Vodka On The Rocks (The Uncertain Saints Book 3) (2 page)

I was still flushed, and I was sure the beer wasn’t what I was needing at that moment in time, but I drank the hell out of it anyway.

I had on a black workout tank top that fit my small chest like a second skin.

I couldn’t see my capri-length workout pants, but I knew if I could, they’d be just as tight as the top.

I didn’t fit in at a bar.

The man at my side, though, did.

Casten was beautiful, in an ‘I’m going to kill you’ kind of way.

He had dark brown hair that was the typical cop haircut, shaved at the sides and longer on the top.

Gun metal gray eyes that pierced through your soul.

Strong jaw, straight nose, beautiful lips.

His chest was wide, and he was what I would describe as brawny.

He was wearing a tight black t-shirt underneath a flannel long-sleeved, button-up shirt. He had his Uncertain Saints leather vest over the top of that, and a pair of sunglasses hanging from the neck of his t-shirt.

His eyes watched me watch him.

“Well?” I asked him.

It was similar to poking a bear.

I didn’t want to poke the bear, but my curiosity got the best of me, and I just couldn’t help myself.

“Why you’re acting like you don’t give a fuck,” he rumbled, answering my question finally.

I raised a brow at him.

“Oh, well then, please, enlighten me,” I invited.

He shrugged, then explained.

“That guy over there was calling you a bitch,” Casten said. “You were putting on an ‘I don’t care’ face so he didn’t see how much it bothered you.”

I had what they called ‘resting bitch face.’

It was biological.

I got it from my mother, and I had no control over it.

But I was also pissed off.

The man at my back had been talking about me not wearing underwear underneath my pants for over twenty minutes now, and it was getting on my nerves.

The only way I wasn’t breaking my empty beer bottle over his head right then was if I acted like he didn’t affect me, then maybe he wouldn’t keep talking about it.

“So, tell me,” I ignored his question and drank a large swig of my beer. “Why do you also work as a Private Dick?”

I may or may not have, been a little buzzed.

Then again, it didn’t take much.

I was a lightweight.

My body didn’t handle beer and alcohol like most.

Some people could build up their tolerance over time, slowly taking in more each time they drank before they looked or acted drunk.

Not me, though. It didn’t matter how much I drank or how often I did it, I always got the same result.

One drink of anything, and my mind got fuzzy.

But I’d not been sleeping well lately, so I decided it was time to come down here for a beer.

“Used to be a cop. Got injured. Damaged my right side permanently. Sometimes my vision and hearing go out, and there’s no rhyme or reason to it. Couldn’t pass the physical to get back in,” he replied with absolutely no emotion.

No annoyance.

No indifference.

No nothing.

“I tried to get a job at the police station, right after I got my degree in biology,” I grimaced. “They said I was too timid.”

“You are timid,” Casten countered, not missing a beat. “If I’d have heard those guys talking about me for twenty minutes, I would say something. Instead, you sit here getting more and more bitchy looking, but you haven’t once said a single word to the two of them to get them to stop, or to stand up for yourself.”

“Why aren’t you telling them to stop?” I pushed him.

He grunted.

“Gotta take care of yourself in this life,” he mumbled. “You’re not always going to have someone protect you. Grow a thick skin and tell those fuckers to leave you the fuck alone.”

I laughed humorlessly. “That’ll work.”

He raised a brow at me.

“Why do you think it won’t?” he challenged. “Most of the time, people say things like that when they don’t think the person they’re talking about can hear. If they know you hear them, then they’ll either shut up or try to talk quieter. Either way, that’s a win for you.”

I thought about that for a moment and, realizing he was right, the argument I’d been forming died on my lips.

“And what if they don’t?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Then every time they say something particularly loud, you take that beer bottle you’ve been fingering all night, and you fuck them up with it.”

And that, people, was the beginning of a bar fight.

Casten

“I didn’t think she’d do it,” I told Ridley.

Ridley looked at me.

