by Alex Abbott
The Narrow Path – Dangerous Men #1
Alex Abbott
© 2015 Pathforgers Publishing.
All Rights Reserved. If you downloaded an illegal copy of this book and enjoyed it, please buy a legal copy. Either way you get to keep the eBook forever, but you’ll be encouraging us to continue writing and producing high quality fiction for you. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imaginations. Any resemblances to actual persons, living or dead, are entirely coincidental.
Cover Design by Michelle Keep. All cover art makes use of stock photography and all persons depicted are models.
This book is intended for sale to Adult Audiences only.
All sexually active characters in this work are over 18 and between non blood-related, consenting individuals.
More information is available at Pathforgers Publishing
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Dedication
Dedicated to my grandmother, Alberta. I strive to be half as clever, compassionate and full of surprises as you were.
Book Description
Angela is celebrating a successful heist, when the last person in the world she wanted to see waltzes back into her life.
Four years ago, Jamal ripped her heart out and tossed it on the ground. But he's back, beefed up from prison and wanting to make amends for dumping her.
He's still the same dominant man she'd fallen in love with, but with a calmer head on his shoulders. He promises to protect her from her bad decisions and wild past, and with the mob indebted to him over his time, she believes him.
When he offers her the chance to manage his strip club and answer to nobody but him, the temptation is more than she can ignore. But can they get over all of the secrets and lies they've told one another while avoiding being sucked back into a life of crime? Or is the temptation of fast money, and illegal highs, too much for them?
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Note from the Author
Biography
Chapter 1
“What’s your name again?” Angela asked, rubbing at her temple. After all that had happened, the last thing she wanted to deal with was the police. Between juggling mobsters, hiding her own ill-gotten gains, and the loss of someone special… she didn’t know if she had it in her to bullshit the cops too.
“Detective Luke Crusher, ma’am,” he said, standing there tall and built. His uniform did little to hide that fact. He had a squared off jaw and bright eyes. Looked too damn handsome for his position. “But we were talking about your friend,” he said, shifting things back to the topic at hand.
“Yes, yes of course,” she said, tiredly confessing to knowing the missing man. She couldn’t decide if that was carelessness or just pragmatism.
“Can I come in?” the officer asked.
She didn’t know what to say, but part of her just shuffled out of the way a little and before she knew it, the officer was in her dinky little apartment. And she knew she’d made a mistake. After all, wherever he went in her place, he wasn’t that far away from her own stash of ten grand.
“So you two knew each other?” he asked her again.
“Yeah,” Angela let out a sigh, tucking some of her dark hair behind her ear. The past week had been exhausting, and the last thing she wanted to do was talk about it with a cop.
“Did you want some water?” she offered, going into the kitchen and already grabbing her own glass as she looked over her shoulder at him. She’d been sucked into the vortex and there was no going back. Not after what had happened.
“Sure,” he said to her, casually pacing about her living room, those eyes of his scanning the place. Such a cop, she thought. Studying her, the place. Everything.
She kind of regretted the baggy sweater and jeans she was wearing, though at least she’d put on some mascara.
“Were you two close?” he asked as she poured up the water.
She thought back to the phone calls, the last words he’d said to her, and gave a slight nod as she offered him his water.
“Thanks ma’am,” he said with a smile.
“I guess that depends on your definition of close,” she said, and it did. What they had...
She sipped her water.
“Though I don’t think I’ll be of any help to you. I don’t know what happened,” she added on.
“So you know about what happened to him?” he asked, his circling motions coming to a close as he studied her place, his blue eyes upon her again as he awaited that answer.
Angela shook her head.
“I’ve not been getting any answers. I think the only reason I knew anything at all is because it happened in the lobby of my building.”
“I see,” he said, looking patient as he thought over her words. “So you weren’t here at the time it happened, I take it?” he asked, sounding ever so patient and calm as he went over the whole thing with her. He helped calm her nerves at least, that much she had to admit.
But she knew that was dangerous, too. One misstep with him and there was no going back.
“No,” she said, her eyes falling down. “Half of me thanks God I wasn’t, the other half thinks, if I was, maybe...” she trailed off.
“I doubt there was much you or anyone other than an armed party of officers could’ve done,” he said compassionately. Actually sounding like he wanted to reassure her. “Are you aware of any… criminal connections he may have had?” the officer asked, not content to solely console her however.
Her brow furrowed and she hoped her confusion looked authentic.
“He must have just been in the wrong place at the wrong time,” she said earnestly. “It’s... not the best part of the city.” She looked around at her sad apartment, her meagre existence, as if to prove her point to him. “Bad stuff happens around here all the time.”
The officer didn’t look convinced by her statement, however. Had she oversold it?
