NaturesBounty

by J. Rose Allister

  A muscle twitched in his jaw. “I’m not a peace officer, and you were more than willing. A lot more.” He got up off her back, but kept his hold on her. “Get up slowly now.” He pulled gently, using techniques he’d learned to guide her in the direction he wanted.

  With some difficulty, he maneuvered her to the couch, where she plopped down and favored him with a glare. Much as he expected, the expression he’d memorized earlier was long gone. This version of Lydia was red-faced, panting and pissed beyond belief. All her resistance had shaken one of her tits completely out of her bikini top, and the other one was attempting an escape as well.

  “So, you’re a real bounty hunter,” she said with a note of sarcasm. “Or is this just a side job when you’re not doing private shows on the stripper circuit?”

  He sighed. “The stripper thing was a cover story so you’d let me in.”

  “How resourceful.”

  “Would you rather I have busted down the door with a team of guys waving their guns around?”

  She laughed without the slightest hint of amusement on her face. “As opposed to you waving your cock around? Not a lot of difference there, from where I sit.”

  Unlike most of his perps, he deserved every bit of venom she was throwing his way. Still, he couldn’t help feeling a jolt of amusement at her sharp sarcasm. Most skips didn’t have enough wit, let alone humor, during an arrest to manage such a feat.

  She lifted her chin. “Tell me, Nate, do you always capture fugitives by fucking them first to subdue them?”

  “No, I usually prefer to hold a cloth in front of their face and say, ‘Gee, does this smell like chloroform to you?’”

  He knelt on the couch beside her, trapping her legs with one of his knees so she couldn’t kick him. He pulled back hard on her ponytail so she couldn’t bite or head butt him while he tugged the fabric of her suit into place.

  “Leave me alone,” she said, jerking her torso wildly. “Get your perverted hands off me. I’ll scream!”

  “Do you want me to drag you out in public with your breasts hanging out?”

  She sniffed haughtily, but she stopped wiggling around while he finished covering the luscious breasts he’d had in his mouth not long before. Yes, he was going to hell for this. But despite her scathing glower, part of him still believed it had been worth it.

  He got up off the couch, leaving her sitting there on her cuffed hands, and regarded her for a moment while he tried to picture driving back to Colorado with her wearing nothing but two skimpy pieces of fabric. One of which had been soaked with her pussy juices when she’d been begging him to fuck her. And she had begged for it, hadn’t she? Let her shoot murderous, accusing glares at him all she wanted. There was no way he was taking the fall for this one.

  “Come on,” he said, and he helped her to her feet. “Let’s go to your bedroom.”

  “You must be joking,” she said with a deadpan expression that almost made him laugh.

  “I can take you back just like this, but all things considered, I think we’d both prefer it if you had some clothes on.”

  She glared a moment longer and then nodded silently before leading him down the hall. It was the right thing to do, allowing her modesty. Still, on the way he couldn’t help but consider the downside to his belated chivalry. Not only would he be unable to turn his back while she stripped down, he’d actually have to help.

  Chapter Three

  A sick twist in Lydia’s stomach hit her halfway between the bathroom and her bedroom.

  “Wait, please,” she said. “I’m going to be sick.”

  She didn’t even wait for her bastard captor to answer. Instead, she yanked on the arm he had in a tight grip while she changed course and bolted for the bathroom. He followed her without missing a beat, and she didn’t even make it onto her knees in front of the toilet before she started retching. Nate—if that was his real name—held her ponytail back in an oddly helpful gesture while her stomach gave up the “good stuff” to the porcelain gods.

  When she was finished, she headed to the sink without a word and suffered the indignity of having him help her rinse out her mouth. Her cheeks burned while she used some mouthwash to swish and spit the sour taste that matched the overall tone her life had taken. Maybe she shouldn’t bother. Let him deal with vomit breath all the way back to Colorado.

  “Are you feeling better now?” he asked calmly.

