Chapter 4

Mal actually left Deacon Field before the sun went down on Thursday night. Actually he left at three, because he had to go into Manhattan to meet with one of his MC Shield clients. Half the time it was hard to remember that life outside the Saints existed—but he did have another company to run. Before he could do that, however, he had to go home and change because he'd insisted on climbing into one of the service tunnels above the locker rooms and checking out why the security feed in that spot kept dying on him. In the process he'd covered himself in dust and grime and, although he wasn't an inveterate suit wearer like Lucas, even he had to draw the line somewhere.

The construction detour was still in place and he found himself slowing as he approached Madame R. He was almost past the club when his brain sent up a ping that something wasn't the same and he did a U-turn and rode back. He parked across the street and sat on the bike, staring at the club, trying to figure out what had snagged his attention. At this time of day, the club sign wasn't lit but that wasn't unexpected.

He took in the whole street. This part of Brooklyn wasn't the best area but it was one getting more and more gentrified. There were Realtor signs on a couple of the buildings and one construction site where the sign proclaimed that new and exclusive condos would soon be available to delight buyers.

Fairly standard stuff. He let his eyes drift back down the street to Raina's club, still trying to figure out what was different.

He narrowed his eyes, squinting against the sun, as he studied the building. Three rows of windows, the bottom two floors painted out, the top one with curtains that were drawn. And above the door, a silly little pink-and-black-striped awning. It shaded the very glossy black door. Bingo.

That was it. When he'd been to the club the first time, the door had been dark pink. The same pink as the stripes in the awning.

She'd repainted her door.

Why had she repainted her door?

None of your business, Coulter.

But even as the thought floated through his mind, his hand was killing the ignition on the Harley and he was swinging his leg free of the bike.

In his experience, the main reason a door got repainted in a business—other than a refurb of that business—was if it had been graffitied or damaged.

His gut tightened.

Was someone messing with Raina?

He didn't really have time to process why that pissed him off before he was across the street and pressing the intercom by the door after he'd tried the handle and found it locked.

The door smelled like fresh paint. But he couldn't see any signs of damage beneath the glossy surface.

If it was a whole new door, there'd be no paint smell. Graffiti then.

Which could be just teenagers being teenagers but he was going to find out what was going on.

The intercom crackled into life. "We're closed." A man's voice.

"I'm looking for Raina Easton," Mal said.

"Is she expecting you?" The tone was crackly and surly. Mal hoped, for Raina's sake, that this guy wasn't on her customer service team.

"No."

"Then we're closed. Come back at seven."

"Tell her it's Malachi Coulter."

"The Malachi Coulter who owns the Saints?" The voice was still crackly but no longer surly.

"That's the one."

"Hold on."

The crackling stopped. Mal stared at the door wondering if he was just going to be left standing there like an idiot. But then the door opened, revealing Raina in yoga pants, a vivid purple tank top that hugged her curves and momentarily distracted him, and sparkly pink shoes he thought might be tap shoes.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, dark brows drawing together. Her cheeks were flushed, the pink glow making her eyes extra green. Apparently he'd caught her mid-rehearsal or something.

"I saw your door," Mal said.

She didn't look any more happy to see him. "My door?"

"You've repainted it. It was pink the other night."

"And you prefer pink to black?"

"I was wondering why the change."

"Maybe I prefer black to pink?"

He looked down at her shoes then back up at Raina, one brow lifting. "Somehow, I don't see it. Did someone tag your door?"

"Tag? You mean graffiti?"

"Yes."

"You came here to ask me if someone graffitied my door?"

"I did."

"Why?"

"Because in my experience, a repainted door means it got damaged. Damaged front doors usually aren't a good sign. I wanted to make sure you're okay."

This time her brows, which were a very dark brown that he guessed might be her actual hair color, lifted. "Well, that's very nice of you. And very nineteen-fifties of you, but as you can see, I'm fine."

She didn't look at him as she said it. Instead she seemed to find her sparkly shoes very interesting.

