Bullet Series Box Set Books 1-8

by Jade C. Jamison

  “You’re not gonna get anything from me.”

  “I said I’m not working. I just thought maybe you and me could go grab a cup of coffee. I don’t know why that has to seem sinister.”

  Brad couldn’t help himself. He started laughing. He downed the rest of the water. “Fine. We’ll go have a cup of coffee.”

  “Great idea. You’ve already seen the best act of the night anyway.”

  He smirked. “Where are we going, Sugar?”

  She eyed him. “Well, first things first. Don’t call me Sugar.”

  “What should I call you?”

  “My real name’s Joanne. Call me Jo. What’s your name?”

  “Brad.” He stood. “Let’s get out of here.”

  * * *

  Brad had already figured out she was using him so she could get a ride home, and, for some reason, he was okay with it. He wound up buying the coffee too…and then a piece of pie for her on top of that. She could afford a few calories. He didn’t mind. She was gorgeous and she was making him smile.

  Yeah, he suspected she made more in a night than his band usually did, but she’d worked hard for it, and—unlike his dreams for the band—she probably didn’t want to spend her whole life stripping. He figured she wanted to save up and get out.

  She offered Brad a bite of the pie, and he grinned but shook his head at her. He sipped at the coffee. It was good. He was glad he’d taken her up on her suggestion. After she took the last bite of the pie, she said, “So…do you only go to strip clubs when you’re depressed as hell?”

  He smiled. “Depressed? Did I look depressed?”

  “Uh, yeah. Totally. You didn’t smile until I started talking to you.” He wanted to deny it, but he knew it was true. She took a sip of her coffee and winked. “Guys like you make it hard for me to do my job.”

  Okay, yeah. He was smiling more than he had in a week. “How so?”

  She huffed as though she couldn’t believe him. “We know we’re doing a good job when guys can’t take their eyes off us or they get this look in their eyes. And sometimes—now I know this is gonna seem weird to you—but they, like, smile. We can tell we’re appreciated. Shit. If my boss had walked in and seen your face, I would have gotten my ass reamed.”

  “Seriously?”

  “No, not really. But if all the guys around you and in front of me had looked like that, I bet I would have been in trouble.”

  “I’d say sorry, but the reason I went was so you could cheer me up.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “That’s not my job.” He shrugged and took another sip of coffee. She was losing her amusement factor really fast and was pushing at becoming annoying. She gasped and said, “Oh, no. Depressed man has returned.” He shook his head. “So…why don’t you tell me what’s got you down? Talking can help.”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Seriously. You’re probably thinking I’m just the stupid whore who gets up on the stage and strips and then tries to find a guy who I can talk out of money, but that’s not it. I asked if you wanted to hang, because I’m not feeling so happy either. I guess I’m just better at putting on a happy face.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. See, I got this boyfriend…” The waitress stopped by their table and filled up their cups, asking if they needed anything else, but they told her no.

  “A boyfriend…”

  “Oh, yeah. He’s usually a great guy. Sweet, gorgeous, treats me right, but…sometimes he’s not.”

  “I take it right now, he’s not?”

  “Yeah. In fact, he’s a real asshole right now. Part of the problem is…” She looked around. “Well, I’ve said too much already.”

  Brad couldn’t figure out this girl’s angle. He continued to feel like she was trying to work him out of money. She was going to be sorely disappointed to find out that he was worried if he was going to be able to pay the rent, let alone give her any money to show him a good time. He didn’t know that he was in the mood for sex anyway.

  He almost laughed out loud at the thought. Of course, he would be in the mood for sex. He never hadn’t been, no matter what his prevailing mood—sad, angry, happy. Sex could enhance a good mood or change a bad one. And this girl? Very hot. But he didn’t think he trusted her. So he sipped his coffee. He wasn’t going to encourage her either way.

  “Let’s just say when he’s a bad boyfriend, he’s very bad, and that makes me want to spend time with someone else.” Brad nodded. She raised an eyebrow. “Not just drinking coffee and eating pie.” She lowered her voice, and Brad didn’t know if she’d done it on purpose, but the quality of her words turned husky. “It makes me want to be naughty with someone else.”

