Chased by Love (Love in Bloom: The Ryders): Trish Ryder (26 page)

“That was you?” She narrowed her eyes and said, “You do realize I’m a grown woman, right?”

Christ
, had he ever.

**

SHANNON WATCHED STEVE swing his ax. He was built like the very mountains he loved: strong and stable, with layers of hard-earned muscles born from honest, hard work.
Pure perfection
. And that hair?
Lord
. What would it be like to fist her hands in his hair and kiss him? To touch all those hard planes of muscle? To discover the man behind the walls? She told herself those were
wants
not
needs
, no matter how much they felt like it.
The kind of unrelenting wants that bring a girl to reach beneath the sheets and satisfy her fantasies.

Down, girl
.

Shannon had been surprised by how much she’d missed Steve when she’d gone home for her eldest brother Cole’s wedding. She and Steve hadn’t spent more than a few stolen moments together during the weeks she was here for her first assignment. Usually she’d catch him working on equipment, or in his yard, before she returned to her uncle’s ranch in the evenings. He’d captivated her with his passion for, and endless knowledge about, all things wilderness related. And he was different from most of the guys she knew. He wasn’t hung up on his looks or material things. He was
real
, with a strong set of values and priorities. Somehow, between their almost daily conversations and weeks of hoping she’d see him, she’d become completely and utterly taken with him.

When she’d been offered the assignment
and
the cabin, she’d accepted without hesitation. She’d missed Steve too much to deny the attraction, and she wanted to see if something might come of it.

Now that she was here, her body was thrumming at the mere sight of him. Given that she’d actually asked him about his sex life—and nearly died on the spot when the question slipped out—she desperately needed to rein herself in.

He wiped sweat from his brow, his tanned skin glistening in the morning sun. “Need anything from town?” he asked, setting another log on the stump.

She couldn’t pry her eyes from his rippling abs and his bulbous biceps flexing with every move. “Town?”

He cocked a smile and hoisted the ax again. “Town. You know, the place where people who like
Pinterest
live?”

She forced her eyes away, glancing at the trees swaying in the breeze, the rocks at her feet, anywhere but at him.

“I know what town is. I’m just surprised you’re going there.” Everyone knew Steve hated to leave his precious mountain.

“Gotta take care of some business.”

Going into town was a big deal. Unlike a quick trip to the store from her apartment in Peaceful Harbor, the drive into town took at least thirty to forty-five minutes, depending on which town he was going to. She’d realized last night she’d forgotten two very important supplies. Pop-Tarts and toilet paper. She could probably live with the single roll of toilet paper for another few days if she needed to, but Pop-Tarts were pretty much of a necessity. Besides, maybe she could convince Steve to help her scout gray-fox habitats at dusk.
Perfect!

“Can I come with you?” she asked hopefully. “I need to pick up a few things.”

“I’ll get them for you. What do you need?”

She bit her lower lip, willing herself not to fib. But if she asked him to pick up what she really needed, he’d leave and she’d have to go searching for habitats by herself. Now that she’d thought about going later with her yummy mountain man, she’d already settled on it in her mind.

“It’s girl stuff. You won’t want to get it.” So much for not fibbing. “Can I please go with you?” She gave him her best pleading look. “I promise not to talk your ear off.”
Fib, fib, fib!
She had no control over what came out of her mouth, especially around him.

He muttered under his breath and set the ax against the stump. “I’m not making a hundred stops.”

She leaped with delight and ran over to hug him. Her heel slipped out of her boot and she stumbled into him in a half hug, half full-body-draped-over-Steve embrace. His skin was hot, his body was hard,
and getting harder by the second
. He smelled like man and musk, and…she was still plastered against him.

She cleared her throat and managed, “Thank you.” Using his chest for leverage—
yum, yum
—she found her footing and pressed her heel back into her boot. “One stop. That’s it. Promise.”

“You’re excited to get those supplies.” He picked up the logs he’d chopped and piled them on his forearm like they were toothpicks.

 “I’m just excited to be back. Maybe at dusk you can help me map out the habitats? It’ll be fun to scope them out together.”

He gave her a curious look. “Haven’t heard anyone describe hanging out with me as fun in a long time.”

“Then you’re hanging out with losers, and I’m taking that as a yes.” She grabbed the coffee mugs, unable to stop smiling.

“I’m leaving in twenty minutes.”

“I’ll be back lickety-split.” With a bounce in her step, she headed toward her cabin and heard him mutter, “Lickety-split,” followed by a chuckle.

— To continue reading —

Buy
CRUSHING ON LOVE
(The Bradens)

**

Like your romance even hotter?

BACHELOR PARTIES WERE the worst. Stella Krane couldn’t understand why guys needed a wedding in order to go to a bar, drink their asses off, flirt with strangers, and talk about it for the rest of their lives.
Remember when…?
It was like a rite of passage for uptight businessmen.
Real
men took it to a hotel room, hired strippers, and fucked the hell out of them in ways their pretty little wives wouldn’t ever let them. She cringed at the thought. She wouldn’t want a man who did that. God, what was going on with her?

