Beautiful Bounty (The Bounty Hunters: The Marino Bros. Book 1) (5 page)

After she assured the guards the contents of her purse were all accounted for, she was lead to a room where she could change out of her orange jumpsuit.

She quickly stripped out of the hated attire, and opened up the large yellow envelope again that contained her belongings. Taking off the white cotton panties and bra she was issued by the county, she donned her own red silky panties. She planned to burn them later though as they were a gift from Gary at Christmas when they had gotten back together.

She slipped on the denim mini skirt she had worn off the cruise ship, and the rust colored tank top. She was a tomboy at heart, and rarely dressed up, or wore skirts and dresses. But on the cruise, she had gone more girly than her usual attire. She had been trying. For Gary. The schmuck.

Ronnie picked up her small purse again, and quickly scanned the contents. Her wallet was there, her keys, her small make-up bag, but her passport was missing. Taken by the Court, so she wouldn’t leave the country she presumed.

She slung the bag over her shoulder and went out the door, leaving the jumpsuit and prison issued under garments lying in a heap on the floor where they had fallen. Good riddance. She hoped she had seen the last of prison grab.

“This way.” Another guard indicated a large door just down the hall. “What about my luggage, my clothes?” she asked. Those had not been returned to her yet.

“Evidence,” was the answer from the officer with a dismissive tone. She turned, shrugging her shoulders. She’d miss those items but felt she would receive them once she’d cleared her name. She had some things at her mom’s anyhow, and they were practically the same size. It would have to do.

The massive door opened into a large open space with plenty of activity. Many officers were walking around, detectives too, and she saw the room to the right where she was booked, fingerprinted, and photographed.  She shook off that horrible memory and began to look around, wondering what to do next.  The guard who escorted her here had vanished.

Then, she saw him. Nikko. He noticed her right away, but was playing it cool.  He stood next to a police officer, nodded in her direction, but made no move towards her. Apparently, he expected her to come to him. At first she was disoriented for a moment, and made no move towards Nikko.  He was apparently her ride home. Her gaze swept the room, but she remained where she was, rooted to the spot. She heard the front doors open, saw a glimpse of the outside, and the Florida heat entered with the sunshine as a cop came in escorting a man in handcuffs. He appeared to be a vagrant, perhaps one of the city’s many homeless. Nikko’s attention was focused on his companion, still apparently engrossed in his conversation with the officer.

She began to fume. He was her ride home, wasn’t he? He gave her another one of his smirks, and she smirked back. The ass, she thought. As soon as his eyes left hers, she made for the door. She wasn’t going to wait around for him to shoot the breeze all day. He had taken his sweet time in getting her out on bail, and now he still kept her waiting. Waiting was not something she was good at, and she definitely wouldn’t be waiting around for him.  He had to know how anxious she was to get home, and yet he continued his conversation with the young officer.  They were both laughing quite raucously and both glanced her way.  The police officer gazed appreciatively at her, and Nikko laughed again. Her eyes narrowed. Nikko clasped the man on the shoulder and gave it one of those caveman type gestures.  She’d had enough. He wasn’t even looking at her now, and in disgust she marched towards the exit.

Just as she reached the double doors, she heard him. “Whoa, Ronnie! Trying to escape already, are you?” His husky tone was right behind her, in her ear as she pulled on the heavy doors.  His voice dropped to a whisper. “You are awfully good at running away.” She wasn’t a fool, and caught the double entendre. Referring to their last encounter, their almost night together, when she fled from him in the parking lot at Pier Sixty on Clearwater Beach just made her anger more intense.

“Running!” she whipped out, turning on her heel. “I want out of here now, and my idea of now is not having to wait around for you and your buddy to finish swapping stories about your latest conquests.” Two could play his game. Just because his brothers were now related to Monica, and they ran the bail bondsmen company that helped to arrange her release, didn’t mean she was indebted to him, and had to wait around for him. They had a past, and that past couldn’t be swept under the carpet because he had come to bail her out. He’d probably done it on purpose, offered to come, just to rub her nose in it.

His smirk softened. She thought she saw a glimpse of regret, maybe sympathy, in his narrowed blue eyes, before the disarming smile that was all charm was back in place. “Oh, Ronnie,” he shook his head. “You haven’t changed at all, still an ice princess one minute, then a scorching flame with a smart kissable mouth the next.” A smart mouth he remembered well. One that tempted him with full pink lips. He couldn’t resist putting her back in her place when she bit her bottom lip causing something inside of him to stir. “Well, except for the fact that you’re a hardened criminal.” He saw her nostrils flare, and her brown eyes flashed fire. But he couldn’t help it. It was who he was. He liked to tease, especially ice princesses like her.

“I’m innocent!” She hissed back at him, her foot stomping the cement of the threshold to the police station. His blue eyes sparkled, and she gave him her fiercest glare, shook her head, and began her grand exit out the doors, but before she could take even one step, his hand was on her elbow, and the explosion the contact created almost had her stumbling down the steps of the police station right onto Eighth Ave.

“Not so fast, Ronnie! My little runner.”  He saw her expression and her fingers curling into a fist.  He shook his head. “Come,” he indicated with his chin over his shoulder, “You little minx, my car is in back anyway,” he added when her gaze returned to him.

She turned on her heel, yanking her elbow out of his grasp, stormed around him, and made her way to the rear of the police station. She heard his laugh behind her, and inside she was fuming at the sheer frustration of the situation he seemed to find so humorous.

He laughed and passed her, his much longer strides in comfortable shoes, quickly overtaking her. He led the way through to the back of the building where his automobile was presumably parked.

Ronnie couldn’t help herself. Her ire was up, and she didn’t like him having the last word. “Never thought I’d hear you say, not so fast!”

