Boss shook his head, wincing.
Jake jogged down the stairs and pinned his former CO with a hard stare.
“I swear I tried to talk her out of it, man,” Boss said. “But she’s my sister, not a prisoner. I can’t force her to do anything. But that doesn’t mean I’m not still on your side. This is just a little hiccup.”
Great. Frickin’ great. Obviously, there’ll be no help from that quarter.
Growling, Jake stomped back up the stairs and straight into Shell’s bedroom. Her expression was tight, but she took a deep breath and once more presented him with her bare back.
“Now, would you please zip me up?” she asked, her voice strained.
He considered doing the opposite of what she suggested and pulling that damned dress off her shoulders and down over her hips. He’d show her just exactly what lust could bring to the table.
Of course, he couldn’t be that crude. He couldn’t act like the animal she’d basically already accused him of being. And there was that promise he’d made to her last night…
Still, that didn’t mean he couldn’t exact a little revenge. Because he was done being Mr. Nice Guy. He’d tried apologizing, and she’d brushed him off. He’d told her he loved her, and she’d thrown his declaration back in his face.
Now the gloves were coming off.
She wanted war?
Oh, he could give her war…
Slowly, ever so slowly, he pulled the tab on the zipper up, dragging the rough edges of his fingers along her smooth skin all along the way.
He was rewarded with the feel of goose bumps pebbling beneath his fingers.
“What are you doing?” she gasped.
“Just what you asked me to do,” he rumbled lowly, stepping close so that she could feel the heat from his body. When he reached the top of the zipper, he brushed her hair over her shoulder, softly skimming the callused pad of his thumb along her neck as he fastened the little eyehook. “There,” he leaned in until his breath feathered her cheek. “All zipped up.”
Her shiver had a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth.
Uh-huh. He’d definitely tapped into her lizard brain. There was no mistaking that telltale flush on her cheeks or the way her breath hitched.
He knew he was pushing the bounds of his promise. And he planned to push it just a little further…
“And, Shell?” He pressed up against her, butt to nuts in military speak. Only it was a shame to refer to a thing of beauty such as Shell’s ass so irreverently.
“H-huh?”
“I do love you whether you believe me or not. And not only that,” he put a hand on her hip and tucked her more tightly against the erection that inexplicably sprung up anytime he got within three feet of her. “I lust for you, as well. And those are the two things I think it takes to make a relationship work. You remember that while you’re out with this stable, reliable, consistent doctor tonight.”
Chapter Nine
The couple who was checked in next door wasn’t screwing like the previous pair; they were fighting.
Johnny preferred the screwing.
At least then he wouldn’t have to listen to the woman harp on the guy.
He was two seconds from banging on the wall above his headboard and screaming, Yes, he screwed Dolores! And he probably did it to get away from your shrew-y, more-annoying-than-Fran Drescher voice!
And just as he pushed up to his knees and raised a fist, a knock at his door had his head whipping around.
What the hell?
No one knew he was here, save Mary. And she wouldn’t step one dainty, pampered foot in this shit-hole hotel, much less deign to ride the creaky elevator up six floors.
“Who is it?” he barked, quietly reaching for the gun he kept on the nightstand.
“You got a delivery,” a nasally, disembodied voice drifted through the flimsy metal door.
“You must have the wrong room, man. I ain’t expecting no deliveries.”
“Are you Mr. Vitiglioni?”
Sonofabitch!
He’d checked in under an alias so…yeah, he slid the safety off on his Ruger.
“Who’s it from?” he demanded, carefully climbing off the bed, wincing when the lumpy mattress squeaked out a protest.
“Hey, man,” the guy complained through the door, “I ain’t your secretary. I just do deliveries.”
“Leave it,” he commanded, inching his way across the room, his pistol held out in front of him.
“Are you Mr. Vitiglioni?”
