BARE SKIN: A Dark Bad Boy Romance
Page 30
Where was that woman, he wondered. He’d really like to meet her. Was she hiding under those Armani suits and cool features? How did he help her let that out? Buying her drinks hadn’t worked.
“So what? Did you give her a cricket and say you were boyfriend and girlfriend?”
Twitch ran his tongue across his teeth in amusement. “Naw, man. It wasn’t like that. See, we were in high school. This was back before she dropped out. We had crashed the homecoming game and were smoking under the bleachers when she just kissed me.”
“She came on to you?”
Twitch shrugged. “As far as I could tell, Donna was never one for letting men come on to her. Got some control issues or something. She likes to manage things. Even when she was wild she liked to be the queen of the roost. So yeah, she just kissed me. I mean, I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t wanted it. She’s always been hot. Back then her hair was really long, and she put all these streaks in it. Like a raver girl. It was wild.”
Hulk spoke up as he hauled the mop bucket out of the back room. “What happened then?”
“It was just… I dunno, man… it was weird. I know people say shit like ‘oh, it was like kissing my sister,’ but it wasn’t. It didn’t feel wrong. Just… I dunno, man. Empty. Like, when you kiss a hot girl there are supposed to be all kinds of tingles and your body gets all messed-up and your head stops thinking. We didn’t feel any of that. I mean, if she had started stripping, then maybe I would have jumped all over that, but… we just didn’t.”
Hulk shrugged and thumped his hand against his chest so that it vibrated. “It happens, man. Sometimes the heart knows better and stops a bad thing from happening.”
Twitch nodded, almost solemn. “Yeah, man. That it does.”
Cody didn’t know about any of that. He’d never had a problem being with a woman. If she was willing, and wasn’t waving a knife in his face, he was pretty much up for it. One of the few times where his body had been like “no, man, don’t do it” was with Donna’s mom. That had been awkward and uncomfortable. He still couldn’t figure out how a woman like Donna had come from that. Kyle, well, he could see that a little bit. The kid could get manipulative and liked to get his own way. It was shitty, but true.
“So what are you going to do?” Hulk asked as he swept the mop over the floor, leaving a clean streak among the collection of dust and spilled drinks. “She told you to back off. Might be best to just leave it alone.”
Cody plopped the last of the chairs onto a table so that Hulk could get a good mopping in. He slid himself down in one of the booths and shook his head. “I don’t know. Letting her get in touch with her wild side again had been my plan. Get a couple drinks in her, let her feel a little bad boy. Man, it usually works.”
“Not this time,” Twitch said, pulling out the register to count out the day’s earnings. “You are going to have to try harder than that if you want her.”
Did he want her? Before tonight she had just been the hot sister to one of his friends. A woman he had wanted to seduce in order to help get Kyle out of the situation he was currently trapped in. Kyle deserved better than to be under the thumb of a woman who flashed her money around and ruled over everyone around her.
“What do you know?” Cody asked. “She didn’t exactly jump into bed with you.”
Twitch continued to separate the stacks of bills and the credit card receipts. “But I remember who she did jump into bed with, and I can tell you there were a couple of things I noticed about all of them.”
“Tell me,” Cody said.
“She liked honesty. That was a big thing. If a guy came up to her and gave her a lot of pretty compliments, she sent them packing. Donna could always spot a lie. Maybe it had something to do with her mom being a world-class phony. She never liked that.”
“So I have to be honest?” Cody couldn’t remember the last time he’d been really honest with a woman. He had never been a liar, or made a lot of pretty promises. He had, however, been more than willing to give compliments that stretched the truth fine enough to see through.
“Chicks dig that kind of shit,” Hulk offered.
“She didn’t much like being called a chick either,” Cody remembered. Her eyes had done that thing where they turned into smoky ice. He’d kind of liked that. Would they melt when he touched her? “So what do I do? Wait for her to call me? Show up on accident?”
“It’s a small town, y’all will see one another eventually.” Hulk dragged his mop down the middle of the floor.
Cody’s phone rang. The dulcet tones of Johnny Cash hummed against his chest for a minute before he looked down at the number. He didn’t recognize it. But it was nearly two in the morning, so it was probably important.
“Hello?” he asked as he hit the Accept button.
“Mr. Bannik?” The voice was clipped, but elegant.
“Donna?” he asked. The other two men in the pool hall perked up.
“Is Kyle with you?” she demanded, sounding just a little frazzled. He had wanted, just moments ago, to hear that voice of hers lose a little control. This was not exactly what he had pictured.
