As an author, I get asked all the time where I get my ideas. Truth is, I get ideas everywhere—the news, TV, a dream, a snippet of overheard conversation…
A few months ago, I was pushing up against two deadlines. I needed a story for Elle James’s Brotherhood Protectors Kindle World launch, and I needed an idea for a short story for the Blue Collar anthology. I had covers for both and kept looking at them, hoping for inspiration.
Both have to-die-for covers, but nothing came to mind. Then one day, I was babysitting the 4-year-old across the road. When she went down for a nap, I began surfing the TV for something to watch. I paused on a show in progress—Rocky Mountain Bounty Hunters. Now, I never watch reality TV. I find it annoying. But the show caught me. Within ten minutes, I was reaching for my notebook and scribbling like mad. I spent the rest of the afternoon researching bounty hunting.
One reality TV show gave me the inspiration I needed for both books. In Big Sky SEAL, my heroine’s a bounty hunter with a tracking dog. For Blue Collar, I wrote a story about a bounty hunting duo who become “involved”. I had so much fun with those stories, I am now planning an entire Montana Bounty Hunters series! The first book releases in November.
Today’s release, The Bounty, is the story I wrote for Blue Collar. I’ve also included pages from Reaper, just to give you a little taste of my hero. I hope you love bounty hunters as much as I do! And if you want more installments featuring Buttercup and Bulldog, just let me know…
Read an excerpt…
After we’d dropped Lenny at the jail, Bulldog remained silent as we drove.
My arm stung like hell, so I was fine with the quiet for the first while.
His expression was so dark, I didn’t dare try to make small talk. When he missed the turnoff to the agency, I straightened and darted a glance his way. His narrowed gaze swung toward me, daring me to say a word. I sat back, my heart thudding hard inside my chest. Just how pissed was he?
Twenty minutes later, we pulled onto a gravel road. Once we passed the first curve, I saw a single-story house ahead. Gray stone and wood. A metal roof. He reached up to hit a button above his windshield, and a garage door rose.
So, this was his house. He’d brought me home. But would he cut me into tiny pieces and feed me to the Rottweiler jumping against the fence, or was he planning to read me the riot act in private, because he intended to yell and didn’t want the world to hear?
I hoped for a third option. One where he pushed me face-down over the first piece of furniture we met and delivered his frustration in the sexiest way possible.
He pulled the SUV into the garage, hit the button to lower the door, and then turned to give me another glare. “Get the fuck inside.”
I was tempted to chide him about his tone. Not his words. I wanted to be the fuck inside…fucking.
Without a word, I slipped out of the truck and headed to the wooden stairs leading into the house. I stepped inside a mud room then through another door and into the kitchen.
Bulldog entered behind me and closed the door.
His hands grasped my shoulders and turned me toward the table.
My heart stuttered—was this the bending over part? No, he pushed downward, forcing me into a chair.
“Unwrap your arm.”
Disappointment turned the corners of my mouth downward. Slowly, because the shirt stuck to the bloody stripes, I peeled away the shirt while he headed toward the sink.
He ran water then pulled a washcloth from a drawer and wet it. Next, he strode back to the table, pulling out a chair to sit beside me. He laid the washcloth over my arm.
It was hot, and I winced.
“Got to soak the blood to loosen it,” he said.
His voice was softer but no less growly, and my pulse raced.
When he wiped away the smears of blood, he shook his head. “Should have let him go, Buttercup. These’ll leave scars.”
I raised my chin. “Would you have?”
He grunted and completed his task, then stood, opened a cabinet above the stove, and pulled down a first aid kit. After he’d rubbed antiseptic gel over my wounds, he wrapped clean gauze around my arm and secured it with surgical tape.
“Thanks.” I kept my eyes cast downward. “But I could have managed on my own.”
“I know.”
I lifted my head and found him studying me.
His mouth tightened. “You handled yourself well. I just didn’t like you anywhere near that shithead.”
“Oh.” And because I was feeling off-kilter, his change in demeanor sending my insides swirling, I did what I always do when I feel a little afraid. I brazened it out, giving him a slow, seductive smile and a wink.
Instead of putting him back in his bad mood, his reaction to my taunt was a narrowing of his green eyes. He glanced at my mouth then shot out a hand and wrapped his fingers around the back of my neck to pull me toward him.
When his mouth slammed over mine, I gasped, giving him entry.
