by Juno Rushdan
Maybe he’d been playing it too safe, not telling her, not showing her how much he desired her. Waiting for her to be ready. Sometimes a person had to be thrown into a sink-or-swim position.
He lowered his hand, cupping her neck. Her pulse throbbed against his palm. “Do me a favor and stay here. Don’t make me watch you smile and flirt with some guy while he ogles you. Touches you.” If he had to choose between that and a potential fistfight, bring on the brawl.
She wet her lips and clutched his wrist but didn’t pull his hand away, turning him on bright as a bulb. Her eyes were luminous. Radiant with a hunger, a fire that drew him closer even though he knew he’d get burned.
The atmosphere in the car shifted, like the current in the air before a storm.
Her mouth opened, but before she could speak, he followed a foreign, reckless impulse and leaned over, pressing his lips to hers.
There was none of the cautious gentleness of a first kiss. No need to coax. No resistance given. All the desire that’d been kindling for four years ignited in hot bliss.
It was a long-overdue communion that touched him to the very core.
She arched up and let him in. As he sank into her warm mouth, his hand slid up, cupping the back of her head. He devoured her, slowly, deeply, consuming and claiming. Every slick swipe of her tongue against his was liquid heat.
Holding her to him, he deepened the kiss as he found himself pushing her back in the seat.
A headiness enveloped him, seeping to every nerve fiber, but he forced himself to stop.
He pulled back, not wanting to ever let her go.
Her eyes fluttered open and he saw it—the evasiveness of her gaze, the set of her mouth, the stiffening of her posture, the crease in her brow. He’d cataloged every nuance of her body language, memorized every elusive emotion that passed across her face. She was retreating behind her wall.
His heart squeezed.
“If you don’t want to watch, you should stay here and keep the car running.” She hopped out, slammed the door and started crossing the street.
Aiden cut the engine and was hot on her heels. “Charlie!”
“What’s the alternative? You get your face busted up, maybe a few broken ribs. No. Not on my watch.” Stepping onto the sidewalk, she turned and faced him. “We should go in separately. If he’s in there, I’ll get him outside around back.” Then she opened the door and disappeared inside.
Aiden scrubbed a hand over his face, hauling in a deep breath. That kiss. God, that kiss had been all-consuming. Set him ablaze, painting everything with a pall of red.
There was something he’d learned today, a lesson that had to be heeded.
Life could turn on a dime. His reputation and career hung in the balance. Circumstances kept shifting like grains of sand beneath their feet.
His love for Charlie was the one constant. In fact, it had got stronger since his tumble off the roof. Brought everything into high definition and surround sound.
He was done avoiding, making excuses, playing it safe. No more holding himself back.
SOG. Camp Beauregard. He had to tell her.
The secret he was keeping from her about the job offer was eating him up. The deadline to give an answer was next Friday. Eons away in light of what they were currently facing—
Finding Edgar and clearing their names.
Next Friday, he could be sitting in a jail cell, trying to explain how things had gone terribly wrong—or worse. And his biggest regret would be not telling Charlie how he felt about her.
He shoved the darkest thoughts from his mind. They’d get through this the way they did every other mission. As a team.
Aiden adjusted his ball cap and went into the bar.
It was wood-paneled, with taxidermied heads of deer, bobcats and gators protruding from the walls, and had a long line of taps that would’ve been a beer lover’s dream come true. All the tables and booths were taken.
He grabbed the first seat he found near the door. Next to him was a tall guy, thin as a blade but wiry, with a gun and badge on his hip. Taking stock of his surroundings, Aiden counted ten more badges and guns in ten seconds. He spotted Charlie perched on a stool at the opposite end of the bar.
The guy from the picture, the one who’d been in the middle, was behind the bar, pouring her a drink and chatting her up. She sucked back the clear liquid in the shot glass and set it down.
The man poured her and himself another round. They clinked glasses and did the shot.
She worked fast.
Color Aiden unsurprised.
Not much of a beer drinker, he ordered a double bourbon, neat. A female bartender didn’t waste time getting his order and was heavy-handed with the pour.
Aiden dropped a twenty on the bar. “Is that the owner?” He gestured to Mr. McChatty.
“One of the owners. Jeff Landau.”
“How many others?”
She pointed to a picture hanging on the wall. The same as the one at Devlin’s place. “Four. But Jeff is the only one here right now.”
“Where are the rest?”
She shrugged. “Vacation. Hunting trip, I think.”
“They all active over at the Fifth District?”
“Yeah, except Jeff. He retired a couple of years ago.”
The dude sitting beside him gave Aiden the side-eye.
One too many questions asked. Got it. “Thanks,” he said to the waitress and grabbed a handful of nuts from a bowl.
Watching the crowd through the mirror behind the bar, he estimated 75 percent of the patrons, including the man next to him, were cops. Either active or retired.
He nursed his bourbon while Charlie flirted and laughed and slammed back shots, throwing out stellar bait only a eunuch could resist.
A strange possessiveness roared through him. He’d never wanted any woman the way he wanted Charlie. In his bed, beneath him, above him, curled around him. In his life, beside him.
