Rogue Desire: A Romance Anthology (The Rogue Series) Read online

  ROGUE DESIRE

  ADRIANA ANDERS DAKOTA GRAY AMY JO COUSINS EMMA BARRY STACEY AGDERN JANE LEE BLAIR AINSLEY BOOTH TAMSEN PARKER

  CONTENTS

  About This Book

  ADRIANA ANDERS

  Grassroots

  About This Book

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Also by Adriana Anders

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  DAKOTA GRAY

  Deep Throat

  About This Book

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Also by Dakota Gray

  AMY JO COUSINS

  Resistance

  About This Book

  Author’s Note

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Thank you!

  Want More Books by Amy Jo?

  About the Author

  EMMA BARRY

  Kissing and Other Forms of Sedition

  About This Book

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Also by Emma Barry

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  STACEY AGDERN

  Truth, Love And Sushi

  About This Book

  1. One: Monday

  2. Two: The Next Monday

  3. Three: Tuesday

  4. Four: Tuesday Evening

  5. Five: Wednesday

  6. Six: Thursday

  7. Seven: Friday

  8. Eight: Saturday

  9. Nine: Later

  Also by Stacey Agdern

  About the Author

  Author’s Note

  JANE LEE BLAIR

  My Delight Is In Her

  About This Book

  Author’s Note

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Thank you!

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Permissions

  AINSLEY BOOTH

  Personal Disaster

  About This Book

  Author’s Note

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Other Books by Ainsley Booth

  About the Author

  TAMSEN PARKER

  Life, Liberty, and Worship

  About This Book

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Thank you!

  Other Books by Tamsen

  ABOUT THIS BOOK

  When all else fails, find love.

  Eight brand new romances for fans of the West Wing, fired-up #resistance fighters, and everyone who ever had a crush on that guy at a protest...

  GRASSROOTS

  ADRIANA ANDERS

  ABOUT THIS BOOK

  Veronica Cruz is in the fight of her life for a seat on the city council. Meeting reclusive finance genius Zach Hubler should be a stroke of good luck—he has the power to sway public opinion. But when Election Day comes around and things don’t go as expected, Veronica has to know: just how shady is the man of her dreams?

  Dedication: To the amazing folks at ReadyKids, who work tirelessly for kids in their community.

  CHAPTER 1

  I saved the creepy house for last. That way if the person who lived there killed me or whatever, I’d at least get my canvassing in first. Although you can’t run for city council if you’re being held prisoner or dead.

  Actually, given the current city council, that last one’s debatable.

  Its windows were dark and there were no cars in the driveway, but it was the only house I hadn’t gone to that didn’t sport a Rylie for City Council sign in its yard. I had to at least give it a try.

  I could barely see my sneakers’ violet sequin glint as I picked my way through soggy, overgrown grass and up sagging steps to a porch that had seen better days. It wasn’t until I got to the door that a wave of something hit me—a prescience or foreboding.

  This house will change my life.

  Ignoring the shiver that worked its way up my spine—it felt kind of good under the sweat I’d worked up these past few hours—I tried checking the time on my phone only to find the battery dead. Right. So, I couldn’t check the app again to see if this house had been canvassed since an hour ago, or even what party they were registered under. Or call for help if this was, in fact, a murder house.

  Whatever. It was still light out. I squinted over my shoulder. Well, lightish. I lifted my hand to rap on the door, defeat already settling heavily on my shoulders, and stilled. What was that? Eyes narrowed, I leaned closer to the chipped wood.

  Music! Ha! The house was inhabited. Something itched between my shoulder blades and I knocked.

  I counted the seconds in my head to the tune of “Wheels on the Bus,” like I’d done at every other house I’d visited today, and for the past few months. Ear worm from hell.

  Nothing.

  But someone was in there, dammit.

  It was almost full-on dark now. For about twenty seconds, as my yard signs started to slip from my sweaty hands, I considered turning back and calling it a day. God, everything would be so easy if I just let those signs drop and walked away, not just from this house, but from the election, from everything.

  Clint S. Rylie—or Wylie Rylie as we’d known him in high school—chose that moment to pull up in his pristine black Audi. He emerged with his pretty blonde wife, who let two well-behaved children out of the backseat. All that perfection and I still didn’t trust him. I remembered, even if nobody else seemed to, how he’d cheated to get his straight As. Everybody’d known it was happening, but he’d never once been caught.

