He did this trying to control his temper, and insanely, he did that by thinking about Hanna.

And he did this because, for weeks, he couldn’t get her out of his head.

And this was because, over the last week and a half, he’d come to understand Hanna Boudreaux was his reward.

He’d thought it the second he saw her in front of Bodhi’s bike shop, looking adorable, jumping around on those long, tanned legs, clapping and crying out excitedly wearing short-shorts and a little white top.

He’d suspected it when she crawled around gathering cat food tins, that sweet ass of hers in the air, making him fight his dick getting hard and giving him ideas for their future.

It came clearer when it just plain came clear that she was one of those women that needed a man. Taking care of her grandmother on her own. Paying her mortgage by knitting fucking afghans. Getting fucked over at a car dealership. Getting taken by her friends.

But he knew it the minute she timidly tossed her afghans over the back of her grandmother’s porch chair and smoothed her hand down the soft wool, yards of nothing that, at her hands, looked like everything. Home. Warmth. Comfort. Nurture. Love.

And if he didn’t know it then, it was cemented when she opened that mouth of hers under his and let him take everything he wanted.

His reward for his sweat.

His blood.

Their blood.

His goddamned nightmares.

Other than visits to his mother and sister, he had no idea that when he came back to Willow—something he never intended to do—that he’d find it there.

Her there.

What he’d earned.

What was his.

What he knew was months ago they’d traced the shipments to Bodhi and his girlfriend in Raid’s own damned town.

That was why Knight had called him in.

That was why Raid came home.

They never got a lock on the supplier. He always sent his minions with the dope, but Bodhi and Heather used the bike shop as a front, shipping it with the bike business as a cover.

Bodhi and Heather were relatively harmless, cogs in a wheel, low-level players they needed to watch and work and hope they led the team to the puppetmaster.

By the time the team was done dicking around with those two and ready to close in on them to try to squeeze them for information, strong arm or blackmail them into a maneuver that might out the big man, Bodhi and Heather got smart with protecting the bike shop and moved the business to Hanna’s shipments.

A local. A third generation Willowite.

Thus a complication.

At that time Raid had no clue who Hanna Boudreaux was. He knew Miss Mildred. Everyone did. He also knew Hanna’s older brother, Jeremy, who was a year behind him in school. All he remembered of the guy was that he was a decent wide receiver and he’d bragged overtly, and nauseatingly frequently, when he’d tapped Lori Kowslowski’s ass.

But he didn’t know Hanna.

Once word got out Bodhi and Heather had moved their operation and involved a local—a local linked to the town’s most beloved citizen, a ninety-eight year old fixture of their society—he’d had no choice but to ask around about Hanna.

He’d heard nothing but good things. She looked after her grandmother. She went to church. She was a quiet girl. She read a lot. She liked to go to the movies. She was sweet. Loyal. Funny. Loving.

An easy mark for those two assholes.

Even though Raid never saw her there, his sister Rachelle told him she came into café all the time.

“But haven’t seen her for a while, bro. You see her, though, you’ll know. Fantastic figure. Pretty smile. Great legs, but uber-mousy, you get what I’m saying? Has no clue, if she put in a teeny-weeny bit of effort she’d be all that,” Rache had said.

But sweet, shy, mousy, reads-a-lot Hanna, who everyone knew and everyone said was always around, had disappeared.

By the time spring hit Willow and Raid first laid eyes on Hanna Boudreaux, weeks before he saw her at the bike shop and took his shot to follow her and “run into her” at the pet store, he didn’t know what the fuck his sister was on about.

Hanna Boudreaux was not mousy.

She was standing with one of her hands on the handlebars of that ridiculous bike of hers, talking to Paul Moyer.

No.

Laughing with him. Her shining blonde head thrown back, her pretty face lit up, her body shaking, her other hand clutching Paul’s arm like she had to hold herself up with the hilarity of it all.

Paul had been watching her tits while she laughed.

Raid had wanted to land a fist in his face.

He held back.

They needed to know if Hanna was clean, then they needed to be certain Hanna was clean, then they could extricate her from the scenario and carry on with the operation.

And after Raid had finally caught sight of her he had decided that he would personally be extricating her because Hanna would be in his bed, under his protection and she’d feel none of that shit.

Fortunately, it took about a nanosecond to figure out that Hanna was being taken.

Unfortunately, before he could get her in his bed, she’d overheard him and blown the operation, so now they had nothing.

No one to lead them to the supplier who fucked with Raid and Creed’s buddy, Knight, who lived in Denver, had a successful nightclub, a questionable side business and a shitload of money with which he could use to throw at problems he wanted solved.

Something he didn’t hesitate doing.

So Knight contracted with Raid, Raid’s crew and Creed to solve it.

Now they had nothing.

Knight was going to be pissed.

Raid already was.

He turned onto the single lane road that led to three houses, the last one being Hanna’s, and pulled over. He yanked out his phone and made his call to Knight.

He was right. Knight was pissed.

He ended the call, pulled back into the lane and headed to Hanna’s house.

The light, upstairs right, was on.

Her bedroom.

So was the light, downstairs left.

The living room.

This meant she was up.

Excellent.

He threw open his door and folded out. He prowled to the front door, put his hand right to the knob and turned.

