Curvy for Him: The Botanist and the Biker (Curvy for Him Series Book 8) Read online

  She’s dressed all in black, her ass shining in the moonlight as she crouches down like a cat. She’s not a fucking cat, though. She’s a woman. All woman. No mistaking curves like that. No denying an ass like that. Fuck, I want to push my face in there, spread her wide and lick her up and down, make her moan in the moonlight, scream until sunrise.

  My cock is so hard I can barely see straight, and although I know that sex and violence are both primal instincts in me, this is something new, something different, something I’ve never fucking felt for any woman. There’s a need to protect her that runs so deep I can barely hold myself together. A need to claim her. Take her. Make her mine, again and again, hard and deep, forever and beyond.

  She turns her head to the side just as my thoughts take me to a place that makes me wonder if I’m fucking insane, and when I see the smooth softness of her round cheeks, the innocence in her big brown eyes, the fullness of her red lips that look black in the moonlight, I know this is destiny, this is fate, that I was meant to ride out here tonight, that I was meant to save her, meant to claim her, meant to be her man.

  Slowly I move towards her in the darkness, my fingers closing around my ax-handle. I’m completely focused on her, but in my peripheral vision I can see everything else that’s going on. She’s well hidden, but she’s not gonna stay hidden for long. Already I see one of Carl’s guys getting close. Too fucking close. He’s a dead man walking. He just doesn’t know it yet.

  I look up at the moon, narrowing my eyes and nodding as if asking it for help. As if in response a dark cloud glides in, blocking the light and giving me cover as I break into a dead run, pulling my ax free from its hook as I feel the warrior instincts of my Native American ancestors flow through my blood.

  I get there just as Carl’s guy sees my woman, and he’s about to call out before I slice him across the neck with my ax, cutting his voice-box and jugular at the same time. I grab him by the hair as he gurgles out his last breath, lowering him to the grass so his heavy body collapsing dead doesn’t alert the others. I’m wild with a fever that makes me think I can kill every one of these motherfuckers with my bare hands, but I’m experienced enough to know that I can’t go up against Carl and the Vipers alone on open ground. I’ll be gunned down like a dog, and this curvy goddess will be next.

  I clamp my hand across her mouth just before she screams. Then I grunt in surprise when I feel her punch me in the stomach, going for my fucking balls next. But I’m quicker than she is, and I pin her down with my heavy, muscled body, my hand still across her mouth, my face so close to hers I can smell her floral deodorant mixing with the clean perspiration from her underarms. Somewhere in there I swear I can even smell her sweet cunt, and I almost grin as that manic need to possess her whips through me like a snake.

  “You try that again and I’ll kill you myself,” I growl against her ear, trying to resist the urge to lick her smooth face, to kiss those soft lips, to press my hard cock between her wide hips and grind until I fucking explode. I stare into her eyes, which are wide with fear. I can hear her snort as she takes deep, gulping breaths through her nose. She’s scared, as she should be. But she’s not paralyzed with fear, I realize as I almost grin when I see her narrow those big brown eyes at me like even through her panic she’s smart enough to process what’s happening. So many people just fucking freeze in a crisis, just give up, resign themselves to what they think is their fate. This woman is petrified, but she’s got something inside her that won’t let her give up. I see it. I want it. I fucking love it.

  “I’m going to take my hand away from your mouth,” I whisper against her cheek. “If you scream, we’re both fucking dead. Got it?”

  She blinks once and nods, and I slowly take my hand away from her mouth. Her saliva is all over my hand, and I wipe it on her pullover as I slowly move off her.

  “Um, that’s cashmere, you know,” she barks at me in a harsh whisper.

  I raise an eyebrow at her, wondering if I’m hearing things. “What?” I say.

  “This pullover,” she says firmly, her eyes narrowed like she’s seriously pissed that I wiped my hand on her fucking sweater. “It’s—”

  “I told you to shut the fuck up,” I growl back at her, not sure if I’m hearing things or if this woman has totally lost her shit.

  “You only told me not to scream,” she whispers back, fluttering her eyelids as I see her trying to control her panic. “I’m not screaming.”

