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  Reckless

  ( The Story of Samantha Smith - 2 )

  Devon Hartford

  Samantha and Christos ARE BACK!!!!

  “I’ve never given my heart to anyone, agápi mou.

  You are my first. And you will be my last.

  You are my forever.”

  - Christos Manos, in RECKLESS

  Now that Samantha Smith has confronted the demons from her dark past in FEARLESS, she’s excited to jump into adulthood with newfound confidence and friends Romeo, Madison, and Kamiko.

  Samantha passionately hopes that her dreams of becoming an artist are more than girlish fancy. All she has to do for them to come true is change her major from Accounting to Art. When she finally reveals her decision to her parents, they fly off the handle and take drastic action.

  Christos Manos, the ultimate bad-boy boyfriend, is committed to staying by Samantha’s side, nurturing her and helping her discover her potential., no matter what obstacles are thrown in her way.

  When Samantha’s life starts to unravel, Christos is the only person she can turn to for the emergency support she needs. But he’s fighting his own dark demons and tangled secrets he’s kept hidden from the beginning. Circumstances quickly spiral out of control, threatening to fracture their fledgling love beyond repair and steal Christos away from her permanently.

  Samantha will be tested to the limits of her resilience, and must discover how truly Fearless she can be in the name of love.

  WARNING!! The steam factor in RECKLESS will be significantly steamier than it was in FEARLESS.

  Reckless

  The Story of Samantha Smith 2

  by

  Devon Hartford

  “Storytelling is wakeful dreaming.

  Writing is the harnessing of our dreams with words.”

  —Devon Hartford

  DEDICATION

  To every person who reached out to me online to say hello and to encourage me to keep doing what I was doing. You know who you are, and I want to sincerely thank you, AGAIN! :-D

  Without your support, I might never have finished this book on time.

  Now it’s yours to enjoy!

  Prologue

  CHRISTOS

  THREE MONTHS EARLIER…

  I couldn’t bear to look at Samantha. Naked heartbreak strained her face.

  Because of me.

  At the end of my first day back at SDU, two cops stuffed me in the back of a police cruiser right in front of her. I felt like a complete douche nugget. You can romanticize it all you want, but getting arrested fucking sucks. Who wants to go to jail, really? I’d been locked up enough times to know.

  Samantha tried to catch my attention as the cruiser drove me away, but I avoided her eyes.

  I felt bad, but I was too embarrassed to look at her, no matter how many points I’d scored by cleaning up the coffee cesspool in her car before the cops showed up. I grinned to myself. That shit had been rank, but enduring the smell was a small price to pay for more time with Samantha.

  The cop car pulled onto the freeway, taking the Five south toward downtown. Traffic was heavy. I’d have plenty of time to mull things over.

  I wasn’t sure who was pressing charges against me, but my bet was that fat red-faced fuck who’d been harassing Samantha on the way to campus in the a.m. He tries to jump me, and I’m the one hauled downtown?

  Fuck that shit.

  I exhaled heavily and pushed away my irritation.

  For a guy my size, the back of a squad car was cramped quarters. I wanted to slouch down and get comfortable on the bench seat, but with the cuffs on, it wasn’t doable. Instead, I leaned my shoulder against the door and rested my head against the glass.

  Watching the familiar landmarks sail past should’ve been comforting. The mural with the waves and surfers on the storage building in Pacific Beach was pretty nice. But my favorite was always the huge mural of humpback whales on the side of the Chevrolet dealership. Those painted whales swam in a vast emerald ocean, elegant symbols of graceful mobility and independence.

  Sadly, the artsy roadside surroundings, the blue skies overhead, and the Pacific Ocean a hop-skip to my right were now an infinite distance from my grasp. They taunted me with promises of fleeting freedom, a stark contrast to my current situation.

  Screw it. I wasn’t letting the cage of this squad car trap my spirit. My mind was free to roam and seek safe harbor.

  A smile crept across my face as I pictured Samantha in my mind’s eye. Not the downer moment when she’d panicked at the sight of the cops cuffing me, but all the magic moments before that, since this morning.

