I tried to picture the determined woman before me getting dramatic about anything and failed.
Naomi shifted on her feet. “I only came because I figured you would be here, and I owe you a thank you from before.”
If victory had a sound, it was those words coming from her mouth. And watching pink lips give them shape.
“I was planning on getting out of here after that,” she continued. “But within a few minutes, you managed to get us alone. Again.”
“Can we go over the thank you part once more?” I leaned closer, feeling the silky strands of her hair drift across my cheek as I whispered in her ear. “I need to make sure I burn it into my memory.”
Her hand went to my chest, pushing me away, and my heart thudded against her palm. “You’re impossible, you know that, right?”
“Comes with the territory, Smoothie Girl.”
“And would that territory fall inside the Seven Sinners jurisdiction?”
“Is that a deal breaker?”
“Dude, there has to be a deal for there to be a deal breaker. I’m just deciding how much trouble it’s going to be to get rid of you.”
My flash of a smile was relief given action. She never reacted the way I expected. There were usually two emotions prevalent when my allegiances became known: fear and lust. Sometimes one won out over the other. Sometimes they combined into a whole new concoction.
But there was no fear on Naomi’s face. Instead, she had finally allowed her lips to curve in a half-grin.
And while there was warmth in her eyes, I didn’t believe for a second it was the kind of mind-numbing longing that would keep her from giving me shit.
I appreciated that.
More than she knew.
“Admit it.” I reached out, unable to stop myself from brushing her hair back over her ear. She didn’t stop me or move away, but she did bite her lip. “I’m growing on you.”
“Yeah, like a fungus. Don’t sound so proud.”
I threw my head back and laughed.
The sound wasn’t practiced or planned.
Wasn’t meant to charm or provoke.
It was likely the most organic sound I’d made in five years, and it was thanks to a tiny girl with a hell of a bark and an optimistic dream.
“You gave me a truth voluntarily.” My fingers danced along the edge of the beer can. “I only need to guess one more to get that dance.”
“What’s to keep me from lying if you get it right?” she asked shamelessly, tapping a finger against my chest. “And wait a second. You haven’t even told me what I get if you’re wrong.”
“First, you won’t lie about this because of the same stubborn pride that made it hard for you to accept my help. That makes number three, by the way.”
“And the second bit should be obvious,” I rumbled. She had no idea what she was in store for if she kept touching me so freely. “You still get the honor of dancing with me.”
Naomi covered her mouth as something that sounded suspiciously like a snort emerged, and I was well on my way to a smile that was more than a blink and you’ll miss it type deal.
Then my phone buzzed in my back pocket.
Fuck, not now. I already knew what would be waiting on me. But I grabbed it anyway, feeling the outside world pressing in on this stolen moment.
Axle: Outside. Now. The fuckers r on the way.
I had half a mind to let him deal with it. Except it only took a quick reminder of Caitlin’s worry and Creed’s imploring stare to remind me of my duties. Not that it made me any more eager to see them through.
Cursing under my breath I looked up, meeting hazel eyes that once again held me in careful regard. “Stick around, yeah?”
A small shoulder lifted in an uncaring shrug. “We’ll see.”
I knew that was the best I was going to get. Forcing the issue would lose the same ground I’d only just found solid footing on. I allowed myself one more lingering look before walking away.
Mace was waiting by the front door, and when he made to head outside with me, I snatched him back by the collar.
He turned to me with a snarl that died on his lips when he saw my face.
“Watch her,” I demanded.
He didn’t have to ask who I was talking about. “You Marking her?”
Not even a question. “Yes.”
I didn’t know where this possessiveness was coming from. But it was there, and picturing someone else whispering in her ear or feeling the silky strands of her hair made me want to do unkind things to their fucking face with a baseball bat. “Spread the word. Anyone so much as bumps into her while she’s here and I’ll hang them by their balls.”
He nodded slowly, eyes a little wide around the edges. “I’m on it.”
Without waiting to see if he would follow orders—he would—I grabbed my jacket from the hallway closet and went out into the night to do what I do best.
Keep the peace.
***
“There,” Axle said at the same time a pair of headlights swung onto the street, glinting off motorcycles and illuminating the two of us standing shoulder to shoulder on the pavement.
Despite the urgency of his text, we’d been forced to wait out here for a good five minutes.
Axle was going through cigarettes like a chimney while looking otherwise unruffled. Meanwhile, I kept wiggling my nose to remind myself it was still there, and I was positive icicles were hanging from the frozen lobes of my ears. At this point, I wanted our guests to hurry up and arrive before I had to have this entire interaction with chattering teeth.
Fuck, I was ready for spring.
Thankfully, our wait was coming to an end.
The oversized SUV stopped several feet in front of us, engine idling before cutting off. My face revealed nothing while five figures emerged into the dark, cold night and came around the front of their vehicle, glancing around.
I knew what they saw. Two bikers standing alone on the street and the thumping coming from the house behind us. Assuming that was true would’ve been a deadly mistake.
