Page 1 of Bounced Into Love

Chapter 1

Jaxson

“You do realize there’s such a thing as taking the dark and broody thing too far, right?”

I reluctantly dragged my gaze in my boss’s direction and quirked a brow when I found him grinning at me. “I didn’t realize you had a sense of humor, Mark.”

“Really? I thought everyone knew how funny I can be.” His head tilted to the side. “You probably didn’t realize it because of how we met since the circumstances were as far from funny as they could possibly be.”

“You can say that again,” I muttered, glancing over to where his wife sat. The first time I met Ariana, she was in deep shit with my former boss. I’d warned her to get as far away from the sleazy bookie as she could, and she’d ended up running straight into Mark’s arms. It was nice to see her practically glowing with happiness as she chatted with the bartender. I was also grateful because her good fortune had spilled over to me when Mark had come to Vegas to clean up the mess her mom had landed her in. He’d offered me a job if I wanted to move to Chicago, and I’d found myself taking him up on it less than a year later.

In the months since I’d been working for him, he hadn’t given me any reason to regret that decision. Until now; as he reminded me of how badly I wanted something I could never have.

“You’re not going to get the girl if you never talk to her.”

My gaze jerked back to Mark, and I found him staring at the woman I’d been obsessed with since she first stepped foot into Ice, the club where I was the head bouncer. Every day for the past five weeks I’d lived for the moment she showed up on Friday night. She always came in with the same group of women. I assumed she worked with them, based on the office attire they all wore and the snatches of conversation I’d overheard.

She was fucking hot; tiny compared to my size, but with curves that wouldn’t stop. She had long red hair and bright blue eyes. Her pale skin looked so fucking soft. And I could too easily picture her plump lips wrapped around my cock.

Having spent most of my life in Vegas, I was used to being around beautiful women. None of them had ever tempted me the way this one did. Something about her was different. I’d barely stopped myself from tossing her over my shoulder and carrying her up to Mark’s office that first night…and every single time she’d come in here since then. But her beauty shone from the inside too, and that’s why I’d stayed away from her. She was too pure for the likes of me.

“Who said I wanted the girl?”

It was a good thing I wasn’t in Vegas anymore. I couldn’t lie for shit when it came to her, and my ability to maintain a poker face had been one of the things that kept me alive when I worked for Louie DeFiglio. If he’d caught me in a lie, it could’ve easily been the end of me. But Mark was as different from Louie as I was from my red-haired angel.

My new boss saw right through me when it came to the girl. Instead of using it as leverage against me like Louie would’ve done, he called my bluff, “Are you really going to try to pretend you don’t want her? Because if so, there are about a hundred guys in here that I can fix her up with.”

A deep growl rumbled up my chest at the idea of some guy touching her pale skin. I knew I wasn’t good enough for her, not with everything I’d seen and done back in Vegas. But that didn’t mean I thought that any of the guys in here were good enough for her, either. As far as I was concerned, nobody was.

“That’s what I thought,” Mark chuckled. “With the way you look at her, it’s obvious how badly you want her. So why don’t you do something about it? You don’t strike me as the kind of guy who sits back and lets life pass him by. If you were, you wouldn’t have stepped up and tried to help Ariana in Vegas.”

I wasn’t. Not usually, but this was different. Just like everything else about my red-haired angel. “I’m exactly the type of guy a girl like her doesn’t need in her life.”

“What do you mean?”

“She deserves better than me.”

Mark wrapped a hand around my shoulder, tugging me in his direction. When I turned towards him, his dark eyes were deadly serious as he growled, “You don’t work for Louie DeFiglio anymore. You left that life behind in Vegas to build a new one here.”

“That doesn’t mean I don’t still carry the baggage from it.” And some days it felt like it was heavier than I could manage.

“You work for Andrew and me now, in one of the same clubs as my wife.” Mark jerked his chin in Ariana’s direction. “Do you think I ever would’ve let you near her again if I thought you were a bad guy?”

“Of course not.” He wouldn’t do anything that put her at risk. It was impossible to miss how protective he was with his wife. “I’m not saying I’m a bad guy.” Not exactly, anyway. “But working together and being in a relationship isn’t the same thing.”

“A relationship,” he echoed, his grin returning. “Sounds like I didn’t pick the right word earlier.”

“How so?”

“I have a feeling ‘need’ would’ve been closer to the mark when it comes to describing your feelings for the girl.”

“Want. Need.” I shrugged my shoulders. “It doesn’t really matter since she’s meant for better things than me.”

“What if you’re wrong? What if she ends up with some guy who thinks he’s too good for her and treats her like it?”

Another growl rumbled up my chest. This time, it wasn’t the thought of someone else having the right to touch her; it was the possibility that they’d hurt her.

“Even the slimmest possibility of some guy treating her wrong has you looking like you’re ready to kick some ass. I think you’re exactly the kind of guy she’s meant to be with.”

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