by Sybil Bartel
“But?” she asked, sounding resigned.
“But nothin’. I’m sharin’ sand with a gorgeous blonde.” I smiled.
She inhaled. “I’m trying not to get hurt.”
My smile dropped. “Meaning?”
“You say one thing but then you act…familiar with me, like there’s actually something between us. Maybe I’m just not used to this—this type of casual sexual relationship.”
Every muscle in my body tensed. “This is a casual sexual relationship to you?” I told her I wasn’t looking at other women.
“No, I didn’t mean that.”
Insulted as hell but knowing I had no right to be, I tried to temper my response. “Not sure what you want from me, darlin’. Few days ago you were livin’ with another man.”
“I don’t want anything from you. I was just—”
“Bullshit.” She’d shown up on my doorstep, thrown herself at me this morning and now she was saying she didn’t want anything? Offended, pissed off, I put it all back on her. “If you didn’t want anythin’, we wouldn’t be standin’ here havin’ this conversation.”
“No, I don’t want—”
That was all I needed to hear. I was a fucking idiot. “Fuck this.” Everything good I’d felt brewing between us suddenly felt one-sided and I wasn’t going down that road, no fucking way. “I’m not havin’ a conversation about a relationship because of one orgasm. And I sure as shit ain’t gonna discuss your speculation about what you think may or may not be between us because there isn’t an us. There isn’t a relationship. There isn’t anything ’cept two strangers sharin’ a roof who wanna fuck.”
Her eyes went wide with hurt like she herself hadn’t just said there was nothing between us.
Fuck no. “You keep that up. You keep lyin’ to yourself ’bout not tryin’ to get hurt when you’re the one who showed up on my doorstep, broken and stabbed.” She’d spent years with a piece-of-shit user getting taken advantage of. “You don’t need me to hurt you, you managed that all on your own, sweetheart.” My blood boiling, my temper shot, I didn’t even try to rein it in because in that moment, I just didn’t give a fuck. I was tired. I was horny. I was pissed the fuck off but mostly, I was insulted. I’d done nothing but give since the second she’d crossed my path. I’d have a conversation with Carter because I told her I would but then I was done. Fuck this shit.
I stormed back to the house, not even caring if she followed, and went straight to my bedroom and slammed the door. I took a shower but I couldn’t even jerk off. Every time I closed my eyes I was looking at a flesh-colored tattoo as I imagined pounding into her tight pussy and it pissed me off. I dressed like I was going on a date because I was an asshole like that, then I went looking for her.
I didn’t have to go far. She was curled up on the couch with the TV on, looking innocent and beautiful and just to screw with my head further, fuckable. To make matters worse, my dick didn’t give a shit what my brain thought, it only wanted what it didn’t get this morning.
“I’m going out,” I snapped.
“Okay.” She stared at the TV.
“Don’t wait up.”
“Okay.”
When I didn’t get the reaction I wanted, I fumed. “You got somethin’ to say?”
“No.” There wasn’t a trace of anger in her voice. There wasn’t a trace of anything.
Goddamn it. “Later.” I slammed out of the house.
I tried André three times but he didn’t answer and his voice mail box was full. I called Ariel but her phone also went to voice mail. Fuck. I dialed Candle.
He picked up on the first ring. “I was wondering when you’d call back.”
I wasn’t going to discuss Maldonado with him until I’d talked with André. I trusted Candle with my bike but I wasn’t stupid enough to take him at his word until I’d heard back from André that the problem was solved. “Give me Carter’s address.”
Candle chuckled. “She’s got a way about her, huh?”
“What the fuck are you talkin’ about?”
“First Randy fell at her feet, now you.”
“Bullshit. When have you ever seen me fall? I’m gonna have a conversation with Carter is all.”
“Right. A conversation where you tell him his old lady is now your old lady.” He laughed loudly. “If it wasn’t such an unfair fight, I’d want to watch.”
“I’m not fightin’ him,” I growled.
“Uh-huh, and my dick ain’t getting sucked tonight.”
