Table of Contents
Excerpt
The Bad Boy in Cuffs
Blurb
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
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Note from Lexxie
eBooks by Lexxie Couper
Lexxie recommends … Sami Lee
Excerpt
“Where did you learn to cook like this, Fluffy?” Lucas asked around a mouthful of food.
“Iraq.”
I repositioned Groot on my lap, curtailing his attempts to climb onto the table. Iraq. I knew Fluffy had returned from Iraq only a few months ago but—apart from the fact he was intimidating as all hell, an animal lover, and loyal to Lucas and Lila beyond question—I didn’t know much more about him. Like how did he know Lucas? And why the fierce loyalty?
“Fluffy, can I ask a question?”
He fixed me with one of his level gazes. There was a part of me that one-hundred percent believed he could move a mountain with that gaze. “As long as it’s not Why are you called Fluffy, sure.”
“Okay, that’s waving a red flag in my face.” I grinned. “But we’ll leave that for another day.”
He grinned in return. Damn, he was gorgeous. When he smiled, his face went from menacing handsome to make-your-panties-wet stunning. “Deal. What do you want to know?”
I flicked a glance at Lucas, currently serving himself up a second helping of ratatouille. “How do you know Lucas? How did you meet?”
Both men grew still. Fluffy watched Lucas, clearly waiting for something. What?
Lucas stabbed at his plate and nodded.
Leaning his butt against the edge of the kitchen counter, Fluffy crossed his ankles and shoved his hands in the pockets of his cargos. His eyes grew distant for a moment. A soft frown tugged at his eyebrows. “My niece fell in with a bad crowd. A real bad crowd.”
“Trinity,” Lucas clarified.
A big, fat, hot lump filled my throat. Oh man. The gang Lucas had once been in. The gang recognized as one of the most violent and sadistic and powerful in the country. Bad crowd was the understatement of understatements.
“She was only sixteen. Her parents were divorcing—my sister and her husband are shit people—and Lacey…” Pain etched his face, there and gone just as quickly. “Lacey was a good girl who met a boy who promised her everything she wanted. The boy turned out to be a Trinity member. But by the time I found out, it was too late; he’d given Lacey to the gang and she was their property.”
My gut rolled. Holy fuck. I didn’t need to ask what their property meant.
“I went AWOL,” Fluffy went on, studying something I suspected wasn’t in the room with us. “Got back to the States and tried to find her.” Disgust twisted his lips. “And I failed. Over and over.”
“When Trinity has something someone else wants,” Lucas said, stare locked on his plate, “they don’t let it be found.”
“But I did find a Trinity member. Lucas.” Fluffy’s low grumble made the ball in my stomach tighten into a knot. “And I threatened to kill him if he didn’t take me to Lacey.”
The Bad Boy in Cuffs
Dangerous Desire, Book 3
Lexxie Couper
Published 2017 by Book Boutiques.
ISBN: 978-1-944003-77-7
Copyright © 2017, Lexxie Couper.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of Book Boutiques.
This book is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, locales, or events is wholly coincidental. The names, characters, dialogue, and events in this book are from the author’s imagination and should not to be construed as real.
Manufactured in the USA.
Email [email protected] with questions, or inquiries about Book Boutiques.
Blurb
It’s not the danger that scares me. It’s Lucas thinking he’s not good enough for me.
Falling in love with a bad boy, a dangerous bad boy with dangerous skeletons in his closet, was never part of my plan, but I wouldn’t change a thing now that it’s happened.
All I’ve got to do is convince Lucas I don’t need to be wrapped up in cotton wool.
Not an easy task. Especially when a shadow from his past catches up with us.
And threatens to consume us both…
Dedication
To Val Meglis. Who has held my hand throughout Lucas and Ronnie’s journey. I’d be lost without you, my awesome friend. Lost without you.
Acknowledgements
Cover Artist: Valerie Tibbs, Tibbs Design
Prologue
I got two things from Lucas Pratt for our engagement: a two-carat solitaire diamond ring that made my stomach ache with how stunning it was, and a Doberman puppy.
Lucas wasn’t happy about the puppy. He wanted to buy a full-grown, trained-to-kill Doberman guard dog. I told him no. Now, I’ve told Lucas Pratt no many times before, just recently about his desire to get me a guard dog. I don’t need one. I’ve got Francis.
Brief recap: While Lucas was recovering from his showdown with Rufie, the newest leader of Lucas’s old gang, Francis and Fluffy were acting as my shadows whenever I stepped foot outside the house. Francis was a full-grown, trained-to-kill Doberman guard dog. Fluffy was Francis’s owner, a Marine and probably the second most intimidating person I’d met in my twenty-two years. The most intimidating person I’d ever met was a forty-five-year old veterinarian called Dr. Lila Winchester. I thank God ever day Lila was now my friend. If she wasn’t…
It took a little persuasion to convince Lucas I needed a puppy rather than a canine protector. By persuasion, I mean I took a page out of Lucas’s book and manipulated him through sex into finally saying yes to the puppy.
