Bang: B-Squad Book Two (6 page)

I
t was Bianca's office
, but Taz sat in her chair, glowering from behind her desk. His green eyes were narrowed, his jaw—complete with regrown scruff—was tense, and the sinewy muscles traveling from his shoulders to his thick forearms were taut. All of it came together to create the look of a dangerous, determined man willing to do anything to get his way. The door clicked shut behind her and he glanced up, giving her the perfect view of his sinful lips clamped together in a grim line. She knew that look. Hell, she'd put it on his face a time or twenty. It might intimidate the others, but she knew it meant he was worried, not pissed off—and she knew exactly why.

"Did you really have to go all caveman on him?" she asked as she strolled over to her desk, rounded it and stopped beside the chair which he occupied and leaned a hip against the desk.

The vein in his temple pulsed. "Camacho's a big boy, he can take it."

There was no doubt about that. Isaac could take it as well as he dished it out, but that wasn't the issue. It was Tamara. Ever since she'd fessed up to the reason behind her extortion attempt, she'd used that devious brain of hers for good instead of evil. With Tamara working the B-Squad’s organizational strings, they'd tripled their client list and run butter smooth—not an easy task for a still new security and investigation team with ten agents, plus freelancers when needed. Bianca may have had every reason to hate Tamara, but she knew too well the importance of second chances. Taz's ex-wife may not have meant to become part of the B-Squad team, but she had, and they protected their own.

"You were proving a point with your little man-to-man pissing contest, huh?" She crossed her arms, making sure to push up her cleavage. If a chat didn't work, there were other ways to help her fiancé relax.

His gaze snapped to her breasts, but he kept his hands to himself. Shit. This was serious.

"Tamara is far from sugar and spice and everything nice, but that doesn't mean she deserves to be another name on Camacho's long list of ‘tapped that’," Taz said, grounding out the words as if he couldn't believe he was breaking the unspoken man code on his ex-wife's behalf.

The laugh escaped before Bianca even knew it was coming. "You say that like a man who didn't have a pretty fucking long list of his own. What is that?" She leaned down and took a dramatic sniff of the air around Taz. "Oh yes, that is the sharp tang of hypocrisy in the air."

Just like she knew he would, Taz took advantage of their positions to run a teasing finger across the top of her exposed cleavage. "You are such a pain in my ass."

The move sent a delicious shiver of anticipation up her spine. "And you love every ache and pang."

This was how it always began for them. A little banter. A little teasing. A lot of banging on the nearest flat surface. But not yet. They had things to discuss—more specifically two people, who, despite what they may think, were B-Squad in every way but name and therefore were subject to all the family meddling that entailed. There was no way their efforts would be successful, though, if Taz insisted on pissing a circle around Tamara because of some misbegotten sense of chivalry.

Bianca stood up so his touch couldn't distract her. "I think they'd make for a cute couple."

"Oh God," he groaned. "Don't tell me the coven has been plotting."

She ignored the male B-Squad's teasing term of endearment for the female members and shrugged her shoulders. "To hook Tamara up with someone who'd be good for her? Oh hell yes we have. The first thought had been Kelvin, but I think Isaac is much more her speed."

"Why's that?"

The discussion about Tamara's love life had happened a few bottles of merlot in so it was a bit fuzzy but the nut of reason remained. "For the same reason we're perfect—the broken pieces fit together. So you need to let this thing play out without pulling that cock-blocking routine again."

"That's it. I'm putting my foot down. No more girl's wine nights out."

Bianca snorted. "As if you have the power to ever tell me what to do."

A confident smirk curled his lips. "Sure I do."

Anticipation sizzled between them, turning the air electric. Just giving in wasn't an option though, even if she wanted it as much as he did. Taz liked to work for it, liked that extra teasing delay, so she didn't make a move except to arch one eyebrow—even as her breasts grew heavy with want and her folds went slick with desire.

Heat flashed in his eyes before desire turned them a few shades darker. "Take off your pants and bend over this desk."

Biting down on her bottom lip, she glided her fingers across the waistband of her jeans, hesitating for the briefest millisecond on her top button before continuing across. "What about my panties?"

"We both know you aren't wearing any," he practically growled out the words as he held onto the chair's arms with a white-knuckled grip.

