Hard As Steel: A Hard Ink/Raven Riders Crossover (1001 Dark Nights) (3 page)

He just wished he was there under better circumstances.

Shoving the thought away, he reached into the small room beside the stairs and flicked on the light switch. “Bathroom. There are some towels under the sink.”

“And the bedrooms are upstairs?” she asked.

“It’s a loft,” Ike said, nodding her toward the steps. The second floor had a pitched ceiling that followed the slope of the roof, and one wall that stood only waist-high, making it so that you could look down onto the living room and kitchen table. A queen-sized bed filled most of the brown-paneled space. A small nightstand and a stuffed brown armchair made up the only other furniture in the room.

Jess’s gaze took in the small room, and Ike could see the question on her face before she gave voice to it.

“This will be yours,” he said. “I’ll sleep on the couch. My clothes are in the closet there, but I’ll pull some things out so you can have privacy.”

Jess’s eyes cut from the bed to him. “I’ll sleep on the couch.”

“Jess—”

“You’re way bigger than me. I’ll be more comfortable there than you will.”

Ike shook his head. The last thing he needed was to be able to see her as she slept. “This is yours for as long as you’re here.”

“Ike, you’re already doing enough for me.”

“If I was doing enough, you wouldn’t be in trouble in the first place.” Ike wanted to bite back the words the second they escaped his mouth. Jess didn’t need to know how protective he was of her and how much he really cared. Just the memory of the fear in her voice when she’d called last night and how badly she was shaking when he’d pulled her out of her closet made his blood boil.

Her brow furrowed and she stepped closer. “How were you supposed to know this would happen?”

“Given the situation, I should’ve planned for the worst-case scenario and had you stay at Hard Ink with everyone else. Jeremy’s employees being targeted for information wasn’t that big of a leap.”

“Ike,” Jess said, compassion and affection plain in her voice. She closed the gap between them and rested her hand against his chest. The soft touch shot through him, setting his body on edge and making him want so much more. “None of this was your fault. You can’t think that it was.”

He wasn’t going to debate it with her. Ike wasn’t a boy looking to duck his responsibilities, he was a thirty-five-year-old man who fully owned it when he’d fucked up. Because, Jesus Christ, when he fucked up, he did it spectacularly. What happened to Lana proved that. And the same thing had almost happened to Jess. What would Jess think if she ever learned Lana had died on his watch? How safe would she feel right now if she knew how badly he’d let another woman down?

Sonofabitch.

Jessica’s hand gripped his shirt, and she softly beat her fist against his chest. “Ike, tell me you know I’m right.”

Ike cupped her fist in his big hand and pressed her fingers against his chest. For just a moment. Problem was, he liked her touch. He wanted more of it. And restraint had never been his strong suit.

He looked over her shoulder to the bed. In his mind’s eye, he walked her backward toward it, his hands in her hair and his mouth claiming hers. Desire roared through him.

Shit. Time to fly.

“Listen, I haven’t been up here for a while,” Ike said, giving her hand a squeeze and then stepping away, breaking the contact. “I need to pick up some food for us. Any special requests?”

“Aw, look at you being all domestic,” Jess said, a playful, ball-busting grin on her full red lips. “I’m seeing a whole other side of you.”

Ike rolled his eyes, pretending like he didn’t enjoy her taunting even though he did. Jess was fun and adventurous and the kind of woman who grabbed life with both hands and didn’t let go. She played hard and loved freely, and he admired her for both. She didn’t let other people’s expectations run her life or set her agenda. She wore her heart on her face and in her eyes and on her skin. And she was brave and loyal, too—things that meant everything in his world. Those were core tenets of the code by which the Ravens lived and died.

“What-the-fuck-ever,” Ike said, starting down the steps. He needed some distance from her. And he sure as hell needed to get his head on straight and his body under control. “Just some damn groceries. You have special requests or not?”

Her footsteps followed behind him. “I’ll just go with you—”

“No,” he said, his tone harsher than he’d intended. He turned to watch her make her way down.

Standing on the next-to-last step, Jess planted her hands on her curvy hips. Hips that would feel so damn good in
his
hands, provided he ever let himself off the leash where she was concerned. Which he hadn’t. And wouldn’t. “Why the hell not?” she asked, brown eyes flashing.

