Tempted & Taken (Men of Haven #4)(3)
The woman was an enigma. After helping his brother Trevor out a few months ago, he’d started digging around to find out more about the mystery skip tracer, only to find her online footprint had all but dried up over a year and a half ago. Worse, there were conflicting photos he’d traced to the same Jeannie “JJ” Simpson. Then she’d gone and amped his need for information up by reaching out for an alleged business opportunity. If she was really out to talk shop, he’d listen. But if her so called business deal so much as hinted at blackmail against the brotherhood, he wanted leverage to put her in her place. Plus, he was just plain curious. It was a helluva feat for someone to hide from him when he was in the mood to dig, and he’d dug plenty with her.
Eyes aimed on the landing outside JJ’s door, Knox hustled to Beck’s sedan. The power locks snapped two seconds before Knox’s fingers slipped around the door handle, and a blast of cold air billowed out into the July morning the second he opened it. He slid into the passenger seat and shut the door. “You know these models have an automatic thermostat in ’em.”
“Don’t see me givin’ you shit for sweating your balls off in that four-wheeled crotch rocket you call a car, do you?”
Goddamn Beckett. All of his brothers gave him a hard time for his Audi, especially since all of them stuck to trucks, luxury sports cars or custom rides. He still wouldn’t trade it. The color alone made him smile. A giant fuck you to conformity. Rather than fire back with a retort like he usually would, he chin-lifted toward JJ’s apartment. “You seen her yet?”
“Nope.” Beckett dialed down the radio so only the drone of the AC registered inside the car and gave him a solid once-over. “For a guy who just got more than eight hours’ sleep for the first time in a while, you look pretty damned keyed up.”
Playing it off was tempting. Damned tempting. But the fact that his jacked up sleep problem and all-around trust issues had hurt yet another decent woman was kicking his ass. If he could lay his shit out with anyone it was Beckett. “I cut things off with Tiffany.”
Beckett kept his mouth shut.
Knox shifted against the tan leather seats. He hadn’t expected an argument. God knew, Beck had given him enough stick over the years about the rigid rules Knox kept in place with the women he hooked up with. So much so he could say plenty without uttering a word.
“How’d she take it?” Beckett finally asked.
“Probably plotted at least twelve ways to cut my nuts off before I’d hit the parking lot, then talked herself out of doing anything by the time I hit the highway.” He shrugged and focused on the quad of apartments closest to the property’s edge. Over the last week, he’d done his share of time monitoring JJ’s comings and goings, but he’d never been one to catch sight of her. “Tiffany’ll rebound. My guess, she’ll find what she’s after faster without me jerking her around.”
Beckett nodded, his gaze locked on the same target as Knox. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
He paused a beat. “You gonna rebound as good as Tiffany?”
So much for Beck keeping his mouth shut. “No need to rebound when you never fell.”
“Wasn’t talkin’ about rebounding from her. Was talkin’ about rebounding from the guilt.”
Knox let out a heavy exhale, anchored his elbow on the window ledge, and raked his hand through his hair. “I don’t like hurting them. I’m honest. I tell them over and over I can’t do a relationship, but it always ends up like this.”
“Then we find another way.”
“What other way? Booze and pills put me too far out of it. That’s an occupational hazard in our line of work. Exercise doesn’t work. Work doesn’t work. Sex does. And as much as it might make me a fucking pig, I like the sex. I like the women. I like the challenge. Fuck, it’s the ultimate throw down to see how many times I can get them off.”
“And therein lies the rub.”
The unexpected comment snapped Knox’s attention from JJ’s front porch and straight to Beckett, who just shook his head like he was dealing with an idiot. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Brother, you get them off. Repeatedly. Like it’s your God-given mission to sex them into the stratosphere. Then, when you pry your brainy ass out of their bed, you dote on them like a proud big brother. No amount of honesty or reiteration is going to keep them from reaching for the brass ring.”
Goddamn it. He forced his gaze back to their target’s apartment, frustration and self-condemnation burning him from the inside out. “I’m fucked up.”
Beckett chuckled at that. “No more than the rest of us.”
True. But at least it wasn’t just him and Beckett anymore like it had been growing up. Now he had five more brothers, each with their own cross to bear.
“We’re in motion,” Beckett said with a jerk of his chin toward the apartments.
Sure enough, a statuesque blonde in tight jeans and a simple tan top appeared on JJ’s landing, stopped long enough to throw her deadbolt into place, then practically bounced down the stairs to the parking lot. Actually, calling her blonde was an injustice. Unlike the California gold many women strove for, JJ’s ran closer to white. Like she’d been birthed from some mystical winter realm.