Phoenix Burning (12 page)

“Like hell.” Gabriel pushed away from the wall. “You’re not talking to that wanker all by yourself.”

“If he’s a wanker, why are you worried I can’t handle him without backup.” Alex shoved his way out the office door. “And please, God, don’t give me your wingman speech again. You were in the marines, not the air force.”

Alex left Connor’s office and the storage area for the bar. They were technically closed on Sundays, so the bar was empty. True to his suspicious nature, Gabriel had left Donovan MacIntyre locked in the entry cage. It deserved a laugh though Alex didn’t figure the disgruntled-looking city Alderman would have found it funny.

MacIntyre had struck a classic impatient pose. The man probably practiced in front of a mirror. He had the posture down perfectly. Spine ramrod straight, arms crossed, and chin lifted until he was all but staring at the ceiling while looking down his nose. The toe of one loafer tapped the black-and-white tile floor. Alex wondered how long it’d been since the guy had gotten laid. He looked like he could use a chance to blow off steam. Not that Alex would be suggesting MacIntyre stop by Morgan’s store to pick up a pocket pussy to supplement his obviously lacking sex life.

“I can’t believe anyone comes to this place if their first experience with your hospitality is that cockney bastard,” MacIntyre sneered.

Alex didn’t offer to open the cage. MacIntyre had ignored the usual pleasantries; so would Alex. “See, the thing is…your reputation precedes you, Donovan. Gabriel would rather chew nails than let you in here.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“Or preferential treatment,” Alex shot back. “Depends on your perspective.”

MacIntyre was vibrating with righteous indignation. Had his hair not been so gelled, it would have been quivering right along with him.

“Now.” Alex leaned forward and hooked his fingers on the chain-link barrier between them. “What brings you into the bar on a day when most decent places are closed so their employees can spend time with family?”

MacIntyre ignored the deliberate dig. “I’ve come to take Emory Banks home.”

“Why?” Years of controlling his facial expressions kept Alex from showing MacIntyre how unsettling the ridiculous demand was. Emory was perfectly capable of taking care of herself, but was she just hiding from MacIntyre? Or was she in some kind of trouble?

“This cesspool is a magnet for the lowlifes and gutter trash that come downtown. Emory doesn’t belong in a place like this with a man like you. She’s an innocent. She can’t possibly understand how much the filth and degradation that goes on here will affect her future prospects.”

Alex gripped the barrier until the metal dug into his hands. Instinct told him Emory had lost her innocence long ago to an asshole like MacIntyre who had been drunk on his own self-righteousness and male power. Alex didn’t know what claim Captain Downtown had on Emory, but it needed to come to an end.

“Filth and degradation?” Connor’s deep voice rumbled like cannon fire as he made his way through the room. “When was the last time you asked one of your servers if she felt degraded by the treatment she gets from your customers?”

“Sounds like the pot calling the kettle black,” Gabriel added from the back of the room. He’d perched on a barstool, with his elbows braced against the bar.

“Emory!” MacIntyre shouted as though he truly believed they’d chained her in the back room somewhere.

“She isn’t here,” Alex told him quietly. “Though I wouldn’t be disappointed if she were.”

“I must have gotten through to her.”

Alex was tempted to open the cage and wipe the look of satisfaction from the man’s face. His obsession with Emory bordered on psychotic.

“Stay away from her, Dalesio.” MacIntyre’s snarl rivaled that of a rabid dog’s. “She belongs with a man who can treat her like the good woman she is.”

“In what world do you have any idea how a woman wants to be treated?” Alex was through being reasonable. “How much time have you spent with her? A few dates? And you honestly believe that gives you some kind of understanding of what she wants or needs? Men like you are the reason women learn to hate us all. Get a clue. And until then, fuck off.”

Alex turned and walked away. He stopped in the office long enough to grab his keys and head for the back door. He wasn’t going to be satisfied until he could see with his own eyes that Emory was fine.

* * *

“Have you ever actually been inside Phoenix Rising, Dacey?” Emory picked up a stack of new releases and handed them to the bookshop owner.

