The Perfect Hero

by Anna Bishop Barker

Genres: Contemporary Romance; Erotic & Steamy Romance; Later in Life Romance; Multicultural & Interracial Romance; Romantic Suspense

Synopsis

The Perfect Hero – Book 1 of The Themis Series

Hired to follow a trail of blood, bodies, and madness, Logan Pressley and the Themis Group are looking for a killer. Not just a killer—The Slayer.

Logan is not looking for a woman. At 45 years old, he has had enough of humanity, and wants no part of the myth that people call love.

Starting a new life, Maggie Robertson is not looking for a hero. Hell, she’s not even looking for a watered-down version of one. Romance, she has found, is a wasted phenomenon for the young, and the days for being swept off her feet are long past.

Then there was that one-night stand. The night Logan and Maggie lost themselves in each other. In that single night, all the carefully laid rules were broken.

 

Release date: April 29, 2021

Publisher: Anna Bishop Barker

Print pages: 180

Content advisory: language, sexual content, inferred violence

Sample

Prologue

The Past Is All That Matters

It looked like the ketchup that seeped out of the sides between the pieces of fried bread I used to make for my little brother, thick and glistening and deep scarlet. We had always licked the ooze from our fingers carefully. You never knew when there would be more. But the ketchup had been cold and slightly coarse in texture. This was so much nicer. It was smooth and warm and sticky.

I wouldn’t have to clean this up from the floor of a shack, either. The plastic sheets were so effective. They doubled as both protection for the ground or floor, as well as an efficient way of moving what remained when I was satisfied. It had served me well since the first time, and when you found something that worked, why reinvent the wheel, right?

I closed my eyes and let the warmth and the peace surround me, slide through my fingers. This. This is what I had sought ever since the first time. It never lost its effect.

My only vague concern was the shortening periods of peace it gave me.

 

 

 

Chapter One

That Almost Perfect One-Night Stand

Maggie

 “Smell that, Mags? That is the smell of PBR and freshly showered man dick, right there.”

Artificially cool air hit her in the face, and it felt like heaven against the sultry, humid heat of late August in Florida. The low murmur of indistinct music that could be heard in the parking lot blasted out with the air-conditioned breeze. Dierks Bentley was getting drunk on a plane and wanted everyone to know about it. At least it was going to be cool inside and if you had to listen to country, Dierks Bentley was decent country. Maybe she could survive this trip into hook-up hell. Not that Kate had given her a choice.

She had to stop short when she ran into the woman who was leading the way. Kate held the heavy wooden door open, and the coolness and sound intensified. It was joined by the smell of beer and perfume and aftershave. Maggie took a step back as the other woman turned and brought her face close, yelling above the din.

“Prepare to see more camel toe and starched jeans than you ever saw back in Tennessee, babycakes!”

Maggie grimaced inwardly and reciprocated in a near-yell. “Tell me why we are here again?”

Kate didn’t miss a beat. “Because I’m horny for some country boy ass, and your hoohaa is so decrepit bats are starting to fly out of it.” That was Kate, subtle and about as ladylike as a sumo wrestler.

She took a deep breath and prepared to enter the bar. She might as well do this so that Kate could get her fix, Maggie could go back to the hotel, and everyone would be happy. She had a crucial meeting on Monday, and she needed to make sure she was ready. The last place she wanted to be was at a country/western bar on the outskirts of Ocala, Florida two nights before the most important interview of her life. But Kate had invited her down for a long weekend before the interview and Maggie missed her friend. Knoxville and Ocala were a fair distance apart. Kate had graduated a semester before Maggie, and the months apart had been lonely, with no one to break up the constant grind of work and school. They had been the only women in their age bracket in the upper-level criminology courses and having a friend to whom she could relate had made the last push to her degree bearable.

Maggie rolled her eyes, but the action was lost on her companion. Kate grabbed her by the upper arm and pulled her into a wide entryway. They stopped again, she dropped Maggie’s arm, put her hands on her hips, and looked around speculatively.

“As Maverick would say, ‘Goose, this is a target-rich environment.’” Kate’s voice didn’t lose any of its volume. “Shall we break into song?” She grinned over her shoulder at Maggie. “Do you know the words to any Righteous Brothers’ song?”

Maggie pinched the inside of Kate’s upper arm like she used to do in church with Mark. “Don’t you even think it,” she hissed.

“Oh, come on, grandma. I bet even you could get lucky in the bathroom in this place.”

