Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
When Greer finally came around her brother’s house into the front yard, Alex had already been sitting in the passenger seat of her car for fifteen minutes. Cal Maddox had probably been giving his sister an earful about how she shouldn’t mess around with a guy like Alex.
Couldn’t really blame him.
If Alex had a sister who looked like Greer and some guy who looked like him came sniffing around, he’d kick the son-of-a-bitch to the gutter. Stomp him in the face a couple times for good measure.
Which meant Alex had probably just kissed his chances at PBC’s tooling work adios.
Hell, he’d have to make a new plan to get the last of the money he needed.
Since he was already in Texas, he might as well quietly make the rounds to the other custom bootmakers.
Few were in the same league with Prophecy Boot Company, but he couldn’t be choosy now.
But as he watched Greer stride across the yard in that flirty shirt, those tight jeans, and a pair of boots most people would kill for, all that worry simply disappeared from his brain. She was a compact fireball of perfection. Perfection he wanted to have wrapped around him.
Keep dreaming.
She yanked open the driver’s side door, and her beeswax scent blew in as she flung herself into her seat. “Sorry about my brother. He’s protective.”
“It’s not wrong for a man to care about what’s his.”
Greer turned to consider him, her head angled so a tendril of her wild hair skimmed her cheek and hung down to touch the tip of her breast. Everything inside Alex clenched with want.
Want for her naked and all that dark hair playing hide and seek with her skin.
Want for not only her body, but also the light and life inside her.
He leaned toward her, actually reached out to twirl a finger around that strand of hair.
She glanced down, and her eyes popped wide.
Before he could retreat, she grabbed his wrist, pulled it closer to inspect it.
Motherfucker, he’d forgotten that he’d flicked open the buttons on his shirt cuffs, leaving his skin visible.
She shoved at the fabric, but the other button held, allowing her to expose only a few inches of his forearm.
“This is incredible,” she breathed. With her fingertips, she traced the inked design on his arm, smoothing over the stylized head of a feathered serpent.
Her touch was like being jabbed with a match and then having the spot soothed with cool, clean water.
“Does it wind up your arm? Can I see?” She eyed the buttons bisecting his chest.
Oh, no way in hell. If she unbuttoned his shirt, she’d get a quick eyeful before he yanked off her clothes and fucked her right here in her brother’s front yard.
Classy, Villanueva. Haven’t you learned a damn thing in the past ten years?
He shoved down his cuff and fumbled with the button. Why in the hell were his hands shaking? He couldn’t seem to get his fingers to manipulate the tiny piece of plastic.
Greer grabbed his hand, gently turned it palm up, and expertly slipped the button into its hole.
And holy shit, the slide of her fingers against the inside of his wrist was the straight-up sexiest touch he’d experienced in…
possibly ever. And the way she was staring at his mouth while she continued stroking the skin under his cuff told him everything he needed to know about the way she felt. This was not a one-sided attraction.
She was as into him as he was her.
Hell, it wasn’t as if he hadn’t already blown his chance at the contract, so Alex leaned into Greer, slid a hand behind her neck, then put his mouth on hers. Soft lips. Smooth skin. Sweet scent.
All of it flowed through his body to settle heavily between his legs. He pressed closer and tested how serious Greer was about this kiss by touching his tongue to her bottom lip. She tilted her head and opened her mouth to let him inside.
Hot and sweet and…the slight tang of mustard. She’d filched some of her brother’s lunch. Yeah, he’d like to make a sandwich of her, pressing her between his body and a mattress. Or his body and a tree. Or his body and the dashboard.
She scratched her nails down his inner wrist, and something exploded behind his eyes, something that felt a hell of a lot like predatory lust. His tongue still in her mouth, he reached down and released the slide on her seat, giving him a little more room to maneuver.
His hand went to her thigh, and as much as he’d admired those ass-snugging jeans all day, he’d give every last cent in his bank account if she’d been wearing a skirt. If she had, he’d slide a hand over her thigh, spread her legs wide, and get his hand between them.
Would rub two fingers over her panties—wet from how turned on she was—and slowly slide them beneath the elastic to touch that hot spot. Slick over her clit and lips, teasing, circling. And then finally burying them palm-deep inside her. Finger fuck her until she lost control and screamed his name.
Even with the awkward angle, Greer plastered her upper body against his and wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing her breasts against his chest. Wanting a handful of those, he wedged a hand between their torsos and tugged open her shirt’s braided tie.
Her bra was just a thin little bit of nothing, and he shoved one cup down.
The feel of her breast in his hand sent another jolt through him, short-circuiting his control.
Crazy because he’d had his hands on his first pair of these when he was thirteen.
