Cuffed: A Forbidden Romance

by Joanna Blake

  Hard. And getting harder.

  I cleared my throat, glad I was wearing a suit jacket. I was in jeans too thankfully, which were thick enough to hold my stiff cock in place.

  Jesus Con, get a grip.

  Fucking typical. After years of ignoring the female species, I find a girl that catches my attention and she’s off limits. More than off limits, this little girl was forbidden.

  By law.

  Still, I could hear Danny whispering in my ear. She’s a real peach Conn… why don’t you pluck her?

  “So you didn’t see anything?”

  She shook her head, looking away. I narrowed my eyes. She was a terrible liar. For some reason, I liked that about her.

  Even if it was making my job harder than it had to be.

  Mason was watching from across the room, pacing like a caged tiger. I jerked my head and he came over.

  “I’m taking her in.”

  “Don’t do this DeWitt. You’re putting a target on her back.”

  “I’m only telling you as a courtesy.”

  Mason’s jaw twitched. I knew what he was saying. But I didn’t agree. Anyone who had been in the bar that night might be a witness. She was here, and she wasn’t drunk like most of the clientele.

  Didn’t matter that his panties were in a bunch. Didn’t matter how adorable the girl was or that she made my dick twitch. I needed to show the waitress pictures.

  “Take me too.”

  I shook my head slowly. “No.” I knew that he would never snitch. Mason was the world’s least effective witness against another biker. I also knew he spent most of the night alone in his office. And I could tell the girl knew more than she was letting on.

  Plus, the other agents had already interviewed Mason. The girl was fresh meat. He must have kept her hidden in the back. I’d walked in at just the right moment.

  I stared at her. She looked so small and delicate. But she was definitely a woman. Curvy and soft and sweet.

  She lifted her chin and stared right back. Not a coward then. That was good.

  Because it was going to be a long fucking night.

  “Come on.”

  I put my hand on her shoulder as we left the bar. It was true that if people saw her with me they might think she was talking. But I thought it was safe enough. No one was around at this hour unless they were hiding in the damn bushes. Besides, it couldn’t be helped.

  I ignored the little thrill of anticipation I felt as we walked to the car. I was going to be spending some quality time getting to know little Miss Casey Jones.

  Starting with the ride back to headquarters.

  I opened the passenger side door and watched as she slid in. I stifled a smirk as she buckled up. She crossed her legs at the ankles and stared straight ahead.

  She seemed like a good girl, with her hair neatly braided over one shoulder and her neatly manicured nails.

  It made me want to mess up her hair. Feel her nails scratch my back. Ruffle those perfect feathers of hers.

  In the filthiest way possible.

  But I also wanted to find out how she ended up working at The Jar. And why Mason said he was responsible for her.

  And I had almost an hour to find out.

  Cassandra

  “How do you know Mason?”

  I was silent, staring out the window. Honestly, I felt like I was in shock. I guess that’s what happened when you saw someone get slaughtered in front of you like a pig.

  “Casey.”

  There was such a firm authority in his voice. It made me want to answer him, at the same time it made me want to defy him. I’d been such a well-behaved child. The first to raise her hand, the last to talk in class.

  But after I got shuffled into the foster care system, well, I had stopped trusting authority figures.

  Living with an outlaw biker had only deepened that sense of distrust.

  “He’s my uncle.”

  “He is?”

  I shrugged.

  “Kind of. He’s a distant relation. He took me in.”

  I had to tell him something. And that was as close to the truth as I could get without saying ‘I was a teenage runaway and he saved me from a life on the streets.’

  Of course, in my case I hadn’t been on the streets all that long. A week at most, but when I thought back on those days, it felt like much longer. I was more than lucky. It was a miracle I hadn’t wound up in a ditch, or worse, getting trafficked like so many teenage runaways did.

  If this guy thought I was going to put Mason in danger after saving me from all that, well he had another thing coming.

  “He’s not bad. For a biker.”

  I shot him a look. That was an odd thing to say. He was playing good cop, bad cop with me. He had to be.

  But he looked sincere.

  “What’s your name?”

  I don’t know why I asked, or why I cared. I was supposed to be a brick wall. Silent. Unless I wanted to get myself and the only person I cared about left on Earth killed.

  Worse than killed. Gutted. Slaughtered.

  I shivered, thinking of the guy in the parking lot. Hearing him beg.

  “DeWitt.” He cleared his throat. “Connor DeWitt.”

  I said nothing, sinking lower into the seat. I was so tired but there was no way I could sleep. I could feel the adrenalin pumping through my body. Every inch of me, every nerve was awake.

  I closed my eyes and immediately saw Dante bending over the begging man. I saw him come close, seeing me in the darkness. I felt him stroke my cheek.

  I’d spent twenty minutes in the bathroom washing my face after that. But I could still feel his touch.

  I shivered again, wrapping my arms around my shoulders.

  “Are you cold?”

  He turned the heat up without waiting for my answer. Then he did something so unexpected it took me completely by surprise.

  Federal Agent Connor Dewitt draped his expensive looking jacket over me like a blanket.

  Connor

  I sipped my coffee, staring through the one way mirror.

