I stepped into the concrete room underneath Hell’s Overlords’ HQ. In the brief moment before the door rolled back into place behind me, I clearly saw that there were no drugs waiting for me. The floor was bare, and darkness shrouded most of the room.
“Shit.” I jumped as the door slammed behind me, leaving me in complete darkness. I knew at that moment that I’d been caught in a trap. I knew Fang and I had been set up by his faulty intel.
Then, out of the darkness came a voice.
“Seems to me you were expecting to find something down here,” he said. “Well, you did find something, just not what you were looking for.”
Light suddenly filled the basement, and I could see that the square concrete room was empty except for a chair and myself, and a stranger. The stranger was a broad man with thick, muscular shoulders and arms. His wavy golden brown hair was brushed back away from his clean-shaven, chiseled face. He stared at me with intense green eyes. He kept his arms crossed in front of his chest as he leaned against the wall.
“Have a seat,” he said, nodding toward the chair in the center of the room.
I didn’t budge. I needed to find a way out of the room. I needed to get away from the gorgeous man in front of me with the entrancing green eyes.
“So, you’re the one who’s been stealing from me.” He pushed himself off the wall and started walking towards me.
My heart raced. My mind screamed at me to move and to find a way out, but I was frozen with shock. I’d never been caught. In fact, I’d spent the last six months stealing drugs from Hell’s Overlords without anyone ever seeing me. Yet my boss and I fell for the oldest trick in the book, faulty information planted on the street in order to catch someone.
He grabbed my thin arm in his firm hand and held me still as he circled around behind me. I wondered if he’d noticed I was a woman yet, because I definitely noticed he was a man. His touch through my long black sleeves was electric. I felt my body quiver with desire for him almost immediately.
“Sit down,” he barked, shoving me down against the chair.
If he’d only known how much I liked to play rough! I grinned under my ski mask and considered getting up to fight back, but I thought it best to go ahead and take a seat as he’d insisted. I turned and sat with my back straight, staring up at the man with the beautiful green eyes. He didn’t look like just another lackey. He looked like a top member of the MC. He had a confidence about his expression and posture that wouldn’t have been present in someone beneath him.
“Let me see who’s behind that mask,” he said, leaning over to remove it from my head.
As the cloth revealed my face and let my blonde hair spill down from atop my head, I watched surprise register itself on his face. His jaw grew slack, and his eyes grew wide.
“You’re a woman?” His voice roared in the small room.
“You expected a man to be able to do what I do?” I asked him with a cocked eyebrow.
He looked at the ski mask in his hand and back at my face. His shock slowly turned into anger.
“Are you embarrassed?” I asked him.
“You’ve caused a lot of problems for me,” he said lowly, fighting back a growl. I watched as his arms and fists flexed in an attempt to contain all the rage that was flowing through his body.
I wished I could have offered him a better way to release all that pent up rage and frustration. It had been too long for me, and I was pretty sure it had been a while for him, too, judging by just how angry he was.
“You’ve been shown up by a girl,” I teased, “but you caught me, so that’s something.”
“I haven’t been shown up by anyone,” he barked in my face.
I shrugged. He was close enough to kiss, and I thought I could see the desire shared in his face. I had to look away from him to keep from indulging in my little schoolgirl fantasy. It just would have made things worse to try to kiss the man I’d stolen so much from over the last six months.
“You know, you’re the first person to catch me, so you should be proud of yourself.” It wasn’t entirely true. I’d allowed myself to get caught a few times before, but this was the first time that it hadn’t been part of my original plan.
“I’m honored,” he said sarcastically. “Now, look, I’ve got a few questions,” he said, starting to pace around me.
“People usually do when they meet me. I guess you can fire away. I’ll tell you what I’ll tell you, and the rest, well, we’ll see.”
“What’s your name?” he asked.