Still Waters (Greenstone Security Book 1) by Anne Malcom
But Bull?
I feared that it had shredded his soul so much that it was little more than ashes in the empty column of his chest. Ashes that I feared he’d always taste on his tongue.
And no one could fix that.
My eyes touched on Gwen, the way she sauntered through the party in clothes made for the Upper East Side and not the dying grass of a motorcycle compound littered with bottles and perhaps a condom wrapper or two.
She glowed with the happiness, the easiness that showed she was tasting that sweetness on her tongue, despite the bitterness life had given her.
When she reached Cade, who had put Belle down for a scarce moment, he yanked her to his body for a kiss that wasn’t strictly made for public consumption. Not because it was risqué—it was. His hands kneaded into her silk-clad ass immediately, but that wasn’t out of the norm here. Shit, a near topless woman was grinding on Gage in the corner at that very moment, and there were babies present.
No, it wasn’t the pure physical act that made it private. It was the way he clutched her, like he was a drowning man who’d finally found his own personal source of oxygen. It was the small smile that was unheard of on the man’s face, and I’d known him for nigh on two decades. The way he rested his head on hers, murmuring like no one else in the world existed.
I glanced back to Bull, who was still blankly contemplating the fire, maybe seeing the Devil reflected in the flames.
Maybe hope existed. Maybe redemption for even the most lost of souls. Maybe a woman could burst into his blackened life and help him rise from the ashes.
Or maybe that was all shit, and Cade and Gwen were a freak accident gone right.
For Bull, I prayed for his freak accident.
Me? I didn’t need any of that. My soul may have been mostly whole, but it was invariably damaged, and I didn’t need a man to reveal to him, and myself, just how much.
I was safe in my blissful ignorance.
“I’m not talking about me.” Lucky yanked me back into our banter that was little more than second nature. He winked. “Though I know you fantasize about me and this delicious thing I call a temple.” He gestured to his body and the skintight tee showing off the ridges of his abs.
I snorted.
He narrowed his eyes.
“So, you either use it for the purpose that God intended—to ruin you for all other men—or you strap on your big girl panties, step away from the sex god—” He raised his brow and pointed to his muscled chest. “—who is me, if you didn’t get that, and you march over to Keltan and tell him to rip those big girl panties right off,” he ordered.
I swallowed. “His name is Keltan?” I breathed, tasting it on my tongue. “What kind of name is that?”
Lucky grinned, looking over his shoulder. “Well you’re about to find out, darlin’. And I’m about to find a warm body that is going to be lucky enough to share my bed tonight.”
He leaned in to kiss me full on the mouth, grinning mischievously as I flipped him the bird and he sauntered back into the crowd, snatching a scantily clad girl by the waist while he was at it.
I rolled my eyes. That man had a way. It wasn’t just because he was deliciously handsome, nor the rugged ridges of his muscled physique and granite face. They all helped, sure, but it was the way the menace all added up to something akin to Jekyll and Hyde. He was a man who you didn’t expect to smile, yet it was his default. And jokes were his language, not grunts like Cade or Bull.
Most of the time he was a charming, yet silly teenager trapped inside a man’s body.
Then Hyde came out.
And that smoldering menace that you didn’t notice because it hid carefully under the joker exterior? It presented you with a man who could kill as easy as blink.
And boy, did women love a charmer. They wouldn’t likely tell you, but they liked a depraved motherfucker too.
Well, most did. Apart from the ones who had stared at true depravity. Felt its ice freeze their skin, the very blood in their veins and snake around the heart that used to be so warm and open.
Something chased away the ice and the demons that came with it when a large body stepped into my space. Like way in.
I blinked up, mentally cursing myself for getting lost in my head long enough for the man I’d been avoiding all night to make a surprise assault.
He was hotter up close. Way hotter. Adonis had competition. Shit, Ragnar from Vikings had competition. His skin was milky chocolate and smooth, apart from the peppering of stubble on his sharp jaw. His close-cut hair only accentuated his sharp features, and the eyes that were now twinkling with a lot of amusement and something else.
“Caught you,” he murmured, his voice deep and smooth, an accent marring the words, making them slightly unfamiliar and him about twelve hundred times more attractive.
“What?” I stuttered, trying to find the cool demeanor that had done me so well for twenty-six years.
He grinned, his face losing that harsh sculpted quality with the expression. He had one dimple on the left side of his mouth. I had a sudden urge to lick it.
I actually found myself leaning forward before I snapped back, scowling at him and then my glass. I didn’t think I’d imbibed enough alcohol to render me into a bumbling idiot. But maybe my tolerance was waning with old age.
That was a scary thought.
Much scarier than crow’s-feet.
“Your glass do anything particularly offensive to you tonight, sweetheart?” he asked, his accented voice dancing with amusement. “Need me to rough it up for you? I’m sure it’ll give a hell of a fight, but I’m ready to do it. To protect the fair maiden’s honor.”
“I can protect my own honor,” I told him sharply. “And I’m no maiden, honey. In case you haven’t noticed, you’re at a biker party. The only princess here is Lucky.” My eyes went to the biker, who was grinning and giving me a not-so-subtle thumbs-up.