There was a time when Stella had dreamed of being someone’s pretty little wife, but that was before Carl Kutcher. Her gut twisted with the realization that he was getting out of jail in four days. The man had stolen every dream she’d ever had—and who knew when he’d steal her life. She no longer held on to the fantasy of a doting husband, a few kids, and a white picket fence. Now she was just happy to be alive.

“Hey, sweetheart, how about a little sugar with my drink?” drunken asshole number six asked as he leaned over the bar. He was with the bachelor party and had been drinking for the past few hours. Five guys with wedding rings pawing, groping, leering, making lewd comments, and trying their best to live out a stilted fantasy.

Stella eyed his wedding ring. Damn, she needed to get off tonight—and she wasn’t thinking about getting off work. It’d been too many months since she’d gotten laid, and she’d had it up to here watching everyone else play out their dirty fantasies. She longed for the feel of a man’s hands on her ass while his cock drove hard and deep inside her, allowing her brain to escape reality for a while. Stella wasn’t
really
a one-night-fuck type of girl—but right then, boy did she wish she were. She missed the feel of a hard chest pressing against her and the deep, naughty whispers of a man telling her how much he wanted her. She’d never been that down-and-dirty girl until Kutcher. He’d sparked a side of her that she hadn’t known existed, a dangerous, rebellious side that turned her on in ways she never imagined possible. But that was before things went bad and Kutcher showed his true colors.
The bastard
. She refused to even think of him as
Carl
anymore. Now he was just
Kutcher
. Kutcher had taught her many things, like that men pretty much suck. They lie, cheat, and sometimes…they beat the hell out of you.

She narrowed her catlike green eyes at the mildly attractive, dark-haired sure thing before her and practically purred, “How about I get you another drink and you go home and fuck your wife’s sugar-coated pussy?”

Jaw slack—check. Eyes wide—check. Oh, look, a bonus
. Mr. I Want Some Sugar backed away from the bar.

Some days she felt like a babysitter and a whore at once, but hey, working at a bar in New York City might not be like running her own interior design business in Mystic, Connecticut, but it kept her alive. She missed Mystic. She missed the harbor, the safety of the small town, her friends. She missed her mother most of all. Her mother was battling cancer, but like everything else in her life, she’d had to sever all ties with her mother in order to keep her safe from Kutcher.

Stella had lived in Mystic her whole life. Until Kutcher.
Fucking Kutcher
. Slick-tongued, hard-bodied, and unfortunately, hard-fisted Kutcher. She’d dated him for only a few months before he showed his true colors. His possessiveness knew no boundaries, and she’d barely escaped with her life. No, this might not be Mystic, and she might have had to leave everything she knew and loved behind, but at least she’d survived—even if she had to spend the rest of her life pretending to be someone she wasn’t.

She felt the eyes of the man at the end of the bar on her again. He wasn’t part of the bachelor party—at least that was a plus. He’d come in an hour ago, ordered a Jack and Coke, and hadn’t moved anything but his piercing blue eyes—which had tracked her every move—since. He wore an expensive suit coat over a white dress shirt open at the neck, exposing a swath of sexy chest hair. Perfect for running her fingers through when she straddled him.

Lord
.

What had Kutcher done to her? How had she gone from being a proper Wesleyan girl to a slutty-minded runaway? She’d met Carl Kutcher at a party for one of her interior design clients. He was tall and dark with a trim beard, eyes as black as night, and a quiet confidence that gave him an aura of importance. Stella had learned too late that there were two sides to the man who seemed too good to be true. He moved like the sea, calm and alluring one minute, angry and dark the next. His moods changed with the wind, and when they did, he left no room for escape.

Stella pushed thoughts of Kutcher away and tried to concentrate as she served up two more drinks, feeling the heat of Mr. Blue Eyes rolling over her breasts as she leaned down to wipe the bar. Hell if it didn’t make her entire body go hot. She’d been through enough over the past few months and knew better than to let a man intimidate her, but every time she tried to meet his gaze, she couldn’t do it. He
was
intimidating, in an edgy sort of way. Everything about him, from his thick dark hair and chiseled features to his iridescent baby blues, screamed sex, power, and intensity. Even his scent was musky and sensual, like liquid amber. She’d like to roll around in his scent, revel in the feel of his big hands on her breasts, her rib cage—

What the hell am I thinking?

She was pretty sure that her landlord, Mrs. Fairly, wouldn’t be thrilled with a midnight romp in her basement bedroom. Stella wasn’t exactly the quietest of lovers. She’d been lucky enough to find a place to stay where she could pay cash for rent and didn’t have to provide her social security number for the lease. She had to be completely untraceable, which meant no credit cards, no checks, and never using her ATM card. Fucking Kutcher had tracked her down everywhere she went, which was why she’d finally left Mystic and come to the Big Apple to disappear.

So far so good.

