Puck Read online

  PUCK

  A Road Kill MC Novel

  Volume 9

  New York Times BESTSELLING AUTHOR

  MARATA EROS

  All Rights Reserved.

  Copyright © 2019 Marata Eros

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or if it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to a legitimate retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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  Cover art by Willsin Rowe

  Editing suggestions provided by Red Adept Editing.

  CONTENTS

  Works by Tamara Rose Blodgett and Marata Eros

  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

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Epilogue

  Marata Eros NEWS

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Synopsis

  Puck likes women. All kinds. But he’s not prepared to share the secret that keeps intimacy at arm’s length.

  Until Charlotte Temperance.

  Temp is passionate about her job as a social worker. When she shuts down a dangerous criminal who’s abusing her young client, Temp finds herself in the crosshairs of a human trafficking operation thinly masqueraded as a prostitution ring.

  The relationship she begins with Puck is weighted by a secret they both share, along with hard-hidden truths. Once each discovers what the other knows, will the truth shatter all hope of the future—or will the horror they experienced bring them closer?

  When Puck discovers Temp is in danger, he’ll stop at nothing to rescue her—with Road Kill MC at his side. But will they arrive too late to save Temp, before she’s sucked into a system of depraved humanity, from which there’s no escape?

  Works by Tamara Rose Blodgett and Marata Eros:

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  Tamara Rose Blodgett

  The BLOOD Series

  The DEATH Series

  The REFLECTION Series

  The SAVAGE Series

  Shifter ALPHA CLAIM

  Vampire ALPHA CLAIM

  &

  Marata Eros:

  A Terrible Love (New York Times bestseller)

  A Brutal Tenderness

  The Darkest Joy

  Club Alpha

  The DARA NICHOLS Series

  The DEMON Series

  The DRUID Series

  Road Kill MC Serial

  The SIREN Series

  The TOKEN Serial

  Shifter ALPHA CLAIM

  Vampire ALPHA CLAIM

  The ZOE SCOTT Series

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  Chapter 1

  Temp

  I shift my weight, thankful I wore my hair out of my way, in a secure bun high on my head.

  Shit just might get saucy.

  I’m sort of crafty, and in my spare time, I like to work with my hands. Right now, I have a handmade hair stick speared through my topknot. A faceted glass bead twinkles on the tip, winking with a color that compliments my outfit.

  Also, this hair accessory would make a fine weapon in a pinch.

  Like now.

  The folder I’m holding contains useless papers. The stiff rectangle is more comfort than practicality. Most of my clients and their information is inside my high-tech, state-appointed cell phone.

  But I like the substantial feel of the large smooth file in front of me like a shield, especially when I have someone prickly to deal with.

  The one who’s standing right in front of me is particularly prickly. He’s blocking my line of sight inside the house where I know my charges are—the woman and little girl.

  They’re just out of my range of sight.

  I can get a court order of entry. But that might take time.

  My eyes skate around the big bastard’s bulging belly and my gaze latches on to frightened eyes.

  “Listen, bitch,” he grates, running a hand back and forth over his stained once-white undershirt.

  My eyes move back to his lovely form. Lionel Ritchie. Not like the singer from the late 1980s my parents listened to when I was growing up, but a criminal coward who abuses women and children.

  Just another day in my caseload, thank you very much.

  My assessment complete, I hike my chin, daring him to try it—almost wishing he would. But he’s wily, our Lionel. He’s been working this system for years, if I’m any judge. Ritchie knows exactly what he can get away with. But his glittering eyes still gaze longingly at the bullseye of my delicate jawline, nearly watering with the pure impulsive lust to abuse another “deserving” female.

  Not this female.

  “Lionel,” I begin, trying to reason with him since this is not our first rodeo, “let me pass and assess the girl.” I deliberately use distancing language so that, on a subconscious level, Lionel will believe I view her as the object he so clearly does.

  Since Calem Morgan, my caseload has been shifted to minors instead of adult special needs.

  I think I liked adults better.

  Adults can be vulnerable too, but the kids are so much worse. Calem Morgan was my last big assignment, and the whole scene had turned out well.

  Not always the case.

  The criminal bio-dad was dead, and Calem was placed with his natural sister and brother. My heart rate picks up when I think about the older brother.

  Puck.

  I shake off my musings. I cannot be dwelling about hot guys while I have a dangerous one standing right in front of me.

  “You’re not assessinʼ nothinʼ, ya chink.” Lionel’s thick lips turn up at the corners in his own self-important smug amusement, and he folds his arms across his chest, planting his feet wide.

  Wonderful. I’ve been judged based on my ethnicity instead of my qualifications before. Interestingly, even in this era of diversity, there is always a person who can’t get past themselves long enough to see their fellow human beings around them.

