[Cutthroat Business 01.0 - 03.0] Boxed Set

by Jenna Bennett

  “The thought crossed my mind,” I admitted, blushing.

  He laughed. “I appreciate the effort, darlin’, but the only reason I told you that, was to yank your chain. I didn’t think you’d actually do it. Not that I’m complaining.”

  “No, I can see that. I suppose it would probably boost your ego to know that that remark made me worry all day long?”

  He grinned. “At least you were thinking of me, right?”

  I shrugged. I supposed I couldn’t very well deny that I had been. “So I’m not actually going to have to fight you off tonight?”

  “Course not.” He turned away from me just as the waiter approached. “I’ll have a beer. In the bottle, no glass. And the lady’ll have white wine.”

  As the waiter moved off, nose in the air, Rafe turned back to me and continued smoothly, “I mean, we had a deal, right? I said I’d get you out of Perry’s house in one piece and without letting him touch you. As I recall, what you said you’d do in return didn’t include fighting me off.”

  I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. Although I could feel my face turn pale. Rafe looked at me for a moment, savoring my expression, before he started laughing. “Maybe you oughta put your head between your knees if you’re gonna pass out, darlin’. Good Lord, it’s just sex, not marriage. What are you afraid I’m gonna do to you?”

  “I’m not sure,” I admitted. “I just know that the idea scares me out of my mind.”

  “No kidding. Well, you can relax. I don’t plan on taking advantage of the fact that you’d have promised me anything yesterday. You probably didn’t expect to live long enough to have to deliver.”

  “So I’m not going to have to sleep with you?”

  He smiled. “Sure you are. Just not tonight. No time for sex tonight.”

  “What are we doing?” I lifted the glass of Sauvignon Blanc the waiter put in front of me and took a healthy swallow. After a moment, I could feel some color creep back into my cheeks. “I’ll have the Chicken Marsala, please.”

  “Same.” Rafe waited until the waiter had moved off, and then he added, “We ain’t doing anything. I, on the other hand…”

  I put my glass down. “Uh-oh. What’s wrong now?”

  “Nothing’s wrong. I just wanted to let you know I’m gonna be going away for a while.”

  My eyes widened. “You’re not going to jail, are you? Are Spicer and Truman waiting outside to drag you off as soon as we’ve finished eating, or something?” I looked around wildly.

  “You’ve seen too many bad movies,” Rafe answered. “It’s only in old westerns that the outlaw gets to say a proper goodbye before they haul him off to be hanged. No, I’m between a rock and hard place here, with Tammy wanting to talk to me about Perry, and Julio’s boss wanting to talk to me about why Julio’s in jail, and by tomorrow, one or the other’ll be ready to move on me. So I’m getting out while the gettin’s good.”

  “If you knew that when you called me this morning, why didn’t you just leave then?”

  “Wanted to say a proper goodbye,” Rafe answered, with a grin. I flushed, and tried to hide it by lowering my eyes to the table. It didn’t work, and he chuckled. “Bedding you properly would take too long, but I’m sure I can find time for a proper kiss.”

  Goodness, I thought, distracted, how long did he expect a proper bedding to take? Gary Lee and Charlene had certainly managed their encounters in record time, and when Bradley and I had had sex, it had been over practically before it started. At least for me. But Rafe made it sound like he’d need twelve solid hours of uninterrupted time to do the job right, and the idea of it made my head spin and my toes curl.

  “Savannah,” Rafe said, and I resurfaced, blinking to dispel the slideshow currently running on a loop in my head. He so rarely used my name, seeming to prefer that Southern catch-all phrase, darlin’, that it sounded foreign to me. It also sounded serious.

  “Yes?” I said apprehensively.

  “I want you to do something for me.”

  “OK.”

  “While I’m gone, will you check in on my grandma once in a while? Just to make sure she’s all right? Marquita’s over there, but she’s getting paid to care, and it ain’t the same.”

  “Sure,” I said. “I’d be happy to. I like your grandmother. When do you expect to be back?”

  He avoided my eyes. “No idea. Depends on how long it takes for this to blow over.”