Lucas may be recuperating from some serious fight action, courtesy of his confrontation with Rufie, but he has never let being injured stop him from giving me the most incredible sex of my life. Trust me.
So yes, I used sex to get my own way, which was a puppy.
Am I proud of that? I’m not sure. Let’s go with I’m ambivalent about it.
But I got a puppy. An adorable Doberman puppy whose tail I insisted be left undocked, with uncut ears and a cheeky yap. And, I think, I finally got Lucas to acknowledge I can be as stubborn as he can.
Relationship growth is a good thing.
When your bad-boy next-door neighbor—a guy hotter than sin who you’ve secretly lusted after since you were sixteen—reveals he’s secretly been in love with you from nearly the same age, has dealt with corrupt cops and sadistic gang members for years to keep you safe because he loves you, you know you’ve found your HEA. The only trouble with that is, Lucas put me on a pedestal; his good girl who can do no wrong, who needs to be protected from the dark shit in life.
I may be a good girl—hell, I can’t remember ever once being grounded by my parents when I was living at home with them, or put on detention at school—but I don’t deserve to be on a pedestal.
Manipulating Lucas with sex to get my own stubborn way proved that.
I could be wrong, but I think Lucas admired me just as much as I pissed him off when he realized what I’d done. I swear I could see the twinkle in his eyes when we were collecting my new puppy.
Bastard.
God, I love him.
So, massive chunk of sparkly rock on my ring finger, an utterly adorable puppy Doberman I named Groot, two minders in the form
of a six-foot-five Marine and a sleek guard dog, and a fiancé who loves me enough to kill anyone who threatens me.
My life. In a nutshell.
My parents—at the halfway point of their eight-week cruise—were oblivious to the events of the last month. They had no clue about Lucas arriving naked in my house, bruised and bloody and delirious, before pretty much abducting me to what is now our home in the next state.
They had no clue about the corrupt detective obsessed with Lucas who tracked us there with the aim of making Lucas his sex slave by threatening to kill me.
They had no clue about Lucas’s old gang coming after him a week later, again threatening to kill me unless he let them beat him to death (my parents also had no clue Lucas was even in a gang. They just thought he was their next-door neighbor’s bad-news son).
They definitely had no idea I’d quit my job at the bakery and was now living in a house that belonged on a Kayne West video. They were clueless to the fact I was now friends with an ex-CIA agent (among other things) who spent her spare time—when not being a veterinarian—dealing out punishment to corrupt cops and gang members in ways I don’t even want to think about.
And last—but not least—Mom and Dad had no clue whatsoever I was now engaged.
Suffice to say, they were going to be surprised. Dad was going to be pissed.
Was I nervous? A little. But hey, I still had a while before they were due home. In that time, I’d figure out a way to break the news to them without Dad having an aneurism.
For now, I had my puppy, my minders, and Lucas. I couldn’t be any happier.
And then I came upon the little boy, and all hell broke loose.
Not because the kid was dangerous, or evil, or in any way a tactic used by those who still wanted to hurt Lucas (with his past lifestyle, there were a lot out there who fell into that category), but because the lost kid made me famous in the media for a brief moment.
And that brief moment, barely a twenty-four-hour news cycle, was enough.
Let’s start this story back then, shall we?
Chapter 1
Running dangerously low on milk, I decided to take Groot to the local market. I’m a bit of a milk junkie. I can drink a quart of milk by myself, straight out of the carton if the mood takes me.
The mood took me when Lucas was asleep. Around six-thirty in the morning.
I was up, watching the night sky slowly fade to that beautiful purpley-pink color of dawn, thinking about how I was going to tell Mom and Dad about…well, everything.
Wording it over in my head. And re-wording it. And re-re-wording it.
Dad was—how shall I put this—protective of his only child. He wasn’t going to just shrug everything off and say “as long as Lucas loves you”. Lucas did love me, and, as I knew all too well, would kill to protect me, but that very fact was probably a negative in Dad’s eyes. Who wants a killer for a son-in-law? Even if the killer only does so for love?
Whoa, even my internal argument for why ours was a true Happy Ever After was making me unsettled. Dad was going to…
So, dawn sky, fading stars, deep breathing, and a sudden thirst for milk.
Without waking Lucas—who looked too peaceful, and way too sexy sleeping naked as he did in our bed—or getting Fluffy and Francis, I bundled Groot into my car and drove to the local market. I’d done some serious self-defense training since Lucas revealed who he really was, and I going to a public place crowded with people. It was totally going to be okay.
I love farmers’ markets. The bustle, the fresh produce, the delicious aromas wafting from the food trucks, the energy of all the people there. It’s a great way to spend your morning. Groot pulled on his leash, sniffing everything.
People smiled at him—how could you not? A puppy Doberman is adorable, especially one with floppy ears and a long happy tail—and at me. I smiled back. Nodded hello.
A wonderful morning.
I bought three gallons of milk, some fresh croissants (Lucas and Fluffy love croissants for breakfast, but despite once working in a bakery, I can’t make them successfully no matter how often I try), fresh eggs, a big bag of cherries, and some tulips for the dining table.
Oh, and a big bone for Groot to gnaw on once we returned home.
