OGs: Deep Down (2 page)

Sure he was over her.

Over and fucking done, but that didn’t mean he wanted to spend any time around her. For one, because even now, seeing her or hearing her voice still sent a surge of pain through his chest, which, considering how fucking badly she’d crushed him all those years ago, pissed him off to no end. That, of course, he wasn’t going to explain to his grandmother.

Not that she needed any explanations to read him.

“I thought we could be mature about this,” he heard her say.

Fuck mature. He was running for the hills.

If it hadn’t been for the fact that he’d promised Cole he would help with the library’s renovation, he would have gotten the fuck out of Alden the very first day she came back. Then again, his father couldn’t manage the gym by himself, so he was stuck.

Since her return, out of pure self-preservation, he’d become a master at avoiding her, which in a place the size of Alden was a damn feat. Posing with her for a couple of hours in a confined space, without immediate means of escape, would blow to hell and back the frail status quo he’d managed to achieve. Not to mention he would lose whatever little was left of his frigging peace of mind. He’d have nothing to do but stare at her. At those gorgeous gray eyes of hers that he, once upon a time, used to wake up to. At that bee-stung, luscious mouth he used to spend hours kissing. At that sexy hourglass body he used to love fucking.

He shook his head. “Grandma, I—”

She sighed. “I understand. If you can’t take it, you can’t take it. I’ll walk right back in and say you can’t do it. You shouldn’t feel like any less of a man for it. It’s okay your feelings are still tender, my boy,” she said, patting his chest. “Nobody will think less of you.”

He groaned in exasperation. Fantastic. Now he’d look like a fucking pussy if he backed down.

Whatever. Worse things to look like in life than a pussy, even for a born fighter like him. Not sure what exactly, but he was sure there were some.

He turned around and began walking away.

“Michael Haddican, if you leave, we have to cancel the class. The whole course, probably. If we cancel, she won’t get paid. She needs the cash. She’s in trouble, my boy. In two days—”

“Don’t want to hear it,” he said through gritted teeth, his tone harsh.

He didn’t want to hear a damn fucking word. Not a one. The sight of her and Sam was painful enough. He didn’t need a sound track to go with it, thank you very much.

He got a handful of steps more before he stopped and let out a low, pissed-off growl.

“Mike, please,” he heard his grandma say.

He slung his head forward.

Fuck. Shit. Crap.

He hated being played, but for the life of him he couldn’t walk away knowing he would be directly responsible for making Kyra’s situation more difficult than it already was. And why that mattered to him after all that had gone down, he couldn’t fathom. Well, he could; he was a moron in dire need of a lobotomy. Pronto.

After a long pause, his back still to his grandmother, he muttered, “I thought you said this was volunteer work.”

“For you it is. I’ve donated your pay to the church.”

He shook his head. He was so going to regret this.

God protect the unsuspecting soul who would spar with him in the gym later on. He was going to have so much pent-up aggression he would annihilate the poor bastard.

He turned around. “Just this once,” he said as sternly as he could muster. “You better find a substitute for next time. I don’t care if you have to make do with Mr. Honbacker and his kinky teeth or Mr. Stilt and his prostate. You either get someone else next time, or your classes will be canceled. You hear me?”

She beamed. “Yeah, yeah. I hear you.”

He drew in a deep breath and walked back inside.

He could do mature.

Hopefully.

The second his gaze landed on Kyra, he felt his cock stir. Jesus fucking Christ. Didn’t the little fucker have a smidgen of dignity?

Apparently not.

He should not only be lobotomized, he should be castrated too, for good measure.

Her voluptuous mane of black hair was twisted back in a knot, two hair sticks haphazardly holding it up. Thanks to her mixed Hispanic ancestry, she had sun-kissed skin, raven hair, and almond-shaped eyes. That they weren’t black but smoky gray made her even more exotic.

They stared at each other for a long second.

Man, to him she was the most beautiful woman in the world.

How the fuck was he going to pull this off?

“Mike,” Kyra greeted him, her voice clipped.

She wasn’t happier than he was at this moment. She stood stiff, eyeing the door as if she might bolt at any second. But he knew she wouldn’t. Like him, she’d always had a soft spot for his grandmother. Never mind how badly Kyra might need the money, she would be running out the door if this gig didn’t involve the OGs. Or maybe not. Who the fuck knew her now? Certainly not him. He wondered if he ever did.

