Ruined Read online

  Ruined

  (The Wicked Woodleys Book 4)

  By

  USA Today Bestseller

  Jess Michaels

  Ruined

  The Wicked Woodleys Book 4

  Copyright © Jesse Petersen, 2016

  ISBN-13: 978-1523950713

  ISBN-10: 1523950714

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  For more information, contact Jess Michaels

  www.AuthorJessMichaels.com

  PO Box 814, Cortaro, AZ 85652-0814

  To contact the author:

  Email: [email protected]

  Twitter www.twitter.com/JessMichaelsbks

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  Dedication

  For all the readers who waited so patiently for Claire. I hope you enjoy where her story takes her.

  And for Michael -

  Who has kept me from ruin for almost twenty years.

  Chapter One

  Through the heavy dark that accompanied the deepest night, the stranger peered from the thick copse of woods that surrounded the property. How long had this place been the target? The goal? And yet it wasn’t glory that bubbled inside the stranger now that the moment had finally come to strike. It was fear. Yellow fear that burned in the chest and whispered, “Run away.” Run away again, just as they had done so many times in the past.

  “Not tonight.”

  Forcing movement, they edged forward with careful precision so as not to break a dry stick or stir a blade of thick green grass on the walk from the woods into the more manicured property.

  “Going from the wild back to the world,” the stranger muttered, trying to slow the beating heart that threatened to fly from their chest.

  The thoughts were pushed aside neatly, the goals reestablished. Tonight was about reconnaissance. The stranger was not here to steal gold or silver or jewels, even though the place had many of those things available. One of the many homes of the popular Woodley clan was at the top of that hill. Their legacy was ripe with riches that would be the envy of any thief.

  But the stranger was here for something else. A person. That person’s information and connections, actually.

  The big house was just up the path and the stranger paused to look at it, then turned away and steered past the cottage at the bottom of the hill and toward the stables.

  The night was so quiet that a ragged breath would wake the entire world, but nothing and no one stirred as they reached the stable door. With a tug, it gave on its gliders and slid open. The sound was like a whisper, but the stranger still paused, wary that the next noise would be the call of a sleepy voice or of feet approaching, someone ready and likely armed.

  That wouldn’t end well.

  But after a moment there was nothing, and they gave a sigh of relief. They shut the door just as quietly and stood for a moment to let their eyes adjust to the heavier dark of the interior of the stable. It was full of horses. Odd, since the family who resided in the country house above was very publicly in London, not here in Idleridge. The stranger took a moment to breathe in the earthy smell of the horse flesh, the hay, the feed, then shook their head.

  It wasn’t the time to get distracted.

  The stranger’s eyes had adjusted enough to move forward again and they did so, slipping through the corridor that separated one line of stalls from another. They sometimes peered down the way to see another aisle that was much the same as this one, filled with quiet animals, peaceful mares and stallions and even a few colts.

  There was a pang of longing in the stranger’s chest, but it was swiftly pushed away as they refocused their attention forward on the big room at the back of the stable. At one point, it might have been a lounge, but a decade before it had been transformed into the living quarters of the man the stranger sought out.

  When they reached the door, they said a small, private prayer that the door would be unlocked. A prayer that was answered for with the touch of a hand the barrier swung open and the firelight from the room inside revealed the quarry the stranger had come to stalk.

  A huge man sprawled across a bed that barely contained him. His dark, too-long hair curled across white pillows. In the dimness from the sliver of a moon that fell in through the window, the beard on his cheeks was obvious.

  The stranger paused, staring at him. Tonight was not supposed to be about approach. Tonight was supposed to be about looking. Seeing how this man lived in case it could be used against him. It was about seeing if he was living here at all, for the stranger had heard that this man, Warrick Blackwood, had recently purchased a small townhouse in London.

  But he was here, and now was the time to back away from the bed where he slept and go back into the night to wait until morning. The plan had been to watch Blackwood a few hours more as he began his work, see how he behaved, how involved he was with the few other servants who remained on the property, then approach him when the moment was right.

  And yet they found it was hard to walk away now. Steps took them closer instead of further away, almost to the edge of the bed, and they looked at him in the moonlight.

  “You have not changed,” the stranger whispered.

  As an answer, Blackwood darted out a hand and grasped the stranger’s wrist. The immense strength of him, mixed with the stranger’s surprise, kept them from reacting properly. Blackwood pulled and the stranger began to fall. Frantically, the stranger reached into their boot and yanked the knife free, lifting it as Blackwood shifted, rolling them both off the bed.

  The stranger hit the floor first and Blackwood landed on top, knocking the wind out of the stranger. They flung the blade up to Blackwood’s throat, pressing the steel edge to the skin without cutting.

  Blackwood stared down and his expression was unreadable. So was his voice when he said, “Hello, Claire.”