“Not like this it doesn’t,” he said to her, tapping his stylus against the touch screen pad he held. “Even for the criminal element in this city… this is a big deal, ma’am,” he said to her, looking a little more stern now. “Which is why we’re looking into this so seriously. The building’s security camera showed him — and sometimes you and him — entering the building to go to your apartment. Now, I know you might be concerned about saying something to get yourself in trouble but… I’m really just concerned with finding out who would shoot up a neighbourhood in this city.”
He made his case so well, his smooth, deep voice so convincing. He just wanted to help.
Angela sipped her water, doing her best to hold back her tears. She’d spilled so many, already, and was exhausted over it. She sat down on her ratty couch and let out a long sigh.
Detective Luke Crusher moved over, sitting himself down on her couch beside her, placing his glass of water on the coffee table. All the equipment dangling from his belt making it seem so awkward for him.
“This isn’t the sort of city where we see gunfights in the streets, ma’am. And certainly not the kind of city where we see murder en masse, right out
in the open. Your friend was a victim of that attack, and even if he was involved in something criminal… either way, anything you can tell us would help us track down the perpetrators.”
Angela looked up at the officer, her emerald eyes glittering with her unshed tears, her face looking more mature than her 30 years, her lips drawn into a tight line as she considered the detective.
Chapter 2
Roughly one week earlier...
The beat of the music in the club reverberated through the walls of the office, so that even though it was quiet, the feeling of the beat and energy below carried up into it. Javier sat upon the corner of his desk, a fine white suit upon him to contrast his dark skin and eyes, though he’d shed his tie.
“I see you out that window every night, and I can’t help but smile,” he said to Svetlana, who sat upon the edge of a one-way window that looked out over the dance floor below. His lips were spread into a broad smile as he eyed the dainty woman, dressed in a mix of fluorescent pink and black, a raver outfit if ever there was one.
She leaned back as she looked at him, all softness and affection in her every move.
“Vell maybe you should be comink down more often instead of hidink away from all of us. Enjoy the life you’ve built.” Her toes were pointed inwards, resting against one another in her high stiletto heels. They glowed under the black light, just like most everything else she wore.
She flicked her blonde hair over her shoulder, running her fingers through it idly as she glanced back to the crowd, a lingering look of enjoyment upon her face.
“I’ve got a lot of work to do,” he said simply, then rose up from his spot upon the desk, the tall man towering over the much shorter woman as he made his way towards her.
“Besides,” he continued, sitting himself down on the arm of the leather sofa next to her, reaching out to take her dainty hand in his large palm. “I can’t be myself with others around. But you? You bring out something special in me,” he said, his deep voice so soft and warm with her, in a way it never was with anyone else, matching the way he gently stroked the pale, smooth skin on the back of her hand.
Svetlana giggled, shimmying a little bit closer to him as her gaze met his.
“You’re too kind,” she protested with a little shake of her head. “But I’m glad, regardless, that you think so.” There was such a reverence in her gaze as she bit down on her lower lip nervously. Not nervous of him... nervous of how she acted around him.
He made her head spin, all of her willpower drained as she wanted nothing more than to make him happy, and it was etched all throughout her features.
Javier smoothly lifted her hand up to kiss at the backs of her knuckles, letting his dusky eyes meet her gaze as he took his time, revelled in that moment together. Until at last he lowered her hand again and reached out to rest his palm upon her bare knee.
“You’re the most beautiful vision to walk through those doors down there, and there’s just something about you,” he said, his Cuban accent so rich. “You have a way of making me — and everyone else — more relaxed, more pleased. You’ve an aura of peace and serenity about you, dear Lana.”
She blushed a bit brighter. For one in her line of work, she certainly took every compliment as if it were the first and only one, and her eyes descended to her lap.
“Oh Javier,” she purred, her voice so soft beneath the hum of the rhythm of the Tropicala.
“I just like beink around you. Vhen that happens, it’s just right, is it not?” She spoke into her lap, her skin so soft beneath his hand, her stockings only coming up to just below his grasp.
Javier nodded to her slowly, the two of them threading their fingers together, his long, dark digits knitted between her slender, pale ones. He squeezed her knee and leaned in, the two of them so close, his spiced cologne light and pleasant. Her bubble-gum scent so girlish and whimsical.
“You should come see me more often,” he husked low, leaning in so that his forehead was nearly pressed to hers. “Here, or… we could go meet somewhere else. Just the two of us. For a meal, and maybe some quiet time alone.”
She was so soft and delicate beneath him, those supple curves of hers enticing as she rubbed into him.
“I vould like that,” she cooed, her voice so filled with nervousness and cheerfulness, the two combatting one another. She was clearly thrilled at his invitation, at his touch, and she moved nearer him.
Her eyes fluttered up to him, that sky blue so enchanting.
“You have my number, yes? Any time you’d like,” she said as a bouncy and flirtatious smile crossed her features.
