Jailbait

by Vale, Lani Lynn

  Not that Hunt was a ‘bad’ guy, per se, but he was unpredictable.

  When I’d met him and the others that were also fresh out of federal prisons—Trouper, Absinthe, Zach—I’d fully expected things to be weird.

  Only, Hunt didn’t do weird. He acted like he knew me… which, I guess he did. He could pull up information about me that I didn’t even know myself—like my credit score.

  That bad score that was probably even worse now that I owned a bar and was making payments on it as well as a new motorcycle.

  Whatever, though.

  I was pushing mid-thirties. I needed my own place. I needed a game plan. And I needed a damn reliable vehicle.

  We walked inside together, him just in front of me, and stopped right inside the door.

  Hunt let his eyes roam around the room.

  But the moment I walked inside, I latched onto a familiar form with laser focus and didn’t look away.

  Not even when a loud ‘we’re not open’ filled the room.

  “Oh, come on, darlin’,” Hunt drawled. “We just want a burger, and you already have the grill on. And you’re the only place in town that’s still open… not to mention you have the best fuckin’ burgers in a five-county radius.”

  Crockett, the owner of this particular establishment known as ‘Crockett’s Corner,’ looked at Hunt like he was nuts.

  “Please,” Hunt pleaded. “Please, please, please.”

  My lips twitched at his use of the word ‘please’ so many times.

  In all honesty, he looked quite hilarious with his tattooed fingers folded out in front of him in a praying position, batting his eyes behind his thick glasses, and practically bouncing from foot to foot.

  I wouldn’t have said no, either.

  “Fine,” she sighed as she flipped the still-steaming grill back on. “But just know, I’m charging you double.”

  Just as she said that, the doors opened again and Zach walked in, looking annoyed as hell and hungry to boot.

  “Move out of the fuckin’ doorway,” Zach, the doctor of the group, grumbled. “I’m hungry.”

  Crockett, who’d been in the process of lighting the grill, froze solid at the appearance of Zach.

  “Good timing,” Hunt teased as he pushed farther into the room and walked up to the only table that didn’t have the chairs up on top of it. The one where Swayze was eating a burger in her long dress and practically ignoring the rest of us. “Do you mind if we sit here, madam?”

  Swayze looked up, her eyes going from me to Hunt to Zach and back, and then shook her head. “How about you fuck off.”

  My lips twitched at her words.

  Hunt was already halfway down into the chair before he processed Swayze’s words.

  “I’m sorry, what?” Hunt asked, voice surprised.

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “I said ‘fuck off.’”

  Hunt’s mouth dropped open as he hesitated above his chair.

  I walked around the table and took the chair across the table from her.

  Zach was forced to take the one beside Swayze.

  She latched onto my eyes and didn’t look away.

  “I guess that y’all are hard of hearing?” she snapped.

  My lips were already turning into a large smile.

  “What happened to you?” I asked. “Bad ball?”

  “Bad ball?” Hunt asked, reaching for a package of saltine crackers in the middle of the table and ripping it open. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I was at a fundraising event tonight,” Swayze mumbled around a bite of burger. “The mean one over there delivered kegs. Which, might I add, was dropped on my foot.” She lifted her leg up to show me her foot, and I winced. It was black and blue.

  “How’d that happen?” I asked, resisting the urge to reach forward and pull her foot into my hand and rub it.

  “One of the men that was helping carry the kegs in dropped it. On my foot.” She went back to eating her hamburger.

  Hunt tried to reach for one of her fries, and she hissed at him, spraying bits of ketchup at him in the process.

  “Don’t,” she glared at him hard, “touch my fries.”

  He held up his hand. “Sorry, sorry.”

  “You should be,” she grumbled.

  “Do you want to introduce us?” Hunt asked, looking at me for an introduction.

  I shrugged. “Not necessarily.”

  Swayze snorted, but didn’t comment.

