Redemption Hills: The Complete Collection

7. Eden

SEVEN

EDEN

The second my shift was over, I flew into the employee locker room and grabbed my things like my life depended on it.

Maybe it did.

Maybe the threat I’d felt the first time I’d walked into this bar had finally manifested itself in human form.

Ice slipped down my spine at the memory.

There was something about the jerk that had left a sick feeling in my stomach. Sticky fear that had prickled across my flesh and had become panic the second his grimy fingers had curled around my wrist.

I think what spun my head the most, though, was how quickly Trent and his brother had descended.

The ferocity.

The hate.

Evidence of what I’d suspected since I’d met him. Every muscle in his beautiful body had rippled with brutality. Thirsty for blood. Hungry for vengeance.

More dangerous than any scummy patron could be.

My body trembled, struck with the image of the way he had looked at me right after it’d happened. As if he were begging for forgiveness, guilty of dragging me into Hell. At the same time, he’d been vibrating so fiercely I’d been certain he was a second from going on a murder spree.

Puffing out the strain, I gave a harsh shake of my head, and with trembling hands, fumbled to shove another fat envelope of cash into my bag. More tonight than I’d ever made since I’d taken a few tables of my own.

It was the kind of money that made my head spin.

It was adding up quick. Quicker than I ever could have anticipated.

Hope filled me, pressing and pulsing, while my heart hammered like a war drum that warned of a coming destruction.

No doubt, I was in over my head, but I was praying with all of me that I could swim.

The only thing I had to do was keep coming here for a few more weeks, six max, make enough to chip away a little of the debt, then I would walk.

I’d earn enough to buy us time. Get the creditors off our backs and the overdue payments up to date.

Then I’d leave this place and never look back.

Still, my spirit warned if I continued to work here, I would never be the same.

If I stayed, I would be changed.

Changed in a vital, fundamental way.

Maybe I was only fooling myself, anyway. It wasn’t like I could outrun Trent Lawson any time soon. The man haunted my nights here at the club and assailed my days at the school.

Worse was the way he’d begun to infiltrate my dreams.

The darkest hours spent tossing in my barren sheets aching for something I shouldn’t want.

I gulped, my head dropping against the cold metal locker as I struggled for a breath. It had to be the loneliness. That was it. The first attention I’d received in years had me contemplating crazy things.

It wasn’t real.

It couldn’t be.

Pushing it aside, I tossed my bag over my shoulder and headed out of the locker room and down the hall.

Milo, one of the bouncers, held open the big metal door, standing guard over the employee parking lot and ensuring each of us made it safely to our cars, the same way as he did night after night. The man was truly terrifying at first sight, but as nice as could be when you got to know him.

“G’night, Miss Eden, you drive safe, now.”

“Goodnight, Milo. Thank you, and you, too.”

“Always, sweetness,” he said, his enormous, tattooed body leaned against the door.

I slipped out and into the darkest, quietest night. The heavens were aglow with the vestiges of city lights and the mountain air had cooled to an almost cold.

Even though I knew Milo watched over me, I still felt unnerved as I walked toward my car parked on the other side of the lot.

My boots crunched on the gravel, and my heart beat too hard, too fast, my nerves alight. Trembling, I rushed a little faster. That sensation was only amplified when I was impaled with a sudden streak of energy.

With a rush of raw, unbridled intensity.

I was the fool who found some sort of comfort in it. In the way my thudding heart raced. A desire for more as I heaved a breath and stole a glance back at the dingy backside of the club.

I already knew he would be there.

That he’d be waiting. Watching.

The man stood against the wall to the devil’s lair. Hands shoved in his pockets and a single boot kicked back against the wall.

Casually king.

The ruler of that wicked kingdom.

In the shadows cast by the building, he seemed even darker than normal, his eyes like black daggers that gleamed through the night. They were trained directly on me.

I felt suspended for a moment, my feet no longer touching the ground. My stomach in knots and my knees stupidly weak.

Somehow, I managed to tear myself from the grip of his stare. Pressing the lock to my car, I fumbled to get inside, threw my bag to the passenger seat, and jammed at the ignition button. I attempted to control the way my hands shook when I put my car in reverse, feeling frantic when I backed out of the spot.

Hating that maybe Trent was right. I didn’t belong within those walls.

I whipped my car out onto the street and accelerated in the direction of my house.

What had to be less than ten seconds later, a single headlight appeared in my rearview mirror. Coming close, eclipsing sight.

As if his darkness had turned into a blinding light.

In an instant, my pulse thundered, this pounding mayhem that rushed.

Faster and faster.

