Infamous: A Bad Boy Sports Romance Novel by Arabella Abbing Read Free Book Online Page A

Jared was a grown man and could keep himself out of trouble until I could get there.
    Which—in all fairness to him—he did stay out of trouble. For the most part.
    But how much trouble could a person really get into when they were busy tossing back shot after shot at the bar?
    “You’re drunk,” I stage-whispered, hoping he’d be able to hear me over the thumping bass while trying not to draw too much attention to us. “We need to go. Now .”
    “Hold-Hold up. Got to close the tab, sweets.”
    Jared nearly stumbled back to the bar, bracing himself against it as he dug into his back pocket. How the hell he managed to get so plastered in an hour was beyond my comprehension. When I stepped up beside him and heard the bartender tell him what he owed, my eyes nearly bugged out of my head.
    “Shit,” Jared mumbled, reaching his hands up and patting over his chest with a frown before he turned to me. “You seen my wallet? I just had it.”
    The bartender overheard and motioned to a security guard who was lingering nearby, but I held up a hand to stop him.
    “Sir, that won’t be necessary. Can you just point me to where my client was sitting so I can look for his wallet? If I can’t find it— I’ll settle his tab.”
    The man nodded, but still motioned for the guard to come stand nearby. When Jared pointed out the booth he had been sitting in before moving to the bar, I crawled beneath the table and winced when my hands immediately found something sticky.
    “This is so disgusting,” I grumbled as I reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone to use as a flashlight. A moment later and I spotted the wallet, then cringed as I noticed an empty condom wrapper a few feet away.
    The knowledge that people had sex in places like this made me weirdly grateful that I didn’t have much of a social life. There was no question that I’d much rather be at home reading or doing pretty much anything besides being in this kind of environment. It wasn’t my scene by a long shot.
    I went to brush my jeans off after I stood up, but my sticky hands kept me from doing it. When I returned to the bar I shoved the wallet against Jared’s chest and pleadingly asked the bartender, “Do you have any hand wipes? Like the ones for chicken wings?”
    “No, but the bathroom is right there,” he offered, pointing toward a small nook in the corner that I hadn’t noticed before.
    I turned to Jared and heatedly whispered, “Pay your bill then wait here. Do you understand? Do. Not. Move. I’ll be right back.”
    “Mmkay, princess,” he muttered back as he dug into his wallet for a card.
    I moved as quickly as I possibly could—thanking all the gods in heaven that there was only one woman in line for the bathroom and she let me cut ahead when I told her I only needed to wash my hands. After scrubbing the sticky mystery substance from my palms with a grimace, I dashed back to where I left Jared.
    Who, of course, was missing in action.
    “ Oh my god ,” I groaned. “Where the hell did he go now?”
    “ Ahem .”
    I looked over to the bartender who was smirking with amusement and gesturing toward the dance floor. I spun around and scanned the floor, groaning when I spotted Jared being dragged toward it by two overeager blondes. In his defense, he was putting up a fight about it—wildly gesturing back with one hand toward where I was standing before he finally turned enough to see me.
    The moment his glassy eyes locked on my angry ones, he broke into a wide grin. The girls pulled at his arms but he shrugged them away absentmindedly before moving back toward me.
    “You came back,” he whispered in awe.
    I gave him a ‘what-the-fuck’ look as I said, “Jared, I didn’t leave . I was washing my hands after crawling around on the floor to find your wallet.”
    He seemed surprised and for a split second, I was sure he was going to open his mouth and tell me he didn’t believe me. Instead, he reached down and grabbed my wrists—