Tracking Luxe (Renegade Souls MC Romance Saga Book 3) Page 3

  “Shocked? No. Where I object is when you take from me.”

  “Say I did. And I’m not admitting anything,” she had the gall to look like she had the upper hand here with that little smile playing on her mouth. “How do you propose we sort this out so I can leave and never see that beard again?”

  Grinder smirked. Direct, little thief. “That’s easy. Just hand over what you took from me.”

  “That’s it, and you’ll let me go?”

  “Sure. I don’t play in revenge, that ain’t my style.”

  “You have a style?” her eyes went over him from the tips of his boots up to the beanie hat in the slowest form of judging. “Shocking,” she must feel ease, he thought, as she leaned over the bed, giving him a good eyeful of gorgeous tanned bare thighs, she grabbed the bean burrito he’d brought, unwrapping the foil, taking a healthy bite and groaned.

  Fuck, the noise hit him square in the torso. His imagination was fertile, he could picture her now moaning for a whole other darker, dirtier reason.

  Cursing under his breath, he needed this pact done and her gone asap. She was not good for his concentration.

  “Say I have your item … and I’m not saying I do,” she reiterated once more, this time smiling around a mouthful of food. God, he liked a woman who actually ate real food, who didn’t pick and poke at a salad without tasting a thing, what the fuck good was that? He’d dated a model who only ate Lunchables and bottled water, skinny as a pole she was constantly dieting, resulting in her always being a crabby bitch. Grinder would rather eat the end of his gun if he couldn’t enjoy all range of food in large quantities.

  He watched Luxe lick sauce from the corner of her mouth, sure she was doing it on purpose when her eyes didn’t leave his face. Little tease. He couldn’t be swayed by her. Liar.

  “And say I’m willing to return it.”

  “So generous of you,” he added, his voice rough and mocking.

  She ignored him and went on.

  “And say I do this for you, what do I get out of it? Far as I can see I would be down something valuable. A girl has to eat, you know?” she showed this by polishing off the burrito in three big bites, she crumpled the foil and tossed it on the bedside table, gulping down the rest of the soda. Even her fucking burp afterwards was sexy.

  Grinder needed his head checked.

  “Please, don’t tone down the arrogance for me, little thief. You steal from me and you want compensation for the loss?” he was incredulously amused. Fuck, he should be angry she was wanting to run him a merry dance, but all Grinder felt was humor slaking through his voice box watching her sitting there primly on the end of the bed, her ankles crossed, fingers laced in her lap and hair caught over one bare shoulder.

  The attraction was real. Even as he ignored it twisting around his lower torso, it was real and firing him up.

  “I tell you what,” he rose, bones aiding to take him to his six-two height, his wide shoulders flexing under his leather cut, her eyes followed and he saw a flicker of appraising lust before the dirty rotten thief masked the look. She could lie all she wanted, she’d fancied him right back last year, whatever happened to change her mind on fucking him.

  Forget that shit, he warned. Not here for that.

  His steps quiet underfoot, the noise from the neighbors tv coming through the wall and outside he caught the sound of cars pulling into the cheap motel off the highway about ten miles from his club compound. None of it registered as much as the look of alarm in her dark eyes when he kept on coming until he was directly in front of her, her neck went back to look up.

  “Try anything, chico, and I’ll break your dick off.” She warned through her even white clenched teeth. Grinder arched a brow, going down on his haunches before her, resting both hands either side of her hips on the bed, essentially blocking her in, unless she wanted to crawl backwards on the bed she was trapped as much as he had her trapped in this room.

  “That’s big threats for such a small thief. As I was saying.”

  “I’m rapidly losing patience…” She informed, her gaze going down to his mouth for the briefest seconds. Grinder smiled.

  “I’m a civilized outlaw, Luxe, but you don’t want to test my patience on this, not when I’ve been pissed off for a year. I can be reasonable … to a point, if you do as I say, when I say and not give me any of that lip. This can be painless and we can forget it ever happened.”

