by Jayne Blue
“Boss!” Sawyer picked up a pencil and chucked it at my head. “What the hell’s the matter with you?”
I smiled “Sorry. Just got a few things on my mind today.”
Colt shook his head. He’d taken a seat and tilted his chair back to cross his leather-booted feet on the table. He hooked his hands behind his head and glared at me with those damn brown eyes so dark they were impossible to read. The guy looked like an honest-to-God pirate sometimes with his coal-black hair, dark brows and thick lashes. We teased him constantly and accused him of wearing guyliner. Colt, the rock-star biker.
“Would you just go ahead and fuck her already?” Sawyer said. “Spare the rest of us the torture.”
Sawyer was laughing but Colt’s eyes were still hard.
“Pretty sure he already did. Is that where you were yesterday? You know you had the rest of us kind of worried,” Colt said.
“You got some sort of problem?” I asked him, I sure as shit didn’t like his tone.
Colt shrugged and leaned forward, dragging his feet from the table and letting the legs of his chair slam against the floor. “Not a specific problem, no. The girl’s a knockout. No question. But something’s off.”
“Like what?”
Colt shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s just, we still don’t know what to make of what happened to you up at the cliff the other night. We’ve gotten nowhere at Benny’s place. His security tapes are nonexistent. Nobody seems to know anything. But you and I both know there’s no way your bike wasn’t fucked with, right? And then you go off and disappear for twenty-four hours.”
“I don’t need a fucking babysitter.” Which was true, but Colt had a great point I was willing to acknowledge. I hadn’t kept the club where it was by being careless. And I knew that bike like it was part of me. Colt was right: what happened the other night made no sense unless someone had deliberately tampered with it.
“We’re one hundred percent it’s nobody left over from Pagano’s crew,” Sawyer said, directing it to Colt. Sawyer had always been sort of the club diplomat. He sensed the tension between Colt and me and I could always count on him to defuse it.
Colt raised a brow and looked at me. “Not unless you know something we don’t. Pagano’s beef was with Dex, not you, and not even the club. That shit’s over and Dex is laying low for a little while.”
I said a silent prayer of relief that my VP and best friend, Dex, was out of danger and enjoying well deserved R & R. I missed the hell out of him though and wanted him back here. About a dozen times I’d nearly called him to get his take on what happened at the cliff. I stopped myself. He didn’t need the aggravation. He couldn’t do anything about it anyway. And he’d earned some time away from club bullshit.
“So that leaves who, the Hawks?” Sawyer said. “Is there someone who might have had a personal beef with you, Sly?”
I shook my head. “I’ve been nothing but my regular charming self. Of course we can’t rule out the Hawks completely, but things have been good and quiet. And we’re not competing for turf with them anymore. Not since we’ve gone one hundred percent legit.”
“You’re not thinking it was an inside job?” Sawyer said it and it sent a chill through me. We’d had our share of internal club drama over the years. That’s for sure. And the price of finally getting out of illegal shit had been a steep one. My fingers still twitched with the muscle memory of putting a bullet in the back of the head of one of my own crew. No one doubted it was necessary, but that kind of thing sticks to you, no matter what you do. Still, I trusted each and every one of these guys with my life.
“Have you heard anything I need to know about?” I leveled a hard look at Colt. If Sawyer was the diplomat in Dex’s absence, I relied on Colt most of all to keep the rest of the crew in line.
Colt shook his head. “No. Nothing like that. I just think it’s important we be careful about what goes on inside and outside these walls.”
So he’d circled the conversation back to Scarlett. “You think she cut my brakes?”
Colt shook his head again. “I’m not saying that either. I’m just saying maybe every one of us needs to watch our backs for a little while until we’re sure what happened to you isn’t the start of a pattern, you know? And I’m just thinking maybe now isn’t the greatest time to let someone new hang around the club.”
“You lookin’ to cock block me? She wasn’t at the club yesterday.”
