I dragged in a long, slow breath. The urge to go after him and take him out at the knees was all-consuming. The only thing that stopped me was the fact that all his boys were here.
I wouldn’t last five minutes against his crew.
Maybe a good few rounds against Bas alone, but I didn’t chance it. It was easier to take a light beating than to make him angry. Easier to deal with a busted rib, than a busted shoulder or hand.
Knowing Bas, it would be more like my goddamn femur. Wouldn’t want to hurt the hands in case I couldn’t make money. Because that’s what they wanted above all else—the green.
What I wanted too.
So I stayed against the wall and seethed through the rage.
“Can I get you anything?”
I lifted my gaze to the ring card girl. She had wild red hair and silver-blue eyes rimmed with black liner and fake lashes. Instead of a name tag—she was wearing a red bikini top an inch away from nipple-baring, and black shorts that barely covered her perfect ass—she had Lana scrawled down her arm in purple and yellow Day-Glo paint.
“Not right now, darlin’.”
She fluttered her crystal-tipped lashes at me. “We’re taking bets until 11:45 pm for the Costas fight, but this is last call for Hummingbird vs. Vanity.”
“I don’t do the women’s rounds.” The money was barely worth the bet.
“Vanity’s a sure thing.”
That was even less of an incentive. MMA betting was a whole different kind of numbers game.
The crowd surged forward. Screams and hoots filled the underground cement box that they’d set up the octagon in. I was tall enough to see over most of the people on this level. A woman sauntered into the middle of the ring. She was tiny and tight, her skin the dark hue of a mixed race. She walked around like it was her stage—or a runway.
“That Vanity?” I asked the girl.
She moved into my side. “Yes. She’s plus one-forty.”
Yeah, not really worth even a thousand-dollar bet. The crowd surged again when the next woman came out. She was calm, focused, and eerily steady. She didn’t posture, nor did she dance around and look for love from the crowd.
She cracked her neck and shoved a guard in her mouth.
I frowned.
“Who’s that?”
“Hummingbird. She came out strong, but lost to Vanity recently. Shitty odds.”
I barely heard Lana’s voice over the crowd. All I could focus on was the long, muscled torso and the hummingbird tattoo along her ribs. The perfect mouthful-sized breasts, now squashed down in a sports bra.
And her scar.
That scar that I’d I’d kissed and licked under cover of night. That I’d studied in the dim light of my bedroom when we came up for air.
“English.”
“Yeah.” Lana cupped her hand around her mouth. “How’d you know she’s British?”
“Two-thousand on Hummingbird.”
“Are you sure?”
“Hell yes.”
I set my jaw. She was going to win, dammit—and then she could finally return my shirt.
Or maybe I’d just rip it off her.
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OTHER BOOKS BY CARI & TARYN
Contemporary Erotic Romance
Lost In Oblivion
http://www.lostinoblivion.com/
SEDUCED (intro)
ROCKED (book #1)
ROCK, RATTLE & ROLL (book #1.5)
TWISTED (book #2)
UNTWISTED (book #2.5)
DESTROYED (book #3)
CONSUMED (book #3.5)
SHATTERED (book #4)
Coming soon
FUSED (book #4.5)
Related titles:
The Tapped out Series
The When You’re Gone Series
ABOUT TARYN & CARI
USA Today Bestselling duo, Cari Quinn & Taryn Elliott, have been having a ton of fun with rock stars, but they also love a good MMA fighter story, oh and a suited guy. Can’t forget the suited guys. Getting these two authors together always includes some sweet & snarky moments, a lot of angst, and unlimited heat. Now they just get to add a desk instead of a stage.
Oh, and let's not forget the jaw dropping moments. They really love those.
Dirty
(A Horus Group story)
by
Ainsley Booth
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DIRTY featuring TABITHA LEYTON ~
Warning: This is just the start. This doesn't end well. And it's going to get much worse before it ever gets better.
Sound familiar? Welcome to the next story in The Horus Goup…
Wilson:
Tabitha Leyton is a mess, but now she’s my mess.
To the rest of the world, she’s a superstar.
Secretly, she's a witness to depravity and a train wreck waiting to happen.
But I can’t get her out of my head. And for one angry, secret night, we have each other in every imaginable way.
The whole time, I know she’s off-limits.
So in the morning, I’ll walk away. Officially.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Dear Reader,
This story takes place during the events of the first Horus Group serial, Hate F*@k (specifically it takes place during part two, if you read it in serialized format). If you haven’t read that book, it’s now available in a single complete edition, but this introduction to Wilson and Tabitha’s story can be read on its own.
All characters and events are fictional. And fucked up.
~ Ainsley
www.ainsleybooth.com
ONE
Wilson
I don’t like Los Angeles. It’s my job to sniff out insincerity, to figure out where the lies begin to stain the truth and trace the edges to the culprit.
Because there’s always someone pulling the strings.
There’s always a puppet master.
