Too Much to Lose (3 page)

“I don’t really drink.”

“A coke then?”

“I don’t think that’s a good
idea.” She glances around the bar, her silver earrings swinging against her
neck, making me want to lick a path up it. “I’ve got to get back to work.”

Lifting my beer to her, I nod.
“I’ll be here.”

She rewards me with a returning
nod and an uncertain smile as she tucks her hair behind her ear and serves the
waiting customers. I try not to watch but it’s hard not to. Every moment is
like a fucking drug to me. The way she moves her hips, how she leans across the
bar. I can’t quite figure out when I became so obsessed with just watching her.
Perhaps at the bank when I saw her in that cute little suit, her hair all prim,
or when she leant across slightly to reveal a hint of cleavage that had my
mouth watering. Maybe she did more damage than I realized when she swung the
door at me.

I grip my beer. Shit, what an
idiot. This is a job. I’m going to have to keep repeating that to myself. Find
the money. That’s my goal. It is not to fall for whatever game Jess has going
on. Whatever it is, it’s a smart one. All the wide-eyed looks and tight
reserve. If it wasn’t for her shady past, I’d believe her to be totally
innocent.

Everything about her—her sweet
voice, stammered words and blushing cheeks—goes against her hot rocker look.
This has definitely piqued my interest. In a professional way, of course. As a
P.I. I look beneath the surface, see things that others don’t. I see something
in Jess. I’m just not sure what it is.

My phone vibrates in my pocket
and my stomach sinks. I pull it out and release a breath when I see who it is.
Mitch

“Yeah?”

“Where are you?”

“On a job,” I say tightly.

“That mystery job?”

“Yeah, that’s the one.” I press
my finger to my ear as peal of feminine laughter rings out behind me. Truth is,
I should have been done with this job long ago and I need this big payday. It
was meant to be simple. Track down the money she stole, hand over the details
to the client and get paid. That was the idea.

Problem is, all other paths
have come to a dead end. I need to go to the source.

Jess Callahan.

“Doesn’t sound like you’re
working. Connor is gonna be pissed you blew us off for a woman.”

I hear laughter in Mitch’s
voice. I was meant to be shooting pool with them. “I haven’t blown you off for
a woman.” My gaze drifts to Jess. “It’s just a job.”

She goes on tiptoes to grab a
glass from the top shelf behind the bar, affording me a peek at that tight ass
and I grit my teeth.
Just a job, just a job, just a job.

“Can’t take one night off?”
Mitch asks.

“You know I can’t, buddy.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.”

Mitch knows all about the crap
my ex-partner, Richie, put me through. We’ve been friends since we both trained
to be bodyguards and we don’t have secrets. Not many at least. But while Mitch
thrived on the routine, I itched for something more. So I went on to train as a
P.I. and met Richie. We shadowed the same guy for a while—my mentor, Franklin—until
we decided to go into business together. What a mistake that was.

“The cops will catch up with
him soon,” Mitch says.

I snort. “Doubt that. He’s
probably on some tropical island enjoying spending my money.”

“You’ll find him if the cops
don’t. You’re the best investigator I know.”

I snort again. I can’t even find
this client’s money and the suspect is right in front of me. I’ve been off my
game since Richie did a runner with the business savings. Which was pretty much
every penny I have.

Mitch says something else but I
can barely hear him over the woman behind me laughing. That, and Jess comes
around from behind the bar and I get distracted. She glances my way and a cautious
smile teases her lips. She’s warming to me. Seeing her all coy and sweet
doesn’t seem to do anything to calm my need for her. In fact, it increases it.
Is it just because she’s mysterious and shit? God knows I love a mystery. Maybe
that’s it.

Yeah, I’m just curious. I just
wish my cock understood that. I fight the need to adjust my jeans and instead I
throw back the rest of my beer in a bid to distract myself from those endless
legs. Endless legs that I would kill to have wrapped around my hips.

