Taming Crow (Hells Saints Motorcycle Club) by Paula Marinaro Page A

playground. Jett knows better and I talked to him about it, but since you moved in he’s been fascinated by it all. By you .”
    “Fascinated?” Crow finished the rest of the brew and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
    “That surprises you?” she asked. “The power tools, the motorcycle, the roof climbing and nail gunning. That is like superhero stuff to a little boy. The other day when you were burning the brush out by the pond I almost had to tie him down to stop him from running down to help.”
    Crow tossed the empty can in the general direction of the trash barrel. His expression softened for a minute. He looked at her in appraisal.
    “That’s still parenting shit. You said yourself that you use… what the hell did you call them? Cuss words once in a fucking while. How do you know that note isn’t about words he heard from you?”
    “I know,” she shot out.
    “How?” His voice rife with curiosity.
    Melissa pushed back her shoulders and took a deep breath then exhaled in an exaggerated sigh. Because now he was really pissing her off.
    “Saying the words damn or hell softly under my breath once in a great while is different than hearing the guy next door yell out things like ‘This motherfucking, cocksucking chainsaw better fucking start or I’m going to rip someone’s balls off.’”
    Melissa pursed her lips, flung both hands on her hips and waited.
    Crow's gaze flashed amused surprise before they took another long slow sweep over her.
    All of a sudden a broad predatory smile split his face.
    She forced herself to stand still as his eyes lingered much too long on her breasts and then zeroed in on her mouth.
    “Say that one more time.” He stepped in close to her and leaned in intimately so that Melissa could feel the heat of this body and smell the beer on his breath.
    “Are you crazy? Why would you want me to repeat that?” she asked with unease.
    “Not the whole thing. Just the cocksucking part. I liked what happened to your mouth when you said that,” he teased her with a lazy smile.
    Melissa gasped.
    The dirty-minded, foul-mouthed, low-life degenerate…
    Her thoughts were interrupted as she felt him firmly take her chin in his hand and run the pad of his thumb across her rounded lips.
    “Yeah, I liked it. A lot .” Crow’s eyes were filled with dark amusement.
    Melissa slapped his hand away hard and then she stepped back away from him.
    “You know what, Crow ? You really are an asshole.” She threw out at him with anger.
    Before he could say another word, she turned and walked down the little path that would bring her home.
    “ Asshole is still a cuss word, darlin’,” he called out mockingly.
    Without missing a step, Melissa threw her arm up and backward.
    Then she raised her hand high to make sure he could see her middle finger.

Chapter 8
    As a result of that early morning visit, two things happened.
    One was that Crow started to take more notice of Jett and the words he used when the kid was within easy earshot.
    And the second thing was that Crow found that he got enormous personal satisfaction out of pissing Melissa off.
    So feeling that, Crow went out of his way to use the loudest and most foul language possible whenever he knew that Melissa was home alone. He cheerily watched as she scowled at him from an open window before she upped the volume of her music and slammed the doors and windows of the little cottage when he let loose.
    A couple of times when he had really given it his all, she had huffed and puffed and marched across her lawn. There she had stood in the driveway with hell to pay in her eyes. One small hand had sat jauntily on her hip and the other had toyed nonstop with that chain around her neck.
    Crow had halted what he was doing and glared right back at Melissa, daring her to come across the property line and let him have it.
    To his immense disappointment, she did not.
    But that did n’ t stop him from trying.
    Crow knew the last goddamn thing he