Page 3 of Dangerously Deceptive

“Who were you on the phone with in the bathroom, Shay? I could hear them yelling at you, calling you horrible names.” His voice tries to remain tender, as though he is approaching a wounded animal. One that might run at any second. But I can hear the anger in his tone that he tries to hide from me.

“The Pres,” I mumble, my gaze looking down at my hands that are currently picking invisible fluff off the shitty duvet cover.

“Your dad talks to you like that?” he asks, barely able to contain the hiss of anger in his voice this time.

“Yeah. Like I said, when I turned sixteen, I became property of the Reapers. I follow their rules, or I get punished. At the moment, I’m breaking their curfew rules. So when I get back, at some point, usually when I least expect it, I will be punished.” My voice is monotone as I try to detach my mind from my words. I try to make it sound like it doesn’t bother me, but of course it fucking does.

“I’m so sorry, Shay. What an absolute twatwaffle. Look, I can give you a ride on my bike, we can be at the compound quickly if I take a few shortcuts,” Kellan states, and it's almost like I can see him thinking his way through a sat-nav, analysing which routes he should take to shave time off. His brain really is something special.

I try to ignore the deep twinge I feel in my core at the mention of this gorgeous creature having a bike. You would think that growing up with the Reapers, I would have had my fill of bikes, but it’s quite the opposite. I’ve had my fill of Reapers, but good guys on bikes, that’s a whole other issue. Great, now I’m imagining him pulling a leather jacket over his tight t-shirt, and me sitting behind him, feeling his ripped jeans rub against my most sensitive area as I clutch myself as close to him as possible.

Snap out of it, Shayla. We have a job to do, so concentrate.

“Thanks, but I am already late. It doesn’t matter if I’m ten minutes or ten hours late, the punishment is the same. So, I’m staying until we sort this shit out,” I state firmly, and Kellan gives me one of his blinding smiles. Fuck, be still my heart.

Not even a minute later, Kellan starts to jig, tapping his hand against his knee, clearly excited about something. “I had an idea while you were in the bathroom,” he says as I lay my hand on top of his, laying his leg flat to stop the bouncing. It was moving the whole bed, and I just hoped I could get him to feel less stressed.

As his jigging stops, he looks down at my hand that looks tiny on top of his big hand and muscular thigh. A blush spreads across his cheeks, and he tries to avert his eyes, but I squeeze his hand to let him know it’s okay.

“Relax, Kellan. We all have something we do when we are nervous. Why didn’t you tell me this plan before now?” I ask, hating that he had to treat me with kid gloves rather than just dive into the job we are both here to do.

“I just wanted to make sure you were okay first. I’m not very good at being still or silent with people I don’t know. Give me computers any day of the week,” he explains with a small smile, the blush spreading across his dimple. Shit, he really is gorgeous, it’s hard not to notice it.

We get locked in this type of bubble, where we are just looking at each other, chemistry and electricity sparking around us. I can’t get involved with Kellan. He doesn’t deserve to be dragged into my shithole of a world. As he edges closer, I know I could make a move if I wanted to. Hell, he’s making the move for me. But I just can’t do it.

Using the bottle of water as an excuse, I turn to pick it up and take a sip out of it, trying not to see the hurt in Kellan’s beautiful ocean blue eyes. “So what’s this plan of yours?” I ask, hoping talk of work will distract him enough from the blow I just delivered. If only he knew how fucking sick to my stomach I feel about turning a guy like him down. Not only is he gorgeous and kind, but he gets my gears turning just by looking at him. Instead, I have to make do with ugly bikers who can lay their hands on me whenever they choose.

If only Kellan knew, I had no choice at all.

Fuck, I hate to admit how much my pride was hurt when she pulled away from me. I thought I had been reading the signs right, and that she was as into me as I am her.

This isn’t like the start of some great romance story with all that insta-love bullshit where I can’t take my eyes off the girl, get butterflies in my chest, and rainbows coming out of my asshole. Nope, none of that bullshit. I don’t believe in love at first sight, or love in general. What I believe is that I am in a shitty motel room, with what appears to be a semi-decent bed, and a girl who is hot. Therefore, of course I should take advantage of the situation.

Don’t get me wrong, I was fucking fuming when I heard her cockwomble of a father on the phone, yelling at her so loud I could hear it through a fucking door, and I’m guessing she didn’t put him on speaker. Some of the language he used shouldn’t be used on any women, let alone your own daughter. This is why I fucking hate MCs. They have a warped, disrespectful view of women. I don’t know how they struggle to see that a strong, sexy vixen who knows her own mind is so much hotter than a beaten-down shell of a girl. I think Shayla puts on a pretty fucking good act, but there’s no denying she is working her way to being repressed. I can hear the desperation in her voice when she talks about getting free. It’s the whole reason I’m working with her, to help set her free. Normally when people lie to me, or catch me off guard, I walk. I do so much planning and background research before I take any job, simply because my ass was not made for jail. So, when Shayla caught me off guard, I wanted to walk away and I should have. Yet here I am. It’s very unusual for me. My best friend, Liam, he’s the one with the hero complex, he’s the good guy. I’m just the anonymous asshole that will work hard to keep us both out of prison.

