by April Lust
“If Katia wants me to stay, I’m staying,” Devin said. He planted his feet shoulder-width apart and glared at Anya. “You’re not my boss. She is.”
His comment made me swell with pride, even though I knew I shouldn’t take anything he said to heart. But somehow, his defensive behavior made me feel much more confident than I had initially.
“It’s okay, Devin,” I said. “You can walk around outside, if that’s what you think would be most effective.” I flashed him my biggest smile and was pleased that he winked back at me. “Anya and I won’t be very long. I just have to pull some things from my closet for charity.”
Devin grunted. Anya and I watched as he slumped down the hallway, then stepped out front and slammed the door behind him. As soon as he was gone, she turned to me with a clipboard.
“Okay,” Anya said professionally. “We don’t have too much time, but we do need to make a huge pile of things for your donations this month. And you should think about signing some of your shoes. I was thinking we could auction them individually, and then donate all the proceeds to the Children’s Hospital, what do you think?”
I gaped at her. “You’re seriously still thinking about this now? Anya, what the hell about my stalker?”
Anya sighed. “It’s going to be over soon, now. Katia, I doubt you’ll hear anything from that asshole again. Everything’s going to be fine. Devin’s keeping a close eye on your condo, and we’re inside.”
I pouted. Again, I had the feeling of the most exciting part of my life being over. What was I supposed to do when Devin left and went back to his MC? Just sit here and twiddle my thumbs and act like I’d never gotten laid in my life?
Chapter Fourteen
Devin
Troy wasn’t too happy to hear from me.
“Hey,” he said. “You gonna be done with that gig soon? We really need you back in the club, man.”
I sighed and ran a hand through my hair. It felt stickier than usual; I wondered if using that frou-frou soap in Katia’s shower had been a bad idea after all.
“Soon,” I said. “We gotta catch this asshole first. I can’t leave her alone until the guy is behind bars. And even then, I have a feeling she’s gonna be freaked out for quite some time. You should know that better than anyone.” I rolled my eyes, even though Troy wasn’t there to see me. “Chicks get really freaked out about these kinds of things. She’s probably gonna hire someone full-time after I’m gone.”
“So,” Troy said. “If you ain’t coming back yet, why’d you call?”
“I need you to do more research and try to figure out who this guy is,” I said quickly. “We need to find him soon because Katia’s getting really fucking freaked out. Some sicko actually snuck into her condo this morning and took pictures of her in bed.” I held my breath, wondering if I should say something about the fact that I was in those pictures.
Troy won’t care, I realized. He knows who I am.
“That’s fucked up,” Troy said. I could just imagine him shaking his head and lighting up a cigarette. “He actually got into her condo? Where the fuck were you?”
I chuckled nervously. “That’s the thing,” I said, “I was actually in bed. With Katia.”
Troy didn’t reply.
“Hey,” I snapped. “Are you still listening? Did you hang up?”
“Devin,” Troy said slowly. “What the fuck is wrong with you? She’s a fucking package, not a fucking chick! You don’t get to screw your goddamned customers!”
I narrowed my eyes. “Fuck you,” I said. “If you got a look at this chick, you’d get it. Trust me, she’s fucking hot.”
“I don’t give a shit,” Troy said. “You’re the goddamned President of one of LA’s biggest MCs and you’re sleeping with this bitch? She hired you! Do you know how easy it would be for her to put it out there that you fucked her? It would fucking ruin our reputation. Forget about making money, asshole!”
His words stung, but I should have expected them. After all, he wasn’t exactly wrong.
I groaned. “You don’t have to worry,” I said. “It’s just a fuck.” I snarled. “And besides, asshole, you don’t get to go around giving me orders. It’s my club, remember?”
“And who’s the one holding everything together until you get back?” Troy spat. “Me. That’s right. I’m cleaning up all of your goddamn messes around the club. I don’t fucking expect that to influence your decisions, though. Heaven fucking forbid you keep your dick in your pants for once!”
I rolled my eyes. “Troy, you ass, this isn’t going to matter,” I said. “She’s cool. She’s not gonna fucking sue me for sexual harassment or any of that shit. Besides, she’s loaded. She doesn’t need any more money.”
Troy sighed. “Whatever, man,” he said. “I don’t wanna hear this shit anymore. You want me to get started hunting for this guy?”
I nodded. “Yeah,” I said. “Look, I’m gonna take her and her personal assistant out to dinner. Why don’t you meet us there? Enchanted Wild, does eight-thirty work?”
I could tell Troy immediately wanted to say something about how I shouldn’t be fraternizing with Katia outside of her condo, but he held his tongue.
“That should give me enough time to get a decent start,” Troy said finally. “I’ll look around and see if I can’t figure out who this asshole is. He’s obviously clever if he actually got inside her fucking condo. And he likes fucking with her more than anything else.”
“What makes you say that?”
Troy sighed again. “Because,” he said, sounding as exasperated as an elderly man. “If he was gonna hurt her, don’t you think he woulda done it while she was asleep? He could have just grabbed her and walked away.”