  He nearly spat his coffee out, but he managed to keep his cool. Holy fuck. He’d been getting ready to find a way to usher her back out to the car and get her home, and now it was all he could do to not get a massive hard on. He couldn’t help the look on his face, and he knew it was a mixture of incredulity, intrigue, and hunger. He hadn’t had a good fuck in a long time, and now, considering the possibility that this girl was really offering, he could think of little else. That she’d said she had a boyfriend didn’t even cross his mind. He still didn’t know that he trusted her, though, so he raised his eyebrows and said, “Yeah?”

  “Yeah…but, first, you need to tell me what’s got you down. I already know it’s a girl, all right. Just tell me more. I want to know. I want to know you feel like I do.”

  “Feel like you do?”

  “Yeah, like we’re kindred spirits or something.”

  Her words then felt genuine, as though she wanted a reason to care about him. He paused, but then he said, “Yeah, it’s a girl.” He stared into his coffee cup.

  “I already knew that. What’s the problem? What’s she done to make you glum?”

  “Nothing, really.”

  “BS.”

  “No, really. She…” Brad shook his head. He was going to sound pathetic, but why did he care? This woman didn’t know him. What she thought about him wouldn’t change his life. “She’s been in love with my best friend forever, and they just hooked up.”

  “But…?”

  “But there’s been something between her and me, has been from the first time we met. And it’s not like I didn’t let her know how I feel.”

  “Oh. Ouch.”

  “Yeah.”

  He could feel the side of her left foot—still in its boot—rubbing against the inside of his lower leg and then she put her right foot on the other side, trapping his leg in between hers. “Let’s get out of here.” He looked at her. “Maybe forget our problems for a while.” He raised his eyebrows.

  He was tempted, but no fucking way was he taking a girl back to his place, whether he had the bedroom for the night or not. That was Nick’s thing. It seemed stupid, but he didn’t want Valerie to know. He shrugged. “Can’t go to my place.”

  “Why not?”

  “I have four roommates. It’s a little crowded.”

  She nodded and then he saw her expression change. “And the girl and best friend are two of them?” All he could do was move his head up and down in affirmation. “Well…we could go back to my place, but you can’t spend the night.”

  He agreed in two seconds flat…because he had nothing to lose.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  JO, ALSO KNOWN as Sugar, barely got the key out of the lock before she and Brad started tugging at their clothes once they were inside the door. She’d managed to get them both worked up on the drive to her apartment. She’d started by nibbling on his ear, and he’d pulled her into a kiss at a red light, but then she started snaking her fingers up his jeans, teasing him through the denim, running her fingernail up the zipper, creating a vibration that made his dick hard as a rock. Then she squeezed his thigh.

  He was already wondering if he could make it when she unzipped her own jeans and said, “Not fair that you’re hard and I’m not.” She stuck a hand down her pants and started playing with herse
lf, panting and moaning. “Oh, I can’t wait to feel you inside me.”

  His sentiments exactly. She’d given him vague directions, and if she didn’t pay attention, he was just gonna pull over and fuck her brains out. At the next stoplight, he asked, “Which way?”

  “Mmm.” She rolled her head to one side and opened her eye. “Straight ahead one more block, and then turn left.”

  Left? Fuck. It would have been nice if she’d warned him earlier. He was in the right-hand lane. Well, traffic wasn’t too heavy. He could make his way over there once the light turned green. Stressing about that managed to help him stay under control, but when he parked, she was all over him again. So by the time they’d gotten to their destination, he thought he was going to explode.

  Inside her apartment, they both got unzipped, and he found it all the more exciting that he was going to fuck her with those goddamned boots on. He slid his finger inside her tiny panties, and she was slick with need. He was going to make sure she got off first, because he knew he wasn’t going to last for long once he started. She was breathing hard. “Feel good?”

  “Oh, God.” She started moaning, then screaming, and Brad thought he was gonna blow. She was fucking crazy. Then she said, “God, I need you inside me.”

