Burnout: A Legal Heat Novella (12 page)

With great reluctance, he pulled away and went to dispose of the condom. When he returned, he stretched out on the bed and pulled her over his chest. Her hair fanned out in a silken wave, softly caressing his abdomen. Christ. Was there anything as sexy as his sweet Sophie, lying languid on top of him, her lips swollen from his kisses, cheeks still flushed from the pleasure he had given her?

Mine.
And this time, he wouldn’t let her go.

“You’re not bad in bed for a biker,” she murmured, but he heard the teasing note in her voice.

He stroked his hand up and down her back. “What were you expecting?”

“More focus on you. Less on me. I’m used to guys who have only one goal in mind. Ryan especially. I don’t know if he was like that with just me, or with his other women.”

Ace froze, his hand resting on her lower back. “He cheated on you more than once?”

“I think so.” She sighed. “Actually, I’m pretty sure he did, but I pretended not to know. I loved him. It was hard to believe he didn’t love me, too. Especially when he was so possessive. But I couldn’t pretend any more when I walked into the house early from a shift and found him in our bed with another woman. He apologized. Said it was one-off. He was drunk. Things got out of hand. But I knew then I’d been living a lie, and I couldn’t take it any more.”

“Fucking bastard.”

Sophie laughed. “I think I called him that. And all sorts of other things I would be ashamed to repeat. But I was angry with myself as much as him. Love makes you blind. It also makes you want to be blind. You want to keep that happy feeling no matter the cost. And I couldn’t accept that the man I had loved for so long wasn’t everything I had imagined him to be. By the time it was over, I’d lost my self-esteem and my faith in my ability to make good choices. Jason was out here in Vancouver. My dad had died from a heart attack. My mom was too busy with work to listen. My friends…well, they never stopped telling me to leave him. At one point I tried to avoid them so I didn’t have to hear it anymore. In a way it was liberating when he brought that woman home. I lost the blinders that day. Love isn’t all it is held out to be.”

“So, one night at a time?” He wanted more, but he understood why he would have to take it slow. Hell, he’d better take it slow. He’d fallen too hard, too fast, and he was still scrambling to make sense of what was going on.

“One night at a time.”

He wrapped his arms around her and held her tight. After what had happened between them, it wasn’t going to be easy to convince her he was nothing like Jason, or that not all relationships went wrong. But this time he wasn’t going anywhere. This time, he knew he was exactly where he wanted to be.

*     *     *

“This is Ryder.”

Sophie gripped Ryder’s hand and stared at the breathtakingly handsome Rogue Riders president standing beside Ace. Not what she had expected of an outlaw. Taller than Ace by a good two inches, he had sable-brown eyes flecked with gold, olive skin, and a broad, hard body to match the strong planes of his striking face. Although Ace’s strength rippled beneath his T-shirt and snaked down his arms, Ryder commanded the room through the force of his presence alone.

“So this is the cop who wants to be an outlaw.” Ryder studied her as if he could see through to her soul and snorted a laugh. “All I see is a cop.” Turning, he reached for the door. “Keep me updated, but I don’t think we’ll be needing a new old lady patch any time soon.”

“This is Ice,” Ace said after Ryder closed the door.

Sophie shook Ice’s hand. Despite the warmth in the clubhouse, a shiver ran down her spine when he caught her gaze with his cold blue eyes. Hands down, he was the most terrifying man she’d ever met. The harsh planes of his jaw coupled with jagged scars following his cheekbones and those hard, piercing eyes rendered her almost unable to speak.

“Heard you were quitting the police,” Ice said.

“They quit me. Actually, they suspended me because of my brother, and pretty much refused to help me find him except as a person of interest in various crimes. And since I am going to do what it takes to find him, I suppose, in a roundabout way, the answer to your question is yes.” She twisted her bracelet round and round her wrist, fingering the stones in an almost frantic attempt to slow her racing heart. Although she was prepared to leave law enforcement, her heart ached at the thought of turning in her badge permanently. She loved police work. Ever since a policeman had helped her as child when she’d been lost in a shopping mall, she’d wanted to wear a uniform. Sophie loved rules and order. She’d been the kid who volunteered to be a crossing guard and student constable. She’d sat in police cars at summer fairs and been first in line for police station tours. And she wanted to help people, the way that policeman had helped her.