  She looked up into the mirror, where she ignored her pale, bedraggled reflection to glare at his cool, still-too-handsome face. “No. I am so far from better that I can’t even begin to describe it.” Her voice was thready and a little hoarse from the bile that had burned its way up and out of her throat. “Let’s just say I thought getting arrested was the most humiliating experience of my life. But getting drunk, spreading my legs for a stranger, and then vomiting my guts out in front of him has become a new all-time low.”

  In truth, though, she did feel a little less drunk. That was something, at least. The room wasn’t spinning, and her head hadn’t yet started pounding from the inevitable hangover in the morning. At this point, she was in the eye of the alcohol storm. And a personal storm to boot.

  As they headed for the bedroom, the handcuffs behind her dug into her wrists as a painful reminder that the recent past had just caught up with her future. She’d always loved the bedroom at the beach house, with its bright and cheery oranges and lime greens. But now, it was in complete discord with the situation.

  Nate sat her on the bed, which was covered in a motif of orange blossoms, and stepped back.

  “Now get out and let me change,” she said, and she snarled at him in disgust when he shook his head.

  “That’s not going to happen, sorry.”

  “Why not? Didn’t you get enough of a sick thrill pegging me before you slapped on the cuffs?”

  She had the satisfaction of seeing him wince. So, the underhanded prick had a whiff of a conscience. Imagine that.

  “I’m not leaving you alone,” he said, “and in case it hasn’t occurred to you, I highly doubt you’d be able to Houdini your way into a change of clothes with your hands cuffed behind your back.”

  Her eyes widened. “So you think you’re going to dress me too? No way.”

  He shrugged. “Suit yourself. But since that bikini shows off your entire ass, I have to insist you at least put some pants on.”

  “Funny, because I seem to remember you insisting the exact opposite thing a short while ago.”

  He glanced around without answering, and she took that opportunity to regard him with new eyes. So, he was a bounty hunter, not a stripper. She’d been right when the sudden knock on her door had sent her into a panic. In her defense, he certainly had the right equipment for a stripper. He was fuck-me-now gorgeous, with the lustrous, caramel-colored hair of a movie star and the erotic, pale-green eyes of a god. Even before he’d stripped down to his t-shirt, she’d felt his hard muscles and powerful arms through a suit that made him look downright fuckable. And why did he have to smell so damn good? Even now, his scent filled the room, taunting her with memories of what she’d just let him do to her. One would think a bounty hunter would smell like a beer-bellied hobo, not a male cologne model.

  There had been a couple of odd clues, of course. He was hairier than most strippers she’d seen, not that she was some big expert on the subject. Still, she’d been around enough for a reasonable comparison. Those guys not only waxed their bodies, but oiled themselves until they gleamed. She’d discovered the fun of cleaning oil-stained clothing after a close encounter. But when she had torn Nate’s shirt open, she had found a masculine and quite appealing mat of hair on his unoiled chest.

  Then there’d been the condom thing. While she’d never actually fucked a male dancer herself, she’d attended parties where the guest of honor had received a rather wild interpretation of a lap dance. The men offering them brought a rather colorful assortment of rubbers along on the job. Which was pretty disgusting, now that she though
t about it.

  She watched him head for the lime-colored dresser, noticing how the tight, black fabric of his t-shirt stretched over his biceps, chest and a narrow waist that was definitely stripper-worthy. And Valerie had confirmed everything, so of course she’d fallen for his trick.

  Why had Valerie said that? Maybe the bail bond office had threatened her with jail if she didn’t cooperate. Hell, there’d probably never been a stripper at all. It had all just been a ploy for Nate to mix business and pleasure in one blow. And what a blow it had been. The size of his cock and the way he used it, well, that was something she would not let herself think about again until she was reporting this entire incident to the authorities. Cop or not, surely bounty hunters had some code of ethics they were supposed to follow? How many other women had he used this stripper ruse on to gain access to their homes and their pussies, no less?

  Another stab of greasy nausea shot through her stomach at the thought, but it thankfully passed.

