by Sophia Gray
I couldn’t say why this felt the same, but it did. And it pissed me off more than it hurt me.
“You know what? I don’t want to know any more. Not a thing. You keep your damn secrets. The last thing I want is to talk to you anyway.”
And with that, I spun on my heel and marched out the door. I was proud of myself when I kept from even glancing back to see if he felt even a speck of remorse.
I made it downstairs and spent what was left of the very early morning tending to Kato. I wasn’t sure he would make it to dawn, much less through the day, but I did my best. And I tried my damnedest not to think of Pax, his body, or how easily he dismissed me.
When dawn was finally approaching, I settled into one of the stuffy armchairs nearest the mudroom and waited.
Chapter Six
Pax
I dragged a calloused hand over my face, rubbing at my eyes and the stubble along my chin. I was fucking tired, and I could think of about a thousand things I’d rather be doing than talking with Marco about who the fuck went after Kato. But that was the job, and I was pissed enough that I didn’t even feel the tiredness, anyway.
Nice to know I can always be angry enough to fight through sleep deprivation, I thought humorlessly.
“You figured out who made the damn call yet?” I asked Marco gruffly. I was on the verge of losing my patience, and the only reason I didn’t was because this was Marco, and it wouldn’t work with him. He didn’t put up with my shit. It made me play nice.
Which I fucking hated.
“Sorry, boss,” he said through the phone. I could hear clicking in the background, telling me he was probably working on those Methuselahs they called computers there at the station. “The call wasn’t long enough to get a trace, and even if it was, I’d be willing to bet it would come from some burner phone at the location where Kato was found anyway.”
Burner phones were useful for people in my line of work. They didn’t have any contract for service, and they didn’t require identification or even a credit card to purchase minutes. Essentially, they were untraceable, which meant they were great for doing seedy deals.
And apparently for leaving anonymous tips about motorcycle accidents.
“Fuck,” I said into the phone, running my free hand through my thick hair. “You didn’t recognize the voice?”
There was a pause, probably Marco shaking his head before realizing that I couldn’t see him. “No. Sounded just like every Dick and Tom out here. Could have been fucking Diego Huxton for all I could tell.”
And that was the rub. I had a sneaking suspicious it was Diego Huxton or someone working for him, at least. Diego was a piece of shit, if you asked me, but he ran his club well, and if we didn’t pay attention, he’d snatch our territory right out from under us.
The trouble was, I didn’t have any proof that it was Diego or any of the Chaos Disciples. Two months earlier, I wouldn’t have given a lick. I’d have gone after them like a fucking hell-raiser and started a war. But the timing was a little hairy. Marco had tipped me off that the cops were looking hard at my legitimate business—the bar—which I used to launder the money from my less legitimate business. Drugs were my forte, meaning the club made a large chunk of money very quickly. The bar did well enough on its own, so having money wasn’t necessarily out-of-character, but it didn’t do that well.
The cops were starting to get a little suspicious. And it didn’t help that they didn’t really like us to begin with.
It meant that I needed to be a little more cautious going forward. Starting a war with the Chaos Disciples was one thing. Starting a war with the cops was another. They could bring in reinforcements and make life very difficult for me.
I wanted proof before any of that happened.
“Keep working on it, Marco,” I told him, gritting my teeth against the barrage of swear words I wanted to shout at him. “And tell me as soon as you hear anything.”
“Will do.”
He hung up then, and I stood alone in the room for a long while. It was a bedroom, one I usually called mine when I stayed here. I had an apartment a little closer to town, too, which was where I usually stayed, but this place was a little easier to fortify. And a little more secluded, so if things went down, the police wouldn’t be right on top of us in minutes. The nearest neighbors were just shy of ten miles down the road, and the houses that were closer were, thankfully, vacant. I’d been considering picking them up and taking them completely off the market just to keep up the solitude but hadn’t closed on anything yet.
Leaning my head to either side, I cracked my neck, sighing at the slight ease of pressure. I needed Kato to wake up. He could tell me exactly what had happened tonight and confirm any guesses I might have.
Why was Kato hurt tonight? Was it really an accident?
I frowned deeply as Nurse Jamie’s words echoed in my head. It would be a relief if it actually had been an accident tonight, but I didn’t have enough faith to believe that. It was too big a coincidence in my mind, and she was right—his injuries were extensive. In fact, I thought there was a possibility that he’d gotten kicked around a little before he ended up in that ditch.
But I wouldn’t know anything for sure until I talked to Kato.
Unfortunately, thinking of Kato led me to thinking about Jamie—her voice, her intense eyes, her lips… I admitted that mauling her was probably not the best approach. She was feisty and seemed to dislike my manhandling of her, but that was half the fun. The rest of the fun came from trapping her against the wall with my body until her breasts were pressing against my chest and I was all but grinding myself against her mound.
