Take a Risk (Risk #1)

by Scarlett Finn

  Blaser and Ruger both had properties here as did another of their cousins, Gus, who apparently managed the lion’s share of the management work. Gus’ brother was the one who actually owned the building. The Warner family extended far, she’d had no idea that Colt was part of such a large clan.

  Blaser spent most of his days in the garage which butted onto the back of the apartment complex. The public accessed the garage pitch from the street parallel to the apartment block, but the gated chain-link fence between the two areas allowed Blaser to move between them without setting foot in a street.

  It turned out that the other units in the block were mostly occupied by employees of Risqué or the garage, but they were all men. An apartment complex that was full of male residents raised all sorts of questions for her inquisitive mind.

  ‘Are you hungry?’ Colt asked, stroking her back.

  She was quite enjoying lying face down in his bed, hugging the pillow and misting in and out of slumber. ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Almost eight.’

  Sunday night, the last shift of her week at Risqué. Colt had taken her to work last night and stayed there the whole time. Blaser had let her leave an hour early, probably at Colt’s urging, explicit or otherwise.

  ‘I have to get ready for work,’ she mumbled. ‘I should go home and find something to wear.’

  ‘You wore clothes from the club last night.’

  ‘I’m not a fan of wearing other women’s clothes,’ she yawned and rolled onto her back. ‘Where was Ruger last night?’

  ‘You talk about wearing other women’s clothes and that makes you think of my brother?’ he smirked. ‘He’ll probably let you borrow from his wardrobe, but I don’t know think that any of his clothes will fit you. You have a much better figure.’

  ‘I hope I didn’t upset him. You’ll have to give me his phone number. I’ll call and apologise.’

  ‘Ruger isn’t easily upset,’ he said, stretching his arms above his head when he sat up, displaying the intricate, tough muscles in his back. ‘Anyway you might have been right.’

  ‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘But he wouldn’t have appreciated me outing him in front of other people; that was inappropriate.’ Spreading her hand on the middle of his back, she sighed. ‘You have a beautiful body.’

  ‘Thanks,’ he said, flopping onto his side and holding up his head with a crooked elbow. ‘You’re pretty hot yourself.’

  ‘I do yoga.’

  ‘I know,’ he smirked, and she rolled her eyes at his semi-smile.

  ‘I forgot you stalked me.’

  ‘Only for a couple of weeks,’ he said. ‘I kind of wish I’d stuck at it for longer.’

  ‘Why? What do you think you’d have seen?’

  ‘Who knows? But you’re sexy enough to watch day-in, day-out, you don’t have to do anything interesting.’

  He kissed her shoulder, and her upper chest, then began to make his way toward her cleavage. ‘Do you remember the last time you had sex with your wife?’

  His lips stopped, his head came up, and he looked her in the eye for a few seconds with apparent confusion and surprise. ‘We’re lying naked in bed together and you’re thinking about Carrie… I wouldn’t have figured that one out. What kind of fetish is that?’

  ‘If you don’t want to talk about it—‘

  ‘You do want to talk about it?’

  ‘I’m just curious,’ she said. ‘How close to you moving out did you have sex with her?’

  ‘In which direction? Before or after I moved out?’

  She shifted away slightly to get a better look at him. ‘You had sex with her after you moved out of the marital home?’

  He nodded. ‘Remember that three month fling I mentioned?’

  ‘Your fling was with your wife?’

  ‘Sex wasn’t the problem for Carrie and me. The problem was everything else.’

  ‘Before you moved out of the marital home, when was the last time you had sex with her?’

  ‘The night before,’ he said. ‘We thought it was goodbye.’

  ‘Did she achieve climax?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Probably not.’ Scrubbing his hands over his face, he sat up. ‘What is this about?’

  ‘Did you ever cheat on her?’

  ‘What?’ he said with a stab of offense, and spun to glare at her. ‘I was always faithful to her.’

  ‘But you blame yourself for the demise of the relationship?’

  ‘Don’t psychoanalyse my marriage,’ he said, vaulting out of bed and wrenching on his jeans. ‘That’s done with; you don’t have to worry about Carrie.’

