FOUR
Scotti
Okay.
Alright.
At least it was over.
To be perfectly honest, there had been this strange, weighted feeling on me all week like something was going to happen, something I didn't plan for.
So walking out to be confronted by Mark Mallick standing at the backdoor, well, it might have been startling and arousing and unsettling, but at least it seemed to alleviate that strange black cloud following me around.
I mean, not that the whole interaction didn't bring with it a whole new rush of things to think and obsess about. But that was neither here nor there.
What I said was true.
I wanted him.
I wanted him in a way that shouldn't have been possible so soon, in a way that was completely irrational, wholly uncontrollable. It was pure, raw, primal, animal attraction. Our pheromones just... liked each other. It was as basic as that.
Sure, we were both attractive and were not legally blind and picked up on that as well, but hormones were the only explanation for what was going on with us from just two very short interactions.
He smelled good again too, damnit.
Couldn't he just smell like BO or Cool Water and ruin it for me? Or, better yet, BO trying to be masked with an over-abundance of Cool Water.
Oh yeah.
Pure libido killer right there.
That would have made life so much easier.
But no. Of course not. He showed up smelling like concrete grit, sweat, and just the oddest hint of that lubrication stuff they used on metal objects.
What can I say... I have always been sensitive to smells.
It was why I couldn't tolerate a house that used those godawful plug-in scent things or aerial sprays. Smells should be organic, case closed. There was nothing organic about Tropical Vanilla Rain Storm or whatever the hell names they slapped on the pretty, bright containers.
But I liked the way Mark Mallick smelled. Like a working man. Like someone who wasn't afraid to get dirty. Like a man who would be all too happy to get dirty with you.
Oh yeah.
Okay.
God, I needed to stop letting my mind run away with itself.
To be fair, I had tried to shut it down. I had been a royal bitch and used every tool in my kit that was quite well-stocked from having grown up around four teasing, pain in the ass, older brothers. Most guys would have backed right down.
But Mark Mallick was apparently not most guys.
Sure, my words landed like blows, true and brutal. But he took the hit and recovered, confronted me again. That was unexpected. Really, I thought I was going to get away before anything escalated.
I should have known better.
Then I went and kissed him.
You know, because I needed that to stress about every waking moment after it happened. Hell, I didn't really even get to enjoy it. It was kind of just... making a statement. It was over before I could really even appreciate it. Which sucked. Especially since my brain had been full of nothing but Mark Mallick sexy thoughts since then and I didn't even have anything juicy to focus on.
Because, you know, like I said. It was never going to happen. So since that was true, it would have been nice to have at least a kiss to think about before we could finally skip town and maybe I could find me a man somewhere to relieve my sexual frustration.
We were already in Navesink Bank longer than I liked, longer than we ever stayed in town after a job. But the guy we had washing the money was dragging his feet and there was nothing we could do about it. Apparently, he had some bigger job for some hotshot cocaine dealer or something that he needed to handle first. And since our pull was just a couple grand, we were low down on the priority list.
See, that's the thing most people don't know about stores; there isn't that much money in the registers. Most people paid with cards now a day. And we didn't skim card numbers. We didn't have anything against the shoppers at the stores. It was the stores themselves that had to pay. So if the registers started with around five-hundred a piece in the morning and doubled that throughout the day, if you robbed at peak times when all registers were open, but before shift change, you were banking between ten and fifteen grand. Not chump change, but not the take from a bank robbery either. Not the kind of money that would set you up for life.
That wasn't our plan anyway. Sure, we needed a nice nest egg to travel and set up a life in a new country, but we were all planning on getting normal, straight jobs once we did. We had been criminals long enough. It was almost time to retire from the career field as a whole.
Three more jobs.
That was all we had planned.
Three more and almost a decade of our lifework would be behind us.
There was no denying that the relief was also countered with a strange, nagging uncertainty. Maybe it was as simple as feeling weird about going to another country, learning the language, learning the customs, figuring out how to survive there. But I thought an almost equal amount of the trepidation inside was that, by stopping the work, we would be leaving a huge part of ourselves behind. Not the criminals per se, but the reason we were criminals in the first place, the mission that led us into that life, the bond that kept us tight through every sleepless night, through every misstep that could have sent us to jail, through every careful drive out of town, praying we could get away.
Not being worried about ending up in a cell would be a wholly unknown feeling for me. That was a constant idea that kept a knot in my stomach. Not so much for me. I would be okay in prison. Women could be awful, but in general had less violence than the men. I worried for my brothers. They were all their own kinds of badass. They were all strong and confident. And while they were technically criminals, they weren't murderers or rapists or people who assaulted other people for no reason. They certainly had no gang affiliations.
