A Little Harmless Ride

  When this Dom falls hard, he will do anything to protect the woman he loves.

  Elias St John has lived a life most people wouldn’t believe. An Aussie by birth, he has found his way to the Big Island working as the right hand man to Joe Kaheaku. When his boss dies and leaves the ranch to Eli and Joe’s niece Crysta Miller, Eli finds himself more than a little attracted to her.

  After finding her fiancé in bed with another woman and helping her father through his illness, Crysta is ready for a new start. The offer of the ranch far away from home is perfect. The only problem she has is with Eli who constantly tells her what to do. When an argument turns into a passionate kiss, both of them get more than they were expecting.

  Eli finds himself completely enthralled with Crysta as his submissive. As seemingly simple accidents turn deadly, Eli realizes that someone is bent on destroying the ranch by any means possible—even murder.

  » WARNING: this book contains the following: A cynical Dom, a woman ready for adventure, Hawaiian cowboys-yeah they have them, horse rides, stunning sunsets and a new island for Addicts to cherish. Remember, it’s Harmless so bring on the ice water and towels.

  A Little Harmless Ride

  Melissa Schroeder

  Dedication

  To Heather Long because she understands my insane humor even if I don’t understand her fixation on Super Heroes.

  Acknowledgements

  A big thank you to everyone who has help me along the way. There are so many of you to mention and my brain gets muddled when I think about it.

  First, a shout out to the Addicts. Seriously, can you believe we are on number NINE?? And a special thank you to Sheri Vidal and the Militia who get the word out about my books. Thanks to Heather Long for the formatting, to Noel Varner for editing and to Brandy Walker for helping me to keep it together. Oh, and Joy, Miranda and Ali who have always respond to my crazy texts even though they make no sense. And, I would be nowhere if it weren’t for Wax Creative and their support of my career. You ladies ROCK.

  And a special thanks to Les and the girls. You really kept me going for this one. Thank you once again for being the support I need.

  eBooks are not transferable. They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  A Little Harmless Ride

  Copyright © 2013 by Melissa Schroeder

  Cover by Scott Carpenter

  Editing by Noel Varner

  eBook Version

  ISBN: 978-1-939734-07-5

  All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Prologue

  The sharp sting of the whip against his flesh jolted Eli awake. Pain surged through his body once again. He tried to swallow but found his throat too dry. He didn’t know how long he’d been there…he didn’t care. All he wanted to do was die.

  “We can’t have you falling asleep, St. John,” the sultry voice whispered in his ear. He had been stupid enough to let that voice seduce him…and now he was paying for it.

  He opened his eyes. Correction. He opened his right eye. The other was swollen shut. His arms were stretched above him. His wrists were shackled. He was just high enough that his feet touched the floor but he couldn’t gain any traction.

  Every cell, every muscle, every bone in his body hurt.

  “There is too much information I want from you...Eli.”

  She walked in front of him and stopped. The whip she held in her hand was huge. She used it like a fucking master, as if she had been trained for it. Knowing the bitch, she had. A bullwhip, and with every flick of her wrist, she caused him more pain. Worse, he knew she was getting off on every bit of pain she caused him. Sadistic bitch.

  She stepped up so their faces were only inches apart. She slipped her hand beneath his chin to raise his head so she could look at him. “Ah, Eli, does it hurt too much?”

  He looked at her, then stared at that wall.

  “You know, I thought you would be harder to get into my bed.”

  He heard the snickering. It stabbed him in the gut. After five years in SASR, he should have been known better, been more prepared for a witch like her. After the last mission though, he had wanted to forget. Just lose himself in bed and forget.

  And now, he was paying for that.

  “No comment?” she asked. He looked at her again and understood why he had let her get to him. She was what he liked. Dark hair, dark eyes...athletic without being too skinny. And Jesus, what an ass. But, it had all been a game to her. She wanted what was in his head.

  He would die before he would give it to her.

  “Tsk, tsk. I guess we need another round,” she said, sick excitement filling her voice. He knew men like her in his own unit. They got off on pain, on seeing how far they could hurt someone before they could break the person they were torturing. She stepped back and flicked her wrist. The slap of the whip sent another jolt of pain coursing through his body. He was almost numb to it. He’d stopped caring the moment she had turned on him.

  “Hmm, I think we need another tactic, boys. Let’s get the water.”

  Chapter One

  Eli woke stifling a scream. His heart was smacking hard against his chest as he drew in huge gulps of air. He scrubbed a hand over his face and tried his best to escape the memories of the dream. It didn’t diminish the taste of bile in his mouth, or his need for a cigarette, although, he’d quit smoking five years earlier.

  He opened his eyes and stared at his ceiling. The fucking nightmares were back and they were worse than before. He could blame it on all kinds of things, but he knew without a doubt why they’d returned.

  Damn Joe for dying on him, the old bastard.

