Shady’s Lady (Saint’s Outlaws: Miami, FL #2)

Chapter 1

Shady

Miami looks clean from this high up.

That’s the lie Lady’s glass tower sells better than any man I’ve ever met.

Forty stories over Biscayne Bay, the city spreads out beneath us in gold light and blue water, all shine and money with the sun crawling over windows that cost more than most people’s homes.

From up here, Miami looks like a postcard somebody forgot to bloody.

No alleys.

No bodies.

No bikers washing sins off their knuckles in the sink behind Vice Ink.

Just ocean, traffic, palms and rich people pretending the world can’t climb this high.

Lady sleeps like she believes that lie.

One arm above her head. Dark curls spread across white pillows.

One bare leg kicked out from the sheet like she fought the bed and won.

Glitter still clings to her cheekbone, catching the early light every time she breathes.

There’s a faint smear of red lipstick at the corner of her mouth and my bite mark high on her inner thigh where no camera, no fan, no thirsty club promoter gets to see it.

Mine.

The word settles low in my chest before I can kill it.

I don’t do that. Don’t look at a woman asleep in my reach and think forever. Don’t think about where she keeps the coffee or why she folds her clothes by color or how the place smells like expensive perfume. Lady’s trouble with a trust fund.

I’m Saints Outlaws.

Road Captain. My job is movement. Routes. Timing. Engines. Exits. Back roads. Bad roads. Who rides where. Who takes point. Who carries weight. Who doesn’t come home if I misread a turn.

I don’t get soft. Soft men miss threats and bury brothers. Soft men fall asleep in high-rise beds with women who got famous and forget the city below still collects debts.

Lady rolls onto her side and opens one eye.

“You’re staring, papi.”

Her voice is sleep rough, smug, and sexy enough to make a smart man leave before he does something stupid.

I’m still here, so that tells you plenty.

“I’m checking for damage,” I say.

Her mouth curves. “To me or your ego?”

“To the bed.”

She laughs into the pillow, low and warm. That sound would crawl under my cut, if it wasn’t on the chair across the room, folded over the back as if it belongs in a place with marble floors and floor-to-ceiling glass.

It doesn’t.

Neither do I.

Lady Nyx belongs here. In the sky. In silk sheets.

In a condo where everything shines and nothing smells like gasoline.

She’s Miami famous in the way Miami loves best. Nightclub queen.

DJ. Influencer without acting like she’s trying.

A woman who can walk into a room and make every phone tilt toward her like she’s the damn sun.

She lives above the noise, then comes down at night and turns the volume up until nobody remembers their bad decisions have consequences.

I live in the consequences.

“Road captain got lost last night,” she murmurs.

I glance toward the view. “I knew exactly where I was.”

“In my bed.”

“Yeah.”

“With your dirty boots on my floor.”

“Didn’t hear you complain.”

She stretches slowly, and the sheet slides down her body like it’s trying to test my discipline.

Lady doesn’t have to work hard to wreck a room.

She just breathes and men start making promises they’ve got no business making.

Her skin glows bronze in the morning light, smooth except where I marked her.

A kiss at her shoulder. Fingers at her hip.

Teeth at the side of her breast where she dared me not to.

I remember every one. Damn.

Her gaze follows mine and lands on the bite near her ribs.

“Proud of yourself?” she asks.

“Yeah.”

“Caveman.”

“Biker.”

“Same disease, different vehicle.”

I almost smile.

That’s another problem.

Lady sees it too.

“What kind of vehicle does a caveman have?”

Her eyes sharpen, dark and amused, and she props herself up on one elbow. “You know, the ones with the feet holes.”

“The Flintstones?”

“Yeah,” she laughs and winks. “You’re that cute blond gringo one but with a Harley.”

The sheet slips lower. She lets it. Lady weaponizes skin the way other women weaponize tears. She knows exactly what she’s doing and does it anyway.

“Careful,” she says softly. “You almost looked happy.”

“I was thinking about traffic.”

“Liar.”

“Always.”

She reaches for me, nails dragging over my stomach where the sheet covers my hips. “Then lie closer.”

I catch her wrist before her hand gets where she’s aiming.

Her pulse jumps under my fingers. Her smile changes shape, turning slower, hungrier. Outside, the city wakes up with horns and engines and money moving. Inside, it’s just her breathing and mine.

“You got a meeting,” she says. “Church?”

“I got a lot of things.”

“Mm-hmm.” Her fingers flex in my grip. “Any of them more important than me?”

Dangerous question.

Not because I don’t know the answer.

Because I do.

