Chasing her curves, p.1
Chasing Her Curves, page 1
part #3 of His Curvy Beauty Series
Chasing Her Curves: A BBW & Motorcycle Bad Boy Romance
His Curvy Beauty, Book 3
Lana Love
Copyright © 2019 by Lana Love
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Also by Lana Love
PROTECTING HER CURVES:
A BBW MILITARY ROMANCE
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Z54RG69
CLAIMING HER CURVES: A BBW SECOND-CHANCE ROMANCE
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZG38MZ1
For a full listing of my books, all with curvy and feisty heroines and the strong men who fight for them, please visit my Amazon author page at:
https://www.amazon.com/Lana-Love/e/B078KKRB1T/
Created with Vellum
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Epilogue
Chapter 1
Justine
The sun feels good as I walk through the park and search for an empty picnic bench. The park is always surprisingly busy on weekdays, with more than just moms bringing their kids to the playground.
“Mind if I join you?”
I follow the sound of a deep male voice and find myself looking at a muscular wall of man. His arms are covered in tattoos and he has that loose-limbed look about him that makes him look like he’s ready for something physical, whether it’s a fight or sex. My body heats up as I ogle his body and then look up to his chiseled face. I can hear my father’s voice telling me this man is no good, that he would do nothing but break my heart and break the law.
But he’s the kind of man that I find it sexier than anyone. I’m still a virgin, but there’s something about this man that makes me want to give him everything. There’s just something about a bad boy who rides a motorcycle and isn’t afraid to get dirty or criminal, that just sets something deep inside of my body purring. My dad wants me to be a good girl – and I am a good girl – but after just a glimpse of this man, I want to be the baddest girl ever and break all the rules with him.
“Sure. Just don’t try any funny business,” I laugh, gesturing toward the other side of the table with my hand. I yearn for him to sit next to me, but I know that’s a spectacularly bad decision. There’s no way I could resist touching his muscles and tracing my fingertips over his tattoos.
“You got some big boyfriend I should know about?” The man laughs. I like that he picks up on my sense of humor and that I’m not left explaining my joke.
“No. No boyfriend. But my dad’s the chief of police.”
The man looks at me steadily, clearly uncertain as to whether or not I’m still joking. I smile at him and then take a bite of my sandwich and look over to some kids playing in the field next to us.
“Then no funny business it is. My name’s Harley.”
I laugh so hard that I nearly choke on my sandwich. I wipe my mouth with my napkin and then take a long drink of water to clear my throat.
“You have got to be kidding. Are you really a biker with the name Harley?”
“That is true.”
“Is that your real name?” The coincidence seems too much. “What are the odds of somebody named Harley grows up and becomes a motorcycle guy?”
“How do you know I’m a motorcycle guy? You think because I have tattoos that it means I ride a bike?”
“You have to walk and the look. And the jacket,” I say, looking at his well worn and custom jacket. I know exactly what and who I’m looking at.
“And just how do you know what the walk in the look of a biker looks like?” Harley openly looks at as much of me as he can see above the picnic table. I watch him nod his head as he takes in my cotton blouse and cardigan. If anything, I look like a grade-school teacher or librarian, not someone who knows anything about men like him.
“I just know things. And remember, dad is the chief of police?”
Harley rolls his green eyes at me and laughs. You’d think that guys would be turned off when I tell them that my dad is the chief of police, but men either don’t believe me or they take it as a personal challenge. Harley clearly doesn’t believe me.
“Right. So, don’t you have a job? How is it that you’re sitting in a park in the middle of the day?”
“I work in retail and my shift doesn’t start until the afternoon. Also, I need to take my dad his lunch.”
Harley raises his eyebrow at me. “Why can’t your dad get his own lunch?”
I sigh and look away from Harley, a pang of sadness coming over me.
“If I don’t bring my dad lunch, he doesn’t eat. And if he doesn’t eat, then he gets difficult. Ever since my mom died, he’s had a really hard time. If he could live on just fast food, he would. But I like my dad and I don’t want him to have a heart attack,” I reach into my bag and pull up the lunch that I bought for my dad and hold it up, “so I bring my dad lunch when I can. I don’t want to lose him, too.”
“I’m sorry to hear about your mother. It’s sounds like you were close?” Harley’s voice softens and it takes me by surprise, because it sounds like he genuinely cares.
I take a long look at Harley, a little bit surprised at how he’s such a contradiction. He has such a tough exterior, but he seems genuinely kind. I know that you shouldn’t judge people by how they look, but I’m still surprised. My dad says that a person’s exterior more often than not matches their interior.
“Yes. I loved her more than anything. Pardon my language, but fuck cancer.”
Harley looks away from me and when he looks back to me, there is a tenderness in his eyes. How is it that a hulking man, dressed in leathers, cares so much about how I feel? We’re nothing but strangers to each other.
