Julie Walker - Born Wild

“Get ready to open the door, Eve,” Billy instructed quietly once they’d made it to the vehicle. He and Jeremy body-blocked her from the suspicious SUV’s direct line of sight. Then, a chirp-chirp emanated from the big Hummer, and she knew he’d unlocked the door and disarmed the alarm system with the key fob in the hand that wasn’t snaked behind his hip, palming the handgun he kept hidden there. Gulp. “Okay, now jump on in there, and don’t be shy about it.”

She wished she could say she hopped-to without hesitation. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. For some reason she couldn’t explain, maybe it was momentary panic or a bout of fleeting hysteria or…the fact that she didn’t want to let go of Billy and the comfort his nearness provided, but she froze. For just a second. But it was long enough for Billy turn to her, his expression so soft, the light in his eyes so warm that she almost forgot how precarious her situation was and melted into a puddle of hormonal slop right there on the pavement.

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” he crooned in a low voice, the endearment jolting her like a shock from an electric eel. “Go ahead and hop in.”

It took a second more for her to snap out of her trance—I really am a sad sack, aren’t I?—but then she hurried to do as she was instructed. Heaving open the heavy door and jumping up into the mammoth vehicle, she quickly tossed her bags onto the back seat. The heat inside the Hummer had sweat popping out all over her skin and trickling in an itchy line between her breasts, but that was nothing compared to the fire in her heart.

Sweetheart…Oh, how she’d loved to hear that word on his lips that summer and—

For the love of all that’s holy, pull your head out of your butt! Someone might be waiting back there to kill you!

Okay, and that was the voice of sanity yanking her from her reverie. And, yep, perhaps she should listen to it.

Shaking her head at herself, she watched as Billy skirted the front of the vehicle before wrenching open the driver’s side door and hopping inside, bringing with him the smell of sunshine, leather, Irish Spring soap, and man.

Before she had a chance to utter one word, he leaned over, yanked her seatbelt tight across her lap and started the big engine. Throwing the monster vehicle into gear, he slowly—slowly?—pulled out onto Jeremy’s street as adrenaline coursed through her system, making her brain fizz. At the stop light on the corner, she swiveled in her seat and tried to peer out the heavily tinted back window to see behind them. But there was something strapped there. Narrowing her eyes against the dimness of the hot interior, she wondered if that was a….? Yep, that was most definitely a gun rack. A gun rack with two short-barreled shotguns attached to it.

Double gulp.

Facing forward once again, she scooted down in her seat to try to use the side rearview to see—

“You’re gonna give yourself whiplash if you keep flopping around like that,” Billy commented, cool as can be over there, which only managed to redline her own anxiety.

“Is it behind us? That black Chevy? Is it following us?” she asked breathlessly. The air conditioner was blowing full blast on her heated cheeks, but it did little to mitigate the stagnant air inside the Hummer.

“Indeed it is,” Bill said like one might say indeed the sun is shining.

What the huh? How could he remain so unruffled when there was a mysterious black SUV following them? Possibly being driven by the very person who’d been trying to eighty-six her for months?

Oh yeah, because he did this sort of thing for a living. Which was the whole reason why she’d run to him in the first place.

Okay Eve, she coached herself, taking a deep, cleansing breath, get it under control. You’re in good hands.

And just the thought had her glancing over at the steering wheel, where Bill’s broad, tan hands handled the huge Hummer as gently and as easily as a little girl handles a puppy.

She’d always loved his hands. So big, so…capable looking. With long, knobby fingers, square nail beds, and tough calluses, his hands had always made her feel safe, secure…protected. Looking at them now reminded her of the first time he kissed her…

They’d just come back from a day on the water where she’d taught him how to captain the little Daysailer her father had given her for her eighteenth birthday. She’d been feeling awfully proud of herself for having instructed the big, handsome petty officer on anything. But after they’d stepped off the boat and onto the dock and he’d turned to her? You better believe she’d known by the look in his eyes that her time as teacher was over. His expression had clearly conveyed that he had a thing or two to show her.

And, boy, oh boy, had he ever…

Even now she could recall the exact feel of his broad, callused palms cupping her cheeks, remember the sensation of his rough thumb hooked gently beneath her jaw, guiding her head this way and that as his tongue learned the secrets of her mouth, licked and laved and sucked until she forgot her own name and—

“Calm down, Eve,” Billy instructed, and she realized not only was she staring at his hands, she was also panting like she’d just surfaced from a skin dive. “This vehicle is armored and the glass is bulletproof. You’re safe in here.”

And curses! There she’d gone again. Completely forgetting the critical nature of her situation because she was overcome by a combination of painfully hot memories and Billy’s nearness.

Sheesh. Too much more of that, and she should seriously consider getting her head examined. Maybe that launch into the air back at the marina and the resultant splashdown in Lake Michigan had flash-frozen her gray matter.

“That’s not—” She abruptly stopped herself and shook her head. “I’m fine. I just don’t understand why you’re not trying to lose them?” They were creeping along at a snail’s pace, like they were out taking a flippin’ Sunday drive as opposed to trying to shake the person tailing them. “Do you need me to drive?”

She wasn’t good a lot of things. She couldn’t draw or sing or hold her liquor. She sucked at baking cakes—they never seemed to rise—and public speaking scared the ever-lovin’ crap out of her. But when her father signed her up for defensive driving lessons with an ex-Hollywood stuntman after she’d started having issues with Dale the Stalker? Well, not to toot her own horn or anything—toot, toot—but she’d taken to the endeavor like she’d been born an Andretti.

