TheFugitivesSexyBrother

Annabeth
Leong

Emily Boysen is sick of low-level
bounty hunting jobs that don’t pay her rent, and sick to death of her
ex-boyfriend taking credit for her work. Ready to claim her due, she takes on
the quarry of a lifetime, the notorious Fernando Bonavita. But instead of the
fugitive, she captures his sexy younger brother, Javier.

Javier Bonavita never wanted to
know the truth about his older brother’s activities, instead protecting him out
of loyalty. When he uses his hacking skills to pose as Fernando, he never
expects to uncover crimes he can’t stomach. Beautiful Emily has no idea how
glad he is to be in her custody—as long as he’s her prisoner, he doesn’t have
to face his brother.

Passion flares between Emily and
Javier, and soon
he’s
putting the handcuffs on
her
. Suspicion
grows along with their feelings, though. A sinister plot centers around
Fernando, and untangling it will test their loyalties to the limit.

A
Romantica®
suspense erotic romance
from Ellora’s Cave

Emily Boysen shoved her hands into her pockets to keep them
from trembling as she walked the narrow hallway to the door of her quarry’s
apartment. Irritated by her nerves, she focused on the details around her.
If
you’re scared, work harder,
she told herself fiercely.
Get better at
what you do
. Decades-old sea-foam paint cracked off the dilapidated walls.
Dust gathered in the corners and heaped on the baseboards. Cobwebs fluttered
from naked light bulbs spaced too far apart along the dingy ceiling.

Recent scuff marks in the dirt caked into the fugitive’s
welcome mat confirmed someone’s recent presence. Emily halted, her body so
tense that her throat threatened to close off completely. Her fingers brushed
the mace in her pocket and clenched for a second. She shook her head in
exasperation.

Some bounty hunters—like her ex-boyfriend, Matthew—would
kick the door in right now, spray the first person they encountered and
generally create havoc, trusting that once they cuffed their quarry no one
would dare to challenge the legality of it all. Emily had promised herself
she’d never work like that, no matter how much her adrenaline might want her
to.

This fugitive lived in a bad building in a bad neighborhood.
The woman in the next apartment had turned Judas for the merest bribe,
promising to contact Emily the next time the fugitive came around. A person
who’d sell a man out for a twenty-dollar bill couldn’t be trusted to get her
facts straight. That had to be Emily’s job.

She slipped her smartphone from her jacket’s breast pocket,
pulling up her most recent text message.
He’s here,
the quarry’s
neighbor had written.
I’ll make sure he stays awhile.
Emily wondered how
the other woman could be so sure.

Again, the dirty floor held a clue. A delicate high-heeled
shoe had marked the dust layer at a few of its thickest points. Emily edged
closer to the front door and pressed her ear against it.

Moaning, male and female. Fierce and needy.

Emily’s eyes widened as she suddenly understood the
bitterness she’d heard in the neighbor’s voice when she’d discussed the
fugitive. She should have recognized that particular combination of shame and
stale desire—Emily’s ex had made her feel it far too many times. Sympathetic
arousal flushed through Emily’s body as she listened to the fugitive and his
neighbor gasp raggedly. Something clattered to the floor and the neighbor’s
voice crested into a scream. Emily could not help imagining a counter swept
clear, a bare ass lifted to perch on cold stainless steel, fingers clutching
warm skin and whitening it with the desperation of their grasp, the head of a
cock thrusting and searching.

She shuddered and stepped back from the door, needing to
catch her breath for a different reason now. It had been six months since her
last night with Matthew, and her resolution to stay away from him seemed to
grow more difficult every day.
He would only make you feel bad about
yourself. Stay focused on the job. You need the money.
Emily didn’t know
how that voice in her head stayed so reasonable, but she sighed and listened to
it, as she always did.

Based on the tracks and what she could guess about the
neighbor, Emily felt comfortable assuming she had the right guy. Still, she
never liked to break down a door when a person might just open it. Emily rang
the bell insistently, an improvised character coming to her mind.

“Can you keep it down?” She imagined an impoverished college
student with a big test the next day. “I’m trying to study!”

From inside, the fugitive shouted back a series of colorful
curses, informing Emily exactly where she could put her studying. Emily snorted
and switched to banging on the door with the flat of her palm. “Please, guys!
Really!”

“Go to the library!”

