Steele: Into Your Heart (Carolina Bad Boys #3 (35 page)

“Yeah,” I grunted, hungrily latching on. Parting the sheet from her thighs, I sank two fingers into her.

“Oh, God, Brodie. You said we need to—”

I slowly withdrew my fingers, running the wet digits up over her folds then down around the outside of her leg. Dragging my tongue from her plump breasts to her bottom lip, I nipped her with my teeth.

Sitting back, my cock a thick bulge in my jeans, I surveyed my handiwork. Ashe sat spread in front of me, the sheet dripping away, breasts heaving, lips parted, eyes half-lidded. The best part was the glinting diamond ring on her finger.

“
Mm
. You definitely need to put some clothes on now, babe.”

She stood with a shaky laugh, and the sheet dropped completely off her. Stepping around me, she swished her ass. “And you need to get control of your cock.”

I watched Ash the entire time she dressed. I hummed with approval at her naked backside when she chose a simple dress from the closet. Rubbing a finger under my lip, I admired the view as she pulled on panties and a bra.

I loved it when she held up her hand in front of her face, watching the way the diamond sparkled on her finger.

We made our way to Cara’s room, and I stopped Ashe outside the door. I pulled her into my arms. “One more thing you need to know first.”

She rubbed her hand over my chest and smiled. “What’s that?”

“You, Ashe Kingston, are the love of my life. Always will be.”

After kissing her, I opened Cara’s door.

This was the beginning of everything.

HUNTER

Bad Boys of Retribution MC #
1

From the world of the Carolina Bad Boys! A four-book spinoff series speeding your way one after the other in early summer 2015!

Hunter
is available for preorder now! Coming June 2, 2015:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00UWHWMO8

https://www.goodreads.com/review/new/25069985-kinkaid

https://www.goodreads.com/review/new/25069997-bo

https://www.goodreads.com/review/new/25070007-coletrane

“YO, HUNTER.” COLE SLID me a fresh cold beer across the steel-topped bar in the Retribution clubhouse.

I savored the first swig, watching the man who was the biker on MC probationary status. In fact, most of the guys here called him “Probie” instead of his given name. I knew he wasn’t wet behind the ears or too stupid to have a clue. Unfortunately for him, everyone had to start out on the ground floor when pledging an MC, and he’d gotten the shit end of the stick. But he’d proved himself during our search for Detective Ashe Kingston. Brodie Steele, the VP of this club, was going to make things right with Cole the Probie tonight.

Just then, the old lady of the hour and her wildman entered the Retribution clubhouse. Whistles erupted only eclipsed by loud shouts and fists pounding on the tables.

Ashe accepted her welcome with the usual smile and sass, Brodie beaming by her side. The pair was well matched. Both blond: he the tall rangy biker dude, she the curvy babe on his arm. Ashe wasn’t new to the MC ’hood—she’d ridden a cop chopper in her time on duty as a Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina, Police Department officer before ranking as Vice detective. But word had it there’d been so much bad blood between Brodie and her in years past he’d just as likely have flipped her off as flipped out over her.

The times, they were a’changin’.

Ashe had been through the wringer. Solving her first case after her promotion to Vice, she’d been kidnapped while making the arrest. That night in September I’d come clean with Brodie about my undercover status. I worked off the record, in the dark, and usually solo. Lucky for him I’d been brought in on the sly, and we’d doled out a little vigilante justice.

In my eyes, the detective was Comeback Ashe. Now it was November. She’d recovered from the trauma, and sat through probably endless hours of counseling. She’d just completed her first full week back as detective. She was back in the saddle, and, for a change, Brodie didn’t look like he wanted to go full bodily harm on anyone who crossed his path.

I couldn’t imagine the hell he’d gone through, which was why I kept my relationship status firmly in the one-night-only column and women at arm’s length unless they were deemed content to let me fuck them then leave them. My work was dangerous enough. I didn’t need to drag a honey into it—or into my heart.

Glancing across the room as the celebration furor died down, I performed my usual calm cool appraisal of the action.
Who might be a threat, who was working an angle, who was to be trusted. Along with Cole and Brodie, Boomer Steele—Brodie’s older bro—was in the solid corner. He was the founder and president of this club. The Steele family was tight and included Catarina, the youngest sibling of the trio who owned and operated the auto parts dynasty next door—Chrome and Steele.

Where Brodie was blond and leanly muscled, usually with a wicked gleam to his icy pale blue eyes, Boomer was a brick shithouse on legs, broad enough to take up an entire doorway, and his eyes either danced in laughter or held a dark sadness. I’d looked into the background of each Retribution member. Unfortunately, due to the Steele family tragedy, theirs was the most captivating.

