Hope - Book 1 of the Bad Boy Vibes series

Chapter 11

Chapter 11

3 months later

Clash.

Clunk.

Clash.

"Do you think he still has it for you?"

Anna stopped what she was doing to momentarily glare at the pale, blond young man before her. Pat only winked back knowingly. Anna sighed with some exasperation. Having her greatest dream come through was both a blessing and a curse. Especially so, at times like this.

Pat had played it cool for, surprisingly, all of the first ten days of their acquaintance, and then he had pulled her aside and insisted on the much-delayed heart to heart. The hot chocolate was the motivation and Rafe's little cabin was the venue. Naturally, Rafe had been away at that very moment they broke into his home to steal his provisions for a hot chocolate and made use of the privacy of his home for some much needed tête-à-tête.

Pat was fairly convincing in churning it all out of her and she found herself telling him everything. Even about her murderous stepbrother, Brian. Of course, with a tale as long as hers it had taken more than one such break-in and numerous rounds of hot chocolate before she brought it all out.

It was unfortunate that at the very latest exposé into her past, delved into just a couple of days back, the topic of conversation had been about the Prestons and the lust they had made her feel when raping her. She really did speak of everything to Pat. But theirs was a mutual understanding. Pat made every bit as much use of her as his sounding board as she did him. It was just more unfortunate that Rafe Brown had chosen that particular afternoon to return early to his little cabin.

Naturally, he had to overhear what was being spoken and unsurprisingly, he had to take offence.

"So what you're really saying is you actually thought the Prestons were all hot," Pat had been asking, his brow lifted in query.

Anna could only nod.

They had been hot and that was what tore her up inside out. How could she have found her rapist visually and sexually appealing? This place was filled with hot-looking men too, but she hadn't thought of any of them sexually. Anyone other than Rafe that is.

The Prestons were the very lowest of low as far as the scum of the Earth went, and that made them attainable. She didn't need to do much to appear attractive to a Preston. All she needed was to sport a vagina and that'll be enough to turn their heads and set them sniffing at her skirts.

In a way, just knowing that certainty in turn kept them an attractive, if totally illogical, option in her mind.

"They are hot. Matt was the hottest of the lot. And he was my boyfriend. Those feelings don't go away that easily. Besides, I have been attuned my whole life to simply accept assholes the way they are and make do." Anna shrugged helplessly. It was probably why assholes were attracted to her anyway. They instinctively knew she wouldn't be putting up much of a fight.

It was also probably why three months being cooped up with mostly men, still left her single and unattractive to their kind. They saw her as beneath them for the very reason that the Prestons were drawn to her.

Still, knowing that did nothing for her silent but deadly obsession over Rafe Brown. That was the one thing she could not reveal even to Pat. Rafe was her blindly sought unattainable dream. She absolutely longed for Rafe, even as she saw him as completely off limits. The Prestons however, were down there...right at her level. So was she really to be blamed if, in the dark of the night, heated thoughts of sex with a Preston mingled with an urgent longing for the unattainable God—Rafe.