Brooklyn muttered, “True that,” which made me laugh and caused her to smile back at me.
Archer Jennings was strange. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but something was off. Maybe he was just tired from his trip. Maybe he was just a weirdo. And for some reason, he looked familiar. It was enough to make my hair stand on end.
He blew out a harsh breath and squeezed the bridge of his nose just beneath his black-framed glasses. With dark brown hair that was tousled and thin lips, he was nice looking. Nice body, for sure. But something still bothered me.
He smiled at me. “What is there to do for fun around here?”
Morgan beamed at me and then at Archer. “Come to Wanda’s Lounge at ten o’clock Friday evening and you’ll find out.”
I elbowed the bitch. Hard. “Ow-wuh!”
“You deserved it. You’re worse than Wanda.”
Archer smiled. “I guess the Inn and Out is the only place around, too.”
Morgan and I burst into a fit of laughter. “You’re staying there?”
He smiled, revealing a dimple in his left cheek. “Unfortunately. The bed is round and vibrates if you feed it money.”
Morgan couldn’t get her breath. “Brooklyn lovvvved the bed.”
“I hate you, Sin,” I giggled, throwing a piece of lettuce at her. She ducked and it landed on the tile floor. “I hated that bed with a passion. And the bathroom. You might need sunglasses.”
“Please tell me you weren’t in room one-thirteen,” Archer said, his eyes widening.
That made us laugh even harder.
“OMG!” Morgan said, wiping tears from her eyes. “This is too funny!”
Archer and I laughed and I felt more at ease about him. His wide smile seemed genuine. When did I start taking up the small town pack mentality of shunning outsiders? It was at that moment I decided to hang out with Archer if he wanted a friend.
“If you want to hang out while you’re in town, here’s my number.” I scribbled down the pre-paid cell’s number on the corner of a napkin and tore it off, handing it over to him. Morgan looked surprised by my willingness to help a brother out.
Archer took the piece of napkin and tucked it in his pocket. “Thank you. I’ll keep that in mind. And thanks for letting me sit with you.” We needed to leave so Morgan could torture some more pictures out of me, so we told our new friend goodbye and clapped Willy on the shoulder on the way out. He shot an uneasy glance toward Archer. “Everything okay?” he asked.
“We’re fine. He’s just new in town. Not that I’ve been here long, but I know what that’s like.” He nodded in understanding but glanced back at Archer’s head, unconvinced. “Sure, Miss Brooklyn.”
***
I’d just finished texting Wanda with what I would need for Friday’s two song performance when Colt pulled into his driveway at six o’clock on the dot, so I ran outside to meet him. He was OCD about being punctual, so I knew he would change and be outside in just a sec. I wore yoga pants and an oversized t-shirt, with my hair beneath one of the ball caps I stole from him. It was dark blue with the Swift Rapids Police Department badge on the front.
Sure enough he stepped out, locked the door behind him, and then turned to find me waiting near his truck. An infectious smile spread from his mouth to mine. “You ready, B?”
“I can’t wait!” Bouncing on the balls of my feet, I waited for him to unlock it and jumped inside, buckling up.
I asked him about his day, which he said sucked. “First day back from vacation always sucks,” he explained.
“You worked at the condos for your entire vacation, so it’s not like you had much of a break.”
He glanced over at me. “I enjoyed hanging out with you.”
I couldn’t fight the smile. “I like you too, C.”
That made him laugh out loud; the deep timbre echoing through the hollow truck cab, filling my heart up.
He had been quiet for about a mile when he finally looked over at me. “You putting on a show Friday, huh?”
“Wanda,” I grumbled. Rubbing my sweaty palms down my pants, I waited for them to dry and then pushed my hair out of my face. The wind was nice, but it made me eat my tresses—what little of them were left. “Yeah. You coming?”
He smirked. “I’ll be on duty, but yeah. I have to keep the peace. The last time Wanda had a big show, I got called out to help. Remember?”