He put his jealousy in check as he’d done many times before, but the ache in his chest didn’t go away. He’d dared showing her his feelings, asked her not to do this, and she’d done it anyway.
Charlie took another shot. He wasn’t worried about her holding her liquor. She was able to drink a Russian under the table with his own vodka. He just didn’t want to watch her throw herself at another man, even if it was playing a role.
In thirty grueling minutes, she had McChatty hooked.
Charlie stood, leaned over the bar, arching her back, projecting her breasts, her tight, round butt high in the air, and whispered in Jeff’s ear.
The massive ball of tension inside Aiden burned hotter than a solar flare.
Every man in the vicinity checked her out, lust stamped on their faces, gleaming in their eyes. They were practically drooling. Aiden couldn’t blame them. With no makeup, wearing jeans and a T-shirt, Charlie was stunning. Truly something to behold.
Jeff spoke to the other bartender for a second, and she responded with a nod and a sly smile. Then he led Charlie through a door outside to the back.
His muscles tightened, but he resisted the urge to jump up and leave right away. With his hand clenched in a fist on his thigh, he finished his drink. When the stopwatch in his head hit two minutes, he spun off his stool, yawned for good measure and went out the front.
As soon as the door closed, he forced himself to walk slow and easy, like time wasn’t a factor, with his hands in his pockets, around the side of the building toward the back. A man running, especially one of color, drew unwanted attention and suspicion faster than one strolling along without a care in the world.
By the time he made his way to the dumpster, Charlie had Jeff pinned with his cheek pressed to the brick wall, his arm twisted behind his back at an angle meant to cause excruciating pain, with his pants down around his ankles.
From the blood on his face, she’d broken his nose first.
“Devlin and the others, who hired them?” she asked as Aiden came up alongside her.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“She’s got quite a temper,” Aiden said, “and she’s short on patience. I suggest you start talking.”
“You’re both making a big mistake. Messing with the wrong people.”
Charlie gestured for Aiden to take over holding Jeff. He was more than happy to oblige.
After they swapped places, she snatched his right wrist and twisted until the knuckles were facing her. She grabbed his index finger. “The job in San Diego. Who hired him?”
Jeff called Charlie a bunch of foul names. In Aiden’s experience, she wasn’t going to respond well.
Without a word, she wrenched his finger back ninety degrees, snapping the first knuckle.
Jeff gasped and groaned in sheer shock and pain.
Impressive. He took it like a champ, without screaming.
“I tried to warn you,” Aiden said.
“Tell us who or I break another and another until you won’t be able to pour drinks with that hand, and then I’ll move on to the other.”
“Big Bill,” he grunted.
They exchanged a glance. “Yeah, we’re not from around here,” Aiden said. “We’re going to need a last name.”
“Walsh. Big Bill Walsh.”
“Why didn’t you go with your buddies?” she asked.
“I busted my knee a couple of years ago. Forced retirement. I’m no good to them anymore out there like this.”
“Why was Devlin hired for the job?”
She grabbed his middle finger when Jeff didn’t immediately answer her question.
“Because Big Bill wants Edgar Plinski. The guy’s a rat who killed his sister.”
Aiden hadn’t seen that coming. Most in WITSEC were some brand of criminal, but Edgar didn’t seem the murdering kind. The Department of Justice was certainly unaware of the allegation. If it was true, he’d be out of the program, since the immunity deal that he’d been given didn’t cover murder.
“Why is Big Bill offering so much money for any information Plinski might have in his possession?” Charlie asked, on a roll.
“Big Bill needs it. The other bosses are slowly squeezing him out. Enzo Romero already took half of his casino. It’s only a matter of time before he ends up floating in the river. No fingertips. No dental records. That’s if the FBI who’ve got him under surveillance don’t arrest him first.”
“Which casino?” Aiden asked.
“Which?” Jeff made it sound as if the answer should’ve been obvious. “The only real one in the city. Windfall.”
“Hey!” someone called from the street. “What are you doing? Jeff? Is that you?”
“Time to go,” Aiden said to Charlie.
Shots rang out as they took off down the alley.
Chapter Eleven
A second shot was fired somewhere behind them.
They rounded the corner, sprinted down the pavement and took another right turn, running side by side.
At the car, Aiden slid in behind the steering wheel and fired up the engine as Charlie dropped into the passenger seat. Without waiting for her to close the door, he swerved into traffic and peeled off down the street.
Pure adrenaline pumped in her blood and her head buzzed, but her thoughts circled around one thing.
Aiden Yazzie kissed me! Something she’d longed for and dreaded all at once.
And she had kissed him back. Without thinking, without choosing. It had been as necessary as breathing, and stopping hadn’t even been a whisper in her head.
His sexy mouth, his hot tongue... When they’d touched hers, everything had trembled. Her lips, her limbs, her bones, her heart. She would’ve sworn that the car had shaken.
He’d kissed her so deeply that she couldn’t tell where he ended and she began. She’d forgotten the rules, the boundaries, her name.
