BIND ME CLOSE by Cerise DeLand
The moment Willow arrives in Bravado, Wade sweeps her off
her feet. He’s gruff, strong and shockingly appealing. Though Willow is in
Bravado on business there’s nothing more appealing—or sexually exciting—than
getting naked with Wade.
Wade’s had his fair share of women—in his bed and at the
local BDSM club. A confident Dom, he doesn't get involved with the women he
indulges with—until Willow catches his eye. An enticing blend of cautious
inexperience and wild woman, Willow snares Wade so completely he’s only too
happy to break his rules and get deeply, irrevocably involved.
Willow blossoms in Bravado and in Wade’s bed. But her
desires, though long dormant, run deep and she craves a ménage—the only thing
Wade can’t bring himself to give her. But if Wade wants to keep Willow—for now
or forever—he’s going to have to find a way to ensure she gets exactly what she
needs. One way or another.
READ AN EXCERPT!
Chapter One
Willow Turner did surprises very well. Birthday parties for
her younger sister Skye, bachelorette bashes for her friends, even one
graduation gig for her one long-term boyfriend. She liked occasional trips to
the moon for herself, orchestrated by some caring soul or other who really knew
how to tickle her funny bone. Most of the time, though, she lived a calm,
steady existence as a high school history teacher and the biggest shocks to her
system occurred when her electricity went out—along with her Internet
access—during a raging Oklahoma tornado.
On the sweltering summer day when she pushed open the door
to the parking lot of the tiny Texas convenience store, she saw the lot was
empty and halted in her tracks. Blinked. Scanned the lot once more for her white
Honda rental.
“No fooling,” she murmured to herself. “It’s gone.”
She fingered the ignition key in her hand and bit her lower
lip.
How could the car just disappear?
Willow turned back inside the roadhouse and sought out the
teenage clerk who had sold her a bottle of water and a bag of pretzels.
“Hellooo? Hello? Oh, wow. Where did you go?”
The kid was no longer behind the cash register and he wasn’t
in the aisles, either. Taller than Abe Lincoln, he would have been noticeable
even if he didn’t have a nose piercing and a wild head of purple dreds caught
back in a pony tail.
“Hello?” She made her way past the trough of iced beer and
sodas toward the back. “Are you there? I need help.”
Had he skipped?
“Well, damn.”
Hand on her hip, she spun to look out the plate-glass window
onto the parking spaces in front of the store. Yep. She was right. Not
hallucinating in the July heat. That car is gone, baby, gone.
Stolen? Had to be.
Whoever did this was fast and quiet. And all done while I
was in the john taking a pee and putting on fresh lipstick. So much for
trying to look good as I drive into Bravado and meet my long lost extended
family.
The effort had gotten me stranded.
“Hey!”
She jumped. “Oh! You scared me.”
“Sorry, lady.” The young clerk grinned at her, his braces
shiny and sinister as a cartoon robot. “Need something else?”
She pointed toward the empty lot. “Yeah. My car has been
stolen.”
“Wha’?” The kid turned, slow as molasses, and took a gander
outside. “You sure?”
“Well, I have no other explanation for it. Do you? I mean,
cars just don’t disappear.”
“Right. But I didn’t see anyone take it. Did you?” he asked
her.
“No, but—”
“Hot-wired it, probably.” He nodded, looking confident he
had the explanation.
“Hmm.” Could be. She knew a bunch of eleventh-graders where
she taught school grew great weed in a deserted factory outside of town. They
supported their families on the profits. Why not a gang who stole cars for
giggles and dollars? “Got a lot of that going on in Bravado?”
“Oh, no, ma’am. We got good things in Bravado.” He gave her
a toothy metallic grin. “No crooks, ma’am.”
Oh, that fried it. Whenever anyone started doubling up on
‘ma’am” she knew it was because she looked imposing. Teaching teenagers had
seeped into her bloodstream, giving her an aura older than her thirty-five
years. Five-eleven and a solid size sixteen only supported the impression.
Still, she was dumbstruck over this theft.
“Dunno ‘bout this.” The kid scratched his head, looking a
bit too bewildered to her eagle eye. She knew teenagers and this one appeared a
little too fishy in his innocence. “What’d you see?”
“Nothing. Didn’t even hear the engine rev. That’s why I’m
kind of crazy.” What happened when someone stole a rental car? Am I liable
for the cost to replace it? Geez.
