Married to the Bad Boy (Published, Sample Only)

Chapter 1 √

“No!  I’m fine!” I screamed and looked up into a pair of warm, brown eyes. Those eyes belonged to someone I never expected to show me any kind of compassion: Brandon Mitchell, the school bad boy.  His eyes widened and then narrowed as he took in my bruised face, making his eyes switch from concern to rage, and he took a closer look. I don’t know how he was able to see the bruise through the hoodie, but he did.

“What the hell, Kami?” He asked while pulling my hood down and then looking at my face. “Who did this?”

The look on his face was murderous. All I could do was shake my head at him. I couldn’t tell him who did this. I couldn’t tell him how it had happened. So much worse things could take place if I did.  I just stood there shaking my head at him as I felt a tear slip down my face. When the tears started slowly falling, his face softened up a little.

“Kami, don’t cry. Just tell me who is hurting you and maybe I can help you, if you let me,” he said softly, stepping closer to me. 

“No one did it. I told you, I fell and hurt myself this morning,” I stated firmly, stepping away from him while pulling the hoodie back over my head. I didn’t need the rest of the student body seeing my bruised face and start questioning what happened to me too. It was bad enough that Brandon knew.

“I swear to God, if your boyfriend did this, I’m going to find him and bury his sorry ass six feet under.” He swore with his fists clenched tightly in anger.  His voice had risen slightly, which caused a few people that were walking through the hall to turn and look over at us.

“I don’t have a boyfriend,” I muttered, eying the people who were looking our way. “And keep it down! I don’t need anyone else knowing about this, ok?”

“Then tell me who did this to you.” He demanded again.

I could tell by the way he crossed his arms over his chest that he was getting frustrated that I wasn’t telling him anything. The look on his face was scary, telling me that I had better tell him or else he’d find out another way.

“It doesn’t matter who, what, where, when or how I hurt myself, Brandon,” I said with an equally frustrated sigh. “Just leave it alone and go back to doing what you normally do. Leave me alone like everyone else always does.” I said the last part in a whisper. Looking back into my locker, I reached up to get the book I had attempte to pull down just a minute ago and tried to ignore the pain that raced down my side.

Before I could get to it though, Brandon grabbed hold of it and handed it to me. I reached for it, but he pulled it away and held it out of my reach.  He took my outstretched hand, though, and entangled our fingers together.

“Brandon, what the hell? Give me my book and let go of my hand,” I demanded, trying to pull my hand out of his only for him to grip it tighter.

“You’re coming with me.” His voice was deep and commanding, allowing no room for argument.  “We’re going to talk about this.” With that, he pulled me to him. He used the hand that held my book to shut my locker, making it latched shut. He started dragging me down the hall with all of the student body witnessing it.