“So, what would I be doing exactly?” he said, picking at the label on his Miller Genuine Draft.
“Well, I don’t have all the details yet,” I said. “But probably some building demolition, maybe blowing some doors, maybe some cars. I don’t know. But all stuff you can handle. And I told you how much it pays. You can’t be upset with the money, can you?”
“No, that’s good,” he said. “I just don’t get it. Why are we rescuing this girl?”
“She’s my cousin’s fiancée,” I said. “It’s a long story. Let’s not worry so much about that part of it.”
“Just odd is all. I haven’t done a job that legit helped someone in…” He shrugged. “Maybe never.” He took a drink of his beer. “Of course, Ripper’s always on about how if we kill people who were going to hurt tons of people, then we save lives and blah blah blah, but that guy is stone-cold psycho, and I think he just makes up justifications to feel better about himself.”
Ripper was the handle of the head of the organization. He had stepped down lately. Rumor was that he was playing house somewhere with some girl he’d knocked up. If it was true, it was crazy. The Ripper I knew wasn’t the settling down type.
“Well, you can call it kidnapping if it makes it easier for you,” I said.
He barked out a laugh.
“You in?” I said.
“Yeah, I’m in.”
“Good,” I said. I sat back in my chair and took a drink of my own beer.
“So, uh, is it just the two of us?” he asked. “We going to do all this on our own?”
“No, it’s a bigger job than that. We’ll need some more people. I haven’t gotten everyone signed on yet. But Kiera’s going to do computers for us.”
“From headquarters? The receptionist?” he asked. It was a joke that Kiera was our receptionist.
“Yeah, that’s her,” I said. “I didn’t want her in on this. Too dangerous, you know. But she heard about it, and she wouldn’t let it go, and then I couldn’t stop her. She was talking crazy, like she was going to take over the whole thing, so I had to let her in. I swear, that girl…” I shook my head and drank more beer.
Blaze furrowed his brow. “You’re angry with her, huh?”
“I just don’t see why she’s got to be so intent on being part of something like this. She’s a kid. She can’t be older than twenty.”
“I think she’s twenty-one, actually,” he said. “Because I remember when it was her birthday, and we had that office party, and she said she could drink legally?”
“Oh,” I said. “Right.” I remembered that day too. I’d had a little too much to drink myself, and then I’d had to leave, because the desire to just drag Kiera into a dark room somewhere and have my way with her had been too strong.
I knew better than that. She was too young. Too innocent. I wouldn’t let someone like me get near her. I would taint her, ruin her. She deserved better than someone like me.
“Well, I don’t think it’s a bad thing,” said Blaze. “She’s really good at what she does. So, that’s an asset in my book.”
“Yeah, but what if something happens to her?” I said. “That’ll be on me.”
“It’ll be on her. She’s the one who wanted to do it.”
“But I should have stopped her.”
“Who designated you her big brother?” Blaze set his beer down on the table. “Oh, wait. It’s not like that, is it? You’re being overprotective because you think you like her, aren’t you?”
“That’s insane. She’s a child.” I drank my beer.
“She’s twenty-one,” said Blaze. “You know what I do in situations like that? I just tap that.”
“I didn’t ask for advice.”
“Seriously. You may think you’ve got some kind of thing for her, but I find it’s generally just sexual fascination. Fuck her a few times, it fades.” He got up from the table. “You’ll get in touch when we start this thing?”
“I will,” I said, glad he was leaving. It would save me the trouble of protesting I had no sexual fascination with Kiera. I didn’t know if I could pull that lie off without giving myself away.
Maybe Blaze was right. Maybe if I gave in and had sex with Kiera, I’d get over my obsession with her. I’d never felt quite this way about a woman before, and I felt it had to be because I was denying myself her. Probably if I did fuck her, I’d realize no human being could live up to the fantasy I’d built around her, and everything would crumple.
But I was never going to do that, because I cared about her. I wouldn’t use her to just to assuage my fascination. She was a good girl, a nice girl, and I would leave her untouched.
I watched as Blaze crossed the bar to sit down opposite a woman with red hair. She looked up at him, a wary look on her face.
Blaze said something.
The woman laughed.
He said something else.
She crossed her legs, pointing her knees at him, leaning in to hear him talk.
Fuck that dude. He was so good at that shit. I’d forgotten how suave he was. I could never pull anything like that off. Blaze managed to put women at ease. I was the size of a barge. I had a deep, rumbling voice. When I spoke to women, all they saw was a monster.
Of course, Kiera had never seemed the slightest bit afraid of me.
I took another long drink of beer.
But that was because she was too innocent to know better. She didn’t know what I was, what I’d done, what I was capable of.
Other women were right to be afraid of me.
I had blood on my hands.
CHAPTER TWO
Kiera
“Whatcha doing?” I asked Demetrius. I would have ignored him, but he had decided to follow me to the little cafe where I liked to get a cup of soup and salad—okay, half a sandwich—every day. I always meant to get a salad. My thighs were not getting a bit smaller, and I didn’t need the calories from the bread and the cheese and the meat. But salads were so… green.
