Hell, no she wasn’t okay. Her sister was hurt and bystanders lined both sides of the street waiting to see what happened next, but all Viv could think about was how his voice would sound up close and in the dark. Preferably between heavy breaths with lots and lots of skin involved. She’d chalk it up to exhaustion, but her nonexistent sex life was probably the real culprit.
“I’m fine. Just tired.” She forced herself to step away and faced him, holding out her hand. “And it’s Vivienne. Vivienne Moore. Or Viv. Callie’s the only one that calls me Vivie.”
He studied her outstretched palm, scanning her with languid assessment, then clasped her hand in his and pierced her with a look that jolted straight between her legs. “Jace Kennedy.”
Figured that Fantasy Man would have a fantasy name to match. It sounded familiar, too, though with all the pheromones jetting through her body she couldn’t quite place where. Maybe wishful thinking or one too many romance novels. She tugged her hand free and stuffed her fists into her pockets. “Thanks for not letting me bust my ass in front of everyone.”
He matched her posture and shuttled his toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other with his tongue. “Pretty sure I got the best end of the deal.”
Zeke’s voice cut in from behind her. “I think she’s fine. Just a nasty goose egg and too much booze.”
Viv turned in time to see the two men guide Callie to her feet. She weaved a little and looked like she’d fall asleep any second, but the pain seemed to have knocked off a little of her drunken haze. Her floral bohemian top was wrinkled and askew on her curvy frame, and her golden-brown hair was mussed like she’d just had monkey sex. Otherwise, she fit the rest of the crowd a whole lot better than Viv.
Pegging Zeke with a pointed look, Jace cupped the back of Viv’s neck. “Check Little Miss out, too. Didn’t like the angle her neck took when her girl went down.” He focused on Viv and held out his hand, palm up. “Keys.”
“What?”
“Keys,” he said. “Give ’em to me and we’ll bring your car around.”
“You don’t need to do that.” She pointed at the lot across the street. “I’m just over there, and Callie looks—”
“It’s almost two in the morning, your sister’s hammered, and you both took a fall. Fork over the keys, we’ll get your car, pull it around and load your girl up.”
Four unyielding stares locked onto her—Zeke, Trevor and Jace, plus a new guy with black hair and a ponytail nearly down to his ass. The way the new guy trimmed his goatee gave him a Ming the Merciless vibe. She shouldn’t let any one of these guys near her, let alone surrender the keys to her car. “I think it’s better if Callie and I handle it ourselves.”
The muscle at the back of Jace’s jaw twitched and his eyes darkened.
“I don’t mean to sound ungrateful,” Viv added. “I appreciate everyone jumping in to help. It’s way more than you needed to do. I just don’t know you guys. Have you watched the news lately?”
“That’s fair.” Trevor’s focus was locked on Jace when he spoke, but then slid his gaze to Viv. “But this is my bar, your sister drank too much while she was in it, and hurt herself on the way out. It’s in my best interest to make sure you make it home safe. Anything bad goes down between here and there, you could give me and my new business a whole lot of heartache I don’t need, right?”
Trevor had a point.
“Give me the keys, sugar.” Jace crooked the fingers on his outstretched hand. “You’ve done enough solo tonight.”
She handed them over and Zeke stepped in, gently prodding the muscles along the back of her neck. “Any soreness?”
Viv shook her head as much as she could with Zeke’s big hands wrapped around her throat.
Behind Zeke, Jace handed off the keys to Ivan. A second later, jogging boot heels rang against the asphalt followed by the chirp of a disengaging car alarm.
Zeke tested her movement side-to-side and front and back as he’d done for Callie and checked her pupils. “I doubt you’d feel it until tomorrow anyway. Probably wouldn’t hurt to take a few ibuprofens before you go to bed.” He jerked his head toward Callie, still swaying next to Trevor. “Same goes for her. You’ll have a hard time keeping her awake and not puking with as much as she’s had to drink, but if she starts to act confused, can’t remember things, or complains of ringing in her ears, get her to an ER.”
