by V. Theia
Luxe met Grinder on the corner of Westmeadow drive. An uninteresting suburbia street where kids played in the street and where absolutely no Russian Mafia would be hanging around to see her meet with him.
It was all very cloak and dagger and gave her a tiny thrill of old.
His bike pulled up beside her Lincoln. The way he slung his leg over the seat and stood to his full height caused a riot inside her underwear, she shamelessly watched him pull off his helmet, hooking it on the handlebars, it was the first time she’d fully seen him without the black beanie hat in daylight and wow... How much more handsome he became, his hair going in all directions, he simply used his long-tapered fingers to tame it before he slid into her passenger seat, closing them in together.
The car instantly became too small.
“Did we really have to meet out here in the sticks? I feel like you want to give me a code name next...”
“I don’t take risks.”
He mocked. “You did last night sneaking into their building for all and sundry to see, you might as well have announced you were there to steal their gold bars.”
She brushed off the accusation, knowing he was right. It had been sloppy.
For the next thirty minutes, they were all business. Discussing back and forth what she needed from him, what he could do and when. It surprisingly went well, they agreed on most everything. It was a shock they thought alike.
“How do you propose to get huge as fuck paintings out from under their noses?”
“They’re not traditional paintings you’d see in a museum. They’re sketches in a small protective tube about so big.” Luxe held her hands out ten inches apart.
“And you have someone who wants to have these sketches?” his brow curled up mockingly. “People are fucking weird.”
“They’re worth a lot. Therefore, I want them. And the Russian guy stole them first.”
“And you know they have them… because?”
“It pays to know everything in my line of work, Nathan. Who has what. The whys never matter, only how you can extract it from them is what’s important. I heard who had them and followed their trail here from New York.”
“You realize who they are, right? You don’t fuck with the bratva and live to tell the tale at supper time.”
She knew this was the riskiest job she’d ever pull off. But if she did it, her and Mimi would be set, no more risky jobs.
“We all have to die sometime, sí?”
Grinder growled and she felt the noise of his disapproval in her belly. Resisting the urge to squirm or to recall every detail she’d tipsily done last night on his lap, on his mouth, she started up the engine.
Giving him a not so subtle clue it was time for him to go.
So spatially aware of every inch of the man, she focused instead out of the window at four kids playing street hockey, before she did something stupid and forget they were planning a theft together and climbed onto his lap to finish what she started with the kidnapper.
Fingers grasping her chin broke that contact.
It hadn't taken Luxe long to memorize the facet of Grinder's personality that was all sexual gravity and if she gave into that pull even for a second she'd, well ... face first splat. There was no real guard against that kind of charisma except to stay far, far away from it.
And here she was, in close confinement with him in a car. Smart, Luxe.
Unfortunately, when he was this close a humming began right around her lower abdomen.
Gasping, he turned her to face him, kept holding her chin, gray eyes piercing, they were almost nose to nose. The hum intensified temporarily before it morphed into a clutch of intimate muscles. “I’ll do this for you, Luxe, steal your precious sketches, but you don’t talk about dying again, ya dig? And don’t take stupid risks while we’re in there tonight. If we can’t get them then we walk away, shit isn’t worth getting plugged with bullets.” His breath feathered the baby hair near her temple escaping from the bandana she always wore for that very reason of taming them back.
She could only nod. What her brain registered as his ability to always want his own way was the same trait she found gallingly appealing.
It was all wrong and still she was attracted to him.
It didn’t matter his crime, an attraction to this man was natural born, she just bet all women fell victim to that face of his. His voice, the way he dressed and swaggered like he owned the rights to shake any womb in the vicinity, and that scent stuck in her nose were all designed to drive a woman to sexual distraction.
Butterflies in her intestines and she tried her best to act normal.
He eased closer, to speak near her ear. The idiot looked like he was considering kissing her. Would she allow it? Yes. God help her, yes. He eyed her mouth like a predator, or rather, the kidnapper he was.
“And then once I’ve made it up to you, we talk.”
Both eyebrows shot up into her bandana. “Talk about what?”
“Us. You and me being a thing.”
“Us? You and me? Being a thing?” Astonishment colored her voice as it rose and rose.
“Fuck.” He cussed dropping her chin, staying in the same breathing space as her, she watched him haul in a bunch of air all at once, the action inflating his chest wide enough to ping buttons around her car. Dios. “I want to kiss that look off your face so bad, you don’t even fucking know, Luxe. You were in my bed last night, I tucked your sexy body in, avoiding your octopus hands trying to grab my dick.”
She turned beet red and quickly switched it into a scowl.
“The minute we’re square we talk about us and you can get back to grabbing me. Agree with me, Luxe.”
Muttering Spanish to herself, it would have been easier to deny everything he claimed, to even deny the effect his body had on hers, not to mention the taste of him was still in her mouth, but Luxe was not a woman who hid behind denials.
She was attracted to the kidnapper.
Plain and simple pounding, demanding desire.
“Sí. We’ll talk. Now get out, I have underwear to choose for the mobsters tonight.”
His kiss came out of nowhere, crashing down onto her mouth, he took advantage of her gasp to slide his tongue inside and oh, Dios… a kiss of fire, of lust and mutual need.
