“How’s it going?”
“It’s—going,” I say. “Happy birthday. Again.”
She laughs. “I still can’t believe you called me at midnight.”
“And woke you up,” I say. “I didn’t think you’d be asleep on a Friday night.”
“Alas, I’m becoming boring. I can’t believe Josh’s party is tonight of all nights. You’re going, right?”
Josh is not only a detective who works for the DA like we do, albeit outside any direct contact with me, he’s the detective Grace has long had a crush on but avoided because of the conflict of interest. And since he’s now taking a job with a private security company to do the same work for more money, that problem has disappeared. I wonder briefly if he’s going to work for the same company Rafael works for, but that’s silly and an impossible coincidence.
Shoving aside my thoughts of a hot man I barely know, I go to work explaining myself to Grace. “I want to,” I say, aware that she’s shy outside of the courtroom and wants me with her.
“But?” she adds. “Why is there always a but with you?”
“I’m just a little worried about this case overflowing into my personal life.”
“This isn’t your personal life,” she says. “It’s work. We’ll still be contracting Josh’s services and he’s someone we can trust. And the bar’s going to be packed with cops and it’s only a few blocks from work, which means your house. In other words, I can come to your door and get you.”
“All right, all right” I concede. “I’ll go for you.”
“And you,” she corrects. “You need a safe place to relax a little. It’s September first. You have some time. The trial doesn't start for a month. I still can’t believe this trial is going to run so close to the holidays.”
“Had two of my witnesses not been murdered, we’d be starting sooner,” I remind her. “And thankfully the judge understands that if we wait until the new year, everyone who ever touched this case might be dead.”
“Yep. I was right. You need a drink.”
“Yes,” I agree. “I believe I do.”
We chat a minute more and disconnect, and when I’m done, I click off Rafael’s photo. I don’t have the luxury of thinking about some hot man I’ll likely never see again. I pull up a photo of Waters, the King Devil. He’s the only man who will have my attention until at least Thanksgiving.
***
Okay, there is one more man, I decide to focus on not much later. I spend the entire working day fixated on Jose Deleon, the Devils’ second in command. He’s missing and likely the person killing the witnesses, but we have no proof. He’d probably be the person to kill me if I became a target. That thought is enough to convince me I need that night out surrounded by cops. That sends me to my closet to fret over what you wear to a sort of work event.
I settle on a black skirt with a flare, a lacy, sleeveless black top, and black booties with a heel. I never feel like a girl without my heels.
I slide my favorite round black Gucci purse over my chest to hang at my hip. It was an extravagant gift my mother called a birthday gift, but I knew it was delivered out of guilt for her behavior after I left the firm. She was not only angry, she refused to talk to me for a full month which was more than a little painful. My mother still doesn’t understand that gifts don’t equal support, nor do they matter to me as they do to her, but I know she meant well. And I do adore the purse. It fits a petite firearm, a lipstick, and powder, as well as my wallet perfectly. A petite handgun is a girl’s best friend, even above lipstick.
My cellphone rings and I slide it from the pocket of my skirt to find Grace calling. “My Uber is about two minutes from your house. I’m picking you up.”
I smile to myself and say, “What if I told you I was naked in the bathtub?”
“I’d tell you to grab a towel and hurry up.” She disconnects.
I laugh and head downstairs, happy for the ride. I might only be a few blocks from the Mexican cantina where the party is being held, but right now, walking a few blocks alone at night doesn’t feel smart. Not that I’ve been threatened, I remind myself. I’m simply paranoid, but then how can I not be right about now?
Once I’m at my door, I wait there until my phone rings again with Grace’s number. I answer and she says, “I’m here. Do I need to come pick your towel color?”
I grin and exit my front door to find the car at the curb. Locking up and arming my security system, I hurry toward the vehicle and climb inside.
“You look stunning, my dear,” Grace says.
Grace is thirty, blonde with green eyes, gorgeous, and presently wearing a little black dress that makes me feel better about my little black skirt.