He wrenched open the door and pointed the scary end of his Ruger at a bulbous nose situated prominently on a round, acne-scarred face. The delivery man was short, pudgy, and more than a bit careless about personal hygiene if his greasy skin and greasier hair were anything to go by.
“Whoa!” the guy’s chubby hands flew in the air, and the overnight package dropped to the hallway floor with a muted thud. “Jesus, man! Chill!”
“Who told you I was here?” he snarled, shoving the Ruger’s barrel closer to the man’s ugly face.
“No one!” the dude swore as his wide, bloodshot eyes slowly filled with tears. “It’s right there on the shipping label.”
Johnny glanced down and…sure enough. There was his name in big, bold letters along with the address of the Stardust Hotel and his room number.
What the hell, what the hell?
He glanced down the hall in each direction before leaning in close to the delivery man, ignoring the smell of mustard and onions on the guy’s breath. “You tell anybody about this,” he looked at the nametag sewn into the brown uniform, “Rudy, and I’ll find you and slit your throat. Then I’ll pull your bloated, purple tongue down through the cut I made and watch you bleed out. You got that? Nod once if you got that?”
Rudy nodded once, a lone tear spilling down his shiny, pock-marked cheek.
“Good,” Johnny shoved him away and watched him stumble before scrambling toward the elevator. The doors opened with a sickly sounding ping-pong, and Rudy jumped inside, cowering in the back corner.
Johnny winked and pointed his gun straight at Rudy’s greasy head as the silver doors slid shut. A terrified groan slipped down the hall, and Johnny couldn’t help but smile.
He loved that sound. The sound of fear. It was a thing of joy to hear, and he supposed it affected him much the same way a church choir affected others.
He peered down at the package, and once more scanned the hall in each direction before bending to retrieve it. Quickly backing into his room, he locked the door and strode toward the bed. After depositing the package on the faded comforter, he stared at it for long moments.
From Mary?
That’s the only thing that made any sense, but would she be stupid enough to send him a package with his real name on it considering she knew what he was in Chicago to do?
If so, he was tempted to kill her instead of the Black Knights’ families. The stupid bitch…
For a moment he considered not opening it. What could she have possibly sent that he’d want to see anyway?
Nothing, that’s what. Absolutely nothing.
Then again…
“Oh, what the hell,” he grumbled, reaching down to rip it open. He frowned when a thick, brown, accordion-style file folder appeared. With a hesitant hand, he untied the string holding it secure and carefully peeked inside.
“Huh?” His frown deepened as he pulled out a glossy photo. It showed Michelle Carter and her son laughing together at a playground. He dug deeper into the file. More photos. More papers listing names and addresses. More newspaper clippings showing—
Wait.
Names and addresses?
He thumbed back to a previous page and squinted at the typed list. Some of those names sounded familiar. Sykes, McMillan, Weller…
And then it hit him. Those were the last names of the Black Knights. But these photos weren’t of the Knights. These were women and children. Young men. Elderly couples and—
Relatives.
This package was from the PI he’d hired, the same PI who wasn’t supposed to know where he was.
“You’re even better than you led me to believe,” he murmured into the silence of the room, impressed by the private investigator’s resourcefulness while at the same time a little peeved to have his hiding place discovered.
The PI was obviously letting Johnny know that he wasn’t without a certain set of skills. Not so subtly informing Johnny that should Johnny attempt to come after him, you know, just to tie up that last string—which had been Johnny’s plan from the beginning—he knew exactly where Johnny was and would see him coming from a mile away.
Okay, Johnny could respect that.
The PI would live. For now.
Shoving everything but the picture of Michelle back into the file, he ran a finger over her photographed face.
He’d begin dealing with the Knights other relatives tomorrow, because tonight he had big plans for Michelle…
***
“Hey! What are you doing?” Michelle demanded when a strong arm wound around her waist, dragging her back from the taxi she was about to step into.
“My job.” Jake’s voice sounded close to her ear. “Acting as your bullet catcher. So, you’re coming with me.”
