Strip You Bare Read online

  “I thought you were a businessman,” Ajax said. “You can’t just point a gun at her. What if she runs off to Granddaddy? If not the police. And that’s the last thing we want.”

  “She already knows that we own the house. What makes you think she won’t run to her grandfather about that?”

  “My guess would be Grandpa already knows. If she was genuinely surprised, that’s too bad for her. But it can’t be a surprise to everyone in the family. We’ve already made a few waves, that’s unavoidable. We are here, but I imagine if that information is relevant to the Delacroix, they already have it. So stick close. But don’t stick anything in her face. Your gun or your dick. Keep it civil.”

  “My dick is perfectly civil,” Micah said.

  Ajax’s smile turned feral. “Mine isn’t.”

  “Another reason it’s for the best that I’m handling this.”

  “His dick is also mine,” Sophie said, her tone verging on bloodthirsty. “So, even if he was the one handling Delacroix, it wouldn’t be part of the equation.”

  “Excellent, let me know where I should send the monogrammed towels. Fine. Hands off. Benevolent presence.”

  “Don’t let her know why you’re there. Tell her you’re protecting her from all the shady-ass demons in the Quarter,” Ajax said, the smile curving his lips, making it clear he was one of the most malevolent demons around.

  “You want me to lie to her?”

  “Did you get religion or some shit down in California, Prince?” Ajax asked.

  “Just making sure I’ve got it straight,” he said. “Any other orders?”

  “Don’t screw it up?”

  “Helpful, thank you.”

  Ajax leveled his gaze at Micah. “Make sure you haunt the place like a good French Quarter ghost. I want you there as often as possible.”

  “I’m sure the place has an extra bedroom. I’ll work something out.”

  Chapter 3

  “Oh. You’re here.” Sarah did her best not to show her shock when she walked into the mansion the next morning and saw Micah sitting in the exact same place he’d been yesterday. “Did you sleep on the settee?”

  “No. I made myself at home in a bedroom upstairs. You need to get a housekeeper in here,” he said.

  “Are you applying for the job?” she asked, keeping her tone dry. “Because I would need to see some references.”

  “I’m overqualified,” he said, his lips curving into a lopsided smile.

  She had to admit he looked more qualified to work in an office. Honestly, he didn’t look anything like her stereotypical idea of a biker. This morning he was dressed in a dark jacket, a blue shirt underneath, and dark slacks. The only thing that betrayed he was anything more than a businessman—albeit a highly successful one based on the quality of the fabric—was the dark ink etched into his skin, just visible at the cuff line of his shirt.

  Those hinted at a job history that didn’t begin and end with banking. Otherwise, she just didn’t see biker.

  He had short dark hair, his jaw mostly clean, only a bit of shadow visible, as though it had been a little more than twenty-four hours since he’d shaved. Not that she was an expert in the pattern of the growth of men’s facial hair. She doubted Charlie could even grow a full beard.

  But they had never spent the night together, so she didn’t know what he looked like when he woke up in the morning.

  Because he “respected” her. Which meant he wouldn’t breach her nether regions but would in fact allow her to suck his. And, it turned out, his respect also meant that he could stick it in other women.

  And still, without that level of detail, her friends had encouraged her to go ahead with the wedding. Because Charlie was from such a great family. She had pointed out to her friends with no small amount of firmness that it was in fact Charlie she had to share a bed with every night, and not his hallowed ancestors.

  And so she wasn’t planning a wedding anymore, because her fiancé had proven to be a cheating asshole. She had cost her grandfather thousands in lost deposits, and had been forced to explain to their guests just why she had canceled the most anticipated society wedding of the past few years.

  But now she was revitalizing this house. This legacy. Infusing life back into this place that had been left here after the storm. Cold and empty. Lifeless.

  She would fix this. Maybe to some people it was only a Christmas party, but to her, it had become symbolic. Of redemption. Atoning for her mistakes. Giving her grandfather something back after taking the wedding away.