Colt sighed. “No blocking intended, Prez. I know better. I’m just saying. You know. I plan to keep a closer eye on you in light of recent events. It’s not good for you to go off the grid like that as long as you did and it’s maybe an even worse idea to have someone new here. That’s all I’m saying.”
“You planning on watching,” Sawyer said. “Hoping to get a few pointers.” Sawyer saw me looking at Colt with hard eyes. He was real close to crossing a line with me.
Sawyer stood and came around the table. He grabbed Colt in a headlock and the two of them started to wrestle in earnest even though they were laughing. I let it go on for a minute until Colt knocked Sawyer back over a chair. I knew Sawyer meant the whole thing as a joke. And Sawyer knew how close I was to going after Colt for the real thing.
“All right, all right,” I said. “Knock it off or you know Mo’s going to come in here with a hose or a bucket of ice water. Then she’ll blame me for not keeping the two of you under control.”
Sawyer and Colt broke apart; each of their faces were flushed and their eyes were wild. “I think the two of you need to work on getting laid yourselves. This is getting damned ridiculous.”
They shot me a look then headed out to the bar, lobbing insults to each other about the size of their dicks and other affronts to each other’s manhood. I had to laugh as I got up and straightened the chairs around the table. I hadn’t been kidding about Mo’s wrath if she caught them going at each other indoors.
I looked at the clock. It was only four o’clock. Hours until I told Scarlett I’d come after her. My heart raced and my balls tightened at the thought of it. Sure, Colt had been right about watching my back. But, right now, I planned on having a lot more fun watching Scarlett’s front. And part of me worried like crazy that she wouldn’t be there.
Some of what Colt said made sense. Until we knew more about her, maybe it wasn’t a good idea to ask her to stay at the club. The thought of that made my heart drop. I wanted her here if I had to drag her over caveman style. Hell, I didn’t know if I’d be able to keep my hands off her long enough for that. It mattered though. She mattered and the reality of that started to sink in. I’d known her less than forty-eight hours, but already sensed she was something special. I didn’t want to fuck it up.
When Colt and Sawyer left the room, I slid my phone out of my back pocket and clicked her number. She’d been reluctant to give it. My balls tightened again about the picture she made when I had her pinned down, legs spread, begging for mercy as I worked her over with my tongue. It was when I threatened to stop she finally shouted out her digits. Lucky for her, I have a good memory. Pen and paper were kind of out of the question in the moment. She answered on the third ring.
“Scared you off yet?” I said. Her low laughter sent heat zinging through me.
“You don’t give up easily, do you?”
“Not where you’re concerned. I’ll be there at seven.”
She hesitated. I heard her slow intake of breath and even that got my juices flowing. I’d made her sigh and breathe heavy for a thousand different reasons yesterday and I still felt like we were just getting warmed up.
“You asking me on a real date, Mr. Cullinan?”
“Sure,” I said. I popped my feet off the edge of my desk and sat upright. I hadn’t actually thought about it, but now that she said it, it was a damn good idea.
“I haven’t really done one of those since high school. Might be fun. What, like a drive-in?”
“What, are you sixty?” she laughed.
“Forty,” I answered.
“And Green Bluff is a bona fide time capsule. We really do still have a drive-in movie theatre.”
Silence again. “Forty, huh? You look pretty good for your advanced age then.”
“I’d say I move pretty good too.”
Her laugh was soft and filled with sin and sensuality. I wanted to make her do it again and again. Just as much though, I wanted to get her to talk to me. Bare all of her secrets. I wanted to know her.
“Why do they call you Sly?”
I exhaled and leaned back in my chair. “Hmm. We can play that game too. I’ll tell you something about me if you tell me something about you.”
“You go first.”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“Shrewd, crafty, cunning. Prone to deceit. Is that it? Are you playing me?”
“I’ll tell you tonight. Don’t try to stand me up or you’ll see how crafty and cunning I can really be.”
“Ooooh. That sounds like a promising evening then.”
“Wear something sexy.” I let my voice drop low.
She laughed again. “Don’t worry about me, baby.” Her voice dripped with lust.
