Page 68 of Lawless in Leather

He folded his arms and gave her a very annoyed dark lord look. Kind of sexy really. Probably not the effect he was aiming for. She stifled a grin. She liked a man who fought fair. No sulking. No pouting. No getting huffy when she tried to lighten the situation. At least, not so far. Maybe he really was a grown-up.

The kind of guy she could trust.

She squelched that thought. Too soon. After all, he wasn’t perfect. There was the dead girlfriend for one thing. She still wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Not jealous, well, no more than reasonable. But … there was something there. It was pretty hard to compete with a memory after all. Someone frozen in time with their faults fading every day and only the good stuff remaining.

And then there were those buttons that this Ally, and for this part Raina did want to smack her, had installed in Mal. Sure, the guy had possibly had a good slab of Must save the world in his personality to begin with. Joining the army was a good indication of that. But then Ally had gone and made him fail at saving someone precious to him. Raina had enough buttons of her own to recognize a good one when she saw it. Mal wasn’t perfect. He came with issues.

The question was, Did those issues make him knight in slightly battered armor or a real dark lord? One who was beyond finding the light again?

And how far she would be willing to go to find out? To see if he crossed a line. That was the part that scared her. Would she recognize the point where she needed to let go or not?

But that was her button. And right now, this was about Mal’s.

“So somewhere between zero press and appearing on every show the media office can dig up,” she offered. “That seems to be the range we’re dealing with. What’s the easy stuff, print? Print seems safe enough. Reporters can come here to Deacon. They’ll probably dig up some of my burlesque pictures but there’s nothing out there that I don’t already know about. Nothing that should worry the Saints given that you vetted me before you hired me. Sound about right?”

Mal nodded. “Yes.”

“Right. So print is okay. But TV gets to more people. So TV is good. TV equals butts on seats at your games and all that good stuff. Now, I’m no press expert, but I’m hazarding a guess that the TV shows might be more interested in my tall leggy dancer girls than in me, so we can probably keep me behind the scenes for most of those.”

“That would be good,” Mal said. His shoulders lowered slightly and Raina felt her stomach muscles loosen in response. “Better would be keeping you behind the scenes entirely.”

She shrugged. “Maggie was right about TV studios having good security.”

“Not all the morning shows. They do those segments right out on the street. Any idiot could be in the crowd.”

“Okay, so no location shoots. Studio only. Unless they want to come here and shoot something to play later. How about that? That way you can vet everyone to your little dark security lord heart’s content and control the whole shebang.”

“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” he said.

“My parents always taught me to use my words. And my gran said life was too short to spend wheedling folks to do what you want with the indirect approach. She was more the face things head-on and just say what the hell you want type.”

“I like the sound of her,” Mal said.

“She was awesome,” Raina said. “She was two inches shorter than me and no one ever crossed her. Ruled the whole damned family.” She smiled crookedly, the old familiar pang hitting her as she pictured Violet’s face. “So I learned at the feet of a master, mister. I can do this all day. Or at least for another thirty minutes or so. Then I have to go Angel wrangling instead of dark lord wrangling.”

“You’re wrangling me?”

“Trying to? Is it working?” She batted her eyelashes at him and he laughed.

“I think it might be. Okay. Yes to print. Yes to some TV. Limited TV. Let the reporters wrangle the Angels for a change.”

She resisted the urge to do a fist pump. They’d done it. A nice mature compromise. Sure, Mal might still have an issue or two when push came to shove about her going on camera but he hadn’t tried to just lay down the law and ride over what she wanted. Good dark lord. Nice dark lord.

Freakin’ hot dark lord.

“You’re sure there are no cameras running in here?” she asked.

“One hundred percent certain.”

“In that case, come here and kiss me. My gran taught me to get what I want and right now that’s what I want.” And she laughed again as he came over and did just that.

When Raina emerged from the locker rooms after the game, Alex was waiting for her in the corridor outside. She stopped, coming to an awkward halt with her gear bag on one shoulder. Her giant supplies case whacked the back of her ankle when it didn’t stop as fast as she did.

“Ow. Alex. Hi. Congratulations on the game,” she said, trying not wince. The Saints had won again. Just. But it was a win. And she’d managed to keep the squad from getting too excited about the prospect of interviews and media.

Alex smiled. “Thanks. Are you okay?”

“This case has a mind of its own.” She bent down to rub her ankle, trying not to feel like she was making an idiot of herself in front of her boss. She really should spring for a new case sometime soon. One that actually steered. Alex probably had expensive luggage that never misbehaved. Made by teams of Swiss engineers or something.

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