Jack of Hearts (Aces & Eights Book 1)

by Sandra Owens

  “Hell, yes,” he said, his voice raw and rumbling.

  Pleasure blazed a burning fire through her, every nerve ending in her body sensitive to his touch, to the water sluicing down her skin, and she screamed his name as he thrust deep into her. Her heart slammed against her chest, robbing her of breath and vision. His body, a coiled mass of muscles, stilled, and he buried his face against her neck as a great shudder rolled through him. She closed her eyes, loving how he filled her.

  “Breathe,” she whispered.

  He laughed. “I don’t think I can.” He lifted his head, looked searchingly at her for a moment, and then kissed her.

  “I love you, Alex,” she whispered against his lips. The words had slipped out, leaving her mind as soon as she thought them, surprising her.

  Alex froze as the words he wasn’t ready to hear echoed around them. How could she love him? She didn’t know him. The man she thought she loved wasn’t real. He wanted her to love him with a need that ran so deep he wasn’t sure where it ended. But he wanted to hear her say those words when she knew the real him.

  The happiness that had been shining in her eyes waned as the seconds ticked by and he didn’t respond. He had to say something, but his mind had gone blank.

  “I didn’t say that so you’d say it back.” She smiled but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Actually, I didn’t mean to say it at all, so don’t stress over it, okay?”

  He brushed her damp hair away from her face. “Okay, I won’t.” And he’d just piled another lie on top of the others because he was definitely stressing over it. “It’s late, beautiful girl. Let’s get some sleep.”

  If she only knew what was in his heart, she wouldn’t be looking at him with those wounded eyes. He dried her off, then himself, the silence between them killing him. Once in bed, she turned her back to him, and he pulled her against his chest, holding her as he called himself every name in the book.

  I love you, too, Grasshopper. But it would be wrong to tell her when the words would come from a man she didn’t truly know. Soon he would arrest her uncle and cousin, and she would learn that he’d been lying to her from day one. She would see it as a betrayal, and it would be.

  The only right thing to do was to let her go. What was the saying? If you love someone, let them go and hope they come back? That wasn’t right. Hell, he couldn’t remember, but he had to do it for her.

  If she would let him, after everything was over, he would try to explain the reasons for his lies, and if he were a very lucky man, she would agree to start over. Whatever her decision, it would be her choice. If he lost her, he would only have himself to blame.

  Alex stayed awake long into the night, holding his girl, memorizing her scent, how she felt in his arms, and how her silky hair tickled his chin. Although he wanted to sneak out like a coward so he wouldn’t have to see her tears when he told her he wouldn’t be back, he stayed. Would she cry? If she did, he might confess everything.

  At dawn, he crept out of bed and quietly dressed. He sat in a chair for the next two hours, watching her sleep. She was on her stomach, her small hands disappearing under the pillow, and one beautiful leg outside of the covers.

  Just go back to bed and hold her like you want to. She’ll learn who you are soon enough. Alex crushed the voice, although he wanted to be selfish and do just that. It was because he loved her that he refused to listen.

  She pulled a hand out from under her pillow and, even in sleep, reached for him on his side of the bed. His side. Would he ever sleep beside her again? He rubbed his chest. Damn ache.

  “Alex?”

  Her voice was soft with sleep, and sexy as hell. “I’m here.” He gripped the arms of the chair to keep from going to her.

  She sat up, her hair falling messily over her shoulder, also sexy. “You’re dressed. Did I oversleep?”

  He’d never hated himself more than he did at this moment. “Madison—”

  “If you’re dressed, I guess you need to leave early? You have time for breakfast? I’ll go start the coffee.”

  “Madison, no coffee. I need you to listen for a minute.”

  “Okay.” Those green eyes that he loved turned wary, and she sat back against her pillow, pulling the sheet up, covering her beautiful breasts.

  Any other time, he would have smiled, even teased her about her modesty. She was everything he dreamed of finding someday—beautiful, kind, funny, intelligent. He cleared his throat, swallowing the lump that had lodged there.

