Jack of Hearts (Aces & Eights Book 1) Read online

  When she tried to pull her hair out of Ramon’s fist, Ramon’s eyes flashed with annoyance. Alex gritted his teeth and forced himself not to give Ramon a bloody nose.

  She slapped at her cousin’s arm. “Ouch. That hurts, Ramon.”

  As fast as a striking snake, Ramon backed her up to the wall, pressed his body against hers, and crashed his mouth down on hers. She whimpered as she tried to push him away.

  Alex saw red, dark blood red. He grabbed the man’s earlobe and twisted it hard until Ramon let go of her.

  “What the hell’s wrong with you?” Ramon said, rubbing his ear after Alex let go.

  “She’s your damn cousin, man. The better question is, what’s wrong with you?”

  Ramon looked at her and sneered. “Does she look like my cousin? I think my aunt brought the wrong baby home from the hospital.”

  “I’m proud to say I got my looks from my dad,” Madison said to Alex. She swiped the back of her hand across her mouth. “The next time you touch me like that, cousin, you’re gonna want to guard your balls, because those are what my knee will aim for.” She walked out of the room with her head held high.

  “Damn, she’s hot,” Ramon said, his gaze on her ass as she left.

  Alex visualized how Ramon would look without teeth.

  Sitting in her room with her now, he was still disturbed by the incident. And although he had reminded himself a thousand times since then that Spooky Man was off-limits, his protective instincts were off the chart.

  “Thanks for coming so quickly,” she said quietly.

  Remembering that she had a roommate, he kept his voice low. “Well, there was an exclamation point at the end of your text.”

  She smiled, her even white teeth gleaming in the semidarkness. “Maybe you shouldn’t have told me to use one in an emergency. I like exclamation points and tend to overuse them.”

  “So there’s not an emergency?” His eyes were drawn to the bottom lip she chewed on, and his reaction was instantaneous. Down, boy. His dick apparently didn’t comprehend the meaning of off-limits no matter how many times it was reminded, and Alex subtly shifted in the chair.

  Was it an emergency? Madison had thought so when she’d messaged him because the text from her cousin had panicked her. With a little time to calm down, however, she doubted Ramon’s demand qualified as urgent. She should have just texted Alex and asked him to get in touch with her when he got a free moment.

  Where Ramon was concerned, though, panic was lately her first reaction. The boy she’d once played hide-and-seek with had grown into a perverted man. Not that it was a total surprise, considering his creep of a father.

  She really needed to learn how to put on her big girl panties and deal with her cousin on her own. But Alex was here now—and wasn’t it just the pits to have a man in her bedroom whose bones she wanted to jump, but who’d figuratively put up a “No Touching” sign?

  A little embarrassed that she’d overreacted, she shrugged. “It felt like an emergency at the time, but now, I don’t know. I shouldn’t have bothered you.” She had always wondered, when she’d read that someone gave a strangled laugh, just what that sounded like, but now she knew because Alex gave one.

  “Bothered?” Another laugh that sounded as if something amused him. “My problem, not yours.” He shifted as if the chair was uncomfortable.

  Were they even speaking the same language? “So, um, Ramon texted me.” As if she’d waved a red cape in front of a bull, Alex turned such an intense focus on her that she had the urge to run. Not for the first time, she wondered just exactly who he was. When she had met him at her cousin’s house, she had immediately classified him as an a-hole since he was obviously a friend of Ramon’s. A very sexy a-hole, but one nevertheless. She might have misjudged him.

  “He’ll be home tomorrow and wants me to meet him for drinks.”

  “No. Just tell him no.” He stood and paced around her room, observing everything as if cataloging all that she owned.

  “I did text him back and said no, but you know Ramon. He doesn’t understand the word.”

  He stopped, putting his hands on his hips. “Then just do a no-show.”

  “He covered his bases on that one. Called my mom, told her he expected to see me at the Flamingo Bar at exactly five.”

  “You’re an adult, Madison. She can’t make you do anything you don’t want.”

