Bounty

by Kristen Ashley

  “Yeah, except that,” Deke grunted.

  “Was she there?”

  “They don’t know but folks saw her go in, another guy go in too, that guy was a put-together, good-lookin’ black man. She knew him. They seemed tight. No one saw either of them leave or Caswell go in. Decker found Caswell early this morning. Bianca and the other guy were gone.”

  “So what does all this mean? She had someone kill Caswell for her?” she asked.

  “It means we don’t know what it means until Decker finds out so we should just get on with what we’re doin’ and wait until we got solid information. Not make guesses and get tweaked about shit we don’t know we should tweak about.”

  She moved and did it to pull her phone out of the fringed bag hanging from a strap that crossed her body over one of the few pieces of clothing she owned he really fucking liked.

  It was like the dress she’d worn when he first saw her again, walking into Bubba’s.

  This one was long, down to her ankles, sleeves that went down to her mid-forearms that were flowy, the dress brown with a pattern of little cream flowers on it. The waist was belted under her tits with a narrow belt made of Native American beading.

  That was all okay.

  The part Deke liked a fuckuva lot was that the front was cut all the way down to that belt. The rest of her was covered, except her wrists, and that slash, exposing chest and the inside swells of her gorgeous tits that were not restrained with a bra.

  Total gypsy princess.

  With all that hair down, tangled and messy from sleep and sex, in that dress, she looked fucking amazing.

  So amazing, he got caught in taking it in and almost didn’t catch the fact she was making a call.

  But he caught it and saw who she was calling on the screen.

  He pulled her phone out of her hand and disengaged it.

  Her head snapped back.

  “What are you doing?” she rapped out.

  “You aren’t calling your girl,” he told her.

  She got close, up on her toes, and hissed, “Deke, the dude that strangled me was killed by an assassin in my best friend’s pad.” She rocked back. “Of course I’m gonna call her.”

  “Baby, the asshat that strangled you was killed in your best friend’s apartment and you are not gonna make a call a few hours after a crime was committed that it’s possible that best friend witnessed.”

  “The cops have got to know that this Caswell—”

  “They know. Decker told them. That doesn’t mean you’re phoning Bianca,” he returned. “Let Decker see if he can find out what’s happening with her and—”

  “She’s my best friend, Deke, and I’m worried about her,” she snapped.

  “She’s your best friend, gypsy,” he said gently. “And it might be she’s consorting with hitmen, it appears she’s bein’ kept and there is a lot of conjecture surrounding what went down in her apartment after what went down with you. Decker says this smacks of payback. What was bein’ paid back was what happened to you. You were the one assaulted and you are a woman of means. Do not call your girl. You don’t need ties to her at all except the ones you already got. Are you following me?”

  She glared at him and took her time doing it.

  Then she jerked her eyes angrily away and looked down the sidewalk, taking her time with that too.

  Finally, her shoulders slumped, her head dropped, she muttered, “Fuck,” and fell, the top of her head hitting his chest.

  His hand still at the back of her neck squeezed.

  Jussy.

  She was following him.

  “I need coffee,” she told his chest.

  Deke found her hand, gave her back her phone, dug out his keys and gave her those too. “Go get in my truck. Call Thurston with this news, set his mind at ease. I’ll get you what you need.”

  She slid her head around until her cheek was pressed to his chest, whispering, “You always do.”

  Damn, that felt good.

  She pressed close a second then pulled away.

  Deke let her go.

  Jussy looked up at him. “I need a double shot in whatever Shambles makes me,” she announced. “I never tell him what I want. I let him rock my world. Though this time, he’s gonna do it with a double shot.”

  “Gotcha,” he replied.

  “And a double dose of whatever he puts in a white bag.”

  Deke grinned at his gypsy. “Got that too.”

  She looked up into his eyes, hers melting warm. “Thanks, honey.”

  “Be back in a sec, Justice.”

