“And corrupt as fuck,” Tom said, pulling her away from the man on the sidewalk. “Come on. Let’s get you upstairs.”
She let him guide her into the building and didn’t object when he came on board the elevator and asked for her floor. The fast, brutal reaction he’d had when her purse was grabbed both repelled and intrigued her. Acts of violence that weren’t strictly necessary were bad, of course, but she couldn’t help but admire Tom’s perfectly placed punch and the quick, spare nature of his movements.
Of course, his comment about the ineffective and corrupt police in Detroit hadn’t exactly warmed her to him.
“This isn’t how I wanted the night to end,” he said. Grace realized that he thought her shock was due to the violence of his actions, and not having to restrain herself from moving in similar ways. She’d wanted to dart forward, but the stitch of pain from the man’s clumsy punch had halted her for a mere second, allowing Tom to shoot forward.
“It wasn’t your fault…” It wasn’t in her nature to do nothing, though losing the purse wouldn’t have been the end of the world. Wearing a purse with a long strap at night in her neighborhood was asking to be mugged. People were having trouble finding jobs, even though much of the rest of the country was rebounding.
It was her job to make sure the man was taken off the street, but Tom was right about the police sending someone for a failed mugging. She’d call for someone to go look for him and take him in as soon as she was in the apartment, she promised herself. This was all part of being undercover.
But the relaxed tone of the evening had been broken. All the softness in his face was gone and she could see for the first time the predator who had stalked across the club floor to stop the man who’d tried to grab her at the Ladies Night. It should have repelled her, forced her to make an excuse and get him out of the building.
Just as she wondered whether Tom planned to talk his way inside, the elevator beeped and opened to her floor. Shifting from foot to foot, Grace stuck her hand out to stop the door from closing on them again. “This is my stop.”
“I wouldn't be much of a gentlemen if I didn't see you to your door.” She opened her mouth to protest, then stopped when he shook his head.
“I'm not going to come in to your place.” His hand rose up and hovered over the small of her back, offering a warmth that was both comforting and arousing where the hem of her shirt rose up. “Just let me walk you to your door. My mother taught me that you never end a date without seeing her safely home. All the way home.”
His words brought back some of the charm that had disappeared when he'd brutally stopped the man outside. A reminder that he wasn't just a violent motorcycle-riding leather-clad criminal—and Grace admitted to herself that maybe she'd let his defensive action make him appear as such. At the same time, she remembered times that she'd had to use violence on the job. Was her violence more justified than his simply because she wore a badge?
“I'd like that,” she said at length. “Thank you. I'm right down here. 602.”
When they reached her door, she turned to face him. “I honestly had a lovely evening.”
“Except for the last part.”
“Except for that.”
“Can I see you again, Dakota?” He tilted his head to the side just a bit while he waited for her answer. His eyes were like a mossy riverbed, swirling with something she shouldn’t let herself explore.
Whether or not she was ready, though, the man was in front of her with those eyes locked on her face and in her chest, her heart melted just a little.
“I'd like to see you again.”
“Good. When do you work next?”
“Tomorrow, but my boss called this morning and shifted schedules around. I’m getting my new one tomorrow. You could call me, if you wanted, and we could make plans.”
“What's your number?” He took out his phone and unlocked it, then handed it to her. “Add it to my phone book.”
Grace started to type in her real name, then paused, deleted the three letters she’d entered, and wrote Dakota instead. She added her phone number and her email address, then saved the entry as a new contact and handed Tom the phone back.
“Thanks,” he said, flashing his spine-tingling grin again. “I'm going to send you a text message so you have my information too.” A few moments later, her phone beeped in her bag.
“I'll look forward to hearing from you,” she said, and started to turn to unlock the door.
“Don't go yet,” Tom said, taking her arm gently in his hand. She could have easily pulled away, but didn't. “We haven't said goodnight.”
Then he slowly pulled her forward, tilted his head down and kissed her.
The first brush of his lips on hers sent sparks racing from her stomach to every single inch of her body. She let out a gentle sigh as she pulled back and met his eyes, almost trembling at the heat of his hands on her skin. Grace didn't have to wonder if Tom felt the same racing excitement she did—it was written on his face, along with a good dose of confusion.
“Goodnight,” she said softly, not moving away from him.
“Not yet. That wasn't enough.”
He kissed her again.
This time his mouth opened on hers and his tongue traced the line of her lips, urging her to open and let him in. Everything in her was hot, liquid, more than willing to meet him halfway as he pressed her back against the door and hungrily devoured her mouth.
Grace was so overwhelmed that for a moment, she barely responded, just met him breath for breath and gently flicked her tongue against his.
His hands went to her back and rubbed up and down her spine, warming the skin and making her knees weak. Just when she thought she'd have to lean fully against the door, he pressed one of his legs between hers to help support her. But the contact of the rough jeans against her bare legs was so much more arousing than she'd have believed and snapped her back to reality.
Grace clutched his shoulders and rose into the kiss, pulling her mouth away from his to kiss the warm, smooth skin on his cheek and nibble down the line of his jaw. He pressed his face into her hair and groaned when she tugged on his ear with her teeth.
