Chapter Eleven

Jag

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I’d spotted Vivi across the street from GET INK’D at the end of my afternoon shift and she was taking pictures. Lasso and I swung wide to cross the street without her noticing.

Vivi gasped and whirled on me, fingers pushed the brass knuckles with the knife aimed in my direction. “Goddammit Jeremiah, don’t sneak up on me!”

Lasso stepped forward and I waved him off, grabbing her wrist so the blade was pointed at the ground. “You have an unhealthy affinity for that knife, babe.”

“It’s not unhealthy. This knife has never failed me. Ever.” Her expression was cool and serious. I wondered what had happened to her when I dropped off the face of the planet. “And it helps when people think it’s a good idea to sneak up on others.”

She was right about that, especially a woman as conspicuous as she was. “What did that redneck wagon do to piss you off?”

Once I crossed the street it was easy to tell, if I looked close enough, that for her attempts to look like a casual photographer, she was definitely focused on the red pickup.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She tucked the knife into her back pocket and crossed her arms, scanning the landscape but her eyes never strayed too long from the red truck.

“Come on, sweetheart. You’re good but you’re not that good,” Lasso told her. “You’re clocking that truck. Wanna tell us why?”

She turned gray eyes on Lasso. “No. Now if you don’t mind…fuck!” She turned, and her shoulders fell as the red truck pulled into traffic and turned at the first visible light. “Thanks boys, you’ve been a big fucking help.” Vivi slapped the cap on the lens of the expensive camera that hung from her neck and shoulder checked me as she passed and ran into Lasso.

“Whoa there, sweetheart. Shit…I said whoa, goddammit!” Lasso’s blue eyes went wide when Vivi tried to punch him. “I’m just trying to steady you woman. Damn!”

“That’s my friend and fellow Reckless Bastard, Lasso.”

She rolled her eyes and took a step away from Lasso and then another. “Do any of you have normal names?”

“Says the chick named Vivi,” Lasso snickered.

“Short for Genevieve. Is yours short for Lasso’s A Lotta Pussy?” I never would have believed there was anything on God’s green earth that would make Lasso blush. Until now.

A laugh burst out of me and for a minute I couldn’t control myself. “That’s pretty close, actually.” Lasso glared at me but Vivi, she just looked…uninterested, but I knew that wasn’t it, which meant she was biding her time.

“You saw more than what you let on,” I accused.

“No. I saw a big flashy ass red truck and I used the brains in my head to make a few deductions. The only reason to use an obnoxious vehicle like that to do surveillance is because it’s yours, which pegged him as a local.”

She gave me a look that said I should have figured all that out on my own and she wasn’t wrong.

“And now I’ve wasted a day with no fucking answers so I’m going to get some food.” Her legs were on the move again but I kept up with her.

“Sounds good. Where are we going?”

“We aren’t going anywhere. I prefer to eat alone.”

I smiled at her petulance. “I prefer to eat with company, especially when I can’t eat the company. Yet.” She skipped a step but I didn’t call her on it.

“I didn’t need to hear that,” Lasso said, sounding disgruntled. “Unless you want to give me more details.”

“He doesn’t,” Vivi shot at Lasso, glaring over her shoulder.

“It was worth an ask.” Without looking I could hear the smile in Lasso’s voice. “Anyway Rocky is making enchiladas tonight. They’re my favorite.”

“Sounds good to me.” I grabbed Vivi’s hand and tugged her in the direction of my bike. “Come on. We’ll meet you there, man.”

Vivi of course never did anything easily and yanked out of my grasp. “You boys have fun.” She turned but I had her wrist before she moved two steps. “Get your hands off me.”

“No. Settle the fuck down. I’ll help you ID the driver of the red truck. Right now, though, I really fucking want some of those enchiladas.”

Those gray eyes looked so deep into me that I was pretty sure they saw straight through me, down to the parts of me I hid from everyone. Even myself.

“You are completely ridiculous, I hope you know that,” she said and pushed me away, but instead of walking away she went and grabbed my helmet off my bike and slid it on, taking the driver’s position. “Hop on.”

“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.”

“I’m not trying to be! But I think I’m going to sleep in my camper tonight.”

“Take the spare room.”

She glared at me. “No thanks.” Vivi yanked her shirt over her head and tucked her shoes under her arm before storming out. Even though she was mad as hell at me, all I could think about was how beautiful she looked when she got all pissy.

I could see Vivi’s point and how this all looked, but it was nothing like that and tomorrow over breakfast I would make her see that. I couldn’t sleep for shit, wondering how in the hell I went from being wrapped around a gorgeous woman to alone in the same bed in the span of an hour.

She’d been so damn snarky lately, but there were these moments when I got a glimpse of the girl she used to be. A certain word said with a smile and I could remember a thousand conversations when I’d heard that smile. I hated to think what events had conspired to make her so mistrustful and jumpy, but every day I spent with her made me wonder. Eventually, I fell asleep with the scent of Vivi all around me. I’d clear up the misunderstanding in the morning.

After I’d slept for a few hours, I made a pot of coffee and went to the camper to apologize but it was locked. Even the windows and the top emergency hatch were locked up tight and through the slivers between the blinds I saw no signs of life.

Vivi was gone.