Monster (9 page)

“Bryan,”
Shane said back, doing a similar chin-life thing.

Bryan?

Bryan
?

What a tame, normal
name for such a wild, unusual man.

He told me his last
name was Breaker.

So that made him Bryan
Breaker.

Hell, it even
sounded
like a name for a criminal. He never stood a chance at a straight
life.

“The fuck you
doin'...” he trailed off, his gaze landing on me. And I got to
watch in stunned silence as his face transformed from just average
everyday hot guy to devilishly handsome flirt. And, let me tell you,
it was a damn sight to see. “Alex, baby,” he said, his
deep voice seeping into my skin. Then he was moving behind Breaker,
slapping him on the shoulder as he did so, and came to stand by me.
No, not by me. He took all my space. My breasts practically brushed
his chest. And, as Breaker had predicted, his eyes went right to my
tits before sliding slowly back up to find my face.

“Hey Shane,”
I said, annoyed that my voice came out a little airy. I really didn't
want him. Not in the least. I knew his reputation. He was a complete
horndog. But someone didn't tell my very confused libido that it
would be a good time for it to disappear again.

“Shane,” a
female voice clipped and I saw a smile tug at his lips hearing it.
“Get your eyes off her fucking tits and take a step out of her
personal space or I am going to chop off your balls and wear them
around as earrings.”

And that's when I saw
her.

And she made Gym-Brat
Barbie look like a peasant.

Because she was
simply... sexy as all hell.

I didn't even like
chicks, but damn,
I'd do her
.

She was taller than me,
somewhere around five-eight I would guess with an impressive rack,
trim waist, great hips and ass, and shapely legs. But her face... she
had plump lips, dark brows, and eyes that could only ever be
described as “bedroom”. Her long wavy brown hair swung
around her shoulders as she came up beside Shane, shoving him hard
with her shoulder, and smiled at me. “His cock belongs to me
now,” she informed me, rolling her eyes at him. “Sometimes
he just needs to be reminded.” She held out a hand to me. “I'm
Lea.”

“Alex,” I
said, smiling a little.

“Alex,” she
repeated. “You don't want him, right?” she asked, tilting
her head toward her... boyfriend?

“No,” I
said, shaking my head slightly.

“See? She doesn't
want you,” she told him, a brow raised.

“Sure when you
show up goin' all crazy fuckin' girlfriend around her.”

“Did you want to
fuck him the last time you were here?” Lea persisted.

“Um... no,”
I answered honestly.

Shane put a hand to his
heart, faking pain, but gave me a smile. Then he threw an arm around
Lea's shoulders, hauling her against his body, and laying a whopper
of a kiss on her. I mean... there was tongue.

“Well now that
that is out of the way,” Breaker broke in for the first time
since Shane noticed me. He reached into his pocket, drawing out the
chain with the key and waving it at Shane.

Shane's eyes landed on
it, then quickly went to me, a brow raised. And the question there
was clear-
are you really with him or is there a problem?

“Got into some
trouble,” I admitted. It was true enough. “Need my stuff
back to try to fix it.”

“And he's
helpin'?” Shane asked, not looking the least convinced. My eyes
slid to Gym-Brat Barbie and Shane jerked his head at her. “Get
lost for five,” he told her, and in a huff, she did.

“I don't think I
want to hear this either,” Lea said, sliding out from under
Shane's arm. “I'm gonna go to Fee's and see what creepy phone
sex callers she gets today.”

And with no further
explanation, she was gone.

“Trouble?”
Shane prompted.

“Well, Breaker
here was hired by Lex to, um, kidnap me.”

“Fuckin'
serious?” Shane asked, turning his attention to Breaker.
“Thought you didn't deal in women.”

“I fuckin'
don't,” Breaker answered, starting to look almost tired. “They
got Shoot. What fuckin' choice did I have?”

At this, Shane shrugged
a shoulder. “Right. Let's go get you your shit,” he said
to me, then led us through his gym into the back room, unlocking the
door, and letting us inside. He leaned back against the wall as I
took the key from Breaker's hand, trying real hard not to touch his
skin, and judging by the eye-smile I was getting... he knew exactly
why. I turned away from him, walking over to my locker and
unfastening the lock.

“You two
fucking?” Shane's voice asked, making me jump and turn in a way
that was almost... guilty.

“What? No!”
I answered, my voice only a little squeaky. Then, more calmly, “He
only just kidnapped me at like three am this morning,” I
offered.

At this, Shane laughed.
“Hell, babe, I've seen him pick up a girl in under three
minutes
.”

Oh.

Well.

Okay then.

“Not this girl,”
I said firmly, taking the small box out of the locker and leaving it
open. I wouldn't be needing to use it anymore.

Breaker's brow was
raised at me, obviously not letting go of the 'not this girl'
comment. But his eyes dropped to the box. “What's in there?”

I put it down on the
break room table, flipping off the lid to reveal two dozen USB
drives.

“Shit,”
Shane observed. “That's all dirt isn't it?”

“Yeah,” I
said, nodding.

Breaker's eyes rose to
mine. “Doll, how long have you been workin' on this?”