Soon after Rebel managed to slip his sister under our noses, Creed bought the other few houses on this street. They now acted as dorms more than anything, each one home to at least four Sinners at any given time.
Tex was in the attic of one, looking down on the scene through the scope of a fifty-cal sniper. And since I’d seen his big ass shoot quarters out of the air with the same rifle, I wasn’t worried about any of the men before me making it out of this if they did something stupid.
I recognized each of them from their pictures. Luca, Gio, Don, and Michael were cousins of the head family and largely irrelevant where I was concerned. They were hard men. I wouldn’t deny it or make the mistake of underestimating them. But the tallest of the group held my full attention, and for good reason.
Asher Palazzo was six and a half feet of syndicate royalty in a black suit, son of Joseph himself, and heir to the vast wealth and connections their family had acquired.
“Mr. Shitdick arrives,” Axle grumbled, stuck in his perpetual state of being an ornery bastard.
“Enough,” I told him quietly.
Asher took measured steps forward, and I halfway missed the fat prick Sly and Carlos had taken care of a couple of months ago.
Narciso had been in a position of power, but the former head of Charlotte’s Cartel had also been too shortsighted and lazy to truly make use of it.
Personal feelings about the richly dressed prince in front of me aside, it only took watching them move to know for damn sure their outfit was the real deal.
Asher’s entourage fanned out around him in a tight, practiced formation. Their eyes never stopped moving. Sweeping up and down the street, across the tree line, over the clubhouse. They paid special attention to the dark, empty houses and I glanced at Axle to find him watching the same thing with a tight jaw.
Whatever they were carrying beneath those heavy, wool coats wasn't much of a threat to Texas or the others. But no
ticing where most of the danger was located said more for their competence than any of the files I’d poured over.
Would a group of transparent idiots have been too much to ask for?
Instead, I got these cautious, mannequin-looking motherfuckers who didn't smile or snarl or do anything other than stand there looking like killers.
Except for the syndicate prince.
Asher took another step forward, presenting me with an outstretched hand and bladed words, all with a smile on his face and superiority in his brown eyes. “You must be Nathaniel. A pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
My eye twitched. I wanted to pry his mouth open and rip out his tongue for the sheer fucking arrogance of using a name no one had used since Katherine. I wanted it so badly, I could almost see him on his knees, wailing as blood filled his mouth and dripped onto his expensive suit.
But the man who would’ve acted first and thought through the consequences later had curled up and died the same moment he heard the word inoperable in reference to a heart.
“I prefer Tone,” I said, since there was no fucking way I was going to pretend meeting him was anything other than a pain in my ass. My voice was even, almost pleasant.
Our handshake was firm and then over with. No posturing. No yanking. No testing to see who could crush who.
It made me trust him less.
“My apologies.” His brows furrowed with something akin to genuine apology. “I was uncertain if the nicknames were something you all preferred to use only amongst each other.”
He was so full of shit I was actually glad Axle was beside me, smoking up a storm. Cigarettes were better than the stench of what Asher was currently spewing. Unfortunately, I had to give him some credit. The act was a good one.
I might've appreciated it more had I not been on my way to becoming a tall, black snowman from standing around out here.
“You two need music to get on with this fucking shuffle?” Axle asked.
Asher blinked. “Is he always this unpleasant?”
Always, is what I thought.
But what I said was, “Only when people we don't know and don't trust show up unannounced.”
Asher checked the gaudy watch on his wrist and tapped at the face of it. “How odd. I’m sure I sent a postcard before I left New York. It should have arrived well before now.”
I looked him up and down again, wondering if this was the secret twin brother who got sent on risky assignments to test the waters. “You aren’t what I expected.”
He shrugged, glancing at the clubhouse. “And your show of force means less than nothing.”
Axle balled his fists up and several sets of eyes focused on him. “Is that right? How about I present you with a real show of-”
“Only two things matter at this time,” Asher said calmly, cutting off my fellow Sinner with a hard stare.
When he looked at me again, the pleasant mask lifted, revealing the true face of the man beneath. A face so devoid of emotion it made the mannequins standing behind him seem harmless by comparison.
This was the herald of the syndicate.
The Prince of Crime in the flesh.
The man who had claimed a throne near the top of the underworld long before his father had ever put his hands to the scale.
“First.” He held up a single finger. “I’m here to stay until I decide otherwise. Accept it or don’t. Your new reality remains the same.” Another finger joined the first. “Second, I will not be explaining why I’m here to you, Creed, or any other leather-wearing mongrel who has forgotten their place in the world. Keep your dogs on their leashes or you will become a footnote in the pages of history.”
I could’ve almost thanked him for putting us back on even ground. This wouldn’t be the first time old blood and old money got it in their heads that they were better than me. Better than us. I was sure it wouldn’t be the last.
But the one thing they kept overlooking in their desire to stare down their noses from on high?
We were still here.
So while Axle vibrated with the urge to retaliate, I only yawned, breath fogging in the air while I stretched my arms over my head.