His own smile was wry and self-assured, contorting his handsome face as he eyed her, soaking in that youthful, charm. He gave a slow nod.
“You can count on that call,” he remarked in a low, rumbly voice just moments before he leaned in, head tilted, to place a kiss upon her soft little lips, painted pink with a rim of carefully applied black to match her outfit. His tongue delved past them, into her mouth to taste her as he grasped her with both of his long arms.
She tasted like she looked, as if she’d just eaten a bunch of cotton candy before coming to his office. Her tongue pressed against his, all that shyness slowly slipping away as she very slowly kissed him. A sigh passed from her to him, her entire body arched and lifted so that she could meet his mouth with all her enthusiasm.
Javier pulled her to him, lifting her tiny form up and into his lap as their kiss only grew further entangled. He wanted her so badly, his two hands beginning to rub at her soft, supple flesh, slowly pawing at her form, feeling her curves along her hips and rear.
“You’re so gorgeous,” Javier said, breaking their kiss to breathe heavily and look in her bright blue eyes.
She swallowed, her eyes lidded as she ground against him so wantonly. Her arms wrapped around his neck, the party still thrumming behind them. Something about being able to see the crowd as they danced and writhed without them ever knowing she was up there, knowing what they were doing... it was a thrill.
Her thin legs spread about him, her bust pressed to his chest.
“Thank you, Mr. Hevia,” she purred, her skin still flushed and dewy from his kiss, his touch.
He was so much taller than her, a giant next to her tiny form. He held her, cupped her cheeks in his palms as he moved in to kiss at her lips again, his excitement showing beneath her with a throb to go along to that beat below.
“I wish I could have you all to myself, all the time,” he said in a low husk. Though something below began to catch first his eyes, then hers.
Looking aside, Svetlana could make out the curious sight of Romy and his new lady at the center of a commotion.
But Svetlana didn’t want his attention to drift, her finger going to his jaw and trying to gently guide his eyes back to her.
“You can have me whenever you like,” she purred, another grind of her hips following her words. Punctuating them.
Javier’s eyes lit up at that, and he couldn’t fight the grin that formed upon his long yet somewhat narrow face. His arm squeezed her so tight, the little beauty might nearly have popped.
“You don’t know what you’ve just got yourself into,” he nearly growled at her before lustfully kissing her lips once more.
Chapter 3
Romy was more pumped up and full of himself than Angela had ever seen him. He seemed almost taller, his shoulders broader, his grin wider than ever before. His attractiveness only amplified as he held her to his side so snugly and walked through the crowd.
“Free drinks, on me! We’re gonna fucking celebrate tonight,” he yelled, to a resounding chorus of shouts and cheers in return.
Their heist was done, and the results had been better than anticipated. Even if Angela’s heart was still pumping hard.
She couldn’t believe it’d worked. She almost would rather just gone home and thrown up from the stress. Instead, she clung to Romy and siphoned off his energy, feeling that thrill resound through her.
“Get me a mojito?” she purred into his ear, needing something strong. Something that’d numb the rush just a little bit so that her stomach wasn’t twisted in knots.
Her dark hair was pulled back into a ponytail, her black dress new and absolutely scandalous with how low it delved between her breasts, showing off her ample cleavage. Her heels brought her up closer to Romy’s height, though he still had about half a foot on her, but she leaned up and kissed his mouth eagerly.
She could feel his heart pounding in his chest, and she pressed her fingers to him so eagerly.
Conning her mark had been one of the most exciting things she’d done since getting out of prison. That rush was addictive, she knew, but she’d promised herself it was just one time. Get the money and then that would be it. She’d go back to her dull day-job, and work her way up like a normal person.
Not that she had a day-job anymore. She couldn’t clear a criminal record check and was quickly shown the door, and she hadn’t heard back from any of her other applications. But at least the ten grand would go a long way to helping relax her while she looked.
Romy took her up to the V.I.P. section where he slapped hands with Daryl.
“I heard you had some good news,” the towering bartender said, though Angela had a feeling he was more than a mere bartender.
“You bet, my man. Now how about two mojitos, and make them doubles,” Romy said cheerfully, stroking his hand along Angela’s side so vigorously, revelling in her feel. Then he leaned forward and muttered low to the big, bull of a man, “And hey, any way you can hook me up with something special to celebrate with tonight?”
Daryl was already busy mixing the drinks, but he gave Romy and Angela a cursory look before casting his gaze up at the managerial officer, looming over the rest of the club.
“Nah man, I got nothin’ on me right now. Check with the boss,” he said, jerking his chin up towards the office.
Angela felt a chill go through her, but excitement was coiled in her belly and she knew that there were no rules. Just for that one, beautiful, wonderful night, she wanted to let herself go.