That and, quite frankly, the idea of being separated from them was actually physically painful. Not that I didn't want a little space after so long in such close proximity, but space meaning separate apartments in the same town, not separate prison cells in different states.
Just three more jobs.
Three more months to complete those jobs.
Then a couple more months laying low while we worked out transportation out of the US.
By the next year, we would all be out of that life, away from that worry, desperately trying to learn how to call one another 'useless twats' and other insults in Russian or Chinese.
And, after a while, that life would become our new normal.
It would take some time, but it would happen.
Then we could sit around and reminisce about the times we did the wrong things for the right reasons.
"You could just come out with us," Rush said, shrugging, obviously still not approving of another of my little concessions. Gyms. I needed a gym. I needed a treadmill, a stairclimber, an elliptical, a bike, and the machines that tell you how to do the moves. To my brothers, apparently, that was for "chicks" and guys who "need to flex." They didn't do gyms. They did military-style training in parks or woods or wherever they could find that had hills and flat areas and places to run and do the ever-loathed burpees they liked so damn much.
"Still not my style," I said, reaching for my gym bag.
"You can stay in shape without all the bells and whistles, Scott."
"With you guys yelling at me to pick up the pace and stop stretching between exercises? No thanks."
"The stretching is for the warm-up and cool-down," Rush said, rolling his eyes.
"The stretching is to keep my muscles long and lean instead of compact and bulging like you want. See? This is why I need the gym. You adamantly refuse to accept that there are different workout styles for different desired results. Sorry I don't want to have the muscle-y arms of a Navy Seal. I like to be long and lean like a yogi. You know, without having to do actual yoga. I'll be back in two hours."
With that, I slipped into my gym shoes and moved out onto the street, making my way on foot. We had the car, but we tried to avoid driving whenever possible since we weren't legally supposed to do it. Any little thing we could do to avoid suspicion was good.
The gym was on a street called Willow, a good twenty-minute walk from the shack, but it was additional exercise and a way to try to clear my head.
I was being overly sappy about the Mark thing. Again, I was blaming pent-up sexual frustration, a lack of contact with any people outside of my family, and the fact that he was sexy as could be. I was only a woman after all.
Fact of the matter was, there was a part of me that was desperately in need for connection, for human contact. Our lives, while purposeful, while full of support from one another, was still very small. I couldn't claim to have had a friend since I was seventeen years old. I had never been able to hold down a boyfriend. We moved too much. We were involved in too dirty a line of work. Close personal connections weren't just ill-advised, they were genuinely risky.
So we did the work. We were there for one another. And we tried really hard to pretend that was more than enough.
When we were younger, maybe it even was. None of us wanted roots. No one was ready to settle down and pay a mortgage and come home to the same person every night. We were too busy getting high off the adrenaline rush of what we did, gassed up on the righteous anger that allowed us to do what we did. We genuinely liked a new town every month. We liked seeing what living conditions we would be dealing with- be it a shack in the woods or a nice furnished rental. We liked seeing the country, building stronger familial bonds.
But as we were all getting older, it was clear it was starting to weigh on us all in our own ways. Kingston was tired of the act of the robbery itself, tired of worrying about all of us like he always did. Atlas was sick of the new crash pads. Nixon was tired of all the intricate, minute planning. Rush was sick of the rules we had to live by.
And me, well, I was sick of not being able to have friends or a man. I never thought I would be the kind of person to say that, but it was definitely a dominant thought on my mind the past several months. I wanted a girlfriend to go to get my hair done with, to drink coffee with and talk about girl stuff. My brothers were great, but try to bring up the red devil or nail polish colors, and they glazed over in the eyes.
On top of that, I wanted to be able to date. Not just find a man in my travels and makeout with them, or more if the mood was right. Not just exchanging small talk that sounded promising but all the while reminding myself not to get my hopes up because it was doomed from the beginning.
I wanted to share a meal with a man. Then I wanted to wait for him to call. Then I wanted another date. Maybe a makeout session. Then another date that might end up in a tour of his bedsheets. I wanted the possibility for more than just physical touch. I wanted to know what it was like to find comfort in a man, to have trust and potential, and to be with one long enough to start getting sick of them. To be with them past that six months when you realize they are human beings who do ordinary, unsexy things like trim their toenails and pick at scabs.
Maybe that didn't sound romantic to normal people, but it was like a bouquet of flowers, box of chocolates, and giant diamond earrings to me.
Some day.
I would have that some day.
