In Walked Trouble (Under Covers)

by Christina Elle

  But Serrano was coming for him. No matter how much it scrambled Luke’s brain and made him on edge, that was his reality.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Cackling sounded on the other side of the door. It made Luke’s stomach do a weird flutter. Cass had been in there with his pseudo-family while he and Ash shoveled snow, and she was laughing with them. He couldn’t make out what they were talking about; who knew with that bunch. Could be crap about knitting or…hell, Estelle could be discussing her leaky bladder.

  Not that the topic mattered. It was her. It was the way she’d fit into his world so easily. And each time she came back, he wanted her in it more. Not because he felt alone, but because he enjoyed her company.

  She was the first woman he wanted his friends to get to know. The first one he wanted to know, on a deeper level than just dinner and some fun times. Despite what he’d told Ash, Cass was definitely more than information. He’d been happy—too happy—that she’d been stuck here at Maybel’s with him.

  “What the hell are you waiting for?” Ash stood next to Luke on the front porch with his hands in his thick winter jacket. “Are we going in at some point? Or are we waiting for our balls to shrivel up and fall off?”

  “Yeah, sorry.” Luke shook his head to clear his thoughts and reached for the handle. He swung the door open and took a steadying breath.

  Another boisterous laugh.

  “Sounds like they’re having fun,” Ash observed.

  Luke followed his best friend into the entryway and through the living area to the dining room where obnoxiously loud female voices carried.

  The men stopped, crossed their arms, and took in the sight of Maybel, Estelle, Celia, Sam, and Rose sitting around Maybel’s dining room table. Cass rounded out the bunch, appearing to fit right in with the crazy broads. Each had a cigar in her mouth and a shot glass of amber liquid in front of her. One liquor bottle was already empty and they were doing their damnedest to finish off the other half of the second.

  Great, while Luke and Ash were out shoveling their asses off, the rest of the gang had been getting shit-faced playing cards.

  Sam jumped from her chair and threw herself into Ash’s arms, wrapping her legs around his waist and kissing all over his face. Cheek, chin, nose, other cheek. “Glad you’re back.”

  Laughing, he said, “It’s only been a few hours.”

  “I don’t care.” The mess of blonde hair on top of Sam’s head bounced as she continued to kiss him.

  “How’d it go?” Estelle asked, examining her cards like they were filled with quantum physics problems.

  “Not bad,” Luke said since Ash’s mouth was too busy to talk. He pulled his wool hat off and stuffed it in the pocket of his jacket. “Got most of it up. We’ll go back out in a few hours for the next round.”

  “Thank you for your help, gentlemen,” Maybel said, tossing a few nickels into the center of the table.

  When Cassandra craned her neck to look at Luke, and their gazes connected, she showed him everything he’d been waiting to see. Everything he’d been craving. Her face was flushed and eyes begging to be satisfied. She had that shy sex kitten thing going on that got his pulse running at hyper speed.

  He wanted her. So damn bad. The first night. The second. And every night in between. He was a fool to think otherwise.

  She blinked a few times, never taking her eyes from his. Christ, it was like all her thoughts were his for the taking. And he took what she was offering. With pleasure.

  Sam crawled off Ash and went back to her seat, slicing through Luke and Cass’s connection. He took the opportunity to look away. Get your head on straight. He slipped out of his jacket and draped it over the back of the sofa in the living room.

  Ash surveyed the table covered in coins, cards, and empty liquor bottles. “Thought tonight was book club. Isn’t tomorrow poker night?”

  A grunt sounded from Estelle’s side of the table. “Book club’s canceled on account that nobody else wanted to read a classic piece of American literature.”

  “Tolstoy?” Luke asked. “Hemingway? Melville?” There wasn’t much Luke could relate to the women on, but literature was definitely one.

  “James,” she said.

  “Who?”

  “E.L. James. One of the best damn authors of our time, if you ask me. She really nailed it with that tampon scene. Pure enlightenment.”

  Whatever she was talking about, it wasn’t Luke’s kind of novel.