“No need to apologize… Hey, you haven’t told your name.”
I smile and get up from the picnic table. “It was nice to meet you Harley, you’re not what I expected. I hope you have a good afternoon.”
Harley looks at me, his mouth hanging open. He certainly not the type of man that I imagine other girls walk away from. God’s honest truth, it’s not what I want, either. But my dad would kill me if I did more than say hello to a man like Harley. I know my dad doesn’t control me, but I don’t want to disappoint him, ever.
It takes every ounce of willpower that I have, and then some, not to look back over my shoulder and see if Harley’s watching me, or to do what I really want, which is to turn around and go back to him.
“I don’t know why you keep doing this,” my dad says, sighing as he opens the bag I brought him.
“I do it because I love you, dad, and because I know what you eat if I don’t.”
“Thank you, Justine.” He pulls the sandwich out of the bank and smiles when he peeks inside the paper wrapping. “Your mom used to make the best tuna salad sandwich.”
“I remember, dad. I’ve been scouring the city to find a place that makes one half as good as mom did. I think this one might be close.”
My dad walks over to me and wraps his arms around me and gives me a fierce hug. I feel his Kevlar vest under his shirt, and I close my eyes and say a silent prayer for my dad. He doesn’t have to go out in the field often, but I always get scared when he does. And if he’s wearing that vest today, then he must be going out.
“You be safe, dad, okay?” I try and steady my voice as I look at him. I don’t know what I would do without him.
“Chief Harwell? Your next appointment is here.” His assistant stands at the door, looking at my dad expectantly. My dad looks at him and then down to the sandwich on his desk.
“Two minutes, Gardner.” My dad says, circling around his desk, then taking two big bites of the sandwich before he’s even sat down.
“This is why I bring you lunch,” I say, laughing as I watch him wolf the sandwich down. “It’s like you told me when I was a kid. To do good work, you have to have a full stomach.”
My dad rolls his eyes and smiles, wiping the corners of his mouth with a napkin.
“Anything in my teeth?” He asks, standing up and walking me to his office door. My dad stands up straight and pushes out his chest in an exaggerated way, making me laugh.
“Nope. It’s all clear. I’ll let you get on with your meeting. I need to go to work anyway.” I give my dad another hug and kiss him on the cheek, and then stand to the side as he opens the door for me.
“You?”
My insides go molten as I hear the voice that I didn’t want to walk away from half an hour ago.
“Harley? What are you doing here?” My mind spins and races as to what it means that he has an appointment with my dad. A complex set of emotions crosses Harley’s eyes as he looks from me to my dad, and then back to me.
“I thought you were joking about your dad.”
Chapter 2
Harley
How do you know my daughter?” Chief Harwell demands, sitting down heavily behind his desk. He fixes me with a laser gaze, silent.
It’s none of your damn business. Of course, I can’t say that to the man who may very well control how I spend the next several years of my life.
“We just met in the park, for a few minutes. It’s nothing.”
I wanted it to be something, but life isn’t a fairytale or opposi tes work out. And if there were ever to more opposite people, it would be this girl, Justine, and me.
I maintain eye contact with Chief Harwell. Fuck if I’m going to back down. Justine has nothing to do with this right here and her dad knows it. I can understand the straitlaced father not wanting his sweet daughter to date a man with my history, but that’s not why I’m here. I don’t ask for permission.
“You would do well to forget my daughter. I don’t know what you think or what happened, but she’s totally off limits.”
Like I’m going to let a police officer tell me what to do.
“Sure,” I say, trying to brush off his demand as if it meant nothing to me. The reality is it’s like throwing a red flag in front of the bull. You tell me not to do something and I’m damn well going to turn around and do it.
“Back to the matter at hand. You know why you’re here. I need you to tell me why you are wiring money to Albania.”
I stare back at Chief Harwell.
“Is it a crime to send money to Albania?” I challenge. I know I haven’t broken any laws and it’s bullshit I was called in to talk to the chief of police.
“No, it’s not. But when you send money to someone that the feds are investigating for human trafficking, questions are raised.”
“Then why am I talking to you instead of the feds?”
Chief Harwell stares at me and takes a deep breath.
“You’re talking with me because if they pull you in, it’s not for a friendly chat. And this, here,” he says, waving his hand over his desk, “is supposed to be a friendly chat. So how about being friendly?”
I stare back at Chief Harwell, trying to decide if I tell him what he wants to know. I know he knows I have a record and a past. I also know that he knows that I haven’t been on the radar of the police in a long time. It’s been years since I was arrested or doing anything worth being arrested for.
“No,” I say, standing up. “That’s going to be a no. I’m sure you’ve looked at my record, so it will come as no surprise to you to learn I don’t trust the cops.”
“Then why’d you come in?”