I frowned. “That doesn’t seem right,” I said slowly. “I think he was surprised to see me in bed, and realized that he could blackmail her for more. If he’d grabbed her, she would have screamed. And I would have killed that fucker, right then and there.”
“You’re thinking about this too much,” Troy said. “Trust me, these guys aren’t like that. They’re the type of men who just want one thing and one thing only. And I’m guessing this one guy’s thing is seeing Katia squirm and act all frightened and hissy. He probably doesn’t give a shit about actually hurting her. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s some bored kid.”
As we hung up, a bad feeling came over me. I tried to ignore it and think about what Troy had said, but it just didn’t seem likely. The photos were one thing, but what about those creepy phone calls? The guy had called Katia at a time when he thought she’d be sleeping, and there’s little more alarming than being woken from a deep sleep to find out that someone’s been watching you. He must have done it on purpose like he wanted her to find out about those photographs as soon as possible.
And what the fuck was up with Troy, anyway? He knew how things worked. He knew he couldn’t be treating me like that. Even though he was my second-in-command, he wasn’t showing very much respect. It was like he’d completely forgotten that I’d picked him out of all the other men to be my vice president. Even if he did have a point about Katia, he’d been pretty fucking rude while telling me about it. I made a mental note to show him who was really in charge as soon as I was able to return to Wicked Bones full time.
I was just about to start patrolling the other side of Katia’s condo when my phone rang again. I sighed.
“Yeah, Troy? What’s up?”
There was a girlish giggle on the other end of the line. “It’s Katia,” a voice said seconds later. “Expecting someone else?”
“Nah,” I mumbled. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah,” Katia said. She giggled again, and I heard Anya’s voice in the background. “Can you come in here?”
“On my way.”
When I got inside, Katia and Anya were standing in Katia’s walk-in closet. The floor was covered in clothes and heels and purses, I couldn’t even see the thick shag carpeting that Katia had installed over nearly every inch of he
r condo’s floor.
“Thank god,” Anya said. She rolled her eyes. “Devin, come in here.”
“We need your opinion,” Katia added. She smiled at me and I relaxed. She looked so goddamn pretty when she smiled that I couldn’t stand it. If Anya hadn’t been standing right there, I would have wrapped my arms around her waist and pulled her to me. Just thinking about kissing her was enough to make me hard, and I tried to distance myself from all recollection of her perfect, silky body.
I chuckled under my breath. “You’re feeling better,” I said. Katia bent over to fasten a strap around her ankle, and I couldn’t help but follow the enticing swell of her breasts. Her closet smelled like vanilla and honeysuckle. My cock twitched in my pants as I watched Katia’s figure straighten up. Her breasts bounced as she jumped to her feet.
“Well?” Katia spun in a circle. “What do you think?”
“That’s – that’s a damn outfit, that’s for sure,” I said. She was wearing a gold sparkly, high-waisted skirt and a cream silk blouse with no sleeves that made her look like an old Hollywood starlet.
“Should I donate it for the auction?”
“Sure,” I said. I shrugged. “I don’t know why you’re asking me.”
“Well,” Katia sighed. She wrinkled up her nose, managing to look adorable and curious at the same time. “Because I think I should donate it, but Anya doesn’t want me to.”
“She has to sign the front of it,” Anya explained. “Which would ruin the pieces.”
“But someone would buy it knowing it was Katia’s,” I said. I frowned. An idea had occurred to me, but I wasn’t ready to share it with Katia and Anya at the moment. I’d begun to think about her stalker, and just how easily he’d had access to Katia for all of this time.
As one of LA’s most famous beauty queens, Katia had done a lot with the community. She’d been involved in charity, philanthropy, and tons of things that were very well publicized. She had her own page on Wikipedia, and she was the kind of girl who got a lot of attention. She’d told me once that she always kept a tub of petroleum jelly in her purse so she could slick it on her teeth before exiting a car. She knew that wherever she went, she was going to wind up being photographed.
And the whole charity auction was probably another kink in the weird design of Katia’s stalker. He was someone who could attend events like these, watch Katia, stake out her every move. And for auctions where she was getting rid of her clothing? I shuddered to think of the creepy asshole who would drive the bidding war up just for a piece of something that Katia had owned.
I hoped she’d never decide to auction off any of her lingerie.
“So?” Katia pouted and turned. “Devin, what should I do?”
“Don’t auction it,” I said darkly.
She frowned. “Why? Don’t you like it?”
I sighed. “I’ll tell you later.”
Chapter Fifteen
Katia
After Anya and I had cleared away most of the clothing, I threw on some black jeans and a white sweater. Devin was taking us to Enchanted Wild, one of LA’s newest and trendiest restaurants. I’d been there before when I’d gone to the soft opening with Anya and some of her friends, but I was excited for the chance to see Devin in public again. After all, despite the stares he’d garnered at the coffee shop, I couldn’t ignore the fact that everyone was as drawn to him as I was.
“Come on,” Anya grumbled. I sighed.