He must have increased the force of his thrusts, because the
neighbor’s moans became sharper and louder, carrying through the door with a
clarity that pierced straight through Emily’s core. She shook her head to shake
off the distracting image of him holding the neighbor in place with powerful,
sculpted arms, his abs contracting as he drove into her. She played her trump
card. “I’m going to have to call the cops.”

The neighbor shrieked in a different way this time, then
gave an indignant, “Ow!” Emily thought the fugitive might have dropped her.
Definitely another sign she’d found the right guy. “Listen, bitch,” he shouted,
and flung the door open without having bothered to throw on a robe. The sight of
him was pretty much a let-down—no cut abs and sculpted arms here, just a bad
attitude, an ugly facial expression, a beer gut and a lot of prison tattoos. If
possible, he looked worse than he had in the mug shots the bail bondsman, Guy
Nolf, had shown her.

This was probably a good thing, Emily figured. If he’d
looked hot naked, she might not have been able to get together the presence of
mind to sweep his ankles out from under him. She grabbed one of his arms on the
way down so she could direct him to a safe but submissive position on the grimy
hallway floor. The takedown pulled her back into focus, and before she thought
about it consciously, she drove one knee into the fugitive’s exposed spine,
wrenched his arms behind his back and restrained him with the pair of cuffs
slung at her waist. He gasped and writhed a bit, but Emily had him in the sort
of position where strength wouldn’t really help him escape—he’d need a lot more
self-defense knowledge than he seemed to have.

“Guy’s disappointed that you screwed him over,” Emily
murmured. “He’s a nice person, despite his looks. He wouldn’t have taken your
bond unless you convinced him you really wanted to put your life back
together.”

The fugitive spat dust out of his mouth and spluttered. The
neighbor peeked her head around the corner. She’d wrapped her thin body in a
towel, but the flush of sex still reddened her cheeks, and big, gold hoop
earrings and the mussed remains of a painstaking hairdo attested to the effort
she’d made. She gazed down at the restrained man with a mix of regret and
triumph, and Emily’s heart ached a little for her.

“Is he going to be okay?” the neighbor asked.

Emily raised an eyebrow. The woman hadn’t seemed so
concerned the first time they’d talked, but she supposed sex made people feel a
little softer toward each other—that had always been a problem with Emily’s
resolutions to get away from Matthew too. “He’ll get his trial,” she answered.

“Did you hurt him?”

Emily suppressed a grin. The fugitive had more than a foot
and a hundred pounds over Emily’s petite frame. She had to be doing something
right if the neighbor could actually worry for
his
safety. “I’m not a
monster. I’m just going to take him back to the bail bondsman. Nothing extra.”

The neighbor bit her lip and nodded. “I’ll visit,” she
called to the restrained fugitive.

Emily rolled her eyes but made sure that the man couldn’t
see her slip the neighbor folded bills. She couldn’t really afford the extra
thirty dollars she passed over, but couldn’t stop the generous impulse either.

“Listen, will you grab him something to wear? I don’t want
to take him out to my car naked.”

By the time Emily had dressed the fugitive in a pair of
loose jeans, the man had recovered enough to spew invective at her. She smiled
at his clumsy, impersonal insults. Her parents and brother could have taught a
master class on the art of verbal wounding, and the quarry’s amateur attempts
served only to take the edge off Emily’s arousal. She welcomed his anger.

Emily frog-marched him out of the building, leaving the
neighbor staring after them. He wasn’t a big prize—her bounty on the petty
criminal would leave her with a couple of hundred dollars above what she’d paid
the neighbor. With careful eating over the next week, she’d just be able to
make rent. Still, it was better than losing the apartment or having to add to
the balance on her already strained credit card. And certainly better than
admitting she couldn’t cut it at this job. That would have been all too
satisfying to her family, or even to Matthew, who’d wanted her to work as his
assistant. She scowled at the memory and shoved the fugitive down the stairs a
little faster than was strictly necessary.

It was a good day, Emily insisted to herself. She only
wished she didn’t have to drive to Guy’s Bail Bonds with this man smelling like
all the sex she’d been missing.

* * * * *

A rattle marred the powerful purr of the car’s engine
slowing and stopping. Matthew Lodi swallowed hard, trying to control his anger
and anxiety, but his fists clenched on the steering wheel, whitening his
knuckles. Lotus Elise 2008, California Edition. Those words alone could make
him happy on the worst of days. Too bad the car had turned on him in the last
eight months.

