Ruby

There was no way I could bound over that fence like Neco had, so I went to the house next door and kind of crashed thought their hedge. It was sparse anyway. I doubted they’d notice the small woman-sized hole I’d made. Probably. The lights were on inside, shades down, so I ran tip-toed across the yard and climbed over the much smaller fence, and across to the house Neco had gone into. I edged around the side, trying to decide which was the best way to go in, front, back, or through a window, when I heard a grunt followed by a whole lot of cursing.

Fear tried to creep in, but I swallowed it down. Neco needed my help, and if I let my fear take over, I’d be no good to him. I moved around to the front door and tested the handle. Unlocked, thank goodness. Shoving it open, I walked into the living room, Taser in hand and ready for anything.

Neco was on the other side of the room, on the floor, his back to me. The other guy had hold of his shirt.

Then Neco shoved him to the side and stood, taking the skip with him by the front of his jacket and, slapping the guy’s meaty hands away like they were nothing, slammed him against the wall by his throat. “Give it up. I’m taking you in, you sick fuck,” he growled in the other guy’s face.

The sick fuck tried one last time to fight Neco off, but Nec flipped him around like a rag doll, shoving him face first into the wall, dragged a set of cuffs from his front pocket, and snapped them on.

Well, damn.

Then he turned . . . to me.

I momentarily contemplated diving behind the curtains, but it was too late.

Neco stilled, eyes burning into me. I’d learned over the years that Neco had several different levels of pissed off. This, the expression he was aiming at me, combined with the scary statue routine, was what I’m aptly dubbed The Volcano. I’d only been the recipient of The Volcano once before, but once was more than enough, hence my giving it a name.

This wasn’t good.

Not good at all.

“I told you to stay in the car,” he said in a voice that was so calm and low that shivers skated up my spine, making the hair on the back of my neck stick up.

I straightened my spine. “I got worried. You didn’t answer when I . . .” I pointed to the earpiece I was still wearing.

He stared at me, a muscle in his jaw jumping.

“Then I got to thinking that maybe you needed . . . I thought you might need . . .” I held up the cuffs. “These.” Jesus. I was not helping my cause here.

His gaze dropped to guy’s cuffed hands before those pale green eyes were back, boring into me.

I’d screwed up. Again. Goddammit to hell. “I shouldn’t have assumed . . .” I trailed off again, not sure what to say. Nothing I said would stop him from wanting to strangle me, that was for damned sure.

His free hand was at his side, fist clenching and unclenching, causing his corded forearm to flex. I was obviously messed up in the head, because it kind of turned me on.

“I’ve been doing this a while, Ruby.”

I lifted my eyes back to his. “I know . . . I just . . .”

“I think I know what I’m doing by now.” More teeth gritting. “What if this guy hadn’t been alone?” He shook the man standing silently beside him, watching our little drama unfold, for emphasis.

“I have this.” I pulled the Taser from my pocket and held it up. “I also have this.” I drew my gun from the back of my jeans with my other hand. “I’m more than covered.” I slid my gun back in my waistband.

The Volcano returned and the muscle in his jaw ticked again. “Jesus fucking Christ.”

Nope. I wasn’t hot for the jackass anymore. I wanted to tase his ass. “Why can’t you just trust me?”

He shook his head. “Because you don’t know what the fuck you’re doing.”

Okay, I could admit my mistakes when I made them, when I was wrong. And yeah, coming in here was definitely a mistake. But I’d had good intentions. That had to count for something, right? “Maybe because no one at the agency will show me!” I flung my hands up. “You know this is what I want to do. Be more involved in this side of the business. To get out from behind that goddamn desk.”

“Not happening,” he said without missing a beat.

I wanted to scream. Just open my mouth and let rip. “Well, sorry, but that’s not your call.”

“Wanna bet?”

My God, he was a stubborn jackass. There was no one more annoying on the face of the earth. “Looks like Hunter’s already decided to give me a chance.”

“Hunter told you to stay in the car.”

Shit. “I’ll explain what happened. He’ll understand.”

Neco stared up at the ceiling for several seconds. I could only guess he was attempting to calm down. That’s when the guy he had hold of took advantage of his momentary lapse of concentration and kicked back suddenly, nailing Neco in the knee, and made a break for it. He came barreling toward the door . . . and me, and before I knew what I was going to do, with only a split second to act, I fired up the Taser, aimed, and fired.

The guy dropped like a stone to the floor and started flopping around like a dying fish. I stared down in horror and fascination.

