Take Me Deeper (5 page)

Zane turned away from her, stalking to the hard orange couch with the cigarette holes in the upholstery. No, he didn't want that blow job. It would be totally unprofessional, not to mention taking advantage of a woman who was obviously in way, way, way over her head. It would be something Rush would do, which meant he absolutely could not.

He was better than that, no matter what his old man had always told him.

Sitting down on the couch, he gave Iris a narrow look.

Interesting that she'd looked shocked when he'd mentioned the blow job, though. As if she hadn't been expecting him to take her up on it. Clearly, by the casual way she'd offered it to him, she was used to throwing it around as an incentive, yet given her shock when he'd agreed, she hadn't often been taken up on it. If at all.

Why the fuck are you still thinking of blow jobs?

Yeah. Very good point.

“So what was it?” he asked, concentrating on more important things like figuring out whether she was a dealer or not. “You wanted the money and couldn't be bothered working for it like a normal person?”

“Oh my God,” she said in disgust. “Don't you ever give up?”

“No.” It was the truth. He'd inherited a healthy dose of the famous Redmond stubbornness, which meant he never gave up and he never backed down. His superiors had found it very useful in combat because when he had a mission to accomplish, Zane made sure he fulfilled it, no matter what.

The downside was that it made family occasions very, very difficult since his father and his brothers were also exactly the same. To get what he wanted, Quinn would order people around and make them do what he told them, while Rush would smile and charm people into getting his way. But Zane didn't bother with either. He ignored everyone else's opinion and did what he wanted.

They hadn't called him Relentless Redmond in the army for nothing.

Iris made an annoyed sound. “Okay, look. I wasn't a dealer or anything, I just needed money fast. And I thought…” She stopped, her pale skin coloring.

“You thought what? That being a drug mule would be easy and super fun?”

She wriggled on the bed, pushing herself up into a sitting position with her free hand and leaning back against the headboard, eyeing him with dislike. Her hair fell over one shoulder like a silky, glossy spill of ink. “No. Do I look stupid?”

“Do you really want me to answer that?” Actually, she didn't look stupid in the slightest. She looked disheveled and rumpled and sexy as hell. Good thing the T-shirt he'd gotten her at the mall was way too big for her, because he really did not need to be distracted by the outline of those pretty little tits of hers.

Lifting her hand, she raked her black hair back from her forehead. “I have my reasons,” she said shortly. “Can we leave it at that?”

“No.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“He won't help you, I'm afraid. I, on the other hand, will. But only if you tell me—”

“I needed money for my little sister,” she interrupted, looking daggers at him. “I wanted to put a deposit down on a house so we had somewhere to live that was safer than the trailer park, and there really wasn't any other way for me to get money quickly.” She paused, her straight dark brows drawn down in a ferocious scowl. “Unless I went with plan B and stood on a street corner somewhere.”

So. Not a drug dealer then. He was inexplicably relieved, not that it should matter to him what she was. Though, he didn't really want to end up protecting that kind of low-life scum.

He sat forward on the couch, studying her. “How old is your sister?”

“Eleven.”

“And how old are you?”

“None of your goddamned business.”

“So where is she now?”

A flash of pain crossed her face and then it was gone, like it never existed. “She got put in foster care when I was arrested.”

“That possibility didn't occur to you before you started running drugs?”

Her jaw tightened, chin jutting. “Like I said, none of your goddamned business.”

He knew that look. He'd seen it many times before on the faces of his brothers. The look that said,
I'm not gonna tell you one single, fucking thing.
Which usually meant that this was a very sore subject.

Briefly he debated pushing her on it, but then what for? Did he really care that her sister was in foster care and that she was obviously upset about it? Okay, she'd made a stupid decision to get involved with the cartel, but at least she wasn't dealing.

“You have any plans to go back to doing that?” he asked instead.

Her eyes widened in sarcastic surprise. “Oh sure. Being nearly killed by some random hit man was so much fun I'd love to do it again.”

“I need to be sure.”

She tilted her head against the headboard, giving him a look from beneath her long, silky black lashes. “So, knowing about my sister makes all the difference, huh?”

“You think I want to let some drug-dealing scumbag escape justice?”

