trouble.”
She barked a dry laugh. “Kind of hard when no one is cooperating.”
Her uppitiness dug into his skin like a swarm of black flies. “Maybe if you stopped looking down your nose at everyone.”
Her chin jacked up. “I’m not looking down on anyone. I’m just asking questions.”
“People usually need a little softening before you crack the whip on them.”
“Ha, now look who’s passing judgment.”
“It’s all a game of appearances, sweetheart.”
She shook her head. The noon sun flamed through her hair, rippling through the question mark curls. “It’s not a game at all.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. The stakes are high, but it’s still a game.”
“What kind of sick game uses people as pawns?”
“Life, sweetheart, life.” He stabbed a hand to the brick wall, effectively caging her between it and his body. His arm hid her outrage at his breach of her personal bubble, but anyone watching would think he’d scored a point. He lowered his head to inches from hers. Her cinnamon scent swirled in eddies toward him, tightening his gut. “Can you act at all?”
“With my transparent face?” she scoffed. But his gaze fixed on the mad beating of pulse at her neck. “Not likely.”
“Well, start practicing, sweetheart.” He kissed her then, hard and fast. Not because he wanted her, but because he was making a point to anyone who cared to watch. Except he’d miscalculated. Touching her was like striking a lit match against a gas-soaked rag. Unexpected heat ripped through him like wildfire, fast and frantic.
Her hands clamped against his wrists and the ridges of her fingertips connected with each beat of his pulse. When was the last time he’d been so aware of anyone? This was all Falconer’s fault for making him responsible for her well-being.
“Don’t do that again.” She speared him with a frosty gaze that contrasted with the heated flush of her cheeks and the molten gold of her eyes. Bedroom eyes. A shiver of anticipation torqued through him. He throttled back a curse. He was used to having women look at him with that kind of heat. This should not rattle him. “Ever.”
She wasn’t his type. He went for tall, uncomplicated women who didn’t care for strings. And Rory came with a whole snarled ball of knotted strings. Way too complicated. But this wasn’t a relationship; it was a necessity if she was to navigate through gang territory without getting lost. Taking responsibility was a character flaw, and Falconer had gone and made him responsible for her hide.
Keeping his hand solidly planted by her head, he down-shifted the rev of his pulse. “What do you know about the way gangs work?”
Her eyes pinched, wary once more. “Not much.”
“It’s a tough world you’re walking into, Rory.” Damn if he didn’t want to taste those lips again, feel that sweet fire stoke him. “It doesn’t work by the rules you were brought up to believe in. The gang’s a man’s world.”
“Then maybe what it needs is a woman to shake things up. Muscle isn’t the only way to get to the heart of something.”
Her tongue darted out, wetting her lips. He swallowed hard.
“Not muscle, sweetheart. Male bonding. That’s something you can’t do. No one’s going to talk to you. Not when they have to answer to Mike.”
She snubbed the truth with a gooselike honk. “But they’ll talk to you. Because you have a penis.”
“You got it.”
She rescued a strand of her hair from beneath his palm, sparking a flash in her golden eyes when finger struck finger. “So you’re saying that to get anywhere, I’m going to have to go through you.”
He jacked one shoulder, slanting closer, though everything in her sent out emergency flares ordering clearance. “Me or another guy. Thing is, you know where I stand. This is a job, nothing else. With them, it’s their life. And like I said, you’re not going to like the way their rules work. A biker chick knows her place. You don’t. Someone’s going to want to teach you a lesson.”
“This is grossly primitive.” A hand fluttered at her neck.
“No, sweetheart. It’s survival. And if you want to get something out of them, you’re going to have to color in the lines they draw.”
Rory was right. She couldn’t act. But maybe that was to both their advantages. “As my old lady, you’re more likely to be tolerated.”
She shrank against the wall as if he’d suggested they get down and dirty right here, right now. “That won’t work. No one would believe I’d choose someone like you.”
“Ouch.” He grinned crookedly and twisted a corkscrew of hair around a finger. “They would if you stopped looking like you’d sucked a lemon when you’re around me. I’m told I’m quite charming.”
“And modest, too.” Her eyes squared in annoyance. “Besides, I’m only here for a week.”
He pushed away from her, giving her breathing space. “They don’t have to know that. Make them think you’re thinking more long-term. Ask about a job at the library.”
She swiveled out of his reach and grabbed the handles of Hannah’s stroller. “What would that gain me?”
“Acceptance.” He tweaked Hannah’s nose. She laughed and made him grin. “And maybe the answers you want.”
Rory shoved at the hopeless mess her bun had become. “So where do these biker people hang out?”
He curled his fingers against the urge to comb through the wild red temptation of Rory’s hair. “You can’t go to a biker bar on your own.”
“Seems like a good place to meet people.” She smiled that saccharine smile he was coming to associate with him losing a round. “I’ll see you at the bar with the half motorcycle sticking out of the building at seven.”
Before he could answer, she strollered Hannah around the building and onto the sidewalk.
She’d maneuvered him into a neat corner. But what the heck? The Hangout was tame enough on Thursday nights. She’d get a taste of the fulfilling life of a biker chick. The chances she’d blow his cover were slim. Maybe an evening out would convince her she wasn’t the right person for the job of finding Felicia. Better she learn with him there to watch over her hide than stir up a bonfire of trouble on her own.
And if the gods were smiling on him, she’d pack up and leave in the morning. He shook his head. “Yeah, right.”
Before he headed back in, he took a detour to the warehouse. Felicia’s Vulcan was still up on its blocks. He tossed off the protective tarp. The red paint gleamed under the fluorescent lights. Clean. Too clean. He checked the tires and found soft earth caught in the treads. Fresh. Why had she taken the bike out and washed it before putting it back on its blocks as if it had been there all winter?
Or