“Fuck you. Address,” I demanded.
“I need him at work tomorrow.”
I didn’t give a shit what Candle needed. Randy was answering to me first. “And I need him to pay for stabbin’ Nic.”
“What?”
“You fuckin’ heard me.”
Candle let out a string of curse words. “How bad?”
“Half her face looks like she met a two-by-four, her wrist is broken and I had to suture her fuckin’ thigh because it was cut from knee to hip.”
“Goddamn it.”
“Give me his fuckin’ address and I’ll owe you.”
“You already owe me.”
No shit. It was making my skin crawl every time I thought about it. “Lucky you.”
He snorted. “He’s in one of the Seascape condos the club owns. Bottom floor, east unit. Don’t fuck the place up.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.” I started to hang up.
“Hey,” he barked.
“What?”
“Why’s Kendall pissed at you?”
I shouldn’t have been surprised, Kendall had a big fucking mouth. “Long or short version?”
“There’s a short version?”
“I tried to fire her.”
Candle snorted. “Do I wanna know what happened?”
“She told me to fuck off.” The order of events was off but the sentiment was the same.
He burst out laughing. “Love that girl.”
“I’d pay good money to see you call her a girl to her face.”
“Said I loved her, didn’t say I was fucking crazy. Don’t kill Randy, I’m short at the shop.” He hung up.
I drove across town and circled the apartment building twice before parking a block away. Making sure no one saw me, I approached Randy’s from the back and knocked on the door. Lights on, TV blaring, I knew he was home. When he didn’t answer, I pounded harder.
A minute later, the lock turned.
Taller than me but thinner, Randy opened the door wearing a dirty T-shirt and a bandage over each wrist that hadn’t been visible earlier today when he’d been in his garage uniform.
“You and I need to have a little talk,” I drawled.
Leaving the door open, he walked back to his couch and flopped down.
I shut the door and followed. Dirty dishes everywhere, bong on the coffee table, the place was a fucking dump and I hated him even more.
He picked up a beer. “She with you?”
“Do you fuckin’ care?”
He glanced at me and a flash of anger crossed his face before he turned back to the TV. “What do you want, Talerco?”
I scanned the apartment to make sure we were alone but when I saw the blood on the bedroom doorframe, rage boiled up. “What do I want?” I walked to the door, looked at the blood then swung my glare back to Randy. “I want a lot of things.”
“Pick a fight, say what you’re gonna say, I don’t give a shit. Do what you gotta do and get the fuck out. I got company coming over.” He chugged his beer then set it next to five other empty bottles.
Ruthless, calculated, I smiled. “Glad you moved on.” Then I dropped the pretense. “Because she’s not comin’ back.”
Quicker than I thought he was capable of, he was on his feet, throwing me against the wall. “I’ve loved that girl since she was fifteen years old!” He crushed an arm across my chest. “Fifteen.”
He stunk like beer and sweat and desperation and I wanted to pound my fist into his face. “You
knife every woman you love?”
He roared in pain and rage then stepped back. “It was a fucking accident. I swear to God. I would never hurt her.” His hands gripped his greasy hair.
I didn’t have a single ounce of sympathy for him. I grabbed his neck with one hand and crushed his windpipe. “Here’s how this is gonna work.”
His hands grabbed mine as his eyes started to pop.
I squeezed tighter and leaned forward. “You come near her again, you’re dead. You touch me again? I’ll do to you want you did to her—tenfold.” I threw him back on the couch and walked to the door.
“I smell her on you.” His voice cracked.
“How’s it feel to lose everythin’?” I asked, remorseless.
“You fuck her?”
I was on him so fast, he didn’t know what hit him. One hand on his throat, an arm across his chest and a knee on his thigh, I watched the fear register in his eyes with satisfaction. “You stab your woman and that’s what you’re fuckin’ worried about? Where my dick’s been?” I picked him up and threw him on the floor.
He rolled to his hands and knees.
“Get up,” I barked.
