Page 2 of Dirty Roxie
Roxie
“We doing this or what, fancy pants?” I turn to face him, getting impatient with how many switches and dials he’s messing with in the cockpit.
“Please refrain from calling me that,” Ronan says, not even looking at me as he answers. The plane’s engines roar to life, drowning much of his voice.
I adjust the big headphones covering my ears so I can hear him better. “Call you what? Fancy pants? Why? That’s what you are, isn’t it? Some gazillionaire, high-falooting, custom suit wearing, tea drinking, plane flying, muckety-muck?” I grin big. In part to show that I’m kidding, even though I’m not. And in part to take the edge off since I’m serious.
Because this guy?
Ronan Sinclair?
He is all those things and more.
So much more.
More I want to get to know. But hopefully not more than I can handle. And I can handle a lot.
It didn’t take me long after I first officially met him to realize he was the same guy from the hospital that I checked out when we visited Daria. The one who’d been wiping his hands on a handkerchief, trying to be subtle about it. As though hospitals hold nothing but the dregs of society.
I mean, I guess they are germ-filled cesspools of sickness and death now that I think about it, so maybe the hand wiping thing wasn’t such a terrible idea. But it still made him look like a complete pussy.
A sexy as hell complete pussy who I’d totally fuck.
So, imagine my surprise when he was the guy who came grunting his way up over that rock and debris wall in Andrei’s basement to help dig us out. We’d moved as much as we could from our side of the pile to try to escape and thought we had a space large enough. But the risk of injury by way of sharp concrete edges stopped us from getting out on our own.
He and his guys moved a lot from the opposite side that we couldn’t budge because of the way the chunks had wedged themselves in. And that was the only way we were getting out. Even though before that, none of us wanted to admit it to ourselves. With Mack injured and Quinn unconscious, anything we tried to do was slow going anyway.
Then they laid cover against Viktor’s men as we made our way across the compound and over the wall to where Daria waited. I’ve known forever that girl was over the moon for Mack, but when I saw her face once she realized he was out, it became crystal fucking clear.
She didn’t even realize Reed had unintentionally shot Mack until minutes later, giving her reason to fuss about him all over again. An odd sight to see since she usually is so cool and collected.
Which about brings us to just before now—the hospital admitted Quinn and Daria is staying with her. Jen and Alyssa took off to where I have no idea. Some nurse patched Mack up, and he was out again, against doctor’s orders.
Because the word on the street is that Andrei escaped that same day.
Mack and Reed left to track down Andrei.
Which is the same thing that fancy-pants and I plan to do. We’re going one way, Mack and Reed went the other, and with any luck at all, we’ll all meet in the middle with Andrei stuck in between.
“Wealth does not make a person falooting high or muckety,” Ronan says drily. His voice clear through the headphones now that I have them situated on my head correctly.
I’d almost forgotten we were talking. I got lost in my thoughts waiting for him to touch, adjust, and flip every single dial, gauge, and switch in this cockpit because apparently there are a million of them. “That would be high-falooting and muckety-muck,” I correct.
He waves his hand dismissively at me and continues fiddling with the control panel in front of him. His accent is strong, like Daria’s, but I can understand him. And his English is good and his voice is deep, which makes everything he says sound suggestive somehow.
It could also be how he looks right now, casually dressed in form-fitting jeans, tight black T-shirt showing off every nook and cranny in the muscles of his abs. Triceps and biceps piled on top of one another, begging to break free from the confines of his cotton sleeves each time he reaches for some knob or lever.
At least I think it’s cotton. Who knows? Maybe super rich guys have some sort of crazy-exotic cloth they use instead.
I reach out to touch the shoulder closest to me. His muscle twitches under my fingers. He turns to me and raises a brow. “What are you doing?”
“I was just seeing if it was cotton.” I shrug, fixing my headphones once again after my shoulder knocks the mic slightly out of place.
“It’s a T-shirt.”
“I know.”
“It’s cotton.”
