Tastes Like Candy (Lean Dogs Legacy Book 2) (7 page)

              Candy grinned. 45.

              35.

              40. He underlined it three times. “I’m a business man, ‘Mando. Don’t fuck with me.”

              The man sighed, shoulders slumping, but finally nodded. He extended a hand across the table and Candy shook it. “I’ll call you to arrange everything.”

              “Good.”

              Armando slid from the booth, his beer untouched.

              At first, Candy had dreaded the idea of working with this particular cartel. It felt political, and he didn’t do politics as a rule. But no one else had been looking to buy twenty-five Russian AKs on short notice, and the Lean Dogs now had a working arrangement with the Chupacabras. And then Armando had shown up, and been nothing like what Candy had expected. Medium height, pleasing features, black hair shiny and neatly combed. He’d been dressed in a t-shirt, flannel, and jeans, his boots worn from regular wear. Unremarkable in all aspects, and not likely to draw attention. Candy had expected a Tommy Bahama shirt, gold chains, and bodyguards. Instead, Armando was efficient, undramatic, and composed.

              Business concluded, feeling lighter in the chest, Candy leaned back in the booth and savored his Scotch, sighing deeply.

              The Armadillo crawled with its usual crowd of cowboys and tipsy women with inflated hair. The sound system blared, pop-country with crap lyrics that made the under-thirty crowd scream and holler in delight as they rushed for the dance floor. There were doubtless a few life-scarred older patrons, ranged at the bar and in back booths like this one, but he couldn’t see them, and in that moment, Candy felt old and tired. Not elderly, not like Crockett, and not decrepit. But he was forty-five, and he was starting to have stiffness in his knees and wrists and elbows, from all the years spent riding. His low back throbbed, a dull, constant ache that the Scotch soothed. He had nothing in common with these people around him, these carefree, laughing, glowing young people with their whole lives ahead of them, bursting with promise, free of dark clouds.

              He wished, suddenly, that his father was sitting across from him. Almost wished that when he got home, Jenny would come have a drink with him in front of the TV, and they’d talk about stupid shit like old times.

              But Dad was long-dead and Jenny had a baby and a new man, now.

              What did he have? Aside from the promise of forty-grand. He had his brothers, his friends.

              But friendship had never filled the gaping wound his father’s death had left behind. When your best friend and brother-in-law murdered your old man…you stopped looking at friends as lifelines. They were friends. They weren’t anything more than that.

              Just as he started to really crank up the mental melodrama, his waitress appeared, one hand on her hip, posture cocked and ready for action. “Where’d your friend go?”

              He’d had this one before, the night Albie had called, in fact. She was tall, long-legged, big-haired and stacked. Tan, tossed, glossed, and waxed to within an inch of her life. She’d watched a lot of porn, he figured, because the moaning, squealing and exclaiming started the second he laid hands on her, and didn’t let up until she was passed out afterward. His poor dead mother would have said she didn’t have two brain cells to rub together, and she would have been right. His night with this woman had been meaningless sex with a nice visual to go along with it.

              Easy cold comfort, the safest kind.

              “He had to leave,” he said, sliding into his charmer routine. “Left me all alone, can you believe that?”

              “Poor you.” She made a pouty face and sat down beside him in the booth. Then presented a blinding smile. “But that’s okay. That means I get you all to myself.” She twisted toward him, breasts squeezed together and threatening to spill out of her tank top, looking up at him through her false lashes.

              Candy swallowed down the last of his drink and decided he needed to get laid tonight. “You still on the clock?”

              “I get off in a half hour.”

              “Then bring me another drink, darlin’, and I’ll follow you home.”

~*~

Michelle

The Armadillo was a delight to her. Like a fatty snack you wanted just once, then never wanted to see again. By tomorrow, she wouldn’t care if she ever graced the doors again, but for the sheer aesthetic, she was glad to be here now.

              Familiar with every kind of English pub, she’d never been in a honky-tonk before. It was pale, scrubbed wood, with a wide dance floor, a massive bar, and neon everywhere. Stuffed animal heads, ropes, western saddles, bridles, and spurs took up the wall space. The music was atrocious, but the people dancing seemed to love it, beer bottles held high as they embarrassed themselves with clumsy hip-shaking.

              “That’s a jackalope,” Cowboy explained as she examined the rabbit with antlers mounted beside their table. “Indigenous to Texas,” he said with a wink.

              She grinned and reached for her bottle.

              She had a booth with Fox, Gringo, and his best friend, Cowboy, who’d proved sweet and charming. Fox was just Fox – she’d forgotten what it was like to ride double behind him on the bike, the way he seemed to cut the turns too tight and challenge the speed limit. And beside her, Gringo kept shooting her looks and inching his thigh closer and closer to hers.

              He was kind of a wanker, if she was honest.

              “Is this where you all come to pick up women?” she asked, just as a waitress passed with a tray of drinks. They were all in hot pants and tank tops, flashing lots of tan skin and showy smiles.

              “Sometimes.” Gringo sipped his beer, tried and failed not to check out the woman’s ass.

              Michelle snorted. “Or all the time?”

              He turned to look at her, eyes dancing. “Jealous.”

              Okay. Definitely a wanker. “Hardly.”

              “Hey, it’s okay if you are,” he said. “I get it.”

              Cowboy groaned.

              “Christ,” Fox said.

              Michelle said, “Well, you’ve got self-esteem, I’ll give you that.”              And the others burst out laughing.