And since today was not that day, I was going to take my visitor badge and work off all my restless energy on a treadmill turned up to eight.
The gym was nice. I had been in my fair share of lawsuits-waiting-to-happen, so I knew a good one when I saw one. There was a certain pride of ownership in the new, unscuffed floors, the fresh paint on the walls, the very updated machines in abundance, in the safe, clean locker room, in the quality of the sound system filling the place with upbeat music.
After thirty minutes on cardio that didn't give me quite the punch of endorphins I had been counting on, I made my way down a level toward where the weights were situated.
And I promptly froze on the bottom step.
Because there, reflected in the floor-to-ceiling mirrors for aforementioned gym-flexers to admire their bulging muscles in, were five, yes five, very tall, very dark-haired, very light-eyed, very classically handsome men.
The Mallick brothers.
"You've got to be kidding me." In my mind, that was meant to come off as a whisper of disbelief to myself. In reality, it was said loud and proud for all around me to hear. Including, judging by the smile tugging at one particular Mallick brother's lips, Mark.
Great.
That was just fantastic.
"Fucking knew you made a move, you shit," one of the others said. Of the five, he was the broadest. He definitely spent a nice chunk of his time in the gym picking up and putting down heavy things.
Beside him to the one side was Mark in black basketball pants and a black tee. To the other side was another brother with mostly the same look as his brothers, but there was something more serious, more mature about him. He reminded me a bit of Kingston. So likely the oldest, I would assume. To his side was another brother very much so a human canvas of some very nice ink. And lastly, there was one just the slightest bit thinner than his brothers, with eyes that somehow seemed deeper, kinder, yet haunted. I don't know what made me think it, but there was some strong urge I had to know his story.
Weird, I know.
"Angela, darling," Mark said, lips twitching hard and he didn't even try to mask his amusement as he looked me over.
Thank God I didn't just wear sweats and a tee to the gym. True, my hair was back and my face was makeup-free, but my leggings were a pretty blue and pale yellow floral pattern, and my tank top was deep blue, everything formfitting and somehow sexy even though I was sweaty.
"Still following me around like a little lost puppy, I see," I said, trying to mask the fact that even being halfway across the room from him was somehow affecting me in a less than PG kind of way.
"Honey, this is my Wednesday ritual. Has been for years. You're the one who doesn't belong here. So it would go to follow that you're the one stalking me."
"Right, because I'm oh so into you," I said, raising a brow in a haughty way I knew men hated. It usually worked in ticking off my brothers.
His brothers, I might add, were clearly loving this interaction judging by four almost identical smirks playing at their mouths.
"Well, you know... you were the one to shove me against a wall and kiss me."
Damn. I should have guessed that might come back to kick me in the ass.
"Only to prove a point," I countered, chin lifting higher.
"And what point was that, honey?"
"The point, honey, was that you're not nearly as irresistible as you think you are. And now if you'll excuse me, you kind of ruined the appeal of the weight room," I said, rushing to move around the curve of the wall and down the hallway that I thought led to the locker rooms. But I must have gotten turned around somewhere, because I was standing in front of a door that said it led to the pool instead.
Maybe a bit paranoid about being followed and him proving that he was, in fact, every bit as irresistible as he thought he was, or more, I moved toward that door, deciding I could likely use my exercise bra and panties as a makeshift bathing suit. Plus, it would workout my muscles too which was good. Especially now that I was all wound up again.
I mean seriously, it wasn't like Navesink Bank was some small town. In fact, it was pretty sprawling to be honest. It had a bunch of different pockets to it, different cultures, different house types. I should have been able to walk it freely without running into him again.
But no.
Of course not.
The universe had a messed up sense of humor.
Let's just keep dangling him in front of her like a delicious piece of man meat while she slowly starves to death. That'll be fun.
I did fifteen laps, stopping only when my arms started to feel numb from the strokes, my belly aching from the exertion, my lungs burning, and my ears a little clogged from the water. I pulled myself up to where I had hung one of the complimentary towels on a rail that led into the pool, water cascading downward, exposing my body to the air that felt suddenly much colder than it had before I had jumped in.
"Did you burn off that sexual frustration?" a voice asked, making me jerk hard enough that I almost flew backward into the shallow end again. My hand flew out, grabbing the railing while simultaneously dropping the damn towel into the water and leaving me without anything to cover my very near nakedness.
It was right about then that I was pretty unhappy with myself for choosing a pink sports bra. Because, let's face it, you nipped like crazy in a bra like that and black would have hidden that situation better.
