by Eden Butler
“Fine,” she said, pushing on my chest. “If you want to get yourself killed, then go right ahead. I don’t care anymore.” She marched away from me, behind the tombs and toward the crowd again.
“But you did?” I said, following behind her. “Care?” The question stopped her. “Is that really what you’re saying?”
“No… I don’t…” Alex exhaled, then pointedly ignored me as she concentrated on the crowd circling around the auction items.
“You don’t?” I said, standing behind her. Her hair looked severe, heavily fixed with product, but felt like silk when I touched the ends. She didn’t stop me. “You don’t care what I do, Alex?” She was shorter than me by almost half a foot, but she wore tall heels that made her shoulders come to my chest and so it was easy to lean down, to barely touch my lips to her exposed neck. “You don’t care if I get hurt?”
“Ryan…” My name slipping off her lips was all the aphrodisiac I needed. It sounded like music and I smiled against Alex’s skin when she pressed against me, the soft outline of her tight body fitting perfectly against my chest, my hips. And when she rocked back, ass against me, when her head fell back onto my shoulder, I thought I’d combust, my skin on fire from the sensation of her resting against me, giving me access to all that glorious skin. “Ryan… Ryan.” And then Alex stopped, head shooting up, she turned on her heel to push me against the tomb again. But the urgency in her movements didn’t come from arousal. She didn’t hurry to attack my mouth because she couldn’t control herself. “Cosmo,” she said, her lips barely grazing mine. She pulled me further away from the henchmen, back to a smaller tomb and kept in front of me, whispering against my mouth. “Just stay still.”
“No. I don’t think I will.” And because she was so close, because I’d missed her, because I’d watched her for a week knowing I couldn’t touch her, knowing she’d run for some damn reason that made sense to her alone, I took Alex’s face between my hands and moved it up so I could see her eyes. I wanted her to see what I was doing—hiding us both from Timber’s bodyguard’s wandering gaze, but also taking her like I wanted, like she wanted because I was damn tired of pretending she wasn’t mine. “I’m not staying still anymore, Alex.”
A small gasp of realization and the light in her eyes transformed, warmed and I got the permission I needed and kissed Alex Black like I damn well wanted to. I didn’t care that we were behaving like kids, leaned up against a back wall at a school dance. I gave exactly zero shits that anyone could find us, that my left hand stayed on her lower back, pressing her against my dick, that my right nestled itself in her hair, working her head to follow me, so that I had control of her mouth, that strong, delicious tongue.
Nothing mattered right then, except that Alex filled my senses with the spun sugar sensation, that she melted into my mouth like warm honey. She let me lead and for a moment, I thought I might have loved her, right then, among those damn lowlifes, the broken, decaying tombs and the stolen property, and my heart beat faster, my breath accelerated and I didn’t care about my mom’s jewelry box or Timber Ironside or the threat he was in Alex’s life. I only wanted that woman in my arms and the stretch of the minutes, the lengthening of the seconds so that I would always know what she felt like, so that I would never stop tasting her.
It was a kiss that shifts the world. Axis turn, they sway and if you don’t hold on for dear life, you’re gonna fall hard. But it was too late and kissing Alex in that moment, I knew it plain as I knew my name, rank and serial number.
My world shifted and it would never right itself again. And I was pretty sure I didn’t want it to.
We only came up for breath when I remembered we weren’t alone, that there was still a threat—dozens of them—all around us.
“Alex,” I said, still holding her face, “we have to get a plan.”
“I’m gonna lift the jewelry box.”
“No. I can’t let you go in blind.” Her laugh didn’t surprise me, nothing should anymore.
“Frank’s waiting for my text. He said there was someone here we needed to handle.”
“Timber?”
“No, not Ironside. I don’t…” then my cell chirped and I pulled it out, hearing Frank’s low whisper on the other end. “Wait, man, what?”
“I said, I’m on the North side of the cemetery. I got eyes on the crowd. You need to see who I’m looking at, Ryan.” Alex held onto me as we zipped along the backside of the tombs, coming to a corner near the largest of three family crypts. “I did come here for a reason… Other side of the crowd, right next to the last table. Recognize our new target?”
