Pink dusted her cheeks. “Yeah. I mean, I’ve been to a couple of parties out at their apartment complex. He’s so hot, but I thought he was dating a redhead.”
Jealousy, totally unwarranted and unwanted, shot through me. “Nope. Not anymore. Just me.” I bit my lip, my brain clicking rapidly. “Is your boyfriend a Lorde?”
She chuckled. “He wishes. But no, he’s just done some business with them.”
“Oh.” I lowered my voice to a whisper. “The drugs?”
She stiffened and moved to my other leg. “A Lordes old lady wouldn’t ask that question.”
Crap. I sucked at this and was losing her. “I know.” Drowning in my own stupidity, I let her pull my foot out to dry. “It’s just that Aiden is pissed and took away my pot, and of course, nobody else will give me any. I knew about you and Randy, and I just thought…” Man, I was full of it. Seriously full of it.
“Oh.” She filed my toenails. “I guess that makes sense, but I’d hate to get Randy in trouble with the Lordes. Those guys don’t mess around.”
Suddenly, I kind of felt like a jerk. She seemed really nice. “Forget it.” Plus, what kind of latitude did I have as a prosecutor? It was okay to investigate, but at some point, it was the police’s job and not mine. “I’m sorry to have made you uncomfortable.”
She shrugged. “You obviously know what we do here for the Lordes. I could get you a couple of joints out of the stash, but you can’t tell your old man.”
The idea of Aiden as an old man was ridiculous, but I’d watched Sons of Anarchy and knew all the lingo. All right. Some of the lingo. “Not in a million years.” Just how involved was Aiden in this drug business? Did he have a drug problem, or was he in it for the money? What did the spa do for the Lordes? There wasn’t a cool way to ask. Although, since she’d used the word ‘stash,’ they must be selling drugs out of the new spa?
She continued the pedicure, and I picked out bright pink polish. What the heck was I going to do with two joints? It was illegal to possess them, but how could I tell her no now? She finished up, and I went to take a shower in the large locker room. There were two joints in my locker when I opened it for my bag, in which I’d tossed jeans and a T-shirt earlier.
Feeling like a criminal, I shoved the marijuana in my purse and put on makeup, meeting Tessa in the lobby. We paid, and I took her to dinner at a local pizza shop, letting her snipe at me about the Brazilian she hadn’t intended to have. By the end of dinner, we were both laughing, although the pot in my purse created a cloud of doubt around me.
Finally, she dropped me at my car, and I headed home. I’d turn the drugs over to Nick the next day and report everything I had learned. He’d promised to help me with Aiden, and I believed him.
Sighing, my head and privates aching, I parked and walked toward my door, stopping short at seeing a large form sprawled on my porch swing.
I gulped.
“Hi, Angel,” Aiden said, his sapphire colored eyes layering through the soft dusk, his voice low and husky with a hint of pissed. “Rumor has it my old lady had a Brazilian today. Wanna show me?”
Chapter 15
My lungs stopped working. They didn’t hitch, and they didn’t stutter. They just up and froze. So did my feet. I stared at him across the stone walkway, acutely aware of the absence of distance between us. My girlhood fantasies about Aiden Devlin hadn’t prepared me for the reality of his focus as a man. He was predatory and did nothing to hide it.
For the first time, I saw him clearly. And I didn’t know a thing about him. Not really. “You’re trespassing,” I said.
His smile was slow and sure. “Turnabout, fair play, and all o’ that.”
I shivered, and my gaze caught on his mouth. Tingles pricked inside my chest and right down to my abdomen. Butterfly wings of both intrigue and warning. “Rumors fly fast. Are the Lordes running drugs out of the Tranquility Spa?”
He didn’t so much as twitch. “If we were, you’d never find the proof.”
That wasn’t informative in the slightest. Since he was obviously irritated with me, I wasn’t sure how to read into his bravado. Or maybe he was being perfectly honest. “I find it interesting that you’ve already been called with information about your old lady.” Man, I hoped I was using the biker gang lingo correctly. “Especially since there’s an obvious drug connection between the spa and the Lordes.”
“If it were obvious, I’d be in handcuffs,” he rumbled easily. “When somebody asks questions about my boys, claiming to be mine, then anybody with half a brain would give me a call. The chick at the spa has more than half a brain, even if her man doesn’t. Now. We gonna talk about you being mine?”
The archaic language ticked me off. Completely. I told myself that nothing inside me went a little bit gooey and warm at the possessive claim. Nope. I was not that woman and the caveman act didn’t work with me. Regardless of his hard-cut jaw and way too tough-guy body. My slightly quickened breath and weakened knees had everything to do with the disintegrating weather conditions and not the biker defender. Geez. I needed to talk to the shrink again, because lying to other people was understandable. Lying to myself was a huge mistake.
Thunder cracked in the distance, and I jumped. The clouds would be rolling in soon, and as if in warning, the air began to cool. Kicking myself into gear, I strode down the path, up my stairs, and to my door. “I’m investigating a case, Aiden.” I unlocked the door, barely sounding breathless. “If you don’t like it, then start cooperating with me.”
I didn’t hear him move. One second I had the key in the lock, and the next, I was flipped around and pressed against the door, a giant of a man towering over me.
My head snapped back, and I looked up, meeting his gaze directly, even though my heart thundered. “This is not cooperating.” For some reason, I’d always had the ability to think and feel two different things, and often my mouth had a mind of its own, which came in handy when my body was rioting like this. “Back up.”
He moved in. Both hands flattened on the door, and he leaned down, his angled jaw close to mine. “I don’t give a warning twice, Angel. Step off of my case.” The Irish was out full force in his deep voice this time. Intriguing and definitely sexy.
I’m not sure what a Lordes Defender expected when giving a threat, or an order, but he wasn’t going to get it. I levered up on my toes and leaned in closer, my nose nearly touching his. His pupils dilated, and I enjoyed the surprise there. “I’m trying to help you, and if you don’t knock it off, I’ll stop.” Then I planted both hands on his very hard chest. “You don’t want me for an enemy.” I pushed.