“Wear them for me.”
Just as quick as his lips had taken possession of hers he wrenched away, told her to be ready for him to pick her up and slammed out of her car, roaring away on his bike.
He left his ferocious growl behind still ringing in her ears.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Life is short. Have a lot of sex, Cielito Lindo.” Abuela Mimi.
How dumb did a woman need to be to kiss the guy who had tied her up in a not bondage let me spank you and call me daddy way?
Just how horny did that woman have to be? How fucking stupid was she to ignore all the warning signs and focus solely on the fact he thought she was sexy?
With her mind still buzzing on that scorching punishing kiss… god… How did one set of lips send her into such a frenzy? She’d kissed plenty before and hadn’t felt half as much as what she did with Grinder’s tongue stroking hers, daring her to lose control in the front seat of her car, to forget their dubious history and fall into his pants.
And she almost had, almost begged him to peel her jeans off and do her right there up against the steering wheel while children played in the street.
Desire made a woman feel alive. There shouldn’t be any shame in that.
She’d wanted it badly enough to forget just who he was. Ay Dios. There was a name for women like her; horny as fuck.
Mister tracker high and lordy had won that round, she recognized, fogging her brain with wanting to talk about his feelings, and then smelling so good as he did, and his dark long eyelashes in such close proximity seducing her into agreeing. God, she wanted to punch him for manipulating her with his gorgeous, sturdy body.
There is no us, she’d tell him.
&n
bsp; He’d proven once before how easy it had been for him to gain the upper hand over her, so fucking easy as it turned out, those days had been something else, anyone would call her mad for not hating him, but in truth having the full unobstructed attention of that kind of intense man had left her a little dizzy and needy.
Her brain was the consistency of mashed potato trying to justify her feelings. Yeah, she was mad, at first, who wouldn’t be, he was an asshole and she’d told him so. She’d been a possessed hooker moving on top of him last night, dry fucking him into the seat, seeing the beads of sweat dot on his forehead and how stoic he’d sat there allowing her to rub on his crotch the way she had. She was still experiencing the rush through her blood a day later.
Dios. He’d taken it. She could still feel that thick bulge pressing her pussy.
Grinder was detriment to her mental health. There was a drum beat in her belly and she suspected it would only be appeased by his hands, his mouth, his------ dammit.
Not only did she have the mental headache of a too handsome kidnapper on her mind, Luxe had to forcibly shift him aside while she spoke to her abuela over skype.
“Mimi, can you at least wait until I’m home so I can research this cruise? You know how the last one turned out… They could be pirates, you don’t want to be dumped out at sea, not with the costume jewelry you wear, it would attract all the sharks.”
At sixty-three her grandmother was a gorgeous, vivacious woman who loved wearing skinny jeans and tops that displayed her ample cleavage. With her dark brown hair caught up in a chignon, today she wore a flower necklace that looked to weigh six pounds at least and with a ring on each finger, bangles that went up half of her left arm and shocking red lipstick, her grandmother was a vision of loveliness.
Luxe grinned, missing her already, she loved the woman who had raised her something fierce.
Even if she did worry over her like a mother bear with her cub.
In her teens it was Luxe who received all the lectures to stay out of trouble and under no circumstances was she to get pregnant and bring a baby home to be raised, somewhere around her mid-twenties suddenly it became Luxe’s job to lecture her grandmother on the dubiously shady men she speed-dated and to subtly talk her out of crazy ideas like moving to Florida to ‘tap all the oldies for their inheritance’ and now going on another singles cruise when she already had three men she was regularly dating on rotation in their neighborhood.
Dios. Mimi was going to turn Luxe gray before her time.
“Psh. It was a small misunderstanding, baby. And Gerard knew how to salsa, we had a good two weeks together until he went home to his wife. I already booked my place.” She grinned answering in Spanish and Luxe groaned. Did she have bail money? Could they arrest a sassy old lady on board a cruise ship? She’d have to google.
“Just try not to come home with a husband and take plenty of condoms.”
“I don’t promise anything. You should come with me, Cielito Lindo. Lots of handsome sons go on these trips with their parents.”
Luxe snorted. Sí, mama’s boys were not her favorite flavor of men.
Her phone propped up on the bathroom counter in Jamie’s house, she was looking through her make up bag for a kohl pencil. “Or maybe this boy you stay with is more than you tell your dear old abuela, huh? Maybe you are having a hot romance and you not tell me, huh?”
Immediately her face heated as she thought about Nathan.
“Sí! I see that look, Cielito Lindo. Is this true?”
“No, Mimi. Jamie and I are just friends, you know we tried dating and it was like kissing my pet turtle.”
“I’ve seen a picture of him. He’s movie star handsome, Luxe, sometimes you have to kiss them more than once to stoke the fire, Sí.”
Talking about fires and stoking them with her grandmother was just ten levels of wrong.
Most women found Jamie Steele gorgeous, he was forever swamped in groupies who hung around his MC hoping to catch his eye. Luxe just wasn’t one of them. He’d never heated her panties in a way they’d both need to go further than few dates. She preferred him as a friend.
