“Marine Corps nicknames,” I laughed. “Gotta love the creativity, huh?”
“Yours seems to fit,” he grinned. “You’re quite a peach and I think I detect the remnants of a Southern belle?”
“Jesus, TNT, turn down the charm a little,” Bulldog cut in. It was a joke, but that flash I’d seen before was there again, just for an instant. Bulldog handed Trevor his double shot of anCnoc Cutter on ice. It was a single malt from the highlands that had passed legal age on the inside of a barrel.
Trevor took a sip and then stared at the amber liquid as he let the drink wash over his tongue. “You never disappoint,” he smiled.
Bulldog turned his attention toward me. “I met up with TNT here in Baghdad. He removed an IED from an area that we had been assigned to patrol. This guy is one coolheaded motherfucker.”
“That or an ignorant one,” Trevor laughed. “IED is the jarhead parlance for an improvised explosive device.”
“Yeah,” I responded, enjoying the opportunity to shock him. I was dressed in a curve-hugging red dress that stopped at mid-thigh, had on matching stilettos, had my hair, face and nails done up and was looking like I was about to walk the runway at an Armani fashion show. “I used to be a jarhead.”
“No fucking way!” He looked at Bulldog. “She’s jerkin’ my chain, right?”
“Not a bit.” Bulldog was pleased with having the element of surprise in that situation. He had a smug look like he was on top for the moment.
“No shit! Is she a Hell Dog too?”
“I am,” I answered for myself.
“Damn! Pardon my saying so, but you don’t look like a former jarhead or the kind of bitch who usually sits on the back of Harley.”
“I don’t sit on the back of a Harley,” I responded, enjoying the moment as much as Bulldog was. “I ride my own.”
“She has a Fat Boy sitting out in the lot that she can handle better than most guys I know,” Bulldog put in.
“A Fat Boy? Jesus!” He took a long sip of the scotch while his face worked out the anomaly sitting in front of him. “This doesn’t happen often, as Bulldog can tell you, but I am completely speechless.”
“Often? Hell! ‘Never’ is the better word for it,” Bulldog laughed.
“You dressed in leather and astride that Fat Boy is something that I’ll have to see before I go.”
I shrugged. “Just a girl on a bike.”
“Just a…” he started to repeat my words and then took another long sip.
I was enjoying the attention that my small list of surprises was providing me with, but I was even more interested in how Bulldog was reacting to Trevor’s interaction with me. It was obvious that he was envious of Trevor. It became even more obvious when they started to talk shop. During that time, however, I started to notice the tiny little bit of tension that Trevor had toward Bulldog as well. I decided to just sit back and watch the interaction between the two.
“Fuckin’ mess in Salt Lake,” Bulldog said.
Trevor’s eyes shifted to me and then back to Bulldog. “She’s alright for this?”
“Peach? Shit! She knows enough to bring down the whole fuckin’ operation!” Bulldog replied. “If she was going to rat me out, she would have done it a long time ago.”
Without realizing it, Bulldog had just given me that little push I needed in order to start thinking seriously about taking things over. It was an exaggeration, of course, but even in exaggerations, like in jokes, there is always a little bit of truth. The little bit of truth that I drew out of that statement was that Bulldog trusted me. I’ll use that against him. There was a little tingle of conscience whispering in my ear along with the thought, but I pushed it aside. I’d already set my sights on something that I wanted, and I wasn’t going to let a little tingle get in my way.
Bulldog’s response irritated Trevor. He was probably the tightlipped type and didn’t like private conversations being shared with anyone. He covered his concern up quickly. He was an expert at disguising his thoughts. I could tell that he had practiced it often. Is that what putting your life on the line to disarm a bomb made you do?
“I didn’t have a choice,” he said in a softer tone.
As he told the story of taking out Denny, the meth distributor, whose name I had never heard, he seemed to have some regrets about having to do what he had done. I also quickly discovered that he was one badass dude, and his story made the moisture begin to build up between my thighs. Not that it hadn’t already started the moment he entered the room. Before he even finished his story, I was already trying to figure out how I was going to get him onto my team.