  “Forget you took me against my will? Ha. Nice try with that, you don’t even know what trouble you’ve caused, mister bearded outlaw. You probably should have killed me for all the hurt that’s going to come your way.”

  She was brave for a woman trembling. He suspected not from fear. Leaning in to test his theory, she smelled like summer, and though she didn’t back up, brave little thing, she did tense as he drew his nose up the curve of her cheek. “Trouble is my middle name. Now be a good girl before I forget why we’re here and I shut you up.”

  Hands came up between them and Luxe tried to push him back. Grinder didn’t budge. She huffed a breath and tried again, this time her hands flattened on his chest.

  “What the fuck, are you made from, steel? Move back, outlaw, I don’t want you this close. You said you wouldn’t hurt me, prove it.” Grinder moved deeper into her space, his arms sliding across the bed, touching both of her hips with his fingertips.

  “You aren’t in charge.”

  Awareness.

  There it was flashing through her vision.

  Her felt a sharp stab of guilt that he was making her feel vulnerable but he couldn’t waver, she was a criminal thief he had to remember that, this was no accident, she’d taken from him, keep it in the front part of his brain, the part his dick didn’t control. As sweet and innocent as she looked she was sharp and cunning as a blade, hadn’t she swanned into his life and stole out from under his nose and left just as graceful. But there was something else in her eyes …. Need. She was raking her gaze over his face and he could swear he felt it as if she were running her fingers over his skin.

  She turned a scowl on him. “It’s a little man who gets off bullying a woman.”

  “Is that what I’m doing, bullying you?”

  “You’re not letting me go, what do you call it?”

  “Negotiating.”

  “Ha. And here I must be having hearing problems. Will you move back?”

  Staying on his haunches he gave her a few inches of space, moving his chest from touching her knees, Grinder held her stare. She really was a spectacular woman. In any other circumstance once he’d slaked his need of her he would have been fascinated to hear her thieving stories, to know how she walked up to someone and stole without them realizing, he suspected he would be impressed as fuck.

  “How long are you planning to keep me here? You know you took me from an MC gathering, sí? Jamie Steele is-------”

  Grinder’s jaw went granite tight, his eyelids closing to nasty slits, he got back into her face, their noses brushing, her short sharp breath coasting over his cheeks he watched the flash of surprise, the way she stared at him seared his skin. “He’s what, bebé?” he held no personal grudge against the man whatsoever, not that his sudden burst backed up that claim, unless another MC crossed over into RS territory he didn’t give any of them another thought and still he could picture himself putting a really bad hurt on that fucking pretty boy for putting the smug look of satisfaction on Luxe’s face as she pushed against his chest once more.

  He didn’t like it.

  Didn’t want to know she had history… or present … with the guy.

  It was irrational, diverting his mind from what he’d set out to do.

  But nothing about this situation had him on steady ground, he admitted. Nothing. The moment he knew he was closing in on her it was as if he’d lost all semblance of sanity and he was running on pure adrenaline to catch the woman. He didn’t like to lose, hated it in fact. She stirred him up more than he cared to admit.

  There was no time
at all between thinking he was going to kiss her to the millisecond he crushed his lips down over hers. He swallowed her gasp, cupping around the back of her head he kissed the ever-loving fuck out of Luxe.

  With no participation from Luxe at all, Grinder moved his mouth left then dipped to the right, nipping her lower lip, angered into forcing her to respond even just slightly, to coax her lips into opening for him, she’d once almost swallowed him whole in her ardent rush to kiss him, pushed him against the bar booth and climbed him like a tree, her skinny legs had wrapped around him and she’d gone at his mouth with a hunger he’d never witnessed before, stunned the hell out of him before he let his tongue in on the game and tangled around hers.

  He wanted that same heat, he growled against her lips, deepened, pressing harder, licking the seam of her closed lips, kiss me back. She didn’t do anything except sit limply, but when he drew back he saw her eyes were closed and pink stained under her skin, her tongue darted out to lick the very corner, Grinder didn’t even try to contain his groan.

