I learned fast.
Only using my body as the bait it was when it suited my cause.
"How'd ya get him to stop groping at ya?"
"Threatened to chop off his hand," I offered, shrugging it off like it was no big deal, even if it was one of my fondest adult memories. There was just something about insisting on respect, in being given it because you refused to accept anything less.
"I'da paid to see that," Adler said, smirking. "Bet he was fuckin' crimson."
"He was." He'd started calling me by my name then instead of Worth It, a sick little name for a sick little game he and his buddies used to play when they were anywhere that young girls might frequent in those blossoming years of their teens when their bodies were filling out, and they were proud to have them on display. The term meant they'd be 'worth' the jail sentence they'd get for sleeping with 'em. There were rules and bonus points and shit for it.
The pigs.
Hardly better than the men he tried to get back into jail.
I'd been older at the time but still cringed at the implication.
"What made ya move into the ass-end of Navesink Bank? Seems like ya make decent money."
"Looks right on paper with my on-again-off-again work history. And I'm honestly not home all that much. It would be stupid to shell out twenty-five-hundred on a nicer apartment that I hardly ever see. Just show up to when I need to switch out clothes."
"Ya got any family?"
I tried not to harden.
I'd been working on my reaction to that comment for so many years, but still worried I stiffened up, I gave myself away.
"Yeah. Some," I offered.
"Not close?"
"Close enough to see on the major holidays. If I'm not working."
I couldn't be sure, but I could have sworn he murmured under his breath Sore spot.
And it was.
All these years, it still smarted if you pressed it, still could bring me to my knees in pain if I let it.
So I didn't.
I wrapped that shit up in a box, duct taped it, sealed it in wax, wood, lead, buried it fifty feet deep, only to be unearthed when it suited me.
Which wasn't often.
And that was good.
Because if I let it out too much, I worried it could overtake me, destroy me, rebuild me into a monster I could never come back from.
"Do you?"
"Do I what?"
Stalling.
That was stalling.
"Have any family," I clarified even though he damn well knew what I was talking about.
"Not for a long time."
"Sore spot?" I asked, deciding to call him on it, never really being one for subtlety.
"Festering, gaping wound."
"Got it," I said because, well, I did. I got that. I'd been there years before. Back when I didn't know how to cope, how to clean away the blood and infection, stitch myself up, let myself heal at least a little. "How long have you been a Henchmen?"
"Eh, dunno. Couple months."
"A little late in life for a career change, no?" I asked, head cocking to the side as I watched him. Not old, sure, but not young either. If I had to guess, closer to forty than thirty. And aging way too damn well. The fuck. I had just started worrying about eye creams, and I wasn't facing the big three-oh for another few months.
Years were forgiving to men and cruel to women.
"Wanted a change. Some roots. Never really knew what it felt like to be planted before." I got that. More than he realized. I had known it, but it was a distant memory, one clouded over by the sensation of having those roots ripped out brutally, vital pieces being pulled off too ragged to regrow.
"How do you like having them?"
"It's an adjustment," he admitted, choosing the words carefully. "I've never been used to answering to someone, to having my actions impact anyone other than me."
"It must be nice to have brothers, though. People to lean on."
"Never been much of a leaner."
I could see that.
I barely knew the man, but I knew that about him. There was something fierce in him beneath all the surface shields, something that said he'd needed to take care of himself for a very long time.
"But if you decided you wanted that option, it's there for you."
"Got no one to lean on, duchess?" he asked, head ducked to the side a bit, eyes knowing, seeing too much.
"Got myself. In the end, that is all any of us have."
"Fair enough," he agreed, moving to stand. There was only a moment of nothing before, with no reason whatsoever, he stripped out of his coat. Then reached up behind his neck, snagging his shirt, and dragging it up and forward.
"What are you doing?" I asked, pretending to ignore the mix of confusion and anticipation in my own voice.
