She studied Book’s face, graced with deep-set sapphire eyes and a hawk’s nose, looking for signs of his heritage and seeing mostly Caucasian. She didn’t doubt he was a shaman, but her godfather looked the part, with copper skin and gorgeous waist-length black hair. “Uncle Nico is part Lakota Sioux, Brule, Creek, and Cherokee. What Nation are you?” she asked, curious about his lineage.
“Kaskaskia, Osage, and Wichita,” he said. “Not that you can tell it, but every member of the club has Native blood, some more than others.”
She looked at her naturally tan arms and nodded her head, commiserating. “I don’t really look it, either. Not with the blonde hair. I’m all Thomason except for the eyes. I have to thank my mother for these peepers.”
He watched her, listening intently. No. More than listening. It was like he was probing her with his thoughts, trying to get inside her head.
From the dissatisfaction flattening the line of his mouth, she’d say he wasn’t succeeding.
“Why you?” “Why you?”
They asked the same question simultaneously and stood there, staring at each other. She grinned and poked her tongue in her cheek, resisting the urge to call jinx.
Book scowled and rubbed his face in his hands. “Ladies first,” he rumbled behind his fingers.
When he uncovered his face, she swiveled her head and looked around the room before daring to meet his gaze. “Oh, me?” she joked. “Sorry if I’ve misled you. I promise, I am very . . . very . . . unladylike. I get that from my mother, too— or so I’m told. Given the drones, the clubhouse, the fence, the dogs . . .”
She’d seen at least another dozen outside, some restrained, some roaming freely. Mostly shepherds, collies, and labs, with a pair of beagles and a beautiful red-and-white Brittany spaniel.
If the club had any cats, they were hiding— and who could blame them?
“I’m assuming Deacon sent you after me and I wondered why you. He could have sent anyone. Hell, he could have come himself. Maybe he would have if he’d known who I am.”
“Maybe,” Book agreed tiredly. “But it’s part of my job for the club. I screen. Situations. People. You took water from our lot that John Kerrigan rents for his cattle. You’re lucky the water belongs to us. Kerrigan doesn’t suffer a thief to live. Chances are, he wouldn’t have given you a chance to explain, just ordered you put down and confiscated your van as payment. It might be worth the thousand dollar tap fee, depending on what’s in it.”
“A thousand dollars?” She felt the sudden need to sit down and had to lock her knees to remain standing, refusing to let him see just how worried she was. “You’ve got to be shitting me. A thousand dollars? Is that what I’m expected to pay for the bucket I took?”
“That and the cost of your repair,” he said smoothly.
As if it were even possible.
Christ almighty, she was so screwed.
3
“Sit.”
Book wasn’t proud that he’d frightened her, but Adrienne James needed to know just how much trouble she was in and how fortunate she was that John Kerrigan wasn’t the one deciding her fate.
She sank onto his sofa and hugged her purse, her amethyst eyes stricken, her teeth worrying her lower lip.
“Then again, Kerrigan might have let you work it off. He owns at least one of the local bars. You sing, right?”
It was a safe assumption, given her parents’ musicality.
She blinked with stunned disbelief and shook her head to clear it. “I sing. I just never wanted the celebrity that went with it.”
He swept her with his gaze and made a point of focusing on the rise and fall of her breasts above the black leather bag. “If you didn’t want to perform in public, he’d probably let you work it off in private.”
Pulling herself together, she smirked with false bravado. “If Kerrigan knows who I am, he won’t touch a hair on my head,” she declared. “Not without my willing consent— and then he’d better be fucking fisting it.”
An image formed in his head, only it wasn’t Kerrigan’s hand in her plaits. It was his fingers wreaking havoc on her hairdo, forcing her to her knees so he could fuck that dirty mouth of hers.
“Your turn,” she snapped. “Why me what?”
How much should he tell her? It’s not like his gifts were secret. Stick around long enough and she’d start hearing things.
Seeing things.
