Blazing Hot Bad Boys Boxed Set - A MC Romance Bundle (61 page)

CHAPTER TWO

Blanche Herrera knew her sweet face that made her look about seventeen was her cover. More often than not, it disarmed her foe. Jason Fowler was no exception. He was both her target and caught unaware, for little did he know that she was in his one-horse town on business. She was a hired shooter for the Norte Mexicali Cartel and they didn’t like him, and because he was against what they stood for, neither did she.

Jason Fowler saw Blanche as a helpless damsel in distress, which suited her fine. He embraced her almost lovingly. Certainly warmly. This man had just about the finest touch she had ever felt and it had been just simple contact. Involuntarily, she wondered what that touch might be like if she felt it... everywhere. Maybe it was the excitement, but it seemed like an almost electric heat radiated from his fingers as they guided her to steadiness in such a nurturing way.

“Are you okay?” he asked. He was kind, but patronizing. He completely disregarded that she took a swing at him, but she didn’t. He was fine. His body was hard as a rock.

“I am fine,” she replied. The day was clear as a bell in Gold Creek. The trees that rose up the hill behind them filtered golden sunlight.

“So how did you happen to get on the bridge?” he questioned in gentle tones.

“I was cutting across –” she began, trying to affect a girlish quality to her voice.

“Oh,” his words were instantly stern and scolding. “You went across on purpose. Did you not see the hill over there swallowing half of it up? See how the road goes straight? Not even connected to the bridge? Note how there is no railing on the one side? What exactly were you thinking?”

Blanche got the distinct impression that if he could, he would take her across his knee. She might consent to such a submission to him if the conditions were right but he would have to catch her first. She wanted to give him her actual tough girl answer like “you’ve never ridden off road before? Who’s the little girl now?” But she had a cover to maintain.

“I thought it would be quicker,” she answered plainly. “I only weigh 115 pounds. I thought it would hold.” Blanche was devious in mentioning her weight. It was the undoing for men. They say they like their women with a little meat on their bones – and she had it in all the right places – but she watched them shiver when she said how much. Or how little.

He was trying to be a good boy, but she had to hold back a laugh. He flinched. He liked them lean and now she knew. “Well it’s done,” he replied practically, “and I am going to chalk your wailing on my arm up to the heat of the moment, but we don’t hit around here, not for any reason except to defend yourself and there is no need for that. You are safe with me.”

Jason Fowler was as square as they came
, Blanche thought. No wonder the Norte Mexicali couldn’t abide by him. How could he be a part of a group called the Seven Devils if he was as pure as the driven snow? Rules about being polite. Rules about driving only on pavement. Rules about no drugs, no drug sales. Blanche even heard that he was a bit of a health ninny. He was into juicing – veggies, not heroin – and working out.

“Where are you headed?” he asked her, like he was her guardian.

“Excuse me?” she smiled sweetly, though pressed with patience.

“A simple question. Where are you headed?” he repeated.

Now that Blanche was on the safe side of the bridge, she wasn’t going to play nice anymore. Not for now. Not until she absolutely had to. She was going to head to the rooming house that she had a reservation at and sleep for a couple of hours after she took a very long, hot, steamy bubble bath. She may be a woman mercenary; she was still a woman.

“Thank you for your help,” she cooed.

Jason Fowler stood toe to toe with her. A hot little smirk curled his lips. “You know, don’t think I didn’t notice a few things about you, like the way you are really good at dodging a direct question. Are you going to be in town for a while or are you just passing through?”

“You sound like you are sheriff of Gold Creek, Mr. Fowler?” Blanche froze. Jason froze. She slipped big time.

“How do you know my name?” he demanded. His demeanor was that of a predator and not of the Good Samaritan anymore.

“You told me,” she stuttered. She was going to have to be awfully cute to get out of this one.

“No I didn’t,” he answered, blocking her path to her transportation away from the scene. He hadn’t told her.

