Game Of Risk (Risqué #3)

by Scarlett Finn

  ‘Oh, well then I guess sex is it,’ she said.

  ‘Yep, nothing else for it.’

  ‘There is a TV,’ she said, but before she could look over her shoulder he lunged to the side of the bed to grab the remote, which he threw toward the door on the other side of the room.

  ‘It’s broken,’ he said, capturing her form in his arms.

  ‘I’m surprised that the hotel didn’t give you a discount when they rented you a room with a broken television,’ she said, not buying his ruse for a minute.

  ‘I paid extra,’ he grinned. ‘Told them I wanted my girl’s undivided attention.’

  ‘Well, Ruger Warner,’ she murmured, splaying her hands on his chest. ‘I guess it’s time for me to hold up my end of the deal.’

  Joining their mouths, she was captured in the bliss of this new intimacy. Drew had sent her more than a protector. Ruger was someone different. He was a man who could change her perspective in so many ways; all she had to do was be open to the possibilities.

  Chapter Ten

  ‘We could just move in,’ Ruger said, polishing off the last of his breakfast bagel.

  ‘Into a hotel?’ she asked, sipping her coffee.

  It had been touch and go whether or not they would make it down to the hotel dining room for breakfast. After their morning tryst in bed, Layla had to barricade him out of the shower because she wasn’t sure that she could take much more of his attention. Enamoured with the man, and being eager to please him, didn’t negate her aching muscles that needed some recovery time.

  ‘I got it for the night because I didn’t want any interruptions,’ he said. ‘But now I’ve had you all to myself, I’m not sure that I want to share you again.’

  It was nice to be adored, Layla couldn’t deny that, and she would love to spend some more alone time with him. But moving into a hotel in order to get it seemed a little extreme.

  ‘Wait,’ she said when she had an unsettling thought. ‘That wasn’t it, was it?’

  ‘What it?’

  ‘Last night, that wasn’t… you know… all I get.’

  His laugh was insensitive given her doubt, at least it would’ve been if she didn’t know him; that display of amusement was enough to relax her. When he took her hand to kiss it, she slipped it out of his grasp and smoothed her napkin on her lap—a little embarrassed that she’d revealed such dismay at the idea of their intimacy being over.

  ‘No, that wasn’t it, Legs,’ he said. ‘You said you didn’t do one-night stands, and I don’t want a one-night hook up with you either.’

  Hesitant to ask him what last night was, she was faced with her own uncertainty. She couldn’t ask him what it was until she knew what she wanted it to be. Layla didn’t do one-night stands, but she didn’t only sleep with men who she saw a forever future with.

  Sometimes she just trusted fate because the bigger picture often eluded her, she didn’t know what she wanted her life to look like when she was forty, fifty, and beyond. So if Ruger couldn’t put language to what was going on between them, Layla couldn’t be hurt or angry at the fact, because she couldn’t put language to it either.

  Saving her the trouble of making explanations, Ruger’s cell phone rang on the table, and he tilted it to look at it. Frivolity left his expression. ‘Your brother?’ she asked, hoping that all was well at home.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Yours. Hang on.’

  Ruger left the table. When he was a few paces away, he answered the phone and put it to his ear. Layla was glad that he’d taken the phone away because Drew would be able to hear in her voice that something was different, he always could. He just had all of her signals down-pat and he had always been perceptive like that.

  But Ruger’s frown didn’t change as he took the phone out of the dining room and into the lobby, so she couldn’t monitor his mood any further. If Drew were in trouble then Ruger would know how to help. If there was any danger to her or Drew, she hoped that Ruger would be honest with her about it. Drew had been capable as a brother and as a cop. He loved Serendipity and had proved in the past that he would do anything to keep her safe.

  Layla liked Serendipity and she always had. From the very first moment they’d met, Layla had been able to tell that the woman was good for Drew. Serendipity kept him honest and at times Layla was sure that Serendipity was the conscience that Drew sometimes struggled to hear in his own head.

  Having a love like that was not something she’d ever envied of Drew. As thrilling as it was to see him happy, she never imagined that her future would contain such a secure devotion. That she would meet a man who would put his life on the line to protect hers, as Drew would do for Dipity.

