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As I was learning myself, the very, very hard way. I was a seriously talented and skilled dancer…with a shattered leg, three sets of plates and screws, and a long road of physical therapy and exercise ahead of me before I could even walk without a limp. So all that talent, all that skill, all those years of hard work…were useless to me. I’d danced until my feet had literally bled, until I couldn’t walk because my legs were jelly and my feet hurt so bad…and I’d toughed it out and had kept dancing. I’d been the lead dancer in the troupe, a position I’d fought for with all the tenacity and ruthlessness I possessed.
And it had been taken away from me in a split second.
Everything had been taken away.
Including Rick.
I couldn’t sit here and think about Rick, or Dad anymore, so I threw my sling bag on, locked the door to Mom’s condo, and set out to walk to the nearest place I could find food and a strong drink—damn the fact that it was only eleven in the morning, I needed a drink. Mom had been watching me like a hawk, refusing to let me drink my stress and bitterness away.
I hobbled in the direction I remembered seeing something like civilization last night when we were driving to Mom’s condo, and I grimly let my mind wander to the blow up with Rick.
He’d been in a medically induced coma for three weeks, and when they brought him out, he wasn’t himself. I’d hoped it would be a temporary thing, but…it didn’t seem that way. He was angry, bitter, resentful, morose. The diametric opposite to the Rick I’d fallen in love with. He had no other injuries except to his head, so once he recovered from that, he would hopefully be back to his normal life. It would take six months to a year, his doctors had said. I had sat with him, reassured him that I loved him. I’d been at his side the entire time he was in a coma, even when I was in a wheelchair myself after my own surgery, dizzy from pain meds that had only partially dulled the ache in my leg, and had done nothing whatsoever to dull the rage and agony in my head over losing my career.
He’d barely spoken to me after waking up, responding in grunts and monosyllables at most. I’d tried cajoling, sneaking into his bed with him, even trying to get sexy with him—but he wasn’t having it. There was no memory loss, meaning, he knew who I was and who he was, he remembered his family who had come to Paris to be with him, he remembered the various members of our troupe who came to visit and support us both every chance they got—he remembered the accident, he knew all about our relationship and the fact that he’d proposed just a month before the accident, and that we were planning a Paris wedding…
He just didn’t want me. He didn’t love me anymore.
And he told me so.
The doctors told me brain injuries were strange, unpredictable things that no one totally understood, and they did things to the victims that couldn’t always be explained.
Such was the case with Rick, my boyfriend of four years, my fiancé. He fell out of love with me upon waking up from the coma.
I’d stuck by him despite the heartbreak, insisting it was a phase, refusing to believe he meant it. Hoping he would snap out of it, that he’d remember that he loved me, that we were going to get married under the Arc de Triomphe, live near the Eiffel Tower, and have three babies. We would open our own dance studio and I would be Madame Goode, because we were modern and sophisticated and I’d be keeping my own name.
But, no. All those plans had faded into the ether.
He told me he was sorry, but things had changed. For him. He felt lost and needed to be alone to figure things out. I wanted to stay with him, help him figure things out.
No.
He wanted to be alone.
It wasn’t fair to me for him to ask me to stay with him when his feelings had changed. He no longer loved me, and didn’t see that changing any time soon.
Was this all because I couldn’t dance anymore?
He couldn’t explain it.
He had just …changed.
It was best I leave.
I sobbed, wept, pleaded…but in the end, I’d given him his ring back and walked out—limped out. Alone.
When I was physically able, I came to Ketchikan with Mom, to a city I’d never been to before. My childhood home in Connecticut was gone. My home and family with the troupe was gone. Oh, the director had assured me I would always have a place, that I could choreograph and help direct and work with the dancers, but I knew myself—that would be torture. I had fought my way to the top, and then to watch Ariadne du Champs take over? No. No way I could do that, not in a million fucking years.
So, here I was, in Ketchikan, without a career, without a future, without a single thought of what to do with my life. No boyfriend, no fiancé, just heartbreak on all fronts.
As I was walking I wasn’t paying attention at all, I admit that fully—and what happened next was entirely my fault.
I was in a rage, a bitter diatribe against life and fate and Rick and love and everything else. An endless loop of pain and misery was playing full blast inside my head. I was not looking where I was going, I was unaware of, well…anything. I had no idea how long I’d been walking, or where I was walking, or what was in front of me. My head was down, just watching my feet, watching my own limp and hating it, too.
Suddenly, I was in the air, salt water splashing in droplets against my face; something had hold of the hood of my sweatshirt and was holding me up by it—I was dangling nearly horizontal over the water, over the edge of a dock or wharf, the green water and sunlight splashing six feet below me.
The thing which had hold of my hood gently tugged me backward, and a hand—at least, it felt like a hand, wrapped around my waist and pulled me upright.
Before I describe the owner of the hand, I should be clear about my own appearance: five-three, weighing just over a hundred pounds, slender at the hips and bust—I was insanely fit, with minimal body fat, and high muscle mass for my size and build. I had platinum blonde hair, the only one of my siblings that wasn’t dark-haired like Mom and Dad had both been—Dad, according to stories and old photos, had been a towhead as a kid, only darkening as he got older, and his uncle and mother had both been platinum blonde like me, which was where I got it. I had Mom’s eyes: gray-brown-green, a changeable hazel.
The owner of the hand was a bear.
Andre the giant.
Goliath.