“Oh sure, you're a real hero.”

That was the thing though. He was no one's hero these days and it was the last thing he wanted to be. But that still made her an ungrateful little witch. He stared at her. “I saved your ass, didn't I?”

She at least had the grace to blush, looking up at the handcuff around her wrist and rubbing absently at it with her free hand. “If you want me to thank you, then let me go.”

“So you can kick me in the balls again, then run off to get yourself killed? I don't think so.” He pushed himself off the couch in an impatient movement, suddenly conscious of how much time he'd spent here.

While she'd been asleep, he'd checked out the motel, then made a couple of calls, organizing flights to get himself to Carolina and Fort Bragg. Then Quinn had sent him a couple of texts asking him where the hell he was, and he'd replied with a terse
dealing with it
.

He moved to the windows overlooking the parking lot, reflexively scanning the area for anything suspicious. He'd been expecting the cartel guy to turn up at some point, and it was strange that he hadn't. The cartels didn't like leaving loose ends lying around, and Iris was one hell of a loose end. So what was he doing? If Lone Star could find out where Iris was staying, then that guy must know too. Then again, he wouldn't have been expecting her to be protected, would he? And Zane had clearly been protecting her. So maybe the guy was reassessing his strategy or…

He went to get reinforcements.

Zane froze. Shit. One asshole with a gun Zane could handle, but any more and things could get difficult.

Going instantly into military mode, Zane turned sharply from the window. “We need to go. Now.”

Iris looked up, brows arching in surprise. “Why? What's happening?”

Digging around in his pocket for the key to the handcuffs, Zane pulled it out and strode over to her. “I was expecting the guy from the bar, the one who shot at us, to show up and he hasn't. And there's only one reason for that.”

“What?”

“He went to get some backup.”

Fear flashed in her gaze, sudden and bright. “Shit,” she said faintly.

“Yeah, you could say that.” He reached for her handcuffed wrist, then paused, looking down into her dark eyes. “I would advise against escaping. Unless you can protect yourself from a whole lot of cartel guys with AKs.”

“And you can?”

“Of course. I'm a Green Beret sniper.”

Surprise flickered over her face for a second, then it vanished and she scowled. “Is that supposed to impress me?”

“No. But maybe it'll make you think twice about kicking me in the nuts again.” He unlocked her, setting her free. “Get your things. We need to get out of here ASAP.”

Iris stared warily at him, rubbing at her wrist. “I'm not coming back?”

“Not unless you like the thought of being gunned down in a shitty motel.” He slid the handcuffs back into his pocket. “Come on, get moving. No telling when those guys will be back.”

She didn't move straightaway, giving him another wary glance. “How do you know he'll be here?”

“Because I'm not a fucking idiot,” he growled, uncharacteristically impatient. “Now, are you going to stand there asking me stupid questions all day, or are you going to do as you're told and pack your stuff?”

A spark flared in her eyes. “Hey, you don't need to be—”

“Fine,” he interrupted tersely. “Leave your things behind, I don't give a shit. But if you're not ready to leave in exactly one minute, I'm picking you up and carrying you down to the truck myself.”

Her mouth snapped shut and clearly she'd decided to stop being a little idiot because she slipped off the bed and went over to the closet, pulling it open, tossing out a battered duffel bag. Then she vanished into the bathroom with it, the sound of clinking bottles drifting out.

Irritated with himself, Zane glanced back at the windows, keeping an eye on the parking lot.

He was starting to see why Quinn tended to steamroll people when they didn't do what they were told. It sure made things a hell of a lot easier, especially when someone's personal safety was involved.

You're getting really wound up about this woman.

Yeah, but he could worry about that later. Right now the most important thing was getting her out of here before that asshole came back with a whole lot of friends.

He began to sort through the various options about where to take her, including going straight to the police. That would be the best in terms of shaking off the cartel, but it would also mean returning her to custody and if she wasn't careful, jail. Where she'd be no safer than she'd been at the bar.

He scowled through the glass at the empty lot. Shit. There was only one place he could take her where she'd probably be safe. Lone Star. It would take them awhile to track her down there to start with and then, once they did, it wouldn't only be him they'd have to worry about but Quinn and Rush too. Would his brothers help? His father had been all about Redmonds sticking together, but he knew exactly how far that went. Then again, it wasn't as if he had a lot of choice.

