Riding on Instinct Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  PRAISE FOR RIDING TEMPTATION

  “A sexy, fast-action thrill ride!”—Romantic Times

  “Full of intrigue, sexual tension, and exhilarating release. Definitely a must-read.”—Fresh Fiction

  “Riding Temptation has it all—action, suspense, romance, and sensuality, all wrapped up in a story that will keep you on the edge of your seat and have you clamoring for the next story in the Wild Riders series!”

  —Wild On Books

  “Kudos to Ms. Burton for creating this exciting new series!”

  —Romance Junkies

  RIDING WILD

  “Forget about a cool glass of water; break out the ice! Each page will leave you panting for more.”—Romantic Times Top Pick

  “A wild ride is exactly what you will get with this steamy romantic caper. This sexy and sizzling-hot story will leave you breathless and wanting more.”—Fresh Fiction

  “A nonstop thrill ride from the first page to the last! Grab a copy of Riding Wild and take your own ride on the wild side of life!”

  —Romance Junkies

  “What an exciting and wonderful book!”—The Romance Studio

  “Riding Wild is a must-read for anyone who loves sexy romances filled with plenty of action and suspense.”—Kwips and Kritiques

  WILD, WICKED, & WANTON

  “Wild, Wicked, & Wanton starts off with a bang and never lets up!”

  —Just Erotic Reviews

  “This is the best erotic novel I have ever read! I absolutely loved it!”

  —Fresh Fiction

  “Jaci Burton’s Wild, Wicked, & Wanton is an invitation to every woman’s wildest fantasies. And it’s an invitation that can’t be ignored.”

  —Romance Junkies

  FURTHER PRAISE FOR THE WORK OF

  JACI BURTON

  “Burton delivers it all in this hot story—strong characters, an exhilarating plot, and scorching sex—and it all moves at a breakneck pace. You’ll be drawn so fully into her characters’ world that you won’t want to return to your own.”—Romantic Times

  “Realistic dialogue, spicy bedroom scenes, and a spitfire heroine make this one to pick up and savor.”—Publishers Weekly

  “Jaci Burton delivers.”—New York Times bestselling author Cherry Adair

  “Lively and funny . . . The sex is both intense and loving; you can feel the connection that both the hero and heroine want to deny in every word and touch between them. I cannot say enough good things about this book.”—The Road to Romance

  “Exciting, intense. A ride you don’t want to miss. Burton has written a reality blast that will leave you breathless.”

  —New York Times bestselling author Lora Leigh

  “Burton’s book packs an amazing wallop! It’s rich with passion, excitement, intense emotion, and a sense of love that’s utterly palpable.”

  —Romantic Times

  “[An] exhilarating novel . . . flaming hot . . . This is one sweet and spicy romance.”—Romance Junkies

  “A fabulous read. [Burton] delivers in every possible way.”

  —A Romance Review

  “Sizzling-hot sex that will have you panting. I highly recommend this story to anyone looking for a hot read.”—The Romance Studio

  “One hot novel that I could not put down until the last word. This story has it all: mind-boggling sex, unique and unforgettable characters, and a wonderful plot that will grip your heart . . . Raw, dynamic, explosive. Wow!”—Just Erotic Romance Reviews

  Berkley Heat titles by Jaci Burton

  RIDING ON INSTINCT

  RIDING TEMPTATION

  RIDING WILD

  WILD, WICKED, & WANTON

  Anthologies

  UNLACED

  (with Jasmine Haynes, Joey W. Hill, and Denise Rossetti)

  EXCLUSIVE

  (with Eden Bradley and Lisa Renee Jones)

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)

  Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand

  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196,

  South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Copyright © 2009 by Jaci Burton, Inc.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form

  without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in

  violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  HEAT and the HEAT design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Heat trade paperback edition/April 2009

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Burton, Jaci.

  Riding on instinct / Jaci Burton.

  p. cm.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-02545-1

  I. Title.

  PS3602.U776R52 2009

  813’.6—dc22

  2008046948

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  To my occasional coffee buddy—

  you’re someone I can always count on.

  We need to do coffee more often.

  I miss talking to you.

  To Angie,

  who’s forced to listen to

  my whining all day, every day,

  who puts up with the constant chatter and ups

  and downs and loves me anyway.

  I love you back.

