Beyond Control(12)

"She's eager to please." Jared handed him a whiskey on the rocks. "But then, she'd never had an orgasm before."

So few of the women in Eden had, even the ones who moved in less elite circles than Noelle once did. Ace took a sip before gesturing to the statue with his glass. "If you put that look on her face, I'm not surprised she's buying you presents."

"Better." Jared dropped to sit in the chair opposite the couch. "I taught her how to get there herself, too."

Which was one of the many reasons he was a more successful whore than Ace had ever been. Ace's artist-in-search-of-muse shtick had opened plenty of pocketbooks and parted more than his share of trembling Eden thighs, but Jared's reputation as a connoisseur of female pleasure earned him mindless devotion and gifts that pushed him past well-off and straight into obscenely wealthy.

There'd been a time when Ace had envied his friend that success, a time before he'd fallen in with the O'Kanes and learned to untangle sex from competition and desperation. "You and Lex should exchange pointers. Have you seen what she's got Cunningham's daughter doing on stage at the Broken Circle?"

"Not yet, but I heard it was positively stunning."

Stunning was a pale word to describe what Noelle and Lex got up to. "If one of Eden's angels making Lex scream for mercy turns your crank, hell yeah. You should come around next week and watch."

"And get the hard sell on signing up with the O'Kanes?" Jared shook his head. "I'm not a joiner, Ace. I don't play well with others."

He waved a hand. "Don't worry about Dallas. Didn't you hear? He finally collared Lex. We've all got a month, minimum, before he even comes up for air."

"Really now?" Jared swirled the ice in the bottom of his nearly empty glass. "Is he still interested in information about Councilman Woods?"

The question brought a pang of guilt. He came to hang out with Jared because he enjoyed the man's company, and had spent years ignoring Dallas's increasingly pointed suggestions that he leverage that friendship into a source of information. But asking about Woods hadn't been a suggestion, it had been an order.

Even Ace didn't ignore orders. "Yeah," he admitted. "Full disclosure, brother. I'd have asked eventually--the boss told me I had to. But I can tell Dallas you don't have anything, and that'll be the end of it."

Jared looked away and finally said, "He doesn't keep to Eden. Might find him out here in the sectors sometime, if you figured out where to look."

It felt carefully phrased. Deft, though Jared was always deft. Ace wasn't a fan of having to pick and choose his words or when to let his silence do the talking, so he filed the tidbit away and changed the subject. "If you don't want to swing around the club, I could always bring a party to you."

His friend ignored the offer. "He'll owe me one. Your boss."

Ace's blood chilled. "Is it that dangerous? Fuck, man. I'll go to my grave for O'Kane, if that's what I have to do, but the gang's got my back. Don't go out on a limb for him if you're not gonna take protection."

"Relax. At best, I might spook a few rich ladies." Jared grinned. "The city has them to spare, and so do I. But he'll owe me, all the same."

"Gladly, if you can give him anything. Dallas wants to spike his morning whiskey with this bastard's blood."

"Then I'll keep it in mind." Jared finished his drink and clinked the ice in his glass. "Another?"

It'd take two, minimum, to get the taste of politics out of his mouth. "You know it," he replied, holding out his glass. "Now, about that party. You have got to meet this new girl who's doing shows with me. She's got a dirty f*cking mind and she's inventive."

Jared poured the refills with a chuckle. "I'm sure she's wonderful, but is there any particular reason you're dying to bring her around here? You O'Kanes have plenty of filthy parties."

Plenty of parties he spent watching Cruz count Rachel's teeth with his tongue. "What, I can't miss hanging with an old friend?"

"I can't help but be curious as to the source of this sudden nostalgia."

Ace produced his best leer. "Maybe I miss refined debauchery. We can do wonderful things to a lady when we work together."

Jared wasn't fooled. "Does it have anything to do with how studiously you've avoided talking about Rachel lately?"

"Have I?" He hadn't thought he'd been that obvious, but he'd mostly been trying to avoid thinking about Rachel at all. Life was better simple, and there was nothing simple about the tangle of emotions evoked by her and Cruz and their f*cking tongues. "Nothing to tell. She's making big eyes at Bren's military police friend."

"That's not exactly nothing," Jared replied.

His friend's voice held an uncomfortable edge of sympathy, and Ace needed more whiskey. "Nothing to do, then," he said as he leaned over to snag the bottle. "City boy doesn't share, and I don't play that game. I gambled on a slow chase, and I lost. So it goes."

"As you say. I am sorry, though. I liked her."

"You can still like her. She's not dead." Ace knocked back the whiskey, enjoying a brief moment of comfort as it burned its way down his throat and kicked him in the guts. Or maybe that kick was this conversation, battering away at his determined denial. "Sorry, brother. I'll replace your booze."

Jared snorted. "Fuck the booze. I buy it by the case, and Dallas cuts me a sweet deal."

Of course he did. "Then screw you. I'm drinking it all."

"Good." He abandoned his glass on the coffee table and leaned back in his chair with a slow smile. "Drink it all, and then tell me about the redhead who works at the bar. The tall one."

Feeling like he'd just stepped clear of a minefield, Ace relaxed into the couch cushions and began to extol Trix's many, many charms. But somewhere in between a loving description of the busty redhead's glorious tits and her deliciously spankable ass, he acknowledged that his reprieve was likely to be short-lived.

The O'Kanes lived in close quarters with high stakes. Sooner or later, someone was gonna stomp on one of those mines, and the whole thing would blow up in their faces.





Chapter Five



She could hear him grunting.

Lex stared at Dallas's door and ran through the incredibly short list of activities that could result in rhythmic grunts drifting from the other side of it. Fucking, obviously--easily set aside. Even if he wanted to be a pig, he wasn't a stupid one. If anyone was getting in his pants today, it was her.

Of course, he could have started without her, a mental image that curled her toes in her heeled sandals and stopped her just shy of a knock. She licked her lips and rubbed her thumb over the inside of her thigh as she tugged the hem of her skirt down. An intoxicating possibility, but unlikely. Dallas wouldn't begin this discussion at a disadvantage, even one borne of pleasure.

Working out, then. Probably doing pushups, and enough of them to leave his skin sheened with sweat and imminently lickable. Enough to distract the hell out of her.

"Fuck you, O'Kane," she muttered, then banged on the door with the side of her fist.

The grunts paused long enough for him to say, "Come in," before resuming.

Not pushups, after all. He was hanging from the bar in one corner of the room, his shoulders flexing as he pulled his body up and then lowered it again. The sweat was there, of course, dampening his white wifebeater just enough to give an impression of the ink beneath. He kept going, every movement a controlled concert of muscle and power--and tailor-made to leave Lex weak in the knees.

"Fuck you," she said again, this time plenty loud enough for him to hear.

He grinned at her and paused with his chin above the bar. "Says the woman who makes us all watch while a fallen angel from Eden licks her * on stage."

"You love it." Lex held up the folded paper between her fingers. "I have something for you."

Still grinning, he dropped to the floor and reached for a towel to wipe his face and neck. "I wasn't sure you'd do it."

"Then maybe you don't know me very well," she said innocently.

"Uh-huh." He tossed aside the towel and walked toward her. No, not walked. Swaggered, every line of him dripping self-confidence. "We'll see."

Damn him, and damn his swagger, too. "Did you make a list?"

"I know my list." He stopped in front of her and touched her chin. "You want to hear it first?"

"Sure, why not?"

He nodded toward the couch and waited for her to sit before sprawling out beside her. "First rule. No sex without me."

A command that echoed the one scribbled on her own list. "I figured as much. Next?"