“You done?” I asked the long-winded prince.
“Quite.” He slipped the mask of humanity back on like it had never been missing. Shit was creepy as hell. “There’s no reason we should be at each other’s throats for the duration of my visit. I simply wanted to make sure both parties knew where things stood. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve heard good things about the way Sinner’s party.”
Axle threw his cigarette down and stomped on it. “You’ve gotta be fucking-”
“No weapons,” I said.
“Of course, one can never be too careful these days.”
Asher held his arms out to either side and spread his legs. The men behind him followed suit without needing to be prompted.
I bumped Axle’s shoulder, and despite his muttering, he went about the task of patting each of them down with a bit more aggression than the job required, but no less thorough for it.
Imagine my surprise when he got through all five of them and raised empty hands in the air.
Nothing.
They had wandered into a den of wolves completely unarmed.
Asher had steered this exactly how he wanted it to go.
“Will that suffice?” he asked in his insufferable, born-rich way of speaking. He adjusted his long coat and the suit beneath it, waiting on my response with the kind of patience only a predator on the hunt was capable of.
I waved him on.
Axle and I turned to watch them head up the drive and into the clubhouse. He held on until they were out of sight before screaming curses at the top of his lungs and stomping around like a raging lunatic.
“Fuck,” he spat hoarsely, raking a hand through his hair. He turned to me, blue gaze roaming. “This is going to be a shitshow, isn’t it?”
“Oh yeah.” A humorless laugh escaped me. “We chose a hell of a time to get promoted.”
Chapter Nine
Naomi
There was some serious twilight zone type stuff happening.
I discreetly grabbed a lock of hair and gave it a sniff test. No raw sewage smell greeted me, just peaches and cream from my own shampoo.
So that wasn’t it.
I glanced down at myself, figuring maybe a boob had popped out or something. It hadn’t happened in a while, but it had also been some time since I embarrassed myself in public. Maybe I was due?
Except that wasn’t it either.
Both girls remained firmly secured, because double-sided tape was God’s reimbursement to women for not giving us jeans with usable pockets.
I was back where I started, with no explanation for why drunk people who usually had no sense of personal space had been giving me an arm’s length of distance for the last half hour.
Then again, maybe I should've been grateful for the distraction of trying to figure it out. It's not like I was upset I didn't have people bumping into me or otherwise bothering me in the least. I found myself back near the front of the clubhouse after my most recent circuit, and decided to test my theory once more for good measure.
I walked into the crowd on the dance floor. Seriously. I waded right into the middle of what had to be a hundred people, and no one so much as caught me with a stray elbow.
Since I was pretty sure I wasn't unlucky enough for leprosy to have picked me to be its twenty-first-century carrier, there was something else going on.
I made my way out of the crowd and towards the staircase leading to the second level. The same two stone-faced guys that had been there all night were still standing on either side, making sure no one tried to go up. My approach wasn't easy to miss, and they glanced at each other before returning to their vigil. I sat down on the wide steps in between them, tucking my dress under me.
Being stationary was a necessity before I walloped myself over the head with the truth I was ignoring.
Why
am I still here?
I did what I came to do. I should've been walking back out the door the moment I had.
Gosh dang it, I couldn't even blame Lynn for disappearing on me anymore. She was only halfway across the room sucking the face off a dude who reminded me of a Viking warrior.
There had to be something or someone else I could pin the blame on.
This was my longest stint in a place not my hometown. Maybe I could chalk it up to new allergies playing a strange trick on me?
Right, because allergies are why you can't stop thinking about chocolate eyes and lips that had been so, so close.
I sighed, and the sound was so dreamy I hated myself.
Then I gave myself a break and a mental pat on the back instead.
If there was ever a man worth releasing a dreamy sigh for, it was Tone.
"Tone," I whispered to myself, rolling it around in my mind. I wasn't overly worried about looking like a crazy person. The music was too loud for my voice to carry, and I needed to say it to make sure this was real. To make sure I wasn't imagining anything that had happened.
Dear Lord, that voice pulled from bedrock and hotter than magma whispering in my ear.
The clean, pine smell of him surrounding me. Cutting off the rest of the world until I felt it was only the two of us somewhere in the woods, standing beneath a blue sky.
Those stupid, sexy, capable hands that did everything so, so carefully.
Remembering those hands retrieving our beers and tracing through my hair was so freaking hot. And I didn't mean fan myself when no one is looking hot.
I meant clenching thighs and an undeniable dampness between my legs hot.
Opening. Day. Tomorrow, said the sensible voice.
There's always time to get your back blown out, said the voice in my head that sounded suspiciously like Lynn.
It was cruder than I usually tend to be, but not exactly wrong either.
This didn't have to be some big deal. I wasn't getting ready to take this man to Vegas and marry him. And it wasn't like I was some untouched princess either. There were condoms in my clutch, and inside my bedroom dresser, and I knew how to use them. Thank you very much.
Tempted by a Sinner (Seven Sinners Book 4) Page 8
