Chapter Four #2
She took a step back, honest to fuck, like she’d been sucker
punched.
“You didn’t think I figured it out the minute I saw you
there?” he asked cuttingly. “Bikers don’t read. Bikers don’t volunteer at
runaway shelters. Bikers don’t got brains in their heads?”
“Stop it with the biker stuff,” she whispered.
“Fuck you, Georgiana,” he bit.
Her head jerked.
And then…
“No, Dutch, fuck…” She took in a huge breath and screeched,
“YOU!”
After that, she started marching toward his back door.
Oh no.
She was not going to go and fuck his mission to get Carlyle
some justice.
He began walking toward her, stating, “We are not done.”
She whirled on him and declared, “We so are.”
He stopped two paces away and he didn’t even attempt to
disguise the disgust in his tone when he asked, “You think you got moral ground
to stand on here?”
“Yeah, Dutch,” she said sharply, taking a long stride to
him, and he braced because she was noticeably so pissed, it was sparking the
air, zapping his skin, and he thought she was going to shove him.
She didn’t.
She halted so fast, she swayed and kept talking.
“Because I cannot fucking believe that you
thought…because I was temporarily a bitch. Because I thought I was in a career
crisis. And granted, me taking that out on you was totally not okay.
Even if you have no freaking clue any of the other shit that’s going
on in my life, not just with my job, but with my sister, and…and…whatever.
I cannot believe that you would believe that I would do
something so low and scummy as what you’re accusing me of doing.”
“So what were you doing there?” he asked.
“Carlyle is investigating his father’s murder.”
“No shit?”
“And my guess is, I was there for the same reason you were
there. I was trying to find the guy Carlyle was talking to so I could figure
out what connection he had to what happened that night so I could tell the cops
and then they’ll have a lead. And that might mean finding Carlyle’s father’s
murderer.”
He didn’t believe her, which was why he drawled, “Right.”
But then…
Shit.
She stared at him a beat, still pissed as shit, before that
slid out of her face, and fuck…
The hurt shone clear. Hurt she could not be faking because
it shimmered in the wet gathering in her eyes.
“You know, Carolyn is using Jagger,” she whispered.
He wasn’t expecting that, and both her words and tone made
his chest get tight.
“What?” he whispered back.
“He gives her money. She’s got, I don’t know, four, five
guys on the hook that come and go depending on who’s up next to give her a loan
and who needs a break from her asking. She says she’ll pay it back. Ask your
brother. But I’ll bet she hasn’t paid back a dime.”
Dutch could not believe his ears.
But champagne tastes, he knew Carolyn had those, she didn’t
hide it, tricked out the way she always was.
What he couldn’t believe was that Jag was falling for that
shit.
“And I’m worried,” she went on, “because the other guys are
just guys. But he’s a biker. And pardon me for thinking it, but I’ll bet, woman
or not, good guy biker or not, you don’t fuck over a biker. And for years,
she’s been fucking over your brother. I don’t think he’s too dumb to get it. I
think he likes her and thinks he’s helping her out. But it’s gonna get old and then he’s gonna
wonder where his money is going. Which is to designer shoes, handbags, Dior
makeup palettes and a nasty little relationship she’s got going with cocaine.
And depending on how much he’s given her, who knows what his reaction will be.”
Cocaine?
He didn’t get into that.
He got into something else.
“Jagger would never hurt a woman,” Dutch said through his
teeth.
“There are different ways to hurt people and the vast
majority of them do not involve physical pain,” she fired back. “Of all the
guys she’s taking for a ride, I think the only one she genuinely likes is your
brother. So yes, when Carolyn hooked up with Jagger, I did a deep dive into MC
culture and Chaos. She’s my sister, and she’s messed up, but I love her, so
excuse me, because you might be you, and Chaos might be Chaos, but even you
can’t stand there and deny hardcore MCs are what I think they are. Yours might
be a different kind of hardcore, but Chaos is hardcore, and you know it. But I
didn’t, until I met you. So I got worried. And maybe I developed an attitude
about bikers. She’s my sister and she’s screwing up her life in a number of
ways. Sue me.”
“Georgi—”
“And,” she cut him off, “you’re right. I’m off the
kids beat. I talked to my editor and she agreed it was time I explored new
horizons. She said I have talent, and she wants to see me stretch myself. So
thank you for that, because that was a load off. We’re going to try a few
things, see where I land in the New Evolution of Georgiana Traylor, Ace
Reporter. And the crime beat was discussed and it’s an option. But I am not
using a seventeen-year-old’s heartbreak to further my career. And just you
thinking that, Dutch, says it all about what you think of me.”