“You got anyone that can help you tonight?” Jace asked.
Trevor piped up. “I can ask one of the girls to stay with you if you want.”
“No, I can handle it.”
Zeke gave her a knowing look, pulled a card out of his billfold, and handed it over. “You need help, call. We’ll get her where she needs to be.”
As in to an ER, or a place that had a minimum thirty-day stay? God knew, she’d begged her sister to at least try an AA meeting, but Callie and their dad had cornered all the stubborn genes for the family.
Her hybrid hummed up beside them and Zeke stepped away. “Lay her down in the back, Trev.”
The bouncer hopped out of the driver’s seat and opened up the back door for Trevor, who’d given up steering Callie and opted for carrying her to the car.
Jace moved in close and lowered his voice. “She get like this a lot?”
The men situated her sister in the backseat.
“Yeah.” God, she was tired of this routine. She’d give just about anything to surrender, curl up into a little ball and let someone else handle Callie’s tricks for a day or two.
Jace splayed his hand along the small of her back and urged her forward as a big, mean-looking bike with even nastier sounding pipes rolled up behind her car. “Danny’s gonna follow you home and help you get Sleeping Beauty settled in for the night.”
“I don’t think—”
“If your sister passes out, can you get her in the house on your own?”
“No.”
“Then stop thinking and let us handle this,” Jace said. “Danny so much as breathes funny, you call the number on Zeke’s card and we’ll deal with it.”
Another good point. After everything they’d done for her tonight, the odds of any of them having bad intentions were pretty slim. And her dog would leave even a big guy like Danny a heaping bloody mess if Viv so much as snapped a finger.
He opened the car door and she slid behind the wheel, fastening her seat belt in a bit of a daze. “Thank you. For everything.”
“Just doing what decent people do.” He started to shut her door and stopped. Leaning slightly into her space, he seemed to listen for something, glanced at the stereo display, then eased back. He studied her car, Callie curled up in the backseat, then Viv. His gaze lingered on her hair and he ran a few fingers through the curly strands. “Like it better down. Kinda wild.”
Her heart tripped, and the last bit of logic left in her brain poofed to nothing. She clenched the steering wheel and swallowed, grateful to find her mouth wasn’t hanging open.
He winked and stepped back. “Take care, sugar.”
The car door thumped shut, muting out everything but the quiet strains of Shinedown and Callie’s muffled snore.
She put the car in drive and forced her eyes to aim straight ahead. She wouldn’t look back. He might’ve nudged her long-dead sex drive out of a coma, but he was bad news. Everything about him screamed danger and headstrong alpha, and she’d sworn she wouldn’t have that kind of life for herself. One look in the backseat showed where that landed a person.
Still, making a right turn onto Highway 75 for her townhouse in Uptown instead of circling the block for another peek was tempting as hell.
Chapter 3
Alone in the compound’s kitchen, Jace punched the brew button on his second pot of coffee, snatched his mug off the granite countertop, and stared out the massive window overlooking the pool. The sky had just started to lighte
n, only a slash of pink touching the horizon. If he’d used his fucking head last night, he’d be in his bed upstairs, passed out cold and resting up for a full day. Instead, he was nursing the dregs of two-hour-old coffee, counting down the minutes until he could kick last night’s fuckup out of his bed without a guilty conscience, and twitching for an overdue phone call.
Man, bringing Lily Montrose home last night had been a serious mistake. Granted, he’d pulled his head out of his ass before he’d been stupid enough to actually fuck her, but he had a bad feeling he’d opened a door better left locked tight. Lily was nothing if not determined. She spent too much time around The Den not to know the perks that came with any tie to Haven, and landing a sugar daddy was high on her list of aspirations. Especially, one from the brotherhood.
On the dinette, his phone buzzed and lit up.
In less than three strides, Jace snagged it, barely pausing long enough to note Danny’s name and 7:17 a.m. on the readout before he punched the talk button. He tucked the phone under his ear. “About time. I thought I told you to check in as soon as you were done.”