  Chenille comes to stand directly behind him. She’s so lovely, I want to cry. Like me, she’s mixed-race, and her gorgeous daughter is no different. Her cafe au lait skin is luminous in the half-light allowed into the residence through opaque curtains turned shabby with age and decay. Like fingers seeking but never finding a place to land,
they float from a cracked window—the only relief from the stale and cloying atmosphere of stale cigarettes and a body that hasn’t seen a shower in days.

  My eyes move back to Lionel then drift to Chenille again. Fingerprint bruises wrap her upper arm like a kaleidoscope bracelet of purple, chartreuse, and faded yellow.

  Lionel shifts his weight, trying like hell to block my view of Tabitha.

  A neighbor phoned the disturbance in per usual, and that’s why I’m here.

  I came as soon as I could.

  My inhale whistles through my clenched teeth when I see her clearly for the first time.

  I didn’t get here soon enough to save the five-year-old from the damage of a closed fist.

  Tears burn my eyes like wet acid, and I blink rapidly, forgetting my job.

  My duty.

  My everything.

  I don’t feel Lionel’s hand on my wrist or my forward momentum that caused him to grip me there.

  I have tunnel vision only for the girl, so I utterly miss the fist as it hurtles toward me.

  The impact sends me flying backward, and I grab Lionel’s wrist as I go, dragging him with me.

  Chenille screams, and my training brings muscle memory to the surface of my consciousness like an air bubble breaking the water.

  Ritchie has the advantage. At least a foot taller than my five foot three and a sloppy hundred pounds more than me, he could easily have the size and leverage it would take to subdue me.

  God knows Lionel’s done it to women before. Just not to me. It’ll never be me.

  Gritting my teeth, I let his weight settle on me for a nanosecond. The unforgiving ground is a reminder of the bruises I’ll wear later, and I slap the palm of my free hand on the ground and push hard to one side from where I face planted.

  Lionel topples off, wearing a comical expression of surprise, but not before he grabs the arm he’d just had pinned, applying crushing pressure to my wrist.

  I gulp back the agony. With my free hand, I yank the pinky of the hand cinching my wrist, peeling it away from the cluster of his other digits encircling my wrist.

  Rolling to my knees, I plant them in a kneeling position on the sidewalk for stability. Breaking the pinky finger as I move, I take down the six-foot-two Neanderthal in a blubbering howl of misery.

  Not stopping there, I apply pressure to the broken digit, and he tries to tap out like an MMA fighter, smacking his free hand on the broken concrete over and over.

  “Stop!” Lionel bellows.

  “You going to play nice?” I ask in a soft voice. I’ve put my job in jeopardy by not calling for backup, by using my skills.

  “Lives before pay” is my motto, though.

  “Yes!” he hollers, tears streaming down his reddened, wet face.

  Placing my palm on his chest, I shove him as I release the broken little finger and stand.

  The world tilts, and I remember how hard Ritchie struck me.

  Chenille is suddenly there, all five feet two of her, a battered Tabby clutching her hand.

  “Miss Temp,” Chenille says.

  “Yeah,” I answer in a faraway voice.

  “He hurt you bad,” she announces, her nose scrunching as she studies what’s probably left of my face.

  I stare at Lionel, who’s mewling and writhing on the sidewalk, and smile. I draw Tabby close and stroke her hair.

  “Not as bad as I hurt him.”

  “You saved us,” Tabby states with sad resignation.

  “This time.” I can’t be here every time a stand-in dad decides to make his pseudo family pay with his fists because he didn’t get his way.

  There aren’t enough Charlotte Temperance’s in the world for that kind of defense.

  Just me.

  And sometimes, I don’t seem like enough.

  My boss leans back in his chair, and I would like to say things are going to go fine.

  But I know better. He’s not a field man. He sits behind his desk, playing God while the rest of us face the dredges who hurt those who can’t defend themselves.

  Harvey Waterbury leans back, steepling his stubby fingers beneath his handsome face, and glares at me. It’s interesting that someone could be as attractive as Harvey and have the ugliest hands in the universe.

  I occupy myself by staring at those glaringly awkward hands while I get my ass chewed.

  Again.

  The Morgan case got me positive notice and earned me a leave of ass-chewing for a time.

  But I can’t help being me. And that usually means when a child is in danger, I don’t call 911. Temp takes charge.

  I’ve always taken charge. I’ve been taking charge since kindergarten.

  I lift my shoulders. “Listen, Harvey...”

  He makes a hand slicing gesture. “Nope, Temp. I’ll give you that this guy was a loser.”

