Tempered Steel (Steel Riders MC Book 2) Read Online Free PDF

the experience as well, but not a necessary one.
     
    On his return, he was naked and looked at his chin in the mirror. He decided to shave first. She didn’t mind this at all, because until this moment, she hadn’t really had a chance to simply enjoy looking at him. She had certainly enjoyed his embrace and his strength and the hard sensuousness of his body, but this was a rare moment. What better place to enjoy such a moment than in a bath of hot water, soaking up the heat?
     
    One thing she noticed was that he had several scars on his lower back. There were two others on his right side, near the tattoo of a dragon which she had enjoyed looking at before. On his other side, in the same place and nearly the same pose, was a tiger. Those and the black widow crawling up his jugular vein were his only tats.
     
    She didn’t want to ask questions, however, not right now. She just wanted to take him in.
     
    After his shave, he slid into the bath behind her. She leaned back against his chest and found the position very comfortable.
     
    “How is Daphne doing?”
     
    “Good, I suppose, considering. She was with Derrick a long time, twelve years, she told me. Hell, they were just kids when they got together. I have no reference point for empathy. My father, I suppose, but that would only be imagining, since he’s still alive.”
     
    “My mother, for me, but my father is still alive as well. My grandparents died when I was small, and the concept of just how great a loss death was hadn’t really sunken in yet.”
     
    “Sally and Kimber are with her now. Kimber is going to spend the night, and I’ll come back over in the morning. They still haven’t given a release date for his body, but we’ve call a funeral service and paid for a cremation service to be held as soon as we know when we can.”
     
    She glanced up at him. “The rumors of the killer being you are circulating.”
     
    “Kind of wish it was me right now,” he said, which shocked her.
     
    “Why?”
     
    “So I would know what was in that damn box he had with him that was so valuable he risked dealing with Ruiz over it,” he told her. Then he looked down at her. “That can’t get out. I just fucked up big time.”
     
    She nodded. “Safe zone. You trusted me this far. Can you trust me enough to tell me how you knew about the file boxes?”
     
    “File boxes?” he mused. “I didn’t know what kind of box it was, only an approximate size. Files, records, secrets, that makes sense.”
     
    “Can I ask if you are just guessing about Ruiz?”
     
    “I’m not,” he told her, and then described his visit to the crime scene. “It was a long shot. I heard from you that it happened in a clearing, and that was the clearing we used. I had the feeling then that he had used that spot before, several times. When I got there, I ran into that same deputy, too. What a mind-blower that was.”
     
    She listened to him talk about the conversation he had had with the deputy he once refused to kill. Cyn felt a pang of jealousy because she could hear the connection they had with one another. It was there in the deputy’s questions, which could only have been answered by him, and there was something like a feeling of gratitude in his description, which was strange. Cyn knew she didn’t have that kind of connection with Hank, and it would be a bit insane to wish for that type of connection. But knowing another woman had it with him bothered her a great deal.
     
    “So,” she asked, interrupting his monologue about the good-looking blond deputy, “I still don’t get the Ruiz connection.”
     
    Hank sighed.
     
    “Pushing too far?” she asked.
     
    “We’ve already been too far, and it needs to quit having its way. It is too important.”
     
    “So,” she asked and then bit her lip. “Hank? Just tell me. I’ll believe you. Tell me that it wasn’t you.”
     
    “It wasn’t me,” he told her. “And again, I was serious, especially with what I know