  He didn’t understand, and she wasn’t ready to spill the dynamics of her family. “That’s true, but I’ll never hear the end of it if I don’t go.” That was as close as she was willing to get to the truth.

  Alex began to pace again. He raked his fingers through his hair, then stopped and stared off into space. After some seconds, he nodded as if coming to a decision. As she watched him, she was struck by how magnificent he was. From his black collar-length hair, dark-as-midnight eyes, high cheekbones, and olive skin, she guessed he had some American Indian ancestry. Whatever his makeup, God had been good to him, very good indeed.

  “Okay, here’s the plan. Meet him . . . be on time so he doesn’t get riled, and I’ll happen to show up about fifteen minutes later.”

  “You don’t have to. I mean, that’s not why I told you. I . . . what I was going to ask is, would you show me how to defend myself from an assault?” Because she knew the day would come when Ramon would go too far. After witnessing the way he had handled Ramon when her cousin had kissed her, she didn’t doubt Alex could teach her how to fend off an attack.

  Alex’s eyes turned hard and cold, and his body seemed to expand into all rippling muscles with dangerous vibes radiating from him. “If he ever touches you like that, I’ll kill him.”

  Holy cannoli! The man had morphed right in front of her into one scary dude. But strangely, instead of frightening her, this new side of him made her feel safe, not to mention all that alphaness he had going on was downright hot.

  “Well, I don’t want to have to visit you in prison.” Something that seemed like amusement flashed on his face, and that didn’t make sense. He already had one strike against him as far as the law was concerned just by owning a biker bar, and who knew what went on there.

  “Don’t worry about me, Madison.” He sat on the edge of the bed. “I’ll bring a date with me so Ramon won’t get suspicious. You invite us to hang out with you.”

  He was so close to her that she could feel his body heat, could see the flexing of the muscles in his arms, and she wondered if their decision to meet in her bedroom had been a good idea.

  Alex’s words sank in. At the thought of seeing him with a date, something that felt a lot like jealously unfurled, and she swallowed hard. This was her first time experiencing such a thing, and she didn’t at all like it.

  “Sounds like a good plan,” she lied. “You never answered my question. Will you teach me how to defend myself?”

  There was a slight hesitation. “Yes, but some other time. I need to get back to Aces and Eights. I’ll see you tomorrow night. Lock the window behind me.”

  Like a thief in the night, he slipped away, and she dutifully turned the lever, locking herself in. Without him, the room suddenly felt empty, and she stood for a moment in the quiet. What did she know of him other than he was Ramon’s friend, he owned a biker bar with his brothers, and he qualified on all counts as a bad boy?

  Bad boys were Lauren’s thing. Her roommate was the one with a weakness for the creatures, not Madison. Well, not until this one, anyway. But what truly bad boy climbed a drainpipe to retrieve a child’s ball? The same day he’d hauled Ramon off her, she witnessed Alex pulling over his motorcycle, alongside a little boy who was crying. She’d left her uncle’s house right after Alex, and upon seeing him stopped, she had nosed her car into a parking spot where he wouldn’t notice her.

  He had squatted next to the sobbing boy who she guessed to be around four, and after a brief conversation, Alex had peered up. She’d followed his gaze, but hadn’t seen anything. Then he’d patted the child on the shoulder before sta
nding and shimmying up the drainpipe like a freaking monkey. At the roofline, he’d reached up, fumbling around in the gutter, and then, viola, a baseball had appeared in the hand he held out for the boy.

  The child broke into a wide smile as he clapped his little hands. It was what Alex did next, though, that had ruined his bad boy image as far as Madison was concerned. He’d slid down the pipe, picked up the boy, walked up to the door of the house, and rang the bell. When a man answered, from where she sat, it appeared Alex had given the guy a stern talking-to. Madison wanted to applaud Alex for stepping in where others wouldn’t have, because who left such a young child alone on the street these days?

  That was the day she’d moved him from bad boy status to hero status. So when he’d told her to call him if she ever needed him, she’d suggested her room as a meeting place.