  She nodded, turned and moved back up the sidewalk where Deke’s truck was parked outside the convenience store.

  He watched until she was safe inside his truck.

  Only then did he turn and walk down to La-La Land to get his girl her coffee.

  * * * * *

  Jussy scored her nails down his stomach while he was shooting up inside her and that made his hips jerk, his cock throb, and he shot more like she’d cupped his balls and squeezed.

  She collapsed on his chest when he just started coming down, her hair all over—his shoulders, in his face, down his arms—and he didn’t shift any of it away.

  He just folded his arms around her and worked to even his breath after watching and feeling her riding his dick to her own orgasm before she gave the same to him.

  When he was almost there, he murmured, “Kiss, gypsy.”

  She pulled her face out of his neck, lifted and gave him her mouth.

  He took it, long and wet, the taste of Justice sweet, then broke the kiss and twisted a hand in her hair, using it to shove her face back in his neck.

  “Weird, life,” she whispered there. “Asshole strangles me, I get you. Too bad he’s dead. I’d thank him before I kicked him in the nuts.”

  Deke’s fingers fisted in her hair as he blinked at her ceiling.

  Shit, they needed to stop fucking and start chatting if she thought what happened was why he’d changed his mind about where they were at.

  It was, in a way.

  But it wasn’t, because he’d been into her since the beginning.

  The very beginning.

  In other words, Wyoming.

  And she needed to know that.

  He gathered her hair at her neck and was about to suggest they clean up and have that chat when her phone rang.

  She lifted up slightly, reached out still connected to him, and dragged her purse from the nightstand to the bed. He turned his head and watched her dig in, pull her phone out and look at it.

  She then looked to him.

  “Joss,” she stated and took the fucking call.

  Her mother was calling and she was taking that call while his dick was still hard inside her.

  Fuck, his gypsy.

  Deke felt his lips twitch.

  “Yo, Joss,” she greeted.

  He watched her face turn confused, she ordered, “Hey, I’m not getting this. Talk slower,” then he felt her whole body tense, her cunt included, and he stifled a grunt at how good that felt.

  Her eyes cut to him and she lifted up still straddling him, hair hanging down more tangled than before, some of it over her chest, covering her tits, but he could see nipple peeking through.

  Fuck, he had to get her off his cock or he’d be hard again and fucking her while she was talking to her mother.

  Deke put his hands to her hips and gave them a squeeze. She looked at him, got the message and swung off to settle in a hip, legs curved beside her, hand in the bed holding her up, but her eyes stayed on him.

  “Joss knows about Bianca,” she mouthed.

  Deke nodded, knifed up, moved in to touch his lips to the slight bite mark he’d made with his teeth the first time he came inside her and he did that with his lips curled.

  That mark was not going to go away. He’d renew it every time he needed to renew it. She was taking him everywhere for as long as this was working between them.

  On that decision, he rolled
out of bed, dealt with the condom and strolled back.

  She was staring at his dick, and as he climbed back into bed with her and she lost visual, she looked up to his eyes and smirked, indicating she liked what he saw.

  He bent in and kissed her between her tits.

  She slid her fingers in his hair but had trouble keeping them there when he pulled away, fell to his back and yanked her on him so she was resting on his chest.

  One of his hands went to her ass, the other one reached for the covers, pulling them up to their waists.

  “Yeah, Joss, you let me talk a sec,” she said quickly, “I’d tell you I know. I hired an investigator after what happened and he reported all this to us this morning.” A pause then, “Us being me and Deke.” Another pause, her attention came to him and she said, “We’re not talking about that now.”

  He grinned.

  She watched him do it, her eyes got lazy and totally fucking sexy.

  Deke rolled into her, taking her to her back so he was on her.

  She lifted a hand to his jaw and rubbed her thumb into his beard.

  He’d never had a woman do that.

  It felt nice, sweet, affectionate.

  Jussy.

