But first, he needed to get Dustin out of his car and find out a little about this Madison Ross.
Chapter Two
Madison gritted her teeth and forced herself to smile. She rolled past the line of bikers taking up the front row of Stoke’s Bar & Grill, staring straight ahead. The latest pop-Latin mix hit played over the loudspeakers, the beat making her itch for some speed. The grill was a red, T-shaped building, with limited dining in the front and the kitchens in the back. Most people who came parked under the metal awnings to take advantage of the sound of the nearby surf and carhop atmosphere. Since old man Stoke was a biker himself, there was an area designated for motorcycles. The paint might have changed, and the building was different, but it was one of the few places that harkened back to Madison’s high school days.
“Oye mami,” one of the bikers called. She blocked out his voice and clenched her fist.
If Stoke’s didn’t give so much money to her roller derby league in exchange for one night of carhopping, she’d never stand for the kind of lewd comments the rough motorcycle types liked to throw her way. Then again, she was skating around in crash pads, a black pleated miniskirt, and a bikini top with the league’s alligator-on-roller-skates logo over each breast. She got better tips this way, and the league was hurting for cash this season.
“Hey.” Lily, her best friend and teammate, screeched to a halt on her toe stops. Her frilly skirt flipped up, exposing her Talk Derby to Me booty shorts underneath. She probably meant to do that. Lily was a tease, but that was because she could afford to be one. With her Greek goddess looks, men were always interested in her curves. It was one reason why on the track she was known as A’thing’a Beauty.
“If those assholes touch me, I’m going to bash them over the head with a baseball bat.”
“You say that every time we’re here. Besides, your cop buddies wouldn’t let that happen.” Lily pivoted neatly and rolled with Madison toward the ticket window, wiggling her fingers at the cop car sitting in Madison’s section.
“They’re not my friends.” She refused to look at the two off-duty patrol officers. They weren’t bad people. Some of the cops Detective Matt Smith sent to “protect” her were even nice. But that was because they wanted something she couldn’t give them. Evidence her ex-husband was a drug dealer.
“I’ve got a guy in my section, and he’s been eyeing you since he got here. I swear he’s got a thing for you. I think we should switch.”
“What?” Madison almost tripped over the curb. Lily never gave up the section behind the grill. The concrete wasn’t busted up and it made for good skating. Besides, the bikers didn’t park back there.
“I tried flirting with him, but he didn’t pay me any attention.” Lily rolled her eyes. It was crazy to think a man wouldn’t notice her. She was athletic and curvy, with perfectly sun-kissed olive skin, long, curling hair braided into pigtails, and her makeup never ran because of sweat.
“Who is he?” Madison peered toward the back lot, but had no idea which car was his.
“Orange muscle car, black stripes. Here. Take this to him.” Lily handed her a banana split with two spoons. “Don’t ask. Just go.”
“No.” Madison shook her head and pushed the frozen treat back at her. “I don’t do bad-boy types. Not anymore, remember? If he doesn’t have a pocket protector or a suit, I’m not interested.”
Lily rolled her eyes. “Honey, have you looked in the mirror? You don’t exactly scream ‘nice guy material’ anymore. Neither of us do. Besides, it’s not like I’m telling you to go marry the guy, just flirt a little. You’ve got to learn how to do it again. Please?”
Madison glared at her. Roller derby had given her the kick in the pants to get her life together when she’d had nothing. But most of all, she’d found a family, something she hadn’t had since high school, which was more depressing than she wanted to think about.
“Fine,” Madison grumbled, and took the banana split back.
“Yay!” Lily gave Madison a little push and slapped her bottom.
She peered over her shoulder at her friend, nerves clamoring inside of her. Her? Flirt? She hadn’t done that in ages. Wasn’t even sure if she knew how to anymore. She’d have to trust that if she got into any kind of awkward exchange, she could count on one of the other derby girls to pull her ass out of the fire. That’s what derby sisters were good for, right?