He glanced up. Hulk and Twitch were both looking at him. “No, Kyle’s not here. Why?”
“I just went to check on him, but the window is open and he’s gone. I thought he was going to bed. He promised he was going to bed. I believed him.” Her voice damn near quavered on the last part. Cody ignored the fact that it bothered him to hear the woman who had given him such a stern talking to was almost in tears three hours later.
“It’s all right. I’ll help you.”
“What?”
He stood up, already pulling his jacket over his shoulders. “I’ll help you find him. I know where he likes to hang out. I’ll bring him back.”
“No, you’ll take me with you,” she argued.
“Why?”
“If he does this again, I need to know where to look.”
It wasn’t a bad point, and he liked the idea of her having to cling to him on the back of his bike. She’d probably enjoy that. He knew he would.
“Yeah,” he finally said. “All right.”
# # #
She was standing outside when he pulled up on his bike. Her hair had that fluffy look of being freshly washed. There was a natural curl to it so that the red framed her face, making her look even more pale than she already was. The deep green business suit that she wore was nearly the same cut as the one she wore earlier today.
She looked like an unfinished doll. Still pretty, but not quite ready for the world. If he hadn’t known she was worried, he wouldn’t have spotted the tightness around her eyes or the rigid line of her shoulders.
“Hop on,” he said. His foot hit the ground to steady the bike. She looked at it like it was made of explosives.
“No, we’ll take my car.” She held up her keys.
Twitch had been right; she liked to be in control. Fine, he’d hand her the reins for a while. See how it went. Besides, they didn’t have time to argue with Kyle out and about. There was no way that he was doing anything good.
“Did he have his bike?” Cody asked as he parked and pulled his key out of the vehicle.
“No. It’s impounded and I told him he wasn’t getting it back until after he went to court.” She hesitated a moment before saying, “A boy that young shouldn’t have a bike. It’s dangerous.”
Cody let out a shocked bark of laughter. “I’ll bet he just loved that. Might have been what sent him out tonight.”
She used the button on her keys to unlock the door. “You think I caused this?”
“Not on purpose,” he said, eyeing her as she plopped down in the driver’s seat. “Are you planning to drive too?”
“It’s my car,” she expressed, leaving no room for argument. Cody figured there weren’t a whole lot of people that argued with her. Another time he might have pushed and seen how far her steely demeanor would keep her cold.
He held up his hands in surrender and slid into t
he passenger’s seat. It was a really nice car. It had the dual climate controls, heated seats, a place for all the electronics to plug in, the On-Star crap, and a GPS tucked right into the dashboard. Everything about it screamed luxury. Yeah, he thought, Donna definitely liked things to sparkle. He noticed there was no backseat.
“How are you planning on getting him home when we find him? We can’t fit three people in this car.”
“How were you planning to get the three of us on your bike?” she shot back.
He couldn’t exactly argue with that. She was a sharp woman. He hadn’t spent a whole lot of time with sharp women. College girls who were just beginning to figure out their own minds and lonely women who weren’t so interested in wit as they were in what was under his jeans. All of them had been fun, but none of them had made him work so hard to get anywhere. He kind of liked it.
“Fair,” he said, letting himself enjoy the feel of luxury leather beneath him.
“Where are we going?”
“The pool hall was where I would have looked first. I was there when you called, but he wasn’t.”
“Still?” she asked, turning the key in the ignition. The car didn’t roar like old ones did. It purred. It was a monster slowly waking up. Was there anything better than a hot woman with a sexy car?
“I was helping clean up.”
“Isn’t that a prospect’s job?” She pulled out of the space, and her skirt rode up a few inches as she positioned herself in the driver’s seat. His eyes fastened on the scant few inches of pale skin. “Buckle up.”
He saw the way her fingers flexed along the wheel and decided that it would probably be in his best interest to listen to what she said. He clicked the belt into place. “What do you know about prospects?”
She gave him a sidelong glance. “It would behoove you to understand that there is plenty you don’t know about me.”
He couldn’t help himself. “Like your criminal record.”
She didn’t quite wince, but it was pretty close. “Gee, how many drinks did you get into Jerry to get him to tell you about that?”
“Not very many at all. But I’d still like to hear it from you.”
She threw the car into reverse with enough force to have him slapping against the leather seat. Her gaze was firmly on the road as she put it into drive and hauled out into the street. “I was young and stupid. There isn’t a whole lot else to tell you.”
For a minute, he didn’t know what to say. If she had been a ditsy coed, he might have flirted with her until she fessed up to her dirty little secret. But if she had been a coed he would have had her back at the pool hall. What was it Twitch had said? Honesty? Yeah, he could try that.
