Page 80 of Unmask
“Besides, I’d just find a way to escape, so let’s save us both the trouble.”
He shook his head. “I’m coming with you.”
“Is it safe for you to be at the shop?” I asked, hovering on the edge of the parking lot. “Maybe we should get Maddox and Mason. If the Vipers are involved?—”
“I’ll be fine,” he said immediately, his hand moving to rest on my lower back, a brief touch that sent warmth spreading through my sweater. “I can take care of myself, but if you’re going to do this, you need to make him believe you’re letting the cops handle it, that you don’t suspect a thing.”
That wasn’t the problem. The problem was, I wasn’t sure I could take it if something happened to Kreed because of me. My chest seized at the thought, a physical ache that made it hard to breathe. I cared about the asshole even when I didn’t want to. Too many people had been hurt. It had to stop.
“Kaylor?”
I turned at the sound of my name, my sneakers scraping against the asphalt. A familiar figure approached from across the parking lot, and recognition hit me. “Jesse?”
He looked exactly the same, tall and lean with dirty-blond hair that always seemed to need a cut. The greasy gray shop jumpsuit hung loose on his frame, the first few buttons undone, flashing the dirty white tee underneath. That same crooked grinspread across his face, the one that used to make the other mechanics shake their heads in exasperation.
“Hey, bubbles. Long time no see.” He stopped a few feet away, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Rusty sent me.”
The stupid nickname had me wanting to roll my eyes. Jesse was Rusty’s son, but he never called him dad. Jesse had always been hanging around the shop until a few years ago when my dad offered him a job instead of just being a nuisance. Jesse was two years older than I, and he’d seen me at most stages of my life. When Rusty had first started bringing him around, I’d been in my bubble phase. I took a little bottle with me everywhere, hence the dumb nickname that had stuck.
Beside me, Kreed’s entire body hardened, tension radiating off him. “Who’s Jesse?” he grumbled, close to my ear, deliberately brushing his lips against the curve of my skin.
“He works for my dad.Workedfor him,” I corrected, the smile slipping from my lips as reality crashed back down. My throat constricted around the words, past tense still feeling foreign and wrong.
Jesse’s expression softened, his hands coming out of his pockets as he took a half step forward. “I never got to tell you how sorry I was for what happened to him and your mom.”
“Thanks, Jesse.” I wrapped my arms around myself, suddenly cold despite the afternoon sun. “My dad always thought of you as the son he never had.”
“He was a great guy.” Jesse cleared his throat, looking down at his oil-stained boots. “The shop’s not the same without him.”
“As touching as this reunion is,” Kreed interrupted, “we need to go.”
Jesse nodded, stepping aside as he opened the passenger door. Kreed gave Jesse a not-so-friendly glare as we climbed into the truck, a beat-up Ford that had seen better decades. Thebench seat forced us close together with me sandwiched between the two guys like some twisted version of a first date gone wrong.
This should be fun.
The testosterone radiating off them was thick enough to choke me, making the already cramped cab feel suffocating.
Kreed’s thigh pressed against mine, solid muscle and barely contained energy. Leaning close, I whispered, “Are you jealous?”
His breath hitched slightly, and when he turned his head, our faces were inches apart. “Do I have a reason to be?”
The challenge in his silver eyes made my pulse quicken. Jesse was stable, cute, and funny, but he was a Viper. It would be trading one crew for the other. But most importantly, Jesse didn’t make my teenage hormones go batshit crazy like Kreed did. “Maybe.”
His mouth arched into a scowl I found too damn sexy. “Don’t toy with me, little raven.”
Jesse kept peering sideways at us during the ride to the shop, his eyes flicking between Kreed and me, and I couldn’t help wondering what was going through his head. The engine rumbled beneath us, and I found myself gripping the worn fabric of the seat as Jesse took corners a little too fast. I couldn’t help him figure out my relationship with the enemy. I still didn’t understand what the hell was between Kreed and me. We shouldn’t make sense on paper, and yet, when I was with him, it was the only thing that made sense in my life.
Kreed sat beside me, one knee bouncing in a restless rhythm against the floorboard. Not from nerves but from barely contained tension. This wasn’t fucking awkward at all.
“We heard about your friend,” Jesse said, his eyes on the road. The sympathy in his voice was genuine, which somehow made it worse. “You’ve had a rough go of it, bubbles.”
The temperature in the cab plummeted. Kreed’s knee stopped bouncing, and his entire body went predator still. “Call her that again, and this car will never make it to the shop.”
The words came out quiet, conversational even, but there was death in them. Jesse’s hands went rigid on the steering wheel, a low chuckle breezing through his lips. “Don’t give me a reason to pull this truck over and show you what Vipers are really made of.”
Fuck.
“Stop,” I hissed through my teeth, my elbow jabbing into Kreed’s ribs hard enough to make him grunt. I sent Jesse an are-you-kidding-me frown before pinning Kreed with a glare that promised retribution later. “Can we put the who’s a better bad guy away for ten minutes? I just want to get to the shop in one piece. I don’t know what’s crawled up both your asses, but save it for when I’m not sandwiched between you.”