  Chapter Two

  Claire stared up at Warrick Blackwood, her entire body shaking. He knew. But how? Her hair was still bound up beneath the hat that she pinned to her head when she didn’t want her sex known. Her breasts had been made pancake flat by the binding she’d wrapped around herself, and she wore men’s clothing. Not to mention it was dark in the room.

  “How did you know it was me?” she asked, not denying it, because she hadn’t come here to pretend she was someone else. The fact that War had discovered the truth tonight instead of her telling him tomorrow was a mere problem of timing.

  He didn’t answer for a moment, but pressed his fingers beneath her hat. His fingers were warm and firm against her scalp, intimate as they combed through her hidden locks. The pins holding the hat in place scattered and the covering fell away. Her blonde hair loosened with his touch and swept down on the floor and across her face, where he pushed it back gently.

  Claire couldn’t breathe. It wasn’t meant as one, but this felt like a lover’s caress.

  He looked down at her, his dark eyes sweeping her face. “I know your scent.”

  She tensed, not just at that intimate declaration, but because she suddenly felt the thick weight of his erection pushing against her stomach. It was certainly impressive, not that she had expected otherwise based on his massive form. Her mouth went dry, her mind got a little foggy as they lay like that, him pressed to her, only tangled sheets and a few layers of her clothes separating them.

  “What are you doing here, Claire?” he asked, his tone no-nonsense, n
ot seductive in the least, even though he must know she could feel his arousal.

  She swallowed hard, trying to rein in her reactions. Reactions that were certainly caused by the shock that she had been caught rather than anything else. She thought of her reasons for coming here and somehow found a modicum of focus. Her body and mind calmed a little.

  “Don’t you care that my knife is at your throat, War?” she asked.

  He shrugged one shoulder slightly. “It makes you feel better to have it there. Safer. So I let it stay.”

  Her eyes narrowed. If that wasn’t the most arrogant thing she’d ever heard—he let her knife stay? As if he could strip it from her. She would cut him first.

  Well, maybe she wouldn’t. After all, she needed him. But he didn’t know that yet.

  “Let me up,” she ordered, her tone sharp.

  He arched a brow. “No.”

  “No?” she repeated in shock. “What the hell do you mean no?”

  “You’ll run, Claire,” he said softly.

  She flinched at the quiet accusation. The very truthful one. She had been running for a long time. Since a horrible night over two years before when her world had been destroyed by a discovery that took her breath away.

  “No, I won’t.”

  He shook his head. “You always run, sweet.”

  She turned her face at the endearment, both dismissive and erotic in the way it fell from his lips. “I came here, War,” she reminded him. “I came to you. I won’t run.”

  He seemed to ponder that for a moment. Then he grasped her wrist, twisted her knife away in one smooth motion and rolled off of her. He was on his feet before she could even react, and the sheet fell away.

  He was naked. Gloriously, beautifully naked, and she forgot in that second just how angry she was at him for taking her weapon, for putting her in a vulnerable position. She just stared up at him, her mouth slightly open, her heart pounding with excitement and fear and desire all mixed together.

  He was splendid. Just as she had pictured him for so very long. Hard work with Edward’s horses had toned the man into a well-formed god—he had muscles in places she’d never seen on another man. And then there was that cock she had felt pressed to her belly when he pinned her down.

  Still erect, it curled against his belly in a masculine display of power and desire. She longed to get to her knees and wrap her fingers around him, to measure what appeared to be significant girth and length with her hand and then her tongue.

  He frowned as he offered her a hand and pulled her to her feet. He turned away, letting her see the well-formed curve of his backside before he grabbed a pair of trousers draped over a chair near his bed and tugged them on. He fastened the front before he turned to stare at her.

  She blinked, the spell broken now that he wasn’t on display. She moved her gaze to his face. That face. Beautifully formed and yet scruffy with a beard. His hair tangled by the bed as it fell around his cheeks in pure defiance of the current fashion.

  His brown eyes were so bright. They had always seen everything. Too much.

  She shook her head. “It’s good to see you, War. You don’t even know.”

  He pressed his lips together and folded his arms across his gorgeous bare chest. The muscles tightened and she stared openly, once again tormented by that beautiful body. When she was a girl, she’d stolen many a glance as he worked on the horses that belonged to her eldest brother, but back then she had no idea what to do with him.

  Now she knew exactly what she would do.

  It was incredibly distracting.

  “The family isn’t here right now,” he said, his tone still utterly unreadable.

  She gritted her teeth. “Y-Yes, I know.”

  In truth, she was relieved by that fact. Being near the family she had abandoned and betrayed so long ago would have been too hard. If her brothers and sisters and her…her mother had been up that hill…

  “You know. Then what are you doing here, Claire?” he asked a second time, his voice firm.

  He was not going to let her toy with this, play with it, drag it out until she felt safe or comfortable. Because she had not been able to walk away once she found him here, she was now going to have to change her plan.

