Page 9 of Misconduct & Manipulation

I forgot the goal and stepped into the shower with her, not bothering to remove my clothes.

For a girl who had one of the smartest mouths I’ve ever encountered, she was speechless. I liked it.

I liked it a whole lot.

I grabbed the bottle of shampoo and silently squirted some into the palm of my hand. The moment my fingers started to massage her scalp, a moan escaped her lips and my dick strained against the zipper of my jeans.

Like I said…torture.

It took every ounce of control to finish the task and not push her against the shower wall and fuck her—bandage and bullet wound be dammed. When I was finished washing her hair, I left her in the bathroom. I wanted to flee her apartment altogether, but I was soaked from head to toe with a raging hard on to boot.

By the time I got my dick under control, she emerged from the shower and handed me a pair of dry sweatpants.

“My ex left them behind after I kicked him out for stealing my wallet.”

I really didn’t want to wear some piece of shit’s hand-me-downs, but what choice did I have? I took the gray sweats and she put my clothes in the dryer. Neither of us addressed the elephant in the room, but it wasn’t awkward. I ordered us dinner and that night she told me about her douche of an ex.

The next day, after I was finished with my classes, I arrived at her apartment with a suitcase in tow. Two days after that, I washed her hair again…in the sink.

But I’d be a big fat liar if I told you I don’t jerk my dick to the memory of her naked body every night. So, yeah, we’ve been tiptoeing around our attraction for one another, but that shit is about to come to a head tonight.

I’m living on borrowed time. It’d be a shame to waste any of it.

Hailey turns into me, her breath skimming my ear as she whispers, “Black shirt, gray slacks. Ten o’clock.”

I casually tuck a strand of hair behind her ear and press my lips to her temple, before glancing in the direction she suggests.

“I can’t see from this far, but there is a massive tattoo on his neck. Could be a scorpion.”

In between navigating all the sexual tension after the shower incident, Hailey and I spent time sharing what we knew about the Scorpio Society with one another. I quickly learned that even though my father was a member of the society, Hailey had more information than I did. For example, she told me that most of members had a tattoo of a scorpion somewhere on their body. I didn’t ever remember seeing a tattoo of any kind on my dad, and I shared that much.

“Founding members don’t usually have their tattoos anywhere they might be seen, especially if their masquerading as prestigious professor. Do you remember when Senator Grady sued his ex-wife in a defamation case?”

I had no idea what she was talking about, but she soon remedied that by grabbing her laptop. The girl had a whole external drive dedicated to her findings on the Society. She pulled up Grady’s folder and sifted through the dozens of files she had specifically on him until she found a video clip of his ex-wife’s testimony during the trial. There was a part where she was describing an argument that was enticed when she discovered he had gotten a tattoo. According to the documents the tattoo was on the inside of his wrist and easily covered daily by his Rolex.

I went home that night and searched every photograph I could find of my father, hoping to find a glimpse of a scorpion tattoo somewhere, but I didn’t have that many photographs of him, which made it slim pickings.

She went on to reveal that Matthew Jennings was a capo and that his was more visible, like this guy standing off to the side. I reach for my glass again, draining it as I try to make out what exactly the ink on his neck is supposed to reflect.

“You see it?”

“Yeah, but I can’t make it out from here either.” My gaze cuts away from the guy and I focus on Hailey’s empty glass instead. “You want another?”

She shrugs a shoulder in response, and I sigh. The way we’re sitting here people watching so is everyone else. The difference is we don’t know what we’re looking for.

“I thought we were committed to seeing this thing through,” I say against her ear.

She turns her head, her brows knitting together as her gaze bores into mine.

“We are.”

“If anyone is paying attention to us the way you pay attention to other people, they wouldn’t believe we’re involved.

“Why is that?”

“Well, for starters, I’m normally very sexual when I’m with a woman. You’ll never see me hiding in a booth, whispering sweet nothings into her ear just to pass the time.”

She arches an eyebrow.

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