  Along with having a roommate who would come running if she screamed, she kept a knife under her pillow, should her cousin decide to make a surprise appearance, which she wouldn’t put past him. She felt pretty well protected.

  Alex had balked at first, telling her that she didn’t know him well enough to be making such an invitation, and that had only served as further reason to trust him. South Miami Beach was a small community where, except for the tourists, everyone knew everyone, she’d argued. If they met anywhere else, sooner or later Ramon would hear about it. Since Alex couldn’t deny that, he’d finally given in.

  Problem was, what had started as a kind of business relationship between them was evolving into her having naughty thoughts about him. Too bad he didn’t think of her the same way.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Alex rode back to Aces & Eights sans helmet, something he’d never done before. But he needed the cool night wind on his face and whipping through his hair after being so close to Madison. There had to be somewhere else they could meet, a place that didn’t have both her and a bed in it.

  His brain had gone on vacation when he’d agreed to teach her self-defense. That would mean touching her. Just being close to her tonight, he’d felt her heat, inhaled her lemony scent, and wanted nothing more than to put that bed of hers to good use. If he followed through on the promise of showing Madison how to protect herself, he’d definitely have to find a place without a bed anywhere near the premises. Of course, that would still leave the floor, up against the wall, atop a desk if there was one . . .

  He took the corner hard, scraping the bottom of the foot peg across the asphalt, the grinding noise echoing in the night. Throttling up, he tried to outrun thoughts of a woman with cat-green eyes.

  It worked for a few minutes as he raced down the empty street, but then she crept back into his mind. He couldn’t tell her he was FBI for fear that she would slip and say something around Ramon. Nor was he entirely certain that she was clueless about the family business and what Ramon and his father were involved in.

  Worse, he was the lead on an operation to take down part of her family. When that came about and she realized he had helped make it happen, she would hate him. That trust in him shining so brightly in her eyes would vanish when her cousin and uncle were hauled away in handcuffs.

  Better not to know what he might be missing, so no kissing her. Ever. No doing any of the things he’d fantasized about since he’d first met her. She was a source for information and nothing more. When he returned to the bar, he would tell his brothers about her. Once she wasn’t his personal secret, his fascination with her would diminish. Satisfied he had his priorities straight, Alex eased back on the throttle and turned the bike toward Aces & Eights.

  “When you gonna tell us who your informant is?” Nate asked.

  Court brought three ice-cold bottles of beer to the table, sliding into the booth next to Alex. “Yeah, you’ve never been so secretive before. What gives, bro?”

  Good question. Alex enjoyed the end of the day when, after locking up, he and his brothers would have a beer together before heading home. Sometimes they’d have some laughs over something Spider or some other dude had done, but usually they’d go over their progress on building a case against the Alonzo family. With Ramon MIA, things had stalled a bit.

  Although he’d decided to level with them about Madison Parker, a.k.a. Spooky Man, Alex hesitated, that damn need to protect her surfacing again. If his brothers knew about her, they’d push him to use her to the fullest extent. Although he would do that, he wanted to do it his way. Hell if he knew exactly what that way was. There was a black hole in his mind, one he wanted to fill in before he gave his brothers Madison’s name. He also hoped to ascertain her innocence first, if she was innocent.

  Being FBI agents, they were naturally suspicious of anyone with connections to the bad guys. Once he knew which side of the line Madison was on, and if it was the right one, he could better argue her case. If it turned out he was wrong about her, then she’d go down with her uncle and cousin. Yeah, he needed to know more about Madison Parker before he turned over her name.

  “Ramon will be back tomorrow. He’ll be at the Flamingo Bar around five, and I plan to just happen to go there with a date.”

  He’d never been able to pull one over on Nate, who narrowed his eyes. “Spooky Man tell you this?”

  It was close, but Alex managed not to squirm as if he were still ten years old and in trouble with his older brother. “Yep. I need a date.”

  Court snorted. “Just pick one of the many outta that contact list of yours.”