  Giving Ruger the space to take his call, Layla didn’t chase after him. She finished her coffee and was pouring another from the pot on the table when something made her pause. The origin of her unease was unknown, yet when her attention rose to the vast glass frontage of the hotel dining room, her focus came to rest on a black car parked on the other side of the street.

  They weren’t in the centre of the city, but this wasn’t the suburbs either, so there was plenty of activity outside. Any number of different actions could have caught her eye from pedestrians and tradesman to cars and cabs on the street. But this one black car stood out for her, though she couldn’t figure out why.

  The tinted window of the vehicle glided down halfway and inside was a man who was watching her as intently as she was watching him. Trying to convince herself that he was just a guy checking her out, Layla told herself not to be paranoid. Ashcroft couldn’t know where she was. Ruger had protected her and she’d followed the rules of not using any phone except Ruger’s to contact Drew.

  Still transfixed, she didn’t notice Ruger approaching the table until he sat down beside her. ‘I’m sorry, honey, we have to go.’

  ‘Ok,’ she said, dragging her eyes away from the car. ‘Why?’ Reminding herself of who had been on the phone, her panic levels rose. ‘Is it Drew? Is something wrong?’

  ‘Nothing we can’t handle,’ he said. Tipping the rest of his coffee into his throat, Ruger threw a tip onto the table and took her hand to pull her up from the table. ‘Are you finished?’

  She was already on her feet so the question seemed to be moot, but Layla offered a smile to help ease his new burden and let him lead her away. Glancing back over her shoulder, she sought out the black car that had been parked at the curb. It was gone.

  A chill whispered across her shoulders like someone had stepped on her grave. The car being gone should reassure her but for some reason it set her more on edge. Ruger was determined in guiding her through the lobby, so it didn’t feel like the right time to mention her heebie-jeebies. There was nothing out there for her to show him anyway and it seemed silly that something so benign had unsettled her, so she shrugged off her worries and caught up to walk at Ruger’s side.

  The last thing he’d wanted to do that morning was rush Layla out of the hotel. Their night together had been more profound than he’d expected. Instead of sating him it had only whetted his appetite for more.

  Typical that her brother should be the one to put a stick in the spokes of their intimacy. Leaving her alone at the breakfast table to take the call was supposed to give him his chance to tell Jansen about what he felt for Layla, honesty upfront. Except, Ruger couldn’t be honest about their feelings because he didn’t have a word for that yet. But he could be honest about their actions, in implicit terms of course.

  But as soon as he answered the phone, Drew was talking and all thoughts of honesty vanished in the gravity of what he’d been told. Getting the details had been hurried, and he’d returned to the breakfast table intent on getting Layla back to his mother’s, which was a safe place.

  Leaving Layla at his parents’ house with promises of returning as soon as he could, Ruger had kissed her and been on the road again. Tracking down Blaser was an easy objective. The best thing about that particular brother was that he could be found without any trou
ble. Colt was always staking something or someone out and could be in any number of locations. Blaser was only ever in one of three places, the apartment complex, Risqué, or at Warner’s Autos.

  Risqué wasn’t open yet and unless Bri had tempted him into taking the morning off, Blaser was going to be at the auto garage. Speeding to that location, Ruger parked outside and greeted the men he passed.

  Expecting Blaser to be dirty and under a car somewhere, he scanned the legs of the men he could see, but didn’t identify any of them as his brother. The tow truck had been in the yard, so it was unlikely that Blaser was out recovering a vehicle.

  Heading into the office, Ruger was going to ask Ivy, the desk girl, where Blaser was. But he was faced with Blaser there, leaning against the filing cabinet and wiping his hands on a rag as he and Ivy laughed about something.

  ‘Oh watch out,’ Blaser said when Ruger came in. ‘He’s going to accuse me of flirting with you and then remind me that I have a girlfriend.’ Ruger just scowled and Blaser shook his head. ‘I guess he only does that when I’m talking to his girlfriend.’

  ‘Oh, do you have a tinge of the green-eyed monster, Ruger?’ Ivy asked.

  Ruger didn’t answer her question. He chose to respond to Blaser’s accusation instead. ‘Ivy’s married,’ Ruger said.