It wasn’t like her to make such a sloppy error and it made her nervous to have to spend energy on fixing it. “Yes you did," she lied, “Unless some angel whispered in my ear when I was about to die. It’s been known to happen,” she said, affecting a Tijuana accent on her English syllables.

Jason Fowler crowded her so his lips touched her ear. "Do they whisper like this?" His voice sent wetness to her legs. "Listen to me, missy, don't fuck with me."

Blanche shivered at his dark advice. For one, she found him scary and for two, she found him so hot. As a last ditch to throw him off, she changed the subject completely and disclosed where she was staying.

“I am on my way to Cranston’s Boarding House. I’ve never been here, so I am not sure where that is. Is it near?” Blanche did her best to will herself to look sweet and innocent. She flipped a lock of her satiny coal black hair. She knew that when it caught the sunlight, its shine was as white as a diamond. Blanche’s hair was spectacular and it usually proved to be yet another source of a man’s weakness.

It worked. She could tell that he didn’t know what to make of her, but because he found her cute, he was still willing to be civil. “I can show you, sure. I would just give you directions, but I’m not sure if there are any more danger zones that you might not have the sense to avoid. Let me get my bike. I am just down the way.”

Blanche had to contain herself from reacting to his snarky remark. “Do you live under the bridge? Are you a handsome troll?”

Just when Blanche thought she had him, he answered, “How about you ask the angel who whispered my name, little girl?”

She watched him stride down the cement roadway that bent around the gully. Had she just taken that road around instead of crossing the old bridge, she might have seen a house embedded in the canyon. His house. She took great pleasure viewing his form, his musculature that rendered an ordinary pair of jeans and T-shirt into a living work of art. Blanche heard the unmistakable churn of a Harley fire up and soon enough, Jason appeared. She mounted her bike and they were off.

CHAPTER THREE

The ancient mining town, now charmingly restored, of Gold Creek was not more than a couple miles down. Many of the buildings were built right into the rise of the mountains that had been mined long ago for treasures.

The township was situated on a cool running waterway that was about as blue green as Jason Fowler’s eyes. It was a tiny body of water, big enough to enjoy, formed in a cup cut out of the San Gabriel Mountains from mountain run off. Blanche had not spotted it on the map. It was simply called by locals as the Gold Creek Bay.

Gold Creek was a beautiful little town. Rustic and slow moving, but it certainly had its appeal. Blanche kept going back to the nagging question about why the heck would this place or anyone who lived here be so important to the people who hired her, hired her to take out the man showing her around? Jason Fowler.

Very handsome and delicious looking Jason Fowler.

They parked their bikes. He insisted on escorting her to the owner of the house. He was super polite that way. Just about an hour ago, that might be something that bothered Blanche to no end. Now, it had just the opposite effect. It was causing her to melt.

He took her bags and noted, “Not much. You sure pack light. Where are you from? What brings you here?”

Blanche answered his question with a question as they entered the front of the house, “Is this where we go in?”

A woman, who Blanche estimated must be the owner, started to greet them but Jason sidestepped her. “Excuse us,” he said. Jason dropped the bags and swept Blanche at the waist, hoisting her into the dining area. “Now, missy. For the last time, I have asked you a direct question and you have evaded me. You
did
know my name and I
did not
tell you. I have asked you twice now why are you here. We don’t get a lot of traffic through here of folks we don’t know. Gold Creek is not exactly on the beaten path.”

Blanche’s trick now was to be on the verge of tears. She was great at crying at the drop of a hat and, while it was not a tactic she liked to pull early in the game, it was warranted. She just let her lip tremble a little as she spoke. “I asked you are you the sheriff? I am sorry I went on the bridge. I probably ought to report it – ” That was as far as she got. It was just her luck that, for the first time ever, the waterworks were not coming. She tried again.

“Stop it,” he said. She had mucked this job up completely. “I can see what you’re doing. Maybe I ought to get the sheriff out here.”