There was a lull as Dierks woke up in the airport, and Kate’s voice rang in the entryway. Several heads turned and several male faces grinned. Kate had that effect. There were more than likely several not-so-friendly looks sent their way from the female occupants. Unfortunately, Kate tended to have that effect as well.

Maggie cringed inwardly and looked around. If it was empty, the room would be cavernous. The ceiling was towering, with exposed pipes and beams, neon signs hanging everywhere. The entire back half of the building was taken up with a bandstand, a dance floor that was close to the size of a basketball court, and a roped-off area with, of all things, a mechanical bull. A curved wooden bar with ladder-back stools ran the length of one wall to the dance floor, the wall behind it covered with mirrors and shelves of bottles. High-top tables with more stools dotted the remainder of the floor. A vintage jukebox, which to Maggie's antique-loving eye must have been worth a small fortune, was against the front wall next to the wooden double entry doors.

She thought back to Tennessee and the bars that littered every town, large and small. Outside of Nashville, none of them looked like this. She followed Kate, who headed to one of the few empty tables in an alcove close to the dance floor. They hadn’t even settled on the high-backed stools before a waitress was there. She plopped a bowl of popcorn on the table, took their drink orders without writing anything down, and turned toward the bar.

To say that Maggie Robertson did not want to be where she was could be the understatement of the year. Nothing about bars or nightclubs or dating sites appealed to her in the least. She was nearly forty years old, and she would rather be alone than participate in the combination feeding frenzy and cattle call that was modern dating. She was a widow with a twenty-one-year-old son and had been a single mother since she was twenty-six. With a child to support and raise, she hadn’t had the time nor the inclination to deal with male games and egos.

She had slept with precisely two men since her husband was killed in Afghanistan. Both had been nice men with adequate moves and impeccable manners. Neither had given her an orgasm or a reason to keep up the relationships, and she found being a mid-thirty-something college student, while working a full-time job, more than enough to keep her occupied. Now she lived as she liked and paid little attention to the opposite gender. If all went well, she would be starting a new chapter very soon. When loneliness did manage to break through her efforts, she watched a movie or read a book and lost herself in the lives of people who were luckier in romance.

A tall man in jeans that were creased down the front and a cowboy hat that had never seen the light of the sun had Kate out on the dance floor before their drinks arrived. He didn’t even spare Maggie a glance. She knew, based on previous experience, she was not likely to be fending them off until much nearer to closing time. Her brown hair, average body, and pleasant but unremarkable face was not the dude magnet that her friend’s bombshell vibe was, and for that she was thankful. There were worse things in life. She settled in with a bottle of Corona that she would nurse for a couple of hours and prayed no Hank Williams Jr. was on the jukebox or the band’s playlist.

She was forty-five minutes in, and Kate had returned to the table exactly once to chug half of her beer when he walked in.

Logan

Christ, he hated bachelor parties. Even low-key ones like this trip with some of the men who worked with him. Such a ridiculous excuse to act stupid, waste time, and deal with the sort of people you detested.

Logan Pressley was not a social creature.

People, in general, irritated the fuck out of him, and drunk people were some of the worst. In his forty-five years on the planet, he had grown up with rich ones and fought alongside poor ones. From his childhood he had borne witness to the depravity in which they could all exist. He had a front-row seat to the hate they made no effort to control, and he was either bored with or filled with contempt for most of them.

There were a small few who he did care about, and these men were part of that group. He knew each of them well, trusted them, and respected them. The fact that he was technically their boss had no real bearing on the outing tonight. One of them had found happiness and in the general clusterfuck of life, that should be celebrated. He could survive one night in a country/western bar in Ocala.

He had been to The Barn before, so he knew pretty much what to expect. That did not mean he didn’t give the place a thorough once over. Logan was former military police and had served in the 75th Ranger Regiment. He didn’t enter any building or arena without scoping the area. It was ingrained. He was also a black man. He might be accepted into an establishment. That did not mean he was always welcome. Growing up in a wealthy, white world with housekeepers and swimming pools didn’t cushion you from reality. He was relieved to see several other black and brown faces of both genders in the crowd. Even in the twenty-first century there was rarely anywhere to relax the guard.

He took a deep breath, then slowly and silently exhaled. Thank God none of the men were the strip club type. Of course, if they were, they wouldn’t have been in this group. He would get a beer or two, shoot a game or three of pool, then pour them into his extended cab and call it a night. If he was lucky, no buzzed-up Florida cowgirl would become a nuisance and he wouldn’t have to be a dick. Just because he knew how to dance did not mean that he did dance, and accepting a female’s advances when he had no intention of following up was never wise.

