Repeat Offender

by Vale, Lani Lynn

  His eyes took me in, I was sure, wondering if he should give away his way of finding out my secrets.

  “I run this town,” he said after a while. “There’s nothing that can happen here that I don’t know about. I may not have known that you were here before you walked up on us, but I would’ve found out eventually.”

  I had a feeling he was right, and I didn’t want to know how he knew.

  “Bruno, Laric,” I said as we passed. “I’d say it was a pleasure but… it wasn’t.”

  Laric’s eyes went sparkly with humor as we passed. Bruno scowled. Hard.

  I looked away and kept walking, a knot in my gut making me wonder just what in the hell I was thinking trying to find him.

  How wrong I’d been.

  “Bruno will take your gear.” Lynn murmured.

  I nodded.

  Getting back out to the front of the house, I took one last longing glance at the big house before climbing onto the bike.

  I did this much more gracefully than last time.

  Seconds later, what I thought was acceptable as a good mounting on my end wasn’t as good as I’d thought. He sat down, and his sexy ass pinched my thighs slightly.

  I licked my lips as I found myself pressed up tightly to Lynn’s back when he finally moved into position.

  When I went to move backward, trying to give him room, he stilled my hips.

  “Easier to control everything when you’re closer like this,” he murmured softly.

  My heart started to beat double-time because Mr. Prim and Proper Mayor’s hand was on my ass.

  On. My. Ass.

  What. The. Fuck?

  “Umm, okay,” I said quietly. “I can stay.”

  I mean, if he didn’t mind that I was all pressed up against him, then I sure the fuck wanted to stay.

  Why? Because I was a glutton for punishment.

  And again, like the ride last time, the entire time that I was pressed against his ass, things inside of me were jiggling and shaking that had never jiggled or shook before. By the time that we got to Crockett’s Corner, I was a freakin’ ball of nerves.

  I had no doubt in my mind that my eyes were slightly glazed and my cheeks were hot.

  Luckily, the evening sun still had quite a bit of heat left to it, giving me enough reason to have a flush to my cheeks.

  When he shut the bike off, he held out his hand and waited until I’d taken it and gotten off before he followed suit.

  I shakily handed him the helmet he’d had at his house back, and he placed it onto his seat before gesturing with his hand for me to precede him inside.

  I did, my hand shaking like a leaf when I reached for the door handle.

  It never made it to my hand because Lynn leaned past me and latched onto the door handle, his chest brushing my back and side as he did.

  Opening it up for me, he waited until I’d gone inside with a muttered ‘thanks’ before following close at my heels.

  Crockett, who’d been busy sitting behind the counter in a camp chair with her feet resting on the counter, all but fell forward at the sight of us.

  Her eyes went from me to Lynn and back.

  “Umm,” she said, her eyes wide. “Did you run into some trouble?”

  I snickered. “You could say that.”

  Kidnapping, men getting beat up, and reconnecting with who you thought was an old friend was considered ‘trouble,’ right?

  “Are you here for your burger?” she asked. “I thought you were going to stay the night?”

  I wrinkled my nose in distaste.

  “I got what I needed already,” I lied. “Some great videos of some deer. I already posted it. Did you see?”

  She nodded. “I thought you were going up there for something bigger, though? I read on your Instagram that you were looking for a mountain lion. A predator.”

  I looked at the man over my shoulder and thought that Lynn could definitely pass for a predator. He was big, silent, dark and deadly.

  Yeah, he could pass for a predator all right.

  “Um, yeah.” I shrugged. “I might or might not have forgotten that I have an appointment to make. I met up with a friend here,” I jerked my head in Lynn’s direction. “He’s going to grab something to eat with me. But I am going to get Wyett’s burger to go, please.”

  Her eyes flicked to the silent man at my side.

  He was once again fully dressed in his suit and didn’t look at all the scary man that I’d met in the middle of that field earlier in the day, beating a man with a pair of brass knuckles.

  A pair of brass knuckles that he right then had in his pocket, ready for him at a moment’s notice.

  “What can I get you, sir?” Crockett asked quietly.

  Lynn’s hard eyes went to her—they’d previously been checking out the store. “I’ll have what she’s having.”

  Crockett’s eyes were wide. “No veggies at all?”

  Lynn’s eyes turned to me. “I don’t like the way the veggies take away from the taste of the burger.”

  His eyes studied my face, then he turned back to Crockett. “Exactly what she has.”

  Crockett looked at him for a few long seconds, likely just as lost in his deep voice and confident manner as I was.

  “O-okay,” she said. “Coming right up.”

  When Crockett left, Lynn turned to me. “Where would you like to sit?”

  Was his lap an option?

  “Umm,” I hesitated.

  CHAPTER 8

  The only people I trust are Jack, Jim & Jose.

  -T-shirt

  LYNN

  “Anywhere is fine,” she said softly. Hesitantly. “I don’t mind.”

  I took the table that was farthest away from where the young woman was making our burgers.

  She sat down on the chair across from me, and placed her hands primly in her lap, her eyes focused on me.

  Her brown eyes were magnificent, and I found myself hoping that she wouldn’t put on the contacts that colored them anymore.