  “Ahem . . . I’ve been thinking.” He scrubbed a hand over the stubble on his chin. Christ, he hated this, for both of them. For a brief second, he almost gave in to the voice that said he didn’t have to do this. He could take what he wanted and gamble that she would understand when she learned the truth.

  Love had ambushed him when he least expected it, and as he sat there while the woman he would die for chewed on her bottom lip, waiting for him to speak, he accepted that he had to do the right thing. This being-in-love shit sucked. It hurt.

  Blinking against the burning in his eyes, he leaned his elbows on his knees and stared down at the floor. “Yeah, well, I think things are moving too fast between us, and we should step back. You know, take a break for a while.” Her face paled, and he gritted his teeth to keep from telling her everything.

  “I thought . . .” She shook her head. “I guess it doesn’t matter what I thought.”

  “I’m more sorry than you can possibly know.”

  “Don’t. I don’t want to hear it. Just go, Alex.” She turned her face away.

  He stood, wanting to take back everything he’d said, but he reminded himself he was doing this for her. If they had a chance for a future together, it had to be when she fell in love with the real Alex Gentry. Not that he believed he’d get another chance.

  At the door, he paused, turned to look at her, and hated himself for hurting her.

  “Just so you know, I take it back,” Madison said when Alex hesitated at the door. She forced her eyes to meet his. “I don’t love you.” She didn’t care if that made him flinch. “In fact, as far as I’m concerned, you can go to hell.”

  “That’s entirely possible. I’m sorry.”

  It took every ounce of willpower, but she managed not to shed a tear in front of him. Not one damn tear. As soon as the door closed behind him, her lips trembled uncontrollably and the water pooling in her eyes overflowed. How had she been so wrong about him?

  She buried her face into her pillow, realizing too late he’d left his scent there. The dam broke as she remembered the beautiful night before, when she thought he might be falling in love with her. There’d been such warmth and tenderness in his eyes as he’d stared down at her, but it’d all been a lie. She shouldn’t have told him she loved him. No, she was glad she had. Apparently, he hadn’t wanted to hear her damn love declaration, so now she knew she meant nothing to him. Better to learn that sooner rather than later.

  The horrible ache in her heart made her wish she’d never met him. Her life had been just fine before Alex walked into it, and now she was crying her eyes out because of a lying jerk. She jumped out of bed, stripping the sheets from the mattress and dumping them next to the door before getting in the shower and scrubbing herself raw to wash his smell from her body.

  “Good-bye, Alex,” she whispered as the water and soap carried his scent down the drain. Fresh tears came when she could no longer smell him on her skin, and she let them flow. She would do her crying, and then she would forget about him. She swore it.

  Once dressed for the day, her tears buried along with her aching heart in a deep hole, she headed to the kitchen for a much-needed cup of coffee, which she just might inject directly into her veins. And if there were a pill for wiping a man from her memory, she’d add that to the mix.

  She wasn’t kidding herself. There would be more tears, more questions about how she’d fallen so quickly for a man she should have run from the minute she saw him. He was a friend of her cousin’s after all, and t
hat should have been a gigantic red flag. Well, it had been, but she’d chosen to ignore it, so more fool her.

  “I’m done with you, Alex,” she muttered, bringing that first sip of coffee to her lips. Yes, there would be more tears over him in the late hours of the night, but she was determined to be done with him.

  “Who’re you talking to?”

  Madison choked on the coffee going down her throat. “Dammit, Lauren. You scared me.”

  “Why? I do live here. And I do walk into this kitchen every morning.”

  Madison blinked, trying to hide her tears from her roommate. “Alex doesn’t love me.” The words slipped out along with her sobs. “He’s not . . . not coming back.”

  “Oh, sweetie.”

  Madison sank into the arms Lauren wrapped around her. “I was so stupid to fall in love with him.”

  “The Gentry brothers have a way of making you do that.”