Shaking his head, Ike gave Jess’s body a long, slow once-over, from her wavy red-streaked black hair, to the fucking luscious cleavage created by the red lace push-up bra she wore under the form-fitting black V-neck shirt, to the knee-high Goth boots she wore over a pair of torn-up black jeans that wrapped around her thighs like a second skin. Against all the black, the color of the tattoos on her arms and chest stood out like sun breaking through the clouds.

That
his hands
had put a lot of that ink on her skin? Made him more possessive of her than he had any right to be.

“Can’t chance having the wrong person notice and identify you. You don’t exactly blend in to the crowd.” Understatement of the year, right there.

She smirked. “I can tone it down when the situation calls for it.”

Ike immediately hated the thought. Jess was loud, vivid Technicolor in an in-your-face kinda way. Exactly the way it should be. “Not a chance. You could shave your head and wear a paper bag and I’d still know exactly who you were from a football field away.”

“Ooh, kinky.” Her smirk slid into a sexy grin.

Her word choice sent Ike’s brain to all kinds of places it didn’t need to be. Like envisioning Jess ass-up over his bike wearing only her ink and a pair of heels while he buried himself deep from behind, or imagining Jess with a ball gag taming that smart-ass mouth of hers while he made her come with his mouth and cock until she was boneless and more satisfied than she’d even been in her life. With black fastening straps and a red ball, the gag would match her hair. Something about that image pleased him greatly. And proved he’d fantasized about it a few times before today. Okay, a few thousand times. Whatever.

Did he always have to be so fucking attracted to women in trouble? Because he wasn’t any fucking white knight, that was for damn sure. Cop father and friends, drug-addict-cop-killing friends, stalkerish ex-lovers who wanted more—Jess had been in one form of trouble or another for as long as Ike had known her. “Special requests or not, Jakes? Jesus Christmas.”

She laughed, and Ike tried to ignore the way it lit him up inside. Despite her size, Jess had a big belly laugh so infectious it could make you chuckle even if you weren’t in on the joke. Sometimes it even included snorts that would set her off laughing even harder. “You’re too easy to rile up,” she said through her laughter. Finally, she calmed enough to add, “Okay, okay. I’ll be serious. Let’s see…I’d love it if you could get iced blueberry Pop-Tarts or Lucky Charms for breakfast, and, like, pepperoni pizza Hot Pockets for lunch and dinner. Oh, and diet Coke. That would be awesome.”

Ike frowned. “Anything else?”

Her eyes went distant for a second and then wide with excitement. “Oh, Doritos, too, please. Might need a couple of bags.”

“Why do I feel like I’m talking to a nineteen-year-old frat boy right now?” he asked.

“Dude, you asked what I wanted. I can’t help my junk food proclivities. I’m a terrible cook and Hot Pockets are freaking good. But wait. How are you going to get all that on the bike?”

Ike shook his head and pulled a key ring from his pocket. “I’m not. I’ve got a truck in the garage.”

“Oh, okay. Well, I really would come help.”

“I know you would. Just stay put. I won’t be gone long. Use the house phone if you need me.” He pointed toward the end of the kitchen counter, where the handset for the landline sat.

“I will,” she said quietly, looking over her shoulder toward the phone.

Something about her tone made Ike pause, despite the fact that he could really use a breather from the sexual tension that always seemed to crackle between them no matter how unaffected he tried to act. “You okay being alone?”

Jess made a face. “Of course. You don’t have to worry about me.”

If only it was that easy. Especially when he could’ve lost her not twenty-four hours before. He might not want her for himself—no, that wasn’t quite true, was it? He wanted her. He’d
always
wanted her. But he couldn’t let himself have her because he’d never be able to give her all of him. Jess deserved a whole man. And Ike hadn’t been whole for almost eighteen years, when a part of him had died along with the first woman he’d ever loved.

And that wanting? That’s why he needed to get the hell out of this house for a while. He turned on his heel. “Remember the rules,” he said over his shoulder. “And lock the door behind me.”

“Aye, aye, captain,” Jess said, the snark back in full force. Then Ike was out the door. “Don’t forget the Doritos. Lots and lots of Doritos,” he heard as he closed it behind him. Fucking Doritos.

Ike walked his bike back toward the garage—no need to advertise his presence here. Except for the Hard Ink team and the Ravens’ club president, Dare Kenyon, no one else knew where Ike and Jess had gone. And Ike was happy keeping it that way for now. He even planned to go to a store on the edge of Frederick instead of the more convenient one that was only a few miles from the club’s compound.

