Rush (Carolina Bad Boys, #5)(13)
“But that’s why I got you to do all the work.” She gave an innocent blink that wasn’t so innocent anymore.
I growled and watched her turn on her heel. Suddenly my hand lashed out, and I lightly snapped it against her backside that had been tantalizing me all morning long.
I grasped that firm flesh for a moment.
Shock pumped through me, and I released her.
Shy looked back, gurgling the kind of throaty laugh that set my cock on edge and made me think of sex.
Hot, filthy, wild, nightlong fucking.
Mistake.
Big mistake even going there.
Oh fuck.
Suddenly brisk and back to business, I stormed out in front of Shy, pushing my gloves into the back pocket of my jeans. “We better head out if we’re gonna get this done today.”
****
Shy led us up East Bay Street, turned off the thoroughfare at Concord, and followed a cobbled one-way narrow lane to the key-code accessible parking garage beneath her building. She drove her Hellcat. I handled the U-Haul, tempted to plow down tipsy midday tourists, and Tail commandeered the big van.
There wasn’t enough room in the garage for all three vehicles, so we pretty much shut down the entire street with the truck and van.
Shrug.
The building faced the Cooper River—the opposite side of Mt. Pleasant. Only the historic Waterfront Park with the famous pineapple fountain separated Shy’s home from the water. Prime location. Prime real estate.
I shouldn’t have expected anything less.
“Gas lights on all the buildings down here, huh?” Tail met up with me, him at the back of the van, me at the truck. “Upscale or what?”
“She comes from money.”
Cole strolled up. “So you never said how you really know Shiloh, Handsome.”
“That’s correct.”
“Airtight motherfucker.” Brodie took me into a headlock.
Shy turned the corner and caught us in the act. “Sorry to interrupt.” Her sparkling eyes so said she wasn’t. “There’s an elevator in the garage. It should make this go faster. Once you finish roughhousing, that is.”
The unloading took less time than the packing. We got Shy squared away in her waterfront-view condo, arranged the furniture, and took every opportunity to rib one another just because.
The apartment wasn’t huge. It wasn’t flashy. But it was money. Clearly lots of money, especially newly decorated, totally understated, and smelling just faintly of fresh paint.
Sweet digs. I wondered if Shy was living off of Momma and Papa’s bucks.
Not really my business, one way or the other.
True to her word, she had ice-cold beer as well as eats ready for us four hungry, sweaty, kind of grimy guys.
Shy passed out the first round of beers, and I saw Tail frowning at a chair that looked too fucking tiny to hold his weight.
Stepping through the sitting room, Shy opened a sliding door, which led to a private deck. “There’s more beer out here in the cooler.”
Talk about a call to the cavemen.
We almost tackled one another to get to the deck.
I stopped on the threshold, after kicking Cole in the ass and sending him into a near face-plant, to usher Shy outside.
“Smooth, Handsome.” Brodie lifted his beer in my direction. “Real smooth.”
The heat of the day had released the scent of Shy’s potted flowers into the air. Something that smelled green and fresh surrounded us on the cozy terrace with epic views of the river and bay. Sailboats on the water, Patriot’s Point across the way, the Ravenel Bridge arching high across everything.
Shy took a seat, and I followed suit beside her.
She’d had overhead fans installed—the big bamboo ones. And as we sat on lounges in the shade with the whomp-whomp of slightly cooler air fanning us, I paid more attention to Shy than I should have.
Her cheeks wore a light splash of pink, and she idly swung a foot in the pretty sandal. Her bare shoulders gleamed, her smile gleamed brighter as she listened to the constant one-liners zipping from dude to dude.
The late afternoon with good food and totally shit-talking company became some kind of housewarming party. Shy only sipped from a beer, ate a small plateful of food. She’d shown us the two bathrooms and told us to help ourselves if we wanted to clean up.
Probably because we smelled rank.
“Ahhhh.” Brodie stepped outside later from a quick rinse-off, slaking his wet hair with both hands. “A deck and a beer cooler. Righteous set-up you got here.” He dug another ice-frosted brew from the Yeti. “Consider yourself an honorary member of Retribution, Miss Shiloh.”
The sun was about to set, sending long feathery trails of violet and pink and orange across the Cooper River. And when Shy’s lips tipped up in a smile, she was more stunning than the sunset.
Too monumentally aware of her all of a sudden, I excused myself from the crew. Navigating through the interior, I found myself in her private bathroom. I shut the door. Locked it.
With my fingers stabbed down onto the counter, I glared at myself in the mirror.
Suddenly Shiloh was part of the MC family while I still had nothing to do with mine for reasons beyond my control.
I couldn’t risk that shame or pain again.
I took a leak then turned on the sink to scoop up some much needed hot water. I splashed my face and hair, shucked off my shirt, soaped my chest and pits and what I could reach of my back.