  “Because he’s here, right now, and I’d rather not share the Deke and me getting together story while Deke and me are together.” Her eyes, dancing with humor, locked on his as she finished, “He might get embarrassed when I share how talented he is with…um, everything.”

  “I won’t get embarrassed,” he told her, still grinning.

  She shifted her thumb to over his lips, saying into the phone, “Yes, Joss, I told you he’s right here.” A pause then, “Yeah, that’d be good.” Another pause before, “I’m not watching. I don’t want to know. But I need to call Mr. T.” A few moments and then, “Right. Yeah. This is weird. Crazy and weird, but I can’t deal with that right now. My investigator is still on it and we hope we’ll have more information tomorrow.” Silence and, “Joss, I don’t know. I haven’t talked to her in ages. I’m trying not to get freaked in the middle of a lot of pretty freaky shit. Help me with that, would you?”

  She focused on Deke and shook her head slightly, listening, before she kept going.

  “Yes, that help would be us not hashing this all out when we have no clue what’s happening, all that hashing out doing nothing but totally flipping me out. And if this is happening, I need to call Mr. T. He needs to be briefed about this new shit. So I gotta go.” Pause then, “Yeah, love you too. My love to Rod. I’ll talk to you when I know more.” Pause, “Right, later, ’bye.”

  She disconnected and tossed her phone to the bed.

  Then she declared, “Apparently news leaked Bianca was involved in some way in a murder. Her folks are famous. It’s all over the entertainment news and is hitting the real news too. That’s how Joss found out.”

  Through this declaration, Deke’s body went wired.

  “They mentioning you?” he asked.

  She shook her head and he relaxed. “Not according to Joss. But Mr. T has people monitoring that, like always, so he always knows what people are saying. So—”

  She was cut off with her phone ringing.

  Deke twisted, grabbed it, saw the display said it was her girl Lacey, and he gave it to her.

  “Fun’s over,” she muttered as she took the phone from him.

  “For now, Jussy. Take your calls. Make your calls. I’ll be here when it’s done.”

  She smiled at him, took the call and put the phone to her ear.

  “Before you start, I know, and hang on,” she said into it and put it face down on her chest. “Can I talk you into going to get sandwiches?”

  She could talk him into anything.

  He still didn’t move.

  “You good here on your own?” he asked quietly.

  “Not sure ghosts can touch you and I think they have to be tethered to the place they died or their home or something so I think I’m all right.”

  She said that like she thought ghosts were real.

  So he grinned at her.

  Yeah, she’d be all right.

  He dipped close, touched his mouth to hers then rolled off her.

  He was reaching for his jeans when he heard, “I’m back.”

  Lacey also must have heard a few things because the start of her conversation was about Deke.

  They’d moved on to Bianca after he was dressed.

  He put a knee to the bed, bent to her and brushed his lips against hers, pulled away and looked into her eyes.

  She nodded and his gaze fell to her mouth as she used it to tell him silently, “I’m good, honey. Go.”

  That was when Deke nodded, pushed away and walked out to his truck to get their sandwiches.

  * * * * *

  Deke let himself in Jussy’s front door and heard her playing guitar, the sound drifting into the big space.

  If you’d asked him two months ago if he could tell from someone playing a guitar if they had the gift or if they just knew the chords, he couldn’t say he could tell the difference.

  Listening to Jussy play, he could now tell the difference.

  And it was good she was playing again. She hadn’t touched her guitar in the last week even if she’d had time to do her thing, this because her wrist was wrapped.

  That wrap was now gone.

  More good.

  He walked into the room, seeing her in a tank and panties cross-legged in her bed, her guitar in her lap, her notebook open beside her, pencil in it, and she still was strumming but her eyes were to the door, watching him enter the room.

  Deke then watched those big brown eyes warm at the same time he felt that warm in his gut.

  She sniffed and begged, “Please make that smell be the southwestern turkey grill.”