He’d just about come in his shorts then, but that had been a long time ago.
But when he squeezed Greer’s nipple between his thumb and finger, she pulled her mouth from his and let out a moan that jacked him up as much as if her hand was circling his dick.
He set his mouth against the hollow of her throat and shoved aside the other bra cup. He pinched her nipples, and the sound she made was high and frustrated. “Just a little more and I could—”
Crack. The sharp sound hit Alex’s ears like a pair of brass knuckles to the temple. He palmed the back of Greer’s head to push her toward the floorboard, but she wasn’t having any of it, squirming out of his hold and staring openmouthed over Alex’s shoulder.
“Uh-oh.”
Alex turned, trying like hell to keep Greer behind him. Rather than an imminent threat, what he saw was a man’s retreating back.
Shit, Cal Maddox had just caught them making out like a couple of horny teenagers after prom. Truly fan-fucking-tastic.
Greer nudged her hair out of her still dilated eyes and slumped back in the driver’s seat. “That was slightly embarrassing.”
No, that was career suicide. “Think he’s going inside to get a gun?”
“Doubt it.” She chuckled and squeezed his hand with an easy affection that rocked him, leaving him unsettled and strangely needy in a completely nonsexual way. “Because if he’d really wanted to kill you, he wouldn’t have knocked. You’d already be full of holes.”
Nicolás Villanueva glared up at the midnight sky and wished like hell the moon would stop shining down like a freaking spotlight.
But he never lost sight of the person wearing jeans and a hoodie hanging off a forty-foot-tall warehouse by a loop of rope around the waist. How many times did he have to tell José this shit was dangerous?
But it didn’t matter. The only thing important to José was getting the tag done. And not just any tag, not a quick spray of letters and symbols, but a full-blown piece of art.
Nic shifted from foot to foot, but the feeling creeping up the back of his neck wouldn’t go away. He called out in a shout-whisper, “You need to finish up and get down from there.”
“Five more minutes,” José yelled back.
That was always the answer. Five more minutes. But those five had a tendency to stretch to thirty. One time, when they were on an isolated highway overpass, it had stretched to a full hour. When José focused on a project, it was the only thing that existed.
And the shit was good, the best graffiti anywhere in San Antonio. Hell, probably the best in Texas. José was getting a rep. Had been given the nickname Jefe Mejor, best boss, from the people who cared what was spray-painted on the sides of buildings.
“We can come back tomorrow,” Nic said.
“You know it don’t work that way,” José said, clearly distracted. “I won’t be able to get within a mile of this thing after the cops get an eyeful of it.”
True. That.
José had already painted the bones of a scene from the barrio, with a cop standing spread legged over a Hispanic guy on the sidewalk, blood trickling from his mouth and a hand outstretched as if he were reaching for the gun on the ground.
Why the hell it was so important to create art like this, Nic had no idea.
Hell, they lived that scene. Wasn’t that enough?
Out of the dark, a sharp blade of headlights cut across the parking lot and carved fear into Nic’s belly. They had to get the fuck out of there. Now. “Get the hell down.”
José glanced around and must’ve come out of the art headspace for long enough to recognize what those lights meant. “Pendejos.”
Yeah, that’s the kind of attitude it was easy to adopt when friends had been gunned down by the uniform-wearing assholes who were supposed to serve and protect them.
Served up bullshit and protected their own asses, maybe.
José started climbing upward, hand-over-hand on the frayed rope Nic was going to throw the fuck away when they made it out of here.
If José insisted on doing this night after night, Nic would scrounge up the cash for a decent rope.
Maybe one of those real harnesses rock climbers used.
Because it was pretty damn clear José’s tagging was more than pissing a circle around their territory.
It was José’s art and religion all wrapped up in one.
“I said get the fuck down. There’s no time for you to climb up.”
“I’m trying.” José jerked on the rope they’d jury-rigged. “The knot is stuck.”
Fuck, fuck, fuck. Nic couldn’t leave his best friend in the world hanging ass-out in the air. “Cut it.”
“What?”
“Get your knife out and cut the fucking rope.”
“But I’m…”
Yeah, José was at least twenty feet in the air.
“I’ll break your fall.” Thank the Virgin Mary that José was a good thirty pounds lighter than Nic.
José twisted and contorted to pull out the knife. “One, two, three.”
And José dropped like a freaking fifty-pound bag of rice.
And fuck trying to make the catch. Nic just let José’s weight body-blow him, knocking them both to the ground and slamming the air from Nic’s chest. The hiss of spray cans and the feel of his right elbow meeting the asphalt rang through his body, but they didn’t have time to deal with either.
Nic pushed José off him, grabbed a handful of hoodie, and ran like hell.