“Okay, let's go.”

He turned from the window to find her standing behind him, her duffel bag slung over one shoulder, her hands in her back pockets. The bag looked suspiciously light, as if she didn't have much stuff in it.

“That was quick.” A strange disappointment wound through him, almost as if he'd been looking forward to the thought of picking her up and carrying her down to the truck.

She lifted a shoulder. “I don't have much.”

No, he was starting to suspect that she didn't.

Her small, narrow hand tightened on the strap of her bag. “So where are we going?”

“You're not going to like it, but it'll be safer than jail.” He turned toward the door. “We're going back to the office.”

She frowned. “The office? How is that safer than jail?”

“You'll see.” Zane pushed open the door and held it open. “Now be a good girl and go get in the truck.”

Be a good girl and go get in the truck…

Iris held her duffel bag in her lap and scowled out the front windshield, her skin prickling in irritation. He might be some super soldier, but he was also an arrogant prick, with a giant helping of condescending asshole thrown in for good measure.

She'd wanted to tell him exactly what she thought of that kind of attitude, except obviously getting out of that motel room was more important than her feelings about his behavior.

We won't mention the fact that he also saved your ass, will we? Just like he's saving it now.

That did
not
help. She didn't trust men, not since Dylan, and it didn't make it any easier that she didn't have a choice. Oh sure, she could escape him if she wanted. Fake an illness, pretend she needed to puke and he'd let her out because what guy wanted puke in his car? She could slip away, she was sure of it. And then she'd probably be shot by cartel guys.

Overall it was a pretty great situation to be in. Not.

And whose fault is that?

Hers. Totally and utterly hers. She should never have trusted Dylan, never in a million years, but he was kind to her when no one ever had been and she'd been desperate for some kindness. And stupid. A bad combination.

Even when it had become obvious what was in those packets she delivered for Dylan, she hadn't stopped. She'd been afraid she wouldn't be useful to him anymore, that he would leave her and she'd be alone once again. But by then it was too late to change her mind anyway. She had to keep doing it no matter that she didn't want to, especially with Shaw, the asshole who took her little deliveries, on her back all the time, making sure she kept turning up.

Then she'd screwed up at a drop-off—she still wasn't sure how, though she was pretty sure Dylan had somehow engineered it—and the cops had arrested her. And things had gone from bad to worse.

So here she was and it was even worse, because now she had another protective asshole she didn't trust to deal with.

Iris took a surreptitious glance at the protective asshole in question.

He was focusing on the highway in front of them, the strong lines of his face drawn tight with concentration, the setting sun coming through the window, giving the short, black thickness of his hair an almost blue tint. There was black shadow along his jaw, too, highlighting the hard angle of it.

For some odd reason, she had the sudden burning desire to run her fingertips along it, feel the prickliness of it against her skin.

Yeah, desire was something else she shouldn't trust either.

Clenching her hands on her bag instead, she forced the feeling away.

She was pissed that he'd made her tell him about Jamie. After what had happened she'd been careful not to tell anyone about her little sister.

Except now Zane-the-asshole-bounty-hunter knew.

She shouldn't have said anything, of course. She should have pushed down her shock at the way he'd made her think he'd been up for that blow job and just gone ahead and done it. He wouldn't have been so interested in why she'd been running drugs for the cartel if she had. Sadly though, she
had
been shocked. Not because she hadn't wanted to do it, but because a hot thrill had coursed all the way down her spine the moment he'd stared down at her and said the words.

She'd
wanted
to do it, no question, and yeah, that was a shock. In fact, she couldn't remember the last time she'd wanted to do that. Sure, she'd given out plenty before Dylan had come along, but all of them had been because she'd wanted something else out of the guy concerned, not because she actually wanted to suck his dick. Zane though…He was different and she didn't quite understand why.

One thing she did understand though: he made her feel deeply uncomfortable.

“Got a problem?”

Iris blinked. “What?”

“You're staring at me.” A flash of deep sapphire caught her as he flicked her a glance. “Regretting we didn't have time for that blow job?”