“What is he doing?” I wheezed it aloud, my hands gripping the steering wheel like it could keep me steady as I glanced in the mirror again, unsure if I should welcome this or flee.

My soul and spirit warred.

Any sane person would know the clear-cut answer would be to run.

Put as much space between us as I could.

I sped up and took the next turn a little sharper, knowing it was useless because there was no chance that I could ditch him. I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to.

A thrill lit with each turn that we took.

I made a right and then a left, winding my way through our small mountain city.

The forest rose high on every side, a hedge of protection as evergreens stretched for the blackened heavens, a slew of stars littering the sleeping sky.

The bike tailed me over the hills and curves and turns.

Smoothly.

Effortlessly.

As if tracking me was what he was meant to do.

My spirit thrashed and anxiety gripped and this flicker of that something I didn’t want to voice ignited anew as I drove toward my little house in an old, quiet neighborhood on the opposite end of town.

By the time I made the last turn onto my street, where the tiny, more-than-modest houses were eclipsed by towering, ancient trees, I couldn’t breathe.

Couldn’t process the push and the pull.

The gravity that paraded as repulsion.

A fluttering of erratic wings flapped and danced in my chest.

I whipped into the single-car drive, threw my car into park, and tore out of the door just as the motorcycle rumbled to a stop on the street behind me.

Menacing, dark, and intimidating. Every part of it was matte black. Custom and cold and hard.

As wicked as the man who sat at its helm. His head was turned so he could stare across at me while those tatted hands still gripped the handlebars.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I hissed, storming three steps in his direction. The words came out so low there was no chance he heard it over the loud rumble of the powerful engine.

Though it was clear he knew exactly what I’d demanded.

The longer part of that raven hair whipped in the wind, and that sinewy muscle tightened and flexed beneath the designs that covered his arms.

My belly quivered where I froze. I couldn’t move, but those butterflies flew.

Slowly, he reached over and killed the engine.

In an instant, a burning silence consumed us. The only sounds the whisper of the trees.

In it, we were held.

Captured.

Finally, he kicked the stand and balanced the bike, and my heart did a flip when he swung off it and straightened to his full, towering height.

The man a fortress.

An inferno.

And there he was, standing at the end of my drive as if he didn’t understand the reason for it any more than I did.

“I asked what you’re doing here.” I demanded it again, though this time the grating of my voice cut through the air. Confusion and need.

Did he feel it, too?

He gruffed a hard sound. “No fuckin’ clue, Kitten.” He dipped his head toward his heavy boots, those hands shoved back in his pockets before he was peering at me with those penetrating eyes. “Other than the fact I needed to make sure that you’re alright.”

Warmth filled my chest, but I forced myself to lift my chin, sure I needed to protect myself, that I was probably in more danger in that second than I’d been in my whole life.

“I told you I was fine.”

“That was a lie, though, wasn’t it?” It was a soft accusation from that wicked mouth. Ripping me in two and fracturing more of my chinked armor. “You gonna stand there and pretend like that was just another day for you?”

I swallowed around the lump that had taken a seat at the base of my throat. “Isn’t that the only thing I can do?”

His chuckle was disbelief and speculation, and for the quickest flash, the hardness slipped from his features. “Is it, Eden? Is it the only thing you can do? Because it seems to me you have more important things in your life than wasting it away in my club night after night.”

Broken laughter heaved from my chest. “Yeah, you’re right, Mr. Lawson. And saving the school is one of them.”

My students. My joy. My father’s legacy.

My life.

I almost toppled with the truth of it. It was all I had, the same as my father. That and our devotion to each other. And I had no idea who either of us would be if we had that stolen from us.

Trent wheeled back.

Caught off guard.

“That school tuition is a small fortune,” he argued as if my claim was absurd.

I scoffed around the fullness that had suddenly clotted off my throat, so thick it had become difficult to breathe, cutting myself open in front of the very man I should be protecting myself against. “Tuition that goes right back into every program that is run out of that school and church, Mr. Lawson. Given to the families that come to us for help. Not everything is done out of greed.”

He scrubbed a hand over his face, frustrated and concerned, and…and, God, who was this man?

He was conflict and contradiction. Everything that I didn’t understand. And the scariest part was how much I’d begun to want to.

“Money run dry?” he asked.

A pained sound escaped before I could stop it, the confession gushing right out. “My daddy has always run it right up to the edge. Giving and giving and giving to the point of breaking. And someone he trusted most, loved the most, my own sister…” I clutched my chest when I admitted it. “She came in and stole from him. From us. It wiped us out. Knocked out the last leg that had kept that fragile balance.”