  With a sigh, Eli slipped out of bed and headed to his bathroom. It was a long walk, he thought. His room was big enough for a family of five. Joe had insisted on it. Eli had said all he needed was a bed and a bathroom to use, but Joe wouldn’t hear of it. The California king bed looked small in the middle of the room. The sitting room Eli had scoffed at now had a comfortable loveseat and a table covered with books he’d been reading.

  For a guy who barely made it out of SARS and grew up in Australia’s foster system, this was one damned wonderful way to end up. He turned on the cold water and splashed his face. The last bits of the nightmare dissolved, almost forgotten.

  As he dried his face off, he thought of the nightmares. They’d resumed when Joe had been transferred to Queen’s Medical on Oahu a few months earlier. When Joe’s health had deteriorated, the dreams had intensified. Eli was pretty sure a psychologist would have a field day with it, but he didn’t have time for that. The Millers were arriving today and there was a memorial service to conduct.

  He turned on the shower and waited for the water to heat. He told Joe when they built the house they should have put in those heated pipes, but the man had said Eli needed time to contemplate his problems. Waiting for the shower to heat was a good way of doing that according to Joe.

  The thought had Eli’s lips curving—although it hurt. It was hard to think Eli would never have another conversation with Joe...that he would never get to argue about unimportant things or sit and watch the sun set over the land.

  He shook himself out of his funk and decided to get on with it. He needed to keep his wits about him when dealing wit
h Joe’s relatives. He knew they weren’t going to be happy—especially his brother Dave. Man wasn’t going to be happy when he realized that not one inch of the Big Island ranch was going to be his.

  The other part of the family was a mystery. Joe had spent time with his niece and brother-in-law, but they had never come to the Big Island. Eli didn’t have any idea how they would take an outsider owning the ranch. Of course, as far as he knew, Joe’s niece hadn’t stepped foot on Hawaiian soil…ever.

  Again he shook his thoughts away and started to get ready for the day. Joe had entrusted his ranch to him, and Eli wouldn’t let anything happen to it.

  * * * *

  Crysta Miller stared out the window of the rented car and sighed. Huge mountains shot up into the sky as green as a field of clover. The little bit of rain they had hit on the way to the ranch was now just a drizzle with the sun peeking through the clouds. Crysta thought it was perfect when she saw the rainbow. Well, perfect if Joe had been there with them.

  She rubbed her hand over her chest and tried to ignore the pain. It was naïve but Crysta had always thought Joe would live forever.

  “You know the Kaheaku don’t live long, honey. Actually, Joe lived a pretty long life considering he was a SEAL and then worked on a ranch,” her father said.

  She glanced at him. For so many years it had always been just the two of them. They both knew each other well enough to guess their train of thought. When she had been a teenager, it had been disturbing but now in times like this, it was comforting.

  “Stop being reasonable. I want to be sad,” she said.

  He chuckled. “I wished we would have made it over last year. It would have been better to see the ranch with Joe to give us a tour.”

  “Yeah.” She looked at her father. “But, you know we couldn’t come. Joe understood that you were getting treatment.”

  The last year and a half had been a hard one. Losing her mother at the age of five had been enough of a blow to Crysta, but when her father had been diagnosed with cancer, it had shaken her world to its very core. Logically, she knew there was a day when that would happen, but she hadn’t been ready to face it last year.

  Now, Joe was gone.

  “Do you know anything about this St. John?” she asked.

  “Not much, just that Joe had known him for awhile.”

  “Someone from the military he knew? I hope he takes good care of the ranch.”

  “You really think Joe would leave it to him?” her father asked.

  “I think he should. From what Joe said, this St. John helped him build the ranch back up. I actually think he saw him as a sort of surrogate son.”

  She left it unsaid that neither of them wanted her other uncle to get any part of the one hundred acre ranch. He was one of the reasons Crysta’s mother had left and never returned to her island home all those years ago. His prejudice against her father for being black and her for being part of him, kept her from knowing her mother’s life before marriage.

  “We’ll see,” was all her father would say.

  He had been vague about his conversations with Joe the last few weeks. She’d tried to get more out of him, but Hammond Miller was a typical SEAL.

  He stopped when they arrived at the gate to the ranch, which was open.

  Eli stood on the front lanai of the house and watched Hammond Miller park the rental car. He had offered to pick them up at the airport, but Miller had insisted that Eli had too much on his plate to handle. He watched as Miller unfolded himself from the car and smiled. Joe had genuinely liked Miller. He had said he was a good guy, a good father and even more importantly, he had been a fine Navy officer. But, what was gaining his attention wasn’t the man…but the woman with him.

  The pictures Joe had of Crysta Miller hadn’t done the woman justice. She was tall…like her father, her skin a softer shade of mocha than his. A wealth of curly hair was tied at the nape of her neck but a few springy tendrils had escaped. She leaned back into the car to grab her purse and Eli had to force himself to look away. The woman had a world-class ass on her.

  “Eli St. John, I presume,” Miller said as he approached him.

