Fallen Angels 01 - Covet (16 page)

he repeated when she didn't answer.

Her eyes, those stunning blue eyes of hers, finally swung over to his face...and he felt it again, that high-bore charge barreling through him, enlivening him.

Her lips lifted in a small smile. “The question is more...are you?” As Vin frowned, she made a motion around his face. “You're bleeding.”

“It doesn't hurt.”

“I think it's going to—”

Two other women bubbled out of the locker room like a pair of yappy dogs, talking a mile a minute, hands waving like tails, the gold chains around their waists bouncing and chiming like tags on a collar.

Fortunately, they were all over Jim, but then again, they could have popped skirt and mooned Vin and he wouldn't have noticed.

“I'm sorry about those guys,” he said to the dark-haired woman.

“It's okay.”

God, her voice was lovely. “What's your name?”

The rear door to the club opened and the Trez guy strode over.

“Thanks again for taking care of things.”

Conversation sprang up, but Vin wasn't interested in anyone but the female in front of him. He was waiting for her to answer him. Hoping she would. “Please,” he said softly, “tell me your name.”

After a moment, the dark-haired woman turned to the owner. “Mind if I clean him up in the locker room?”

“Go right ahead.”

Vin glanced back at his comrade in harm. “You okay to hang out, Jim?” The guy nodded. “Especially if it means you won't bleed all over my truck.”

“I won't take long with him,” the woman said.

Not a problem, Vin thought. As far as he was concerned, she could take forever—he stopped himself. Devina might have stormed off, but she was in his house, in his bed at this very moment. He owed her more than the way he was going on about this other female.

At least, you think you know where Devina is,
his inner voice pointed out.

“Come on,” the woman said to him as she opened the locker room door.

Vin looked back at Jim for some reason—and the expression he met was all about the watch-yourself-my-man.

Vin opened his mouth, prepared to be reasonable and get a grip.

“I'll be right back, Jim,” was all that came out.

***

He couldn't believe it. She was whoring herself out. Selling her body to men who used her for sex. The reality was incomprehensible.

At first, he hadn't been able to fathom what appeared to be going on.

Bad enough if she'd been a bartender or a waitress or, God forbid, a caged dancer in a club like this—but then he'd seen her walking around with her breasts on display and her thighs bared to the eyes of other men.

And she got what she deserved for doing what she did: Those two young guys had tracked her like prey, treating her exactly as men treated women like her.

He'd followed along as the pair had trailed her into the hallway, and watched as that fight had erupted. He'd been unable to move, so great was his shock. Of all the things he had pictured her doing, of all the assumptions he had made about what her life here in Caldwell was like, this was not it.

This was not happening.

As the harassers got pounded in the corridor, he backtracked through the crowd and tore out of the front of the club in an urgent haze, having no idea what he was doing or where he was going. The chilly night air didn't clear his head or his confusion, and he went around to the parking lot with no plan whatsoever. When he got into his nondescript car, he shut himself in and breathed hard.

That was when the anger hit. Great waves of fury poured through his body, making him sweat and shake.

He knew his temper had gotten him in trouble before. He knew this boiling rage was a problem, and he remembered what he'd been taught in prison. Count to ten. Try to calm down. Call to mind the safety image—

Movement by the back of the club brought his head around.

A door opened and the two kids who'd been stalking her were dropped like bags of garbage onto the pavement by the ones who'd come to her rescue. A black man stayed out in the cold and spoke to both of the offenders for a moment and then returned into the club.

From behind the wheel, he stared hard at the young guys.

The lightning strike hit him as it always did, wiping everything out of the way: His rage condensed and then crystallized, locking on the pair by the back door, all the anger and the sense of betrayal and the fury and the confusion that woman had created getting trained on those two.

Moving in a daze, he double-checked that the false mustache and the glasses were where they were supposed to be. Chances were very good there were security cameras on the back of the club, and having been caught by the likes of them before, even in his rage he knew enough not to do this in front of prying lenses even with a disguise.

