Take the Edge Off Page 2

  “Wait here,” Edward told Cal.

  He walked over to the edge of the water and crouched down as the swimmer’s head, slick and dark as an otter, broke the surface.

  “The driver from Evade is here,” Edward said as he jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Do you want to speak to him?”

  “Why not,” the man said dryly as he pushed wet hair back from his face. “You’ve done everything else, after all.”

  He pushed off the side of the pool and swam over to the steps at the side. Water streamed down his long body as he climbed out—all tight muscle and pale skin. A ribbon of black fabric cupped his balls and stretched over the curve of his ass. His face was all sharp bones and elegance. He belonged on the cover of a magazine.

  So much for old and wrinkly. Joseph Bailey looked like he was in his twenties, and Cal could see enough of that lean, wiry body to tell there were no wrinkles there. It wasn’t such a good idea to look. All of a sudden, Cal’s collar wasn’t the only thing that felt too tight. He should have read the client file, he supposed, because this wasn’t one of the usual perma-tanned, gold-chained old gangsters who usually rocked up.

  Edward picked up a white toweling robe and walked over to hold it up for the wet Joseph to shrug on.

  “So, what are your qualifications?” Joseph asked as he tied the robe shut and walked over. He looked Cal up and down. “Military?”

  “No.”

  Joseph lifted one dark groomed eyebrow. There was a birthmark on his forehead, a patch of faded pink skin that dripped down to the corner of his eye and wrinkled with his curious expression. “Police?”

  Cal smirked briefly. “Not exactly.” He felt El’s glare on the side of his head and made himself straighten up. “I’ve accreditation in advanced evasive- and defensive-driving courses. I’ve been in a lot of brawls, and I know what I’m doing. We’re drivers, not bodyguards.”

  Joseph considered him for a second. Finally he shrugged.

  “Fine. If I need a driver,” he said as he cut a sharp look toward Edward, “I suppose you’ll do. I don’t care what you do when you’re not driving me, but I expect you to be on call 24/7 for the next month. If that costs extra, I’ll pay it. I’ve a suite here in the hotel. You can have one of the rooms. Any questions?”

  Cal shrugged.

  “It’s your money,” he said.

  “Well, I’m glad someone realizes that,” Joseph said. He shrugged his robe back off, tossed it over a chair, and then turned his back on Cal. “Edward will show you up to the suite. Give him your number. I’ll call when I need you.”

  He paused on the edge of the pool for a second, and Cal took a second to admire the view of lean muscled back and tight ass. Then Joseph dove into the pool, and when Cal looked up, he caught Edward’s eyes on him across the water.

  After a second, Edward unclenched his jaw. “I’ll show you up to the room,” he said stiffly and stalked out.

  It was a silent trip up in the lift. Edward didn’t say anything until they reached the suite, where he fished a card out of his pocket and swiped the door open.

  “You aren’t his type,” he said coldly as he unlocked the door. “Don’t get your hopes up.”

  “Or what?” Cal asked. “What you going to do, Eddie, if I get my hopes all up in Joe’s business?”

  It was surprising how many hard men would stumble when you put them on the spot about their threats. Most people wanted an excuse to let the red mist descend, not to actually explain it ahead of time. It made the whole “I didn’t know what I was doing” front later a lot harder to pull off.

  Edward was confident in his violence. He gave a thin smile that didn’t reach farther than his cheekbones.

  “You can take the small bedroom,” Edward said as he pushed the door open. The suite opened out from the doors in muted blues and browns, all leather chairs and sepia-tinged maps mounted in waxed-ash frames on the walls. It was probably bigger than most people’s houses; it was definitely bigger than the converted flat Cal rented three streets over from his childhood home. “Third door down. Here’s your key. Don’t steal anything, Mr. Tate. With your record….”

  He didn’t need to finish. The point was that he knew. Cal acknowledged the answer of “or what” with a brief nod.

  “Mr. Bailey will need you early in the morning,” Edward said as he tugged the cuff of his shirt back to check his wrist. “So you should get a good night’s sleep. We can go over the schedule in the morning.”

