Sierra

 

After I heard Gunner’s motorcycle pull off, my first order of business was to disobey him. I went straight to his office despite that he had told me to stay out. I wasn’t looking for information on where I could find the Sun Stone, though. I was looking for information on Gunner Kaye. I wanted to know more about the man I was staying with. Unless I found something heinous, I was going to agree to stay as long as he would keep me. Or as long as it took to find the Sun Stone and swipe it before disappearing.

 

Unfortunately, I knew that Sierra Farrow was going to have to disappear for good after this job. I was going to have to adopt a permanent alias since I was stupid enough to give him my real name. It wasn’t like I hadn’t already been a hundred different people at different times in my life. I was just going to have to add one more to the list. No big deal.

 

I walked the bookshelves in his office, looking at the pictures he had framed on his walls. There were all sorts of pictures of him with different people. There were a lot of pictures of him with different politicians, creating an indisputable record of their dealings, probably both for showing off and just in case someone wanted to throw him under the bus after a deal gone bad. It was a brilliant CYA tool, and it seemed so innocent to the casual eye.

 

I wasn’t interested so much in his business dealings. I wanted something personal. I wanted to understand his inner workings. I found a picture of him when he was younger with four other guys.

 

“This is more like it, Gunner. You’ll have to tell me who these guys are one day,” I said to his young face as I picked the frame up from its spot on the shelf.

 

He was so much younger then! He had been thinner, too. It was obviously before he had started working out. I recognized the guys standing around him, too. They had all been at the Eden when I walked in, but I hadn’t noticed that they were actually with him. They had all sort of stayed apart. They had been doing their own thing, I supposed.

 

But there they were, five young men standing behind their motorcycles with their MC vests on. They were in front of an old run-down garage. That must have been where their clubhouse was.

 

“There’s no way it’s still, is it, Gunner?” I asked the younger Gunner in the picture, but he wasn’t saying anything. I realized that I held in my hand a piece of his history and a clue as to the whereabouts of the diamond. There was no way he was hiding the diamond in that dump, though, I told myself.

 

I put the picture back and continued to look around the room. I didn’t find any truly personal photos. The photos of the guys in the MC were about as personal as it got, and there were only a couple of those that didn’t feature everyone in formal tuxes or suits handling MC business.

 

“You’ve got to have a personal life, Gunner,” I said to the empty room, but then I caught myself.

 

I sat down in his chair with another picture of the five MC members in my hands. It was a more recent picture but they still all had the same looks on their faces. Their smiles were genuine. It wasn’t a photo-op. It was five brothers hanging out and having a good time together, no matter where they were or what kind of business they were up to.

 

“You should probably take your own advice,” I told myself, realizing that I had more in common with Gunner than I had originally realized.

 

If I’d had any pictures to go through, he would have found the same thing that I was finding in his office. I didn’t have a life outside of work, and my line of work even prevented me from having pictures of it. The only pictures that existed of my job were pictures of empty jewelry boxes and the upset faces of their owners that appeared in news articles.

 

I certainly didn’t have any pictures of Coyote! The last thing I wanted was something identifying my boss if I ever got caught. No, that would never do.

 

“Miss Sierra,” a member of his house staff said cautiously as he opened the door.

 

“Yeah?” I looked up from the picture. This time I wasn’t guilty of snooping, not really, so I didn’t feel the need to hide what I was doing.

 

“Mr. Gunner said you weren’t supposed to be in here.” The young man entered the room and spoke politely, but I got the point.

 

“Sorry, I know. I was just looking at some of his pictures. He doesn’t have to know, right?” I said as I put the picture in my hand on his desk, leaving a little sign that I had been in here.

 

“I guess not. Your clothes are upstairs if you would like to change,” he told me.

 

“Thank you, but I think I’ll be calling it a night,” I told him as I walked past.

 

“Excellent. He said feel free to use his bed,” the staffer told me.

 

“Thanks,” I told him as I walked away. I would have used his bed anyway.

 

I went upstairs and pulled his shirt off. I took my clothes, still on the hangers from the store, and put them in Gunner’s closet. I pushed his t-shirts aside to make a temporary space for my new clothes. I knew he would probably freak when he saw them, but that was part of the point.

 

I went to the bathroom. It was time to get ready for bed, instead of just jumping in bed like I had the night before, and I also wanted to be fresh in case Gunner wanted some action when he returned.

 

After all, that was why he was keeping me around, regardless of what he wanted to say.

 

###

 

Gunner

 

After hanging out with guys, I sort of wanted Sierra to be gone when I made it home. I knew that if I found her there, it would only serve to complicate my life. I had been all work for so long, I didn’t know how to handle someone trying to move into my life the way she was. Besides, I knew the only reason she was really there probably had something to do with the diamond. It would have been best for both of us if she was gone.

 

Unfortunately, I had no way of knowing until I was in the house and back upstairs.

 

I came home and parked my old bike in the garage. I trudged upstairs and walked to my room. I opened the door to find the shape of her body under my sheets.

 

Despite how much I had been hoping she would have left while I was at the meeting, I was relieved to find that she was still there.

 

I walked into the room quietly and went straight to my closet to get out of my biker clothes. I opened the door and turned on the light, careful not to hold the door too wide. I didn’t want the light to wake her.

 

I tried not to laugh when I saw the clothes Dario had purchased for her hanging in front of my t-shirts in the closet. That was too funny.

 

“You are moving in, aren’t you?” I asked her clothes in a low voice.

 

I shrugged off my vest and hung it up. I pulled off my boots and put them back in place on the floor, and I threw my sweaty shirt and jeans in the dirty clothes hamper. I stood naked in front of my mirror and considered whether or not to put on any clothes. I was pretty sure she was sleeping naked under the sheets, so I didn’t bother putting anything on, just in case she decided she wanted some action when I slid under the covers with her.

 

When I walked out of the closet and cut off the light, another light caught my attention, flashing on the nightstand. Her phone sat there next to her purse, and it was plugged into the wall. Apparently, she had found her charger.

 

I knew I had told her to ask Dario to get her one if she still needed it, and I wasn’t sure how I knew it, but I just knew that was her own charger, despite what she had told me in the office when I caught her snooping.

 

“What did you find while I was gone?” I asked her while I stood over her sleeping body. I was glad she wasn’t awake to tell me.

 

I slid carefully into the bed. The game wasn’t over yet between us. From what I could tell, we were tied, but the rules were already starting to change, and things were getting more complicated just because she had stayed the night. I knew she was going to agree to stay longer, and I knew that as much as the sex did it for her, that wasn’t going to be the only reason she was staying.

 

For some stupid ass reason, I didn’t care.

 

I put an arm around her thin waist and pulled her to me. She moaned in her sleep and pressed her naked body against mine. I knew that in the morning we would resume our game, but for now, she was just Sierra, the beautiful redhead who challenged me physically and intellectually, who turned me on with no limits, and who didn’t seem to have any problems allowing herself to be vulnerable in my presence.

 

I held her close. I accepted her vulnerability, regardless of where things would go from there. I got the feeling that no matter who had sent her, part of her needed me.

 

And I figured I could at least admit to myself that part of me needed her. I closed my eyes slowly, making sure she was still asleep before I let myself drift off.