The orange muscle car sat under a long, tin awning, shielding it from the afternoon sun. She couldn’t tell anything about the man sitting in the car except he had wide shoulders, the kind of big muscular arms she could dig her nails into.
Those thoughts needed to stop—right now. She hadn’t had sex in ages and her hormones were in overdrive. At this point, she’d have fantasies about anything with a pulse. Which was probably why Lily was shoving her at this man, but was she ready? Were there rules for newly divorced women about when they could date? How was she supposed to act? Did she need to tell the guy up front?
“Right, because nothing is sexier than saying, ‘Hi, my name is Madison and I’m newly divorced after being separated for three years,’” she muttered to herself. Then again, leading with Hi, want to give my lady parts a tune-up? probably wasn’t a good idea either.
Time to put her customer service face on and stop thinking about s-e-x.
The driver slowly came into view, one delicious inch of muscular arm at a time until she could see the rest of him. He had one arm hanging out of the open window, with a black-and-gray tattoo peeking from under his shirtsleeve. He had short, sandy brown hair and a strong jaw with generous lips she wanted to see smile for some crazy reason. Sunglasses hid his eyes, but she felt them crawl over her body. Madison smiled at the man and felt her pulse in her throat. Why did she have the sudden urge to trace those inked lines with her tongue?
She’d become something of an ink addict since her divorce, as evidenced by the tattoos she’d accumulated in the last few years. One glance at her customer and she shivered despite the heat.
Hot wasn’t a strong enough word for him. Panty melting might be more accurate. She was out of her league here. He’d chew her up and spit her inexperienced ass out. Lily could have this one all to herself.
Madison slowed to a stop, careful to not spill the quickly melting ice cream. “Hey, I’ve got one banana split for you.”
His lips curled downward a bit. “I didn’t order one.”
That voice. It rumbled across her senses, straight to her core, setting off her internal alarms. Danger!
“Oh, you didn’t? They told me to bring it out here.”
Shit. Shit. Shit. This is all Lily’s fault!
“Give it here.” He gestured for her to bring the ice cream closer while he dug in his pocket. “Two spoons, huh?”
“That’s what they gave me.” She shrugged and handed it over.
Madison hadn’t even noticed the plastic silverware stuck neatly in the sides. Now, if he would just take it so she could skate her happy ass away, she wouldn’t complain about the bikers for the rest of the afternoon. She could only assume he was studying her. His gaze was hidden, but she felt it drift across her shoulders, down her breasts and stomach to her legs. She’d toss on a shirt, too, no matter that it was ungodly hot. She was not ready for this kind of attention, even if her body screamed something else.
“You look like you could use a cooldown.” He pulled his sunglasses off and she nearly stopped breathing. He had the bluest eyes she’d ever seen. Like the sky on a clear day, or the bluest of ocean lagoons. “Want some?”
Nope. Nothing from you.
“It looks really good.” He spooned a bite of the slow-churned vanilla into his mouth. The way his lips wrapped around the spoon was completely fascinating. Where had he learned that? “There’s plenty for two.”
“Uh, sure.” Was that breathy voice really her?
He offered her a spoon and held the treat for her to scoop some. Stoke’s might be known for their beer-battered fries, but the
y made a mean homemade ice cream. It was one of their better-kept secrets. She greedily dipped her bite into the fudge, making sure it was dripping with chocolate.
“You want to sit down?” He gestured to the passenger side of his car.
She froze with the spoon halfway to her mouth. Attractive man, tinted windows, sitting here watching her and now he wanted her to have a seat in his car. Shit, fuck and damn it. Why hadn’t she seen it before? Hot guys in cool cars didn’t pick girls up like this, did they? Not when your last name used to be Ross. All the desire burning in her breast went out in one poof of nonexistent smoke. This had to tie back to Dustin.
Madison jabbed the spoon back in the dish and placed her hands on her hips, glaring at Mr. I-Melt-Panties-For-A-Living. How dare he take advantage of her self-imposed celibacy with his hotness? It just wasn’t fair.