The most sad.

I took another drink and turned to face the back of the barroom. The pool tables drew a crowd. So did the dartboards. The wood was polished. The tables shined. The floors didn’t stick to the soles of my boots. In fact, despite the usual loud rock tunes, many drinks imbibed, and the ladies in waiting to get
laid
, this was one of the cleanest clubs I’d ever investigated. Thanks to the Quicker Shitter Upper, Cole aka Probie.

Brodie waded through the crowded room toward me as his woman made a show of banking balls at insane angles before pocketing them at one of the pool tables.

Cole fetched a beer for Brodie, setting it at the ready before Brodie even took the stool beside me.

I clinked his bottle. “Chief’s happy with Ashe’s progress.”

“Yeah. Sipowicz and I are like this.” He knitted two fingers together.

I chuckled. Sipowicz was Brodie’s very appropriate nickname for Chief Tilden, head of the Mt. Pleasant Police Department. Wrinkled suits over a larger-than-life belly, haggard face, but more intelligence inside his head than anyone could ever fathom. Tight ship? He ran it out of the side of his mouth without ever letting a smile show. Good man.

“You still on MPPD’s payroll?” Brodie asked.

I considered the question. No one besides Ashe and her partner Davies—both of whom I’d worked with on the Retribution case—Cole, Boomer, and Brodie knew the real solid deal about me. And even then . . .
they don’t have a fucking clue who I really am
. Brodie had once mentioned I was a ghost. He wasn’t wrong.

“Now, now. I wouldn’t be undercover if I told you, would I?”

“Whatever.” He sniggered. “I’ll get it out of Probie later.”

“His name’s Cole. You know it. I know it. He’s a good one to have on the lookout. Might try to recruit him.”

“As long as you give him enough time to swab the decks around here,” Brodie replied.

I was staying put in Mt. Pleasant for reasons no one needed to know. Another case? Maybe. Let them guess. My personal life was well hidden, off the record, and very fucking lost at the bottom of the sea along with my real identity.

A parade of women from the sister charter sashayed inside. The First Ladies of Redemption went hand-in-hand with the Presidents of Retribution. I’d had my eyeful of the honeys before, but tonight there was a new babe in the mix.

A minx, in fact. I stared at the woman, stunned stupid. Beautiful didn’t cover what she had going on. Her soft-looking brown curls bounced as she strutted inside on ankle-high suede boots. I couldn’t see the color of her eyes, but damned if I didn’t drink in the pink fullness of her lips canted in a smile and her tight body revealed in a pair of hipster jeans to go with the slashed top. That top dripped off her shoulders and down her back, revealing creamy skin marked with a line of butterfly tats all the way down her spine by the looks of it.

That had to hurt like a bitch.

Jesus, she looked untouched, totally fresh, and more than a little naughty all at the same time.

I cleared my throat, nailing the woman with my eyes. “Who’s that?”

Brodie swiveled around and scratched lazily at his goatee. “Oh, her? With the First Ladies. She’s pretty new.”

I leveled my gaze on the girl again. She faced full frontal, and damn me if her face wasn’t as sexy as the rearview. Worse? She had a smattering of freckles across her slim nose and along her high cheekbones. My own personal weakness.

“Fuck that. She’s pretty. Straight up.”

“New cherry,” Brodie said. “Fresh off the tree. We call her JB.”

“JB?” I asked.

“Jailbait, dude.”

I dropped my forehead to the bar with a groan.
Of fucking course.

“Fitting. Don’t you think? Detective Sexton—if that’s even your real name?”

“It’s Lieutenant Sexton, asswipe.” I gave him the bird, my forehead still planted against the bar.

His laughter echoed as he walked away.

“Got company comin’ your way, Hunter,” Cole murmured.

I glanced around.

Oh hell.
JB was headed straight for the bar on mile-long legs. I dropped my head, peering at her through the shafts of my black hair. She passed by, leaving the scent of her addictive floral perfume in her wake.

I didn’t do the obvious thing—like adjusting my suddenly hard cock in my leathers, or making a pass at her. Obvious was not part of my MO. I was the
GHOST
, literally. That was my call-sign and my roadname. I kept my head down, worked the grind, did my job and got the hell out of dodge before the dust settled.

I used the same set of rules with women. Chicks did not get to me, ever. I was twenty-seven goddamn years old—and a hell of a lot older if you counted my kills—yet I’d never reacted to a woman like this before. Immediately. Intensely. And probably destructively.

