Bad to the Bone (Wicked Reads) by Karin Tabke

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