“Ooh, kinky.” Her smirk slid into a sexy grin.
Her word choice sent Ike’s brain to all kinds of places it didn’t need to be. Like envisioning Jess ass-up over his bike wearing only her ink and a pair of heels while he buried himself deep from behind, or imagining Jess with a ball gag taming that smart-ass mouth of hers while he made her come with his mouth and cock until she was boneless and more satisfied than she’d even been in her life. With black fastening straps and a red ball, the gag would match her hair. Something about that image pleased him greatly. And proved he’d fantasized about it a few times before today. Okay, a few thousand times. Whatever.
Did he always have to be so fucking attracted to women in trouble? Because he wasn’t any fucking white knight, that was for damn sure. Cop father and friends, drug-addict-cop-killing friends, stalkerish ex-lovers who wanted more—Jess had been in one form of trouble or another for as long as Ike had known her. “Special requests or not, Jakes? Jesus Christmas.”
She laughed, and Ike tried to ignore the way it lit him up inside. Despite her size, Jess had a big belly laugh so infectious it could make you chuckle even if you weren’t in on the joke. Sometimes it even included snorts that would set her off laughing even harder. “You’re too easy to rile up,” she said through her laughter. Finally, she calmed enough to add, “Okay, okay. I’ll be serious. Let’s see…I’d love it if you could get iced blueberry Pop-Tarts or Lucky Charms for breakfast, and, like, pepperoni pizza Hot Pockets for lunch and dinner. Oh, and diet Coke. That would be awesome.”
Ike frowned. “Anything else?”
Her eyes went distant for a second and then wide with excitement. “Oh, Doritos, too, please. Might need a couple of bags.”
“Why do I feel like I’m talking to a nineteen-year-old frat boy right now?” he asked.
“Dude, you asked what I wanted. I can’t help my junk food proclivities. I’m a terrible cook and Hot Pockets are freaking good. But wait. How are you going to get all that on the bike?”
Ike shook his head and pulled a key ring from his pocket. “I’m not. I’ve got a truck in the garage.”
“Oh, okay. Well, I really would come help.”
“I know you would. Just stay put. I won’t be gone long. Use the house phone if you need me.” He pointed toward the end of the kitchen counter, where the handset for the landline sat.
“I will,” she said quietly, looking over her shoulder toward the phone.
Something about her tone made Ike pause, despite the fact that he could really use a breather from the sexual tension that always seemed to crackle between them no matter how unaffected he tried to act. “You okay being alone?”
Jess made a face. “Of course. You don’t have to worry about me.”
If only it was that easy. Especially when he could’ve lost her not twenty-four hours before. He might not want her for himself—no, that wasn’t quite true, was it? He wanted her. He’d always wanted her. But he couldn’t let himself have her because he’d never be able to give her all of him. Jess deserved a whole man. And Ike hadn’t been whole for almost eighteen years, when a part of him had died along with the first woman he’d ever loved.
And that wanting? That’s why he needed to get the hell out of this house for a while. He turned on his heel. “Remember the rules,” he said over his shoulder. “And lock the door behind me.”
“Aye, aye, captain,” Jess said, the snark back in full force. Then Ike was out the door. “Don’t forget the Doritos. Lots and lots of Doritos,” he heard as he closed it behind him. Fucking Doritos.
Ike walked his bike back toward the garage—no need to advertise his presence here. Except for the Hard Ink team and the Ravens’ club president, Dare Kenyon, no one else knew where Ike and Jess had gone. And Ike was happy keeping it that way for now. He even planned to go to a store on the edge of Frederick instead of the more convenient one that was only a few miles from the club’s compound.
He parked the Harley on the side of the garage and then unlocked the side door to the small one-car-wide building. The black and silver 1975 Ford F-250 gleamed where the sunlight streaked through the door and onto the steel and chrome. Ike had restored it a decade before and it was in pristine condition.
He was for shit at taking care of people, but he could take care of machines on wheels like nobody’s business.
Enough, he thought, slamming the truck’s door harder than necessary.
Enough thinking about the past. About how he couldn’t save Lana. About wanting Jess and not being able to have her.
He had a job to do and that was all that mattered. Jess was all that mattered. Keeping her alive until the clusterfuck with Nick’s Special Forces team was resolved once and for all. Until Nick’s enemies no longer posed Jess any threat for being able to identify who at least one of them was. That was what Ike’s brain needed to be focused on. And nothing else.