Page 9 of Spade
“First,” she said, pointing her bony little finger against his chest, “I don’t need you, Ink, or any other man telling me what to do.”
“Except your boyfriend, right?” he asked.
She took a step back from him and looked mad enough to slap him. “What happens between me and my boyfriend isn’t your business, Spade.” He had a feeling that nothing happened between her and her boyfriend because he was sure that she didn’t have one.
“Fair enough,” he drawled. “How about you let me run you home, and then you can call your boyfriend to come over to babysit you?” he asked.
“I don’t need a fucking babysitter,” she shouted. Pretty little Cynthia was garnering too much unwanted attention from the other members of the Road Reapers, and that might not bode well for him.
“So, we’re going to do this the hard way,” he breathed to himself. He could tell that she heard him from the little gasp thatescaped her parted lips. Spade hoisted her over his shoulder in a fireman’s hold while she kicked and screamed for him to put her down.
He looked around the clubroom and smiled, “The little woman has had a bit too much to drink, and doesn’t want the party to end.” He swatted her ass for show, and she yelped, screaming at him louder while calling him every name in the book.
He walked past the smiling men as they cheered him on while he carried her out of the bar. The night air hit him as he pushed his way out to the parking lot, through the back door. He wasn’t going to put Cynthia down until he reached his truck, knowing that if he did, she’d run.
Spade quickly unlocked his truck and sat her in the passenger’s seat. “I hate you,” she spat. From the way that she looked at him, he believed her too.
“I’m sorry that you feel that way, honey. Because I’m crazy about you,” he said, slamming the truck door shut between them, and locking it so that she couldn’t make a break for it. Spade rounded the truck and unlocked his door, hoping into the driver’s seat. “Now, you want to tell me where you live, or do I need to call Ink to get your address?” he asked. “Either way, I’m taking you home, honey.”
“But my truck is right over there,” she said, pointing to her beat-up old truck. He had noticed it at the shop a few times—not that he was driving by daily to see if she was working. Okay, that was exactly what he was doing, but admitting that he was stalking her wasn’t something he’d share.
“I’m sure that Ink will run you over to your truck in the morning, and if he’s busy, I will,” he offered.
“You can’t possibly think that I’m going to let you anywhere near me in the morning, right?” she breathed. He had no cluewhat the morning might hold, but it couldn’t be worse than the fight she was currently giving him.
He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and quickly called Ink. “Yeah, I need her address,” he breathed into the phone. He didn’t bother to put the call on speaker, not wanting Cynthia to interrupt. “No, she’s not being cooperative. I’ll wait with her until her boyfriend gets there and then, I’ll leave, but I won’t leave her alone like this.” Ink rattled off her address to him, and he ended the call and tossed his phone onto the dash. Within seconds, Cynthia’s cell phone rang, and he had a pretty good idea who it was, judging from the curses that came out of Ink’s mouth when he said that he was waiting for Cynthia’s boyfriend to show up to take care of her.
“You going to get that?” he asked her.
Cynthia fumbled with her phone and looked at the screen to see who was calling her. “Um, no,” she said, letting the call go to voicemail. As soon as it stopped ringing, it started again, and she did the same thing, letting it go to voicemail. Spade let her play her game for three more rounds until he pulled her cell from her hands and put the call on speaker. He didn’t need to look at the caller ID to know who was calling her.
“Hello, Ink,” he said.
“Shit, why are you answering Cynthia’s phone?” Ink growled.
“Because she refuses to answer it, and I got sick of listening to it ring ever few seconds. She’s here, so feel free to say what you need to tell her.” Spade had a good feeling about what Ink was going to tell her, and judging by the scowl on her beautiful face, Cynthia knew what he was going to say too.
“You have to tell him,” Ink begged.
“There is nothing to tell,” she whispered as if still having a private conversation with Ink.
“He’s not going to drop you off and leave you at your place. I’m sure that you heard him say that he’s going to wait for yourboyfriend to show up,” Ink said, repeating the conversation that he had just had with Spade.
“I heard, but I’ll be fine. As I’ve already told Spade, I don’t need a babysitter, and I won’t bother my boyfriend with all this. I’ve been drunk before,” she insisted.
“He’s right, honey,” Spade said. “I won’t leave you alone like this, so either I stay, or you call your boyfriend to come over.”
He could hear Ink sigh on the other end of the call, and he knew that he was about to get the truth from one of them. “She doesn’t have a boyfriend,” Ink said.
Her gasp filled the cab of the truck. “How could you out me that way?” she shouted at her cell phone. “Some friend you are,” she spat. Cynthia grabbed the phone from Spade and hung up on Ink before he could get a word in.
“He’s a liar,” she insisted.
“Are you really going to stick with your story, honey?” Spade asked. “Listen,” he breathed, “you obviously don’t like me, or you wouldn’t have made up a lie about having a boyfriend. You didn’t have to do that. All you had to say was that I wasn’t your type, and I would have left you alone. I’m sorry that you felt the need to lie to me, honey.”
“Well, now you’re making me feel bad,” she whispered. “It’s not that I don’t like you or that you’re not my type,” she insisted.
“You don’t have to say that to make me feel better, Cynthia. I’ll be fine.” He wasn’t sure if that part was true or not. It did hurt his damn feelings that she lied to him, and worse that her lie was to keep him at arm's distance. But he would find a way to move on at some point, even if she was one of the most perfect women he’d met in a damn long time.