  Trying desperately to feel like she was part of this life when it was starting to feel too small, too tight around her skin.

  And she would.

  She just needed to move this big, tattooed mountain out of her way. “Are you? Are you really overqualified? Because I’m more than happy to hand you a cloth and let you do a little dusting. Offer a demonstration.”

  If anything, he sank more deeply into the settee, one leg outstretched in front of him, his expression one of near boredom. “I’ll pass.”

  “I expect you to make yourself useful if you’re going to stay in my house. You can’t loll around like a corpse all day.”

  “This is my house, Ms. Delacroix,” he said, his tone shot through with steel. He stood, and that semblance of relaxation, of lazy, laid-back southern banker, was gone. “I think you’re under some sort of delusion that you have a claim here. Let me make something very clear. I don’t give a fuck what your family name is. I don’t care if your blood is in the brick. My name, my club’s name, is on the deed. I could boot your pretty little ass out onto the street if I wanted to.”

  He advanced on her and her chest froze. Her heart, the air in her lungs. Everything. It was like watching a predator advancing. Knowing you were going to get your throat torn out. Being unable to move. What a stupid, useless reaction. And yet, it was her reaction.

  Nice to know that were she an antelope on the Serengeti, she’d get herself chomped on by a lion almost immediately. It wouldn’t just happen. She would allow it to happen.

  “Is that what you want?” he asked, his tone dropping. Soft. Deadly. “You want me to throw you out of here? You could conduct your party on Bourbon Street, baby, but you would have to show a lot more of that hot little body of yours. You don’t get beads if you don’t pay the fee.”

  Somehow words formed on Sarah’s numb lips. And a lifetime practicing controlled, calculated comebacks came to the rescue. “I’m the Mardi Gras princess,” she said. “I don’t stand on the ground begging for beads. I throw the damn things.”

  He chuckled, the sound a slow roll of bayou smoke that covered her like a blanket. “In that case, I think I’m going to make it my mission to teach you to beg, Sarah Delacroix.”

  His words sent an unexpected rush of heat over her body.

  That didn’t make sense. Not any more than freezing in her tracks had just done. She couldn’t even quite untangle the meaning of his statement, though she knew it was layered with more than just a simple definition. Still, her brain felt fuzzy, and she also had the feeling he might be talking about things, secrets, mysteries of the world she was not privy to.

  She had a feeling the man himself contained whole mysteries she had never fathomed existed.

  Which was entirely too fanciful a thought for the hard-cut, inked guy standing in front of her, looking like he was going to take a bite out of her neck.

  “That might be a problem,” she said, holding her whole body stiff. “Because I don’t beg.”

  “I assume you know the way out,” he said. “It’s the way you came in.”

  Shock hit her like an anvil. “Are you kicking me out of my own house?”

  “I hope you’re good at other things, Ms. Delacroix, because taking instruction isn’t one of them. Neither is listening. This isn’t your house. If I called the police right now, you would be the one found to be trespassing.” A feral smile curved his lips. “Of course, I’m not going to call the police because
I have less use for them than I do for you. And make no mistake I can think of very few uses for you.” His gaze swept over her curves. “Though, the uses I can think of seem like they’d be a lot of fun.”

  This time she had a very clear idea about why she felt hot. “Usually men only shout these kinds of things at me from across the street.”

  “Those aren’t men. Those are boys. If I want something I take it. I don’t shout about it.”

  For some reason she had the very clear thought that it was entirely possible every man she had interacted with up until now really had been a boy. That Micah was the first actual man she had ever encountered.

  “Is that so? According to you, you want me out on my ass. And yet here I stand, firmly on my high heels. I think you’re all talk, Micah.” A sensible woman might have backed down in the situation, but Sarah didn’t know how to back down. Her spine was steel, and she’d never figured out how to make it bend.

  It was why, no matter how hard she tried, she had always been slightly at odds with her mother, her grandfather. Why, when push came to shove, she never could make the best decision for a woman in her position.

