Free Unfinished Hero 03 Raid by Kristen Ashley Page A

ordered, his voice now low and rumbling , but also strangely rough and commanding.
    “I’ll talk to you tomorrow when you call. Now I really need to get some medication
     and lie down.”
    He lifted a hand and curled it around the side of my neck, dipping his face close
     to mine.
    “Now isn’t the time to start playing games, Hanna,” he warned quietly.
    Was he serious?
    He was saying that to me?
    I looked him straight in the eye and declared, “No games, Raiden. It’s just a headache.”
     More like heartache. “With me, you get what you see, that’s it. No mystery. No nothing.
     Just me.”
    “You aren’t you,” he told me.
    “You don’t know me,” I returned.
    Raiden went silent , but he didn’t move away.
    Then he murmured, “Fair enough.”
    Thank God.
    He slid his hand to the back of my neck, pulling me close as his head lifted up and
     he spoke, “You kiss like that when you got a headache, honey,” he touched his lips
     to my forehead and they moved there as he finished, “lookin’ forward to havin’ your
     mouth when you don’t.”
    Liar.
    Liar.
    Liar.
    I decided not to respond.
    I also decided not to allow myself to think about how wonderful it felt to have Raiden
     Miller kiss my forehead.
    His hand slid to my jaw and his chin tipped so he could catch my eyes.
    “‘Night, Hanna,” he said softly.
    “Good-bye, Raiden,” I replied.
    His eyes flashed at my words , but his face moved in. He touched his lips to mine, moved back, took the afghan from
     me and sauntered out the door.
    Keeping up appearances, I stood in it , and when he swung in his Jeep I waved.
    Raiden did not wave back.
    Then I closed the door and locked it. I switched the outside lights off and turned
     off the lights that I’d left on in the foyer. That done, I dashed up the stairs as
     best I could because I was also tugging at the buckles and straps of my sandals to
     get them off while I went.
    I hit the bedroom, tossed my shoes on the bed and turned on the lamp on my nightstand.
    Only then did I hear the Jeep pull away.
    He waited until I’d made it upstairs and he knew I was settling, getting ready for
     bed before he drove away.
    That was sweet.
    God, I wished he was real.
    I dashed back down the stairs and grabbed the phone in the hall . I ran through the dining room into the kitchen, snapped on the light and found the
     phonebook.
    I flipped through it and found the number for the Sherriff’s Police.
    Then I called it.
     
     
    Chapter Seven
    Reward
    Raid
     
    Raid walked down the sidewalk to the shiny, black SUV parked on the side of the road
     in town. He pulled open the door and angled in.
    Blue and red lights flashed into the cab as they did the same outside, illuminating
     the street.
    “You hear the police band?” Tucker Creed asked.
    Raid kept his eyes to the three squad cars and one K-9 SUV all angled in around Bodhi’s
     bike shop. Then he shifted his gaze down the street where, at a distance of a little
     over a block, two more squads and another K-9 unit were angled outside the gift shop.
    “Raid, you hear me?” Creed asked , and Raid cut his eyes to his partner.
    “I heard it,” he growled.
    “She called it in,” Creed told him something he already knew.
    “I said I heard it,” Raid repeated.
    “You know how she knew to call it in? You said she was clueless,” Creed asked , and Raid’s eyes moved back to the flashing squads.
    He knew.
    She’d played him.
    Sweet, shy, cute, goofy Hanna Boudreaux didn’t go out for a breath of fresh air to
     clear her head and try to get rid of a burgeoning headache like she told him she had.
    She’d been the one he heard open the ladies room door.
    She’d overheard him.
    She’d covered it, came back looking freaked, lied that it was a headache and then
     spent the next thirty minutes acting jacked because she was freaked that her friends
     were fucking her over.
    Then, minutes after he left her at her house, she’d made a call and blown their