by Carmen Faye
Her lips were perfect, too—thick and full, not too much, though. The perfect lips to slide myself into. I could just imagine what she would feel like—her mouth wrapped around my cock, her tongue hot and her big blue eyes looking up at me.
I let myself savor the fantasy for a moment. My erection punched against my zipper, and I shifted in the seat, trying to readjust. I threw back my whiskey. I knew I was making things more difficult for myself but who said I had to stick with only extracting information from her? I was thinking I’d like to inject her with something too. Now that I knew she knew nothing, maybe getting into her pants was exactly what I needed to do. I could use her to talk to the police. She had a connection to the case, and maybe they would be a little more forthcoming with information.
I wouldn’t complain, either. God, I wanted her. I lusted after her like if women before.
When she looked at me again, I turned to the bar and ordered round three. I didn’t want her to see the sex drive in my eyes; the way I would no doubt be looking at her. Some girls could tell when I undressed them with my eyes and I didn’t want her to think I was an asshole until it was too late.
Chapter Nine
Talking about the body made me feel better. I hadn’t thought that would, but Pax was so attentive tonight. He seemed to really care that I’d been through something traumatic and he wanted to be there for me. Thinking back, he’d been attentive the first night as well. It didn’t fit his look—the badass clad in leather didn’t exactly shout out ‘I care’ but there it was.
It was endearing, and it made me open up. Something happens when a girl makes herself vulnerable to a man, and he doesn’t take advantage of it. He was just there, listening, not making me feel like he wanted anything from me. We were just two people, talking.
His phone rang. When he looked at the screen, his face closed and I had the idea it wasn’t a call he wanted to take.
“I’ll be right back. I have to take this.”
This had happened the last time we’d been together, too. I didn’t know what he did for a living, but whatever it was, he got called often, and he had to take it. He hopped off the stool as the giant bartender placed his drink down on the bar.
“How well do you know Pax?” the bartender asked me. I looked at him. He was good-looking. Lately, all the men I ran into were all easy on the eye. He had muscles that looked like they didn’t want to be constrained by a shirt and his smile was easy and open.
“I don’t know him. We just sort of bumped into each other.”
The bartender jutted his chin up in a half nod.
“You know him?” I asked, picking up on something.
The guy shrugged. “We were friends once, but you know how it goes—people change.”
I nodded. I knew exactly what that was like.
“I don’t want to get into your business or anything,” he continued, “but just be careful with Pax.”
I frowned at the bartender. What was his deal? It wasn’t like I was dating the guy or anything. We were just having drinks.
“I’ll keep that in mind, thank you.”
“Really,” he said again. “He’s not what he makes himself out to be.”
I took a deep breath. Without alcohol, I felt in control of my situation and myself. Friday night had been a reminder of how badly I could lose control if I weren’t careful.
“I appreciate your concern. Like you said, though, people change. Are you sure he’s still the same person you knew?” I asked, my voice cool.
He backed away, hands up in defense. I had been a little snide, but I didn’t appreciate people getting involved in my business. Especially not after Pax had been the perfect gentleman—taking care of me when I’d had too much to drink and driving me home without trying anything. And tonight, letting me talk about the things that were bothering me. There weren’t a lot of men that were willing to talk without sex following. Pax seemed like he respected my wishes and that made him attractive.
Pax returned a minute later and sat down on the barstool again. “Sorry about that. It was my boss.”
I nodded. “It’s not a problem. What do you do?” I hadn’t asked yet, and if he told me Friday, I’d forgotten. In my defense, though, I was having a bad day… and I was ridiculously drunk.
He hesitated just a second. “Data handling. It’s a rough term, but it’s the closest to what I do without getting into it and boring you to death.”
I smiled, trying to look like I believed him. He didn’t look like the type that worked in data handling, whatever that meant, but then again, he’d said it was a rough term. And who was I to judge what people did by what they looked like?
“You said you’re from Indiana?” Pax asked. Did this guy remember absolutely everything we’d spoken about before? Still, it was flattering that I’d made a lasting impression, considering the state I’d been in.
I nodded and sipped my drink. “I grew up there. My family still lives there. I’m the only one that broke formation.”
He picked up his glass and gently pushed me off the stool with a hand on my back and guided me to a table. We sat and fell into some sort of comfortable arrangement—him sipping his whiskey and me my coke as we talked. It was comfortable. It felt like two strangers becoming acquainted with each other, and the awkwardness slowly disappeared.
“Tell me about Indiana,” Pax said. “Tell me what it’s like to live in a farming community.”
I smiled when he brought that up. He really was relentless, and his memory was something to be proud of. I turned the glass around and around on the table.