  Well, one in particular sure had that talent. She lifted her head from Lauren’s shoulder. “That’s an odd thing for you to say. Care to explain?”

  Lauren’s gaze shifted away. “Not really.”

  There was pain in her friend’s eyes. Her own heartbreak put aside for the moment, she said, “Yes, really. What’s the deal with you and Court?”

  “I know him, all right?”

  “I don’t understand what that means.”

  Lauren poured coffee into a cup and then turned to leave.

  “Lauren?”

  At the door, her best friend paused. “I met him a few years ago,” she said, not looking back as she left.

  “How do I not know that?” Madison said, but Lauren disappeared down the hall without answering.

  Hemingway rolled over, his body following the slash of sun on the floor that came in from the kitchen window.

  Madison eyed the black cat. “Hemingway, you’re the only male I’ll ever say I love you to again. Go ahead. Say you’re honored.”

  Hemingway snored on, apparently not impressed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “Madison thinks I’ve abandoned her,” Alex said, wearing a path across Nate’s floor. Every day—morning, noon, and night—since he’d walked out, he’d had to stop himself from calling her, telling her that he was the world’s biggest idiot.

  “But you haven’t. She’ll know that soon enough.” Nate set his phone on the coffee table. “That was Rothmire. He’s preparing the search warrants on the Alonzos. We should have them by tomorrow afternoon.”

  So she’d know the truth then. She still wasn’t going to forgive him. He had to do something. Get out and go somewhere. Anywhere. Ride his bike to hell and back. That would work. As long as there was air he could breathe because there sure as hell wasn’t any in Nate’s damn condo.

  “Where you going?” Nate asked.

  “Don’t know. Just have to get out of here.”

  Court looked up from his laptop. “Want me to come with you? We can get some lunch or something.”

  “Some other time.” As much as he loved his brothers, he needed to be miserable alone. In the underground garage, he grabbed his helmet out of the storage bin.

  After a long ride up the beach highway, trying to clear his head, he gave up. All he could see was the way Madison’s lips had quivered when he’d walked out on her. Had she cried after he left? Had she convinced herself that she hated him during the following days?

  He turned the bike back toward home, but when he reached his building, he rode past, ending up at Ramon’s. The high from catching one of the most wanted men in the world had worn off, paling beside the thought of losing Madison.

  The housekeeper let him in, telling him Ramon was in the pool out back. Alex headed that way. He wanted to see the bastard one last time while the dude thought he was on top of the world. Watch him brag about the big deal he’d set up while knowing that the man was going down. The operation shouldn’t have turned personal, but it had. He didn’t really care.

  “Mr. Gentry, a moment of your time, please.”

  Alex paused at hearing Jose Alonzo’s voice. He stepped inside the man’s office. “Mr. Alonzo.” The man had never given him more than a brief nod before, so this was an interesting turn of events.

  “Have a seat.” Alonzo gestured to a chair in front of his desk. He leaned back, steepled his fingers under his chin, and stared at Alex.

  If he was supposed to be intimidated, it wasn’t working. Alex stared back, waiting to hear why he’d been summoned.

  “Ramon tells me that you are proving to be useful, and for that you have my appreciation.”

  “The association is beneficial to my brothers and me,” Alex said.

  “Of course, and you have the perfect setup to accommodate our needs. Perhaps at a later date we will discuss how to expand into other areas.”

  Alonzo’s gaze flicked to a photo on a nearby shelf, one of Ramon, Angelina, Madison, and him, taken on the beach, probably the one only steps away. “I love my family, Mr. Gentry, and only want what is best for them.” He turned cold eyes back to Alex. “You are not what is best for my niece. There is no insult intended, but you must agree that she deserves better than a part owner of a biker bar, a man who associates with the scum of society.”

  Present company excluded, of course. Alex counted to twenty the way Nate had taught him to do when as a boy he couldn’t see past his rage. He badly wanted to ask if the old man thought it was okay for Ramon to assault his cousin, but he bit back the words. By this time tomorrow, the Alonzos would be in handcuffs. He would take his satisfaction from that.

