Austin's Ward

By Lynn Burke

As the Devil’s Outlaws Sergeant at Arms, Austin Butterbaugh has no intention of getting involved. A self-proclaimed bachelor for life, he’s endured a broken heart and refuses to suffer the same again. But the second Cadence Fraser crosses his path, with her long blonde hair and curves, she owns him.

Sleeping with a senator didn’t offer Cadence the ticket to a better life she’d hoped for. Instead, she’s on the run for her life, straight into a badass biker’s arms -- as his ward, under the Outlaw’s protection. Although fire flares to life between them, and Austin satisfies her in ways she’d never known, fear has Cadence’s sights set on something more.

With the senator hell-bent on eliminating every trace of his indiscretions, bodies will fall in Austin’s determination to protect Cadence. Failure won’t be tolerated, even if saving her could mean losing her forever. Her happiness is all that matters, but can Cadence fight past her fears to see a future with Austin before it’s too late?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Changeling Press
• Release date: May 16, 2019

Lynn Burke

USA Today Bestselling author Lynn Burke is a CrossFit and coffee addict. Her three spawn dictate how often she can be found hunched over her Mac, typing as fast as her fickle muse cooks up hot stories.

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Chapter One

Cadence

One of the parking lot’s lights flickered and died, leaving the corner where I’d parked my car earlier that afternoon in semi-darkness. I pulled the lapels of my coat closed against the cold December night, hugging my pink tote to my midsection and scanning the immediate area even though the nicer area of D.C. didn’t warrant a high level of caution.

Normally Jackson, the strip club’s owner I worked for, walked his girls to their cars after a shift ended, but he’d been caught up interviewing a new dancer and couldn’t be bothered to answer my knock on his office door.

Chances were the girl knelt before him, gagging on his big cock. I’d done the same a few years earlier to earn my spot on his stage dancing for D.C.’s elite. Republicans and Democrats alike enjoyed his swanky club, tossing bills at us dancers while getting their eyeful of tits and ass.

A limo sat along the road close to my car -- one I recognized from many trysts.

Senator MacGillroy.

A well-known man made rich by the little wifey he couldn’t stand, the senator had persuaded me to go into his car two months earlier after watching me peel my clothes off and fuck the stripper pole. Relatively young for a senator and hot as fuck from hours spent in the gym, he drew stares. I didn’t hesitate to give him the very private lap dance he’d asked -- and paid good money for.

The power of controlling such a man with sex had gone to my head, and what began as a quickie in the back of his limo ended up with dozens of other secret meetings, a throwaway cell phone I used for him alone, and lavish gifts.

He’d claimed the week before he would leave his little wifey for me -- when the time was right. It was my ticket out of the hellhole of poverty I’d grown up in, my way to a life of luxury with the cream of the crop. I felt sure I could talk myself into loving him fully someday.

Sleep had eluded me the night before, and my feet fucking ached, so rather than smile at the thought of sure release beneath my senator, I sighed my resignation and veered toward the waiting limo.

Two men climbed from the back rather than coming from the driver’s door like usual.

My neck tingled and my steps slowed even though I recognized both burly men in their dark suits. Thing One and Thing Two I’d taken to calling the senator’s bodyguards who stood watch outside hotel and motel rooms or wherever else we happened to meet in secret to fuck.

The senator hadn’t called first like usual to let me know he needed to be between my thighs, though. He hadn’t texted the untraceable throwaway cell he’d gotten for me with directions on where to meet.

My feet stalled out completely as a brisk wind blew long strands of my hair across my face. A tingle slid down my spine, raising the hairs on my neck as the bodyguards started toward me, their steps steady and full of purpose.

A shot of adrenaline, pure instinct, hurried me the final yards to my car, and I hit the unlock button, slid onto the driver’s seat, and locked the door behind me.

Thing One knocked on my window a few seconds later as I attempted to put the key in the ignition with my shaking hand. Cadence.

I glanced over to find him leaning down, dark eyes peering at me through the glass as he held his tie against his chest.