How in the world could a biker covered in tattoos, practically the face of Muscle Weekly, give a thumbs-up? And pull it off?
I brought my icy gaze back to the man I was currently talking to, careful to avoid those eyes. I focused on a small scar above his eyebrow instead. “And if you haven’t noticed, I’m far from a princess myself. No pink in sight. In fact, I might just burst into flames if pink or taffeta touched my body,” I continued.
I’d gone from a bumbling idiot who spoke in single words to a bumbling idiot who didn’t know when to stop talking.
His eyes swept down my black, skintight leather pants that I’d saved for six months to buy on sale. A reason why I could never gain weight for the rest of my life, they molded to my legs perfectly. And went with my strappy Guccis. I had a tight black cami on, which dipped way low, showing off my less-than-ample assets. I’d compensated with a chunky necklace that took up half my chest and weighed a ton. My midnight-black hair was piled into a messy bun, though it was rebelling and falling in tendrils around my face.
That’s where he finished. Keltan. At my face. That was after he set my entire body aflame with that singular look.
I was actually breathing heavily.
From a look.
You’d think I hadn’t lost my virginity to Justin Ample, the quarterback, in the back seat of his mom’s Challenger.
That I’d been saving myself for a hulking man with eyes I could drown in and a body that pagans would sacrifice to if he was in ancient Greece.
“No, babe. You don’t look like a princess,” he agreed, voice smooth. “But you do look like fuckin’ royalty.”
His words filtered through my mind, and my gaze went to the thick cords of his neck as he spoke, watching the muscles in it move.
I snapped my eyes back up to the beautiful foreign man who I gathered to be a friend of Gwen’s, considering he arrived with her, and his accent was almost identical to hers, if a lot more manly.
A lot.
“You’re from New Zealand,” I said. It wasn’t a question, more of an accusation. Plus, what did someone r
It was insane.
And even more insane how much it curled into my stomach, making me feel a fluttering feeling that I would never admit, out loud at least, felt a fuck of a lot like butterflies.
He grinned again, folding his arms so the designs on them moved as though they were alive. “Guilty as charged. Think the accent gave me away? Or the rugged good looks that your Yank men can only dream of possessing? You are surrounded by some seriously ugly men. Thank God I’m here to give you something nice to look at.” He gave Cade and Lucky pointed looks.
I pursed my lips against my smile.
He could not be attractive, tall, and funny with an accent to boot. Not possible. And he could not be all of those, plus be… interesting to me.
No.
“Keltan,” he continued, his eyes on me, losing their teasing glint.
I wanted to squirm under the gaze, but I squared my shoulders and forced myself to paint a bored expression on my face. I leisurely sipped my martini, the heat of the alcohol nothing compared to the burn of his gaze. “I know,” I said by response.
His grin deepened, not at all perturbed by my lack of manners.
My mother would likely be having a heart attack if she could see me now.
And not just at his hotness, though she’d probably be drooling. She brought me up to be polite to everyone, unless they’d done something to deserve a swift tongue lashing.
“Kindness is indeed an important trait in this world, Pea, but you’re not going to be a pushover either. If someone mistakes that kindness for weakness, then you’re duty bound to correct that stupidity. We don’t suffer fools. We slap them. With sharp words first, and then a hand if need be.”
And here Keltan was being nothing but polite—dripping pheromones all over the place—and I was being more than rude. But I’d rather him decide I was a raging bitch and melt back into the party than give him any cause to continue this conversation and endanger my carefully constructed walls.
“You know,” he repeated my previous words.
The way his eyes focused on me, and only me, with their twinkling depths had my walls trembling.
I nodded once, curtly, swallowing hard.
“I get your name, or do I have to make up one of my own?” he asked. He stepped forward, eyes roving over my face. “Despite your protests against being a princess, you do look like one my sister was obsessed with until she was sixteen.” He leaned in, staring past my shoulders, looking for something. I glanced back—only men in leather and women in less than nothing. And a forlorn-looking Amy downing her drink like her life depended on it. I frowned at that but didn’t have time to inspect it, considering Keltan commanded my attention. “Nope, no seven little men following you. But I’m still thinkin’ Snow, ‘cause of that skin, and those fuckin’ lips,” he murmured, his proximity far too close for strangers.
Yet we didn’t feel like that.
Strangers.
I wanted to punch myself for saying, or even thinking it, but it was like we’d known each other for much longer. Or we recognized something in each other.
Or maybe it was my body recognizing that I’d had too much vodka and Hollywood rom-coms.
Slasher movies from now on.
Snow.
The way he looked at my lips, the pure hunger in his gaze, the kind of hunger I thought myself immune to, now rivaled anything I’d felt when on one of the many crazy diets I’d done over the years. It was like I hadn’t had carbs in seventeen years and he was a big bowl of pasta.
I licked my lips without knowing, until his eyes flared in a way that had my panties dampening.
More drink was needed to weather this storm. Much more. I fastened my hands around the stem of my now empty glass. “Martini,” I said by answer, lifting my empty glass.