“He’s down, Ruby,” Neco said.

My eyes were locked on the flailing dude on the ground.

“He’s had enough,” Neco muttered, reaching out and taking the device from my hand.

The guy lay motionless on the ground. I realized I might have shocked him a little longer than necessary. “Oh God, did I kill him?”

“He’s just out cold.”

I screwed up my face when a strong smell hit my nose. “Jesus. What the . . . ?”

“He pissed himself.”

Sure enough, a puddle had formed under him. “That’s gross.”

“Fifty-thousand volts will do that to you.” Neco stared down at the guy and cursed roughly.

“What? I stopped him, didn’t I?”

He lifted his head, expression hard. “If it wasn’t for you, he wouldn’t have made a break for it in the first damn place.”

My spine went ramrod. “Now hang on a minute . . .”

“Don’t,” he growled. “I’m not getting into this. Not now.” Then he leaned down, grabbed the guy on the floor, and threw him over his massive shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

Pee immediately soaked Neco shirt at the shoulder. Okay, now I got why he was so annoyed.

I kept my mouth shut and followed him back to the truck.

“Open the back.”

I did what I was told and he threw the guy in and cuffed him to a metal ring behind the seat. Then he yanked off his shirt, dumped it on the side of the road, and grabbed my water bottle from the front seat, pouring it over his shoulder and back, washing himself off.

Given the seriousness of the situation I currently found myself in, ogling him should have been the last thing on my mind, but my eyes went right where they shouldn’t, along with my dirty mind. Shirtless was one thing, but shirtless and wet—my body went up in flames, despite the tangy scent of urine still lingering in the air.

He held out his hand. “Keys.”

“What?” I forced my eyes up to his face.

“Keys,” he gritted out. “Give them to me.”

“I can drive.”

He didn’t drop his hand, that don’t-even-try-and-fuck-with-me expression front and center.

I took a wild stab and assumed that was a “no.”

I fished the keys from my pocket and handed them over, then climbed in the passenger side. Neco got in behind the wheel and a second later we were headed to the station to drop off our guy. Neco didn’t speak the whole way, and neither did I. He was still angry, maybe angrier than I’d ever seen him. Tension seemed to flow off him. It was suffocating, so heavy and thick it filled the car. For years I’d lived with a woman who, though she had insisted on the title of Mom, had hated me in a way that could not be mistaken for anything else. I’d become an expert at sensing people’s moods, especially when they were pissed off. I was like a human weather vane predicting a storm. I’d been so tuned to her, I knew exactly when one was rolling in. When that happened, I got the hell out of there.

Neco would never hurt me, I knew this down to my bones, but I hated when he got like this, and Neco knew it, too. Which meant, like always, he sensed my unease. And I watched as he forced himself to relax, to calm down. He did that for me. Conscious or not, he picked up on my emotions like I did his and adjusted accordingly. He’d been doing it since I was a little girl.

My nerves began to ease off almost immediately, and what I was left with was a fire burning low and deep. A hunger for the man beside me that would never be satisfied. Seeing him in action tonight, the way he’d thrown that guy around like he weighed nothing, it only managed to make me want him more.

I shoved my glasses up my nose and swiveled in my seat, looking out my window. It was either that or keep stealing glances at his ripped, inked skin, his abs and pecs . . . those biceps flexing as he drove. Not a good idea.

The air shifted. It still smelled like piss, and Neco was still angry, but he had his shit under control and I was thankful for it. I was also damned annoyed with him. Unfortunately, that didn’t squash the urge to climb into his lap and take a bite out of him, so I kept my eyes averted until we arrived at the station.

Neco shut off the Explorer. “Wait here.” Then he shoved open his door, angled out, and walked around to get our friend from the backseat. The guy had started groaning a couple streets back, so I knew for sure that I hadn’t killed him. At least that was something.

I watched through the window as Neco took him in, still shirtless, which he didn’t seem to care about in the least. I also didn’t miss the appreciative stares, blatant, I might add, from several women in the vicinity. I didn’t blame them. Not only was he gorgeous, he had that whole cocky swagger thing going on that seemed to draw women to him like bees to a flower garden. Lord knows I wasn’t immune. I had no right to get jealous, though I was, painfully so. I’d hoped over the years that it would get easer, seeing him with someone else. It never did.

Neco was no monk. Why would he be? He owed me nothing, despite our fucked-up non-relationship relationship.

