Page 9 of Tracking Luxe

“I’m tired,” she told him. “You have to go. You probably searched my room already, you can see whatever it was I stole isn’t here. If I still have it it’s in my storage back home.”

“In Santa Rosa. Where you live with your nana in a three-bed two-bath bungalow in a quiet neighborhood she’s lived for thirty-five years, before that she lived in Ecuador.” Every rough syllable rubbed over her skin as she halted in the center of the room. It was growing dark outside, and she hadn’t been lying, she was tired as hell, bones felt lethargic, being kidnapped took it out of a girl.

But her tiredness drifted away as her eyes rounded then narrowed to accusing slits. He was letting her know he knew everything about her, including where she lived and with who.

Was he threatening her? Wrong damn move. “The biker can work a computer mouse, bravo. It still doesn’t alter the fact you have to fuck off now, this was fun and all.”

“You have a short memory, Luxe. You’re not in charge, not now, not at all, not ever, ya dig?”

Yeah, she’d dig, his goddamn grave. Inhaling hard she noticed he held the roll of duct tape. “Don’t even consider using that, Grinder. Look, this is stupid and it’s getting out of hand. Tell me what it is I took and I will search for it when I get home and send it back to you.”

He grinned. She didn’t feel comforted by the stretch of his lips surrounded in all that soft black beard. It was clipped close to his face, no overhang around his lips making that kiss … pleasant. “I could be screaming right now, I could have smashed the window in there, it would have drawn someone’s attention, but I didn’t because I can be reasonable, too. I can’t give you back what I don’t have,right now,“his scowl turned black, her belly twisted over so she rushed on. “If it was a trinket it will be in my storage unit.”

“In New Mexico.”

“Yes, dammit,” curses in herabuela’snative tongue spat out of her. Her Mimi always said she had an awful temper, forever fighting and suspended from school, that same temper had followed Luxe into adulthood. “I want to go to sleep.”

“So, sleep,” he offered and nodded towards her bed. Her raised brows so confident a moment ago drooped down over her eyes. She’d dressed in clean jeans and a tank top, not about to slip into her bed shorts around this lunatic, already the material was chafing her legs, she just wanted to get naked and go to sleep. “What do you propose we do, sleep together? Maybe the captor and hostage should spoon? Are you going to keep me here until I retrieve whatever it is? I have work to do! I’m not in town for recreational purposes, I work, we all can’t play around in our little bike gangs.”

“If you want to sleep with me, little thief, you only had to ask.” He smirked and Luxe felt the rise of fury again, it bunched her fists at her side and she prayed for patience.

“I want to hit you very hard.” She told him honestly and her breath was taken suddenly when he flashed his white teeth in a grin so damn beautiful it was system jarring

She’d honestly been attracted to Grinder last year, His face and body had appealed to her unsexed hormones, one half night of reckless madness, his attraction hadn’t lessened even with this funny business, she hadn’t been in worse situations, maybe she was lucky it was him who had kidnapped her, maybe not, either way she was irritated not least of all how her body was reacting to the sight of him.

“What work do you have here?”

“What?”

“You said you were here for work. Armado or Fort Springs?”

Tight lipped, Luxe walked over to the bed, sagging a little in the middle. She could devour a cake the size of her head, when her blood sugar ran low it was a spike of dessert that picked up her energy, if she was to stay awake to deal with this too-prettyidiotathen she needed something sweet. She reached for the now flat soda, downed it in two gulps. “Both,” she answered finally. “Don’t worry your pretty head, outlaw, I’m not stealing from you or your club, I’ve always followed the MC guidelines of what I can and can’t do in your towns.”

“Hmm…” his only response.

Then he popped up to his feet, startling her to the point she took a step back, encountering the bed at the back of her thighs. It wasn’t only the sheer size of the man that caused her to intake air faster than was necessary, call her crazy, because she must be to not fear him ... not much ... it was more to do with the frisson of something warm and sticky in her lower abdomen that had her wanting to run.

Crazy. She was fucking crazy.

Maybe she’d been without a man too long.

And she was remembering how he tasted, sweet and dangerous, spicy and all sex. How his hands felt running over her body, caressing her breasts, the way he’d begged to suck her nipples until she’d lifted her shirt for him and the moment he’d latched on how the pleasure had blasted Luxe.

She loved a man who was confident enough to beg.

She’d felt powerful that night, she’d had a surge of authority to realize she could bring him to his knees.

If only she’d followed through with their dirty make out session.

She’d regretted it for weeks afterward.

“Here’s what’s going to happen,” without any power, she stood motionless, eyeing the door, eyeing Grinder.

She’d laughed into his mouth when he’d told her his silly name that night. But then he’d doing some grinding against her, dragging his hardness over her hip and she reasoned it suited him after all. Those bikers and their road names.

But then Jamie a long time ago had given her an honorary biker name for fun hadn’t he.

“We’re going to sleep on the bed----”

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