“I did, Boss. Lily answered. Said you were in the head, and she’d let you know it all went fine.”
“I tell you to give me an update that means you give it to me. Worst case it goes to another brother, not a bunny. Got me?”
“Why the hell do you think I’m calling you back?”
And that was why he figured Danny wasn’t too much further from making it into their tight-knit group. The son of a bitch might have been hanging with a bad crowd and teetering with more than one bad habit a few years ago, but now that he’d got his legs underneath him and found something to be passionate about, he’d grabbed life by the short hairs and didn’t back down from anything—not even Haven’s leader.
Jace padded toward the main staircase, the sound of his bare feet barely registering against the hand-scraped wood floors. “Yeah, well, you’ve got me now. What happened?”
“Straightforward drop-off. The sister was out cold like Trev thought she’d be, so I lugged her upstairs and left Viv to it.”
“Where’s she live?”
“Few miles away. Uptown, on Clark Street in a swank three-story condo. Thinkin’ my pipes woke a few of the uppity types.”
Well, there went the theory Viv had just been dandied up for work. Between the rocker vibe Callie sported and Shinedown queued up on Viv’s stereo, he’d kind of hoped Trevor was right in thinking there was more to her than what showed on the surface.
“Man, gotta tell you though...” Danny paused long enough to order a coffee, the rumble of voices and clanking dishes heavy in the background. “Sorry. Where was I?”
Jace ambled through his bedroom toward his adjoining office and frowned at Lily curled up in the center of his bed. Christ, even in sleep she had a pleased-with-herself smile tacked firmly in place. Definitely a monstrous fuckup.
“Getting a decent meal while all I’ve got lined up here is coffee, sounds like.” He shut his door, settled in his desk chair and flipped open his laptop.
“Oh, the dog,” Danny said. “She opened the door and the first thing I get is a fucking black Doberman with its ears back and a nasty-ass growl aimed my direction. Shit you not, man. She’s got that beast trained to take down anyone who’s out for harm. Coolest thing I’ve seen in a while. And guess what she named him?”
“Beats the hell out of me.”
Danny chuckled the way men did before they got a good joke in on a friend. “Ruger.”
“As in the gun?”
“As in. I’m tellin’ ya, man, she’s pretty laid-back.”
“So, the buttoned-up lady’s got a wild side?”
“Maybe. Hard to tell for sure. Weird thing was her house. All prim and proper except the room she had me put her sister in.”
Jace drummed his thumb against the desk, those same instincts he’d felt before with Vivienne perking up and demanding attention. “What’s so weird about that?”
“‘Cause where the rest of the house is all straight lines and Snoozeville, the one room looks like a flower child got it on with a tattoo artist. Found one piece framed on the wall I wouldn’t mind gettin’ inked.”
Interesting. “That Callie’s room?”
“Nah. She said Callie had her own place.” Danny’s voice took on a chilly edge. “Shacked up with some dickhead, according to Viv.”
“Almost sounds like you two sat down for a fireside chat.” And didn’t that idea piss him off.
“Nope. Minute we started talkin’ about Callie’s man, she shut down hard. Was pretty relaxed ’til then, though.”
Another incongruous puzzle piece for the curvy lady with the wild-as-fuck hair. The strands had been so damned soft against his fingers, it’d taken all kinds of self-control to keep from fisting a chunk at the back of her head and kissing the dazed and exhausted look off her face. Shit, if he was honest, the only reason he’d considered hooking up with Lily last night was to take the edge off. An asinine attempt to dodge the pull he’d felt for Vivienne, but the second Lily had palmed his cock and tried to suck him off the truth had bitch slapped him with a hard dose of reality. He didn’t want to just fuck. He wanted Vivienne. Hence, the blue balls and morning spent sucking back coffee.
Danny’s voice sharpened. “You need anything else?”
Damn it, he’d totally zoned mooning over a woman’s hair. Next thing he knew he’d be watching soaps and Oprah reruns. “Not a thing. Appreciate you helping out.”
