Ava Gray - Skin Game

And I’m in.

It was a ballsy question, but he had to ask. “What about sex?”

“What about it?”

“Are we going to have any?”

She looked thoughtful, almost abashed. “I don’t know. I’ve never done it twice with the same person.” At his elevated brows, she amended, “Well—on a different night. So if we do, it’ll be a major event, and I’m thinking you’ll have to work for it.”

And a lance of pure lust ran him through.

Kyra hadn’t spent so much time with one person since before her dad died.

It was disconcerting to ride with Rey all day and then hang with him in the bar at night while he watched her work. It was even weirder to wake up and meet for breakfast somewhere. She had to admit; it was helpful having someone at her back. He’d extricated her from a couple of shaky situations with only a dark look, not a single blow exchanged, and that made for a nice change.

Since they were accomplices, jointly responsible for what went down at the bar, she figured she should be able to rely on him to some degree. He couldn’t turn on her without implicating himself. A down-on-his-luck ex-con like him needed the income she provided, too, if he didn’t want to wind up back in prison or homeless. That was too bad because he might’ve made something of himself on the fighting circuit, based on his other training, but they didn’t take convicted felons, and on the underground fight arenas, he would wind up dead or brain-damaged. Safety wasn’t exactly a concern for the handlers there.

Everything was easier with him around, but she didn’t trust easy, never had. Maybe she’d just traveled with her dad too long; his paranoia had seeped in through her skin, making her unable to trust anyone completely. No matter how providential their partnership seemed, she’d still sleep with one eye open, so to speak.

To his credit, he hadn’t tried to push their relationship. After asking about sex, he made no moves on her, and he seemed genuinely interested in learning the tricks of her trade. That wasn’t so hard to understand. If a body had any brains at all, it was possible to get by doing this instead of real work.

They’d come north through Texas over the course of the week, earning enough money to cover food, gas, and shelter along the way. His cut was slim, but he didn’t complain. Today, if everything went according to plan, they’d be rolling into Pecos in early afternoon.

Kyra yawned, stretched, and hit the shower. The hot water beat down on her skin, waking her up better than coffee. She made it quick, knowing Rey would be waiting downstairs by the car. She’d almost had enough traveling for a while. After Vegas, she’d thought she would want to be on the move constantly—six months was a hell of a long con—but she found she missed waking up in the same place.

Maybe she’d never be ready to go straight, but she wouldn’t mind settling in a big city somewhere that had a lot of ready marks. The danger about small towns was that people tended to remember her, but they also made it easier to find gullible targets. At this point, she had it perfected. Find the local bar, identify the mouthy big shot, and then relieve him of some loot and ego at the same time. It was practically a public service.

Once she got dressed, Kyra did a quick check of the motel room. Nothing left behind. That was good. She could pack in five minutes these days; she’d perfected the art of living out of a backpack. As she left the room, her damp hair clung to her cheek, irritating her. So she tugged it over her shoulders in two messy sections and braided it up. A quick rummage through her pack unearthed two bands, so she was set.

Like most days, she wore her favorite ratty jeans, matching jacket, and a plaid button-up shirt. Kyra knew she didn’t look sophisticated enough to be up to something, particularly with the braids, and that was sort of the point. Rey reinforced that conviction as he slid off the hood of her car. Ordinarily she’d tear him a new one for that liberty, but she was in too good a mood—and too hungry—to waste time snarling this morning.

“You look about fourteen years old,” he said in the gravelly voice that plucked at her nerve endings.

She grinned as she slid in behind the wheel. “Good thing for you I’m not.”

“No joke,” he muttered. “So we’re for Pecos today. What’s the plan there?”

Kyra shrugged. “I won’t know until I take the lay of the land.”

To her surprise, he left it there, turning away from her to stare out the window. Most people would be questioning her, trying to get her to spill her secrets so he could take off on his own sooner. Her new partner didn’t say much, which should have been peaceful. Instead she found herself wondering what lay behind his silences.

She found a diner a few miles down the road, where they stopped for breakfast. Actually it was more of a truck stop, but from the number of semis out front, the food and coffee must be good. Kyra guided the Marquis in between two shiny big rigs and hopped out of the car. After snagging her backpack, she glanced at Rey over the roof of the vehicle.

“Hungry?”

“You have no idea,” he muttered.

Her lips curved in pure feminine appreciation. That was the first indication he’d given of being aware of the smolder ing sexual tension. With every passing day, she wanted him a little more, but she’d meant it when she said he would have to work for an encore. If she broke her rule about entanglements for him, Kyra wanted to be sure he was worth the risk. So far he appeared to think abstinence would do that job for him without any real effort on his part. Well, he obviously didn’t know her very well.

Inside, the restaurant was full of potbellied men in plaid, their jaws bristling with whiskers and their hair covered in baseball caps. The crowd made her anticipate breakfast in a big way. It wasn’t the sort of place where you waited to be seated, so they snagged a booth with rusty tangerine seats and a scarred Formica tabletop.

She plucked a menu from the silver metal stand by the window. Over the years, she’d eaten in countless places like this one, and they all ran together after a while. After a thirty-second perusal, she decided on the Country Scramble: eggs, bacon, and sausage all fried up together and topped with yummy white gravy, biscuits on the side, of course. Her mouth watered just thinking about it.

A perky blond waitress bounced over. “What can I get you folks?”

“Fruit and yogurt,” Rey said. “Topped with granola if you have it. Plain whole wheat toast, no butter.”

Kyra raised a brow. “On a health kick?”

He shrugged. “Just tired of fried eggs, I guess.”

“You’re gonna be sorry when you see my biscuits.”

“I’ve already seen ’em,” he murmured. “But I wouldn’t mind another look.”

Was he flirting with her? Her smile widened. “So tell me a little about yourself. How does a guy get to be your age, totally unencumbered?”

He met her look levelly. “I could ask you the same thing.”

“You could, but you didn’t.”

“Fair enough.”

The waitress arrived with their drinks: coffee for her, herbal tea for him. Kyra was starting to notice he avoided caffeine and sugar whenever possible. It was an interesting quirk in someone down on his luck. Generally people without financial recourse would order the cheapest items, not the healthiest. Rey added a squirt of lemon, no sweetener, and took an experimental sip. If Kyra didn’t know better, she’d think he was stalling.

“Well?” she demanded.

“It’s not bad.” The amusement in his dark eyes said he knew she was losing patience, and that he found it entertaining.