  Cal shrugged and stepped into the suite. He was halfway down the hall when Edward cleared his throat.

  “Mr. Tate? I recommended your company for this job because I had nothing but respect for your grandfather,” he said. “I hope I can say the same about you at the end of this month. If I can, you’ll find this contract a lucrative one. That’s the carrot. I do prefer it to the stick.”

  Cal didn’t bother to turn around. He shrugged. “I’m here to drive the car, mate,” he said. “Like you said, with my record I need to keep my nose clean.”

  He let himself into the room Edward had pointed out to him. It was small and white with an undersized double bed and a large bay window that looked down into St. Pancras station itself. Cal stripped his tie and jacket off. The back of his neck was itchy with the unfamiliar chafe of the stiff fabric, and he watched the few people out this time of night shuffle through the station.

  It hadn’t been a lie. The last thing Cal needed was trouble. He didn’t want to end up like some of the old lags in prison—in for stealing a packet of fags and no real desire to get back out. Nothing left but stories of the old days and a hooker on the outside who’d give them a pensioner’s discount, and they called her their girlfriend.

  What he needed was to get this job done, a nice, dull man like Doc to come home to, and to sort his life out.

  The problem was that Cal wanted what he’d always wanted—fast cars and men who were no good for him.

  Chapter Two

  JOE SCRUBBED one of the hotel towels over his head as he stepped out of the suite bathroom. “I still don’t see why I need a driver,” he said from under the jasmine-sweet folds. “Unless you’ve forgotten how in your old age.”

  He heard Edward grunt.

  “I’m used to American roads,” he said. “Evade Inc. has a good reputation, and if Tate drives you, then I can concentrate on protecting you.”

  Joe slung the towel over his shoulders and pushed his hair back from his face with both hands. A trickle of gritty cold water ran down the back of his neck. “You’re overreacting, Edward.” He sat down on one of the low leather chairs in front of the window and poured himself a glass of whiskey. “It’s hardly the first time someone has threatened to kill me, yet here I am.”

  “Hmm,” Edward said noncommittally. He clasped his hands behind his back and tilted his head to the side. “Have you ever given any thought to why so many people want to see you dead, Joseph?”

  Joe put his feet up on the ottoman and tilted a sardonic toast in Edward’s direction. “Jealous of my wealth, good looks, and charm?”

  “They don’t help,” Edward said with a flicker of amusement. He unbent enough to sit down on the edge of the bed. “Joseph, you need to take this seriously. These aren’t your dad’s old enemies running their mouths, or empty threats some accountant wrote on his pink slip. I think you should go back to LA. Sort things out with Kristen before it’s too late. Whatever happened, it doesn’t have to be the end of the world, and whatever business you have here, I can handle it for you.”

  That was what Edward had always done. Joe took a drink of whiskey—sour rye on the back of his tongue. When Dad had been busy, it was Edward who took Joe to the birthday parties of kids who didn’t actually like him and whose parents were scared of his Dad. It was Edward who’d paid off the headmaster at his first school and the one after that.

  Edward had been more like a father to Joe than Harry Bailey ever had time for. And like Harry, Edward thought that all Joe needed to settle him
down was the love of a good woman. Joe supposed that, in a way, they might have been right, although not in the way they thought.

  “It’s not the end of the world,” he said. “It’s just the end of me and Kristen. And you’re my chief of security, not my boss. I don’t need you to handle my business. Handle your own and make sure the letters stop.”

  A muscle jumped in Edward’s jaw, a trapped jiggle under grooved skin and a scruff of graying five-o’clock shadow.

  “Of course, sir,” he said, a frosty bite to his words as he stood up. “I’ll get on that right away. All I have to do is find out which of the many, many people who dislike you actually want to see you dead. And what about Tate? Do you want me to let him go? Since you don’t think you need him after all.”

