by Tate James
I couldn't figure out if that irritated me or impressed me, but I seemed to be leaning towards the latter.
The reason I wished I hadn't read it was because I was having a hard time not replying to him. Christ, I'd known the kid—because that's exactly what he fucking well was—for all of three days, and he'd already got under my skin worse than anyone else since Chase's death.
It was so damn tempting I sat there with a reply screen open for ages. Then a new message came through, and I breathed a sigh of relief that I had a distraction.
Zed: You okay, boss?
I frowned, then tapped my reply.
Hades: Yeah, why? Something happen?
The little bubble that said he was typing popped up, then disappeared, then reappeared, and my eye twitched with irritation.
Right when I was about to call him, his response appeared.
Zed: Nothing new. Just checking in.
Weird. I frowned at his message for a moment, then hit call at the top of the screen. It only rang once before he answered.
"What the fuck, Zed?" I asked in lieu of a greeting. "What was that about?"
"What? I just hadn't heard from you this morning." He didn't sound strange... Maybe I was overthinking things.
"So?" I wrinkled my nose in confusion. Then understanding dawned. "Oh, you're worried that seeing my Darling logo on Sonny's corpse has sent me into a dark place, huh?"
There was a long pause, and I knew I'd guessed right.
"I was just checking in, boss," Zed replied eventually, his tone neutral. "Nothing more to it."
Bullshit.
"If you say so, liar," I muttered. "I'm at Wolf HQ checking the reports, but I'll call when I'm done here. The contractors for Timber ran into some city council red tape that needs to be lubricated."
"Understood. I'll wait on your call then." Zed was back to his usual polite respectfulness.
Annoyed, I ended the call without another word, then drummed my fingertips on the desk a couple of times. Seeing that tattoo had shaken me, no question, but it had also felt like something shifted with Zed and me. Like we were us again, for just a couple of hours. I missed that.
Releasing another sigh, I tossed my phone aside and plugged the black hard drive in. I may as well put my restless mind to good work staying on top of every facet of my income streams.
Timberwolves documents took a whole lot longer to wade through, thanks to every single folder being encrypted, but by the time I was done, I felt a whole crapload calmer. Control freak coping mechanisms.
Macy was still at her desk when I dropped the hard drives back, and she politely bid me a good night as I left the office.
My phone rang as I stepped into the elevator, and I frowned when I saw the caller ID.
"Vega," I said on accepting the call.
"Hades," he replied, sounding grim. "Got news for you."
A groan rolled through my mind, even though I knew Sonny-boy hadn't been a coincidence. Still, did it all have to happen at once? Didn't mysterious bad guys ever take a break for normal life?
"Get on with it then," I snapped to hurry him the hell up. I despised dramatic pauses, unless I was the one using them.
"Couple of college kids over here in Dogwood were taken to the ER this weekend. Suspected PCP overdose." Vega sounded less than pleased to be delivering this information to me, but I had to give him props for calling me himself and not palming it off on his second.
I ran my tongue over my lips, wetting them as my whole mouth had gone very suddenly dry, then I pulled my shit together.
"Send me copies of their medical files," I told him. "What condition are they in now? Lucid enough to talk?"
"They are. Already given a statement to my guys too. I'll include that for you to read. Nothing stands out to me as suspect, except that they got their hands on angel dust to fucking start with." The fury in his voice was clear, and I expected nothing less. Some other fucker selling banned drugs on his turf was a clear challenge to his authority.
"Get to cleaning up, Vega," I told him with a hard edge. "Whoever is doing this isn't working alone, and I don't believe for a second the Wraiths were the only street gang infiltrated."
He let out a frustrated sigh, but he knew I was right. "On it," he growled.
I ended the call as the elevator doors opened to the parking level and stalked over to my car. My favorite mode of transport, my motorcycle, was still parked at 7th Circle where I'd left it on Saturday night, but I’d been feeling far too Hades this morning to drive my Range Rover. So I was in my hot red Corvette and loving how it matched the soles of my shoes and my lipstick.
