Page 19 of Tracking Luxe

She’d played him royally like a chump with a hard on and that’s what stung. Grinder knew women even if he didn’t play with as many as his brothers did, he knew how to get them, hold them there, make it bliss. Now he was wondering was it all Meg Ryan fake, those breathy moans into his mouth, her clutching fingers all a joke long enough to get him distracted. Fucks sake, he would have preferred her to take his wallet and punch him in the balls then to figure the beauty he’d wanted to spend some time with had faked her every shiver and pleading moan.

Pulling into a parking bay not far from the eight-story building the Russian’s were camped out in, Grinder kicked the stand and rested his bike before he stepped down and took a short walk. He scouted around the back, he went down the block and traced his footsteps back, he didn’t chance heading inside the building, he knew already which floor they were on, every window was dark.

Wanting solid intel to take back to the club, he used this time wisely. According to Grigori they were only in Armado briefly, and Grinder didn’t believe that lie at all, they were planting roots subtly, firstly by renting out an entire block of apartments. What did they need all that space for? Grinder had a clue and didn’t like it one bit. This whole thing smelled of sex trafficking. Needing a big enough space to house enough women to whore their asses out to the highest bidding pervert.

Grinder was a territorial motherfucker when he was tested, no decent man would allow that kind of thing to go on in his back yard.

Tracking was no picnic by anyone’s standards, nothing like the movies portrayed, most of the things Grinder did was boring as hell, a job not many could do, but he got a kick out of finding people, or digging and digging and doing the impossible. He’d found Hades last year, turned out that bastard pulled a plot twist on them all, but still, he’d discovered his hidey-hole.

He bought himself a soda and a bag of mints to crunch on from the seven-eleven on the corner and parked out with his bike, it was dark enough that he was hidden if the Russian’s came back. For now, he waited.

And waited.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” He muttered incredulously two hours later as a familiar Lincoln pulled up right outside the building he was watching.

Rolling his eyes to the heavens, Grinder kept his voice in check before he found himself calling out to Luxe down the street as she glided herself out of her car, backpack slung over one shoulder, dressed head to toe in tight black, this time her poker straight hair caught back in a long ponytail that swished against her slim spine as she walked. Scratch that, the woman strutted.

No lie he had some hardcore sexual thoughts in that fast thirty seconds of wrapping her hair in his fist and pounding the fuck right out of her.

Each fantasy dropped to his boots when she walked into the apartment block.

“No fucking way. I’m going to strangle her, for real.” It was like some giant cocksucker up there was laughing his ass off at Grinder throwing this chick in his path again and then mingling her with a potential enemy.

His temper bubbled, the same time his curiosity did. He hated mysteries almost as much as he did people stealing from him. Now she was checking off two boxes.

What were the odds this was a coincidence?

Nil. Zip. Fucking zero. His gut said as much.

What do you know, seeing Luxe walk into the place the Russian’s were staying made his self-pity evaporate into thin air.

And protective instinct he didn’t know resided in him rose to the surface.

His spine turned to rock.

Eyes shrewd, he put his ass on the seat of his bike, legs crossed, the leather of his jacket creaked settling in to wait this one out. He couldn’t follow her to see what she was doing, or he’d end up dragging her out kicking and clawing, tossing her over his shoulder like a caveman, and wasn’t he only just thinking about buying her a bush or a bouquet of flowers or whatever the fuck men do when they fucked up? Instead he had to deal with the anger jabbing him in the sternum like a hot poker and wondered what dots joined Luxe the gorgeous dirty thief to the Russian mafia.

And everything he came up with wasn’t good.

Wasn’t good at all.

CHAPTER SEVEN

“Fancy meeting you here, dirty rotten thief…” – Grinder

“Hey, dirty rotten thief.”

Whatever he expected it wasn’t; “Oh, Dios mío! I was just thinking of you, and here you are, maybe you’re not so annoying after all.” Luxe announced with a smile cracking over her face to absolutely throw Grinder off his stride.

He’d heard her shoes clipping on the tiled floor of the foyer inside, his shoulder tensed pushing himself off the wall as he waited and waited for her to come back outside. Everything he planned to say to the thief got lost in her smile.

“Don’t stop. Walk,” she issued and didn’t she just thread her arm through his and march him along the sidewalk.

After coming close to losing his composure many times in front of this woman, was it a wonder Grinder walked like a simpleton at her side, clutching his hands he forced them to relax, he wasn’t in a controlled environment, but it was close enough, why he felt his heart give a horse kick he didn’t know, couldn’t be the way she held onto his arm directing him like traffic.

They hadn’t walked thirty seconds before she looked behind her. “Shit.” the next second she’d backed herself into a store front window, yanked a full fist into Grinder’s shirt and angled her face up, something unreadable in her eyes, he had a second to see one of the Russian thugs, brawny and menacing looking down the street before she whispered frantically. “Kiss me!” she took the decision out of his hands by crushing her lips to Grinder’s.

He didn’t need a directive soon as sweetness touched his tongue.

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