“Ten years,”
I answered automatically. “I was sixteen when my mother killed
herself because of that dickhead. I wanted to make sure he didn't get
away with it.”

“Away with what?”
Breaker asked, his voice almost... gentle.

“Away with any of
it. The rapes. The murders. Anything. I want him to pay.”

Breaker's eyes gentled
to match his tone, “Alex...”

“Alright,”
Shane said, interrupting the moment, “I can't be involved in
this. Not directly. Not dragging my family in the middle of a war,”
he said, moving toward the door. His eyes found mine. “Good
luck, baby.” He turned his attention to Breaker. “Be
smart or you'll lose them both,” he told him then walked out.

“Alright,”
Breaker said, his tone back to normal and I felt almost sad for
losing the softness. “Let's get out of here. Do we need your
laptop to look at that shit or can mine work?”

“Any laptop will
work,” I said, shrugging. It didn't matter what you opened them
on. The only safeguard was the fact that I was the only one who knew
the passwords or the key to break the code.

“Good. Let's go
to my place then,” he said, turned his back to me, and tore
through the gym.

I had to jog to keep up
with him, watching his tense shoulders with a growing sense of
unease.

Because I felt like
something had changed back in that break room.

But I had no freaking
idea what it was.

Seven

Breaker

Alex slipped back into
her sweatshirt as soon as we got in the truck. Partly because it was
cold but mostly because of the incident with me pawing at her tits
earlier.

She wasn't wrong to
cover up.

I would have liked to
finish what I started.

I don't know what the
fuck it was with her- why I couldn't seem to keep my hands off of
her. But I couldn't. So it was better she kept on as many layers as
possible.

If she could put a
reign on that sexy as fuck temper too, we'd be all the better.

I needed to stop
thinking about getting in her pants and focus on making a plan to try
to get all of us out of this situation alive. Which, well, wasn't
gonna be fuckin' easy.

But maybe whatever the
hell she had on all those USB drives would make it less complicated.

“That's your
place, isn't it?” she asked for the first time since we got in
the car. Forty minutes of silence, both of us lost in our own
thoughts.

She was pointing up at
the top of the hill where a lone house stood. Not big. A simple two
bedroom brick structure up an incline that was damn near impossible
if there was so much as a dusting of snow on the ground.

“Why'd you say
that?” I asked as I turned up the rock lined side road. I'd
laid the rocks myself, scooping them out of the back of my truck
every day for weeks. It made it damn near impossible to approach my
place silently.

“Because you're
like... you know...”

“A criminal?”
I supplied, slanting my eyes to her, smiling.

“Well, yeah. I
mean... you get involved with a lot of bad people. It seems
advantageous to live in a house where you can see if anyone
approaches from like a mile away.”

“It is,” I
confirmed, pulling the truck around to the back and parking. “It's
also...
advantageous
to have brick walls and bullet-resistant
glass.”

At this, she giggled.
Actually... fuckin'... giggled.

And fuck if it didn't
sound like music.

“What?” I
asked, fighting a smile.

She fought to control
her laugh, lost, and shrugged a shoulder. “I could see a lot of
people wanting to kill you is all,” she said, smiling wider.

I chuckled, shaking my
head, and climbing out of the truck. Mostly because if I didn't, I
was going to haul her into my seat and kiss that smartass grin right
off her face.

The attraction thing?
Yeah, it was becoming a problem.

I needed to be focused.

And her pretty little
self wasn't making that easy.

I unlocked the front
door, punching the pin into the security system as it steadily beeped
its warning, then moved aside to let Alex in.

My house was
comfortable. That was the only plan I had when I finally bought it- I
wanted a place to settle into on the rare occasion where I wasn't on
the road and sleeping in old motels.

Directly inward and to
the left was the u-shaped kitchen, the cabinets a light cherry, the
counters a swirling white and red marble. All the floors were
wide-planked, medium tinted hardwood... stretching from the kitchen
on the left toward the living room on the right, double doors leading
out to the back deck. I had a big flatscreen in an entertainment
system lined with endless DVDs across from a black leather couch and
scuffed coffee table where I had never shied away from propping my
boots up. There were a couple earth-toned braided rugs thrown around
by the doors so I didn't trek mud all over with my boots since I
wasn't exactly a big fan of scrubbing floors.

I looked over to find
Alex looking around, her brows drawn together, making two little
vertical indentations form between her dark brows. “What?”

She looked back toward
me. “Just wasn't what I was expecting,” she admitted, but
there was a strange sadness in her voice. “How often do you
stay here?”

I shrugged a shoulder.
“Few days a month. Longer in the winter when I don't want to
travel as much.”

To this, she nodded,
walking over toward my living room and looking through my DVDs.

“What's up?”
I asked, noticing her dropped shoulders.

She shrugged. “I've
been on my own since I was seventeen,” she admitted, her voice
far away. “And still... everything I own can be thrown into two
moving boxes with five minutes notice.”

Jesus. She was jealous
of my house. Small and simple as it was. Her life was even more empty
than mine.

I walked up behind her,
watching her fingers trace the spines of the DVD boxes. My hand
landed on her hip from behind, for once, not sexual. Just a touch.
“You gotta put roots down sometime, Alex.”