  She was going to have to talk now instead of in a few hours. Even though she didn’t want to. Even though she wasn’t ready. Even though the thought of it turned her stomach. She was going to have to tell the truth.

  Warrick Blackwood knew women. He knew their desire. He’d always seen a flicker of that need in Claire’s eyes when she looked at him. Even when she was seventeen, as she had been the first time he’d watched her walk down from the house, giggling with her sister Audrey, he had seen her eyes light up with interest when she looked at him. She probably hadn’t even known what that meant at the time, she was so fresh, so innocent.

  But this expression on her face now…that was more than mere interest. In her time away, Claire had become a woman. A ripe, sensual woman, and the way she looked at him spoke of desires and promises that were more than theoretical.

  She wanted him.

  And God damn it, but he wanted her. He always had. In truth, he probably always would. That need to feel her legs wrapped around his waist had started the very first second she met his eyes. It only doubled now, tripled, filled him until he felt he would explode.

  But he couldn’t.

  Because War also saw other things in Claire’s face. Her normally bright green eyes were dull. There were faint circles beneath them, telltale signs of an exhaustion she was trying to hide even from herself.

  More than that, he saw the knowledge in those eyes. Life had taken her innocence just as much as the bastard criminal she’d run away to marry had. Jonathon Aston.

  Just thinking the man’s name left a sick taste in his mouth.

  She let out a long sigh and moved to a chair by his low fire. She sank into the seat like she could no longer support her own weight.

  He said nothing, did not press her. Instead, he turned toward the kettle that hung by the fire. He removed it from the hook and took it to the pitcher across the room. He filled it with water and added the tea he had left out for his morning ritual. He placed it over the coals, stirring them before he added a log to the flame. It didn’t take long for the water to boil, and he poured her a cup in silence.

  She took the brew with a look of surprise for him, but sipped it slowly.

  She was wary as she stared at him. Silent. That wasn’t the Claire he remembered, the girl who had come to lean on the fence while he broke horses, chattering away and asking questions. His Claire.

  Only she hadn’t been his. Ever. She almost had been once when she showed up in his room more than two years before and offered herself to him. How tempting that had been, as he stared at her, shaking and breathing heavily. Except he’d seen how upset she was. He couldn’t use it against her, nor betray her family by ruining her that night.

  So he’d turned her away even though it took everything in him to do it. And she’d run to the arms of Jonathon Aston, a criminal, a charlatan who had stolen her from her family. She hadn’t been seen since.

  Until tonight. In his room. Like a dream.

  “Why are you here?” he repeated for a third time, and heard the sharpness in his voice brought on by memories he should have put away a long time ago. Good, perhaps she would read that as impatience and be stunned into whatever revelation she’d been avoiding.

  She set aside her half-empty cup and shifted, her hands flexing in her lap. “I-I need your…help.”

  The last word was said so quietly he hardly heard it. Apparently she hadn’t used the term for a long time. But why would she? There was no help amongst the thieves she’d been living with. If they sensed any weakness they struck, they did not assist. He remembered that life all too well.

  “Tell me,” he said, sitting down across from her. “Now.”

  She let out a long and sh
uddering sigh. The kind of sigh that came from a bone-deep place of exhaustion and grief and loss and fear. It cut him to hear such a sound from Claire, who had always been so vibrant and joyful.

  “Jonathon Aston took something from me,” she whispered. “I want it back.”

  He scowled. That was what she’d come here for? To complain about Aston behaving just like the bandit he’d always been?

  “Being that you are here and that you are alone, I can only hazard a guess that you have finally gathered up enough sense to leave the man,” he said, watching her closely. “Or perhaps ‘escape him’ is a better way to put it?”

  She hesitated for a brief moment, but long enough that he saw there was a more complicated story than could be told by just the nod she finally gave. “Yes,” she whispered.

  “Then I suggest you let go of whatever trinket he took. Go home. If you went back to your family, I know they would be more than happy to buy you a replacement for whatever was stolen.”

  War had watched the Woodley family’s anguish over Claire’s disappearance for a very long time. Even now he could imagine the raw hurt, the desperation in all their eyes. Having Claire return to them was what they all wanted more than anything in the world. Once upon a time, he would not have allowed himself to care about that. About them.

  But now it was different. He was different.

  She pushed from her seat, her jaw set with a stubborn tilt. He couldn’t help but smile as he looked up at her. Ah, there was Claire. Beneath the defeat, she was still there with all her fire and beauty.

  “I can’t just let go of what he took. I won’t,” she burst out, her tone too loud, too wild in the quiet room. “I must get it back. And you are the only person who can help me do that, War.”

  He shook his head. That assertion brought him back to his original question about why she was here. Why would she come to him in the middle of the night, sneaking in through the horses like the thief she had married? Why wouldn’t she instead turn to her loving and very powerful family in her desperation? Why would she think that he, a mere horse master in her mind, would have any ability to do what her family couldn’t?