“I’ll kill you.” He started to stand.
I kicked him in the ribs. “How’s that feel?”
No fight in him, the fucking pussy cowered.
Lowering my voice to pure menace, I bent toward him. “Should I slam your face into the doorframe?”
Holding his stomach, he started to crawl.
“How ’bout I break your arm?” I asked with deadly calm.
The front door swung open. “I warned you I needed him at the shop,” a deep, familiar voice boomed.
I TURNED MY COLD, CALCULATING stare toward Candle. “Then maybe you shouldn’t have given me his address.”
Candle closed the door behind him as his shrewd eyes scanned the room. “Maybe you’re right.”
“Candle,” Randy said weakly.
“Get up,” Candle ordered, disgust in his voice.
“But he cracked my rib,” Randy protested.
“I don’t give a shit if he broke them all. When you let someone into your home and he gets the jump on you, you deserve what you got coming.”
“What kind of Sergeant-at-Arms are you?” Randy whined.
“The practical kind. Get the fuck up.”
Clutching his ribs, using the couch for support, Randy pulled himself up and stood.
Candle glanced at me. “You two done here?”
I glared at Randy. “That depends.”
Randy tried to sneer. “He’s done.”
I swung out and made a solid connection with Randy’s jaw. His head snapped back and he fell onto the couch. “I’ll say when I’m done.”
Candle looked at me with a bored expression. “You good?”
I crossed my arms. “For now.”
Candle tipped his chin at Randy. “Show up at work tomorrow.”
Randy spat blood on the already stained carpet and grunted.
Candle aimed his washed-out blue eyes at me. “I need to talk to you. Outside.” He turned toward the door. “Pick up your fucking place, Carter. It looks like shit.”
Following Candle, I knocked the bong to the floor then crushed the glass with one stomp of my boot. “This was my last friendly visit,” I warned Randy. I pulled the door shut and walked toward Candle’s Harley. “What’s up?”
Candle leaned against his bike and sized me up. “Hope you know what you’re doing.”
I thought of Siren on my couch. “That’s debatable.”
He slowly nodded. “Word is, you’re solid.”
“Don’t know where you heard that.” I glanced around to see if we were alone.
“I hear a lot.”
“Like?” It was quiet, almost too quiet for an apartment building.
“Like the Marines trained you for Force Recon, like a dead wife left you millions, like a cast-off orphan who came from a dust bowl took down the head of a cartel with nothing but his active duty buddy and a blunt object.”
I didn’t blink. I didn’t even breathe. “That’s quite a story.”
“It’s no story,” he said confidently.
Alarm tightened my muscles. “You might wanna rethink your payroll, seems someone has more imagination than brains.” How the fuck did he find all that out?
“You saying it’s not true?”
“I’m sayin’ rumors like that can get a man killed.” I scrambled, trying to figure out how he knew about Maldonado’s cousin. Candle wasn’t someone who used the term blunt object. Police reports used that.
The slow nod was back. “I like you.”
“Not gonna jerk off with you, I got enough friends.” Autopsy reports also used that term. It was the only two solid connections I could make to his choice of words. But neither of those reports connected me or Blaze to the murder, so where the fuck had he gotten his information?
“Understood.” Candle crossed his arms. “Business is business.”
“Then get to it.” Jesus Christ, I’d underestimated him.
“I can handle that little problem of yours.”
I waited because I knew there was more.
“But it’s gonna cost you.”
“I don’t pay for favors.” Or murders of assholes in jail. The death penalty wasn’t on my short list.
“Me neither. A favor is a favor. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.”
Fuck. “What do you want?”
“I want you to understand if I do this, you’ll owe me.”
“So you said.” Instinct told me to walk away while I still had the chance.
“You sure you wanna owe me that kind of favor?”
Fuck. I knew what he was offering. He’d eliminate my problem then I’d have to eliminate his, no matter what. Goddamn it.
I pulled my phone out, dialed, and held it to my ear. My gaze on Candle, I waited as André’s phone went to his full mailbox. I hung up and dialed Blaze. It went straight to voice mail. I hung up.
