Page 75 of Hellfire

I chuckled against her smooth back and licked along the bumps of her spine.

“I like playing with fire too, and yours is by far the best, my little hellion.”

~*~

We pulled up at the compound gates, and I slipped my truck into neutral. “I might have to drop you here, Hells. Doesn’t look like I’ll be getting in there anytime soon,” I drawled, eyeing the high-security gates.

She snickered. “I’d pay good money to see you try.”

I gave her a dry look, then leaned across to kiss her. “So sadistic.”

“You love it,” she chimed, climbing out.

My focus homed onto her ass. “I love the view more.”

Hallie swiveled and gave me a stellar smile. “Where do you want to meet later?”

“I’ll text you the address, babe.”

Her eyes narrowed. “What are you hiding from me, Avery Montgomery?”

I grinned hard. “You’ll find out soon enough. Make sure you tell Claire hi from me, and I’ll see you in a couple of hours.”

A wicked little smirk quirked one side of her mouth. “I don’t love you.”

I chuckled while rolling my tongue across my lower lip. “And I don’t love you too. Now, get the hell in there and do yourself proud.”

“See ya,” she beamed, then gave a cute-as-fuck little wave as she rounded the hood of my truck to stand at the retina scanner.

I assumed dropping her at the compound was like dropping a kid at school. I was all nervous and excited for her, not to mention proud as fuck. I reversed and snickered to myself as she walked through the gates—boots, black skinny jeans, dark jacket, and hair in two long braids down her back.

“You’re too fucking cute, Hellcat!”

“Fuck off already.” She flipped me off without looking back and kept walking as the gates sealed her inside the compound.

The farewell was movie-worthy and had me chortling as I put my truck into gear and peeled onto the road.

Fifteen minutes later, I pulled into the parking lot of a large nondescript gray building with the wordsLock & Load Securitypainted across the front windows in large blue lettering.

I’d met Ty McGregor three months ago when he accompanied us on the mission to extract Hallie from Cape Town, but I had yet to meet his business partner Nico Romeriz. That was the reason for this visit; we wanted to meet in the flesh before I signed on the dotted line.

A loud buzzer sounded as soon as I stepped through the glass entry door. Booted footsteps came my way from out back and Ty appeared with a huge smile on his face.

“Avery! Good to see you again, brother.”

“You too, man.” We shook hands, which ended with pulling each other into a bro-hug with back slaps.

“How’s Hallie recovering?” he asked genuinely.

“She’s in pretty good shape now. Took a while, though. Several solid weeks before it was no longer at the forefront of her mind.”

He nodded encouragingly. “That’s fucking good to hear, man. Is she in the car? Tell her to come in and grab a coffee.”

“Nah, I dropped her off at the Phoenix Compound on my way here. She wanted to check in with Claire and settle in again. She doesn’t know about this…” I gestured around. “I wanted to make it official before I said anything.”

“Wise decision, Montgomery. Let’s go have a chat with Nico, then you can meet the boys.”

He clapped me on the shoulder and led the way into an office where a tall, bearded, and pierced man waited for us.

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