Fuck. Seriously, fuck. I didn’t know how the hell I was going to make it four more hours.
Chapter Ten
Scarlett
I hung up with Sly. I had let this go way too far and I didn’t know what the hell any of it meant. Was I growing soft in my old age? I’d tried to convince myself that carrying out the hit yesterday in my own hotel room would have been sloppy. Witnesses knew I was staying here. I knew that wasn’t exactly it, but I wasn’t ready to face my real feelings. Not yet. And tonight, with Sly and me on neutral turf, things might go very differently.
The walls shook as someone pounded on my hotel room door. I was wearing a towel, having just stepped out of the shower. I looked through the keyhole.
Shit.
Jinx’s lopsided face stared hard at me from the other side of the fish lens.
“Give me a second,” I called out. I threw on a pair of jeans and clean shirt. I gathered my wet hair into a top knot, pulled on some cowboy boots. I slipped my Glock through the waist band at the small of my back and opened the door.
“Time to go,” Jinx said. He raked his eyes over me with naked lust. When Sly did that, it sent a flash of heat through my core. When Jinx did it, I wanted to stab him.
“Go where?” I cast a quick glance out into the parking lot. Unbelievable. He’d come to my hotel room door bold as you please wearing his damn Devil’s Hawk cut. It was like Kagan wanted it known we were connected.
Jinx shot me that lopsided grin again. His eyes were cold and dark. “Boss wants to talk to you. He’s just around the corner. You’re going to him.”
“The hell I am.” I dug my heels in and gripped the door. I didn’t know if Jinx was bold enough to try it, but if he laid his hands on me, I was going to put him down, contract or no.
“Relax, sugar,” he sneered. “If the boss wanted something bad to happen to you, he would have already taken care of it. He just wants a status report without your partner hanging around. He doesn’t trust him. Can you blame him?”
Shit. Lewis. I hadn’t even thought about him in a day and a half. I’d told him to cool his heels somewhere until he heard from me again. If he’d grown antsy waiting, he could complicate things all over again. The only thing Lewis had so far proved is that he couldn’t be trusted alone. Still, the idea of going anywhere alone with Jinx made my skin crawl. Nothing good could come from public contact between me and anyone from the Devil’s Hawks M.C.
“Look,” I said. “Green Bluff is a podunk town. Everybody knows everybody around here as far as I can tell. It’s not safe for me to be seen with you, much less Kagan. If he wants to call me or send a message through you, that’s fine. But I’m not going to meet with him. It’s a bad idea.”
“Outside. Five minutes. Black SUV at the corner. You get in it. We go for a short drive. You’re back here inside the hour. The boss isn’t stupid. You don’t show up? He’ll consider you in breach of contract. You really want him getting the word out that you can’t be trusted?”
I didn’t. I was strictly freelance, but that didn’t mean powerful people wouldn’t try to come after me if I didn’t live up to my end of a contract. I operated mostly in secret, but I was once removed from some bad dudes. In a lot of cases, Lewis was the only degree of separation. This job was turning all kinds of bad on several fronts. I wanted the money, sure. I wanted to retire. But killing Sly Cullinan might not be worth it. I shuddered at the implications of that. My neck and my ability to walk upright were equally important to me and Kagan knew it. He had me. I couldn’t see a way around at least talking to him. If he wasn’t satisfied about my ability to carry out this hit, he’d call in someone else. Fuck.
“Yeah, yeah. Just get the hell out of here, Jinx. And next time, I don’t want to see you at my fucking doorstep, got it? It’s too dangerous and even your boss knows that.”
I slammed the door in his face rather than wait for him to respond. I heard him walk down the hall and waited a few minutes to lessen the risk of anyone seeing us together. Then I grabbed my purse, checked the chamber on my Glock before stuffing it into my purse and headed out the door.
The SUV was parked just where Jinx said it would be. It had tinted windows that were probably illegal in forty-eight states. I took one last look around to make sure no one was paying any attention to me. A young, blonde mother pushed a stroller a few feet up the sidewalk. Two teenagers walked arm and arm across the square. A guy in a cheap suit barked into his cell phone. But no one paid any mind to me or the vehicle I reluctantly stepped inside.
