Chapter 6
SIX
SILAS
What in God’s name was she wearing?
I stood in the doorway that led from the shop into the dingy lobby and office area.
Three plastic chairs sat to my right under the windows that overlooked the customer parking lot.
A high counter cut the room in two and acted as reception, and two desks were situated behind it, elbowed together in an L shape. One directly under the counter and another against the far wall in front of me.
A row of old-style filing cabinets decorated the wall to my left.
Ancient calendars and fliers still tacked to it from the previous owners who’d vacated the property four years ago.
The woman was there, bent over the desk that was directly in my line of sight.
Her ass wagging in the air like a ripe piece of fruit as she punched at the keys of a dated computer, the pert, perfect globes barely covered by the satiny light blue material of her dress’s skirt that brushed up high on her thighs.
Wearing sky-high heels again. This time colored nude. Bare legs for fucking miles.
My dick jumped.
Fuck me. This was a disaster.
“Are you kidding me?” she grumbled under her breath. “Am I really supposed to do something with this pile of crap? Freaking bikers, thinking they can actually run a business.”
Wow. She clearly thought highly of me.
“I don’t see the problem here.” It bled from me like irony. “We bikers like to make sure our offices are stocked with the latest state-of-the-art equipment.”
At the sound of my voice, Brinley gasped and whirled around.
Her hand flew to her chest.
Shock gripping her striking features before it gave way to wrathful displeasure.
Those harvest eyes were wide as they traveled over me where I leaned against the jamb before they narrowed in hostility. “I don’t appreciate you sneaking up on me like that.”
“Huh?” Scratching at my temple with a single finger, I said it like I was perplexed. “And here I thought sneaking was your specialty?”
She inhaled a shaky breath and straightened herself out.
Only thing it did was draw my attention to her front side.
That fucking satin skirt short as hell. Baby blue and hemmed in beige lace. The top two buttons of her blouse were undone, giving just a peek of cleavage underneath.
Untamed brown and gold curls framed her face.
Motherfucking wildfire.
She lifted her chin. “If I’m going to be staying here, then I need to be comfortable moving around. I don’t want to feel like I’m trapped.”
“Fair.”
Second I said it, I wished I could take it back. But maybe Meems was right. Maybe I needed to budge a little.
Surprise jolted her back. “Are you serious?”
Before she got too comfortable, I cocked my head. I made sure the warning clipped off on a threat. “As long as you keep your nose out of where it doesn’t belong.”
“And where is that?” she challenged.
Pretty much everywhere, but she didn’t need to know that.
“If it seems like a place you shouldn’t tread, then don’t go there. You’re a smart girl.”
I didn’t even try to keep the mocking edge out of my words.
She couldn’t gain access to the places I didn’t want her, anyway, so it really didn’t matter all that much. But I didn’t like the thought of her wandering around the property by herself, either.
Yeah, the guys knew the score.
She was not to be fucking touched.
It didn’t stop an army of ants from marching across my flesh at the thought.
Brinley sent me a scowl. “Super clear. Thanks. About as clear as whatever the hell I’m supposed to be doing around here.”
She waved a flustered hand at the pile of junk behind her.
“We haven’t been here that long, and we’re still getting set up.” I pushed from the doorway and took a couple of steps into the lobby.
I was instantly hit with that scent.
Almonds and apples dipped in sweet cream.
Did she light a damned candle?
“So, this isn’t how you always operate?” It was loaded with sarcasm.
Didn’t know what the hell I was doing, but I kept moving toward her. Boots thudding against the ground in time with her panted breaths.
I stopped an inch from her.
Eclipsing her in my shadow.
Her ass hit the edge of the desk as she backed away, and I kept angling for her, pinning her to the wood.
Her heavy breaths pelted the front of my neck, and a wisp of her hair brushed across my cheek.
Every line of her body had gone both pliant and rigid. Everything gathering to a shivery pinpoint as she waited for what I was going to do.
I edged even closer, my movements slow as I reached around her and flicked on the button for the computer.
The motor whirred to life as I edged back a fraction, though I remained close enough to whisper in her ear, dragging out each word like a blade, “Even us bikers know how to run businesses, Brinley.”
Then I pushed back, leaving her panting where she was splayed out on the desk.
Disconcertment flitted all over her face.
Then she shot back to her feet.
A tall, raging fire.
“You’re an asshole, do you know that?” she hissed.
