Bad Girl Bill (Atlantic Divide) (16 page)

She reckoned she had around eight minutes before the cavalry arrived, and if she could keep it contained to just the six of them and her, she might stand a chance. She and Michael might actually walk away without bloodshed. She knew from Michael’s sparring with her last week he wasn’t going to stand a chance. Likelihood was at least four of them would go for him. Bullies always went for the easy target, and they knew she wasn’t going down without a fight. Pretty blond boy was just about to get the shit kicked out of him unless she could create a diversion. Eight minutes. Delay tactics needed to be employed.

“Well, Deputy,” Kenny turned, put his hand around her right wrist and pulled it up toward his face, “I always thought you was a lesbian, but seeing as you like to fuck with men, why don’t we just go on outside and me and my friends…” he sent a quick sly sideways glance at Michael, “…we’ll show you what real men can do.” His hot, alcohol-cracked tongue poked out of his dry lips, and he licked from the heel of her hand to the tip of her fingers, where he nipped the end of her middle one with his yellowed teeth.

The hell with delay.

It only took a second, a lightning quick reaction as she employed her whole body weight behind her left arm and smacked his nose straight on with the heel of her hand. He dropped her wrist as his nose exploded, and blood splattered across his face, her shirt, the pool table, and up the nicotine-stained wall beside him. Falling to his knees, he grabbed his face with both hands and screamed.

“You broke my fuckin’ dose, you bitch.”

“If you move an inch, I’m going to break your fucking neck, you shit. You’re under arrest for assaulting a police officer.”

At the same time, she heard Michael’s quiet expulsion of breath from behind her.

“Aaah, bugger.”

With a swift kick to Kenny’s ribs, she sent him flopping sideways and snarled, “Stay down,” before instinct had her whirling to face the rest of the pack.

The first one came in low, growling like a bear, intent on hurling her to the ground with the sheer size of his shoulders and beer belly and no technique.

She neatly sidestepped his full-body rush, joined both hands together and chopped down hard on the back of his thick neck. She pushed her foot out in front of his as he flew by, and using his own weight as propulsion, launched him headfirst into the wall.

She crouched low, her hands came straight back into a defensive position, and she spun around to face the next one only to be brought up short, spotting one of the pack already sat on the floor with tears in his eyes as he held his balls in his hands and rocked back and forward.

Another had left a bloodstain streaking down the wall as his head cracked against it, and he slithered into an ungainly heap on the floor beside the first one. He had a rapidly swelling black eye and a bloodied lip.

She watched with fascination as Michael delivered a swift blow with the pool cue to the abdomen of the third guy, who fell to his knees like a sack of shit, favoring what could have been broken ribs.

The final one turned with a desperate expression on his face, pulled a knife, crouched low, and started to circle around from Michael’s left side, tossing the knife expertly from one hand to the other.

As Bill stepped forward to intervene, Michael flicked the thick end of the cue under the assailants chin, snapped his head back, followed up by a hard prod to his chest with the blunt end; spinning the cue around he caught him neatly in the groin with another swift jab. As the guy staggered, Michael twirled the stick again and flicked it up behind the man’s knees, and by the time he hit the floor the thin end of the cue stick was already at his throat. He turned a peculiar shade of blue, as Michael stood coolly above him applying a firm pressure against his jugular. One sharp push, the man would be dead.

“You want to read them their rights? Go ahead. I’ve got your back.”

He stepped back. The man remained where he had fallen on the floor. Michael glanced at Kenny, who was still on his knees, blood streaming down his chin and dripping on to his grubby T-shirt.

“I don’t think the lady will be taking you up on your offer.”

Cold as a chip of ice, he laid the pool cue down on the table a little regretfully, leaned back, crossed his arms over his chest, and waited for her to do her thing.

The police car was already rolling down the drive to the bar, lights flashing as Bill and Michael waited silently in their corner with the injured. No one else had stepped forward to either help or hinder. They probably figured Michael was more than capable of taking the rest of them out before they could breathe.