After all my purchases, I decided to grab a coffee and just chillax for a while. I was sitting at a picnic table away from the main crowd, with the morning sun warming my face, sipping at my hot coffee, when my phone vibrated in my bag.
Lucas, it would seem, had woken. And found me not there.
The first thing he would have done was check with Fluffy to see if the Marine was with me.
The second thing Lucas would have done, on discovering Fluffy wasn’t, was curse. A few choice f-bombs. Then he would have called me.
Hence my phone vibrating in my bag now.
“I’m in trouble, Groot.” I grinned.
Groot woofed back at me.
Yeah, neither of us were worried. What was going to happen at a farmers’ market, for Pete’s sake? Lucas (and Fluffy) needed to relax a bit.
“Good morning,” I said into my phone, letting my grin dance on my greeting.
“I’m in bed, naked and alone.” Lucas’s growl sent a delicious shiver up my spine and made my nipples pinch hard. “You know how I feel about waking naked and alone.”
“Cold?”
He laughed.
My body reacted to the sound. I would never get enough of Lucas’s laugh; it was carnal and wicked and devilish and horny. It also made me regret not being naked in bed with him at that very moment in time.
“We needed milk,” I said, my voice a little husky. When it came to Lucas Pratt, I was a nymphomaniac. “And Groot needed an adventure.”
“Fluffy tells me you left without him and Francis.”
The censure in the statement made me twist my lips. “I’m okay, Lucas. I’m not defenseless, remember. And you’ve taken care of everyone out to hurt us.”
A beat of silence filled the line, and then Lucas sighed. “Oh babe, I wish that was the case.”
My stomach clenched. A little. And then I said pfft. “We’re okay. Honest. I’m about to come home anyway. Just finishing this coffee.”
From the corner of my eye, I noticed a little boy inching towards me.
“So what you need to do,” I said to Lucas, “is stop freaking out.”
I turned, aware the little boy was now sitting on the bench beside me. “Hello. What’s your name?”
“Whose name?” Agitated confusion filled Lucas’s question.
I ignored him.
The little boy gave me a shy half smile, his wide-eyed stare flicking between me and Groot.
A knot twisted in my stomach. When was the last time he’d had a bath? Dirt and grime clung to him, and his hair looked like it hadn’t seen a brush—or shampoo—in a long, long time.
“Whose name?” Lucas repeated.
The little boy looked at Groot again.
I gently stroked my hand over Groot’s head. He wriggled on my lap, tail thumping my hip. “This is Groot. Would you like to pet him?”
The little boy jerked his stare up from Groot to me.
“Who are you talking to?” Lucas demanded.
“He’s friendly,” I said with a smile.
“Who’s friendly?” Lucas growled in my ear.
The boy inched closer to me, attention once again fixed on Groot.
This close, I could smell he was overdue for some soap. Why was he in such a state? Where were his parents? An adult responsible for him? Surely they had to be nearby? He could barely be seven years of age, too young to be out by himself.
I looked around. Nada. We were completely alone.
“He won’t bite,” I said.
“I might,” Lucas snarled through the phone connection. “If you don’t tell me what’s going on.”
My new friend gave me another shy smile and then a bigger one to Groot.
“Would you like to pet him?”
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“Ronnie,” frustration and concern laced Lucas’s voice, “please tell me who you are talking to?”
“Shhh,” I said gently into my phone, my gaze locked on the little boy. My gut was telling me…something. I wasn’t sure what yet, but something…
“Just tell me you’re okay and I will,” Lucas answered.
“I’m awesome, Lucas.”
The boy inched closer still, dirt-smudged hand hesitantly stretching out toward Groot.
Groot, for his part, was wriggling on my lap and wagging his tail, doggy senses telling him he was on the verge of being petted. Being petted was one of his favorite things.
“It’s okay,” I murmured, keeping my voice calm. “He loves pats and cuddles.”
With another quick glance at me, the boy slid completely against my side, his hip pressed to my thigh, and stroked his fingertips over Groot’s back.
Two things happened.
Groot burst into enthusiastic puppy joy and licked his hand, and the sun came out on the little boy’s face and he burst into giggles.
“He likes you.” I grinned.
Groot squirmed, demanding more pats.
“His name is Groot.”
“Hello Groot,” the little boy said. His voice was soft and husky, like he hadn’t spoken for a long while.
“Would you like to hold him?”
Once again, the sun beamed in his face. “Can I?”
“Is that a little kid’s voice?” Lucas asked.
“Yes,” I answered both of them.
Keeping my actions modulated and slow, I scooped up Groot—now a wriggling, tail-wagging bundle of excitement—and gently deposited him on the boy’s lap.
Giggles all round, growing happier and louder as Groot licked his face.
“Why are you talking to a boy?” Lucas asked. Phew, he no longer sounded frustrated or worried. Now he sounded puzzled. Puzzled was okay. I was puzzled by my new little companion. “Who is he?”
“His tongue tickles.”
I laughed at the boy’s giggled observation. “It does, doesn’t it.”
An enthusiastic nod, followed by more giggles.
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