  “Why do you wear colored contacts?” I asked curiously.

  “Pisses my dad off,” she said, shrugging. “Anything that bothers him, and isn’t an outright dig at him, I try to take. I’m passive aggressive. But again, I know how far I can push him.”

  “You need to push him often?” I leaned back in my chair, crossing my right leg over my left knee.

  “I don’t like to be his well-behaved pet,” she answered. “I especially don’t like when he tries to make me do things that I don’t want to do.”

  “Like attend parties for mayors?” I teased.

  She wrinkled her nose. “It wasn’t the worst thing I’ve ever had to go to.”

  “What was the worst thing?” I wondered.

  “Anything that has me dressing up super formally, playing my father’s puppet, is considered the worst thing,” she admitted. “I don’t particularly like getting dressed up, and I really don’t like putting on a show.”

  “Why do you do it?” I wondered.

  Her head tilted.

  “Have you ever been to prison?” she asked sweetly.

  Crockett came over with our burgers and fries and placed them down in front of us. They looked delicious, and I was kind of kicking myself for never taking the time to stop by here before now.

  “Thank you,” I said softly to Crockett.

  She nodded and walked back to the grill, likely taking the time to box the other dinner up.

  My lips turned up as I replied to her earlier question. “Nope, have you?”

  She pursed her lips. “Does being in the back of a cop car count as prison?”

  I chuckled as I shoved my face full of one of the best burgers that I’d ever had.

  “No,” I said around a bite. “But go ahead and tell me what you did anyway. You have me curious.”

  She ripped open several ketchup packets that were in a basket in the middle of the table, drizzling them all over the top of the fries instead of a nice, tidy pile on the side
of her plate that she could dip them into. I should’ve known that she’d be that kind of person.

  “When I was six, I decided that I really wanted a cat. But my father wouldn’t let me have one. So I decided that the best thing to do was go into my neighbor’s house and steal hers,” I said. “The neighbor called the cops because she didn’t know that it was just a kid that’d gone into her house. When I came outside with the cat, there were about ten guns pointed at me. And, apparently, when my father was told what happened, he told them to arrest me,” she explained.

  My mouth went dry as she told me that story.

  “They pointed their guns at you?” I asked for clarification, suddenly very angry. And very perturbed at the thought of this beautiful woman, child or not, having a loaded weapon pointed at her for any reason.

  “Yep,” she confirmed. “They thought that I was an intruder. I was. I’m not mad.”

  “I am,” he said. “You don’t point guns at a child. I don’t care if they think it’s an intruder or not.”

  She wouldn’t be changing my mind, either. That was the whole ‘recon’ thing that you did. How, exactly, could something like that be verified? What if that’d been one of the homeowner’s children?

  She rolled her eyes. “It is what it is. Or was what it was. I’m more traumatized by my father’s reaction to me wanting a cat. I swear, he acted like I’d committed murder. I hadn’t even gotten the cat into my house.”

  “Is he allergic?” I asked, going back to my burger.

  “No,” I grumbled. “He’s just against anything that might cause a hair to be on his clothes.”

  “So you could have a snake?” I wondered.

  “No.” She wrinkled up her nose in disgust. “I couldn’t have anything. Maybe a more apt explanation is that he didn’t much like me, so anything that I wanted wasn’t really a priority for him.”

  I did not like hearing that. Not at all.

  I’d never really liked Ivan Broussard. We’d never seen eye to eye.

  But seeing how he’d treated her at the board meeting, and my inauguration, followed by what she’d just told me about being arrested and forced to sit in a police car? That really wasn’t something that I liked hearing, and my opinion of the man only degraded from there.

  “Have you ever been arrested?” she asked.

  I took another bite of my sandwich, wiped my hands off by rubbing them together, and then leaned back in the chair as I crossed my arms in front of me.

  “Yes,” I answered.

  Her brows rose, as if she was half expecting me to say no.

  “For what?” she asked. “How many times?”

  More than I could count.

  “I was arrested when I was sixteen for beating the shit out of some guy that tried to feel up my sister,” I said, feeling a pang go through my heart at remembering that time with my deceased sister. God, she’d been so scared. So fucking scared. “When I was twenty, I was arrested again for popping some old fucker in the face who thought it would be hilarious to beat the shit out of a little boy that tried to come into his yard for a ball. When I was twenty-one…”

  She held up her hand. “Let me guess, you beat the shit out of someone because they wronged someone else.”

  I shrugged. “Maybe.”

  Right.

  “Have you ever been in the military?” she continued her line of questions.

  I nodded once, not giving her any more than that.

  That was a part of my life that I didn’t like talking about. A time of my life that was best kept secret.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” she questioned.

  I decided to distract her.

  “What kind of serial killer type person puts” —I pointed at her ketchup drenched French fries— “ketchup on their fries like that?”

  She snickered. “You’re lecturing me on the morality of a person when you kidnapped me?”

  My lips twitched. “I’m lecturing you on the way you just destroyed your fries. Are you even going to eat all of those?”

  I took a bite of my own fries, sans ketchup.

