His Hostage

Prologue: Caroline

Love doesn’t just happen. But when it does, it feels like an explosion. You don’t just give up on love out of nowhere.

I was young and stupid. He made me believe I was in love. I thought I was in it for the long haul. Kids, a new house, grandkids. He wanted all that. With me.

I was naive and believed all his lies.

He showered me with gifts. Jewelry, spa treatments, and new heels were all things I welcomed openly, but I never asked for the princess treatment. It was like he was trying to buy me off. Within a year, I became his property.

Now, standing here in this attorney’s office, I want to get on with my life. I keep asking myself, “Why do you keep falling for these assholes?”

The answer is pretty simple. I must like the challenge. I like men who aren’t easy to crack. I don’t know why, but I keep thinking these guys will change. First, it was my boyfriend, then it was my husband, and now…

Well, now I’ll just have to deal with living alone. I’m thirty-five years old. What man is going to want to marry a woman my age?

My ex-husband told me, “You’re a fruit that’s far too ripe to eat.”

I have to dry my tears and move forward because I’m sure as hell not going down the same route I went down before.

Hell no. This time, I’m staying powerful and independent. I’m my own woman, not anybody else’s.

Of course, I say all this crap in my head before I see my new neighbor. There he is, a tatted up, muscular beast, who almost never wears a shirt. And of course, he’s always just a few steps away…

He likes to sit on his porch, drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes. I try to stay away. I stopped running in the morning.

But he always waves at me with that brooding look in his eyes. When I turn around, I feel him staring at my ass. And he forever has that hungry look on his face.

Who is he and why did he have to move to this small town in the Southwest?

I can’t take it. Last week, my divorce was finalized and now I’m stuck next to this asshole. What am I going to do?

1

Rowan

One week earlier…

I came to this rural town to get away. Out here, I’m alone. No one to bother me, and, most importantly, there are no cops. I can sit and work in peace.

Out here, I’m invisible. No one turns their head to look at me.

There’s only one problem…

I see her every morning. She goes on her little run during the early hours of the day, right when the sun peaks its head over the hills in the distance. Sure, she’s a little older than my usual type, but when I see her, my cock grows and grows.

She’s got her yoga pants on. You know, the ones that hug tight around the waist. The kind of pants that make an ass bubble.

And yeah, she’s got the workout top to match. It hugs around her tits a little too perfect, like she sat in front of a mirror before she left the house. When her cleavage starts to bounce, I’m done for. I breathe in the cold air and thank God I’m alive.

She hates my guts. I can sense it. Most women do. But that’s only because she knows she wants to spend the night with me.

I can sense it.

After her run, she slows near her walkway. A smooth shine glistens her stunning face. Sweaty or not, she looks good as hell.

“Morning,” I call out to her.

Looking embarrassed, she sways a towel across her forehead. I give her my signature smile, and she just goes on ignoring me. Typical.

“Morning!” I call out again. She closes the door.

Well, so much for that.

I miss the roads of southern Arizona. New Mexico doesn’t feel the same. Back when things were easier, I had the world under my fingers. I ran my gang well, and no man went against my orders.

Women used to crawl to me. If I said, “beg,” they’d beg for me. Now, women shut the door on my face.

Women like her. The next-door jogger.

Figures. I was never someone who deserved anything special. I learned at a very young age that having a pistol, a bag of drugs, and a body like mine gets you pretty damn far in the world.

But everybody pays a price. And that price for me, meant me leaving my home in Arizona.

My friends, my family, and my gang have cut me off. Things are a little hot back home. Police are watching the streets, so I need to sit tight.

This is just a temporary situation. I just need to give the crew a little space before going back into the thick of the business.

Look, I know what people think of me. I know how easy it is to judge the wicked. But there’s always more to the story.

When you start digging, things become a little more obvious. My mom wasn’t so great. Always chain smoking and telling me to get off my ass to get her another bottle of Jim Beam, she wasn’t winning any awards for good parenting.

It’s not like my father was any better. He came and went as he pleased, and so did those bottles of booze. I always knew things were about to go sour when I’d walk into the kitchen to find him strewn across the floor with a Wiley smile on his face. You know, like he was straight out of a cartoon or something.

My parents were my idols. Sadly, they were the people I wanted to be the most. I held them up on a pedestal, and all they did was let me down.