  Why she hadn’t been able to marry Charlie, even when Tansey and Jillian—her best friends—had insisted they would never compromise the future of such a sensible union.

  Why she tried so hard to fit into life as a debutante while always being painfully aware of how confining it was. Of how much her status limited her.

  Why she used it as a sword sometimes to cut people down, even as it rebounded and stabbed her clean through.

  He laughed and took a step forward, bending at the waist and wrapping his arm around hers before straightening, hoisting her over his shoulder. She was too shocked to do anything for a full two seconds as Micah began to carry her out of the room.

  “What that hell are you doing?” she shouted, her mouth catching up with proceedings a lot faster than her brain.

  He didn’t answer, he just kept walking. And then his big, warm palm settled over her butt and she nearly incinerated from her rage. “Get your hands off me!”

  There was no staying cool in this moment. Not when this . . . this ape was carrying her through the house, lifting her like she was a kitten. Light, fluffy, and harmless.

  She was not harmless.

  Her breasts were resting against his shoulder blade, her stomach draped over his shoulder, her thighs pressed against his chest. He was too much all over her. Add that hand, and she was engulfed.

  “Don’t you sound like a lady about to get tied to the railroad tracks. You wanted this, don’t pretend differently. You challenged me. And I’m proving to you that I’m exactly what I said. So don’t complain about it now.” They arrived at the front door of the mansion and he turned the knob and pushed the door open, depositing her none too gently onto her feet on the concrete. “There. Now your pretty ass is outside. And you understand a little bit better that I’m not the kind of man you fuck around with.”

  “What do you want from me? Do I need to pay . . . Hush money? Rent? What’s the deal?”

  “Simple truth? I don’t know.”

  “Oh great. The large, blunt instrument is ignorant. Both a surprise and an inconvenience.”

  “Our president was murdered, Sarah. And he owned this place, hell if I know why. It’s shady as fuck. And anything that might be tied to Priest’s death isn’t something we’re going to let go.”

  “But I . . . it doesn’t make sense to me. How can the Deacons own something that has been in my family for generations?”

  “Because it was signed over to us, I assume. But none of that is in the records we have. That’s the sum total of what I know. That and I was sent here to keep watch on the house and protect you.”

  “Protect me?” She patted at her chest, her stomach. “That’s so funny, because I don’t feel very protected.”

  “Maybe this isn’t the kind of protection a little rich bitch like you might recognize. But it’s the truth. I have no issue with you going ahead and throwing the Christmas party. What happens after isn’t up to me.”

  “You mean you aren’t the big boss?”

  He chuckled, gripping the cuffs of his dress shirt and unbuttoning them. He slowly started to roll one up, revealing more of the tattoo she’d noticed earlier.

  Roses. He had roses tattooed on his forearm. Dark leaves, prominent thorns. And a skull settled in the middle, the creeping vines growing through its mouth and eyes. He set about rolling up the other sleeve. The tattoos started higher on that arm: a crucifix, another flower, an even more gruesome skull.

  She had no idea what she was supposed to think about him based on the combination of objects he’d chosen to permanently etch into his skin.

  “No, baby. I’m not the boss. This isn’t my game. But I was sent here to keep an eye on you. So I’m going to do it. I’m following orders, but don’t think I want to be here.”

  “Wait. Are you babysitting me under sufferance?”

  “I told you, I’m following orders.”

  “Right. Excellent. So now that you’re done beating your chest like a mostly hairless gorilla.”

  “You don’t learn very quickly, do you?”

  “It’s a flaw,” she said, doing her best to keep the impenetrable wall in place. The one she’d cultivated years ago to withstand the pressures of always being on show. “But you will find that when I do learn, I take action quickly.”

  “Well, I look forward to that.”

  “I wouldn’t,” she said, arching a brow. “Now, are you going to let me back in?”

  “Why should I?”

