by R. Cayden
Stealing Pretty
Bad Boy Security, Book Two
R. Cayden
Copyright © 2020 by R. Cayden
All rights reserved.
Cover artist: Black Jazz Design
Proofreader: M. A. Hinkle
Beta reading by Jill Wexler & Megan Dischinger
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
Content Note
Summary
Bad Boy Security
Gray
Jameson
Gray
Gray
Gray
Jameson
Gray
Jameson
Gray
Jameson
Gray
Jameson
Jameson
Jameson
Gray
Gray
Jameson
Gray
Jameson
Gray
Gray
Jameson
Epilogue
About the Author
Also by R. Cayden
Content Note
One character in this novel lost both of his parents in a car crash when he was a teenager, which is referenced several times.
Summary
Sometimes, bad decisions felt really, really good.
And Gray knew a thing or two about bad decisions. He and his best friends had a habit of seeking revenge for innocent people by stealing luxury cars from the men who harmed them. Gray loved the hell out of a joyride, but he started on a different path the night his uncle came knocking, offering him a legitimate job as a bodyguard.
A bodyguard for the prettiest guy Gray had ever seen, that is. Jameson had been a teen dream action star before he retired from showbusiness at age twenty. He needed a bodyguard like Gray to keep the paparazzi away, and his secrets out of the public eye.
And Jameson had a lot of pretty secrets.
Once Jameson pouted his lips, Gray couldn’t resist himself. He got another bad idea. One that started with a stolen motorcycle and ended in a motel bed.
Because Gray can give Jameson love on the run. But can he make it last?
Stealing Pretty is Book 2 in Bad Boy Security, a steamy M/M series with guaranteed HEAs and plenty of twists. It can be enjoyed as a standalone, but for maximum pleasure, the series should be read in order. Enjoy!
Gray
Gray unfurled the heavy wool blanket and watched it flop against the grass at his feet. The moon was full, and the silver light was bright enough that he could see the expression on his friend Raiden’s face, his brows furrowed in concentration as he listened to the wind. Beside them, a chain fence with barbed wire across the top stretched along the hillside, and beneath, a sprawling mansion sat in the moonlight, waiting.
“You ready?” Raiden asked quietly, cocking his eyebrow.
By way of answering, Gray hurled the blanket upward with a grunt, sprawling it across the barbed wire. He offered Raiden his hand, and his friend stepped right in it as he flung himself over the fence, then leapt to the lawn beneath.
“Come on!” he hissed. “We don’t have all night.”
“You weren’t in such a damn hurry when we stopped at Taco Bell on the way here,” Gray grumbled as he climbed the fence.
The mansion belonged to an asshole they’d been scouting for weeks. Their buddy Horatio had spotted the man at the park, where he had smacked his dog, something that made Horatio mad as a snake tied in a fucking knot. Naturally, he trailed the guy, learning that not only was he loaded with cash, but that he also cheated on his wife like it was his day job, and with girls who couldn’t have been more than eighteen or nineteen. After that, it didn’t take more than some quick googling to put the rest of the pieces together. From his career ripping off poor immigrant tenants in New York City to his college yearbook reputation as “The Pounder,” the guy had target written all over him.
“Where did you say this guy went for the weekend?” Gray asked. “Florida?”
“Miami,” Raiden answered as they approached the big brick garage, down at the other end of the driveway from the main house. He immediately headed to a gray box by the side door, then pulled out a small device, which he used to connect his phone to the box. “There’s like a convention or whatever down there,” he mumbled as he typed into his phone. “He actually brought his wife for once.”
“A convention,” Gray mumbled, suddenly remembering to lower his voice. He rocked back on his heel and then glanced around the property. He and Raiden were each wearing plain black jackets, black leather gloves, and black wool caps, and they’d positioned themselves right at the edge of the shadow the garage cast.
All the exterior lights flickered; then Raiden disconnected his phone from the box. “All set,” he grinned. “Security system powered down.”
“I’ll text Horatio,” Gray nodded as he pulled out his phone.
Raiden punched a button on the gray box, and immediately, the garage door rolled up with a whirr. He hurried around the corner to pound a switch, and the garage was bathed in a bright white light.
“Holy shit,” Gray said, stepping forward. “You weren’t kidding. That’s a lot of fucking motorcycles.”
“He calls it his manhood,” Raiden said, spitting the word. “Once I heard that, it was like, what the hell else were we going to do, you know?”
Gray grinned and rubbed his hands together. “Exactly. Let’s go bike shopping.”
The bikes were set up in long rows, each one gleaming its own silver, red, blue, or black. There were choppers with their raked forks, power cruisers that were heavily customized, and sport bikes that looked hungry for the road.
“Which one do you think is his favorite?” Gray asked, tapping his chin.
“That one is from a movie,” Raiden said, pointing at a vintage cruiser.
“What movie?”
“I don’t know. I think it was set in outer space?”
Gray furrowed his brow. “What? Why would there be an old cruiser on a spaceship? There’s no room to ride it!”