“You can act as my bullet catcher by following at a safe distance. Just like you’ve been doing all night.” And, boy, hadn’t that been fun? Glancing in the rearview mirror of Chris Drummond’s BMW and seeing Jake behind them, looking mean and menacing sitting on the back of his motorcycle, and too, too sexy for words in that thick leather jacket? Not to mention the grumbling roar of his monster bike had made it impossible for her to concentrate on anything Chris said…
Now, she slapped at Jake’s arm until he released her, spinning to face him. The chill wind whipping in off Lake Michigan grabbed the flimsy shawl she’d draped over her shoulders and whipped it away. He snatched it before it could fly up into the vortex of air created by the towering skyscrapers and wrapped it tightly around her back, pulling her close to his chest in the process.
“Where’d the good doctor go?” he asked quietly, intimately. His breath smelled crisp, like the lime-flavored seltzer water he’d been drinking at the bar in the upscale Spanish restaurant while keeping an ever-watchful eye on her and her date.
Her date.
What a joke.
It’d been the evening from hell, and she couldn’t say she was sorry it was ending so soon.
Oh, not that Chris Drummond was a jerk or anything. If fact, he was a very nice guy. An exceedingly boring, eye-crossingly somber, nice guy. As he spoke quite elegantly over dinner about his family, his charity work, and his patients, she couldn’t help but let her eyes wander over to the bar where Jake sat.
All vigilant and threatening and in no way boring.
And all she’d been able to think was, I’m doomed.
Here I am. Out with a handsome, stable, well-to-do man, and I can barely keep from falling face first into my Paella or else running over and jumping on the lap of the cad sitting at the bar.
There was obviously something really wrong with her.
Because even though she knew that a smart woman would look at Dr. Drummond and start salivating over what a fantastic catch he was, even though she knew he was exactly the type of man she should want, the exact opposite of her father and Jake, she couldn’t help but glance across the table at his handsome face, perfect teeth, polite conversation and think…
Borrrring.
Where was the drama? The passion? The fire? The romance?
It was at that point in her spinning thoughts when she’d inevitably glance over at Jake and come back to the whole I’m doomed thread. Because there was the drama and passion and fire and romance. Right there. Sitting at the bar in biker boots, another stupid Hawaiian shirt, and a pair of jeans that made the temperature in the restaurant jump ten degrees.
Every other man in the place was dressed in designer suits that probably cost more than one of her mortgage payments, and still Jake managed to outshine them.
How was that possible?
Or maybe it was just her. Maybe she had some sort of strange weakness when it came to the allure of a rough-and-ready alpha male, otherwise known primarily as Mr. Jerkwad. Maybe it was some deep-seated psychosis brought on by her father’s abandonment. Some sort of twisted, perverse Electra complex.
Yep. It’s official folks. I’m a total head case.
Because her big plan to prove to Jake that things were really, truly over between them by holding up another man as comparison—a smart, handsome, professional man whom he couldn’t hope to compete with—had blown up in her face like an overcooked microwave dinner.
Bam!
Doomed. That’s all there was to it.
She was such a fool…
“The hospital called Chris in,” she told Jake now, squirming against his embrace, but that only made him hold her tighter and her pulse, never steady around him, slammed into overdrive when her hardened nipples brushed his chest.
“Quite a guy you got there,” he said, a sardonic grin tipping his lips, his eyes flashing in the lights of the passing cars. The city was a cacophony of noises around them, but all she heard was his low, sexy voice. “Leaving you to finish dessert by yourself.”
“He had an emergency surgery, you big dolt!” she hissed, then realized she still might be able to salvage this evening and its initial intent. Ignoring the feel of him against her, so large and strong, she smiled and fluttered her lashes. “Oh, did I fail to mention Chris is a surgeon?”
A terribly boring surgeon who any sane girl with half a brain would kill to have. Ugh!