“Your father?” Doubt flooded those words. I could see him rearranging more of what he’d assumed of me, trying to figure me out, see inside, just the way I continually seemed to do with him.

But the truth was, the last week of working with him had wrapped him in a shroud of mystery. The man at the bar was at complete odds with the man who picked up his son day after day.

This man who called to me in a way he shouldn’t.

My nod was jerky. “Yes, my father owns the school and is the pastor of the church there.” The words shook, my own sadness taking over. “And if he loses them?” My shoulders slumped. “We lose everything. The school. The church. The dance studio. All the things we love.”

Things that were so incredibly important to me.

“And my daddy will lose his heart,” I whispered because the thought of it broke more of mine.

In an instant, that wraith was moving my way, a dark storm that eclipsed.

Cold and hot.

A burn that would scar.

My thready pulse skittered and shook. I inhaled, trying to fill my aching lungs, only to have my senses inundated with the man.

He smelled like alcohol and leather.

Like metal and oil.

Like trouble served straight-up.

He leaned in and inhaled, too, his nose brushing into my hair. Shivers raced, and I was afraid this man would possess me if I allowed him to get any closer.

“Goodness.” He rumbled it as if it were a sin.

“We all have good, and we all have bad, Mr. Lawson.”

“Nah, Kitten, we don’t. Some of us? Only thing we’ve got is darkness. Sin and lies and shame. And my club has a bad way of sucking all the goodness out of people. That prick?—”

The words were blades.

I trembled with the slice of them.

“What’d that bastard say to you?” Trent demanded, edging back so he could read my expression.

I hugged my arms over my chest as if it could protect me from the invasion that was this man.

“He didn’t say much.” My tongue swept across my dried lips as I thought back to what had happened. “He…he’d given me a gross feeling from the beginning. There was…something off about him. I’d pushed it aside and took the order for their drinks, but when I came back, right as I was passing him his, he’d asked if all the Absolution girls were whores.”

A snarl curled Trent’s mouth, and his hands suddenly gripped my sides. Close to circling all the way around.

Heated and fierce. Powerful and relentless.

Flames licked through my body.

I was sure of it then.

It was Trent Lawson who was the danger.

Vicious. A cruel protector. A wicked savior.

A sweet warrior.

I’d seen it in his expression back at the bar. But I felt the fullness of it then, firing from his fingertips and searing my skin in possession.

I was the fool who wanted to open myself to it.

Let him brand me with his touch.

“And?” He demanded it like he knew. “That’s not all, is it, Eden? What did that motherfucker say then?”

I heaved out the words as a chill blew through. “He said he heard that’s the way the owner likes them, and he hoped you shared.”

Rage blurred his features in malice, and his fingers curled tighter. “And what do you think, Eden? You think that’s what I demand of my girls? You think that’s who I am?”

My head shook, and I attempted to swallow around the shards of glass that sat at the base of my throat. “No.”

He exhaled. Heavy. Tortured. “When he grabbed you? When I saw his hand on your wrist?” The words were a raw confession. “Wanted to end him, Eden. Wanted to put him in the ground just for touching you.”

Chills raced.

Fear.

Revulsion.

Attraction.

Feral eyes flashed, black, seething flames. “Why’s that, Kitten? Why did I want to claim you as mine?”

My mouth went dry, and he was tugging me closer, his head angling to the side as he murmured the words close to my mouth. “Why do I want to climb into this sweet little body and get lost there?” He shifted to run his nose along my jaw, inhaling at my pulse point, those full lips at my jaw when he whispered, “I bet your pussy is so sweet. Heaven. Paradise.”

Desire flashed with his brazen words.

A blight across my soul.

I struggled to breathe. To see through the haze of seduction he was lulling me into. To fortify the walls I knew better than to let down.

“I do my best not to gamble my heart, Mr. Lawson,” I forced out as I inched back enough to meet his eyes, my voice a thin wisp.

Shadows played across his striking face as he pierced me with that gaze. His cheeks sharp and his jaw sharper.

He reached out and splayed a tattooed hand across my chest.

Everything raced.

“But it’s beating so hard, isn’t it? This beautiful heart of yours. You feel it, Kitten?”

Dragging in an unsteady breath, I attempted to stave off the attraction. To wade through the onslaught of sensations. To get myself to solid ground before I went under.

But the only thing I could focus on was the energy that bounded between us. The thunder that raged. I was just asking to get crushed when I let my shaky fingertips reach out to brush across the strength of his chest, lost to the magnet that pulled between us.

To the boom, boom, boom that crashed in the space. “And so is yours.”

