“Just point me in the direction, beautiful.”
The rider looked to be about ten years her senior, but not hard on the eyes, attractive in that bad-boy way that made her heart pound and her stomach flutter. Full-sleeve tats covered his arms, and eyes the color of ink stared at her in pure lust. It didn’t take a genius to know what he wanted. And if it got her out of this state, away from the Alpha pack, she’d let him have it. She wasn’t exactly a virgin anymore, anyway.
Screw pack law. Screw living in this godforsaken place in the middle of nowhere. Xio gathered her long hair, twisted it into a knot at the nape of her neck, and grabbed the motorcycle helmet the stranger offered, placing it on her head.
She was tired of being told whom she could date, where she could go, what she could do, and being watched by the other wolves as though she needed a babysitter. She was nineteen, a free spirit, and didn’t need them up her ass and in her business anymore. She’d live independently from here on out. Yes, she’d lost her parents as a child, but so had her brother, and they’d let him go off and live his life.
Just because the pack had taken it upon themselves to raise Xander and her, bouncing them from house to house, whatever place was convenient, didn’t mean they owned her. Even so, the Hills had never been home. Now with Xan gone, they felt like a prison.
“Where to, sweetheart?”
“Anywhere but here.” She’d leave wearing nothing but her cutoff shorts, black combat boots, and the thin T-shirt she’d stormed out of the lodge wearing, and that would be more than enough. The stranger didn’t look like the kind that would be opposed to a little shoplifting if she needed to stock up on supplies. If what he’d ridden up on reflected what he had in the bank, she could do worse. She couldn’t risk tapping into her bank accounts and triggering an enforcer pursuit. Her money didn’t matter anyway. It looked like she might’ve just found herself a bad-ass sugar daddy.
She normally wouldn’t go anywhere with a stranger. But Magnum had caught her smoking a joint behind the lodge, in a rather intimate post-coital moment with an enforcer’s son. And after the Alpha had told her to stay away from him. Something about him not being good enough for her.
The term off-limits had worked like bait, and she hadn’t been able to leave him alone. To be honest, Magnum had been right. The enforcer’s son wasn’t good enough for her, and her wolf had found the sex ho-hum. What a way to lose her cherry, and that should have been regret enough, but Magnum had made living with her mistake worse.
Since her mother had been human, not wolf, and the hybrid genetics tossed the possibility of an unexpected pregnancy into the equation, he’d ordered her to piss on one of those pregnancy tests every week for the last month. Fucker.
To punish her further, he’d clamped down on her freedom, and made it his mission to find her a mate—someone worthy of her family’s genetics.
Fat chance that would happen now. He’d have to find her first. She smiled at the man on the bike, who cocked a brow. Magnum was going to explode when he discovered she’d escaped and the thought turned her smile into a grin. She swung her leg over the seat and settled behind him, closing her eyes. Inhaling deeply. The stranger—her new best friend—smelled like trouble. Whatever. Couldn’t be worse than what she planned to leave behind. Adios, Los Lobos.
“What’s your name, handsome?”
“Diego Sanchez. What’s yours?”
“Lena Ming. You ever been to prison?” No sense in giving him her real name. For all she knew, he lied about his as well.
“I pity the man who ever tries to put me there.”
A shiver ran through her. She wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed her breasts to his back. It didn’t take wolf senses to tell this man was dangerous, and that suited her just fine. Actually, it excited her a little. “I think we are going to get along great,” she leaned in and whispered in his ear before the bike pulled back onto the highway. “Take me away, cowboy.”
From that moment on, she never looked back.
Chapter Two
“Okay, let’s review the charges you’re facing before you tell me to go fuck myself again.”
Xio rolled her eyes. “Whatever gets you off.”
Agent Marcus Cazador hadn’t sat at the table since he’d come in, but continued to pace in front of her. He stopped, placed both palms on the surface, and leaned in until he was almost nose-to-nose with her. The muscle in his jaw twitched. Even so, his next words came out so softly, she had to strain to hear him.