by Leah Wilde
“We’ll see about that. Just know that if you fuck up, we’ll all be there to take you out,” he warned. His tone was hard and serious. He wasn’t playing around.
“Hey, Rex, chill out, man. I don’t know you, and I’m not really in the mood to play around, especially after watching you shoot those guys who posed no threat to you. I understand that intimidation is a big deal for The Forsaken Ones. I know your reputation. At the same time, you should know that my boss pointed two guns at me over the course of the night tonight.”
He stared at me while I talked, speechless.
“She also knocked the shit out of me with the diamond Hawk is trying to get from her right now.” I pulled my hair back to show him where she hit me with it. It still hurt like hell, but it was starting to subside from all of the adrenaline that was drowning out the pain.
“Hey, we’ve all been there. I’m just saying, don’t fuck over our boss.” He shrugged and walked off.
It was a good thing I didn’t have a gun on me right then. I would have pulled it out and shot his ass while he walked away from me for the way he had talked to me. I was pretty sure Hawk wouldn’t have appreciated it either, but I wasn’t going to be the kind of woman who went and told on his friends like that. If it continued, I would just have to handle it myself, I figured.
I started to wonder how things were going inside again. I wondered if Kleo had actually taken Hawk to where the diamond was and got it out of the safe for him. I wondered what would happen once he took the diamond from her.
I watched as the men out front kept watch over the house. Even though it was pretty obvious that no one was coming up to the house and that there was no further threat to the operation except for maybe Kleo, they guarded their posts with dedication.
“Don’t worry about Rex,” a voice said from behind me.
I turned around and saw Ace, the behemoth they called The Hammer.
“He’s probably just jealous because it’s pretty obvious how Hawk feels about you, and it’s pretty obvious he told you to watch over everyone,” he continued.
“You think?” I asked.
“Look, he probably feels threatened. He’s kind of our unofficial second in command, so you’re doing his job right now.” As big and intimidating as he was, Ace was turning out to be the nicest one I had met so far.
“Well, I think the reason Hawk put me here was so I could see how you guys do things. I don’t think he really meant for me to actually take charge of anything,” I confessed.
“That may be true, but I don’t think Rex sees it that way. You know, you have screwed Hawk over once already with this diamond, so don’t hold it against him if he’s suspicious, alright? Just do what you need to do to earn his respect. And don’t go out of your way to do it or he’ll know you did.” He walked off after saying his piece and joined Rex at the bottom of the steps leading down to the driveway. I could hear him saying something to make Rex laugh.
I turned around and looked at the house. I really wanted to know what was going on inside. Ace hadn’t been the only one to go in with Hawk, but he sure as hell was the only one who had come out.
“Hey, Ace,” I called down to him, running down the steps to seem a little less controlling.
“Yeah,” he said, turning around and putting a calming hand on Rex’s shoulder.
“What’s going on in there? You’re the only person who has come out.”
“Nothing, really. The other guys went and secured the back of the house. Hawk and Kleo went to her office, and a few minutes later they went out back. I’m not sure what he’s doing, but I’m pretty certain she isn’t coming back with him,” he told me.
“Okay. Thanks. I was getting really concerned,” I said absently as I turned around and looked back at the house.
“If there’s anything you need from inside, go ahead and get it. We’ll probably be leaving as soon as Hawk gets back,” he added.
“Yeah, I don’t think there’s anything I need,” I told him. “Thanks, though.” I walked aimlessly back up the steps towards the front door. I considered going inside and checking everything out for myself, but with one of the guys thinking I was trying to move in like that already, I didn’t want to risk really turning everyone off to me just yet.
I didn’t want a position of power in the MC. I just wanted to be at Hawk’s side when it was all said and done. But what the hell was he doing taking her out back like that?
The only answer I could come up with meant she definitely wasn’t coming back.
Chapter Thirty-One
Hawk
The night was slowing down. I could sense it in everyone. The adrenaline was beginning to wear off. The men were relieved when they didn’t find any security guards in the house.
“Leave the door open,” I told Kleo when we walked into her office. I didn’t want to be closed in there alone with her.
“As you wish,” she said. She still had that cold, vaguely threatening tone in her voice, the same tone she’d used back on the road before I shot a hole in her hand.
“Now, come on,” I told her. “It’s time to get the Golden Diamond out.” I held my gun out, aimed at her face. I wasn’t going for her hand again. I was going to take her out if I had to pull the trigger this time, and then I would have Felicity show me where the safe was.