I shook my head. “I most certainly do not.”
Colt snorted. “That’s a night I’ll never forget.” He winked at me and kept driving, completely unaffected; unaware that my entire body started to hum like a tuning fork.
***
Harm had everything ready. The background check came back pristine, except for my misdemeanor, but only felons were banned from purchasing firearms, so Pinky was mine! Colt promised Harm that he would show me how to use it properly and teach me gun safety and how to care for it, so Harm let us go without his usual instructions. We hurried to the dirt road that led to the hillside where the target was ready and waiting for us.
Colt attached a new human-shaped target on top of the holey one so we could tell where I shot. I hoped I would improve. It took hours yesterday just to shoot the square, let alone the guy in the middle.
“We’re going to shoot from here for a bit and then I want to move you closer to the target.”
“Closer?”
Colt’s eyes softened. “Not all bad guys will be fifty yards away, B.”
I swallowed, a shiver running down my spine. “Okay. Yeah, of course not.”
***
Headphones on.
Feet spread apart. Steady.
Safety off.
Arms raised.
Aim.
Breathe.
Fire.
Gun down.
Safety on.
Repeat. And repeat. And repeat. And repeat. An hour later and I was still hitting the square, but not the man. Colt was getting aggravated, or maybe my frustration was leaking into him. “You have to try harder,” he ground out.
“I know! I’m trying. It’s not like I’ve been shooting for years like you. I’ve been shooting for two days!”
He huffed and told me to put the safety on, and then to lay the gun down on the hood of the truck for a minute. Jogging to the target, Colt placed a fresh one on top and jogged back to me. “Get Pinky and come with me. We’re moving closer.”
“How close?” I followed his instructions.
“Fifteen feet.”
Fifteen feet? That was too close. My hands began to shake. I looked at the target, just a white piece of paper with a dark outline of a man and a tiny white heart over where the person’s heart would be. It hit me. I was training to kill a man. I was training to kill him. Why couldn’t the police help me? Why wouldn’t someone help me?
Colt glanced over at me when I stepped up to him. “You okay?” His brows knitted together.
“Just nervous.”
“You sure?”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
Colt’s warm hand found my lower back. “It’s just like it was back there. But from this distance, you’ll probably be a much better shot.”
“Asshole,” I muttered, elbowing him in the ribs.
“Hey, I’m the asshole helping you. Remember that, B.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
His smile was ornery. “Same thing. Now show me whatcha got.”
Oh, I would show him what I had. Friday night.
***
Returning to the condo was the worst choice ever. Morgan lay in wait on the front steps. She jumped up when she saw us and waved her hands wildly. Then she ran down the steps and smiled. “Colt! Do you think I could borrow your police hat for a while? I want to photograph Brooklyn with it.”
His eyebrows raised. “I…you can’t get paint on it,” he warned.
She crossed her heart. “We won’t. I promise.”
When he went inside to retrieve his hat, I all but yelled, “What are you doing? He could get in t
rouble for this! What if someone sees the Swift Rapids logo or something?”
Morgan smiled and tsked me. “That’s what Photoshop is for, Brook. I’ll make sure to change the logo or blur it. Besides, you’ll be even angrier with me in a minute.”
“Why?”
Colt came out of his place then, his hat tucked beneath his arm. “Need anything else?”
Morgan grinned. “Now that you mention it…how about your cruiser?”
He threw back his head and laughed, his eyes stilling on my mouth, which gaped open at my alleged bestie. “My cruiser?”
“Your cruiser.”
“I don’t know,” he replied warily, shifting his weight. “You’d have to make sure no one knows it’s mine.”
She grinned, looking between me and Colt. “You two are so much alike. I promise to cover it in Photoshop.”
Colt nodded. “Done. But I want to watch…to protect the department and my reputation, of course.”
I slapped him and Morgan giggled. “Of course.”
***
“Are you serious? I can not do this in front of him.”