“So do you,” I say, eyeing her cleavage. “I’m quite sure you’ll have Josh’s full attention in that little number.”
She waves me off. “I don’t even care. I have cases stacked from the floor to the top of my head, and men are trouble. I’m not sure I have the energy right now to decide if I trust someone just to be disappointed. I know you understand.”
Oh too well, I think, but work is my friend. I’ve really had no time to deal with the personal side of life these past two years. We pull up to the dimly lit cantina, with teal and pink as a theme. There are also beer cans hanging from the ceiling and music blasting, at present “Homesick” by Kane Brown is playing, and the words hit one of those personal notes I usually avoid. Only I don’t feel homesick like I used to at all. My new life is where I belong, no matter how lonely at times, and how much my mother likes to believe otherwise.
Grace and I head to the bar area, which includes a dance floor, where we’re greeted by co-workers and then end up at one of the tan wooden standup tables. We’ve barely ordered margaritas when the music is cut and Josh is ordered to the center of the empty dance floor, while one of the senior homicide detectives I know well, Martin Morgan, holds a microphone. Martin is tall, blond, and muscular with a hard face and a scar on his mouth. Josh is a bit taller, with light brown hair, and strong, classically handsome features that engage plenty of female attention, including Grace’s, who leans in close to me to whisper, “Do I have to trust him to lust after him?”
“First comes lust,” I say, managing a serious tone, “later trust.”
“Good point,” she says, snatching up a chip. “Lust has to happen first.”
I smile with the wishful look she casts in Josh’s direction, and at the jokes and speeches a slew of people soon deliver, about and on behalf of Josh’s retirement.
It’s a fun time, but there’s no question that by the time the formalities are over, I’ll be feeling tipsy. The margarita is big, strong, and despite being barely touched, effective at delivering my buzz, which probably is aided by the fact that I actually don’t remember what I ate today. I reach for another chip and Grace grabs my arm. “Josh is coming over here. I don’t know if I should do this, Pri.”
“Honey,” I say, aware that she was hurt badly and not that long ago. I also know Josh has long shown interest and he seems like a good guy, better than most. “You’ll know if it’s right. Give yourself some freedom to find out.”
“Right. You’re right. I’m a grown-ass woman. I can figure things out.” She rotates away from me to greet Josh.
Right about then, Detective Newton, a thirty-something redhead, who I’ve had the pleasure of working with on several cases, stops by my table and introduces his wife before they head to the dance floor. A few more people I know chat with me about work before Grace appears by my side again, and since she’s out of breath, I decide she’s been making out or dancing. Her lipstick is perfect, so dancing wins.
“Josh wants to get a table in the restaurant, the two of us. Are you—”
“I’m fine. Go. Have fun. Tell me all about it later.”
“You’re sure?” she asks anxiously.
“Positive.”
She hugs me and whispers, “Take an Uber home. I don�
��t want you walking alone.”
And then she’s gone. I have no idea why I feel a twist in my belly, but I recognize it as familiar—it’s loneliness. I’m alone. And if I’m honest, it’s become a bit empty. But how do I do this job and ever not be alone? It’s not exactly proving to be safe. And for a lot of reasons, so many reasons, I need to do this job.
I sip my drink and prepare to leave when a Rafael song comes on. I’m instantly jolted back into my morning coffee encounter with another Rafael. And just like that, as if I’ve willed him into existence, he’s standing next to me—tall, dark and gorgeous, in black jeans and a black T-shirt.
“Hi,” he says softly.
“Hi,” I reply.
“This seems like our song, don’t you think?” He offers me his hand. “Dance with me?”
I’m charmed by his reference to me saying that he looks like Rafael. It’s also a sexy song, too, and I oddly, considering how many men I deal with daily, feel a bit shy with this man but I still manage to say, “I think it might just be.”
