Risk: A Military Stepbrother Bad Boy Romance

by Lucas, Helen

  I allowed myself a grin.

  “High praise when even the lacrosse players want to hear what you have to say.”

  “I’ll let you know if anything comes up in the discussion section,” Masha said, rising. “Have you heard anything more about the budget for next year?”

  I froze. The department budget for next year. God.

  What a shit show.

  “No. Have you?”

  Masha shook her head sadly. “No. Just, you know, rumors. But from other graduate students. Not from anyone… In the know.”

  I raised an eyebrow. I was, supposedly, in the know—even if I were only a twenty-nine year old junior professor barely beginning my second year of teaching—and I hadn’t even heard the rumors.

  “What kind of rumors?”

  “Oh… Nothing… I mean…” Masha sighed. “Rumors that we might be combined with Modern Languages and Literatures. Or that the university might hire a team of consultants to come in and ‘restructure’ us.”

  At the sound of the word ‘restructure,’ my heart stopped and my stomach churned. Restructure. I hated the influx of disgusting, corporate terminology into education—education should be about students, about students learning and discovering themselves and great writing, great reservoirs of knowledge. Not about profit margins. Not about… Structures and restructuring.

  “I haven’t heard anything like that,” I said, shaking my head. “Don’t pay it any mind. This is still one of the largest, one of the best English literature departments in the country, even with the lawsuit. These things happen. The longer you spend in academia, the more you’ll see that this is just a phase.”

  A pained smile took hold on Masha’s sweet, young face. She was only twenty-four, which made her only five years younger than me. I was charmed and little frightened that she was able to look at me with such trust and confidence, her eyes wide—literally, wide!—with admiration.

  “Karen, you’re totally right. I won’t worry about it. I’ll email you before Monday.”

  She gathered her things and glided out of class, leaving me alone with my empty lecture hall.

  My name is Karen O’Lowry, PhD. I got my degree a year and a half ago, at Harvard, in American Studies with a focus on American literature. Since graduating, I’ve been teaching here at Silliman University, one of the finest in the country—a rival to Havard in so many ways, and a school that even surpasses my alma mater in others. I’m in the English department, one of the few professors who focus on American women’s literature and, in my personal and very humble opinion, a welcome addition to a world of mostly male academics determined to talk themselves to death about Shakespeare.

  The big reason I’m here, the reason I even got the job in the first place, is that my mentor, Anthony Kennedy, another scholar of American literature, was just appointed Chair of the Department. As one of his first orders of business, he began a faculty search, looking for fresh new voices focusing on areas of literature that weren’t old, weren’t traditional, weren’t boring.

  He had been a fan of my work ever since I first began going to conferences and doing presentations. When I took harsh criticism from the male scholars I found myself engaging with, he offered me advice, taught me how to outthink them, out-argue them. Everything I have today—my job, my career, the book deal I just signed with Oxford University Press last week, everything—it’s all due to him.

  But it could all fall apart, if the university fell apart. If the department fell apart. God. Scandals.

  I began to pack up my things. I noticed on my phone that it was almost four-thirty. There was a departmental meeting at five I was scheduled to go to. Maybe I would find out more about the budget, about the bankruptcy. Maybe.

  There was also a text message from Tyrone, my ex. A picture of his abs: chiseled, and dark, like chocolate melted over a marble statue sculpted so perfectly by one of the Renaissance Italian greats. I found myself hesitating for a moment.

  He did have a great body.

  I could just…

  No. No, I needed to focus on my own life. On my own interests. On my career. I couldn’t be Tyrone’s babysitter anymore. I wouldn’t stand for his cheating, for his immature bullshit anymore.

  “I want u back” the text said. I replied. “It’s still over.”

  And then I blocked his number. Boy, that felt good. Almost as good as lecturing.

  Almost as good as sex.

  Also by Helen Lucas: Rider—a heartbroken FBI Agent is about to discover a taste for biker bad boys in this MC Club alpha romance thriller…

  This was to be the pow-wow. The first time I met Fang, or rather, James MacKinnon, the man to be my partner on this operation. A full member of the Damned MC. And one scary asshole.

  Doug picked a filthy, seedy as all get out motel just off the highway for our meeting. It was the kind of place where everyone was transitory, where no one paid any attention to anyone else. The kind of place everyone just wanted to get away from as soon as possible without looking back.

  Funny. For some people, that’s what their entire lives are like.

  The motel’s parking lot was almost totally empty when I pulled up. I knew which room to go to. Number seventeen. Each motel room door had a different number, but all were painted the same garish red, now faded to a hideous pink. The smell of something dying hung in the hot hair as I parked and strode towards the door.

  I knocked twice, and then three more times in rapid succession, and then kicked the door gently. This was the code, what I had been instructed to use to let Doug and Fang know that I was who I was supposed to be.

  The door cracked open and Doug’s familiar face greeted me, as did a wall of smoky, stuffy air.

  “Jesus, you couldn’t have gotten a non-smoking room,” I muttered as I ducked in.

  “No air conditioning either,” Doug said with a sheepish grin. I saw a cigarette smoldering in an ash tray on the table and I wondered if he had gotten the smoking room on purpose.

  And then I saw him.

  He sat hunched over on the motel bed, the figure he cut clashing brilliantly with the kitschy floral pattern of the motel duvet cover. He looked something like a ‘80s punk who had moved down to Florida, with a tight white t-shirt and a leather jacket, covered in patches and spikes, stretched over it. Tattoos crept up his neck—a saw the letters “U,” “N,” “F,” “O,” and “R” stretching down from beneath his jaw. Unforgiven, I guessed? On the other side of his neck, I noted a grim reaper, surrounded by flames, leering at anyone who got close.

  And now, I was supposed to get close to him.

  He looked up at me. I saw he had more tattoos on his face—small ones, tears, beneath his left eye—three of them. His face was beautiful in a kind of tragic way. He had a long scar stretching over his cheek from the corner of his mouth—I guessed it had been torn, somehow. His eyes were dark hazelnut, and his hair was a dirty blonde. I couldn’t tell if he had gelled it, or if he simply hadn’t washed it, but it was tousled in a way that made it look like he had just stepped out of a magazine.

  I felt an uncomfortable flutter in my chest. A flutter I hadn’t felt in a long, long time. A flutter that warmed me, warmed my gut, warmed my chest. I bit my lip and forced myself to keep looking at him.

  “Fang, say hello to Special Agent Claire Powell,” Doug said, interrupting my reverie.

  He stood. He was six feet tall, give or take, with broad shoulders and a kind of angry swagger in his step, a swagger that made him look like a bomb ready to go off or a wild animal that had only just barely been caged and controlled. The kind of animal it was a sin to try and tame.

  “I’m Fang,” he said, his voice lacking any emotion whatsoever. “James MacKinnon. But everyone in the Damned calls me Fang and you should too.”

  “Right,” I said, offering him my hand. His grip was firm, but not intentionally—some men try to crush your hand when they shake it, but Fang clearly just didn’t know any other way. “Special Agent Powell. Good to
meet you. I look forward to working with you.”

  “Ditto,” Fang grunted, his eyes narrowing. That probably meant he was lying. I would have to remember that for the future. Eyes narrowed means he’s not being truthful.

  I noticed that he had even more tattoos on his hands—a tiger, roaring, on his right one, and a shark on the left. His knuckles were even tattooed—“HATE” on the right hand and “LOVE” on the left.