  Her favorite, turkey and jack with whole roasted green chiles grilled into a cheesy mess on white bread.

  “Not gonna buy you ham the day after we found out that fuckface who strangled you bought it.”

  She hated ham.

  Deke figured that wasn’t the reason she grinned at him.

  He walked to the nightstand as she swung her guitar out and set it on its back in the bed, walking on her knees to where he dumped their sandwiches and a grocery bag.

  He pulled the two six-packs out, one of Coke for him, one of cherry Fresca for her. They were cold.

  He popped a can from each, set them aside and muttered, “Be back.”

  He took the rest to her fridge, shoved them in and then he was back.

  She was again on her ass, her hand wrapped around a pack of paper plates held up in the air.

  “Dude,” was all she said.

  “What?” was his reply.

  “Nothing says environmentally unfriendly more than a paper plate, except,” she gave him a wicked grin, “a paper towel.”

  He sat on the edge of the bed and started pulling off his boots. “That’s just plain not true.”

  “I’m a liberal artist. They find out I use paper plates, they won’t ask me to play at concerts to save the whales and shit.”

  He looked to her. “You play those concerts?”

  She was still grinning, though it was no longer wicked. “No.”

  “Then you’re good.”

  “I am but only because I have stoneware on order and might get a kitchen in the next century, so soon we won’t need to resort to paper plates,” she muttered. “And just for the record, I do want the whales to be saved…in a big way.”

  He looked to her, smiling and twisting fully into the bed as she unwrapped sandwiches, putting them on paper plates.

  “Speakin’ to that, not the whales, the kitchen, called Max,” he shared. “Told him progress on your house was suspended today due to celebratory circumstances.”

  She waggled her brows. “Did you tell him all the celebratory circumstances?”

  “No, but I’m gettin’ he gets ’em anyway seein’ as he said his wife Nina wants us to pick a date to go to The R
ooster. That’s us, not you. They’re payin’,” he told her. “Client dinner. Max can write it off. Nina can look you over. And we can eat a fuckin’ great steak.”

  “I’m in as soon as my black eye is totally gone.”

  “I’ll let him know.” Deke took the plate she gave him with the sandwich buried under an upended Big Grab of Chili Cheese Fritos. “Get your calls done?”

  She’d taken a big bite, was nodding and chewing.

  Once she swallowed, she said, “Lacey and Mr. T. Mr. T and my publicist are on it with the LA cops so they can put a lid on anything leaking about this having anything to do with me. Mr. T is good at that shit. I don’t wanna know and he doesn’t share his secrets, but I figure he’s right now deep in the throes of palm greasing.”

  “Good news, gypsy,” Deke replied.

  “And Chace called too,” she went on. “He says he heard word from your Decker friend as well as the cops in LA. During autopsy, they’re gonna do a DNA test on Caswell so it can be compared to the DNA they got from me. That way Chace says all the T’s are crossed and I can breathe easy. Though he said it’s highly likely I can already breathe easy because I might not have seen the guy’s face, but I gave a physical description of his body, and that all matches. Not to mention the other stuff,” she mumbled her last sentence before taking another big bite of sandwich.

  “That’s good too.”

  Her phone beeped with a text, she looked at it, her brows drew together and she dropped her sandwich on her plate, quickly wiped her hands on a napkin and nabbed it.

  “Fuck,” she murmured.

  “What?” he asked.

  Her thumbs flew over the screen and she didn’t answer him.

  “What?” he clipped.

  He heard her text go and she looked at him.

  “Lacey,” she stated.

  “Doesn’t answer my question,” he informed her.

  “And Anton Rojas.”

  She said no more, her phone beeped again, she looked down at it and immediately started replying to the text.

  “Gypsy,” he growled his warning.

  “Two seconds, honey,” she muttered, hit send and looked to him. “Anton Rojas. A black, sharp-dressed man.”

  Deke’s shoulders went straight. “You think you know the guy with Bianca?”