However, the look Billy sent her questioned the validity of her most recent IQ test.

Indignation burned. “Didn’t Becky tell you how good I was down in Costa Rica?” she demanded. And, yes, a little more than six months ago she’d helped Billy and the rest of the Black Knights clear the name of one of their own by leading the CIA on a wild car chase. Which, let’s face it, still felt more like a dream set in Bizarro Land than an actual series of events…

But it had happened and she had done her part—huzzah!—and it was beyond irritating that even after all of that, Billy still didn’t give her the credit she so richly deserved. And when he refused to wipe that disbelieving smirk from his face, she slapped a palm against the hot dashboard. “Stop looking at me like that! I’m an excellent driver!”

He rolled in his lips as he casually—oh-so-flippin’ casually—stopped at a red light. “I know you are, Rain Man,” he said, and it only irked her more when she didn’t get that particular reference. “But I don’t want to lose them. I want them to stick with us until your cousin calls to let us know who they are. Then we can decide how to handle the situation.”

Oh…well. That made sense. Sort of…

As if on cue, her cell phone jangled out the opening bars of Styx’s “Come Sail Away,” and she unbuckled her seatbelt in order to swivel around and grab her purse.

“Jeremy?” she answered after frantically scrounging around in her oversized handbag. Her phone had the annoying habit of making its way to the very bottom of the thing. “Who is it? Who’s following us?”

Her blood sizzled through her veins like she’d ascended too quickly from a deep dive because this could be it. Right here, right now, she might hear the name of whomever was trying to kill her.

“It’s Samantha Tate,” Jeremy informed her, his irritation evident.

Her heart sank along with all her momentary hopes, because Samantha Tate was the Chicago Tribune’s most persistent, most annoying investigative reporter. “Thanks, Jeremy,” she muttered. “I’ll let you know how things shake out.”

“Take care, Cuz,” he said before cutting the connection.

“So?” Billy asked, turning to her briefly, a question in his lovely brown eyes.

“Samantha Tate,” she supplied. “She’s a—”

“I know exactly who she is,” he cut in, frowning. “And what she is.”

“You mean besides a serious pain the ass?” Eve submitted and felt a warm rush of pleasure flood her chest when his crack of surprised laughter echoed against the roof of the Hummer.

“That too,” he said, lips twitching. “And since she already knows who we both are, I see no reason to try to lose her. We’ll just let her follow us out to Goose Island.”

“She’s been leaving messages for me for two days,” Eve groused, glancing into the side view mirror and discovering that, sure enough, inside that black Chevy Tahoe was the vague outline of a woman with puffy hair. “I haven’t called her back because…well, for one thing I hate talking to the press. And for another thing, I’m sure she wants to sensationalize everything that’s been happening to me so she can snag herself another front-page byline. I’m sorry she’s sticking her big nose in the middle of this. I know how much you super-secret spy guys despise journalists.”

“We don’t despise journalists,” Billy clarified with a half shrug. “It’s just that their job is usually directly opposed to our job. But don’t worry. You won’t have to talk to her. She’ll never get past BKI’s front gates.”

And, just like that, Eve was reminded she’d be spending an indeterminate amount of time under one roof with Billy “Wild Bill” Reichert and all his brooding looks, sharp words, and menacing, smoldering sex appeal…

Triple gulp.

Black Knights Inc. Headquarters, Front Gate

7:15 p.m.

“I demand to see my daughter! I know she’s here!”

Mac glared at the salt-and-pepper-haired man raving on the other side of BKI’s tall, wrought-iron gate and wondered if he’d ever despised anyone on first sight as much as he despised Eve’s father.

Patrick Edens was wearing a cream-colored linen suit like he was freakin’ Colonel Sanders or something. Though Mac would lay two-to-one odds that Edens had never set foot inside a Kentucky Fried Chicken in his entire pampered life. A long black limousine was parked at the curb, and a gold Rolex glinted on Edens’s wrist when he lifted a hand to point a manicured finger at Mac. “You filthy, lecherous bikers can’t hold her prisoner here! I’ll—”

“Sir,” Mac cut in, and it was only his gentlemanly Southern upbringing that allowed him to address the raving ass-hat in such a polite fashion, “I can assure you we’re not holdin’ your daughter prisoner here. She—”

“Dad?”

Mac lifted his eyes toward the sunset sky with its streaks of pink and orange and sent up a small prayer of gratitude. Too much more of that and he’d be tempted to shove a fist straight into Edens’s mouth, ruining the man’s expensively capped teeth. And since Edens had the look of a guy who wouldn’t take a punch—a punch he damn well deserved because, seriously? Filthy, lecherous bikers?—without raising a big ol’ stink and getting a bunch of stuffy lawyers involved, that would be very, very bad.

Lord knows a lawsuit is the dead last thing any of us need right now…

“What are you doing here?” Eve asked, still towel-drying her hair.

She’d been in the shower when Toran buzzed from the front gate to say her father had arrived on the scene. And Bill and Ace had been in the middle of coordinating an emergency exfiltration for Ozzie and Steady who, like always, had managed to make trouble for themselves in some bug-infested South American hellhole. Which meant—oh, goody, goody gumdrops—he’d been the only one left to run interference on their unwelcome guest.