BILLIONAIRE BIKERS: 3 MC Romance Books

by Kristina Blake

  They left her in her room, and Brighton took up his place outside her door in a wooden chair. He smiled at her as she went in, and then tipped his chair back against the wall, balancing on two legs.

  She looked around the room. It was pleasant enough. Periwinkle blue and cream were the predominant colors with an accent wall in periwinkle. Plus, the flowers were confined to a border instead of all over the walls. She was pleased that the bed linens were elegant yet made for comfort against skin instead of some frou-frou nylon stuff.

  She looked around, noting the furniture in the room. Looking at the chest of drawers, she realized that she had no clothes to put in them. She had nothing other than what she was wearing and the shirt, shorts, nightgown and a set of underwear that she’d had sense enough to pack into her carry-on in case her luggage got lost.

  Lost. Her luggage was lost, all right, but not quite the way she had expected.

  She walked to the window and looked out. It really was a beautiful, lush garden, and there was various seating throughout it. There was even a small pond at one end, or some kind of water feature with what looked from this distance to be a tiny waterfall.

  Her mind turned for the first time in the last couple of hours to the encounter with Lucas on the plane. It almost seemed like a dream, like it couldn’t have happened.

  She touched her bottom lip and suddenly felt the warm flush of her skin as she thought of the way he kissed her. She squeezed her eyes closed, as if to squeeze all of the memory of it she could out of her mind.

  # # #

  “I don’t like this,” Taylor said, standing in the door of Lucas’s room.

  “Why?” Lucas asked, as he gave his room the same once-over he had given Audra’s to ensure there were no listening devices.

  “You don’t see anything wrong with this setup?”

  Lucas shrugged. “Who was going to do the cooking? You? Audra?”

  “I’d rather have done it myself than had another party in here. I don’t like it.”

  “I couldn’t live on your cooking.”

  “You know nothing about my cooking skills. I’m from Georgia, remember? I learned good Southern cooking skills.”

  “Yay. Greens and pork belly.”

  “Better than being compromised and dead.”

  “I can let her go.”

  “It’s too late now. She knows. She can tell anyone.”

  “Taylor, I didn’t just pick some old woman off the street. She’s an ex-operative. She knows the routine.”

  “Ex-operative? Well, why didn’t you say so?”

  “I like to hear you talk, Taylor. Love that Southern drawl.”

  “Uh-huh,” he said, backing out of the door and going to his own room.

  “Wait,” Lucas called. “We need to go over the entertainment room pretty thoroughly first, especially since there’s audio and video equipment in there. You up for that right now?”

  Taylor appeared back in the doorway. “Give me five. I’ve got to piss first.”

  “It takes you five minutes to piss?”

  “It takes me four to get my fly open and this big thing unfolded from my pants.”

  Lucas waved him away. Ah, well, he supposed they would need some comic relief.

  # # #

  Audra paused with a mouthful of coq au vin. Chicken in wine—with bacon! She was really into healthy eating, organics, local foods, and all that, but bacon was her one guilty pleasure.

  “…so we need to be….” Lucas was in the process of going over some logistics.

  “Can we just not talk about it over dinner, please? I don’t know what kind of dinner conversation four strangers can have, but please let it be about anything other than my incarceration,” Audra said.

  “It’s not your incarceration,” responded Lucas.

  “Well, what would you call it? Captivity? Confinement?” Audra said, trying to make her point.

  “I call it protection,” Lucas said in response.

  “Or all of the above. Now, can we change the subject please?” Audra pleaded.

  “So, this French dish,” Taylor said.

  “She’s not French,” chimed in Brighton.

  “Ha. Ha,” responded Taylor.

  “The coq au vin?” Audra asked.

  “Coke-o-van?” said Taylor, drawling out the words.

  “Something like that,” she said.

  “I like my chicken fried,” Taylor commented.

  “Me, too,” Brighton piped in.

  Lucas looked at Audra. “We in the United States Marshals Service are so cultured,” he said.

  “I love it!” Audra said. “I’ll have to talk to her about what wine she used.”

  “I’m betting it’s local. Likely from Ironstone,” said Lucas.

  “Hmm…she said something about a wine cellar during the tour. Do you suppose…?” Audra said, letting her thoughts flow from her lips.

  “Well, you can. We can’t drink on duty, and on this detail, we’re always on duty,” Lucas said.

  “Seriously?” Audra asked. “I thought you were on 8-hour shifts.”

  “We are, but if we are compromised, we have to be ready to fly at any moment. It wouldn’t be cool if somebody was intoxicated,” responded Lucas.

  “Maybe just at dinner, then?” she asked.

  “Are you of that culture, Miss Donahue?” Lucas asked.

  “Hardly,” she said, “but it’s something I aspire to be,” she said, wrinkling her nose in a coquettish smile.

  “Well, then, I’ll see if I can arrange that,” he said.

  “Thank you,” Audra said, meaning it.

  “But,” he said, turning to Taylor and Brighton. “Not for you two. No wine for you fried chicken-eaters.”