Morgan waved me off. “You’re a professional! Besides, you can wear the robe until we actually shoot, at which time you’ll have his hat in front of your girls.”
She wanted me topless, in a pair of dark blue leather panties, sitting in the driver’s seat of his cruiser, wearing his hat. “You can cover your chest, I promise.”
It would be different if I didn’t have an audience, but when I peeked out of my window, Colt was sitting on the tailgate of his old truck, talking to Willy. Damn it.
“Can’t we do this another time?”
“No. But I guess you can wear the matching bra,” she grumbled, holding it up with one finger.
“Thanks, kid!” I snatched it out of her hand before she could change her mind.
***
I still used the robe. I mean, Willy was out there. Sure, they’d seen me in a bikini, but that was before I spent much time with either one of them. Swallowing, I straightened my spine and followed Morgan out into the evening. “It’s too dark, isn’t it?”
“Not for what I have planned.”
“Which is?”
Morgan grinned over her shoulder. “The car’s lights, silly!”
“Oh, hell. Seriously?”
“Yep.”
She was serious. Morgan had officially lost it. Colt had already pulled his cruiser around so the background was a wooded area across from the complex. Sin took his hat, opened the door of the cruiser, and positioned said hat upon my head.
Squinting, she looked at me. Holding up one finger, she ran to get something. “You need gloss!”
Gloss. Great.
She was back with clear lip gloss before I could internally complain anymore, swiping the sticky goop onto my lips. “Press,” she instructed.
I mashed my lips together, spreading the gloss, and apparently she approved. She gently eased Colt’s hat onto my head, careful to avoid the waves along the longer side of my hair. “You look amazing,” she whispered. “And he can’t keep his eyes off you.”
“Willy?” I asked cheekily.
She grinned. “Nope.”
Butterflies fluttered their wings in my stomach, and it hit me that this was the first time I’d ever felt that sensation. Sure, I’d read about it in hundreds of different smut novels, but never felt them take flight until now. Taking a deep, steadying breath, I continued to avoid eye contact with Colt, the butterfly whisperer.
“I love these shoes,” she admitted, eyeballing the dark blue, patent leather pumps I wore. I’d created a monster.
“Me too. You can borrow them sometime.” These happened to be one of the only pairs I took with me from my apartment. A second epiphany. I didn’t think of my apartment as home. Vegas wasn’t home anymore.
Illinois, where the people I loved pretty much disowned me, wasn’t home either. To them, I was a black mark on a pristine image. Just like I was to Peter and to my family, I was an embarrassment. It stung with Daddy and Mama, but I expected no less when I told them that farm life wasn’t the life I wanted for myself. I could see them pushing me away because they couldn’t imagine the appeal that Vegas might have. They didn’t believe I was only dancing and singing, and not stripping and selling my body and soul. But what I didn’t expect was the reaction from my baby sister, Grace.
The day I met Sin, I was coming back from a trip to see her and my folks. Grace was in college and I wanted to hang out and find out about what her adventure was all about. But she shut me out, too. They were all polite, but you could always tell when you weren’t welcome somewhere. And I wasn’t welcome there anymore. I wasn’t welcome in their lives.
The hurt still stung, though not as sharply as it did then.
Morgan asked Colt to turn his cruiser’s lights on, and as he flipped the switches and the red and white began to flash, I took a deep breath and removed my short, white robe. I flung it over to Willy, who caught it with an ornery grin. But it wasn’t me he was grinning at. I followed his eyes where they led straight to Colt, who stood ramrod straight in front of me. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed, taking in my outfit.
Papa liked.
I grinned and let Morgan position me in the driver’s seat. Then she took out the midnight blue paint and began to place streaks here and there. These weren’t cute like the fake yellow egg on my nose. These were intense, bold stripes. “I want you to look fierce, Brook.”
If it got that kind of reaction out of Colt, so did I. Hardening my features, I tried to be fearless.
