Lana gave a low laugh. “I could say the same about you.”
He pulled back and cupped her face between his hands. “I told myself it was better that way and I was saving you from getting hurt later on. But really it was about me protecting myself. I’m sorry, for all that’s worth now.” His lips brushed over hers and then he kissed her soft and sweet.
“You grovel well,” she murmured, trying to lighten the mood. She needed time to process what he’d said, instead of reacting immediately as she usually did. “I want to hear more groveling.”
His eyebrow lifted. “Groveling is done. I believe you told me you could be persuaded to do all manner of kinky things in the dark, and since this may be our last night together, we’d better get started.”
Last night together? Lana didn’t think so. If she was willing to risk her heart, he damn well better be prepared to risk his. He had run out on her once already, but time had passed and he’d changed. They both had. Hopefully his old-fashioned attitudes had changed too.
Turning to face him, she wound her arms around his neck. She would make this a night he wouldn’t…couldn’t forget. A night that would leave him wanting more.
“So…about those kinky things…” she whispered.
Chapter Sixteen
Bubbles “Angel” Bodine was a rough woman. Five foot nothing, with a tough, wiry frame, overprocessed, bleached-blonde hair, perma-tanned skin and piercing blue eyes, she sucked up all the air in Lana’s office and replaced it with nicotine fumes. She dressed biker. She looked biker. And when she leaned forward to rasp out her demands with an irritated growl, Lana wondered why Angel had bothered to have
Ima Biker Bitch
tattooed across her highly visible and very generous cleavage.
“Where’re my pictures?” Angel pulled the client chair closer to Lana’s desk.
Lana swallowed. “I got pictures of Rex with Portia, but unfortunately I dropped the camera and I haven’t been able to retrieve them yet.”
“
Portia?
That little two-faced slag has been after him since day one. You know how she got to be Hades’s mama? One day she called all the brothers down and lined them up…”
“Actually, I don’t need to know.” Lana threw up her hands in a defensive gesture as if she could physically ward off Angel’s words. “And it doesn’t matter. She’s been banished from Hades for throwing tacks onto the racetrack during a race.”
Angel snorted a laugh. “I taught her that trick, but I also taught her not to get caught. She’s stupid, as well as a fucking whore.”
Lana bristled at Angel’s language. Not that she wasn’t prone to swearing herself, especially when out drinking with Jackie, but she had limits and denigrating other women was one of them.
“I gotta get those divorce papers filed,” Angel said. “Rex is driving me fucking crazy. He hauls his sweaty carcass into my bed every night and tells me I gotta do my wifely duty. Wifely duty, my ass. There’s no fucking wifely duty when he’s been parading his dick around the Lower Mainland. You know what he gets when he wants ‘wifely duty’? He gets a frying pan to the head. I keep it under the pillow for when his one-eyed dog comes sniffing around.”
“Um…I don’t really…”
On a roll, Angel ignored her. “He’s been no husband to me. He turned my greenhouse into a grow-op. Ripped out my petunias and replaced them with weed. Every flowerpot, every window box, every houseplant—weed, weed, fucking weed. My momma had a birthday and I had to give her a weed bouquet. I mean, don’t get me wrong. She likes a good joint before bed, same as anyone, but I would have liked to give her something with more color.”
“Sure. Color is good.”
“So you got anything new for me? Or do I gotta slap your face to wake you up and tell you to call me when you’ve got something for me to see?”
Lana swallowed hard. Although she had no great affection for Angel, she didn’t want to lose a paying client. And Angel had paid. First the retainer, and then the monthly bill, and then her expenses. No questions asked. “Actually, I have a lead about a new woman…”
She hoped Rex had a new woman. Kickstand had assured her Rex hadn’t been alone in his office last night or the night before, and while on guard duty he’d caught a glimpse of a tall redhead in a red dress leaving the clubhouse in the early hours of the morning.