Dacey placed the paperbacks on the shelf and evened out the spines. With her ponytail, glasses, and sedate skirt and top, she looked like a stereotypical librarian. “Actually, no. I rarely go to bars at all.”

“What about Cheeky’s Wingshack?” Emory forced back the giggle that always seemed to accompany her use of MacIntyre’s bars’ silly name. She’d never gotten up enough nerve to actually ask the man who Cheeky was. Did he call himself that?

“No, of course not.” Dacey made a face. “I can’t stand watching those poor girls get groped just for being in uniform.”

Emory glanced at the next stack of books and picked them up. “You realize his stupid indecency ordinance change could extend to cover romance novels, right?”

“No, it couldn’t. I have a right to sell whatever kind of books I want to.”

Sometimes Emory got a glimpse of why her brother’s job could be so frustrating. People so rarely paid attention to the big picture. “MacIntyre’s intention is to change the public indecency ordinances. Best-case scenario, he closes down the bar and everybody forgets it. Worst-case scenario? He sets a precedent for some vague definition of what public indecency is. Vague, meaning he can pick and choose. I’ve heard him threaten Morgan Talley already.”

“Some of her window displays are rather inappropriate, Emory.” Dacey blushed as she put the romance novels on the shelf.

“Didn’t she do something about it when you asked her to?”

“Well, yes.”

“So can you really complain about it?”

“I suppose not.”

Emory grabbed one of the books Dacey had just shelved. The cover featured a couple embracing. One of his hands strategically covered her breast, and the title managed to cover the rest. But the picture essentially featured two naked people. “I’m the last one to tell you not to sell this book. In fact, I think I might buy it. It looks hot. But don’t you think this might catch Captain Downtown’s attention?”

“What purpose would closing my shop serve?” Dacey was starting to look kind of frazzled. She tucked a stray strand of brown hair behind her ear and pushed her glasses back up her nose.

“Well, MacIntyre is closing the Phoenix because it’s a bar and it competes with his place for business, whether he’ll admit it or not. What happens when he decides he wants this location for his new beer garden? Your shop
does
sort of share this corner with the Wingshack, and you’ve got a really cute courtyard you use as an outdoor reading room.”

“Do you know how pissed he’s going to be if I renege on that petition?” Dacey looked terrified.

“Either piss him off now, or give him a weapon to shut you down later. Trust me. We’re all in the same boat here.”

Dacey gnawed her lower lip. “I’ll have to think about it.”

“I understand.” Emory patted her on the arm. “Call me if you need anything. Or swing by my shop.”

Emory was feeling pretty good when she left the bookstore. She pushed open the door and hopped off the curb. The sun was just starting to dip into late afternoon, but the temperature was pleasant and the humidity wasn’t suffocating. She wondered what Alex did on Sunday afternoons.

Visiting Clement Latham at his art gallery was going to have to wait until the morning. She could see the closed sign on his corner door from across the intersection. The streets were quiet. Only a few couples strolled toward the park situated between Clement’s gallery and the city building at the end of the street.

Music drifted out of Cheeky’s Wingshack across from the park. Sunday afternoons were one of his busier times. There were plenty of men who would rather spend a few hours watching the game and eating wings than hanging out at home. Emory made a face and turned deliberately in the opposite direction. It was a short walk back to her shop around the corner.

As she turned, she caught a glimpse of Captain Downtown himself stalking angrily away from Phoenix Rising. His normally impeccable hair looked mussed, and he seemed thoroughly pissed off. He was walking back toward the Wingshack and muttering to himself like a crazy person.

Panicking, Emory ducked behind a car parallel parked along the curb. She stretched her neck at an awkward angle to watch MacIntyre’s progress back toward his home turf. She was just starting to feel sorry for the poor employees that were going to be likely vessels for his wrath when someone grabbed her from behind.

“Sh—!” Her yelp was muffled by a large hand.

“Didn’t mean to startle you, love.”

Alex’s familiar scent washed over her senses like a balm. She had no idea what he was doing sneaking up on her when she was hiding behind a car, but the whole situation was ludicrous to begin with.

He released her mouth, and she turned to stare at him. “What are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same thing.” He gave her squatted position behind the car a pointed look.

“I’m hiding from Captain Downtown.”