 A large hand landed on the bar just beneath her chest, fingers splayed. No wedding ring, soft, unmarred hands, manicured fingernails. The hand of a wealthy man, that much was for sure. Her eyes traveled up to a thick, masculine wrist, suit jacket stretched tight across flexed biceps, to the piercing blue eyes she’d been fantasizing about. Her breath caught in her throat at the intensity of his stare. He circled her wrist with his index finger and thumb, drawing her eyes downward and sending her heart into panic mode. She’d been here before, restrained by Kutcher, unable to break free.

She forced her mind to function and pulled her arm free, rubbing it as if it had been burned.

“Sorry, darlin’. I didn’t mean to frighten you.” His deep voice slithered over her skin as his gaze softened, penetrating in a different way. Not intense and threatening, but the kind of heated gaze that felt safe and seductive at once.

Stella swallowed her initial fear, gathering her wits about her. She wasn’t a meek girl. At five foot five, a hundred and twenty-five pounds, she was curvy and solid, and until Kutcher, she’d had the confidence to match her strong body. Now it took a few minutes to reclaim that confidence. She hated that even after a few months Kutcher’s memory could still swamp her.

“Just one of those nights.” With her words his eyes went from seductive to assessing, his dark brows knitted together, and he lifted his hand from the bar and rubbed the sexy scruff peppering his chin. A slight smile curved his full lips as he glanced over his shoulder at the loud bachelor party, then turned and lowered his voice.

“Yes, I can see it is.” He held up his glass. “When you have time?”

“Sure.” She picked up on a faint Midwestern twang that came and went and pictured him in tight jeans, cowboy boots, and a Stetson. She turned to mix his drink, thinking about the man behind her whose eyes burned a path through her back. She wondered what he did for a living, dressed like that and alone at a bar on a Friday night. A man with eyes like Chris Pine’s, a face like Channing Tatum’s, and a voice like melted chocolate, which made her want to lick him from head to toe. Unaccompanied on a Friday night?
Gay?
No way. Not with the way he’d been eye-fucking her all night.
Freak?
Probably.

On that lovely thought, she turned and pushed his drink across the bar. “That’ll be—”

He placed his hand over hers, stopping her cold and making her body hum and rattle with fear in equal measure.

“I know how much it is, darlin’. Thank you.”

She withdrew her hand from beneath his, instantly missing the connection. It’d been too damn long. She just might have to break out her battery-operated boyfriend tonight and satisfy the itch she’d been ignoring since arriving in the city.

He handed her a twenty. “Keep the change. You’re new here.” He sipped his drink, eyes locked on her.

She worked the register, trying not to think about the man behind the generous tip.
Yeah, right
. She wiped the bar to give her hands something to do besides wanting to touch his again, and eyed him warily.

“I started a few weeks ago.”

“That explains it. I’ve been in and out of town the last few weeks. Where’d you work before this?”

She leaned one hand on the bar, finding her confidence once again. It came and went like the wind these days, and she was glad when it decided to blow back in. The guy’s eyes turned sultry, and a rush of excitement heated her insides. It’d also been a long time since she’d been
properly
flirted with.

“Around,” she answered, toying with him.

A blond guy leaned in over Midwestern hottie’s shoulder. “Can I get another gin and tonic, please?”

She took his glass and turned away to mix the cocktail.

“She’s so fucking hot,” the tall blond said. Stella hoped to hell he wasn’t talking about her. She’d heard enough about her ass, her tits, and her fuckable mouth for one night.

She handed him his glass and he shoved a ten across the bar with a wink. A fifty-cent tip.
Jesus Christ
. She used to earn six figures, and now she was schlepping drinks in a bar for peanuts.

The familiar mantra played in her head like a broken record, giving her strength and perspective.

At least I’m alive.

I’m alive. I’m alive. I’m alive
.

— To continue reading, buy—

WILD BOYS AFTER DARK: LOGAN

**

2 New Stand-Alone Romance Novels

 From MELISSA FOSTER

TRU BLUE

He wore the skin of a killer, and bore the heart of a lover

There's nothing Truman Gritt won't do to protect his family—Including spending years in jail for a crime he didn't commit. When he's finally released, the life he knew is turned upside down by his mother's overdose, and Truman steps in to raise the children she's left behind. Truman's hard, he's secretive, and he's trying to save a brother who's even more broken than he is. He's never needed help in his life, and when beautiful Gemma Wright tries to step in, he's less than accepting. But Gemma has a way of slithering into people's lives and eventually she pierces through his ironclad heart. When Truman's dark past collides with his future, his loyalties will be tested, and he'll be faced with his toughest decision yet.

Tru Blue
is a stand-alone novel set in Peaceful Harbor with cameos from Jillian Braden (The Bradens at Pleasant Hill) and the Whiskey family, who were introduced in River of Love (The Bradens at Peaceful Harbor).

Click to Buy
TRU BLUE

**

TEMPTING TRISTAN

A M/M Contemporary Romance