VENDETTA: A Bad Boy, Motorcycle Club Romance (28 page)

He’s gone quick enough that the violence inside disappears and then I take another look at her. She’s younger than I originally thought, I realize. She must be 21, since she got through the door and none of us are going to lose a liquor license to let a minor get a few drinks. But I doubt she’s much older than that.

The girl is beautiful, but I can see the calluses on her palms when she turns her hands over. What kind of girl her age is doing manual labor often enough to form such hard patches of skin? Her dress fits like a glove and obviously cut for her body—but she doesn’t seem wealthy. She’s still nursing the same drink I saw her order 20 minutes ago—the ice has melted and paled the color.

So I tell her she doesn’t belong and all that scared-girl-in-the-wrong place goes out of her face and she straightens her back, looks me dead in the eye and says she belongs.

I consider her fair game, then.

“Come upstairs with me.” Her eyes fly up and she shakes her head. “Is there somewhere quieter?” She’s speaking my language now. I quickly reassess, though, when color floods her cheeks.

“What’s your name?”

“Elizabeth. You’re Bastian?”

“Sebastian.” Her eyes widen and I see her force them back to normal. Reading people is one of the skills that’s kept me alive as long as I have been, and I think she must have heard of me. Not surprising. Roman raised me for a good portion of my life, and in return I put the fear of god in his enemies.

Hard thing to do without a reputation for violence.

“Come on.” I take her hand—and it’s small and cold in my own. I lead her through the crowd to a door, pushing it open and walking into the small hallway where the administrative offices are. “We can talk in here.”

The room is basically a meeting room, small and dimly lit, like everything else here. Brighter than the club, though and I can see the strands of sun-bright blonde that meld with the deeper chestnut of her tresses. Without the press of bodies around us, the fresh, clean scent of apples is harder to ignore.

“Thank you,” she says, walking past me and standing by the window. It’s blacked out, but she leans next to it as if she can see out to the cramped, dirty street beyond.

“At first I thought you wanted to be alone so you could fuck my brains out,” I say, and for the first time in years, I cringe at my own crass words. The blush that stained her cheeks is deeper now, bright pink against her pale, smooth skin and when I move my eyes south, I see that the skin above her breasts is also red with embarrassment.

“Not tonight,” she says, and I realize that she’s trembling. I scare a lot of people, but for some reason I don’t want to scare her. I want Elizabeth to want to go home with me. I want to drive my aching cock into her lush, willing body while she dugs those short-clipped, clean fingernails into my back and begs for more.

“We’ll see.” Another smile flirts with her lips for a second before she takes a deep breath and looks at me straight.

“I need help.”

“With what?” I’ll help her with anything, as long as it’s directions to the nearest horizontal surface. The wall would do. Or the table.

“I need new identity documents for myself and a friend. Birth certificate, social security card, driver’s license. It needs to hold up internationally—that’s the difficult part.” She sighs and I school my expression to keep from showing shock. She doesn’t look like a woman who’d be buying a new identity.

Getting one will be easy, but I’m not going to sign up to help until I find out why she needs it. And who the second set of documents is for.

“Why?”

“I’d rather not say.” She looks away and I take the opportunity to shrug off my jacket, then hand it to her.

“What’s this?” She reaches out by instinct and takes it.

“Put it on. You’re shivering.”

She pulls it around her body and it dwarfs her, hanging off her slight frame. Elizabeth looks younger with it almost covering her entire dress, like a college kid who’s dressing up for a play and I feel old, animalistic for the strength of my lust for her.

“Tell me why you want the documents.”

“I thought if I paid…”

“I’m not just going to hand over a new identity.” Is she running from an abusive husband? Or the law?

“Can you get it for me if I tell you?” I could have all the paperwork she’d ever need in less than three days.

“Yes.”

“Okay.” She takes a deep breath. “My boyfriend is a violent, dangerous criminal. Ex-boyfriend now. I’m scared he’ll kill me if he finds me. He has my identification and even if I could get it back, it would make me easier to track. I just want to have a life again.”

“What will you do when you have it?”

“Leave California. Go to college. I don’t know—I just know I’ll have options.” The hope on her face squeezes something in my chest.

“Who’s the second set for?”

“My best friend.” She reaches into her purse and pulls out an envelope. Inside is a USB drive and some printed photos. “I think I have everything you need to make us new paperwork on this drive. If not, though, I can get whatever you want.”

