by Vivian Arend
"Ben Beciraj?" I hazarded an educated guess.
"Yeah. What the hell do you want?" His gruff, irritated voice set off a strange quivering sensation in my chest. I couldn't tell if it was because I was terrified or excited. To be honest, it was probably a bit of both. The dangerous aura surrounding this man warned me to be careful, but I kept looking at those big, scarred hands of his and thinking about them touching me in the most intimate ways. "Well?"
Startled by his rough voice, I shot a petrified look Marley's direction before working up the courage to meet the man's glare. "My name is—"
"I know who you are."
I blinked at the rude way he had cut me off. "How?"
"I recognized your face from all those society page stories."
"You read the society section?"
He issued a clipped laugh. "What’s wrong? You shocked that someone like me can actually read?"
Frowning at his bitter remark, I decided not to go there. Instead, I stated my case. "Look, my car was stolen earlier this evening. My stepbrother left it in a parking lot outside one of those gross strip clubs he likes to visit. When he came out, it was gone."
"And?" His stony gaze turned cold. "How the fuck is any of that my problem?"
His mean reply squashed whatever fascination I had with him. "Are you really going to stand there and act like you don't know why I'm beating on your garage door at midnight? Like I don't know you and your little crew of thieving miscreants stole my car and have it locked away somewhere in this ratty shop of yours?" Lifting my chin and throwing back my shoulders, I remembered Marley's advice. "Give me my car—or else you're going to regret it."
The corner of his mouth twitched. Was it amusement? Did he find my threat funny? Or was it something else, something far more sinister? Was that tiny, almost imperceptible twitch the only warning I would be given?
"I doubt that very much."
"Yeah?" Playing the only card I had, I raised the cell phone gripped tightly in my hand. "How many cops do you think dispatch will send out here when I tell them my name?" I started to dial 9-1-1. "Five? Ten? Maybe I'll just call the mayor directly—"
He took a menacing step forward. "Hang up. Now."
"Or what?" I refused to be cowed by this tattooed brute. "You'll hit me?"
His head snapped back as if I had slapped him. His throat bobbed, and he clenched his fists at his sides. "I've never hit a woman in my life. Instead of threatening me with the police, you should learn to pay your fucking debts. This car has been on the repo list for two weeks. You had your chance to make things right."
"Wait. What?" I lowered my hand, the phone call forgotten. "What debts? I don't owe a penny to anyone!"
Mr. Ink and Muscles narrowed his eyes. After an uncomfortable moment of scrutiny, he stepped back into the garage and crooked a finger in my direction. "Let's talk about this some place more private."
I took a step forward, but Marley clasped my wrist. She shook her head. "No."
Ben's jaw tightened. "You're both safe here. I give my word." In case we doubted what his word was worth, he eyed Marley. "My boss would have my balls in a jar on his desk if anything happened to that one." Then, as an afterthought, he added, "Spider and his M.C. would burn this garage to the ground with me inside it if Besian didn't catch me first."
Marley and I shared a look. She had told me that this tightly knit crew of men adhered to a code of honor that went back centuries. Even though this guy could easily snap my neck with those strong hands, he wasn't going to hurt me. I believed that much.
We entered the garage together, but he motioned for Marley to wait near a toolbox. He called out to the group of men watching us with interest in a language I had never heard. I assumed it was Albanian but wished it had been Mandarin, French or Russian, languages I spoke fluently and easily.
A giant man who had been hiding at the rear of the group elbowed his way through the small crowd. I tilted my head back to take in all of him. He was taller than all of his companions by a foot and had shoulders nearly as wide as the SUV behind him, but it wasn't his uncommon height that held my attention. No, it was the gnarly scars arcing across the right side of his face. I didn't know what type of weapon would make such jagged wounds, but I had a feeling this man had suffered a brutal and vicious attack, one that had cut him from scalp to shoulder, judging by the thick scar running down to the collar of his shirt.