  And to Charlie,

  for dealing with me through the madness,

  the hand-wringing, and the pacing.

  Your patience is infinite. I love you, babe.

  ONE

  A STRIPPER? HER? NOT A CHANCE IN HELL.

  Spencer King walked a circle around Agent Shadoe Grayson, shook his head, and decided that this assignment was going to fail.

  “No way is anyone going to beli
eve she’s a stripper.”

  As he stopped in front of her, she arched one perfectly manicured brow and narrowed her brown eyes. She was pretty, but nothing about her screamed “stripper.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Sorry, darlin’, but you’re not the right man for the job.”

  She crossed her arms. “And why is that?”

  “Well, look at you. Loose, dark pantsuit with God only knows what kind of body underneath it, hair in a bun without one strand out of place. Your face is pinched so tight you look like you have a stick shoved up your ass.”

  “Jesus, Spence, use some tact.”

  Spence glared at his boss, General Grange Lee. “When have I ever used tact?”

  “Good point.” Grange turned to Shadoe. “I’m sorry, Agent Grayson. The guys around here aren’t polite.”

  “I don’t need polite, General Lee. I’m just here to get the job done.”

  Spence leaned against the sofa arm and shook his head again. “You aren’t gonna get it done looking like that. Strippers wear less clothes than that goin’ to church on Sunday.”

  “This is regulation Department of Justice uniform . . . What is your name again, Mr.—”

  “Spence. Just call me Spence.” He directed his attention back to General Lee. “Grange, this isn’t gonna work.”

  “It’s going to have to. We’ve been given the assignment; we’ll work it out.”

  Spence slid fully onto the couch and planted his booted feet on the coffee table. “Whatever. But who’s going to teach the prim schoolteacher over there how to be sexy?”

  “I am not a schoolteacher. I’m a trained field agent.”

  He grinned. “Yeah, but you ain’t no stripper.”

  She pivoted and faced Grange. “Really, General Lee. This is ridiculous.”

  Spence thought so, too. He could think of a hundred women who would make better strippers than Miss Prim and Proper. Of course, those hundred women were strippers, so that was probably why. What dumbass in Washington thought up this colossal clusterfuck of an assignment?

  “We have a DEA agent out there selling us out to the Colombians,” Grange reminded him. “Our job is to find him and detain him, and if we’re really lucky, intercept the next shipment so we can take down the drug smugglers. We’ll make this work.”

  Spence shrugged. “Whatever you say, boss.”

  The others began to trail in—all part of the Wild Riders, a secret government organization charged with operating under the radar, assisting the government in less than legal ways. Spence loved his job. He got to steal and do illegal things that suddenly became—legal.

  “So, another assignment?” Mac asked, his new wife, Lily, in tow. Jessie came with them. They piled up on the sofa, Lily pushing at Spencer to scoot over.

  “So it seems,” AJ said, coming in with Rick to stand behind the sofa.

  Diaz and Paxton followed.

  “Agent Shadoe Grayson of the Department of Justice. These are the Wild Riders.” He made them all introduce themselves, then asked her to take a seat, motioning to a space left over on the sofa where Spencer sat.

  Spence noted with some amusement that she took the vacant chair next to the sofa. Oh yeah, she was going to be all over the men at the strip club. She couldn’t even stomach sitting close to one man. He resisted rolling his eyes, not in the mood for a lecture from Grange.

  “I have new assignments for all of you, but we’ll get to the reason Agent Grayson is here first,” Grange said. “Here’s the deal. For some time now, the DEA has been aware that every drug bust operation involving the Colombian cartel in the New Orleans area has been foiled, as if the Colombians have received advance knowledge. They know they have someone inside feeding them information, and every time the DEA tries to set up their own sting, the rogue is nowhere to be found. It’s as if the Colombians are able to swing a ship into New Orleans, offload drugs, and move out without the government knowing anything about it. So someone is tipping off the Colombians about potential covert operations, and we think the rogue inside is in league with the Colombians.”

  “Probably because the agent knows everyone in his department, knows when he’s being followed or if there’s a plant,” Mac suggested.

  “Or her,” Lily said.

  “Exactly,” Grange confirmed. “Which is why we’ve been brought in. The rogue doesn’t know us.”

  “But wouldn’t the rogue know Agent Grayson?” Lily asked.

  “No. She’s new.”

