“Hell, yeah,” Bobby said, slapping the dashboard. “What a rush! That was awesome! Did you see how they went down?”
Stevie chuckled next to him and nodded. “They never saw it coming. That was smart, putting the drugs on the deposit slips. Genius.”
“I told you,” Bobby said with a cackle. “I’m gonna make us rich! All of us. Stick with me, boys, and we’ll be on a beach, or wherever the hell we want to be, in no time.”
Bobby checked the rearview mirror, but no one was following them. His heart was pounding and the blood in his veins was racing. The only thing better than pulling off a score like that was finding a hot woman, or a few, to make use of the hard-on it gave him.
“Why did we have to go there?” Mario mumbled from the backseat. “Of all the banks?”
Bobby rolled his ice-blue eyes at Stevie. They talked about Mario and knew he was going to be a pain in the ass. Bobby’d known Mario most of his life, and he wanted to bring his old friend along, but Mario… Bobby wasn’t sure if he was cut out for the life Bobby intended to build for himself. Bobby had big dreams. Dreams that didn’t involve regrets or second thoughts or whiny little bitches that made him feel like he shouldn’t enjoy what just happened.
“Because we know it. It made the most sense,” Bobby said, the frustration in his voice barely held in check.
“You should have told me where we were going,” Mario said softly.
“Why? So you could ruin the whole thing for us? No,” Bobby spat. He turned to glare at Mario in the seat behind Stevie. His head was down as he studied his fingers, smartly avoiding meeting Bobby’s gaze. “That’s not what this is about. We brought you in on this because you said you needed some money. Fast money. Easy money. You don’t get to be all pissy about the way we got the money. We got the money, so shut the fuck up.”
Mario scowled in the backseat, but he didn’t say another word. His face was pinched up tight as he turned to look out the window. His neatly trimmed beard and perfectly cropped hair screamed too good. Mario held down a regular job sometimes, but he had bills to pay, so he went to Bobby for help. He knew what he was getting into. Bobby never tried to pretend he was someone he wasn’t, but Mario did. He wanted to look like he was all neat and clean and perfect, but he was just a lowlife like Bobby.
No, that wasn’t true. Bobby wasn’t a lowlife. He was on the top of the damn world. He’d walked away from the person he was growing up. He flipped his parents the bird the day he turned eighteen and never looked back. The assholes didn’t get to define him. He defined himself.
The only thing leftover from his childhood was Mario.
Which was why Bobby was so pissed. If he could reach Mario, he’d turn around and slap the little bitch. Mario whining about the bank they hit wasn’t what Bobby needed. It killed the boner he had, which meant he wasn’t going to be able to enjoy their night as much. It was better when he could walk in showing off what he had and have the women all falling all over themselves for a chance to suck it or fuck it.
And they all wanted to.
Fucking Mario.
Stevie pulled into the garage and closed the door behind them. It was pitch black, shut off from the world. Just the way Bobby liked it. He didn’t need anything the outside world could give him. He needed money and women and freedom. Nothing else mattered.
“Are we going out tonight?” Stevie asked when he opened the driver’s door. The car lit up, casting a harsh glow over all of them. Stevie pulled off the dark hat he wore in the bank to hide his platinum blond hair and mussed it up.
“I don’t know,” Bobby muttered. “I’m not in the fucking mood anymore.” He shot Mario a glare that had his old friend looking worried.
“Sorry, Bobby,” Mario said quietly, averting his dark eyes. He climbed out of the backseat and stood next to the car, away from Bobby. “I just worry we’ll get caught. That someone will recognize one of us.”
“You need to stop worrying. We’re invisible to them. We always are.”
“Not to all of them,” Mario said, scowling once more. He looked up at Bobby and walked around the car toward the door into the house.
Bobby shook his head and slung his arm around Mario’s shoulders just before the garage went dark again. “No one knew who you were. That’s why you wore a mask and glasses. Next time, we’ll go somewhere else.”
Mario nodded and smartly kept his mouth shut. Bobby led them into the house. Home sweet home. Stevie’s mom left him the house when she died, and it was the perfect place for the two of them. It was also why Bobby made sure Stevie was in on everything. He was the brains, but Stevie could turn him in in a heartbeat if he ever wanted to. And the son of a bitch was crazy enough that he would totally do it.