The senator would like to see you.

Another shiver settled a knot in my stomach. He didn’t call, I said, my voice more high-pitched than usual as I turned the key, bringing my Subaru to life. "He always calls first."

You need to come with us, Cadence.

Senator MacGillroy had never summoned me in such a way, and the pinched lips of his bodyguard only intensified my feeling of wrongness about the situation.

Trying to steady my breathing, I dug in my big purse for the cell the senator had given me and hit the speed dial he’d set up.

Cadence. A simple word, one I’d heard on his lips hundreds of time -- while he watched me dance, while he fucked me and filled the condoms I’d insisted he wear, and when he urged me to stay with him a bit longer -- his tone never once held the tightness, the underlying stress I heard through my cell.

What’s going on? I managed to whisper past the thickness in my throat.

Someone’s been talking.

Those three words, snipped off with rage, dropped my heart to my stomach and raced my pulse.

Twice before the senator had joked about getting caught with me before he was ready to leave his wife having a deadly outcome, but the fear of someone finding out I fucked such a powerful man didn’t turn me on like it usually did. My heart pounded in my chest as I stared at his goon a mere pane of glass away from me.

I’d been summoned, but I feared in a whole different way for a whole different purpose.

Senator MacGillroy’s tone revealed he wouldn’t hesitate to make me disappear, erase all trace of my having ever existed if his wife ever found out he cheated. His bread and butter, his money momma, his ticket to the Oval Office he hoped to one day own.

All confidence I’d had in his declared love dissolved, leaving a gaping hole in my chest.

Stupid, stupid fool. A sob caught in my throat, and I dropped the cell, slammed the Subaru into drive, and tore out of the parking space. I saw in my rearview mirror that the bodyguards scrambled for the limo.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, I half-whispered, half-cried, my mind racing as fast as the car beneath me. I clenched my hands around the steering wheel in a death grip, making my way downtown rather than toward the Beltway like I usually did after work.

Go to the police -- and tell them what?

Run for the hills? He had the means to find me.

Tears coursed down my cheeks as my focus jerked from the road ahead to my rearview. Headlights glinted behind me, but that wasn’t unusual for D.C.’s nightlife. I wouldn’t know a limo’s lights from any other vehicle anyway.

The cell rang, but I ignored it. A ding came through a moment later, letting me know the senator texted me. That, too, went unanswered as I sped down street after street, watching to see if anyone followed me.

Written off by my religious drunk of a mother, I had no blood backing, no safe haven of people who ought to have loved me unconditionally enough to help hide me until the shit storm I found myself in blew over.

While I had a few friends who might help me, only one knew I’d become involved with Senator MacGillroy.

I glanced at the clock on my dashboard. Eleven. Angel -- Hannah, my roommate -- would still be at work with her boss and boyfriend, a man whose name she’d tattooed on her skin, declaring her as his property. While not the upper-crust crowd I shook my ass and tits for or wanted to get involved with, the Devil’s Outlaws were the type of people I needed. Praying to a God I’d given up on long ago, I made my way to their club in the northern suburbs of D.C., a mere two blocks from my apartment.

If they wouldn’t help me, I was fucked.

* * *

Austin

I imagined the woman haunting my dreams danced on the stage to my right as music thumped in my ears and the scents of sex and booze filled my nose. Just another night at Devil’s Strip Club, guarding the door to the back office and girls’ rooms, but my mind refused to focus on my duties as head of security -- and the Outlaw’s Sergeant at Arms.

I’d only ever seen Angel’s roommate once. Plump ass, tiny waist, big tits -- and gorgeous blue eyes that didn’t even seem to notice me as I’d followed Angel into their apartment after she and I had been attacked in the alley.

Cadence Fraser had fucking ruined me for life.

Not that I ever held hope of finding an old lady of my own. I kept my damn heart under lock and key since the last person to own it ended up six feet under. Loving anyone outside of my Outlaws brothers was off-limits. Wasn’t in the damn cards for my future.

A ruckus at the