He ran a finger over her sleek dash. A crack tugged at his
skin and he sucked air in through his teeth. First the rattle, now this. One
part after another had developed problems since he’d crashed her late last
year. But no matter what went wrong, he couldn’t let her go. He’d never been
this wound up even over a flesh-and-blood woman. He hemorrhaged money to keep
her running and he didn’t like to think about the repo man he’d seen poking
around his yard the other night.

He hoped Guy’s little secretary, Neva, had her story
straight. He could use a big payday.

A stream of curse words pouring through the window jerked
his attention away from the flaw in the dash. Matthew popped up out of the car.
A month before someone had keyed the Lotus while it was parked outside Guy’s
Bail Bonds. Since then, every hostile word or movement near his employer’s
building seemed directed at Matthew’s car.

The guy with the foul mouth appeared around the corner of
the building, but Matthew forgot him the moment he focused on the woman pushing
him forward. Emily. Protective emotions surged in Matthew’s chest at the sight
of his ex-girlfriend’s slight body and big, innocent blue eyes. He locked the
car and stepped forward.

“Need some help bringing this joker in?”

Emily’s pretty, freckled face wasn’t made for the sour
expression she gave him in response. “I can’t afford to ‘share’ any more
commission with you, Matthew. Go get your own.”

Thirty seconds and she’d already brought up this old fight?
He wished Emily would stop denying the strength of her feelings for him.
“Emily,” Matthew protested. “I’m not trying to take anything that belongs to
you. But we both know it’s no good for you to try to do all this alone. You
should let me help you with the physical part so you can concentrate on the
stuff you can do well.”

The fugitive in her grasp gave a sudden grunt. “Sorry,”
Emily told him. “That one really wasn’t for you, even if you did spend the
drive over calling me every name in the book.” Matthew rolled his eyes. Emily
insisted on treating her quarry like people responding to a dinner invitation.
She lacked the stomach to handle them the way they deserved. Matthew reached
for the man, mentally planning a hold that would inflict the right amount of
pain without leaving bruises that would concern prison officials.

Emily blocked his approach, interposing her body between
Matthew and the fugitive. He didn’t think she should leave her back open like
that. His forehead wrinkled in concern. “Get your hands off my quarry,” she
growled. Thin cheeks showed Matthew that she hadn’t been eating well. Her
desperation made him worry about her even more.

“Emily.” He couldn’t resist touching the side of her neck. A
few freckles dotted the skin there, but he knew they were just a tease compared
to the dots splashed over her shoulders and breasts.

Her shove shocked him, knocking him back onto the sidewalk.
Matthew blinked. She shouldn’t have done that when his guard was down. He
scrambled to his feet and followed her in.

Emily had wasted no time handing the fugitive over. She
stood defiantly, one hand on her hip, as Guy Nolf wrinkled his thickly scarred
forehead and looked over the quarry’s ID and bond paperwork. Matthew let out a
frustrated breath. It was just like Emily to insist that Guy pay attention to
her small-time claim without taking a moment to think about the important
business that had drawn
him
to Guy’s place.

He cleared his throat and barged forward, too irritated with
his ex to do more than give a passing glance to Neva. He owed the woman a thank
you for tipping him off to the big new job Guy had up, but she’d be glad enough
if he asked her out in a few days. No need to give Emily even more reasons to
complain. “Guy,” Matthew called, ignoring Emily’s glare. “What’s this about a
big criminal out on half a million bail? Missed his court date this morning?”
Matthew checked the calculation in his head for the tenth time since Neva had
called—half a million dollars in bail meant fifty grand in commission for him.
Enough to repair the Lotus for good and even get that damn repo man off his
back.

Guy’s hard brown eyes regarded Matthew with even less warmth
than usual. “I didn’t call you for that one, Lodi.”

“You just didn’t get around to it yet,” Matthew said as
confidently as he could. Guy had been stingy with jobs lately—it was part of
why the Lotus had become so hard to maintain. Guy needed a reminder of who was
the best bounty hunter on his roster. Matthew glanced over his shoulder at Neva
and winked. “I was looking at the court rosters this morning and found out
about Fernando Bonavita skipping town. I started some preliminary
investigation. I’ll have him back here in forty-eight hours, tops.”

Neva avoided Matthew’s eyes. Appreciating her discretion, he
turned back to Guy and raised his eyebrows expectantly.

Guy sighed, his barrel chest swelling to nearly twice its
normal size. He nodded to Emily. “Take your guy back to the holding cell, will
you? All that cussing’s giving me a headache.” She nodded and disappeared.
Matthew stepped closer to the counter, grateful for the chance to speak to his
employer man to man.