Free Hot Pursuit by Lorie O'Clare

Cortez’s daughter.
    “Looking for work.” His light blue eyes were clear and alert as he stared down at her.
    “What kind of work?” Zoey asked, not convinced yet that he wasn’t here because her father had brought him here. Or, worse yet, because he was after her father.
    “I can do anything, pretty much. But hunting, trapping,” he told her, his eyes lowering and taking in her body as he spoke. They were back on her face when he finished. “I’m at home doing those sorts of things. But like I said, any kind of work as long as it pays a fair wage.”
    “Good luck with your job hunting,” she said, smiling. Zoey didn’t want to tell him that finding a job in Zounds would be hard as hell to do, unless the job was with her father.
    “I was sitting on those porch steps thinking about wandering around, getting a feel of the town. It would be perfect if someone who lived here gave me a tour.”
    “It’s just about dark,” she pointed out. “You wouldn’t get a good view of the town.”
    Ben was by far the best-looking man she’d ever laid eyes on. There wasn’t a man in Zounds, single or otherwise, who compared to him. Zoey hastily pointed out to herself that he probably would have asked anyone who came along to give him advice on the town. If they talked to him as she had, he might have asked for a tour. He was a man, just like her father’s thugs, his accountants, his business partners, and gave her an appraising once-over like all the rest. None of the men on her dad’s payroll looked like this, though.
    “You’re right, of course,” Ben said.
    For a moment she thought he had responded to her thoughts, which was ridiculous.
    “How about a ride?” he asked.
    “A ride?” Zoey looked up at him, and a slow, lazy smile appeared on his lips. She wasn’t convinced yet that Ben wasn’t on her father’s payroll or trying to be. But wouldn’t it be scandalously wonderful to spend time with someone who had absolutely no ties, voluntary or otherwise, to her dad?
    “Stay right here,” Ben ordered, pointing at her before turning and jogging back toward the bed-and-breakfast.
    Every inch of her demanded she march across the street to the library and get in her car. She might have actually done that, but she was mesmerized staring after Ben as he jogged away from her. He didn’t look like any jogger she’d ever seen. His legs were thick with muscles that pressed against his blue jeans. And his ass, holy crap! “Buns of steel” was just too cliché—an overused expression. There wasn’t anything clichéd about his ass.
    For the most part asses had never been her favorite part of the male anatomy. Zoey would have to say a hard cock was her favorite part of a man’s body. However, if asked, Zoey would say the chest appealed to her the most. If a guy had a broad, muscular chest, it caught her eye every time.
    She continued staring, lost in the perfect formation of his body. Ben didn’t really jog, she decided. He ran slowly, like a dangerous beast, content with his surroundings already and satisfied that anything in his way would move so he could reach his destination. That level of raw, carnal confidence appealed to her as much as his perfect body did.
    “Shit!” she hissed.
    When he disappeared from sight, the trance he had her under broke. Zoey scowled at the sidewalk, trying to shake sense back into her head. No way would she be lured by a man she didn’t know. And in spite of physical perfection and an incredible show of self-confidence, she didn’t know anything about him. Her attention shot to the bed-and-breakfast when the sound of a motorcycle starting up grabbed her attention. She couldn’t go riding with Ben on a motorcycle. Why hadn’t she been thinking? When he said “a ride,” of course he had meant on a bike. He had been the man she had seen on the bike earlier.
    The thought of being on that large, rumbling motorcycle immediately had her trembling with need. Not just wet between