Axed - A Forbidden Dark Romance Novella

  Copyright © 2021 by Samantha Towle

  All rights reserved.

  Visit my website at www.samanthatowle.co.uk

  Cover Designer: LJ Designs

  Editor: Jovana Shirley, Unforeseen Editing, www.unforeseenediting.com

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  CONTENTS

  1

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  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  OTHER BOOKS BY SAMANTHA TOWLE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  The receptionist replaces the phone handset and looks at me over the glasses perched on her nose. “You can go through. Down the hall, and it’s the fourth door on your left.”

  I push up from my seat and walk where directed. My boots thud heavily against the tiled floor. Reaching the fourth door on the left, I knock on it.

  “Come in,” a female voice calls from the other side of it.

  I’m surprised for two reasons. First off, I figured that my parole officer would be a man. Not that women can’t be parole officers, but I just had a stereotypical image in my head. Guess that’s what happens when you spend a lot of time with only men. And second, that voice sounds familiar.

  With that familiarity sliding through my thoughts, I push the door open, and I instantly see why I know that voice.

  Because I know her. Knew her.

  Eden Briars. She was my high school crush. I guess crush is putting it mildly. I was in love with her. Only I was never on her radar. I was a gawky, awkward-as-fuck teenager. The kind of kid who went to the Scouts and sat at home, playing on his computer.

  Eden rolled with the popular crowd. Dated the quarterback.

  We had some classes together, so she knew who I was. She was always nice to me—unlike some of the crowd she hung with. But she never looked at me in that way.

  Honestly, I didn’t blame her. I was nothing like I am now. Let’s just say, I grew into my looks, and using the prison gym daily definitely helped. Still, in this moment, I’m vaulted back to all those years ago, to that weak, insecure kid.

  “Axel Turner.” She remembers me … recognizes me. I hear it in the warm inflection in her voice and see it in her gorgeous green eyes.

  Eden was always pretty in high school. But now, as a woman, she’s fucking beautiful. All that long, thick red hair, just begging for a man’s hands to get tangled up in it … preferably my hands. Her cute, little, pert nose that turns up at the end and those plump lips that I spent way too many hours obsessing over.

  Jesus, the thought and sight of her almost give me a stiffy. I never forgot Eden Briars, and clearly, neither did my cock. Not that he got anywhere near her. Not even close. Wet dreams and imagination were all I ever had of Eden.

  “Please sit.” With a smile, she gestures to the chair across from her.

  Swallowing hard, I take a seat.

  I’m nervous, and I don’t know what the fuck to say or what to do with my hands. I settle for folding them over my chest and clearing my throat. “So …”

  “How are you doing?” she asks, leaning forward, resting her elbows on the desk.

  A floral scent wafts over from her side of the desk, and it’s fucking decadent. And, yes, I know what that word means. I might have gone to prison instead of college, but I’m not dumb.

  Just fucking stupid.

  “Good,” I grunt.

  I’m usually a one-worded answers or a grunt in response kind of guy. She got both. Lucky gal.

  But when you spend as much time in prison as I did, with the scum of the earth, you learn to keep everything close to your chest. You don’t share with any fucker, and the way to do that is to not talk much. Although, to be honest, I never was what you would call chatty as a kid. Having a voice in high school meant bringing attention to yourself, and I definitely never wanted attention. Only from her. Not that I ever got it. Well, not in the way I wanted it.

  But I got it from her boyfriend, his friends, and the bitches she called friends, and it wasn’t the attention I wanted.

  They were dicks to me. But I wasn’t alone in that. Anyone who wasn’t considered part of their elite group was a target for them.

  I never got why Eden hung out with them. I mean, I get it in the sense that it’s better to be popular than not. But Eden always seemed so different to those dicks. She was better … although she couldn’t have been that much better. Even if she didn’t participate in their stupid fucking pranks and bullying, she knew about it, and knowing and not doing something is just as bad.

  Still, it didn’t stop me from wanting her though, did it?

  Didn’t stop me from thinking about her for a lot of those nights in prison. I never forgot about her.

  And I bet she hasn’t thought of me in all this time—until my name turned up on her desk.

  Funny though, of all the places I would have expected to run into her, this never would have been it. I always thought she would marry that prick she was with in high school or some other rich, good-looking dude she met in college and popped out a couple of kids. But from what I’m seeing here, there’s no ring on her finger.

  And, yes, I looked her up on the odd occasion when I was on the prison computer, but she kept her social media locked down tight. Which is smart when there are fuckers like me in jail, looking her up.

  “So, it tells me here that you’re living back home,” she says, looking down at the file in front of her on her desk.

  My file. Which lists all the details of my time in prison and why I was there, which she already knows, obviously. But I wonder if she knew when I was arrested and sentenced. I know she was in college at the time, but this town isn’t nearly big enough that everybody here doesn’t know what I did and where I’ve been for the last eight years of my life.

