Oh yeah. She knew men like him.
Lara thought of her stone-faced, pitiless monster of an uncle who'd thought nothing of the hundreds of different ways he'd destroyed their family piece by piece-because what was family to a man like Ray Ashburn, proud president of the Brothers of Goliath Motorcycle Club, out in the endless arid wastes east of Palm Desert and west of Blythe, California, on the Arizona border? Family had only ever been secondary to him. A breeding ground for more minions, if anything. Blood was useful for manipulation purposes and claims of obligation when it suited him, but it wasn't blood that mattered to her uncle. It was the club he wore stamped deep into his skin and breathed like air out there in the red-hot middle of nowhere where his word was the only law that mattered.
Uncle Ray had raised Lara and her brother, Mikey, after their father had died, another victim to the goddamned club and its endless wars. Their mother had moved on to a civilian, leaving her kids behind to grow up in the life under Ray's tender supervision. Not because Donna Ashburn had wanted to make that choice, Lara knew-or told herself, anyway. But because Donna had wanted out and no way in hell would Uncle Ray, known as California Ray to everyone with a Harley and a cut and feared by many more than that, hear of his dead brother's kids being raised soft in some green, pleasant suburb with some dickwad stepdad he couldn't control.
Lara couldn't let herself think too much about Mikey. Not now. It would make her sloppy and emotional to think of her only brother locked up like an animal, or that he'd already served three years on a manslaughter charge. That was another wound she could lay straight at her uncle's feet. He'd sacrifice anyone and anything for his precious club. He had.
Lara was uniquely positioned to know better than most how little outlaw bikers should be pushed. And how little she, personally, should push them. She had the scars to prove it.
But she couldn't seem to help herself.
Especially when Ryan Frey, who had told her more than once to call him Chaser, stood up from the corner of the desk where he'd been lounging all this time, getting increasingly scarier about respect.
The part of her that didn't care who he was or what he did, because at heart bikers were all the same kind of scum, didn't care. Because it didn't make a difference. It shouldn't. He was as big and scary and threatening leaning there against the corner of her desk as he was looming over her.
But there was a feminine part of her that hummed to life and kicked into high gear as he stood there. If she was brutally honest, it had started when she'd calmed down enough to realize that the biker in the doorway had not been sent by her uncle, but was a part of this strange new life she'd carved out for herself across the country. Far away from Uncle Ray and his notions of family. And more to the point, only a few hours south of the Mississippi jail where Mikey had been transferred to serve out his sentence. This way she could see him on the weekends without having to live in a prison town, which was the only thing she could think of that was worse than a biker town.
Lara hated herself for the fact that she'd noticed the way this man commanded her classroom simply by standing on the outskirts of it, and she loathed herself for her reaction to the low, powerful way he'd moved through the desks with his dark attention sharp and focused. On her. Her wiring was all messed up; she knew that. She'd spent enough time in therapy to understand that she'd imprinted on terrible men at a young age. That in some ways she was doomed to always find that kind of rough and tragic man attractive. She couldn't help it.
But like all addicts, she could decide-day by day, minute by minute-not to indulge in the things she knew were going to kill her, sooner or later. She could control herself. Just because she wanted something didn't mean she needed to indulge that want. She'd accepted that nice sheriff's invitation to dinner just yesterday and had every intention of going out with him, no matter that he smiled too easily and seemed kind, which didn't do much for that dark and greedy part of her that she was trying so hard to ignore. Still, she'd keep right on ignoring it, the same way she ignored the urge to chain-smoke cigarettes or pound tequila, because she knew how that ended, too. She could live her life the way she wanted to live it, no longer subject to the whims of a very, very bad man who would ultimately think only of himself, never of her. She was determined to do just that.
No matter how screaming hot the bad man in question was.
She let herself notice that Chaser was shockingly attractive for a stone-cold killer and conscience-less outlaw. It was impossible not to notice. He was rangy and solid, built to cause a whole lot of damage, and her entire body shivered with electric delight when he moved closer. It forced her to tip her head back to keep her wary gaze on his. She allowed herself to notice that the dark expression he wore matched his brown hair and unshaven jaw, but that his mouth was far too wide and tempting for something so hard. She permitted herself a brief, searing hot appreciation of those damned tattoos, especially the one that wrapped around his strong throat and made her want to press her mouth just there. He smelled like leather and the road, and she acknowledged how restless and wet and needy that made her, entirely against her will.