Julie Walker - Born Wild

They’d just come back from a day on the water where she’d taught him how to captain the little Daysailer her father had given her for her eighteenth birthday. She’d been feeling awfully proud of herself for having instructed the big, handsome petty officer on anything. But after they’d stepped off the boat and onto the dock and he’d turned to her? You better believe she’d known by the look in his eyes that her time as teacher was over. His expression had clearly conveyed that he had a thing or two to show her.

And, boy, oh boy, had he ever…

Even now she could recall the exact feel of his broad, callused palms cupping her cheeks, remember the sensation of his rough thumb hooked gently beneath her jaw, guiding her head this way and that as his tongue learned the secrets of her mouth, licked and laved and sucked until she forgot her own name and—

“Calm down, Eve,” Billy instructed, and she realized not only was she staring at his hands, she was also panting like she’d just surfaced from a skin dive. “This vehicle is armored and the glass is bulletproof. You’re safe in here.”

And curses! There she’d gone again. Completely forgetting the critical nature of her situation because she was overcome by a combination of painfully hot memories and Billy’s nearness.

Sheesh. Too much more of that, and she should seriously consider getting her head examined. Maybe that launch into the air back at the marina and the resultant splashdown in Lake Michigan had flash-frozen her gray matter.

“That’s not—” She abruptly stopped herself and shook her head. “I’m fine. I just don’t understand why you’re not trying to lose them?” They were creeping along at a snail’s pace, like they were out taking a flippin’ Sunday drive as opposed to trying to shake the person tailing them. “Do you need me to drive?”

She wasn’t good a lot of things. She couldn’t draw or sing or hold her liquor. She sucked at baking cakes—they never seemed to rise—and public speaking scared the ever-lovin’ crap out of her. But when her father signed her up for defensive driving lessons with an ex-Hollywood stuntman after she’d started having issues with Dale the Stalker? Well, not to toot her own horn or anything—toot, toot—but she’d taken to the endeavor like she’d been born an Andretti.

However, the look Billy sent her questioned the validity of her most recent IQ test.

Indignation burned. “Didn’t Becky tell you how good I was down in Costa Rica?” she demanded. And, yes, a little more than six months ago she’d helped Billy and the rest of the Black Knights clear the name of one of their own by leading the CIA on a wild car chase. Which, let’s face it, still felt more like a dream set in Bizarro Land than an actual series of events…

But it had happened and she had done her part—huzzah!—and it was beyond irritating that even after all of that, Billy still didn’t give her the credit she so richly deserved. And when he refused to wipe that disbelieving smirk from his face, she slapped a palm against the hot dashboard. “Stop looking at me like that! I’m an excellent driver!”

He rolled in his lips as he casually—oh-so-flippin’ casually—stopped at a red light. “I know you are, Rain Man,” he said, and it only irked her more when she didn’t get that particular reference. “But I don’t want to lose them. I want them to stick with us until your cousin calls to let us know who they are. Then we can decide how to handle the situation.”

Oh…well. That made sense. Sort of…

As if on cue, her cell phone jangled out the opening bars of Styx’s “Come Sail Away,” and she unbuckled her seatbelt in order to swivel around and grab her purse.

“Jeremy?” she answered after frantically scrounging around in her oversized handbag. Her phone had the annoying habit of making its way to the very bottom of the thing. “Who is it? Who’s following us?”

Her blood sizzled through her veins like she’d ascended too quickly from a deep dive because this could be it. Right here, right now, she might hear the name of whomever was trying to kill her.

“It’s Samantha Tate,” Jeremy informed her, his irritation evident.

Her heart sank along with all her momentary hopes, because Samantha Tate was the Chicago Tribune’s most persistent, most annoying investigative reporter. “Thanks, Jeremy,” she muttered. “I’ll let you know how things shake out.”

“Take care, Cuz,” he said before cutting the connection.

“So?” Billy asked, turning to her briefly, a question in his lovely brown eyes.

“Samantha Tate,” she supplied. “She’s a—”

“I know exactly who she is,” he cut in, frowning. “And what she is.”

“You mean besides a serious pain the ass?” Eve submitted and felt a warm rush of pleasure flood her chest when his crack of surprised laughter echoed against the roof of the Hummer.

