Vince wasn’t waiting for the valet to bring the truck around. He grabbed the keys from the pimply-faced teen who’d parked it and hoofed it toward the lot.
Two more seconds without Charlie’s intervention and he would’ve plowed his fist through that college kid’s face, and it wasn’t about playing the fucking hero. Not really. She handled punks like him on a daily basis. Hell, she could bring down a man double her size without breaking a sweat.
But Vince had watched her get on top of that bar and his mind had gone blank—a complete white sheet. And then she’d moved, and the sway of her hips had breathed new life into a goddamned techno-song…not to mention his dick. That’s what pissed him off the most.
He had no damn business getting hard over his partner. Over Charlie. He wasn’t in the position—or condition—to start anything with anyone. Not when he couldn’t sleep through the fucking night without waking up in a damn swimming pool. And even if that shit stopped, it couldn’t be English. She tested his control while awake nearly as much as his nightmares did when he slept.
“Dammit, Navy,” Charlie cursed from behind. Her heels clacked on the pavement as she followed him at a fast clip. “What the hell was that?”
Him fucking up.
“Nothing.” Vince saw the truck in the far back corner of the lot and lengthened his stride.
“It didn’t look like nothing to me. I had it handled.”
“Having some drunk bastard kid groping your ass is you handling it?”
“Your caveman vision must be seriously blurred because I had the smarmy bastard’s face eating the wood counter. I was handling it just fine,” Charlie shot back.
He snorted, knowing he was acting like a prick but not giving a damn. Pissing her off seemed to be his fail-safe tactic. If she was yelling at him, he spent less time thinking about the other things he wanted to do with her mouth.
When they reached the driver’s side door of the pickup, Charlie’s hand latched onto his arm. Even in the dark lot, her eyes swam with countless emotions—so many it was impossible to decipher them all. Except anger. That Vince saw right away.
“Is this how it’s going to be the entire time we’re here?” she demanded crossly.
“Hot and muggy?” he joked humorlessly. “Probably.”
“You jumping into the thick of things like I’m not a grown-arse woman and then pouting when I call you out on it? Because that kind of backward thinking isn’t going to work for me.”
“I know you’re a grown-ass woman. And I know you can handle yourself,” Vince all but growled.
“Do you? Because your little show back at the club says otherwise. If you can’t find it in your thick skull to trust that I know what I’m doing, then we may as well call Stone right the hell now and get Logan down here. I am not risking those women’s lives because you can’t get your misogyny gene under control.”
“You’re not fucking replacing me.” Vince crowded her, pushing her back against the truck. An internal warning system blared to life in his head, and he ignored it, stepping close enough so her breasts became crushed against his chest.
“Then start thinking with your head, not your testosterone pouch!”
Vince knew she meant caveman thinking, not sporting erections, but the words could have a double meaning. And both versions meant trouble for him.
His gaze dropped to her mouth, and her pink tongue flickered out, wetting her bottom lip. He wanted to nibble that plump lip until it throbbed in the most delicious way imaginable despite the fact that he shouldn’t, for a million fucking reasons. But hell if he could summon up any of them at the moment.
Vince slid his hand through the back of Charlie’s hair, moving slowly so she could stop him at any time. When she didn’t, he held his mouth inches above hers. “That’s the fucking problem, English. Around you, sometimes I can’t fucking concentrate at all.”
“And that’s my fault?” she demanded to know.
“Yes.” Vince brought his lips to hers, and on contact, pierced his tongue into her mouth. His mind shut off everything except one thing:
Charlie.
She gripped the back of his head and returned the kiss with her typical fierceness. Their tongues melded. Their hands roamed over muscles and under clothes. Despite her being three-quarters undressed already, Vince wanted to see—and touch—more.
A sharp nip to his lower lip pulled a groan from his throat. Fuck. This wasn’t the time or place for this, and it looked like fate agreed because, off to the left, gravel crunched beneath the soles of someone’s shoe.
Charlie pulled back, lips swollen and breathing heavily. Her gaze shifted subtly around their perimeter. She’d heard it too.
A steady gait usually meant innocent intentions. These steps were calculated and inconsistent…like someone trying to be discreet.
Charlie’s eyes locked on his, and damned if her throat didn’t convulse. But Charlie? Nervous? That shit didn’t happen.
“You know I hate it when we fight, baby.” Vince started the performance for their shadow-lurking audience. He slipped a pink lock of hair behind her ear and followed it with his mouth. Skating his lips over her cheek, he murmured, “You with me?”
“Mm. I’m with you, love.” Charlie tilted her head, giving him more room to feast.
She shivered in his arms, and he couldn’t help but wonder if it was real or manufactured. There wasn’t time to wonder long. Her palm danced up his chest, fingers catching on his left nipple piercing.