He raised a brow, eyes flickering with amusement. “Martini? Strange name, but you seem like you’re one of a kind, and you Americans do like your weird names. Can I get you a drink, Martini? Perhaps a beer?”
Again, I pursed my lips in battle with my smile. “I’m quite capable of getting my own,” I replied icily. “How about you go try to charm the panties off a girl who might actually fall for a man like you.” I gestured to his body with my empty glass.
He shifted on his feet, clad in what looked like those borderline cowboy boots that offended me greatly, even on cowboys. Though they also looked like motorcycle boots. Some sort of hybrid that should have looked stupid. But on him?
Drool.
“And a man like me would be?” he probed, eyes twinkling.
“Arrogant.” I held up a finger, preparing for a long list.
“Confident,” he countered.
“Pushy,” I continued, thinking my list was not as long as I had originally planned. Finding shortcomings in the Greek god with an accent, who I’d just met and had an unnatural need for, was proving harder than necessary.
And I was meant to be a writer, of a sort. You’d think I could at least embellish.
His eyes twinkled. “Sure of what I want. And not afraid to do whatever it takes to get it.” The way he said it, with that look in his eyes, with that distance that was too close and too far at the same time, stirred some kind of intuition in me that this man meant trouble.
And not the good kind.
My face didn’t flicker from the blank expression I’d schooled on it, but my eyes narrowed. “A man like you is too reliant on his outward physical characteristics, a couple of muscles, a nice face shape and a cheeky smile. Throw in the accent, and I’m sure you’re used to it. This—” I waved my hand between us. “—walking up to girls and saying a couple of lines and then sliding that tight ass right into bed with them. Problem here is, I’m not a girl. I’m a woman. And I stopped being wowed by all of those things around the time I stopped putting Johnny Depp posters on my walls.” I nodded to the sweet butts. “They’ll be all over this, though. Remember, herpes is for life.”
On that note, I turned on my well-heeled foot and stormed away.
Before I could do anything stupid like roll my well-toned ass into bed with him.
That would not do. I carefully chose bedmates for chemistry without any form of feelings. Purely physical. No emotions. No danger.
With him I had a strange premonition of destruction.
And if I’d learned one thing, it was to trust my intuition. If I had years ago, maybe the ice around my heart wouldn’t exist.
Maybe I could have responded to Keltan and the promise of the strange intensity between us in a different way.
Maybe we could have been something.
Happy.
But life wasn’t for maybes and what-ifs. They were for fairy tales and princesses.
I may have had a lot of shoes, but a princess I was not.
And my prince sure as shit was too late to save me.
I’d already done that myself.
As well as I could.
“Coffee,” I groaned in Shelly’s general vicinity.
I’d barely had a wink of sleep after spending the entire night tossing and turning and thinking of that stupidly attractive New Zealander with the intense stare, from whom I’d hid the entire night, then had to completely run from.
Run. Me. I didn’t run from anything. Not anything real, anyway, just the skeletons in my closet. And figurative running didn’t count.
She took one look at me. “You want two, first one in an IV?”
I glared at her in response.
She laughed and went to make the stuff I needed to survive. Well, before five, anyway; then that changed to wine.
I had an entire morning at The Amber Star, the local newspaper that served as my day job, and then I had to scout a story on the high school finally accommodating vegans in the cafeteria. But at what cost to the parents? The riveting life of being a reporter in a small town.
And because things like small-town newspapers were going the way of
It was a lot. It required about twelve hundred cups of coffee and some serious eyeliner, but I loved it. Loved writing. Talking to people. Getting stories out there. Yeah, writing about new vegan menus at a high school wasn’t exactly going to win me a Pulitzer, but it paid the bills. And most importantly, it kept me in shoes. Well, actually my freelancing and lifestyle blog kept me in shoes of the five-hundred-dollar variety. Ones I almost never bought full price.
I had to keep the lights on, after all.
I would always dream about doing stories that mattered. I loved clothes, makeup and shoes as much as the next self-respecting designer worshipper, but sometimes I wondered if writing about something other than the highlighter that changed my life would be more fulfilling.
I’d had offers from my editor’s cronies in neighboring districts to do a story on the Sons of Templar. An investigative piece on the notorious outlaw motorcycle gang.
A couple of big publications had approached me too, with big checks.
It wasn’t exactly a secret, my connection with them; therefore, I was in the perfect position to write a story.
It would be a good story. Most likely be popular. Might even make national news. Ever since television shows with Charlie Hunnam made bikers sex symbols, and even before then, the general public was fascinated by the sect of men who decided to live outside the law. Outside the lines that had been carefully drawn to keep people in their cages.
I could write it. I had the material. Two decades of it.
But I never would.
And the club knew that. Which was the only reason why I had my job and was still allowed around the club.
As soon as I got it, at twenty-two, straight out of college, Steg had pulled me aside at a graduation party the club had thrown for me and Rosie. That was when Steg, Rosie’s stepfather for all intents and purposes, was the president of the club, not Cade, who was now.