  Eli pushed himself away from the post and walked down the steps. “Yes, sir.”

  “Please, call me Hammond, or better yet, Ham. Neither of us are in the service anymore.”

  So, Joe had told him he had been in SARS. Eli should have figured he’d do that.

  “I’d like you to meet my daughter, Crysta.”

  She stepped up beside her father and Eli was jolted again. She had a face that could stop traffic. It was an old adage, but it was true. Blue eyes that curved up slightly at the edges stood out on a heart-shaped face. Her skin was so smooth his fingers itched to touch it.

  “Ms. Miller,” he said and dipped his hat.

  She laughed. “Oh, my, what a nice greeting, but just call me Crysta. I haven’t been Ms. Miller since I stopped teaching last spring.”

  He nodded. “I’m sure you two would like to get settled.”

  Ham smiled. “Yes. It’s a long trip from DC to here.”

  “How would you know, Dad? You slept for eight hours,” Crysta said as she turned to get things out of the car and stopped. His men were already pulling things out. She hurried forward and grabbed a box. “I’ll take care of this.”

  She made the mistake of smiling at Mike, one of the younger men he’d hired recently. Mike said nothing and Eli figured it was because the kid couldn’t. There probably wasn’t any blood left in his brain.

  Crysta seemed oblivious though. She returned to stand beside her father and smiled. “Ready when you are.”

  * * * *

  Crysta stepped into the kitchen and sighed. Lord, it was a work of art. Long counters lined each one of the walls; there was a six-burner gas stove, and an island with a separate sink and pot rack hanging over it. Joe had always said Crysta got her love of cooking from him and the kitchen proved that.

  “I take it you couldn’t get rest?” Eli said. She turned and looked at him, trying her best to hide her reaction. The man was a tall drink of…well, not water. That was too bland for the delicious package of Eli St. John. He was taller than she was by a good three or four inches, had the sexy weathered look that cowboys had, and he never really smiled with those full lips of his. Add in that damned Aussie accent, and she was barely keeping her tongue in her mouth.

  “What?” she asked when he kept staring at her.

  “The kitchen, you approve?”

  She nodded. “Love it.”

  She walked around and looked at the fixtures. It was pretty evident that Joe hadn’t spared any expense.

  “That’s right. You teach this kind of stuff.”

  She slanted him a look then turned her attention back to stove. She’d kill to have a professional grade stovetop at home. “I taught. I resigned last spring.”

  There was a beat of silence. “Joe didn’t tell me that.”

  She laughed. “I doubt all my happenings were so interesting that Joe would report them to you.”

  When he said nothing, she turned to face him. Nothing. No expression. Joe had said Eli had been Special Forces and apparently they were all the same. Her father, Joe and Eli were good at hiding their feelings.

  “So, when is everything going on today?”

  “The memorial service is in a couple of hours. We thought to do it up on the hill.”

  She smiled. “Oh, Joe would have liked that.”

  His lips curved slightly. “Yeah he would.”

  “More than likely he would have wanted to sit in the audience and hear all the gossip people were saying about him.”

  Eli nodded. “Then, we will be in the library here for the reading of the will.”

  She nodded and then her stomach rumbled. Her face heated. “Do you think I could rummage in your refrigerator? They fed us on the plane, but my metabolism is kind of…well, my father said he could feed an entire battle group on what I eat in a week.”

  “
Sure.”

  “There’s no cook that’ll come in here and yell at me?”

  He chuckled. “No. We have a cook for the men, out in their quarters. Joe and I did for ourselves.”

  She nodded and opened the fridge. It was stocked full of fruits and vegetables. She decided the best thing to have would be a salad.

  “You do know there will be a meal served at the memorial, right?” Eli asked as he filled his coffee cup.

  Crysta laughed. “I told you I have a high metabolism. It’s probably the reason I learned to cook at an early age.”

  “Along with not having a mother.”

  She looked up at him surprised. “I guess Joe told you?”

  He nodded. “Most everyone in the community knows his sister is dead.”

  She didn’t know what community Eli was talking about, but she figured it really wasn’t any of her business and let it go.

  “Dad’s a good cook, but as he moved up through the ranks in the Navy, he had less and less time at home. Being an only child, I learned to fend for myself.”

  She thought Eli would leave, but instead, he slipped into one of the chairs at the breakfast bar across the counter from her. Part of her wished he would leave her alone. She was tired and her nerves were frayed. She had too much coffee on the plane. Never before had she been this super sensitive to a man’s movements-unless it was her Dom. And she hadn’t had one since she’d broken off her engagement.

  Still, she was sick enough that a part of her wanted him to stay. He was mysterious, which she liked. Men with deep dark secrets always intrigued her. It had been her downfall with Ted. He’d had secrets, one of which turned out to be that he was fucking his administrative assistant.

  She brushed that thought away. She glanced at Eli and found him watching her. It was so…dominating the way he watched her. If he was into play, he was definitely a Dom.