"Devil is going to watch your friend. You?" Ben pointed at me. "You're coming with me."
Marley squeezed my hand before we separated. She didn't seem the least bit intimidated by the hulking beast who had been assigned babysitting duties. Considering what I knew of her stepfather's friends, I wasn't that surprised. At times like this, I envied her rather harsh upbringing. She understood so much more of the world than I ever would and navigated the bumpy waters of life much better than me.
My belly wobbled as I followed Ben into the office on the far left side of the garage. The moment I stepped inside the room, he slammed the door shut behind me and pinned me against it. He used his larger frame to box me in and flattened his palms against the cold metal at my back. I sucked in a shuddery, nervous breath and stared up at him.
We were so close his body heat seeped into me. His hard chest grazed my breasts and the scent of him, a masculine blend of sweat, denim, and leather that smelled of hard work, ignited something primal and feminine inside me. None of the men I encountered in my day-to-day life had ever looked at me the way he did. None of them would have dared to behave in such a dominant, alpha way either.
His pale eyes glinted with frustration—and lust. I wasn't sure what was going to happen now. He was going to kiss me or hurt me. Or maybe both.
Ben Beciraj didn't know what to do with the infuriatingly beautiful woman he had pinned to the door. He was torn between wanting to snarl at her and wanting to kiss her. He squashed the latter impulse. This wasn't the kind of girl who would welcome his attention. She was pretty and rich and existed in a league so far outside his own they weren't even in the same universe. She probably wanted to recoil at having someone so grubby and obviously beneath her breathing the same air.
When all that racket had started outside the garage, the very last thing he had expected to find was Aston Fucking McNeil, Houston's favorite socialite, beating on his damned door. He had been sure it was one of the boosters coming by with an extra car. Though the team of thieves had gone out tonight with a list of specific targets, it wasn't unusual for the boys to come across an easy mark. Motivated by money, they would swipe any car possible for extra cash.
But what motivated this girl? He didn't know, and it unsettled him. He had learned to read people at a very early age but he couldn't get a fix on Aston. That surprised him. His ability to figure out a person with a single look came in useful for a young boy running the halls of a notorious brothel. Some of the men who frequented that place had a taste for something other than the high class whores who offered their services. Dropping a man with one well-placed punch had been another skill he had learned at an early age.
Thinking of the cruel, stark upbringing he had known, he studied the young woman pressed between the door and his body. She didn't belong here. This wasn't her world. Hell, it wasn't even Marley's world. She might be the stepdaughter of one of the meanest sons of bitches in the city, but she had been greatly shielded from the horrors of Spider's life.
Until that night she had been kidnapped, Besian had been shot, and he had been tasked with cleaning up the crime scene at the pawn shop to protect the family. As long as he had known the boss, Besian had never, not once, shown interest in someone like Marley. He'd always preferred the wild, adventurous women who danced at his clubs. He liked things simple and easy—a few quick fucks, some cash and gifts to signal the end and a clean getaway.
But that young woman standing in the garage under Devil's guard? Ben couldn't wrap his head around that one. And this young woman? The one peering up at him with mistrust and curiosit
y? He really couldn't wrap his head around her.
The scent of something floral and flirty tickled his nose. It smelled expensive, the notes bright and clean and unmarred by the stringent bite of alcohol used in the cheaper drugstore perfumes he was used to smelling on the dancers at the clubs their family owned. He fought the urge to bend low and inhale her sweet scent. She was too tempting and utterly dangerous to a man like him and yet…
Throwing caution to the wind, he grasped her tiny wrists and forced her arms flush against the door. Her breaths quickened, and she swallowed nervously. "Wh-what are you doing?"
He didn't have that answer. Instead, he turned the question around on her. "What game are you playing?"
"Game? I'm not playing a game with you."
"No? What do you call this? You know how it works when a loan isn't repaid."
