Hard Case (Hard as Nails #2) (13 page)

“Of course you can. Do you want me to show you how easy it is?”

“Yes, please,” she says.

“How do you want it this time? Up against a wall? Your ass in the air? My face between your thighs again?”

“So you’re into dirty talk?”

“I’m not the one in here asking people to
fuck
me with their
cock
,” I remind her.

She blushes and gives me a pouty face. “I should definitely watch my language.”

Our lips meet and linger together for a moment, pressing against each other. When we part, I look down at her. “You most definitely should not. I loved it. You are so beautiful,” I tell her. “And despite the circumstances of our meeting, I’m so glad you’re here.”

Chapter Fourteen

Rose

The sound of movement wakes me. I sit up in the bed, disoriented because I can’t see anything in the dark room, and I realize I’m not in the guest bed this morning. I’m in Slate’s bed, in Slate’s bedroom, tucked in the expansive sea of silky smooth sheets.

After waking up alone for longer than I can remember, it feels good to wake up in his bed.

Getting up, I wrap the sheet around me and head into the bathroom, anxious to see him.

“Good morning,” he says.

Slate is dressed, wearing a gray suit with his dark blue shirt. He looks gorgeous, but I’m disappointed he’s clearly getting ready to go out for the day.

I look in the mirror to see my auburn hair is a huge mess. My eyes are half open. “Morning,” I croak.

“Listen, I need to leave, but I want you to know you’re safe. The alarm will be on, and I’ve arranged for private security to patrol the perimeter of the grounds. I wouldn’t leave you but I have something pressing to attend to.”

Of course I don’t want him to go, but I understand he can’t be with me 24/7. “That’s fine, Slate. I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me.”

He heaves a heavy sigh. “God. You’re even more beautiful when you first wake up in the morning.”

“Been drinking, I see,” I tease him.

“No. I’m stone cold sober.”

I bite my lip, glad the morning didn’t bring a change of heart for him with it. “Do you think one of your security guards can run me by my house this morning so I can get a couple of things to help me occupy my time while you’re working?”

He cocks an eyebrow at me. “You mean, like the couple of things I saw on your floor?”

I blush and look down. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say.

“Yeah, I saw those,” he adds. “And I like the idea of you retrieving them. They’ll give us something to play with next time.” He winks and adjusts his tie one last time. “But I’ll take you myself and then bring you back.”

“Oh no! You don’t have to. I don’t want to be a bother.”

“It’s not a bother, Rose. It’ll give us more time to spend together. And I’m not trusting your safety, at least out in the open, to anyone else. Now what do you need to get, besides the toys, that is?”

I laugh, enjoying how lighthearted and teasing Slate can be. “I want to grab my computer and a few books, stuff like that,” I tell him. “Plus I want to take a quick look over the house to make sure nothing valuable is gone.”

“Sounds fair to me,” he says.

“I’ll get dressed and be right back!”

I’m almost out the door when he grabs me from behind, and then holds me to his chest.

“Slate?” I laugh. “What are you doing?”

“You didn’t give me a good morning kiss.”

I’m startled, but try to keep my face devoid of expression when I turn to face him. I cock a brow. “Is that the price for taking me to my house?”

“No, I’ll collect my fee later tonight. When I fuck you till you can’t breathe. But right now, I want a kiss. Is that okay with you?”

I swallow hard. “It would be my pleasure.”

Reaching up, I wind my arms around his neck, then pull him down for a kiss.

It is the best kiss of my life.

* * *

When we pull up in front of my house, I tell myself it’s just another abandoned house. We have to park on the street because the property is roped off with crime scene tape now. Slate walks with me up to the house. The door is closed this time, and someone has boarded up the broken windows. Still, I notice Slate has pulled his piece again.

“Do you always carry that when you’re on the job?” I ask him.

“Every day,” he says. “You never know what you’re going to run into when you defend the kinds of people I end up working with.”

I don’t tell him, but responses like that are why I want to get my laptop from the mess of my house. That, and I want to know more about Slate, more than I think he’d be comfortable telling me. It’s not that I don’t trust him, at least not when it comes to wanting to protect me and be with me, at least for now. But he’s mentioned his shady past, and I need to know more about that man since I’m pretty sure I’m falling for him.

When we get inside and walk into my bedroom, I’m grateful one spot is still covered by sheets. We dig through the debris on the floor, and I find my laptop underneath my bed. I grab it and the wall charger for it. Then I open my nightstand slowly, irrationally afraid I’ll find the gun I’d once kept inside it. But the gun is in evidence at the police station.

From the drawer, I grab the mystery thriller I’d been reading before all of this shit went down. I also grab a few other books from the floor in the living room, scattered around the coffee table. I carry everything in my arms.

“Need any clothes?” Slate asks. “I’m getting a bad feeling and want to get out of here.

“Me too.” I can seriously feel eyes on me. “Maybe we’re imagining things.”

“When you’ve been down on the wrong side of the tracks as many times as I have, baby, you start to trust your intuition, and right now, it tells me we need to get the hell out of here before things go sideways in a bad way,” he explains.

“I feel it, too,” I admit. “I’ve felt it since we came in. I’m not grabbing anything else. Let’s go with what’s in my arms,” I tell him as the eerie sensation of being watched increases.

Maybe it’s the same paranoia Josh felt, I tell myself, but after being shot at the last time we were here, I know his paranoia wasn’t entirely unfounded. I hurry out in front of Slate.

He doesn’t put his gun back under his coat until we’re in the car.