Shaking those thoughts away, he nodded in her general direction. His cock followed suit.

Christ. He had to get the fuck out of here.

He threw a dirty glance to his grandmother, who now was shamelessly smiling. Wilma and Greta, her sisters in mischief, were smiling too.

“Let’s get cracking,” the evil woman said, grabbing him by the arm and pushing him forward. “Come stand here in front of Kyra.”

He lifted his gaze up, chanced another look at Kyra, and his dick twitched again. Oh hell. These boxers were no barrier. At all. They were going to start tenting in three…two…one.

And cue public humiliation.

Well, if his cock burst straight through his pants and gave her friends a collective heart attack, his grandmother would have no one to blame but herself. Then again, sending half the senior population in Alden to the ER would be a hell of a way to end his Wednesday. He would never live that one down.

He took in a slow breath, and reaching deep inside into the place where he kept it all locked away, he released every ounce of pain that came hand in hand with Kyra, allowing the memories to flood into his mind. And with that, he felt his dick retreating.

Good.

Now he could do this.

OH GOD. HE was coming back. Stalking into the room like a cornered panther, baring his teeth. His body tense, his huge muscles bulging.

He was breathtaking.

Kyra had almost fallen on her ass the second she’d seen Mike there. Only a lifetime of training in not showing her emotions had kept her standing.

He’d been smiling. That lazy, drawn-out smile she’d loved so much. Until he’d seen her. Then his face had fallen along with his smile and his expressive eyes. Now his gaze was blank. And his jaw about to split in two.

She would have loved to run away, much in the same manner he’d done. And not just out of this room, but out of this town and this state. Out of her frigging life. But she couldn’t. And there was Sam to think about.

She needed the money, so she hid her shaking hands behind her back, breathed in deep and slow, and brought up that memory, the one of Mike looking straight at her and shattering her world. Rage filled her, cracking up her spine. Stilling the tremor in her hands.

Good.

Now she could do this.

Chapter Two

Two days later

A couple of miles outside Alden

“Oh no, no, no. Please don’t die on me. Not today on top of everything else. Just hold on a bit longer.” Kyra tried negotiating, but the little white car rattled some more and then, with a big rumble and a final shake, came to a stop, a thick curtain of smoke rising from it and clouding the windshield.

Kyra would have punched the steering wheel if she wasn’t scared her forty-year-old Fiat 600 would crumble into dust from the small hit.

Jeez, there must be someone up there who really had it in for her.

She reached for her cell, just to remember the battery was dead. Damn. She could walk the couple of miles to town, but she was already late, and Angie was probably waiting for her in the diner. Not to mention that after the hell of a day she’d had, she was completely exhausted, physically and emotionally.

She scanned her surroundings, all empty lots except for a strip club named Bottoms Up less than a hundred yards ahead.

Okay, so when given lemons…bottoms up, right? She would have laughed at her stupid joke, but she was afraid she’d break into tears, and God only knew when that pity party would finish.

She walked to the entrance of the club and, with an apologetic look, showed her phone to the bouncer. “My cell died. Any chance I can come in to make a call?”

The bouncer looked at her, then turned to her smoking car across the street. “It looks like your marshmallow died too.”

“Nuh, the old lady’s overheated. In two hours it will be as good as new.”

Well, two hours, a new motor, massive restoration, and a boatload of fairy dust, but who was splitting hairs here?

The bouncer gave her an amused look and, moving aside, motioned with his chin toward the door. “There’s a pay phone by the counter.”

Although it was early in the evening, the music was loud and the place was busy, with a fair number of patrons watching a pretty, heavily made-up girl with gravity-defying assets dancing around a pole on the central stage.

She made her way to the phone and then punched Angie’s number. Voice mail. Which, all things considered, was good because with all the noise around, she wasn’t sure she would have heard squat. Yelling, she left a message explaining what had happened with her car and asked Angie to pick her up.

She contemplated waiting for her outside but rejected the idea. She didn’t know how long it would take her friend to arrive, and Kyra did better in noisy, boisterous environments, especially now that she didn’t want to be alone with her thoughts.