  The other ladies around the table sounded like they were having asthmatic attacks. Ash groaned, though Luke assumed it was because Estelle said the T-word, rather than the fact that he knew what the hell they were talking about.

  “Never heard of her,” Luke said. “What does she write?” Given the sparkle in Estelle’s eye, he was pretty sure he was going to regret asking.

  Estelle swallowed a long gulp from her glass. “Well, if you ask Celia, she’ll tell you it’s a murder mystery. At least that’s what she told all of us when she recommended it.”

  Celia’s normally pale skin flamed as she placed her cards facedown. “Margaret only reads murder mysteries. She told me that’s all she normally reads. So when she said we really needed to look into that…that book, I assumed…”

  “It’s okay, Cee.” Rose patted the other woman’s hand. “Honest mistake.”

  Estelle snorted. “Mistake.”

  “Given the cover,” Maybel said in defense. “I figured it was some sort of mystery as well. Very ominous looking if you ask me with the gray background and silver silk tie.”

  “And to be fair,” Rose interjected, with a firm tug on the collar of her turtleneck. “That billionaire fellow was awfully inventive with his, uh…weapons. I was waiting for him to kill the poor girl with that riding crop. Kept reading, waiting for it to happen. I was on the last chapter when I realized she wasn’t going to die.”

  “I still don’t understand why he needed to strike her on the rear end,” Celia said with a dead serious expression.

  Rose glanced at her cards, then tossed a few quarters into the pot. “Obviously, some men have certain fetishes.”

  Celia looked at Rose with a confused and nauseous twist to her lips. “Fetishes?”

  “Oh, yes. Women, too, for that matter,” Maybel joined in. “Dorothy at the senior center is an acrotomophiliac.”

  “A what?” Celia asked, her skin turning a serious shade of green.

  “Acrotomophiliac. When she and Charlie fornicate, she needs him to take off his prosthetic leg in order to become aroused.”

  Luke shook his head and his stomach churned. No issues with amputees at all. But old people just shouldn’t do it. Or talk about it.

  At the wide-eyed expression of the women around her, Maybel shrugged. “Just repeating what she said.”

  Estelle waved the comment off. “Big deal. I’m particular in bed, too.”

  “Maybe with the what, but not so much the who,” Rose said out of the corner of her mouth.

  Estelle’s eyes hardened. “When most of your partners die the day after, you can’t be too picky. The options are gettin’ limited.” Estelle directed her attention to Cass. “What did you think, Cassie? Did you read it?”

  Cass lifted her shoulders, then hiccupped. She giggled and covered her mouth, swaying a little in her seat. “I d-did. Read allllllll thr-three, actually.”

  Estelle got to her feet so fast her chair knocked over behind her. “There’s two more?”

  Cass blew air past her lips, making a pfft sound. “I’ve r-read a lot better st-stuff than that. There are some that are much, much, much…h-hot…hot-toter.”

  “Hotter? Really?” Estelle asked, eyes sparkling. “Which ones?”

  Luke strode around to Cass’s side of the table. “All right, ladies, I think you’ve had enough fun for one night.”

  “No!” all female voices said at once.

  “We’re ssssstill playing.” Cass looked up with pleading green eyes that made him want to carry her str
aight downstairs and not go to sleep. If she was up for it and wasn’t forty sheets to the wind, he might consider doing just that.

  “I’m winning,” she said, holding up her hand. “See? I’ve got thhhhhhree aces and two nines.” She squinted and pulled the cards closer to her face. “Or is that four nines? Yes! Four! I see four of them!”

  “Damn it!”

  “Man!”

  “Never mind.”

  “Forget it.”

  The rest of the women slapped their cards down on the table and chose to pour another round into their empty glasses.

  “Does that mean the game’s over?” Cass looked around the table with an innocent expression that made him chuckle.

  “Yes,” Estelle said, searching her small purse. “You cleaned us out. I ain’t got another nickel to my name.”

  “Like that’s different from any other poker night,” Rose said, lifting her whiskey to her mouth and taking a sip.

  “Come on,” Luke said with a hand out to Cassandra. “Bedtime.”