“I thought he’d confess his sins and repent, but with things happening so fast, I had to just neutralize him and get the hell out of there.”
As the conversation continued, I read how each of them reacted and responded. It wasn’t a great deal unlike what they were doing downstairs at the poker tables, reading each other’s tells and creating a plan to take each other down. I was beginning to create a plan of my own before the weekend was up.
Chapter Nine: Peach
“Remember how I told you that I didn’t have anything to show for my efforts a few weeks back?” I opened up the conversation with Dish, knowing that if I was going to pull off what I wanted to pull off, I would need her help.
“Yeah? I thought you said that you were just tired and feeling sorry for yourself,” Dish responded.
“I never said that I was feeling sorry for myself,” I groused.
“You didn’t.” She pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes like she was trying to remember something. “Maybe I just made that part up, since you were starting on some whine and cheese party.”
“You are such a bitch sometimes,” I laughed. I knew she was just teasing me. It wasn’t the first time we’d gone through a similar warm-up to a conversation. It’s the strange way that we made it easier to talk about deeper feelings. We were women, but we had also been Marines and had sort of begun to think about and react to our feelings like men too. Breaking out of that took a little lighthearted humor. “I’m serious.”
“I know you are.”
“You know how you said that I know more about what is going on than Bulldog?”
“Yeah. It was the truth,” she frowned, wondering where I was headed.
“It’s partially the truth. There are a few things that I’ll have to fill in, but I think I have a plan for doing that.”
“You’re actually planning something? Like what? Are you going to make a move on taking over the Hell Dogs?”
“Yes.” I spoke the word, pushed my lips together and studied Dish’s face while she, in turn, studied mine.
“You’re serious, aren’t you?” she whispered.
“I am.” I waited for her response. Without her, I might as well scrap the whole idea.
“Are you sure? I mean, if you screw up just this much”—she indicated the amount on the tip of one of her fingernails—“you’ll be little more than a grease spot, if they can find that much.”
“That’s why I need you.”
“Jesus, Peach!” Her tone was a high-pitched whisper, barely audible. She brought her voice back under control, sighed, closed her eyes and tried to process what I’d just presented to her. “When you get a wild hair, you get a fuckin’ wild hair, don’t you?”
“It’s not really a wild hair,” I replied.
“Not a wild hair? What the hell is it?”
“I can do better. I want to have control. I want to be on top. I want to have something to show for what I’ve done. I want to leave my mark. Don’t you get it?”
“I get all of that, but you’re a fuckin’ engineer, Peach. Go design and build a fuckin’ bridge.”
“That’s been done,” I responded. “What hasn’t been done is a woman taking over a motorcycle club.”
“That’s because the ones who have tried are six feet under.”
There was a long silence while each of us sorted through our thoughts.
I was wondering if I had really lost my marbles. I was risking everything just to do something that no one else had ever done, and that had come as a result of envying how some dumb bastard like Bulldog could be the leader of such a major black market operation. I was beginning to think that the whole thing was ridiculous.
“So what’s your angle?” Dish asked, breaking into my thoughts.
“Does that mean that you’re in?” I asked, feeling a tingle of excitement beginning to lift the wet, wool blanket of apprehension from my shoulders.
“Let me hear your plan first and then I’ll decide. I’m not getting myself into something that’s going to get me killed, just so you can scratch some crazy itch.”
“You know that trip to Vegas that we just got back from?”
“Yeah, the one where you lost your ass playing blackjack?” she chuckled.
“Before that, I met someone, and you’ll never guess who.” I don’t know why I felt the need to build up the suspense, but it was still a shock to me, and I wanted to pass that little feeling along.
“Donald Trump,” she chirped.
“No, dumbass.” I could feel my eyes sparkling as I told her who I’d met. “Remember the gambler in Reno Gold who I mentioned?”
“The one like Captain America?”
“Exactly!”
“You didn’t!”
“I did.”