Scrap fine then. "Is someone making trouble here?" he asked.

"No." Her head lifted but she looked past him, not at him.

"Raina, I'm a security expert. And ex-special-forces. I'm pretty good at spotting both trouble and when someone is lying to me."

She sighed. "It's nothing, just kids."

"What did they write?"

Her lips pressed together.

"I can stand here all day," Mal said.

"I bet you can't," Raina said. "Bet you have to be somewhere else."

He folded his arms. "Just tell me, Raina."

This time her sigh sounded like it came all the way from her toes. "Whores."

"Excuse me?"

"That's what they wrote. Whores."

"Someone is calling you a whore?"

"Well, maybe not me specifically. Some people don't get burlesque. They think we're a strip club." She tilted her head back, jaw set. "It's just a word."

"Well, to some people, naked women are naked women," he said.

That earned him a flat look. "Are you one of those people?"

"Do I think you're a stripper? No, I don't."

"Good. No lap dances here. Not all the girls take their clothes off, and we do comedy and songs and other things anyway, and?—"

"You don't need to explain to me. I don't have a problem with what you do." Madame R wasn't a strip club and he knew that Raina herself didn't tend to take her clothes off there. Or not that the background check they'd done on her could discover. Her face cleared a little and he nodded at the door. "Is this the first time that's happened?"

"This is a big city, Mr. Coulter. Buildings get vandalized all the time."

"So people tell me," Mal said. "But not on my watch."

"I wasn't aware that I was on your watch," Raina said.

"You work for me."

"When I'm at the Saints, yes. Here, not so much."

He shrugged. "Doesn't make any difference."

She looked amused for a moment. "Well, you certainly chose the right career path, didn't you?"

"Excuse me?"

"Picking something to channel all those protective instincts into."

"It's a job," he said. "Did you see anybody on your security footage?" He scanned for the cameras that should, if she had any sense at all, be covering the front door. He spotted the mount, but the camera was gone. The back of his neck prickled. "Did they take your camera?"

"No," she said.

"Then where is it?"

"Being replaced."

"They cut the feed?"

She looked at him for a long moment. "They spray-painted the lens."

"So that's a no to there being any footage. And a no to it just being kids."

"What makes you say that?"

"Your average teenage vandal doesn't think about killing the security feeds," Mal said. "Have there been any other incidents?"

"Someone tried to jimmy the back door two weeks ago. They didn't succeed."

"I think I need to talk to your security guy," Mal said.

She blinked then pursed her lips. "You're not going to take no for an answer about this, are you?"

"Not likely, no."

That earned him an eye-roll. "I'm a big girl, Mr. Coulter. I can take care of my business. I've been taking care of my business for years now, in fact."

He looked down at her. "You're not that big. And now you have me to help." He added a smile, trying to look helpful.

"I have you?" Raina said. "Did I miss something here?"

"Are you going to be difficult about this?"

"Probably," she said. "I often am. But I'm starting to freeze out here on the street. So I'll make you a deal, Mr. Coulter?—"

"Mal," he interjected.

"Mr. Coulter," she repeated firmly. "I will introduce you to Luis, who looks after my security, and you're welcome to offer some suggestions to help him. After which he and I will decide whether or not to take said advice. But first, however, I think you and I need to have a discussion about this other thing. So why don't you come up to my office?" She stepped back from the doorway.

"What other thing?" Mal said.

"The inconvenient thing," she said, eyes not shifting from his.

"What inconvenient thing?" he said, as his heart started to thud.

"The one that brought you charging to my rescue," she said. "Come inside, Mal. We need to talk."

"I told you, you're part of the Saints."

"And that's very nice of you but I'm also pretty sure that you're not personally checking out the security arrangements of any of your other contractors' businesses. So. There's that." She gestured to the doorway. "Come into my parlor."

"Said the spider to the fly?"

"I think that part is yet to be decided," Raina said. "But either we talk about this first or you can climb back on your very nice Harley and go back to Deacon Field."

