Bane: Elite Operatives (Bad Boys of X-Ops Book 4) (20 page)

“Fifty-three,” I boasted.

“The bomb!” She skipped in front of us then turned around. “What about you, Dad?”

Towing all her luggage on his back like the bags weighed no more than fluffy pillows, Bane shrugged. “I tried that Candy Crush Saga thing.”

I’d coached him in the art of teenage girl.

Not so old yet
.

“And?” Allegra prompted.

“Stuck on level twelve.”

“Ermahgadmetoo.” Sometimes she said an entire sentence like it was one word.

Sometimes
we needed a UN translator to understand her.

By the time we made it back to our house in Adams Morgan, I felt like I’d shot back five double espressos in a row—on a buzz from Allegra’s effervescent energy. Bane probably felt like he’d been highballing coke like that night back in Mexico City with dead and gone Carlos.

He showed no signs of breaking, though.

That was my man.

He humped Allegra’s bags up to the bedroom we’d decorated for her—way, way, way on the other end of the hallway from our room. The stud didn’t even show any signs of jetlag from our international flight not twenty-four hours earlier.

I could not love him more.

Now, Allegra?
Bless her, but I sometimes wondered if she needed downers. Needless to say, we kept absolutely no Coca Cola or any other caffeinated drinks stashed in the house when she came visiting. And the sugar stuff? Also completely off limits.

Bane might have a soft touch for his daughter, but he was a born and bred hardass.

Pulling a stool up to the bartop in the kitchen while I started making dinner, Allegra twirled the end of her braid between her fingers. “So, no flights this weekend?”

Yeeaaah, that.

We might have
adjusted
the truth just a little bit for her. Saying I was a flight attendant.

Shudder.

Hence all the traveling I did.

And Bane? Big daddy Griffin Bane the badass? We’d given him a new cover.

Insurance salesman.

I’d laughed until I had tears in my eyes when I’d suggested it.

He’d vetoed it at first.

He had a point. What person in their right mind would buy a policy from the huge, muscled, tattooed dude?

But I won.

As usual.

Stomping downstairs, Bane walked into our big open-plan kitchen. Drawing me into his arms, he kissed me soundly—and not at all PG-13—on the mouth.

Allegra was heard giggling.

He peered over at her. “What are you up to, Ally?”

“Cutting veg?”

“You gave her a blade?”

“It’s not a KA-BAR.” I pressed against his chest. “Chill.”

He snorted.

“What’s a k-bar?” Ally asked.

“A really serious chef’s knife?” He answered her question with a question.

That shit was catching.

A lot like babies and marriage.

We ate a family meal at the large table just waiting to be filled by more. The threat of emotion again caught tight in my throat, nearly spilling over to my eyes. Bane noticed. He squeezed my hand and kissed my cheek.

We set Ally free afterward while we cleaned up.

“You sure she’s not gonna wreck the place?” He stacked the dishes I rinsed before we filled the dishwasher.

“Doing what?” I turned into his arms, holding him against me with soapy hands. “We were way more dangerous at her age.”

“Don’t distract me,” he murmured when I worked one slick hand down the back of his jeans and grabbed a smooth muscular crescent.

Fuck. His ass. Squats are a very good thing for glutes.

“Who’s distracting? It’s your fault when you look this good and feel so right.” Tipping my head up, I hungered for his mouth.

He didn’t disappoint, his arms clasped around me, his lips searing mine. His tongue stroked and teased and easily found entrance.

“Can’t wait to fuck you,” he gritted out.

“
Language
, mister.”

“I’ll give you language. Just wait until later.” Gripping my hair in one fist, he slid his lips to my neck, the shivery sensation making me weak in the knees.

After one last lashing kiss, we went back to the dishes—completely fucking domestic and loving it—about two seconds before Ally popped into the room.

“Got any Coke?” she asked.

“No.” Both of us.

Just like parents.

Popcorn on the other hand?
Yass!

We watched a movie on the big screen TV
and
played Pictionary at the same time.

Allegra finally dropped off three hours later. Bane had once asked me if it’d be kosher to dose her on Benadryl to make her conk out faster. My answer to that had been a firm no.

Instead of risking waking her to go to bed—because Bane was sure she’d never fall asleep again—he kissed her as softly as possible on the cheek and covered her with a light blanket.

I made my way upstairs while he performed the final security check and turned off most of the lights. In our bedroom, I made sure our weapons were all locked tight in the concealed compartment in the closet.

Facing the mirror, I started brushing my hair. I caught Bane’s reflection as he entered, his powerful presence immediately filling the room, swelling my heart.

He’d had such a hard life. But he was such a soft touch inside.

Walking to me, he took the brush from my hand. Locking eyes on mine in the mirror—the two distinct colors all the more gorgeous because of the difference—he gently tugged the bristles through my hair.

Kissing my shoulder, he lay the brush down.

His shirt came off first.

He was so much taller than me his huge shoulders and his broad chest curled above and around me. The tats on his shoulder were visible, but those on the back of his neck up to his skull remained hidden from view. Marks of a life fought for just like all the scars he carried on—and inside—his body.