So he waited.

Eventually, the college kids got stiffly to their feet, one of them spitting out blood, the other holding his arm as if he were afraid it was going to drop off his torso. Facing each other, they argued, whatever harsh words they shared nothing but mute theatrics because he was too far away to hear what they were saying. But the fight didn't last long. They fell silent fairly quickly, as if they'd lost their collective will, and after some looking around, they lurched into the parking lot like drunks.

Probably because their heads were spinning from the beatings they'd taken.

When they passed by his car, he got a good look at them. Fair skinned, light eyed, both had an earring or two. Their faces were the kind you'd see in the newspaper, not in the criminal section, but under the header
College Sports.

Healthy, young, with a lot of life ahead of them.

There was no conscious thought at all as he reached under the seat and then got out from behind the wheel. He shut the car door quietly and fell in behind the young men. As he moved silently, he was action and nothing more.

The pair went to the last row in the parking lot and took a right...going into a tight alley. With no windows.

If he had asked them to find some privacy, they couldn't have possibly been more accommodating.

He tracked them until they were halfway down the buildings, right in the middle of the double block. With smooth control, he leveled the muzzle at the strong, young back in front of him and paused with his finger on the trigger.

They were up ahead a good ten yards, their sloppy strides cutting through the slush, their shifting torsos presenting moving targets.

Closer would be better, but he didn't want to wait or risk spooking them.

He pulled the trigger, the loud
pop!
followed by a messy scramble and a thump onto the ground. The second of the pair wheeled around.

Which meant the kid got dropped by a bullet right through the front of the chest.

Satisfaction made him soar, though his feet stayed on the asphalt. The free expression of his anger, the prickling, orgasmic release, made him smile so wide that the frigid wind registered on his front teeth.

The joy didn't last. The sight of the two lying side by side and moaning doused everything that had bonfired his brain, leaving a whole lot of rational horror: He'd just fucked himself. He was on parole, for God's sake. What had he been thinking?

He paced around as they writhed in slow motion and bled red. He'd sworn he'd never find himself in this situation again. Sworn to it.

As he stopped, he realized both his victims were looking up at him.

Given that they were still breathing, it was hard to be sure whether they were going to die or not, but more gunshots were not going to help the situation.

He tucked his gun into the small of his back and took off his parka, wadding it up into a pillow of Gor-Tex and down. He went over to the taller one first.

He was beautiful, Marie-Terese thought.

The man who'd protected her was absolutely beautiful. Thick dark hair. Warm brown-toned skin. Face that even with its bruises was stunningly attractive.

Flustered by so much, Marie-Terese pulled out one of the stools in front of the makeup counter and got ahold of herself. “If you sit here, I'll get a washcloth.”

The man who'd thrown down for her looked around, and she tried to ignore what he was seeing: the kicked-off, scratched-up stilettos, the torn miniskirt hanging from the bench, the towels strewn here and there, the pair of thigh-highs draped on the edge of the lighted mirror, the bags on the floor.

Given how amazing his black pin-striped suit was, this kind of cheap chaos was clearly not what he was used to.

“Please sit,” she said.

The man's gray eyes came to rest on her. He was about eight inches taller than she was, and the width of his shoulders was easily two of her. But she wasn't uncomfortable around him. And she wasn't scared.

Man, his cologne was delicious. “Are you okay,” he said again.

Not a question, but a quiet demand. As if he wasn't going to let her do anything about the shape his face was in until he was certain she wasn't hurt. Marie-Terese blinked. “I'm...fine.”

“What about your arm? He locked on pretty damn hard.”

Marie-Terese tugged up the sleeve of the fleece she'd put on. “See...?”

He leaned in and his palm was warm as it wrapped around her wrist.

Warm and gentle. Not grabbing. Not demanding. Not...owning. Kind.

Abruptly, she heard that college kid's voice in her head:
You are not a
woman.