He’d never even kissed me.

Processing took a little while, and I could see him through the glass-fronted doors filling out the paperwork while he talked to a female officer. She seemed to be smiling a lot, which annoyed me. Finally, he strode out, swagger in full effect, and I sucked in a sharp breath. I always did. No matter how many times I laid eyes on the guy, his effect on me never lessened or wavered. Sometimes it scared me, this thing tying me to him. It felt so big, larger than anything in my whole world, and I knew I had to somehow let it go if I wanted more for myself. My dream job. A relationship with a guy that actually wanted me. Maybe even kids.

Hanging on to the hope that Neco would one day have some earth-shattering epiphany, that he would suddenly fall head over heels in love with me was a waste of life. It wasn’t healthy.

The door opened and he climbed in. “I’ll drop you home then get Jude to take me back for my car.”

“I can do that.”

“No.”

Jesus.

There was a piece of paper in his hand and he shoved it in his pocket.

“What was that?” If I was going to learn this business, I wanted to know everything I could.

He didn’t look at me and started the truck. “Nothing.”

I frowned. “It wasn’t nothing. I clearly saw something.”

He eased out onto the road. “How about, it’s none of your business?”

I released a long-suffering sigh. “You may not want me to do this kind of work, but you need to get it through your thick skull that what I choose to do with my life is not something you get a say in.”

His jaw jumped again. “Is that right?”

“Yes. That’s right.” I turned more fully toward him. “Now tell me what you put in your damn pocket.”

“A number.”

“A number?” I scowled. “Is it physically possible for you to not be a stubborn jackass for five minutes?”

He shrugged.

I pointed at his pocket. “I’m going to need you to be a little more specific?”

His bicep bunched and he glanced at me then back at the road. “Officer Kathleen Rutherford gave me her number. She wants to get a drink some time. Going by the way she was looking at me, I’d say she wants a fuck of a lot more than a drink.” His gaze slid back to me. “That specific enough for you?”

Heat crawled up my neck instantly and my heart felt like it had shriveled like a raisin in my chest. I cleared my throat, to loosen my suddenly tight vocal cords. “Kind of an over-share if you want the truth.”

“You said be specific.”

He was purposely being an asshole, and I hated myself because I still wanted him. How fucked in the head did that make me? I didn’t want to think about that too hard. “Well, I guess I’ll know better for next time.”

He cursed under his breath. “Ruby . . .”

“Oh, look at that, we’re here.” He’d pulled up outside my apartment building.

“I’m telling you now, there won’t be a goddamn next time.”

I ignored him. “As always . . . it’s been real.” I opened the door and jumped out.

“Hang the fuck on. I’m not finished with you. We need to talk about what happened back there.”

I froze and turned to face him. Please, God, no. Talking about the chicks he bangs, or was about to bang in the near future, was not something I wanted to have a powwow about right then. “There’s nothing to talk about.”

“Like fuck there isn’t. What you did tonight, coming after me like that . . .”

Right.

Of course he didn’t want to talk about his sex life. He wanted to talk about me being an idiot. No thank you. “Maybe another time.” I slammed the door shut and jogged up the steps to my place.

Neco called after me, but I refused to turn back and ran inside, hoping like hell he didn’t follow me up, and that my roommate Scott wasn’t home. I was shaken after tonight. Shaken and off balance. I just needed a minute to myself, to clear my head.

To clear Neco out of my head.

Yeah right. Like that was ever going to happen.

I raced up the stairs, unlocked my door, and slammed it after me.

“Hey, babe, what’s the rush?” Scott said from the kitchen table, slamming his laptop shut.

The sound of some chick in the throes of a seriously fake orgasm echoed from the TV, filling the apartment, and I wanted to walk right back out again.

Great.

Happy freaking Birthday to me.

He came toward me and tugged me into his arms before I could ward him off.

“You’re trembling.” He started rubbing my back, pressing too damn close. Gross, he had a boner. “Why don’t you tell Scotty what has you so upset?”

“I’m fine.” I pushed out of his arms, my skin damn near crawling. He wasn’t totally wasted for once, but the guy never missed an opening to cop a feel if it presented itself. I motioned to my television. “And turn that shit off, you’re not the only one that lives here.”

He shrugged, but did as I asked, and then swiped a bottle of gin off the table, holding it up when he turned back to me. “You wanna watch a movie then, have a few shots, get wasted?”