He stopped abruptly and wondered at the way she had forced this confrontation. It was all too neat. With the amount of money on the line, she had to have known this day was coming. When the money had been borrowed, her brother had agreed to the terms. The car would be repossessed and sold on the black market if the loan defaulted, and the insurance check for the theft would be split eighty-twenty in favor of Besian. That's the way it worked. So why show up at the garage now? Why make such a scene? Why hadn't she simply paid the damn loan since she was so fucking rich?
Unless…
A prickly sensation invaded his stomach. "Is this a setup?"
Her honey brown eyes flashed with fear. "What? No!"
Not convinced by her denial, he quickly replayed their conversation so far. Had he said anything truly incriminating? Wondering if she was wearing a wire, he eyed her clothing. She seemed overdressed in that skirt and top with the pinkish red jacket, especially compared to her friend who wore a camisole and yoga pants. Her blonde hair was pulled up in a ponytail that looked purposely messy. Turquoise earrings dangled from her ears. She looked too pretty and too enticing.
Realizing he had been caught in her trap, he let go of her wrists and gave her jacket a shake. "Take this off. Now."
She pressed back against the door, moving as far away from him as possible. He took her retreat as confirmation of her duplicity. "No!"
"Yes." He started to push the jacket off her shoulders, intent on finding the wires, but she blindsided him with a well-placed smack that nearly took his head clean off his shoulders. Stunned by the power behind her slap, he blinked a few times before turning to face her.
Aston had gone ghostly pale. She seemed just as surprised that she had actually hit him. The fear etched into her beautiful face was easy enough to read now. His gut twisted and he loathed himself for causing such fear in a woman. Her lower lip wobbled precariously. "I'm sorry."
"Don't." He fixed her with an angry glare. "When you hit someone, own it." Then, because she seemed like the sort of girl who needed a lesson in the realities of the world, he added, "The next time you hit a man like that you better be prepared to keep on fighting or run."
She turned up her dainty little nose rather haughtily. Her defiance should have pissed him off, but—God help him—he found that being smacked by her and then sneered at only made him want to claim those pouty lips of hers even more.
"There won't be a next time. I don't make a habit of hanging around men who think they can put their hands on me like you did. I prefer a better class."
Her words stung him, but he snorted derisively, pretending she hadn't hit her mark. "Next time borrow your money from a better class."
"I told you! I didn't borrow any money. I don't need to borrow money."
"Your brother did, and he came to us."
Her lips parted but no sound followed. Confusion was plain on her face. She seemed to be considering something very carefully. Finally, she spoke. "You didn't steal the car. You repossessed it as collateral for a loan Calvin took from your boss."
Her betrayed expression convinced him he had misjudged the situation. "You didn't know?"
"Of course I didn't know!" She shot him a withering look. "That car means the world to me! If I had known that my stupid stepbrother had taken out a loan using Baby as collateral, I would have marched over to one of your boss' strip clubs and tossed a suitcase of money at him."
"You named the car Baby?" He tried not smirk, but it was too precious.
She sobered. "My father named her. Baby was his car. Now she's mine. Calvin had no right to use her as collateral."
"Well, he did, and he didn't make any of the payments. This is the price of going back on his word." It wasn’t any of his business, but he had to ask. "Why didn't your brother come to you for the money he needed?"
"Stepbrother," she said icily. "He's my stepbrother. He's not my real family."
"Family is family." He thought of the people who loved him like a brother but shared none of his blood—Besian, Zec, Devil. If that was the way she saw her stepbrother, as someone unfit to be part of her family, no fucking wonder he had screwed her over by taking her car and using it as collateral in a loan he had probably never intended to pay.
"Family?" She scoffed with a harsh laugh. "Family doesn't push you down the stairs and break your arm on the morning your parents are getting married. Family doesn't roofie you, tie a bow around your neck and leave you in a pool house as a gift for a friend's birthday. Family doesn't miss your father's funeral to ransack your house for all the valuables that aren't nailed down."
