Page 13 of Loving Smoke

“Ahhh, I get it.”

Shit, just my luck, she actually sounded interested. That and her cute Spanish accent were torture.

“So, why Smoke?”

I huffed out a rough laugh. “Cause I can disappear into thin air, like smoke.”

“I see. Are you a . . . magician?”

“Only when I have to be.”

“Mmmm, sounds interesting.”

She held my gaze and somehow this short banter had me fantasizing about her gorgeous ass in the air while I fucked her over my desk. I eyed the Jack figuring we could each do a shot or two, then we’d get naked and go a few rounds before Blood came in.

In the old days, a month ago, that would’ve been a distinct possibility. Blood had seen my dick out more times than I wanted to remember, but I had to keep my head in the game. Forget about how I could almost feel her squeezing my dick with those ripe ass cheeks seconds before I slid home.

“Are you all right?”

I cleared my throat and thank fuck the image cleared too. I reminded my brain and my traitorous dick women were off-limits. Especially innocent women with big, round pleading brown eyes.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.” I swiped up my phone. “It’s getting late.” Then it hit me. She didn’t have a car. “How are you getting home?”

I waited for the answer like a guy holding a lottery ticket. If I gave her a ride home on my bike, we’d be fuckin’ for sure, but?—

“I called my brother. He’s coming to pick me up.”

I exhaled a breath—saved.

“Great.” I stood, and she took the hint.

“See you tomorrow.”

“Right.”

Marisol closed the door behind her. I sunk into my chair, uncapped the whiskey and poured a healthy amount into the glass. Then I gulped it down like a drowning man. More like a fucker drowning in sweet pussy.

My office door opened again and thank fuck it was Blood.

“Pour one of them for me, brother, cause tonight was a huge fuckin’ success.” Blood took the chair opposite my desk and swiped up the glass of Jack.

We toasted and I slugged back another shot. Nothing like good ole JD to clear the brain of a woman who was way too young and much too innocent.

“The dancers looked great. Totally different from the coke whores who worked here when we first took over.”

“Agreed. No big problems. One of the soda guns doesn’t work but I’ll switch it out tomorrow. Ricky was a big help too. Seems like he brought in half his neighborhood. I think the kid’s gonna work out.”

“I stored the money in the safe.” I jerked my chin to the closet. “We keep raking it in like tonight we’re gonna have to rethink where we store it all.”

“A nice problem to have—too much money.”

“We can put something in the crawl space and just leave the daily cash flow in the office.”

“Sounds good.” Blood poured himself another shot.

The strip joints we ran in Oceanside and Imperial Beach were profitable and brought the Bastards a lot of legit cash. Plus plenty of collateral for their less legal businesses.

“How did the bar staff work out?” I made sure to keep my question general.

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