The hopeful look on his face made my belly lurch. The last time I’d gotten drunk with Scott, I’d blacked out and woken up in his bed. Not something I would ever repeat.

And going by the looking his face, he was remembering the same night.

“I’m just going to turn in.”

He grabbed my arm. “Are you okay?”

“I told you I’m fine.”

Someone pounded on the door.

Shit.

I knew it was Neco. I also knew if I ignored him, he’d just keep knocking.

Scott headed for the door.

“It’s Neco,” I said.

My roommate scowled. The pair had a mutual distaste for each other that neither bothered to hide.

Scott changed directions. “I’ll be in my room. Come get me if you want to watch a movie later.” Then he grabbed his laptop and walked down the hall.

Dammit, I didn’t want to deal with Neco right then.

“Ruby,” he growled through the door. “Open up.”

I stood there for another second, trying to get my shit together, then walked over and yanked it open. Neco looked . . . I didn’t know how to explain how he looked.

His hand was resting on the doorframe, eyes moving over me. My belly squirmed. “Don’t . . . don’t run from me, Ruby.” He cursed. “You know how I . . . fuck . . .”

Now there was a knot in my belly too. We didn’t talk about that night, when I ran from him, what happened. But that was a long time ago and this wasn’t the same.

I straightened my spine. “I was done talking.”

His eyes were locked on mine, penetrating, unwavering. “Seeing you walk into that house tonight, that guy coming for you. Shit, Ruby . . .”

The knot coiled tighter. It had been so long since he’d used that tone with me, no anger, no frustration . . . just concern, concern for someone who was important to him. “I’ve had weapons training,” I said instead, refusing to get sidetracked, and surprised when my voice came out strong and not shaky.

“Ruby . . .”

“I’ve done self-defense and close combat classes as well.”

He cursed again. “You won’t give this up, will you?”

“No.”

His jaw hardened, and he shook his head, looking away then back. “Then . . . I’m asking you to give this up.”

How could he ask that of me? “No.”

His hand shot out, curling around my wrist. I froze.

“How the fuck am I supposed to protect you when you’re throwing yourself into danger every damn minute?”

“I don’t need you to protect me.”

His grip on me tightened, and he tugged me forward, shutting the door behind me, pressing me against it.

“That isn’t the damn point,” he all but snarled.

My hand went up before I could stop it, up to his chest, fisting his shirt, not sure if I wanted to push him away or pull him closer. “What is the point?” I yelled back.

“I protect what’s mine!”

I moved closer, getting in his face. “I’m not yours!”

“Woman, you’ve been mine since the first night you climbed in my fucking window.”

“What if I don’t want to be yours?” I fired back.

He stilled, staring into my eyes, silence stretching between us, until the goddamn air around us seemed to vibrate, crackle with tension.

“Neco . . .”

“Fuck that.” He moved quickly, one hand sliding around my waist, the other thrusting almost violently into my hair. “You don’t want to be mine?” he said, so low my toes curled.

I was trembling now, angry, turned on, confused as hell. “No,” I whispered, lying through my teeth.

He made a guttural sound, full of rage and wild hunger, then he slammed his mouth down on mine.

Oh dear God.

I stood there motionless for a split second, my brain unable to catch up with my lips. But then he fisted my hair tighter and slid his tongue along my lower lip. Mine parted on a startled moan and he instantly tilted his head, thrusting inside, kissing me deep, unrestrained. He tasted better than I’d ever imagined, so much better.

Neco was kissing me.

Neco was kissing me.

All I could do was hang on, my mind spinning as he pulled me closer, his hard body flush against mine, his scent, the rasp of his stubble, the sounds he was making . . .

A door slammed down the hall from us and he froze, pulling back suddenly. I gripped his shirt at his side, not wanting this to end, not wanting him to leave me.

“Ruby . . . shit.” He pressed his forehead against mine. “I’m . . .”

I shook my head. “Don’t say it.”

“Fuck,” he muttered, and then he said it, the words I didn’t want to hear. “That shouldn’t have . . . that should never have happened.” His arm had loosened around my waist, no longer holding me against him, and his grip on my hair vanished, the strands slipping through his fingers as he pulled them away.

And when he took a step back, putting more distance between us, I knew I was done. With him, with all of it. I couldn’t do this anymore. This thing between us was eating me alive. He’d finally kissed me and now he was trying to take it back.

I was done.

“Ruby . . .”

“Please leave.”

His jaw ticked, then his gaze shuttered and he turned . . . and walked away.