by Jodi Linton
Maybe that made him a prick, but he didn’t care.
He tucked a loose curl behind her ear. “Not sure if I can ever go back to a life without you.” He brushed his lips against her forehead. “Just the thought of another man having you makes me fucking insane.”
She shifted on his lap before scooting to the cement floor next to him. The curve of her flirty smile stabbed him in the chest as if an ice pick had gouged his heart. She deserved the truth. No. She was owed the truth—to know exactly what type of man she’d gotten into bed with.
A cop who was willing to do anything to keep her in his life. Even turn his back on the badge.
“Then don’t give another man a chance.” The smile grew as she snuggled into his side. “Because I don’t think I can give you up, either.”
He hadn’t expected her to be so forthcoming. It made him swell with pride. Everything about Em Connors made him want to be a better man. He should’ve told her that he knew about Wes Scott. Risked the consequences however they came tumbling down. Instead he fucked her into submission, desperate to prove that he could be her man. That she needed no one else but him. Rage burned in his gut at the deceitful man he’d turned into. She turned in his arms, and he so badly wanted to hold her tighter, but he had to go. He had to tie up a few loose ends. Fix things. Then he’d tell her all his filthy secrets, and if she decided to keep him around, he would thank his lucky stars. And he’d spend the rest of his sorry life making it up her. It’d be worth turning his back on his life as a cop, because he knew the woman making him actually care about more than the job for once in his sorry-ass life couldn’t be involved in Wes’s death. She might be the daughter of a criminal, but Cade had witnessed a more vulnerable side to her. And he’d do everything in his power to protect her, even if it meant he’d have to go up against the chief.
He reached around her slender frame and tugged her skintight black tank top back down. She’d freely given herself to him. Mouth pressed against her neck, Cade allowed his lips to linger a moment until he gave in to the urge to lick and suck her flushed flesh.
“I should go, babe.” He kissed her on the neck and stood. “There’s some stuff I need to take care of.” After zipping his jeans back up, he grabbed the leather cut off the ground, then shrugged it on. It didn’t matter that the biker-thug image was all an act. Secrets were his life, and tonight they had awarded him time with Em. Shuffling around the pocket of his cut, he pulled out a smoke, then plopped the cig between his lips. “Sweet dreams, princess,” he said drily on his way out the garage door.
Chapter Ten
Screw sweet moments.
It wasn’t like she hadn’t pulled the same fuck-and-bail move on Cade, but watching him leave club grounds after delivering her a life-altering orgasm last night, Em felt slightly unnerved. Instead of wasting time with bad boys on bikes and their wannabe old ladies at the clubhouse today, she placed a call to DEA agent Abby Harper and asked to meet at their regular dive bar in the suburbs—a place hidden away from the watchful motorcycle club gang’s eyes. They both could use a meeting to regroup, and Em knew if she stuck around the clubhouse all day watching Cade shirtless and working on motorcycles, she’d go clinically insane. So here she was holed up inside a suburbia bar passing time.
When they first met—the night Abby had shown up on her doorstep promising justice for Wes—Em had considered her a threat. She was almost too smart for her own good. With long scarlet hair, polished suits, and a classy demeanor that screamed country-club upbringing with a capital “C,” Em thought the DEA agent would be a bona fide bitch. Sophistication dripped off her pale, freckled skin, a trait Em would never possess. It took her some time to see that street smarts and an Ivy League education could have things in common.
Since their first meeting ten months ago, Abby had become an unlikely friend. And Em didn’t do friendships. Never had, never needed them. But in Abby she’d found something: a woman as desperate as her to right old wrongs. Through their talks, Abby confided in Em about her not so peachy family relationships and how she believed someone had flipped on Wes. She was under the impression the Houston PD had a rat—a man carrying a badge who’d gone dirty. She’d offered a deal: find the rat in exchange for a new life. Em had shaken on the deal right then and there inside her living room. She’d help Abby find the dirty cop. Fuck club brotherhood. They’d screwed her over. But—maybe it’d been the untrusting thug ingrained in her—she decided to not tell the DEA about her plans to kill Cyrus. Plans that had slowly come about over the past months while she pieced together evidence in her own investigation into Wes’s death.
