Spotlight & Giveaway: Bad Boy in Her Bed by Katja Desjarlais

Today, HJ is pleased to share with you Katja Desjarlais’s new release: Bad Boy in Her Bed

Bad boy Birch Baker doesn’t run until he meets a woman worth running for.

Tattoo artist Birch Baker has one goal : support his younger brothers so they can escape their hometown and build successful lives without the burden of the notorious Baker reputation. An ex-con from the wrong side of the water tower, he works hard and keeps his head down, looking up just long enough to see his high school crush, Jocelyn Carter, walk through the door of Serpent’s Tongue Ink.

Forensic accountant and former golden girl track star Jocelyn is back in Epson to hunt down the cooked books of shell companies feeding an elusive corporation with potentially criminal connections. A chance run-in with one of Epson’s infamous Baker boys is an alluring distraction—until she discovers one of the businesses she’s investigating belongs to Birch Baker, the man currently warming her bed and stealing her heart.

She won’t risk losing her integrity or career.

He won’t risk losing his family.

But both are losing themselves in each other and sooner or later, something has to break.

Enjoy an exclusive excerpt from Bad Boy in Her Bed 

Chapter One
Birch Baker angled his magnifier over his latest work one last time before turning off the light and setting it on the counter. “Okay, Minda. Why don’t we snap a few pictures before I wrap it?”

His client drew her leg up on the chair for closer inspection, a grin spreading across her face. “Damn, Baker. You really are king of the cover-up. It looks amazing.”

While she pulled out her phone to take a photo, he prepped the ointments and bandages, making a mental note to check the shop’s medical tape supply.

The tattoo was an easy one for him, a simple butterfly whose wing design incorporated, and therefore hid, the name of Minda’s ex-husband. Brightly colored and delicately outlined, it was a good start to a slow Monday when he wasn’t yet firing on all cylinders.

With her new tat protected and her aftercare instructions in hand, Minda gave him a wave and walked out the door of Serpent’s Tongue Ink, leaving him alone to slump back in his chair and mentally prepare himself to take on the bookkeeping he’d been putting off for weeks.

The business’s year-end paperwork was already overdue by a month, the stacks of handwritten invoices and receipts still haphazardly organized in a mess in the bottom drawer of his desk.

Step one. Open the drawer.

Getting to his feet, he poured himself a cup of coffee and sat, taking a resigned breath as he yanked on the metal handle until the weighted drawer creaked open. He lifted the first stack out and began the arduous task of separating the crumpled papers into piles.

Over its three years, Serpent’s Tongue had increased its business eightfold. A small hole-in-the-wall storefront at the end of a strip mall, the location was prime real estate for him and his business partner, Ryder Drayson. With low rent, plenty of parking, and functioning electricity, the space was ideal for two broke guys with limited job prospects and less than ideal reputations.

Of course, in the ink business, their questionable reps bordered on marketable. Plenty of Epson, Nebraska’s finest waltzed into Serpent’s Tongue to be tatted up, almost giddy over the thrill of walking on the wild side for a few hours while two of the town’s ex-cons decorated their biceps and calves.

Ryder relished in it.

Birch, not so much.

Ryder was built like a linebacker and covered from the neck down in ink. With dark brown eyes, a shaved head, and a penchant for leather, he didn’t fit the image of a guy who came from a decent family. His mom worked as a secretary at the local high school up until her retirement a few years back and his dad was down to working part-time at the bike plant two towns over. Little league and football games peppered Ryder’s upbringing, but didn’t do much to squash the rebellious streak ingrained deep in his psyche.

Birch never understood it, the need to rebel against comfort and security.

But Ryder did it with flair, until his underage drinking and joyriding took a sharp turn after his eighteenth birthday and the law no longer went as easy on the middle-class white boy from the nice side of the water tower. By his twenty-second birthday, Ryder was nine charges deep into a plea deal dropping his prison time down from eleven years to two.