Rather than calling Zed, I just drove straight back to Shadow Grove, knowing I'd likely find him at 7th Circle. He was officially the group’s manager overseeing all the bars but was standing in as venue manager for 7th until we found someone who was a good fit for the role.
My phone pinged a few times along the way, and I knew it'd be Vega sending me the files he’d promised. While I appreciated his honesty in bringing me the information, it sure as fuck wasn't what I wanted to hear.
It was sounding more and more like a targeted attack across all my zones at once. Reaper dealers being arrested outside Anarchy, kids in Vega's town OD'ing, Sonny getting murdered... all in the same night.
I'd put money on it that Maurice had something to tell me, too, but was still searching for his balls.
It was late by the time I pulled into the parking lot outside 7th Circle, and there were more cars than usual for a Tuesday night—always a good sign for a profitable night at the bar and in the back rooms.
One of the reserved spaces beside my bike was free, so I parked my Corvette and frowned when I realized Zed's Ferrari was nowhere to be seen. Maybe he'd caught a lift in with Emily or Annika or Selena or whoever the fuck he'd spent last night with. Hoping I would find him, I headed inside anyway.
The buzz inside the club as I passed through the main doors was electric, something more suited to a weekend than early in the week, and I frowned with confusion. What the hell had the crowd so worked up?
My silent question was answered a second later, though, when I entered the main bar area and stopped dead in my tracks.
There on my main stage, working the pole like he’d been born to dance, was a very sweaty, very sexy, very possibly underage Lucas Wilder.
Fuck. It was his first night, and I'd forgotten to fire him.
15
Joanne, my 7th Circle bar manager and most likely choice to promote to venue manager, sidled over to me as I stood there frozen in shock.
"Bet you're glad you hired that one, boss," she commented, her admiration for Lucas's skill on the pole evident in the way her eyes sparkled and her smile spread wide over her face. "This is the most worked up I've seen a Tuesday crowd since we opened. They're barely even paying attention to poor Destiny." She indicated to the next stage over, where one of our full-time girls was shaking her tits for a group of sloppy businessmen.
Jo had a point; the attention was mostly on Lucas, from men and women alike. Damn, if that didn't make my blood burn like acid through my veins.
Lucas seemed to sense me watching because his eyes scanned over the crowd until he locked with my gaze. A slow smile curved his lush lips, and with a confident look in his eyes, he sent me a slow, deliberate wink.
The women watching let out a collective scream, each of them probably imagining it'd been sent to them, but I just gave a slow shake of my head. He fucking knew he was in deep shit, yet he didn't run. He didn't back down or cower away from the impending doom that was my anger.
I kinda liked that.
"Ho-ly damn," Joanne coughed a laugh. "I think I just creamed my pants, and he wasn't even looking at me."
I scowled. "He's half your age, Jo. Keep it professional."
The older woman just gave a small shrug. "Age is just a number, boss. So long as he's legal, ain't no one got any reason to judge."
Fucking hell, hadn't I only rece
ntly thought a very similar thing when justifying my attraction to Cass? Why the hell should it be so different if Lucas was the younger one? So long as he was, in fact, legal. If I found out he was actually seventeen, I might have to put myself into witness protection from myself.
"Send him to my office when he gets off stage," I told Jo as Lucas performed some particularly jaw-dropping move on the pole that should have been straight out of the circus. He had said he was into gymnastics.
Jo grinned knowingly. "Yes, boss. Can do." I leveled a flat glare at her, and she quickly wiped the smile from her face and cleared her throat. "Uh, sorry. Yes, absolutely, the second his set finishes. Can I get you a drink?"
"Yes," I replied, "a gimlet. Have you seen Zed tonight?"
She nodded. "Yes, sir. He left about half an hour ago to sort out a stock issue over at 22."
Damn it. I needed to tell him about the kids in Dogwood and read through the notes Vega had sent across. Jo was already heading back behind the bar to make my cocktail, so I decided to wait for it at the bar to save pulling a waitress away to deliver it to my office.