  Meanwhile, Nate was busy yanking open dresser drawers. “All these are empty.”

  She rolled her eyes. “How very perceptive of you. With brains like that, no wonder you went into detective work.”

  Nate moved over to the closet, shoving open the louvered doors to reveal a neat, but modest row of clothing she had organized in order of type and color. What a dope. Then again, she’d had a ton of nervous energy on her hands, some of which she’d just expended in a heated rush of passion with the man who was rooting around in her wardrobe. With his back partly turned.

  She glanced at the door that was several feet away from where he was standing.

  “Don’t even think about it,” he said, shoving hangers around. Did the man have eyes behind his head? “Whatever you think you can do to escape, it won’t work. I’d be on you before you could make it five feet.”

  “Gee, doesn’t that sound familiar?”

  “I mean it, Lydia. Stay where you are. I don’t want to have to get rough with you.”

  “It seemed to me you enjoyed getting rough when you were busy slapping me around on the table.”

  “Yeah, like you hated it.” He ignored the middle finger she managed to flip at him despite the cuffs and went back to riffling through her clothes. “Don’t you have any jeans in here?”

  “I don’t like jeans.”

  He tugged a pair of white slacks out of her closet, but she shook her head. “Not the white ones,” she said. “Get the black jogging pants on the end. And I have sneakers down below.”

  “You don’t own jeans, but you wear sneakers?”

  “Don’t judge me. I do happen to go running, you know.”

  “I noticed. Right across state lines.” Nate grabbed the requested items and tossed them on the bed. “But not fast enough to keep me from catching you.” He put his hands on his hips. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d just assume we skip underwear and put these on over the bikini.”

  “How noble.”

  “Here’s how we’re going to do this,” he said. “Turn over and lie flat on your stomach. I’ll do the work.”

  The temptation to latch onto that comment fell away as quickly as it came, and she snapped her mouth shut.

  When she didn’t move, he took a step closer. “Now, or you can go naked for all I care.”

  She flipped over, which wasn’t as easy as it sounded with her hands cuffed. He climbed on top of her, straddling her backward. In this position, her butt was practically in his face, and she held back a moan of disgust at the thought of how eagerly she’d bent over the dining room table while he’d spanked her.

  It took some doing, but he tugged on her stretchy jogging pants and went to work on her shoes.

  “Look,” he said while she suffered through his feeble attempts at dressing her. “I’m sorry for what happened out there. I admit I gave into a very male opportunity. But let’s not pretend you didn’t put it out there. You wanted it as bad as I did.”

  “I thought you were my birthday gift,” she said bitterly. “Not a curse sent straight from hell.”

  It took a few tries, but he got her shoes on and stood. “Go ahead and turn around now, slowly,” he said. She heard him blow out a breath. “I’ll help you sit up.”

  Again, things easier said than done, but she managed. He kept right on talking while she did. “I should have told you who I was right away, I admit it. I was about to, you know, when you were taking that last drink. Before I could get out my badge and cuffs, you turned around half naked and started groping me. What was I supposed to do?”

  He actually wore a guilty expression when she was again facing him. “I suppose stopping to tell me the truth was out of the question.”

  Something flashed in his eyes. “You stuck my cock in your mouth, lady. I may be a duly appointed representative of your bond agency, but I’m not a saint. You wanted it bad enough to get on your knees and take it. I just went along with the offer. End of story.”

  Her mouth fell open. “End of story, except for the part where you fuck a girl and then take her to jail as if nothing happened.”

  “Yeah, well, they don’t call me Nate the Crate for nothing.”

  A less-than-polite cackle came out. “Nate the Crate? As in, wooden and stiff with a bunch of holes where substance should be?”

  “No, as in strong and unyielding while I’m carting in the goods.” He leaned closer. “Goods meaning you, by the way.”

  “Yeah, you’re a real dream come true. Fuck ’em and book ’em.”

  “I said I’m sorry about that. I’m just doing my job. And regardless of that look you’re giving me, consensual sex is not illegal for bounty hunters. I’m not the one who broke the law here.”