  “Again?” Cass pouted. “Why do you always tell me what to do? I’m purrrrrrfectly capa-bobble. Cape-ab-able.” She cleared her throat. “Cap-a-ble to get myself to bed on my own.”

  He signaled toward the door to the basement. “By all means.” This should be good.

  Her lips bunched and she crossed her arms. “No.”

  He cocked an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

  “You h-heard me.” Hiccup. “I’m not ready for bed.”

  A snicker sounded from the other end of the table. Daring a glance, he caught Ash’s shit-eating grin.

  “Oh, you’re definitely ready,” Luke said, reaching for her elbow.

  She jerked away, tilting her head to the side and lifting her eyebrows in challenge.

  Lips of those seated around the dining room table danced.

  “Cass,” he said. “You’re drunk. You’ve taken all their money. It’s time to go to bed.”

  “Fine,” she said.

  “Good.” He reached again. “Let’s—”

  “You go,” she said, leaning away from him. “I’m f-fine with my ffffriends.”

  He inhaled two deep breaths. When that didn’t calm him down and she didn’t show any sign of getting up, he said, “I’m going to count to five and if you’re not up, so help me…”

  She hesitated, not out of panic, but in defiance. Then she reached for her shot glass that had been refilled.

  “Don’t you dare,” he said in a voice he hoped was like steel.

  A devious grin curled on her lips. “Or what?”

  “Or…” Christ, he didn’t know.

  He’d spank her? Yeah, that would go over really well for the both of them. Her heated stares and the hard-on he was trying like hell to cover up would love a good round of spanking. But hell, why not?

  He bent close to her ear, lowering his voice so their audience couldn’t hear. “Or else I’m going to take you downstairs, throw you over my knee, and spank you.”

  She turned slowly, wearing that sex kitten expression again. The stop-him-dead look. “Do you promise?”

  God. Damn it.

  Blood rushed from every extremity and pooled right where it was biologically designed to. He quickly dropped to his knees so no one at the table would get a front-row glance at his reaction.

  “Cass,” he said in a soft, low voice. “You’re killing me.”

  She must have heard his plea, because her expression changed to something much less stubborn. “Good.”

  He pulled back, waiting to see if she’d smile or laugh. Something to show she was joking.

  She didn’t. She stared at him straight-faced without fidgeting.

  “Good?” Luke whispered to Cass.

  “Mmm-hmm,” was all she said.

  “That’s it? You’re going to make a comment like that, all serious, and then not elaborate? Why?”

  Hiccup. “Isn’t it obvious?”

  “No.” See, this was why he didn’t tangle with women. They were crazy and confusing and never knew what they wanted outside of the bedroom. Hell, half the time they didn’t know what they wanted in the bedroom until he showed them. “Why don’t you explain it to me?”

  “You’re confusssssing me,” she said. “A lot.” She punctuated the word with a poke of her finger to his chest. “How do I know you’re nnnnot like the resssssst of them.”

  The rest of who? Other men?

  He waited, figuring she’d go on.

  Seemed like he was going to wait awhile because the only thing she was communicating was a puzzled expression. The wheels were turning, but he didn’t think the hamster was still on the wheel. Probably fell off and passed out after the third or fourth shot of whiskey.

  “Cass,” he said through a sigh.

  She stood from her chair. “Forget it.” Hiccup. Then a swift nod to the others at the table. “Good night, ladies. It was fffffun.”

  “See you in the morning, dear,” Maybel said.

  “Night,” the rest of them responded.

  Without acknowledging Luke, Cass maneuvered around the table, into the kitchen, and down the stairs.

  Ten narrowed female eyes stared back at him.

  “What?” Luke asked.

  “You didn’t have to lie to the poor girl,” Maybel said. He could’ve done without the disapproving tone. Made him feel ten years old again living in his foster mom’s house.

  He stood with hands braced on his hips. “What are you talking about?”

  “She has no clue who you are,” Maybel went on.

  Estelle dropped her glass on the table. “Might be a good idea to come clean if ya plan on burying the sausage anytime soon.”