Yeah. That's why I stayed. To save a waitress from walking up a flight of stairs to deliver my drink. It had nothing to do with the stunning creature gyrating on the stage for a horde of screaming women. It definitely had nothing to do with the way his gaze kept coming back to me or the way his movements seemed to echo what he'd done to me in bed a couple of days ago.
Ugh. I was clearly getting bitten by karma for all the people I'd killed.
Jo handed over my cocktail way too quickly, but I forced myself to look away from the stage as I headed up to my office. At least I knew he'd be getting a good look at my ass in the tight lace-up pencil skirt I was wearing.
Even with the door to my office closed, though, I could hear the music booming up through the floor. I hadn't bothered sound-proofing this room, knowing it wouldn't be my office for more than a few months, but now I was regretting that choice. Especially when “Pony” by Genuwine came on and the crowd went mental.
"Oh, come on," I groaned, then promptly turned my CCTV monitors on. Yes, I was that level of masochistic. No, I didn't care when there was no one around to witness me self-destruct.
Luckily—or unluckily—my phone started ringing with Zed's name flashing on the screen, so I switched the screens off again before answering.
"Trouble at 22?" I asked him after connecting the call.
"Minimal," he responded, the sound of live music playing in the background of his call. We often had a jazz band at Club 22 early in the week, and a local dance school had taken to dropping by after class to let off steam. It was a fun atmosphere.
"I'm at 7th," I told him. "How soon can you get here? Vega had some shit in Dogwood that we need to discuss."
Zed let out a small, frustrated groan, and I initially thought it was in response to my news. But then I caught the low, seductive sound of a woman's laughter and reassessed.
"Actually, never mind," I snapped, letting my annoyance take control of my tongue for a second. "I'll call if I need help."
"Hade—" His protest cut off as I ended the call.
For some reason my anger had spiked dramatically, so I carefully placed my phone down on the desk and drew a few calming breaths. As a teenager I'd taken a trip to Tibet and studied meditation with monks for a month. I was awful at it, but more and more these days I found myself remembering their lessons in control. Even if it only worked on the surface.
By the time I’d finished my drink—admittedly in just a few mouthfuls—there was a knock at the door, and my heart slammed into my rib cage harder than ever.
"Enter," I called out, already knowing who it would be. The quintessential male stripper song had stopped playing downstairs, and the crowd was already more subdued.
When Jo had said she would send him up when he got off stage, she'd been literal. Lucas stepped into my office still glistening with sweat and wearing nothing but a black towel draped around his hips. I was going to assume he had a thong underneath, too, seeing as my strippers didn't go fully nude. Not front of house, anyway.
"You asked to see me, Hades?" he asked, all innocence.
Dammit. This had been a bad idea. Why had I asked to see him in my office alone, again? Oh yeah, to fire his lying teenage ass.
"Close the door, Lucas," I told him in a curt voice, trying really hard to keep my eyes off his body. Had he gotten more buff since the weekend? My pussy clearly hadn't gotten the message that Lucas was now off-limits because it was throbbing with need just having him so close and so very undressed.
He did as he was told, then sat down in one of the chairs opposite me. He didn't look even the slightest bit worried that he might not walk out of the office alive, and I still wasn't sure if that was total ignorance or the biggest balls in the goddamn world.
"What are you doing here?" I asked before the tension could ramp up any higher. "Do you have some sort of death wish?"
One of his brows tweaked up, and he ran a hand over the back of his neck, swiping sweat away. The motion made his chest and biceps flex, and I clamped my lips tight to stop from drooling.
"I was on the roster for my first shift tonight," he replied, a tiny smile playing at his lush lips. "And no one told me not to show up, so..."
I glowered. He knew damn well he shouldn't have.
"My mistake," I seethed. "Consider yourself fired, Lucas. I don't take kindly to my employees blatantly lying to my face."