And I did, that son of a bitch. Malcolm. Even with that world-worn face, the deep scar along his left eye, the man cast a fine form in his suit. But the eyes, the same ones that penetrated, gawked were cold, steely. This was the bastard Harmony had set me up with; the man who supposedly knew where my mom’s jewelry box ended up. But he was no antiques dealer, a fact I quickly learned a few months back when he dropped the act and went after me with his fists, then his gun, warning me to tell Simmons that Dot was dead. I didn’t know much about Malcolm and doubted everything I’d heard about him but three things: he was protecting Dot, he thought Simmons had sent me to New Orleans to find her and he was some sort of sketchy dark operative with a completely retracted military record.
“He’s here for Dot?” I asked Frank, but my friend grunted, a flippant sound that was his only answer as I watched Malcolm move around the display tables.
“I think he caught word that he’s our new gig,” Frank said, sounding like he was walking, the noise in the background coming close to what I heard in front of me.
“What?”
“Davidson says your friend Malcolm is trying to blackmail the Congressman. He’s hired us to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
“Let’s take him…” I was ready to pounce before that asshole knew we’d spotted him, but then Alex brushed my arm and I closed my eyes, wondering how the hell I could so easily forget that she was the priority mission. I couldn’t leave her unprotected. “Shit, Alex, that creeper is still after you.”
“Ryan…” Frank started, through the speaker, like he thought I wasn’t thinking straight.
“No way, man. I’m not leaving her open to anything.”
Those soft fingers against my hand had me turning toward her. “I’ll be safe. Timber wants me, no one’s going to touch me here.”
“No, it’s too risky.”
“What about the box, Ryan?”
“Alex, I don’t care about it anymore.”
I thought maybe she’d grin, be pleased that her safety meant more to me than some old box that my mom had once treated as precious, but Alex dropped my hand and took a step back as though she hadn’t heard me right. “Of course you do.” Then her gaze slipped over my shoulder, and her eyes widened. Suddenly she started pushing on me. “You go be bait for Frank.”
“Alex, no…”
“Ryan,” she said, pushing me away from the tomb. I didn’t like this, the rush, the confusion and something in my gut told me to just grab her and get the hell home. But Alex was stubborn, and like the hustle was gearing up to a climax, she took over. “I’ve taken care of myself my whole life. I can manage for the next fifteen minutes. You and Frank distract Cosmo and the boys then trail that Malcolm guy. I’ll get the box and meet you a block down Canal in fifteen minutes.”
“No,” I told her, but she stopped me, shaking her head.
“There’s no choice.” Alex grabbed me, her hands gripping my face down until she got her lips on mine and a slip of tongue prying my lips apart. She kissed me with fire. She kissed me like a welcome, like a final goodbye and it was so fierce, so hard that just for a second I could only hear the sound of my own heart thundering hard and the desperate groan that slipped from my throat. Too quickly and before I got my bearings, she pulled away, eyes severe, penetrating as she watched me. “Go be a hero and let me be a crook.”
“Alex…”
>
But she slipped away, weaving through the crowd before I could stop her. I felt like a punk, letting her go, wanting to follow. Frank finally approached, slipping up in the dark behind the tombs. He slapped my back, doing a piss poor job of keeping the laughter from his voice. “Come on, Romeo, let’s get you out of here.”
Frank pulled me through the crowd, letting me walk on the outside of the crowd, avoiding any curious gazes and I caught Malcolm on the outskirts of the tables, eyes tight, searching. To my right, Alex weaved around the crowd, ignored the cat calls that followed her and she stopped once, meeting my gaze with that determined lift of her chin relaxing some of the anxiety I felt. She winked once, and it was a promise I knew she’d keep, one that had me following my instructions and trying to ignore the buzz of dread I felt bubbling in my gut.
There is an art to taking something that isn’t yours. It requires finesse and skill. You have to be subtle. You have to be stealthy. You have to understand that the absence of any of these things and you run the risk of a pinch. Neil Ryan was the only person in about five years that had managed to pinch me. It had been an off day.