  Casey Jones was sitting behind a heavy steel table, bolted to the floor. With her long, graceful neck and dewy skin, she looked utterly out of place in such a cold, industrial setting.

  She looked like she should be running through a Goddamn field of flowers. Or riding a horse in one of those soap commercials. Or… I don’t know, sitting by a fire surrounded by kittens.

  With a man’s arms around her.

  I realized that the man in my mind’s eye was way too familiar. I’d pictured myself holding her. Where the hell was that coming from? She was one of them. Don’t be fooled by those big, beautiful eyes.

  Focus Dewitt.

  I opened the door.

  “I got you a coffee.”

  She looked up at me, her face frightened. Again I thought, she does not belong here. But I was the one who had brought her in.

  “Let’s start at the beginning. You came in for your shift at six pm.”

  She nodded and tucked her hair behind her ear. The gesture was so childlike, I almost flinched. She really was barely old enough to be here without a parent.

  But she didn’t have parents. She had Mason.

  “Yes.”

  “And during the course of the evening, did you notice anything strange. Any altercations?”

  She shook her head, pulling her knees up and wrapping her arms around them. Again, I felt a flush of guilt. She looked like a little girl, playing dress up.

  “Are you cold?”

  She’d insisted on giving me back my jacket but I was more than happy to hand it back to her. It had smelled so good when I put it on in the parking lot. I had to stop myself from sniffing it.

  Like honeysuckle and sunshine.

  I grimaced, glad no one could hear my thoughts. I sounded ridiculous. Like some love-struck hero in a romance novel.

  “I’m fine.”

  She didn’t look fine. She looked tired and scared and cold. Probably hung
ry too.

  “When is the last time you ate?”

  She took a sip of her coffee and shook her head again.

  “I’m okay.”

  “When?”

  She almost rolled her eyes at me and I had a moment of sympathy for Mason. He’d brought this girl up. And I had a feeling that she could give as good as she got. Maybe it was the stubborn little chin, but I could tell Casey Jones had backbone.

  I grinned at the thought of the burly biker trying to tell the girl she was grounded.

  “Before my shift. It got busy and I just- forgot.”

  Well, fuck. No wonder she looked woozy. I decided to get her something to eat as soon as we got through the interview. Before I showed her the mugshots.

  Considering how uncommunicative she was being, I had a feeling that wasn’t going to be productive. But I was doing this by the book with zero deviation.

  I didn’t want anyone saying I was going easy on her because I wanted to toss her over my shoulder and run off with her. Even if it was true.

  She was so small, I could probably lift her with one arm.

  I leaned back and stared at her.

  “Not one thing. No fights. In a biker bar?”

  She shrugged.

  “Not that I noticed.”

  Well, this was going nowhere.

  “So when did you find out about the body?”

  “When I heard the sirens.”

  I frowned. It was possible that she hadn’t seen anything. But highly unlikely. For her sake I almost wished it was true.

  For a second, I found myself wondering what she would think of me if we had met under other circumstances. If a cute little thing like her would consider a stiff like me.

  Especially considering the crowd she ran with.

  But the truth was, I would never let myself get close enough to find out. I hated them too much. All of them.

  Even her.

  “Did you wait on the victim?”

  “I still don’t know who the victim is.”

  I slid a picture across the table. It had been easy to find. Forensics had taken the guy’s fingerprints before they even carted the body off.

  And the vic had a rap sheet a mile long.

  “Dustin Scott. He’s a pretty scummy character.” I smiled grimly, raising my eyebrows. “Or, he was.”

  She chewed her lip and I wondered again how she’d ended up in this mess. She could do a hell of a lot better than waiting tables in a dive bar, that was for sure.

  “He was at the bar I think. Did he have a beard?”

  I shook my head. I had a feeling she was deflecting. But that didn’t mean anything. She could just be shaken up because there’d been a damn murder.

  Or because she was in an interrogation room. They weren’t exactly designed to be comfortable.

  But that wasn’t what my gut was telling me.

  My gut was telling me that she knew something. Maybe, just maybe, she knew everything.

  She was the only person who had a reason to be in the back, near where I’d found the drag marks and blood. There wasn’t another waitress on that night, and the bartender had sworn up and down he never left the bar except to whiz.

  Fuck it, I might as well get on with it.

  “Do you know this man?”

  I pushed the photo of Dante across the table. I saw her stiffen up. She barely glanced at it. She acted like it was a snake that might bite her.

  Well, that answered that. She knew him alright. I felt a weird heavy feeling settle in my gut. It felt like dread.

  Her slender shoulders lifted in an imperceptible shrug.

  “He comes in sometimes.”

  “Do you know who he is?”

  She looked at me and I saw it. She did know. I saw how lost and scared she was. And how tough. But also how good.

  And dammit it if I didn’t want to take care of her.

  “He’s a biker.”

  I leaned back in my seat and smiled at her. I couldn’t help it. I’d wanted to smile since the moment I set eyes on her.

  “He’s the president of the Hell Raisers.”

  She chewed her lip again and I stared, the gesture sending a hot shot of lust right to my groin. Something about that pouty lower lip… I could do things with that mouth.