“What can I get you?” the bartender asked as Kyra sat on a stool by the counter.

“Water, please.”

The bartender, a short, curvy woman with fire-red, short hair sticking out every which way, brought her the water and, leaning on the counter, studied her for a long second. “What is it, hon? Man trouble? Job trouble? Money trouble? Apartment trouble? Car trouble?”

Kyra grimaced. “All of the above? Add shitty divorce settlement to the bunch, and you’ve hit jackpot.”

“Oh my. You’re going to need something stronger than water, then.”

No shit. Like a mega do-over on her entire life. Pity her fairy godmother seemed too busy to come lend a hand. “Thanks, water is fine.”

Besides, she wasn’t sure she could afford anything more expensive than water. And how sad was that?

As if on reflex, she rubbed her left shoulder, the dull ache a painful reminder of the past months. Half a year ago she’d been at the height of her career as lead dancer and choreographer for one of the biggest pop stars of the century. She had a very successful Broadway show under her belt and many seasons as a professional dancer for an extremely popular TV show.

Now? Now she probably couldn’t work a pole. Which was a damn irony, because in another lifetime that was what she’d done for a short while before landing her first big break.

Refusing to dwell on what she’d lost, Kyra entertained herself watching the bartender mix drinks.

Angie must have been already waiting for her in the diner and heard the message right away, because in no time Kyra spotted her entering the strip club and darting toward her.

“You know,” she started nonchalantly, gesturing to center stage, “if you’re going to end up in a strip joint the same day of your divorce, you should make sure it’s one called Dicks Out, not Bottoms Up.”

“Ha-ha. Bite me.”

“Just saying.” She gave Kyra a once-over, as if assessing whether she was in one piece, and then hugged her. “How bad was it?”

Both knew they weren’t talking about her car.

Kyra shrugged. “I got through it.” As she got through everything else: by gritting her teeth, manning up, and enduring it. It hadn’t been a fun pill, not by any stretch of the imagination, but it could have been worse. Much, much worse.

“You should have let me come with you,” Angie reprimanded her as she sat beside her. “For moral support if nothing else. Well, and mechanical too.”

Kyra shook her head. She’d single-handedly gotten herself into that mess; she damn well was getting herself out of it without help.

“I couldn’t have you canceling on your patients.”

“Yes, you could have. Some of those women are nuts, true, but it isn’t as if I have anyone on suicide watch. Although wait until Barry, our expert on Botox, goes on vacation. I foresee mayhem and massive hysteria.”

Angie was in charge of mental health care at the spa/beauty clinic attached to the Lake Club Resort, an upscale hotel several miles from Alden that catered to those who wanted to relax with golf and to their wives or lovers who’d prefer to spend their time pampering themselves in the spa or getting some Botox, or playing some tennis. Or banging the instructor, as more often than not was the case. An all-around vacation spot for the bold and the beautiful where gossip and sporadic hookups ran rampant.

“No need. Everything went according to plan.” According to plan B. Because after what had gone down with Drake, plan A—and by far the most popular with Angie—had been to shoot the bastard and hide the body. She’d even picked a spot behind the nine hole.

“So I take it he accepted the deal, right?” Angie asked impatiently. “Did you get sole custody?”

Kyra let out a humorless laugh. Did she get sole custody? Bought him off would be more accurate.

The fact that her ex was such a dickhead she could actually buy him off relieved and saddened her in equal parts.

She’d known from the start he was going to fight her on the custody issue, not because he was a stellar father who wanted his daughter around, but because he knew he could use Sam as leverage. And use her as leverage he did. Their daughter had been the greatest bargaining chip.

“The only thing I own at the moment, besides the house Cynthia left me and my car, which is no doubt still smoking outside, is the debt from all the credit cards he’s maxed out.” She got to keep the house because, in its present disrepair, there was no equity in it, and it had flown below his radar; otherwise he would have asked for it too. She hadn’t been loaded, but after over five years of high-profile dancing gigs, she’d managed to accumulate a very nice nest egg. Or so she’d thought, until shit hit the fan and she realized Drake had made off with everything that wasn’t nailed down. The divorce settlement just delivered the killing blow. “He took me to the cleaners, but I got Sam.”