Jacked Up (Bowen Boys #4)(27)

Fuck.

“Oh and Copeland?” Mullen said from the other side of the line, taking Jack out of his musing. “The NSA is sniffing around, extremely interested in getting Maldonado. So far the FBI is coordinating the whole operation, but if they decide to take over, we will have to hand the whole investigation to them.”

That wouldn’t happen. Jack would make sure of it. Having the NSA involved would mean more people knowing about Elle. Unacceptable.

After disconnecting the call, he took a deep breath and entered the beauty salon.

“You have a back exit in there?” he asked the befuddled girl behind the counter, who shook her head. “Windows that open into the street?” Another head shake.

He didn’t get why those questions always left people flabbergasted. First thing he did when entering a place was study the layout. Entrance and exit points. Shit happened no matter what, but there was no excuse for letting it surprise you.

Satisfied with the clerk’s answer, he nodded and sat down. No risk of Elle disappearing. Not that he hadn’t covered her with bugs, because he had—one could never be too safe when dealing with such a nutcase—but he didn’t want to let her out of his sight. He’d been in this business long enough to know things could go south in a second, so he opened a magazine and tried to forget he was reading f*cking Cosmopolitan, in a beauty salon, with women around him whispering and gesturing.

He’d gotten his hands on Elle’s agenda—that is, he’d studied the humongous calendar on the fridge door, where apparently she kept track of her crazy schedule and marked all her appointments—and apart from university in the morning, Italian classes early in the afternoon, and then Rosita’s, she’d had nothing else planned. That improvised stop in the middle of her schedule came out of the blue.

He wasn’t sure how many Cosmopolitans it took before Elle was standing in front of him, with all of her hair braided. Not just the left side as she had before.

“Andiamo, il professore di italiano mi aspetta!” Let’s go, the Italian teacher is waiting for me.

He studied her, frowning. She was beautiful, those big eyes of hers even bigger and her delicate features more gorgeous and accentuated without anything in the way, but he loved her thick long hair flowing around her. Man, he should have been paying more attention to what she’d been doing. No wonder she’d chosen the styling chair farthest away from him.

“What?” she asked innocently, lifting her hands to him, fluttering her eyelashes. “Don’t like my nails?”

Long, bloodred, decorated nails. Fucking sexy.

Not the problem. Not at all.

He cupped her neck and took her mouth, deep and hard. She tasted so damn good. That he didn’t kiss her to shut her up was lurking in the recesses of his mind but he did his damnedest to ignore it.

“I don’t think you heard me correctly yesterday; I said the braids had to go,” he growled against her lips.

She smirked. “Oh, I heard you, believe me. I heard you loud and clear.”



“Wow, you’re smashing.” Paige greeted them with a whistle at Rosita’s. She looked at Jack, then back to Elle. “I take it he doesn’t like it, does he?”

Nope, he didn’t seem to like it. Then again, he’d kissed the living wits out of her, before and after the Italian teacher, so it was anyone’s guess. She wasn’t too crazy about the new hairdo either, especially how tight her scalp felt and how badly she wanted to scratch it, but his expression every time he glared at her was worth all that discomfort and more.

“Those braids have to go.” Who the hell did he think he was? She didn’t take orders, much less ones issued with that tone of master of the universe.

“I have a bone to pick with you, lady,” Elle said to Paige. “You’ve been blabbing to a certain very hormonal sister. I thought you had my back.”

Paige grimaced. “So sorry. She’s scary. She forced it out of me. Who knew brand-new moms became such Godzillas?”

Elle laughed. Didn’t she know. She had always been an overbearingly responsible little sister. Always ready to lecture her. Heck, Tate had become a very successful corporate secretary mere months after graduating from college. Elle herself had been partying and missed her own graduation.

Never mind how stubborn and straitlaced her sister had been, Rosita’s was still theirs thanks to her, not to Elle. Tate had stuck with it come hell or high water and restored it to the successful family restaurant it had been when Jonah and their dad were alive, and had gotten a fantastic team in the kitchen and outside. Paige, for example, with her choke collars and piercings and Goth makeup, was the best ma?tre d’ Rosita’s had ever had.

Elle, instead, had done what she always did: run. Such a frigging irony that now that she wanted to stay, everyone wanted her to go.

“Checking around, pet. Don’t go anywhere,” he growled, then walked to the back.

“Pet?” Paige asked in a whisper.

Elle rolled her eyes. “He’s delusional, but I’m humoring him.”

“Is he going to be here on a permanent basis? I thought yesterday was an exception.”

Elle shrugged. “Honestly? I don’t know.”

“He is so…intense.”

Tell her about it. She couldn’t pinpoint what it was about him, but boy it got her motor running. That severe demeanor, those icy-blue eyes. That gravelly voice. No man had ever gotten that primal reaction from her. Crazy attraction none withstanding, she knew there could never be anything between them. They would drive each other insane. But that was just as well, because she was not looking for love or a relationship. Heck, she wasn’t even sure sex was a good idea. Every time he kissed her, her damn heart stopped and her core flooded. Such raw passion. Such intensity, in the kiss and in the hand restraining her. She didn’t like being held in place, being told what to do, and that was all he did. He was a rock and she would never get him to move. And yet, for all her sound reasoning she couldn’t deny she wanted him, badly.