“Yo, I don’t give a flying fuck if he’s the goddamned president of the United States,” he growled, pulling her closer until the heat from his big body surrounded her, inexplicably causing goose bumps to burst over her skin. “That doesn’t change the fact that you were bored to death.”
Had it been that obvious?
Yep, clearly it had been. Dangit!
“Fine,” she conceded since there was no use in denying it. He’d see her lie for what it was. “I’ll give you that but—”
“So, if you did this just to make me jealous, sweetheart,” he leaned in close, his nose nearly touching hers, “it worked.”
“I didn’t do it make you jealous!” She jerked out of his embrace and immediately lamented the move when the cool wind whipped around her. “I did it to prove to you, once and for all, that what we had is over.”
“Yeah?” he asked, one brow raised sardonically. She was overcome with the urge to wipe the smirk from his face by smacking him upside the head with her handbag. “And how’d that work out?”
“Oh, what does it matter?” She wrapped her shawl tightly around her shoulders and took a step toward the curb and the waiting taxi. This night couldn’t end soon enough. “The date is over. I’m going home.”
“Not yet.” He grabbed her arm and started herding her down the sidewalk. Pedestrians instinctively gave way to him and female heads turned to watch him walk by. Ugh!
“What do you mean?” she demanded, yanking on her arm, but he refused to release her.
“I mean, right now you’re coming with me.”
When they stopped beside his motorcycle, parked at an angle on the side of the street, she was finally able to wrench her arm from his grasp.
“I’m not riding that,” she declared, her tone leaving no room for argument. “For one thing, it’s forty-five degrees out here. And for another, I’m wearing a dress.”
By way of answer, he shrugged out of his thick motorcycle jacket and slung it around her shoulders. The heat from his body was caught in the leather along with his warm, clean, beachy smell.
God, help me. Her entire body tightened in response.
“The skirt you can hike up until we get there,” he said, handing her the helmet he’d draped over a set of sparkling, chrome handlebars.
“I will not!” she huffe
d. “Even if it wouldn’t be nearly indecent, I can’t travel twenty blocks up to Lincoln Park. I’ll freeze to death before we get there.”
“We’re not going to Lincoln Park. We’re only going as far as Michigan Avenue.”
“Michigan Avenue? What’s on Michigan Avenue?” she asked, eyeing the smooth way he swung a leg over the menacing-looking bike. With its reptilian paint job, studded black leather detailing, chrome exhaust, and vicious, serpent-inspired rims, the motorcycle looked like something you’d see in a fantasy magazine, not something you’d actually ride.
“You’ll see,” he told her, scooting up on the seat to give her room.
As if she was really going to mount up behind him. The guy had a wild imagination; she’d give him that.
“I told you I’m not going.”
“You’ll go even if I have to pick you up and set you on the back of Viper myself.”
Viper? It had a name?
Of course it did. Men named everything.
“I’d like to see you try,” she crossed her arms. The move was a bit awkward given she was still holding his helmet. “I’m nearly six feet tall. I weigh a lot more than you think.”
A sudden gleam entered his eyes that had her catching her breath. “I didn’t seem to have any problem holding you up against that wall inside the Clover.” Oh my God! Why did he have to bring that up? Now, she fought the urge to cry. “I figure I’ll manage just fine now.” He turned his head to the side and lifted a brow. “Or do you need me to prove it?”
“This is ridiculous.” She shoved the helmet at him, blinking back sudden tears. “I’m hailing a cab and going home.”
“Get. On. The. Bike. Shell,” he grumbled, dipping his chin, glaring at her out from under his sandy brows.
“Get bent, Jake,” she choked, hoping he mistook her anguish for anger.
“Okay,” he sighed, swinging from the back of the bike. “You asked for it.”
He lifted her into his arms as if she weighed nothing.
“Hey!” she squawked, her tears vanishing as she smacked him repeatedly with her beaded clutch. “Put me down, you big jerk!”
Rev It Up Page 14
