Take Me Harder

by Jackie Ashenden

  People came to him when they needed intel about other prisoners, about the guards, about the outside world. Rush had traded in favors and cigarettes and other prison luxuries, and in time he’d built himself quite the reputation. No one screwed with him, not if they didn’t want to bring the entire prison population down on their heads.

  By the time his sentence was done, he’d come out with a list of favors owed longer than the goddamned Bible, a healthy-looking bank account, and a list of contacts the sheriff’s department would have killed for.

  He still had that list, a network he kept growing even now that he was out of jail, and it had proved itself very useful indeed. Though maintaining it was difficult if he wanted to keep on the right side of the law. And he had to admit that there had been times since he’d gotten out where he’d wondered if being on the right side of the law was actually where he wanted to be.

  His phone vibrated in his pocket, and he hauled it out, glancing at the screen.

  How fucking apt. It was the sheriff. What the hell did he want?

  Maybe Ava told him about what you did to her in the VIP room….

  Oh hell. She wouldn’t, would she? There was only one way to find out.

  Rush hit the answer button and leaned his hip against the bar. “Yo, Sheriff. What can I do for you today?”

  “Keeping your nose clean, son?” Ian St. George’s slightly rusty-sounding, formal tones echoed down the line.

  “You know it.”

  “Glad to hear it.” There was a slightly awkward pause. Then the sheriff cleared his throat and said, “I need to ask you something. It’s about Ava.”

  Tension crawled along Rush’s shoulder blades. Shit. “What about her?” he asked, keeping his voice casual.

  “Have you seen her recently? Talked to her?”

  Rush blinked, focusing on a piece of broken glass resting on the surface of the bar. “Not recently.” Which was true. If you didn’t count recently as being in the last two days. “Why? What’s up?”

  The sheriff paused as if debating what to say. Then he said, “Well, it’s actually nothing I can put my finger on, to be honest. But something’s a little…off with her.”

  Okay, so this wasn’t about his little lap dance escapade. It should have made him feel a bit more relaxed, but it didn’t. If anything, the tension grew tighter. Because he knew exactly why Ava was a little bit off.

  Rush put a hand to his eyes and rubbed them tiredly. Did he tell the guy Ava had come to him wanting information about Jimmy Troy? That would get her in the shit for sure.

  “What do you mean, off?” he asked, going for not telling the sheriff quite yet.

  “Oh, she seems a lot more quiet than normal. Preoccupied.”

  Dammit. He had a feeling he knew why Ava was preoccupied. She hadn’t let that whole Jimmy Troy thing go, had she? “Did you…uh…want me to do anything?”

  The other man let out an impatient-sounding huff. “Would you talk to her? Just check up on her to see if she’s okay?”

  Great. What was he? Some chick BFF? “You can’t have a chat with her yourself? Hell, you’re her dad.”

  “No.” Ian’s voice was gruff. “Can’t do that. She won’t listen to me anyway.”

  Rush sighed. “What makes you think she’ll listen to me?”

  “Because she always has,” the older man said, as if that was a God-given truth. “Well? Can I count on you, son?”

  He should tell Ian he’d already talked to her, that he knew what she was getting herself into, and that no, she hadn’t actually listened to him when he’d told her to stop. But…shit. Jimmy Troy was his to deal with. Which meant Ava and her investigations, or whatever the hell it was that she was doing, were also his to deal with.

  Lucky him.

  “Yeah,” he said, trying not to sound as annoyed as he felt, but failing. “Okay, I’ll talk to her.”

  “Good.” The sheriff sounded pleased. “Oh, and Rush?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Get back to me as soon as you’ve spoken with her. I want to know she’s okay.” He didn’t wait for Rush to respond, disconnecting the call abruptly.

  Rush scowled and shoved his phone back in his pocket.

  Then he bent to start cleaning up the shattered glass of his tumbler. It was a damn sight easier than thinking about talking to Ava St. George.