By silent agreement, they stopped at the end of the bar. Jasper, the groom-to-be, paid for a round of bottles and Logan told the bartender to start a tab for them in his name. They headed farther into the space toward an empty table in a corner. The stools that had most likely started four to a table were by now scattered and the table they headed toward had only three stools pulled up to it. Logan looked around. The table closest to theirs had several empty chairs, but only one woman seated there and only one bottle on the table. He took a step toward it.

He didn’t want to give off the wrong vibe, so he spoke before he stopped moving. “Mind if I take a couple of these?” He indicated the stools, then raised his gaze to the woman.

First impression was that she seemed relieved his question had been about the stools. He looked into her eyes and held them for longer than was warranted. He saw relief and a faint smile cross her face before she spoke. She had a dimple in each cheek.

“Sure. Take them both.” She smiled again and the dimples made a longer appearance. He took his time moving the stools, swinging them around, one in each hand. He returned the smile, without considering what he might be inviting, because those damn dimples were ridiculously cute.

“Thanks.” They held eyes for more seconds than were necessary. He couldn’t tell the color of hers, but they looked dark. He liked the way her hair fell in straight sheets past her shoulders.

Okay, time to stop ogling the woman. He needed to get out more if a smile and some eye contact was going to have that much of an effect on him. She smiled at him again, a small smile, and dropped her eyes from his. A dismissal, of sorts, he surmised. He should be relieved. He didn’t question why he took the seat nearest to the woman’s table, so near he could have reached out an arm and touched her.

Twenty minutes later a tall blonde meandered to the table where the woman sat. Logan had been letting the noise in the bar go over his head. The band had taken an extended break. The decibel level had dropped significantly, with the jukebox becoming the source of music in the large space. The dance floor was still crowded, but more people surrounded the tables and the bar, while conversation and laughter filled the area.

Logan nearly choked on a swallow of beer when the blonde spoke, her voice high and clear in the somewhat secluded area.

“Jesus Christ, Maggie, there is a veritable smorgasbord of men able and willing to fuck your brains out here. Why are you still sitting here with that sad, warm beer that I know you haven’t touched?”

Logan was alone at his table for the moment, the others playing pool in the attached area that was indicated by a sign hanging from one of the pipes in the ceiling. He coughed and looked toward the pretty woman with the dimples. Maggie. Her name was Maggie. She looked at him and grimaced.

“I’m sorry. My friend has only been out of the asylum for one day and doesn’t know how to behave in public.” Her grimace turned into a half-smile that held embarrassment and her eyes flicked away from him.

Before Logan could come up with a response, the blonde turned to face him.

“That is a tissue of lies this woman has made up to stop herself from climbing up specimens such as yourself. Please take pity on the poor, dried-up thing and dance with her.”

He watched as the pretty woman, Maggie, closed and opened her mouth, but no sound came out, while she stared in horror at her friend. He suddenly wanted to lay into the blonde for obviously embarrassing her. Maggie turned her eyes to him.

“Oh, God, uh, I’m so sorry. Uh. Oh, God,” her voice stuttered and she twisted her hands on the tabletop.

He didn’t like it that she was uncomfortable. Not at all. He stood and held out a hand. He didn’t plan it and he didn’t know what he was going to say until the words left his brain. He just wanted to get her out of this situation.

“I’ve been trying to think of a reason to ask. Now I have it. Come on.” It was, of course, a bald lie. He was certain she would say no. He did not want to dance, and he did not want to get involved with total strangers in a bar. But he didn’t analyze the relief he felt when she looked at him for several seconds then, without a word, took his hand and stood.

A sharp crack sounded as the blonde smacked the top of the table with the flat of her hand. “Hot damn, yes!”

‘Oh, God. Kill me now.” The words were muttered, but Maggie was close enough to him that he heard them clearly.

He grinned at her as she looked up at him. Not too far up. He was pleased to see that she was tall. Thank Christ, he wasn’t going to break his back trying to align them for a dance. He turned without another word and led her around the chairs and tables.

He felt the tug on his hand just before they reached the edge of the polished wooden rectangle. A slow, bluesy number was playing, the mood hushed as they approached, couples swaying in each other’s arms. She stopped and he had no choice but to halt with her. He was reasonably sure of what was coming, and the force of the disappointment was more than the situation warranted. He turned to face her and the huge, cheesy hanging disco ball that hung above the middle of the dance floor illuminated her face, prisms of light dancing across her cheeks.