Ace gave her hand a sympathetic squeeze, and Sophie pulled away. Despite another heated night together and Ace’s admission he was looking for more, she didn’t want anyone thinking that she and Ace were anything other than…what? What were they? Acquaintances? Friends? Maybe they were friends with benefits. She’d never had a friend with benefits, but with her life in turmoil, she didn’t want to open herself up for more hurt. The concept seemed to fit. Friendship and sex but no emotional ties. What could be easier than that?

Ice gave a derisory snort. “So you’re walking away from something you love ’cause the police are following the same rules you’re out there busting your ass every day to enforce? Is the problem that you don’t believe in the system or that you don’t believe in yourself?”

She bristled at his abrupt, indelicate question and his abrasive manner, trying to process everything he had said, starting with sentence number one. “I didn’t tell you I love it.”

“You didn’t have to.”

Her cheeks flushed and her hands clenched into fists. “They made that choice. Not me.”

“Would you want a corrupt cop working the system?” His eyes hardened, and he leaned forward, into her space. “I’ve been through it. Dirty cop at the highest level was the final straw for me, and I turned in my badge. Now they’ve got procedures in place to root them out so they don’t lose good cops who get disillusioned with the system. If you’ve got nothing to hide, they’ll reinstate you. But then what are you gonna do?”

Good question. Where would that leave her? She couldn’t participate in the investigation, and anything she did on her own might be considered a conflict of interest. Now that she thought about it, the suspension was a blessing in disguise, leaving her free to do what it took to find Jason, regardless of the law. Maybe she had a little biker in her after all.

Ice stared at her. She stared at him. His cold eyes and harsh expression made her want to confess all manner of sins, not that she’d committed a lot of sins, but Ice made her want to make some up just for the sake of confessing.

Sophie shifted her weight, leaning ever so slightly against Ace’s firm shoulder. “What’s your point?”

“I don’t have a point,” he said. “I have a question. What do you want? Do you want to be a cop, or do you want to be an outlaw?”

He might as well have just asked
who are you?
After Ryan’s attack, she’d lost her way, and right now the outlaw option was looking pretty good.

The door opened and a curvy redhead walked in. Her gaze flicked from Ice to Sophie and then back to Ice. She groaned.

“James. You’re scaring Ace’s cop friend. Drop the badass attitude and play nice.”

Ice stiffened and his face became even fiercer, if that was possible. “Babe. Business. Need you to leave.”

With a snort, the redhead came up behind him and wound her arms around his neck. “My business, too. Jackie’s tied up on another case, so Ryder hired me to help find Sophie’s brother.” She looked up at Sophie and winked. “I’m Lana. Jackie and I run a PI business together. Occasionally we get drafted in to help out this motley crew. Strictly legal stuff, though, so don’t let your cop heart get all aflutter.”

“Don’t want my old lady gettin’ involved in Jason’s shit,” Ice growled. “Too dangerous.”

“Too late. Jackie already filled me in, and I’m ready to work.” Lana nuzzled Ice’s neck. Although she looked soft and kinda sweet, she must be one tough woman to be able to keep a man like Ice in line. Already, Ice’s scowl had faded, and their heat burned up the room. What she wouldn’t give for a relationship like that—a relationship where love tempered even the fiercest storm.

“You done lecturing?” she murmured to Ice. “Are you going to help Sophie out?”

He gave a contented rumble. “I’ll call up the chief constable. Get the scoop. Might be some politics involved in her suspension.”

“Good boy.”

“Lana…” His warning growl sent a shiver down Sophie’s spine, but Lana just laughed.

“So, for now we’ll keep your activities above board,” Ice said. “Just in case you decide our evil biker ways aren’t for you.” He handed her a piece of paper and a pen. “First thing to do is write a list of everyone you talked to at the party. See if you can remember any conversations that might be useful.”

Sophie stared at the blank paper. She wasn’t about to turn down their help, but she’d have to think long and hard about how far she went down this road and whether she really wanted to step off the law enforcement path. “I didn’t really talk to many people. But I remember the bartender, Andre. He said he was Jason’s bodyguard, which I didn’t really think about at the time, but why would a middle manager at a paper company need a bodyguard? He said he works at a speciality beer store under the Granville Street Bridge. He must know where Jason is or he wouldn’t be much of a bodyguard. I’ll go talk to him.”