“I don’t know, man,” Raiden grunted. “I haven’t seen the movie.”
“Well how am I supposed to know if I want it if you can’t even tell me what the movie was? What if it’s a movie I hate?”
Raiden frowned, then pointed at a sports bike. “If you’re going to be so fussy about it, I guess I should let you know now—that one’s from a TV show.”
“A TV show?”
“Or maybe it was a music video. Did Jay-Z ever ride a motorcycle on a spaceship?”
A rumble interrupted their banter, and a moment later, an old truck with an open bed rolled down the driveway and backed up to the garage. Horatio jumped out, the motor still humming, then shoved his gloved hands in his jacket pocket as he wandered over, cloaked in the same generic disguise as the rest of them.
“Any trouble up front?” Gray asked.
“Nope, all smooth,” Horatio answered. He was taller than Gray, even taller than Raiden, and he cast a shadow out across the driveway as he peered in on the bikes. “We can probably only fit two bikes on the back of this thing, maybe only one if it’s a bigger ride.”
“We’ll each drive one,” Gray said, slapping Raiden on the back. “Three or four is a solid haul.”
Without another word, the three jumped into action. Gray had been best friends with Raiden and Horatio for years. When he found them, they were each lost, constantly getting themselves into trouble, and without a soul to watch their backs. Raiden was getting himself beaten and bruised in bar fights, always trying t
o play the hero, and Horatio was a true loner, lost in the shadows. Gray had taken them each in, and, as a group, they’d made their own path in the world and found a way to fight back against all the assholes that tried to kick them down. All in their late twenties now, when they ran a job together, they didn’t have to say a word. They just moved, silently and in perfect coordination.
Like a damn family, Gray thought to himself as he rolled a sleek yellow superbike forward, a Ducati he knew could go fast as the devil.
“We should pick one to keep,” Horatio said. “I know the money is too good not to sell them, but we should have one good motorcycle around the shop, yeah?”
“Absolutely,” Raiden said.
“Couldn’t agree more,” Gray nodded. “Probably one of these sports bikes.”
“Or a chopper,” Raiden added.
Horatio frowned, then crossed his arms over his chest. “I like that pink one.”
They all turned to look at the pink one. Come to think of it, Gray actually liked that one, too. Not for himself, of course. He wasn’t flashy like that. He didn’t even have a tattoo on his body or a pierced ear, just a little scruff on his face and a smile that got him in trouble.
But the type of guy who could pull off riding a motorcycle like that? Damn, but that was something Gray was happy to think about.
“Earth to Gray,” Raiden barked. “The douchebag who owns this place won’t be back until Sunday, but that doesn’t mean we should spend the whole weekend standing in his garage gawking.”
Gray grunted. “Let’s do the pink one. Horatio hasn’t won an argument in a while.”
“Hell yeah,” Horatio laughed, pumping his fist in the air. “We got a pink motorcycle now, boys!”
It wasn’t fifteen more minutes before Gray and Raiden were cruising down the backroads, away from that mansion and toward home. They lived on the edge of Albany, and the drive from Mr. Motorcycle Manhood’s house took a solid two hours, winding through the hills and avoiding the highways until they were nearly back at the house Gray and Raiden shared.
Gray felt a swell of giddy pride as they turned down another hilly backroad, “Another One Bites the Dust” blasting in the helmet’s Bluetooth speaker. He, Raiden, and Horatio had been getting better and better at pulling gigs like this one, which was good, considering the little mechanic shop they tried to run out of their garage barely pulled in any business.
And unlike the criminal family Gray grew up in, he and his guys didn’t target just anyone. They didn’t take advantage of good people; they just stuck it to the kinds of assholes who truly deserved it.
He knew he wasn’t Robin fucking Hood, but still, it was something, and Gray tried to hold onto it.
Gray rode that high for a good thirty, forty minutes before it started to sag, and his doubts returned. He got the urge to look over his shoulder, make sure a cop hadn’t snuck up on them and started to run the plates. He started to think about all the cousins, friends, and distant relatives who had ended up dead under his grandfather’s watch. Years ago, it had felt like enough that he dragged Horatio and Raiden out of the pits they had sunk into. But now that they had made a life together, new responsibilities had fallen in Gray’s life.
It made sense to be a ragtag group when they were younger. But now the time had come for Gray to prove himself and to find a way to keep his guys safe.
“Don’t be a disappointment, Gray,” he whispered into the helmet, the words disappearing with the wind.
He revved the engine, then flew ahead of the truck Horatio was driving. The cool breeze bit at his skin, and morning was probably only an hour away. With the money they made from this sale, he and Raiden would at least be able to get the roof redone, and Horatio would be able to update the equipment in their garage. It would be one more step in building a different life, for whatever that was worth.