Yet I find myself hesitating to take his hand, and I don’t know why. It’s as if some part of me knows that touching him is a major decision, a life-changing decision when it’s just a dance in a Mexican cantina. It’s just a dance and still, I am blinking up at him, searching his face for answers, and what I find in his rich brown eyes is interest, intelligence, a connection I feel to my toes. And I know why I hesitate. I know why my hand lingers above his. This—him—we’re bad timing. And right now, I’m toxic.
Chapter Five
PRISCILLA
I pull my hand back from Rafael’s. “You don’t want to dance with me.”
He studies me, his head tilting slightly, his intelligent brown eyes searching mine. “You mean you don’t want to dance with me.” It’s not a question, but rather his assessment.
“No,” I say quickly. “Yes. I mean—thankfully, I’m a little less confusing in a courtroom than I am right now. Let me try again: it’s not about what I want.”
He steps closer, and he smells woodsy and masculine with a hint of spice, his scent teasing my nostrils and stirring my senses. It’s been so long since a man stirred anything in me. “It’s very much about what you want,” he says, and even his voice—all low, rough baritone—does funny things to my belly. “I’m all about you right now,” he adds.
My hand lifts and almost lands on his chest. I catch myself and when I would pull it back, he captures it, and his touch sizzles up my arm and across my chest. “I don’t bite.”
“And what if I do?”
His lips hint at a smile. “I’m fairly certain you do, but I’m also certain I’d enjoy it.”
“You wouldn’t. Not in the way I’m meaning it.”
“Then why don’t we use my definition, not yours?” His gaze lowers to my mouth, lingering there before it lifts. “If you need me to explain—”
“No,” I say, feeling my cheeks heat. “I don’t. How are you even here?”
“I assume we’re new neighbors. I moved into the neighborhood this weekend. At least for a while, until I finish a work project.”
“A security project?”
“Surveillance for now, but yes, and don’t ask who.”
I’m curious. I want to ask more. I settle on, “Okay. How long will you be here?”
“Long enough for me to buy you that coffee.” He gives my hand a tug, and suddenly my leg is pressed to his. “Dance with me,” he says.
My throat is cotton. My body is fire. “Our song ended.”
“We’ll find another,” he promises.
“I liked that one.”
“Why?”
“It meant something.”
He pulls back, searching my face, and then, “What did it mean?”
I pull my hand from his and reach for my drink, and meet his eyes, sipping from the straw before I say, “I haven’t decided yet.”
His lips quirk, and he has very nice lips. “In other words,” he says. “it’s me you haven’t decided on.” He reaches for my straw and sips, his lips now where my lips just were, the very act suggestive—provocative. He’s provocative and I seem to like it. He rests an elbow on the table, his forearm flat on the wood, the ink of his right arm abstract, gray and black tree limbs with red blossoms, I think. I want to know what is on his shoulder. I want to ask what the ink means.
Suddenly, I realize I’m staring, and my gaze jerks to his. “Does the ink bother you?” he asks.
“The opposite,” I say, and it’s true. The men in my life are all suits and ties kind of guys, who wouldn’t dare a full sleeve of ink. And the world I’m in is ever-so-suffocating right now. “I like it,” I dare.
He leans in a little closer. “Do I make you uncomfortable, Pri?”
“No,” I say. “The fact that my co-workers are here makes me uncomfortable. And I make me uncomfortable right now. And I should make you uncomfortable. I didn’t send my mother to Europe for no reason. That case I mentioned is high-profile and dangerous.”
“And you think I’m dangerous?”
“No,” I say. “I think I’m dangerous.”
“Because of the case?”
“Yes. I expose you to that case just by having this conversation. I can’t do this, whatever this is, right now.”
“I understand,” he says simply.
“You do?”
“I do, though I am curious about why you’re doing something that obviously terrifies you. Is it simply your job? Is it because you have to do it?”
“It’s like standing at the bottom of a mountain and deciding to climb it. Halfway up, you look down and you know you’re going to fall, but you can’t turn back.”