  He stuck his tongue back in her mouth while fumbling in his back pocket for his wallet. He felt around for a condom, his hands meeting behind her back, and he found one, dropping the wallet to the floor. He got it on just in time, because she was tugging on the side of his jeans, pulling them down farther, and then when he had the condom on, she started digging her nails in his neck. He lifted her up and turned around so that her back was against the door, using the wall to hold her in place, and then he drove himself into her. She started moaning again, and he kept telling himself to hold off, hold off, don’t blow it yet.

  She bit his shoulder—hard—and that was it. He couldn’t contain it anymore. He could feel it clear to his balls and it felt so fucking good. It was like his whole body was shoving itself through his cock and he was gonna die…but it was gonna be a good fucking death. He even heard himself groan. What the fuck? He’d never done that before. He figured that was what happened when he went way too long without the company of a woman.

  He wasn’t going to let that happen again.

  Yeah, he could take care of himself, had for years, but there was nothing like being inside a woman, especially a beautiful one who smelled like cinnamon and kept demanding him in between breaths to fuck her good.

  Well, he felt like a complete asshole, but he had to ask. “You were able to finish, weren’t you?”

  She giggled. “I was on my third one. I was plenty done, stud, but don’t think you are. We’re just taking a short break, and then I’m gonna ride the fuck out of you.” She grabbed his cock—holy shit, that was a shock to his system—and peeled the rubber off his dick.

  He let out a chuckle. He didn’t think he had another one in him. “I think I need to rest a minute.” He tucked himself back in and zipped up. He turned around and got a good look around her apartment. It was small—smaller than his, even—and so it felt busy. The kitchen and living room were the same room, but the space was tiny. It didn’t feel cluttered or crowded, but it looked like it would take him hours to look at everything crammed in the place. It was neat too—just packed. There were floor to ceiling bookshelves all along one wall in the living room, and she had fabric draped on all the furniture, little knick knacks on all the shelves and books too. Candles, doilies, pictures—not an inch of space went unutilized. It felt like a mall at Christmas. He picked his wallet up off the floor and walked toward the chair. “Mind if I sit down?” He made a mental note that he needed to get a wallet chain. Not only were they bad ass, but it’d keep the damn wallet attached to his jeans in moments of weakness like the one he’d just experienced.

  She shook her head. “Go ahead. Can I get you something to drink?”

  Much as he’d love a beer right now, he didn’t dare. She didn’t want him staying the night, and a beer would ensure fatigue. It was so late anyway, but he was grateful for one thing—he felt better than he had in weeks. “I’d love a glass of water.”

  He heard her giggle. “Oh, I like that. You took me seriously.”

  He rested his head on the back of the chair and stretched his legs. “About what?”

  “Well, you’re avoiding whiskey dick. I appreciate that.” Brad started laughing and he heard her pouring water from the tap into the glass. “You want ice?”

  “Up to you.”

  She walked over to the chair and handed him the water. Her jeans were still unzipped but she’d pulled them back up. God…he hadn’t even had a chance to touch her breasts. How the fuck had she managed to get him so worked up when an hour ago he’d been convinced he wanted nothing to do with her? Amazing.

  She had a drink too, but hers looked a little stronger than water. She set it on the coffee table and then sat on the couch and opened a wooden box that rested on top of a square piece of red velvet. She pulled out a joint and lighter and was holding a flame to the spliff before he even realized what she was doing. God, that looked good, and she leaned over toward the chair, holding the joint toward him. “Honey, you want me to leave tonight, I don’t dare get high.”

  She shrugged. “Suit yourself.” She took another puff and then said, “Just tell me when you’re ready to go again.”

  He chuckled again. Jesus, she was gonna eat him alive—and he liked the idea. She was crazy, good crazy, and he couldn’t believe he’d been trying to turn her down earlier. She was winding up being the best accidental thing that had happened to him in a long time.