I slap a palm to the bar. Godammit.

Rowdy male voices pierce the
din of the room, drawing my attention back to Jess. She’s serving a table of
five guys, all drunk and eyeing her like she’s a bit of meat and they’re
starving dogs. I clench my jaw and curl my hand into a fist. I don’t care that
I’ve just been looking at her the same way. They have no right, they don’t even
know her. Not that I do, but still….

That’s another puzzle. Why is a
thief working at a pub for crappy tips and putting up with this shit? I can
only figure she’s got something big planned. Why else would she be hanging
around in London with her uncle’s money?

One of the men makes a grab for
her and I nearly jump off the bar stool but she sidesteps him and says something.
I grin at his affronted face as his friends laugh. Clearly Jess is more than a
coy smile and hot body. She’s got balls too.

But as she turns away, the guy lunges
for her. He’s big—bordering on overweight—and he hauls her back easily by her
wrist. I don’t wait around. I’m on my feet and at her side by the time he’s
tugged her into him. He has his hands wrapped around her, pinning her arms to her
side as he tries to turn her around to face him. Jess fights him but she’s no
match for his thick arms. I don’t even think about it. My skin is warm, my
heart pounding. I want to tear the guy’s face off. Each breath comes hot and
heavy. I grab Jess’s shoulder at the same time as I plough a fist into the
man’s face. Something crunches and pain jars through my knuckles.

Jess stumbles into me and I
shove her back as the guy reels from my punch. Clutching a bloody nose, he
rights himself and his friends are on their feet, vying for a fight.

Before they get the chance,
several bouncers step in. The guy with the mashed nose says something about
Jess being a whore and rage pounds through me again.

Jess tries to tug me away. “Leave
it. Please!”

I can’t help it. I shove
through the two men blocking my way and lunge for the blond guy again, shoving
him to the ground and knocking over a bar chair. Wood crunches and glass
smashes. Blondie struggles against me and probably gets in a few hits, but I
don’t notice them. I smash a fist into his cheek, then his gut until someone much
larger than me pulls me off and drags me away.

I fight the security guard but
the sight of the blond guy curled up on the floor cools my anger a little and I
let the bouncer drag me outside. He releases me and shoves me back from the bar
door.

“Stay out, do you hear?” he
says, eyeing me to see if I’ll make a move.

“Sure.” I put a hand to my head
and feel stickiness, telling me I’ve cut myself somehow. “Just let me—”

Jess shoves past the bouncer.
Her eyes are wide and she props her hands on her hips. “What the hell did you
think you were doing?”

Well this is unexpected. I
thought she’d be grateful to me, not pissed. “Saving your backside I thought.”

“I don’t need you to save my
backside. I definitely don’t need you to start beating up customers!”

I shake my head and turn away.
Screw this. This woman is messing with my head too much. I do not need this
shit. I don’t get angry often. Rarely, in fact, and I don’t fight. The job
means I have to stay fit but as exciting as being an investigator sounds, I
don’t get myself into trouble.

“Fuck’s sake, Hunter, are you
trying to make me lose my job?”

I whirl around, heart pounding.
“How can you just let those guys behave like that?”

Her jaw tenses. “I don’t enjoy
it, but it happens. It’s just part of the job.”

“It’s fucking sexual
harassment, that’s what it is. Don’t you have any respect for yourself?”

Jess’s expression shutters and
her eyes go suddenly cold. She folds her arms across her chest. “I have plenty
of respect for myself, thank you very much. I don’t enjoy the attention, if
that’s what you think.”

“I could damn well tell you
weren’t en—”

“But this is my job and you
are… you’re no one. What gives you the right to come barrelling in, behaving
like a Neanderthal?”

She’s right. I am no one to
her. What right do I have to get angry over some guy touching her? I curl my
hand into a fist. Just because I’m trying to find a way into her life, it
doesn’t give me any rights over her. In my mind, I see that asshole’s hands
everywhere. Stroking her beautiful skin, her thighs, her breasts.