The three of them carried their supplies and loot into the house, leaving the bags by the garage door. Mario took off once everything was inside. He trusted Bobby to give him his cut of what they collected. Stupid fucker, Bobby thought with a grin. He and Stevie carried their riches downstairs to where they housed it. They pulled about a tenth of what they collected out and set it aside for Mario, then hid the rest where he’d never know he didn’t get his fair share.
After all, what could he do about it? Tell the cops?
Kyra’s ride in the ambulance nearly made her sick. Not because of the ride but because of the cost. She had basic health insurance, and it was going to cost her a small fortune.
She asked the EMT what time it was and groaned when she realized she’d missed her interview. There was no way they’d give her another chance. She really wanted the job, too. But no new job and giant bills from the ambulance ride and most likely the hospital meant there was no way she was moving out of her apartment any time soon.
By the time she got to the hospital, she was starting to feel less woozy and numb. The man who’d tried to help her in the bank, Slade, asked if he could ride with her, but the EMTs wouldn’t let him since they weren’t family.
Kyra figured she’d never see him again, but she’d just gotten settled on a gurney when he strolled into the emergency room looking all big and badass and making every female in the room hope he was looking for her.
Except Kyra.
She didn’t do attachments. Not that she didn’t enjoy them, but after learning she couldn’t have kids, she also learned men had biological clocks that ticked louder than most women. Her boyfriend of six months dumped her for someone who would be able to give him a family someday, and all the dates she’d been on since ended with a similar line.
So, Kyra kept to herself. She was used to relying on herself after a lifetime of being a constant disappointment to her family. Why would she expect anything else from the rest of the world?
“Hey,” Slade said, pulling a stool to her bedside and making himself comfortable. “How are you? How is she?” He addressed the nurse with his second question.
“She’ll be fine,” the nurse said with a kind smile. She was pushing sixty by Kyra’s guess, and probably thought Slade looked like one of her children, but it was also impossible not to react to those dark brown eyes when he pointed them at you. The nurse definitely blushed.
“Are you sure? Have you run a tox screen? And checked her nerve function? The drug was definitely powerful. I’m guessing a neurotoxin of some sort. She almost choked on a piece of candy, and she couldn’t move.”
“She was lucky you were there with her,” the nurse said, patting Kyra’s arm. “My daughter’s boyfriend probably would have left her in the bank and ran if this happened to them. Hold on to this one.”
Kyra opened her mouth to argue, but Slade grabbed her hand, startling her into silence.
“I don’t plan to let her go,” he said.
The nurse grinned brightly. “I’ll go talk to the doctor and make sure he tests her for everything. We can’t have anything happening to your girl.”
“Thanks,” Slade said.
He wrapped his other hand around hers and pressed his lips to her knuckles. Sparks shot up Kyra’s arm and settled low in her gut. Nope. She could not go there. Not with a man like him. He was way too hot for her to think she had a chance with him. He was just being nice, for some reason. Kyra knew women with as many curves as she had did not get the hot, badass, alpha guy in the end. Not ever.
As soon as the nurse was gone, Slade swung his dark gaze back to hers. He released her hand with one of his and brushed her hair back from her face. He smiled, his eyes full of concern and his face a mask of worry.
“Do we know each other?” Kyra asked. Her own parents hadn’t ever given her a look like that. Sure, they loved her, she was pretty sure, but they never worried about her. Maybe it was because she became independent really young, but then again, she became independent because they never really seemed to care what she did.
Slade’s face fell. His eyes scanned her head. He stood and gently pressed his hands all around her scalp. She wasn’t sure what he was doing, but it had been so long since a man had touched her that her body froze.
He leaned forward, looking at the back of her head and bringing his body close to her, and she inhaled. She told herself she just needed the air, but that was a lie. She needed new fuel to add to her solo fire. If she wasn’t ever going to have sex again, at least not with another person, she needed all the help she could get in the fantasy department. And Slade was the stuff fantasies were made of.
Tall, dark, and handsome were only the half of it. She figured she’d barely come up to his shoulder if they stood side-by-side, which was something she loved about a man. Being on the curvy side, she preferred men who could make her feel small. He not only made her feel small, but all the muscles he sported under his black tee made her feel petite. His arms were bulky and his hands were magic on her head. He smelled like a man should smell, spicy, with a hint of musk. He wasn’t the kind of man who sat around and did nothing. His jeans were well worn and his boots said he could kick some shit if he needed to. He worked hard. Likely with his hands.