She could feel her forehead trying to wrinkle up in an inevitable scowl so she tried to smooth it out instead. No point giving him more ammunition. “Aww, you made a joke,” she replied tartly. “How cute.”

One side of that long, hard mouth quirked in an almost-smile, making her heart give a strange little beat inside her chest. “Something tells me you haven't had many men take you up on that offer before.”

Was he kidding? It was probably best that he didn't know exactly how many men had. He'd probably have an aneurysm. “Shows you how much you know.”

He shot her another glance, his gaze narrow. “Then why were you so shocked?”

Dammit. How had he seen that? She normally kept herself together way better than she was doing now. “Because you seem like the prudish type.”

His gaze narrowed further. Then he looked back at the road again, and unexpectedly that fascinating mouth of his quirked again, making her heart give another little kick. “Prudish, huh?”

There were currents of heat in his voice she wished she hadn't noticed, layers of suggestion in the words she didn't want to hear, so she dragged her gaze away from his face and stared out the front again instead. “So where's this office of yours?” It was a blatant change of subject, but she didn't want to explore her reasons for doing so. She just didn't want to talk about blow jobs anymore.

“You call me prudish and yet you're the one changing the subject,” he murmured. “Interesting.”

Annoyance coiled inside her. “Hey, I just want to know when we're going to get to the place where I'll apparently be safe. Sorry if I'm a little too concerned for my own survival for your liking.”

He didn't answer immediately and she found her gaze wandering to where his hands rested on the truck's steering wheel, gripping it with an easy confidence she found insanely distracting. They were nice hands, with long, blunt-tipped fingers, white scars crisscrossed his tanned skin.

How had he gotten those scars? He'd said he'd been a Green Beret, which meant he'd been a soldier. No, correction, he'd said he
was
a Green Beret, which technically made him
still
a soldier. And that was weird because if he was a soldier, what the hell was he doing here chasing bail-jumpers?

“Don't be scared,” he said quietly. “You
will
be safe there.”

Oh hell. Again he seemed to be able to pick up on her underlying emotions with astonishing ease. She wasn't that simple to read, surely?

“I'm not scared,” she lied flatly.

“So you're just being a bitch for the hell of it then?”

Iris opened her mouth to tell him that she'd rather be a bitch than a condescending asshole, but then thought better of it. He wasn't wrong, she was being a bitch. But she didn't know how else to be with guys like him, the guys she was drawn to despite her better judgment. Not that there had been many of them. Well, one exactly. Dylan. Who'd been kind to her, who'd offered to help her. Whom she'd thought might be different from all the rest…

“You were going to take me back to the police. Can you blame me for being a little bitchy?” She couldn't hide the defensive note in her voice, which was irritating.

“Maybe you should have thought about that before you got involved with dealing drugs.” The words were colored with disapproval, hooking into a vulnerability she thought she'd long since gotten over.

A sarcastic, cocky reply would have been the perfect defense. Except that wasn't what came out. “Yeah, well, you try finding a job that doesn't require qualifications or a high school diploma, and pays well enough to get your baby sister out of a horrible trailer park.”

Oh God, why had she said that? And too loudly, too emphatically. She'd even let her voice crack right at the end, which was simply unacceptable. If she wasn't careful, she'd burst into tears and then her humiliation would be complete. One good thing at least was that she hadn't mentioned her stupidity in letting Dylan use her in the first place.

There was a terrible silence.

She looked down to where her hands were clutching on tight to her bag. The bag that had virtually nothing in it since she had virtually nothing. She'd had to leave everything behind when she'd gotten out of Dallas, including Jamie's stuff…

Tears pricked the backs of her eyes.

Goddammit.

“We're not far.” Zane's voice this time was cool, impersonal, and it settled something in her. If he'd been even remotely sympathetic or understanding, she probably would have opened the door and leapt from the truck no matter how fast it was going. “In fact,” he added, “we'll be there in ten.”

Not trusting her voice, she only nodded.

Zane said nothing more, an awkward silence filling the truck as they sped down the highway.

But she wasn't inclined to break it. Talking only made things worse anyway, and they were bad enough as it was.