  Fuck. Shit. He was increasing his jail time by the second.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “He wants a kiss and I want to be free. I also want a kiss. Dammit.” – Luxe.

  “You were the one that broke into my room several days ago, things were moved subtly, I knew someone had been in here. Nice going, stalker.” Arrogance was that bikers best friend as she watched his eyebrow arch and disappear under his wool cap, other than that there was no flicker of emotion on his face, not as if he’d kissed the hell out of her hours ago and then not spoken a word to her since, just sat brooding over in the chair.

  Luxe hadn’t talked either, she’d pulled clean clothes from her rucksack and stormed into the bathroom where she showered for an incessantly long time, expecting him to bark for her to hurry up, it had stayed eerily silent. At one point during the next few hours she presumed he’d left, she pressed her ear to the back of the bathroom door, listening to the stillness, her heart palpable.

  Was she disappointed when she’d pulled open the door and saw him there, his gaze coming immediately to her? The bees in her abdomen, she admitted, had nothing to with the negative emotion and all to do with the way he canted his head and stared at her letting his moody eyes sweep slowly down her body like he had the right to look at that way. Was he recounting that weird kiss where she’d been dying to open her mouth and stroke her tongue against his? Her head of steam disappeared, forced down by sheer will, she needed to get out of here, and while she no longer felt fear, she was irritated and faced with a man more stubborn than her grandmother.

  “I’m tired,” she told him. “You have to go. You probably searched my room already, you can see whatever it was I stole isn’t here. If I still have it it’s in my storage back home.”

  “In Santa Rosa. Where you live with your nana in a three-bed two-bath bungalow in a quiet neighborhood she’s lived for thirty-five years, before that she lived in Ecuador.” Every rough syllable rubbed over her skin as she halted in the center of the room. It was growing dark outside, and she hadn’t been lying, she was tired as hell, bones felt lethargic, being kidnapped took it out of a girl.

  But her tiredness drifted away as her eyes rounded then narrowed to accusing slits. He was letting her know he knew everything about her, including where she lived and with who.

  Was he threatening her? Wrong damn move. “The biker can work a computer mouse, bravo. It still doesn’t alter the fact you have to fuck off now, this was fun and all.”

  “You have a short memory, Luxe. You’re not in charge, not now, not at all, not ever, ya dig?”

  Yeah, she’d dig, his goddamn grave. Inhaling hard she noticed he held the roll of duct tape. “Don’t even consider using that, Grinder. Look, this is stupid and it’s getting out of hand. Tell me what it is I took and I will search for it when I get home and send it back to you.”

  He grinned. She didn’t feel comforted by the stretch of his lips surrounded in all that soft black beard. It was clipped close to his face, no overhang around his lips making that kiss … pleasant. “I could be screaming right now, I could have smashed the window in there, it would have drawn someone’s attention, but I didn’t because I can be reasonable, too. I can’t give you back what I don’t have, right now,“ his scowl turned black, her belly twisted over so she rushed on. “If it was a trinket it will be in my storage unit.”

  “In New Mexico.”

  “Yes, dammit,” curses in her abuela’s native tongue spat out of her. Her Mimi always said she had an awful temper, forever fighting and suspended from school, that same temper had followed Luxe into adulthood. “I want to go to sleep.”

  “So, sleep,” he offered and nodded towards her bed. Her raised brows so confident a moment ago drooped down over her eyes. She’d dressed in clean jeans and a tank top, not about to slip into her bed shorts around this lunatic, already the material was chafing her legs, she just wanted to get naked and go to sleep. “What do you propose we do, sleep together? Maybe the captor and hostage should spoon? Are you going to keep me here until I retrieve whatever it is? I have work to do! I’m not in town for recreational purposes, I work, we all can’t play around in our little bike gangs.”

  “If you want to sleep with me, little thief, you only had to ask.” He smirked and Luxe felt the rise of fury again, it bunched her fists at her side and she prayed for patience.