Then he turned the corner into his driveway and nearly sprawled to the ground when he had to hit the brakes, his ride sliding and jumping beneath him. Standing in the middle of the driveway was a hulking man in his mid-forties, with a steel glare in his eyes and fists tightened into thick knots. Raiden and Horatio both slammed to a halt behind him, and the headlights of the truck lit the man up.
“Uncle Declan?” Gray asked as he hopped off the bike and tugged his helmet off. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“What the hell,” Declan grunted, holding a hand over his eyes. “Cut the goddamn lights, will you?”
Gray’s uncle had moved to the area about a year ago, when he turned his back on a life of crime in order to start his own security agency with his new boyfriend. Gray and Declan didn’t have much by way of family, and Gray had quickly started to idolize the older man, from his stories working with the mob in Vegas to the new life he’d made for himself outside of New York City. Gray had learned more from his uncle than he could possibly explain, even if it was a pain in the ass to have the older man breathing down his neck and pointing out every mistake he made.
“I fucking knew it,” Declan growled as he thrust his finger against Gray’s chest, pushing him backward. “You can’t go two months without pulling some bonehead job, can you?”
“Ow,” Gray grunted as Declan’s finger poked him hard. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Declan gestured to the motorcycles with a sweep of his hand. “What do you think I’m talking about? You left your plans lying out on the kitchen table for two weeks, for fuck’s sake. If my boyfriend hadn’t hacked into that security system and turned off the perimeter cameras, the license on your truck would be recorded right now, and you’d all be in deep, deep shit.”
Another queasy knot formed in Gray’s stomach, jolted by worry and doubt that he had screwed the job up. Before he could say anything, Raiden stepped forward, a cocky grin on his face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Declan. I ran a security sweep and counted all the cameras and disabled the system myself at the garage.”
Declan took a step like he was about to offer Raiden his hand, then swatted him up the back of his head instead.
“Ow!” Raiden snapped. “What’s that for?”
“For the first camera you missed when you did your security sweep,” Declan answered, then smacked him upside the head twice more. “And that’s for the other two.”
Raiden, Gray, and Horatio all looked at each other. It was cold enough that their breath fogged the air as they all looked sheepishly back and forth. After a moment, Gray sighed.
“Thanks for disabling the security cameras, Uncle Declan,” he mumbled.
“Yeah, thanks,” Raiden and Horatio mumbled over each other, sounding more like dejected teenagers than the badasses they had been playing a couple hours ago.
Declan cursed under his breath, then nodded. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get these in your garage before anyone sees them. At least I know you’re smart enough to sell them. That pink one alone would get you spotted the second you took it out in daylight.”
“See?” Raiden whispered as they pushed the motorcycles down the driveway. “I told you we should have kept the chopper.”
Soon enough, the loot was stored away and the garage locked up safely. Declan ranted for a while in the kitchen while Gray enjoyed a nightcap with his friend, the exhaustion of the long evening finally hitting him while the sun started to peek over the trees. The adrenaline from pulling off the job crashed to the floor, and as Declan listed off security protocols to make sure they had all been followed on the heist, Gray let out a yawn.
Declan stopped ranting, then leaned back against the counter. “Why don’t you guys get to bed,” he said. “I’ll finish tearing you new assholes later.”
“Thanks, Declan,” Horatio and Raiden muttered as they dragged themselves out of the room, looking as tired as Gray felt.
“Hold up,” Declan said, grabbing Gray’s shoulder when he started to stand. The squeeze was firm, comforting, but also strong enough that Gray knew he wasn’t in the clear yet.
&
nbsp; “What’s up?”
Declan kept his eye for a minute, studying his nephew, before he turned away and started to mess with the coffee machine. “I need your help with something.”
“My help?” Declan had never asked Gray for anything, and he felt a surge of excitement that Declan might need him, instead of it always just being the other way around. “Sure, Uncle Declan. Anything you want. Why, those mob guys trying to mess with you again? You know we make good muscle, if you need it. Raiden can take on two, three guys all by himself.”
Declan grunted, punched on the coffee machine, and then turned back around. “Gray, I need you to pick up a job for the security company.”
“Oh!” Gray frowned. It wasn’t really the kind of work he did, but he knew his uncle would pay well. “What is it? Security for a small concert?” That was most of the work the agency had been getting.
“That, I can organize myself,” Declan answered. “But you know I can’t take on any of these bodyguard gigs. I promised Seb I would stay safe and close to home.”
“Which one is this gig?” Gray asked. “Dangerous or far from home?”
“Only the second one,” Declan answered. “And not too bad at that. It’s full-time, in Connecticut.”
“Connecticut?” Gray blurted out. “What, do you think I’m going to move there or something?”
Declan pulled out a chair from the kitchen table and dropped down into it, straight across from Gray. He held his nephew’s eye as Gray shook his head, disbelieving. All the things that tied Gray to his home in Albany flashed through his mind, from his work in the mechanic’s shop to his responsibilities with Raiden and Horatio. You didn’t just leave your family behind. Gray wasn’t that kind of guy, and he wasn’t going to be that kind of leader, either.