I grunted as my arousal spiked yet again. My dick made it clear that it wanted her, and I already decided that I wanted her, as well, if only to prove a point. And I needed to figure out what she knew anyway…
A wicked grin slipped onto my face as I headed out the door towards the stairs. I knew the best way to get information from someone wasn’t torture but rather pleasure. It was strange what people would tell you when you were making them come.
And she looks like she needs to get some, I thought to myself.
She had a stick up her ass in the worst kind of way—not in the kinky kind of way, either. I didn’t think she was a man-hater, but I wouldn’t necessarily be surprised if she was.
She certainly seemed to hate me, anyway.
But I’ll bet I can change that.
I headed down the stairs, my steel toed boots clopping heavily as I went. I reached the first floor and hooked a right. The living room was between the stairs and the mudroom. That was where I found Jamie. She was curled up on an overstuffed chair, her head leaning against one of the throw pillows from the couch. Her eyes fluttered in her sleep and she looked kind of… cute.
I didn’t really do cute, but I appreciated the softness of her features and the way she had her long legs folded up beneath her in the chair.
Pausing in the middle of the living room, I considered my options.
I could go to the mudroom and try to wake up Kato—probably a lost cause given the sort of drugs she had asked for to dull the pain—so that I could figure out what he knew.
I could wake up Jamie, instead, and try, once again, to talk to her. But I hadn’t had much luck in that department, mostly because I wasn’t the most subtle or kind man in the world. I wasn’t interested in coddling anyone, not even to get information.
My last option seemed like the best and was probably the worst. I could go up to Jamie while she slept in that chair and begin my seduction with some fondling. She kept shoving me away when I fused our mouths together, but she always gave in after a minute—a long minute. I felt the way her body responded to me, the way her tits heaved as she sucked in deep, needy breaths. She may not like it, but she wanted me. I knew it. If I started on her while she was asleep, maybe that instinct would take over and—
“Mm,” she moaned lightly in her sleep.
My eyebrows shot up, and I watched
her a little closer. I noticed that her cheeks were flushed and her lips had parted slightly. Could it be she was already dreaming of some of the things I wanted to do to her?
That would make life easier, I admitted to myself.
Before I could decide whether or not it was a good idea to put my hands on those delectable curves of hers, her eyes fluttered open. She blinked away some of the lingering sleep, then frowned a little as she realized she was looking at me.
I saw the moment that she realized who I was because she shot up in her seat. Her legs came down to touch the floor and her back might as well have been rebar, straight and stiff. She narrowed her eyes at me and pursed her lips together, then deliberately turned her head away so that she was staring at the door to the mudroom rather than me.
Rolling my eyes at the silent treatment—what was she, five?—I reminded myself that I was trying to seduce this woman for information. Clearing my throat, I attempted to behave myself.
“Didn’t mean to wake you,” I told her, the closest I’d come to an apology in a long time.
She didn’t say anything. She just folded her arms just beneath her tits, bunching them together to give me an eyeful of cleavage. I had to work not to grin.
“Are you going to say something?” I asked, half amused, half irritated that she was still pointedly looking away. When she didn’t answer, I felt irritation winning out. “C’mon, don’t be a bitch. We both want Kato to pull through.”
The bitch comment was probably a poor choice, but it did get a rise out of her. Her head snapped towards me so fast I thought she might give herself whiplash. Her eyes narrowed, and she spat, “I’m not a bitch! You’re the one acting like an asshole.”
Before I could respond to that, she got to her feet, pulling herself up to her full height. My eyes made another quick round over her body, and I wished she wasn’t still wearing those damn scrubs. I wanted to see those long legs.
“Your friend is hurt in there—”
She gestured towards the mudroom, but I let out a sigh and interrupted her. I was getting tired of this damn conversation. “My friend is sleeping. I’ve already told you he wouldn’t want to go to the fucking hospital.” I pause a moment, then took a step towards her. “Besides, I already have you here taking such good care of him.” I let my eyes drag across her body, slow and deliberate so that she knew I was doing it. “Any man should be so lucky.”
Her face heated, and I remembered that she was dreaming about something that had her all but mewling in her sleep.
“Did you get some sleep?” I asked her innocently, trying to keep the grin from my face.
Her eyes widened a little as her flush deepened. She opened her mouth to respond, then snapped it shut. A second later, she tried again. “No. Someone came in and woke me up, remember?” She gave me a pointed glare.
“That’s too bad. It looked like I interrupted a pretty… intense dream.” I watched her face closely. She looked pissed. “What was it about?”