  “My name is Hunt McJimpsey.” Hunt placed his hand over his chest. “That” —he pointed at Zach— “is Zach Caruso. We’re all a part of the Souls Chapel Revenants MC.”

  Hunt patted his chest where his patches lay. Or they would’ve lain had the cut he was wearing been right side out.

  “Your vest thingy is inside out,” Swayze mumbled, looking over at me once and eyeing my chest before going back to her food.

  “Shit,” Hunt said as he took the cut off, righted it, and then put it back on. “I put it on in the dark.”

  “Huh,” Swayze hummed.

  “Food,” I said, sitting back when Crockett came walking over with her arms full of baskets of burgers and fries.

  Zach sat back, arms no longer crossed, and allowed his gaze to drag across Crockett, who I just now realized was in short shorts that resembled pajama shorts and a tank top.

  “I like the outfit,” Hunt quipped.

  “I was in bed when she practically begged me to cook her a burger,” Crockett grumbled. “You can’t complain about my clothes if you’re not really even supposed to be here.”

  “No complaints on my end, honey,” Hunt teased.

  Zach grunted something that had Crockett flushing—whether it was in embarrassment or pleasure, I didn’t know.

  “Thank you,” I said to Crockett. “I appreciate it.”

  “You’re welcome,” she said as she turned around.

  That’s when Zach started to softly laugh beside me.

  “What?” Hunt asked, picking up a fry and popping it into his mouth.

  He gestured toward Crockett.

  I turned to look and felt a smile growing on my lips.

  Her butt had a caricature of a smooshed cat on the ass, as if she’d sat on it.

  It was cute, that was for sure.

  The grumbly, pissy girl beside me, however, held my attention.

  With her sexy legs, juicy ass, and succulent hips.

  God, I wanted to…

  “How’s your sister doing?” owner of said sexy legs asked, popping a fry into her mouth.

  “Good,” I answered, picking up the ketchup bottle and drowning my fries in it.

  “There are two types of people in this world,” Hunt said. “Those who dip their fries into ketchup, and psychopaths like you who put the ketchup on their fries.”

  “Interesting,” I said as I picked up one of my fries, ketchup smearing my fingers.

  “Psycho,” Hunt murmured under his breath.

  Swayze finished her food and then got up and walked her trash to the trash can.

  Her dress had ridden up slightly and was tucked into what I now saw was a gun holster.

  “Your dress is tucked into your holster,” Crockett called.

  “I know,” Swayze replied. “It was dragging along the ground, and I have to return it to a friend tomorrow. I don’t want to get it dirty if I can manage it.”

  “I can’t believe you carried to a high-society function.” Crockett laughed as she worked on another order behind the counter. “I bet all those bitches and assholes would’ve had a coronary if they’d known.”

  “Maybe.” Swayze shrugged. “But I don’t care. If I was gonna be shot, it’d be at one of those events. They’re so mean to everyone.”

  “Mean to you?” Crockett asked as she walked over with a bowl of ice cream and a chocolate brownie and set it in front of Swayze’s seat.

  “Yum,” Hunt said, taking a massive bite of his burger. “You have any more of those?”

  “Last
one.” Crockett didn’t look apologetic in the least. “Sorry, Charlie.”

  “Hunt. Not Charlie,” Hunt corrected her.

  “It’s a saying,” Crockett said, her eyes flicking toward Zach, who was quietly eating his food and hadn’t said a word.

  “I know,” Hunt said. “I was just teasing you.”

  Crockett walked back behind the counter and started to wash some dishes while Swayze walked back to her spot. She sat down and started to eat her food, all the while Hunt gave her moon eyes.

  “You know,” Hunt said. “Though it really bothers me that you’re eating the last brownie, I think you might be breaking Trick’s heart more. He’s a chocolate lover.”

  “He is?” Swayze asked. “That’s interesting. So am I.”

  I eyed the brownie. It did look good.