She walked around to the desk and touched a button on a device that looked like an office phone. A section of the bookshelf along the wall to my left opened, revealing a safe set back in the wall. My heart raced. I was so close to being reunited with the diamond!
I stepped back to let her pass in front of me, keeping my gun trained on her at all times. I could still remember the combination in case she tried anything funny and I decided to end it right there. But she didn’t move. Instead, she started trying to taunt me.
“You know, you’re not the first mark she left with,” she said nonchalantly.
“I sort of figured that. But, for what it’s worth, you won’t be the first boss I shoot in the back of the head.”
She leaned forward across her desk and stuck her ass out for me. In her tight skirt, I didn’t see any panty lines. I also couldn’t follow any curves or feminine lines in her body the way I could with Felicity. Kleo was narrow and flat as a board. Still, though her body was not seductive, her power was.
I couldn’t help but notice the slit in the back of her skirt, giving me a peek at the muscular lines in her thighs. She turned her head to look at me with her light brown eyes and short golden hair stopping right around her chin, framing her face.
Her shoulders were broad and straight. While Felicity’s body had been crafted for sex and sexuality, Kleo’s had been crafted for power. She simply looked powerful. She was shaped to wield power over other people.
Despite the fact that I only wanted the diamond from her, and I was planning on shooting her in the woods behind her house afterwards, I caught my desire beginning to stir between my legs. Here in this room, we were alone. I could have closed the door, and no one would have been the wiser.
My men standing outside wouldn’t have watched what was going on in here. I could have bent her over that desk and made her call out my name. I could have taken the opportunity to cut her down to size and make her beg for it.
I had to push those dangerous thoughts out of my head. I also knew that in the short amount of time it would have taken me to walk across the room to the front door, she could have easily pulled out a gun and shot me.
“You’re a strong, powerful man,” she said, as if reading my thoughts through my eyes. “Why don’t you come over here and take control over me?”
“Kleo, now is not the time.”
“Oh, but is there a time for us, Hawk? Would there ever be a time for us?” She stood up straight and started walking towards me. She pressed herself against me, and I could feel the slight curves of her body. I could feel her small breasts behind her jacket and blouse. I could feel how thin and tight she was.
“
Kleo, there would never have been a time for us,” I said, looking down hard into her eyes. She was trying so hard to be seductive, but she just seemed desperate.
“That’s a shame, Hawk, because I could really use a big, strong man like you,” she continued. She ran her wounded hand down between my legs and gripped my hardening shaft through the pants I had worn out to dinner with Felicity. She winced as she gripped me and stroked me.
“The only thing I would have done with you, Kleo, is use you and toss you away like the piece of trash you are,” I warned her, pushing her away at her shoulders.
“No, I could have made you keep me. I could have convinced you, just like Felicity did, that you wanted more than to abuse me in bed.” She put her other hand behind my neck and tried to pull my face down to hers. Her voice was heavy with sultry desire.
If I hadn’t been able to see right through her already, her little ruse might have worked. My body was responding to her very well. I just didn’t buy it.
“The diamond, Kleo,” I said.
“Look, Hawk, just kiss me first,” she begged. “You’re going to kill me after I return what I stole from you, so please give me something to make all of this worthwhile.”
I stared down into her face. Her expression was softening, and she was just a woman for the first time ever. I considered it. No one else would have known. And I knew that if I kissed her, I would have wound up giving her exactly what she wanted from me. I would have taken her right there on her desk. I would have abused her tight, narrow body. I leaned my face down to hers so that our lips were almost touching. I could feel her reaching for me, straining against the anticipation in her body.
“The diamond,” I said before backing away without giving her a kiss. I wasn’t going to give her a damn thing. I brought my gun back up and placed it against her stomach.
“You just gave up the opportunity of a lifetime, Hawk Renner. You could have had the satisfaction of knowing that you took the most powerful woman in the city on her desk. You made her call out your name and beg you for more. You could have had the satisfaction of thrilling her body and giving her the ultimate pleasure. But you turned it down for what? For a whore. For a woman who uses her body regularly to pretend she has power, when the only power she has is her control over that thing between men’s legs. Any woman can control that. Even I have control over yours,” she said venomously.
She was right about one thing: I would have been immensely satisfied by taking her down and owning her body for the short time I planned on letting her live. But she was missing something very important. I would have walked away with at least an equal measure of guilt on my shoulders. I never could have told anyone about the time I made Kleo my bitch. I couldn’t have risked it getting back to Felicity, and I couldn’t have lived with it.
“Sorry, Kleo. I appreciate the offer, and if things had gone any differently up to this point, I might have taken you up on it, but for now, I’ve got to let that one pass.”