“Why are you here? And don’t tell me it’s for the beer fries.” She glanced toward the patrol car but—Shit!—the cops were gone. Could she get the attention of one of the girls in time? What if he grabbed her and drove off?
He blinked slowly at her, completely unfazed by her question. She clenched her hands to keep from trembling. Once, she wouldn’t have recognized the dark edge behind his gaze but she’d learned to identify it.
When would it end? Leaving Dustin was the easy part. She’d opened the front door and walked out. Untangling her life from his was a process of years. If she could go back in time and tell her eighteen-year-old self anything, it would be to never, ever accept Dustin’s marriage proposal. He wouldn’t give her the white picket fence or the family of her dreams. Dustin ruined everything around him, and he’d destroyed her hopes of happiness.
“Well, this isn’t how I saw this going.” The man placed the dish on his dash and pushed the driver’s side door open. He stood and kept going up. Even with her skates on, giving her a good five extra inches, he was still taller than her. She was not about to let him intimidate her. This was a public place. She was safe, right?
“Really? You thought I’d get in the car and you could drive off with me inside? Then what? You want to knock me around a little, too? Maybe rape me?” God, she was so stupid. An attractive face, some fluttering nerves and she’d let herself be blinded.
“Wow. Wow. Wow.” He held up his hands, eyes wide. “Slow down there.”
“What does Dustin want now?” She wished she still had the ice cream in her hand. She’d make him wear it.
“Madison, right?” He extended his hand. “I’m Aiden. Hi.”
She glanced from his face to his hand and back. Yeah, fat chance she’d willingly touch him. She’d rather have rink rash.
“Okay, no handshake. That’s all right.” He leaned against the door, all casual and at ease. “I can appreciate cutting straight to the chase. So, look. Dustin says you have something he wants and he’s hired me to get it for him.”
“Fuck off.” She plated her toe stop on the ground and pushed off—except he grabbed her by the wrist, stopping her in her tracks. A jolt of—something—shot up her arm. Her skin tingled where they touched, completely robbing her of thought.
“Hold on there. Can we please have a rational discussion?” he said next to her ear. His breath skated over her neck and she shivered.
She gathered enough pieces of her mind to glare over her shoulder at him and twist her arm out of his grasp. He caught her by the shoulders instead and pulled her back against the hard wall of his chest. Her breath left her lungs, and the last bit of rational thought fled.
“I don’t want to help Dustin,” he said.
“W-what?” She spun and went up on her toe stops to keep from drifting while she gaped at the man. Had she heard him right? Was her brain that scrambled that she was putting words in his mouth?
“Now, will you please have a seat and eat the sundae with me?” Aiden reached through the open window and pulled the keys out of the ignition. She stared at the ring of keys he extended toward her. “We won’t go anywhere. I’ll even give you these, how about that?”
The first time Dustin had sent someone after her, she’d broken a broom over the guy’s head on the deck of her boat. After she’d finished freaking out she’d realized just how much danger she was in, but she was done letting Dustin boss her around. The second time he sent someone to talk to her, she’d been smart enough to have a baseball bat with her at work, of all places. She’d never anticipated needing to protect herself at a derby event, but Dustin was always finding new lows to sink to. Couldn’t Dustin let her go? It wasn’t as if the creep had ever loved her.
“I’m serious, Madison. I don’t want to help Dustin,” Aiden said again.
He was different than the other toughs Dustin had sent after her. They hadn’t been much for talk. Besides, Aiden was trying to give her the keys to his car, his body language was nonthreatening and they were in the middle of a crowded parking lot. It wasn’t exactly the seat of danger. Perhaps she needed to hear him out so she had a better handle on what she was dealing with.
God, what was wrong with her? She wanted to trust him.
If they were going to talk, it needed to be here. It was a public place, with plenty of witnesses and if things went really bad, she had the derby girls and the Stoke’s staff to back her up. It was the best possible way for this to go down.
“I’m only talking to you for a minute, okay?” She snatched the keys, threaded them through her fingers into a makeshift weapon, careful to not touch him.
