“Gypsy—”
The faint, barely perceptible buzz of a sat phone vibrating in one of her pockets—again—in a distinctive rhythm had Gypsy suddenly drawing up short.
Rule was going to hurt the caller, he decided.
Those intoxicating eyes widened, and a heartbeat later she moved from between his thighs, hurriedly stepping away from him.
Pulling the phone from her pocket, she quickly checked the number before her jaw tightened and that hint of fear became anger.
“I have to leave.” Shaking her head, her scent suddenly tinged with an emotion he couldn’t quite define, she hurriedly slapped a few bills on the bar.
There was a shadow overtaking her, a hint of fear and one of worry.
“Gypsy, wait—” Fuck.
Before he could stop her she turned, moving quickly to the door before disappearing into the night.
His eyes narrowed at her exit; the scent of her heat and hunger, marred by her fear, still lingered in his senses.
Along with it was the knowledge that until the small phone in her pocket had gone off, she had nearly been his.
Turning slowly back to Dane, he met the other Breed’s narrowed, suspicious gaze.
Lifting the short liquor glass to his lips, the hybrid glanced to the exit she had taken before turning back to him with a shrug.
“Well,” he drawled. “It would seem she may have a leash after all. Proprietary claim, I believe it was called.”
Rule’s glass slapped to the bar as his jaw clenched furiously. Turning, he followed the exit she had taken, determined to find out exactly who her leash might be. And when he did, as he told her before, he’d be taking fucking ownership.
Catching up with her, even on a good night, was a pain in the ass, and if he didn’t keep his eye right on her, then she was gone just as quickly.
And he was damned sick of her disappearing acts.
Stepping outside and catching sight of her taillights as the little Jeep sped from the parkway, he turned to Dane questioningly as the other man stepped behind him.
“Loki tagged the Jeep at her last location, but there was a complication,” Dane informed him somberly before he could ask.
“What kind of complication?” He strode quickly to the Dragoon, aware of Dane following quickly behind.
Dane was sliding into the passenger side as Rule closed the driver’s-side door and activated the motor with a quick flick of a finger against the ignition pad.
“No sooner than he’d tagged it and finished programming the signal, the device malfunctioned. Returning to where she parked, he found the Jeep gone and the device dropped carelessly to the gravel.”
Rule accelerated quickly as he pulled from the parking lot.
“Dropped? As in someone dropped it, or as in the mechanism that holds it to the vehicle failed?” he asked.
“The mechanism was still working, and at no time did Loki see her exit the bar by the front exit. Mutt was watching the back exit, and she didn’t leave from there either. Though there were several windows on the other side where she parked, and one was open enough to have allowed her to slip away.”
Gypsy was escaping rather than leaving?
Damn her, the evidence was racking up that she was possibly the contact Jonas was searching for, and it was starting to piss him off. Mostly because he couldn’t deflect attention from her and cover her movements.
“Jonas wants that Jeep tagged, Dane,” Rule reminded him, his voice short, wondering how the hell he was going to keep Jonas from tagging it. Pretty soon, one of Jonas’s men would figure out someone was warning her of those devices.
Dane chuckled. “Perhaps it’s time little brother learns he can’t always have what he wants. Because it seems other interested parties are just as determined that it not be tagged.”
Rule wisely refrained from commenting.
As the Dragoon pulled from the parking area, the comm link to the vehicle’s communications beeped in summons. Flicking the control on the steering wheel, Rule answered it with a brief “Go.”
“Commander, I have the vehicle in sight,” Mongrel, one of Dog’s Coyotes, reported with icy efficiency. “She picked up a tail just after pulling onto the main road. It’s riding black on a parallel course and staying close.”
Riding black. Moving with all lights extinguished to avoid detection and most likely using one of the side roads that ran along the highway to keep sight of her.
“Can you identify?” Rule questioned.
“Not without being seen.”
Rule grimaced, wishing he’d driven one of the faster, more maneuverable desert vehicles rather than the Dragoon.
“Keep the shadow in sight if possible, but remain eyes on target until I arrive.”
If Gypsy had picked up a tail, then he sure as hell didn’t want to give whoever was following her a chance to get to her before he could. Just in case it wasn’t friendly.
...
Pulling the Jeep into the parking spot beside the stairs, Gypsy breathed out wearily before slapping the steering wheel in frustration when she saw her sister’s truck wasn’t back yet.
Damn Kandy.
She’d promised she was on her way home when Gypsy had spoken to her on the phone. That was the reason she had left so quickly rather than waiting to see just how terrified she would become if Rule actually tried to kiss her.
Not that she would have let him kiss her in the bar, she assured herself. She couldn’t do that. Her reputation of refusing any man she met in a bar was golden. All it would take was one moment of weakness to undo years of work.
And Rule was quickly becoming her weakness.
He and Dane were steadily becoming known as “regulars” in the unofficial nightlife that existed around the reservation’s Arizona–New Mexico border with the Navajo Nation. It wasn’t as though they were strangers now.
If they weren’t at whatever bar she pulled into when she pulled in, then they arrived within minutes of her taking the first sip of her drink. They had a few drinks, watching the younger Breeds and enforcers that Rule obviously seemed to feel so responsible for, and then they would leave and check out the next rowdy gathering.
And all the while, Rule watched her, those thick lashes slightly narrowed, those neon blue eyes gleaming with interest.
And arousal.
And God, he made her hot.
When the rhythmic ring tone identifying Kandy’s number had vibrated in her pocket, it had terrified her. Because at that moment she had wanted nothing more than to—
“Are the sweets inside as nice as they are outside?”
A squeak of surprise and Gypsy was whirling around, almost reaching for the knife she kept tucked in the holster inside her boot.
Just almost, because she recognized his voice, knew who he was even before she turned. It just took a minute for her body to catch up.
“You prick, you just scared a year off my life!” Slamming both hands into the steel hard muscles of his chest as she let that first flush of adrenaline tear through her, she accomplished little else than bruising her palms. “What the hell are you doing here, Breaker? Trying to give me a freakin’ heart attack?”
“Someone was following you.”
There was no amusement in his eyes as there had been all week. No playful teasing in his voice.
He was flat serious.
She felt herself pale as she stared into his eyes and knew he wasn’t joking.
“Who was following me?” Why would anyone be following her? What the hell was going on that anyone would take an interest in her all of a sudden?
“If I’d known who was following you, sweet pea, I would be following him instead of rushing here to make sure you were okay.”
His voice sent her heart racing in something more than fear this time.