  Like when I’d bumped into her coming out of the Student Center bookstore and she laughed when I told her my name was Adonis. I think that made her the first chick who’d ever openly mocked my middle name. Most girls melted when I said it, like I was some kind of celebrity movie star. Sure, I’d gotten giggles galore and countless stripper laughs from all kinds of bar babes in the past, but not Samantha’s sour-faced disdain. I kind of liked it. She was all spark and no bullshit.

  It helped she was epic hot. Too bad she couldn’t see it for herself. But it was clear as day to me. Underneath her self-doubt, she was super-nova, incendiary hot. My lips curled in my trademarked cocky smirk. I could handle it. I liked fire.

  Getting burned let you know you were alive.

  The funny thing about Samantha was that, even though she was a total hottie, she was a complete spaz. Her firestorm emotions constantly tore up her good looks, turning her face purse-dog ugly half the time. Like when fatty had tried to climb into her VW on the way to campus, the look on her face had been the visual equivalent of nails grinding across a chalkboard. Totally heinous. But it was only temporary.

  I dug the honest flow of Samantha’s emotions. It was way better than the contrived gamesmanship of Tiffany and her loony sorority friends with their Halloween-mask sincerity.

  Samantha’s naked honesty and tumultuous emotions made me want to protect her that much more. She was some kind of rare and unique truth.

  When she was calm, she was undeniably the most beautiful woman on the planet. I don’t say that shit lightly. I’ve been with more than enough hotties to know.

  But with Samantha, it went far beyond her looks.

  I’d totally flipped for her the moment I’d laid eyes on her. Even with her funky dress and that coffee smell and her jangling nerves, something about Samantha shone right into me like a beacon. Call it her spirit, her essence, I don’t fucking know. But sure as shit, I’d never felt anything like it coming off of any other chicks I’d ever met.

  Samantha was in a class of her own.

  She had a calming effect on me, like everything in the world had fallen into place at last, and the human race could kick back and sip Mai Tais into eternity. This was a unique experience for me. Ever since my mom had left my dad, my life had been a scattered vortex of recklessness. Peace and calmness were strangers to me. Daily disaster and emotional chaos were my resting state.

  There was one memory of perfect calmness that I cherished, and I turned to it whenever my head was spinning out of control. It reminded me of the calmness my life could have, if only I could figure out how to hold onto it for longer than a minute or two at a time.

  It’d happened two or three years ago, on a surfing trip down in Baja with Jake and some of our buddies.

  We’d camped overnight on the beach, and I’d hit the waves first thing in the morning, before everyone else was awake. They were sleeping off the cases of Coronas everyone had pounded the night before. For whatever reason, I’d gone easy on the brews and was ready for an early start.

  After I’d paddled out for the seventh time, I’d been sitting on my board in meditative silence,
alone, lolling on a glassy ocean, waiting between sets, feet dangling in the tropical water while a perfect sunrise soaked the horizon. The entire world had felt like everything was as it should be, the way nature intended. For the first time since my mom had left my dad, I’d felt perfect, total calmness. For a fleeting moment.

  Then it was gone.

  Samantha had brought that peaceful feeling back ten times over. I’d felt it continuously since meeting her, and it spiked whenever I was in her presence. Too bad the cops trashed my vibe the second they took me away. Fucking five-oh. I shook my head.

  Samantha…

  I needed more of her. I was hooked. I mean, junkie hooked. She gave me something I couldn’t give myself, no matter how hard I’d tried.

  Samantha…

  Bouncing around inside the rolling jail with the two cops sitting in front of me suddenly yanked me painfully out of my private reverie.

  Bars, handcuffs, no escape.

  I struggled to keep my feelings for Samantha protected from my grim predicament. I didn’t want my current situation tarnishing my memories of her in any way. After taking a deep, calming breath, I dove back into comforting reminiscence.

  I recalled Samantha’s surprise when we’d first locked eyes in Life Drawing class. Watching her struggle not to stare at my package while she’d been drawing me naked was probably the comedy highlight of my year. She’d been ready to boil over with embarrassment.