Her voice purred. “Maybe you can make it up to me. Three grovels should do it—and maybe a Dwayne Johnson movie spree.”
Three grovels. Vince nearly chuckled at her way of telling him they had three Dwayne Johnson visitors—or men they shouldn’t take lightly. Under normal circumstances, it would be child’s play. But normal meant he had his gun…which he didn’t.
Vince reached for the truck’s door. “Let’s hole ourselves in our room for the rest of the night, and I’ll start the groveling process.”
“Afraid that’s not going to happen,” came the unfamiliar voice.
Charlie startled, playing along to the game that they’d been taken by surprise. Vince turned and got a good look at their voyeurs. In jeans and dark hoodies, they didn’t exactly dress like pillars of the crime community. But they were spread out, strategically creating a semicircle that locked them against the side of the truck.
Trained thugs, or instructed by someone with at least half a brain.
Vince lasered his gaze on the leader—the one who’d spoken. “You care to tell my why?”
“Someone wants to talk to your girl.”
Charlie sidestepped from between Vince and the truck. “Woman. I graduated from training bras a while ago. And I’m not a particularly chatty person, so I’m afraid your someone is going to be disappointed.”
“Look,” Vince added, “we don’t want any trouble.”
“There’s only going to be trouble if you make it, my friend.” The head thug took a step closer, the move making his buddies stand up straighter. At Vince’s side, Charlie’s weight shifted as she prepped for action.
“Do not bloody touch me.” Charlie’s voice snapped Vince’s gaze left.
Thug Two had slunk closer, brave enough to make a grab for her elbow. Charlie easily skirted around the hold—and that’s when trouble started.
A shadow rushed forward. Vince blocked an incoming fist, retaliating with an uppercut to the jaw that made his opponent stumble. Charlie’s soft curse momentarily stole Vince’s concentration. She was efficiently dealing with her own attacker when her brown eyes shot over his shoulder. “Your three o’clock!”
Vince whipped right just as a kick came flying toward his head. Fucking-A. He was done holding back. Punch, kick, and toss, he hurled the incoming assailant headfirst into the truck’s door, cursing at the dent it left behind before turning back toward the leader.
In his peripheral vision, Vince witnessed Charlie’s perfect roundhouse smack Hoody Three off his feet.
“Stop playing around with the bastard and get in the truck,” Vince barked.
“Little busy, Navy.” One high-heeled kick to her thug’s knee, and the man howled, staying down.
“Charlie! Enough!” came an unfamiliar bellow.
Both Vince and Charlie stopped their attack—and so did the three sniveling men lying at their feet. A fourth figure stepped out of the shadows. Though tall, his lanky form didn’t have anything on the muscled thugs they’d put on the ground.
Charlie’s eyes narrowed in on the new arrival, studying him a few seconds before her mouth went slightly slack. “Eric?”
Shaggy blonde hair, mismatched baggy clothes. The new arrival couldn’t have been older than mid-twenties. “It’s good to see you, Char.”
She glanced at the men now climbing to their feet. “Are these friends of yours?”
“They’re more like pups in training.”
“They have a really sucky trainer.”
Eric, with his hands shoved deep into his jeans, fidgeted. “He wants a word with you.”
“I’m sure he does,” Charlie quipped dryly. “Give me a good reason why I should care.”
“I know things didn’t end well between the two of you—”
“You think?” She waited a beat, glancing Vince’s way before turning back to the kid. “Fine. We’ll go. But I don’t need an escort.”
Eric shifted his feet, his gaze bouncing between the two of them. “I—I don’t think the invite was for the both of you.”
“Then she’s not fucking going anywhere,” Vince growled.
Charlie placed her hand on his arm. The touch instantly soothed his still-rising adrenaline. “I’m not going anywhere without my fiancé. If he doesn’t go, I don’t.”
“Jesus Christ, Char. Are you trying to get my ass beat? You know he hates fucking surprises.”
“Too bloody bad. What’s it going to be?”
At Eric’s reluctant okay, Charlie pulled the truck keys from Vince’s pocket. She was already sliding behind the wheel, making him hustle to the other side. His ass barely hit the seat when she peeled out of the parking spot.
“Do you want to tell me what the fuck that was all about?” Vince demanded. “Or who the fuck Eric is? Fuck, skip all of that and tell me who the hell we’re going to surprise. Arturo?”
“Torres,” Charlie stated simply. Her knuckles turned white as she gripped the steering wheel tighter.
“Torres, as in Brock Torres, the deep-cover agent? Arturo’s new bosom buddy?”
“Eric used to follow Brock around when I lived in Miami. He was a bit of a computer nerd—too smart for his own good.”
“Sounds like someone else I know,” Vince muttered.
“Apparently he’s still walking in Brock’s shadow.”
“Then he can’t be too smart, can he?” Vince opened the glove box and pulled out his Sig.