His grin was like the sun coming out from behind the clouds. Her heart fluttered and her stomach flip-flopped. “I wondered about that. He came into the bar looking for you.”

Donovan MacIntyre had gone to Phoenix Rising to find her? Embarrassment warmed her cheeks.

“You must be a really hot date for him to try so hard for a follow up.”

Emory thought of the awkward evening they’d spent together at a trendy downtown restaurant several streets over. “Hardly. I think I was tongue-tied the whole time. Unfortunately, that’s the kind of woman he likes.”

“I think you could do a sexy version of tongue-tied.” His gaze lingered on her mouth, turning her brain to mush and making her pussy cream with anticipation. “In fact, I can think of several amazing things you do with your tongue.”

She didn’t know what to say to the playful banter, so she ignored it. “Is he gone?”

“No idea. I’m not paying any attention to that asshole.” Alex stood and swept her up into his arms. It was so sudden she gave a little squeak. “I’m too busy taking you back to your place so I can have my way with you.”

Chapter Eleven

Alex loved being with Emory in the peaceful quiet of her bedroom. There was something soothing about the pastel walls and feminine décor. It was as if Emory had infused the space with her own essence. He intended to spend the rest of the afternoon, evening, night, and maybe even the morning pleasing her.

“So…what now?” She fidgeted with the duvet. “Do you usually hang out naked in people’s bedrooms?”

“Not me. Do you?” Alex rolled onto his back and stacked his hands beneath his head. She was adorable when she was disgruntled. “I wouldn’t have figured you for the type. But you never really know about people…”

She swatted him with one of her throw pillows. “Ugh! You know what I mean.”

“People get too caught up in the niceties, Emory.” He thought about the social dance he watched play out almost every night in the bar. “Most of the time they make it so confusing that both parties opt out just to avoid rejection.”

“Rejection hurts. What’s wrong with avoiding it?” She lay on her belly and propped her head on her hands. She didn’t say it, but Alex knew she felt less exposed that way.

“If you spend all your time avoiding rejection, you’re also avoiding the possibility of acceptance.”

“Acceptance doesn’t guarantee you won’t get hurt.” She fiddled with the fringe on a pillow.

Her words had been delivered casually, but the meaning behind them was anything but. He didn’t have to be Freud to know she was referring to some major baggage from her past. “Nothing can guarantee you won’t get hurt.”

“Then why take a chance?”

“It’s risk versus reward, love. As in, I would risk anything for the reward of being with you.” He would have given anything to know what she was thinking behind those luminous dark eyes.

Emory wondered if he could hear the thud of her heart inside her chest. In what world had she ever imagined having a conversation about risk and reward with a naked sex god?

The black haze that had dominated her psyche for so long lingered behind a curtain of fire. It pressed and prodded, but the brilliance of Alex’s presence kept it at bay. Being with him was a soothing balm. He was stronger than the past and experienced in a way that gave her confidence.

“What are you thinking, love?” His fingers brushed her cheek.

It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him the truth about her past. There were so many things to say about her, about Donovan MacIntyre, and about the Phoenix. None of it could overshadow the desire she felt to bask in the warmth and reassurance he gave her every time he touched her body.

“Emory, what do you want?”

“I think I’m tongue-tied again.”

Fire leaped in his blue gaze, and she knew he understood. His palm skated down her shoulder and beneath her body until he touched the sensitive skin on the underside of her breast.

She squirmed and whimpered, waiting for that exquisite moment when his fingers would brush her nipple. Her pussy grew warm and wet, anticipation danced along her spine until she was completely focused on Alex’s touch.

Emory groaned when he finally took a firm hold of her breast and slid his thumb across her areola. She stopped thinking about the darkness, about the past, about anything other than the man stroking her body.

“Come closer.” His whisper made her shiver with desire.

She crawled to his side, but he tugged her closer still, pulling until she was straddling his body. The hard length of his cock was trapped beneath her. The bulge pressed maddeningly against her crotch. His shaft rubbed a delicious trail of friction across her clit. She wiggled, wanting more, but he forced her to bend at the waist and dip forward instead. The position left her ass up in the air and too much distance between his dick and her pussy.