Hell on Wheels (Black Knights Inc. #1)(46)
Jesus. No one should look that good in worn jeans and a pair of leather chaps. A brief image of her wearing nothing but those leather chaps flashed hotly through his degenerate mind.
Oh…great. Talk about one piss-poor time to spring an erection. Here they were, hundreds of miles from the nearest trustworthy help, with a mysterious operator on their trail and God-only-knew-what waiting for them in Jacksonville, and what do you suppose he was doing? He was reaching down to inconspicuously rearrange himself because his pecker had decided now was a dandy time to snap to attention.
Obviously, he was in need of some serious psychological analysis, because the possibility of imminent death coupled with the sight of Ali in those jeans and chaps shouldn’t cause this intense physical reaction. That it did only solidified the fact that there was something really wrong with him. Of course, if growing wood in the middle of battle was any indication of mental deficiencies, then every guy he knew needed to go in for some head-shrinking. Something about the punch of adrenaline tended to work on the male anatomy the same way a Playboy centerfold usually did—and that was one strange evolutionary phenomenon he would never understand.
Once the door slid up with a cranky screech, he quickly walked Phantom into the cool, dusty interior of the garage. Old paint cans rusted on the back shelves, and the place smelled like mildew and mothballs. Dust motes hung heavy in the stale air.
It certainly wasn’t the local Hilton, but it’d do in a pinch.
“Close ’er up,” he instructed Ali, and she reached up to pull the garage door down. Her shirt lifted above her navel, and that goddamned red jewel in her belly button ring caught the light and taunted him.
Super, now his balls ached in time with his dick. Could this day get any more perfect?
“Silver Escalade is searching the neighborhood,” Becky informed him.
Yep, and there you had it. He should know better by now than to ask rhetorical questions.
“Let him search,” he replied as he swung himself off the bike and performed the typical squat and shuffle every guy on the planet perfected in order to better situate dangly bits that were no longer so dangly. “He won’t like what he finds. Switching to handset,” he informed Rebel as he pulled off his helmet and attached a Bluetooth device to his ear. “Mic check. Mic check.”
“You’re coming through loud and clear, Ghost Man,” Rebel chirped happily. This was her first time to man command central, and the position obviously suited her just fine.
Boss was gonna have a conniption.
“Good.” Nate lifted a case from his saddlebags and quickly began assembling his long-range weapon. “I need you to monitor the local police bands. We made an almighty ruckus the likes of which they’re probably not used to around here. I wouldn’t want the local five-oh getting nosy. They’d give away our position in a heartbeat.”
“Will do,” Becky replied, and he heard more keyboard rattling.
“Ali,” he turned to find her standing beside him, golden eyes getting wider and wider by the minute, growing right along with the assembly of his sniper rifle. “I’m going into the house to observe and secure our position. I need you to stay here and keep quiet, okay? No matter what you hear, you do not come out of this garage.”
She swallowed and nodded. He could see her rapid pulse hammering away in her neck, and she looked like she wanted to faint.
Once again, he acknowledged the ball-twisting truth that she just wasn’t cut out for this shit.
“I’ll need a weapon,” she said, her voice steadier than he would’ve guessed.
Whoa. Or maybe she was cut out for this shit. Nothing she could’ve said would’ve surprised him more.
“Way to go, sista,” Becky barked her approval of Ali in his ear.
He hesitated only a second before bending to pull his reserve from the top of his left boot. He handed her the Colt .45 and watched in growing admiration as she press-checked the chamber to make sure the first round was loaded.
So, Becky was right. Grigg had taught baby sister a thing or two. Nate wasn’t much for man-on-man action, but if Grigg had still been alive, he would’ve kissed the sonofabitch smack on the mouth right at that moment. Whatever Grigg had intentionally or unintentionally involved Ali in—and Nate would bet his left nut it was unintentional—at least Grigg’d tried to prepare her to handle it.
“Don’t open that door for anyone,” Nate told her as he shouldered his rifle. “I’ll announce myself before comin’ in.”
He turned to head out the side door then stopped and swung back to face her. His conscience was eating away at him, and he cursed himself for the hundredth time for letting her come along, despite her obvious familiarity with a handgun. What had he been thinking? Oh yeah, he’d been thinking how wonderful and torturous it was going to be to have her pressed all along his back for fifteen straight hours.
He’d underestimated both.
It was far more wonderful than he could have guessed and far, far more torturous. “It could be awhile,” he told her, searching her frightened face. “You gonna be all right in here?”
She nodded her head so bravely he just couldn’t help himself. Sighing in defeat and resignation, he stomped back over to her, looped an arm around her slim waist, and dragged her toward him until she was crushed all along the length of him, and her eyes were flying wider than ever.