It wasn’t as hard as you would have thought. I imagined what it would be like to march over to Colt, pull his face down to mine, and kiss him with a passion he’d never seen before. With that kiss, I’d erase the bitch who broke his heart and make Peter a distant memory. He would press me tightly to him, like he never wanted to let go, and I’d rake my fingernails down his back. We would fight and meld and cling to one another at the same time; his leg sliding between mine and pinning me to his car.
Willy cleared his throat, and Morgan groaned when I looked away from the camera.
Colt was quiet, looking all pissed off, just like he did the morning of the Fake Egg shoot—that was what I called it, anyway. That was the morning I thought he was just grumpy and in a bad mood. But tonight he wasn’t grumpy. He was turned on. He was turned on then too, but I didn’t know him well enough to recognize it.
Once she got all the shots she needed, Morgan pulled me up from the seat so I wouldn’t get paint on anything. She took Colt’s hat and gave it back to him, and then handed me some baby wipes to remove the dark blue streaks coating my skin. The cold wipes, combined with the night air that was losing its warmth and humidity, made my skin pebble and me shiver. Colt moved his car back to the empty spot in front of his house, but left the pickup where it sat in the grass. Although I scrubbed my skin until it was raw and pink to get that blue paint off, there were still specks of it left behind.
Something soft and warm fell over my shoulders and I turned to find Colt standing there, where he draped my robe back over me. “Thanks,” I muttered, tying the sash.
“No problem. Willy and I are going to do some work, so…yeah. See you tomorrow evening, B.”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“You ready?” he asked. It was what a friend would ask, but seemed like so much more. God, I hoped it was more.
“Yeah. I think I am.”
He nodded resolutely and waved for Willy to follow him. Willy hopped down from the tailgate and stopped to give me a pat on the back. “You looked beautiful, Brooklyn.”
I laughed, looking up at the blackening sky. Tears filled my eyes for some reason. Suddenly overwhelmed, it seemed like I was standing at a cliff where something dangerous was approaching behind me and the only way out was to jump, which scared me to death—maybe even more than whatever beast was after me.
Willy hugged me. “It’ll be okay. He’s coming ar
ound.”
How did he know? And why was this happening now? Why here? Why him?
I dressed and came into the kitchen to find Morgan whispering on the phone with someone. I assumed it was Shane.
“I’m fine. We’re both fine. I know.”
She saw me and waved, rolling her eyes. Definitely Shane.
“You can,” she told him. “Okay. Love you. Bye.”
Ending the call with a press of the button, she got up and poured a cup of fresh coffee for me. “You love me.”
Morgan giggled. “I do,” then she sighed. “Shane wants to come here for a little while. He misses me.”
“You miss him, too.”
“I do, but he needs to train.”
I smiled. “Go home.”
The coffee cup that was in the process of making its return trip to her mouth stilled and she looked up at me.
“Morgan, I’m fine. I actually like it here. If you go home you can work on your pictures, tear down some wall portraits with Shane, and relax a little.” She’d been on edge since returning from D.C.
“Tear down wall portraits?”
“Fixtures, paintings, portraits…the way you two fuck against a wall is impressive. I could have sworn that everything hanging on the walls of the spare bedroom was going to crash to the floor.”
Her face turned bright red. “Ohmigod. I am so sorry. You heard that?” She covered her eyes and then peeked out from beneath her hand. “I’m so embarrassed.”
“I actually think you two may have triggered the alarm that night.”
She threw her head back laughing. “You should hear us when we aren’t trying to be quiet!”
“You were trying to be quiet? No way, Sin.”
She crossed her heart. “I swear. We were trying so hard.”
Tears pricked my eyes and I doubled over. They would sound like primates going at it if they got any louder!
From the counter, my cell phone vibrated. When I checked it, I saw a text from an unknown number and every muscle in my body froze until I saw who it was from. Archer.
Temptation, The Complete Serial Series 1-4 (The Temptation Serial Series) Page 10