Her eyes glittered with fury and hurt. For the first time in a long fucking time, Ben experienced the urge to comfort someone…to care. He shoved it down just as quickly as it appeared. He had cared once and only once. After his mother had wasted away in hospice, he had vowed he would never care again. He wasn't about to break that vow now.
"If you'll give me back the car, I'll pay whatever Calvin owes plus interest and any other fees your boss wants to tack onto the account."
"That's not my decision to make. I can't negotiate something like that."
"So let's go visit your boss—"
"He's out of town. He won't be back until next week."
"Well…then…," she trailed off as she considered her options. "What if I trade you Baby for another car from the collection? Or two cars? Hell, I'll give you three or four of them if that's what you want."
Ben thought that was more than fair, but it wasn't his job to make those decisions. "I'll have to call the boss."
"So call him." She gestured to the phone on his desk. "I'll go find Baby and keep her company."
"The car isn't here."
"Where is she?"
"That car went straight to the storage containers to wait for shipment."
She exhaled with apparent relief. "So you didn't chop it up?"
"Do I look stupid to you? I boosted that one myself, just to be sure it was handled properly."
"You know what that car is worth, right?"
"Yes." He waited to see if she would mention an amount. "What's wrong? You don't want to talk money? Is that gauche?"
"Look at you! Using those big words. The libraries in juvenile detention must have benefited from all those literacy fundraisers my stepmother used to host." She cast a daring glance his way. "Well? Isn't that how you want me to talk to you?"
"That's not—" He clenched his jaw together. "How did you know I was in juvie?"
Her face softened. "I didn't. I just—I'm sorry. I shouldn't have taken the bait."
Grudgingly, he said, "I shouldn't have been such a dick."
"I have a feeling you probably have a reason for your attitude toward me."
"Why would you say that?"
She shrugged. "My dad made a lot of money and a lot of enemies. You wouldn't be the first person to have a grudge against me for something I never did."
Her matter-of-fact statement left him feeling lower than dirt. He had judged her to be one thing but was having second thoughts. Maybe there was more to Aston McNeil than the vapid stories would have him believe. The glimpses he was getting we
re helping him paint a picture of a young woman who had been born into privilege but who had suffered regardless.
"Ben?"
He liked the way his name sounded coming from her sweet mouth. "Yes?"
"Why did you try to undress me?"
"To see if you were wearing a wire," he answered truthfully.
Her anxious gaze met his, and she stared unwaveringly at him while shrugging out of her jacket. Extending it on one finger, she offered it to him and he took it. His mouth went dry as she lifted the bottom of her striped top and revealed the sloping plane of her tanned belly. She bared her lacy bra to him, the sheer, pale pink teasing him and making him wonder if her nipples were that same shade.
Turning around, she showed him her back before spinning to face him again and letting her top fall. When she gripped the bottom of her skirt, she might as well have stomped the gas pedal controlling his heart. His pulse revved up like a throttled engine. Inch by tantalizing inch, she uncovered her thighs. It was a better striptease than he had ever seen in one of the clubs the family owned. Not even the highest paid dancers had made his cock throb like this.
She kept her gaze trained on his face, her mouth curved with a hint of a shy smile, and continued lifting her skirt. When he got his first glimpse of her panties, his dick leapt with utter fucking joy. Ben had never seen panties like these. No doubt they cost more than he spent on groceries for a month but damn! They were so fucking sexy. In that same soft shade of pink as her bra, they were sheer like a fine net. Two embroidered shells covered the area he wanted to see most.
He noticed the tops of her thighs were flushed now, her skin bright red and betraying her embarrassment. Or maybe it was her excitement, he thought after glancing at her pretty face. Her lips were parted on a pitched breath. He caught a peek at her soft, pink tongue and it made him think about even softer, pinker parts that he wanted to see.
"Do you trust me now?" She held her skirt up high, still showing off her skimpy panties.