His shirt lifted away, hanging from long fingertips at his side, leaving himself on perfect display, anticipating, expecting me to look.
And, well, I was only a woman.
And he was inviting an eye-fuck.
I was more than willing to give it to him.
My chest tightened, air trapped, as my gaze slid from his scruffy face down his neck - several days in need of a shave. Then down over his strong chest, finding that the skin there was much like that on his hands. Meaning scarred. Criss-crossed neat ones. Long, deep, jagged others. A circle just under his shoulder blade, puckered and pink. I knew enough about guns to recognize a bullet wound when I saw one. Even years healed over. The investigative part of me wanted to know their origins, know what pain had been inflicted, know what the end result was. Others bloodied and bruised? Killed?
But the baser part of me, the part that had my skin heating, wanted me to keep looking, keep exploring the secrets his body had to offer.
I followed that impulse, letting my gaze slide down his chest toward his stomach, finding unexpected etches of a six-pack, not heavily coiled, not evident of too many hours spent working out, but confident and proof of some sort of physical activity. Something that kept him thin as well, making the outline of a few of his upper ribs visible under his perfectly imperfect skin. My greedy eyes moved lower, finding his Adonis belt muscles in the indents of his hips, disappearing into the waistband of his low-slung jeans.
What I wouldn't give to see more.
"Like what ya see, duchess?" he asked, voice taking on the huskiness of arousal, a sound that made my sex clench hard, anticipating something I promised myself I wouldn't get to experience.
"Not bad," I told him, hearing the airiness in my tone, knowing he heard it too, knowing what he was branding me right then. Liar. "Those scars have a story?" I asked, watching as the shirt fell to the ground, the arm lifting, dragging my gaze slowly back up, finding his arms raised above his head.
I couldn't tell what he was doing for a moment before I saw his hair drift down from the bun he'd had it wrapped in, falling over his shoulders in a mass of waves that just begged to be touched.
I hadn't ever had a thing for long hair on guys, but I couldn't help but think of my fingers curled in the strands while he was buried between my thighs, dragging him up by it until he settled inside.
"That's a good look on ya, Lou," he observed, the sound a rolling, rumbling thing from deep in his chest.
"What look?"
His lips quirked up at that before his teeth snagged his lower lip for a second. "Didn't figure ya for a game player, duchess. Ya know exactly how ya are lookin' at me right now. Same way I looked at ya when ya opened the door lookin' like that."
Caught, I paused, then shook my head. "Regardless of how I might have been looking at you, nothing is going to happen. So why the hell are you taking your clothes off in my room?"
"Sink drips. Shower was clogged with hair. I'm borrowing yours."
"You could have asked," I told him as he took a few steps toward the room in question.
"I coulda," he agreed, stepping into the bathroom, leaving the door open as he unbuttoned and unzipped his pan
ts, dropping them down, giving me a glorious view of his bare ass as I realized Adler was a commando kind of guy.
He reached into the shower, switching the water on, turned just an inch or two to the side, blocking his goods from view.
It looked like my voyeuristic self would have to settle for his ass. Which was no hardship, all taut muscle just begging to have your hands sink into while he's deep inside you.
A low, tortured whimper ripped from somewhere deep within me as he moved the curtain aside to step in.
And as he did it, I'd swear he was smiling.
Like maybe he'd heard me.
But no.
That wasn't possible.
It was barely audible to me.
And he had been standing by the incessant pelting of water on the tub floor.
"There's room for two," he called out a delicious invitation, making the pressure on my lower stomach become oppressive, forcing me to take a deep, steadying breath before I forced my legs to carry me over to the bed, sitting down, actively trying not to think of him in that shower. Of what he might be doing in there. Forget jerking off, just washing himself was erotic enough for me in the moment, his scarred hands moving over his understated muscles of his stomach, pelvis, lower.
It took a superhuman strength to stay on the bed, hands curled into the edge of the mattress, sheets gripped much like they would be if I invited him to the bed like I had been wanting to do.