  “Great. A rookie,” Spence mumbled.

  Shadoe glared at him. Spence smiled.

  “Agent Grayson might be new in the field, but she’s very good at her job. Don’t underestimate her. Plus, she has some . . . special talents that the department is thrilled to make use of.”

  “Such as?” Rick asked.

  “I have a photographic memory,” she answered.

  “Oh, cool. So you can remember everything you read and hear?” Jessie asked.

  Shadoe nodded.

  “Bullshit.” Spencer didn’t believe anyone could have a photographic memory.

  “ ‘No way in hell is anyone going to believe she’s a stripper. Sorry, darlin’, but you’re not the right man for the job. Well, look at you. Loose, dark pantsuit with God only knows what kind of body underneath it, hair in a bun without one strand out of place. Your face is pinched so tight you look like you have a stick shoved up your ass’ . . . Should I go on, Spence, or stop now?”

  “Well, goddamn. She just repeated everything I said to her right before y’all came in.”

  “No shit?” AJ asked.

  “No shit.” Spence looked back at Shadoe with a nod of appreciation. “I stand corrected, darlin’. You’ve got the skills.”

  Those weren’t her only skills, either. Because when her lips lifted in a hint of a smile, he saw a spark flash from her brown eyes that rocked his balls into a quiver of awareness. Damn she was pretty. Even with her severe clothing, without makeup, and with hair pulled back, there was definitely . . . something.

  “Can we move on now, Spencer, or do you want to bullshit all day?”

  Spence nodded, realizing he’d pissed off Grange. “Sorry, General.”

  “Okay. We have intelligence that a shipment will be coming in, and that the rogue will be there to meet with his . . . or her . . . Colombian contact in New Orleans sometime within the next couple of weeks. We don’t know who either is, but with Agent Grayson’s assistance, we hope to nab the rogue.”

  “What’s the plan?” Lily asked.

  “Agent Grayson and Spencer will be going undercover at the Wild Rose Club in the French Quarter. The tipoff is that transactions go down at the club, but the DEA has never been able to prove it or to set anyone up inside that the rogue can’t make, so that’s where we’re going to plant our insiders.”

  “Hot damn! One of the finest strip clubs in the city,” Rick said.

  Grange nodded. “Agent Grayson will be undercover as a feature stripper, Spencer as her bodyguard. AJ and Pax will go along as backup.”

  “Oooh, can I strip?” Jessie asked.

  “Oh, hell no,” Diaz said.

  Jessie affected a pout. “I never get to have any fun.”

  AJ snorted. “Your day will come, sweetheart. I’m sure there are thousands of guys out there who’d love to see you naked.”

  “Over my dead body,” Diaz said.

  Jessie grinned at that. Spencer shook his head. Jessie was the baby of the bunch. She’d been with the Wild Riders since Mac rescued her from a really bad situation when she was a teen. She was more little sister than partner to them, and they all protected her. She’d grown up, though, had finished her first assignment a few months back with Spence and Diaz. Jessie and Diaz had fallen in love on that case, making the two of them working together in the future a sticky situation. But since Mac and Lily managed it, Spence supposed Grange could work it out with Diaz and Jessie, too. Spence was just glad he didn’t have to deal with those kinds of e
ntanglements. Fucking was one thing. Love was something entirely different and not in his vocabulary.

  “Anyway,” Grange said, wrangling their attention again, “Agent Grayson will be the headliner at the club. Spence will be set up as her bodyguard, which provides her protection and they can back each other up, which gives them a good reason to stick close together. AJ and Pax will be vacationers who show up nightly and will interact with the crowds, in and out of the bar scene.”

  “Didn’t you two luck out,” Rick said, crossing his arms and shooting a glare at AJ and Pax.

  AJ grinned. “Well, it’s a tough job, but someone has to do it.”

  Grange cleared his throat and caught everyone’s attention again. “Agent Grayson has memorized every single face in the DOJ’s agent books. She’s the only one who will be able to identify the rogue agent when he or she makes an appearance. Our job is to watch the agent when Shadoe identifies him or her, then see if we can break up this drug ring.”

  “After she learns to strip,” Spence added.

  Shadoe didn’t even look at him, but tapped her fingernails on one crisp pant leg. He smiled at her irritation.

  “I have an expert coming in to assist you with that, Agent Grayson,” Grange said.