It was a good thing they’d been in a car parked on a city street. If they’d been anywhere remotely private, there would’ve been no stopping. The tension and touching would’ve grown hot and feverish, turning volcanic, until they were both ready to explode, their bodies demanding a release.
Arousing, erotic, enthrallingly rough images flooded her mind.
Crap. What the hell did this mean?
Did she really want to know?
Nope. Then she’d have to deal with it, which meant making a mess of things. Better to pretend it had never happened. Though it had, and she’d never forget it for as long as she lived.
“What’s up?” Aiden asked.
“Huh?”
“You were shaking your head and then you were nodding at something.”
“Oh, was I?” She cleared her throat, struggling for composure. “I was just thinking about bed. For sex. I mean sleep. For sleeping,” she said again, emphasizing the word with her hand. “It’s been a long day. I’m so exhausted that I’m delirious. I don’t know what I’m saying. We need to find a hotel.”
“Okay.” He gave her a weird look. “Should be easy enough.”
They chose a hotel on the outskirts of the French Quarter. A large, busy place with a heavy flow of tourists, but not surrounded by too much noise.
It was within walking distance of restaurants, shops of all kind and the Windfall Casino.
They parked in the hotel’s garage. Aiden carried their one bag.
Walking up to the check-in desk, she realized they didn’t have basic toiletries. Or pajamas. They’d have to sleep naked in the same room.
A hot rush of panic shot through her, stilling her.
Aiden’s hand went to the small of her back and he ushered her forward.
The clerk welcomed them with a smile. “Good evening.”
“We’d like to get a room,” Aiden said.
“How many nights?”
Aiden looked at her and she shrugged. Edgar had been gone almost twelve hours. He had another sixty to live, tops, if he was lucky.
“Two nights,” Aiden said. “A room away from the ice machine and near the stairs.”
They didn’t need the noise of the machine, or a reason for anyone to loiter near their room, and it was always good to be close to a second exit.
Charlie set the borrowed credit card on the counter.
“I’d prefer to leave cash to cover any incidentals,” Aiden said, surprising her at first.
On the chance Priscilla Johnson decided to report it stolen, order a new one and keep the fifteen hundred without worrying about the bill, it could put them in an awkward situation. Not to mention it’d give the hotel a reason to call the police.
Cash was best.
“No problem,” the clerk said. “For cash, we require two hundred and fifty dollars to cover any phone calls, the minibar and pay-per-view charges. If you order room service, you’ll have to pay the waitstaff when they deliver it.”
Aiden dug out enough bills from his wad of hundreds to cover the two-night stay plus incidentals. In return, the clerk handed them two key cards.
They swung by the mini-mart in the lobby, grabbed toiletries and got in the elevator.
She only meant to give Aiden’s reflection in the shiny steel wall a quick glance, but her eyes lingered. On his strong jaw. His dark T-shirt stretched tight across his shoulders. His hard muscles. Those legs that looked incredible in a pair of shorts, sexier filling out jeans. Probably best with nothing on at all.
And man, he could kiss. She had wanted to lose herself in the confident, demanding way he’d owned her mouth with so much passion, melting her protective barrier of ice into a puddle of desire. If that was how he kissed, how did he do other things?
A sensation she couldn’t name exploded through her. Stro
nger than lust. Animalistic and primitive. And she needed to shake it off quick.
With a ding, the elevator stopped, and the doors opened to the fourth floor. They found their room at the end of the hall. He opened the door, letting her in ahead of him.
She entered, taking in the spacious room, and froze.
There was one king-size bed.
“I can go change the room to a double,” Aiden said.
Always the gentleman, never wanting to put her in a compromising position that other men would’ve orchestrated.
Deep down, she didn’t know what she wanted. She’d fantasized about making love with Aiden more times than she could count on her fingers and toes combined. They were as close as two people could be without sleeping together. But in her experience, sex had a way of spoiling things. She’d do anything not to ruin their relationship.
Aiden was the only good thing in her life.
“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “I still have to stitch you up and it’s almost three in the morning.” They were both grown-ups and could handle sharing a bed.
Naked?
Maybe they’d have to sleep in their clothes.
“Why don’t you shower first,” Aiden said, and she nodded.
In the bathroom, she was relieved to find plush robes and slippers. The velvet-soft cotton would be much nicer to sleep in than her jeans.
Aiden knocked on the door. “Do you want me to order room service?”
I have one hell of an appetite. “No. I’m fine.” She was starving, but it was her growing hunger for him that worried her. The last thing they needed was to lounge on the bed in robes, with nothing on beneath, eating and talking, having a drink from the minibar. It was a recipe for trouble. Hot, sweaty, naked trouble. “I’d rather hit the hay sooner, wake up earlier and have a monster-sized breakfast, if that’s okay with you.”
He didn’t respond right away. Then he said, “All right.”
She brushed her teeth and hurried through her shower, washing her hair. After towel-drying, she threw on her robe, tying the belt in a knot to prevent any mishaps, and went into the bedroom. She avoided eye contact with him and headed for the bag sitting on the dresser.