  ‘I’m not worried about her,’ Lyssa said, sitting up. ‘You prioritise my pleasure over your own and I don’t know if that’s an inherent insecurity or if it comes from the guilt of the break-up of your marriage.’

  ‘Maybe I’m just a good lover,’ he said and though he wasn’t as riled, the way he thrust his hands to his hips told her he wasn’t completely calm.

  ‘You are,’ Lyssa said. ‘But I want to satisfy you too, and if you have issues—‘

  ‘I’m not one of your patients,’ he said, coming around the bed to sit beside her. ‘Don’t over think this.’

  And when he kissed her it was easy to do as he said. She didn’t mean to make him uncomfortable, or to pry. It was just in her nature to ask questions, to try and establish people’s motivations and how to help them. Relationships hadn’t been on her priority list and she was out of practise, but if Colt kept kissing her like this then she knew she’d quickly get back into the habit of going with the flow and switching off her critical brain.

  Unfortunately, she wasn’t due for anymore practise right now because her cell phone began to ring and both she and Colt groaned in unison. He picked up her backpack from the floor and handed it over so she could retrieve her phone. Reading Suzette’s name was a surprise, but she didn’t hesitate to answer.

  ‘Hey, is everything ok?’ Lyssa asked.

  ‘Disaster!’ Suzette said. ‘There has been a disaster with the dresses.’

  ‘Your wedding dress?’ Lyssa said, and her hand subconsciously went to Colt’s shoulder for support, he turned to kiss her gripping knuckles. ‘What’s the problem?’

  ‘All of them. The dressmaker called and she had some sort of problem in her workshop, something to do with her niece, but she’s lost all of the alteration details she made on the dresses when we were last in.’

  ‘Oh my god, that’s terrible. What are you going to do?’

  ‘I’ve managed to track down one sister and she’s off to corral the other,’ Suzette said. ‘I hate to do this to you after our conversation on Friday, and you probably hate me and Pete, and I know you have work tomorrow…’

  ‘What do you need, Suze? I’ll do whatever you need me to.’

  ‘Meet me at the dress shop.’

  ‘Sure,’ Lyssa said. Colt took her hand from the bed and kissed her palm then coiled her fingers around the erection she’d been ogling. Her smiling frown asked the question of what he was doing.

  ‘Prioritising my pleasure,’ he whispered and she eased her lips to his and took over the jerking, letting him lean his weight back on his palms.

  ‘We need to do it tonight,’ Suzette said.

  Lyssa had almost forgotten that she was holding the phone and it took her longer than normal to comprehend the words. When she did, her grip tightened, but the motion of it stopped and Colt cracked open one eye.

  ‘Tonight?’ she repeated, conveying her silent apology to Colt who sighed out his disappointment, but took her hand from his dick and flattened it on his chest.

  ‘Yes, I know it’s short notice but if you could meet me at the dress store in like half an hour? I’m heading over there now.’

  ‘Ok,’ Lyssa said, glancing at the clock next to Colt’s bed. ‘But can we do my dress first. I have something on later.’

  ‘Later?’ Suzette said. ‘On a Sunday night? Is this about that guy you mentioned?’


  ‘Could be,’ Lyssa said. ‘I’ll see you soon.’

  Hanging up the phone without further explanation, she tossed the device into her backpack. ‘I’ll tell Blaser you won’t be in,’ Colt said. ‘It won’t be a problem.’

  ‘I’m not going to take advantage of our physical relationship,’ she said. ‘I made a commitment to Blaser and I won’t let him down.’

  ‘What does she need you to do?’

  ‘There was a problem with the dresses. I have to go to the dress shop for a fitting.’

  ‘I can drive you,’ he said as she climbed off the bed.

  ‘You have a car?’ she asked.

  ‘My brother’s a mechanic, there’s a scrap yard behind the garage, he fixes cars up and sells them in his spare time… not that he has much of it. We always have access to a plethora of vehicles.’