Ace grabbed Sophie’s arm before she had even taken a step forward.

“We’ll handle it.”

“No. I want to go.” Sophie shook him off. “I’m off duty, and it will kill me to just sit around. Plus, he knows me. It’ll be easier for me to get information from him.”

“Club business now,” Ace said, his voice firm. “Women don’t get involved in club business. And before you say anything, Lana and Jackie work independent of the club.”

Sophie folded her arms. “Well, so do I.”

“No. You came to us. We agreed to help. Women don’t get involved. Final.”

“Seriously?” Sophie glared. “I’m supposed to sit here while you scour the city and follow up leads to find my brother? Because I’m a woman?”

“Yes.” Ace nodded.

“Definitely,” Ice added.

Lana caught Sophie’s gaze and lifted an eyebrow. “Welcome to Chauvinism 101.”

Sophie curled her hand into a fist by her side and plastered a fake smile on her face. Might as well play the game and then go do what she had to do. “Okay, then. I guess I’ll just go home. Sit around and twiddle my thumbs.”

“You could bake something,” Ace offered. “I like pie.”

A
ce parked his
motorcycle outside Ben’s Speciality Brew, a small shop tucked away in a crumbling brick building under the Granville Street Bridge. Finding a place to prop up his kickstand wasn’t easy on the cobblestone street, and when he caught a glimpse of Sophie through the window, his anxiety peaked. Damn woman had probably come straight to the brewery from the clubhouse. Ice had put fifty bucks on it after they’d finished their meeting and Kickstand called in to report that Sophie hadn’t shown up at her apartment.

Of course, Ice was right. He had an irritating habit of always being right. So now Ace was out fifty bucks, and his girl was running around the city unprotected while the Red Dragons were looking for someone to pay off Jason’s debt.

Ace’s stomach tightened as he pushed open the glass door. Why the hell couldn’t she have waited? She was sweetly submissive in the bedroom, but outside it was another game entirely, and it threw him off-kilter.

Beer bottles and cans lined the exposed brick walls of the dimly lit shop. A small filament of sunlight filtered through the grimy window, and a tabby cat wound its way around his legs as he stepped in the door. Sophie and Andre were deep in conversation and hadn’t noticed him, so he leaned against the doorjamb and waited. No point charging in with all guns blazing. She had Andre talking, and they needed him on their side.

Hmmmm
. He didn’t like the way Andre’s gaze roved over Sophie’s body. Nor did he like to see Andre brush her hair behind her shoulder, his fingers lingering on her bare skin. Sophie stiffened and stepped back, but Andre caged her against the wall and said something that made her frown and put a hand on his chest, pushing him away.

Ace had never considered himself to be a jealous or overly protective man, but the rage burning its way through his blood made him think otherwise.

Mine.

He took a step forward and stopped. She’d asked him to respect her police training. Should he hold back? Give her a chance to handle it on her own?

Fuck no. The bastard was touching his woman.

Andre grabbed Sophie and pushed her against the wall. Ace’s blood pounded through his veins so loudly he couldn’t make out Andre’s words as he closed in on his prey. Sophie struggled and managed to break free. Then, as if she had been unleashed, Sophie attacked. Small but fast, she caught Andre off-guard with fists and feet, sweeps and kicks, making up for her size disadvantage with speed and tactical strikes. Intelligent fighting. Not really Ace’s strong suit. He was almost disappointed when Andre finally dropped to the floor, clutching his stomach and groaning.

His girl was badass bad.

Sophie bent down and grabbed Andre’s hair, tugging his head up. He mumbled a few words, and she let him go. As she turned to Ace, Andre grabbed her leg and yanked her back. Sophie fell to her knees. Vulnerable.

Enough
. Ace ripped Andre’s hand off his girl, then thudded his boot into Andre’s ribs over and over until he heard a crack. “You touch her again, and I’ll slice off your fucking balls.”

Sophie pushed herself to her feet and looked down at Andre, now curled in a protective ball on the floor. “Well…that was extreme and highly unnecessary.”

“He touched you.”

“I’m a police officer. I can handle myself.”