Total pages in book: 27
Estimated words: 25339 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 127(@200wpm)___ 101(@250wpm)___ 84(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 25339 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 127(@200wpm)___ 101(@250wpm)___ 84(@300wpm)
He’s all danger and dominance, six feet of muscle and leather-clad sin, with a voice that makes me weak in the knees.But dating Slate is impossible. Dad would kill me and his gang forbids it. But when my past comes back to haunt us, Slate is faced with a choice–either walk away, or tear down everything he’s built to protect me.
AUTHOR’S Taming the Bad Boy is the second book in the Heartless Bastards series. They are all standalone titles and can be read in any order you want. It’s short, filthy, and totally over-the-top. If you love obsessive bad boys who will do anything for the woman they love, then buckle up–this is one wild ride!
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
1
IVY
The familiar smell of motor oil and tire rubber fills my lungs as I wipe my hands on the greasy rag hanging from my pocket. To most people, the scent would be harsh and repellent, but I’ve been around bikes for all eighteen years I’ve been alive, so it doesn’t bother me. In fact, it feels like home. The growl of a four-stroke engine is my version of a lullaby. The clang of metal on metal like chit-chat around the dinner table. This is old hat to me. Routine. But as I’m finishing up tonight, something’s different.
Or should I say, someone.
Slate.
He’s standing by the open garage door, muscled arms crossed over his thick chest, surveying the mechanics with an intensity that sends a shiver up my spine. His white, oil-stained Henley is stretched to the max over his brawny shoulders, his inked arms on full display. If there was ever a man who was the definition of raw, untamed masculinity, it would be him. He looks like the kind of guy who could break you in half and then put you back together again just to say he did it.
My dad taught me not to stare.
But I just can’t help it.
My eyes keep drifting to him like he’s some kind of magnet. There’s nothing I can do. I’m breathing heavily, my jaw open ever so slightly, like my tongue wants a taste of him.
Slate’s been coming in for months now, along with other members of the Heartless Bastards, the biker gang he’s part of who exclusively use my dad’s shop for tune-ups, oil changes, custom jobs, whatever. I’ve noticed him plenty of times, but he’s never noticed me.
Until today.
His eyes pass over the rest of the guys, all working hard on their projects, and land on me. His gaze locks on to mine, and suddenly it’s like the garage no longer exists. It’s just Slate and me, isolated in our own little world like two people safe in the eye of a hurricane. His face is unreadable but smolders with a fierce severity that causes my breath to catch in my throat. I reach for my water bottle, but that’s when he starts toward me.
Oh my God…
He moves slowly and deliberately, his heavy boots thudding against the concrete floor. The throttle on my heart revs past the redline, causing my pulse to throb hard and heavy in my ears. I need to look away. I can’t just stand here like a deer in headlights.
But I can’t.
I’ve lost control.
He stops in front of me and leans against the hydraulic lift, his pose accentuating the veins and striations that run through his biceps and forearms. He’s got to be in his late twenties or early thirties, and while that might bother some girls, it totally turns me on.
He smells like gasoline and oil–like he’s been out riding with the Bastards. That might as well be a tailor-made cologne to my nose. But beneath that, there’s something savage that lights me up. The smell of him that causes something to awaken inside me.
My head is swimming. I don’t even know what I’m doing with my face, but I must look silly as he smiles at me.
“Didn’t your daddy teach you not to stare?” he asks. Yes. He did actually. “Or do I have something on my face?” His voice is deep, raspy and powerful, and thrills me in a wonderfully frightening way.
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out.
I can’t speak.
Oh, no. This is a disaster. Humiliating. He caught me gawking, and we both know it. How am I going to salvage this?
A knowing smirk tugs the corner of his mouth. “I thought I washed this morning, but maybe I got some oil on me–”
“I–I wasn’t s–staring,” I manage to blurt out, stuttering through the entire sentence. Heat prickles through my cheeks. I’m blushing.
Slate chuckles. “Sure you weren’t, baby.”
Baby? Did he just call me baby?
And the way he said it too, like he’s familiar with me. Like I belong to him. It makes my knees go weak. I brace myself on the Harley I’ve been working on, playing it cool, trying not to act like I’m on the verge of fainting.
“You know who I am?” he asks as though the answer is self-evident.
I nod, keeping my chin up. “You’re Slate. You’re a Heartless Bastard.”
For some reason, he chuckles, as if my answer amuses him. “That’s right. And you are…?”
I can tell by his face that he already knows my name, but he wants to hear me say it. Normally, I wouldn’t play into this little game with anybody, but for some reason, I give him what he wants.
“Ivy.”
His expression shifts, like he’s just taken a sip of the world’s finest whiskey. “Ivy,” he repeats, rolling my name across his tongue as if he’s tasting it for the first time. “I’ve never seen a female mechanic before. Shouldn’t you be answering phones? Working the computers?”