Possession was nine-tenths of the law, and Ryder possessed a hell of a lot of stolen stereos and weed.

Fastening his piles with paper clips, Birch hauled another stack onto the desk to sort.

He and Ryder grew up together, one boy revolting against a home with heat and a full fridge and parents who attended every one of his games and court appearances, the other sitting in the Epson cop shop for two nights after stealing a stick of deodorant at thirteen while his dad was off doing whatever, or whoever, he wanted.

They sat at the back of the same classes, played on the same football team, attended the same parties.

Dated the same girls.

So it was no surprise to either of them when they found themselves in the same cellblock, Ryder doing his time with weekly visits from his disappointed but supportive parents, and Birch waiting out the clock week in and week out, with his brothers obeying his strict instructions not to visit.

The door flung open, setting off the metal chimes and yanking Birch out of his organization trance and straight into a stupefied one.

Holy hell.

From her perfectly tousled honey-blonde hair to her tailored grey suit jacket to her four-inch red stilettos, everything about the woman walking in screamed don’t mess with me. But damn, if he didn’t want to mess with her. Long legs were wrapped in tight grey pants, eyes hidden by oversized, mirrored sunglasses as she scanned the narrow reception room, her nude lips pursed.

She was a woman on a mission.

Her heels clicked across the worn linoleum floor as she approached the desk, her car keys dangling from a crooked finger. “Hi there,” she said, giving him a tight smile. “This is going to sound a little strange, but you wouldn’t happen to have a cell phone I could use, would you?”

Snapping out of his stupor, he cleared his throat and stood, glancing down at the crisp black punk tee she wore under her fitted suit. “Yeah, sure. Our landline is acting up, so you can use mine.”

She looked back toward the exit, her shoulder-length hair swinging with the movement. “The thing is, I need to use it outside. In my car.” She turned back to him with a huff, and a hint of recognition settled into his mind. “I’m pretty certain I’ve lost my phone somewhere in there, and I need to call it so I can find it before I start backtracking my whole morning.” Peering behind him to the empty chairs, she swung her keys in a little loop. “If it’s not too much trouble.”

“None at all.” He smiled, pulling his phone from his pocket as he strode around the desk and opened the door for her. “A break from paperwork is always a welcome distraction. Which car are we ransacking?”

“The blue crossover in front of the grocer.” Aiming her key fob at it, she unlocked the car and flung a door open, crouching down with impressive balance as she held out her hand. “I really appreciate this. There are so many nooks and crannies in this thing, I probably shoved it deep under something when I was looking for it earlier. If you could work redial duty, I’ll listen for the buzz and rifle around for it.”

He passed her his phone and glanced inside her car, spotting an Epson Eagles travel mug from the town’s high school. Accepting his cell from her after she dialed her own number, he watched her stretch across the driver’s seat to follow the faint hum of her phone. The tight fit of her pants provided him with a rather enjoyable view, one his mind was still struggling to place. Hitting redial, he tore his eyes off her backside and leaned against the hood of the car. “Any luck?”

Easing out onto her feet, she ran a hand through her hair and tossed her sunglasses onto the dash. “It’s in there. And it’s taunting me. Smack that redial again while I go in the back way.”

Sweet mercy, he knew those gunmetal blue eyes.

Jocelyn fucking Carter.

There wasn’t a freshman boy in his ninth-grade class who hadn’t known of the stunning senior, who hadn’t had to pick up his tongue every time she passed through the dingy halls of their high school.

Tall and lean, she’d reminded his fourteen-year-old self of a gazelle when she ran the track every day after school, her blond hair pulled back into a tight ponytail swinging along with her gait. He—and almost every other guy on the practice field—watched her between drills, mesmerized by the steady, unrelenting pace she set right out of the gate.

“Again,” she called over to him, her red stilettos now abandoned on the cement while she knelt in the back seat. “I think I’ve located it.”

Hitting the redial once more, he ran a hand through his hair.

Jocelyn. Fucking. Carter.