Ten or twenty thousand dollars would ruin her financially
for years. Just when she had written the last tuition check to Skye for her
senior year and thought she was in the black, this happened. She was scraping
the bottom of her bank account now, having only enough to cover the rental fee
to drive here to interview the MacRaes and the Turners. She had to make her
remaining two thousand dollars stretch until her salary started again in
September when the new school year began. Plus, she had the B&B to pay for
here in Bravado. Would she run out of funds and have to leave town before she
got all her research done for Francine Turner’s life story?
“Right. So…um.” The kid looked perplexed. Maybe even
nervous. “You gonna call Sheriff Saxon?”
“Sure.” Saxon. A cousin of the Turners and the MacRaes? “The
sheriff’s name is Saxon?”
“Yeah. Wade Saxon.” The kid’s left eye twitched. “You know
him?”
Was he worried that she had an in with the law?
“No.”
“Well, you gonna call him?”
“Yes. I am.” I have to find this car. Avoid paying to
replace it. Her old nemesis was lack of money. High school history teachers
didn’t earn diddly. When this biography of an early Texas settler started
earning royalties, she hoped she would finally be in the black. Willow Turner,
financially secure, was her vision.
“Okay.” The boy scowled. “You got a cell? If not, ya know,
I…ah…might, could let you use the phone in the back.”
“Cell.” Focus on what he’s talking about. “Right.”
“9-1-1,” he told her as if she were a numbskull. He gave her
a perfunctory smile and pointed toward the back storeroom. “Got boxes to open.
‘Xcuse me, ma’am.”
Was he too eager to get away from her? Narrowing her gaze on
his retreating figure, she tried to recall if he had been able to view the
parking lot when she had been in the bathroom. Damn. Her mind was a sieve! Just
what she needed. Disaster, right when she neared the mid-point of her story of
the life of Francine Turner, Anglo farmer, wife to a Comanche chief and later,
wife to a Bravado law man. She silently cursed at her rotten luck.
Fishing her cell from her purse, she hit the three keys and
got connected in two rings. When she told the dispatcher what had happened, she
was about to ask for a time estimate when a patrolman might arrive, but the
sound of a siren blaring in her ears halted her. A big white two-door 4×4
emblazoned with “Bravado County Sheriff” in blue letters on the side zoomed
into the drive.
“Thank you,” she told the woman, “he’s here.” Then she hung
up.
From the cab, a huge man in a dark brown uniform, a white
Stetson and sunglasses ran from the driver’s side, gun drawn.
Willow had just pushed open the door when he got to her, put
a hand to her chest and pressed her back against the glass.
She stood, frozen, as he surveyed the store, stalking the
end of each aisle, his revolver pointed straight out, ready to unload lead into
anyone lurking there.
He spun toward her. Strode over. Put his face down to hers
and through his dark lenses looked her over good and hard from her hair
escaping its bun to her parted lips, past her t-shirt to her flip-flops. His
examination seared her like a solar flare, raging and unavoidable. Plus he was
large, very large. Taller than she. Filling her universe with nothing but giant
Texas lawman. “I asked, are you okay, miss?”
Miss.
His voice was thick and warm as molten Macadam.
She was a sucker for big men. Kind men. Only a few fit that
double bill. A smile curved the corners of her lips. “I am.”
“Good. Jared?” he bellowed and she flinched at his roar.
“Where are you, kid?”
The clerk appeared in the doorway to the storeroom, pale
eyes darting from the big man to her. “Here, Sheriff!”
So this really was Sheriff Saxon? Not a mirage of a mountain
man. Not an X-rated wish. Wow. Grill me for dinner and serve me up.
“Did you see them?”
“Who?” Jared asked, bug-eyed, as he wiped his hands on a
cloth and walked down the chips aisle.
Willow couldn’t believe the kid could be so stupid. Or such
a bad actor.
“The red sedan. You had to have seen them.”
“No, sir. I—”
Hunky Lawman spun to Willow. “Were you here?”
She shook her head but concluded that the red sedan and her
missing car might be linked. “I—”
“Did you see them or not, miss?”
Impatient cuss. “I didn’t see anyone, no, Sheriff. But—”
He re-holstered his gun and frowned, gazing in the direction
of the parking lot. “Where is your car, ma’am?”
Ma’am. Hmm.