Those strong, steady, heavenly hands.
“I don’t feel anything. How hard did you hit your head?”
Kyra remembered she was the only one there and looked up at him. That concern was back in his eyes.
“Do you remember what happened?” he asked.
“At the bank?”
He nodded.
“Um, yeah. Why?”
“Tell me everything that happened.”
“Why?”
“Humor me,” Slade said. He put a hand on her shoulder and left it there, scorching her skin and making her feel like he cared.
Kyra sighed and went through the whole afternoon from walking in the door to the bank and filling out the deposit slip to collapsing and watching the people around her. Around them. She ended with his arrival at the hospital.
“You pay attention to detail. Wow. Not many people can recall that much about a situation. But I thought you didn’t remember me?”
“You were at the bank, but I meant do we know each other from somewhere else?”
He chuckled and shook his head, finally understanding why she asked. He took his seat again and smiled at her. “No. I would definitely know if we’d met before.”
Ah. He was one of those men. The kind who took home the hottest woman in a bar and made her wild all night, then walked away the next day without a thought in the world about her.
Kyra knew a few guys like that, but none that were half the man Slade was. But it was clear she wasn’t his typical fling. Even if he was looking at her like he was worried. It was more the way a man would look at his sister than the way a man would look at the woman he planned to strip naked. Message received.
“Sorry. The way you were acting with the nurse made me think…”
Slade grinned and reached for her hand again. “I just wanted to make sure they covered all the bases with you. I didn’t want them to miss something. We bagged the deposit slips, but if there’s something else in your system, something we didn’t know about… We want to make sure we have all the information.”
“Oh, you’re a cop? I didn’t realize.”
Slade shook his head. “No. I work with the police on special cases, though. I’m familiar with procedure. You’re still going to have to make a statement to the police.”
Kyra pushed up in her hospital bed and pulled her hand out from under his. “How do I know you aren’t one of them? That you weren’t in on it?”
Slade leaned back and crossed his arms over his wide chest. Kyra thought he might be offended by the question, not that it stopped her from asking, but he looked as casual as he had the entire time he was there. “You don’t, aside from me telling you I’m not. You’re going to have to decide if you want to trust me.”
“Why aren’t you in a bed?” a brown-haired woman asked, her gaze trained on them. She walked up to Slade and threw her arms around his neck. She pulled back and cupped his face in her hands, studying him the way Slade did with Kyra’s head. “Are you okay?”
Kyra slinked back on the gurney, feeling like crap for allowing herself to fantasize over another woman’s man. She didn’t know he was involved with someone else, but cheating was never okay in her world, even if she didn’t know she was a part of it. And even if it was only in her head.
“Lily, this is… crap, I’m sorry. I don’t know your name.”
Kyra smiled and extended her hand to Lily. “Kyra Cordes. I’m sorry. I was in the bank with your boyfriend—” Kyra caught the sparkle of the woman’s rings “—sorry, husband when the robbery happened.”
Lily snorted and shook Kyra’s hand. “He’s not my boyfriend or husband. He’s an idiot who should be getting checked out. And he’s single.”
“Lily,” Slade growled, shooting her a glare that held no heat.
Lily grinned up at him and patted his extra-large chest. She was clearly a woman who didn’t take orders. “You can thank me later. Right now, you’re getting checked out. Archer said you were drugged, too.”
“You were?” asked the nurse who returned right then and overheard Lily’s words. “We definitely need to look at you, too. I can put you right next to your girlfriend, though. Keep the two of you together.”
“Thank you,” Slade said, ignoring the raised eyebrows from Lily.
Kyra felt like she was watching a comedy sketch unfold in front of her, except she was a part of the show. She had no idea what was going on, but apparently, Slade was sticking by her side a little longer.
“Girlfriend?” Lily whispered when the nurse left to get orders for Slade also. “I always knew you worked fast, but damn. You didn’t even know her name a minute ago.”
“It was the only way they’d let me see her,” Slade grumbled.
Lily smiled the kind of smile a woman with a secret used. She was finding the whole thing endlessly entertaining. Too bad Kyra was ready to get the hell out of there and get far away from the man who was far too tempting.
