Page 13 of Beauty and the Bounty Hunter

“They’re not the same thing.”

“I disagree.” An inscrutable expression flashed across his handsome, angular face, flickering in the firelight. “Tattoos are scars disguised by pretty pictures. Why? Do you have any tattoos?”

“Yes.” Pete always loathed them. Every time I’d ever brought up getting one, he’d given me a lecture on how women should keep their skin pure, whatever the fuck that meant. I rolled up the sleeve of my flannel pajama shirt. “I got it the day my divorce was finalized. Ironically, two days before Pete staged the hit and run, sending me to the local lock up. I fit right in with all the other women.” It was still fresh, but I had been able to remove the bandage the day before. I showed it to Harbor. With tentative fingers, he traced the black and white drawing on my arm.

“It’s beautiful,” he said.

His touch on my skin burned like the needle had. “I drew it myself, and brought it to the artist.” It was a bird in various stages of learning to fly, the images layered on top of each other in an offset manner. Small but precise. “Every time I look at it, I think that bird is going to fly off my arm.”

“You’re a wonderful artist.” He withdrew his hands, leaving me cold, so I shifted closer to him.

“Once, I painted this bird on the base of a statue I designed, a flamboyan tree. It’s one of the national symbols of Puerto Rico. My parents are from the island, but they both moved here with my grandparents in their early teens. There’s an annual Puerto Rican Festival in Milwaukee, and the cultural center asked if I’d contribute some artwork.” I traced my tattoo. “If I go to jail, I won’t be able to show my work at the festival. Or anywhere. Though I guess they have arts and crafts time in prison. I always loved craft dough.”

With how intently he looked at me, his gaze held me closer than his arms. Though I wanted his arms. I wanted his everything. “You won’t go to jail, Katrina,” he said. “You did nothing wrong. Even the bail jumping…I can help you. We’ll figure it out.”

“You can?” Every nerve ending in my body drew me to this man. I could see the war within him, and it was the hottest thing I’d ever seen.

To his credit, he kept his gaze on my face and not on my body. “Yes. I promise I’ll do everything in my power to help you. I’ll help exonerate you or I’ll help you hide. You deserve to show the beauty you create to the world.”

I wrapped my arms around his neck, and though he initially stiffened, he relaxed into my embrace. “That was the right thing to say.”

CHAPTER 11

Harbor

“I’m older than you,” I said, as Katrina’s hands fluttered up my arms, past my shirt sleeves, her touch lighter than a butterfly’s. Like she wanted to paint me.

Her lovely mouth curved up on one side. “Not that much older. How old are you?”

“Thirty-one.” My voice stuttered as she used those gorgeous lips of hers to kiss the inside of my wrist, the backs of my knuckles where I couldn’t hide my past. “I’m not a good man, Katrina.” Even saying it aloud hollowed me out.

“I beg to differ.” She lifted my hands, lacerations and bruises and all, for her inspection. First, she traced each one with her light, artist’s touch, then followed with gentle kisses that made my cock harder than it had ever been. “Where did you get these?”

I didn’t want to tell her. How could I? But if this was more than just fantasy, more than the snowed in cabin dream, she had to know. I wouldn’t touch her without her knowing what my hands had done. What I had done. “I work as a bouncer, so I break up a lot of fights.” The story dribbled from me, but each word loosened a knot in my chest I hadn’t realized was there. “But then I get in a lot of fights, too. Or I used to. My uncle owns a boxing gym in Maryland, and I spent a lot of my teenage years there. Then when I joined the Army, that was what they liked me for. I was… good with my hands.” Memories surfaced of my time on active duty, the orders I followed, ones I never spoke of afterward. Not even in counseling at the Veterans’ Administration.

This was it. This was the moment she would turn away from me. Beauty like her didn’t need the taint of my past.

Instead, Katrina looked from my hands to my face. For a long while, she merely stared into my eyes, using her gaze like a brush as it swept across my features.

“Just because you’re good at something, that doesn’t mean it has to define you, especially if it isn’t who you want to be.” She paused for a moment, as if considering her words, but that statement settled over me like a warm, weighted blanket.

“You’re a good man, Harbor,” she repeated. “I can tell. There’s goodness in you. Everyone has a past, things we aren’t proud of. But it’s the choices we make now that define us. We don’t have to choose the old paths, the old ways. We can move forward.” She reached up and kissed the corner of my mouth. “What do you want for your future, Harbor?”

“You.” It came out in more of a growl than I had intended, but her mouth curled into a smile. “I want you, Katrina.”

With aching slowness, she pulled her shirt over her head, revealing lush, golden brown skin, a plain white bra holding the two most gorgeous breasts I’d ever seen. With her shirt off, she tossed her hair, scenting the air with lavender and sunshine. Her eyes darkened. “Then have me.”

It wasn’t in my power to hold back. Not with her passion matching mine, stride for stride. When I was timid with my hands, she placed them where she wanted them. Maybe this was what I had needed all along. Katrina to cleanse me of my sins. Maybe if she never saw what my hands could do, this could be real.

Because it felt real. Pulling off her bra, revealing her plump, glorious breasts. My mouth taking her nipple in my mouth, rolling it between my lips, her fingers sliding along my scalp and clenching as she moaned. “Yes,” she whispered, the word radiating to my cock. “More. Like that.” She took one of my hands and covered her other breast, so I kneaded that one while I teased her nipple with my tongue. Her skin tasted like cream and cinnamon. I could have spent all day there, kissing her chest, my cock throbbing, listening to her moan and pant.

“More,” she urged. She slid one of her hands from my scalp and ran it down my back, digging her nails into my shoulder. “I want to feel all of you.”

Clothes came off in seconds, zippers and buttons unfastening. I don’t know who pulled who to the bed but Katrina was on the mattress, her legs wrapping around me. “Tell me you have a condom,” she said, her eyes closed, her hair mussed, her lips plump and kissed. She reached between us to palm my cock, and it took every ounce of willpower not to come right then.

I exhaled deeply and stepped away from her hands. Katrina pouted, but her mouth broadened into a wickedly sexy smile when I dropped to my knees. “Let me do this first,” I asked, kissing the line of her inner thighs.

“Yes.” She spread her legs wider, inviting me in.

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