Born Wild by Julie Ann Walker Read Free Book Online Page A

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