“None of your business,” she snapped at me instantly.
My eyebrows rose, and I took another step towards her. She took a step back to compensate, keeping some distance between us. “Really? Are you sure?”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “Positive.”
I stepped forward; she stepped back. “I’m not so sure. It looked like it might have had something to do with me.”
When her breasts rose as she took a deep breath, I thought I was actually right. She was dreaming of me. When I took yet another step towards her, she compensated again and caught the edge of the chair with the backs of her knees. She let out a little cry before falling back into the chair. I took the opportunity to close the distance between us and leaned over her, bracing my arms on either side of the chair. She was effectively caged in—just the way I liked it.
She had to look up to see my eyes, which bared her long neck, not to mention the tops of those plump breasts.
“I…” she started but couldn’t seem to figure out what she was trying to say.
“It’s okay,” I told her in a low, rich tone. “I have that effect on women. They can’t help but dream of the dirty things I’m going to do to them.”
Her breath caught as her eyes widened to the size of saucers. It looked like it took everything she had to stutter out any sort of response. “W-who says I want you to…to do…dirty things to me.”
I grinned wickedly at her. “Your body does, baby.” I leaned forward, intent on kissing her again. Her lips parted slightly, and her eyes were half-lidded. She wasn’t going to resist. In the end, even when she fought it, she wanted me.
I was going to show her how much, and then she was going to tell me everything.
Chapter Seven
Jamie
I felt my heart hammering away in my chest. My body felt flushed, hot and sticky, even beneath the thin scrubs I wore. Despite everything in me telling me that he was an asshole—and he was, no mistaking it—I couldn’t seem to resist the call of his full lips. I told myself it was a combination of tiredness and a serious dry spell that made me let him touch his mouth to mine again.
But I doubted it.
It was the third time I’d let him—well, sort of let him—kiss me tonight. Or was it morning? Either way, it was a very short amount of time between kisses, and I probably should have been a lot angrier than I actually was about this one.
But it was hard to do that when he was right. I had been dreaming about him.
I’d passed out on the chair, exhausted and stressed out. I only meant for a catnap, but I guessed I’d been sleeping longer than planned—long enough to have one hell of a hot dream. It had been just shy of a porno, and it starred a certain motorcycle riding badass. In the dream, it hadn’t mattered that he was also a pain in the ass. No, in the dream, the only thing that had mattered was the way he was trailing kisses across my body, leaving a trail of fire in his wake.
In that dream sort of way, I’d been dressed one second and naked the next, as his mouth slowly made its way down the length of my body. He’d been about two licks and an open-mouthed kiss away from pleasuring that aching, unattended core that was dripping with need when I’d woken up.
And if that didn’t leave a girl frustrated, I didn’t know what would.
It was that frustration that spurred me forward, that parted my lips and let his tongue slide into my mouth for the third time in mere hours. It was that lingering dream that had me arching my back up towards him, straining for a deeper kiss and more attention. And it was that frustration—I swear, it was only the frustration—that had my hands winding around his strong neck and shoulders to pull him closer.
But as frustration gave way to a deeper need that hadn’t been sated in years, I remembered what it felt like to be really touched by a man. I remembered the last time it happened, who it had been with, and why it had been so damn long.
It was like ice water being poured over my head.
I jerked back suddenly from the kiss, and my hands gripped his shoulders only to push him back. Clay’s smarmy, charming face flashed before my eyes, and I wanted to kill something.
In that moment, Pax didn’t seem like such a bad choice for the killing, either.
“Fuck, baby, come back,” he growled at me, sounding a little frustrated himself. “I know you want me.”
And it was true. In some small, unimportant way, mostly due to intense sexual frustration bred from mistrust and too long between sessions. But frustration wasn’t reason enough to let this man get my panties down. I didn’t have to be a genius to know he didn’t do relationships. He’d already told me he was only in it for the pussy.
Not the sort of guy to bounce back with.
“Get off,” I told him firmly, proud of myself for keeping away from that breathy tone that tried to come out instead.
For a second, I thought he wouldn’t listen, maybe even try to force himself on me. But then he surprised me by cursing loudly and pulling away. I blinked a couple of times
in shock, then looked up at him standing there in front of the chair. He was breathing heavily, running his hands through his hair roughly, and I could see the sizable bulge straining against the zipper of his jeans.
A shiver of want ran through me, even as I tried to shove it away.
“I think…I think I need to go,” I stuttered out, forcing myself up from the chair. I ran a shaking hand over my hair to smooth it down and tried to slow the rapid beats of my heart.
He shot me a dark look, clearly still not happy with my insistence to leave. Or maybe he was still pissed about the whole not wanting to drop my panties for him thing. It was hard to tell in that moment.