“That’s what I was about to tell you, if you give me a
chance.”
“Well, hurry up, I’ve got plowing to do and you are keeping
me.”
She would have given him her quelling look she saved for
unruly ninth graders, but she wanted her car back as much as she wanted to end
this conversation. Pushy guys—even if they were sheriffs—were not on her hit
parade.
“Someone stole my car. Maybe it was your—”
“What?” he asked her, but then he cocked his ear to his
two-way radio that was strapped to the epaulet of his left shoulder. “Say that
again, Maureen.”
Static sliced the air for a long minute.
“You, ma’am,” the sheriff said as he pointed at Willow.
“Tell me what happened here.”
“I said my car was stolen. Maybe by your red sedan.”
He jammed both hands on his hips and tipped his head to one
side. “Now you realize that makes absolutely no sense.”
“Sure. But—”
He scowled at her. “What’s your name?”
“Willow Turner.”
“Willow Turner,” he repeated her name like he was in a
trance. “Well, I’ll be damned.”
“Sheriff?” a voice on his two-way squawked at him. “Chet
Harris spies them on Johns Road, headed for Bandera.”
“Okay, Mo. Ask him if he sees another car behind them.” He
looked at Willow and wiggled his fingers so that she knew she was supposed to
cough up info for him. “Tell me the make and color of your car, honey.”
Honey.
She narrowed her eyes at him. Okay, so it was good old Texas
boy rhetoric to call a gal sweet things, but didn’t this circumstance demand
some distance? In her old hometown of Boston, he’d never dare cozy up to her
with such cutesy names. She should cool his jets, even if the looks of him had her
revved for wine and roses. “Honda. White. Two door. Coup.”
“License number?” he demanded.
“I don’t know that.”
He lowered his head and beamed at her over the tops of his
sunglasses and oh, boy. She could have gone for a skinny dip in the aquamarine
depths of his eyes.
“Okay, no plate number,” he told his erstwhile dispatcher,
Mo. But he focused on Willow. Hard. “We do know what state though, don’t we?”
Willow had the urge to give him the finger. “Oklahoma.”
He repeated that for his girl. “Where are they now?”
The static cut in and out. But somehow Saxon understood it
all.
“All right. I’m headed to Bandera out Route forty-six.” He
grabbed Willow by the elbow and jutted his chin toward his truck.
“I’ve got Miz Willow Turner with me. That white Honda is
hers. You put me on their asses, Mo. Tell Gil to press ‘em hard. He and I will
squeeze them up before they hit town. My guess is they thought they’d try to
split up to confuse us. Too bad they found a car with keys in the ignition.”
Taking that for an insult, Willow snorted in indignation and
dangled her keys before his eyes.
“Forget that, Mo. They wired the damn thing.” He grabbed her
wrist to guide her outside toward the cab of his truck. The man was a brute,
his hold on her cutting off her circulation.. She dug in her heels but he
jerked her forward against the wall of his chest.
A hand to the wall of his pecs, Willow righted herself. Warm
steel felt precisely like his chest. Deep in her tummy, desire stirred and
stretched like a drowsy cat. In her throat, she purred.
He blinked, frowning at her. “Come on, Miz Turner. You and I
are going to go claim your car.”
Retrieving her rental worked just as well for her as getting
to ride with him. No, she hadn’t ever been in a police cruiser. New adventures
were not what most men invited her to share with them. More often than not, she
served as best pal to her friends. She was Old Reliable with a sturdy shoulder
to cry on. She smiled to herself at this change, trotting along, her wrist
still tight in his grip. “Cool.”
“You bet.” Outside in the brilliant sun, he led her to the
passenger door and opened it for her.
A gentleman, he was too. Most Texan men were, if she gauged
them all by the two teachers she was friends with back in Lawton, Oklahoma. Of
course, they were also blessed by an overload of testosterone that made them
ornery.
“Hop in.” Glaring at her, he nodded to the dim interior of
his cab. “I may paddle your behind, lady, if you do not get in this truck now.
You want your car back or not?”
She mashed her lips together and climbed in. The
air-conditioning thrilled her perspiring body. He had left the engine—and the
A/C running, bless his law-enforcing soul.
When he came around and slid in, he shoved the shift into
gear and took off like a bat out of hell.
She struggled to snap her seat belt. “God, do all you types
drive like the devil is after you?”
