Page 29 of Bared

“And she fell for it?”

“Hook, line, and sinker.”

“And you let her?”

“Because she was going to believe me more than them…why?”

Oz’s answering rumble was a kinda-sorta version of agreement. “Where is she now? Is Requiemme with her? Don’t tell me she’s still with the wankers?”

“Okay, then. I won’t.”

“But you’d be lying?”

“Not exactly that either.”

“Shit.”

“Ssshhh.”

Brick pulled the phone away by a couple of inches, needing the space to listen to the maid’s new outcries. It sounded like they’d cut left somewhere, but this warren was still a collection of audible fuckery. For all he knew, they’d looped around and were behind him. His feet scuffed on the pavement as he spun around, perplexed. When the shrieks suddenly stopped, he swore under his breath. The silence was more unnerving than the ping-ping acoustics.

“Brick, you wanker! Talk to me. What’s the full dope?”

“I have no idea. Why do you think I’m calling for backup?”

A strange cough from Oz. Okay, not so strange, considering the guy could count Brick’s backup requests on one hand. The situation wasn’t exactly Brick’s comfort zone either. But that shit had vanished when watching Gervais and his buddy slather on Jayd and Requiemme like teenagers on supermodels. And again when he’d burst into the alley. And again when he’d left the alley, having to acknowledge he’d lost them.

“All right. Where are you, man?”

He looked up and around, attempting to pinpoint some unique landmarks. A window with a red awning. A broken parking ticket machine. Graffiti in a few shades of blue, the assorted French words formed of bubble letters.

But he didn’t tell all that to Ozias.

Something about the significant knife in his face probably had to do with it.

The long switchblade wielded by a delicate but determined hand.

That small appendage leading his gaze down the attached slender arm—and finally out to take in his visitor’s glowering face.

Holy shit.

That face.

Those huge, irrepressible eyes. Those cheekbones, the noble architecture surely descended from Cleopatra herself. And that mouth, lush and determined, set with equally regal pride.

Jesus. Christ.

She was so goddamned gorgeous, even this close.

Especially this close.

And yet, not nearly close enough.

The thought, not her blade, had him jerking backward. But the bold beauty wasn’t having his retreat. Not by an inch.

“Do. Not. Move.” She twisted her wrist to make the streetlight glimmer on the long blade. “Or I shall be forced to filet your testicles.”

Brick would have laughed had he not been so certain she’d make good on the threat. Her stance was right; her grip was confident. With Samsyn Cimarron for an older brother, she’d probably learned how to gut a man before how to wear a bra.