  I look into those eyes as she keeps whispering about her fucking pullover, and it’s only then that I notice how she shoots a glance at the man I just killed and whose lifeless body is bleeding dark blood all over the grass. Now I remember that although I’ve seen more dead bodies than I care to count, it’s probably traumatic for most people. This woman understands that, and she’s trying to keep her mind off the fact that she just saw me slice a man’s throat with a fucking ax. Not to mention she probably just saw Carl put two other men down just a few minutes ago. She’s just saying whatever comes to her mind so she doesn’t go off the rails, and that means I can trust her to not go off the rails. She’s solid. And yeah, she’s mine.

  She’s whispering something else about how fucking hard it is to get stains out of cashmere, but I tune her out as I listen to the other sounds. This is a big park, and Carl’s men have fanned out far and wide. They’re a bunch of thugs, but they’re also disciplined when Carl is around. They all know they need to get the fuck out of here in about three minutes. Already I can hear sirens in the distance.

  I glance over at my bike over on that side street, reasonably well-hidden. We’ve gotta run across open ground to get to it. We might get there without getting shot, but the moment I kick that engine to life, Carl’s guys will chase us with guns blazing, trying to finish it quick before the cops arrive. I can’t protect her on a bike while also trying to weave my way through these winding streets with ten motherfuckers on my ass.

  I grit my teeth and wonder if we should just wait for the cops. Then I glance at the dead biker at my feet, his blood on my blade, on my fucking boots. The cops find me here and I’m dead meat. They might not even arrest me, because it would be easier to put forty-one bullets in me and save the city the tax-dollars for a fucking trial. Hell, maybe my woman would get hit in the bargain too! She’s dressed in black, and maybe they’d think she’s part of the gang or some shit!

  I take a slow breath as I scan my surroundings. The very thought of leaving my bike here drives me close to wild anger. But the protective instinct is stronger, and I know I need another option. Then my gaze lands on that lime-green Prius parked on the street towards the other side. I close my eyes and shake my head, almost smiling when I realize this is my best fucking option. It’s also the safest option: After all, in about a minute Carl’s guys will give up the search and just bust into her car, pull out her registration papers, and come for her at home. Even if she’s already given a statement by then, there’s no trial if your key witness “disappears” before the trial date. Not ideal, but a reasonable second option for the Vipers, given the situation.

  I grit my teeth as I think of my beloved bike parked over on the other side street. It’s registered under my real name, of course. I don’t fuck around with that. And so both the cops and probably even the Vipers could figure out whose bike it is just from the plates.

  Then a chill goes through me, all the way down to my fucking boots as I put the pieces together and realize what’s going to happen: Even if the Vipers don’t see my bike, the cops sure as hell will. And although they might well choose to stick to their position of not trying too hard when it’s criminals killing criminals, the news would certainly leak to the Vipers that Hawk from the Hellhounds was there that night.

  And that means just one thing.

  War.

  I stare into this curvy queen’s brown eyes as I swallow hard and try to think very carefully about my next decision. Then I grin as that old story of the ancient Greeks (or was it Romans or Persians—who t
he fuck knows) comes back to me. That story of a great war breaking out simply because a man saw a woman and decided he was hers.

  “You’re mine,” I whisper, my mind snapping into focus like a wolf-trap, the decision made with a certainty that makes me almost howl to the heavens. In that moment I know I don’t give a fuck what I have to do to keep her. She’s mine, and I’ll fight a hundred wars if that’s what the gods ask of me. Fuck it.

  And so I get to my feet, slide my arms around her ample waist, and just hoist her over my shoulder. I turn towards that lime-green Prius that’s shining in the moonlight like a gleaming chariot, and I reach up and pat her ass to see where she’s kept her keys.

  “Um, excuse me?” she says. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

  “Car keys,” I grunt. “Where are they.”

  “It’s a key fob,” she says. “They’re in the car. I didn’t think I needed to lock it.”

  “Of course not,” I say, shaking my head as I wonder what the hell I’m doing. But I’m already running towards that lime-green chariot, my woman draped over my shoulder even though I probably don’t need to fucking carry her.

