by Tracy Wolff
He’d come to New Orleans looking for peace, had sought Genevieve out for just that purpose. But the aroused, out-of-control, gotta-have-her-now feeling that had grabbed him by the balls the second he laid eyes on her was anything but peaceful.
Gritting his teeth, he pulled himself back from the edge. It wasn’t easy when he wanted to be inside of her more than he wanted his next breath. More than he wanted the answers he’d come here to get.
But the look on Genevieve’s face said she’d been pushed—or pulled—as far as she was going to allow. Aroused or not, her next move would be to take a swing at him.
For a minute, he could almost taste the coppery tang of blood in his mouth. It might be worth it.
“You’re going to want to let go of me.” Her voice was low and hot, a warning if he’d ever heard one.
“I’m not so sure about that.” His hands tightened—on her hip and her palm—holding her to him for one endless moment. The image of what she would look like spread-eagled on his bed, her pale skin gleaming against the midnight silk of the sheets, roared through him, and for a second he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to let her go.
But his brain was screaming at him, the warning signals having turned into bright red flags of alarm, and somehow he found the strength to release her.
The bartender chose that second to drop their drinks on the bar, and he grabbed the ice-cold shot of tequila like it was a lifeline. Slammed it back and gestured for another one. He was teetering on the brink of madness, his body out of his control. His desire for Genevieve nearly palpable in the small distance she’d created between them.
What was wrong with him he wondered, tossing back the second shot as quickly as he had the first. He’d never reacted like this to a woman before, had never felt like he would give anything—and everything—just to be inside one.
But Genevieve … in a few brief moments, Genevieve had turned him inside out. It was ridiculous, absurd. And he—
“You’re not as uncomplicated as you look.” Her voice broke into his self-flagellation, had him turning to her with hot eyes he couldn’t hope to cool down.
“I could say the same thing about you.” He forced a calm into his voice that he was far from feeling.
“Yeah, well, I had a crappy day.” She stuck out her chin at him. “What’s your excuse?”
“I wasn’t aware I needed one.”
Very deliberately, she glanced down at where his hands were clenched into fists before taking a long sip of her drink. “It’s pretty obvious that you need something.”
Her words—cold and taunting—slammed through him. God, she was amazing—her icy control housed a hot fire that was tempting as hell.
“And what is it you think I need?”
For the first time, he saw a flash of uncertainty in her eyes and couldn’t help wondering at its cause. A heavy silence stretched between them, long and taut and more than a little uncomfortable. Just when he’d decided that he’d blown it—that she wasn’t going to answer—Genevieve took a deep breath.
“Me,” she said, in a voice that was as steady as it was unexpected.
Read on for an excerpt from Virna DePaul’s
Arrested by Love
CHAPTER ONE
Somehow, Claire Fullerton had managed to perfect the appearance of being a “good girl.” No one, absolutely no one, suspected what she feared most—that she was a bad girl to the core. All they saw was the dutiful daughter and responsible reporter who provided citizens with important information. They had no clue she was a reckless hedonist who sought out life’s darker elements for sheer vicarious thrills.
At least, they hadn’t until now.
“Let go of me!” Claire twisted and pulled, straining to escape the bald man with overblown muscles and a long jagged scar bisecting his right eyebrow. Her efforts were futile. With ease, he pulled her from the small abandoned trailer just on the outskirts of Guardian property, which she’d been staking out for the past two days. Her patent leather flats slid against the pebbled dirt as he dragged her toward the dilapidated warehouse that served as his gang’s headquarters.
“I told you, I just took a wrong turn.” The lie fell easily off her lips. Too easily. Even so, the man snorted, the sound clearly emanating disbelief.
He shook his head. “Give it up, Fullerton. We’re gonna teach you to mind your own business, the Demon way.”
The statement should have had terror zipping through her veins. She knew, after all, that the man—Jed Randall—was the Demonic Guardians’ second-in-command and an ex-felon to boot, one with a string of robberies behind him. Still, she could admit—if only to herself—that what she felt wasn’t fear but rather an odd sense of anticipation.