“You're so fucking sexy,” he grated.
Angling her body so that it was pressed against Tom’s, she brought her mouth back to his and pulled his tongue between her lips, sucking on it before releasing it and nipping his lip. He pressed her back harder against the door, captured her hands where she'd slid them under his shirt and jacket to stroke the defined planes of his chest and lifted them up over her head, trapping her against the hard surface with his body.
“Tom,” Grace said, her voice weak while he looked down at her.
“Just a little more.”
“Anyone could come.”
“Do you want me to stop?”
“No,” she admitted. He rewarded her by lowering his mouth to her neck and kissing the delicate juncture where it met her shoulder. She shivered when he sucked on her skin and the scent of his hair made her head swim.
The light pressure on her wrists was so delicious that she almost broke and invited him in. Instead she twisted her head so he could take her mouth again.
When he finally pulled back, her knees were shaking and she slumped against his chest. His muscular arms circled her and held her close as she tucked her head under her chin.
“I want to ask you in, but I just can't.” She whispered it into his chest, but he moved back and placed a finger under her chin, raising up her face so he could look her in the eyes.
“I'm not coming in tonight. But I am going to call you tomorrow.” He kissed her again softly, then rubbed her back comfortingly before stepping away. “Can I see your keys?”
She fished them out of her purse and handed them to him. He unlocked the door, then stepped back and handed her the keys.
“Goodnight, Dakota.” He kissed her forehead and waited while she went inside. “I'm glad I ran into you.”
“Me too,” she said.
“Shut the door and lock it.”
CHAPTER 8
Grace closed the door of her apartment and leaned back against it, pushing the hair away from her face. A few hours with a man, a couple of kisses, and she’d almost lost her brains entirely. The urge to let him come in and do more than just steal a few caresses was electric inside her.
“Get it together,” she said, looking at herself in the mirror opposite from the entry. Her face was pale with bright spots of color in the cheeks and her ink-dark hair was a mess. His fingers had threaded through it as he took her lips again and again. Now they were rosy, swollen and she wanted more of what he’d had to offer.
But sharing a bed with a man she couldn’t share her name with wasn’t something she was prepared to do. Even if his hands made her skin feel more sensitive than ever before. When she’d wrapped her arms around him on the bike and held his body tight against hers, everything in her was soft and excited at the same time.
At first, she attributed it to the way the air felt moving over the large swathes of skin that were exposed. The speed, the rush of the other cars around her. But the heat from Tom seeped into her and she clung to that warmth, his strength.
God, she wanted him.
In the bedroom, she removed her clothes and looked in the mirror, casting a critical eye from her hair down to her toes. While she didn’t care whether or not the men in the club where she danced liked her body, she did know that she needed to stay on the rotation until the case was over and Chief Anderson told her she could come back to work.
She missed working cases. Missed putting on slacks and a button down, pulling back her hair in a bun before heading out for the day. Spending 30 minutes on makeup and another 20 getting her hair under control at the Ladies Night wasn’t her favorite way to spend an hour every day, she mused, looking at the basic mascara and lip gloss she’d thrown on for her day off.
If Tom knew she wasn’t a career stripper, maybe his interest in her would evaporate. A certain kind of man likes a woman who all other men want, but only he gets to have. Already she knew Tom wasn’t the kind who’d want to share her—even at dinner, he’d been possessive, the heat of his gaze running over her body and his attention focused on every word that came out of her mouth. It had been a long time since someone had listened so closely.
But she didn’t know if he was the kind of man whose engine turned over when other men watched her dance on stage, reached out to stroke her legs as she whipped herself around the pole.
If so, she mused, shrugging on her old blue robe and tying back her hair, then he wasn’t the kind of man she wanted.
Not that she could be with him anyway.
Annoyed with herself for being so focused on him, she sat down on her bed and pulled the notebook where she collected her thoughts from the bedside table. Uncapping her pen, she tapped it against the blank page, wrote down the date and then considered what she’d learned.
Nothing.
It was the most frustrating thing she could imagine. To learn nothing and be no closer to ferreting out who was behind the abductions. She’d been outraged when her boss had first brought the case to her; to think of women being taken off the streets and left to some nefarious fate chilled her to the bone right from the start. But the longer Grace danced with the women who were the main target of the kidnappings, the more she personally empathized with them. She knew how their feet got sore in the mile-high heels they were forced to wear, how they rolled the balls of their feet on hair spray cans before slipping into trainers at the end of the night, just to try to straighten themselves back out for normal shoes.
Women with children, boyfriends, bank accounts—they weren’t the faceless entities they’d once been. Her heart hurt for them, for women who were considered so disposable by society that when they were abducted, it didn’t even make the news.
One thing that always confused her about Detroit was how rarely violent, terrifying crime made the news. If multiple women were missing in her sleepy California hometown, it would have been all over the crime reports, with stiff-haired female anchors barely suppressing grimaces of disgust as they read the teleprompter. But here, it hadn’t warranted a peep.
Sometimes she wondered why.