“Looks like you had a busy night, Deputy.” Glancing around the room, Jack touched his hand to his gun. “You do this all on your own?”

“No, the government paper-pusher there is responsible for most of it.” Her voice was low and harsh.

Jack assessed his brother-in-law. Michael leaned on the pool table looking like he’d just stepped out the pages of a fashion magazine, not a hair out of place, not a bloodied knuckle in sight. Eyes cold and deadly.

“Good to know whose side you’re on.” Jack nodded.

*

Michael inclined his head and straightened up.

“Can we go now?” He glanced at Bill. Her fingers had a slight tremor. She wasn’t as tough as she tried to make out. He’d been warned…several times.

He simply wanted to get her out of there now. She kept flicking furtive glances toward him, her jet-black eyebrows lowered, mouth tight. Blood had sprayed all over her. He needed to get her alone before she ran.

Removing the keys from her shaking fingers, he pushed her into the passenger seat, walked around the front, and slid into the driver’s seat of the truck. He glanced at her frozen features as he fired the engine and drove off in silence.

“Jesus, Michael…Jesus Christ, where did you learn to handle yourself like that?” She stared at him across the divide of the front seats. “I’ve never seen a massacre like that one before, and you didn’t raise a sweat, your shirt looks like you just ironed it, and you didn’t even get your hands bloody.”

He didn’t answer, just let her talk. It was her way. His was to keep quiet. His jaw was set, and he stared straight ahead, and his hands were steady on the steering wheel.

“Last week in the gym, you could have taken me any time you wanted, couldn’t you?” His only response was a quick sideways glance. “Well hell, I thought I was good. I really thought I had you, but all the time, you were just playing. You could have slayed me where I stood.” He shrugged. He didn’t want to admit it, but she was right. Any move she made, he could have counteracted. He’d chosen not to. After all, she wasn’t the enemy, just the competition, and the prize had been worth having.

“You’re a hell of a dangerous man, Michael.” She burst out.

He shrugged again. There was no reply. It was the truth. He was a natural-born killer.

*

She fell silent, reflecting on what had happened. Running through in her mind the swiftness of Michael’s reactions, his effortless brutality. It had all happened so fast, he’d left her breathless. The fierceness of his expression when it was done, and the complete control over every movement he made, every emotion he should have had, but didn’t had stunned her to the core. The man was iron.

He’d told her he’d been in a war zone, and it was pretty obvious he worked undercover from the silence that greeted any questions about his job, but it had never occurred to her he was a stone-cold killer until she saw it for herself in his eyes.

She chewed on her lip as he pulled the truck up in front of her house. He turned off the engine and just sat with his forearms crossed over the top of the steering wheel and stared straight ahead. The silence was heavy.

Studying his face in the shadows of the car, excitement rippled through her veins at the thought this cool, sleek, beautiful man could possibly be so deadly. And he was hers. For now. She shuddered with delight.

“So.” His voice was quiet in the darkness. “What do you want to do, Bill?”

He made her mouth water. She wanted to crawl into his lap and lick him all over, head to foot. His aloofness confused her. Perhaps his emotions had been turned off, but her adrenaline was revving.

“I don’t know what you mean. Don’t you want…?”

He turned his head and stared at her for a long moment, his eyebrows pulled down low as he studied her. His eyes were as cold as ice and yet somehow, when he narrowed them at her, she could have sworn she saw a flicker of something there.

“Do you want to call it quits?” His sharp question took her by surprise. She stared at him long and hard, and then heaved a sigh and glanced away from him out into the pitch-darkness of the night.

“You want to know, if after everything that’s happened, all that we’ve done, I’m turned off by the fact you can kill a man using just your thumb?”

His heavy frown said it all as she glanced back at him.

“You think I don’t already know what you are?” She snapped her seat belt undone, kneeled on the seat to get closer to him, and leaned her face in. “I think you underestimate me. When a county sheriff’s office gets government blocked in their request for information, it usually means we’re dealing with an undercover operative.”

She lifted her hand, smoothed her fingers along his clenched jaw.

