“It’s not my job to share with the criminal underground, Nassir.”
“It is if you don’t want to be in the way when I do your job for you. If you can’t find the guy, I bet if I got your new girl involved, I could draw him out.”
“No one is doing anything.” I bit the words out and gave him a hard look to let him know I didn’t like him even thinking about messing with Reeve.
“We’ll see about that. It looks like your girl is about to get into something all on her own.”
I pivoted just in time to see Reeve jump to her feet, sending the bar stool skipping backward with a clatter. She was putting her index finger in the face of the only other woman I had ever seen that was as pretty as she was. Keelyn Foster was as much a part of the Point and Spanky’s as my brother was. She had been around a long time dancing under the stage name Honor and she wasn’t a woman anyone would mess with if they were smart. Up to this point, Reeve had shown she was very smart and could read people like a book, so I had no clue what she was doing.
Keelyn flipped her auburn hair over her shoulder, flashed a smile that was all teeth, and said something that had Reeve turning red enough that I could see it from here. There was no warning as the dark haired knockout dove for the sexy redhead and they went down in a tangle of arms and legs. Reeve was dressed, Keelyn was not. That was a whole lot of sexy woman-on-woman action happening and the crowd noticed.
Nassir chuckled as I started to move forward in order to break up the catfight.
“What?” I barked it him over my shoulder as I moved forward.
He laughed again. “I would’ve charged more at the door if I had known you were going to bring that kind of entertainment in with you, cop. When she figures out you’re just using her and you drop her on her ass, send her my way if she wants a job. I’ll oil her and Honor up every night and make enough to buy and sell this piece-of-shit city a hundred times over.
“Fuck off, Gates.”
I pushed through cheering bodies and waving arms until I could get to the spot on the floor where the girls were rolling around. I was assaulted with a chorus of boos and hit with more than one flying beer bottle as I pried Reeve off the stripper. They were both breathing hard and bleeding from various scratches.
“Seriously?” I asked the question as I set Reeve on her feet and watched as she shoved her long hair out of her face. I sighed and grabbed her hand as I started to drag her to the back where the bathrooms that the girls used were instead of the ones that were there for the customers.
“It’s fine.” Her voice was shaky as I shoved her into the room and hit the light switch.
“It’s not fine.”
She laughed a little shrilly and then the next thing I knew she launched herself at me so that I had to use both hands to catch her.
“You’re right.” I wanted to demand to know what she was thinking. I wanted to ask why she had decided to throw down with a stripper, but before my tongue unleashed the words, her mouth locked on mine and then there was no thinking. There was just heat, the tang of blood, and all the sweetness that always seemed to rise above the tartness when it came to this woman.
Chapter 7
Reeve
I COULD TOLERATE A lot of things. I was immune to nasty words and thought very little of the people that slung them around carelessly. I had grown used to hearing that I was a rat. I often heard the word backstabber mumbled as people walked by. I had been labeled a sellout, a traitor, but even worse was the disappointment I saw in Titus’s eyes every time I got just close enough for him to realize exactly who it was that had her hands on him, what kind of woman it was that made his eyes bleed all their color and burn white hot with craving and need. It stripped little pieces away from what was left of my dignity when he looked that way because the disappointment wasn’t directed at me but inward. He struggled with the way he wanted me, fought against big, powerful things that rose up inside him when we touched, and it hurt that he wouldn’t give in to them. I wasn’t sure he even knew they were there, but I could see them shining out of him and hear them calling to me louder and louder the harder Titus tried to quiet them down. The cop had more going on than his duty to serve and protect, and I wanted to dig into all of it.
Apparently the situation between me and the handsome detective bothered Honor as well. I knew Keelyn Foster and her glittery stripper skin outside of Spanky’s. She was one of my regular clients when I worked down here in the District doing hair. She was tough as nails, spoke her mind, and if there was ever a reigning queen of the Point it was her. She was tough and unbelievably beautiful. She was also unabashedly honest and had no problem getting right up in my face and telling me that Titus was a good man, too good for the likes of me, and that I should keep my bloodstained paws off of him. It should have been ridiculous. The words were trite and obvious and she delivered them dressed in nothing but a sparkly G-string and a pair of platform heels that almost made her the same height as me. But it was there in her frosty gray eyes. She really thought Titus was above me, thought I was somehow going to dirty him up and drag him down to the level she and I were at, and she didn’t approve. It rubbed me the wrong way, maybe the truth in it, maybe the way I knew she was honestly concerned about what being associated with me would do to Titus’s reputation. I only wanted to help him and every time I turned around someone was shoving it in my face that I was going to hurt him whether I wanted to or not.
I told her to back off. I told her Titus was a grown man and could make up his own mind about who he wanted to spend his time with. Key’s eyes had narrowed speculatively and she crossed her arms over her naked boobs. She should’ve looked ridiculous and trashy . . . she didn’t. She looked fierce and protective, like an ancient Amazonian warrior, and that just made my hackles rise up even farther. I was worried about Titus just as much as she was. Hell, I was stupidly and hopelessly infatuated with the guy, had a crush built on first impressions that was growing into something so much bigger as I learned more about what was behind his drive to take care of the innocent and good. No one had a bigger stake in how this charade played out with him than I did.