  “I didn’t break the law. I’m innocent.”

  A laugh whooped out of him. “Sure you are. Okay, let’s have you stand up and turn around.”

  She stayed in place. “You have no right to judge my guilt. You don’t know a thing about me.”

  In a flash, he was beside her and had hauled her upright. “Lydia Franklin, age twenty-nine. Single white female, blonde-blue, five-foot-seven, one-hundred-twenty-two pounds.”

  She sneered at him. “One-nineteen.”

  “Arrested on the fifth of May for embezzling funds from your employer. Bonded out and jumped bail sometime thereafter, my guess would be within twenty-four hours of release.” He shook his head. “And even without knowing all that, let me just say that the fact that you fucked a stripper you had in your apartment for less than sixty seconds doesn’t exactly paint you as an innocent.”

  “Or you as a man of ethics.”

  “Ethics is a dodgy word in my line of work.” He had her by the arm and steered her toward the door. “Let’s go.”

  Her thoughts whirred a mile a minute. Apparently, a sure-fire cure for intoxication was getting jumped by a bounty hunter. She felt a lot clearer now than when he’d first waltzed in with balloons and a hidden agenda. But sobering up wasn’t getting her any closer to finding a way out of this. Maybe she needed more time to think.

  She dug her heels in at the bedroom door. “I suppose you’re right about the clothes,” she said. “I should probably put on a shirt before we go.”

  He huffed out a sigh. “Pick something out. We might as well bring a jacket along too. It’ll be a lot colder once we leave sunny California.”

  “How am I supposed to put a shirt on over these cuffs?” she asked, waggling her fingers behind her when he stopped her in front of the closet.

  “Let me worry about that. Just hurry up.”

  She rolled her eyes and nodded to the section of blouses on the far end. “That one. The short-sleeved pink sweater. My jacket is hanging out by the front door.”

  He grabbed the sweater and they went out to the living room. There, he started the whole facedown-on-the-floor routine all over again. Once he’d straddled her ass, something she tried very hard not to dwell on, she heard him fiddling with the cuffs. The tension gave way, and then her arms were free. Sor
t of. The cuffs were still clamped around one wrist, and he held both hands in place with his.

  “Easy while I get the shirt over your head,” he said. “Just relax.”

  Sure, relax with a sexual maverick sitting on her back controlling her every movement. Something he did just as surely now as when he’d given her the ride of a lifetime on the table.

  Her emotions were already churning in all sorts of varied and wild directions when the scene exploded into complete pandemonium. The front door crashed inward, and from her position on the floor, she saw two pairs of booted, male feet come charging in.

  “Freeze! Don’t move!” voices shouted.

  While Lydia did just that without even a conscious effort to obey, Nate did the opposite. He rolled off her back and wound up standing between her and the coffee table. She looked up and saw his hands were in the air. He was staring wide-eyed at the invaders, but he somehow seemed a lot more casual about it than she felt.

  “It’s all right,” Nate called, and she glanced up to see that he had dropped his hands and was pointing toward the dining table. “I’m a bond agent with a fugitive in custody. The documentation is in that gray bag over there.”

  “Get down!” one of the men said to him. “Get your fucking hands on top of your head.”

  Lydia’s heart was drumming wildly in her chest as she lay there, frozen. Both men wore some kind of bulletproof vests with Bail Enforcement printed in yellow across the front. Both had badges around their necks that were similar to Nate’s. More important, both had guns pointed at her and Nate.

  “I didn’t call for backup,” Nate said. “This is my arrest. Why are you here?”

  “Get your damn hands back in the air where I can see them, Nate,” the larger and scarier man said. “I’m not going to say it again.”

  Nate stiffened and gave him an odd look. He glanced down at her, and there was something weighted in his expression when their eyes met.

  He raised his hands again. “Okay, I get it. Clearly the guy with the bigger weapon gets to be in charge. Let’s everyone just keep our heads cool.”