“New woman?” Angel shrieked. “Bastard’s desk is still warm and he’s already got a replacement. No big surprise there. Can you imagine what it’s like being married to that two-timing scumbag? I got this voice from screaming at him all the time. ‘Where you been all night?’ ‘Who the fuck were you with?’ ‘Why you got lipstick on your dick?’ Doc says I cracked my voice box from all the yelling, and a couple of ribs too. You know what else I got from him and his wandering dick?” She scratched down below. Lana’s stomach clenched.
“Um…not really information I need for the case.”
Angel looked her up and down. “Pretty little thing like you musta had your share of salami. I’m sure you know what it’s like.”
Cheeks burning, Lana cleared her throat. “I’m sure I can
guess
.”
Angel gave her a few ideas of places to look for Rex and his new woman, and they chatted about the new greenhouse she was planning to set up once the divorce settlement came through.
“My baby girl is going to want for nothing,” Angel said as she shrugged her leather jacket over the six-inch shoulder pads on her bright orange, Harley Davidson brand spandex dress. “When the divorce is done, we’re going to move to a small town where she’ll never see a biker as long as she lives. She’ll go to the best schools and have nice friends. Somewhere pretty and wholesome. Maybe Kelowna.”
Lana’s stomach heaved. “Definitely don’t move there. Lots of bikers. Too many.”
Angel grunted and followed Lana into the reception area. “Like you would know anything about bikers. You look so sweet I wanna lick you all over. And lookit the fancy digs you got going on here.”
Lana smiled at the compliment. The renovated boutique architectural loft in the heritage building in Yaletown hadn’t been her first choice when she and Jackie decided to merge their PI practices, but, the minute she’d seen the
exposed brick, high wood-slat ceilings, skylights and reclaimed fir flooring, she had been sold.
Derek, her houseboy/receptionist/wannabe PI raced around the glass reception desk to hand Angel her bill. Angel gave his young, lean, muscular body a slow perusal and grunted her approval.
“Is he man candy or does he actually work?”
Derek grinned. “Man candy. All the way.”
Lana snorted a laugh. He knew the score. Jackie made no attempt to hide the fact she’d hired him for his blond-haired, blue-eyed surfer-dude looks and nothing else. And nothing else was what she got. He was totally incompetent, lacking in any semblance of office management skills, but utterly charming with the clients and devoted to his bosses.
“Well, you got something right,” Angel said to Lana. “I’ll bet he keeps you busy after hours.”
She reached for the door just as a key scraped the lock. Derek and Lana shared a glance. Aside from Jackie, visible through the glass wall of her office, they were the only two people with keys.
The door swung open.
At the sight of a biker-booted foot, Lana sighed. She should have known. Who else would make an unauthorized and illicit copy of her office key?
“What can I do for you…Ice?”
James removed his glasses, then leaned against the doorframe, arms folded, one leg crossed over the other. He met her gaze and winked.
A thrill of excitement coursed through Lana’s veins. So the night in the field wasn’t their last night together after all. He’d come back for more.
Lana Parker is a sex machine!
She pumped an imaginary fist in the air and chalked one up to the seduction techniques she’d learned in romance novels.
Angel coughed nervously and James turned his gaze on the open-mouthed, wide-eyed, stiletto-booted woman in front of him.
“Angel.”
“Ice? What the fuck are you doing here?” Angel bristled and her face reddened. “Did Rex send you to spy on me?”
James stared at her until she looked away. He was in full-on intimidation mode, and in those tight leather pants, Hades vest, black T-shirt and dark glasses, he didn’t even have to try. The do-rag covering his hair only added to his unshaven appeal. He was badass and Lana wanted him. Badass bad.
And from Derek’s red face and panting whimpers, so did he.
“Well fuck,” Angel muttered. “I’m doing it for my baby girl, Ice. You know things aren’t good between Rex and me. You know about all the girls he takes into the office. I want her to have a normal life and that means I need to keep Rex the hell away from her. I know I’m no saint, but I’ll do right by her. You know I will.”