  Blaser raised his chin while inhaling. ‘Ah, I wouldn’t flirt with her because Dax put a ring on her finger, is that it?’

  ‘Yeah, that and Dax would put you in a body bag if you touched his wife,’ Ruger said.

  Dax actually would do that to any man who thought to put his hands on Ivy, so that wasn’t really much of a joke. Ivy was the only one who laughed, but from how she quickly returned to her work, Ruger guessed she was thinking the same thing about her husband and the truth of what he would do to any sleazebags.

  ‘What brings you here?’ Blaser asked, squeezing the rag between his fingers to clean off the grime. His grey overalls were smeared with grease and emblazoned with his name. But the thick layer of black beneath his fingernails wasn’t shifting and Ruger decided there and then that auto-repair wasn’t going to be a part of his future.

  ‘Jansen called me.’

  ‘And?’ Blaser asked, smart enough to know that all jokes were off now.

  ‘They had a bit of trouble. Ashcroft’s men burst into their safe house.’

  ‘Wasn’t much of a safe house then was it?’ Ivy chimed in, leaning back in her seat to look up at Ruger.

  Ruger didn’t know Ivy or her husband well, but they had been around to help Blaser. So when he looked to his brother he wasn’t surprised to see Blaser nod. ‘She’s fine. We can trust her,’ Blaser said.

  That was enough for Ruger, angling himself to include both Blaser and Ivy in the conversation, he carried on. ‘Shots were fired. A bullet got close enough to Flick to piss Rushe off, so he broke the guy’s neck… with his bare hands.’

  ‘If it was Bri I’d have done the same.’

  Blaser had been in his share of trouble when he was younger, but Ruger doubted he actually knew how to crack a guy’s spine like that. Though if love was involved, men were capable of miracles.

  ‘Anyway, they have more heat than they’re comfortable with. Ashcroft has grounds now to send legitimate forces after him,’ Ruger said.

  ‘Ashcroft knows about it already? What did they do with the body?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Ruger said. ‘As far as Jansen knows Ashcroft hasn’t got the evidence yet. But when the guy fails to turn up…’

  ‘It’s only a matter of time before they put the pieces together,’ Blaser said. ‘And Ashcroft is cosy with the DA.’

  ‘Yeah, which is why Rushe and Flick are now heading north. I have to meet up with them, help supply them ‘cause where they are is secluded and we don’t know how long they’ll have to be there.’

  ‘This is getting dirty fast,’ Blaser said, folding his arms. ‘I don’t like it.’

  ‘None of us like it,’ Ruger said. ‘But we’re not going to turn our backs on them now. For one thing, Rushe will hunt us down if he takes exception to us cutting him and Flick off in their time of need. But beyond that—‘

  ‘Jansen saved Bri’s life,’ Blaser said. ‘I haven’t forgotten that.’

  ‘Good,’ Ruger said. ‘I have to meet up with Rushe and Flick tomorrow. But it will take a day for me to get everything together that they need and I have to see Lyssa.’

  ‘Lyssa, why?’

  ‘It’s not important,’ he said. ‘But I need you to look out for Layla while I’m gone.’

  ‘Look out for her?’ Blaser said. ‘You mean keep her alive.’

  ‘Yeah. I can’t take her with me. It’s too risky. But I can’t leave her here unprotected either. For all we know that’s exactly what Ashcroft wanted by provoking this. If they’re taking shots at Flick then our women are in it. Serendipity and Layla, neither of them are safe.’

  ‘Our women,’ Blaser said, lightening the mood with half a smile. ‘I guess things went well last night.’

  ‘I’m not going to talk about that,’ he said.

  If he stopped for long enough to think about what had happened in the hotel, or what it had felt like to be with such a vivacious woman, he might want to ditch everyone and take her to somewhere far from here. Somewhere hot and tropical, where bikinis and mai-tais were all they had to concern themselves with.

  ‘It’s ok to be into her,’ Blaser said, but he wasn’t teasing. ‘It’s ok to fall in love.’

  ‘You have to move back home,’ Ruger said, ignoring Blaser’s comments.

  ‘Excuse me? What?’ Blaser asked, shifting his weight to his feet. ‘I have to what?’