Em pulled on the straw and took a drink of soda while she split a glance between Abby and the bartender. She sat high up on a bar stool, shoulders leaned into the wall, trying to banish all thoughts of that reckless fuck session with Cade inside the Sinners’ garage.
The DEA sat down at the table and tossed her strawberry-red hair over her shoulder as she eyed Em. “If you’d like something harder, I’m buying.”
She shrugged. “I’m fine. Besides, I have paperwork waiting for me back at the clubhouse.”
“Suit yourself.” Abby shot back the tequila in one gulp. And that’s exactly how Em discovered the polished, well-educated DEA could pass as her sister. “You want to tell me what’s on your mind, Connors?”
Em picked at the cherry floating in her Diet Coke. “Nothing.”
“Like I buy that bullshit.” Abby reached across the table and touched her arm. “Remember what I told you the night we agreed on the terms?” She nodded. “I want to see you succeed, Em. And if that means I have to ship your ass off to another country to see it happen, I will.” The DEA agent smiled, and it eased the nerves bottling inside her. “I need you. So don’t flake out on me now.”
The bag swayed at her side. Em flipped it open and rooted inside before producing a white envelope. “Here. Take a look at these.” She tossed the concealed photos at her. “I sort of bribed a local drug dealer to do some surveillance for me. The man in the red ball cap, do you know him? I know they’re blurry, but there’s got to be something here. I can feel it.”
Abby thumbed through the pictures. “I’ve never seen him before.” Her green eyes lifted. A perplexed expression focused on Em. “What do you know?”
Em scooted forward in her chair and looked her friend in the face. “All I know is that for the past several weeks he’s been having regular meetings with the Vipers’ president.”
The patience between both women had dwindled. Each one held a stake in this case, and Em had to remind herself daily of that.
A black duffel bag dropped with a thud on the tabletop. “Here’s the money needed to help out with the drug buy. What time is the drop on Friday, Em?” The DEA tugged at her red ponytail in frustration. “If you don’t tell me, then how in the hell can I help you?”
“No.” She closed her eyes. “No heat, you understand me?”
Abby shifted uncomfortably in her chair and gave Em a puzzled expression. “If you don’t want any heat, why are you riding bitch all around town with an undercover cop?”
“Mind telling me what the hell you’re talking about?” Dull, aching pain yawned so wide in her chest it felt as if a shank had stabbed her in the side. “The only time I rode bitch on a bike was to Throttle with my new part-time mechanic.”
“Said mechanic wouldn’t go by the name Cade Jackson, would he?” Abby asked, clearing her throat. “I thought you knew he was an undercover detective with the Houston PD. Chief Roland sent him in a few weeks ago.”
Em stared at her friend blankly. “N-no,” she stuttered, suddenly needing to lick her dry lips. “The guy’s good, huh? He slipped by me, slipped by us.”
Her friend cupped a hand over her mouth. “Shit, Em. I thought you knew. Otherwise I’d have said something sooner. I thought you were using Cade to find our rat.”
Pain squeezed her heart. Her hands shook at her side, and if she wasn’t careful, the bile resting in he
r throat would make an appearance right on the floor beneath her boots. Hurt so raw blew through her body. How could she have been so stupid? Finally, after months of feeling nothing but pain and regret, she’d opened up to another man, only to have him betray her. She’d screwed another cop. Silly, Em, thinking the bad-boy biker who whispered naughty fantasies in your ear, tempted you to be a better woman, and made you dream about a life void of club law could be a trustworthy man. She definitely had a type: the broken bad-boy with a badge type. Fuck that. And fuck Cade.
“Fuck, fuck! I’m such a stupid bitch.” The anger inside her burst from her lips and now, as she stared at Abby across the table, Em understood what had to be done. “Here’s a five,” Em said, fishing a crumpled bill from her front pocket. “It’ll cover the soda.”
