Page 28 of Bad Boy in Her Bed

Wrapping a towel around her chest, she returned to the sofa and tugged her phone out from between the cushions, tapping his number and waiting impatiently until he answered.

“If you’re going to run out on me, at least make it a fair race,” she said, squeezing the water from her hair.“I’ll be at the track in fifteen.”

*

Birch stood atthe starting line of Epson High’s track and watched Jocelyn’s car pull into the parking lot.

He’d woken up sprawled out in the corner of the hotel sofa with her legs on his lap and spreadsheets in a pile at his feet.For all the aches in his bones from the awkward position he’d slept in for a few hours, his head had gone to one place and one place only.

He wanted to wake up with her every day.

And that was a desire he needed to shake if he was going to survive the next few weeks.

Yet when her name appeared on his phone while he was seeing Grey off to school, his pulse raced and he answered.

Now here he was, unable to look away as she strode down the hill toward him in her grey racerback top and black shorts.

“You came,” she called as she neared the starting line, pulling her hair into a ponytail.

Stretching out his shoulders, he turned toward the track.“I shouldn’t have.”

With a hmm, she set her phone and two water bottles at her feet.“First race, one hundred yards.”

A tinny voice counted down from her cell, the buzzer sending him tearing toward the finish line.Crossing it a split-second before she did, he slowed to a walk and doubled back.“Four hundred now?”

“Of course.”

He took the four hundred with enough time to turn and watch her cross the trampled white paint on the track, her eyes hard.“Eight?”

“Of course.”

He retained the lead in the eight-hundred-yard race until the final stretch, his legs unable to move fast enough to hold it as she surpassed him, clinching the win easily and finishing the lap to grab the water bottles.

“Fifteen?”she asked, taking a long drink.

“Of course.”

He knew he’d be slaughtered in the distance run.Back in his high school days before he was expelled, he was strong in the speed bursts but always faltered in the pacing needed to win the longer races.So it was no surprise to him when she finished a solid eight or nine seconds ahead of him, already walking her heart rate down when he caught up to her.

“I’m going to dive into the deposits and invoicing today” she told him, as they looped the track slowly.“Anything I should watch for?”

“I have no idea.Ryder does most of the deposits, so the whole thing might be a clusterfuck.”Looking over at the trio of men who’d joined them on the track, he lowered the volume of his voice.“I never should have trusted him.”

Pursing her lips, she scooped up her phone and their empty water bottles as they passed the men.She seemed distracted, her usual relaxed banter nonexistent as they began their trek up the hill to the parking lot.

“Birch?”

“Yeah?”

Stopping at her car, she stared at the ground for a moment before she turned to him.“What were you sent away for?”

He knew this was coming.It sat like a brick in the back of his mind, knowing he would eventually need to lie to her and dreading the moment he would have to do it.

Shoving his hands into the pockets of his basketball shorts, he took an instinctive step back.“Armed breaking and entering.”

“Armed,” she echoed, her steel eyes narrowing on him.“Armed with what?”

He knew the story inside and out and the lie rolled off his tongue as easily as it had six years earlier.“A crowbar and a switchblade.”

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