Towering well over a foot above me, if not more, he was built like that bear from Brave, the evil one. Massively broad shoulders, arms the size of my waist, thighs thicker than any part of me. Dark skin, caramel and mahogany skin bare from the waist up, wearing only shorts, no shoes, no shirt. His hair was black as a raven’s wing, and he had a thick shaggy beard hanging over his chest. Every inch of his skin was covered in tattoos, the kind that looked to my very ignorant eyes to be ritual native tattoos. Blue ink or black or purple, lines and dots, animal forms like you’d see on a totem pole. I stared up at him, trying to take in his size and gargantuan build and the dizzying, myriad array of tattoos all at once.
“Water’s mighty cold,” he murmured in a rumble so deep I felt it. “Not sure where you were going.”
“Me…me either.” I blinked, swallowed. I’d never seen anyone like this man. “I…thank you.”
He just stared down at me. “Damn, but if you ain’t a tiny little thing.”
I frowned up at him. “Yeah, well, you’re a goddamn giant.”
He shrugged, nodded. “Yeah.” He glanced around us—a dock running in both directions, and a road lined with shops a thousand feet behind me. “Where were you going?”
I shrugged. “I…I really don’t know. I was…um. Lost. In thought.”
“You were walking like a woman on a mission.”
I nodded, licked my lips. “You’ve never gone for a walk so pissed off you weren’t looking where you were going?”
He dragged thick fingers through his beard—even the backs of his hand, his palm, and his fingers were tattooed. “I don’t give things that kind of power over me.”
&nb
sp; “Yeah, well, good for you. You’re not the one whose entire life is fucked up.” I felt my throat closing, turned away, embarrassed to be falling apart in front of a total stranger.
“My cousins-in-law own that bar over there,” he said, and I turned to see where he was pointing. “I think you need a drink.” That was a statement, not a question. “You can tell me about it.”
“You don’t want to hear my stupid story.” I turned back to the water, staring out at the amazing, breathtaking view of the channel and the islands opposite.
That huge, tattooed paw of his spun me around as easily as if I were a toy, and his finger touched my chin. “Eyes.” It was a command, and for some reason, I found myself turning my gaze to his own.
Warm, deep dark brown eyes gazed at me, the eyes of a bear, overflowing with bottomless wells of wisdom and kindness. I drowned in them, got lost in them. They were eyes that cared.
He didn’t need to say anything; everything he wanted to communicate was in his gaze.
“Name?” Another rumble so deep my chest buzzed with it.
“Cassandra Goode. Cassie.”
“Which?”
“Cassie.”
His hand closed around mine, engulfing it, shaking it gently and firmly. “Ink Isaac.”
“Ink?”
He nodded. “Ink. It’s on the birth certificate.”
“Fitting, huh?”
He smiled, a small curve on one side of his mouth. “Yeah.” He gestured with a jerk of his head. “C’mon. They got good food, too. You’re hungry, I think.”
The one nice thing about having my career as a dancer taken away from me was that I didn’t have to stay fit anymore. I could eat whatever I wanted, now.
“Do they have greasy, delicious comfort food?” I asked.
“Best in town.”
It was crazy, but my life made no sense anymore, and I may as well go with it. “Let’s go,” I said. “I’m hungry, and I want to get blackout drunk.”
He didn’t answer that, but he didn’t have to. I glanced up at the giant walking beside me, a giant with miles of incredible tattoos, acres of massive muscle, eyes that drowned me in wisdom and warmth, hands so big he could wrap one around my entire waist, and a voice so deep it came from the center of the earth.
It was crazy to go anywhere with him, but I went anyway.
Consequences be damned. What did I have to lose?
Book 13 in the Badd series, the start of a whole new saga featuring the Goode Girls, and, of course, more of your your favorite Badd men, women, and children...
Coming Soon!
Also by Jasinda Wilder
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My other titles:
The Preacher's Son:
Unbound
Unleashed
Unbroken
Biker Billionaire:
Wild Ride
Delilah's Diary:
A Sexy Journey
La Vita Sexy
A Sexy Surrender
Big Girls Do It:
Boxed Set
Married
Pregnant
Rock Stars Do It:
Harder
Dirty
Forever
Omnibus
From the world of Big Girls and Rock Stars:
Big Love Abroad
The Falling Series:
Falling Into You
Falling Into Us
Falling Under
Falling Away
Falling for Colton
The Ever Trilogy:
Forever & Always
After Forever
Saving Forever
From the world of Wounded:
Wounded
Captured
From the world of Stripped:
Stripped
Trashed
From the world of Alpha:
Alpha
Beta
Omega
Harris: Alpha One Security Book 1
Thresh: Alpha One Security Book 2
Duke: Alpha One Security Book 3
Puck: Alpha One Security Book 4
The Houri Legends:
Jack and Djinn
Djinn and Tonic
The Madame X Series:
Madame X
Exposed
Exiled
The Black Room
(With Jade London):
Door One
Door Two
Door Three
Door Four
Door Five
Door Six
Door Seven
Door Eight
The Deleted Door
The One Series
The Long Way Home
Where the Heart Is
There’s No Place Like Home
Badd Brothers:
Badd Motherf*cker
Badd Ass
Badd to the Bone
Good Girl Gone Badd
Badd Luck
Badd Mojo
Big Badd Wolf
Badd Boy
Badd Kitty
Badd Business
Badd Medicine
Dad Bod Contracting:
Hammered
Drilled
Nailed
Screwed
Fifty States of Love:
Pregnant in Pennsylvania
Standalone titles:
Yours
Non-Fiction titles:
You Can Do It
You Can Do It: Strength
You Can Do It: Fasting
Jack Wilder Titles:
The Missionary
JJ Wilder Titles:
Ark
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