“To tell the truth, I’ve seen a lot of violence in my job, but I’ve never seen anyone as coldly efficient as you.”

He breathed in deep.

“But I know you’re not cold. Not really.” As he held his breath, she wondered if there would be any give in him, or if he was capable of walking away.

So she did what any self-respecting girl would do and launched herself across the cab into his arms, grinning like a loon. She wrapped a hank of his hair around her hand and yanked his head back to gaze deep into his beautiful, surprised green eyes.

“Hell no, Michael. I can’t call it quits. You just made yourself sexier than hell. If you think you turn a girl off by giving her that kind of knowledge, you’re mistaken.”

She bit his bottom lip sharply, and then ravaged him with a kiss.

“And besides, you’re too good at the sex thing, tiger…”

He tore his mouth away from hers to breathe, and his green eyes almost glowed at her.

“If I’d known it would have that effect, I’d have used that one years ago.”

“It may not have had the same effect on other women, but you just got my adrenaline pumped up. Perhaps I need to cool down.”

She plastered her mouth firmly against his.

“I like your adrenaline just the way it is, Bill, molten hot.” He gasped under the onslaught of her kisses. “We’d better go inside before we get arrested for indecency.”

“I don’t think it’s indecent when it’s in your own front yard, but let’s go in anyway, I need to get out of these bloodied clothes and besides, it’ll be more comfortable than sitting on the gearshift.”

They dashed through the house stripping clothes off as they went, with her eagerness and his raging hormones lending them speed.

As they hit the bed, he rolled himself backward away from her.

“Hold on Bill, hold on. I never brought a condom with me.”

She leaped over him and opened her bedside drawer.

“It’s okay. I managed to liberate one of the boxes before Mac took them away.”

“But I thought they were for perverts.

“Oh yeah, hold on.” She ripped open the box and grabbed a foil packet. “I think I got the one with extra-lubricated, supersensitive ribbing with whistles, bells, and lights.” She tore open the packet with her teeth, and like a complete pro, had him sheathed in a blink of an eye.

He was inside her in less time than that.

* * * *

“It wasn’t extra-lubricated.”

“No.”

“It didn’t have supersensitive ribbing.”

“None.”

“There were no whistles, bells, and lights.”

“If there had been, there wouldn’t have been enough time for them to toot, ding-a-ling, and flash. You were real fast, tiger.”

“Too fast?”

“Hmmm…” Sliding her long fingers across his hot, muscular chest she gave him a lazy contented smile. “No.”

“Where did you get them from?”

“Mac.”

“What?” He sat up abruptly tipping her off his chest as he stared down at her in horror.

“Lie down. I knew you would react that way. That’s why I never told you.” Her voice was slow and lazy, almost replete. “It might have affected your performance.”

He reclined next to her, lying on his side to face her. His adrenaline was still pumping, even if hers had slowed down.

“He took all the others, and then he left me a large box on my bedside table. I think they’re the same ones you used. Super thin.” She smiled slyly up at him, running her long, nimble fingers over his shoulder and scratching a pattern across his chest.

“Why would he do that?”

“Because he’s my mother, my father, and my brother. He left a note saying ‘take care’.”

Falling onto his back, Michael ran his fingers through his hair.

“There’s no bloody privacy here.”

She raised herself up on her elbow and peered down at him.

“We have privacy now, tiger.” She quirked him one of her bad-girl smiles. “What you going to do about it?”

He returned her smile with a long, slow one of his own and reached for the box on the bedside table.

It wasn’t that he’d actually moved in with her. They simply spent so much time in her bed, keeping a few of his personal items at her place seemed practical.

He kept himself busy while she was at work, stayed at his sisters’ houses, worked out in Bill’s gym, ran with the dogs, but when she was free he was there.

Her brothers had stopped turning up without calling first after catching them in clinches too many times to mention.

As the weeks rolled past, Michael’s hair grew, curling down his neck onto his shoulders and bleaching even blonder in the Southern sunshine. He started to tie it back with a black elastic band, and when Bill offered to cut it, refused saying he liked the new look. The stubble on his face had grown into a full beard.