"Jesus," I snapped, looking off to the side to see him leaning back against the side wall, leg propped back on it, arms over his chest, face looking way too amused at my current towellessness. "Were you watching me, you creep?" I asked, forcing my legs to carry me out of the water when every instinct in me was telling me to jump back in, that it was safer there.
"I did announce myself when I came in. You were in a zone."
"Which was, of course, an invitation to stare at me."
"Was just waiting for you, Scotti. You can retract the claws."
Of course he was perched directly beside the damn towel cabinet. It was like he knew I would drop my own. With a deep breath, deciding I wasn't going to stand there almost fully naked, freezing, and dripping everywhere, I moved toward him, grabbing a towel, and trying to ignore him as I wrapped myself in it.
I mostly succeeded until I got the towel tucked by my breast and felt a strong, wide-palmed, calloused hand grab me around the bicep and pull slightly.
My eyes fell there for a second, seeing all the criss-crosses of scars across his fingers and the top of his hand, many aged, just as many new. In fact, I think there were more scars than there was unharmed skin. Somehow, that was almost unbelievably sexy to me. His fingers weren't all perfectly straight either. They weren't deformed or anything, but a few showed telltale signs of having been broken more than once, of being allowed to heal themselves instead of being splinted which might have kept them perfect.
But who wanted perfect anyway?
I liked the flaws.
I liked the rough edges.
"Scotti," his voice rumbled, a low, deep, sexy sound that seemed to move through my veins then settle inside my belly, managing to turn it into mush somehow. When I could finally move my eyes from his hand, which I was pretty sure was about twenty minutes later, I found him watching me with those unreadable light eyes, something intense there that I couldn't name for whatever it was.
"What?" I managed to get out though speaking was proving as hard as swallowing with a mouth as dry as mine was right then.
"You done playing your games?" he asked in that same, way too sexy, way to effective tone.
"I'm not playing..."
"Really?" he asked, pulling slightly, making my stupidly cooperative feet follow as he dragged me into his little corner, right up into his personal space. "Because you want this every bit as much as I do, and yet you're trying to act like you don't. That's a game. I get it. But I'm asking if you're done or not. So we can move on."
"Move on to what?" I asked.
Before I could even finish speaking, I felt myself turned as he moved outward, putting me against the cold wall and him blocking me in.
"To this."
And with that, I got what I had needed since the day at the shack. Hell, since the day of the holdup at the store.
His hands moved to frame my face, both gentle but possessive at the same time, just enough pressure to show dominance, but not enough to hurt.
And his lips crushed into mine.
And this time, I got to really experience it.
There was nothing hesitant, nothing uncertain about him. His lips seared into mine, hot enough that I would swear he was leaving a brand, like he was claiming me for all to see after he was done with me. Somehow, I was even okay with that.
His hands slid from my face, moving down the sides of my neck, my shoulders, the sides of my breasts, then around to close around my lower back, dragging me forward, crushing my whole body to his, completely unconcerned with me soaking him through.
And at the second of impact, a low, unexpected, needy whimper escaped my lips as my hands slid up the corded muscles of his arms to close around his solid shoulders.
My breasts- already crushed to his chest- felt weighted, heavy. My cold-hardened nipples seemed to tweak even further, almost to the point of pain as a rush of need started between my thighs and spread outward until it seemed to uncurl through my whole system, until it was a fire in my very veins, burning me up from the inside out.
A low, rumbling growling sound reverberated through Mark's chest and into me, bringing with it another rush of desire. His teeth snagged my lower lip, pulling hard for a second before he released it, his lips moving downward over my throat. The pressure lessened as his arms unfolded me, moved to my sides then pressed upward over my belly, in the exact opposite direction of where I so desperately needed him.
His fingers snagged my towel pull. But before I could even process his intention, his hands went to the straps of my exercise bra, grabbing and yanking the wet material until I heard ripping as the too-tight material meant to keep women with large ta-tas from getting black eyes while jumping around was pulled downward further than it was intended to go.
Then there was a rush of air on my bare breasts as he exposed them completely, again making that growling noise that sent a shiver across my skin as he slowly started lowering down, his tongue tracing down the center of my chest slowly.
"Mark, we're..."
"Cameras don't cover this corner," he informed me, making genuine wonder break through the heady layer of desire blanketing me. How would he know such a thing? "And that door squeaks when you open it."
