“I don’t think so, babe.” My hand cupped her thigh as she lifted herself up to kickstart the engine. “My ride. I drive.”
She rolled her eyes and straightened her leather jacket. “You want me to go to dinner at some stranger’s house then you get on and hang on.”
“Since you make it sound so appealing,” I told her with a laugh and pulled the extra helmet from the storage kit, snapping it under my chin like a teenager. When I stepped over the bike and put my hands on Vivi, holding her slender waist as the bike vibrated underneath us, I wondered why in the hell I ever resisted in the first place. She shivered when my thumb scraped across that strip of skin at her midriff and I smiled. I got hard just thinking about bringing a tough chick like Vivi to her knees.
She was a seasoned rider, I could tell by the way she rode effortlessly. Vivi didn’t get spooked when she was cut off or by chronic brakers. She leaned easily into the turns, speeding up and weaving through Sunday drivers without hesitation. She pulled into the driveway beside Lasso and pulled off the helmet.
“You’ll pay for that later,” she snarled at me.
“I’m counting on it, tough girl.” She glared at me and then she growled, and my cock grew hard behind my zipper.
She rolled her eyes again, her default when she was uncomfortable I was starting to learn. “I don’t really feel like hanging out with your friends, Jag.”
“They’re not just my friends. They’re my family. Even if you don’t give a damn about them, you have to eat.” I knew she’d argue because like I said, Vivi didn’t do anything easy. So I cut her off before she could form an argument, pulling her close and taking her mouth like I wanted to since I spotted her behind the camera. Her lips were soft and tasted like cherries, deepening my need to devour her sweet mouth. When she succumbed to me I wished we were anywhere else so I could lay her out and make her come until she was totally undone.
Her hands fisted at my waistband and I knew one of us had to pull back and it had to be me. “You seem like a nice guy,” she panted with a wild-eyed smile, “but you fight dirty.” With a shake of her head, Vivi pushed at my chest again and followed Lasso inside.
***
I woke up with a heavy blue silk curtain covering my face. Moonlight sliced through the window, highlighting her pale skin and the stark contrasts between us. My hand on her thigh was near black and I couldn’t look away from the beauty of it. I turned, ready to wake her up and take her again because apparently, I couldn’t get enough of sexy, foul-mouthed Vivi. And then my phone vibrated on the nightstand.
I reached out blindly for the phone and groaned at the name. Slauson. It was a call I’d been waiting for and not even Vivi could distract me. I stepped into my boxers and took my phone into the living room. “Slauson, what the fuck?”
“I need your help,” she said, sounding more worried than I’d ever heard Slauson sound. “I have an asset in trouble and she’s been out of contact for more than forty-eight hours. Well, probably longer but things are kind of fucked up here right now.”
Immediately I was on edge. The hairs on my body stood up, electrified like some magnet vortex had been created in my living room.
“Give me a name.”
I had a feeling I knew the name. That the asset she was missing was asleep in my bed even though I had nothing more than a hunch. A gut reaction. “I can’t help them if I don’t know who they are, Slauson.”
“I know,” she sighed. Her voice trembled, and I could hear just how distraught she was. “This is all just so fucked. I don’t know how…” She let out another long breath.
“Just tell me.” I tried to keep a leash on my temper because I recognized that if Slauson was worried, we should all be worried.
There was a long pause that tested the fuck out of my temper but finally she spoke. “There’s a leak and I haven’t figured out who yet. Her name is Genie. Find Genie and I’ll be in touch.”
“How in the hell am I supposed find someone based on that?” The line was silent but there was still sound. “Slauson? Goddammit, Slauson!” The timer on the call continued to climb but there was no sound. No struggle, no gunshot, nothing. Just pure fucking quiet. “Slauson!”
“Why are you talking to Bob?” Vivi’s voice was icy cold and filled with accusation.
I turned with a scowl. “Who the fuck is Bob?”
“Bob Slauson, the person you were just swearing at into the phone. The same person I’ve been trying to reach for days who, conveniently, has been out of touch. And now she’s calling you in the middle of the night. Why?”
This conversation had the potential to go sideways quick and I didn’t have the energy for this shit. But one of us needed to be calm and Vivi was all fired up.
I shrugged. “I still do contract work for the government.” Her eyes widened and she stepped back. “Dammit, Vivi not that kind of contract work. Logistics and finding people. Basic cyber security shit.” It was the honest truth but the way she stepped back, wide gray eyes nearly silver said she didn’t like my answer.
“You should have said something,” she accused again, pulling my t-shirt over her head as she walked back into the bedroom. I wasn’t foolish enough to think Vivi getting naked meant I was about to get my dick wet, and that thought was confirmed when she began to search my dark bedroom for her clothes.
“They’re out in the living room,” I told her and stepped back so she could get them, and she did, but not before grabbing her phone and purse. “What’s the big damn deal?”
“The big damn deal,” she said as she shoved her legs into her jeans, “is that you want me to trust you, yet you keep lying to me. For all I know, Bob just told you to put two bullets in my head.”
I clamped my jaws together and clenched my fists at her words. I would never put my hands on a woman but dammit she pissed me off.
“You’re not fucking funny.”