Zane was as good as his word though, and ten minutes later he was pulling the truck up outside an old-looking, two-story brick building with high, arched windows. There was an iron sign fixed above the double doors: Lone Star Bounty.

Iris frowned as she got out of the truck. This was what he'd meant by going back to his office? Sure didn't look like any office building she'd ever seen.

“Here?” she asked dubiously, clutching onto the strap of her bag as Zane locked up the truck and came over to her. “Looks like a hotel or something.”

“It was a hotel. Now it's a bounty hunting business.”

“Yours?”

He shook his head. “My family's. I'm not part of it anymore.”

“I would beg to differ,” she said dryly.

“You're my last job.” He gave her a glance. “It was supposed to be easy.”

There were definitely undercurrents in that statement, and she was annoyed to find that she wanted to figure out what those undercurrents were. Because it was so not happening. The last thing she needed was yet another guy who thought he knew what was best for her, and Zane was very much that kind of guy.

“It could be easy,” she said. “You could just let me go right here and now.”

“What? You
really
think you'd be safer on your own?”

She shrugged. “No, not necessarily. On the other hand, I wouldn't be going to jail either.”

He gave her an inscrutable look, then before she could move, he reached out and gripped her upper arm. “Don't make me use those handcuffs again.”

Another of those electric jolts went through her at the feel of his strong fingers wrapping around her. He was close now, towering over her, and she was conscious of the fact that he smelled of clean male sweat and fresh pine. Kind of like Christmas.

He smells like Christmas? You're crazy.

Clearly she was. Because she could feel the heat of his body now that he was standing right next to her, and she found that incredibly attractive. She wanted to stand even closer to him, press up against him, take some of that heat for herself.

Yeah, definitely crazy. Especially given the fact that she wasn't cold.

Luckily he didn't seem to notice her sudden weirdness, moving toward the big double doors of the entrance and pulling her along with him.

If it didn't look like a bounty hunting business on the outside, it looked even less so on the inside. In fact, it was like she'd stepped into the kind of moldering, old hotel you saw in the movies. With the signs of a once-glorious past in the shape of huge, dusty chandeliers hanging down and a massive old oak reception desk. There were various sagging couches scattered around and a sad-looking palm tree in a pot. The carpet was very worn and threadbare, with a few of what looked like cigarette burns here and there. The smell of damp carpet and ash hung in the air, along with the faintest whiff of cigar smoke.

Iris screwed up her nose as she scanned the foyer area. “Wow. This place makes the Motel 6 look like the Four Seasons. I feel right at home.”

Zane ignored her, hustling her over to one of the couches and pushing her down onto it. “Wait here,” he said, but then didn't move, looking down at her and frowning.

“What?”

“Give me your hands.”

“Why?”

“Just do it, Iris.”

Reluctantly she held out her hands, unsurprised when he pulled the handcuffs out of his back pocket and snapped them around her wrists. “I told you I wasn't going to go anywhere.”

“Yeah, but my brothers don't know that.”

Brothers? Oh yes, he'd told her it was a family business, hadn't he?

But she had no time to ask him because without another word, he turned on his heel and vanished through some more double doors that led God knew where.

Iris sighed and took another scan around the dingy room. A bounty hunting business in an old hotel? What the fuck was that all about? And why was she any safer here? Sure, it was going to make finding her difficult for Shaw, but the guy wasn't stupid. He'd figure out where she was soon enough, and unless this place could suddenly convert itself into an armory, it wasn't going to offer her any protection.

You're screwed, Callahan. And not in a fun way.

Not that screwing was all that fun, apart from Dylan of course. He'd treated her like a princess, as though she was special, and she'd never had anyone treat her like that before. It had been amazing. Until he'd then gone and tainted it all by being a gigantic asshole.

Screwing Zane, on the other hand, might be fun…

Iris stared up at the chandelier and very firmly pushed that thought way the hell out of her head. There would be no screwing, not with an actual man. Not ever. Because at least a vibrator didn't want to get to know you, and the greatest betrayal it could offer was running out of batteries at a vital moment.

Besides, what she should really be considering was how the hell she was going to get out of this mess and get back to Jamie. If she could
ever
get back to Jamie.