Pushing all thoughts of the rejection behind me, I casually remind myself that it’s a good thing not to shit where you eat. “When I say I have a plan, it’s not a great one, but it’s the only choice we have. Without knowing the type of memory stick that we need to swap, finding a replica is nearly impossible. Although it is something I am working on. The only other option—that we are going to have to call Plan A for now—is for you to extract all the information from the memory stick there and then. Once it’s done I can give you malware that will corrupt the file. There are a few ways this can go wrong, one of them being that we have no idea what is on the file, and therefore it could take a while to download. So, if your biker buddies feel up to giving us a bit more information, that would lower the chances of us dying, for sure. I’m not worried about the old guy interrupting you, we will drug him until he’s out for the count. It’s the security staff. From the research I’ve done, they are not just good at their job, they are the fucking best. They follow no pattern, so there is no routine we can learn. I’ve looked at how they work and it’s textbook. Which means they are all most likely military trained, and they will carry weapons. I have no idea what the fuck you and the Reapers have got us into, but it’s not good. Normally, my job is covering up the crime to prevent us from going to prison. This job will be more about keeping us alive,” I state, making it clear to her how much shit we really are in. Although, given the sheepish look on her face, I think she already knew that.

“Are you going to walk away and leave me?” she mutters, her voice barely audible. She is picking at the bedspread, and her eyes are focused on the task, like it’s the most important thing in the world. In reality, she just can’t bear to make eye contact with me, which is fine by me. I’m not really a fan of that anyway.

“My advice, for us both, would be to get as far away from this shitshow as possible, but I get the feeling you can’t leave. So, if you are in, then so am I. Without me, you will get caught for sure,” I joke, trying to lighten the mood a little. The sombre attitude has made the atmosphere in the room feel almost heavy, like it’s suffocating us. I want to bring back some of the banter we had before her dad called. I guess mentioning that we might die wasn’t exactly the way forward with that plan.

“I need to do this job, Kel. You have no idea how much,” she mumbles as her bright green eyes lock onto mine. Even though there is fear and uncertainty in her tone, her eyes display something very different. Determination. Whatever Shayla is running from, she is willing to risk prison or death to get away from it.

“If you are willing to risk death, I have a pretty good idea. You must really hate the Reapers,” I say, almost as an offhand comment, but as I see Shayla flinch, I realise I probably shouldn’t have been that blunt.

“I don’t want to talk about it. Now that we have got the plan out of the way, why don’t we go out and celebrate? Let’s go for a few drinks and some dancing. I’m all dressed up and ready.”

Holy shit, I think I just got whiplash from how quickly this girl just changed personalities. One minute we are sat on the bed and she looks shy, maybe even a little embarrassed and scared as we talk about committing a fucking crime, then the next she’s on her feet, jumping up and down like we’re at a rave and shouting with excitement. It’s literally like someone just shocked her up the ass and brought her to life.

“Erm, I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” I reply tentatively. I’m not sure what has brought on her rapid mood shift, but we both know that she needs to go home soon. I guess the idea of her going home to face some unknown punishment isn’t something she willingly wants to walk into. I don’t blame her for wanting to avoid it.

“Wow, all because I wouldn’t kiss you earlier. Is your ego really so big that you can’t take a little rejection? What would you say if I told you I’ve changed my mind? That, maybe now, I do want to kiss you?” she asks as she starts to crawl up the bed towards me. There’s no denying that's one of the hottest things I’ve seen in a while, her tits look amazing as they sway in my direction.

Fuck, eyes off the tits, Kellan. Clearly this girl has a lot going on, I can’t keep up with her, no matter how fucking tempted I am. Not to mention I know which way my hardening cock would vote. But my head is telling me to remember the job, that has to come first. Or we could both get killed. So, with a massive groan of regret, I roll off the bed and stand up with my arms out to keep her away.

“Look, Shayla. You turning me down was the right thing to do. We can’t mix business and pleasure, not with a gig like this. I need to be able to keep us both safe, and if feelings get in the way it could get us both killed. When the job is over, if we come away with our lives, then we can fuck to our hearts’ content, but not before. Okay?” I explain, and Shay sits on the side of the bed with her arms crossed and a big frown on her face. She looks like a sulking teenager.

“So, if I went out partying now and picked up another guy, would that bother you?” she asks seductively, trying to draw out my jealous side. What she doesn’t realise is I don’t have one. That would require me being in love with a girl, and I don’t ever see that happening. I have never even felt jealous about anything, I've never coveted something so badly that I just had to have it. I think I realised very early on in life that you are dealt your hand and you have to get on with it. There’s no swapping cards, or wishing for a better deck. You get what you are given, and you make the most of it, which is what I’ve been doing.

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