Chapter 13
Flint
I find Jules on the back porch of the clubhouse with Silver and Tessa. When we walk up, Jasper jerks his chin at Silver. “You’re in my seat. Move.”
Our club president dislikes Silver as much as I do. He’s got reason, that much is for sure. She’s easily the worst club girl our club has ever had. The difference between us is Jasper doesn’t feel the least bit obligated to be nice to her.
Silver stands up, rolling her eyes. “God damn, Jasper. Are you ever going to forgive me for messing with you? It’s been two years already.”
He gently elbows her out of the way and scoots the chair closer to Tessa. “No, it hasn’t been two years yet. And you messed with my old lady, more so than me. It’s like you don’t have the fuckin’ capacity to tell the damn truth.”
“Why do you have to carry a grudge about that? Tessa forgave me a long time ago.”
“You almost got my niece killed when you were whoring for the Savage Legion. Don’t think for a fuckin’ minute that I’ll ever forgive you for that. Now fuck off before I really get mad.”
Silver backs away slowly while I slide into place beside Jules. I get right into telling her our news.
“We think we located the car from the beltline.”
Jules’s face lights up. “Really? That’s amazing.”
Jasper takes a drink of his old lady’s mixed drink and then adds, “We’ve got someone picking it up as we speak. It should be here in the morning. Who knows what secrets that fuckin’ vehicle might hold.”
Suddenly, Jules’s face falls. “Oh God, please tell me there was no body in the trunk.”
I wrap my arm around her and tug her close. “Don’t even think that way. There’s no reason to think that.”
What I don’t say is that if he’s dead, they’d have disposed of the body more securely. She doesn’t need to hear that right now.
Tessa speaks up. “I’m no expert, but if they were going to kill him, wouldn’t they have just done it? I mean, why would they deal with a live body in their trunk when a dead one wouldn’t move around and try to escape?”
Suddenly, another woman’s head pops up from behind Tessa.
Christina’s expression is really excited.
“Sorry, I couldn’t help but overhear. Maybe they needed to keep him alive to extract information of some kind.
” Hardly taking a breath, she continues, “Or maybe they were using him to fleece his company of money or trade secrets. That kind of thing happens more often than you would think. There are all kinds of reasons someone might want to hold onto a hostage instead of kill him. That’s assuming it was a he instead of a she. If it was a woman, the reasons are…”
Tessa interrupts. “I’d love to hear all your ideas, but why don’t we talk in the bar? I need another drink.”
Jasper shoots me an apologetic look before following the two of them because it’s clear his sister-in-law is amping up Jules’s anxiety with that kind of talk.
“Are you okay, sweetheart?”
“What was that all about? Why was that woman acting like this situation was just another unsolved mystery to ponder?”
“I’m sure Christina didn’t realize how she was coming across. She used to be an investigative reporter before she married the VP of our club. I think she just misses the thrill of it all.”
Jules’s shocked expression clears, replaced by her former hopeful one. “So, in the vein of investigating, what do you hope to find from going over the vehicle?”
“If this turns out to be the actual car, best case scenario is we lift prints and collect DNA that lead us to the victim or perpetrators.”
“You can do that? Just collect evidence like a detective?”
I shake my head. “We have a contact with the local PD. Jasper will probably get him to come, collect samples, and send them off to his crime lab. We might be able to get fingerprint identification sooner. That’s how it’s gone down in the past.”
“I didn’t realize everything was so formal between your club and the police.”
“It’s not. It’s one guy who’s pretty much built himself a sterling career on the cases we’ve handed him. We bring him all the best crime, and he does the things that take technical skills we don’t have, and we help him catch the bad guy. It works out for both of us.”
She perks up. “How did you locate the vehicle? I want to know everything.”
I tell her all about the two guns for hire and how my calls all around LA drew them here.
I was their primary target, and she was their secondary target.
She seems distressed for a few minutes until I explain that we roughed up the one we caught, got information on where the sedan from the beltline was, and then cut him loose with a message for the fuckers who hired him.
I smooth out all the wrinkles, so she doesn’t worry.
I not only believe we have the situation under control, I believe we’re one step closer to finding the man who was in the trunk.
