“Girl, you look as tired as me,” Lacey said as she pulled up a chair and turned over her coffee cup for the waitress. Lacey slid her glance from Rick back to Ava. “So, you and Rick hit it off well enough to stay up late last night?”
“We . . . talked for a while before we went to sleep.”
“Talked? That’s it?”
“That’s it,” Rick added.
Bo shook his head. “Man, you’re gettin’ rusty.”
Ava hid her smile behind her coffee cup, then quieted while Lacey whispered to her.
Rick was going to do a little listening in on their conversation, but Bo yanked on his jacket.
“Hey, while the ladies are gossiping on the other side of the table, I wanted to let you know that your background checked out.”
Rick leaned back in his chair and put on a knowing grin. “Was there any doubt?”
“Not really, but I have to be careful about who I trust with Hellraiser secrets, ya know.”
“I understand. So now that you know I’m legit, what kind of secrets are you going to let me in on?”
“Well, none yet,” Bo said with a sly smile. “But trust me, there’s plenty going on.”
Dammit. Rick wanted to know what and he wanted to know it all now. But he had to play it cool or his cousin would be suspicious. “Anything up my alley?”
“Maybe. I saw you did a little time for possession.”
“Yeah.”
“Joy drugs or business?”
“I don’t do drugs, man. I like to keep a clear head. There’s more money in selling them. Costs money to take them.”
Bo nodded. “Good for you to follow the money. Better to earn it than to spend it.”
“You got that right.”
“Then maybe I’ll have some work for you.”
“Good. I don’t like to lay low for too long. Makes me itchy.”
“I always knew you’d be good for my business, Rick.” Bo slapped him on the back. “Welcome home.”
“Thanks.” Now Rick was even more curious about what kind of business his cousin was involved in. But he couldn’t push Bo or he’d get suspicious. He’d just have to ride, relax, and wait for Bo to come to him.
Which hopefully wouldn’t be long. If his cousin really was heavily involved in the drug trade, there was always something going down. Especially at an event like bike week, where deals could be made by the hour.
Yeah, Rick expected to be useful before the end of the day today.
And that meant he might have to juggle undercover drug work with Bo, and handling Ava.
The assignment had just gotten a lot more interesting.
Riding on the back of a motorcycle gave Ava a lot of time to think. It was sweet mindlessness, the kind that required no concentration.
She enjoyed it, because she had a lot to think about, mainly having to do with Lacey. Okay, not so much about Lacey. More about the tall, leather-clad biker who rode the bike she was sitting on.
She sighed and felt just a little foolish and lovesick.
The kiss Rick had given her in the elevator this morning had shaken Ava to the core. But it had also relaxed her. While Rick hadn’t exactly said how things were between them, the kiss was an unspoken bond, his way of saying there was definitely more between them than one-time phone sex.
Not that she’d been at all worried about it. After all, if that’s all they’d shared, she would have just chalked it up to a new and unique experience and moved on.
Moved on to what, exactly, she didn’t know, but she was here to spend time with Lacey. Though doing that was proving difficult since Lacey seemed to spend most of her time with Bo, either plastered right next to his side or on the back of his bike. Which gave Ava more free time than she’d expected.
Fortunately, Rick seemed to want to spend his free time with her. And she couldn’t complain about that. The more time she spent with Rick, the more she could find out about the Hellraisers—and about his cousin, Bo. So being with Rick served a useful purpose.
Like making her breathless, hot, turned on, and quivery. She wondered if all bikers had this kind of effect on their women, or if it was just Rick and the fact she wasn’t exactly the most experienced in the men department?
Surely it wasn’t just her. After all, Lacey certainly seemed entranced by everything Bo. So maybe it was the whole biker mystique. She supposed at the end of this week she’d have it figured out.
Maybe.
Rick didn’t seem to be the kind of guy any girl could figure out. He was chivalrous and kind and at the same time mysterious and aloof. And oh so sexy. Like the kind of guy every girl had a crush on in high school. The bad boy kind of guy, the one you wanted to redeem with your love.
But was he really bad? She didn’t know the answer to that.
There were a lot of things she didn’t know the answer to. Maybe she should start thinking with her head instead of the other parts of her anatomy that had seemed to take prevalence since she’d met Rick.
Or maybe she should have sex with Rick, get that out of the way, and then she could start thinking with her head.
She liked the latter idea a lot better.
They’d taken a long ride in the desert after breakfast, and the view in the daylight had been breathtaking, nothing at all like the blind ride in the dark last night.
She’d lived in Las Vegas her entire life, had ridden through the desert hundreds of times, but there was something about being exposed to it from a motorcycle point of view, where the air whipped in your face and you could see everything more clearly because you weren’t bound by glass and metal on all four sides. This way made her see it for the very first time.
The desert was burnished copper and sage and golden sunlight, a cascade of color that painted the landscape of this place she called home—a place she’d taken for granted and had never appreciated for its awesome beauty until now. Maybe it was because on the bike she wasn’t just seeing—all her other senses were in play, too—the smell of the earth rose up to meet her, the sound of a hundred motorcycles seeming to wake the desert’s primal beauty and put on a spectacular show. Whenever they slowed down, Ava would spot lizards or other creatures hiding among the tall rocks. Soaring birds overhead seemingly kept pace with the Hellraisers.
They rode for over two hours, and it was exhilarating. She’d never enjoyed seeing the desert more.