André had come to me for a reason. I knew the drill. They could legally go after Maldonado, but finding the trail was the only way to a conviction. That’d take weeks, if not months. In the meantime, the hit was still out there and Layna’s life was at risk. Blaze and André could protect her but a determined hired gun wasn’t an obstacle you overcame.
The best way to eliminate the threat was to take out the source. Dead source meant no payout. No payout, no hit.
Motherfucker.
If the situation were reversed, Blaze would do it for me, no question. But this wasn’t just about Blaze. It was about his wife, who was alive and breathing and who looked so much like my dead wife that I wasn’t going to let Blaze know what that felt like.
“Do it,” I said.
“It’ll happen tomorrow morning. You want confirmation?”
If I said yes, I was saying I didn’t trust him. If I said no, I was a fucking fool. “Yeah, call my cell. And make sure he suffers.”
A smile spread across Candle’s face. “You are one sick bastard.”
“Takes one to know one.”
“Truth.” He held his hand out.
We shook.
Candle grinned and got on his bike. “Welcome to my world.” He revved the engine, inclined his head and took off.
I walked to the Challenger, got in and ran my hands through my hair. My pulse racing, my stomach tight, I told myself I didn’t just get in over my head.
But fuck.
Fuck.
I slammed my hand against the steering wheel.
Who the hell was I kidding? I’d just gotten in bed with the goddamn devil. Fuckfuckfuck. Out of my hands now, no control over it. I only knew one thing. Siren was done with these assholes, right fucking now.
I drove home, went upstairs and straight to the couch.
Honey-blonde hair, big innocent eyes, she was so damn beautiful, my chest hurt. And when she silently stared up at me without an ounce of resentment in her e
xpression for what I’d said to her earlier, my conscience hurt.
Adrenaline pounding, blood rushing, I held my hand out.
No hesitation, she took it.
I pulled her to her feet and cupped her face. “You’re never going back to that kind of a life. Carter, Candle, none of it.” She was too pure. She didn’t deserve that. Not her.
Alarm spread across her face. “You don’t understand.”
I let out a low growl. “I’m not playin’.”
“I can’t…” She sucked in a breath. “I’m always going to be tied to him as long as—”
“No.” I shook her. “You’re done with him. You hear me? You need somethin’, you ask me.” I wasn’t going to let her get hurt. Not again. Fuck the shit I’d said earlier on the beach. As long as I was alive and not sitting in a jail cell, I’d protect her.
She stiffened. “What happened?”
I kept my secrets, always. But tonight, this woman, her scars, they were tormenting me. I wanted to open up and bleed. I wanted her shelter. I wanted her acceptance. I didn’t want to be a broken ex-Marine with a dead wife. I wanted to be something different and I wanted that different to be something worthy of her. But I was pumped on adrenaline and drowning in regret and all I could think about was the feel of her body under mine. “I want to go to bed.” My hand shook with restraint as I stroked the side of her face. “With you.”
Her head turned away from me and I panicked. Then I said something to her I’d never said to another woman.
“I just wanna hold you in my arms and sleep next to you.” I needed her innocence. More than anything.
“Okay,” she whispered.
Taking her hand, I led her to my bedroom. I wanted to see her scar. I wanted to see her ink. I wanted to sink so deep inside her I forgot my name. But I wouldn’t. Not tonight. Maybe not ever.
I gently pulled on her arm. “Turn around.”
Trusting, sweet, she did.
I dragged the zipper down her back and sucked in a ragged breath. No bra, thong underwear, her ink on full display, she was so damn gorgeous, I didn’t trust myself to do more than push her dress off her shoulders and step back.
“Get in bed,” I demanded, my voice strained.
I pulled my shirt off and removed my 9mm from my back waistband as she crawled across my sheets. Drinking in the sight of her like a starved man, I unbuckled my belt, unlaced my boots, and stripped down to my boxers. My chest tight, I got in next to her.