Maybe my confidence was a little too high as I slipped behind the mausoleum and back into the area that Misty told me about, where Timber kept items off the main auction floor. Here he held back pieces for his truly wealthy clients; items I could only guess at but no doubt needed an extra level of discretion.
I was pretty sure that Timber had taken Ryan’s jewelry box and placed it among the not-for-the-public auction just to piss me off. The box wasn’t the most expensive item there, but, I guess that wasn’t the point. For Ryan this box reminded him of his mother. It reminded him of his mission. I got that. For Timber it was a means to have me again; the solitary object that I would obtain in exchange for my body belonging to him. That’s what he’d told me at least, just the night before when we discussed the auction inside of Misty’s office.
“You can have it, if I can have you.” He hadn’t even pretended to look sorry for blackmailing me. I could have walked away. I could have told him to go straight to hell right then and there, but I was nothing if not a planner, and Timber Ironside, hell, even Ryan, had no idea why I’d really taken off two weeks before.
Because I needed a plan. Or rather, because it was time to cash in my insurance policy.
Wanda Manieri was a cold-hearted bitch. Always had been. I never knew what made her that way. I never cared enough to ask her, but the one good thing my foster mother had taught me over the years was the importance of planning ahead. I’d listened.
Timber liked to brag and braggers, Wanda had always said, “were the rats who locked their own cells.” It was that small bad habit that would do Timber in. It was one I counted on for years. Even as a kid, I understood that he wanted me. As soon as I started to develop and puberty crashed landed on my small body, he started in with loud threats to any man who looked at me longer than a blink. In his mind, I’d always been his and even back then, I knew that the only way he’d turn me loose was if I forced his hand.
So I took Wanda’s lessons to heart and had started my insurance plan years back. Tonight, I’d cash it in.
Ryan’s jewelry box sat on a large crate in the middle of the tables. There was a half a dozen of them and had been curtained off by three large, black tarps around the edge of the tables. I didn’t think the box had been put there by accident and so I wasn’t surprised that when I reached for it, Timber suddenly appeared behind me.
I could smell the cologne he wore. It was a heavy, musky scent that made my eyes water.
“Have you thought about it?” I tried not to smile, remembering that Timber had no clue what I’d planned or how long that planning had been going on. His voice was low, and he stepped closer to run his finger down my back, but I turned, stepping out of his reach.
It was a shame he was such a prick. Maybe if he hadn’t been abandoned as a child, forced to make it on his own, Timber would have made a decent man. He was powerful, charismatic, and he looked almost handsome in his black, last season Armani suit. The image of power monger would have been perfect, save for the gold hoop in his ear and plastic toothpick in his mouth.
“Have you, Alex?” he said, pulling the toothpick from his corner of his mouth.
This would be goodbye one way or another and there was a small, scared girl deep inside me that felt sad about that. Timber had looked out for her. He helped teach her how to survive. But those fleeting memories didn’t make up for what he’d become or what he’d done since then.
“You really don’t think sometimes, Timber.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” I walked around the crates, scanning the items, head shaking. He didn’t move, kept to the center of the area while I paced. “It’s kind of like that time when we were fourteen and Janie Donalds wanted you to come with her and Wanda to Biloxi.” I let my finger slide along a row of metal boxes, hoping the tension would build, that my ease, my teasing would relax Timber. “Wanda was running a sweetheart grift on some rich doctor with one foot in the grave and Janie went along. Wanted you there too.”
“The hell are you talking about?” he said, twisting his neck to see me when I slipped out of the full light of the candles.
“You didn’t get her angle. You told her no, flat out and we spent the weekend in Metairie going bust trying to lift clothes from Macy’s.”
Finally he remembered, but he seemed more worried than amused, likely wondering what I was getting at. “And what does that,” he pointed to the box still sitting in the middle of the room, “have to do with Janie?”
“Not a thing. But she met some social worker on the beach, spilled everything about what Wanda was doing and ended up staying there with that detective and his wife.”
“So?”
“So, Janie got a family.” I stopped pacing and Timber stepped forward, moving his hands into his pockets. “We had to move, remember? Before the state found out where she was keeping us, but Janie got away from Wanda.”