  Despite her nearly perpetual awkwardness, I totally dug her, no matter how off-kilter her mood.

  Stalking her at the Eleanor M. Westbrook art museum was probably the calmest I’d seen her. The deserted museum was a quiet and relaxing cocoon, making it easy to let your guard down. I’m sure Samantha was so busy marveling at the paintings, her worries had fallen away. I knew the experience well. I felt it every time I went to a great art museum myself, and slid into the colors and shapes of the paintings, escaping my own inner turmoil for brief moments.

  While Samantha had stood mesmerized in front of my grandfather’s painting, Shrouded Paradise, I witnessed her truest beauty come out of hiding for the first time, like some timid field mouse sniffing the air for danger. That crazy beauty was such a fragile, fleeting thing, like a snowflake or a perfect sunset. You could only appreciate it if you stopped yourself and really took it in before it was gone, maybe forever.

  I wanted desperately to protect Samantha from whatever haunted her because I knew her insecurity ran deep, just like mine. The only difference between me and her was that I hid it, and she didn’t.

  I couldn’t decide if she was the bravest person I’d ever met, or the craziest.

  It didn’t matter.

  I wanted to wash away her tears and fears so that the amazing young woman I sensed beneath her teenaged anxiety could finally emerge.

  I already knew beyond all doubt that I would do anything to help Samantha find her way in life.

  The fact I was parked in the back of a squad car because of her, ten hours after we’d met, was living proof.

  I sighed heavily again, my heart accelerating while my chest tightened around it. Man, I knew Samantha was going to be trouble for me. Maybe even more trouble than where I was heading in this black-and-white. I grinned to myself. The good news was, this shit was temporary.

  I looked forward to finding out how much trouble Samantha could be the second I got out of whatever steaming mess I’d tripped into with the cops.

  Because whatever was brewing between me and Samantha felt permanent.

  Eternal.

  Chapter 1

  SAMANTHA

  PRESENT DAY

  I still couldn’t get over how hot Christos was. His tattooed arms flexed hypnotically and his body gyrated only inches from mine.

  “Oh, it’s so wet,” Christos said.

  “Can you get it in all the way?” I asked nervously.

  “It’s so tight. I don’t know if it’ll fit.”

  “Push it in all the way. Go deep.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’ve waited long enough. Just do it.”

  “Okay, but I’ll go slow, just in case.” He eased it in. All the way.

  “Oooh, yeah,” I purred, “I think that’s going to do it. Just like that. Smooth and easy.” I totally needed this. I’d been waiting for what seemed like my entire life.

  “You like it when I do this, don’t you?” he smirked.

  “Why wouldn’t I?” I grinned back.

  “I don’t know, I thought maybe you were afraid it would ruin things. You want me to go faster?”

  “Yes. Do it, Christos. I trust you. As fast as you can.”

  His entire body flexed in a choreographed symphony of poetic movement. “Like this?”

  “Oh yes, Christos. Just like that. Harder.”

  Things were so wet down there, it made a sucking sound as it went in and out, in and out.

  “Here it comes!” he grunted. “It’s gonna pop!”

  “Faster! Harder! Keep it in deep or it’ll gush everywhere!”

  “Now!”

  “Yes, that’s it! Flush it!”

  I pressed the lever while Christos gave the rubber plunger a final thrust into the toilet bowl. The water swirled and gurgled. “We did it!” I squealed.

  He high-fived me as my toilet bowl finally drained.

  “What’ve you been throwing in that thing?” he asked skeptically. “Paper towels? It’s not a garbage disposal.”

  “I don’t know, regular stuff?”

  “Regular stuff doesn’t clog the pipes.”

  I wiped sweat from my brow. This conversation was making me feel guilty of some sort of heinous pooping problem. I needed to steer the heat onto a likely target. “Maybe my neighbor’s pet elephant has been sneaking into my bathroom in the middle of the night and is clogging up my pipes with its elephant dumps?”

  “I’ll totally buy that if you can convince me how the elephant gets past your bedroom door without you noticing.”

