Chapter 2

EPOV

I'd be lying if I said I'd thought about Bella Swan the past few years. I'd seen her here and there in high school, but she was never really on my radar. She was quiet and she followed all the rules. Bella was a daddy's girl. She was plain and simple; just the girl next door. Nothing about her had ever held my interest in the past.

But for some reason, she caught my eye the other day. There was something different about her this time around. She still stammered over her words and blushed when I looked at her, but something was there in her eyes. She'd grown up and now I saw a fire inside her; a craving for life.

When I'd run into her on the stairs of our apartment building and caught her before she fell to her death, I immediately figured she'd want nothing to do with me. But her ballsy attitude took me by surprise. I'd never expected her to call me a punk-ass and then tell me she would've been afraid of me if I hadn't gotten caught. Something like that shouldn't have made my dick hard, but it fucking did. In fact, everything about her made my dick hard now. I could have attributed it to the fact that I hadn't gotten any pussy in over three years, but I knew that wasn't it. There were plenty of girls ready to spread their legs if I needed a quick fuck. That wasn't what I wanted or needed.

The girl I remembered from high school had been stick thin with almost no ass or tits but, now... holy fuck. She was still thin, but there were curves on her and she filled out her clothes in all the places that mattered. The last four years had definitely been good to her. Add in the mouth she had on her, and I'd bet she was a fucking freak in bed.

I knew better than to let my mind go any further than that, or at least I should have. I was the last person she needed in her life. Her daddy was a cop, for fuck's sake, and there were no regrets on my end about anything I'd done before getting sent to prison. I'd willingly taken that gun three years ago and strolled into that convenience store. I was trying to prove I could play with the big boys. The motherfucker behind the counter owed my buddy Wolf money, and I had no qualms about holding that gun to his head while he shit his pants and emptied the cash register. If that little bitch hadn't run his mouth afterward, I wouldn't have ended up behind bars, and he wouldn't have taken a bullet between the eyes a few weeks after, courtesy of Wolf and Hunter.

—

Prison had been an experience. I was somebody most guys didn't want to fuck with, but I also learned who to keep my mouth shut around. I may have connections to Royce King, but I was still low on the food chain. There were some guys in there you didn't even want to look at the wrong way, and I wasn't fucking stupid.

I'd still have been running with The Kings when I got out of prison it weren't for my mom. She was the only thing that had me swearing I'd try harder. She'd always known I was a hothead that flew off the handle too quickly. She knew I was always up to no good, she just didn't know how far I'd gone or how deep into shit I was. Not until the cops showed up on her porch wanting to search the house.

Every time she came to visit, she looked like she'd aged ten years. The disappointment in her eyes gutted me, and she'd ask, "Mijo, why?" as tears ran down her cheeks. So I promised her I'd do better—be better—when I got out, and I was trying. It wasn't easy, though.

I'd been a free man for a little over three weeks. Thanks to my wonderful parole officer, I'd already found a place to live and gotten a job at a garage sweeping floors and mainly being their bitch. I hadn't seen any of my boys in that time; I was trying to keep a low profile, but there was no way they didn't know I was out. It was only a matter of time before they showed their faces.

—

I'd swept floors and fetched tools all fucking day and all I wanted was to get home and take a hot shower. It was one of the main things I missed while in prison; showering alone. I could stand under the hot spray for an hour if I wanted. I could jerk off in there anytime I felt like it, too, which was the main part of my plans for tonight.

While I was climbing the stairs to my apartment, since the landlord was too lazy to have the damn elevator fixed, I couldn't stop the grin that spread across my lips. I watched as Bella stepped out from her apartment to check her mail. She didn't notice me, so I took the opportunity to let my gaze travel the length of her body. She was wearing much less today than she was when I saw her last week; it was a hot day for September in Washington. She had on tight little denim shorts that should have been illegal with the way they clung to her ass, paired with a pink tank top that showed off the curve of her breasts and left little to the imagination.

"Bella," I drawled, letting her name roll off my tongue as I leaned against the wall next to her door.

She gasped, clutching at her chest. "Holy crap, you scared me."

I chuckled, smirking at her and not even trying to hide the fact that I was undressing her with my eyes. She blushed and fidgeted slightly. "Perdóname, I didn't mean to scare you."

"What do you want?"

I raised an eyebrow at her. "Your legs wrapped around my head, for a start." I don't know why I said that to her, or why I was being such a dick. I kept reminding myself I needed to keep my distance from her, but when it came down to it, I didn't want to. I'd only seen her a handful of times, but each time I did, I loved getting under her skin and watching her reactions.

She glared at me. "Chancho."

I grinned, trying to hold back my laughter. Now, she was even insulting me in Spanish. "Si, mami, I am a pig." I reached out, running my fingers along the curve of her ass just to prove her point. I was startled when she grabbed my wrist tightly as she twisted my arm behind my back with more force than I thought she'd be capable of.

"Touch me without my permission again, and you'll be searching for your balls for a week. You hear me, Edward?" she growled.

Once again, my dick should have been anything but hard but, shit, it was raging to the point of being painful. I couldn't remember the last time I'd been this hard. "Yeah," I grunted before pulling my arm from her grasp and walking away.

I knew I needed to apologize to her and that my mom would've kicked my ass for disrespecting a woman like that. I just needed to get out of there. If she'd roughed me up just a little more, I was almost positive I would've come in my pants right then and there.

Spanish:

Mijo - Son

Perdóname - Excuse me/Sorry

Chancho - Pig