Anyway, it didn’t much matter what my thighs looked like anyway. It wasn’t as if anyone besides me ever saw them.
Demetrius followed me there more often than not. He was like a puppy dog that way.
A large, intimidating puppy dog who insulted me all the time. I didn’t know what his problem was, but he never left me alone. I was pretty sure that he had social issues or something. Most of the guys who worked for the organization did. A guy doesn’t start killing people for money if he’s totally well-adjusted and healthy.
Maybe he didn’t know how to talk to women.
Although, sometimes, when he spoke to me, he did it in this low, rumbling voice that made my whole body feel shivery. My nipples would stiffen and there would be twitching between my thighs, and I’d have to mentally reign myself in. So, in those instances, he really did seem to know how to talk to women. Or at least to me.
But I was not attracted to him.
I only talked to him because I felt sorry for him.
Yeah. He was very pitiful, with his stupidly rippling biceps and his olive skin and his light brown eyes and the little dimples that appeared under his stubble when he smiled and—
“I’m working on the job we’re doing for Matteo, if you must know.”
“Oh,” I said. “Want some help? I could be a sounding board.” I took a bite of my sandwich. Horseradish and roast beef. Mmm. There was nothing better on earth. Some people didn’t like horseradish, but that was only because they weren’t adventurous enough. Food could be bland, or it could be a rainbow of flavors and tastes. Excitement.
I kind of liked eating.
My thighs could attest to that.
I wasn’t overweight or anything, but I wasn’t super skinny either. I would be overweight, though, if I kept indulging myself so much.
I sighed.
“I’m fine,” said Demetrius.
“Oh, right,” I said sarcastically. “You don’t need my help, because you never need my help. Because I’m just the stupid little girl
who you have to babysit.”
He was sitting a table over from me, close enough for us to converse. He scribbled something on a piece of paper. “I don’t think you’re stupid.”
“But you do think I’m a little girl?”
He raised his gaze to me. “Does that offend you?”
“I’m twenty-one.”
He scribbled something else.
“How old are you, anyway? You can’t be older that twenty-five.”
“I’m trying to think here. Your chattering away in the background is not helping.”
I picked up my tray and my drink and went over to his table. I sat down next to him. “Why do you follow me around, anyway? You know, if you were so after peace and quiet, you could have just stayed at headquarters while I came out to lunch. Instead, you always come here with me.”
He didn’t seem ruffled that I’d joined him. “I like the food.”
“And you always come at the same time as I do because?”
“We seem to be hungry around the same time,” he said.
“Oh, is that so?”
“Yes.” He glowered at me.
I glowered back.
He gestured to my pickle spear. “You going to eat that?”
“Yes.” I seized the pickle and took a bite. Pickles were delicious. Also, they had practically no calories. Lots of salt, though. Which made you retain water. “I think you follow me around because you’re secretly in love with me.”
He coughed.
I squared my shoulders, grinning. Of course, I knew that he didn’t like me at all. All he did was yell at me. That was why it was so funny to tease him about it. “Yes, you probably spend all your time trying to work up the courage to ask me out on a date, and you just can’t. Probably because you’re terrified of women.”
“I am not terrified of women.”
I shrugged. “When I was looking into you, I checked your credit card receipts, and you go out to the bar a lot, but never out to eat. So, not a lot of dating.”
“When I date, I pay cash.” He picked up the rest of my pickle and shoved it in his mouth.
“Hey!”
He chewed and grinned at the same time.
“You are a toad,” I decided.
He swallowed, still grinning. His voice lowered. “Yes, as you can see, Kiera, you scare me immensely.”
That voice. That was the shivery voice. My nipples got hard, and I could feel the fabric of my bra brushing against them. I sucked in a tiny breath. I cleared my throat and turned my attention to my soup.
It was quiet for several minutes.
He scribbled.
I slurped soup.
At one point, he lifted his hand, and I lifted my hand, and we accidentally brushed each other.
We both recoiled, like we’d been burned.
And I felt a little like I had, as if my entire body had been seared with his touch. Inside, I felt fluttery, uneasy. I was getting turned on. I swallowed hard. I didn’t let this happen to myself. I wasn’t repressed or anything. I just felt that those kinds of feelings were distracting. I did my best to find ways to take care of my needs and then to keep that side of me under lock and key. Being turned on while eating soup? That was… disturbing.
“I’m sorry I ate your pickle,” he said suddenly.
“That was a total dick move,” I said, anger rising, drowning out my arousal. Oh, no, damn it, it was actually just fueling my arousal. Argh.
“I know. It was juvenile. I shouldn’t have done it. You just…” He shook his head. “You get me so…” He squeezed his eyes shut. “Maybe we should talk about the job.”
“Sure,” I said. “I can help, you know. I really can.”
“The problem is that I’m running into dead ends in terms of anyone else who could be on the team. So, I’m thinking we might have to do this just the three of us. You, me, and Blaze. But I can’t figure out how to make it work, because I need Blaze in the building getting Natasha, and then I’m going to do Nikolai, and you’re outside running point—”
“I could come inside.”
“No.”
“Why not? Too dangerous?”
“Yes. I don’t want you to get killed.”