“I don’t believe you. But if you don’t want to tell me, that your prerogative.”
She gave him a sidelong glance. “I’m surprised you know the word ‘prerogative.’”
He tossed her words back at her. “It would behoove you to understand that there is plenty you don’t know about me.”
She laughed. He wasn’t sure who was more surprised, her or him. It was a good laugh. Not the giggling of a girl, but the ripe, full sound of a woman. It was the kind of sound that could have turned heads inside a crowded bar. He promised himself to get her to laugh more often.
“Fair,” she said. “Now tell me where we are supposed to go.”
There were a few places on his list, and Cody played navigator to her pilot. There was something sensual about watching her control that sleek car. Even so, after the first two places turned up empty, Cody found himself getting worried too. It wasn’t like Kyle to disappear. Sure, the kid wasn’t perfect, but he was usually good about picking up his phone when Cody called. When Cody called for the seventh time and still got no answer, he had to fight back his own feelings.
“Why are you friends with my brother?” she asked.
“What?”
“What is a grown man doing hanging out with a kid?” she asked again. “You told me yourself, first time that we met, that you are thirty-two years old. Why are you hanging out with him? Are you grooming him for some criminal life?”
Cody shook his head. “Kyle is stubborn enough that he is going to do whatever he wants with his life.”
“That’s perceptive.”
“I happen to know a thing or two about being so damn stubborn that you make stupid decisions just to keep from doing what someone tells you to do.”
“So, what? You see a younger version of yourself?”
He thought about it for a moment. “Maybe. I never sat down and tried to figure it out. I just went with my impulse. I saw a kid who needed someone to count on.”
“And you decided you were the best option?”
“You weren’t here.”
Tense silence filled the car. Maybe it wasn’t the best thing he could have said to her. Maybe he could have framed it with pretty words and niceness, but he didn’t think that it would work where Donna Mason was concerned.
“Sorry,” he said after a moment. “That was a shitty thing for me to say.”
“It was,” she said in response. “But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t true. I did leave. I didn’t think about Kyle when I ran off to go live my life somewhere else. I don’t know why I didn’t. I could say that I was too young and self-involved. It might even be true. But I haven’t been young in a long time.”
“What about self-involved?”
Her lips curled into a little smile that was anything but happy. “I learned a long time ago to put myself first.”
“Bullshit,” he said, shifting in his seat as he directed her to take a left off Main Street, toward the older part of town. He never liked coming out this way. The buildings here were crumbling in disrepair, and trash cluttered the edge of the road. “If you really felt that way, you wouldn’t be out here at three in the morning to find your brother.”
“That’s not true. I posted the bail. If he doesn’t make it to his court date, I’m out a fairly decent amount of money.”
“You’ve got money to spare.”
She snorted. “I only stay that way if I’m careful with it.”
“Park over here,” he said. “We’ll have to walk the rest of the way.”
“Oh goody. I get to park my baby in the shitty part of town.”
She did it anyway, pulling the car into a parking space in front of a building with signs so faded the company name was impossible to read. Only a cartoon caricature of a dollar bill with a handful of smaller bills clinging to the locked double doors depicted what the business was at all. The tall sign out front was marked with spray paint, tagging the lot as belonging to a group that called themselves Scorpions.
Cody found himself frowning. Scorpions was a name that he was only passingly familiar with. As far as he knew, it was a bunch of high school kids who liked to skip school and smoke a lot of pot. Harmless, really. Still, he’d never seen their tag on anything. Everyone knew that the Wild Tigers were the force to be reckoned with in town, and when there were more pizza parlors than stoplights around here it wasn’t like there was a whole lot of town for crime.
“What’s wrong?” Donna asked.
He shook his head before he had even decided he was going to answer. “I don’t think so.”
She followed his gaze up and up until it fell on the same ragged patch of red paint. Donna was a clever woman; he knew that from the beginning. He watched her mist-colored eyes puzzle out the symbol, and then she frowned. “Who are the Scorpions?”
“Some local kids. They like to break windows and pull five-finger discounts.” He kept his voice light.
“What would Kyle be doing around here?”
He started walking, and he didn’t bother answering until he heard the steady click of her heels as she caught up with him. “There’s a girl.”
“Of course there is.” Donna crossed her arms over her chest. Her legs were long enough that she didn’t struggle to keep up with him, even in those girlie shoes. “Who is she?”
“A teddy bear? Must be serious.”
He smiled. “In the way of high school love.”
She was quieter when she said, “Pretty damn serious.”