Out of Control

“Easy, boys.” Jack quickly caught up to the boys, stopping them with a low-pitched warning. “Nashville PD. Now turn around nice and slow.”

Shorty thrust his hands into the air and whirled around, completely ignoring the slow part of the command. “We didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Shut up, Duane.”

The tall one turned, as well, and Jack looked him straight in his bleary eyes.

Hell. Not one wrinkle on the kid’s face. And clearly they’d already had a few. Were these two even legal? Jack pulled back the front of his leather jacket to give them a look at his badge and gun. “Let me see your IDs.”

As eager to cooperate as he’d been to laugh, Duane handed over his driver’s license. It looked authentic enough. Red’s ID showed he was old enough to hit the bars, as well. Just barely. Jack did some quick math before returning their licenses. “Celebrating your twenty-first birthday?”

“Yes, sir.”

Jack looked between their shoulders to see the young woman hugging her arms around herself for warmth as she paused outside the doorway to the next bar on the block. “What about Blondie over there? Is she part of the celebration?”

The tall one with the fading hand print on his face shrugged. “I thought she wanted to be. She hit on us inside.”

Duane slurred his words and blinked sporadically, trying to send a double entendre with a wink as he tucked his license back into his wallet. “She asked Isaac if he had a phone in his pocket. I sure had one in mine when I got a load of those gazongas.”

“Yeah. It was a come-on line if I ever heard one.”

“I told her that money was no object—that we’d pay the going rate. But she said she wouldn’t take our money—”

“I thought she meant she was gonna give me a birthday freebie.”

“Maybe she doesn’t do two at once, man. I don’t mind waiting. It’s Isaac’s birthday, anyway.”

“All right, boys, I’ve heard enough.” Jack raised his hand to end the discussion. These two were clueless but apparently harmless. “Move along. Make sure you call a cab when it’s time to go home. I don’t want to see either one of you behind the wheel tonight. Understood?”

Both young men nodded with obvious relief. “Yes, sir.”

They quickly turned and tottered back into the saloon. “I mean it, boys—” Jack called after them. “No driving tonight.”

“No, sir.”

Now, back to the real trouble.

Despite her lack of height, Jack easily spotted all that pale bare skin and golden hair as Blondie gave up the idea of going into the bar and, instead, joined the stream of partiers and tourists heading on down the street. Jack picked up speed as he threaded his way through the crowd in pursuit. The woman walked with a purpose. Though if she was running to something or running away, he couldn’t tell. He supposed Isaac and Duane back there weren’t up to her standards or they just hadn’t been willing or able to meet her price.

The spaghetti straps on the little black dress she wore had no chance of holding up those puppies if she continued to bounce along at that furious pace. Jack tried to ignore the rush of masculine appreciation that bubbled through his veins and pooled behind his zipper. Hookers weren’t his thing, but Blondie was hot, in a trashy sort of way that made him long for a fast car and a one-night stand. No commitment. Nothing complicated. Just pure, any-way-he-wanted-it sex. He wasn’t the only male in the vicinity to notice the possibilities, either.

“Ah, hell.”

Now she moved to the edge of the curb, stumbling backward in those spiky heels, her thumb in the air. She shouted something obscene to one car that slowed, then sped away without stopping.

Hitchhiking was just as illegal, and no safer than turning tricks. Jack needed to get to her before she got herself in a train wreck that would completely ruin what was left of this night.

“Miss?”

The instant he touched the cool skin of her arm, she started. Before he could identify himself, she jerked away, tilting her chin up, ready to do battle. “If you ask me for a blow job, too, I swear I’m gonna smack you.”

He crushed the erotic image of honey-blond curls at his crotch that instantly leaped to mind, and did his damnedest to remember he was a cop. Jack pulled his badge from his belt. “Well, that would be assaulting a police officer, and we frown upon that here in Nashville.”

“You’re a cop?” Instead of expressing relief or laughing at the joke, she muttered a curse. “This is not happening to me.”

2

WAS IT POSSIBLE for one woman to be any stupider about men than she’d been tonight?

Alexandra Morgan briefly flashed back to the crippling knowledge that she’d once proved the answer was yes.

Still, there was little comfort in knowing that tonight could actually be worse. She’d shunned the idea of dating for so long that she’d known it wouldn’t be easy, but she thought she’d get something right. After that awful night in high school, and the handful of doomed attempts in the nine years since that had turned her into a closed-up, guarded, spinster tomboy, she’d finally gotten frustrated enough to try embracing the sexy, feminine side of her nature again. She was anxious to learn about all the good things she’d been denying herself. The intimacy. The trust. The orgasms. She’d wanted this.

But nothing had changed. Wanting wasn’t the same as knowing. Her feminine instincts—or lack thereof—had failed her once again.

College had given her confidence in other aspects of her life. Her four years of the University of Tennessee made her rethink how she handled the small minds that had dictated the course of her life. She’d gone to work for her father, outlined new ideas to improve the family auto-repair business. She’d made a success of her life despite the concessions survival had forced her to make. But a degree in business management couldn’t prepare her for nights like this one.

Tears began to chafe like grit beneath her eyelids again, and Alex blinked them away along with the painful memories from her past. She was smart enough now to grab hold of the anger that gave her the strength to bear the disappointments of her life. Like tonight.

The big bruiser with the badge here was just the icing on the cake. Her feet were blistered. She was cold, embarrassed. Accepting a blind date with the friend of a friend hadn’t proved to be the fresh start she’d hoped for. “What did I do wrong?”

He clipped his badge back beneath his black leather jacket, giving her a glimpse of a gun and a rip of muscles that warned her getting away from him wouldn’t be as easy as getting away from Dawson Barnes had been. “Relax, sweetheart. I’m not necessarily taking you in. But we do need to talk about what you’re selling.”

“Selling?” Alex planted her hands on her hips in a defiant pose. “Do you see a purse? Pockets? A suitcase? I don’t have anything on me to sell.” Dawson had left her with nothing but the clothes on her back. She’d thought his offer to drive all the way to Dahlia to pick her up for dinner had been a gentlemanly gesture.

But when he’d started tearing at her sweater before they’d even gotten inside the restaurant, she’d fought her way out of the car without thinking about her phone or purse or the fact he might drive off and leave her.

Oh. My. God.

The blood rushed from her head down to her painted toenails. Those two boys in the saloon who’d seemed harmless enough to approach? That jerk in the car? Mr. Tall, Dark and Serious here? “You think I’m a hooker?”

“Well, that dress doesn’t exactly say all-American sweetheart now does it.” His sarcasm burned through her.

Alex glanced down at the twin curses bulging over the lowcut neckline, seeing for the first time just how close she was to popping out over the top of the tight rayon knit. She quickly hugged her arms around her chest as if she could hide her assets. But the cop’s gray eyes, dark as steel and just as hard, said it all.

“I look like a hooker.”

She was going to be sick.

Alex rubbed her hands along her skin from her elbows to her shoulders. Her father had assured her that her late mother had always put on makeup when she’d gone out. She’d always worn a dress and heels like a “fine lady.” Every fashion magazine Alex had picked up over the years talked about how a woman could never go wrong with a little black dress.

She’d managed to go wrong.

Despite the good intentions of the military father and workaholic brother who’d raised her, Alex had managed to go way wrong.

All she’d wanted was a date. One date with one decent guy who’d treat her like a lady and maybe teach her a thing or two about the intricacies of a physical relationship with a man. But Dawson hadn’t wanted to teach. He’d wanted to take.

And, by damn, Alexandra Morgan was done letting men take what she’d be willing to give the right one.