There was a reason I stayed off the relationship grid. Tangle with me, end up dead or worse. I might officially be the “good guy” on paper, but bad shit had a way of following in my footsteps.

Despite my better judgment, I listened to JB place her order and watched her beneath the shadow of my eyelashes. She had a body to die for and a velvety voice that drove a spike of need through me. I hung on her every word to Cole, wishing I were playing bartender for the night. Then she met my penetrating stare and lifted her drink in my direction.

I’d been made.

Well, fuck it. I’d never been one to turn tail and run. Beer in hand, I prowled to her. “Hunter.”

“JB, as I’m sure you’ve heard.”

Her palm swallowed in mine, I leaned closer for another hit of her perfume. “JB?”

“My initials, among other things.” She slipped her fingers from my grasp. “I’ll be playing darts if you want to go a round or two later.”

There was no mistaking her invitation. As she slinked off, I reminded myself I had absolutely no intensions of taking her up on it.

Right
.

Throughout the night, I kept her in my sights. She denied all dickheads out to get into her pants, usually with an easy letdown so the beat-down didn’t sting too hard.

After her latest brush-off of
I am purely sorry, but you don’t have the equipment I’m lookin’ for
with a batting of her eyelashes as she drew her arm through her busty femme fatale sidekick’s, I hid my grin against the top of my beer bottle.

She was so not a lipstick lesbian, the idea was laughable, but it got Tail to move along. He was Retribution lady-killer numero uno. I was glad to see him amble away with a good-natured shrug of his shoulders.

JB was as aware of me as I was of her. I remained all the way across the room—a safe distance away—but I felt her gaze on me during the course of the night. She wasn’t obvious about it; I was just good at my job. Reading people inside and out, backward and forward, came part and parcel with my line of work. I lived by my wits, without a safety net. And JB had me free-falling for her in the space of two goddamn hours. She sent her subtle fuck-me vibe in my direction and mine alone. Her attention thrilled me more than I cared to admit.

Finally Brodie sidetracked me by calling for attention. Thank fuck for that. As the din died down, he ordered Cole from behind the bar. Leaving the latest MC prospect hanging just long enough so he looked like he might crap his pants, Brodie finally welcomed Cole into the Retribution fold as a full member. When he held up the new leather cut identical to the rest of the brethren’s with the scales of justice and skull and crossbones, I almost shed a goddamn tear.

Cole grinned so hard I thought he’d crack his face as he accepted the MC colors.

He deserved the Retribution patch more than me. He’d taken shit and come up shining time and time again.

I’d learned something from this brotherhood.

Sometimes you followed protocol. Sometimes you went with your gut. I’d gone with my gut with Brodie and Ashe. Detective Kingston had survived because of it, but I’d been smacked around with rules and regs and psych follow-ups because of my decision to bring Brodie onto the case.

My decision to save Kingston’s life.

I’d lay my career on the line again for any one of them. No questions asked.

So what if I got slapped with my own probationary term because of it?

It wasn’t my gut leading me now. More like my cock. Straight up, hard as a rock, and wanting release in one babe only. JB. Getting involved with the girl could mean one of two things:

A trip to prison if she was as underage as she looked and as her nickname implied.
Jailbait
.

Or a trip to heaven because she was nothing if not sex in the flesh.

She was way too young for me to be messing with, not to mention I was absolutely unsuitable for any woman, anywhere, all the time. Didn’t matter. I hadn’t been able to take my eyes off her since the moment she’d entered the MC, and I wanted my hands on her, too.

Unfortunately she was dancing. So were a bunch of handsy dudes all around her. I wished I’d carried my Glock on me. I could pick them off one by one. But then Cole would be on cleanup detail, and we were buddies. He hadn’t had to mop up one of my bloody messes yet, probably best to keep it that way.

Instead of shooting all the assholes trying to feel up JB as she danced with her hips swiveling, her arms reaching high, her head thrown back, I decided to cut in.

Paving a path through her groupies and gropers, I’d just about reached her when Cole called out across the noise of music and laughter, “Say, why you called Hunter anyway?”

JB glanced back at me with a smile then glided away.

I watched her sinuous moves, answering Cole, “Maybe Hunter is my real name.” Approaching the bar, I splatted Cole’s hand onto it. I took my sharpened bowie knife from my belt and stabbed it between his fingers. “Or maybe I’m just damn good with my buck knife. Wanna double down?”

That got big guffaws all around and drew JB’s large inky eyes to me.