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"Everything go okay in Houston?" Cash asks, leading the way to the row of bikes lined up outside the clubhouse beside his Escalade. The whole club is making a charity poker run to Dallas, wives and babies included. We do it every year to raise money for the pediatric hospital where Hands works. "You get your client out?"
"Not yet. The judge is being a dick," I mutter. "She has a previous assault conviction from ten years ago, so he wants to throw the book at her."
"Prick," Cash grunts.
"I'll get her out eventually." Since opening my own firm, I don't take a lot of cases myself. Those I do are usually like this…domestic violence victims who can't afford decent representation.Stand Your Grounddoesn't mean much when you're a woman. It certainly doesn't here. This prick claims she shot him for the hell of it. Her bruises tell a different story, but they arrested her on attempted murder charges anyway. The D.A. is willing to let her plead down to aggravated assault, but fuck that. I'm not letting her go to prison for saving her own life.
But Cash didn't call me out here to talk about my case or the criminal justice system.
"What's going on?" I demand, placing the bags on the ground beside the Escalade.
"You sure someone was in your bed?" Hands drops his bags beside Cash's bike—a custom black Ducati Diavel 1260. The bike is an expensive monster. Cash babies the fuck out of it.
"Positive. I don't fucking wear makeup." There were traces of mascara all over my pillow. Considering that I also haven't had a woman in my bed in…fucking ever…well, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out. I'm not saying I'm a choir boy, because I'm not. I was a teenage boy once upon a time. But I realized quickly that casual sex wasn't for me. Call me old-fashioned or whatever. My fucking point is, someone's been in my bed, and I didn't invite them in.
"Shit," Cash curses.
"Son of a bitch," Hands says at the same time, his face falling into lines of worry. The same reflects in his eyes, the green darker than usual, subdued. "You think it's her?"
"Maybe." Cash rubs a hand down his scruffy chin, staring back toward the clubhouse. "Fuck, maybe."
"Either of you plan to clue me in on who the fuck you're talking about?" I growl.
"Devin."
Devin.
My dick throbs as soon as he says her name. Devin Quartermain has been fucking with my head since the first time I set eyes on her at Petal Pushers—Hadley and Kyra's flower shop. She's a curvy little ball of sunshine with the sweetest smile. The things I want to do to her would shame the devil. They'd probably horrify her. She's eighteen, far too goddamn young for me.
I'm twenty years older than she is. I feel like a sick son of a bitch for even thinking about her the way I do. But I can't seem to help myself either. She's the kind of beautiful that makes a man crazy. Raven hair. Big brown eyes. Olive skin. A mouth I could get lost in. Hips I could sink my hands into. Her sexy little body turns me the fuck on. She haunts my mind.
I feel like a goddamn creep for thinking about bending her over and eating her little holes while she's screaming for daddy. Until the day I met her, the desire to have someone call me daddy never crossed my mind. I never wanted it, never needed it, never even considered it. And then she waltzed into the flower shop like a bright ray of sunshine and annihilated everything I thought I knew about myself, honor, and what's right.
I tell myself I need to stay the fuck away from her and Petal Pushers…but I still find myself making excuses to stop by just to catch a glimpse of her. The lawyers at my firm think I've taken up gardening as a hobby at this point because I bring in so many goddamn flowers.
Yeah, she's fucking with my head. Majorly.
"Why the fuck is Devin sleeping in my bed?" I growl.
"I don't know that it is Devin," Cash says, holding up his hands in a placating gesture. He's a smart son of a bitch. He's the only one of our brothers who realizes that shit has changed for me. I don't think he knows why, but I have a feeling he knows Devin lies at the heart of it. "But she quit Petal Pushers out of the blue last week, and no one has seen her since."
"What the fuck?" I glower at him, my blood pressure rising. Why the fuck didn't he tell me she quit? I want to ask but swallow the question back. I know why he didn't tell me. It's not my fucking business. I made sure of that myself, didn't I? I can't stay away, but I won't get close. I just watch from a distance, stalking her like a fucking creep.
"Rulie and Gloria think someone has been sneaking into the clubhouse at night," Hands says. "Things aren't where they left them, little shit keeps coming up missing. Two days ago, Hadley swore she heard someone crying in the middle of the night when she and Cash were here. Then Samara heard someone moving around in your room last night when we crashed here."
Aside from Rulie and Gloria, none of us live at the clubhouse, but we all have rooms here. We have a rule about not drinking and driving. If we pick up a bottle, we're here until we dry out. Doesn't matter if it's one bottle or five. No one gets on a bike or behind the wheel with alcohol in his system. Besides, as much fucking time as we spend here, having rooms here just makes sense.
"Why aren't the cameras picking this shit up?" I demand. Finn "Hacker" Taylor, our resident computer virtuoso, and Giant have this place wired up tighter than the Pentagon. After everything we've dealt with lately, our security is top-notch. A SEAL platoon couldn't hack through it, let alone one curvy little slip of a girl.
"I had them shut them off," Cash says quietly, leaning back against the Escalade with his arms crossed over his broad chest.
My first instinct is to get pissed. We've been through too much bullshit lately for him to be cavalier with everyone's safety. But this is Cash we're talking about. One thing he isn't is cavalier, especially when it comes to the safety of the people he loves. He'd bleed for our brothers. He'd lay down his life for his wife and kids. If he turned the cameras off, he had a reason. A damn good one. So I take a breath, take a beat, and chill the fuck out.
"Explain," I growl. Okay…so maybe I'm not that fucking chill.
"If it's her, she's hiding here for a reason," he says, giving me a sharp look. He doesn't call me on my attitude though. "I'd rather not scare her off before we find out what that reason is. She's been sneaking in for a week. She hasn't caused any damage, hasn't taken anything more than a little bit of food and a few personal hygiene supplies, and goes out of her way to remain undetected. If she meant us harm, she'd have caused it by now."
Shit. We're on the same team here. He's fucking worried about her too.