  “Can you give me some idea? A couple of days? A month? A year? Ever?!”

  He shrugged. “I’d like to avoid that, but yeah, that’s a possibility. If the wrong people find out where I’m at.”

  “Julio’s boss?”

  “Among others. Over the past couple years I’ve pissed off some pretty bad people, and some of’em may try to settle the score.”

  “Todd told me what you’ve been doing since you got out of prison,” I said tentatively. It was his turn to arch a brow.

  “How does Satterfield know? That ain’t something that shoulda shown up on that background check he did last month. If it did, I’m in even deeper shit than I thought.”

  “Actually, he’s gone a little beyond that.” I made an apologetic face as I dug in my purse. “Last week he told me he was having you followed. The private investigator took this. Along with a lot of other photographs.” I handed him the picture of the two of us at the Shortstop Sports Bar, the one I had taken from Todd. Rafe looked at it in silence for a moment.

  “Nice shot of you,” he said eventually.

  “Thank you. Todd thought so, too.”

  “Gave you a hard time, did he?” One corner of his mouth turned up.

  “He thought I looked like I was enjoying myself a little too much, yes. He accused me of flirting with you.”

  Rafe grinned. “I should be so lucky. Course, if someone had shown me a picture of you looking like this, across the table from some other guy, I mighta felt a little jealous, too.”

  I snorted. “I’m sure.”

  He smiled. “So Satterfield’s figured out how I’ve spent the past ten years. What do you think?”

  “I wish you’d stop. It’s dangerous.”

  “So’s life, darlin’. Besides, somebody’s gotta do it.”

  “I don’t see why,” I said, “but never mind. You sound like Beau Riggins.”

  “Yeah? Who’s Beau Riggins? Somebody else I gotta worry about you marrying while I’m gone?”

  I giggled. “Hardly. Although if you wanted to resign from your life of crime, you could make a killing in Beau’s profession. No pun intended.”

  He leaned back on his chair and folded his arms across his chest. I could see the outline of the snake tattoo curled around his left bicep through the thin sleeve of the white shirt. “What’s his profession? Assassin?”

  “House boy,” I said.

  “Come again?”

  “He cleans houses.” I went on to explain exactly what Beau did and how he did it, and had the pleasure of hearing an unguarded, totally spontaneous laugh from Rafe. Not an everyday occurrence, and one that made me feel good on those rare occasions when I witnessed it.

  “In his underwear?” he repeated, his voice uneven.

  I nodded, blushing. “He pulled down his zipper and showed them to me.”

  Todd would have been shocked and appalled, first at Beau for exposing himself – or his underwear – to me, and then at me for looking at it. Rafe clicked his tongue in mock disapproval. “Shame on you.”

  I shrugged. “Like you said once, there’s no harm in looking.”

  “Depends what you’re looking at, don’t it, darlin’? To be fair, maybe I oughta pull down my zipper too, so you can compare.”

  “No thanks,” I said. “That wouldn’t be fair at all. Beau wears Wonderjocks.”

  “He wears what?”

  I was in the process of explaining to Rafe what a Wonderjock was, and how it worked, when the food arrived, and hard on the heels of the waiter, Timothy Briggs. Who did a theatrical double-take when he saw
us. If that was the best he could do, I wasn’t surprised that Broadway hadn’t worked out.

  “Oh, Savannah! I didn’t realize you’d be here!”

  “Of course not,” I said dryly, “how could you?”

  Tim didn’t answer. He had already switched his attention from me to Rafe. “Hello, handsome.” His voice was a sultry purr, and his posture – shoulders cocked and hands on his hips – was pure teenage vixen. I had to turn away to hide my smile.

  “Hi, Tim.” Rafe’s voice wasn’t sultry at all, but his wicked grin and flash of dark eyes more than made up for it. Tim sighed appreciatively.

  I rolled my eyes. “What are you doing here, Tim?”

  “Oh, I’m just having dinner with some friends,” Tim said airily, waving a languid hand. “What about you kids?” His eyes returned to Rafe.

  “We’re actually having dinner, too,” I said. “Quite a coincidence, isn’t it? Especially since this is a restaurant.”