  Dark and dirty things.

  I cleared my throat.

  “Let me get you something to eat. I’ll be right back.”

  She frowned at me.

  “I told you everything.”

  “We still need to go over a few more things. You eat, I ask. And then I’ll take you home.”

  Cassandra

  “Do you usually go without eating for so long?”

  I was chewing on the surprisingly good turkey sandwich the agent had brought me. He was being oddly nice to me. The guy seemed decent, for the law.

  Being a runaway had taught me not to trust the law.

  Living with Mason had just reinforced that over the years.

  “No. It was busy tonight.”

  Shit. Say nothing Cass! Say nothing!

  But that wasn’t really much of a clue. Still, the less I said the better. I needed to be smart if I wanted to keep Mason alive.

  Never mind myself.

  I knew with a heavy certainty that I only had a slim chance to escape Dante’s wrath. The fact that he’d let me walk out of that parking lot at all was the only reason I wasn’t running for the damn border.

  That and the guy sitting across from me.

  He watched me eat, playing with a pen with one hand. I caught myself staring at his hand. It was tanned and thick, but still graceful. It looked… strong. Like he worked outdoors with his hands.

  He’d taken his jacket off, trying to get me to wear it again. It felt too intimate to take it so I’d shook him off, even though I was cold.

  Without the jacket I could see just how fit the agent was. Not just fit, either. He was buff. His muscles had muscles. But he didn’t look like a meathead.

  He was just… perfect.

  I squinted my nose and popped another potato chip in my mouth. Ugh, stop mooning over the enemy, Cass! He didn’t rush me to finish my meal. Just stared at me with those deep blue green eyes.

  For a minute, I wondered if this was part of the interrogation. Maybe he was trying to unsettle me with his good manners. I’d have to ask Mason later. Conner was being so nice.

  Too nice.

  Maybe all of this would end up in a report later. In a permanent file. Subject snarfed potato chips like a little piggy. Subject has questionable footwear. Subject has body odor.

  I took a little sniff under my shirt, suddenly afraid that I did smell.

  Maybe that’s why he kept giving me his jacket.

  I pushed the tray away abruptly. I had eaten almost every damn bite. Even the little carton of chocolate milk.

  Jeez, did the guy think I was five years old or something?

  I sat up straighter, suddenly annoyed at being treated like a kid. The truth was though, I did love my chocolate milk.

  “So. How long have you worked at The Jar?”

  I stared at him, trying to think of a reasonable lie. Then I gave up. If it was illegal to have me working there at sixteen, so be it.

  “When I was fifteen.”

  He raised his eyebrows.

  “Mason put you to work, huh?”

  “I wanted to work. I don’t like charity.”

  “Seems like a rough spot for a teenage girl.”

  I raised my chin and stared at him.

  “I’ve seen worse.”

  We held each other’s eyes. Something flickered in his richly colored gaze. It seemed like he almost felt sorry for me. Then he smiled.

  “That’s too bad.”

  I blinked. He meant it. My gut was screaming at me that this guy was the real deal. He wasn’t just playing good cop. Why did that make me feel so safe?

  I rubbed my eyes, suddenly tired. The adrenaline from earlier must be wearing off. I yawned and h
e smiled at me again.

  He stood and jerked his head towards the door.

  “Come on, I’ll drive you home.”

  Connor

  The truth was, I should have kept her a few more hours. I had more pictures to show her. And I wanted to break her, get to the bottom of this.

  My partner’s life demanded it. Or the life he should have had. Would have had, if not for the local scum.

  So why the hell didn’t you, Conn?

  I was getting soft. That must be it. A pretty girl, a pair of big eyes with long legs and I was toast.

  Soggy toast that had been slathered in warm butter.

  Soft. Weak. But at the moment, I didn’t much care.

  I was too busy enjoying her company in the quiet intimacy of the car. It was like a cocoon, separate from reality. I glanced over and resisted the urge to stretch out a hand, to let my finger drag over her skin.

  I could probably have gotten away with it. Just one touch to see if her skin was as impossibly soft as it looked. Just her cheek.

  No one would ever know. Not even her.

  The delicate looking girl beside me had fallen asleep.

  She looked even younger in her sleep, and my protective instincts were in overdrive. I didn’t just want to take her home safely tonight. I didn’t even just want to kiss her, and everything that came after.

  I wanted to protect her.

  To keep her safe.

  And considering the world I’d plucked her out of, that was far from easy.

  But that wasn’t the strangest part. I shook my head, keeping my eyes on the road. The strangest part was how awake I felt. How alive.

  It was the first time I’d thought about anything but revenge in… well, almost a year.

  I cleared my throat and she stirred, stretching those insanely nice legs of hers and blinking up at me like a sleepy little owl.

  A hot and sexy owl. But still somehow freaking sweet and adorable at the same time.

  Harmless. She looked utterly harmless. Except to my peace of mind. And my cock.

  In that regard, she was incredibly dangerous.

  “You said Lewiston. I need a street address.”

  She blinked again and the wall went up. I saw it happen. And I hated it.