  Audra stood when she had finished. “I’m going to the library to look at the books, and then I’ll retire to my room for the evening.”

  Lucas nodded his head as he wiped his mouth with his napkin. “I’ll accompany you to the library while Deputy Brighton finishes his dinner.”

  She opened her mouth to protest but thought better of it.

  The library was well-stocked. It had everything from old classics to a wide variety of twentieth century titles from the literary canon. It had esoteric and hermetic texts, both old and new, fiction, non-fiction, bestsellers, and offbeat works. Audra decided perhaps she could get a bit of humanities education here without having to pay for it.

  In one alcove, she raised an eyebrow upon seeing shelves full of mysteries and true crime, but on the very bottom shelf she saw a number of non-fiction books on crime, forensics, and profiling. She picked up one of the profiling books and started to thumb through it.

  “Now, why would you be interested in that?” he asked.

  “Not that it’s any of your business.” She snapped the book shut, but he noticed that she didn’t reshelve it.

  “Your criminal doesn’t need any profiling. He’s a cold killer with no remorse and no conscience of any kind. Pure evil.”

  “It’s not because of him that I’m interested,” she said.

  He stood behind her while she perused the shelves, close enough so that he could smell her hair. He closed his eyes. That was quite a trick, he thought, that she could still smell fresh after all the travel.

  She turned around suddenly and caught him so close behind her with his eyes closed that she knew what he was doing.

  “That scent,” she said, “is eau d’toilette. Literally. Airplane toilette.

  # # #

  Back in her room, she showered, wanting the hot water to rinse away the tension of the day. She got her nightgown out of the bag and put it on, lying on the coverlet to read with a throw across her. One thing definitely not original about the house was the air conditioning. She was shivering, especially after the shower.

  A scan around the walls told her she had no control over the temperature in her room, so she could only hope they would turn it down once the sun had set.

  She had been reading for a c
ouple of hours when a knock came at the door.

  “Lucas. Let me in.”

  The doorknob began to turn slowly, reminding her again of the incident earlier in the day. She grabbed the throw and tossed it around her shoulders, holding it closed as she opened the door a crack.

  The second she cracked it, he pushed his way inside. “I told you I would come every evening to check the windows.”

  “I wondered if that was a threat or a promise.”

  He examined the windows and turned toward her, looking at her in her nightgown and bare feet.

  “You could have been wearing a robe.”

  “My robe is in my other luggage.”

  “You haven’t looked in the closets or drawers yet?”

  “Why would I? I have nothing to put in them.”

  He gestured toward the closet door, and she walked over and opened it. There were a number of clothing items, all brand new, with the tags still on them, and all in her size.

  “Leaving your luggage behind was part of the plan, Miss Donahue. A new wardrobe is standard in these cases.”

  She walked over to the chest and opened one of the top drawers which was filled with lingerie. She picked up a bra and looked at the tag, surprised to find that it, too, was in the correct size.

  “How did you know…?” she asked, almost sounding alarmed.

  “Because it looked just like this,” he said, holding up his hand in the same position as when he had cupped her breast.

  She blushed.

  “Seriously, Miss Donahue, we have experts in that kind of thing.”

  “I’m sure you do. And I’m sure you’re an expert at your own kind of thing,” she said. He shot her a dismissive look. “Ah, we can dish it, but we can’t take it.”

  “Whatever,” he said.

  She went back to the closet and pulled out the bathrobe. However, she knew that to put it on meant she had to drop the throw that was wrapped around her.

  Her expression gave her thoughts away. Instead, Lucas walked up to her and snatched the throw from around her; but, before she could react, he took the robe from her hands and put it over her shoulders.

  She looked at him, speechless. He stood close, and she thought he would kiss her again, but instead he turned and walked out the door. “All secure,” she heard him say to Brighton.

  Yes, she thought. All secure except for my heart.

  3

  Checking out more of the contents of the chest of drawers, Audra found a pair of sleep pants and a shirt, which seemed like it would be warmer than her nightgown, so she put them on and lay back down on the bed.

  The drama of leaving behind everything familiar, the plane trip, and the incident—as she thought of it now—started to hit her. Plus, all the drama of getting acquainted with her new surroundings and the people who would be her constant companions and watchdogs fell on her like a giant weight.

  Taking it in all at once was too much. Instead, she tried breaking it down into more palatable pieces, but she found nothing appetizing at all—except, perhaps, for her encounter with Lucas.

  Suddenly, all the pieces began to dance and taunt her. Isolation—forever! They had told her that after the trial, if there ever was one, she would have to be under the witness protection program. That meant a new identity, a new far away life from her home, and never having contact with any family or friends. If the guy was never caught, it would be even worse.

  They had driven home the fact that the only people who had ever been killed while under witness protection were those who refused to follow the rules—those who thought that just one phone call or one email wouldn’t hurt. Once you fell afoul of a crime syndicate, especially one as far reaching as the San Martes cartel, your life was pretty much over, dead or alive.

  Those precious seconds when Lucas pressed up against her created something other than fear to make her heart beat wildly. It was the only tiny comfort or relief that had come her way in months. Human touch had never been so important before.