Charlie eyed him from the driver’s side. “You can’t take that.”
“The hell I can’t. We’re about to confront a suspected grade-A asshole. No way I’m not going in hot.” He made sure it was loaded and stuffed it into the back of his jeans.
“And what’s your reasoning for having a gun shoved in your pants? You’re a bar owner and I’m your bartender fiancée—not exactly occupations that require an armory attached to our bodies.”
“Tell me Brock Torres is tame as a fucking pussycat and I’ll maybe consider leaving it behind?” He waited for the reply he knew wouldn’t come. “No? Then if you can have a knife strapped to your inner thigh, I can have my goddamned gun.”
She opened her mouth, no doubt to say something snarky, but closed it again and focused on the road. That Eric kid’s words rang in his head…“I know things didn’t end well between the two of you…”
Charlie hadn’t shared the specifics of her past with the undercover agent. She wasn’t one for sharing—period. Vince couldn’t help wondering if maybe there was a bit more to their relationship than what was in those DHS intelligence files.
It didn’t matter that she’d been sixteen when she’d left. Sick as it was, assholes in authority roles took advantage of kids all the damn time, and if Brock Torres really was the type of guy to go against his agency, he wasn’t exactly busting at the seams with morality.
Vince would keep his gun in his pants—for now. But one wrong look and all bets were off.
* * *
Charlie steered the truck through the Miami streets, almost on autopilot. Day one of her first formal mission and she’d not only forced herself into a club, but made out with her partner, got jumped in the parking lot, and was now topping off the night by confronting her least favorite lying arse.
Life couldn’t sink any lower in the hole. Strike that—sure it could—because she’d yet to lay eyes on Uncle Dearest.
Nestled between the docks and the industrial district, Brock’s tattoo shop definitely wasn’t located in a place where anyone with a strong attachment to their wallet would take a casual stroll. But even twelve years ago, most people in the area had left him alone. Being a scary-ass former Special Ops soldier and the son of Franconi’s second-in-command gave him the title Man Not to Fuck With—to everyone except Charlie.
To Charlie, he’d been a friend. An older brother. Someone who cared about her, not because of what she could do or who she was related to, but because she was Charlotte Ann Hughes. That’s what she’d believed right up until Stone had burst her well-maintained bubble back at headquarters.
Charlie pulled the rental in front of Inked Up and cut the engine. There wasn’t any point to being stealthy. Despite her threatening to end him, she knew Eric would’ve alerted Brock she was on her way—and pissed. But she didn’t expect to strut right through the front door.
Vince trailed her, hot on her heels. “You have a plan here?”
“Not shooting someone in their bloody arse,” Charlie murmured.
She flung open the front door, a harsh jingle announcing their arrival. Behind the counter, a young tattooed girl paused in her flirting with the heavily pierced man in front of her and looked up. As Charlie headed toward the door leading to the back rooms, she jumped off her little stool. “Hey, you can’t go in there!”
“Watch me.”
Arms folded across his chest, the girl’s friend puffed up like a peacock and stepped into her path. “You heard her. No one’s allowed back there unless you’re a customer or an artist.”
Charlie barely resisted sticking her fingers through his bull-ring nose piercing and flinging him to the side. “Step aside. Seriously. I am not in the mood.”
“Step aside or what? You think your scrappy self is going to do any damage to me? Honey, I take dumps bigger than you.”
“You may want to listen to the woman,” Vince’s gruff warning came from behind.
Charlie kept her gaze locked on Metal Face and took a step closer. “I did you a favor by asking you to step out of my way. But now I’m telling you—if you want to keep that ridiculous thing attached to your face, you’ll move. Now.”
He must’ve seen the truth in her eyes. He lifted his hands in mock surrender and took a step to the left. “Bloodthirsty little wench, aren’t you?”
“You’ve got no fucking idea,” Vince muttered beneath his breath.
Charlie burst through the back doors and stalked into the depths of Inked Up. She already knew where Brock would be…the far back room, where he saw his special clients.
Behind the closed the door, the faint whir of a needle told her he was definitely in there, and he wasn’t alone. Charlie didn’t give a damn, flinging the door open and making the woman—who was naked from the waist down and sprawled on the chair—jump.
“What the hell?” Blondie’s eyes narrowed, but she didn’t make any dash to cover her bare goods. “Get the fuck out of here!”
“I’m not going anywhere, love.” Charlie remained planted in her spot. “But you’re going to have to put your panties back on and finish up another day.”
“Like hell.” She turned to the man hunched between her legs. “Brock!”
Charlie allowed herself to finally look up. Just as she’d feared, twelve years melted away. Instead of being a newbie Alpha operative, able to incapacitate men twice her size, she stood, frozen, and mentally forced her heart down her throat as Inked Up began melting away…