“It’s not good,” I said. I leaned back from the mirror and wiped off my lipstick for the third time in a row. I couldn’t explain it, but I didn’t feel nearly as confident as I normally did. Something about my makeup seemed off, and even though the black jeans I was wearing were my favorite pair, I wasn’t enjoying the way I looked in them as much as usual.
“Well, you look stunning,” Anya said. “That’s what you wanted to hear, isn’t it? That you look incredible.”
I sighed. “Not from you,” I said too softly for her to hear. Reaching into a cabinet on the top of my vanity, I pulled out a silver clip and pinned my hair to one side like I was some pop star from the eighties.
“Devin’s waiting,” Anya said. She tapped her toe on the bathroom floor. I wanted to snap at her and ask her why she cared so much, seeing as she obviously didn’t want me staying with him in the long term.
Or even the short term, I thought sadly as I pulled my sunglasses out of my purse and let them rest on the top of my head. She doesn’t believe that I truly love him. What kind of a person does she think I am? The sun was setting among an array of warm colors, but that didn’t do a thing for my black mood. I pouted all the way to the restaurant. Anya drove her grandmotherly Subaru, and Devin sat in the back, like she was his chauffeur. I kept sneaking peeks at him in the rearview mirror. He looked even more handsome that usual with his hair was sticking out in messy cowlicks all over his head, almost like a Dior model from twenty years ago. He was wearing a plain black T-shirt and black jeans. The outfit wasn’t tight, but it still clung to his muscled frame whenever he twisted in the seat. When he laughed, he threw his head back and I stared at his neck, suddenly wondering what would happen if I threw myself in the back seat and kissed the exposed skin.
“Hello,” Anya said. “Earth to Katia! Are you even listening?”
“Sorry.” I flashed a bright smile at Anya, then peeked into the backseat. Devin’s eyes were trained on me, and I blushed when I saw the intense look on his face. The sun was just beginning to slide behind the LA hills and the low light reflected into Anya’s car with startling precision.
“So, I asked, what do you think your schedule will be like next week? I’d like to get a photo-shoot done for that pageant you’ll be judging at the end of the year,” Anya continued. “We don’t have any recent bikini photos of you, so I’d like to get some. But since you’re twenty-seven now, they’ll have to be a little tasteful. Maybe something with a high waist and fuller coverage, kind of like what Taylor Swift would wear?”
I wrinkled my nose. “I hate her,” I said. “She looks like an asexual little twit. She never even shows her belly button. I bet she doesn’t have one.”
Devin burst out laughing. “It’s true,” he said.
I turned around in surprise. “What does a big tough biker like you know anything about Taylor Swift?”
“Troy dated some chick who loved her,” he said. “But she looks so fucking fake to me.”
“See?” I pointed into the backseat. “Anya, Devin has the right idea. I can’t dress like her; no one’s going to think that’s cute.”
Anya sighed. She put on her right blinker and turned into the parking lot of Enchanted Wild. I had to giggle; Anya was probably the only person in all of LA who still thought to use her blinker each time she needed to turn.
The restaurant was packed. Immediately, I wished that I’d worn something a bit dressier, but it didn’t stop men from staring at me as the maître d’ led us to our booth in the corner of the restaurant. Normally, I would have fussed over having such a shitty table, but something told me that our discussion this evening was better left private.
“Katia, you’re popular around here,” Devin said dryly. He reached for his water glass and drank greedily. “All of those men.” He glanced around. He was getting stares, too, but they were of a much different sort. I was surprised that he hadn’t been asked to put on a jacket while we had been standing in the lobby.
I shrugged. “I can’t help it,” I said delicately. “I’ve worked on building an image.”
Anya rolled her eyes. “Katia, even going through a crisis doesn’t change you,” she muttered.
“But you love me,” I said. I grinned at her, and a few seconds later, Anya smiled back.
“I do,” Anya replied. “God help me, but I do.”
“I’m fucking starving,” Devin complained just as a waiter dropped three heavy leather-bound menus on the table. “What’s good here?”
“I love the lamb tips, and the bouillabaisse is out of thi
s world,” I gushed. “Oh, and the kale salad with peaches and sunflower seeds. It’s incredible, it’s like a taste of summer right in your mouth.”
Devin licked his lips. “I’d rather put something else in my mouth,” he said. He glanced at me, then quickly shifted his gaze down towards my lap. I blushed bright red as Anya lifted a finger in the air and scolded Devin like a schoolmarm.
“Just because I know about this does not mean I approve,” she said quickly. “Devin, the chicken parmesan is good, too. I can’t eat red meat so soon before bed though; it gives me the worst heartburn.”
Devin chuckled again. “I get that, too. It’s a real bitch.” Anya winced at the curse, but she didn’t say anything. When I looked up, she was staring at Devin so carefully that her eyes were patting down the seams of his clothing. I frowned. I wondered what her sudden interest in him was. Was she trying to make me jealous, somehow? Show me that he’d immediately fawn over any woman who paid attention to him?