Close. He was skating right up to the edge of losing control. He loved having it and she fucking lived to watch him lose it in moments like these when the reward was the kind of orgasms that made the rest of the world disappear. Desire had her thighs trembling as she flicked her thumb and freed her top button but she didn't make a move toward the zipper.

"You want to fuck in the office during business hours?" She toyed with her zipper tab. "I used to be such a good girl before I met you."

"We both know that's sixty miles from the truth, Kitten." Taz's hands shot out and he grabbed her by the hips then spun her around fast so she faced the desk. In the next heartbeat she was bent forward, one of his hands pressing between her shoulder blades. "Now stop stalling and show me how wet you are already."

Being in that position didn't make it easy to push her pants over her hips, but when had she ever let that stop her from getting what she wanted? With a wiggle and a shove, the denim slid down her legs. Now the real fun could begin.

I
saac's hand
lay on the small of Tamara's back, taking up too much space. It made it hard for her to breathe, hard to think, hard to remember that she had to keep her guard up with this man. He was temptation personified and she had sworn off that months ago. They walked down the block from the Devil's Dip Gym, stopping in front of a familiar jade green door. Satchiko was one of the most hard-to-get-into Japanese restaurants in Fort Worth. The wait list was long and the reviews gushing.

"You like sushi?" she asked as he held the door open and she walked inside the dim interior.

He laughed, the low rumble making her lungs tight. "You say that like I just admitted to licking toads for kicks."

Looking around at the gleaming walnut tables set along a spectacular wall painted in abstract style in bold strokes of gold, blue and green, she couldn't help but let the truth slip out. "It's not what I expected."

He leaned in close, dipping his head down to the shell of her ear and sending a jolt of electricity sizzling across her skin. "You'd figured bad Tex-Mex and cheap beer."

"Maybe." The flush of her cheeks even in the low light had to be enough to tell him just how much of a lie that was.

His hand slid from the small of her back to the curve of her hip, his thumb brushing a lazy circle on the indent of her waist. "When will you realize there's more to me than devastating sex appeal?"

Before she could come up with a smart rejoinder to minimize the uptick in her pulse, the hostess appeared, greeted Isaac by name and ushered them both to an intimate table for two set away from everyone else. He pulled out Tamara's chair and she sat down, trying to remember the protocol for a date. Sure, it had been a while but it should be etched into her bones. God knew she'd been raised to believe it was her only way to secure her future.

Her mother's voice filled her head before she could block it out.
Tits and ass and class—that's how you land a man with money, Tamara Anne. You've got two and can fake the last one if you remember to make the conversation all about him, keep your knees together until he's giving gifts that are weighed in carats and seal your pretty mouth shut ninety-nine percent of the time.

"If I promise not to poison you, will that make it better or worse?" Isaac asked as he sat down across from her.

The question yanked her out of that dark place in her head where her mother's voice kept up a constant, whispered lecture and she replaced the exhausted worry on her face with a well-practiced smile. "I can see the pros and cons of both options."

She slid her napkin off her plate and smoothed it across her lap, willing her fingers to lose their nervous shake. Why did this man make her nervous? She'd been in the same position with billionaires, superstar athletes, and powerful politicians. None of them made her as aware of every nerve in her body as this man.

He grinned, making her stomach float and her heartbeat speed up. "And to think I left my arsenic at home."

Desperate to regain her equilibrium, she tried to picture his house. Probably lots of leather and wood and sports memorabilia—maybe with remote-controlled mood lighting or an oversized painting of dogs playing poker.

"Now what's that horrified expression for?" he asked, laughing.

"I was picturing what your house looks like."

He shrugged his broad shoulders. "It's a pool house. Lots of flowers and wicker."

"Now that's something I can't even picture." Nope. Isaac was all testosterone and sinewy muscle and sly charm. A dude living in a luau he was not.

"It's temporary," he said, the low tenor of his voice taking on a softer tone. "My mom's had a rough time of it since the accident a year ago."

"What happened?" The question was out before she could stop it, breaking the number-one rule of hooking-a-big-fish dating—keeping things light and fun.