“Oh my God. You’re overreacting.”
“I really don’t think I am. This job we’re pulling? We’re going up against very dangerous men. Now, you know your stuff, but you work in an office, behind a screen—”
“I can easily use a laptop or a tablet and be mobile—”
“You are not getting killed on my watch. So, you don’t go in.”
I sighed. “Have you thought about using Leak?” Leak was another of the hitmen who worked for our organization.
“Leak?” He shook his head. “I don’t need Leak. What I need is someone who can sweet talk himself out of situations. And… and maybe a cat burglar. Someone who steals jewels by lowering himself down on those little rope things?”
“Ooh,” I said. “I know just who you need.”
“You do?”
“Yeah,” I said. “You need the Crosbies.”
* * *
Demetrius
“You sure about this?” I said to Kiera. We were standing outside the door to an apartment. All the way up the steps, we could hear two people screaming at each other. Sounded like a bad argument.
There were even some sounds of something shattering.
Now, we were standing in front of the door in which the argument was taking place. I did not have a good feeling about this.
She bit down on her lip. “I never heard them fight before. But yeah. Cass and Ambrose Crosby. They’re who you need.” She raised her hand to knock on the door.
“Maybe we should hold up a minute,” I said.
She knocked anyway.
I winced. Too late.
Suddenly, all noise from inside the apartment stopped.
We waited.
Kiera raised her hand to knock again.
The door opened. A sunny-looking woman with her hair in a ponytail answered, a big smile on her face. “Hi there.”
“Hey Cass,” said Kiera.
“Kiera Quill.” Cass threw her arms around Kiera and yanked her into the apartment. “It’s so good to see you. Oh my God, you look great.”
“Thanks,” said Kiera. “This is Demetrius.”
I glared at her.
“I’m not telling them some stupid handle,” she said. “It makes you sound like you think you’re a superhero or something.”
“I don’t like to advertise my identity,” I said.
“Whatever.” Kiera released Cass and grabbed me by the sleeve. She pulled me in after her.
Inside the apartment, it was surprisingly clean for having been the site of a knock-down-drag-out fight just a few seconds ago. The living room had a light shag carpet. There were tan couches flanking a television that hung on the wall. Around it were framed circus posters. I squinted at them, because they seemed out of place. Then I realized that they were advertising the Captivating Cass, who had apparently done acrobatic work.
Huh. An acrobat. Yeah, she could be useful.
A man stood on the opposite side of the room, wearing a white-shirt and jeans. He was holding an empty glass. “Hi, Kiera. You want a drink? Whiskey?”
“It’s too early,” admonished Cass. “You shouldn’t be drinking either, Ambrose. You’re an ass when you drink.”
Ambrose’s face reddened. “I’m not an ass. You’re just overly sensitive.”
“You said I was fat,” said Cass.
Ambrose snorted. “I did not.”
Cass turned to Kiera. “He did. He never used to say things like that.”
Kiera bit her lip, clearly unsure of what she should do now that she was in the middle of a fight between the couple. “Look, the reason we’re here is that—”
“When I met him, he was so amazing, you know?” said Cass. “Everything was great. We would stay up all night, just talking, and I felt like he really got me. But now,
all I can think is that I must have made a huge mistake. I never should have thrown away my entire life on him.”
“Oh, come on, baby,” said Ambrose, looking at the floor. “Don’t say shit like that.” He glanced at me. “In front of strangers.”
“I’ll say it in front of whoever I want,” she said. “Because it’s true. I don’t even know who you are.” Suddenly, Cass burst into tears and fled out of the room.
I raised my eyebrows at Kiera. “Uh, maybe this is a bad time, and we should just forget about this whole—”
“No, we haven’t even asked them,” she said. “Come on, give it a chance. I’ll go talk to her.” She went after Cass.
Leaving me alone with Ambrose.
He held up an empty glass. “Whiskey?”
“No thanks,” I said.
We were quiet.
I wandered over to get a closer look at the posters.
“I didn’t say she was fat,” said Ambrose.
I turned to him. “I’m sure you didn’t.” I didn’t know how to respond.
“You know how women are. They trap you into saying things. They ask you questions, and there’s no way to answer them without pissing them off. I used to think that Cass was different, that she and I clicked somehow, and that she would never do something like that. But now I realize she’s just like the rest of them.”
I nodded. I tried to think of something to say.
He kept talking. Probably because he’d been drinking whiskey. “She asked me if I’d noticed that she’d gained weight since we got together. You know what I said?”
“No?” I said. “I think the correct answer to that question is, ‘No.’”
He sighed. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
“What did you say?”
“I said she looked good with a few extra pounds. Which is true. I mean, she’s always been beautiful, but when she was an acrobat, she was like almost too thin, and now she’s… Well, you saw her. She looks great, right?”
I coughed. No way was I going to compliment this guy’s wife. I didn’t know how he’d take that. He’d been drinking, and he might decide he wanted to fight me if I said the wrong thing.
Luckily, he didn’t even notice. “She looks great. And I said that she looked great. So, I don’t see why she’s all hurt about it now. It’s stupid. And I told her that.”
Rough: A Hitman Romance Page 2