  But somehow it feels right, and I grin like a lunatic as the sirens wail in. I hear Carl shouting for his men to saddle up and ride out. No one’s near this chick’s Prius, and I wonder if they’ve forgotten about getting the driver’s information. Maybe they took a pic of the plates and that’s enough.

  The car is unlocked, just like she said, and I pull open the back door and toss her inside head-first as she howls in protest.

  “I don’t understand why you needed to carry me!” she’s shouting as she tries to right herself in the cramped backseat of her tiny fucking car. “I don’t understand why you’re doing this, why you’re coming with me, why you’re—”

  I can’t hear the rest of her rambling because I’ve slammed the door shut and raced around to the driver’s side. But then I freeze when I sense a presence nearby, and when I look I see Carl himself, hands on his hips, grizzled, bald head gleaming, gray eyes shining like he’s been watching in a sick, twisted delight. He could’ve gunned me down by now, but he’s chosen not to do it. I cock my head and frown, but then I understand why: I just made this really fucking easy for him, didn’t I? The cops are almost here, and although he could kill us both and get the fuck out in time, he’s too smart to leave a dead woman at the scene. They might ignore my leather-clad carcass on the scene, but not some curvy, clean-cut chick with a cashmere sweater and a fucking bullethole. The cops can’t ignore that.

  Yeah, so I just made this really fucking easy for Carl. Now all he has to do is find me, and he can clean all of this up, wrap it up tight.

  But there’s also another reason Carl is grinning ear to ear as he nods once, cocks his head in sick satisfaction, and then slowly heads for his bike. Carl has been itching to go to war with the Hounds, but he’s too smart to start the war himself. He’ll find his dead crewmate soon enough, and so I just gave him a fucking excuse to ride into our part of town with his army, didn’t I?

  My mind is swirling as I back away and get behind the wheel, pushing the seat as far back as I can for my tall frame. And as I drive away in this ridiculous electric car, that curvy temptation that started all of this protesting from the backseat about how I need to switch to electric and not burn all that gas, for some reason that old story about the Greeks or Romans or Persians comes back to me:

  “Helen of Troy,” I mutter, shaking my head as the name comes back to me—not that I thought I ever knew the damned name. “Fucking Helen.”

  “Yes?” comes her voice from the backseat. “What?”

  “What?” I say, narrowing my eyes as I take a hard turn and floor the accelerator of this silly little car that makes me feel like I’m a clown in a twisted circus.

  “Why are you asking me what?” she shoots back, confusing me even fucking more. Then she’s quiet for a moment. Suddenly she sticks her face between the seats and stares over at me. “Wait, how do you know my name?”

  3

  HELEN

  “Helen,” he says, and I blink and shake my head, not sure what to say, not sure what to think, not sure what to do! “Is that really your name?”

  “What’s wrong with Helen?” I demand, not sure why we’re even talking about this. Though at some level I do understand why we’re talking about this: It’s because there’s too many other things to talk about, things that neither of us want to talk about—or at least I don’t. I don’t wanna know anything about what happened a few hours ago. I don’t wanna know who those guys were. I certainly don’t wanna know who this guy is . . . this tattooed, ax-wielding monster who tossed me into my own car and drove me away from a crime scene!

  He’s cleaning that ax of his like it’s his fucking baby, and I take a moment to look at this beast of a man who . . . I dunno . . . rescued me? Did he rescue me? Or did he pull me further into this mess that I stepped into when decided I was fucking Catwoman studying tree-rot in the moonlight.

  Shit, I think as I take in the sight of his lean face, high cheekbones like mountain ridges, a thick beard that’s black as night, a black that matches his eyes. There’s a fierceness in his scowl that makes my heart thump inside my chest, but for some reason I’m not scared of him even though I saw what he did to that other biker.

  “You killed him,” I blurt out, blinking and then swallowing as I wonder if I should just shut the hell up. Maybe I shoulda just pretended like I didn’t see him do that. Now I just admitted that I’m a witness to a murder that he committed! How the hell can I have a PhD and be so goddamn dumb!