  “It tiptoes?”

  Christos lifted a doubtful eyebrow.

  “Elephants are very light on their feet. It probably wears ballet slippers, which are perfect for sneaking around.”

  Christos’ eyebrow ratcheted up another notch.

  “Have you ever worn ballet slippers?” I demanded. “They’re ninja stealthy.”

  Christos’ other eyebrow joined its twin.

  “I swear! It wasn’t me! It flushed fine before I went to D.C.!”

  Christos smiled broadly, finally letting me off the hook.

  “Jerk!” I tiptoed and kissed him on the cheek. “Anyway, thank you for helping.”

  “My pleasure.” Wrapping an arm around my shoulder, he kissed me affectionately on the cheek. “While I’m at it, do you have any toilet bowl cleaner?”

  “What for?” I asked.

  “May as well give the bowl a quick once-over while I’m already in here.”

  I grabbed a bottle of toilet bowl cleaner from under the sink. He squirted a blue ring under the rim and went to work.

  “Christos, why is it I get all turned on when I see you scrubbing things?”

  “All women have an elbow-grease fetish.” He cocked his head and flashed his now-legendary dimpled grin. “It’s a proven fact.” Christos put the bowl brush away and washed his hands. After toweling them dry, he leaned toward me, wrapping his arms around my waist. “Now that I’ve got you all worked up…” he said suggestively.

  “Christos,” I rolled my eyes demurely, “Romeo and Kamiko are going to be here any minute. We don’t have time to fool around. I still haven’t picked out an outfit.” Earlier, Christos had told me he had a surprise New Year’s Eve destination in store for all of us. I couldn’t wait to find out what it was.

  “You’ll be gorgeous no matter what you wear,” he said, suddenly dipping me like a ballroom dancer.

  “Oh!” I gasped.

  He grinned.

  I gazed into his liquid blue eyes. They bathed me in the light
of his love.

  He leaned toward me, licking his lips. “Agápi mou,” he murmured.

  Phew! His fluid Greek accent melted me every time. My mouth parted as our lips met like lost lovers. We hadn’t kissed in, oh, I don’t know, about thirty minutes. My soul was parched and needed another drink from his sensual fountain. Christos poured himself into our kiss, his tongue caressing the sensitive spot under my upper lip before sliding across my teeth, then deeper into my mouth. My head started to spin.

  I didn’t realize my bathroom could be this sexy. The next thing I knew, Christos had pulled me back to standing from our ballroom dip. His palms slid down my back and cupped my ass, huge hands squeezing hypnotically. Jolts of pleasure fingered up into my pelvis. Oh god. How did this man do this to me? I hooked my leg around the back of his, pulling him into me.

  “Mmmm,” he moaned. “Aggressive. I don’t remember this behavior. Do I know you?”

  I dropped my leg. “Stop, Christos,” I giggled.

  “No, don’t stop. I like it when you do that.”

  “You do?” Feeling shy, I studied the barbed tattoo that wired around one of his forearms, tracing it lightly with my fingernail.

  “Yeah. It’s okay to be confident. I don’t mind one bit.” He grinned and slid a thumb across my cheek lovingly. “Let go, agápi mou. You’re safe with me.”

  I gazed up into his eyes.

  “Let your hands roam freely, Samantha. Explore my body with your fingertips. Your touch is electric, and powers my heart.”

  I grimaced, but laughed and bonked my forehead against his chest. “I’m not San Diego Gas & Electric, Christos.”

  “You sure?” he smiled confidently. “You totally light up my life, Samantha.”

  “Oh, that’s terrible,” I giggled, swatting his rock-hard shoulder.

  “And you love it.” He flipped on his thousand-watt dimpled grin.

  He was right. I did love it. And I loved him. I lowered my lashes, suddenly shy again. I snuggled my cheek into the black long-sleeve V-neck sweater covering his muscular chest. He was so completely manly, every woman’s fantasy, and he had given himself to me. I’d won the biggest lottery on the planet and had my dream-man all to myself. What more could a girl want?