  He and his wife unloaded a slew of stuff: magnets, stickers, goody bags, for God’s sake, and rather than curl up and hide like the low-budget fraud I was, I gripped my garish Veronica Cruz for City Council yard signs tighter and kicked the shit out of the creepy house’s front door.

  I must have pounded pretty hard because I didn’t hear footsteps or anything, but suddenly the door was yanked open and I was frozen in raised-limbed limbo. God, I had no idea how long I stayed in that position—suspended with a foot and a hand up, about ready to claw my way through that door.

  “Yes?” The man in front of me was nothing like the monster, or the sad, wizened old woman I’d expected. Not this…this…gosh, Amazon was just for women, right? Okay, so Superman, maybe. Without the floppy hair. This man’s hair was short and as dark as mine—well, my natural color because the months-old balayage brought mine many shades lighter—but his skin was pale and his eyes a little strange a
nd clearly not happy.

  Following a path created from repetition rather than instinct, my hand opened and shifted to waist level, ready to clasp. Shaking hands with parents was one thing, but as a politician… I steeled myself against the usual imposter syndrome and widened my smile.

  “Hello, I’m—”

  “Can I—” He cleared his throat and ignored my hand entirely, his words overlapping mine. “Help you?”

  “Hi there. My name’s Veronica and I’m running for city council.” He looked like he might open his mouth to interrupt and, rather than stop and listen, as I’d generally do, I rushed through my usual pitch. “Are you aware that there’s an election coming up? If so, do you know who you’ll vote for? It’s a decisive moment for policy in our town.” I glanced over my shoulder and gave up entirely when I saw the Rylies just one door down. They’d be here soon. “Could I come in please?”

  “Uh. No.”

  “Please.” Why was I so frantic?

  I knew exactly why. Because at house upon house I’d struck out. People had no interest in what I had to say. They’d seen Rylie’s signs, had heard of his campaign. He was a known quantity, whereas I was a stranger. A dark-haired, dark-skinned stranger, with a bleeding-heart message. “Please.” This last came out as a whine.

  “Are you in danger?”

  I didn’t look behind me, but Rylie and his family were close. I could hear their cultured voices in respectfully quiet conversation.

  “Oh, my gosh, am I?”

  “I don’t—”

  “Are they coming?” I couldn’t look behind me. I refused to. But if this man caught sight of them, with their tasteful signage, I was screwed.

  “They?”

  I searched for something to make this forbidding person invite me in. “Yes. Yes, they’re after me.”

  “Who—”

  “The perfect family behind me. See them?”

  “I can’t see—”

  “They’re carrying signs and they’re headed this way.”

  “I hear them. They’re not—”

  “Could I use your restroom? Please?” I paused, finally, and listened to him breathe. It was easy given that my face was about chest level on the guy. Christ, he wasn’t going to do it, was he? He was going to leave me out here to pit my mess of an existence against the pristine, polished perfection of Wylie Rylie. And everybody knew who’d win that battle.

  A sigh and a step back were the only invitation I needed. I followed him inside, the door closed, and the last thing I noticed was the Captain America logo on his T-shirt before everything went dark.

  What have I done?

  “Hang on. I’m turning on lights.”

  Why aren’t there any lights on? What kind of person hangs out in the dark?

  He flipped on a glaringly bright overhead and I stood, transfixed. There was nothing—or close to it—in this room. A quick swivel of just my eyes showed a clean, bare wood floor, with nothing but a pair of sneakers lined up neatly beside the front door. The rooms leading off the entryway were big and open and mostly empty. I sucked in a breath.

  “You know, I should probably go. This wasn’t the best—”

  “I’m blind.”

  “Huh?”

  “That’s why there are no pictures on the walls or rugs and stuff. No pictures because I wouldn’t be able to see them. No lights because what’s the point? Everything’s bright to me all the time anyway. And rugs are just obstacles.”

  My relieved “Oh” came out sounding like a sigh.

  “I can’t read whatever it is you’re toting around. The thing that’s stabbing me in the leg right now.”

  “Oh, shit! I’m so sorry.” Shit! No cussing in front of the voters. I threw my yard signs down and bent to look at his leg. “I mean crap. I mean—”

  “I know what you mean.” He paused. “Am I bleeding?”

  “Oh, God, I’m sorry.” I was babbling, now, but I couldn’t seem to stop. This whole thing screamed lawsuit. “Please don’t sue me.”

