Hell for Leather (Black Knights Inc. #6)(18)
“I asked if you wanted a warm up,” Ali repeated.
“Uhhhh…” She shook her head, covering the top of her mostly full Styrofoam cup. “No, thanks.”
“You sure?” Ali asked, hoisting the carafe higher, looking very cute in a flowered maternity sundress studded with rhinestones around the collar and hem. But no matter how well Ali played the part of Vanna White, there was nothing that could force Delilah to take one more drink of that sludge.
“Yeah.” She nodded vehemently, then narrowed her eyes when a little smile tugged at one corner of Ali’s lips. “Hey, are you screwing around with me? What is this stuff?”
Ali’s tawny eyes flashed. But before she could answer, her husband whisked the pot from her hands.
“What d’ya think you’re doin’?” Nate “Ghost” Weller demanded in that strange mashed-up way he had of speaking. It was almost like he talked in cursive. “The doctor said you’re not s’posed to lift heavy things.” Pulling out a chair, he gently, as if Ali were a fragile piece of antique china, maneuvered her into it despite her repeated swatting of his hands.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake, Nate,” the blonde groused, scowling up at her handsome, black-eyed husband. “I don’t think a coffee pot constitutes a heavy thing.” She made the quote marks with her fingers, fingers Delilah noticed were pudgy with retained fluid. She’d been around enough pregnant women in her day to know Ali Weller was about to burst. Or as Uncle Theo liked to say, primed to pop.
Uncle Theo… And just like that, she felt the blood drain from her face.
Oh, for heaven’s sake, were those tears burning up the back of her nose?
“A coffee pot doesn’t constitute a heavy thing?” Ghost asked, his expression dubious. “Mmmph,” he finished, shaking his head until his black hair brushed against the collar of his white, 110th Anniversary Harley-Davidson T-shirt.
“Mmmph?” Ali parroted, lifting her brows before turning to Delilah. “I thought I was making progress with him. You know,” she fluttered her hands dramatically, “getting him to speak in actual sentences and stuff. But ever since that double pink line appeared on the pee-stick test, he’s reverted back to his former caveman vocabulary.”
“Mmmph,” Ghost grunted again, plunking down in the seat beside his wife.
“See what I mean?” Ali asked, and Delilah was eternally grateful for the distraction from her own self-pity. She opened her mouth to agree with Ali but closed it again when the sound of Steady’s heavy biker boots clomping down the metal stairs from the third floor snagged her attention.
From what she’d been able to gather the other two times she’d been in the old menthol cigarette factory that now housed Black Knights Inc., the third floor was the living quarters for the operators, those who still resided onsite, anyway. She’d heard a few of the married guys had moved out—no doubt in an effort to gain a little privacy from what she’d come to understand was basically just a big frat house stocked with hand grenades, guns, and all manner of other ruthless, deadly things that went boom.
The first floor, with its soaring ceiling, brightly painted brick walls, and gleaming line of custom choppers, was the state-of-the-art motorcycle shop where all the bike building occurred—and where the cover for the clandestine nature of BKI was maintained.
And then there was this second floor…
As far as she could tell, it was the heart of the operation. The large conference area was open on one side to the motorcycle shop below. Off to her right, a row of metal doors stood ajar and revealed the interiors of half a dozen private offices. And lining one wall, top to bottom, was a set of computers and monitors fancy enough to drive home the fact that, yes, indeed, she really was sitting smack-dab in the middle of a super-secret spy shop.
“Let me check your head,” Steady said. “Make sure that pop you received didn’t leave you with a concussion. And Mac,” he said as he dropped a camouflage duffel bag on the end of the conference table. It landed with a muted thud. “Come over here and take your shirt off.”
Okay… Mac? Shirtless? Talk about one way to rip her mind away from heavy, heartbreaking thoughts of her uncle. She had to concentrate incredibly hard in order to answer the rather simple questions Steady peppered her with as his fingers pressed around on her skull. Not because of any brain injury, mind you. But because Mac was two seconds away from becoming shirtless. And when Mac did as Steady suggested, sauntering over to the conference table from his previous position by the bank of computers, snagging the seat beside her before reaching over his head to grab the collar of his bloody T-shirt and whip the garment off in one fell swoop, she completely forgot her own name. Thankfully, Steady had already finished questioning her and pronounced her sound.
Oh, for the love of tequila…
Tan… Mac’s skin had that I-grew-up-in-the-Deep-South, sun-kissed look about it.
Hard… The thick muscles bulging in his chest and shoulders appeared solid enough to withstand a hatchet strike.
Manly… Hair grew in a patch between his impressive pectoral muscles and arrowed down to disappear beneath the waistband of his faded jeans, screaming male as loudly as a shot glass full of straight testosterone.
Mouthwatering… The corrugated muscles of his stomach bunched when he bent to the side to allow Steady to swipe an antiseptic cloth over his slowly weeping wound.