“So let me get this straight. You told her she should fuck up that guy who’d been trash talking her all night with the bottle. She was drunk, and he kept running his mouth. And you didn’t think she’d listen to you?” Ridley bellowed.

Well, when he put it like that, it did make me sound a bit stupid. Hand to God, I swear, I really thought she’d have known better.

Seriously!
She was a grown ass woman!

I shrugged. “Let her out of the car. If anyone sees her in there, she could lose her job.”

Ridley grumbled under his breath, and I watched him walk to the car and open the back door.

Ridley was another member of The Uncertain Saints.

He was also a deputy with the Marion County Sheriff Department.

His hair was a mess, which was quite unusual for him. But I wouldn’t go there…
not tonight
.

He looked and sounded like he wanted to be anywhere else but here.

Probably at the bottom of a bottle
, I thought to myself.

Ridley helped to steady a drunken Tasha as she exited the car on wobbly legs. She clutched at his arm, and it took everything I had not to rip her away from him.

Bad boy. Down boy.

Great, just great… I was talking to my cock now.

She sure brought out the best in me.

“Thanks,” I muttered, meeting Ridley half way to help Tasha stand.

She was really teetering now, and in tennis shoes no less.

“You’re welcome!” Tasha cried brightly.

Tasha was clearly one of those women who got happy when she was drunk.

Like my sister.

Speaking of my sister, I waved at her as I saw her come out the side door of the establishment.

She was a deputy with Marion County as well.

And she was fond of Ridley. Not in a sexual way, but in a friendly way.

Not that Ridley knew that. He had his head so far up his dead wife’s ass that it was comical.

“Hey, big brother,” CeeCee, my sister, acknowledged me with a smile as she sauntered up to me.

She looked cute in her uniform…not that I’d tell her that. She might shoot me in the face accidentally on purpose.

I held up my free hand.

“Hey, C. How’s it going?” I waved.

CeeCee grinned.

“It’s going. Would be going better had I not had to leave my dinner to come out here and deal with my big brother’s shit,” she taunted.

I narrowed my eyes.

But Tasha was the one who got angry.

“I’m not shit. And I’m definitely not Storm Cloud over here’s shit,” Tasha grumbled.

I blinked.

“Why do you keep calling me Storm Cloud?” I turned my head so I could study her eyes.

They were so dark brown that they were nearly black, but if the light or the sun caught her eyes just right, I could see the brown flecks there.

“Because your eyes get all dark and stormy when you get angry. That’s the only way I can ever tell that you’re affected by something I’ve said,” Tasha rambled.

I decided to shut her up before she got me a new nickname.

However, judging from the look on CeeCee and Ridley’s faces, it’d already taken root.

“Let’s go,” I growled, pulling her to my bike.

“I’ve only been on a bike once before,” she said, now waving to the two people at my back that’d saved her bacon tonight. “Is it like riding a bicycle? You don’t forget how, right?”

I shook my head and handed her the only helmet.

“I’ve only got this,” I said, patting the back fender of the bike. “It’ll be uncomfortable, and bumpy; hold on.”

She sighed.

“That’s what she said,” Tasha quipped.

I ignored her, even though I found the line funny.

It wouldn’t do for her to see that she affected me in any way.

I didn’t want to give her any ideas.

“Alright, take me to your leader,” she ordered me.

I liked Tasha.

She was the sister of another brother’s old lady.

I’d thought Annie was hot, but then I’d seen her sister, and all of Annie’s hotness paled in comparison to her hotter sister’s.

Which was a good thing, because I valued my face the way it was.

I couldn’t handle another fucked up thing on my body, and Mig was sure to fuck me up if I looked at his wife with anything more than a glance.

“Yo,” Ridley called as I’d mounted the bike.

I offered Tasha my hand as she mounted behind me, but turned my attention to Ridley.

“What?” I grunted.

He walked over to me and handed me a little clutch purse that I’d seen in Tasha’s lap earlier that evening.

“Man, found this inside,” he slapped me on the shoulder. “Guessing it’s hers? It has nothing but a phone inside.”

