The Marked Men Series Books 1–6: Rule, Jet, Rome, Nash, Rowdy, Asa. Jay Crownover
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Rule Archer is that you? What are you doing all the way out here for brunch?” The chair next to mine was pulled out and Alexander Carsten, a longtime client of mine, settled into the seat next to me. I gave him a grin and shook the hand he offered.
“What’s up, Alex? Long time no see. How’s the leg piece? Did it heal up all right?”
He laughed a big hearty laugh. Alex was a lawyer or something, in his early forties and pretty successful. I knew he drove a sweet Jag and had an awesome loft somewhere down in LoDo, but he was cool as hell for a buttoned-up kind of guy. I had done a couple big pieces on his leg and on his back, and under his pressed shirt and silk tie I knew he had two full sleeves, one Nash had done for him and one Rowdy had done. He paid big bucks and was an awesome tipper. Considering this was the last place on earth I would have planned on running into a client, I was stunned into momentary silence. I felt Shaw drop her hand onto my thigh and I covered it with my own.
“It healed perfect. I was actually thinking about swinging by in a few weeks and getting you to draw up something for my chest. So what are you doing out here?”
“I’m actually from Brookside, but I’m here particularly because my girl is stubborn and trying to prove a point.” I inclined my head at Shaw and she narrowed her eyes at me. Alex looked around me at Shaw and snorted out a laugh.
“You’re dating Eleanor Landon’s daughter? I bet that went over like coal on Christmas.” I guess Shaw’s mom hadn’t changed her name when she left Shaw’s dad or maybe it was just a better name for her political agenda.
“Oh yeah, she’s not a fan.”
“Well, don’t worry about it; she isn’t a fan of much from what I hear. It’s good to see a familiar face at one of these shindigs. I hope she keeps you around; these people can use the culture shock. This stuff is normally so boring.”
We bumped fists and I turned back to Shaw to ask her how much longer we had to stay, but now everyone in the entire room was staring at me like I had grown an extra head.
“What?”
She laughed and pressed her head against my shoulder. “Do you have any idea who that is?”
I popped a piece of orange in my mouth and pressed her hand harder into my thigh. “Alex. I tattoo him—actually we all do. He’s a regular at the shop.”
She was laughing so hard there were tears running down her face. “That’s Alex Carsten.”
“I just said I know.”
“Rule, Alex is the state attorney general. He’s the most influential legal person in all of Colorado. My mother helped get him elected.”
I ate another slice of orange and noticed Shaw’s mom was looking at me totally differently now. “Weird. He’s tatted up like crazy; under that suit and tie is some serious artwork.”
“That’s just too funny.”
“Hey, how much longer do we have to stick around here?”
“Let’s finish eating and then I need to pack my stuff up in my room. You can come up and help me.”
“You think the queen of the castle is going to let me in the ivory tower?”
She leaned in closer to me and moved her hand up even higher on my thigh; it made me almost choke on the orange I was chewing.
“She might not want you in there”—her green eyes twinkled up at me with merriment—“but I sure do.”
This stupid brunch couldn’t end fast enough. I popped another piece of orange in my mouth and tried counting backward from a hundred to get my libido in check. I thought brunch with my folks was rough. I was starting to see why Shaw was so interested in pulling my fractured family back together. Even as messed up as we Archers were, these rich people had us beat in crazy and nasty by spades.
CHAPTER 10
Shaw
I was doing my best to get away from my mother’s house but even though the plan had been to escape as soon as we were done eating, Alex had shown back up at the table and hijacked Rule. He claimed one of his coworkers was interested in some custom artwork for his man cave and he thought Rule might be the perfect person to produce it for him, so there I was again, the odd man out at one of my mother’s awful events while my tattooed, pierced boyfriend was making the rounds like some kind of celebrity. It was kind of funny and I was secretly thrilled that it had to be getting under my mother’s skin, but I wanted to go. I wanted to get him alone and make up for lost time. It felt like things had shifted dramatically between us and I needed time to put it in perspective, needed time to figure out what it meant to him exactly, because to me he had defined the relationship by showing up here to apologize and I needed to know he felt the same.
My mother was working the room, and Jack was tied up with the kids. Gabe was hanging out with the other future business leaders of America shooting killer looks at Rule, and my guy was in the middle of elegantly dressed men describing something with his hands that had them all nodding eagerly and chattering away at him. I saw my opportunity to escape for a minute so I slid through the kitchen and made my way up to my room. I shoved all my stuff into the bag I had brought and tossed my broken phone on top. I think I would hold Rule to buying me a new one, since he was the reason I had tossed it against the wall in the first place. I was looking around the bedroom for anything I might have forgotten when warm hands slid around my waist.
I knew Rule’s touch and this wasn’t it, so I jerked upright and shoved hard against Gabe’s chest.
“What do you think you’re doing?” He grabbed my arm, hard, and tried to pull me toward him. “Get out of my room, Gabe.”
“I figured it all out, Shaw.” He kept pulling on my arm hard enough that I knew there was going to be a bruise. I was trying to push him away from me but he was exerting a lot more force and he was stronger than me. “You dumped me so you could have sex with Archer. Well, by now you should have screwed him out of your system. You never gave me a shot to show you what I can do. I think you need a fair comparison before you totally shut me out.”
I felt my eyes spring wide as I renewed my efforts to get free. “You’ve got to be kidding me! I didn’t sleep with you because I’m not attracted to you. I didn’t want to have sex with you then and I don’t want to have sex with you now. You need to go or Rule is going to murder you.”
He pulled my wrist tight behind my back so hard I yelped. He lowered his face until it was right in mine and grabbed my jaw with his other hand. I was starting to actually panic; my room was upstairs and on the other side of the big house. I was sure someone would hear me scream if I yelled, but I wasn’t sure what the fallout from that kind of scene would be. I struggled to be released and he just laughed.
“I’m not scared of the street thug nor am I impressed by his artistic genius or whatever Carsten was going on about. He’s trash and not going to get in the way of what I want, and Shaw, you belong to me, you should know that now.” He gave me a hard shove back so that I fell onto the bed. I immediately scrambled across the other side so that the entire mass was between us. “You better get on board with this, Shaw, before it gets ugly.”
I was breathing hard and had a hand to my throat. It was shaking and so was I. He threw my keys on the bed. “I’ll get my own ride back to Denver. Wouldn’t want you to spend any more time alone with Tattoo Boy than necessary, would I?”
He strolled out of the room like he hadn’t just assaulted or threatened me. I shook myself out of the shock and gathered my stuff and bolted down the stairs. I found Rule wandering around the kitchen looking lost and clearly searching for me. I handed him my bags and hustled him out of the house without bothering to say good-bye to anyone, even my mom. It wasn’t until we were on the highway headed home that I broke down. Out of the blue, broken sobs racked my whole body