“That too,” he said, lips twitching. “And since she already knows who we both are, I see no reason to try to lose her. We’ll just let her follow us out to Goose Island.”

“She’s been leaving messages for me for two days,” Eve groused, glancing into the side view mirror and discovering that, sure enough, inside that black Chevy Tahoe was the vague outline of a woman with puffy hair. “I haven’t called her back because…well, for one thing I hate talking to the press. And for another thing, I’m sure she wants to sensationalize everything that’s been happening to me so she can snag herself another front-page byline. I’m sorry she’s sticking her big nose in the middle of this. I know how much you super-secret spy guys despise journalists.”

“We don’t despise journalists,” Billy clarified with a half shrug. “It’s just that their job is usually directly opposed to our job. But don’t worry. You won’t have to talk to her. She’ll never get past BKI’s front gates.”

And, just like that, Eve was reminded she’d be spending an indeterminate amount of time under one roof with Billy “Wild Bill” Reichert and all his brooding looks, sharp words, and menacing, smoldering sex appeal…

Triple gulp.

Black Knights Inc. Headquarters, Front Gate

7:15 p.m.

“I demand to see my daughter! I know she’s here!”

Mac glared at the salt-and-pepper-haired man raving on the other side of BKI’s tall, wrought-iron gate and wondered if he’d ever despised anyone on first sight as much as he despised Eve’s father.

Patrick Edens was wearing a cream-colored linen suit like he was freakin’ Colonel Sanders or something. Though Mac would lay two-to-one odds that Edens had never set foot inside a Kentucky Fried Chicken in his entire pampered life. A long black limousine was parked at the curb, and a gold Rolex glinted on Edens’s wrist when he lifted a hand to point a manicured finger at Mac. “You filthy, lecherous bikers can’t hold her prisoner here! I’ll—”

“Sir,” Mac cut in, and it was only his gentlemanly Southern upbringing that allowed him to address the raving ass-hat in such a polite fashion, “I can assure you we’re not holdin’ your daughter prisoner here. She—”

“Dad?”

Mac lifted his eyes toward the sunset sky with its streaks of pink and orange and sent up a small prayer of gratitude. Too much more of that and he’d be tempted to shove a fist straight into Edens’s mouth, ruining the man’s expensively capped teeth. And since Edens had the look of a guy who wouldn’t take a punch—a punch he damn well deserved because, seriously? Filthy, lecherous bikers?—without raising a big ol’ stink and getting a bunch of stuffy lawyers involved, that would be very, very bad.

Lord knows a lawsuit is the dead last thing any of us need right now…

“What are you doing here?” Eve asked, still towel-drying her hair.

She’d been in the shower when Toran buzzed from the front gate to say her father had arrived on the scene. And Bill and Ace had been in the middle of coordinating an emergency exfiltration for Ozzie and Steady who, like always, had managed to make trouble for themselves in some bug-infested South American hellhole. Which meant—oh, goody, goody gumdrops—he’d been the only one left to run interference on their unwelcome guest.

“I should ask you the same!” the elder Edens thundered. “What are you doing here? It’s like you enjoy getting yourself into situations that titillate the press!”

Mac turned to see Eve’s face fall, and he wondered if, perhaps, he’d still be forced to plant one in Edens’s kisser after all.

“Dad—” she tried, but her father just cut her off.

“I was contacted by Samantha Tate. And imagine my surprise when she asked me why my daughter had decided to shack up with a bunch of greasy motorcycle mechanics.”

“I’m not shacking—”

“Get your stuff. You’re coming home with me.” Edens threw his nose in the air, adjusting his baby blue silk tie. “And that’s final.”

Mac lifted a brow, sliding a surreptitious glance toward Eve. The poor woman’s face was so red it was almost purple, and she was chewing on her bottom lip so hard he was surprised she didn’t just gnaw the sucker right off. It was obvious that, even as a grown woman, she was used to doing as her father instructed. So it surprised him when she lifted her chin against the warm evening breeze and said, “No, Dad. I’m staying here.”

Well, look at you, honey. Way to go…

“Wh-what?” Edens sputtered, his face taking on a similar hue to his daughter’s. Only his wasn’t fueled by timidity or humiliation; it was fueled by fury. Patrick Edens obviously wasn’t a man used to hearing the word “no.”