"You like motorbikes?" he asked.

"For my sins, yes," she said. "Now, in or out?"

"Oh hell," he muttered, but he stepped past her and walked into the club.

Raina's office was tiny and the lack of space was emphasized by the decor. Everything was shiny black wood or velvet in various shades of dark pink and gray. The lighting came from low lamps. The desk had curved legs and looked like it had been lifted from one of those old-fashioned movies about the French Revolution or something. The chairs on either side of it looked equally delicate. He eyed the one closest to him dubiously.

"It's stronger than it looks," Raina said.

Okay. Let's not think too closely about what that might mean. He shut off the part of his brain suddenly imagining two people on the chair and took a seat.

Raina settled herself on the other side of the desk, folding her hands primly on the desk in front of her. She didn't say anything, just watched him for a moment.

He didn't look away. And the moment started to stretch and sway, turning from a casual glance to a locked gaze that was definitely far too long. His pulse thumped again, as he felt himself go hard under the weight of her gaze.

With an effort, he cleared his throat. "What was it you wanted to talk about?"

It seemed to take her a moment to come back to herself, too. She shook her head slightly and licked her lips.

"That," she said.

"What?" Maybe if he pretended that he had no idea what she was talking about, the whole thing would go away. Except he didn't want it to go away. No, he wanted to put his hands on Raina as soon as humanly possible. But he was pretty good at ignoring crazy impulses.

"The fact that we can't even look at each other for a few seconds without both of us wanting things we shouldn't want."

To hell with pretending. Raina obviously was the type of woman who laid her cards on the table. "Who says we shouldn't want them?"

"Well, we've already established that I'm currently working for you," she said. "So there's that."

"You're not working for me full-time," he countered. "So what's the problem?"

"Maybe I've given up bad boys who ride Harleys for Lent."

"Then that's not a problem, either, I'm one of the good guys."

Raina shook her head. "Oh no. You're really not. My bad-boy radar is well honed and you, Mr. Coulter, tick all the boxes."

"Isn't Lent over in a few days anyway?" he asked. The start of the season was coinciding with Good Friday and his hazy understanding of Lent was that it ended at Easter. He wasn't exactly a churchgoer. His dad had been a firm atheist and his mom, though she'd been brought up Lutheran, had never exactly dragged them all to church.

"Let me rephrase that," Raina said. "I've given up bad boys permanently."

"At the risk of sounding repetitive, I'm not a bad boy," Mal said. "Protective instincts, remember? Charging in to save people. That's hardly a bad boy."

"Protective instincts can go too far," Raina said. "Become possession."

Hell, she had him there. He definitely wanted to possess her. Just not in the way she meant. Nope, more in the strip her naked and bury himself inside her for a few days way. But saying that out loud right now wasn't going to help his cause any. "I've never held on to anyone who wanted to walk away from me," he said.

"Oh good," Raina said. "Then we aren't going to have a problem."

He shook his head. "Nice theory. But there's a snag."

"Which is?"

"You don't want to walk away from me."

One side of her mouth curved up briefly before she got it under control and sent him a stern look. "I guess you weren't standing last in line when they handed out the self-confidence."

"You're the one who brought up the subject. In my experience, when a woman raises the subject of sex with a man, she's most often wanting to have sex. If you could walk away from this, you wouldn't even have brought it up. You would have just ignored me. You're hoping I'll do the walking away for you."

Her expression turned annoyed.

"Are you going to tell me I'm wrong?" he asked.

"A gentleman would walk away," she said.

"Well, that might be your problem. I'm not a bad boy. But I've never claimed to be a gentleman. Particularly not when a beautiful woman is sitting in front of me talking about sleeping with me."

Her eyes widened slightly at that and the color of her cheeks, already flushed from whatever she'd been doing in her exercise gear before he had arrived, deepened. Guilty as charged, it seemed.

"But the fact remains that I'm working for you. And that this would be a very bad idea."

"You think it's a bad idea," he said. "I'm inclined to regard it favorably."