“Em…” Abby waited for her to meet her gaze. “You seriously can’t be thinking about confronting Cade. It could blow his cover. Put him in a bad spot.” The DEA agent rubbed her forehead. “You of all people should understand what happens to an undercover cop when he’s been compromised.”
Em slung the bag over her shoulder and eyed Abby. Even if she’d kept quiet to the DEA about her plans to off Benedict, Em could appreciate her sticking her neck out by offering DEA money to make a supposed drug buy look real. What she couldn’t appreciate was the fact that Cade had betrayed her trust. It was time to show him what happened to filthy liars, Sinners style. “Thanks for the heads-up. But if you’ll excuse me, I need to see a biker about some business dealings.”
“No one outside of the force knows Jackson’s an undercover cop. Trust me.” Abby sent her a pointed look. “After I found out there was another cop inside the club, I did some digging. Cade is the best around. Damn good at what he does. So no worries there, Em.”
No worries her ass. If Cade had been ratted out and word got back to the motorcycle gangs that the Dirty Sinners president was having a fling with another cop, it wouldn’t be Abby’s ass on the line. Em would be toast. She almost was when the MC found out Wes was a cop, but they assumed she didn’t know he carried a badge. Em played along to put her plan in motion. Now, everything she’d worked for over the past ten months could blow up in her face.
“I don’t care if he’s good at what he does. He lied.”
He stole my heart. Yet she decided to keep that little tidbit to herself.
“Remember, Em, he’s a cop,” the DEA agent called after her. “Please don’t do anything that’ll require me to put an APB on your ass. Or earn you a life sentence in the pen.”
“What do you take me for, a hardened criminal?” She turned and pushed through the door, welcoming the quiet, empty sidewalk and the sweet promise of revenge as she went to finalize the drug buy with the Vipers at Throttle.
The devil is in the details, right?
Cade drove the Harley around the side of his trailer and parked it in the carport. Why had he left Em at the clubhouse yesterday after experiencing the best damn sex of his life? Such a chickenshit move to pull on the woman he was trying to show meant something more to him. Not only had today been a sucker punch to his gut when Logan told him Em took the day off to run errands, but instead of explaining his reasons for leaving her after sex, he’d wasted precious time under a motorcycle leaking oil in his face.
It had been such a short time, and already Em Connors controlled his every waking thought. He’d come under her spell.
Unintentionally, but nonetheless, he found himself wanting to spend time with her, and his motive had nothing to do with the damn case he was supposedly investigating. From the moment they’d met, he’d wanted to believe that Wes had never been involved with Em, but really he’d only been kidding himself. Then Hammer confirmed his suspicions. If he wasn’t such a damn bastard, he’d have played things a lot differently between them, but he didn’t and it was too late now. He’d wanted Em from the moment he’d laid eyes on her. And the very idea that she might have chosen another biker to warm her bed caused his vision to blur red. It was time to come clean. Take it like a man and tell the boss he’d been compromised and needed to be taken off the case. The fact that he was beginning to enjoy the life of a thug a little too damn much wasn’t a good sign. And maybe once he talked to Em, and explained to her that he was an undercover detective, they could make whatever this was between them work. For the first time in months, he actually felt something other than anger, and Em had stirred a belief in him that being a rebel—going against the mold—wasn’t something to be ashamed of. That it was okay to map out his own path in life, no matter the consequences. Problem was, he still didn’t know who killed Wes, and Hammer had just given him the first real clue.
He fished the keys out of his pocket and stared paradise down. Since taking the case, he’d called the trailer park home, and hell, with each passing day he found himself losing sight of who the real Cade Jackson used to be. The phone in his front pocket buzzed against his hip as the lock turned. He dug it out and immediately decided maybe telling his boss over the phone about his botched investigative work might not be his best line of attack.
Shoulder shoving the door open, he pulled the phone to an ear. “Roland, if I’d known you had a damn hard-on for me, hell, I would have called sooner.”