  She’d had a boyfriend, of course, but it had been a casual relationship, and she’d had no real hunger for touch. They had what she thought was good sex. However, compared to the electrifying few seconds with Lucas, she wondered now what good sex really was. In everything that she and her girlfriends had talked about or anything she had experienced, she had never imagined the heat.

  She needed to stop thinking about it, but she knew that thinking about the other things would just depress her. She sort of understood why people took up drinking or drugs. She didn’t want to think about the possibilities or the impossibilities. She didn’t want to think at all.

  # # #

  Lucas lay in his bed the next night, tossing and turning. He never slept the first night anywhere because his brain was constantly assessing the surroundings, but by the second night, he was usually tired enough to sleep for a few hours anyway. He had turned in early, leaving Brighton and Bill to divvy up the night’s watches.

  Truthfully, he just wanted to be alone with his thoughts. He tried to reason out his reaction to Audra logically but failed. Since Elena, he had slept with a dozen women, some of whom he loved for a while. However, no one made him feel the way she did.

  With most women, he saw them, sized them up, approached them, wooed them, won them, and then they were together for however long it suited either of them. But in both Elena’s and now Audra’s case, it was as if he was drawn—inexorably and magnetically—to them. They overwhelmed his brain, dominated his thoughts, and left him feeling constantly anxious and aroused—feelings he couldn’t afford in this situation.

  With Elena, it had been different, at first. He wasn’t with the department then, so giving in to all of those feelings had been welcome. But after he had joined, after so many times away, the feelings had become a shortcoming. Those anxious, aroused feelings caused him to be unfaithful and ultimately caused her…. He tried to push the thoughts away.

  His thoughts turned to better times—when their son was conceived out of a long night of heat and passion after he had just returned from an assignment. It was better for her because she had another legitimate outlet for her affections while he was still trapped inside a raging heat, a powerful jealousy, and a desperate longing to be with her. It had always been easy for him to seduce a woman, making it easier to drown his lust; but, the second it was over, he felt empty, and he longed to be home beside Elena again.

  Why hadn’t he just quit? There were a million things he could have done. Elena would have been content with him being a mechanic or a shop-owner or just about anything, as long as it meant he could have been home by her side. However, he had been swept along by the tide of accolades, allowing his ego to get in his way, and not seeing what destruction he was wreaking on their marriage. And then….

  No! He wouldn’t go there. He couldn’t allow himself to go there. He couldn’t replay it over in his head again—the beginning of the end to the end of the end.

  His thoughts turned to the boredom that stretched out before him over the days, weeks, and months ahead. Usually, when there were three, one of them could get away for short periods. However, unless things changed considerably over the next few weeks, he didn’t see that happening. Brighton seemed green and sort of goofy, and Taylor seemed a bit too laid back. Lucas would have to be ever on guard, awake or asleep.

  No matter how much he tried to plan or work anything out, thoughts of the encounter with Audra kept intruding. Touching her had been so delicious. He couldn’t get enough of her mouth. How the fuck am I supposed to just put it out of my head?

  He could feel himself swelling at the memory of the encounter. He finally admitted he wasn’t going to sleep anytime soon; so, he got up and pulled on his jeans with a sleeveless undershirt and padded out into the hallway. Just as he was about to pass her doorway, there she was in silky sleep pants and tank top with the robe open atop it.

  As soon as she saw him, she clutched the robe closed. He had to bite his tongue to keep from smil
ing. Bill sat, looking up at her.

  “Where are you going, miss?”

  “Uh, just to raid the kitchen cupboards.”

  “Ah. A midnight snacker, just like my ex-wife. What’s your favorite snack?” said Bill.

  “Something they probably don’t have: dried pineapple and papaya slices,” Audra replied.

  Bill grimaced, making her laugh. He got up, but Lucas waved him off.

  “I was on the way to the kitchen myself. I’ll accompany her. You can take a break, if you want.”

  “Fair enough,” Bill said. “I’ll go have a smoke and a look around.”

  Lucas and Audra walked side-by-side in silence, yet their proximity sent sparks between their bodies. He instinctively drew back and motioned for her to go ahead of him.

  The delicious sensation still tingled at the base of her neck, and she could almost feel his heat at her back.

  She stepped quickly down the stairs, rounding the door into the kitchen. Without losing any momentum, she went directly to the snack cupboard and opened it. To her surprise, she found a small package of assorted dried fruits which included pineapple and papaya and a can of almonds, pistachios, and cashews.

  Having retrieved them, she wasn’t sure what to do. She could just race back up to her room.

  “Would you like some coffee?” he asked.

  “Not this late,” she said, “but I could use a cup of tea, I guess.”

  He walked across the room and picked the right cupboard the first time.

  “What would you like,” he asked, “Lemon verbena, lavender, tulsi…?”

  “How about…wait, are they loose teas?”

  He nodded.

  “Cool. How about lemon and lavender together?” she suggested.

  “That sounds good,” he said, pulling two glass jars full of tea leaves from the cupboard.

  She narrowed her eyes. “You’ve been here before.”