“I don’t like waiting around for you,” Kagan said as I slid into the seat next to him. I barely got the door closed before the driver pulled away from the curb and headed around the town circle.
“Like I told idiot boy, a phone call would have been the wiser choice here, Kagan. It’s like you’re intentionally trying to get in my way on this one.”
Kagan looked straight ahead. I didn’t like being this close to him. He wore faded jeans and a worn denim vest adorned with club patches. He had his white hair clubbed back and he twirled the ends of his handlebar mustache. His legs were thick as tree trunks and his muscled forearms bore intricate tendrils of ink that disappeared under the sleeves of his white t-shirt. His arms had that veiny, stretched look like he’d done a fair amount of steroids in the day.
“A little bird told me you spent the night at the Wolf Den the other night. Since you didn’t call me with a report first thing in the morning, what choice did I have?”
“Little bird, huh?”
“Same bird also told me Cullinan was still walking around this morning. And when I heard that, I thought, well, that can’t be. Because this girl is supposed to be the best in the business. She wouldn’t have let a mark slip through her fingers like that.”
“I decide when the time is right. Not you. I won’t be micromanaged.”
“How close did you get? You fuck him yet?”
My back stiffened. I wanted to wipe the smirk right off his face. Bruce Kagan’s eyes were cold steel and menace. I knew I had to be very careful if I wanted to get out of this car without spilling blood. I kept my purse on my lap, the barrel of my gun inside it pointed straight toward him. Kagan looked down at it and smirked. He wasn’t afraid I’d cap him. Otherwise, he never would have let me in the car with him. And I wouldn’t, not here. Not with his man in the front seat. That, and he probably had half a dozen more guys circling the block waiting for the first sign of trouble. No, unless Kagan made a move on me, he wasn’t worth going out in a blaze of glory for.
“What do you really want, Kagan? You hired me to do a job. I’m in the process of doing that job. My way. That’s what you wanted. If not, you’d have just had Jinx or one of your other lackeys take Cullinan out. If you want this done right, so it doesn’t land anywhere near you, you need to be patient.”
“He’s a kille
r,” Kagan said. “Sly Cullinan. Just as much as you or I. Just don’t forget that when he flashes that dimple at you and you feel the urge to spread your legs. And I don’t really give a fuck if you do. What I do give a fuck about is that you do what I’m paying you for. Cullinan dead. That’s a given. But you’re right, you’re going to make sure it doesn’t land on me.”
I ran a hand over my brow. “Yeah? Well then, maybe you ought to quit having meetings with me. And I’ll be honest, sending Jinx to my fucking door, cut and all, is a surefire way to make sure this does land on you. You’re making this way more fucking complicated than you need to. If you want me to take him out, let me take him out. I’m not going to play the cloak-and-dagger shit. That’s not what I do.”
“You talk an awful lot about what you do. From where I sit, you haven’t done a damn thing. I want Cullinan dead. Yesterday.”
I leaned back in my chair and raised a brow at Kagan. “It takes time. You need to be patient and let me work.”
Kagan set his jaw. “I think you need a deadline. And you need to know what happens if you don’t meet it,” he said, resting his upper lip on his finger as he looked out the far window.
“I don’t do deadlines. And I don’t worry about fallout after the job’s done. That’s strictly your problem. I do one thing, I do it extremely well, but that’s it. Take it or leave it.”
“You spent the night with him the other night.” It was a statement, not a question.
“So?” There was no point in lying. If Kagan didn’t have people watching me, he more than likely had them watching Sly.
Kagan reached over and grabbed my wrist. I took a steadying breath. I could break his nose with my other hand in two seconds, but that would escalate things in this car to a point that might get very messy, very fast. “So I need to make sure that you’re still in the game with this one, Scarlett. Your partner fucked things up. I want to make sure you don’t fuck them up even worse. Like I said, I don’t give two shits if you want to get off with him before you do it. But you will do it.”