I’ve been following her for too
long, that’s it. She’s fucking with my head. I’ve spent so long just watching
her that I feel like I have some kind of say in her life. Damn, I need to get
out of here. I debate her, noting the rapid rise and fall of her chest and the
lifted chin. My body tenses. There’s something about her all fired up and angry
that is a hell of a turn on.

I inhale slowly. “I have no
right. I know that. Doesn’t mean I liked seeing it though,” I say tersely.

“You don’t have to like it.”
Jess props her hands on hips. “No one else in the bar cared. You didn’t see
them threatening to break someone’s neck over a harmless grope.”

“Harmless? Jess, you may think
you’re not worth anything, but I’m not going to stand by and watch a woman be
treated that way.”

“Yeah, well you’re the only
one.”

“I won’t apologize for behaving
like a gentleman,” I snap.

Both brows rise and she crosses
her arms across her chest. “Is that what that was? Behaving like a gentleman?
Because it looked to me like you were acting like… like…”

“Say it.”

“Like a fucking jilted lover.”

Godammit. Now I’ve got visions
of all the things I would do to her if I really were her lover. I can just
imagine peeling off that tight t-shirt, taking down those little shorts.
Tearing
into her tights. Feeling that warm skin against mine. Tasting it. I hold back a
groan and focus on her blazing eyes. And
not
on the way the street
lights highlight her slightly golden skin, or brings out tiny blonde streaks in
her hair.

“You know what, it’s too much. Just
back off, please.”

I stiffen. What the hell?

“Just because I’m handling your
account and you come to the bar a lot doesn’t mean we’re friends. And just because
I—”

“Hit me in the head with a
door?”

“I said I was sorry! Look, I
think you should find somewhere else to drink from now on. The regulars won’t
welcome you back.”

Christ, if I’d been thinking
with my head instead of my cock, I would have played this whole thing better. I
am better than this. Problem is, if I’m not following her or spending time with
her, she’s all I think about. I have been acting crazy. And I’m just about to
screw up the best paying case of my life. I need to salvage this. Fast.

“I’m not going anywhere.” I
take a step forward and see the flutter of panic in her eyes. “I like you.

“Hunter—” Her hands land on my
chest as I come closer. If I glance down will I see smoke rising? As it feels as
though her palms must be singeing a hole in my shirt. I don’t even want to
think about how hot and hard my cock is.

“I don’t know why, Jess, but I
can’t stop thinking about you…”

At some point I’ve stopped
lying. Shit, what is it about this woman that makes me lose control of my
mouth? 

“Well, I don’t like you,” Jess
declares.

”Sure about that?” I murmur as
I lower my head.

She looks up at me, the whole deer
caught in the headlights expression on her face, and I feel gratified she’s as
lost as I am. If I don’t get to taste those lips, I’m going to go insane. I
need to know.

“Just one taste,” I whisper
against her lips.

She nods. I think. Well, she
doesn’t move. Jess seems to be frozen but her fingers dig into my chest and I
take that as the go ahead. I skim my lips over hers and dart my tongue out to
sample the seam of her lips. She tastes so good. My body is on fire with need.
Hands landing on her hips, I hold her close and pin her forcefully against me.
She gasps, giving me the opportunity to take her mouth in a deep, desperate
kiss. Her tongue meets mine and I close my eyes so I can concentrate on the
sensation.

Jess bunches my shirt in her
hands. I think I hear a button snap. But it’s not enough. If I’m going to do
this once, I’m going to do it properly. I bring my hands up to her face and cup
both cheeks, bending her back marginally. She’s vulnerable and open to me, her
breasts are crushed against my chest and her heart thuds wildly against my skin.

Rocking my hips into her, I
press deeper still, holding her face vehemently. The tiniest moan echoes
between us and I answer it with a groan.