Neighbors are a bad idea, I reminded myself just a moment before the water cut off.
"Hey, duchess," his voice called.
"What?" My voice sounded snippy. Short.
"Got a situation."
"Oh, is that what you call it?" This time, amused, but dry.
"Handled that," he shot back, nothing but sincerity in his voice, making my poor lady bits quiver in appreciation and disappointment.
"What then?"
"I forgot to grab a towel. Don't feel like slippin', and fallin' on my arse on the floor."
Hands pressing into my thighs, I pushed up, steeling myself, and making my way into the bathroom, grabbing a scratchy white towel off the vanity. A nice, fluffy, oversized amenity it was not, but at least it reeked heavily of bleach. You could take small comforts in little things like that at motels. Sometimes, they smelled like moldy basement. Other times, like must, as though they had been pulled off the rack still wet from a previous user, folded, and put back in the cabinet as though they had been laundered. I kept backup towels in my trunk for just those reasons.
"You could have reached them," I realized aloud as I turned to find his guilty - and not the least bit repentant - upper body poking out of the shower curtain.
"Aye, but where's the fun in that?" he asked, thrusting an arm out toward me, giving me a long moment of uncertainty, not entirely trusting him not to grab me and pull me in with him after all.
"Yes, it is so fun to walk across the room unnecessarily," I told him, tossing the towel toward his chest instead of pressing it into his hand.
He caught it, flicking it open with a wrist, pulling it against his stomach, and pulling open the curtain, leaving nothing but a small piece of white cloth hiding the part of him he had handled just moments before.
"Lazy arse," he taunted with a smirk, pure devil. And, oh, was anything in the world more tempting? "What are ya wearing tonight?" he asked, head ducking to the side.
"Why?"
"'Cause I find myself without a change of clothes. I need to hit the shops. Need to know my dress code."
"A dress."
"The short and tight variety, or the long and fancy?"
"It makes a difference?"
"Yeah, duchess," he said, sounding like he was smiling, but I was distracted by the way a drip of water fell from the end of his hair and started a path down his overexposed body, so I couldn't say for sure. "Men got some fancy arse choices too."
"You learn something every day. Oh, and you might want to get something everyday too. If you plan on staying. There's no guarantee we will catch him tonight. Most of my jobs go for at least three or four days. I'm rarely lucky enough - and my marks are rarely stupid enough - to be snagged faster than that."
"Got it," he agreed. "Makes no difference to me, Lou, but are ya going to stay there while I towel off? Can I take yer presence as an offer of assistance in the task?"
"Argh," I growled, raking a hand roughly through my hair on my way out of the room, yanking the door closed a bit rougher than was totally necessary.
Adler walked back out a moment later, hair tied back up, his old clothes back on. "Ya gonna gussy yerself up while I'm gone?"
"I'm dressing up for the job, Adler," I told him. "Not to be your arm candy."
"Ya are candy just the way ya are, Lou. But I'd be lyin' if I said ya being on my arm lookin' like sin in a tight dress ain't gonna make my night. Gussy yerself up for the job, for yerself, whatever. But that won't change the fact that I get to be the one to reap the rewards. Get to be the one all the other fucks will envy, thinking about how I get to take ya home."
"But you don't."
He leaned in close at that, smile small. "But they don't know that."
With that and nothing else, he turned and left me.
"Fuck," I hissed at the closed door, realizing that things maybe weren't so cut and dry with Adler, the gun-running biker, as I thought. Because there was an undeniable fluttery feeling in my belly at his words. It stayed there, relentless, unending, demanding I notice it even as I tried to focus on anything else, like getting my hair glossy, like lining my eyes, like smearing on lotion, slipping myself into a seamless dress.
I was just fastening the buckle on my heel when there was a knock at the door.
Ignoring the way my pulse quickened, I stood, moving over to the door, pulling it open to reveal Adler.