Nikko just laughed and kept walking. Oh the man was still as cocky as ever and from her view of his backside just as fit and good looking. The only problem, the one that mattered, was that he knew he was a pretty boy and never failed to take advantage of opportunities thrown his way. Like Nancy.

God, even in the Courtroom with that horrible orange jumpsuit, and her eyes all puffy, he felt the attraction, the pull to the little package that was Ronnie. And what a package, she was.
Cioccie!
  That was the word his brother, Gio, would use to describe Ronnie.  A real handful. His palms itched at the memories. The unflattering costume did nothing to hide the shape of that body underneath. The material strained over her breasts. More than a handful he remembered, as he stood up with the women and Jay when the judge entered. Her big brown doe like eyes never glanced his way, and it bothered him that she failed to see him, recognize him.

He’d recognize her in a paper bag. In nothing.

The proceedings went quickly, and smoothly, just as he and his brothers had foreseen. It wasn’t until she was about to be escorted back to her cell, that she showed any signs of recognizing him. Her brown eyes narrowed in disapproval, her blond hair in disarray. She cast a him a mere glance before turning away to exchange sympathetic looks with her mother, and Ana and Nikko’s new cousin Monica. He had come, volunteered to do this job knowing it would be an all-day thing. He wanted to clear the air, and hopefully offer her support in this difficult time. He hated to admit it to himself, but it bothered him that she did not seem to even notice him.

He cleared his throat in an attempt to get her attention, but she didn’t look his way again. Ah! The ice princess, he remembered. But, he also remembered that she could be not so icy with a little liquid courage. In fact, she could be quite warm, and yielding with the right kind of encouragement. Yes, the ice princess had been a flaming inferno for a few brief moments.  He regretted her misunderstanding the situation between them, and he normally didn’t have regrets when it came to women.

He smirked remembering their too brief time together, and then shifted uncomfortably when his cock began to remember too. The proceedings were over, and the blond firecracker with the wild streak of pink in her hair, it had been purple last year, had often been in his fantasies this past year. She disappeared from his view, orange jump suit straining across her shapely ass. His hands itched to cup those cheeks again, maybe even slap them for running away from him, and not giving him a chance to explain last summer.

He groaned inwardly though. The ice princess was untouchable now. A Case! Albeit, he knew her somewhat intimately before this. His brothers would most assuredly disapprove of his thoughts, if they knew why he jumped at the opportunity to handle today’s bail hearing. His brothers. Domineering, all of them, except perhaps Gio. He had a quirky, silly kind of humor at times. But Blaze and Andreas were serious, all of the time.

He led her to his pride and joy, his 1970 Black Cutlass.  He and his brothers worked on it for years when he lived in New York, and now it was a classic he was proud of.  It was what kept him sane after his parents had been killed, in the horrific double homicide that he himself had discovered.  He was just seventeen when it happened, and he and his dad had picked up the junk car the year before.  It had been their project, his and his dad, Frank.  An early graduation present. After his parents were killed, his brothers each took turns working on it with him to finish it in time for his graduation from high school. It’s what their dad would have done.

Ronnie didn’t seem impressed.  He opened the door for her, and she slid onto the black leather seats.  He practically choked on his own air as he sucked in his breath when her skirt slid up exposing a great deal of her thighs to his line of vision.

“Boys and their toys,” she muttered, glancing around the beautiful interior.  The car was pristine, and she loved it, but she’d be dammed if she would let him know.

He slammed the door, rattling the car and regretted it immediately.  This car meant a great deal to him. It wasn’t a mere toy.  But, he didn’t expect her to understand. It was special. A connection. Her comment distressed him.  He never liked to talk about the past, but he somehow wanted her to know.  The urge to share his private hell, their family’s tragedy overwhelmed him. But, he suppressed the urge to tell her.  She had her own issues to deal with right now.

He made his way round to his side of the car, and got in behind the wheel. The steering wheel had been the last piece to be put in.  Andreas had driven all the way to a junk yard in New Jersey to find it. It went in the day before his graduation.

He cleared his throat. Ronnie was sitting like a statue on the seat next to him. Hands clutched in her lap. He glanced her way, but she wouldn’t look at him.  “Seatbelt,” he murmured politely reminding her, but when she made no move to put it on, he couldn’t resist adding, “It’s the law.”

“I know the law, moron. It’s stuck. I tried,” she said as her head whipped around to him.

He quashed the urge to take the wildcat over his knees; he was trying to be sensitive after all, even though he didn’t know why. He let out a sigh of frustration and leaned over to help her with it.  He smoothly pulled the belt over her lap, and chest, and his arm brushed her breasts. She pulled back. The current went through his arm like a shock of electricity, and from her reaction he knew she felt it too. His arm tingled from where it made the contact among other places.

“Yeah stuck,” he teased her as he righted himself in his seat.  He forgot the passenger belt locked up on occasion.  He rarely had people in this car.  Normally he used one of the company’s vehicles when he was transporting people, but he’d made the exception. For Ronnie.

“It was,” she exclaimed, crossing her arms in front of her chest, and turning to give him one of her fiercest stares.

He looked back and could see the tough shell was anything but.  He knew underneath she must be scared as hell.  Hell, he would be too if he was in her dilemma.  Accused of drug smuggling with the evidence stacked against her, and being just twenty-two, he felt some pity for her.  He tried not to think of the other feelings he had for her. They confused the hell out of him. Thinking they’d go away on their own, he hadn’t tried very hard to get ahold of her last summer.  When he worked up the courage to try, she had already left Florida, and returned to school for her final year of college. But seeing her again, he had a pang of regret. It would have been good. Really good.