The problem is, in L.A., everyone’s a puppet master, and life is a set of staged lies.
They call it performance.
I call it fucking annoying.
My partners don’t care, which means I’m an idiot for volunteering to fly out for this interview.
There are four of us. Jason Evans and Cole Parker are ex-Navy SEALs. Tag Browning is an ex-DC cop.
I’m ex-None-Of-Your-Fucking-Business. The hacker, the black ops insider.
Together, we’re The Horus Group, Washington’s hottest crisis management firm.
And right now, I’m waiting in a suite at the Bel Air, watching the surveillance feed I set up earlier today on my phone. Jason paces. We’re here to interview Tabitha Leyton, America’s favourite singer-songwriter.
Former fuck toy of Gerome Lively, if I’m not mistaken.
We’re investigating the billionaire for human trafficking. So is the FBI, but they’re not getting anywhere. It’s complicated as fuck and the further I climb into the dark underbelly of this world, the more I realize how messy it is.
In theory, we’re here to interview Tabitha so she might be a witness at a trial against Lively—a trial I’m highly doubtful will ever take place.
Practically, we’re here because I deal in information, and if I know something about this woman, there might be a time when I can use it.
And knowing anything about Tabitha Leyton is a minor miracle. She’s shrouded in mystery, and not just to the public.
She’s sex and secrets personified.
From the first time she pinged on my radar, she’s had this effect on me. Unsettling. Taunting.
Her official identity is clean—too clea
n. I haven’t shard this with my partners, but I know Tabitha’s hiding something. Many somethings, probably. It’s a gut feeling, and I don’t like to admit that I sometimes operate on instinct like that.
The door swings open, but it’s not the woman we’re waiting for. Instead it’s her manager, Grant Derew. Formerly an agent, Derew found Tabitha at the age of fifteen in a small town in Washington State and propelled her to stardom. Now he manages her full-time.
I instantly hate the guy. I didn’t like him before we came out west. His background report is anything but clean. Assault charges dropped at twenty-one, whispers of a date rape reputation from his college days. And he introduced Tabitha to Lively, so he’s already a douchebag who’s led around by his dick and a perverted desire for barely legal jailbait.
“Gentleman, I understand you had an appointment with Tabitha. Unfortunately—“
I ignore his outstretched hand, because fuck if I’m going to touch him. I shove to my feet. “We have an appointment, and we’re going to keep it.”
I stalk past him, through the front door of the suite. I’ve got a master room key in my pocket, and I use it to open the only other door on this floor.
She’s on the other side.
My first in-person impression isn’t what I expect.
She’s both bigger and smaller than I expected. Big hair, big tits, big attitude. But the rest of her is surprisingly small, right down to the look in her eye.
She’s scared. She doesn’t look it. Her eyes are burning at the invasion of her privacy, as they should. I’m an asshole. I work with other assholes, and we’ll stop at nothing.
I’m going to steamroll right over her and she should be afraid of me.
Then her eyes flick past me, over my shoulder, and I turn slowly.
She’s not afraid of me.
It’s him. Derew.
One asshole knows another, and I gave him a hard look, flashing my badge. He doesn’t know it’s as fake as the names I’m about to give. “Agents Gough and Weston. We need the room.”
If he was smart—he’s not—he’d have done more to vet this interview than looking us up on the FBI’s public website. Hacking that shit and putting our photos there for a few days was a kindergarten exercise. I watched someone from his office click on our page, then email him the link and say we were legit.
Fucking amateurs.
And we won’t talk about how the feds didn’t even notice my temporary takeover of their financial crimes division’s website.
Jason strong-arms Derew out of the room and we sit across from Tabitha. Oversized white leather couches, nothing like the room next door. I look around, taking it all in. Her guitar, complete with banged up case covered in the dreamer stickers of a teenage girl. Nearly a decade in the spotlight hasn’t changed her hopes and dreams.
And clearly, she hasn’t actually achieved them yet. I set down my phone on the coffee table and lean forward, resting my elbows on my knees. I let my hair flop in front of my eyes a bit and give her an understanding look.
Women love this shit.
They have no clue that I’m dead inside, that I pummel other men to bloody pulps for sport and I’ve killed my enemies and then gone out for ice cream.
Mint chocolate chip cures all.
“Ms. Leyton,” I start.
She cuts me off. “First of all, I don’t believe you guys are feds. Second of all, there’s nothing polite about me, so call me Tabitha or baby girl or nothing at all. Got it?”
No, I don’t got it. What the fuck does she mean we don’t look like feds?
I was a fucking fed. Not the FBI. Fuck that child’s play. But I was one degree of Kevin Bacon away from the President of the United States of America for six years. I know how to wear this badge even if it wasn’t given to me by a deputy director of national intelligence.
“Tabitha.” She gives me an arch look and I smirk. Does she think I’d call her baby girl?
My dick chubs up and she smirks right back. Fuck. I refuse to look at her painted red lips. I hold her gaze and return my expression to cold disinterest.