That was the moment he realized just how pretty she was. She wasn’t in-your-face gorgeous, and her use of cosmetics wasn’t obvious. There was a loveliness and a serenity he thought was a hell of a lot more appealing than standard-issue attractiveness. He wanted to run his fingers over her cheekbone to see if the skin there was as soft and warm as it looked.

He held up his hand before she could speak. “If you don’t want to dance with me, just say so. It’s okay, I’ll protect you from Godzilla back at the table.” He paused, then continued because he was just that honest and he wanted her to know the whole truth. “But I asked you because I want to dance with you.”

Logan watched her tilt her head to one side and regard him for a few seconds. Then she righted it and regarded him for a few more seconds. He would have given quite a few dollars to know what she was thinking.

“So, you would have asked me to dance without Kate’s bulldozer intervention?” She raised an eyebrow but grinned. Damn, those dimples.

He slowly grinned back. “Probably not.”

Her smile widened. “I thought not. You don’t strike me as a man who dances.”

He hesitated before he replied, “I dance. I just don’t usually see it as a public activity.” Flirtatious as it might be, the statement was true. He watched as she swallowed and would bet if he could see better, he would see a blush on her cheeks.

“Would you have said yes?” He wasn’t sure he wanted to know the honest answer.

“We’ll never know now, will we?” She inclined her head again. “What’s your name?”

“Logan.” He didn’t even consider not telling her the truth.

She nodded at him as though he had given the correct response to a question, she already had the answer to. “I’m Maggie.” She paused. “But you already know that.”

Before he could fashion a reply, she tugged his hand, walked past him, and drew him onto the edge of the smooth wooden floor. No coy conversation, no games or pretense with this woman. He felt a pleasant twinge in his groin as he allowed her to lead the way. He had no clue where this was going, but he was on board, and he didn’t even question why he was acting so out of character.

The music changed but the tempo stayed sultry and sexy. A few people left the floor but more joined, the press of bodies carrying them farther in until they were surrounded. He felt her hand tighten in his as they were jostled and he gripped her fingers more firmly, not wanting to lose her in the crowd. They stopped moving and she turned to face him just as the opening strains of The Eagles “After the Thrill Is Gone” began to play.

He hesitated. He needed to make sure she was on board too. He needn’t have worried as she stepped into his space and placed her hands on his shoulders. He let out a relieved breath through his teeth and reached out to put his hands to her waist, drawing her into his arms. She took the step necessary to bring the front of their bodies into whispering distance. Angling her face up to him, she smiled.

“Let’s dance, Logan.” And so it began.

Through the next three songs, as the melodies blended and one slow song flowed into the next, they danced. He didn’t lead her back to the table and say thanks. He didn’t say anything to her, and she didn’t say anything to him. They didn’t look into each other’s eyes. They didn’t stop moving together. All communication was sensory—smell and touch and proximity, positioning of arms, sliding of hands, bodies moving together.

Logan had known more than his fair share of women. Some he had dated, a couple he had lived with, and a good many were just casual fucks. He had stopped with the casual a while ago because he finally figured out that sex for sex's sake was not for him. Call it age, call it maturity, but he would rather do without than feel empty afterward. He could not ever remember being this physically into a woman whose last name he didn’t even know.

His chin rested against her temple and he breathed her in. Warm and sweet and womanly, she had the best scent he’d ever experienced. At some point, her hands went from lightly gripping his upper arms to sliding around the back of his neck, and her fingertips on his skin felt like lightning. When he tightened his grip on her waist, she didn’t move away. He pulled her closer and she didn’t demur. Her breasts were soft, lightly pressed to his chest, her hips moving with his rhythm.

He slid his thigh forward and between hers as they moved, and he felt her give a gasping breath. He leaned back and nearly brought them to a halt, but she pulled him back and stood on her toes, whispering to him.

“Don’t.”

At her word, he stopped. He stood statue-still in the middle of the crowd and looked down into the face of the woman in his arms. For the first time in his adult life, he did something monumental without thought or consideration or planning. When he would look back on it in the future, he would come to realize that he hadn’t had a fucking clue how monumental it was. He moved his hands down her back to rest them low on her waist, just above the curve of her hips. He bent to her ear.

“I’m going to kiss you, okay?” His voice felt rusty. She stiffened but she still didn’t move away from him.

She turned her face, her cheek brushing his. “Here?” Her voice was breathy and the heat of it slid across the side of his neck.

