Bad to the Bone (Wicked Reads)

by

Karin Tabke

Smashwords Edition

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Published by Karin Tabke at Smashwords

ePub ISBN: 978-1-4524-1835-3

Bad to the Bone

Copyright 2011 by Karin Tabke

Excerpt from
Blood Law
copyright 2011
by Karin Tabke

All Rights Reserved.

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This book is a work of fiction. All names,
characters, locations, and incidents are products of the author's
imagination, or have been used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual persons living or dead, locales, or events is entirely
coincidental.

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This ebook is licensed for your personal
enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to
other people. If you would like to share this book with another
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of this author.

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To learn more about
the
Wicked Reads
and The Wicked Writers, visit:

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Chapter One

Her mind wasn’t on the road. Or her driving.
As usual, it was a million miles away, so when she took the wrong
turn, it didn’t register. She followed the road a few miles before
she carelessly ran a red light. A faint,
Oh shit, I hope there
wasn’t a cop hiding behind a bush
, flashed through her mind.
She made a quick left just in case, then gave her SUV some gas down
the old country road.

It was late and it was dark. Hers was the
only car on the rutted asphalt road. Her headlights blazed the way
until she dunked into a pothole, the depth causing her to bounce
and hit her head on the roof. As if to let the pothole know how she
felt about that, she glanced angrily in her review mirror. That’s
when she saw the headlights of another vehicle rapidly closing in
on her.

She bit her bottom lip. Her nerves flared and
her belly buzzed. When red and blue lights lit up behind her, her
apprehension spiked.

The cop car pulled right up on her, lights
blazing. She knew what to do. She looked right, making sure the
shoulder was wide enough and not littered with the gaping holes
left by the recent rain. She slowed, pulled over and came to a
stop, then let out a long breath she hadn’t realized she’d been
holding.

In her side mirror, she watched the cop get
out of his car and say something into his mic before he started
toward her window; his tall broad form was silhouetted ominously
against his headlights. As the strobes flickered over him, she
could tell by his strut he was cocky. But then, most cops were.
Nervously, she sat back, folded her hands in her lap and
waited.

Anxiously, she bit her bottom lip and hit the
window button just long enough for the window to come down a
crack.

He stopped at the side of her car. All she
could see was his duty belt and his narrow waist that flared into a
wide chest. He tapped on the glass with the end of his
flashlight.

“Open the window, ma’am,” he commanded.

Despite the nervous flutter in her belly, her
immediate reaction to authority was to open the window more. Even
if it weren’t, she’d open wider.

Tension sizzled along her nerve endings when
he ducked down and they met face to face. Her instinct was to shy
away from the dark green eyes shining brightly in the night.
Instead, she swallowed hard as her gaze dropped to full firm lips
before bouncing back up to the blistering gaze.

He wasn’t classically handsome. He had one of
those etched character-filled faces. His angles were blunt, nothing
refined about him, but they complemented his olive coloring and
close-cropped jet-black hair. There was nothing soft or apologetic
about this man. It was his eyes and those bad boy lips that
transformed him from average to sinful.

Her nipples beaded when his gaze dropped
below her chin. Her chest rose and fell in shallow puffs. Her shirt
was classic Anne Klein office wear. Although her sleeves were
rolled up to her elbows and the buttons didn’t quite make it to her
neck, the way she was sitting made the shirt gape open, exposing
her cleavage supported by a lacy demi-bra.

He looked back up at her face. Heat flickered
behind his hooded lids. An insolent half smile quirked the right
side of his mouth before he backed up. She huffed, sinking deeper
into the leather seat. It wasn’t like she had intentionally given
him a peek. She wasn’t like that. She bet half the women he pulled
over took one look at him and did more than show a little skin. He
was all smoldering sexy. His subtle snub pissed her off.

A woman scorned, regardless of the
circumstances, was nothing to mess with. Frustrated by his
assumption, she stiffened and stuck her head out of the window.
“Why did you stop me?” she demanded.

He cocked a dark brow at her tone. “You ran
the light back there. License and registration, please.” He held
out a big hand. Thick fingers with smooth blunted ends, neat square
fingernails. A working man’s hand. A
single
working man’s.
No wedding ring.

His other hand rested casually on the butt of
his gun.

“What are you going to do? Shoot me if I
don’t do what you say?”

His lips quirked. “I’ll use whatever force is
necessary.”

Shivers hopped along her spine. She wasn’t
sure if she were afraid or intrigued. Either way, she didn’t
resist. She took her driver’s license out of her wallet and slapped
it into his waiting hand. His big fingers wrapped around hers
before she could pull away. His touch was electric. A shock wave
went straight to her nipples and banked south to the juncture at
her thighs. She tried hard to remain impassive. She tugged her hand
out of his grasp, then dug into the glove box for the registration.
This time, caution prevailed; she sat back and handed it to him,
keeping all but her fingertips inside the car.