Fuck.

Now she locked it.

He hit the bell.

Nothing.

He looked to his left.

The lights were on, curtains drawn. He could see no movement.

He hit the bell again then pounded.

He stopped.

Still nothing.

“What the fuck?” he clipped.

He turned and prowled to his car. He opened his glove compartment, got his kit and prowled right back. He squatted by the doorknob, pulled out his tools, and in about five seconds picked her shitty, going-to-be-replaced-tomorrow lock.

He shoved his tools in his back pocket, opened the door and saw her instantly, standing in the foyer, staring at him, her big, pretty blue eyes huge.

He slammed the door behind him.

Hanna jumped.

She was very lucky that she’d changed into an adorable pair of very short drawstring pajama shorts and a skintight ribbed tank, both that left little to the imagination, both in colors that highlighted the golden tan that shimmered on every inch of her skin. She was also lucky she had her hair up in another messy knot his fucking hand fucking itched to yank out or he wouldn’t have had the patience to draw in the breath he needed to calm down.

But he drew in the breath he needed to calm down.

In that time she whispered, “Oh my God. You picked my lock.”

“How’s your headache?” he asked.

Her eyes, which had moved to the doorknob, shot to his.

Then she started backing up.

“Smart,” he murmured as he advanced.

“Raiden—”

“You heard me on the phone.”

She visibly swallowed. Her shoulder hit the doorway to the back hall and she shifted sideways.

Raid followed her. “You came to the table and lied through your teeth, right to my face.”

“I—”

“You told me you had a goddamned headache, which worried me, then you pressed tight to me, giving me your mouth and takin’ it away, a bullshit bitch tease move I didn’t know you had it in you to execute.”

She stopped dead. “I wasn’t teasing you.”

“What was that shit then?”

She stared into his eyes and announced, “A good-bye kiss.”

It was at that Raid stopped dead. “What?”

“Raiden, the gig is up,” she declared, and Raid closed his eyes.

Jesus, how could the woman be so infuriating and so fucking cute all at once?

He opened his eyes and asked, “The gig is up?”

She leaned into him and hissed, “Yes.”

Fuck, he wanted to kiss her.

He also wanted to shake her.

“Baby, it’s jig,” he corrected, and her head jerked, which made that mess of hair on her head jerk, which reminded him he wanted his hands in that hair.

Then elsewhere.

He needed to speed this shit up.

“Sorry?” she asked, sounding confused, and he looked from her hair to her eyes and saw she was, in fact, confused.

Yeah. Infuriating. And fucking cute.

“The jig is up, not the gig,” he told her.

Her eyes narrowed. “Seriously? You’re correcting my street lingo?”

“Think that street lingo was the street lingo about eight decades ago, Hanna. So now it’s just lingo.”

Hanna threw up her hands. “Now you’re giving me a street lingo history lesson?”

Raid found what he thought was the impossible happening.

He lost patience with Hanna Boudreaux being cute.

“Why are we talkin’ about this shit?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Why are you here at all?” she shot back.

“I’m here ‘cause I wanna know why you lied to me. I wanna know why you didn’t come to the table and talk to me about what you heard so I could explain it and shit would not right now be totally fucked.”

“I’m sorry, did I mess with your plans, Raiden? Were there more ways you could use me like Bodhi and Heather used me before you threw me away?”

At her words, Raid went completely still.

Then he asked, dangerously quietly, “Come again?”

She missed the danger, but she didn’t miss his words. “You used me and now you’re here acting like a jerk. Why?”

“How did I use you?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I didn’t go to the table, tell you I overheard, allow you to explain the intricacies of your plan of pretending you were into me so you could ascertain if I was in on my oh so very ex-friends’ fiendish plot to use my afghans as cover for transporting drugs. So I don’t know all the ways you used me. I just know you, like them, used me.”

“Pretending I was into you?” Raid whispered, and she threw up her hands.

“Raiden, I know,” she snapped.

“You don’t know shit,” he clipped.

“Really? So, you don’t notice me for months—no, for years—then suddenly you’re everywhere I am and how I’m,” she lifted up her hands and did air quotation marks, “linked to drug dealers or transporters or, uh… whatever you call them.”

“Yeah, babe, for years I didn’t notice you, then I did when two pieces of shit used a kind, trusting woman as cover for transporting dope.”

“Right, then, now that we have that cleared up, you can leave,” she announced.

Jesus.

“I’m not leaving,” he returned.

“Why?” she cried. “It’s over. You know I have no part in it. I don’t know your part in it. I don’t want to know your part in it. But my part is done. This is over. You don’t have to pretend anymore. Why can’t you just go?”

“I’m not pretending jack,” Raid bit out.

“God!” she yelled. “This is insane!”

Then she made a big mistake.

Huge.

She impatiently shoved her hand in her hair, not remembering it was up in a knot. She encountered whatever was holding it up, yanked it out and her hair tumbled in a shining mess around her face and down her shoulders.

Raid watched it, lost it, and advanced.

Hanna retreated, slamming into the wall at the side of the stairs.

Raid caged her in, putting one hand to her hip, fingers spread, pads digging in, one hand to the wall at the side of her head and he bent low so his face was in hers.

She’d quit breathing, which was good.