“Got everything?” he asks one last time.

“I’m good,” I tell him. “Let’s go. If there’s anything else, I can get it later.” I take a deep breath as he cranks up the car and pulls away from the curb. “I’ve got to decide what I’m going to do about this place when everything’s said and done.”

“If you decide to sell the house, you can stay with me until you find your own place. Whatever you end up wanting to do, I’m here for you.”

A warm, pleasant feeling washes through me and once again I’m grateful Slate came into my life. No matter what happens between us, I believe he’ll have my back. “Thank you.”

* * *

Slate

After the feeling I got at Rose’s house, I decide not to go into the office. I leave her to read her books and work on her computer while I call one of my staff and have him handle the urgent matter that had come up with another client. One of King’s lackeys. I’m not willing to abandon Rose to deal with his shit, not anymore.

While I’m in my home office, my phone buzzes. I fish it out of my inside coat pocket. I don’t even have to look at the screen before I answer. I know who it is.

“Slate,” King greets me cheerily before I can even say anything.

“How can I help you today?” I’m trying to sound nonchalant, like his call doesn’t bother me at all, when he’s really getting under my skin right now.

“Tell me, Slate, do you think I’m an idiot?”

“No, of course not.”
You’re an asshole, but not an idiot
, I think.

“Then, would you mind explaining to me why you went back to her house
again
? What are you looking for, and does it have anything to do with me?”

Fuck. It had probably been King’s men whose presence we’d felt back at Rose’s house. I suppose that was better than his “associates” who were willing to shoot first and ask questions later. “Rose needed a few things from the house since we were interrupted last time. The visit had nothing to do with you.”

The line is silent for several long seconds. “Listen to me, boy. If you’re playing me, you will live to regret it. Just like the men who shot at you. Got it?”

King’s implication that the men who shot at us have somehow been dealt with makes me feel grateful. For about a second. Then his threat toward me takes precedence. I’ve had enough. He has pushed me to my limit. “No. I don’t
got it
,” I tell him. “I’ll tell you what, though. If you continue to get in my way here, I will drag your name into this. It won’t take much for me to connect you to the police reports I have on Josh Carter. As of right now, there’s nothing in there that explicitly draws you into what he was doing, but there’s enough to create an association.”

“Slate, I am not the one you want to threaten.”

I don’t respond. Instead, I try to figure out what I can say at this point that won’t fuck me. Or Rose.

“Good. You do know. Don’t get too big for your britches. Remember who put you where you are, because I can take it all away.”

“You talk a mighty big talk,” I tell him. “But I’ll be damned if I’ve seen you lift a single finger to do any of your dirty work. You’ve always got someone else doing it for you, and that proves you’re a coward.”

He laughs heartily on the other end of the phone. “At one point, you used to love getting paid for cleaning up my dirty work. You all did. It’s what enabled you and your friends to start that damn garage and get to where you are. Now, from what I can tell, it looks like you’re falling for Rose Carter. If you want to be able to explore that, be smart. Don’t mess with me. And don’t threaten me ever again.”

I grit my teeth. “Looks like I don’t have a choice.”

For now.

Chapter Fifteen

Rose

Slate has been good to me, letting me stay in his home and trying to do things with me to distract me while boosting my self-esteem. Still, there is something about his involvement in my case that bothers me. There are times when it seems like something behind the scenes is bothering him, and I’d like to know what it is. He knows too much, but he also plays dumb sometimes and pretends he doesn’t know anything about what’s going on. He keeps telling me he has shady clients, and it wouldn’t surprise me if those clients were somehow connected to what happened to my late husband.

In fact… Maybe it’s because he mentioned asking a favor of a man on the wrong side of the law, a man who helped get his friend Street out of prison, but I’ve started to wonder—is it possible
Slate
knows the men who drove my late husband crazy?

That’s why I’m sitting at the dining room table with my laptop open and connected to the internet. I’m doing a Google search for Slate Rawlings. I want to know everything I can find on him online.

I feel guilty for going behind his back and typing his name into an internet search engine like this. I’m specifically looking for dirt. This isn’t an innocent search where I’m curious as to what I’ll find. No, I want to know if there is anything I need to know about him before I allow things to go too far.

I stare at his name in the search field. Once I hit ENTER, it will be too late to turn back.

I take a deep breath to steady myself and start the search.

I close my eyes. Part of me expects to open them and see I never searched for him, and part of me wants to close the computer before I have a chance to see the results populating the screen.

When I open my eyes, there is a long list of articles about the man who has been letting me stay in his home. I glance over the first page of results and don’t see any headlines about his potential involvement in criminal activities. Instead, all of the headlines I do see on the first page of search results are quite positive about the lawyer.

“Local Lawyer Makes Considerable Donation.”

“Our Very Own Rags to Riches Story.”

“From Outlaw to Lawyer: Slate Rawlings.”

“Slate Rawlings Volunteers for Local Shelter.”

Every headline I see on the first page sings his praises. I don’t read all of them, but I get the idea he’s done a lot of good things for the community. I scroll down the page, looking for anything negative. There’s nothing negative on the first page. Nothing negative at all.

Slate Rawlings has donated time and money to help rebuild poverty-stricken neighborhoods. He has donated money to countless charities and charitable organizations. He has volunteered at local schools to help keep the kids off the streets. He shares his story time and again to hopefully inspire others to do their best and fight their way out of their situations instead of letting things get the best of them. He has donated money to scholarships and drug rehabilitation programs. He’s worked at the homeless shelter.