He slid his tongue out and lightly touched it to the curve of her ear. His groin tightened as she dug her nails into the short hair at the nape of his neck. “Right here.”

He moved his head even closer and caught the lobe of her ear in his teeth. A tremor moved her body, and he heard a soft gasp.

“You want to kiss me,” she whispered. It was a statement, not a question.

“Yes.” He slid his tongue down the skin in front of her ear.

“Okay.”

Maggie

The word was barely out of her mouth before his lips were covering hers. It wasn’t like a first kiss. It wasn’t tentative or exploratory. His tongue stroked her lips, she opened her mouth, and they were kissing. Hungry and searching and wet, the kiss was molten from the start and Maggie lost all awareness of where she was. He tasted minty, manly, and hot. God, so hot she couldn’t have breathed if she had the wherewithal to remember how. It continued on and on, morphing into biting pulls of his lips with hers, darting of tongues, and repositioning of heads. The occasional soft scrape of his short beard only added to the lusciousness of it. Finally, he pulled away slightly and rested his forehead on hers.

Maggie felt as though her legs were jelly, her blood was going to pound out of her veins, and heat spread low in her belly.

His hands had moved to cradle her head in his large palms.

“Christ Almighty.” His voice was scratchy and thick.

Maggie made a decision she would reflect on later with disbelief.

“Let’s get out of here.” She waited. This would not be fun if he wasn’t on the same playing field. But there was no way she had misinterpreted that kiss.

He moved, turning fast for such a big man, sliding his hand down her arm, and grasping her hand tightly.

“Come on.” And they were moving.

They passed Kate and the guy with the creased jeans, and Maggie tugged on his hand.

“Give me a minute, okay?” She didn’t let go of his hand as she called to her friend. She did not want to have a long conversation, so she turned and raised her voice slightly so she could be heard.

“Kate, I’m leaving. I’ll call you tomorrow.” She was aware that the other woman was looking at her with a poleaxed expression, but she didn’t care. This was not how things were done, but right then Maggie had no rational thought. She felt Logan move closer to her, and she watched as he held out a card to Kate and she took it.

“She’s safe. She’ll call you. You can verify who I am with the men at my table.” He turned to Maggie. “Did you drive?”

She looked at him like he was speaking Chinese. He bent closer to her. “Baby, did you drive?”

She looked at him again, then managed to stammer, “Kate drove.”

“Good.”

They were moving again. He stopped to have a word with one of the men in his group, who was standing at the bar, and then they were heading for the door. In another time, Maggie would have been mortified that anyone would see her leaving a bar with a man she had just met, but right then she could not have cared less. They exited the bar, and his long strides were headed toward a big, black, expensive-looking pickup.

They reached the truck and he tugged her around to the passenger side, bleeping the locks and opening the door. She expected to be helped into the seat when his hands went to her waist. Logan had other ideas. Before she could take a breath, he had her up against the rear door panel and his hands were in her hair, his mouth on hers again. She kissed him back, thrusting her tongue into his mouth to tangle and parry. She pushed her hands into his hair, cupping his skull, and tugging slightly. He groaned low in his throat and pulled his mouth from hers. Moving it to the skin of her neck and throat, Logan nipped her with his teeth then stoked the area with his tongue. God, she wanted his mouth everywhere on her skin.

His thigh slid forward, more forcefully than in the bar, and she pushed her hips forward, meeting the thrust.

“Jesus.” His voice, and the not-quite-in-command edge of it, sent an aching shot of heat between her legs.

"Uh-huh," was all she could manage.

He once again leaned his forehead against hers and now his breath was nearly heaving in harmony with hers. He was fighting for control and he took several minutes before he let out a steady breath.

“I’m here on business and I’m sharing a hotel suite with two other people.”

Was she doing this? Oh, hell yeah. Life was short, and she was doing this. “I’m here visiting Kate. I have a hotel room all to myself.”

He raised his head. In the lights of the parking lot, he looked exceedingly sexy. She could see he had more than a little gray in the short, groomed beard he wore and glints of it throughout his short, close-cropped hair. She wanted to get into enough light so she could see his eyes clearly.

“Are you sure about this?” He was looking at her intensely, his hands firm on either side of her head.

She swallowed. Insecurity slithered in. “Are you?”

He smiled. “Honey, I nearly just fucked you against the door of my truck. Yeah, I’m sure.”

More bad feelings slithered in. “Do you do this a lot?”

He brought his face close to hers. He didn’t try to push. But his answer gave her what she needed.

“No.”