  “I want to hit you very hard.” She told him honestly and her breath was taken suddenly when he flashed his white teeth in a grin so damn beautiful it was system jarring

  She’d honestly been attracted to Grinder last year, His face and body had appealed to her unsexed hormones, one half night of reckless madness, his attraction hadn’t lessened even with this funny business, she hadn’t been in worse situations, maybe she was lucky it was him who had kidnapped her, maybe not, either way she was irritated not least of all how her body was reacting to the sight of him.

  “What work do you have here?”

  “What?”

  “You said you were here for work. Armado or Fort Springs?”

  Tight lipped, Luxe walked over to the bed, sagging a little in the middle. She could devour a cake the size of her head, when her blood sugar ran low it was a spike of dessert that picked up her energy, if she was to stay awake to deal with this too-pretty idiota then she needed something sweet. She reached for the now flat soda, downed it in two gulps. “Both,” she answered finally. “Don’t worry your pretty head, outlaw, I’m not stealing from you or your club, I’ve always followed the MC guidelines of what I can and can’t do in your towns.”

  “Hmm…” his only response.

  Then he popped up to his feet, startling her to the point she took a step back, encountering the bed at the back of her thighs. It wasn’t only the sheer size of the man that caused her to intake air faster than was necessary, call her crazy, because she must be to not fear him ... not much ... it was more to do with the frisson of something warm and sticky in her lower abdomen that had her wanting to run.

  Crazy. She was fucking crazy.

  Maybe she’d been without a man too long.

  And she was remembering how he tasted, sweet and dangerous, spicy and all sex. How his hands felt running over her body, caressing her breasts, the way he’d begged to suck her nipples until she’d lifted her shirt for him and the moment he’d latched on how the pleasure had blasted Luxe.

  She loved a man who was confident enough to beg.

  She’d felt powerful that night, she’d had a surge of authority to realize she could bring him to his knees.

  If only she’d followed through with their dirty make out session.

  She’d regretted it for weeks afterward.

  “Here’s what’s going to happen,” without any power, she stood motionless, eyeing the door, eyeing Grinder.

  She’d laughed into his mouth when he’d told her his silly name that night. But then he’d doing some grinding against her, dragging his hardness over her hip
and she reasoned it suited him after all. Those bikers and their road names.

  But then Jamie a long time ago had given her an honorary biker name for fun hadn’t he.

  “We’re going to sleep on the bed----”

  “No, we are not!”

  “----and tomorrow we’re going to take a little road trip, just you and me, dirty rotten thief, maybe your nana will cook something nice for me while I keep her company and you retrieve my item…”

  The way he said it, in that dark silken tone had her shackles high around her shoulder blades. Luxe exploded. Kidnap her? Fine. Shove her into the back of a car? Fine. Tie her to a bed for hours on end? Fine. Interrogate her? Fine. But make veiled threats against her abuela in that smug self-satisfied voice?

  “I will kill you if you dare threaten her again!” She launched at him, fists flying against his chest, maybe she stunned him because she got in a few good licks before he reared back, bracing on his large feet and captured both of her wrists. Her insults were in full flow, she called him every cuss word under the sun she could think of, some she invented on the spot because she was so damn furious.

  “Calm down.” He commanded toneless.

  She didn’t calm fucking down. What woman was ever calm because a man told her to? Idiota. She hissed and kicked until he pressed her down onto the bed, pinning her legs with his much bigger body, only then she bucked and tried to use her forehead to hurt him in any way she could. Her abuela was her world and no one, absolutely no one would hurt her, or throw out indirect intimidations to keep Luxe in line. Fuck you, and fuck you.

  “Luxe, you’re going to hurt yourself, stop it now,” his voice never rose, that’s what was surprising, he spoke low against the shell of her ear, keeping her contained within her own fury, both wrists held easily in one of his hands he cupped the side of her head, bringing her face around to look at him. “Stop it now.” He brought his forehead to rest against hers, immobilizing her fully beneath the man who smelled so good. “I’m already facing jail time, I don’t want to add assault if you’re covered in bruises, baby, stop struggling, you’re hurting yourself.” Every word was comforting, as if trying to gentle a wild animal.