Who had been right about men's fashion.
He also, apparently, had an eye for it.
He'd shaved his neck but left his face rough with stubble, something that made the dark and dangerous man look every bit what he was. But this time, not in a leather jacket. In charcoal slacks with the slightest of a black pinstripe, a matte gray button-up, tucked in, with expensive-looking cufflinks at his wrists. His hair was still up. A light, but spicy cologne clung to his skin.
It took every bit of strength in me not to grab him, pull him in, throw him on a bed, and climb on top of him.
"Fuck, Lou. Ya poured yerself into that dress, huh?" he asked, eyes raking over me. "Maybe spilled a bit," he added, his hand raising, the tip of his finger tracing the very edge of my bodice, not touching my skin, but only barely avoiding it, a touch that still made goosebumps rise over my skin.
"Too much?" I asked, voice breathless as my gaze went down, wondering if my boobs grew or my dress shrank, but, yeah, I was overflowing a bit more than usual. I needed to learn to pay attention to 'dry-clean only' labels.
"Just enough. Might wanna avoid bending forward too much though," he told me with a wicked brow wiggle. "Where's yer weapon? In yer bra or somewhere even more wicked?"
"I'm not wearing a bra, but I ripped a seam to tuck the knife in."
"She's tryin' to kill me," he declared, talking to the ceiling again. "Wanna give me yer other shite?"
"What other shit?"
"Cell? Wallet? Then ya won't have to carry a bag."
I grabbed them from the nightstand, watching as he tucked them into his pocket. "This having a man around thing comes in handy," I murmured. "Ya want to grab a jacket? We got a good five inches on the ground. It stopped comin' down, but it's fuckin' freezin' out."
I turned back toward my bag, unrolling a slate-colored peacoat that would hardly be much protection, but something was better than nothing.
"I was thinking of starting at Harrah..."
"Borgata," he cut me off.
"What? Why The Borgata?"
"Had a few minutes. I dropped in to see an old friend."
"Who? Who's your old friend?"
"St
. James."
"As in Byron St. James?" I clarified, brows raising. "Pray tell. In what world does an arms-dealing biker have an old friend who owns a casino and lives in a ridiculous mansion?"
"Don't ask questions ya don't want to know the answer to, duchess. I know 'em. He's still willin' to be in touch. Knows the locals. Knows who goes where. Thomas is a Borgata guy since Byron kicked 'em out. So, that is our best bet."
"You are a man of surprises, Adler," I told him, brushing past, just barely remembering to grab my keys before moving onto the balcony, annoyed when the air nipped at my exposed skin exactly as he told me it would.
As we drove back toward the boardwalk, I couldn't help but let my mind drift to the man beside me. To his scars, his secrets, his unexpected connections.
When he jumped out of the car when I had barely pulled it to a stop to open my door before the valet could, I vowed to myself that I would figure him out. Not to win the bet, though I was not so good a person as not to cash in on that bad boy, but because there were just far too many unanswered questions, too many things that didn't seem to align perfectly, too many shields he hid behind.
I shouldn't have been so into the idea of stripping those away from him. Not when I had so many myself. Not when I would flay someone for trying to take mine away from me, expose me, expose what was underneath.
Something, someone not so hard, not so sure of herself, not so unapproachable. Someone who simply learned how to be those things, or at least imitate those things.
I should have respected his right to pretend to be something other than what he was. But my curiosity refused to let me.
And I was trying to act as though it was just because I was inquisitive by nature, not because a part of me genuinely wanted to know more about the man.
Because that was ridiculous.
I was pretty sure I didn't even ask the last name of the last guy I had spent the night with.
Personal details were irrelevant when all you wanted with someone was casual.
As Adler's hand grabbed mine, pulling it up to place it on his arm, there was a small voice screaming from somewhere deep within, trying to be heard through all my denial, all my excuses.
Maybe this is the one guy you want to have something more with.
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