“I thought she’d never go to bed,” he murmured, his lips set against the sensitive skin of my ear.

“No shit.”

“Language, Baby Spy.”
Smirk
.

He stood behind me, taking off my earrings. He unclasped the necklace, and unhinged the copper cuff on my wrist.

Tugging my hand, he turned me around. He frowned, looking down at our linked fingers.

“What is it?” I asked.

“You ready to pull the trigger yet, Kiki?” Chewing the corner of his lip, he rubbed a hand against the back of his neck. “With me?”

I stared at him, not quite following. “Pull the trigger?”

Taking a pace back, Bane drilled his gaze to mine. “Fuck. Sorry. Trying not to choke. Can’t seem to get the words out.”

“Choke or choke up?” I dropped my arms to my sides, immediately reading his seriousness.

“Choke up.” His voice deepened, and he inhaled a choppy breath.

“Bane?”

“Shit. This isn’t going as planned.”

“Just tell me.” My heart started banging in my chest.

My pulse quickened.

With a flush staining his cheeks, Bane—Gorgeous Griffin Bane—dropped to one knee in front of me.

I pushed my hand to my mouth. “No way.”

Tears swam in my vision, almost blinding me as my lips trembled.

“You’re not supposed to cry yet, girl. Jesus.” He looked up at me, his face stark with the most intense emotion. “Unless that’s a good cry?”

“I don’t know yet,” I whispered.

“I hope so.” His voice came out shaky.

His hands shook, too, when he presented the small jewelry box to me. Then he opened it, and I almost fell on my ass, no goddamn lie.

The ring shone, a platinum band encircling a flat-faceted black diamond.

“Is that legit?” My voice barely worked, and my heart fluttered wildly in my chest.

“Well, I didn’t steal it.” Bane’s lips quirked at the corners.

“I thought you said I wasn’t a diamonds kind of girl.” More tears slipped down my cheeks.

“Will you marry me, Katherine?” He’d never looked more scared, more hopeful . . . more in love.

I kneeled in front of him, my arms winding around his neck, my lips melded to his.

He peeled back. “You didn’t give me an answer.”

“Such a stickler for rules.”

“Not so much, but I still really wanna fuck the living daylights out of you. So, yes or no? But it better be a yes.”

I held out my ring finger, trying to keep it steady when he slipped the stunning ring onto it.

“We’re getting married?”

“Yeah, Kiki. We’re getting married.”

The biggest smile flew across Bane’s lips, and we tumbled together. His hands moved all over me, quickly ripping my clothes off while our lips clung. His strong body—naked and heavily muscled—hovered over me.

He blinked hard. “We’re getting married,” he hushed out reverently before sliding into me.

“Bane!” I keened when he entered me. “I love you. Love you so much!”

The ripple shivering through his body echoed in his dark voice, the low words, the long slow thrusts. “You have me. You’ve always had all of me, Kiki.”

Bad Boys of X-Ops

Four novels, spring/summer 2016

Walker,
Book One

Justice,
Book Two

Storm,
Book Three

Bane,
Book Four

Bad Boys of Retribution MC

Complete series—Carolina Bad Boys spinoff

Hunter,
Book One

Kinkaid,
Book Two

Bo,
Book Three

Coletrane,
Book Four

Carolina Bad Boys—the original Bad Boys

Ongoing series

Stone,
Book One

Ride, the novella from within Stone,
Book 1.5

Love,
Book Two

Steele,
Book Three

Chrome,
Book Four

Lowcountry Heat

Sugar Daddy,
Book One

Don’t Tell Series

Complete series

In His Command,
Book One

On Her Watch,
Book Two

Under His Guard,
Book Three

In His Sights, novella,
Standalone

Freebies

Jingle Bell Rock,
Free download

Heart Beats,
Download for free

In His Heart,
Free download

Hunter: Bad Boys of
Retribution MC 1

Complete kickass biker series

Where Walker began. Look no further for your next book boyfriend:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B014F73L54

“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 Retribution. 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 endless hours of counseling. She’d just completed her first full week back on the force. 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 tended to keep 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 celebratory 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 in 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. All thanks to 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. He looked like he was ready to sink a couple balls of his own into Ashe.

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

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

“Yeah. I know. 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. His face was haggard and lined and he was most notable for wearing wrinkled suits over a larger-than-life belly, but there was more intelligence going on behind that workaday exterior 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 have 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 lazily scratched 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. She goes by JB, but we gave her our own nickname.”

“JB?” I asked.

“Jailbait, dude.”

I dropped my forehead onto 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 chin to my chest, 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 jeans, or making a pass at her. Obvious was not part of my MO. I was the
Ghost
, literally. That was my callsign 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, not anymore. I was thirty-one 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, 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 Sexton.”

“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—arguably 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 order. Thank fuck for that. As the din died down, he motioned 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 I did. 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 though. 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 indeed
.

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 ’em 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 Ka-Bar knife from my belt and stabbed it between his fingers. “Or maybe I’m just damn good with my knife. Wanna double down?”