On that, she whirled again and headed to the back door.
He was faster, and taller, so even though she got it partly
open, he reached over her shoulder, palm flat to the door, and he slammed it
shut.
“I’m leaving, Dutch,” she told the door.
He felt pressure on it against his palm and knew she was
trying to open it, so he leaned into it.
And her.
She smelled like cherries and almonds.
Christ.
“I fucked up,” he said softly to the back of her head.
“Agreed.”
“Babe, let go of the door. We’ll go back inside and talk
this out.”
“No, thank you.”
“Okay, let go of the door, let’s go back inside so I can
apologize for being such a colossal dick.”
“You know, I thought you were mad at me because you were
being protective.”
Again, not what he expected to hear.
“What?” he asked.
“When you dragged me here. I thought you were mad because
you thought I was putting myself in danger and you’re an alpha biker guy who’d
get ticked because some woman was somewhere she shouldn’t be, even though he
was at the same place for the same reason. And I thought…insanely…that wasn’t
annoying. It was cute and kind of sweet.”
At the end of that, she let out a little huh puff
of air that stated plain she felt all kinds of fool he turned out not to be
cute or sweet.
Fucking fuck.
“Georg—”
“Let me go.”
“We need to talk.”
“I did it for you.”
She turned her head, tipped it back, giving him big, brown,
wounded eyes, and goddamn it.
He barely knew this woman.
And she was unraveling him.
“I was such a bitch to you it made you be mean to me and I’m
not sure that’s you so I wanted to do something that would make you think I
wasn’t a bitch and—”
“Baby, come inside with me so we can talk.”
“—you thought I was there to get a story and—”
“Please, Georgie.”
“—I’ve got some stuff. I talked to my source at the DPD and
he’s getting me more and I’ll deal with that and—”
“Christ, Georgie, please.”
“—I’ll give it to Carolyn when I get it and she can give it
to you and then I’m out and you never have to see me again.”
He told her what she needed to know. “I’m not holding this
door shut, darlin’, because I don’t ever wanna see
you again.”
She just stared up at him.
“Come on, take off that hat, your jacket, I’ll get us a beer
and we’ll work this out.”
“Insult to injury, I’ve been reduced to saying words like ‘made
you be mean to me,’ like I’m seven years old.”
Dutch engaged his other hand to put gentle pressure on her
hip to try to turn her from the door, urging again, “Come on.”
“And just so we’re clear, I wasn’t only doing it so you
wouldn’t think I was a bitch, because that makes it about me. I was also doing
it because I want Carlyle to go to MIT.”
Words weren’t working. His hands on the door and her hip
weren’t working.
It was time to take a different tack.
And the one he chose was bending his head and kissing her.
She jerked away, shifting fast, and slammed a shoulder into
the door.
“Sorry, baby, but you wouldn’t shut up and you wouldn’t come
into my hou—”
He didn’t finish that.
Because she was on him.
Clutching the sides of his head in both hands, she pulled
his mouth to hers, curved her back so her soft body was pressed to his, and
that was all Dutch needed.
He moved into her. One hand up under her hair then buried in
that soft mane, his other arm curled tight around her waist pulling her closer,
he pinned her against the door just as she parted her lips to invite him
inside.
He accepted the invitation.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and shoved her body
further into his.
She smelled of cherries and almonds, her mouth was hot and
sweet and greedy, and when she quit trying to duel with his tongue to take over
the kiss, her capitulation was sucking it deeper into her mouth.
The result, his cock, already stiffening, got rock-hard.
Fact: Georgiana Traylor could kiss.
And she had the sweetest draw he’d ever felt.
He wanted that on his tongue, and elsewhere.
Which meant this had to stop, immediately, or he’d fuck her
on his mudroom floor.
He pulled slightly away to get them both under control.
But when her mouth went after his again, her hand curling
tight around the back of his neck, he adjusted so his left eyebrow was to hers,
his mouth was out of shot, and he sucked in a ragged breath.
“Why’d you stop?” she said, her breathy voice doing a number
on him.
As an answer, he tightened his arm around her waist, and
since there already was zero room between them, she couldn’t miss what she was
doing to him since the indisputable evidence of it was pressing into her belly.
She didn’t miss it.
“The question bears repeating, Dutch, why did you stop?” she
asked.
That made him smile.
And also answer.
“Georgie, you’re the kind of girl I need to take on a date.
Buy you dinner. Tell you how pretty your hair is. Your mouth. Your voice. How
much I like your ass. All that before I fuck you.”