Wicked Sexy (Wicked Games #2)(16)
“One day an evil wizard came to town. He’d heard of the beautiful princess, lonely and vulnerable in her castle—”
“Vulnerable!” Tabby scoffs.
“—and hatched a plan to steal her heart and then take over her kingdom by making all her subjects think she’d done something terrible. He began to woo the princess with jewels and gold and promises of forever—”
“Tread carefully, jarhead,” says Tabby, her eyes on the road and her jaw set.
“You already know I’m no good at that,” I reply softly.
She swallows and looks down at her hands clenched in her lap. “I don’t like this story.”
“Should I jump to the ending? Spoiler alert: the hero saves her.”
Tabby looks over at me, her eyes shining like gems in the dark. “A real hero would teach the princess how to save herself.”
Our eyes hold. A flutter works its way through my chest. I murmur, “Noted.”
She breaks eye contact first. We drive in silence for miles, until finally she says almost inaudibly, “He never promised me forever.”
S?ren. His presence between us is palpable, a heavy weight in the air. A darkness.
“What did he promise you?”
Tabby looks out into the night, to the dark landscape passing by the windows in a blur, and says nothing.
We find a Best Western hotel in Tulsa and take adjoining rooms on the fourth floor. I’m impressed that Tabby has brought only one small suitcase for her clothes, but judging by the size of her normal wardrobe—skirts that make the word “mini” seem overgenerous and child-size tops—I can’t say I’m really surprised.
Her computer gear, on the other hand, could have its own zip code.
“Good thing I drove the truck,” I mutter, hauling a fifty-pound black case from the back of my Hummer.
“Truck?” says Tabby, standing next to me in the parking lot as we unload our bags. “Is that what you call this monstrosity?”
I drag another of her bags out, this one even heavier than the first, and drop it at her feet. “Spare me the tree-hugging psychobabble about gas consumption and emissions, will you, sweetheart? This vehicle is built for a specific purpose—”
“Overcompensation for feelings of penis size inadequacy?” She smiles.
“Safety,” I correct and smile back. “As if you haven’t already noticed, I’m not exactly lacking in the size department.”
Involuntarily, her gaze drops to my crotch. Then she catches herself, blinks up at me, and flushes. Her voice comes out of her mouth with the cutting power of a sword.
“As a class three truck, this vehicle is exempt from many DOT safety regulations and lacks standard safety features, including side air bags and stability control. In addition, its large blind spots make—”
“Don’t change the subject.”
“Don’t make me murder you in the parking lot of a one-star hotel.”
“Yeah? You think you could get the drop on me?” Amused, I look her up and down. “You’re lookin’ at two-hundred-forty pounds of grade-A Marine Corps male, sweetheart. You’re what, a buck ten, tops?”
She says, “First of all, you’re shit at judging a woman’s weight. I haven’t been one hundred and ten pounds since junior high school. More to the point, I’m an expert in Krav Maga. Not that I’d need it to lay you out.”
I prop my hands on my hips and grin at her. “Really. You got something more effective to take me down than the lethal hand-to-hand combat system developed by the Israeli Defense Forces? I can hardly wait to hear it.”
Looking right into my eyes, she calmly answers, “Two things, actually.”
“C’mon. The suspense is killing me.”
Her smile could melt steel. “My tits. If I unzipped my jacket right now and showed you the girls, you’d definitely be distracted long enough for me to bury a knife in your chest.”
She slings her laptop bag over her shoulder, grabs the handle of her suitcase, and jerks her chin at the rest of her bags that I’ve already unloaded. “By the way, all that gear can stay in the car. I won’t need it until we set up a COM center at Miranda’s.”
Still reeling from the mention of her breasts and the image it conjured—the accurate image, because I’ve seen her in all her bare-assed glory coming out of her shower—I ask, “You’re not worried about leaving your precious computer equipment in the back of my truck in a public parking lot all night long?”
“Give me a break, jarhead. I know an armored car when I see one. Someone would have to use a fifty-caliber machine gun to get through the amount of ballistic composites you’ve got on this thing.”
Should’ve known she’d notice the mods on the Hummer. She notices everything. “Thought you said it wasn’t safe.”
“Oh, it’s safe when it’s parked. It’s only a death trap when you’re behind the wheel. Has anyone ever told you that you drive like a twelve-year-old with ADD who forgot to take his Ritalin?”
Then she sashays away, hips swinging. I throw my head back and laugh, because goddamn she can give as good as she gets.
I stop laughing when I realize how much I like it.
A little flirtation is one thing. But I know how f*cked a man’s judgment can get when he’s distracted by a woman. I’ve seen it before. When the friendly jabs become serious attraction and your concentration is shot because all you can think of is getting her beneath you in bed, that’s when mistakes happen. And in my line of business, any mistake could be deadly.