  ‘Legal ones?’ she asked, pulling on the clothes she’d brought to change into after her Friday shift. Thankfully she and Colt had their last tryst in the shower, so she was ready to get going now.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, retrieving a tee-shirt from a drawer. ‘Would otherwise be a problem?’

  ‘More for you than for me,’ she said. ‘You’ll be the one driving… and you’re an ex-cop.’

  ‘You’re just dying to get the story behind that one, aren’t you?’

  Scrunching her face, she nodded. ‘How could you tell?’

  ‘Ruger told me that you asked him. I’ll tell you all about it, but not now.’

  They dressed and she stuffed her things into her backpack. ‘Will you pick me up too? I’d appreciate a ride to the club, I might be cutting it close.’

  ‘I’ll wait,’ he said, opening the bedroom door for her. She took his hand and pulled him to the front door, which he held open for her. Somehow he read her mind, because she had concerns about him parking outside the dress shop this late on a Sunday night when there would be few other cars there. ‘I’ll stay far enough away that Suzette won’t see me.’

  ‘I don’t have time to answer her questions,’ she said. He locked the door and took her down the stairs. ‘It’s not that I don’t want her to know about us.’

  ‘You two have enough going on in your friendship right now,’ he said, pressing a button on a key fob causing the lights of a sedan to flash. He opened her car door and closed it behind her then got in at his own side. ‘When is the wedding?’

  ‘Five weeks from Saturday,’ she said.

  Reversing out of the space, he drove out of the parking lot, and followed the directions she gave him to the dress shop. ‘Have you got a plus one on your invite?’

  ‘Do you want to be my date?’ she grinned. ‘I’d be honoured.’

  ‘I’m interested to meet the guy who told your best friend to stay away from you when you’re most in need of support.’

  ‘Pete is a good guy. He cares about her, that’s all.’

  ‘But he doesn’t care about you. An extension of caring about a woman is caring about people that she cares about, which means he should care about you because Suzette cares about you.’

  ‘Is that why you’re driving me to an impromptu dress fitting instead of coaxing me into having more sex?’

  ‘I’m playing the long game,’ he said. ‘By taking you here you’ll be so grateful that sex will follow in due time.’

  ‘Clever,’ she said. ‘Do you mind if we stay at my place tonight? I have an early patient.’

  ‘That’s fine,’ he said. ‘So tell me more about Pete Harding. He works in IT, right?’

  If he’d researched her and her friends it stood to reason that Colt knew something about her best friend’s fiancé. ‘Yes. His department is just next door to the admin department at the hospital where Suzette works.’

  ‘Have they been together long?’

  ‘About six months.’

  ‘He moves fast.’

  ‘Suzette is a romantic,’ Lyssa explained. ‘She’s always wanted to be swept off her feet and I suppose that’s what Pete has done for her. He proposed after six weeks. I was shocked, but who am I to judge? I was with Archie for years, knew him inside out, yet that didn’t work out.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I wasn’t the dutiful wife that he wanted me to be. He wasn’t keen on my specialty and he tried his best to talk me out of it. Then I started talk of my book, which he was against. I did some research in other undercover situations and he went nuts. I think he wanted me to be something I wasn’t. When we met he worked at the hospital, then he went into private practice and started to make a lot of money. I mean bags and bags full, he’s a plastic surgeon.’

  ‘A lot of money in that.’

  ‘Right,’ she said. ‘So our lifestyle changed, and with that he changed. I wasn’t as obedient as I should have been in his opinion. I wasn’t interested in the golf and country club parties that he wanted to frequent. Our lives diverged until we were basically living independently of each other.’

  ‘What about kids?’

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘You never wanted kids?’ he asked.

  ‘I wanted kids, but he didn’t. He was older than me and he had children from his first marriage. I guess he thought he was done with all of that, which I understood.’

  ‘That’s quite a sacrifice for you to have made.’