Growing up with a shaman and a psychic in her immediate circle, she understood the gifts of the spirit better than most. The closest he’d come to freaking her out was the price of water in the Flint Hills District, set after raiders started stealing it by the tankerful, bottling and selling it for a premium price in the cities during the drought of Forty-Seven.
He tempered his answer with a wry smile. “It’s more a question of why me? I can’t read you,” he confessed, wishing like hell that he could hear the whispers of her mind. Adrienne James both intrigued him and appealed to him, with her sense of style, her fierce bravado, her vulnerability, and that curious tattoo inked on her back. There was a story behind the stylized cross between her shoulder blades, he was certain.
Every tattoo had a story.
He rubbed his jaw and tugged on his beard, struggling with a sense of frustration. “You’re the first person I’ve met in my life who was closed to me. I know everyone else’s thoughts but I can’t hear yours and there’s nothing to explain it. I’m giving myself a headache trying to figure it out.”
She thought about it for a moment. “I don’t know . . . unless Aunt Grace put a cloak of some sort around me while I’m traveling to make me go unnoticed. Unseen and unheard? Hell, it wouldn’t surprise me. I’ll ask her the next time we talk. I can call her now if you like— although the signal’s probably shit in here. I’ll have to go outside.”
She was sure to later, but he wasn’t ready to let her go just yet. Adrienne James intrigued him. He wanted to know her, even if it took an actual conversation to do it.
“Your Aunt Grace . . . she knew you would be driving. Does anyone else know? Your parents?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t want them to worry. They think I’m safe in Portland, away from the madness in Seattle, anyway.”
“What took you to the Emerald City?” he wondered. She was the First Daughter of Texas. Child of The Prophets and their wife. She could have had anything she wanted if she’d stayed in Austin.
“Growing up with megastar parents, I was used to having bodyguards and security details to keep me from getting snatched as a kid. My dads and Uncle J.T. made sure I knew how to defend myself, just in case.”
Christ. He couldn’t imagine living like that, knowing you were a walking target for sickos and criminal minds looking for a quick profit.
It was no wonder her parents had moved to cattle country, choosing to homeschool their children as far removed from threats as they could get them. Raised in Oklahoma, The Prophets were living in Texas years before The Fall, settling near enough to Austin to be part of the music scene there. Both brothers were hunters— favorite repeat guests on archery and firearm shows because of their humor and their skills. He assumed they’d taught her how to shoot, but it sounded like she’d had self-defense or martial arts training as well. Which might be another reason why she hadn’t been overly intimidated by him. With the right training, a woman her size could easily kick ass and take numbers.
Given who her parents were, he was pretty certain that was the case.
She cast a wistful look to the left and softly sighed. “For security reasons, my parents wanted me to live with them in Whitehaven. I was given instructions on protocols, proper forms of address, how to be a dutiful daughter around visiting dignitaries without creating an international incident. I would have had no problem with all of that, but it turns out, First Ladies and First Daughters are expected to be fucking fashion icons.”
Those amazing purple eyes did a dramatic roll. Her pert nose wrinkled in extreme distaste and her gaz
e filled with loathing. “Seriously, Book, they wanted to turn me into this . . . this fucking . . . living doll. It was awful. And there was no escaping it. Being where I was . . . who I was . . . I started making jewelry as a protest, my way of flipping a finger at the designers who were vying to dress me.”
Fishing in her purse, she pulled out a whimsical sculpted metal octopus and fastened it on her left shoulder.
The piece looked like something a top-tier steampunk cosplayer would have worn back in the day, uniquely styled and perfectly crafted from what he could see. The girl had an eye for design and some serious skills to carve and cast a piece like that.
Impressive.
“I failed,” she said glumly, her body sagging with defeat. “Instead of backing off, they started designing clothes to go with my bling. It was ludicrous. Some of those gowns cost more than a sanitation worker makes in six months. There came a point, I’d had enough. One night, I packed my van and headed to Seattle to learn fashion design. I wanted to create a brand . . . make a line of clothes people could afford.”