Blanche shed all of her act and was her cold, professional self. “What for? If I owe you something for helping me out back there, let me know and I will pony up. I didn’t ask you to be my personal escort; I just asked you to point me in the direction of this place and, really, I was just being polite. Call the sheriff if you’d like. Maybe you can answer what you were doing creeping in the woods by the roadside waiting for victims.”

Jason smiled. Damn, he was gorgeous. He had absolutely perfect teeth. That was fortunate, because they went well with the symmetry of his face, the balance of size and placement of each feature. He was also wonderfully cursed with super thick eyelashes, so he almost looked as though he borrowed someone’s mascara. His eyes really were the color of a luscious body of water just beyond the roadside.

“Somehow, I hardly think you are anyone’s victim,” he said.

No
, she thought. It was usually the other way around, but this man made her lose her edge. She was off her game, off focus. Blanche never let herself have any time off. Never let herself have any sort of personal life. This stranger, who she was hired to put down, stirred ideas of a quiet drink at a café, maybe a tavern here in Gold Creek. She would have to force herself to be his enemy.

As the situation threatened to get her kicked out of her spot at the boarding house, Blanche looked at Jason, searching, trying to affect her sweet and innocent look while she tried to quickly formulate a game. It worked. He grabbed her and kissed her firmly, full on the mouth. Without a care that the landlady was watching, Jason penetrated Blanche's mouth with his tongue. He tasted so sweet. It had been such a long time since a man kissed her. It had been such a long time, indeed. Jason had figured out Blanche's angle for her.

He pulled apart from the kiss, his eyes twinkling into hers, "No, Denise. We just had kind of a scare there. I think we’re both just worked up."

"I can see that," the landlady murmured. She bashfully left them alone.

Jason took her face in his hands and whispered softly as his eyes looked so intently into hers, "I don't know who you are or where you came from, or," he chuckled, "why the hell it was me who ran into you. I don't go around kissing strange women."

"I am not so strange," Blanche whispered.

"Bewitched. That's kind of a dumb word, but it's the only word for it. This has been a strange couple of hours, indeed."

Blanche studied him. At his core, Jason Fowler was not a guy who deviated from his schedule of morals, let alone his straight-laced little life. She was sure a woman like her could throw him and did, but he kissed her and she was thrown, as well.

"I think you were right when you said we had quite a shock," she said.

"I said quite a ‘scare,’" he teased.

She smiled, "I stand corrected, Mr. Fowler."

"I'm going to find out how you knew my name, too," he threatened. The chemistry between them kept her from fully realizing any fear of him. “Now,” he said, “to your room.”

“I can find my way from here, thank you,” she said.

“Oh no, little lady. I completely insist,” he said with swagger. “If we don’t come down shortly, Denise, do not send out any search parties.” With that, Jason whisked her up into his arms and took the steps on the curving staircase up to the second floor.

He carried her across the threshold like she was a blushing bride. In fact, this handsome modern knight on a hot-as-shit Harley Davidson did bring heat to her face.

As she lay flat on the quilt-covered bed, she stared up into Jason Fowler's gorgeous blue-green eyes. She could imagine him being her husband and he was positioned to do so many things: kiss her good morning, kiss her goodnight, tell her something quick, talk slow and dirty to her. She could not get enough of looking at that great face.

"Now that you have found the place, my little mystery, are you going to need something else?"

Blanche was tempted to ask him to join her, but she did not. "No," she said nearly choking on her words.

Jason left and Blanche collapsed in her room after a quick bath. It was a hot and steamy bath. She was so worked up from her intense encounter with her target, Jason Fowler, she locked herself in the bathroom. She immersed herself under the running water and pleasured herself to a quick and powerful orgasm. Sated, she wrapped up in a heavy towel and thick robe. Jason was right in that she did pack light. She packed a robe, a teddy, and a hot little dress. Depending on how long she would stay, she didn't need much. As she reclined against her extraordinarily plush mattress, she had no idea what it was she was going to need. What was bothering her was she pretty certain as to what she wanted.