Despite the gang’s reputation for violence and their prior threats against her, she knew they wouldn’t really harm her unless they got the green light from their hardened leader. Thankfully, Brad Hoyt wasn’t here, and Claire felt fairly confident Randall wasn’t the type to hurt a woman or let others do it either. Not unless they had reason to …
From her hiding spot, Claire had watched illicit drugs flow freely but she’d seen no evidence of violence by the gang’s members. Their primary mission had been an unabashed commitment to everything sensual and sexual. If it felt good, a Guardian did it. As to whom he did it with? Well, plenty of women had been shuttled on and off the property, and consent hadn’t once seemed to be a problem. From what Claire had seen and heard, the women had thoroughly enjoyed themselves, prompting her to feel more than one pang of envy.
At no point, however, had she seen the man she’d most wanted to see. She’d fantasized about him though. Remembered time and again the feel of his warm skin against hers. She’d watched men and women getting it on, and she’d imagined her and Ty in their place—or sometimes even joining in. As a result, she’d been quivering with sexual excitement more times than not over the weekend.
And apparently, getting caught by Randall hadn’t changed that.
It didn’t matter that he’d probably be back in prison before the year was out. Even the dominant way he held her—firm and inescapable but painless—heightened the arousal she’d felt while watching him have sex minutes earlier.
She told herself her response was to be expected. That any woman would have trouble remembering a man’s criminal history when she’d just observed him, naked ass clenching, pumping into a woman and making her come so hard her legs had buckled.
Even as she continued to struggle against Randall’s grip, lingering excitement made her heart pound and her breath jerk in and out of her in small, ragged pants. She envisioned the way his large hands had stroked the brunette’s breasts moments earlier. They’d been going at it against a tree, the woman’s back pressed to his chest, his arms braced on either side of her head as he’d hunched over her, his slick length, eight inches long and as thick as Claire’s wrist, pounding in and out of the woman while she’d mewled steadily. Both had seemed oblivious to the other people milling around them, as well as to Claire, who’d been safely ensconced in her hiding place. Or so she’d thought.
But then, as soon as the couple’s ragged groans of pleasure had faded away, and with Claire biting her lip to keep from echoing them, the man had gently lowered the woman to the ground, jerked up his pants, and headed straight toward the trailer where she hid. They’d obviously known she was there the entire time because when he’d jerked open the door and pulled her out, the brunette had smirked and waved at her.
Now Randall led her inside the Guardian compound, into the one place she knew next to nothing about despite her previous attempts to get inside. It was disappointingly ordinary, but she couldn’t say the same for its occupants. Through a series of open doors, she caught glimpses of bodies, some naked, others not. The smell of sex permeated the air, evidence of the debauchery that occurred at least once a year when the Demon Guardians initiated a select few into their merry band of criminals.
She couldn’t have known for sure where
he was taking her, yet somehow she did—especially when they passed the broad-shouldered man who leaned idly against a doorjamb. She recognized his spiked blond buzz cut immediately. Much taller than Randall, and far more ripped than bulky, he was dressed simply in faded jeans and an open unbuttoned shirt with the sleeves rolled up, revealing sinewy forearms. Although he locked gazes with her, not a hint of recognition showed on his face. In fact, if she didn’t know better, she might have actually wondered if she’d made a mistake. She’d only met the man once after all …
But she did know better. She knew who he was. He was Luke Anderson, and he hadn’t come here alone.
With her body tightening even more with dread and anticipation, she was dragged by Randall into a room crowded with men and a few women. No one noticed her.
Not. A. One.
Instead, while the men or women fondled whatever body parts called to them, their own or another’s, they kept their gazes riveted on the two people at the front of the room.
Moisture pooled between her legs and her stomach quivered. Oh God, Claire thought, her excitement escalating to almost dizzying heights.