“Does Bulldog know? Jesus, that would send him into a ballistic launch.”
I hadn’t realized that she was aware of Bulldog’s jealousy, but there wasn’t any point in speculating on that at the moment. “Bulldog knows all about him. It turns out Trevor, or TNT, as they refer to him, is an old buddy of Bulldog’s from Baghdad. Trevor is also a Hell Dog, though he’s kept on the outside. From what I gathered during their conversation, Trevor’s job is to collect money from the Hell Dogs’ various sources and then launder it by playing the role of a gambler in the clubs in Reno.”
“Jesus,” she breathed.
“Not only that, but Trevor is one badass mother, too. I got to hear him tell Bulldog about a meth distributor that he’d ‘put out of business.’ Waltzed right in with three guards on station. Took one out with a knife, one out with a silenced pistol, went to snatch the target and ended up having to take him out when he reached for a piece. He tapped him out and then smashed through a closed window before the third guard could get to him.”
“I thought you said that this gambler of yours was a smooth operator in the casinos.”
“He’s that too.”
She took in what I’d told her for about a minute and then wrinkled her brow as she looked at me. “Okay, so that’s useful information, but I still don’t see your angle.”
“Well, my dear, Dishwater Dawn, it so happens that I caught a little lustful sparkle in Mr. Dynamite’s eyes, and I think he has the hots for me.”
“Who the fuck doesn’t have the hots for you?” she laughed. “Jesus, you look like fuckin’ Giselle.”
I shrugged and then just sat there grinning at her, waiting for her to put it all together.
“You mean you’re going to use your new pretty boy to bring down Bulldog?”
I winked at her and smiled.
“Divide and conquer?” she asked.
I nodded.
“And you just have to fuck pretty boy’s brains out. Too bad there aren’t any perks for you.”
“It’s a tough job…” I didn’t have to finish the sentence, so I left it hanging there.
“Yeah, I know, and you get to do it,” she grumbled. She was quiet for another minute as she thought through what she knew. “What about Bulldog? Isn’t he going to catch on that you’re fuckin’ his buddy?”
“I hope so,” I smiled.
“Jesus H. Christ, this is one that I’ve got to hear.”
“You see, what I saw in Vegas is that they already have a distrust of each other. I know what Bulldog’s problem is: He’s envious of how cool and easy Trevor is. No doubt, he knows that Trevor can get anything he wants and get it any time he wants. What I don’t know yet is what it is that has Trevor feeling that same distrust of Bulldog. He’s not envious. I’m really only guessing at this, but I think he despises the way that Bulldog uses and manipulates him.”
“Okay, so what do you need me for?” she asked.
“Are you in?” I asked. I wanted to make sure that we were together before I started to unveil my plan.
“I’m in,” she replied.
Chapter Ten: Peach
With Dish set to carry out her role, I only had to wait to be sent to Reno on another pick-up. The best thing about it all was that there was a span of several weeks between when we were in Vegas and when Bulldog called to send me to Reno, which had allowed any remnant of envy or jealousy concerning Trevor to dissipate from Bulldog’s mind. I played my part too. It was a little unnerving, like being a girly girl in the Marines, which I’d already survived, but I laid on the girlfriend experience to the nth degree during that time.
I kept Bulldog so happy that he was ready for a break from me, even if it was only an overnight break. I was definitely ready for a break of my own. The stress of having to be a good girlfriend was eating away at my good humor, and I was afraid that it was going to start putting wrinkles on my smooth face. For once, I was actually psyched to be on my Fat Boy and riding toward Reno.
I’d brought along the perfect outfit for “bumping into” Trevor, and I was a little bit excited about getting into it and working my game. The dress was a curve-hugging, silver, snakeskin print that, on me, would make your eyes pop out of your head. I had the heels and the accessories to match and I could hardly wait to track down Trevor and knock him on his ass; seeing a few other heads turn was just icing on the cake. Okay, so, I really did enjoy showing off once in a while.