He let go of an incredulous sound. “That is the problem, isn’t it? This feeling? I’ve ignored the thousand fuckin’ times I’ve told myself to turn my back, to kick you from the club, to grab my kid and run in the opposite direction. And instead of listening to reason, I’ve run straight toward you. Now I’m standing right here imagining the fastest way to get you out of these clothes.”

“We would be a mistake.”

“Makin’ it would be fun, though, wouldn’t it?” A smirk kissed his mouth, plush lips tweaking at the side.

“I’m sure you have plenty of fun.” I couldn’t keep the edge out of my voice. The questions. The fact I hardly knew him but still was certain that our lives were lived in opposition.

A big hand splayed across the side of my face, warmth invading, the pad of his thumb brushing across my bottom lip. “When is the last time you let go, Miss Murphy? When is the last time you did something just for the sake of how good it would feel?”

That energy rushed. Pulled and prodded and compelled.

Images flashed through my mind before I could stop them.

His hands. His mouth. My legs wrapped around his waist as we writhed.

A small gasp parted my lips as I was slammed with a shockwave of need.

Dark eyes blazed in a torrent of greed. “Let go with me. Just once. Just tonight,” he rumbled, both hands gripping my jaw.

I blinked with the harsh impact of what he said.

With the reality.

Of what he had to offer.

The truth that we really didn’t match. That I didn’t fit and I never would.

I knew better, knew better, and there I’d been, a second from giving in.

Shoving down the pain of the rejection, I forced myself to take a step back, to hedge myself, because he was asking me to go somewhere I couldn’t go.

A place my spirit would never survive.

“You’re my boss, Mr. Lawson, and I’m your son’s teacher.”

His hands squeezed tighter. “Don’t give a fuck.”

“I don’t…” It popped out before I could stop it, and I trailed off when I realized what I’d nearly said. The last thing I should do was give this part of myself to him. He’d throw it in my face. Belittle me for who I was.

His nostrils flared as he edged back to stare down at me.

Ruining me with a look.

“You don’t what?” His voice was the rough scrape of a command.

I wet my lips and pushed out the little I was willing to give him. “I don’t sleep with random men.”

Trent reached out and ran the tip of his index finger along the line of my jaw.

Electricity crackled.

There was more pleasure in that moment than I’d felt since I could remember. My lips parted and I struggled to stand on my weakened knees.

“Why’s it we don’t feel that random?” he muttered.

Don’t fall.

Don’t fall.

“I don’t have any room for any more breaking,” I whispered on an uneven breath, giving him another piece of myself.

No doubt, he saw the sorrow written all over me, anyway.

He dropped his hands like I’d burned him and stepped back. “Only thing I’m good for, though, isn’t it?”

He didn’t want my answer. He’d already answered it for himself.

Sadness filled my chest. For him. Maybe a little for me. Still, I said, “I can’t believe that.”

He may as well have been climbing inside me.

With the way that gaze flared and deepened and dimmed.

Terrified of trusting me, maybe the same way as I was terrified of trusting him.

“You should. All I’ve got is for my son.”

“He’s your world. Exactly as he should be.”

“And I still don’t deserve him,” he gritted. Self-disgust clogged his expression in misery.

A place unseen.

A place I was one-hundred-percent certain he wouldn’t share with me.

Still, a little more truth came riding out. “I have a feeling you’re exactly what he needs.”

Agitated, Trent shoved his hands in his pockets, vulnerable for the first time. “Tryin’ to be, Eden. Tryin’ so fucking hard. Most days, I have no idea what I’m doing.”

Everything ached.

My heart and my body and that vacant place.

“As long as you never stop trying, you’ll both be just fine.”

For a beat, rage hardened his features to stone. Something I didn’t understand. It was the part of him that terrified me, and I had a feeling it was for good reason.

“Will give it all for him, Eden. Whatever it takes. He’s my life. My reason .”

My spirit clutched, taken by this man’s devotion, by the goodness he couldn’t see.

For a minute, we stood there staring at each other, unsure of what to say. Of where to go from there.

One thing I did know was it was time to clear the air. For him to understand me the way I needed him to.

I angled my head, hoping he’d receive it. “I need you to know I’m not as fragile as I look. I can handle myself at the bar.”

I just wasn’t sure I could handle myself with him.

“Know that.”

“Then I need you to stop treating me like I’m helpless or weak.”

Trent blinked like I’d offended him. “Never thought that. Not once.”

I looked away, into the weaving whisper of the night that crawled through the mountains and the trees before I gathered myself enough to look back at him. “You’ve been trying to get rid of me since I walked through your door. Telling me I don’t fit.”