He let out a breath, some of that cocky arrogance slipping away. "I didn't lie—" He started to say, then cut himself off when my eyes narrowed further. "Okay, so I did lie a little bit," he amended. "But I had no idea who you were when I said I was twenty-one, and I really needed this job. I know your clubs don't usually hire anyone under the legal drinking age, so I had my ID tweaked..."
I said nothing, just glared, but he didn't flinch away. Not once. Balls of fucking steel.
"Look," he tried again, this time totally dropping the playboy bullshit in favor of what seemed to be sincerity. "I lied to you about my age and my surname, but that's it. Everything else was one hundred percent truth, and can you really blame me? You wouldn't have looked twice if you'd known I was eighteen."
Oh wow. Eighteen. Better than seventeen, I guessed.
"You're right," I murmured. "I'd have thrown your ass out of my bar for using a fake ID and risking my liquor license." He cocked a brow at me, like he was silently calling me out, and I let out an annoyed growl. "Fine, I probably wouldn't have. But you can bet your ass—"
"That you wouldn't have dragged me into the supply closet of a grunge bar and let me fuck you against the door?" he finished my sentence for me. "Yeah, like I said, can you blame me? That was easily the best night of my whole damn life, only to be topped by the next day at your place."
My cheeks warmed at the reminder, and I scrubbed a hand over my face. This had definitely been a bad idea to bring him up to my office. All I could think about was how good he felt sinking into my cunt and the way he whispered my name like a prayer as he fucked me.
"You're a liability, Lucas," I told him, desperately fighting my baser instincts. "You distract me, and that's something I can't afford in my line of business."
Determined to extract myself from a situation that was fast slipping out of my control, I pushed back from my desk and stalked over to the door. Opening it, I turned back to Lucas with a tight jaw.
"Leave now, and I'll pretend this never happened. I'll even put in a good word for you at the Starbucks near Shadow Prep." Okay, that was a bit of a low blow, but my brain was misfiring all over the place.
He stood slowly from the chair, then gave a short, humorless laugh as he shook his head. There were only a couple of steps between him and the doorway, and for a hot second, I thought he was going to pass straight through without another word.
But then he paused, his fingers gripping the edge of the door and his sheer nearness making my skin prickle.
&n
bsp; "So, that's it? I'm fired?" his tone was low and thoughtful, and I frowned.
"Yes. Do you need it in writing?" Anxiety was making me snappier than my usual cold, detached self, and my reply made him smirk.
His gaze met mine, his green eyes twinkling with victory. "Good."
He pushed the door, slamming it shut, then slammed his lips against mine. Shock held me immobile, but I really should have seen it coming. I’d said I couldn't fuck him because I was his boss. Then I’d fired him.
It didn't take a high school graduate to add those numbers up.
And yet I didn't immediately push him away. Why? Because holy god, he kissed like the devil, all sinful and intoxicating. Lucas whatever-his-name-was hit my bloodstream like pure cocaine and lit me up like a fucking Christmas tree.
I groaned, kissing him back and letting him crush me against the wall as his towel dropped to the floor. The level of willpower I needed to summon to push him away was staggering, but somehow, I managed it.
Except with that space between us, and his towel on the ground, his little black thong was doing fuck all to hide his massive erection.
My mouth watered and my pussy clenched. I'd officially lost my damn mind because I was already trying to work out the easiest, quickest way to get his dick inside me, considering how tight my damn skirt was.
"Don't push me away, Hayden," he pleaded in a rough whisper, his gaze burning with intensity. "Just give me a chance."
He drifted back closer again, and when I didn't shove him back, his lips dropped to the bend of my neck and his hands clasped my hips. It was a bad idea. It was such a bad idea. But Jo’d had a point earlier... so long as he was legal, age was just a number. And I wasn't exactly a cougar, either. So was it really such a bad idea?
"Goddammit, Lucas," I groaned, sliding my fingers into his hair and gripping it tight as I brought his lips back to mine.
My desire for control flipped a switch, and a moment later I'd reversed our positions, crushing his gorgeous body against the wall—not that Lucas seemed to mind. His hands found their way under my black silk blouse, tugging it free from my skintight skirt and palming my breasts.