  But then, as she pinched off the end of the joint into the amber-colored ashtray next to the box and leaned her head against the back of the couch, he started wondering again what she was getting out of all this. He drew in another deep breath and hoped he could trust his instincts. This girl seemed harmless, though maybe a little lonely.

  After another minute or two, she got up and turned on her stereo. She was playing some weird Middle Eastern music, something exotic, and then she walked around the apartment with her lighter. He hadn’t noticed all the candles in the busyness of the room until she lit them all up one by one—he’d seen a few, but he had no idea she’d had dozens. Then she turned off the light. She tossed the lighter onto the coffee table and stood in front of Brad’s chair, her hand extended. He took it and stood, shaking his head. “I don’t think I’m ready yet.”

  She smiled. “I didn’t think so, but I want us to move to the bedroom anyway.”

  He nodded and took her hand but didn’t use her to help him up. He stood and that was when he could tell she really had worn him out. Still…he wasn’t going to turn her down. As soon as he was ready, he was going to take her up on her offer for a second go.

  He hadn’t even taken his jacket off yet, so he did and threw it on the chair, then followed her to her bedroom.

  It too felt busy. The woman owned a lot of shit, but it felt exotic somehow, and everything, big or little, had a place. Maybe that was what was making Brad feel weird about it. There was no room for anything else, and each item in her house had to have a specific place, because there was no room for deviation. She just plain had a lot of stuff, but it was cool looking stuff. Her bed was the only place in the bedroom—aside from the floor—where it felt like there was room to move. “Why don’t you sit down?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “Okay.”

  “Better yet, lay down.”

  He smiled. He liked the sound of that, so he leaned over and untied his boots. Then he lay back on the bed, several pillows propping him up. Most of them appeared to be for decoration, just like most of her house. They were comfortable, though. Jo said, “I wanted to see you looking at me like you mean it.”

  “Mean what?”

  “Well,” she said, starting to do a swaying pelvic thrust in rhythm to the music coming from the other room, “back at the club, you acted l
ike you wanted to be anywhere but where you were. I’m not used to men looking at me that way. I prefer them looking at me like no other women exist, even if it’s only for a few minutes.”

  He wanted to ask her if she was going to expect payment from him later, but she’d promised she wasn’t working. “I’m going to tell you something…Brad.” He tried not to smile. She’d almost forgotten his name. “I love my boyfriend, but he’s a domineering jerk sometimes. He’s not always tender and gentle when I need him to be. Problem is he’s my boss too. And I sometimes think maybe I’m not his only girlfriend, if you catch my drift.” He nodded. Maybe the two of them had a lot more in common than he’d suspected. “So I don’t want anything messy, but you are super cute and pretty damn hot, and I just need to forget my problems tonight. Got it?”

  He nodded, now entranced. That had been the first time in a long time a girl had told him he was hot, so not only had she made him feel incredible, she was stroking his wounded ego too. She pulled the tank top over her head and swirled it a couple of times, then threw it to the floor in a flourish. She turned around, facing her closet, and stuck her ass out at him, running her hands up and down over it, and he started feeling twinges in his cock again. Oh, fuck, yeah. She wanted to see his eyes filled with lust, she was gonna get it.

  She turned around and peeled her jeans down one side and then the other, down to where the boots hit her thighs. Goddamn, he wished she could leave those on, but to take her jeans off, she was going to have to take the boots off too. She unzipped them, one at a time, and the way she did it was sensual. The look on her face, the way she moved her mouth and tongue and the little noises she made were making it seem like one of the most erotic things Brad had ever seen. It was like foreplay.

  And then she slid the jeans off too. They’d been snug but she somehow made them fall off her like silk. She did some sexy dance moves around the tiny area in her bedroom and then stuck her ass toward him again. She was wearing a thong, so her gorgeous ass was in full view. She had a decorative tramp stamp just over the string on her lower back that said Bitch with swirls underneath it. She ran her thumbs under the strings and pulled them down, teasing, then back up to her hips. Then she turned around, moving up to her tiny bra, and as she started pulling the straps down, that’s when his cock came to full attention. The blood was pumping down there hard, engorging his cock and making him ready to fuck her again.