“But you want to turn back?”
“No,” I say without hesitation. “You want what you always wanted, to get to the top. Now, you just have to get to the top before you die.”
His eyes go wide. “Die?”
“Sorry,” I sip my drink. “I’m being dramatic.”
He studies me, his eyes seeing too much, and I have this sense he might see more than anyone before him, perhaps more than I see myself. I want to look away. I don’t want to look away. I’m conflicted, but when he reaches for me, I don’t even think about pulling away. His finger brushes my cheek, a feather-light touch, and somehow I feel that touch all over my body. “I don’t think you are,” he says softly.
“Which is why I should leave. That and this is a work gathering. I can’t do this. I’ll see you at the coffee shop.” I rotate to the other side of the table and hurry toward the bathroom, which I know is down a hallway by the bar.
Once I’m inside the one-stall bathroom, I press my hands to the counter and stare into the mirror. What am I doing? I don’t know Rafael. I don’t know if I can trust him. He could be a reporter who could tell the world I’m rattled by the case. I’m stupid. So very stupid. He’s just—something, I don’t know what—different, I decide. Different from anyone I know, or have known. And really hot. He’s so incredibly hot and I’ve been alone for a long time. Since—I stop myself. I’m not going down that rabbit hole.
I use the bathroom, wash up, and decide that I’ll walk home. I need to stop letting Waters be the devil that scared me into incompetence. It’s three blocks and I have a gun that I know how to use. I exit the bathroom and halt to find Rafael standing in the doorway, his hands on either side of the doorframe. “What are you doing?”
“This,” he says, and suddenly, his hands are on my waist, and he’s walked me back into the bathroom.
Before I know what’s happening, he’s kicked the door shut, and his fingers are diving into my hair. “Kissing you, because I can’t fucking help myself. And because you might not ever let me do it again. That is unless you object?”
That’s the part that really gets me. The “unless I object,” the way he manages to be all alpha and demanding and still ask. Well, and the part where he can’t fucking help himself.
>
I press to my toes and the minute my mouth meets his, his crashes over mine, his tongue delivering a wicked lick that I feel in every part of me. He tastes of temptation with a hint of tequila, demand, and desire. His hands slide up my back, fingers splayed between my shoulder blades, his hard body pressed to mine, seducing me in every possible way.
I moan with the feel of him and his lips part from mine, lingering there a moment before he says, “Obviously, someone needs to protect you from me,” he says. “Like me.” And then to my shock, he releases me and leaves. The bathroom door is open and closed before I know what’s happened. And once again, I have no idea if or when I will ever see him again.
***
ADRIAN
Priscilla Miller tastes like heaven, which means she could easily drag me to hell. I can’t forget that.
I’m at the side of the restaurant when Pri exits and I expect her to leave the way she arrived, by way of an Uber. She does not. She starts walking. Holy Mother of Jesus, what is she thinking? She knows she’s in the hot seat. She knows she’s a potential target for Waters. I curse under my breath, discreetly following her, when I want to grab her, throw her over my shoulder and take her home to punish her, preferably without clothing.
Thank fuck the walk is short, and Adam’s watching her house. I hang back across the street where I fade into the center of the bushes. I watch as Pri keys in the code to her lock and enters her house. Adam appears in the bushes next to me. “Who the hell is watching her house?”
“Lucifer,” he says. “He’s back. Savage is not. He’s still looking for Deleon, but so far Blake is coming up dry and so is Savage. It’s starting to seem like he’s dead, too.”
My jaw clenches. “He’s not,” I say. “I know him well. He’s smart, he’s a killer, and he’s loyal to his king. He’s here. He’s just waiting for the right moment to take out his next victim.”
“Is the Assistant DA helping to create his hit list or is she on it?”
“I don’t know yet,” I say, glancing over at him, “but she claims she’s dangerous.”
When He's Dirty (Walker Security: Adrian’s Trilogy Book 1) Page 3
