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“Gang shit’s one thing, gangs who play with cartels, smugglers, and other organized crime are something different.”
A dark heaviness hits me. “Organized crime? Here?”
“C’mon, Nadie”—the nickname makes me shiver—“don’t be naive. It’s everywhere, and small towns are great places to hide activity.”
I stare at him. “Sounds like it’s something you know about.”
“You really want me to answer that?”
Yes. The answer is a resounding yes because right now, it’s a distraction. “No.”
He shrugs, and I step closer. “What are you doing, Nadie?”
“Getting another drink because it’s one of those nights.”
Diego runs a hand over his short black hair with the widow’s peak. His eyes, a dark brown that border on midnight, slide over me. Though it’s not a slow undressing, there’s heat, and my skin tingles where his gaze touches.
And me? Lord, help me, I can’t keep my eyes off how his muscles bunch in his arm under the leather jacket. The way the T-shirt clings to the broad and delineated chest with the edges of ink poking above the neckline.
“I’ll get you one.” He half turns and makes one, then hands me one and all the while, two things beat in the room.
The first comes from my words, Lander’s Men.
The second? The thing that’s turned my mouth dry ever since I was twelve. Back then I loved the giant bad boy who protected me. It was an innocent love, childish, and it wasn’t until I was fourteen it started to bloom in my veins, morphing into something else, and at sixteen . . .
I shut the words down.
His gaze is back on me and my mouth’s dry. My heart beats an erratic, fast-tempo song in my veins, and my skin pricks and sings everywhere his eyes touch.
The attraction.
It’s still there.
Strong.
Alive.
Hot and filled with the kind of things I need to stay far away from.
I take a large swallow and the tequila burns a path, slaking my throat, loosening the edges of me. Drinking is dumb, as I don’t do it that much, but I need the false bolster it gives.
“What,” I start, “do you know about the gang, Lander’s Men?”
Diego takes my drink and puts his mouth to where mine was. It’s very deliberate, hotter than any move like that has a right to be, and he holds my gaze as he takes a swallow.
He rubs a finger through the condensation. My gaze catches the heavy silver rings on his thumb and three fingers of his left hand as he does that.
Jewelry on men doesn’t do it for me, and though he never wore any, he is now, the rings and the glint of a chain around his neck. But there’s something about it, the rings that are unexpectedly erotic, not elegant, they’re too masculine for that. There’s beauty, though, and they suit him.
My heart throbs down tight.
How many women has he touched with those rings? Or are they from a lover?
I snatch back the drink, fire cascading as our fingers graze, and I take another swallow.
“Well?”
Diego smiles. The slow, winning smile is still in working order and it still goes for the kill. “Well, what?”