  I didn’t use ketchup. It reminded me too much of blood, and I avoided thinking about blood, because it then degraded to things that I’d rather not think about. Like the way that it feels to have blood running down the length of my hand when…

  “I don’t know why I do it like this. And to answer your question, no, I don’t eat all of them. I’ll probably eat like half, if I’m lucky,” she answered. “You don’t even put ketchup on yours at all?”

  Back to that same line of thinking.

  “I don’t eat anything that has to do with tomatoes,” I answered, letting her draw the wrong conclusions—that I didn’t like tomatoes.

  The bad thing was, I loved tomatoes. I just didn’t like the memories that popped up when I had tomatoes.

  “You don’t eat spaghetti?” she asked.

  I shook my head, dropping my burger down onto my plate as memories started to assault me.

  “Huh,” she said as she picked up another French fry, this one not nearly as drenched. Still, she got a small droplet at the corner of her mouth, and I had to fight the urge to reach over and clean it off with my thumb. “Are you going to finish that?”

  I looked down at my plate where my half-eaten burger was sitting.

  “Yes,” I said.

  As soon as my stomach stopped rolling.

  “Okay,” she said. “Because you really shouldn’t waste Crockett’s burgers. Did you know that she’s a famous chef?”

  I frowned.

  “No.” I paused. “I’ve never even been to this store before.”

  Honestly, it was kind of gross when you were inside of it.

  I could tell that the girl was doing all she could to keep it ‘clean’ and looking ‘decent’ but there was only so much you could do with a store that was more of a shack than a ‘store.’

  That was likely why there was such a nice setup for eating outside. It encouraged you to leave and not study the integrity of the place that made the burgers.

  If I was a lesser man, this place would’ve turned me off the second that I entered the premises.

  I knew for a fact that all the men I brushed shoulders with in the political society wouldn’t be caught dead here.

  The thought of my ex-wife coming into this place was beyond hilarious.

  “What are you smirking about?” she asked curiously.

  Breaking me out of my humorous thoughts, I said, “I was thinking about my ex-wife coming into a place like this. She wouldn’t be caught dead in here.”

  Her brows rose. “She’s stuck up?”

  “She’s stuck up, self-righteous, uncaring about anything but herself. She has a dog that hasn’t even seen real grass. When I say that she is spoiled, that would be an understatement,” I answered honestly.

  Just thinking about Meryl made me want to open my throat with the pocketknife in my back pocket.

  Six leaned forward, placing her hands on the insides of either forearm and then leaning her elbows into the table. “Why are you looking like the cat that ate the canary right now?”

  I broke eye contact with her and reached for my burger, my appetite suddenly returning.

  “My ex-wife is a real peach,” I said. “Thinking of her having to do anything that would make her uncomfortable, like come into a place like this, amuses me.”

  Six’s eyes shone with mirth as she reached for a napkin and started to clean her fingers off.

  When she was done wiping her fingers, she reached for another paper towel, moved her plate off the table, and then cleaned off the crumbs that were surrounding her plate, and wiping them onto the ketchup mess covered plate.

  When she was done, she took her plate to the trash can in the corner, dumped everything out, then went even further to walk her plate to the sink behind the counter.

  Crockett gave her a thankful look and said, “I almost have your stuff ready. I packed another couple of th
ings for you, too.”

  Six’s face showed her happiness at the news.

  “Are you talking about your famous cookies? Please, tell me that’s what I’ll go home to,” Six pleaded.

  My eyes went to Crockett, who had a pleasure-filled flush on her face.

  “You’ll see when you get it home to Wyett,” she declared.

  Six, laughing, turned around and came back to the table.

  I’d just finished off my burger and was wiping my face when she did the same thing to my plate that she’d done with her own.

  I leaned back in my chair and crossed my arms over my chest, waiting for her to come back.

  As I did, I watched the way she moved.

  Confidently and without the least bit of uncertainty.

  The damn jean shorts she was wearing were worse from the back.

  She had a shredded hole near her right ass cheek near the pocket, allowing a slice of milky white skin to pop through. Also blatantly throwing in my face that she was wearing a thong.

  Or no underwear at all.

  But she wasn’t the type of girl to just go naked while hiking.

  So yeah, she definitely had a thong on.

  My dick, which didn’t wake up for just anybody, went hard as steel.

  I rearranged my cock underneath the table, my eyes staying on her as she accidentally dropped a napkin and had to bend over near the trash can.

  Though, my cock throbbing in my jeans wasn’t just because of the way she was bent over. It was because of her curse and subsequent kicking of the trashcan, too.

  I liked her attitude.

  I liked the way she could care fucking less if someone or something heard her and her naughty mouth.

  Most of all, I liked the girl.

  Too bad I was busy and doing things that were quite illegal. Six was a good girl, despite her naughty ways.

  She didn’t deserve to be brought into my house of horrors.

  Cock still uncomfortably hard in my jeans, and mind made up, I lifted from my chair, body tight.

  She turned around and saw me standing, immediately beginning to frown.

  “Are you in a hurry?” she asked as she pulled her phone out of her pocket and glanced at the time.

  “No,” I lied. “Just thought you might want to go home and take your friend that burger.”