“We don’t need to call you anything. We’re just here to find out what your financial connection is to Gerome Lively.”
“Uhhh…” Her mouth drops open and while she’s busy flicking her eyes to the right—liar, liar, pants on fire—I take a mental picture of those parted lips, that pink tongue, the hint of pearly white teeth.
My cock shoving into her mouth and her startled cry of surprise.
Fuck. Me.
I never do this. I never mix business and pleasure, because my brand of pleasure isn’t acceptable for public consumption. I force myself to think of code. Command prompts and dial-up connections. I drag myself back to being that skinny-assed kid who was sure he’d never get laid, so he spent too much time deep in the dark corners of the internet learning about the wrong kind of sex.
“What did you think we were here to discuss, Ms. Leyton?”
She scowls at Jason, but she doesn’t tell him to call her baby girl. “I have no clue.”
“But you do know Mr. Lively.”
“Sure. He’s loaded. I know a lot of rich people.” She flips her hair over her shoulder—dark red hair, porcelain skin. She’s like a fucking doll. A bratty doll that needs to be spanked until she screams, which isn’t even my thing. I don’t like games. I like a soft pair of tits and a sweet ass, a wet mouth and zero back talk—and if all of the above can come in a guaranteed-to-be-anonymous and doesn’t-mind-being-railed-in-the-ass package, all the better.
Tabitha fails on at least two of the six points.
Her tits are spectacular, though.
And that mouth.
I stand up.
Her gaze follows me.
Good. I’ve got her attention. “Can you tell us about a trip you took in August, two years ago, to the Florida Keys?”
She frowns. “No?”
“No?”
“I didn’t go to Florida two years ago in August.”
Yes she did. “You sound awfully sure of that.”
“I was supposed to. I had a concert in NOLA the night before.” She gives me a faint smile, one that says ha and no, I won’t tell you more at the same time. “And then I…didn’t.”
“Where did you go instead?”
“Fargo.”
There was no trace of that. “How?”
“Private plane.”
“No flight plan was registered.”
She crosses her arms. “No.”
“That’s a federal offense.”
“I wasn’t flying the plane.”
“But you were aware at the time that you were heading in the opposite direction of your cell phone, your passport, and your entire entourage?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Why was I aware? Because I’m a sentient being,” she snaps, her green eyes blazing. I can feel Jason watching me, going, what the fuck, man? I never lose my cool, and it’s gone now.
I spit out the next question. “Why did you go out of your way to make it appear like you spent a weekend with Gerome Lively, when really you went to…”
“Fargo.” She waits.
I wait longer.
Jason finally interrupts. “Ms. Leyton, have you ever met Gerome Lively?”
The tip of her tongue peeks out the corner of her mouth. Thinking. She glances up at the ceiling, then rolls her bottom lip between her teeth. “Yes,” she finally admits.
“How many times?”
“Once.”
He frowns at me. My research is rarely wrong. I have four visits, based on information I’ve cobbled together from her passport, her cell phone history, and commercial flight data. A week on a yacht in the Mediterranean, the phantom weekend to his estate in the Florida Keys, one trip to his private island in the Caribbean, and they definitely attended the same fundraiser here in L.A., hosted by a big-name movie producer.
“Tabitha,” I say quietly. “Did Gerome Lively rape you
?”
TWO
Tabitha
I shouldn’t have told him to call me Tabitha. It’s way too intimate. It was supposed to knock him off his game, not give him a weapon against me.
I don’t know who these guys are or what they want, but no way am I answering that question. I don’t trust sincerity, I don’t trust badges, I don’t trust men. Three strikes and you’re out.
The muscle-bound one who doesn’t talk much gives his friend a warning look that the blond guy completely ignores. I guess he just went off script.
Good. That means that I’m in charge now, and that’s exactly how I like it.
“Rape me?” I roll my eyes even as my stomach twists uncomfortably. “I thought this was about money.”
He looks at me, his grey eyes shifting back and forth like he’s trying to figure me out. Like I’m a puzzle and if he moves the pieces around long enough, they’ll fall into place.
Well, joke’s on him. I’m missing half of the pieces that would make me whole. No matter how long he stares at me, I’m still going to look like a Rorschach test—maybe something you can make sense of if you squint, but in reality just a splatter stain.
“It is.” He shifts forward onto the balls of his feet, the back onto his heels. He’s thinking.
I roll my eyes. “Okay, well, it was fun watching you shove my manager out of the suite, but before I call hotel security and have you kicked out for trespassing, I’m going to ask you to leave. Nicely.”
“You want us to leave nicely?” He crooks one eyebrow. Wanna dance, little one?
He knows what I meant. I ignore the petulant whine that rises in my chest. “Yes, please.”
“Make you a deal. Tell us more than yes/no answers about your relationship with Lively—financial, sexual, etcetera—and we’ll leave super nicely.”
BANGED: Rock Stars, Bad Boys & Dirty Deeds Page 59