The kneeling woman’s rosy lips formed a perfect circle as she sucked off the man sitting in a low chair, his legs splayed open and his thick cock jutting out of his open fly. The man had his fingers tangled in her hair and was guiding her head even as he pumped his shaft deep into her mouth, but the woman didn’t seem to mind. Quite the opposite, in fact. She made a purring noise and swirled her tongue around the head of the man’s cock like it was an ice cream cone. The man moaned and raised his head from where it had been tilted back against the chair, his familiar features twisted in a grimace of pleasure that, for just the briefest of moments, made Claire want to kill him, right after she killed the woman blowing him and the crowd for watching it happen. They were cheering the couple on, as if the approach of the man’s climax would bring them all pleasure rather than just him.
As soon as he spewed his seed into the woman’s mouth and she swallowed it, he’d officially be a member of the Demon Guardians. A brother. One of them.
This was Ty Williams’s initiation into the state’s most feared biker gang.
Even though she knew it was all part of Ty’s job as an undercover cop, that didn’t make the red she was seeing fade any faster or her fingers itch any less with the urge to rip out every strand of the woman’s long blond hair and strangle Ty with it.
Of course, the bad girl inside her jeered at her hypocrisy, which even now made her want to sink to her knees and take the woman’s place. And although she wasn’t an exhibitionist—the very thought of being naked and exposed in front of a crowd made her stomach clench with anxiety—she might be willing to make an exception if it meant she’d finally get another taste of Ty. Imagining it made her body flash with heat and her pussy gush with undeniable arousal.
Realization was like a bucket of ice water tossed in her face.
Sick. She was sick.
Ashamed and already dreading the knowledge that would fill Ty’s eyes once he saw her and sensed her excitement, she tried to move away. To run from the room. Of course, she couldn’t. Randall laughed and jerked her closer, pulling her hair with his other hand and yanking her head back. “Like what you see, do you? Let’s get you a closer look.”
“No—” She’d been a fool to come back here, but she hadn’t been able to resist.
It had been Hoyt’s absence that had cinched it.
Six months ago, just before her in-depth exposé on the gang leader had run in the paper, she’d had the unfortunate pleasure of talking to the man face-to-face. It had been him, and only him, that Claire had truly feared during her entire investigation—and that had been true long before she’d ever met him. Still, when she’d learned that Hoyt had been arrested three days ago during a drug raid and would be absent from the gang’s annual initiation “festivities,” she’d told herself not to read anything into it. That it wasn’t a sign. That it would be stupid for her to risk going back onto Guardian property now that Hoyt and several others knew what she’d written about them. She had to remember that as harmless as Hoyt’s men might seem, they were dark enough to do his dirty work for him.
None of those arguments had kept her away. She’d heard what went on during Guardian initiations. She’d wanted to see it for herself.
And she’d wanted to see one particular person being initiated far more than any other. Now that it was happening, Ty would discover the very thing she’d been trying to keep hidden from him.
Voyeurism. Danger. Kink.
It was what got her off. It was her vice and her shame. And it was the reason she’d run when Ty had come into her life, even though running from him had been the last thing she’d wanted to do.
If he saw her now, he would know how bad she really was. He’d realize that while he associated with the gang for the greater good, she did it out of sheer fascination and pure perverted pleasure …
“Ouch!” She winced when Randall pulled her hair even harder. Apparently, he didn’t have a problem hurting a woman after all. He propelled her past the crowd, dragging her toward the front of the room until she was standing no more than five feet from Ty.
Even then, he was too distracted to notice her.
Hard to blame him.
The blonde was moving her hand up and down his massive cock as she continued to suck him. Ty’s gaze was fixed on what the woman was doing to him, his eyes half-hooded and his fingers still tangled in her hair. But Claire noticed he wasn’t saying anything. In fact, he wasn’t making any sound. The contrast to how he’d sounded when he’d touched her months earlier, after police officials had arranged for them to meet, was marked. She’d been supposed to prep him for his undercover assignment, but that had led to a date and far more intimate acts. The memory of his gravelly voice wafted around the room, reminding her that he had been far from silent the night they’d almost made love.