I nodded. “It’s hers.”

I started the bike without another word, and roared out of the parking lot with Tasha screaming in my ear.

I’d met Tasha six months ago when her sister had first started dating Mig.

She came with Annie to a club party and, for some reason, had made multiple appearances since.

And each time I saw her, it became harder and harder to resist her.

But I would.

Because I couldn’t have a woman.

Women and I didn’t mix.

I worked too much.

I had a dangerous job that kept me out until the wee hours of the morning, and that was if I even came home at all.

And to top it off, Tasha was too breakable.

She seriously would break under all that was me.

I wasn’t easy on the women in my life, and I knew that Tasha was a woman that deserved gentle.

And gentle just wasn’t within my capabilities.

If she’s honest, caring, makes you breakfast, picks up after you, does your laundry without asking, lets you play Xbox, brings you beer, and lets you touch her ass, marry her. Yesterday.

-Casten’s delusional thoughts

Tasha

Hell
. I was in hell.

There was no other explanation for it.

My head was splitting, and I was fairly certain if I got out of bed right now, I’d be painting my walls with puke.

And, although that was a fun color, I wasn’t looking forward to cleaning up any of the mess.

Vomit was a bitch to get out of the carpet.

Slowly, I opened my eyes and came face to face with my ferret, Shawshank.

“Get off my bed, rat,” I said, poking the ferret.

I’d acquired Shawshank with the apartment.

The previous owners had four of them, and the day they’d moved out of the apartment, one had gone missing.

I’d found him and never gave him back.

Mostly because I didn’t think the previous owners had taken very good care of the ferret. Plus, I was kind of fond of him.

My cat, however, was not.

She hissed when Shawshank started wiggling in excitement because I was awake.

Knowing I couldn’t put it off any longer, I hefted myself up onto one elbow and took stock.

I wasn’t wearing pants.

They were on the end of my bed, folded neatly, like my mom used to do for me before I moved out.

My shoes were against the far wall, lined up perfectly, side by side with military precision.

My clutch purse was on my nightstand.

My phone was plugged into the charger beside my bed.

And I was wearing what amounted to a night shirt.

But it wasn’t something I’d worn in quite a long time.

Which was why I figured that someone had put me in it.

And I had a good idea who that someone was.

Casten.

My face flushed just thinking of him.

His big, strong hands. His dark, sexy looks.

Everything about him was perfection.

And he was an ass.

A big, huge ass, as a matter of fact.

I groaned as I finally swung my legs over the side of the bed.

My head swam, and I forced myself to get up.

I had volleyball practice in an hour.

I shuffled like a mummy to the bathroom, completely ignoring my cat, Donkey Kong, Kong for short.

He was an asshole, too.

His morning routine had been interrupted, and he didn’t like waiting an extra hour for his breakfast.

He also didn’t like sharing it with Shawshank.

I filled his bowl up, then put a small handful of cat food onto the floor for Shawshank before getting into the shower.

I took a cold one, hoping beyond hope that it’d help wake me up and lessen the pressure that was currently pressing on my brain.

A loud thump on the bathtub had me sighing and opening the glass shower door.

Kong put both front feet up on the lip of the tub, then jumped inside. I closed the door with a soft click as the two pieces of glass once again fit back into place.

He licked the cold water off my legs as I finished rinsing the soap suds from my body.

“You’ve got a weird cat,” a man’s voice said from the other side of the fogged glass.

I screamed.

Not a cute, little, oops-you-startled-me scream, either.

It was a bloody murder, at the top of my lungs, like a banshee, kind of scream.

The one my sister hated.

The one that made my father drop everything and come running when he heard it.

“Jesus,” Casten growled. “What the fuck are you screaming for?”

I closed my eyes and tried to get my heart rate back to normal.

“Oh, my God,” I cried. “What in the world are you doing in my bathroom…while I’m taking a shower,
Casten
?”

Soap suds burned my eyes, and I quickly shoved my head underneath the water and closed my eyes, letting what remained of my shampoo slosh off my body.