  I sank to my knees and leaned in close to this man’s shorts-clad leg, words all the while spewing from my mouth. It must have been exhaustion pushing me to this verbal diarrhea.

  “I should have listened to Mami. She told me this was a bad idea. Keep your nose out of their politics, she said, over and over. But Mira’s dad got taken away—to some holding facility, it turned out, before they sent him back to Honduras—and then Jace’s mom got sick and wouldn’t have been able to pay for chemo if it weren’t for us teachers and some of the parents pitching in. Then sweet little Devon wearing that confederate flag T-shirt. I held it together. Right up until the end of the school day, when I pulled him aside and explained that the symbol could hurt people’s feelings, but he’s just four. He cried because his favorite cousin gave it to him and…”

  Dear Lord, how on earth did I end up at this moment? Staring at a random stranger’s leg, spewing word vomit. The leg was a little too thick and muscled and hairy for me to pretend he was anything but a man, but I did my best.

  “Look,” he said. “You don’t have to—”

  Sucking in a breath, I searched for the wound. And still, the words wouldn’t stop.

  “What kind of idiot runs for city council because the world is imploding, right? What kind of idiot gives up binge watching my favorite shows and going to the gym in exchange for canvassing and calling and begging people to care?”

  “I care.”

  I sat back on my haunches to look at him. “You do?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I feel impotent, you know? Every time I think about where the world’s heading, I get to the same sad ending.”

  “That’s why you ran?”

  “I kept looking for another way, but running for city council, making a change at the grassroots level, was the only solution I could come up with. I needed to do something.”

  “I get that. Now—” He reached down, probably aiming for an arm, but came up with the stuffed rabbit tied to my backpack instead. “What’s this?”

  “It’s a bunny.”

  “A bunny?”

  “A good luck charm, from one of my kids.”

  “’Cause you’re a teacher.”

  “Preschool.”

  Remembering what I was doing on the floor, I glanced back at his leg and saw it: Just above his hem, there was a mark from one of my sign’s stakes. Only a small indentation, a little purplish at the center. No blood. He’d be okay. Unless…

  “Have you had your tetanus shot?”

  A strange sound emerged from his body before he sank down in front of me, his limbs folding up into an impossible-looking crouch as he settled at my eye level. That was when I realized that this impossibly gorgeous man was laughing. At me? With me? It was all so freaking strange it didn’t matter.

  “Yes, Veronica Cruz. I’ve had my…shots.” He finally got it together enough to stop. “You are something, you know that? I don’t think I’ve ever—”

  A knock sounded at the door just a couple feet behind me and I gasped. I could’ve sworn the man’s eyes flew to meet mine, but that was probably wishful thinking.

  “Don’t answer it,” I whispered.

  He leaned in and cocked his head to the side. “Why not?” His whispered response tickled my ear.

  “It’s my opponent. I’m running against the Rylies. Well, against Wylie Rylie.”

  “You’re running against Wylie—”

  “Rylie.”

  “But you don’t want to talk to him?”

  “That family is scary,” I hissed. “Like pod people. I’ve never trusted Wylie and his wife makes me feel like—”

  Another knock interrupted.

  It’s strange how quickly you take things in when you’re stressed, or anxious, or close to a man so large and likely clueless of how gorgeous he was. We shared something in that suspended millisecond on his glossy wood floor—not a look, because that wasn’t in his wheelhouse, but air, definitely, and quite possibly somet
hing else. It felt an awful lot like anticipation on my end. He probably had a bout of indigestion.

  A kid complained just beyond the wood panel of the door, breaking through this thing we’d shared and I sprang up like a shot.

  “I’ll get it. It’s fine. I should face him, you’re right, it’s just that he’s so much more qualified than I am, with his law degree and his family money and the kids and—”

  I couldn’t finish before the man stood and gently nudged me to the side. He pulled open the door a few inches and spoke. “Yes?”

  “Oh. Oh, I just… Ahem.” Rylie fumbled and his wife stepped up to bat. I wondered, not for the first time, why she hadn’t run in his place, since she was clearly the better the candidate.

  “Hello there! I’m Tamara Rylie and this is Clint. These are our children, Tyler and Tucker, and we’re here to tell you a little bit about our campaign for city coun—”

  “Thanks for the visit, but I’ve already made my decision,” the man interrupted.