  “Yeah.”

  “With your grandpa?” She looks up at me.

  A jolt of surprise and old longing rushes through me. I’m surprised that she even knew that I’d lived with my grandpa back then. Unless that’s also in my file. But then she’d know that he died.

  “No. He’s dead.”

  Her expression turns sad. “I’m so sorry. I know you were close.”

  Did she? Did I tell her that? I don’t remember the extent of our conversations ever moving past schoolwork.

  “Thanks,” I say in that automatic way that people do when condolences are given.

  She looks back to my file. “You’ve gotten a job as a lumberjack?”

  “Yes.”

  The owner of the company, Alfie, was a good friend of my grandpa. I’ve known him pretty much my whole life. He’s a good guy, and I feel lucky that he offered me a job because I know it’s hard as hell to get a job with a criminal record. Especially one that has me down as a convicted murderer. Nobody wants to hire a killer.

  “And you start on Monday?”

  “Yes.”

  She leans back in her chair, and a smile touches her lips. “Still as chatty as ever,” she quips.

  I actually find myself smiling. “I’m more of a doer than a talker.”

  “True. You always were good with your hand
s.”

  That has me lifting a brow.

  “In class. I meant, woodwork.” She sounds flustered.

  I suppress a smile. “Gotcha.”

  “Okay. Good. Great. Well, everything seems in order. I’ll need to see you next week, so be sure to, make an appointment out front. Oh, also, I’ll need to do a home check, but I’ll call you to arrange that. Do you have a cell phone I can contact you on?”

  “Yeah.” I reach over, pick up the Post-it Notes and pen sitting on her desk, scribble down my cell number, and hand it to her.

  I ignore the rush of heat I get when my fingers graze hers.

  It’s been too long since I’ve been with a woman.

  “Great. Thanks. I’ll see you next week, Axel.”

  I push up from my seat and stare down at her. I don’t miss the way her eyes sweep down my body. Noting the flush on her cheeks and the pupil dilation in her eyes, I know she’s affected by me. I’m a different person than the kid she once knew. Different in every way.

  I tap my fingers on the desk, and her eyes flash from my chest to my face. I don’t keep the smile off my lips this time.

  “See you next week, Eden.” And on that, I turn on my heel and walk out of there, knowing her eyes are on my back until I disappear from her sight.

  “Lastly, in today’s news, the body of local resident Wade Evans, who was well known in the community, was found in the Willamette River early this morning. Police haven’t given any more details at this point. That’s all for the news this hour. Now, back to the classics, and first up is Elvis’s ‘Devil in Disguise.’ ”

  My ass perched on the ground, my back resting against a tree, I chew on my sandwich on my lunch break, digesting the news that Wade Evans is dead.

  Wade Evans, the asshole quarterback Eden used to date in high school. I hated that guy—mostly because he had Eden, but also because he was a prick. But I wouldn’t have wished the guy dead.

  Death is too final. I know that better than anyone.

  Causing the death of another person will do that to you.

  Murder. That’s what the sentence called it. Second-degree murder.

  Even though it was self-defense, my legal team couldn’t prove it. They advised me to take the offer of a manslaughter charge. I declined. I knew the truth. I thought the jury would see it too.

  They didn’t.

  The jury found me guilty of second-degree murder, and I went to prison. I got twelve years. Served eight and got out on good behavior. Put on parole for four years.

  In the blink of an eye, my life was changed forever. Every plan … every dream I’d ever had for myself, for my future, was gone. All because I had been dumb enough to sleep with a married woman. Even though I hadn’t known she was married—until her husband caught us together and pulled a knife on me.

  The knife that went into his neck when we were fighting.

  My hands were on it, trying to wrestle it out of his grip.

  And his wife … the woman I was fucking, she told the police that she didn’t know where the knife had come from.

  She didn’t see if it was her husband’s or mine. And I couldn’t prove it wasn’t mine.

  One moment taken out of my hands. I was simply protecting myself, and I lost everything.

  Almost ten years of my life thrown away for a good fuck.

  Well, I hope the same didn’t happen to Wade. Nobody is worth dying over. Especially not a woman.

  I want a quiet life. I just want to work my job and go home. I don’t need or want a woman in my life.

  Not even Eden?

  Definitely not Eden.

  I might have had it bad for her in high school. I might still think she’s hot as fuck. But she’s my parole officer, and I will never go back to prison. Not even for her.

  I might be on parole, still under the control of the law, but I don’t have to sleep anymore on something that can’t even be classified as a mattress, lying in that six-by-six cell. I don’t have to eat that crap they call food. And I don’t have to spend my days with actual fucking psychos. Murderers. Real stone-cold killers.

  I take one misstep, make one error, and I’m straight back inside to serve out the rest of my sentence.

  Not happening.

  I get to breathe fresh air. See the sun rise every day. And I ain’t giving that up for anyone.

  I take another bite of my sandwich and chew.