  —

  Rhys, the enigmatic bounty hunter who was part of the Duchess Bail Bonds team, put one large hand onto the head of the man he was holding and pushed the guy down and into Ava’s patrol car.

  “Thanks,” Ava said as Rhys slammed the door after him. “Sheriff’s going to be pleased with that one.” This particular guy had been a pain in the butt to find, but the Duchess team had come through yet again. They were building quite the name for themselves, and the semi-friendly rivalry they had going with the Lone Star boys only added to their reputation.

  Ava certainly knew whom she’d rather deal with. Grumpy Quinn Redmond was no picnic, which made Duchess her pick. The woman was a consummate professional, as were her team.

  Nothing like Rush. At all.

  Oh nooooo. She wasn’t thinking of him. Not today. Not any day.

  “No problem.” Rhys straightened, his dark eyes giving her a look she couldn’t interpret. Pretty much the same one he’d given her that night at the strip club. “Want some advice?” he asked unexpectedly.

  Ava blinked. “What advice?”

  “Steer clear of Rush.” Rhys turned toward the entrance to Duchess’s offices. “Don’t get me wrong. He’s a good guy. But he’s not for someone like you.”

  She stiffened in offense. “What do you mean, someone like me?”

  He gave her a look, and just for a second she saw something hard and very, very cold in his eyes. Something frightening. Then he shrugged and it was gone, Rhys moving past her without another word.

  Ava frowned after him. Men were weird, and she’d just about reached her weirdness limit. Especially after the last couple of days, furtively and fruitlessly trying to find out more about Jimmy Troy and his network. Furtively because she didn’t want her father figuring out what she was doing, not to mention her partner or the rest of her colleagues. Fruitlessly because she’d only turned up one name as a contact, some old guy who lived in a featureless new development in Round Rock. But when she’d gone to see him, he wouldn’t tell her anything, not even when she’d waved fifty bucks in his face. Which wasn’t surprising, but still.

  It was becoming clearer that if she wanted to get closer to Troy and get the information she needed, she was going to have to try a different angle. The only question was what.

  Her phone vibrated with a text message, and she reached into her pants pocket to grab it, glancing down at the screen. It was from an unknown number.

  I need to talk to you. Meet me tonight at Jack’s, the bar opposite Lone Star. 8pm. RR.

  RR? It had to be Rush, especially if he was talking about Lone Star.

  A strange bolt of something like excitement shot through her. Had he changed his mind about not giving the names of his contacts? Was he actually going to do something to help her?

  Perhaps he wants another lap dance?

  The excitement inside her twisted in on itself at the memory of him in the VIP room, tautening, tightening. Memories of heat and a hard body, turquoise-blue eyes that seemed to see all the way through her, right down to all the passions she kept locked away inside herself…

  “Come on, St. George,” Mike called out of the window of the car, sounding impatient. “We haven’t got all day!”

  Ava shook herself, shoved those particular thoughts away, and texted Rush a quick yes. Then she put her phone back in her pocket and got into the car.

  And tried very hard not to think about him for the rest of the day.

  Luckily, it was a busy one, and she barely had enough time to get home, change out of her uniform, and get something for herself and her father for dinner, let alone think about Rush and whatever
it was he had to talk to her about.

  She was still mentally checking off her to-do list for the following day as she stepped through the double doors of Jack’s bar, right on the dot of eight.

  The bar itself looked like someone had been trying to go for a Western theme but had gotten bored halfway through. Apart from the old-time saloon doors, there was a lone cactus stuck to one wall with a wagon wheel beside it, and a piano in one corner. Some country music jangled in the background, probably for ambience, but it was largely drowned out by the TV positioned high on one wall behind the bar and the football that was currently playing.

  A number of guys were sitting on barstools at the bar, their attention glued to the TV, occasionally calling out stuff or cursing loudly as they watched the action.

  There were a few other tables scattered around, but apart from a couple of people dotted here and there, the whole place was pretty empty.