  “She deserves the truth,” Celia chimed in.

  “You think I should tell her? Who I really am? What I really do?” He swallowed the big fucking lump in his throat. “That I’ve got a sadistic drug lord on my ass?” Right. That would go over great. She’d be running for the hills before he got the words out. Which was best for her. But, it’s not at all what he wanted. He wanted her to stick around. He wanted to spend more time exploring their connection. Hell, he wanted to know what it felt like to bury himself inside her and forget about every shit thing he’d ever been through.

  That wouldn’t happen if he told her the truth.

  “She’s been hurt,” Maybel went on. “You don’t have to divulge everything, but you could at least trust her enough to know what’s going on. Let her decide her fate.”

  He rubbed the migraine in the front of his head away. “I’m a walking death threat, Maybel. You tell me—what woman in her right mind would be okay with that?”

  A vision of Lorena Serrano with a bullet between her eyes came to mind. Except this time it wasn’t Lorena, it was Cass who’d been shot. Jesus, that was an image he could do without.

  “I handled it just fine,” Sam spoke up, referencing her involvement into Ash’s dangerous life and their trouble with Viktor Heinrich months earlier.

  “You have police training,” he said. “Plus, I seem to remember your fiancé protecting you from the aftermath. That’s why my ass is being hunted and not yours, remember?”

  There was a collective gasp from the table.

  “That’s enough.” Ash pushed off the wall and stomped toward Luke, getting up in his face. “Whatever’s going on with you, you better get it straightened out. I’m not having your death hanging over my head because you’re not in this. Get your shit together or I’ll pull you off this case. Do you understand?”

  “Yeah sure,” Luke said, trying to turn, but Ash gripped his arm.

  “You’re like a brother to me,” Ash said, his voice softening. “We’ve been through some crazy shit. But you won’t disrespect my girl like that again.”

  “I don’t need you to stick up for me, Ash,” Sam said.

  He didn’t look at her or respond. Just kept his gaze zeroed on Luke. One of Ash’s eyebrows lifted. “We cool?”

  Luke shrugged out of Ash’s so
lid hold. “Yeah, we’re good.”

  Brushing his shoulder past Ash, intentionally making his friend readjust his balance, Luke ate up the distance between the dining room and kitchen in a few steps. He ripped the basement door open, stepped through, then slammed it behind him as he descended the stairs.

  What a dick. Yeah, it was Luke’s idea to put his own name on the report, but still. He hadn’t really thought the repercussions would be this fast. Hadn’t anticipated he’d be looking over his shoulder this soon. That his life would be on the line so quickly. That he’d feel the way he did about Cass. Wanna talk about honesty? He honestly felt like he was going crazy from all this shit.

  He didn’t want to keep lying to her. Not really. But he couldn’t tell her the truth. He’d never planned on telling her. Because he’d never expected to feel this way. Never expected she’d get under his skin the way she had.

  Truth was—Luke had never wanted a woman in his life as badly as he wanted Cass. And if he told her what was going on, she’d leave so fast he wouldn’t have a chance to convince her otherwise. She’d be gone. And he wasn’t going through that again. He couldn’t control his mom leaving. But he could try like hell to hold onto Cass as long as possible.

  Guilt cramped his stomach, almost doubling him over. It was fucked up. He knew that. But he wanted her. He couldn’t let her walk away. Not yet. There was a piece of him that needed her. Until he could explore that piece and fully understand it, he had to keep her around for as long as he could. Despite the danger. Despite the lie. Despite his own goddamn conscience telling him otherwise.

  He was keeping her.

  It was wrong in so many ways, and at the moment, he didn’t give a fuck. Just as long as she kept making him feel whole again.

  It took him a long time to accept he wasn’t meant to be alone. His mom fucked his brain big time. Made him feel like he wasn’t worth shit. And he’d believed it. As he’d gotten older, and met women, he’d used them to get off and feel like someone. But with each fuck, he started to feel more worthless. Finding validation between the sheets, only to crash hours later when he’d found himself alone again. He’d turned into his mom.