He parked the Harley on the side of the garage and then unlocked the side door to the small one-car-wide building. The black and silver 1975 Ford F-250 gleamed where the sunlight streaked through the door and onto the steel and chrome. Ike had restored it a decade before and it was in pristine condition.

He was for shit at taking care of people, but he could take care of machines on wheels like nobody’s business.

Enough
, he thought, slamming the truck’s door harder than necessary.

Enough thinking about the past. About how he couldn’t save Lana. About wanting Jess and not being able to have her.

He had a job to do and that was all that mattered.
Jess
was all that mattered. Keeping her alive until the clusterfuck with Nick’s Special Forces team was resolved once and for all. Until Nick’s enemies no longer posed Jess any threat for being able to identify who at least one of them was. That was what Ike’s brain needed to be focused on. And nothing else.

For fuck’s sake.

The moment he turned out of his driveway and onto the road, an unwelcome anxiety settled into his gut. He didn’t like leaving Jess alone. But he’d only be gone for an hour. Even Jess could keep herself out of trouble for that long.

Chapter 3

Jess watched Ike walk out the door, all the while keeping her
Fine, fine, I’m totally fine
expression plastered on her face. The moment he was gone, her shoulders sagged under the weight of being alone in a strange place not that many hours after strange men had proven that not even familiar places were safe.

Stop it, Jess. You
are
fine.
Or, at least, you can fake it until you make it
.

She nodded to herself. Had plenty of experience doing that, didn’t she?

Step one was locking herself in nice and tight, so Jess crossed the room and threw all three locks.

Standing with her back to the door, she surveyed the cabin, wondering what to do with herself next. She sank into the couch and turned on the TV. Daytime television pretty much sucked ass, though, and it was amazing that so many channels existed and yet almost all of them were filled with crap. She paused on a house hunting show she liked but the husband wanted absolutely ridiculous things including a skateboarding park in the backyard. Like, an actual skateboarding park. So she turned the idiot box off and dropped the remote onto the cushion next to her.

At a loss for what to do, she wandered into the kitchen and got a glass of water. The breeze coming through the windows was fresh and fragrant, like flowers and pine needles. Clearly, she wasn’t in downtown Baltimore anymore.

Turning, her gaze fell on the duffle she’d quickly packed in the middle of the night. She’d been so shaken and anxious to hurry, she wasn’t even sure what the hell she’d thrown in the bag. For all she knew she had twenty panties and no pants. Which would make things really interesting around here if it were true…

Jess smirked and put her glass in the sink.

She carried the duffle to the bathroom and unpacked her toiletries and makeup, and then she went up to the loft to put away her clothes. Ah, damn, she had in fact brought pants. And shirts, too. No parading around naked to drive Ike crazy, after all.

Warm air hung in the loft like a wool blanket, so Jess turned on the ceiling fan and opened the room’s only window, which overlooked a small backyard that sloped downward toward the woods. Not too far off, she could see the lake she’d noticed when they’d first turned on to Ike’s property. It was weird to think of Ike in a place like this when almost all of Jess’s associations of him were at Hard Ink, a tattoo parlor in a gritty and largely abandoned industrial area in Baltimore.

Turning away from the window, she couldn’t help but focus on the bed—the most prominent piece in the room. A hunter-green comforter covered it, and four pillows with green-and-blue-striped cases sat piled at the top of the bed. The idea of Ike sacking out on the couch still didn’t sit right with Jess, who wasn’t sure how much more sacrifice on her behalf she could take from the guy. But the feeling of being a burden was a dear old frenemy she didn’t have a prayer of shaking any time soon.

Sighing, she emptied her bag onto the bed. Among the pants, shirts, sleep shorts, tank tops, and underthings, she found a strappy little red dress.
Why
she’d brought a dress, she had no idea. In her haste to grab and go, she’d mostly pulled things out of a basket of folded laundry sitting on her bedroom floor, not realizing it was among them. The closet was pretty full of Ike’s clothing, but Jess managed to find a free hanger for the dress. She stared at it sandwiched between a steel gray button-down and an old, frayed sweatshirt. It was stupid, but she liked seeing her clothes comingled with Ike’s…