“Okay. Deal.” He smiled at her, which was so out of character for one of Dustin’s thugs. It was even kind of cute. He had an almost-dimple on his left cheek that gave him a sort of sweet, lopsided look.
Clearly he had supernatural powers, or she was just that man-starved.
She would stay on her side of the car. She would not agree to anything. And if he made one wrong move, she’d scream to high heaven and throw herself out of the car. She was wearing a helmet, after all. It couldn’t be much worse than taking a tumble on the track.
They got in the car, tension stretching tight between them. She twisted to face him, but he appeared more interested in the sundae than her, and for some reason that irritated her even more. He took a bite and offered the rest to her.
“What do you want to talk about?” she asked.
“I want to double-cross your ex.”
She glanced around. Was there a camera crew hiding around here? Someone was about to jump out and say she’d been punk’d. Lily had to be in on it, except she had no love for Dustin, either.
“I’m sorry. Can you try that again, please?”
“Dustin works for a man I have issues with. A man I’d like to see bad things happen to, but he’s too well protected for me to do anything about it. Now, Dustin wants this hard drive from you because it’s important to him and he clearly does not want his boss to know he doesn’t have it. I’d like to take this hard drive off your hands and use it as leverage to make Dustin go away and possibly put his boss behind bars.”
This was crazy. Bat-shit crazy. Like, bad movie crazy.
“I don’t have this hard drive,” she blurted. Yes, she did, and now someone else wanted it? Well hell. Another thing she’d tell a younger her—never take anything of Dustin’s out of spite. She’d thought she was grabbing a box of crap, and instead, she was sitting on a ticking time bomb. She couldn’t give it back to Dustin, not with the cops breathing down her neck. Letting the cops have it was out of the question. Once they had it, Dustin would know and she’d be dead. Her best bet was stashing it far, far away.
“Are you sure?”
She shifted in her seat. The man had the steady stare down to an art, and damn it if her thoughts didn’t stray. God, she needed to get laid, by someone safe, sane, and nice, which meant Aiden was not a candidate.
“Think about it—”
“How do I know I can trust you?” Madison knew she was in over her head. She needed help in a bad way. The cops couldn’t save her. Maybe a bad boy in a hot car coul
d?
“You don’t. That’s what trust is, blind faith.” He leaned toward her, his gaze heavy-lidded and sensual. He was a bad boy, through and through. It practically oozed off him, and Madison had always had a weakness for the bad boys. But there was something different about him, too. He wasn’t Dustin’s kind of bad. So what other kinds of bad were there? She’d been good for so long, she didn’t know.
She put her back against the car door, smoothing her hands over her thighs and wiping off the dampness. The man was already giving her sweaty palms! It wasn’t fair. He’d taken her by surprise, deflating her confidence and knocking her off her stride. No more. She’d never again let a man get the best of her. But maybe he could help her. She didn’t need a white knight, just someone to help her out of a jam.
Madison sucked in a deep breath and gave herself a mental shake. “If I do this for you, what do I get?”
If she’d learned one thing from Dustin, it had been that nothing is free.
“You?” He laughed. “I’m doing you a favor by eliminating this pain in your ass.”
Damn him, he was right, but she couldn’t let him know that.
“Ah, but I’d be helping you by giving you what you needed.”
“Sugar, this isn’t the only way to get what I want, but it is the more enjoyable and mutually profitable option.” His voice rolled over her skin with sensual appeal.
No, she would not entertain erotic fantasies about a man who was essentially trying to blackmail her. She liked good guys. With jobs and bank accounts under their real names. The kinds of guys who had 401(k)’s and retirement plans.
He leaned in closer, until she could make out the odd, snowflake pattern of blues in his eyes and smell the sundae on his breath.
A mental image unfolded of their bodies entwined, panting for breath, covered in sweat as he rocked into her. Desire burned in her veins, hot and insistent. She’d been with the bad boys, and look where it had gotten her—living on a boat, forced to work the only job she could get just to scrape enough together for night classes.
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