“What’s on here?”

“My pictures. Hers. We have the backgrounds right for most states in the US, as far as DMV photos go. Our birthdates. Names we like, but we’ll take whatever we can get.”

I nod, impressed at her preparedness. “It costs a lot to get this kind of work done.”

“I know.” She takes a deep breath. “How much?”

“For two? $20,000.” I expect her to balk—her hands and the ripped lining of her purse suggest that she doesn’t have much money to spend.

“I have it.” She smiles and her lips part and I want to see her look up at my from between my legs like that.

Focus, Seb
.

“You know, there are other ways to deal with an asshole like that. Ways that are cheaper and would keep you safer.” Before I finish the sentence, she’s already shaking her head no.

“I don’t want anything to do with him. I just want a chance to start a new life with my best friend.”

“I’ll talk to my people. How can I get in touch with you?”

She gives me a card with her phone number and I slip it in my wallet. “Do you have any preferences for states or anything else?”

“No,” she says. “Just not California. We can be from different places, too—it doesn’t matter.”

“You sure this is the way you want to go?”

“I am.”

“Then I’ll get it done.” The urge to satisfy her—not in the way I’ve been thinking about all night, but just to meet the need she obviously feels so deeply—is strong. Identification is easy enough and she’s not reading as a threat. I’ll do a little recon and see what I can find out about her before I put in the order, but I think this will be open and shut.

Easy money for a few hours work.

It occurs to me that a new identity means she’ll be out of LA and I won’t see her again.

Not that it matters.

“Thank you,” she says, reaching out to lay her delicate hand on mine. It’s warm now and when I follow the line of her arm up to her face, her cheeks are flushed and her small, pink tongue darts out to lick her lips.

Fuck it
.

“Come here.” I take her hand and yank her forward, covering her mouth with mine. She tastes sweet, like summer wine, and gasps into my mouth at that first contact.

“I’ve been thinking about this since I saw you standing behind that asshole tonight,” I say, releasing her hand and sliding my own onto her ass, pulling her body tight against mine. The whimpers of arousal that spill from her lips when she feels the press of my hard cock against her have me ready to explode in my jeans.

She grips me hard and kisses back, sliding her tongue into my mouth. The music seems so far away and all I can hear is her breathing. Her heartbeat races when I move my hands up her back and push them into her hair, releasing it from its hold so that it spills around her face and the scent of her perfume intensifies.

“Fuck,” I say, achingly hard. “You’re so sweet.”

She pulls back and smiles. “You’re not.” I bite back a laugh. Can’t remember ever laughing when I was in the middle of kissing a woman.

I push her up on the table and she wraps her legs around me. It’s so fucking hot how she can’t get closer enough, clinging to my shirt for more. I can feel her heels digging into my back and I thrust against her a little while I reach up to touch her breasts, knowing she must be as hot between the legs as her mouth is one mine and I want to bad to sink into her.

But I feel her freeze and I force myself to slow.

“This is too much?”

“I’m sorry.” She takes a shuddering breath and unwinds her legs. It feels like a loss. “I don’t—I can’t. I don’t have time for this in my life right now?”

“Time to get fucked?” I’m horny and crude and I want to sink into her and fuck away some of the agonizing arousal.

“Time for you.” Elizabeth moves off the table, takes off my jacket and hands it to me. “I hope this doesn’t change anything.” She sounds so prim now, when my body is still hot from her hands all over it.

“It doesn’t.” But I already know I’ll be the one contacting her to give her the identities she wants. The thought of never seeing her again isn’t acceptable.

But right now she wants to leave. I can feel her eagerness to be gone as strongly as I did her desire to be touched, and I give in.

“Let’s get out of here. I need to get home soon. Do you need a ride?”

“I have one,” she says, not offering any more information. But she smiles at me as I open the door to the hallway.

“You can go out the back door there, if you prefer.”

“Thank you.” She walks away and opens the door. I’m ready to let her go without a word—to plan my strategy for a better outcome during our next meeting—but then I suddenly want to know something.

“Is Elizabeth your real name?”

“Yes,” she says, and I believe her. “I’m going to miss it. I was named after my grandmother.” Such a small, sweet smile on her kiss-swollen lips and I’m already cursing myself for letting her go when she turns and walks out the door.