Air puffed from his nose, and he anxiously ran his fingers through his hair. “That’s not because I think you’re weak, Eden. Just know you’re better than that place. Knew it the second I saw you, and I don’t want to be responsible for you stepping into a world that you don’t believe in. A world your heart shines through. Desperation tends to force people to make choices they regret for the rest of their lives. Don’t want that for you.”

I got it then.

Saw it.

His wounds. His scars. His fear.

A sweet warrior.

A wicked savior.

This terrifying man who was somehow tender. Goodness in his spirit and demons in his soul.

“I know who I am, and I’m not going to lose that there.”

Warmth filled his expression, his voice a soft caress. “And I think that might be the best thing about you.”

My chest squeezed, and the only thing I could do was give him a shaky nod.

“I need you to treat me like any other server there, and know I’ll be okay.”

That time he grinned, his gaze raking me, head to toe. “Not possible.”

I rolled my eyes. “Like I’m any different than any of those other women.”

Like he hadn’t propositioned any of them before? Hadn’t touched them? Taken them?

I fought the welling of jealousy. The way my eyes wanted to pinch to block out the vision.

I guessed he saw all my thoughts through the silence because he was in my face again, leaning down low and forcing me to meet his eye. “Never. Not once.”

My head spun and my insides twisted, and again, I had no idea what to make of this man. How to protect myself from who he was.

I hugged my arms across my chest, more to guard myself from him than the cold wind that whipped through.

Rough fingertips found my arm. They fluttered down, chasing the goosebumps or causing them, I wasn’t sure.

“You’re cold,” he rumbled, glancing at my face before back to the chills as if he were infatuated by the response.

Backing away, I glanced over at my house. “I am, and I really should go inside. I need to get up early.”

“Could think of plenty of ways to warm you up.” Another smirk. A play and a trap.

Whiplash.

Constant and unending, no way to decipher where I would land with him.

He’d managed to toss my quiet, safe life into chaos in the short time I’d known him, and I was the fool who was a few errant seconds from allowing it to spiral into full anarchy.

Every rule, everything I knew about myself, everything I demanded for myself, lost to the riot.

Because his offer sounded so good.

One night.

One night.

For one night, it would feel so nice not to be alone, that loneliness screaming out to be filled.

I hugged myself tighter and took a step back.

Because I wasn’t aching for the sort of comfort that only ran skin deep.

“And you, Mr. Lawson, are the type of mistake I can’t afford to make.” One I would never recover from. “I know who I am, remember?”

His smile was reluctant. “Okay, then, Kitten. Get yourself inside where you belong.”

He started to move down my drive, still facing me, hands right back in those pockets like that was the only way he could control them. Then he slowed, his hair billowing in the breeze and that wicked face filling with severity. “Heaven. It’d be Heaven, gettin’ you for one minute while on my way to Hell.”

I felt the ground shake beneath.

I had no idea how I’d ended up here.

My stable world shaken off path.

Without another word, he spun and strode for his bike.

All big body and towering force and dark allure.

I stood there frozen, watching him as he climbed onto his bike. He balanced the metal, boots planted out to the sides, and he pushed a button that brought the deep, gurgling engine to life.

Moonlight rained down and struck across the sharp, distinct angles of his face.

A devil who’d wormed his way into my life.

He lifted his chin in a gesture toward my door, and I realized he was waiting for me to go inside before he left.

My pulse skittered, and I tore myself from the spot, hurrying up the little walk that ran from the drive to the door. My hand shook like mad as I fumbled to find the right key, my heart in my throat as I turned the lock and let myself into my small home.

Reaching in, I flicked on the light and stepped inside, glancing back at the man who watched me.

Energy flashed.

A shockwave that I could almost see rippling across my yard.

Electric.

I ripped my attention from him and quickly locked the door behind me. I leaned against it, trying to catch my breath, to find my way back to who I was.

Dropping my purse on the couch, I moved to my bedroom, sank down on the side of the bed, and picked up the picture that sat on my nightstand.

Tears instantly stung.

It was one of Aaron and me. His arms were wrapped around me from behind, and that unending goodness radiated from his smile.

That hollow place howled, old grief tumbling through.

Deep and aching and unending.

Guilt came, too.

Wanting someone else for the first time, and in a way I never had before. In a way I didn’t know existed.

Those tears broke loose.

They streaked down my cheeks, and I lifted my face toward the ceiling.

God, give me wisdom, why did you bring me here? Is it wrong? Is it wrong?

Because I no longer knew what I was supposed to feel.