He already knew her name before he stepped foot in high school, thanks to his older brother. With almost two years on Birch, Winter Baker and his degenerate buddies were a year younger than Epson High’s golden girl. They built her up as everyone else did, this unattainable, untouchable teenage wet dream who moved through the halls without pretenses. She joked with the jocks, traded jabs with the stoners, talked music with the goth kids, and studied with the smart ones. She attended every party, holding a revolving court for an hour or two before she’d excuse herself and graciously slip away from any guy who thought he had a shot.

So yeah, he knew the name Jocelyn Carter.

He knew she was wicked smart. Knew she dated Adam Klobbach from a town up the road for most of her senior year. Knew she stocked shelves at the grocer’s on weekends before she left Epson High with a full track scholarship to a fancy school out east.

And he knew Jocelyn Carter was the kind of girl guys like him avoided, something deep in their messed-up sense of propriety making sure their filth didn’t tarnish her shine.

The Baker boys were a lot of things, but they knew their place.

His phone buzzed in his hand and he answered it, snapping out of his daze. “Serpent’s Tongue Ink, Birch Baker here.”

“Well hello, Birch, I’m Jocelyn,” she stated, her voice simultaneously coming through the speaker and beside him. He turned to see her mimicking his position against the trunk of her car, her newly found phone held to her ear and a smirk on her lips. “One of the infamous Baker brothers, I presume?”

Pushing himself off the hood, he ended the call and slid his phone into his back pocket, inordinately pleased she knew his name and resigned to the reasons why. “The least infamous one.”

“Mediocre infamy isn’t a bad thing,” she stated, reaching into her car and grabbing her sunglasses. Sliding them on, she gave him a blatant once-over. “So tell me, Moderately Infamous Birch Baker, is there any way I can convince you to accept a late lunch, my treat, for your assistance this afternoon?”

Jocelyn sat in a worn leather chair in Serpent’s Tongue’s reception room, flipping through a binder of tattoo photos while Birch straightened up his desk. “Are all these your work?”

“Mine and Ryder Drayson’s,” he grunted, yanking a stubborn metal drawer open and dropping stacks of papers into it. “Most of our newer stuff is online now, but those give a decent idea of what we do here.”

Nodding, she turned the page. “This is impressive. I have the artistic skill of a potato.”

He slammed the drawer shut and walked over to the exit with a grin, holding the door open for her. “I’m sure your other talents more than make up for it.” Cringing, he exhaled. “Sorry. That came out way sleazier than it sounded in my head.”

She set the photo album aside, slid her sunglasses on, and hooked her purse over her shoulder. “I’ll overlook it this time because you’re a decent re-dialer.” Following him outside, she waited for him as he locked up the shop. “Why don’t we meet at Tracy’s Doghouse, if it’s still open?”

A few minutes later she was cruising down Fourth Avenue behind Birch’s old cherry-red pickup, scanning her former stomping grounds for familiar places and faces.

It had been three years since she last visited her family in Epson. Her work kept her closely tethered to the New Jersey court system since she finished her accounting degree nine years prior. And as much as she enjoyed coming home to the comforting familiarity of Epson’s streets, her parents preferred to make the trek to see her, using the opportunity to explore the east coast piece by piece until her father began making noise about retiring in Maine.

Birch signaled and slowed, and she followed suit.

Despite being older than the eldest Baker boy by a year, she was well aware of the family name and the scandals surrounding it.

Hell, even if Winter Baker hadn’t made national headlines with his conviction, she could never forget the whispers and warnings circulating about Colton Baker and his sons for years before the family patriarch met his end.

Epson was, despite its multitude of street lights, a small town at heart. And at the heart stood the gossip.

Pulling into Tracy’s Doghouse’s parking lot, she eased in beside Birch and took a moment to refresh her lipstick in her rearview mirror.

During their weekly calls, her own mother sprinkled in the rumors of those Baker boys over the past decade, the stories littered among updates of marriages and divorces, deaths and births. None of the brothers, save Winter, had a name outside one of those Baker boys.