“Who are you, and what did you do with Hawk?” She laughed. “I guess I should ask Felicity that question, huh?” Her manner changed. The icy quality in her voice was gone. She was talking to me the way I would have expected her to talk to one of her girlfriends, not that I suspected she had any friends. That wall of ice around her probably kept everyone out.
“I guess so. Too bad you won’t get the chance. Now, the diamond. I’m here for it, not for you,” I reminded her.
“Of course, the diamond.” As she walked to the safe, I put the gun against the small of her back, and she struggled to maintain her powerful posture. As her dainty fingers touched the dial to put in the combination, I realized something. She could have had a gun waiting for her in there. If I let her open the safe, she could have easy access to the weapon. That wouldn’t be good.
“Put the combination in slowly,” I told her, raising the gun and putting it against the back of her head. “Tell me when you’re finished. Do not open the safe once it is unlocked. I will do that.”
My erection surged against my pants as I stood behind this powerful woman with a gun planted against the back of her brain. I had control over her. I wasn’t dominating her against her desk or against her wall and shoving myself deep inside her, though I could have imagined how tight she would have been. Instead, I was controlling her actions. I held her life in my hands. That was much sexier to me than just watching her ass press against my hips while I stretched open her tight little hole.
She took her time putting in the combination. It was as if she knew what I was thinking and wanted to taunt me with my own thoughts. That was fine. If she drove me to it, I would shoot her right here and finish the combination myself. I was not going to allow her to taunt me sexually to the point that I gave in to her desires to be made humble before me. No, that wasn’t going to happen. I had come to her while chasing down Felicity. Felicity was the real reason I was here. It had nothing to do with Kleo, and only very little to do with the Golden Diamond.
“It’s open,” she said.
“Step aside.” I held the gun to her as she stepped to the side to let me get to the safe. While I kept my eye on her, I opened the door and reached inside blindly. I groped around with my hand, watching Kleo instead of what I was doing.
There was a small stack of cash inside. I pulled it out.
“This is compensation for your being a pain in my ass,” I told her, waving the bills in her face before stuffing them into a pocket.
There was a gun in there. It was a small handgun, very ladylike in its size and shape. It was the kind of gun that was actually sexy for women to carry. I wouldn’t have been mad if she had pulled up her skirt and had this strapped to her leg.
“Well, I’m glad I told you not to open it yourself,” I said as I pulled out the gun and held it up in front of her. I tossed it through the broken window and listened to it clatter on the patio behind the house.
She shrugged and offered me a weak smile but no explanation. We were past the point of really just talking shit to each other at that point.
Then, I found it. My hand grabbed the Golden Diamond. I felt a greedy kind of satisfaction surging through me as I pulled it out of the safe and tested its weight in my hand. That was the prize. That was what had started this whole thing. Part of me wanted to make it disappear with her, but part of me knew I couldn’t let it go now.
“Thank you, Kleo.” I pocketed the diamond and gestured toward the window with my gun.
“We’re walking now?” she asked as she walked past me and stepped through the crunching glass on the floor and outside on the patio.
“That’s right, we’re walking,” I agreed. “Let’s go past the back wall. There’s a gate, right?”
“Yeah, there’s a gate,” she said, her tone short now. She had to have known that it was all over. She had to have known why I was taking her to the back.
As we walked across the patio, we heard several gunshots with measured intervals in between. Someone must have been taking out her men out front. Kleo stopped walking and jumped with each shot.
“It’s just my guys taking yours out,” I told her. “Keep walking.”
“Okay,” she said. It sounded like she was giving up. It was almost sad to witness. Almost.
“Keep going,” I urged her. “Your silence is noted. Let’s go.”
We walked to the back gate. Unlike the large gate at the front of her driveway, the gate along the back wall was small, like something I would have expected to see in a garden, not along a protected wall guarded by machine guns and bright lights. Then again, I wondered how many people tried to sneak up behind her house.
“There’s a good spot back here along a trail,” she offered as we stepped past the wall. “It’s clear, and I’ve even got a bench back here.” There was a sadness in her tone. I didn’t like it. It tried to make me feel bad for what I was about to do to her.
“Show me,” I said. I figured it was her last wish. It wouldn’t hurt too much to grant it.
“Man, it feels good to be out of those things,” she said, flexing her toes.
“I bet it does.” I chuckled. “Get comfortable,” I added.
She took off her dark coat and folded it next to her on the bench. She wore a white button-down blouse, and she started to undo the buttons one by one.
“What are you doing?” I asked as the swell of her breasts became obvious above her bra.