“We lived in a big wooden house that had been in my dad’s family for generations.” I smiled in memory. “If I said farm house, you’d think of our house. The school was in one of the newer brick buildings, but it wasn’t so new that it could be classified as modern.”
I looked at Pax, and he nodded, urging me to go on. He leaned his elbow on the table and looked at me. I had his full attention.
“Both my parents worked the farm, and we had a couple of hired hands. My young days were all about playing outside with friends and getting into trouble. We had about 2,500 acres of soybeans. Life smelled like sunscreen and growing things, and everyone knew everyone. When I went to college, I got used to being a grown-up, and things changed a little. I liked to think I was a big deal, being all mature, and my parents and I started getting stuck because I was too good for farming. It didn’t stop me from having a good time, though. Those were the days.”
I looked into nothing, reminiscing. I hadn’t thought about Indiana and what life was like in years. I’d blocked it from my memories for a reason.
“How often do you go home?”
I scratched my head, careful not to mess up my hair, and flattened it with my hand after I did.
“I don’t, really. I’ve been back once since I moved up here.”
“That’s a long time not to see your family.”
I shrugged. I didn’t know what to say to that. He was right; it had been a long time. But that was my business. I didn’t have to go back and see them. I spoke to my mom and my sister on the phone from time to time, and that was enough. Going back there just didn’t work for me. It reminded me of everything that had gone wrong—the reason I’d left in the first place. I didn’t deal with trauma very well, obviously.
“That’s a pity. Your life sounds like it was pure gold back in the day.” Pax sipped his whiskey.
Did it really? I guessed it was because I’d done everything I could to make it sound great—bringing up only the good things and the happy memories. It was easier than mentioning that it was hell to think about home and to justify why.
“Don’t you miss your family and home?”
I shook my head immediately. “That’s not home.”
He raised his eyebrows. “You didn’t hesitate on that one.”
I looked into my glass at the fizzy liquid, a little bubble surfacing every now and then before popping. Being comfortable
with someone meant they asked you about things you didn’t want to talk about and they didn’t think it was wrong. I didn’t really want to talk to Pax about my past, but he’d handled my opening up about the body in such a sensitive way, and I felt like I could talk to him about other things, too. Maybe talking about Indiana wasn’t going to kill me.
“Indiana is home, but it doesn’t have happy memories attached to it. Not anymore.”
He frowned. “Not even if you grew up there? Had such a great time? Surely it can’t be all bad.”
I shook my head, not making eye contact. “Sometimes it’s all good until one thing happens and then suddenly all the good become bad. It’s not something you can help. I don’t know if that’s ever happened to you?”
He thought about it for a moment and then nodded slowly. “Yeah, I know what you mean. I don’t have something specific I can tell you about, but I get where you’re coming from.”
We sat in silence for a moment. When he spoke again, his voice was softer like he was scared to ruin the moment or startle me.
“Do you mind if I ask you what happened to make all those memories turn bad for you?”
I didn’t want to answer him. It was hard talking about things that still hurt no matter how many years down the line it was. I took a deep breath and looked at him. His dark eyes were on me, and they were sympathetic and kind. He looked like he really cared about my reaction—about what it was that haunted me at the back of my mind. And the talk about the body I’d found had turned out all right. I found myself wanting to confide in him.
“My father died when I was in college.”
I watched Pax’s face carefully. Shock and then sorrow. He felt for me.
“I’m so sorry. I can see how that would make everything else seem terrible, then.”
He was saying that, and it was sweet because in a lot of ways I was sure he could imagine my pain. He wouldn’t understand fully what it had meant. I didn’t want to tell him the full story. I didn’t want to add in anything that could make me remember just how bad it really had been. That could change what Pax thought of me.
After my father’s death, there had been a very dark time where every decision I’d made had been a bad one, geared solely toward getting me to forget about everything that had happened. I’d walked a very dangerous, rocky road and it was only through luck and Abby that I’d gotten out of it.
“I didn’t cope with it really well after he died. I made some poor decisions, and my life got worse and worse. I came out here to get away from it all and fell in love with the ocean. Coming here was the perfect escape—the solution to a problem that was eating me alive. I don’t look back.”
Pax nodded. “I can see that.”
I didn’t know if he really could, but he was trying, and that meant a lot. “Thank you for listening to all my stories. Two nights full of woe now—it’s got to be tiring just listening to me.”
He smiled, and it was a heart-stopping one. Sometimes the way he looked at me made me shudder and melt into my panties. There was something dark and dangerous about him, and that made him attractive. I wanted to know more about him, more of him. I didn’t want to come across needy, but if Pax asked me if I wanted to get out of here at any point, I was going to say yes.