He took it and looked at her license. “I’ll
be right back, Ms. Olivia Connor. Don’t go anywhere.” There was a
hint of amusement lacing his deep baritone.

Did he just laugh at her as he walked away?
She stuck her head out the window, to tell him to go to hell, but
he had already reached his cruiser. She sat back, her temper
flaring. “Damn cops think they’re God’s gift.”

In her rearview mirror, she watched him watch
her through his front windshield as he called in her info. After
what seemed interminably long, he strode back to her door. He
reached inside the car, released the door lock, quickly pulling the
door open before she realized what he was doing.

“Step out of the car, ma’am,” he said
thickly.

“Why? You can’t arrest me for blowing a red
light!”

“Step out of the car, ma’am.”

Her pride screamed “no.” Her reason told her
to just do as he said so she didn’t invite any more trouble than
she already had. Ultimately, Olivia was good at following
instructions.

She stuck her left foot out of the car, her
four-inch heel digging into the soil of the shoulder. When she
stood, she nearly snapped her ankle. The bad cop reached out to
steady her. His long fingers wrapped possessively around her bicep.
Her skin flared beneath his chaste touch. When her second heel
stuck in the ground, she jerked away from him and had he not
grabbed her with both hands, she would have tumbled backwards into
the mud. The velocity of his actions brought her chest to chest
with him.

The contact was electrifying. She pushed
back, alarmed by the potent energy that sparked between them. The
sucking sound of her shoe being devoured by the mud pulled her
attention from the hard body pressed against her. Keeping a
steadying hand on her arm, the cop reached down, yanked it out of
the thick goop and handed it to her. His gaze burned with male
arrogance. “You’ll want to hold on to this,” he mockingly said.

She took it from him, shook his hand from her
arm, and, on one leg, she hopped and put it back on. When she
composed herself and was free of the quagmire, she demanded. “Why
did I have to get out of my car?”

“You have warrants. I’m taking you in.”

“
What warrants?
You can’t do that!
I’ve never been arrested in my life!”

“Do you have any needles, weapons or drug
paraphernalia on your person?”

She searched for any hint of a smile because
this had to be a joke. But his face was impossibly hard. Except his
eyes. They glittered in the artificial light of his headlights.

Olivia looked at the sergeant stripes and
three hash marks on his uniform sleeve, then up into his peremptory
stare. “Look, Sergeant, I told you, I have never been arrested in
my life so I can’t have warrants! Call dispatch and have them run
my license again. And while you’re at it, call your watch commander
and tell him you have a situation here.”

He raised a brow.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she said, crossing
her arms over her chest. “Not until you do what
I
say.”

Those full lips tightened and his brilliant
green eyes flashed. His right hand grabbed her left elbow and he
spun her around, pressing her none too gently against the side of
her SUV. He wrenched her arm behind her back and used it as
leverage to keep her from fighting him. It didn’t hurt as long as
she didn’t resist. His warm breath rushed against her cheek, his
big body pressing slightly against the length of hers. Along with
his gun and his—Olivia swallowed hard—other gun.

Keeping her immobile, he softly said, “I’m
going to ask you one more time, and be forewarned, if you don’t
comply, I’ll be forced to search you.”

Olivia tried to twist out of his hold but it
only caused her discomfort.

“I don’t want to hurt you, ma’am.”

“You have no right doing this!”

“Do you have any needles, weapons or drug
paraphernalia on your person?” he asked again.

Olivia took a deep breath, stood up on her
toes and pushed her head back against his chest. “Touch me, and
I’ll kill you.”

“Threatening a police officer carries its own
separate set of punishments.”

His right hand that had settled on her right
shoulder lightly squeezed her, then, in a slow slide, his fingers
pressed gently but firmly as he “searched” for weapons.

Olivia squeezed her eyes shut, fighting the
warmth that followed his fingertips. She felt more than heard him
as he inhaled her perfume. His fingers tightened on her wrist. She
arched slightly, regretting it when her shoulder tweaked.

“Stand still,” he commanded. She moved her
head back into the crook of his neck and looked up at him. His eyes
blazed.

His dark woodsy scent toyed with her senses.
The hard muscles of his arms, braced on either side of her and
holding her captive, flexed. His dominant male brought out every
bit of her female, and with it, wild wanton thoughts of what this
man could do to her taunted her imagination.

Olivia licked her suddenly dry lips. His
nostrils flared. His grip loosened, and his hand slid to the swell
of her hip. The contact was instant and immediate. She gasped. Her
pussy quivered and she felt a slow, warm gush. Olivia fought the
urge to close her eyes and lean completely back into this very
strong, very capable man. Yet it was something she yearned for ever
since she’d lost the husband, who had been her one constant, a year
ago.