Rock Chick Renegade (Rock Chick #4)(127)

“What about their boss? Won’t he be pissed, you guys f**king with his boys?”

“You already know we’ve declared protection. Lee drew a line in the sand. Everyone on the street knows you’re marked which means they’ve stepped over that line. What that means is, if the bosses back their boys, we’re at war. That kind of war has no rules.”

Oh my God.

I had no idea this was so huge.

I rolled around so I was facing Vance and looked at him in the moonlight. “Does that mean you guys are up against the drug lords?”

He shook his head. “The bosses have cut their boys loose. Shard’s got no beef with you, I took him down. He’s just an ass. Clarence and Jermaine have gone against direct orders. You’re an annoyance, but you’re also a social worker. There are lots of ways to put you out of commission that don’t include what those boys had planned for you. I made a deal with their boss. They reneged on that deal. Looks bad for the boss. This morning we spread word you’re off the street. They should have backed down. They didn’t. They’re on their own. Not a lot of people would invite war against Lee, at least not about this.”

“So now it’s just Shard.”

“It’s just Shard.”

“You going to find Shard?”

He shook his head again. “Luke and Ike are tracking Shard.”

I figured Shard would shortly be joining Mace’s party.

“What about Hector?” I asked. “Did you tell Lee I saw him?”

“Yeah. Lee told Eddie, they intensified Brody’s hack. Hector’s DEA. Deep cover, been workin’ at gettin’ close to a local big man for over a year and has had success. Anyone finds out he approached you, he’s dead.”

Fuck!

I closed my eyes and pressed into him, nuzzling my face in his neck.

I was such an idiot.

What was I thinking, going out and annoying drug dealers? How lucky was I that, in the end, I found Vance?

If I hadn’t and I was alone facing this shit, I’d be f**ked and not in a good way.

“I’m an idiot,” I whispered.

His arms got tight around me. “You’re not an idiot,” he whispered back.

“I just wanted to –”

He interrupted me. “You got passion, you got courage. Nothing’s wrong with either of those. You just got to learn to point them in the right direction.”

He was right. I hated it when he was right.

“If anyone gets hurt because of me –”

“No one’s gonna get hurt.”

He said that with such certainty that I believed him.

I willed myself to relax, willed my mind and body to go still.

It didn’t work.

“Vance?”

“Yeah, Princess?”

I looked up at his face in the moonlight.

It was time.

I took a deep breath then said, “Do you want me to tell you what I think it says about me that you share my bed?”

He was looking down at me. “No,” he answered bluntly.

I blinked. “What?” I asked.

“I don’t want you to tell me.”

Well, that took the wind right out of my sails and for some reason it hurt, just a little bit (okay, so it hurt a lot). I thought he’d want to know. I wanted him to want to know and furthermore, I was ready to tell him.

Before I could hide my face and my disappointment his mouth came to mine.

“I want you to show me,” he said there.

I looked into his dark eyes, close up and even in the moonlight I knew they were burning into mine.

“Okay,” I whispered.

Then I did as he asked.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Quick Could Be Good

The phone was ringing and my eyes opened.

I knew it was the dead of night and in the nanosecond before he moved, I knew I had a big time contender for Number One Most Favorite Sleeping Position with Vance. On my belly, one leg crooked, Vance pressed into my back, leg bent into mine, arm around me.

Seriously nice

He disengaged gently and rolled away to pick up the phone.

“Yeah?” I heard, pause, “right.”

When I heard the phone hit the cradle, I turned. “What was that?”

Vance’s arms came around me and he settled on his back, me in his side (just for your information, I liked this as a cuddle position but it was in the lower half of the top five as a sleeping position).

“They got Shard.”

Hallelujah, I thought.

“No more panic button?” I asked.

“You keep the panic button.”

My head came up. “Why?”

“Humor me.”

“Why?”

“Because I want you to.”

“Why?”

“Because you’ve made enemies and captured attention. Until we hear no talk on the street, I want to know you’re safe.”

I supposed I could do that.

I settled in, ready to go back to sleep, so ready in fact that I didn’t realize Vance’s body had gone tight.

“You gonna do this for me?” he asked.

“Sure,” I replied as if that was a given.

After a few minutes ticked by, his body relaxed and he said, “Jesus, you’re a pain in the ass.”