  Ava wrinkled her nose at the stale smell of spilled alcohol and the occasional whiffs of cigarette smoke. She didn’t care for bars much. The guys from work were always going out to a bar around the corner from the precinct, but she never joined them. Even when she’d been training at the police academy, she hadn’t gone out and done the social thing with all the rest of the trainees.

  No one wanted the sheriff’s daughter coming along for the ride and cramping their style—not that she would have told any tales, but she’d felt that pressure from the others all the same. It was easier to refuse the polite invitations rather than have to endure the stilted conversation that had ensued the one time she’d gone out with them, everyone trying not to say anything offensive that might get back to the sheriff.

  There was also the fact that being Ian St. George’s daughter put her in the spotlight. She had to work twice as hard as everyone else to prove herself, and that left no room for going out drinking with her colleagues.

  Not that she even wanted to. Most of the time she preferred curling up on the couch at home and watching TV, especially crime dramas that she could pick apart and argue with herself about. It would have been nicer if she’d had someone to do it with, but her father liked his baseball and watched nothing else.

  A burst of laughter came from the guys around the bar, and for a second she stared at them, wondering what it was like to be part of something like that. Part of a group of friends who went out and spent time with one another, enjoying each other’s company.

  She didn’t have that, and sometimes she wished she did. But no, she didn’t have time for it. Between her job, her father, and trying to investigate this arms ring, she didn’t have time for much of anything.

  Bah. Why on earth was she thinking this kind of stuff? Must be coming off night shift. It always screwed with her head, making her feel tired and a little out of it.

  “Hey, sweet thing,” a deep, rich, and very familiar voice drawled from behind her. “You look a little lost. Perhaps I can help?”

  A helpless and very much unwanted shiver rippled down Ava’s spine, reminding her of a great many things she’d been trying very hard not to think about for the past few days. Things she’d thought she’d put behind her once and for all. Feelings and such. Female feelings.

  Setting her jaw, she turned around, only to have the shiver move outward over the rest of her body as she met a pair of equally familiar blue-green eyes looking down at her.

  She didn’t often get to look up at people, at least not in the way she had to look up at Rush Redmond, and as always, it was disconcerting. She blinked at him, trying not to notice other things about him. Such as the width of his shoulders and chest, and the way his black T-shirt and worn jeans only seemed to emphasize the power of them. The light of the bar caught the golden highlights in his hair and in the stubble that lined his strong jaw. There was gold too in the thick dark lashes that framed his eyes.

  Her heart gave a small, excited flutter in her chest, the way it used to do when she was a young teen in the throes of her first crush. Her father at that stage had still been going drinking with Joe at the Lone Star Hotel, and she’d still been going with him at every visit.

  The Redmond boys had all grown up by then, all of them young, handsome, and wild. Quinn and Zane hadn’t been interested in her as a kid, and they weren’t interested in her as a teenager either, but that had suited her fine, because she only had eyes for Rush.

  He’d been so much older than her, back from the army and so handsome. Yet he always had time for her, giving her milk and cookies in the kitchen the way he’d done when she was smaller, only this time supplementing his shooting lessons with advice on proper weapons care and gun safety. She’d fallen for him hard back then, hanging out in the foyer of the old hotel, waiting to catch a glimpse of him, and then the terrible, biting disappointment if he wasn’t home.

  Then had come the day when she’d been thirteen and she and her dad had arrived to see Joe, only to catch Rush on his way out with his arm around a small, pretty blond woman. He’d given Ava a grin and a wink, then walked straight out with whoever the woman had been, not seeming to have heard Ava’s heart cracking all the way through right there in her chest.

  The pain had been real and vicious, and she’d spent the next week hiding in her room, examining herself in the mirror, hating her red hair and her freckles and her height. Missing her mother terribly because she had no one to talk to about her crush. No one to tell about her disappointment. No one to reassure her that it would be fine, that broken hearts healed in time, and that there was nothing wrong with her. That she was beautiful and Rush Redmond was a douchebag of the highest order if he couldn’t see that. Of course, she’d been way too young for him, but at the time she hadn’t had the maturity to see that. All she’d felt was heartbroken.

