“A couple of nights ago, you were trying to slit my jugular with a disposable BIC….”
“Yeah. Well...you were an asshole. Less so now.” Her chest brushes against my arm when she presses up on tiptoes to place the paper on my jaw. The material of her shirt is thin enough I can’t ignore her nipples, and my dick reacts, swelling beneath the towel.
I latch onto her wrist to stop her from doctoring my face, and a small line sinks between her brows. “I can handle a little blood,” I say.
“Sorry. Of course. Instinct.” She still hasn’t made an effort to pull away, and the longer we stare at each other, the more I think about grabbing her by the waist, bending her over the vanity, and sinking my dick into her. A twisted form of sexual electricity charges the air between us, growing just like my dick.
“I should go….” Her gaze drops to the floor, and there’s no way she could have missed the bulge under my towel.
As messed up as this is, part of me wants to tell her to look at what she does to me then tell her to get on her knees and fix it. She slips out of my hold, cheeks fuck-me-red as she skirts out of the bathroom.
If this were any other situation, I would go into the bedroom, grab her by the hair, and fuck her within an inch of her life. But Tor is not someone I picked up at a bar. No matter what happens, she’ll always be the girl that was brought to me bound and gagged. While nothing will change that, I’m finding it harder and harder to ignore the way she looks, the way my body reacts to her touch. Two days ago, she was almost raped and murdered, then slit her own throat, and I’m thinking about fucking her. And that’s messed up.
I push the thought out of my head as I pull on my slacks and dress shirt.
Tor’s gaze lifts from the floor when I step into the bedroom. Her teeth subtly rake her bottom lip. Fuck me—I like that look. A lot.
“Whose funeral are you going to?” she asks.
“I’m not going to a funeral.” I take my watch from the dresser and fix it around my wrist.
“You don’t strike me as a suit kind of guy. You know, all the blood and the dry cleaning…”
I’m not usually the type to do the hard labor, plus I like to keep my loose ends neat and tidy with very little to come back on me. “I only get my hands dirty when it’s personal, doll.”
And what does that say when the only thing I could think about last night was killing Bob with my bare hands...
_____
I have never met Domingo Garcia in person before, but I can still pinpoint him the second I walk into The Longbranch. He sits at the bar, gaze trained at the TV as he swipes a hand over his slicked-back black hair. The open white dress shirt he’s wearing showcases a tangle of gold necklaces and the dead giveaway that he’s in the cartel, his shiny alligator shoes perched on the rung of the barstool. The cartel doesn’t make a habit of being inconspicuous.
I cuss my friend Gabe under my breath as I approach the bar, pissed as hell. Knowing Gabe, he drank too much and popped off at the mouth, jerking his shit while he told Garcia he had a better cleaner. And now here I am, having a meeting with the fucker. When Gabe gets out of prison, I’m going to kill him.
When I pull out the stool beside Garcia, the two men in suits to the side of the room fold in behind him. Like some orchestrated move, they sweep their jackets to the side to make sure I can see the guns tucked into their pants. I almost roll my eyes; it’s so cliché.
“Bookie,” Garcia says, lifting his drinks to his lips.
One thing I don’t do is play the game most of these guys do. I don’t have the patience. “Let’s skip the shit. What do you want, Garcia?”
That gets his attention. He turns to face me, a slow smile revealing a gold front tooth that gleams under the bar lights. “I want money. You want money. It’s simple, yes?”
Fuck you, Gabe. I pull a cigarette from my pocket and light it. This is about to be some real bad shit. “Everyone wants money….”
“Good. It’s settled. You will clean mine, Bookie.”
I do not want any more ties to the motherfucking cartel, but no is not an answer a smart man gives. “I take fifty percent.” It’s a lie. I clean Gabe’s shit for twenty-five, but I do not want to do this. God, I do not want to do this.