She stopped short and drew a breath. He could tell from her body language that she was holding something back.
“How long ago was this?” he asked.
The sigh that escaped her whispered of empty promises and unfulfilled dreams. “A year.”
When she stopped short of saying more, he lowered his chin and leveled his most Dominant look at her. “Why Seattle? You could have studied anywhere. For that matter, why leave at all? There are still colleges in Austin.”
“There are,” she agreed, “but in Austin, I was never fucking alone. I was expected to attend state functions. Support causes. I was constantly surrounded by politicians and lobbyists, ambassadors, aides . . .”
She grew quiet, remembering. “I grew close with one of my bodyguards,” she confessed. “A Texas Ranger. He was older. Experienced. In the lifestyle, like my parents and their friends. I’d been having sex since I was sixteen, so it wasn’t like he was corrupting me. If anything, I was using him. He was there and available and willing. He risked his career to be with me.” She blew out a breath and shook her plaited head. “In the end, he was reassigned and I was swarmed by goddamn reporters every fucking time I stepped the hell outside Whitehaven.”
She blistered the air with a string of curses that would have landed her over his knee if she’d been his submissive. Unfiltered, the girl could swear a sailor under the table.
“And so I left,” she said tiredly. “I wanted to do something. Make my mark on the world apart from my parents’ legacy. Not that I’m dissing Chance and Chase. They’re mega talents in their own right. But they were older, out of the house and already touring when they took over No Mercy so my dad could run for President. I was a senior in college when he swept the caucus and hit the campaign trail. After graduation, I joined my dads and my mom. Helped where I could. Stayed until I couldn’t. It was leave or go nuts. You’re so lucky here.”
“Lucky?”
“The quiet,” she sighed. “When my radiator hose broke and I was walking for water, it was nothing but the crunch of gravel under my shoes and the wind.”
He started to remind her that he was telepathic, that it was never quiet for him . . . except, right now, it was. Whatever force was keeping her mind closed to him seemed to be shielding him from the constant stream of chatter he was forced to live with.
Incredible.
He didn’t respond immediately but allowed himself to savor the moment before moving on. “It’s okay,” he allowed, still marveling at the sound of nothingness. “Better than the Emerald City right now, anyway.”
She nodded gravely. “It wasn’t too bad at first. I was focused and purpose-driven, determined to find myself. Define myself. I had hoped to do it with fashion design but it wasn’t long before I realized my talents were stronger elsewhere. The truth is, I was never going to make it there as a clothing designer. My parents tried to warn me. When things got bad and Aunt Grace agreed I should leave, I didn’t let them know I was coming home. I didn’t want to hear, We told you so.”
Pride goeth before a fall. Rather than admit defeat, she’d put herself at risk, traveling alone across borders with her family none the wiser. The thought made his palm itch to spank some sense into her. She was damn lucky she’d gotten this far. What if something had happened? It hadn’t— yet— but she was in Kansas and her folks were in Austin. In these dark and dangerous times, the two were poles apart with cutthroat bandits in between.
Book leveled his gaze on her, catching her in his sights and refusing to let her go. “They think you’re in Portland.”
She squirmed a bit, aware of his consternation. “Yes.”
“You lied to them.”
Her face flushed with guilt but she didn’t try to deny it. “Yes, Sir.”
He snorted. “You’re lucky I’m not your Sir, princess. If I was, your bare ass would be bent over my knee, getting the spanking that my hand is itching to deliver.”
Damn if her nipples didn’t get hard. Not only did Little Miss Sunshine need a spanking, she wanted one. That remark she’d made earlier about fisting her hair wasn’t just bravado talking. The First Daughter of Texas was kinky at the very least, a submissive pain slut at best.
And his to command.