Why haven’t I seen even a mention of the case? Grace wrote, tapping her pen against the notebook until it was dotted with flecks of ink. The more she dwelled, the odder it became. Even strippers, prostitutes and homeless people would eventually be mentioned on the news by now. The number of disenfranchised who’d disappeared was staggering. But there hadn’t been a peep from an enterprising reporter. No bulletin. Not even a local victim’s advocacy group.
Why?
Every shift at the Ladies Night put her farther from the truth, because she wasn’t tracking down anyone. There were no leads there. Deciding to speak to her boss again, she wrote What if we looked into the avenues a person might use to move women out of the city? After all, they hadn’t found any bodies, and god knew she’d looked. Her Chief had all his sources out looking for the remains of the women—but there were none, according to Anderson. They were just gone.
There has to be a better way to get information.
Shaking her head, she put the notebook back and pulled up the covers over her body, curling into the warmth that enveloped her. Thoughts of the case swam in her head for awhile, but eventually her thoughts drifted back to Tom.
He was almost too handsome. She’d come up against local motorcycle clubs more than once, and most of the men were haggard, the product of long lives of drugs and alcohol. The chances that he wasn’t snorting the occasional line were low, and Grace knew she’d never date a junkie. She’d known that from the moment she spotted and IDed the patches on his jacket.
Still.
Restless, she kicked down the covers and tried to ignore the way her body heated and softened when she thought of him.
It didn’t do much good. By the time she finally fell asleep, she was tangled in her sheets and damn if that man didn’t come into her dreams too.
CHAPTER 9
“Where’d you disappear to yesterday?” Jack kicked back on the couch and raised his eyebrows. “I went to meet up with you and couldn’t find you anywhere. Usually you’re easier to spot than a snitch.”
Tom sneered at him and took another swallow of bourbon. Today was a bourbon day. “Met a woman.”
“And ended up back at her place? Because you weren’t at your apartment either.”
“This is your business how?” Tom immediately swiped a hand over his face and cast an apologetic look at Jack. The man wasn’t just his brother; he was his friend. “Sorry, man. That girl from the strip club the other night—I ran into her and took her to grab a bite to eat.”
“How was it?”
Tom knew he was asking about the sex—being domesticated hadn’t stopped Jack from listening to his brothers talk about the women they bagged, though comments about his old lady were of the table. But he wasn’t in the mood to talk about not taking Dakota home to her apartment, or the fact that he still didn’t know her real name.
“Didn’t seal the deal.”
“Surprising.”
“Why? Because she strips?”
“No,” Jack laughed and poured each of them another drink. “Because I can’t remember the last time that pretty boy face of yours didn’t land you in a woman’s bed with the least possible effort.”
“Maybe I’m getting more discerning,” Tom said.
“What’s the bug up your ass today?”
“I didn’t sleep well.” Thoughts of Dakota had haunted him all night. 3 a.m. found him scrubbing in the shower, unsure whether the ghost of her jasmine perfume was on his skin or just in his memory. It didn’t help him sleep; sunlight was already kissing the sky by the time he dozed off.
“You’ll crash hard after the party tonight,” Jack assured him. He’d sipped two drinks in the time Tom had taken to drink six. For the first time in months, he thought may
be he should slow down.
“Don’t feel like celebrating.”
“It’s not a celebration. Just an excuse to get together and do something other than work on new ventures.”
“The guys seem to be adjusting well.” A thread of something—a nervous undertone, maybe—in Jack’s voice had Tom pushing through the alcohol-induced numbness. “Are they still complaining about getting rid of the last shipment of weapons?”
“No complaints that I’ve heard.” Jack was the enforcer. If there were complaints, he’d be on top of them and ready to silence the offender by any means necessary. “But moving from one beast to another is hard on everyone.”
“We’re making more money now,” Tom pointed out. Going legitimate had actually had a positive impact on their wallets after a few months. Good help wasn’t hard to find, especially in a town with a level of unemployment like Detroit. As soon as word got out that there were clubs, bars and other establishments that straddled the line but didn’t cut into an honest worker’s wages, they had some of the best lining up.
Maybe he could entice Dakota over to one of their joints. The protective flash that ignited inside him made Tom wipe a shaky hand across his mouth. Why would he care if other men looked at her? She wasn’t his woman, and if she was happy stripping, that was all that mattered. Besides, she was good.
Too good. Just the thought of her had him uncomfortably adjusting his pants.
“I’ve been listening to make sure none of the guys have any sidelines that we’d have to shut down,” Jack continued. “But everyone seems on the up and up after that last round of cuts.” The last round of cuts had been the men staying in the club to spy for Butch. They’d ended up in pieces in the far northern woods near Canada.
“Good,” Tom said. “So we’re past phase one of pulling the club out of drugs and guns. Hallelujah.”
“Don’t sound so bitter,” Ace interrupted, walking into the room. “Most of us—hell, maybe all of us—weren’t far away from having a one-way ticket to federal prison. Personally, I’d rather write shift schedules than go away for a minimum of 20 years.”
STRIKE: Storm Runners Motorcycle Club 2 (SRMC) Page 5