  “Is a loser.” I cross my arms, readying for verbal battle.

  “Right.” He cocks a brow. “But you don’t get to break a guy’s hand because you can.”

  I sweep a palm over my face, noting the black eye and cheekbone injury from his fist and my fall. Technically, it was only a pinky finger that I broke, and I feel my crank coming on.

  “Yeah...” He chuckles. “You’re going to skate on this. There’s no way with his record and your face that his charges of battery will stick.”

  We stare at each other, his warm brown eyes cool on me.

  “But?” I finally ask.

  “You get physical too much, Temp. I can’t cover for you anymore. You’re more cop than social worker.”

  Probably. But my dad was a cop, and I never wanted that job. The beat kept him away from his family too much, and that line of work is too dangerous, so I chose social work instead.

  It’s more dangerous than police work some days, and I don’t have a family to shaft on time because my job doesn’t allow much time.

  Harvey isn’t covering much more than his own ass these days, but I don’t mention that.

  Ignoring the cop comment, I ask, “What about Tabby?”

  He shakes his head. “State care. She’s been taken from the mom.”

  Damn. Right from the frying pan into the blaze. “Why?” I stand quickly and begin to pace back and forth in front of Harvey’s desk.

  He sweeps coiffed honey-colored hair from his forehead with his thick fingers. “The mom’s a problem. Known prostitute. Lets any stray dog crash at the house and beat the stuffing out of her and the kid. We must protect the child. The mom can keep being a fuck-up—she’s not on our watch—but not at the child’s expense.”

  I know that is technically the reality. But once Tabby’s in the system, she might never get out, and sometimes, the system is a worse option than the biological parent.

  Hanging my head, I inhale a thready breath that’s thin with my anger and skinny with my fear. A person does things in the heat of defense without regard to anything but surviving the moment.

  Then later, their body tells them they’re hurt.

  It’s been only thirteen hours since I went to the ground with Lionel Ritchie, but today, I feel like I was a stunt double in a Rocky movie.

  Because I’m a government employee, I had to get a medical checkup to be cleared to work.

  For my trouble I got a strained hand when I broke that loser’s pinky finger and a fractured cheekbone when his fist met my face. I could’ve told them that without a checkup, because it hurts like a bitch. I also have a large bruise on my ass, another on the rib just below my left boob, and, somehow, one that looks like a vampire bite on my neck—courtesy of the chewed up sidewalk.

  Harvey’s brow cocks. “Take a few days, Temp. You look like you went nine rounds with Tyson.”

  I smirk. “Your age is showing, Harvey.”

  His return smile is as cool as his eyes have been during our entire chat.

  There’s no charming Harvey. He’s pissed that I handled this like I usually do. And I don’t know if I’m actually capable of treating the Lionels of t
his earth any differently.

  “Fine,” I answer sullenly.

  “Just a few days, Temp. That’s all we can afford anyway.”

  We exchange a look.

  The department’s understaffed as it is. Giving me a few days off because I got into it with a dickhead is more than our office—or the kids—can afford.

  Grabbing my purse, I chuck the dual straps over one shoulder and head to the door.

  “Monday,” Harvey says at my back.

  I give a curt nod, wince at what it costs my sore body, and move through the door, letting it slam behind me.

  That’s when I see him, and the sight is so surprising, I halt in my tracks.

  Puck.

  He’s here, just when I thought I’d stopped obsessing about our chance meeting, that I was only thinking about him once a day.

  Okay, maybe twice.

  He looks shocked, and he’s as beautiful as I remember him.

  The sun slants in through the long hallway, flooding the spot he just entered. Dark-red hair, barely more auburn than brown, glints like low-burning embers, as his warm chocolate brown eyes meet mine.

  A body like an Adonis begins to stride toward me. And after the surprise flashes across his features, anger takes its place.

  And I’m a primal woman, with regard to sex.

  And violence.

  They broke the mold with Charlotte Temperance.

  I move the other strap of my backpack-type purse on my other shoulder, feeling the weight settle between my shoulder blades.

  Puck doesn’t look happy to see me. An expression like contained thunderstorms covers his face.

  He looks like a man ready to commit violence.

  And I’m the only one in that hall.

  Chapter 2

  Puck

  My eyes flash open, and Denni’s face comes into focus. Clear green eyes, lined at the corners from all the years of smiling, gaze at me in her direct way.

  I rub my damp palms on my beat-up jeans.

  “No.”

  “Just try, Puck.”

  I can’t fucking believe I let Candi and Perry talk me into this. “I don’t hear anything but his voice.”

  “That’s because your eyes were closed when the abuse happened. If you couldn’t see, the event was not happening, the reality wasn’t cemented in your brain.”