  “Madison’s an adult, an intelligent woman. I believe she is capable of deciding who is worthy of her attentions. I will, however, consider your feelings on the matter, sir.”

  So Madison hadn’t told anyone they’d broken up? If she’d told her mother, then surely Jose would have been informed. The rage still burned low in his belly, though. If the man was so concerned about his niece, then he should be worried about protecting her from his own son, not Alex.

  “I trust you will make the right decision on the matter, Mr. Gentry.” He stood. “I believe you were on your way to see Ramon. Don’t let me keep you.”

  Dismissed, Alex gave a curt nod before walking out. Instead of heading for the pool, he turned for the front door. He’d had enough of the Alonzos for one day. Back on his bike, he drove straight to the gym, found a punching bag, and did his best to kill it.

  Hours later, Alex sat at the bar in Aces & Eights, spoiling for a fight. “You’d think the room was filled with a bunch of nuns the way they’re all getting along tonight,” he grumbled.

  Nate tightened the band on his ponytail as he scanned the room. “The night’s not over. If you want a fight that bad, go start one.”

  Tempting. He shrugged. “I think I’ll just bug out instead. You and Court can manage a few more hours without me.”

  “Are you in love with Madison, baby brother?”

  “For what good it’ll do me, yeah. She’s going to hate me, already hates me.” He missed her. There was a hole in his heart that made it hard to breathe when he thought of her, which was every minute of every day.

  Nate leaned against the bar, crossing his arms over his chest. “This will be over tomorrow, then you can start winning your girl back.”

  If it was possible to win her back. “Someone sitting on Lopez?”

  “Yeah, Rothmire’s got a couple of detectives watching him. They’ll pick him up in the morning at the same time we take the Alonzos down.”

  “I want to know why he was snooping in the bookstore’s files.”

  “We’ll get that answered soon enough.” Nate narrowed his eyes, his gaze on the door. “That fight you’ve been itching for just walked in the door.”

  Alex glanced over to see who’d come in. He smiled at seeing Dirty Dan. “He still banned?”

  “Yep.”

  Cracking his knuckles, he stood. “Just what the doctor ordered.”

  A little before dawn, Madis
on used her mother’s key to let herself in to her uncle’s house. She hurried to the alarm and entered the code that she hoped hadn’t changed since the last time she’d used it. Familiar with the layout, she headed for Ramon’s office with only the moonlight coming in through the windows lighting her way. If she couldn’t find what she was looking for there, she’d have to search her uncle’s office.

  After Alex had left, she’d had trouble sleeping. She’d even put the sheets with his scent back on the bed, hoping that would help. It hadn’t. Between the deep ache in her heart from missing him and the questions about her father, she was a hot mess. Since Alex wasn’t around any longer to help her investigate her father’s death, she’d just have to go it alone.

  One comment Alex had made had preyed on her mind during those sleepless nights. How had her uncle and cousin known about the accident so fast? The police wouldn’t have contacted them first. And why hadn’t her father wanted to discuss the story he was working on? The only reason she could think of was that he’d somehow found out about their criminal activities and planned to expose them.

  There was no more honorable man than her father had been. That the Alonzos were family wouldn’t have stopped him from writing the story, and it would explain why he hadn’t talked about it. She was her father’s daughter, and she owed it to him to find the truth. If her suspicions were right, she would see that his story was told.

  She’d decided the best time to search would be early in the morning when she was sure her cousin and uncle would be asleep. She crept into Ramon’s office, closed the door, and turned on a lamp. Where to start? She moved to his desk, easing down onto the chair. The middle drawer was a mess of pens, pencils, paperclips, and sticky notepads, and she resisted the urge to organize everything. In the next drawer, she found a box half full of cigars, a stapler, a roll of stamps, and several pairs of eyeglasses.

  “Didn’t know you wore reading glasses, cuz,” she murmured, holding one up and peering through the lenses.