Chapter Ten
Everything about her screamed sad, kicked puppy. I didn’t know exactly what she’d been through before, or why she was the one that had to go through all of this now, but one thing became clear. This was one unlucky woman, at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Even now, when I hadn’t been following her. I still wanted to get closer to her—to use her for information and access. And with the way she looked at me and blushed when I grinned at her, I wanted to use her for more than that. I put my hand on her leg again, and she didn’t move away, just like before. In fact, it looked like she was leaning forward a little, leaning toward me.
Her body language was positive. And so was my mood. I was in the mood to fuck her into oblivion.
The bar wasn’t particularly noisy, but even so, I became aware of the fact that it had fallen quieter than it had been. I frowned and looked around.
Two men, heavily clad in leathers and spikes, stood in the doorway to the bar. They looked like bad news; their hair was a mess, their eyes had dark circles underneath them, and their very presence screamed danger.
I knew they were a danger not just because of what they looked like, and my ability to spot trouble when it stared me in the face, but because I actually knew them. Not by name but by profession. And rivalry.
Two members of the Demon Aviators had just walked into the bar. One of them looked straight at me, my jacket giving me away. The Venom Chasers and the Demon Aviators had been nemeses for years. I couldn’t remember a time when we hadn’t hated each other.
I glanced at Conrad. He was looking at them, too, and his hand was underneath the bar. What did he have down there? A baseball bat? A gun? He knew this was trouble. Anyone who hosted one or both our clubs knew about the rivalry if we ended up in the same room, they had to prepare for a fight.
Leah didn’t look like she’d picked up on the bad vibes. Some of the other patrons looked around like they had a feeling something was wrong but they didn’t quite know how bad it could get. I took a deep breath and caught Conrad’s eye. He gave me a look warning me that he didn’t want trouble. He had no problem banning me.
One of them walked to a corner and got a table. The other walked toward us. He glared at me all the way until he reached the bar before turning his attention to Conrad. Leah turned around to look at what I was looking at, and the Aviator looked at her. He winked, and I wanted to break his face.
None of them deserved to even look at the woman I was with, no matter if it was just a one-night stand. They were the scum of the earth and didn’t deserve to even touch one.
Leah turned back to me. We waited in silence for him to collect his drinks, pay for them, and walk back to his buddy in the corner. When they were seated, I turned my attention back to Leah.
“That was tense,” she said. “What’s going on?”
I nodded at the thugs. “There are people in this town that don’t like to play nice.”
I understood the irony of what I was saying. I was one of those people that didn’t play nice. If she even knew half of who I was, it would be good for her to run as far away as she could.
Conrad put both his hands on the bar, leaning on straight arms, and looked at me. I knew what he was trying to tell me. I wasn’t good for her, either.
I ignored him. I didn’t need anyone to interfere. He was already a pain in the ass.
“Do you think they’ll cause trouble?”
I shook my head. I was pretty damn sure they would try, but it was pointless scaring her. To be honest, though, I wanted to pick a fight with them. If they’d killed Jonas… my blood boiled just thinking about it. But tonight wasn’t the night for club rivalry, not if I wanted Leah to stick with me. The moment she knew who I really was, what I was doing here, my chances were ruined. I turned all my attention on her.
“I’ll make sure there’s no trouble.” I smiled at her, and she smiled back at me. I was going to play protector and sympathizer all I needed to. Leah took a deep breath and she looked like her good mood was starting to slip away.
She shook her head as she looked at her cola. “Trouble just seems to follow me. I left Indiana to get away from everything that happened when…” She didn’t add the part where her dad died. She didn’t have to. I nodded. She swallowed and gave me a wan smile. “I ran halfway across the country to get away from it, and now it feels like it’s followed me here. It’s part of this place now too, in a way, although it was no one I knew.” She paused a moment then continued. “I’m starting to think that maybe I’ll quit and find another position somewhere else. Maybe I can start over again.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think running from your problems is the way to handle it.” I was being a little forwa
rd, but the truth was I couldn’t afford to have her leave now. If she left before I sorted all this shit out—finding out what the hell happened to Jonas—I would lose my foot in the door. Leah was my only connection to the body. Without her I had nothing.
Leah sighed. “I know what you’re saying. I was just throwing the idea around; I hadn’t made any set plans yet. But I don’t want a repeat, you know?”
I nodded and put my hand on her hand and held it. It was the most direct contact we’d made so far, apart from her ridiculous handshake when we’d parted the first time.
“Just give it a little more time. I can’t believe you want to leave this place behind. I can see how excited you get when you talk about what you do. You shouldn’t just leave just because something you had nothing to do with happened.”