“It wasn’t clear what you knew or what you thought I did. Now, I know that you’re in the dark, and that’s fine with me. Have a good day.” I turn and walk out before he can try and push me any further. I’m goddamn doing what he can’t – ain’t no way I’m going to help a cop out. Because if I told him what I’m doing, then he will see that some things I do are outside the law.
Whether he knows it or not, the world is a better place when I break the law, and he needs more people like me.
It’s only after I’ve been riding for an hour that my emotions begin to calm. Roaring down the highway, my chopper purring like the beautiful machine she is – there’s nothing that can calm me down like that.
There’s a deeper desire within me to just keep on riding and leave Chief Harwell and his suspicions behind me. But that would mean leaving my brothers in arms and that’s not something that I can do.
Fuck.
I knew it was only a matter of time before law enforcement came sniffing. We’re only doing what they can’t.
Leaving town would also mean never seeing Justine again, and that is out of the question. Meeting her was a stroke of luck on my part. She’s clearly a very special woman and I’m not about to let her get away. Justine has that magic that I look for in a woman for myself, for years. Not to mention, the memory of her soft curves makes me hard as fuck. She has the kind of demure sexiness that I know is just a mask for a woman who is a wildcat in bed.
I’ve always found that the women who are the quietest to be the sexiest women of all. Give me a woman who looks like a grade school teacher or a librarian, and I go weak in my fucking knees.
Reluctantly, I take the off ramp and then turn around and head back to town.
I don’t care what it takes or what kind of punishment her father is going to dole out to me, but I’m going back for Justine and I’m good at claim her for myself.
Chapter 3
Justine
Thanks, Justine.” My dad takes the meal from me and gives me a big hug. “I can’t talk right now, but we’ll talk later. Oh, and one more thing. You haven’t seen the biker again, have you?”
The look on my dad’s face makes it clear exactly how he feels about Harley. If he could, my dad would protect me from anything bad in the world and also make sure that no man ever got close to me.
“No, I haven’t.”
“Good. Keep it that way.” I watch my dad as he walks through the precinct, and then I turn to leave.
Though if I’m honest with myself, I know that I shouldn’t even think about him. Bad boys are sexy, but seeing Harley waiting to talk to my dad? That was a little bit too much for me. I’ve grown up hearing about criminals and what they do and how they treat women, and that’s not something that I want for myself and it’s not something I want for the children that I plan on having. I need a man who loves me and protects me, and who won’t jack me around or end up in prison for years on end.
Still, no matter what I do, I can’t stop think about Harley. The way he was so kind and thoughtful with me doesn’t jibe with how I thought someone in a motorcycle club would be. Even with his leather jacket on, tattoos on his chest…I’ve been driving myself to distraction at night, imagining how far his tattoos go down his chest and his stomach. I want to lick his tattoos.
I know my dad means well for me, but the desire to spread my wings and do things that I’ve been told not to…it’s powerful. I want to date the bad boy and see what that’s like. I’m tired of being the good girl that my dad and everyone else thinks I should be. My dad warns me about danger, but I want to taste it.
I walk to the park so that I can sit in the sun before going to work at the department store, my mind drifting back to Harley. There are clouds scudding across the sky, but the sun is winning and spreading warmth everywhere. I sit down in my favorite picnic table and close my eyes, relishing the hot warmth of the sun on my face. In my fantasy, he shows up when I open my eyes.
“Well look at you, you pretty little thing. Sitting here all by yourself. Don’t you know that’s dangerous, little girl?”
My body goes into instant alert mode and I open my eyes to see a greasy looking guy standing in front of me. I can’t tell if he’s homeless or if he’s a junkie.
“Keep on moving. I’m not interested.” I work to keep my voice steady and to hide how fast my heart is racing. It’s the middle of the day, in the middle of the park, but for once there aren’t that many people around.
The sound of the guy’s laughing makes my skin crawl.
“Oh, little girl. I’m interested.” He towers over me and I just know that this is going to end badly.
I discreetly take my phone out of my skirt pocket and quickly glance down as I unlock it, then I try to tap into my address book so that I can call my dad. He’s taught me better than to try and fight someone like this guy. In fact, he’s told me to just give whatever somebody likes this wants, and not to try and fight.
“And what I’m really interested in, little girl, is that shiny little phone of yours. So just hand it over and this doesn’t have to get mean.” He leans even closer to me and I wince at the center of his stale breath.
“I don’t think so. My father is the chief of police, just so you know.” I really am feeling more than a little bit scared right now and I wrap my fingers tightly around my phone. I try to tap to make a call, but the guy quickly snatches my phone out of my hand.
Fuck! I know my dad says to give a thief whatever they want, but my phone has my life in it. I don’t want to let it go!
“And where is your daddy now, little girl? Doesn’t matter who he is if he isn’t here to protect you.”
“Give it back!”
“You got something else to give me, instead, little girl?” The guy leers at me and I instinctively lean away from him.
