N9ne: The Tale of Kevin Clearwater (King, #9)(23)

I look to the back wall of the alley to think. “Nine…as in your favorite number?”

“Close, but still no.”

“Nine, lives? Like a cat?”

He shakes his head.

“What else could it be?” I ask, a small notion creeps up in the back of my brain.

“You’ll get it. In three, two…” His voice trails off.

Without thinking, my eyes drop to his crotch.

“One.”

My cheeks burn. My skin suddenly feels too tight.

“I…I…” I’m tongue-tied. Words are something I’m never at a loss for, but this man has managed to steal them away without much effort at all.

Asshole. Talking is my main coping mechanism. If I don’t have words, I don’t have anything.

“It’s not exactly true though,” he says, leaning over me with his elbow on the wall right beside my very red cheeks. His nearness is like a morning fog, clouding my thoughts with his masculinity. It’s like a drug I’ve never tried but know I’d be addicted to after the very first high.

“Wait, it’s not true?” I ask, hating how breathless I sound.

He reaches out and tips my chin up. My lingering gaze is forced to leave his crotch, locking on his gleaming hazel eyes.

“No,” he leans in, his warm soft lips brushing over my jaw like a soft caress. I have to stop myself from leaning into him and rubbing my face against his touch like a cat begging to be pet.

He lowers his voice to a whisper.

“It’s bigger.”

I ignore the embarrassment creeping up my neck. “Why did you save me?” I ask, searching his dark hazel eyes for an answer that doesn’t come.

The alley door swings all the way open, and Becky appears, cigarette in hand. She surveys the scene and the two unconscious men and rolls her eyes. “I told you this wasn’t no place for you, darlin’.” She lights her cigarette.

Nine pushes off the wall and away from me. The heat from his body gone. The humid air feels a thousand degrees cooler between us.

I release a breath I didn’t know I was holding. “You were right, Becky. This place isn’t for me. I was just leaving.”

Without another word, I dart through the door and leave Becky and Nine behind in the alleyway. As I pass through the crowded and loud bar and run out the front door and sprint halfway down the street, I swear I can hear Nine’s frustrated growl trailing me the entire way.





Chapter Nine





NINE





I didn’t expect Lenore Leary to be so…interesting.

There’s beauty in her sadness. Depth to her despair.

Something about it, something about her calls to me.

Protect her, a voice in my head says.

I laugh it off. That’s not going to happen.

After all, I’m the one she needs protecting from.

I watched her from the parking lot as she entered Pike’s Pawn and was taken aback. I expected her to be the trophy wife type since she was Jared’s girl, but I’d painted her as demonic in my mind, and she’s anything but grotesque or hellish.

A little thing, at least a foot shorter than myself. Long brown, wavy hair. Large wide-set eyes are a pale green-blue that reminds me of sea glass dressed in a pair of navy-blue rimmed glasses. Thick rosy lips. Long eyelashes that batted with fear and confusion.

Lenny isn’t in-your-face pretty, but there’s something there. Something natural. I almost brought attention to myself and laughed out loud as I watched her down vodka at the bar like it was water and she’d just crossed the fucking Sahara. She’s different.

Adorable, even.

Adorable? Get your shit together, Nine.

I shake my head to clear any thought away that doesn’t involve locating our money. I can’t afford distractions. Especially if the distraction at hand is my current target. I’ve got questions for her, and for her sake, Lenny Leary better have the right answers.

“How exactly do you know her?” Pike asks, as I come back in from the alley. “Because holy shit, she’s a fuckin’ smoke show.”

I’m still amped up from saving her ass from Ricco’s men and pissed that Becky prevented me from taking Lenny with me as I’d planned. I shoot Pike a death glare as if I wasn’t just thinking the very same thing. “She’s Jared Cox’s girl,” I grate. “Ex-girl.”

“That was her?” He notices the blood splatter on my white shirt. “What the fuck happened? I thought you were just following her to the bar so you could wait for the right time when she’d be alone to pounce.”

Pike’s choice of the word pounce is eerily accurate for what I wanted to do to Lenny when I saw her.

“I followed her right into the alley where Ricci’s men appeared and tried to haul her off. They’ve been taken care of. Tied up in their Hummer. I’ve got one of Bear’s guys driving them and their Hummer into the Everglades.”

“He going to take them out?” Pike asks.

“Does it matter?”

Pike twists his lips. “Nope. It really doesn’t. But what about the girl? Where is she now?

“No clue, but I’ll be finding out.”

I walk over to the back wall and pull down one of my guns that’s not for sale even though it may look like it is. I think of it as hiding in plain sight or a convenient storage solution.