We talk into the evening, have a light dinner, and when I reach for my napkin, there is a sketched design on it.
It’s clearly a caricature of me because the face carries all my distinctive features. Picking it up, I have to smother back a smile. She’s drawn me with a big head on a smaller body, and I’m riding on an even smaller bike. It’s cute how she got my beard and tattoos right.
When my eyes lift to hers, I can tell that she’s pleased with herself. “This was the drawing you were working on when I left?”
Her eyebrows fly up. “It’s a sketch, and yeah, that’s what I was working on. Tess said it looks just like you.”
My eyes drop down to the sketch pad that she’s laid aside. I jerk my chin towards the closed book. “What else have you been sketching?” I ask as I slide the napkin with my face on it into the inner pocket of my cut.
She grabs her sketch book and holds it in front of her like she doesn’t want me to see.
When she blushes, I know I’ve got to see what’s inside her sketch pad.
Eyeing it, I realize it’s not the same one she showed me before.
This one is smaller and has a slightly different cover.
Reaching across the table, I close my hand over the top of the spiral rings running along the top.
She panics slightly. “Flint, don’t.”
“I think you have naughty sketches of me in your book. If you let me see, I might pose for you like those naked dudes in your art classes.”
Her arms fall slack, like her mouth, as I pull the pad across the table.
“How did you know there were naked men posing in my art classes?”
I snort a laugh as I flip the cover up. “Everyone knows art students sketch naked bodies.”
When I look down, my cock gets hard instantly. She really has drawn racy images of me. Tommy would beat my ass if he saw these images, but I’m caring less and less about that the more time I spend with his sister. It’s what she wants that should matter. And it’s pretty clear what she wants is me.
The first sketch in the book is me sitting on the sofa wearing nothing but jeans with the fly open enough to barely see what happens where my happy trail ends.
I can see the thick root of my own cock.
She sketched that lopsided smile I sometimes have onto my face.
She’s neatly drawn every single tattoo on my body from memory.
I’m not a judge of how attractive men are, but I think she might have made me way more attractive than I really am.
To ease my throbbing cock, I flip to the next page.
That’s when I smile for real. The whole page is nothing but my bicep in intricate detail, only she’s worked her own name into my design.
I recognize that for what it is, claiming behavior. She wants her name on my body.
I keep flipping, and every page is just more of the same.
Downright sexy sketches of me, all of them with my jeans slung low on my hips and no shirt.
I’m always smiling, always happy. By the time I get to the end of the book, I want nothing more than to have this reality she presents in her sketches.
Even though I want to toss her over my shoulder, carry her downstairs to our room, caveman style, and give her so many orgasms she begs me to stop, I don’t, because she doesn’t need to deal with my ugly cock right on top of all her other problems in life.
She needs me to be the better man who doesn’t take advantage of her in her time of need.
When I close the book and hand it back, I can see the need and disappointment on her face. “Is this one of those situations where artists prove their skill by sketching old, crusty people and making them seem worlds more interesting than they actually are? If so, you did a good job, sweetheart.”
She frowns at me, and it’s a genuine frown. “Don’t do that. Don’t talk negatively about the best thing in my life. You’re not old and crusty. You’re a man in the prime of his life, living life on your own terms. I know I’m not your type, but any woman would be lucky to end up with you.”
I freeze, wondering if that’s how she really sees me. As something worthy and desirable. I lower my voice and tell her, “It’s not that you aren’t my type. You’re exactly my type, but you’re off limits and going through a crisis. I’d be an asshole to take advantage of you right now.”
I watch a multitude of expressions cross her face one after another. The one that sticks is defiance. It’s obvious by the way her chin comes up and her eyes narrow slightly. I can’t keep the stubborn pride from surging in my chest that this is the thing she’s decided to get stubborn about.
“That’s fine. We don’t have to get together, enjoy the slide of our naked bodies against each other, or even do low-grade making out like kissing and touching.
It’s not like you’d really enjoy having my hands on your cock.
” Gesturing towards the bar where all the club girls tend to gather, she adds, “You have all the pretty hands a man could ever want, right? I’m the only one sleeping alone and seeing to my own needs. ”
Every word she just said takes my breath away.
