Rory (Coded for Love 1)

“Sorry lady,” Rory said, “he has no manners.”

Jackson glared at him. Rory smiled.

“Hand over the kit.” Jackson stared down at the bag in Rory’s hand.

“Our business is over.”

“I had the gym watched. I know you collected your kit from the locker.”

Rory shrugged. “Think what you like. I haven’t got it.”

As soon as the train hit the next station, Rory slung Sky’s bag over his shoulder and moved toward the door, falling into step with several other commuters leaving the train. Jackson and Dino followed. He smiled as he hopped out onto the platform, safe in the knowledge the bag wasn’t the one they wanted.

Jackson glanced around as the crowd disappeared up the escalators.

A few people waited for the next train further down the platform.

Rory leaned up against a pillar and gestured with the backpack. “If you don’t believe me, check my bag.”

There was a perverse pleasure in handing over the bag and waiting for them to look like a bunch of idiots, but he had to wonder how it would turn it out. What the hell did she have in her bag that she didn’t mind handing it over?

Jackson snatched the bag off Rory, undid the zipper and poked about inside.

Rory noticed an Anarchy pin on the side of the bag and smiled to himself. The contents might not be so amusing though. His mind threw out images of girly stuff like make up and memorabilia, or worse still tiaras and tampons. Sky wasn’t the tiara toting type—or at least she hadn’t been, although she had changed—but the tampons were a distinct possibility. A photo of a boyfriend would make them pause. The thought threw him. He realized he didn’t want her to have a boyfriend. She probably did have though. She was hot. Why wouldn’t she have guys all over her? There’d been a flirty look about her, took him right back to the old days when he’d nearly fucked his youngest stepsister.

He’d left all that behind.

Why had she turned up right then, he wondered, and why did it make him hard for her so quickly? They’d been jammed together in the tube train, that’s why. Whatever, it was worth it to keep his hacker kit out of their hands. He should have destroyed it months ago, as soon as he decided to go straight. It’d been collecting dust in a locker at the gym he used. Jackson must have paid the receptionist to feed info back. Jackson guessed where Rory had stashed his stuff months back, and what he wanted was the locker code. Rory wouldn’t put it past him to ramraid the gym and take all the bloody lockers.

“What the fuck?” Jackson plucked a notebook out of the bag and flicked through it. It was plain enough on the outside but from the looks of it the pages were covered in drawings, doodles or suchlike. Rory didn’t want to crane his neck and look clueless.

Jackson shot him a suspicious glance. Grabbing out what looked like a lipstick he gestured at Rory with it. “This isn’t your stuff.”

Rory took the item from his hand, removed the lid and wound it up. He brought it to his lips and made a pout.

“Tosser.” Jackson gestured at him.

It was good to see Jackson fazed. Rory was about to put the lipstick in his pocket when the smell of it hit him. It was strawberry scented. Hell, that took him back. Sky always wore this stuff and it reminded him of stolen kisses and what it felt like to hold her in his arms, his cock hard and warning bells going off his head. He stared down at the lipstick, remembering.

“Weirdo.” Dino, Jackson’s sidekick, stated.

Rory shrugged it off.

Jackson pointed, stabbing the air with one finger. “I’ll be watching, waiting. I’ll get your precious kit.”

“Not if I destroy it first.”

Jackson scoffed a laugh. “You wouldn’t dare. Too valuable.”

Rory shook his head. It’s exactly what he intended to do. “Consider this, even if you did get hold of it you wouldn’t know what to do with it.”

Jackson glared at him, as did Dino. They couldn’t deny it though. One without the other was nigh on useless. Two years earlier he’d wanted Rory and his hacker kit. At the time Rory, Sean and Draco had needed funds. When they hit London they’d had little more than their motorbikes and their hacker skills. Now Rory had a good job and somewhere to live. He wanted to go straight, but Jackson didn’t want to let him go.

“I know people who could figure it out,” Jackson said.

Rory

didn’t doubt it. Jackson had a big mouth. It meant he was no longer the only interested party. Along the platform, a community police officer was chatting with tourists. Both of them noticed his proximity at the same time.