Lana cringed at the begging tone in Angel’s voice. So unlike her. But she was clearly scared of James…Ice. For the first time, Lana wondered how he’d earned his road name.
“I didn’t see you here,” James said quietly. “I walked into this office and I saw a redhead and…” he glared at Derek, “…I don’t know what the fuck you are…looking like some kinda pumped-up, pimped-out GQ model…but you better start packing your bags because you’re not staying either.”
He turned back to Angel. “You got five minutes to get the hell outta Dodge before I open my eyes and see someone I shouldn’t be seeing in a PI’s office.”
Angel’s jaw tensed and she gave him a curt nod. “I owe you one.”
“Yes you do. And now you have four minutes and twenty-seven seconds left.”
Angel hurried to the door and paused to look back over her shoulder at Lana. “You call me when you got the goods. I’ll mail the payment to you.”
And then she was gone.
“Interesting woman.” Derek shuffled closer to Lana, and then his eyes fixed on James. He pressed his lips to Lana’s ear. “Interesting man.”
James’s gaze flicked from Derek to Lana, and back to Derek. “What’s this?”
“He’s Jackie’s.”
“He’s leaving.”
Lana groaned. “Lighten up. He’s harmless and not my type. I like brooding, dark, dangerous bikers who tell me it can’t work between us, fuck me senseless in a field and then show up at my office with an unauthorized copy of my key to mark their territory.”
Derek chortled. James scowled. Jackie looked up from her desk and winked through the glass.
“I didn’t say it couldn’t work.” James followed Lana into her office and slammed the door behind them. “I said I didn’t know if it could work.”
“So…you came here to tell me you just want to be friends?” She whirled around to face him. “Is that it? Because I have all the friends I need. And I have Derek in case I need something my friends can’t give me.”
James folded his arms and leaned against her office door. “He’s gay.”
His smug attitude began to grate on her nerves and she had to remind herself that she was the one who had taken the initiative to convince him he wanted more. If not for her unrestrained, wanton, kinky behavior the other night, he probably wouldn’t be here. She needed to bring him down a peg and level the playing field.
“You wish.”
His eyes narrowed and he rocked his neck from side to side, puffing out his chest like he was spoiling for a fight, as he whipped off his leather jacket. “Then I’ll deal with him. My girl’s not working in an office with that fucking dick on legs.”
My girl.
Smug
and
possessive. She’d created a monster. And one who looked like he was about to beat on poor defenseless Derek. But at least she had her answer. He wanted more than friendship. And so did she.
“He’s bi.” Lana sighed. “And I told you, he’s Jackie’s.” And then because she couldn’t help teasing him… “Although…he’s always said he would be willing to lend a hand, if you know what I mean.”
“Jesus Christ.” James ran his hand through his hair. “What kind of office are you running here?”
“A happy one. At least it was until you violated my privacy and made an illegal copy of my key.”
“I need to know you’re fully accessible.”
Lana huffed a breath. “I’m not a bus, James.”
But he wasn’t listening. Instead, he paced around the room, pulling books from the bookshelves, studying her scenic mountain prints, tugging on the drawers of her filing cabinets and peering out her windows. He rifled through the papers on her desk, the files on her credenza, and peered into the closet full of emergency clothing and disguises. At least she’d picked the one office without glass walls. She could just imagine Jackie’s laughter if she caught sight of James rummaging through her cupboards.
Lana couldn’t decide whether or not she liked this territorial sniffing around her office. He seemed determined to touch and study every single thing in her room. She sat at her desk and tried to focus on her paperwork, but his constant shifting of objects, shuffling of papers and peering into corners both unnerved and irritated her. She wasn’t possessive about her stuff, but she did like it untouched.
She finally snapped, “What the hell are you doing? Why don’t you just piss in the corner and get it over with. Derek used that one…” she pointed to the left, “…but the one behind my desk is free.”
Seemingly unconcerned by her uncharacteristically crude outburst, James thumbed through an investigative-techniques textbook. “Just getting to know you, babe.”