  “And put an innocent woman in Ramon’s sights?” There were a good number of female names stored in his phone, and he tried to think of one who could hold her own against Ramon. There were a few biker groupies in there, and any one of them probably could, but he was still uneasy about bringing any of them into contact with the Alonzo family.

  “Taylor Collins.”

  Alex gave Nate an appreciative nod. “Good thinking.” Taylor was a fellow FBI agent, and he should have thought of her.

  “I’ll call Rothmire first thing in the morning and set it up.” Nate slid out of the booth. “I’m heading for home.”

  “Me, too,” Court said.

  Alex collected their bottles. He hoped their bureau chief agreed to loan them Taylor. Once she showed up on his arm, the man was going to want her. That was Ramon, wanting whatever anyone else had, especially a beautiful woman.

  At least Taylor was trained to protect herself. He had taken a Krav Maga class with her and had been duly impressed with both her determination and skills. He’d never been at the gun range with her but heard that she put it through the bull’s-eye every single time. So, yeah, he was good with introducing her to Ramon.

  After dropping the beer bottles in the recycling bin, Alex followed his brothers to the garage. As their three Harleys roared onto the street, he fell into his usual position, with Nate in the lead, Court in the middle, and him in the tail gunner position.

  Alex liked riding behind his brothers where he could keep an eye on them. It felt like he was protecting Nate and Court, something he owed them both for taking care of a confused, angry boy.

  Even though Nate had mostly raised him, growing up, Court had also kept an eye on him. Court was the one Alex had gone to when he needed to confess a sin before Nate heard about it. Together, the two of them would devise a story that would put Alex in a better light than he deserved. Because he’d often found himself in trouble, he had a special place in his heart for Court. That didn’t mean Court hadn’t given him hell, but Court’s hell was easier to take than Nate’s. Disappointing Nate had always made him feel like a brainless slug.

  As he followed his brothers home, for some damn reason he thought of his mother and wondered if she’d be proud of how they’d turned out. It had been twenty-two years since he’d last seen her, and because she’d made no attempt to contact them, he guessed he’d never know. They didn’t even know if she was still alive.

  At the security arm blocking their way to the lower-level parking garage, he pulled up next to Court while waiting for Nate to pu
nch in the code.

  “You going to head back out?” he asked Court. Alex was feeling restless and wasn’t sure he was ready to pack it in.

  “Nah. I’m worn out.” Court grinned like a mischievous boy. “Might ruin my reputation if I tried to make a lady happy tonight.”

  “And here I thought nothing could keep you from getting it up.” He leaned his bike toward Court’s, reached over, and punched his brother’s arm. “You’re no longer my hero.”

  “Liar. I’ll always be your hero.”

  The security arm lifted, and Court followed Nate into the garage before Alex could retort. If he’d had the chance, he would have said, “Both you and Nate are my heroes.” And he would have meant it. Without them, Alex Gentry would have been crushed under his father’s heavy hand.

  There were ten floors in their condo complex, and Alex lived on the eighth. Court had his place on the ninth, and Nate’s condo was on the tenth.

  When the elevator came to a stop at the eighth floor, he waved a hand at his brothers. “Let me know if Taylor’s a go.”

  “I’ll call you after I talk to the boss,” Nate said as the door closed.

  Alex walked down the hallway, passing two condo units before he came to his own. After letting himself in, he took out his phone to check for messages. Nothing from Madison, so that should mean she was tucked snugly in her bed, safe and sound.

  And there he went again, thinking of her in bed.

  Madison had dreamed of Alex. In a way, that was surprising because she had never dreamed about a man she actually knew. Sure, in high school she’d had some about various teen heartthrobs, but never about one of her boyfriends. In her dream, Alex had given her a toe-curling kiss.

  “Why are you sighing?”

  Startled, Madison spilled coffee over the side of her cup. “What?” She’d totally spaced out, forgetting her roommate was in the kitchen with her.

  Lauren grabbed a paper towel and handed it to her. “You’ve been sitting there, staring into space and sighing. You’re crushing again, aren’t you?”