"That's because you're a man. You think great sex is enough."

He raised an eyebrow. "It isn't?"

She shrugged. "Once upon a time, I would've said it was all that was needed. But I'm not twenty-two anymore. I want more than just sex."

"You're looking to settle down?"

"I don't know," she said. "But I want more than just scratching an itch. Hence no bad boys. Bad boys are great for itches but they don't do much more than that."

"I see."

"And now you're worried," she said. "You think here's a crazy woman who wants to get married after dating for two weeks. Well, I don't. I'm just saying I'm not starting anything if I don't think there's potential for something more."

"You don't think I have potential?

She shrugged. "I don't know. But my life is this." She gestured at the office. "Sequins and late nights and women who like to wear very expensive lingerie and even take it off in public sometimes. Add in quite a bit of weird. It's a little off center. And you might be a long streak of Harley-riding bad judgment but you're also baseball and money and defending your country. Not so big on the weird. That's another thing that, in my experience, doesn't work so well."

"That's a lot of things you've made up your mind about when we haven't done anything even approaching holding hands," Mal objected. Some part of him thought that her arguments made sense. Like went with like or something. But a bigger part of him was thinking that opposites attract. That the more she talked about sequins and weirdness and called him a long streak of trouble, the more he wanted to sit here and listen to her talk. Listen to that little rasp in her voice and watch the way her eyes sparked when she got passionate about something.

It made him kind of wonder just how they might look if the thing she was getting passionate about was him.

"I'm just telling you why this isn't a good idea," Raina said.

"I get that," he said. "But it's a lot of talking. You're trying to convince yourself. Which tells me you don't quite believe what you're saying." She started to look indignant again. He held up a hand. "Look, I'm not going to push this if you truly don't want to. You say no and I'll turn around and go talk to your security guy and get things sorted out and that will be all I'll do. No harm, no foul, as they say. But I have to tell you, I'm kind of hoping that you won't. Because the more you keep talking, the more I want to put your theories to the test. Find out exactly what there is between us before we walk away from it. Maybe that's perverse of me—my mom always says I've got more contrary in me than is good for me—but there it is."

Raina stared at him. Her tongue darted out to lick her lips again. Whatever lipstick she used was obviously stubborn stuff because the shiny red didn't budge. He wondered what that mouth might taste like. She reached up and tugged at one of the longer pieces of hair that curled in front of her ears.

"What exactly would putting it to the test involve?"

"I'm a fan of keeping things simple," he said, trying to sound calm. He wasn't calm. Her words had somehow set him on fire. She was actually considering this. He might get to touch her. If he didn't fuck this next part up. "So we could start with kissing."

"Kissing?" she said, sounding slightly foggy.

Foggy was good. Foggy meant that her brain was working along the same lines as his.

"Yeah, kissing," he said softly. "You know. My mouth on yours." Blood roared in his ears suddenly as he thought about it. Hell. Maybe she was right. Maybe this was a terrible idea. He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt this horny just thinking about kissing someone.

Her hand drifted up to her mouth. "Kissing," she repeated.

"If you're not familiar with the concept then you can just come over here and I'd be happy to show you?" he offered.

That coaxed a laugh to those very red lips. "Believe me, I'm familiar."

"Well then, how about you come over here anyway and we can get this over with? Who knows, maybe you'll luck out and we'll have zero chemistry and all your troubles will be over."

Her smile turned wry. "If I were a bookie, I wouldn't be giving great odds on it being terrible."

"Bookies are wrong all the time." He leaned back a little in the chair, still wary of its delicate frame. "Or maybe you're just chicken?"

"Oh, I'm not scared of you."

He crooked a finger at her. "Then come over here and prove it."

She blew out a breath. For a moment he thought she was going to send him packing, but then she stood and moved around the desk with her graceful dancer's walk. She stopped in front of his knees. "Just remember this was your idea," she said. "And you only have yourself to blame." Then she sort of flowed onto his lap, took his face in her hands, and pressed her mouth to his.