Beneath This Mask (Beneath, #1)(3)

“We have a problem here, Lee?” A tall blond man dressed in a faded Jimi Hendrix T-shirt and ripped jeans, tattooed from neck to wrists, sauntered out of the back room. He stopped next to Lee and wrapped an arm around her, pulling her into him. The gesture was so possessive that even my drunk ass couldn’t miss it. I dropped her wrist.

“No problem. Just wanted to know her name.”

He raised an eyebrow. Under the ink, he was still the punk who’d gotten expelled from our prep school for hot-boxing the athletic director’s office. If I recalled correctly, he’d ended up in military school after that stunt. Constantine Leahy. Well, f*ck.

“It’s fine, Con. I’m good. He was just leaving.” A second dismissal. And it blew.

Con looked at me, his eyes not giving anything away. He glanced down to the tattoo on the inside of my forearm. “We touch up work for vets for free. Come on back anytime—before you start tipping ‘em back.” He jerked a chin toward the sign. I stared at his hand curling around her waist. It was too familiar to be an act. They looked like a perfect couple. All ink and f*ck you attitudes.

“Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.” I turned and walked away. I told myself it was for the best. She wasn’t for me. But those eyes…





“Was the caveman act really necessary?” I asked Con, my boss, friend, and sometimes f*ck buddy, as I stepped out of his hold.

“You can’t tell me he wasn’t trying to pick you up and take you home.”

“Maybe I wanted him to.” Our arrangement was completely open. The only rule: if you were with someone else, you had to get tested before we got together again. Well, I guess it was really my rule for Con. I hadn’t yet needed to get tested, but he regularly went home with other women. I felt no jealousy. I used Con to feel close to someone occasionally, and it didn’t hurt that he was a stellar lay. He was the only guy who’d touched me in more than a casual way since I’d left New York. I shoved the thought of home to the back of my brain. After all, it wasn’t home any more. I’d gone days without thinking about my old life. It was a game I played. How long could I go without remembering? I was getting better at it. Sex, booze, and tattoos helped. Although, I was a little light on the sex portion of the equation lately; it’d been over two months since I’d been with Con.

“Yeah, right. He wasn’t exactly your type.”

“Really?” I pointed at the door. “Did you see the same guy I did? Because he was every woman’s type.” Tall, broad shouldered, with dark hair styled in that artfully messy way, a little stubble on his jaw, and flashing hazel eyes. The military ink on the inside of his corded forearm was pretty hot too.

“A little straight-edge for you, Lee. Trust me. Plus, you shouldn’t even be thinking about leaving here with some guy you just met. I thought you were smarter than that.” Con frowned down at me.

I winced, feeling guilty, and knowing he was right. In my quest to lie as little as possible about my past, I let people assume whatever they wanted about my motives for keeping a low profile. Con’s assumption: I was running from an abusive boyfriend. Some days I wished that was the truth, and then I wanted to kick my own ass for feeling sorry for myself and thinking my messed up situation was anywhere near as bad as a battered woman’s. Besides, I didn’t deserve pity. Even from myself.

I looked at the clock. “You care if I head out? I’m working an early shift tomorrow.”


He smoothed my hair back from my face. “You work too damn hard. I wish you’d just let me…” His statement trailed off when I looked away. It was a conversation we’d had too many times to count. “Get your mutt, and get out of here, Lee.” Con was the only person who called me Lee. He claimed I was too sexy to call by a guy’s name. Whatever. Thankfully, given what he assumed to be my situation, he paid me under the table and had never asked to see my ID. So I’d let him call me whatever the hell he wanted.

I grinned. “Thanks, boss.” I whistled shrilly, and he clamped his hands over his ears.

“Jesus, f*ck. Was that necessary?”

“That’s for cock-blocking me.”

Con rolled his eyes as my brindle mutt trotted out of the back room. His head came up past the counter, and he stood thirty inches tall at his haunches. Huck and I had arrived in New Orleans on the same day one year earlier, or so I’d been told. I’d met him on my third day in the Crescent City. He was the newest resident of the Humane Society of New Orleans, and I was their newest volunteer. I took one look at the thirty pounds of roly-poly bear-cub-looking pup and begged Harriet, my honorary grandmother and landlord, if she’d allow a pet. She’d agreed. When I’d learned that he’d been found floating down the Mississippi on a pile of plywood and old tires, I’d realized that he was my very own Huckleberry Finn. Fast forward one year, and another 130 pounds, and Huck and I were inseparable. The best I could figure, he was a cross between an English Mastiff and a Great Dane. I wasn’t sure what other combination would produce such a monster. He was my baby, my guardian, and an irreplaceable part of the new family I’d built. Unfortunately, my volunteering had been curtailed by my crazy work schedule.

Con smacked my ass, and Huck growled softly. “Stow it, mutt. I let you sleep on my goddamn couch.” Con held out a hand, and Huck head-butted it. I wondered if Con had been someone Huck didn’t know, whether he might have lost that hand. It was a theory I didn’t want to test.