“You’re gonna call them,” he said flatly, his tone brooking no argument. “As soon as we know what your repair’s gonna run, you’re gonna call your folks and let them know you’re here and safe. You’re gonna tell them what you did and how much you need to balance the books. Let them know you’ll be our guest until you’re free to leave.”
His implication was clear enough. Pay or stay. However long it took, it was still better than the alternative. Theft in the Flint Hills District was punishable by death. Knowing John Kerrigan, he might still push for it. What more powerful message to send than to execute a sitting President’s daughter for daring to steal in The Great State of Kansas?
If Kerrigan wasn’t careful, he could damn well start a war.
Adrienne curled her hands into small fists and clamped her jaw, swallowing whatever was on her tongue and bottling her frustration. Her refusal to vent kept him guessing, forcing him to watch the wheels spin without a clue where they were going.
For all the times he’d cursed the burden of his telepathy, at the moment, he regretted its loss.
“I could promise everything’s going to be alright, but I’m blind right now, Texas. I thought it was just the voices, but it’s looking like I can’t see shit either. I don’t know what’s coming, let alone know how to prepare for it. But I swear, I’ll do my best to keep you safe and help you find your way home.”
The Dominant in him demanded that he try to meet their uninvited guest’s needs even if she wasn’t his submissive. “Meanwhile, can I get you anything?” he asked. “Something to eat? Drink? I can whip up some grits and coffee here, or we can see what’s in the kitchen. Lunch won’t be for another couple of hours, but we should have barbeque brisket, scalloped potatoes, baked beans, and fry bread left from last night.”
His offer earned him a genuine smile.
“Dear God, that sounds heavenly. Just add it to my bill. Whatever board costs in these parts.”
“Room and board are free if you’re with me,” he assured her lightly, striving to keep things casual when his mind was alive with possibilities. “It might take a day or two for payment to clear or a courier to come, and we’re not set up for guests. You can sleep in your van but I promise, you’ll be just as safe here. Take your pick— bed or couch. Either way, I’m good with the other. Loki can use his mat— although I have to warn you, he prefers my bed to the floor. You don’t have to pick right now,” he said when her brow furrowed. “Let’s go to the kitchen. Get you fed. Hopefully, by the time you’re finished, Mack will have your new hose put on.”
Book didn’t know when she’d eaten last or what she’d had but the girl was famished and not afraid to show it, taking healthy p
ortions and finishing them with aplomb. Watching her eat, licking those perfect lips and moaning with pleasure, had him fighting a hard-on the entire time they were in the dining hall.
Deacon found them as she was tearing into a warmed piece of apple cobbler. She stopped with a fork halfway to her mouth and eyed the ticket he carried like it was a scorpion. It stung like one, judging by the expression that flashed across her face before she schooled her features.
The girl was quite an actress. That wouldn’t do if she agreed to do a scene with him. He needed her to be honest. No hiding. No guessing. No trying to tough it out when she was near the end of endurance or at her threshold for pain.
“I don’t have enough with me but I’m sure I can get it. I’ll go outside and call my dads as soon as I’m done— if I can get a signal.”
“If you can’t, Spider can get you hooked up to our system,” Deacon told her. “You can text or email, but be sure to stay logged on so you’ll know when they respond.
Knowing Spider, he’d be poking around while she was connected. Adrienne was smart enough to figure as much, too, but she wasn’t in any position to object.
Not when she was standing with her neck in a virtual noose and failure meant facing a real one.
4
At her request, her keeper took Adrienne by the club garage to check on her van. Finding it parked to one side with the doors locked and the keys missing, she considered digging the spare set from her purse but thought better of it. She hesitated to reveal any more than she had to. Under the circumstances, she needed to give herself every advantage she could.
Fine. She’d ask for the keys, fuck it all. Unfortunately, she didn’t have much choice. She was stuck here until she paid them. Thinking of what she would need for a short stay, she made a mental note to pack extra underwear when she pulled the basics from the back of the van. Her panties were bound to get wet, staying with Book and imagining how that luscious beard would feel against her skin.
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