The nasty crack had been said to be cruel and to wound, and it had...but mostly because it had become what she felt about herself.

Not a woman. Not...anything. Just empty.

Marie-Terese pulled her arm away from the man's touch and tugged the sleeve back in place. She couldn't handle his compassion. In some weird way, it was harder to bear than the insult.

“You're going to have a bruise,” he said softly. What was she doing?

Oh...right. Washcloth. Clean him up. “Sit down here. I'll be right back.”

Going into the shower room, she took a white towel from a stack by the sinks, grabbed a small bowl, and got some hot water running. As she waited for the stream to warm up, she looked at herself in the mirror. Her eyes were wide and a little crazy, but not because of the pair who'd been so grossly inappropriate and disrespectful. It was the ass kicker with the gentle hands sitting on the stool outside... the one who looked like an attorney, but fought like Oscar De La Hoya.

When she came back to the makeup counter, she was a little calmer.

At least until she met his eyes. He was staring at her as if absorbing what she looked like into his body, and what made her uncomfortable was not how he regarded her, but how she felt as he did.

Not quite so empty.

“Have you seen yourself?” she asked, just to say something.

He shook his head and didn't seem to care enough to turn away from her to the mirror behind him. She put the bowl down and snapped on latex gloves before stepping up to him and dipping the washcloth.

“You have a gash on your cheek.”

“Do I.”

“Brace yourself.”

He didn't, and he didn't flinch as she touched the open wound.

Dab...dab...dab...Then back to the bowl, a little tinkling sound as she rinsed the cloth out. Dab... dab...

He closed his eyes and parted his lips, his chest rising and falling evenly. Up this close, she saw the five-o'clock shadow over his straight jaw and each of his long, black eyelashes and all of his trimmed, thick hair. He'd had his ear pierced at one point, but only on the right side, and it had obviously been years since he'd worn anything in the hole.

“What's your name?” he asked, his voice guttural.

She never gave Johns her real fake name, but he wasn't just a John, was he. If he hadn't come along when he had, things could have gotten ugly for her: Trez had been away from the club, the bouncers had been breaking up a skirmish out by the bar, and the hall led directly into the parking lot. Work of a moment and those two beefy college types could have had her in a car and...

“You have blood on your shirt,” she said, going back to the bowl.

Great conversationalist, she thought.

His lids lifted, but he didn't look down at himself. He looked at her. “I have other shirts.”

“I'll bet.”

He frowned a little. “Does that kind of thing happen to you often?”

With anyone else, she would have shut the question down with a quick
of course not,
but she felt as though, given what he'd done in the hall for her, he deserved something more truthful.

“Any chance you're undercover?” she murmured. “Not that you'd necessarily tell me, but I have to ask.”

He reached into the breast pocket of his coat and took out a card.

“There's no way I'm a cop. I'm not as illegal as I used to be, but I wouldn't be eligible for a badge even if I wanted one. So ironically, you can trust me.”

She looked over what he gave her.
The diPietro Group.
Address here in downtown Caldwell. Very expensive card stock, very flashy professional logo, and a lot of numbers and e-mail addresses to reach him at. As she put the thing down on the counter, her instincts told her the part about his not being with the Caldwell PD was right. But the trust thing? She didn't trust men anymore.

Especially ones she was attracted to.

“So does that happen a lot?” he said.

Marie-Terese went back to work, wiping off his face, working her way down his cheek to his mouth. “Most people are okay. And management looks out for us. I've never been hurt.”

“Are you...a dancer?”

For a moment, she entertained a fantasy where she told him that all she did was hang out in one of those cages, showing off some moves, being nothing but eye candy. She could guess what he would do. He'd take a deep breath of relief and start relating to her as if she were just any other woman who'd caught his eye. No complications, no implications, nothing but some flirting between two people that might lead to bed.

Her silence made him take a breath, and it wasn't the oh-good kind.

As he exhaled, the muscles that ran up his neck tightened into stark cords, like he had to fight back a wince.