  ‘I was too young to really appreciate the gravity of it when I made it,’ she said, chucking her backpack into the backseat. ‘My career was all I wanted then. My parents were so insistent on medical school, at first I hated it. I mean I really hated it. I’m actually not big on blood and guts.’ He smiled. ‘But it was what they wanted and they spent a fortune on it, so I persevered. Then I did my psyche rotation and everything started to make sense. I realised that was where I was meant to be and what I was supposed to do.’

  ‘And the rest is, as they say, history,’ he said, pulling the car to a stop just around the corner from the dress shop. ‘Give me your phone.’

  Reaching into the back she got her pack and handed over the cell. He pressed a few buttons and she reclined to see he was adding contacts. When he was finished, he rang his own phone, and then gave it back.

  ‘You have three new numbers in there,’ he said, and she knew he meant the three brothers. ‘If you ever get into any difficulty, you call them in order. What’s the order?’

  ‘You, Ruger, then Blaser.’

  ‘Good,’ he smiled and leaned over to kiss her. ‘I’ll be here when you’re done.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, squeezing his thigh. ‘I’ll show you how grateful I am on my break.’

  ‘I was banking on it.’

  She loved that as she climbed out of the vehicle he swotted her behind and as she sashayed down the street she glanced back to see him watching. With a wink she rounded the corner to fulfil her latest maid of honour duty.

  Having Suzette’s sisters present meant that there wasn’t much time for them to chat. Lyssa caught Suzette looking at her a few times, and she did try to approach, but something, or rather someone else, always got in the way.

  One of the sister’s had her dress done first, so Lyssa was preoccupied with her watch throughout her whole fitting. Eventually she got into the dress, measured, and then out of it as quickly as possible. She couldn’t hang around because she still had to get to Risqué, and get changed. Colt would still be parked around the corner, and he was probably going out of his mind with boredom.

  Coming out of the changing room, she hooked her shoe over her heel, and stumbled toward the door. ‘Great to see you all, guys. I have to head out.’

  Going straight for the door, she didn’t see Suzette swoop in at her side until she had the door open and Suzette was blocking her path.

  ‘You’re pissed at me, aren’t you?’ Suzette said.

  ‘Pissed? What? No. I’m not pissed.’

  ‘I feel awful that this is happening and I can’t be there for you because of my idiot boyfriend. Should I dump him? Is that what I should do? You always
help me make decisions and now I’m losing you…’

  Maybe it was the hormones associated with the stress of planning the wedding, but Lyssa hadn’t expected her friend to tear up. Dropping the door, she took Suzette’s hands. ‘I’m not pissed. It’s a bit weird not to have you around, but this is for the best. Pete isn’t just your boyfriend, he’s going to be your husband in a few short weeks and you know my stance on compromise. He’s not trying to hurt you; he’s trying to help you.’

  ‘It doesn’t seem that way. He doesn’t understand why I am so upset about this, or why you are so important to me. Guys just don’t understand the relationship that women have with their girlfriends. I feel like I should be doing something, taking action, isn’t that what you always tell me to do? That I should take action to achieve the goal I want to succeed in.’

  ‘Leave this goal with me,’ Lyssa smiled and took Suzette into her arms. ‘I’ll fix it, honey, I promise you. Just give me some more time.’

  ‘Do you really have to run off? Maybe we could go for a drink after this?’

  ‘I really have to go,’ Lyssa said and opened the shop door again. ‘I’ll call you later in the week and if you need me, call me.’

  Suzette nodded and Lyssa maintained her positivity, trying not to show how hurried she was. When she got out of there, she rushed down the street, but as soon as she turned the corner she stopped. Colt was still there, exactly where she’d left him, and he smiled when he laid eyes on her. This was a man she could rely on, no doubt about it, he’d proved himself tonight and then some.

  Chapter Eleven

  Lyssa took an early break and stole him away to his office. The unusual time of her break concerned him initially and he worried that maybe she had a bad experience with one of the customers that she wanted to tell him about in private. If that turned out to be the case then he knew exactly how he’d take care of the man who thought he could put his hands on his girl, and she was his girl. Their relationship might be new, but it was potent, and he carried with him a constant mental image of her smile and her expression of bliss as he slid inside her.