"Drunk driver plowed into my mom and stepfather's car." His gaze dropped to his empty plate for a heartbeat and he clamped his jaw tight before looking back up, a worried anxiety turning his whiskey-colored eyes darker. "My stepfather died. My mom suffered a complex leg fracture, among other things. There was surgery, immobility and then physical therapy. Now she's almost one-hundred percent, which means she's six seconds away from threatening me with a shotgun to go out, find my own place, and hurry up and give her some grandbabies." He finished with a grin that did nothing to eliminate the worry lines carved into his forehead.

"Are you the only child?"

"I'm in the middle of six and the only boy. None of us are married or even looking that way, and it's making her crazier than skillet full of rattlesnakes." This time his smile reached all the way to his eyes.

"Where are you sisters?" Again she broke the dating rules and moved the conversation beyond her date and his many impressive accomplishments.

Isaac didn't seem to care. His whole body relaxed. "They're scattered from here to Alaska. There's Ariella, who flies tourists around in Alaska. Meira and Dalia—forever known as The Twins—run a dude ranch in Montana. Leah just opened up a business selling pot in Colorado. The baby, Shoshana, is about to get her Masters in architecture."

The pride he had in his close-knit family was obvious, and a mix of jealousy and bittersweet regret squeezed her lungs tighter with each breath. It hurt deep in that part of herself she blocked out as much as possible, so she did what she always did. She plastered a pageant-worthy smile on her face and kept the focus off herself.

"I'm trying to picture you growing up with sisters."

"I can do a double French braid in less than three minutes and I've bought more tampons than a thirty-one-year-old man should ever admit to."

Just the mental image of him with his cowboy boots, tight jeans and muscles standing in the middle of the tampon aisle at the grocery store short-wired her brain.

"So what about you?" he asked.

"It was just my mom, Amelia and me." She scrambled for another question to ask about him to return the conversation back to proper lane but her brain wasn't cooperating.

"That's it?" he asked, mock outrage ringing through his words. "No embarrassing stories? Come on. I confessed to buying tampons. If Lash ever found out, I'd never hear the end of it, and eventually, I'd end up with a truck covered in tampons. You know that was a deep dark secret. You owe me the goods."

Shoved mentally off balance by his demand, she didn't think first before letting out the first thing to pop in head. “I stuffed my bra until I finally got boobs."

His focus dipped to her breasts before lifting back up and shaking his head. "Nope. Not good enough."

Secrets? Oh no. She wasn't about to spill those. Embarrassing information? The man already knew she'd tried to blackmail Taz by pretending they were still married. Did it really get any worse than that? She rubbed her temple, the same spot where—

"I got a concussion in a freak baton-twirling accident," she blurted out.

His eyes widened and he settled back in his seat. "Now this I want to hear."

"I was warming up before I was supposed to go on stage at the Miss Garden State Teen competition. I was warming up doing thumb tosses with Tour Jete—"

"Tour whats?" His face was screwed up in question.

It took a second for her brain to make the translation. "So I was tossing the baton up in the air really high and then, while it was in the air, leaping from one foot and making a half turn in the air before landing on the opposite foot."

"That sounds dangerous."

"It can be." Even worse, when her mother was a one thousand on the ten-point pageant mom scale. "I don't know if you've ever been backstage at a pageant, but it's hectic. That night, I thought I'd found a good spot away from the action with enough space to practice, but I wasn't the only one who'd been looking for a little quiet. Another girl found me. I heard a noise, lost my focus for half a second, and the baton came down right on my head. I went down hard."

"So much for winning that crown."

"Oh no. Once I remembered my name again and pounded back some aspirin for my aching head, I grabbed my baton, ignited the flammable ends, did my routine—making sure to always catch the baton in the middle since I was seeing three of them—and won that crown. After that I insisted my mom take me to the ER."

Something that looked like a mix of awe and confusion crossed his face. "You must have fought her tooth and nail to stay in the lineup that night."

"Something like that." More like she'd fought to not go on stage, but she'd lost that battle—just like she'd lost most of the ones she'd waged against her mother until Tamara had finally landed her first sugar daddy. "Actually, the exact opposite. She said she wasn't going to lose out on the investment for the flammable batons and pageant dresses because I was clumsy."

He let out a low whistle. "Wow."

"Yeah." The entire trip to the emergency room had been filled with her mother talking about how this crown was going to be the one to really make a difference in their lives.

"Where is she now?"