  He glances up from his obsessive ax-polishing routine, raising a black eyebrow and then shrugging his broad shoulders. “Nah, you killed him, honey,” he says, those black eyes shining like diamonds in the golden light of the rising sun. We’re parked at a rest stop somewhere along the highway, way out of town. I’m now in the front seat next to him after stepping out to visit the ladies room. Yup, I’m in a car with an ax-murderer in the middle of nowhere. Great. Just fucking great.

  “Excuse me?” I say with a frown, glancing at his ax and then back into his eyes. “How did I kill him?”

  “What the fuck were you doing out there?” he growls. “You a cop? DEA undercover?” He grunts, glancing down at my black tights as I shift in my seat. “Vigilante crime-fighter?”

  I close my eyes and take a breath, touching my hair without thinking. “I’m a botanist,” I say firmly, forcing a smile which quickly transforms to a grin when I see his lean, handsome face twist up like the word just gave him a headache. “That’s a plant scientist.”

  “I know what a botanist is,” he says quickly, blinking and then turning back to his ax.

  “Yes, of course. Sorry. A lot of people don’t know what the word means. I didn’t mean to imply that you’re—”

  He stops me with just a look, and for the first time I become aware of a strange warmth that’s making my body buzz like a beehive. I’m worked up, kinda scared, totally turned around and wired from the craziness of what happened in that park. But I’m also weirdly excited, I realize. Excited and . . . and . . . turned on?

  I gasp when I realize our eyes are locked in a gaze that feels almost like an embrace even though we aren’t touching. I think back to the way he emerged out of the night like some savage protector, killing a man who was most likely going to kill me. Then he hoisted me over his shoulder like a doll, carried me away from danger, and now he’s sitting here across from me, looking into my eyes like he wants to say something.

  “What’s your name?” I ask softly, blinking and breaking the eye contact because I’m afraid he’ll see something I don’t want him to see, don’t want to admit to myself quite yet, don’t know how to interpret. I’m a plant scientist, but I understand how human physiology works too. I know how everything we feel is just the result of chemicals getting released into our bloodstream. And adrenaline is one of the most powerful chemicals in the human body. It
floods the system with energy that’s wild, primal, ancient. It awakens the animal spirits that are usually buried in our day-to-day lives as law-abiding humans in civil society. Adrenaline is what fuels the fight-or-flight reaction that’s basic to survival. And once you’re out of immediate danger, it can also fuel another physical reaction . . . the third “F,” if you will . . .

  Yup, that’s all it is, I tell myself as I shift in my seat, feel the wetness between my legs, sense the way this beast of a man is looking at me. A part of me wonders if he’s gonna just take me right here, and I have to swallow hard to clear my brain of where it’s going.

  “Hawk,” he says.

  “What?” I say.

  “My name,” he says. “You asked me what my fucking name was, remember?”

  I snort, my eyes going wide. “Your name is Hawk?”

  “What’s wrong with Hawk?” he says like he’s genuinely offended.

  “Um, nothing, I guess,” I say quickly, trying to remind myself that it’s best not to make fun of a tattooed ax-murderer when you’re alone with him in the middle of nowhere. I take a breath and swallow again, but I can’t stop myself. When I’m nervous I just talk. The words flow out of me like a river. “Your parents really named you Hawk?”

  He shifts in his head, stroking his tomahawk-like ax and then looking up at me. “Nah,” he says after a pause. “My brothers gave me the handle after they first saw me in action.”

  I stare at him in disbelief. “So your biker buddies named you Hawk because you kill people with a . . . tomahawk?”

  He grins like he sees how ridiculous this sounds to me. “In a nutshell, yeah. What? We’re fucking leather-clad thugs, not poets.”

  “Oh, I disagree,” I say, nodding my head and widening my eyes. “You guys clearly are poets. Hawk and his tomahawk!”

  Hawk snorts and shakes his head. I can see he’s holding back a big grin, and it sends that warmth through my curves again. “You know, for a scientist you really aren’t very fucking smart.”