My chuckle was raw. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
Wild curls thrashed around her as she slowly stole in my direction.
Clearly, she wasn’t about to back down.
Hips swaying from side to side as she approached.
A frisson of energy swelled in the room.
She cocked her head. “You want me to tell you something that you don’t know? How about this?”
She reached out with her pointer finger and jabbed me hard in the middle of the chest. “I am not a toy, and I’m not here to entertain you or play your games. If working in this shithole fulfills my brother’s debt, then so be it.”
She kept jabbing the sharp tip of her fingernail in the same spot, driving home her point. “But I will not allow you to mess with me. Not you or any one of these assholes around here. Do you understand me?”
I snatched her by the wrist.
A motherfucking flame licked up my arm.
Ferocity whirled through her eyes as she glared up at me.
I mashed my teeth together, and something very stupid deep inside my chest tightened in a way it shouldn’t.
“I think I like you, Brinley Webber.”
It might have come out a taunt, but I was the motherfucking fool who meant it.
Huffing, she ripped her arm out of my hold. “Screw you, Silas Mercer.”
Distrust and hate blazed out of her as she took three steps back.
“And for the record, it’s pretty gross, you getting that close to me, when you have a kid and a wife or a girlfriend or old lady or whatever the hell you call her. But I guess that’s just another way bikers operate.”
A kid and a girlfriend?
I couldn’t help the smirk that climbed to the edge of my mouth, because her words were pure disgust peppered with a little of something else.
“Ah, the things we discover when we’re sneaking around,” I goaded.
Of course I was aware she was stumbling along behind me through the woods when I walked away from her last night.
There was no escaping the heat of those eyes.
I realized then the assumption she made.
I didn’t correct her.
Instead, I crossed my arms over my chest and canted my head to the side. “You jealous?”
A fluster of revulsion and loathing flashed through her face, but I felt the rest of it, too.
Attraction.
Whatever that wired, swarming energy was that she emitted.
I figured it had to be just as dangerous as the rest of her.
“You wish,” she tossed out.
It might as well have been a lasso. One where she got me right around the neck.
Because I was stalking forward again. Coming to within a foot of her. My stupid hand reaching out so I could trace a single finger down the side of her face.
I was nearly overcome with the need to dip all the way in. Hands itching to sink into her flesh.
What I really needed to do was grow a fucking conscience and step away.
But I was inhaling it. The curious desire that wafted off her skin and filled my nostrils with that sweetness.
Almonds and apples.
A confectionery drug that would poison us both.
And still I was muttering, “Wondering which one of us is really doing all the wishing.”
Brinley’s mouth parted on a wheezed exhale. Those wild curls kissing her pink, overheated cheeks.
Clearly, I was a masochist.
A glutton for punishment because there was no stopping myself from brushing the pad of my thumb across her plump, pink lips.
Only thing it seemed to do was hasten the stirring of her storm.
Woman looking like a hurricane in November.
“Wildfire,” I murmured.
The main entrance door swinging open tore our attention that way.
A plain, local guy waltzed through.
Brinley reeled back like she’d been released from a trap.
Maybe that’s exactly what I was.
A trap.
Trying to touch on something that I knew better than touching.
I knew better.
I fucking knew better.
The dude stumbled once he noticed us standing there. No question he knew he was stepping into a field of landmines.
The tension was stretched so tight between me and Brinley it probably felt like he was inhaling bricks.
At the sight of me, his eyes widened. Natural instinct kicking in and slowing him with a caution flag.
I knew in one single second that this guy wasn’t a threat.
Always a good start to the day when I didn’t have to murder someone before eight.
I looked back at Brinley with a smirk. “Looks like you have your first customer. I’ll let you get to it.”
Then I swiveled around and got the hell out of there before I made any more mistakes.
Because with Brinley Webber? I was afraid they might just prove fatal.
Me
Did you pinpoint anything?
Cash
Still digging.
I blew out a rigid sigh as I read Cash’s response on our secure thread.
One he’d set up for us several years ago when we’d started assisting one another.
Dread clamored around inside me, inciting me into pacing what felt like a six-foot-deep trench into the ground on the far side of the autobody shop.
If I wasn’t careful, the fucking strain was going to bury me.
Me
Need this taken care of.
Cash Cunningham was the best in the business. That was if your business was hacking into sleazebags’ lives and ridding them of everything they held near and dear.