Bang, bang. The door flew open, and Phoenix and a man Haven thought was called Caine stepped in. Where Phoenix could be a playful screwball, Caine seemed quiet and severely serious to the point of being kinda scary. But she’d thought that about Dare once, too, hadn’t she? “Oh, shit. Sorry, Dare, Haven,” Phoenix said. Both men seemed upset. Or, at least, Phoenix didn’t seem like his usual smart-alecky, laid-back self. “We got something.”
Dare looked down at her, and that was the moment she realized that he hadn’t let her go when the men had let themselves into his office. His arm still wrapped around her lower back, holding her to him. “Can we finish this later?” he asked her. “I’m sorry.”
“Of course. I hope everything’s okay,” she said. She pulled away, only to have him grab her hand and tug her back again.
He kissed her long and deep and hard, and Haven thought her heart would beat out of her chest from the intensity of it, from the fact that he’d done it in front of his brothers—and that she’d liked that he’d done that. “Later.”
“Later,” she whispered, her lips still tingling from the kiss. She slipped out—or floated out, more like it—and wondered how she was going to avoid going crazy until she saw him again and heard whatever it was that he needed to confess.
CHAPTER 17
“Not a word,” Dare said, glaring at his brothers. He shouldn’t have kissed her in front of them, but they’d already seen them all up against each other and Dare hadn’t been able to resist having just one more taste. It turned out having a little bit of something good in your life just made you want more. “What’s going on?” Dare asked as Phoenix held up his hands as if in surrender and Caine closed the door behind Haven. Now Dare understood the first item on her list a helluva lot better, didn’t he? Have your own kitchen.
Jesus. She shouldn’t have to wish for something that talent demanded be nurtured.
“We put out the word about the hardware we want to get rid of like we talked about,” Phoenix said, meaning the guns they’d acquired from the Church Gang a few weeks before.
“Yeah,” Dare said, the thought of Haven’s list making him regret that they’d been interrupted before he could confess to knowing about it. Maybe it was just as well he hadn’t opened his mouth any more than he already had, though. Because that woman extracted all of his self-control every time they were within five feet of each other. “Any word?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” Phoenix said, exchanging dark looks with Caine.
“Shit, what is it?” Dare asked, shaking off all thoughts of Haven and getting his mind back in the game.
“We have an interested buyer in Baltimore,” Phoenix said. “A gang called the Iron Cross, one of the top contenders to fill the Church Gang’s shoes in the city. I need to know how to respond here, because if I tell them they’re no longer available, that may impact our ability to sell elsewhere. But if I ignore or say we won’t sell to them, then we risk making an enemy.” Caine nodded, a scowl on his face.
“Fuck,” Dare said, leaning his hip against the desk. “What do we know about them?”
“Not a lot yet,” Caine said, “but the guys at Hard Ink might be able to find out more. Didn’t they have some sort of gang contact?”
Dare nodded. “They do. And I think it’s time to call in some favors.” He rounded the desk and took a seat, and Phoenix and Caine sat in the chairs on the other side of the desk.
From weeks of working together, Dare had Nick Rixey, the informal leader of the team of elite Army vets, on speed dial. “This is Rixey,” came a voice through the speakerphone.
“Nick, it’s Dare. How are you?”
“Dare,” Nick said, his tone indicating he was pleased. “Things are good. Thanks in part to you and your men.”
“Glad to hear it. Speaking of which, I’ve got Phoenix and Caine here with me. You’re on speaker.” The three of them exchanged greetings.
“So I take it this isn’t a social call,” Nick said.
“Wish it was,” Dare said. “But we find ourselves in need of your help.”
“Name it.” The words were spoken without hesitation, and Dare found himself respecting Nick even more than he already did. Any man who kept his word so unequivocally was a good friend to have in his book.
“The rest of your guys around?” Dare asked. “If so, it might be easier to put me on speaker on your end, too.”
“Give me five and I’ll call you right back,” Nick said. They hung up.
“Good to see they’re keeping their word,” Phoenix said, a dark shadow crossing his normally carefree face. But given that his cousin had died protecting the folks at Hard Ink not even a month before, Dare totally understood why that would be so important to Phoenix.
Dare’s phone rang, and Nick explained he had everyone present. “What’s going on?”
“A couple of things,” Dare said. “First, I’ve got some photographs I was hoping Marz could run through his various programs for further identification and information.”
Marz was their computer tech and had capabilities acquiring information from the web that Dare couldn’t hope to replicate. The guy’s voice came down the line. “That’s not a problem. Send me whatever you want me to search.”