Tyler O’Neill’s Redemption by Molly O'Keefe Read Free Book Online

feed it to a dog, man. Do not be stupid.
    But in the end he ignored the voice because she was a magnet to everything in him searching for a direction. He stepped close, close enough to breathe the breath she exhaled. Close enough to smell her skin, warm and spicy in the sunlight.
    Her eyes dilated, her lips parted, but she didn’t move, didn’t back away and his body got hot, tight with a furious want.
    The air was still between them, as if they were frozen in time. But inside he raged with hunger for her. Always for her.
    He lifted his hand, slow, careful, ready for her to snap but she didn’t. He placed his calloused, shaking fingers against the perfection of her cheek. Her breath hitched and for a moment—the most perfect moment in ten miserable years—Juliette let him touch her.
    And then, like the good girl she was, she stepped away from the riffraff. Her eyes angry, her skin flushed.
    “You’re way too good for the likes of me, Juliette Tremblant,” he murmured.
    He got in Suzy and slammed the door. The humidity inside the car was an insulation between him and her, an insulation he needed. He needed metal and barbed wire and pit bulls straining at their leashes between them, because he knew, like he’d always known—underneath her totally justified anger, her reluctance, her disgust—he knew Juliette Tremblant wanted him as much as he wanted her.
    I can’t see her again, he thought, starting the car, Suzy’s rumble a welcome sound. Familiar. This was his world. Suzy, his father waiting at home, the clothes on his back, his money in the bank.
    And there was no place in it for Juliette.
    And there was no place for him in Bonne Terre.
    He was an O’Neill. One of the most notorious of them all, which meant that Juliette and the past and those fledgling dreams he thought he’d forgotten about were wasted on him.
    And whatever he thought he was going to find in Bonne Terre, whatever peace or solace he was looking for—it wasn’t here. It wasn’t anywhere. Not for him.
    Gaetan was right—he was always wanting what other people had. Coming back to The Manor, looking for the kid he’d been, the family he’d known. That wasn’t for him.
    He got hotel rooms and card games. One-night stands with women so beautiful they could only be fake. Late nights and later mornings, days vanishing under neon signs. That was his life. That’s what he got.
    And it was time to get back to it.

    J ULIETTE SHOOK . F ROM the inside, through her blood and muscles, from her hair to her fingers, she shook with anger.
    Oh, and don’t forget the lust. The lust that churned through her and over her and under her.
    She slammed the impound door too hard and the chain link rattled and bounced back at her. So, she slammed it again. And again. Her hair flying, the gate rattling and crashing.
    “Damn him!” she screamed, slamming the gate so hard it bounced, rebounded and stuck shut.
    Damn him.
    Ten years without a word, after what she’d done for him. After what she’d given him in the cramped backseat of that stupid Chevy he used to drive. Ten years. And he waltzes back here and realigns everything.
    She put her hands on her hips, feeling the weight of her badge and gun, the solid strength of those things against her hips. She was not the girl she’d been, and Tyler O’Neill was not going to ruin her life again.
    “Chief?”
    She turned and found Miguel standing beside the back door of her sedan.
    Great, she thought, just what I need. Miguel with an earful.
    “You okay?” Miguel asked, his concern fierce and palpable. She melted a little; her little hoodlum was so gallant.
    “I’m fine,” she said, and took a deep breath. “And, actually, so are you. The owner of the Porsche isn’t going to press charges.”
    “Tyler O’Neill?” Miguel asked.
    “How do you know that?”
    “I recognized him in the car. I’ve seen him playing poker on TV. He’s rich, huh?”
    “Hard to say,” she said. “Not much ever sticks to