  Tim didn’t answer, and I’m not even sure he heard me. He seemed to be too busy watching Rafe breathe to pay attention to anything else. “What a wonderful surprise to see you again, Rafael.” The way he pronounced Rafe’s name was positively caressing.

  “The pleasure’s all mine,” Rafe answered, and although his tone didn’t match Tim’s for plummy suggestiveness, it was as close to audible sex-appeal as it’s possible to come. If I could have bottled and sold it, I could have made a fortune. Tim turned to me, lowering his voice confidingly.

  “Such a pity he’s straight, darling.”

  “Isn’t it?” I admitted demurely.

  Tim tittered. “So what were you two sitting here talking about? It must have been something exciting, to make you blush so prettily!” He sent me an arch look.

  Rafe grinned. “Underwear, actually. I got a look at Savannah’s yesterday, so I figured I’d offer to show her mine. Tit for tat.” He winked. Annoyingly, I blushed again.

  “Oooooh!” Tim fluted. “Can I be included in that offer, too? Pretty please! I’d love to see your tat.”

  “Unfortunately,” Rafe said smoothly, “for both of us, Savannah said no.”

  “Shame on you.” Tim pouted, sending me a wounded glance for ruining his fun. Then he lowered his voice and leaned a little closer to Rafe. “Forgive me, Rafael, but would you mind settling a question for us? Savannah and I talked about this the other day. Is that…” He glanced down into Rafe’s lap, pausing delicately, “the Wonderjock?”

  From the way he pronounced the brand name, he might almost have been talking about a priceless work of art. Like Connie Fortunato’s Georgia O’Keeffe.

  Rafe arched his brows in my direction. “You were talking about this the other day?”

  Tim nodded innocently. I blushed, bit my lip, and shrugged. Rafe grinned. “Sorry to disappoint you, but this is all me.”

  “Good Lord!” Tim said, fanning himself with a limp hand.

  “Well, you know what they say.” Rafe looked at me and winked. I couldn’t keep another blush from staining my cheeks crimson.

  Tim must have been so overcome by this news that he didn’t demur when I pushed him on his way, still glassy-eyed and breathing fast. He joined a threesome of other good-looking, obviously gay men on the other side of the restaurant, and they stuck their heads together, with frequent glances in our direction. They weren’t looking at me, and it didn’t seem to bother Rafe, so I decided not to draw attention to it.

  “So you and Tim were talking about my underwear the other day?” Rafe said, picking up his knife and fork and going to work on his chicken. “You musta forgotten to mention that.”

  I lifted my own fork and picked at my food. “We were talking about you and about the Wonderjock, but not necessarily at the same time. I mean, I wasn’t telling Tim that you wore one. I mean…”

  “I should hope not,” Rafe said with a grin. “I guess if you’re discussing my equipment with other people, there’s hope that I’ll get you to use it sometime, right?”

  I shrugged. “Anything’s possible, if you wait long enough. Why don’t you just make sure you come back to Nashville in one piece, and we’ll see?”

  “Now, there’s a thought that’s guaranteed to distract a man from his duty. I’ll do my best.” He popped a bit of chicken in his mouth and started chewing. I picked on my food some more.

  “You know,” I said tentatively, after a minute or two, with a glance at him from under my lashes, “yesterday, at the Fortunatos’ house, when I said those things about you …”

  He glanced up, eyes wary. “Yeah?”

  “I didn’t mean… I mean, I didn’t intend… I was just trying to make Perry think…”

  He didn’t answer, just let me run out of words on my own. When I finally did, he opened his mouth, and all the laughter was gone from both his eyes and his voice. “I am what I am, darlin’. If you or your mama have a problem with me because of it, that’s too bad, but it ain’t something I can change.”

  “I don’t have a problem with it,” I said firmly.

  He smiled. “Sure you do. Everything you told Perry was true. That’s why he believed you. You’ll forgive me for saying this, darlin’, but you’re a terrible liar.”

  I bit my lip. “Sorry.” And not for being a terrible liar.