That’s it, baby. Let me make you feel good.
Give it to me, Claire. Give me everything you have.
But he hadn’t always been so articulate. When she’d stroked him with her palm, he’d groaned his pleasure unabashedly, instructing her with hot, guttural, broken words where to touch him and how hard.
No, he wasn’t a reticent lover, but she had to remember this wasn’t Ty. The person sprawled before her was the cop, not the man. The one doing his “duty” while others, herself included, got off on it.
“So what do you think, Fullerton?” Randall taunted. “You think you can do a better job than Brea here?”
As soon as Randall said “Fullerton,” Ty’s gaze jerked to hers. He blinked, as if struggling to focus his vision. Then, unlike his partner, Luke, Ty couldn’t quite suppress the surprise that flashed across his face. It took a few seconds, and probably no one but her noticed, but he deliberately forced his expression to go blank, then annoyed. He glared at Randall. “Who the fuck is she, Jed?” he gritted out.
The blonde’s head didn’t stop bobbing for one second.
As Ty’s gaze once more landed on Claire, a conflagration of heat spread from the tips of her toes to between her thighs and then to her extremities. She actually shuddered, and it made her remember just how strong and unique her body’s response to Ty was. Watching Randall fuck the woman outside had given her a buzz of pleasure, but it had been nothing compared to this.
Randall laughed, the crude sound jarring her out of her thoughts. “Finish first. Then we’ll talk.”
Finish?
Despite the arousal making her body tingle, her mind automatically rebelled. Knowing what Ty was doing was one thing. Watching him and imagining she was the one pleasuring him was something else. But witnessing as he finished with another woman’s mouth on him? No.
Her denial was a confusing, mingled mess of contradictions. Possessiveness made her want to body-slam the blonde away from him. Another part of her also feared that if she actually watched Ty finish, no matter who it was that was
getting him off, she’d come right along with him. And how she would survive that embarrassment she didn’t know.
But if she fought, Ty might be forced to break his cover, and she knew how important it was to him to bring the gang down. Ty suspected Hoyt had ordered the death of one of his best friends. And even if it wasn’t true, regardless of what she’d witnessed the past couple days and whether she thought Randall was truly dangerous or not, she knew Hoyt was dangerous, and that the gang engaged in criminal activity and needed to be stopped.
She couldn’t risk jeopardizing any progress the cops had been making.
So she did the only thing she could. She closed her eyes and turned her head away.
Claire gasped when hard fingers grabbed her jaw and jerked her head around.
“Keep your eyes on them, Ms. Fullerton. After all, you might learn something. Consider it research.”
When she refused to open her eyes, Randall yanked her hair again, this time cranking her head back so far that she cried out in pain. Real fear swept through her, brief but intense. Her eyes flashed open, automatically locking on Ty’s.
Fury flared in his gaze. His muscles tensed. He looked like he wanted to chop off Randall’s hand and feed it to him, and as much as she wanted to let that happen, she also knew they were stuck. There was nothing they could do without blowing Ty’s cover. So she mouthed “no” then snapped, “Get on it with it, then.”
The woman on her knees still enthusiastically sucked Ty’s cock. Claire could tell by Ty’s ragged breathing that he was close to the edge. She kept her eyes locked on his rather than watch what the woman was doing to him. He never looked away from her. In fact, she, rather than the sensations he was experiencing, seemed to be his sole focus. His breathing grew even more ragged. He released the woman’s hair and placed his clenched fists on his thighs. Then, muscles trembling, he tilted his head back, closed his eyes, and let out a long, guttural moan as he came. The sound shivered through her body and straight to the hot spot between her thighs. Ty sounded so much like he had on the night they’d almost made love that she couldn’t help it. She shivered and creamed her panties.