  Joe licked his lips and took another drink of whiskey as he thought about Cal Tate and, more specifically, Cal Tate’s full, ridiculously pretty mouth. He imagined his fingers hooked in the wonkily knotted tie as he pulled it loose from the overstarched white shirt and his mouth against a sweat-salty neck as he chewed his way around the spray of ink under Cal’s ear.

  Joe could feel the flush of heat up the back of his neck, and his cock ached under the sweatpants he’d pulled on for the commute between the suite and the spa.

  “No,” he said casually, almost dismissively, in an attempt to disguise that raw flash of reaction. “Since you don’t feel up to the job, he can stay. As long he doesn’t screw up.”

  Edward inclined his head in stiff acknowledgment and turned to leave, but he paused in the doorway and tilted his head slightly toward Joe. “Whatever this is,” he said, “you need to at least tell me, Joseph. There’s only so much I can do if you keep me out of the loop.”

  That was true. It was also the point. If Edward knew what Joe was doing back in England, then what he’d do wouldn’t be inclined to help. He’d worked for Harry Bailey for over twenty years, and his loyalties weren’t going to change now. Neither of them could stop Joe from doing what he wanted, but they could impede him.

  “I’m not keeping you out of anything, Edward,” Joe said. “It’s not your business.”

  “Yes, sir,” Edward said quietly. “It’s your choice. I have some things to do this evening, but I’ll see you in the morning.”

  He walked out and closed the door behind him. It wasn’t slammed—Edward didn’t believe in shows of temper—but it closed behind with a firm click. Joe grimaced and leaned his head back against the chair. There was a knot of sour regret in his stomach and nothing to do about it. He could apologize, but he wasn’t going to change his mind, so it would just be empty words.

  More empty words. Joe smiled wryly as he took a drink of whiskey and held it on his tongue to feel the burn. Those were what he was good at, after all. He doled out assurances to the executives of failing companies and promises to lovers. Sometimes he even bought into his own patter… until it all collapsed under its own weight and everyone had to face reality. No wonder there was a file full of death threats in Edward’s office.

  That made Joe think of Kristen for a second, of her honesty and her expectations. He didn’t want to.

  Joe drained the whiskey and thought about his new driver instead—the taste of him and the heavy, muscled bulk of his shoulders under his shirt. He cupped himself through his sweats, thin fabric slick against his cock, as he imagined all that muscle sprawled out and… accessible. His undecided imagination painted ink all over the expanse of tanned skin he hadn’t seen and then erased it again until the only ink was the ghost of lines that peeked over Cal’s collar.

  It was hard to decide what he preferred. Either way he liked the idea of being the only one who knew what was under that shirt as he watched Cal go about his day.

  Joe squeezed his cock roughly and felt the dull throb of it all the way back into his ass. His breath caught hotly at the back of his throat, and he chewed on his lower lip as he tugged on his cock with short, impatient jerks of his fist.

  In his head he saw the flicker of Cal’s eyes again, the quick once-over that lingered at Joe’s thighs.

  Before he could think better of it, Joe reached for his phone and flicked through his contacts until he found the Driver details Edward had input earlier. He hesitated for a second, his thumb poised over the screen. His mouth was dry, and the awareness of what he wanted was clear and distinct in his head. It wasn’t the one glass of whiskey that made him feel drunk as he jabbed in the message.

  “I said 24/7,” he muttered aloud as he hit Send and then tossed the phone aside. “Let’s see if he knows what that means.”

  It wasn’t one of his better lies. The truth was in the hot twist of want in his balls, the eager, dizzy edge of anticipation that fizzed in the back of his brain. He poured himself another glass of whiskey—an amber excuse in a crystal glass—and waited.

  The rap on the door came a couple of minutes later. Joe pushed himself up out of the oversoft embrace of the chair, adjusted his cock so the hard bulge of it wasn’t obvious, and walked over to open the door.

  “Whiskey?” he offered as he held out the glass.

  Cal looked at the whiskey and then at him. “I don’t drink and drive.”

  “No one is asking you to drive,” Joe said with a crooked smile and waited.