Every single word. She just put all kinds of visual images in my head that won’t go away.
I can almost imagine what she looks like naked and how good our bodies would feel sliding against each other.
And the icing on the cake is the image of Jules with her hand between her legs, masturbating to thoughts of me.
Fuckin’ hell, I’m totally fucked moving forward.
“You’re killing me here, Jules. I’m never gonna get those images out of my head.” I realize after I speak how hoarse and ragged my voice sounds.
“Well, a deal’s a deal. I let you see my images, and now you owe me one nude sitting.”
“I didn’t mean that when I said it,” I stammer. Truth be told, I only said it because I didn’t think she’d take me up on it.
“A deal’s a deal,” Jules says primly. “You’ve been clear that you expect that kind of integrity from me. Now, I’m just holding you to your own standard.”
I’m exasperated because she’s right that doing what you say is integrity. And I’m also feeling some kind of way about my unruly cock not staying down. I’m not the kind of guy to be ruled by my cock, but it’s making me think things I shouldn’t.
“Fine,” I say tightly. “Just let me know when and where.”
“Here and now,” she says briskly while gathering up her sketch book and pencils.
I feel like I’ve been outmaneuvered. I bring one hand down to press him to the side in my jeans, hoping that makes it less obvious that I’ve got a huge hard-on. As we make our way to the steps, every club girl in the room notices my predicament because, of course, they fuckin’ do.
Once we’re in our small room, I look around for a place to sit for this impromptu modeling session.
Holy fuck, whoever thought I’d end up nude modeling for an actual artist. I’m not ugly, but I’m not modeling material either.
I guess it doesn’t matter unless her sketch ends up in a gallery somewhere.
I should probably offer to buy it myself.
There’s no easy chair or furniture other than the bed, desk, and chair. This is what I get for living such a damn clutter-free existence. Now Jules has me right where she wants me, naked in bed. My cock twitches at that idea. I reach down and give it a good, hard slap to teach it to behave.
Jules makes a strangled noise from the desk, where she is setting up her sketch pad and laying her pencils out. “Are you okay?” she asks in a serious tone.
I turn to find her staring at me like I’m some fuckin’ feral dick-slapping creature with no self-control, which I am at the moment.
I clear my throat as I take off my cut and lay it on the end of the bed. “I’m fine. Do you want me to stand or what?”
Jules shakes her head, frowning. “I want you on the bed, of course. I’m doing a portrait, not an anatomy sketch.”
Like I know the difference. I take off my shirt, sit on the edge of the bed, and slide off my boots and socks. Hesitating before I go for my zipper, I ask, “Are you sure this is a good idea?”
“If you’re shy, I can take my clothes off as well. You know, to make you feel more comfortable,” she deadpans back.
“Absolutely not, one of us being naked is more than enough.”
When she laughs, I curse under my breath. “You’re enjoying every fuckin’ second of this, aren’t you?” I tell her grumpily.
“I knew you were going to say no to that idea. I’m far too irresistible for you to agree to something like that.”
I kick my jeans off and climb into the bed in my boxer briefs. “You fuckin’ well are too irresistible. That’s no lie. But we’re not having hot sex.”
Her head snaps up. “I never said we were. Where did that come from?”
“Sorry, I’m just jumpy.”
Setting her sketch pad aside, she sits quietly for a few minutes. “We don’t have to do this if it’s going to freak you out. I thought that since you made the deal, you were okay with it.”
“I am okay with it. I don’t mind you sketching me. It’s just skin and bones. Draw it all you like.”
Her eyes lower to her sketch pad again, and she picks up a pencil.
She murmurs so quietly that I almost can’t understand what she’s saying.
“Sketching is never just skin and bones, Flint. You should know that from looking through my other sketches. It’s about capturing the details, the emotions, and the essence of the subject. ”
I relax back against the wall and make myself comfortable. She doesn’t ask me to remove my underwear, and I’m vaguely disappointed by that. Maybe she didn’t want to see my junk after all. If it were anyone other than Jules, I’d think this was some kind of humiliation ritual.