Not like Nathan. He burnt everything in sight.
And that there was the dilemma. She wanted him but had to remember their history AND why she was here. First things first; earn her money.
Who had time for frantic fucking and desperation? She wasn’t an animal. He only made her feel like one.
“Mimi…there’s this guy.” She edged into the conversation and saw her abuela’s face come closer to the camera on her tablet. Joy in her eyes. She was a fiend for social media and insisted on having the best tablet for all her ‘events’ as she called her social life. Luxe didn’t even dare look at Mimi’s Instagram anymore, not after Tequila night at the over 60’s club.
“Sí? What kind of lover is he, baby?”
Ay dios mio. She’d always been able to talk to Mimi about anything, maybe because of the circumstances surrounding how her mom had left her. They were best friends in many ways, but Luxe had never been that measure of cool to bring herself to the friend’s level of discussing what she did in bed and with who.
“Please don’t say the word lover, Mimi.” She scrunched her nose only to be chastised by the older woman with a tsk. “You are twenty-seven, if you don’t have several lovers I obviously taught you nothing about enjoying life. Tell me about this man who has you tied in knots and blushing. I see that sparkle, Luxe Estalita, this man is special?”
Tied in knots, a fitting statement.
She paused ringing her eyes in a thin line of black kohl. “He’s kind of an asshole.”
“All the handsome ones are.” Mimi sighed wistfully. She always told it as her first husband and Luxe’s grandfather was the same way, also the love of her Mimi’s life.
He had left them, too.
“Actually, I’m running late to meet him, can we talk about it tomorrow?”
“Have fun with this handsome asshole, Cielito Lindo, don’t get to my age and regret not trying it all when you were young, because when you get here the men can hardly get it up to try anything past four PM!” it was said with such a straight face Luxe burst out laughing. “Te amo, abuela.”
“I love you, my little light. Buenas noches.”
Try it all.
That was the problem, wasn’t it? Nathan had poked a need within Luxe that couldn’t be ignored. Could she stop after trying it all with him?
******
Oh, shit. Oh, shit. Get a look at her. The wave of sex that pulsed through Grinder was nothing short of obscene.
Sex on the brain. The eyes nearly bulged out of his horny head, feeling more like his former teenage self with his first hard on.
Starved.
The dirty little rotten thief made him hungry enough to rut her on the front step and offer up his soul for stomping if it pleased her.
Here he was, one of those outlaw’s local people whispered about and he was going soft for one aggressive woman.
Every taste bud on Grinder’s tongue dried up when he got the first look at her stepping out of Steele’s apartment, and he almost went to his knees and tunneled his head under the teeny little skirt Luxe was wearing to taste what she was hiding behind her panties.
How was this stunning, electric woman allowing him to breathe in the same atmosphere as her? Shit. His strides ate up the sidewalk, meeting her before she’d even taken a step out of the house.
Crowding at her back, his head came down, hands spanned her tiny waist, feeling how she shivered fumbling to try and lock the door.
“Is Steele inside?” he growled harsher than he meant to. His chest pushing against her back. The perfume she wore was some kind of siren for his dick, he wanted to answer the call.
She tried to push him back and he stayed a solid mass. “J-Jamie is at his club, but he doesn’t live here, not really, this is one of his apartments, he lets me have it when I’m in town.”
Good. Grinder deflated his aggressive man beating
chest, pulled her flush against him. “I want to tell you how fucking insanely beautiful you look, and I want to tell you we’ll have a good time tonight, but this is business so I’m not sure how much fun I can show you, but afterward, Luxe…”
He turned her, held her there, he cupped behind the back of her neck. Possessively squeezing.
She was making his blood boil.
The red dress she’d worn was meant to catch attention, she had his, but it wasn’t for his benefit. It was poured on like a second skin caressing her up-to no good tits, leaving her shoulders bare, and dropped to above her thighs. Crossing with tradition she didn’t wear a pair of stilt shoes, instead she had on a pair of black Doc Marten boots with red laces threaded through.
Fucking sexy.
No wonder he was rock hard in his black dress pants and the fancy-dudded jacket to match with a navy shirt underneath. He’d even taken off his silver rings, not a hint of the biker about Grinder tonight, he wanted to blend in not stick out like a sore thumb or have any association to his club.
“You look ....” desire in her eyes and Grinder was twice as hard. “Different, not at all like a kidnapper biker.”
He hummed dark and heavy from the back of his throat, liking her appraisal. He’d dress like a jackass every day if he got her looking at him with her own hunger blazing.
“Before we go commit a crime and hopefully escape being murdered with Vodka bottles to the jugular, I have something to say, Luxe, and I’ve been practicing it all day so if I get it wrong you let me know and I’ll practice until I get it right.”
Something tender flashed through her dark eyes.
“I’ve did all this fucking wrong, love. I’m sorry for what I did, for scaring you the way I did, no woman should ever be treated that way, to feel threatened, not for a second. My ego was bigger than my brain and I couldn’t get past what happened between us last year. I should have taken it on the chin that you weren’t interested, that you only wanted what you could steal.”
Her face flushed. “I didn’t----”