  “No problem. It got us outta there alive; I ain’t about to complain. If it saves my life, you can call me anything you want.”

  He went back to eating. I watched him for another minute, while I pushed my own food around on the plate. “Since we’re talking about Perry…”

  “Yeah?”

  “There was a minute or two yesterday when you scared me.”

  He cocked a brow. “Just a minute or two?”

  “When you were talking to Perry about what you wanted to do to me…”

  “Unlike you, I’m an excellent liar.” His voice was easy.

  “So it wasn’t true? None of it?”

  “Well… not the way I made it sound.”

  “I see,” I said. Whispered, really.

  He looked at me for a moment without speaking, and then he put his knife and fork down and faced me across the table. “I’m sorry I scared you, Savannah. But because I did – because you were scared and you weren’t just pretending to be – Perry believed us. We walked outta there. You did good.” He lifted his beer bottle and toasted me.

  “Yes,” I said, “but…”

  It was weak of me, no doubt, but I wanted more reassurance. I wanted him to tell me that that all-consuming heat in his eyes, that darkness I’d glimpsed, was just play-acting and wouldn’t come back to swallow me if I ever got that close to him again. If I ever made good on that promise I’d made.

  He watched me wring my hands for a moment, and then he spoke. Lightly. “I’m a man, darlin’. A mostly naked woman tied to a bed is gonna tempt me. Especially when she looks like you. I ain’t gonna apologize for it.”

  I nodded, shakily. He added, “But you were scared out of your mind, and there ain’t nothing attractive about that.”

  “Thank you,” I whispered.

  He shrugged. “One of these days I figure you’ll believe me, as long as I keep saying it. I ain’t gonna hurt you.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  We spent the rest of dinner talking about mostly inconsequential things. I told him about Gary Lee and Charlene and what they had been doing every time I showed them a house, and Rafe told me he’d suspected as much, but he’d figured it was better not to tell me. I asked him if he knew anything about what had happened to the other men who had been involved in the open house robberies, and he said as far as he knew, the police had arrested all three of them, along with Julio Melendez. In the process, he confirmed that the other three robbers had indeed been the three men I’d seen him with at the Shortstop bar last week.

  “Though if I’d known they were gonna be there, I wouldn’t have suggested going. Ishmael likes women, but it don’t seem to occur to him that they don’t always like him.”

/>   “Ishmael was the one who kept staring at me? No, I didn’t like him all that much. As a matter of fact, I wondered if it might have been him who killed Lila. He was almost as tall as you, and had those pretty, dark eyes.”

  Rafe shook his head. “He already had a girl that night. And he ain’t that bad. Just ended up on the wrong side of the law when he was young, and stayed there.”

  “Kind of like you,” I said dryly.

  He grinned. “Nothing like me. Women always adore me, or hadn’t you noticed?”

  I rolled my eyes. “If you say so.”

  We left Fidelio’s around ten o’clock. Tim and his friends were still eating and drinking, and shooting us glances out of the corners of their eyes. As he passed by, Rafe paused for a second to put a hand on Tim’s shoulder and flash a smile that ought to have melted the ice cubes in every glass on the table. His voice was equally melting, and would probably be responsible for quite a few wet-dreams later. “Nice to see you again, Tim. Have a good night.”

  I glanced over my shoulder when he walked away, and saw that all four of the men had reached for their water glasses at the same time.

  “That was mean,” I said when we reached the street.

  Rafe grinned. “But fun. They’d been staring at me for the past hour, so I figured I might as well give’em something to think about.”

  He looked around and added, “Can you give me a ride? I had Wendell leave my bike outside your place earlier.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Here. You can drive.”

  “Don’t mind if I do.” He took the keys I handed him in one hand and my elbow in the other, and steered me toward the car.

  We spent most of the drive in silence. I was full of food, just a little drowsy from the wine, and I had a lot on my mind. Rafe must have been in similar straits, because he didn’t seem to have much to say, either. He pulled the car up to the curb outside the building – I could see his Harley-Davidson parked a little further down the street – and we got out and stood on the sidewalk in front of the gate, a little awkwardly.