  “Hi, Axel. It’s Eden Briars.”

  Her sweet voice in my ear has my fingers curling around the cell phone in my hand. “Hey.”

  “Hey,” she echoes. I can just imagine her tucking her hair behind her ear in that way she used to when we talked in class. “I was calling to arrange a date and time for me to come and do the home check.”

  “Oh yeah. Sure. When do you want to come?”

  “Would later on today work for you? Around five-ish?”

  “Make it five thirty.”

  It’ll give me time to clean up after work. Not that I’m trying to impress her.

  Who the fuck am I kidding? Of course I am. I’ve spent a stupid amount of my life trying to impress this chick. But I need to impress her for a different reason than I used to.

  Aside from the cops, Eden is the one person who has the power to send me back to prison. I need her to see that I have my shit together.

  “Half past five it is. See you then.”

  I hang up my cell and squash the feelings that start to unfurl in my chest, knowing that I’m seeing Eden tonight.

  “Axel!”

  The sound of a female voice calling my name pulls me from my thoughts, and I look to my left and see Liddy walking toward me.

  Liddy is Alfie’s granddaughter. She works in the office. We went to high school together. We never hung out at school, but she was nice enough. She was quiet and shy back then. She’s more talkative than she used to be. Or maybe it’s just my silence that makes people talkative, trying to fill the void.

  “Hey.” I turn to her.

  She comes to a stop in front of me. “So, um … a bunch of us are going out for drinks after work. You wanna come?”

  “Thanks. But I have to pass.”

  Her expression falls. “You already have plans?”

  “With my parole officer, and I don’t think she’d be happy if I skipped to go to a bar.”

  “Oh, right. Yeah.” She grimaces. “Sorry.”

  “You’ve nothing to be sorry about.”

  “Sure. Yeah. Well, maybe another time then?”

  It’s a question that I don’t answer because I don’t want to hurt her feelings again, but there is no chance that I’ll be going for drinks with her or anyone else in the near future because I won’t ever put myself in a vulnerable position again.

  I was in a bar when I met Sadie, the married woman I was screwing. And I was in a bar with her that night, right before we went back to her place to fuck. Then, her husband caught us. The husband she hadn’t expected to come back early from his work trip.

  How the hell did I not suspect that she was married?

  Because you were a dumb twenty-one-year-old who was more concerned with getting his dick wet than anything else.

  And honestly, I was flattered that an older woman wanted me. I mean, who doesn’t want to fuck a MILF?

  I blame the fact that I grew into my looks for my stupidity. I had been awkward and skinny as a teenager. But when I got to college, I filled out and got taller—a lot taller.

  Women started to show interest, and after all those years of being overlooked by the one girl that I had wanted more than anything, I fell dick-first into every woman who wanted me.

  But I won’t be falling dick-first into anyone ever again. Especially not Eden. Who I have a date with in an hour.

  It’s not a date, asshole. It’s an appointment with your parole officer.

  I open my front door to Eden’s beautiful face.

  “Hi.” She smiles.

  That smile hits me right in the solar plexus.

/>   Her hair is fastened up in a clip. Some of those red strands are loose and framing her face. She’s wearing a green silk shirt and black pencil skirt that hits just above her knee, and on her feet are black heels.

  She’s fucking stunning.

  And she’s your parole officer. Here to do a check of your house.

  “Hey. Come in.” I step aside, and she walks inside. I get a whiff of her flowery scent that has me wanting to grab her and kiss the hell out of her.

  I need to shut that shit down now.

  I close the door and take a fortifying breath before turning around to face her.

  “Can I get you anything to drink?” I push a hand through my hair, which is damp from the shower I just took after I rushed home to get cleaned up before she got here.

  I see her eyes go to my bicep and then drift across my chest before flitting back to my face.

  Her cheeks redden, and she looks away. “Coffee would be great.”

  I bite back a smile, knowing that she was checking me out. “Do you want to have coffee before or after you do the house check?”

  “After.”

  I show Eden around my place and let her do the necessary checks while I stand around like a spare part.

  I grew up in this house with my grandpa. He raised me. My mom was an addict. She dumped me off with my grandparents when I was a baby, and they never saw her again. She could be dead for all I know. My grandma died when I was three, and I barely remember her. I just remember life with my grandpa. He was the only family I had.

  He died while I was in prison. I wasn’t even allowed time out to attend his funeral.

  And now, this house is all I have left.

  Watching Eden move around my home is weird. I know it’s her job, and I was used to having my cell turned over on a regular basis, but it’s strange, having Eden here, looking at my stuff. Teenage me would have come in his pants at the thought of having Eden Briars in his house. Adult me isn’t far off that, but I’m also relieved when the house check is over, and I’m in the kitchen, making us coffee.

  I take the mugs and place both on the coffee table. Eden is already sitting on the sofa, so I take a seat across from her in the armchair that my grandpa always used to sit in.