At least, not until today.

Birch. Baker.

Angling her mirror, she watched him walk around the back of her car, nervously wiping his palms on his jeans before flexing his fingers and shoving his hands into his back pockets.

He was dangerously gorgeous.

His hazel eyes were ringed with a brilliant emerald, standing out against his chestnut-brown hair and a strong jawline accented by a scruff that hadn’t seen a razor in a few days. A grey t-shirt did little to conceal his fighter’s build or the ink running down the length of his arms, peeking out along the collar. His jeans were faded and well-worn, sitting precariously low on his narrow hips and threatening to drop further below the band of his black boxers with every step.

He was a beautiful break from the tailored suits, khakis, polos, and manipulative assholes she’d been surrounded by for the past few years.

Getting out, she stepped aside as he closed her door for her. “I keep expecting Tracy’s to be shuttered every time I come here,” she stated, leading him into the diner and instinctively walking straight to the booth she used to frequent as a teenager. “The good places always seem to go under when the chain restaurants move into town.”

He cleared his throat as he slid into the red booth across from her, his back to the wall and the table quivering with the steady bouncing of his knee. “Sam’s Diner went under last fall. Murphy’s Pizza went down, too. I think that was two or three years ago.”

A server approached them to take their drink orders and Birch hunched his shoulders a fraction, as though trying to make himself less visible while he muttered a polite request for a coffee.

Jocelyn waited until they were alone again and opened her menu, glancing over it to watch him scan the restaurant. “You won’t get in trouble for walking away from your work in the middle of the day, will you?”

“Nah. Ryder was already on his way to prep for a client when I texted him, so we’re good.” Drumming his fingers on his closed menu, he gave her a lopsided grin and she realized right then and there why every woman in Epson was warned about those Baker boys from the time they could walk. “Business lunches are one of the benefits of being the boss.”

“Then we better make this meal legitimate.” She smiled. “Tell me about how you got into the tattoo business.”

He licked his lips and shifted in his seat, his eyes darting to the couple being sat at the table beside them. “I started with some pretty rudimentary stuff in high school. You know, basement tats on friends using cheap guns and black ink. Then I had a couple years to focus on my drawing skills before Ryder and I decided our best chance to get jobs around here was to create them ourselves.”

Reading between the lines, she put two and two together with the updates her mom had provided a few years back.

Birch must have been the other Baker boy who spent a good chunk of time in jail.

Mulling it over while they gave their food orders, she sat back and sipped at her coffee, deciding not to broach the whole incarceration topic. “From what I saw in that album, you two have been busy.”

“Yeah, it’s been decent,” he replied with a shrug. “I built my clientele list by giving cover-up discounts to everyone I tatted up back in high school and it kind of grew from there.”

“Smart move, using a marketing campaign to eliminate evidence of your worst work,” she teased with a smile, pleased when he grinned back at her. “So, Birch Baker, do I make you nervous, or are you always this tense?”

Excerpt. ©Katja Desjarlais. Posted by arrangement with the publisher. All rights reserved.
 
 

Giveaway: Winner will receive one ebook copy of BAD BOY IN HER BED plus one additional ebook of the winner’s choice from Tule Publishing.

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Meet the Author:

Katja Desjarlais is a music teacher by day and a paranormal romance writer by moonlight. She is an unapologetic music addict with an obsession for bad Bach puns despite her irrational aversion to Baroque. Her favorite words include ‘plethora’ and ‘dapper’, and she is physically repulsed by the word ‘moist’. Katja’s interest in the paranormal can be traced to her early childhood movie choices and to the collection of books she has stored on her phone for reading emergencies.

Desjarlais lives in northern Canada with her husband, three children, and polydactyl cat. Her summers are spent driving across North America with her family, while the long Canadian winters are made more bearable by attending heavy metal concerts.

Buy: https://tulepublishing.com/books/bad-boy-in-her-bed/