  There was a pause, and then Cal took the whiskey from him. There were scars on the backs of his hands and calluses over his knuckles. He hadn’t claimed a martial-arts qualification, but he obviously knew how to fight. His hands were messed up, but his face wasn’t.

  The thought occurred to Joe that if he was wrong about that brief once-over, he could end up on the other end of that scarred fist. It strung the hot wire of lust tighter in Joe’s balls. He liked to be in control—in business, in bed—but there was something heady about the threat of being out of it.

  “Sit down,” Joe suggested as he waved to one of the chairs. “If you’re going to work for me, I suppose I should know a little bit more about you.”

  Cal gave him a sidelong look and then leaned against the post of the bed instead. That—Joe decided as he sat back down—actually worked better. He poured himself a whiskey and admired the view as Cal took a sip of his drink. There was nothing elegant about Cal’s body, no gym-sculpted muscle or narrow waist, just heavy muscle and long legs. His face looked like something you’d see carved in a museum, with heavy, broody bones and a lush, soft mouth.

  “So what do you wanna know?” Cal asked.

  Joe spread his hands. “Entertain me,” he said.

  “I expected to get laid tonight.” Cal took a sip of whiskey and chased a stray drop over his lower lip with his tongue. “I was on a date when my brother called me in.”

  “You’re being paid well for the inconvenience,” Joe said. “I’m sure you can make it up to your… girlfriend?”

  Cal smirked. “First date.”

  “And you were going to get laid? It must have been going well.”

  Cal glanced down at himself and then back up at Joe with a cocky tilt of his mouth. He gave a one-shouldered “well, come on” shrug that pulled his shirt tight over his chest.

  “So, is that it?” Cal asked as he pushed himself off the bedpost. He walked over and bent down to put the barely touched whiskey at Joe’s elbow. “Or are you going to cut to the chase?”

  He smelled of cologne and a hint of fresh sweat—a mixture of cedarwood, salt, and musk. The heavy bulk of his body was angled over Joe’s, one arm braced on the arm of the chair.

  “You have somewhere else to be?” Joe asked.

  Cal kissed him with a rough, eager pass of soft lips and sharp teeth. The aftertaste of whiskey lingered on his tongue, a hand-me-down sting of liquor on Joe’s tongue. Cal chewed Joe’s surprised breath off his lips and then pushed himself back away from the chair.

  “Bed,” he said as he stepped back and unbuttoned the collar of his shirt. The flash of ink and the tight lines of tendons in Cal’s throat quivered heat all the way down Joe’s nerve endings. He shifted in
the chair and tried to will the tight bulge of his cock back under control. “Yours or mine. It’s no skin off my nose.”

  Joe tilted his head back against the chair, wet hair cold against his scalp, and slowly ran his tongue over his lower lip as he tried to adjust his plans. He wasn’t often wrong-footed. His career as a troubleshooter might have been rooted in nepotism, but he’d kept it because he was good at it. If he hadn’t been, Harry would have given him a stipend and sent him to Monaco or somewhere to be decorative and useless. Even if they’d been close, which they had never quite pulled off, Harry was never a man who’d let sentimentality get in the way of money.

  Cal had managed to do what dozens of real estate lawyers and site supervisors had never quite pulled off—throw Joe off script so abruptly that he hadn’t even seen it coming. The reality of not being entirely in control of an encounter, the reins yanked from your grip, was a lot less pleasant than the possibility of it.

  “You know what they say about assumptions,” Joe said as he watched Cal tug the tails of his shirt out of his trousers.

  Cal shrugged and paused with his fingers on the buttons of his shirt. “You really the type of guy who gives a crap about his employees’ lives?” he asked. “I mean, if you’re real interested, I can tell you all about my hopes and dreams.”

  “Which are?”

  The grin wasn’t what Joe expected. It was wide and goofy and plastic to the point of reshaping that brutally pretty face into something awkward and oddly charming.

  “Get laid,” Cal said. “Drive fast. I’m a simple man.”