  No, she’d had no one to reassure her, so tonight when the sexy, laughing glitter in Rush’s eyes vanished and he said, “Oh, it’s you,” in a vaguely disappointed tone, her heart went from fluttering straight to shriveling instead.

  Clearly he’d thought she was someone else, and it was…disconcerting to watch how quickly his expression changed when he discovered it was her. Like he’d been hoping she was some pretty stranger he could pick up for a night of fun, but he’d gotten her instead.

  Disconcerting? Try mortifying.

  No. She refused to be mortified. So he’d never seen her as a sex object and probably never would. Big deal. No reason to feel embarrassed or disappointed. She didn’t even want to be a sex object. She was a cop, for God’s sake.

  “Yes,” she said crisply. “It’s me. Right on time.”

  “Of course you are.” He glanced down toward the back of the bar where there were a few booth seats. “Go sit down there and I’ll get us a drink.”

  “No, thank you. I don’t need a—” She broke off, left talking to empty air as Rush completely ignored her, moving toward the bar, some of the guys watching the football game turning as he approached, smiles breaking out over their faces. They greeted him with back slaps and grins, obviously knowing who he was and pleased to see him, laughing when he made some comment.

  Annoyance joined the disappointment and weird shrivelly feelings already churning in her stomach. How dare he order her to go sit down, then just walk away when she was right in the middle of talking? What the hell was wrong with him?

  She was very tempted to walk straight up to him and call him out right there in front of his admiring audience. But she had a feeling that probably wouldn’t go well for her, especially if he’d asked her to meet him here to talk to her about this contact list of his.

  Swallowing her annoyance, she walked over to where the booth seats were located, sliding into one and putting her hands down on the table, only to pull them away fast as she encountered the sticky surface.

  What was it about Rush and dive bars? Couldn’t they have met somewhere nice? Like a cafe or a restaurant? Or he could even have come back to her place. Though, on second thought, maybe not her place. Her father would be there, and she couldn’
t risk him overhearing anything.

  Rush was clearly in no hurry to get the drinks, which did not help her temper. And by the time he sauntered back, a beer bottle in either hand, Ava was just about ready to kill him.

  But she knew getting angry wouldn’t help, so she plastered what she hoped was a smile on her face instead, folding her hands in her lap and trying to relax as he slid into the seat opposite and pushed the beer bottle across to her.

  She ignored it. “So? Have you changed your mind? Is that why you wanted to meet me?”

  He settled back against the seat, his beer held loosely in one hand, his brows drawn down as he stared at her. The easy, charming smile he’d given the guys at the bar was gone, the blue in his eyes glittering in a way that was nearly cold. In fact, his whole expression was cold. And hard too.

  Her breath caught. Because this wasn’t the wicked reprobate from the strip club or the kind friend she remembered from her childhood. This man was someone wholly different and wholly dangerous. Someone you would not, under any circumstances, want to mess with.

  “Drink your beer,” Rush ordered, his voice stripped bare of the lazy warmth that had been in it earlier. “You’re gonna need it.”

  Unease gathered inside her, but she made no move toward the bottle. “Why? What’s this about?”

  His gaze pinned hers like a cold, hard steel blade. “I told you to stay away from Jimmy Troy, Ava. And you didn’t, did you?”

  Shock bolted down her spine. “What? How do you know—”

  “Why not?” he interrupted harshly.

  Struggling not to let either her shock or her growing annoyance show, she took a slow, silent breath. “What makes you think I’m investigating Jimmy Troy?”

  Rush snorted. “The sheriff called me today because something’s off with you and he wants me to find out what it is.”

  You really thought he wouldn’t notice?

  She felt suddenly cold. “He never said anything.”

  “No, of course he wouldn’t. He came to me instead because for some reason he thinks I’ll be able to figure out what’s wrong with you better than he will. Funnily enough, he’s right.” Rush didn’t look away. “You’re going after Troy. Why?”