The counter tops were cheap off-white Formica, the appliances at least a couple decades old, and the linoleum floor was pulling up in the corners.
The carpet that ran the rest of the space was gray and industrial, the kind of tight pile you'd see more in a restaurant than in an apartment. But it had held up pretty well. With a wash, it would probably look damn near new.
It went without saying that no one had bothered to paint the off-white walls, let alone hang any decorations.
I was hoping as I made my way down the hall that the bedroom at least had a bed, because I was just getting old enough to know my back would be fucking aching if I slept on that couch.
I stepped into the room, finding it just big enough for the full-sized bed that had a set of sheets on it and a comforter in brown folded at the foot. There was one nightstand with an alarm clock that might have pre-dated me.
I was just about to put my backpack down when I felt it.
Something charged in the air.
Something that couldn't exactly be explained, other than to say it wasn't quite right.
The hairs on my arms raised as I reached for the gun in my ankle holster, half moving myself in the doorway, aiming toward the bathroom across the hall.
Just as I did, the door pushed open.
"I'm not going to lie, that is actually kind of a turn-on," Gus declared, sending me a sultry smile as her gaze moved from my gun back to my face.
"The fuck are you doing here?" I asked, putting my gun down, feeling the adrenaline surge through my system, knowing it would be there, preventing me from sleeping, for a while.
"Um... housekeeping?" she tried, even though she was standing there in a tank top, purple panties, and not a fucking thing else.
It was taking superhuman control not to let my eyes go past her collarbones after my initial glance. "I, um, got bleach all over my pants. So, you know, I had to take them off," she said, even though I could see them neatly folded on the counter behind her. Her bra sitting on top.
Fuck.
I really needed not to have visions of her nipples poking through the thin material of her tank top right then.
Or ever.
Sisters were fucking off-limits
Case closed.
Even if they were the ones pursuing you.
Hell, even if their brothers didn't exactly object.
There were some lines you didn't cross. No matter how tempting things were on the other side of it.
And Gus? Yeah, she was tempting for sure.
Beautiful. Confident. Unpredictable. A little crazy. Alright, maybe more than a little crazy.
But what can I say, I'd never been drawn to normal and simple.
"You need to leave," I demanded, but even I could hear the half-heartedness in my voice.
"You going to make me?" she asked, her head tipping toward her shoulder, a coy look on a woman who would never be accused of being such a thing.
"One call would have your brother up here doing it for me."
"Who'd have thought an outlaw biker would be such a spoilsport," she shot back, trying to get a rise out of me.
"There's a code, sweetheart. You don't touch a brother's sister. You don't even fucking look."
"He's not a brother to you."
"Yet."
"Exactly," she said, giving me a smile. "So, we have some time to test out a few surfaces of this apartment. And your bike. Before things become official."
"My bike, huh?" I asked.
"Oh, come on. You've done it on the bike, right?"
"It's not easy to fuck on a bike, babe."
"You just haven't tried hard enough. Me, on the seat, holding the handlebars, ass cocked up, inviting. It would be hot."
She was putting those images into my head, and she knew it.
I should have tried to get the attention of one of the girls Teddy eventually brought back to his room. Maybe Gus would have hightailed it out of there if she knew I had company.
Even as I was thinking it, I had a feeling it wasn't likely. She didn't seem the type to back down from a challenge.
"You got a town full of men here, sweetheart. What do you want me for?" I asked, itching for a cigarette. I'd been trying to quit. Lungs and longevity and all that boring-ass adult shit.
"You're new and shiny," she told me, leaning back against the bathroom doorway. "I want to dirty you up a bit."
"You live in a tourist area. Half the guys are new and shiny to you. Go dirty them up."
"You're stubborn," she mused, smiling.
"Yet I have a feeling you aren't going to give in."
"Oh, baby, I really hate to lose."
"You'll have to learn to live with your disappointment," I told her, turning to drop my backpack on the bed, rummaging around for the pack of cigarettes I'd bought when I'd been pissed off about the ride and everything hurting from it.