“I can pull your ass in if need be, so cut the shit and tell me why you haven’t answered a single one of my goddamn texts.” Roland grumbled. “Didn’t I make myself damn clear the other day, Cade? I want answers, and I wanted them fucking yesterday.”
Cade wrenched the fridge open and pulled out a beer. “For some reason I have the faint memory of telling you I’d call when I had information pertaining to the case.” He took a long pull of the beer and tried to focus on the conversation. “Is there a point to your call, Chief? Because after the day I’ve had, I want to tie one on and hit the sack.”
“Wes was fucking Connors.”
“No shit, Roland.”
Roland sighed. “This morning I received new intel placing your old partner and the president of the Sinners in a relationship.” He paused and let out a cough. “I thought you should know, seeing how the patrol I put on you told me the Sinners president and you seem very cozy.” Roland snorted. “Good work, Jackson. I knew I picked the right cop for the job.”
His blood ran cold, and he fought to keep his head while listening to the chief spill practically every single detail of Wes’s affair with the biker princess. It stripped him to the core to learn that Wes had done exactly what Cade originally planned—get her in bed and expose her secrets. It shouldn’t have bothered him. Em was supposed to be a job, nothing more. Though Cade understood how big of a lie that was, because he had feelings for Em and had made up his mind that every fucking prick should move aside or else he’d do it for them. Yet with each word Roland spoke, Cade burned with jealousy. Fucking her senseless on Dirty Sinners’ turf had probably made his obsession worse. Now he cared for the hot-as-sin biker, and what kind of friend did that make him, sleeping with his dead partner’s ex? It was one thing to take her when he knew Wes had been messing around with her, but it sounded like his old partner had done more than pull a one-night stand. Had he loved her? Had she loved him? Christ, he was an asshole.
“Jackson, don’t start tying one on just yet.”
Cade grunted. “The last time I checked, I can still have a goddamn beer while undercover.”
“Not when I need you to ride over to Throttle and keep tabs on Connors,” Roland said.
Dang, the night just got better as the punches rolled. Anger and jealousy crept back in. It sucked. Truly, it did. Cade never considered himself a jealous man, and here he was fixing to lose it at the thought of another biker even glancing at his girl. And now he was thinking of her as his girl. The situation had really taken an awkward turn.
He rubbed a hand over his face. “Should I even ask where you got such information?”
The police chief laughed. “Just find out why she’s hanging around Throttle a lot lately. The place seems to be populated by
the Vipers MC, and a tip came into the station the other day that that club is dealing.”
Cade racked his head, trying to go over their encounter with the Vipers president the other day in the bar. From a distance it had looked hostile, yet he hadn’t actually heard their conversation. Still, he could tell there was no love lost between Em and the Vipers president. Damn it. He had to find her so they could talk. Em had point-blank stated the Sinners weren’t running drugs. Like a putz he’d accepted her word because all he could think about was kissing her.
“Fucking shit.” He ran a hand through his hair.
And to think he considered telling Roland what Hammer said. Like hell he’d bring that up now before he found out why Em was at Throttle.
“I take that as a yes.” Roland jumped back on the line.
Uttering another curse, Cade plucked a cigarette from the pack on the countertop. The uneasiness racing through his body needed to be squashed. He stuck the cig between his lips, muttering, “Thanks for the heads-up, Roland. Now if you don’t mind, I’m going outside to have a smoke.” He clamped the cigarette between his lips and bit back the anger burning a hole in his gut. “Next time, I’ll call you.” He disconnected the call and went in search of a lighter along with his keys to his bike.
Chapter Eleven
Bad boys and their liquor will always end in foolish games.
The thought erupted in a serenade inside Em’s head as she snatched a glass of whiskey off the bar and weaved through a crowd of leather and tattoos. And she concluded the same goes for bad girls. It made no freaking sense that after stashing the DEA money inside the club safe, she decided to stroll through Throttle’s doors.