“Ride with a lot of cops, do you?”
“I watch TV.”
“You need real life experience.”
“Yeah. Like how much is enough?” She fretted as he sped
along the narrow road.
He took a look at her bare legs, then pushed his sunglasses
up the long straight bridge of his nose. “What year is your car?”
“This year.”
“New, huh?”
“And rented.”
“That explains why you don’t know the license plate number.”
“I am not a total moron.”
He mashed his very handsome lips together and snorted.
“Testy, aren’t you?”
“I give what I get.” She folded her arms. He might be a real
dish but that did not mean he could be a prick and insult her.
She saw his eyes slide to one side. His gaze lingered on her
thighs and she could have sworn in the fire, her skin burned right off.
He cleared his throat and squinted at the road. “You didn’t
see them get in the car?”
“Sad to say, no. I went to the ladies room, took a while,
bought my water and pretzels and never looked outside. I mean, who steals a
Honda in broad daylight on a country road?”
“They robbed a jewelry store in Boerne.”
“Well, they robbed me too.” She pouted. “They’ve got my
laptop. My clothes. Good thing I put my flash drive with all my research and draft
of the book in my purse.”
“Don’t worry.” He squeezed her hand so hard that she
marveled he hadn’t crushed her bones. “We’ll get ‘em.”
As he skidded around a curve at an alarming speed, Willow
shut one eye and braced herself, slapping a hand to the dash. Still, the seat
was cool, slick leather and she slid against him, thigh to thigh.
“Hold tight.”
Another middle finger exclamation seemed like a really bad
idea, especially since he had sympathized with her losses.
As they whizzed along the country road, she mused, “You must
go through a lot of tires in a year.”
He snorted and hit the gas pedal. “Every six months, I order
a new set.”
“And do you always get your man?”
“Always.”
“Good.” She relaxed into her seat as she saw they were now
sailing on a straightaway. But one look at his speedometer told her that he
could hit ninety soon and she swallowed her screech of fear. The car would only
plane. Geez, something to write about, if she ever tried to pen a cops and
robbers shoot ‘em up.
“I hear you’ve come to Bravado to do research on your great
grandfather.”
“I have,” she said, her heart in her throat as they passed a
slowpoke doing seventy or so.
“The MacRaes and Turners are really eager to meet you.”
“Same goes.”
“Case Turner and the three MacRae men always wanted to know
what happened to Blade. The whole family did in fact.”
“My great grandfather had left Bravado as a young man and
from what we know he never returned here. I want to know why.” She smiled at
him and when he glanced at her only for a second, she could have sworn he
focused only on her lips. Before she could enjoy it for the caress it was, he
looked away, then whizzed past two other cars.
He squinted at the road. “For that, you need to learn what happened to his
mother.”
“I do.” She saw a truck approaching in the other lane and
prayed the sheriff got over to his own side pronto.
“Fancy Turner left the Comanche tribe about a year after the
chief Bull Elk captured her.”
“I want to know how she managed that.”
“We have the facts. Loosen up, there, kiddo. Your fingers
will fall off if you clutch the seat any tighter.”
“Yeah, well, lemme just say I don’t trust your driving.” She
scrunched her whole face up at the car barreling toward them as it attempted to
pass another truck. “Blowing that horn doesn’t help.”
“He needs to get out of my way. Relax. I’m good at my job.”
“It’s not your job that takes my breath away.” Truer words
had never left her lips.
MEET CERISE
What’s an East Coast gal to do to if she lives deep in the
heart of Texas, travels often everywhere, and adores Paris, Florence, London,
Tokyo and all points east and west?
Ah.
She becomes an author who can write about those romantic
places. With a passion for cowboys, spies, rakes, knights in shining armor and
their gutsy women, Cerise DeLand is an author who adores an alpha male with a
tender heart and a need for a smoldering erotic love affair with the right
woman!
Cerise is a Top 20 Best Selling author on Amazon with more
than three dozen works published in erotic romance, and she is the
award-winning author of mystery, mainstream and romance with St. Martin’s
Press, Pocket Books and Kensington. Her books are on numerous book clubs,
including Featured Selections of The Mystery Guild, Doubleday and Rhapsody. And
when she isn’t dreaming up fiction or traveling? Cerise is a fabulous cook and
an avid history buff.
Busy lady. Happy writer.
