Z rose up over her, looming like a damn grizzly about to bite her head off. “Inside.”
The woman’s reaction was a surprise plot twist. With one growl, Zeke turned the intrepid, leg-flinging woman into a weak-kneed kitten. Her eyelids drooped. Her lips parted on a breathy, “Yes, Sir.” She turned like a dancer in a daydream, leading the three of them inside the building.
As Garrett had hoped, the warehouse’s interior looked like a typical artist’s studio. Canvases both finished and blank were stacked along the textured plaster walls. Several easels, lots of tarps, and racks of paints cluttered the rest of the area. A loft overhead was shielded by gauzy curtains, but he discerned a big bed and kitchen area through them. And curled up in a puddle of the curtains? A sleeping white cat.
There were two elements in the scene that fit the circle-what-doesn’t-belong-here option. Suspended from a heavy chain directly over Luna’s workspace was a pair of thick leather suspension handcuffs. Even Garrett could tell the bondage gear had gotten some enthusiastic use. But that discovery was secondary to the jackpot they all spied at the other end of the room. Without second thought, Garrett joined Zeke in sprinting over to it.
The machine wasn’t an ordinary printer. It resembled a space-age weaving loom, though it was twice the size of its medieval ancestor. It measured a little over four feet long and was about as high. A sheet of clean plastic film was preloaded into it—but just beyond the machine, still littered across the expanse of empty floor in front of a rolling garage door, were slivers of the vinyl that had been part of the previous print job. Every single one of them was pink or lavender.
“Thank fuck,” Garrett muttered.
“Not yet,” Zeke retorted. The guy’s jaw turned to gritted granite again. He pitched his voice back into a bellow at the woman pouting at them from across the room. “Luna!”
She sashayed closer. “Yes, dear?”
Z pointed at the vinyl confetti. “Who were they?”
“Who were who?”
“You didn’t pay for this printer yourself, honey. Somebody brought it here so they could take advantage of your talent and your work space. They had you design a custom wrap for a van, didn’t they?”
Luna tilted her head up at him with a soft smile that made her feline features even more stunning. Holy shit, this space queen was dangerous. Garrett was just glad that Zeke knew it.
“You…think I have talent?”
“As I’ve told you a thousand times,” Z responded patiently. He took a deep breath as Luna pressed herself to him, purring in what was supposed to be gratitude. “Luna, let me be clear. We don’t have time. I need those names. Now.”
She threw him another bratty pout. “Who says I even knew who they were?”
That was it. The latch on Garrett’s tolerance broke off. “Goddamnit.” He rushed forward. “Listen, Morticia Addams, the lives of three women are at stake here. Maybe that makes a difference to you?”
Luna glared. “Damn. He needs to get laid.”
“Hawk,” Z interjected. “Just chill.”
Garrett pinned a glower into his friend. “You want to get Rayna off that express boat for Bangkok or not?”
Zeke pushed out a tense groan. Garrett realized, too late, that his galloping temper had pulled out one too many stones in Morticia’s castle ramparts.
“Who’s Rayna?” she snapped at Z.
Z’s lips flattened. “Just a woman I’ve been watching over for work. Don’t ask me anything more, Luna. You know I can’t talk about my job.”
She nodded. Very quickly. The line clearly wasn’t new to her, and neither was the pained glimmer in her eyes because of it. “And now this ‘just a woman’ is in trouble, thanks to the van I wrapped today.”
“Yes.” Zeke cupped his hands around hers. Just that motion seemed to push some button in Luna. The woman gazed up as if CNN had just informed the planet that the universe revolved around Zeke Hayes. Z reacted by stepping closer to her, his posture filled with determination. Garrett released a quiet but admiring breath. Z just earned a shitload of check marks on the steel balls rating sheet. To endure that crazy stalker glint in Luna’s eyes, in hopes she’d simply spill a couple of scumbags’ names to him…took fucking fortitude. It also served as crystal-clear proof of what Rayna had started to mean to the man.
Unfortunately, Garrett wasn’t the only one to recognize that.
“You like her.” Luna’s words were smoky rasps, the edges smoking with accusation. “Don’t you, Z? You like her a lot.”
Zeke weighed the question. Though the canyons of his face changed little, storm clouds of conflict raced across them. “Yeah,” he finally replied. “Yeah, baby girl. I do.”
Luna nodded again. Her move lacked confidence this time. She shifted on her high-heeled boots, making Garrett marvel for a second. How she didn’t fall on her face in those things was beyond his mental scope. Another surprise—how the hell she managed to get her hands stuffed into her back pockets after pulling them from Z’s grasp. The leggings looked like another custom cling vinyl job.
“Is he being straight up?” She nodded in Garrett’s direction. “Is her life really at stake?”
“If that boat they’ve got her on leaves American waters, then, yes.” He watched Z’s shoulders slump from that. He couldn’t remember ever seeing his friend so vulnerable. “She won’t be dead, but she’ll wish she was.”
Luna absorbed that with an impassive expression. But she kept up that balance-changing thing, which made Garrett as nervous as watching a tightrope walker. If she fell and split her head, they’d be up Shit Creek. It was reassuring to see Wyatt eyeing her with the same trepidation.
He planted his feet and shoved down his anxiety. The faster Morticia processed this, the better. He saw that deep inside the gothic pain-slut exterior, Luna seemed to have a heart. The trouble was, it clearly yearned for Zeke’s in return.
At last, Luna snapped her chin at Z. The new look on her face made Garrett want to grab his friend and yank him back, just in case the woman was secretly packing another pair of those handcuffs. Likely both. Was it possible for a woman to simultaneously want a guy’s heart on a plate and his dick between her thighs?
Her lips twisted with determination. “If I give you the names, I want something in return.”
Zeke responded to that with a soft laugh, though there wasn’t a thread of humor in the sound. “I bet you do.”
“So we have a deal?”
Zeke stared at the woman like a convicted man in front of an electric chair. “Yeah, baby girl. We have a deal.”
Luna lifted one side of her mouth, wrapped her arms around Z’s neck, and pulled him down for a lingering lip-lock. “You want to use whips or floggers?”
“Doesn’t matter.” Zeke’s voice matched the brutal jerks he used to get away from her. “You know I’m going to open you up with either.”
She ran both hands up her thighs, as if to spread out the heat from her delighted shiver. “Yes, Sir!”
“The names, Luna. Now.”
Five minutes later, the three of them threw their asses back into Garrett’s truck. Wyatt had barely closed his door before Garrett peeled away from the curb. Z was already on the line to Franzen, requesting every shred of information on the tampon-van boys that the Feds could get their hands on.
“Cut a right ahead,” Z ordered him. “I have a buddy down the street who’ll let us use his place until we spin up a plan for catching up with those cocksuckers.”
“Check.” Garrett whipped the truck onto Harrison. After setting the course straight, he glanced over at his friend. “Did you just agree to what I think you did?”
“Yes,” Z snapped. “And if you mention it again, I’ll turn your balls into shark chum.” The guy checked his phone for an update from Franz. His punch against the dashboard relayed the negative result. “Let’s just get our shit together and find our women before it’s too fucking late.”
Chapter Sixteen