“And that’s a good thing?” He frowned like the idea was stupid.
“I heard she went to school, one of those fancy schools up north. She’s a doctor now. Makes more money on research than either one of us will ever see.”
“I don’t know.” I tried not to flinch when he came too close to me, when that deep, flirtatious voice sounded cocky. “I do pretty well. And after tonight, I expect to pull in a nice little score. Should set me up pretty nice.”
“Maybe.”
Timber was big, taller than me, not with Ryan’s same shoulder width or bulk, but big enough that he could easily take me down. He almost had once, and I wasn’t eager for a repeat. Now he used his size, the reach of his arms to box me in against the crate and I had nowhere to go, not unless I wanted to knee him or give him a gut punch.
Not yet. It wasn’t quite time for my payout.
“There’s no maybe, Alex. These assholes will fork whatever I ask to get their hands on the shit I’ve got for them. Besides, this goes well enough and the Milano Syndicate will open doors for me.” He touched my face, too rough, too dominating and I had to force myself not to cringe. “Just like you, baby. You’ll give up that tight body so your boy gets his little box and stays bullet free.”
I gripped his hand and the excitement immediately came to his features—the eager, anxious grin, the way he dipped his eyes to my mouth, how he kept licking his bottom lip. He almost seemed relieved, as if my touch was the permission he wanted, as if it could be taken as submission. But he didn’t anticipate how I folded my fingers, how my nails bit down hard into his bronze skin. Timber liked pain, all aspects of it, and he certainly could take it, but he’d rather give it, not receive it, so when my nails bit hard, breaking skin, that happy expression on his face shifted to confusion.
“No,” I told him, jerking his hand away from my face. “I won’t be doing that.”
Timber winced, but didn’t step back or shy away from me when I pushed him. “So
you don’t care if I take him out?”
“You’re not going to do that either. Ryan gets his box, I walk away and no one gets hurt.”
He laughed. “You think so?” At my nod, Timber narrowed his eyes, scrutinizing. “What game are you playing here, Alex?”
But I didn’t have to answer him. That shrill chirp on his cell, the vibration of it in his pocket would speak for me. When he didn’t move and kept waiting for my answer, I tipped my chin, unable to keep the satisfied smile from my face. “You might wanna get that, Timber.”
The wannabe kingpin fished the phone from his pocket and gripped it tight, thumb working over the screen as I reached behind me to grab Ryan’s box. I saw the instant Timber’s hope deflated. It was the in the backward steps he took and the quick way his eyes widened with every swipe of his fingers against the screen. I knew he’d be angry, but I hadn’t expected the shock and disappointment that passed over his face as his tight fisted control slipped.
And then, the rage took over. His head shot up and he glared at me, holding his phone so tight I thought it might crack. “You fucking cunt!”
“Hey!” I said shouting to match his insult. “Watch your mouth, asshole.”
Again that astonished flicker came into his eyes and if I didn’t know him better, I’d say that whatever Timber thought about me had been shattered in two short minutes. “You’re selling me out? You’re a fucking rat?”
On the surface, that’s what it would look like. Hundreds of photos of Timber as a kid, as a young man, lifting wallets and even him prying open the poor box at the Cathedral. There was more, worse things, damning things, the dirtiest of crimes I knew he committed—Timber with underage strippers, him with his mouth around a crack pipe, but these were a trifle, nothing to the tapes and wire taps clearly labeled in the message I’d sent him. Evidence, all of it incriminating, nasty, the worst of what he’d done, but there was more: bank statements, offshore accounts, the blackmail he had on local big wigs and politicians. Cosmo had helped, begrudgingly, but when I slipped info to him about Timber and what he’d done to Miles Jackson ten years ago—Cosmo’s cousin—well, the big guy quickly switched sides. Miles supposedly left New Orleans in Timber’s care. Cosmo never knew why. I did. Cosmo hadn’t liked hearing how an Ironside threat against Miles’ mom and his baby sister made it possible for Timber to run the “Ironside syndicate”. It pays to sit in a nail salon listening to gossip once in a while.
