint like this? I bet a sexy little prince like you could have a lot of fun at the Steel Rose.”
Sexy?
Was this guy flirting with me?
I considered running away. Naturally, I had shown up fifteen minutes before the realtor was supposed to arrive. I was always punctual to a fault, a habit my mother had instilled in me. I could have disappeared right then and never thought another thing of it.
Then Gunner took another step toward me. My heartbeat quickened, and I nervously took a half-step backward. I could see his black tee-shirt, stretched thin across his pecs, and I knew his muscles were probably ropey and firm beneath his jacket. More than this strength, though, it was that look in his eyes that made me nervous.
Like I was a treat, and he was going to devour me.
“I don’t think so,” I said, taking another half-step backward and finding the brick wall behind me. “I’m a quiet guy.”
A quiet guy.Damn it. Why did I always have to open my mouth and embarrass myself?