~*~

Candy

He was walking for the exit, the waitress – who’d reminded him that her name was Trina – under his arm, already planning the ways he’d peel the clothes off her body, when he spotted cuts and patches. Some of his brothers, in for a drink and a look-see at the girls. Fine.

              Then he saw the girl sitting beside Gringo.

              Michelle.

              Then he ground to a halt. And watched them.

              Body language was unmistakable: Gringo, his arm flung across the back of the booth, head tipped toward whatever Michelle was saying, his grin predatory, planned to eat that girl alive. And how young she looked under the table lamp, her face unlined, her hair shining. And how vulnerable, with tired shadows beneath her eyes and a quirk of sadness at the corner of her mouth.

              “Hey,” Trina said, “where are you going? I thought we were leaving.”

              He was moving away from her before he registered it, and in a few long strides was at his brothers’ table. All heads turned toward him collectively. Michelle registered surprise. Gringo had that glazed, about-to-get-laid expression, and it made Candy want to punch him.

              “Hey,” Cowboy greeted.

              “Isn’t that the girl from last time?” Fox asked, leaning around Cowboy to get a look at Trina. “Jesus, the legs on that one.” He whistled.

              Michelle, he noticed, glanced toward the waitress too, and her lips compressed in obvious distaste.

              Not that he cared about that. Nope. Not at all.

              “Gringo.” He was careful with his voice, keeping it calm. “What did I say before?”

              “How you weren’t gonna bail me out if I got another DUI?”

              “No. What did I say about keeping your hands to yourself?”

              He struggled a moment, but then remembered, eyes widening. “Oh. Well…”

              Candy grabbed the guy’s arm and all but dragged him out of the booth, to the sound of his friends’ laughter.

              “Hey!” Gringo managed to shake him off when they were about ten feet away from the table, straightening his shirt and cut with an appalled expression. “What the hell?” When Candy started to say something, he held up a hand. “Respectfully. Respectfully what the hell?”

              “I told you to stay away from Michelle Calloway.”

              “Wrong. You told me not to fuck her. You didn’t say anything about getting a beer.”

              “Beer is foreplay for you,” Candy said through his teeth. “It’s going to lead to fucking. Back the hell off of her now.”

              “Um…in case you haven’t noticed, she isn’t exactly some innocent little princess. I ain’t gonna have to force that girl to do anything.”

              The words conjured a dozen mental images, each more startling than the last. Michelle in one compromising position after the next. And for reasons he didn’t understand, his mind rendered the kind of incredible detail that made her a warm, physical presence against his hands. He saw her sharp blues eyes gone drowsy and heavy-lidded with pleasure; the leaping pulse in her throat as her head fell back. Imagined the shape of her breasts, the tight inward flare of her waist. Imagined, also, the warm slickness between her legs.

              Damn, she was pale and fragile as flower petals, ripe as a little peach and probably just as juicy. Young, and homeless, and delivered to his doorstep. Sitting in his office chair. Standing naked under the hot jets of his shower. The bathroom had smelled like her shampoo afterward.

              Oh hell. Oh hell, oh hell, oh hell…

              Forget Gringo.
He
wanted to fuck her. With the same kind of blind hunger that always had him reaching for a new waitress at closing time.

              And then, to his horror, he saw that she had joined them, and was standing beside Gringo, staring up at Candy with a cool, impossible to read gaze.

              “It’s very kind of you to worry,” she said, “but he isn’t bothering me. I wanted to come and have a drink.”

              He tried to smile at her, and knew it turned into a sneer. “Does your dad just let you run around all over with his boys?”

              A flash in her eyes; she’d taken it as an insult. “I’m an adult. He lets me come and go as I please.”

              “Turn down the big bro reaction,” Gringo encouraged. “We’re just having drinks. She can make up her own mind about that kinda shit.”

              Why was this pissing him off? But it was. And he couldn’t check his reaction. “Look at her. She’s a baby, for Christsakes. You can’t bring a baby into a place like this.”

              “Excuse me?” she demanded.

              And then he ran what he’d just said back through his head.

              Damn. That wasn’t very tactful.

              But he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to bulldoze his way through it.

              He scowled at her. “When the president of another chapter sends you his daughter to hide and keep safe, you don’t let her go running off with horny assholes like this.” He gestured at Gringo and earned a “thanks a lot” in return.

              She folded her arms across her chest, pressed her lips together in elegant fury, and said, “Horny asshole? He’s not the one leaving here with Truckstop Barbie. That would be you, sir, and you don’t even know me, so I don’t see why you should mind where I choose to direct my romantic affections.”

              Her accent turned it into a queenly, much-deserved attack against his character.

              And it made him furious.

              “Yeah, okay. Get your shit. I’m taking you home.”

              “How? Did you come here on your private jet?”

              “My home, your highness. Like I said. Get your shit.”

              She was breathing hard, and so was he. He saw her sweater stretch tight across her breasts with each huge inhale. Saw the murderous, Fox-like gleam in her eyes. She looked wild and ready to leap on him. She looked about sixteen and completely delicious.

              What in the actual fuck was happening to him?

              When he glanced over at Gringo, he saw that all argument and irritation had left the man. Now he stared between Candy and Michelle with shock and wonder.

              “What?” Candy asked.

              Gringo slowly lifted both hands and stepped back. “I didn’t know it was like that. Sorry.”