  “I have contractors coming by soon, and then a cleaning crew arriving to give a bid. Unless you want to manage that, I suggest you get out of my way.”

  She took a step toward him and he blocked the door with his body, bracing his arm against the doorframe, preventing her entry. “Move.”

  “No. I have a question. Why haven’t you called anyone in your family about this? I’m going out on a limb here and assuming that you personally don’t own any of the Delacroix properties. I’m willing to bet you didn’t even purchase the panties you’re wearing. Someone is financing your life, and it isn’t you.”

  He set her teeth on edge. And he wasn’t wrong. Which was possibly why he was so irritating. But her grandfather was fragile, her relationship with him almost more so. She didn’t want to admit that her going back to the mansion had stirred up a hornets’ nest. “Family is complicated.”

  “No shit. Though mine is pretty uncomplicated since they’re ash piles in the cemetery.”

  She wasn’t sure what to say to that. Apologize? Express sympathy? The same was true of almost all her family.

  “Sometimes dead family members cause the most trouble,” she said. She was thinking of her father. That weight that had settled in her stomach ever since she’d found out about the ownership transfer of the mansion doubled. She didn’t know why she suspected her dad had something to do with it. Maybe because he was dead and he made the easiest scapegoat. Maybe because she’d never quite understood why he’d been in the French Quarter that night.

  Maybe because ten years without a person made you start forgetting who they really were. Made you start filling in gaps with new narratives that didn’t exactly match up to reality. But reality was warped enough that you could shove in whatever you wanted.

  Maybe that’s all it was.

  “I don’t know about that. They’re quiet. Don’t have to invite them over for the holidays. You never have to throw Christmas parties for them.”

  “Well, I am throwing a Christmas party.”

  “Do I get an invite? If I’m going to play babysitter for you I feel like I should be able to crash the party.”

  A thought suddenly occurred to her. “You have to stay with me, don’t you? I’m your assignment. You can’t leave. And you can’t kick me out.”

  “Where is this leading, princess?”

  “Ms. Delacroix. You can call
me Ms. Delacroix.”

  “I don’t think I will, baby.”

  This was her chance to wrench some of her power back. To use the perceived structure of the motorcycle club to her advantage.

  No matter how powerful someone seemed, they were being controlled by something. Everyone was beholden somehow.

  Badass bikers not excluded.

  “Hmmm. This is interesting, Micah. Very interesting. You have to play the part of my shadow whether you want to or not because for all your posturing . . . you aren’t in charge.”

  She saw his frame stiffen, his dark eyes going hard, flat. “I don’t always do what I’m told.”

  “But you are in this case. That’s what you’re doing right now,” she said, studying him hard.

  The sun wasn’t high in the sky yet, the air carrying the heat down, wrapping itself around her like a blanket. But right now, she wasn’t the only one sweating. “I have a life away from here,” he said, his words tight. “If I want to get back to it, I have to play by the rules for a while.”

  A smile curled her lips. “And you don’t like that. You don’t like to play by rules. Because you’re such a badass.” Her grin broadened.

  He released his hold on the doorframe and reached out, grabbing hold of her chin, holding her steady. Her heart was thundering hard, and for the first time she felt genuinely afraid of him. For the first time, she appreciated how large, how strong he was.

  She wasn’t accustomed to feeling out of her element. She was Sarah Delacroix, and wherever she went, she commanded the room. She kept to the beaten paths, her safe spaces. Dimly, she was aware that New Orleans was a city with a very dark underside. That she had been spared any darkness, her life a whirlwind of cotillions and garden parties. White gloves that never needed to get soiled.

  But now, right now, she had a feeling she was looking the city’s dark side in the eye.

  “I might be on a leash at the moment but don’t think I couldn’t bite you if I wanted to, baby girl.” He released his hold on her. “Come back inside.”

  Of course, now he was demanding it, so that she wasn’t the one getting her way. She wasn’t going to stand out on the street just to serve her desire to feel like she had some control in the situation. She had just found her control anyway.