Fire Me Up is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A Loveswept eBook Original
Copyright © 2015 by Rachael Johns
Excerpt from Hold Me Down by Jackie Ashenden copyright © 2015 by Jackie Ashenden
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Loveswept, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
LOVESWEPT is a registered trademark and the LOVESWEPT colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.
This book contains an excerpt from the forthcoming book Hold Me Down by Jackie Ashenden. This excerpt has been set for this edition only and may not reflect the final content of the forthcoming edition.
eBook ISBN 9781101884669
Cover design: © Okay Creations
Cover photograph: © Rob Lang
readloveswept.com
v4.1
ep
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Dedication
About the Author
Excerpt from Hold Me Down
The Editor’s Corner
Chapter 1
“Holy fuck!” Travis Sinclair stepped into the entrance alley of the building that had once been the den for a lot of shit and a lot of sin, dropped his pack on the cobbled floor, raised his sunglasses and wondered if he’d been transported into some kind of alternate reality. And not a good one at that. From what he could see, the Deacons’ former clubhouse had become a bohemian sanctuary, every available surface displaying some kind of hippie painting or sculpture. He should be happy it no longer resembled a fucked-up bikers’ lair—it’d be easier to sell without that kind of reputation—but, problem was, it now reminded him far too much of his mother.
The hair on the back of his neck lifted at that thought, and he screwed up his nose as the pungent smell of Eastern-scented incense wafted toward him. He took a tentative step farther inside only to be assaulted by the sounds of someone torturing an old piano in the courtyard ahead. He glared disdainfully at the back of the blond-haired asshole. Even far off, and without seeing his face, the shit looked high on weed. No real musician would be thumping the keys with such intensity while swaying so much he was almost dancing on the stool. He guessed the noise from The Priory—the bar Sophie, Priest’s daughter, now ran next door—was the reason he hadn’t heard any of this crap before.
He’d been in town for a week—some of it spent with Ajax, Leon and Micah at the bar—long enough to pay his respects to the man who’d been a pseudo–father figure half his life, a man who’d eventually abandoned him exactly like his mom had. The last thing he’d expected, or wanted, was to inherit three properties on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, a city he’d turned his back on ten years ago. A city tourists loved because of its dirty, gothic opulence, its ghosts and zombie history, but which he now hated for those, and other, reasons.
Turning away from the guy he guessed to be their tenant, Travis took his time to look more closely at some of the so-called art that hung on the walls of the alley and courtyard. Mostly bright-colored paintings, abstract he guessed—things like humans with rabbit’s heads and bright red balloons—and metal sculptures made from crap like old forks. Why anyone would want either stuck on their wall he had no fucking clue. But then again, judging by the lack of any actual customers in the gallery and the paltry amount Billie, the tenant, had been paying Priest to lease the joint, maybe he wasn’t the only one with some taste around here.
Having walked the length of the short lead-in alley, he came to the entrance of the courtyard and surveyed the scene before him. Where once a pool table—more often than not used as a makeshift mattress for sexual debauchery—had been front and center, now there was a fountain. An honest-to-God motherfucking fountain, with tiers and the frigging fleur-de-lis at the top. Talk about a turnaround. It was hard to reconcile that this was the same place where the Deacons had once held church. Despite the fact that it looked nothing like it had in the club’s heyday, memories Travis had spent the last ten years trying to forget, to put behind him, came at him like gunshots.
Not all of them were bad, but that didn’t necessarily make them good, either. The Deacons had embraced him and welcomed him into their elite club, but all that had meant nothing in the end. If he’d learned one lesson early in life, it was that the only person you could count on was yourself. He was a lone player now, and that’s the way he intended to stay.
“G’day, can I help you?”
At the sound of the soft, chirpy, feminine voice, Travis blinked and shook his head, trying to shake the memories and bring himself back to the now. He’d been so lost in the past he hadn’t even noticed the piano playing had stopped. He turned his head to focus on the figure standing beside him and almost swallowed his tongue. Heat flooded his body as he looked his fill at the sexy little specimen in front of him.
Turned out the piano player he’d written off as an asshole looked nothing like one after all. And he was a she. A very curvaceous she, with a short, mussed-up blond bob that made him want to slide his fingers up into her hair and yank her mouth to his. And Australian, if her accent was anything to go by. Although she looked curiously at him, her glossy-lipped smile was brighter and more real than any he could ever recall. It stretched across her whole face, lighting up her deep blue eyes. Travis took a moment to lower his gaze, raking it over her body—magic tits that made the palms of his hands itch without even touching them, a slim waist and hips to die for. Even though she wore a flowery skirt so long it brushed the floor, he couldn’t help but imagine her legs wrapped around him. His dick tightened and he thought about how hot it would be to expel some of his anger and frustration inside her.
She cleared her throat and repeated herself. The smile was still as wide as ever, but the friendliness in her tone had gone down a notch. “Can I help you?” she asked again, pointing to a painting on the wall he hadn’t realized he’d been staring at. One of those weird rabbit/balloon ones. “Do you like that? The artist is a local and so incredibly talented. There’s a story behind each of his canvases.”
Travis raised an eyebrow. “How much?” he asked, out of curiosity. It’d be a cold day in hell before he’d spend even a couple of bucks on a piece of garbage like that. He’d worked his ass off to get where he was today and wasn’t about to throw his hard-earned cash away on crap. The sexy piece of skirt standing in front of him was much more in line with his taste.