“Anytime, man.”
Jace tossed his phone onto the desk, reclined back in his chair, and swiped the touchpad on his laptop. The Haven logo blazed bright on the black background, a tribal-styled tree with a masculine H encompassed by the tree’s branches. Roots were everything. Where you came from formed you and gave you what you needed to live a strong life—if you let it.
So, what were Vivienne’s roots? Tidy professional, or wild child like her sister? The more the pieces wouldn’t fit, the more he wanted to nose around until he found the missing link.
Or maybe he just wanted another excuse to get his hands on Vivienne.
Muted footsteps sounded on the thick carpet behind him, and Lily’s overpowering perfume wrapped around him two seconds before her hands slid around his chest. “Hey, baby.”
God damn it. This was what he got for thinking with his dick. “You remember that talk we had last night?”
Lily nuzzled the side of his neck and purred. “I remember all kinds of things from last night.”
“Let’s focus on the very first thing.” He typed in his password and navigated to his email. Not so much as a twitch of interest stirred beneath her touch. “As in what I asked you to repeat back to me before you settled behind me on my bike at The Den.”
She froze, her lips still pressed to his neck even though they seemed to go ice-cold against his skin. “It’s a onetime thing.”
Jace sat up and snatched his phone. “Not trying to be an ass, but I want to make sure no more lines get crossed. Last night was last night. Today’s a different day.” He punched through his contacts and pulled up one of several stored cab companies. “I’ll have a car downstairs for you in ten.”
Lily straightened and sauntered into his line of sight. She was barely thirty and rocked an amazing body, everything about her natural and confident as hell. What turned him off was the way she used it. “Never pegged you as a cold son of a bitch.”
Jace met her stare head-on. Okay, maybe he was being an ass, but better that than lead her on. “Not being cold, sweetheart. I’m giving you the God’s truth. If I was cold, I’d have sent you home last night when I figured out I wasn’t interested instead of giving you relief and letting you sleep the Scotch off alone in my bed. And, in case it missed your notice, you’re the only one who got off, so I’m not gonna string you along and let you think we’ll ever have
anything else. If that makes me a cold son of a bitch, then so be it.”
She pursed her lips and studied him, eyes lingering on his bare torso long enough he felt like a piece of meat. Funny how when Viv had done the same thing his cock had gone hard as a cinder block. She nodded. “The honesty’s refreshing. Thanks for that.”
It sounded like a chess move more than anything earnest.
She turned and sashayed back to the bedroom, her long dark hair swaying around her shoulder blades. Viv’s was longer by at least two or three inches, wild with tight waves. Seeing the same view on Viv would be worth a whole hell of a lot more trouble than anything Lily could dish out.
He put in a call to the cab company and punched Vivienne Moore, Dallas, Texas, into a Google search.
Amaryllis Events flashed at the top of the results, an event planning business with a post office box for an address and a tasteful web design for broad audience appeal. A pretty passionate namesake for such a buttoned-up woman, considering its mythology ties.
He should walk away. His businesses needed attention, and chasing tail, no matter how fine it was, wouldn’t make that happen. Hell, if he didn’t get his shit together at Crossroads soon, he might be the next person who ended up in jail.
But the puzzle—damn it, he wanted the answers. And those lips. Christ, just thinking about how they’d feel on his cock made him want to stroke one off right now.
The simple black contact link on the corner of her web page practically screamed to click and feed his curiosity.
“Fuck it,” he muttered, an idea already forming in his head. Axel was gonna kick his ass before everything was said and done, but he had a pretty good hunch it’d be worth it.
* * *
Low, grumbling pipes revved outside Viv’s window and punched her from an uneasy sleep. Chipper sunshine streamed through the barely open plantation shutters across the bedroom and scattered the remnants of one seriously dirty dream. The damned thing had been so real, she half expected Jace to roll over from the other side of the bed, brace his muscular body over her, and pick up where her mind had left off.
Rough & Tumble (The Haven Brotherhood) Page 3