  But I was still eating my burger, so I wasn’t as interested in it as I probably would have been had I been finished.

  “Yep,” Hunt said as he picked up a handful of fries and popped them into his mouth. Then, around a mouthful, he said, “You should’ve seen the stash of chocolate he has. I brought groceries in for him, and three out of the four bags that I brought in had some sort of chocolate in it.”

  Swayze looked over at me curiously, her eyes trailing down my tattooed arms, settling on where they were crossed over my abs.

  “Hmm,” she said, as if she couldn’t quite believe that I had a thing for chocolate.

  She continued to eat, and I finished my food off, wondering what in the hell I was doing.

  When I got out early, I told myself that out of everything that I was going to do, the top priority was to stay away from Swayze Marrin. I was going to make sure that I kept my nose clean. I was going to make sure that this time, with my newly found freedom, I wasn’t going to fuck my life up like I did twelve years ago and regret it.

  And I had a feeling that staying away from Swayze Marrin was the way to keep my nose clean.

  Except, I hadn’t expected her to be in the damn city that I’d moved to. When where she used to live was hours away from here.

  Secondly, I sure the fuck hadn’t expected that if she lived here, I’d be running into her as much as I did.

  And lastly, I never expected her to live right across the damn street from me where it’d be physically impossible to stay away and never see her.

  Hell, my gut instinct when I’d found out that she was in the same city as me was to tell her to stay the hell away from me and my sister.

  Obviously, that’d worked out so damn well—at least when it came to me.

  My sister had been having the time of her life in her group home that Swayze had found her, and honestly other than dinner and a lunch since I’d gotten out, she hadn’t needed me nearly as much as I’d expected her to now that she was so far away from my mom.

  It was awesome as hell to see her flourishing.

  I got up and tossed my trash, hesitating when I was about to come back to the table because Swayze was standing to toss her trash, too.

  When I saw that half the brownie was left, I frowned.

  “Here,” she said as she shoved the plate into my chest. “I can’t eat this. I’m too full.”

  I looked down at the brownie and nearly moaned.

  Picking it up with two fingers, I bit into it and did moan then.

  “Holy shit, this is good,” I said as I took another bite.

  And another. And another.

  Eventually, it was gone, and Swayze was left blinking at me.

  “You know,” she said. “If you weren’t such an asshole to me lately, I would’ve said that was really hot.”

  She turned on her heels and left, leaving me watching her go.

  “Walk her out, please,” Crockett said softly from where she was washing a large pan in soapy water. “There have been some… vagrants lately.”

  Zach’s head popped up. “What do you mean vagrants?”

  I didn’t stop to listen to the explanation.

  I was outside and striding toward her faster than I intended.

  She looked over her shoulder when the door to Crockett’s place opened and slowed her march.

  Her heels slowly stopped clicking against the concrete when she turned and waited for me to catch up.

  When I caught her, I jerked my chin at her to keep moving, and she fell back into step beside me. When we got to her car, she yanked open her car door and started to drop inside. I waited until she was closing the door to head to my bike. But it was her quiet question that had me turning around and looking at her.

  “How are you out?” she asked quietly. “I… this is really weird, Trick. It’s not that I’m complaining that you’re out but… how?”

  I decided to give that to her.

  She deserved to know.

  “Two months ago, a man came to me with an option,” I said, straddling my bike and crossing my arms over my chest. “Get out of prison early and help him with a few things that might or might not be illegal or stay where I was. You can guess the obvious choice that I took.”

  “What will you be doing?” she wondered.

  My lips twitched. “That’s something that you don’t really need to know.”

  With that, I started my bike up, signaling the end of our conversation.

  She slammed her car door closed and backed out of the parking lot, driving sedately home the two blocks that it took her to get there.

  When I parked my bike, I made sure to angle it toward her alley so that her walk down the alley would be illuminated. She didn’t look back or wave. Didn’t do anything but walk inside, slam the door closed, and lock it so hard that I heard the solid thunk all the way across the street.

