Borrowed Souls (Soul Charmer #1)(38)
Watching swaying hips was not the way to cool one’s libido. Derek had leaned back on the edge of the bar with his right arm crossing over her back. She rested against it, telling herself it was a reminder that she temporarily worked for men who frightened Ford’s goons. That wasn’t the whole truth, though. The pressure of his arm offered the heady rush of possibilities.
Falling for a guy, especially in this situation, was dumb. She’d erected walls for a reason. Sex without entanglements was fun, and didn’t damage your heart. Dabbling with a man like Derek was idiotic. Complications abounded. Her brother was being held captive by the kind of men who owned slaughterhouses and chop shops. Yet Derek scared those men. He was in league with a man who could literally steal your soul. She was a lapsed Catholic, but that was some straight-up devil shit. Why didn’t her body care Derek was nothing but a bad idea?
“You good?” he asked, pushing off from the bar.
Callie, startled, scanned the room. What had she missed? “Um, yeah.”
She quirked a brow at his noncommittal grunt. “Need to hit the head.”
Leaving her alone went super awesome last time. “Okay.”
“They all—” he stopped himself, and started over. “No one will mess with you.”
The implications of his words would twist her insides, so she smiled and nodded. Faking it was her forte. Moments like this, she understood Josh’s choices. Well, the drugs part. Not the whole stealing from family, lying, and screwing dudes who carried backup weapons. The booby prize for growing up too fast was overthinking everything. Josh looked for angles, ways to cut corners. Callie was the worrier. How long could the box of Cheerios last? When it was gone, what could happen if they stole extra food at school? Threats of expulsion, juvie, and disownment had weighed on her, but never enough to stop her. She hadn’t been the stealthiest of thieves at thirteen, but no one had cared. Now she planned ahead, lest her world came crashing down.
Derek stalked his way to the hallway on the other side of the bar, wearing his edgy mood beneath his leather jacket. But then maybe he didn’t want to hide it. Who would choose to mess with a stressed out man his size? He did have a reputation to maintain. Callie was on the verge of falling into a mental spiral, contemplating how he’d earned those wary glances he’d been receiving most of the night, when she spotted Bianca.
The curvy brunette wove through the room, lightly touching a person here, making small talk there. Peals of laughter lingered in her stead. She was petite, but even from several feet away Callie could sense the energy she exuded. And just like that, Bianca turned and headed straight for her.
Derek wasn’t there to lead the questioning, and Callie didn’t carry the same malevolent aura he did. She would be just another stranger to Bianca. Would they miss their opportunity? Should she try this solo?
Bianca waved to the bartender as she approached, and then inclined her head toward Callie as she spoke. “One of what she’s having.”
“Pretty sure you could have just said beer,” Callie said after a moment. “The selection’s limited.” Small talk hurt her brain, and she clearly wasn’t good at it.
“He knows me, and it’s not my usual.” Of course it wasn’t. Her signature drink was something bright pink and adorned with a wedge of fresh fruit.
Callie took another draw on her beer. So much for not knocking them back. Her hands were warm against the brown glass, which is what usually happened when a bottle was mere swigs from empty. But this wasn’t a coincidence. It wasn’t the beer in her belly. This wasn’t simply nervous energy and pent-up arousal. Her fingers went full-on inferno, and she sat the beer on the bar as nonchalantly as she possibly could, right as the label began to singe. Holy shit. It was nothing like what she’d experienced around someone with a borrowed soul inside them before.
Bianca took a single step backward. “You all right?”
The fire in her hands dimmed. Was she? Why was her reaction so different than before? Goosebumps prickled along her arms and legs, as though all the heat from elsewhere in her body had relocated to her hands and pooled in her palms. “Yeah,” she said, curling her hands into fists. She could focus with them clenched. Mostly.
“Right on. I don’t remember seeing you here before, and I’ve got a thing for faces.” She winked.
“First timer.” Squeeze, release, repeat. She rode the edge of panic, but maintained control.
“Oh, it’s a blast.”
This had to be soul magic at play. This was ten times as intense as in the Charmer’s shop. The heat was overwhelming, but she tried to cling to the Soul Charmer’s promise that she couldn’t be injured. If she had taken to believing him, the heat must have short-circuited her brain. Callie’s thoughts ran over one another, too much input, too much sensation, and too many chances to fuck up. She had a job to do. A job she had to keep in order to get Josh back. She focused on the other woman and not the twin blazes forming inside her hands. What could she learn from this woman? “I was looking at the shop next door. The massage place. Have you been there?”
Bianca started to narrow her eyes, but stopped herself before too much of her skepticism showed. “I work there, actually.”
Callie sucked in a breath, hard and fast. Could she get a soul for cheaper here? Maybe Tess or Bianca could help her. Was there a way out from under the Charmer, where she could help her brother more quickly? Ignoring the bundle of flames simmering within her palms—the sensation was alarming, but not painful—she forced herself to be pleasant. “Small world. So what’s this ‘chakra massage’ thing I read about on the flyer?”