Page 36 of Pretty Lies

EIGHT

DELLA WASN’T particularly happy about the whole babysitter thing, but it was made slightly more tolerable for Cory’s first morning by the fact he made an effort to seem like he was only going to do his job. The coffee didn’t hurt, either. Oh, and the fact he let her drive this beautiful beast of a car when she knew how precious and rare these models were?

That really helped.

From the corner of her eye, Della watched Cory when the traffic ahead of her slowed on the bridge to nothing more than a crawl, and she could afford the distraction. Of course, the traffic would keep them from getting to their destination until around noon. Not that it mattered—this job of hers had always been an all-day kind of thing. Her father ran a team of loan sharks that handled the business of illegal loans to everyone—he had guys sitting in seedy bars making numbers move and then those like Della, handling a different sort of clientele. At the end of the day, their job was still the same. When one had to chase people for money, it took patience to get the work done.

Getting Cory in her view took thoughts of what waited for her later away in the span of a quick breath that escaped her. His tattooed hand lifted and swept under his jaw with a light touch. A jaw made up of hard, cut lines and an inked throat that bobbed in the best way when he swallowed.

“Something interesting?” he asked.

Fuck.

The man hadn’t even looked away from the window to notice her staring. Was she just that obvious or could he sense it?

Was he that type, too?

Perfect.

“I just …” Della scrambled for a lie, not willing to deny her staring because why bother? “Hadn’t really noticed how many tattoos you have.”

Actually, that wasn’t entirely a lie. She hadn’t given the ink peeking out of the collar of his shirt, or the color marring his hands much attention until that moment. Not because the intricate artwork didn’t stand out—everything from bleeding hearts, to the face of the Madonna and even tiny skulls across each of his knuckles on his left hand—when in fact it did. To her, his tattoos also appeared less like an extension meant to distract others but rather … to make them more interested in the artwork than the man, and more like it was a part of him.

“How much ink do you have?”

He hadn’t taken his shirt off the night in the club. He’d barely shoved his leather jacket off when he was fucking her. She’d liked that just fine, too.

Cory shrugged. “Entire sleeves, just a bit on my fingers and palms left now to cover. Chest and full back piece. Still a work in progress.”

Huh.

Her first thought?

She’d like to see.

Before she could open her mouth and say something stupid, however, a buzzing noise had Cory digging in the pocket of his leather jacket—the same one he’d worn every time they met—and pulling out a phone. His thumb cut across the screen in fast motions before a click sounded, and he was swiping more. The matte black pod in his left ear buzzed, and he grinned at whatever message or call he was listening to.

Della was fine to leave him to his … whatever. Well, right up until he talked back, holding his phone up closer to his mouth while he talked.

“Nah, Monica, just take him around to the pad, okay? He’ll find whatever it is he wants, and then he’ll be good. Kick ass unless you need me to come to do it—love you, yeah.”

His thumb came off the screen. A zing sound came from the phone. Message successfully sent, probably.

The words came out of Della’s mouth before she could stop them, and she didn’t even attempt to cool her tone. “Monica, huh? She know?”

Cory let out a laugh. “Know what?”

It was his blasé attitude that bothered her more than the arched brow and his devilish smirk. Della was all for adult people doing whatever they wanted—as long as everybody was willing and happy, and it didn’t hurt anyone, what did it matter?

She didn’t like men who dogged, though.

At all.

If that’s what Cory did, then she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of him telling her that she was just another mark on his list of people he ran with behind some poor girl’s back, either. So, she opted to be a bitch instead of telling him how much of a piece of shit she thought he was.

“Couldn’t have picked something else to throw over that T-shirt except the leather jacket that looks like it’s seen better days, huh?”

That had him looking offended.