Bulldog might have been a big guy, but there was nothing lumbering or bearlike about his reactions. They were lightning fast. His tongue invaded my mouth, pushing past my teeth to stroke my tongue.
I gave a kitten-like mew, very un-me, and melted against him, my hand landing on his broad, bare chest, and my fingers tangling in his hair. Then he gripped my waist and slid me right off my chair onto his lap. Shock blasted through me at how much I liked the quick way he took charge.
He bent me backward, an arm around my shoulders. His free hand slipped between my legs and pushed against the damp denim, cupping me then squeezing my sex. “You’re fucking wet, Buttercup,” he rasped when he raised his head to let me breathe. Then slowly, daring me with his steady stare, he removed his hand from my crotch and cupped my breast through my clothing. “This okay with you?”
I managed a nod, and before I drew another breath, he went to his feet, with me in his arms, and strode through the house, past a living room filled with deep leather seating, down a hallway, and into a bedroom. His bed was enormous, an Alaska or a Wyoming-size King. He crawled onto the mattress on his knees and stepped toward the center before he set me down. Then he began stripping away my holster, my belt…my tee and bra…my shoes and pants. When the only thing I wore was a pair of bikini panties, he halted, backed off the bed, and began stripping off his own clothing, flinging each piece to the side while he kept his hungry stare on me.
But I wasn’t any woman waiting on a man to decide what happened next. I lifted my bottom, scraped down my panties, and threw them at his face.
Magnificently nude, he leapt toward the bed, diving toward the middle.
I rolled away, and just had my feet on the floor, when his arms wrapped around my waist, and he pulled me back against his body. He sat on the edge of the mattress and bracketed my legs with his thick thighs, then smoothed his rough palms over my skin, starting at my breasts then moving down my belly to my pussy. I squirmed in his arms trying to turn, but he kept me faced away as he felt me up, sending tingles through me.
Again, he cupped my breasts, and I felt his tongue slide from the center of my back upward, following my spine. Goose bumps prickled on my skin. My breaths grew short. Fuck, oh fuck. I wanted him. “Bulldog,” I said, shivering hard inside his embrace.
“Don’t fight me, Buttercup. Don’t move. Let me do you the way I have to.”
He turned me until I faced him.
I stood with my arms at my sides as he raked my body with his gaze. His for the taking, because I wanted to be taken.
I couldn’t resist dropping my gaze to his cock, so thick and straight, jerking against his belly to the beat of his heart.
“Fuck, oh fuck,” I whispered and shivered hard again.
He reached to the side, slid open a drawer in the nightstand, and pulled out a condom. With his lips pulling back from his teeth, he cloaked himself, then scooted backward on the bed and patted the mattress beside him.
I crawled toward him then lay on my belly beside him, hiding my face against the coverlet, because I knew my expression would give away just how badly I wanted this. I rubbed on the mattress, because my skin burned and my nipples ached.
He kissed my shoulder and climbed over me, his weight pressing me deep into the mattress as he fisted his hand in my hair and held me down, then slipped his legs, one at a time between mine, waiting for me to open to him.
When he rooted his cock between my legs, my breath shuddered out. His lower body scooped against me, rubbing against my ass as he teased me with the tip of his cock sliding between my slick folds.
His teeth dragged on my earlobe, and he whispered, “I’m gonna fuck you up, babe. Fuck hard and deep. You ready, Buttercup?”
I made a sound—half-laugh, half-sob. Ready? Never. But I quivered underneath him and strained to lift my ass, needing him to take me now.
With one hand still lodged in my hair, he lifted his hips and slid his free arm beneath my waist to raise my hips.
I braced on my knees, my belly barely off the bed, because that’s all the room he gave me, and then he was rutting against me, pushing between my folds, quick in and out slides, penetrating only a couple of inches.
“Don’t tease,” I said, hissing when he tightened his fingers on my hair. My scalp stung, but the pain only made the tension winding inside my core tighten more. Already, my lips were clenching, releasing, trying to capture his cockhead as he wet it in the fluid drenching my sex.
“You want this,” he whispered, pushing a little deeper then withdrawing.
Way past worrying about my pride, I whimpered. “Yes. Yes, please.”
“One thing, babe. One thing before I give it to you. Promise me.”
My pulse pounded in my ears. “Anything, just please, Bulldog…”
He nuzzled into the hair beside my ear. “Don’t ever scare me like that again.”