  ‘You have to stay at Mom and Dad’s. It’s the only way that you can be sure Layla’s ok,’ Ruger said. ‘I know it’s difficult and you might not see much of Bri, but it’s only a couple of days, three max.’

  ‘Which is it, Ruge? A couple or three? I’m not moving back to Mom’s.’

  ‘It’s not moving back, it’s just like a weekend away,’ he said. Blaser’s easy manner had become tense. Ruger wasn’t ignorant to the fact that this wasn’t ideal and he hadn’t been wild about staying back at home himself, so he couldn’t put up a credible fight against Blaser’s objections. ‘You have to be near Layla to keep her safe, so you have to stay at Mom’s with her. Unless you talk to Bri about moving in with you.’

  ‘It’s too soon for that, we just found out… you know, and we need some time to process everything before we make big decisions.’

  ‘I know that she’s pregnant, so you don’t have to talk in code,’ Ivy said, pulling herself closer to her desk.

  ‘You do?’ Ruger asked.

  ‘Who do you think was there when she took the tests?’ Ivy asked. Ivy and Bri were neighbours and had become quite close, neither had another good friend, so the women confided in each other. ‘I agree with Blaser that it’s too soon to rush Bri into moving. But if you’re worried about Layla then she’s better at the apartments than she would be at your parents’ house.’

  ‘There’s been no trouble at my mom’s and Mom takes care of Layla. Out here there’s… She doesn’t know anyone, she wouldn’t know what to do and she might cause problems for herself.’

  ‘Problems?’

  ‘He wants you to think that he’s worried about her,’ Blaser said. ‘What he’s really worried about is that she’s hot and there are guys here. There are no guys around to move in on his turf at our mom’s.’

  Now that Blaser put it like that Ruger wondered if he was concerned about the idea of another guy moving in on Layla. Except after the night they’d had together he was sure they were definitely starting something and he doubted that Layla was the type to have several guys on the go at the same time.

  ‘No one will make a play for her around here. No one hits on me,’ Ivy said, swivelling to face them again.

  ‘Everyone around here has met your husband,’ Ruger said. Only a man with a death wish would think about trying t
o touch Dax Harrow’s wife.

  ‘Her husband is another good reason why Layla should stay here,’ Blaser said. ‘Dax knows what he’s doing in a fight. He bailed Bri out, didn’t he? If anyone tries to cause trouble for her—‘

  ‘Saying that she would be safe here doesn’t change the fact that there’s nowhere for her to sleep,’ Ruger said, more exasperated by Blaser’s argument than opposed to it. ‘Are you going to sleep on the couch and give her your room? ‘Cause she’s not safe out front alone.’

  ‘I thought Suzette was staying in your apartment,’ Ivy said.

  ‘She is,’ Ruger said. ‘Hence why I have nowhere for Layla to go.’

  ‘Is it that, or is it that you’re afraid to have a girl in your house in case she never leaves?’ Ivy asked, catching her pen in her teeth and raising her eyebrows at him.

  ‘Yeah, it could be that, ‘cause the last time I was a nice guy, I let Suzette move into my apartment and she’s never planning on leaving.’

  ‘Kick her out,’ Ivy said.

  ‘Like it’s no big deal.’

  ‘Woman has a point,’ Blaser said.

  Covering his hand with his eyes, Ruger exhaled. ‘Then you tell her to move, Blase.’

  ‘If kicking Suzette out is causing you trouble, I’ll talk to her,’ Ivy said.

  ‘No,’ both men said at the same time.

  Suzette and Ivy were not the best of friends. Being neighbours they’d had a few run-ins over noise levels. ‘I would be perfectly nice about it,’ Ivy said. ‘The woman has no right to take up residence in your apartment, not when she’s got a boyfriend.’ This caused both him and Blaser to peer at her. ‘Which I guess, neither of you knew.’

  When Ivy tried to turn back to the desk, Ruger caught the back of the chair and pulled it out to spin her around so he could look at her. ‘Suzette has a boyfriend?’

  ‘I thought everyone knew,’ Ivy said, but the innocent act was fooling no one and Ruger had a feeling that it was Ivy’s intention to out Suzette’s not-so-secret. ‘Bri knows and so does Lyssa.’