  But it was only later, as I was lying in bed, that I realized my mistake.

  I hadn’t actually answered any of her questions. I’d only added to them.

  And it was more than obvious that she was up for a challenge.

  Oh, shit.

  CHAPTER 9

  As long as you know that you’re still just a little bitch in my book.

  -Swayze to Trick

  SWAYZE

  I made it my mission to find out what in the hell was going on with Trick.

  It started with surveillance.

  When Jayco wasn’t at the office, I parked my ass in front of the front windows and watched.

  For instance, that was what I was doing right then.

  I’d just locked the door after Jayco had left, and then for good measure I’d turned off all of the lights on the off chance that Trick actually looked over toward me and my office.

  Also, as an added benefit, I’d parked myself on the floor, and I’d also changed my clothes into running gear.

  Just in case he did look over and see me on the ground, I could appear as if I was stretching, getting ready to go for a run. Which, technically, I was.

  I’d made this plan up on the fly yesterday when I’d seen him outside doing stuff after I’d locked the door behind Jayco—Jayco who I still hadn’t given a key because I didn’t trust anybody.

  However, unlike yesterday when he’d seen me the moment that I was standing at my office windows, today, I wouldn’t be caught. And, if on the off chance I was, I had a contingency plan.

  What that contingency plan didn’t take into account, however, was a woman pulling up outside Trick’s place and Trick jerking his chin at her in greeting.

  Something sour and ugly took root in my belly, and I narrowed my eyes and completely forgot to look like I was stretching when I leaned forward in surprise.

  Because I knew that girl.

  That girl was the bane of my existence.

  And when that woman got out of her car and walked toward Trick with a smile on her face, I prayed that what I was about to witness wasn’t what I thought.

  Only, it was exactly like I thought.

  Gritting my teeth when he flashed my grin at her and placed his hand on her hip like he’d once done to me, I stood up quickly, scrambling to my f
eet.

  I didn’t bother yanking my shorts that’d ridden up way too far back into position, either.

  I left them exactly where they were and watched as Trick caught Ignacia by the hip and guided her to start down the street. He fell into step beside her, and the idea took route.

  There was only one place that they could be going if they were going by foot.

  Dashing toward the bathroom, I quickly swiped on mascara, some foundation to cover a zit on my chin, and eyeshadow that then quickly caused glitter to fall down onto my cheeks and the tops of my breasts.

  “Shit,” I grumbled, looking down at myself.

  I grabbed a rag and then swiped it off as best as I could, then tossed it onto the counter and bailed out of the bathroom.

  Quickly grabbing my headphones, I shoved them into my ears, prayed that they paired, and caught my phone before dashing outside.

  After locking the back door, I started to run down the length of the alley the opposite way than I would usually go.

  I had to dash through a couple of back alleys before I thought it was safe to make my way back out again.

  I came out of the alley onto the front of the sidewalk that led down the front of all the downtown businesses and chanced a glance backward at Trick.

  He was walking next to Ignacia, and she was talking to him.

  I gritted my teeth and picked up the speed, already feeling my foot protest.

  Today I’d woken up with it not only black and blue from having a keg dropped on my foot, but it was also aching like a son of a bitch.

  I’d avoided my short run this morning because it hurt so bad and was now regretting even this small run toward the restaurant at the end of the road.

  Honestly, it got to the point where I would have to stop, or I would fall down and cry, so I chose to stop and walk while I still could.

  Unluckily, the affected foot was the opposite of my bad hip, so when I did stop, I looked like I was walking bow legged to avoid the pain.

  Luckily, I was almost at the restaurant.

  “You okay, girl?”

  I looked up and smiled at Amber.

  “Yeah.” I waved, hoping that it would hide the pain-filled grimace on my face. “I’m okay.”

  “You don’t look okay,” she said when I got closer to her.