"No clue." She hadn't looked back after crossing the GW Bridge into New York. Maybe she should have—maybe she still should—but there were too many times when her mother's voice echoed loud enough in her head to make her think the woman was still beside her, demanding to know when she was going to be bringing money in instead of taking it all out.

The waiter's arrival with a tray loaded down with small glasses and a single bottle stopped that bumpy trip down memory lane.

“Thanks, you always know what I want," Isaac said to the waiter before turning his attention back to Tamara. “Sake?"

She hesitated. It was her last night in Fort Worth. One glass of rice wine wouldn't hurt. Right? "Sure."

The waiter sat the porcelain flask down on the table, a set of two small cups next to it, nodded at Isaac, and then hustled away.

"This is Junmai Ginjo sake." He poured about six ounces of clear liquid into the cup and held it out to her.

"What's that mean?" she asked as she accepted the drink.

"It's been polished—that's when they mill the rice to get rid of the outer layer—to at least sixty percent, and the brewer uses special yeast and fermenting techniques to give it a light, fruity and complex flavor. Smell."

She brought the small cup up to her nose and inhaled, closing her eyes. Icy flowers with a hint of nuts that was both familiar and exotic. "That smells delicious."

"Wait until you taste it." He nudged the ceramic flask toward her. "But first you have to pour for me. It's tradition."

The man was Texas and testosterone personified, and here he was giving her a master class in sake at one of the most exclusive Japanese restaurants in Fort Worth as if he was detailing the value of special teams on the field or how to rebuild a carburetor.

"Isaac Camacho, who are you hiding underneath all that man's man exterior?"

"Darlin', I'm the best of both worlds." He winked at her.

She couldn't help but laugh, an easy camaraderie settling between them. "You are a horrible flirt."

"It's come in handy more times than I can count."

She leaned forward, dying to know more. "Tell me."

And so he did, telling her about backpacking in Peru, an eating tour of Japan, and his stay at an ice hotel in Sweden. Whether it was the sake or the stories, by the time she finished the last small ball of mochito-dusted mochi ice cream, she was as relaxed as she'd been since before her sister had made that fateful call that had led to this quiet moment before she had to go underground again.

"Your face got all serious." Isaac reached across the table and took her hand, circling his thumb over her knuckles. "I swear I didn't really eat the frog raw."

"No, I was just thinking about how I haven't felt this good in a long time." And that it would be the last time for the foreseeable future went unsaid but it sat in the middle of the table between them.

"Being on the run will do that to you."

He wasn't wrong there. "When my sister called, I hadn't talked to her in years. The number showed up as unknown on my phone. How's that for you?"

Hot shame made her skin prickle. She'd been in her latest sugar daddy's Las Vegas hotel suite, staring at the man thirty years older than her as he snored and wondering how in the hell she'd gotten there. As much as she'd fought against her mother, she'd still grown into the exact cold-hearted opportunistic bitch she'd promised herself she'd never be—to the point that she'd barely fought to maintain contact with her sister after Jarrod had weaseled his way into her life.

"You weren't close?" Isaac asked, his voice too carefully neutral.

"That's the thing, despite everything we were close. Growing up, our mom always tried to make us competitors instead of sisters. I don't know why mom did that and I don't care enough at this point to figure it out because it never worked. Amelia was the only one who thought there was more in me than ice."

"So what happened?"

"Jarrod Fane happened. He swept her off her feet, took her back to Idaho, and little by little, he isolated her. In the beginning I tried to keep in touch, but I failed." Unanswered phone calls. Unreturned emails. Texts that went into the void. All of it combined to make a boulder of guilt and regret in the pit of her belly. "For more than ten years there was nothing but silence. By the time she'd finally had enough of Jarrod's bullshit and made a break for it, she was already dying of ovarian cancer and Essie was sixteen. When that call came from Amelia, there wasn't time for anything but making sure Essie was safe."

He squeezed her hand. "She will be."

Emotion clogged her throat, which was ridiculous—a realization that only made the situation worse.

Damn it, Tamara, don't you dare break down in public. You smile. You march forward. You don't ever let them see the cracks.

"Enough of that, my sad story is no way to end such a beautiful meal." She lifted her chin and held up her sake cup. "To no more sad stories."

Instead of raising his glass, he took hers and put it down in the center of the table, his intense gaze burning right through her. "You don't always have to pretend."