As I parked at the Reno Gold Hotel, turned off the Fat Boy and swung my leg to get off, I couldn’t help smiling as I considered the transformation that was about to take place. I was dressed in leather, with Hell Dogs colors on my back, my pink brain bucket on top and my combat boots on bottom when I went into the hotel and up to my room. When I closed the door behind me several hours later and started toward the elevator, I looked like someone who had just walked the runway in Paris. There was one drawback to my plan at that point: I had no idea where Trevor was or even if he was in Reno.
I guessed that, unless he actually lived in Reno, he probably stayed at the Reno Gold whenever he was in town. He hadn’t been registered as a guest and I was worried that my efforts would all be for nothing, though the reaction that I received as I entered the casino had already started to pay off.
I made my way to the blackjack table, bought in and sat down, ordering a Crown and Coke as my first hand was dealt. I didn’t do well, at first; my attention was on searching the room for Trevor rather than playing blackjack. I lost quite a bit of money, though I had gained a pretty large crowd of admirers, mostly men. I was considering packing it in and rethinking how to execute my plan when my luck started to change. I won three hands in a row and had just placed a healthy sum on a hold with a nine of clubs down and a pair of red fives up, when I heard a voice behind me, which I recognized.
“I thought you’d had about enough of this in Vegas,” Trevor said softly as he leaned in close to my ear.
He smelled delicious, and I felt a tingle rush through me. I didn’t respond until everyone folded and the house went bust. “My luck has changed,” I laughed, raking in a sizeable pot.
“So has mine,” he grinned.
I stood, turned toward him for a hug and a quick peck on the cheek. “You going to buy in here?”
“Miss?” the dealer said, reminding me that I had to ante up if I was going to join the next hand.
“Pass,” I replied. I turned back to Trevor. “Are you working or having fun?”
“Can’t I do both?” he laughed.
That hadn’t come out the way that I’d wanted it to, and I blushed at his response. That sort of piss
ed me off, because I never blushed. “I suppose you can,” I laughed. “That didn’t come out exactly like it sounded in my head.”
“Well,” he grinned. “Let’s see if I can let you off the hook then.”
“Please do,” I smiled.
“Tonight, I’m just going to have fun.”
I looked at my stack of chips and figured that I was just a little below even. “I haven’t lost everything, so maybe I ought to get out before I have.”
“You’ve done a whole lot better than you did in Vegas.”
He and Bulldog had watched me blow at least a grand on blackjack in Vegas. I’d done a little better at roulette, but it hadn’t made up for what I’d lost. “Maybe I should go try roulette and see if I can come out ahead this time.”
“Why not?” he grinned.
I gathered up my chips and headed with him to the roulette table. “What about you?” he asked as he tucked my arm under his elbow.
“What about me?”
“Are you working or just having fun?”
“I’ll work tomorrow,” I responded with a giggle. “Tonight, I’m just having fun.”
“Crown and Coke?” he asked as we settled in at the roulette table.
“You remembered,” I grinned.
“How could I forget anything about you?”
“I figured that you would just remember me getting slaughtered at blackjack.”
“That,” he laughed, “was truly unforgettable.”
I found that his laugh sent a strange thrill running through me. It was rich and real. I hadn’t noticed that in Vegas, but then, I was with Bulldog and trying not to be too obvious that I was attracted to Trevor. I’d laid out a plan to start working on Trevor, see if I could draw his interest and create that divide between him and Bulldog. What I was discovering, however, was that my plan wasn’t so much a plan, but something that was enjoyable as well.
While we laughed, drank and played roulette, I completely forgot about what I was planning to do. I was caught up in the moment, caught up in his charm, caught up in how he smelled, caught up in the sound of his voice and caught up in the electric current that rushed between us whenever we touched. Basically, rather than working Trevor, I was getting caught up in letting him do whatever he wanted to do with me. It was completely not how I had planned it.
AFRICAN AMERICAN URBAN FICTION: BWWM ROMANCE: Billionaire Baby Daddy (Billionaire Secret Baby Pregnancy Romance) (Multicultural & Interracial Romance Short Stories) Page 17