I let go of her wrist and slide my hand to her throat, squeezing. Her pupils widen. Lady likes control until she finds a man mean enough to take it from her and smart enough to give it back.

“You fishing for romance before coffee?” I ask.

“I’m fishing for honesty.”

I say nothing.

Her laugh fades. For one second, the glitter girl slips, and I see the woman underneath. Too smart. Too awake. Too used to being looked at and not seen.

“Was it just another night?” she asks.

The room goes quieter.

I don’t answer fast enough. That’s on me.

Her chin lifts, and there she is again. Armor snapping into place. Champagne smile. Bedroom eyes. Glitter hiding the bruise before anyone gets close enough to wonder how she got it.

“Relax,” she says, tugging her wrist free. “I know the rules.”

I sit up, the sheet falling to my waist. “Do you?”

“I always leave the club before breakfast. You go back to Vice Ink before I get outta bed. You brood. I post something fabulous. Everybody survives.”

“Lady.”

She slides out of bed before I can catch her, bare feet hitting the white rug. She walks toward the bathroom with nothing on but attitude and the marks I left behind. My jaw tightens when I see them. Not because I regret them.

Because somebody else might.

She stops in the doorway and looks back over her shoulder.

“You coming?”

The smart answer is no.

I’m at her back before I finish thinking it.

She grins like she won something.

The shower is glass because apparently rich people don’t believe in privacy, and hot water turns the room into steam while Miami burns bright beyond the windows.

Lady steps under the spray and slicks her hair back with both hands.

Water runs down her body, over my bruises, over her curves, over all the places my mouth already knows.

I should leave. Them’s the rules.

Instead, I crowd her against the tile and take her mouth.

She melts for half a second, then fights me for the shape of the kiss, because Lady don’t know how to surrender without making it a performance. Her nails bite into my shoulders. My hand slides to her waist, then lower, gripping her ass and lifting her until her legs lock around me.

“Shady,” she breathes against my mouth.

That name sounds different from her.

At the club, it’s a call across chaos. A warning. A rank. A brother needing a route, a prospect waiting on an order, Diablo wanting movement before sunrise.

From her, it sounds like a secret.

I pin her to the wet wall and kiss down her throat.

She tips her head back, giving me access like she knows I’ve got no prayer left in me and wants to watch me damn myself anyway. Her body rolls against mine, slick and warm, and the little sound she makes when I bite her shoulder hits me straight in the spine.

“Tell me to go,” I say.

“No.”

Her answer comes fast. Sharp. Certain.

Good girl.

I don’t say it out loud. Not yet. Not this morning. Not when the words feel like they might mean more than sex if I let them loose. Lady hears praise like a challenge anyway. Give her a soft word, and she’ll turn it into a weapon just to see if you bleed pretty.

So I show her instead.

I catch her jaw in my hand and kiss her until that smart mouth opens for me.

Until the steam wraps around us and the shower beats hot over her shoulders and she’s pressed between wet tile and my body with nowhere to perform for but me.

No club. No crowd. No damn camera. Just Lady Nyx naked, slick, and mean in my hands.

“You always this bossy before coffee?” she breathes.

“Baby, you said no when I told you to send me away. That means I’m still here, and I’m gonna make that your problem.”

Her eyes flash. “You think you’re a problem?”

“I think I’m the worst fucking idea you’ve had all week.”

“Cocky.”

“Accurate.”

Then I get my mouth on her again before she can throw another word at me.

I kiss down her throat, taste water and skin and the little catch in her breath when my teeth graze the spot under her jaw.

She tries to keep that attitude on her face.

Tries to look bored, like she doesn’t have one hand fisted in my hair and the other scraping down my shoulder.

I love that fight in her.

I love breaking it more.

Not hurting her. Not taking. Breaking the act. Getting under the glitter and the sharp tongue and the too-pretty armor until she forgets she’s supposed to be untouchable.

I take my time because rushing Lady would be a crime and I’m already guilty of enough. My hands drag over her wet skin, down her ribs, over her hips. She arches when my fingers slide between her thighs, and I feel that first honest tremble before she can hide it.

“There,” I murmur against her mouth. “That’s the truth.”

“Don’t get poetic, gringo.”

“Nothing poetic about how wet you are for me.”

Her breath catches.

There she is.

I smile against her throat. “Yeah. You heard me.”

“Pendejo.”

“My favorite thing you call me.”

“I have worse.”

“Use them.” I press my fingers harder, slower, watching her eyes go heavy. “Curse me in English and Spanish, baby. I want every dirty word in that pretty mouth when I make you come.”

She does.

Fuck, she does.