That was the last thing he said, the final piece of comfort he gave me the second before his mouth closed around my hardened nipple, sucking it hard into his mouth, making my entire body lurch at the unexpected contact. One of my hands slammed down on his shoulder, mostly to allow me to keep my own two feet; the other landed on the back of his neck, holding him to me, silently begging for more of the beautiful torment. Which he gladly gave me, working his tongue over the peak in torturously slow circles. Then, just as the exquisite pain of his teeth on the sensitive flesh started to explode through my system, over the sound of my thundering heartbeat, I somehow heard a squeak.
It literally happened in a blink.
One second he was biting my nipple.
The next, my bra was back in place, I was collapsed back against the wall, desperately holding onto my towel, and Mark was standing up straight, hands on his hips, looking into the pool.
"I don't know, Angela," he said, shaking his head. "It is the mystery of the sunken towel. I'll have to tell Shane..."
"Tell Shane what?" the voice asked from the direction of the door, drawing my attention to one of his brothers, the bigger one, standing there, brow raised, lips curved into a devilish little smirk. "That you really appreciate the camera blank spots?" he asked, making me painfully aware how guilty I likely looked right then in my sports bra and panties, dripping water everywhere, skin flushed, eyes heated.
"Yeah," Mark said, nodding at me. "I forgot to mention, this is my brother's gym."
Of course it was.
"And he also owns that apartment complex across from Third Street."
Yep.
So his family just owned everything I was associated with apparently.
"And since this fuck forgot his manners, I'll introduce myself. I'm Shane," Shane offered, not coming closer, but giving me a nod as I pulled my towel into place.
"S... Angela," I immediately tried to cover, eyes big, heart frantic. Jesus. I was losing my touch. What the hell was wrong with me? I never screwed up a cover. We paid small fortunes for them. It would be foolish to do that.
"Nice to meet you, S... Angela," he said, giving me a smile that said that he knew I was up to no good, but not calling me out on it. "I have a feeling I'll be seeing you again," he said as way of parting, giving his brother a look I was familiar with because my brothers and I had similar ones- unspoken communication you could only interpret if you had been fluent in it all your life.
As soon as the door was closed, I let out the breath I hadn't been aware I had been holding, feeling my lungs burn when I took a deep breath in again, leaning back against the wall, eyes closed, trying to get a handle on not only my wayward thoughts, but the constant throbbing need between my thighs. It was literally painful. I didn't know desire could hurt before. But it hurt to not get fulfillment right then.
But that being said, it wasn't going to go any further. We were in a freaking public place. We had almost been caught in the act.
I might have had a job that made me seem like a bit of an adrenaline junkie, but that really wasn't how I was wired.
"Sweetheart," Mark's voice said, closer though I hadn't heard him move toward me. That was one downfall to him not wearing those clomping boots of his. His tone was low, soft almost, and just the slightest bit pleading. "Scotti," he tried when I didn't open my eyes. I might have been fighting, and losing, an internal battle, but my pride wouldn't let me hide. My eyes fluttered open slowly, finding him watching me, no teasing there, no more of his jocular lightness. He was all seriousness right then. "How about we hit pause on your game and play mine for a while?"
"What's your game?" I asked, taking slow, deep, deliberate breaths that were managing to help my mind focus past the desire that was still sparking like a live wire through me.
"My game is giving this a shot."
"This?" I repeated, brows together. "There can be no this. I'm leaving, Mark. I'm out of here in a couple of days."
"So spend those couple of days with me," he offered, shrugging. And, God, I was so, so tempted. But, being in the somewhat fragile, needy emotional state I was in lately, I had a feeling that a couple of days were not going to feel like enough. I was running the risk of getting attached. I couldn't have that. "Fine," he said as if reading my train of thought. "Just commit to one."
"One what?"
"One day. That's all I'm going to ask. One day where you aren't doing your 'I want you, but no' thing. Give it a shot for the one day. See where it goes. You want more after that, then we'll go from there." When I didn't answer, both wanting that more than I could say, but also terrified of it as well, his head ducked slightly, getting closer to me. "Say yes, Scotti."
I took a deep, steadying breath.
Because I knew what the answer was going to be.
Really, there was only one answer to a sexy Mallick brother asking you to give him one day of your time. Especially when that one day likely offered at least one world-class orgasm that you were desperately in need of.
"Yes."
"Tomorrow. Noon."
With that, he turned to walk away.
"Wait... whoa... noon?" I asked, confused. Since when was noon a date hour?
"Yeah, babe. If I only get one day with you, I'm taking up the whole fucking thing," he said with his boyish smile in place again, before turning and leaving.
It was maybe a full two minutes later when the stupid girly smile left my face that I realized one thing.
He was going to pick me up.
At the shack.
Where my brothers all were.
That, well, that was not going to be good.
Wonderful.