Descended (The Red Blindfold Book 3)

  DESCENDED

  BOOK THREE

  ROSE DEVEREUX

  Copyright © 2016 by Rose Devereux

  Cover design by Sarah Hansen at Okay Creations

  Ebook formatting by Jesse Gordon

  All rights reserved. No part of this e-book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  CHAPTER ONE

  She was walking down Main Street on a sweltering Thursday afternoon, heading straight toward a gang of Bandidos.

  She couldn’t see them standing in a drunk, leather-clad group around the corner in front of Chimayo’s roughest bar. The Dead End, aptly named. I’d been in about a hundred fights and countless pool games there, back when I was making my living fleecing every wasted idiot who thought he was a hustler.

  From the other side of the median, some guy rolled down his window and blasted his horn at her. “Lose something, darlin’?” he shouted, and drove on. If she heard him, she didn’t show it. She just kept walking at a fast clip past the check-cashing joints and pawn shops and panhandlers like she knew exactly where she was headed.

  I slowed down my truck to look at her, but not because she had a lush tangle of long, light brown hair and the perfect waist-to-hip ratio, which she did. I just wanted to see the face of whatever high, crazy, or stupid chick would walk through the worst part of the shittiest border town in Texas wearing nothing but a white t-shirt and pink panties.

  “Jesus, sweetheart,” I muttered, craning my head. “What the hell are you doing here dressed like that?”

  Her high cheekbones were brown from the sun, not like she worked outside for a living, but like she spent her days lying by heated pools tended by staff. Smooth, elegant, even. Almost impossible to achieve in this part of the state. Her nose was delicate, her full lips parted so she could suck in hot breaths of polluted air. Bare pink nipples pressed against the inside of her shirt and there was nothing on her feet but a little pair of flip-flops.

  Wow. I’d seen a lot of strange things in my life, but this was a first.

  Welcome to Chimayo, lady, land of dumped bodies and home invasions. Last stop before the bottom of the barrel. Not a good place to be both sexy and severely underdressed.

  Even from thirty feet away I could see her eyes, which stood out against her tan like blue glacier ice. She was focused on something ahead of her – a hallucination, maybe, or the mental image of an abusive boyfriend she couldn’t forget.

  But she didn’t look the type to put up with anybody’s crap. I’d seen plenty of addicts, prostitutes, and dumb college girls who went out for a night of tequila shots and ended up hitching home the next day in a ripped dress and one shoe, their honor left behind on some dude’s dirty sheets.

  Blue Eyes wasn’t like that, I could tell. She carried herself like she owned the whole Southwest, like the queen of an oil-rich country. Shoulders back, chin high, hair tossing like a silk scarf in the ninety-degree breeze.

  I got to the end of the block and swung my truck around for one more look.

  Not that I planned to stop. If I were as insane as she appeared to be, I’d pull up to the curb and roll down my window. “Want a ride?” I’d ask. “Going somewhere? Need help?” But those days were done.

  I was finished rescuing the desperate, the lonely, the whacked-out. Done saving my family members, too. Of course, if I were really finished I wouldn’t be here, driving all over hell looking for Elijah. Not that I wanted to save Elijah, particularly. I just wanted to save whichever sorry soul happened to cross his path.

  I’d learned my own lesson with him fifty times over.

  These days, I only played savior to the occasional down-and-out dog, like the lame stray I’d picked up at a desert gas station two days ago. She was waiting for me with her teeth bared back at the hacienda a few miles from town. Luxurious place, if it weren’t for the dog chewing the baseboards off the walls and tearing up the flowers. I’d named her Diesel because that’s what the air smelled like when I found her, eating French fries out of a garbage can.

  Ten more feet and Blue Eyes would be in the bikers’ line of sight. I couldn’t let that happen – well, actually, I could. Let the police deal with it. Nothing wrong with dialing 911 like everybody else.

  Except that a lunatic woman wasn’t exactly top priority in a town with a thousand unsolved murders, where everybody was either bought off or too cynical to care anymore.

  She rounded the corner, walking with a sweet hip-sway that grabbed me in the gut. Maybe she didn’t know how she stood out, very likely the most beautiful woman in the state even with no makeup, her long, slender legs streaked with dirt. By now, she had to see the bikers loitering by their Harleys, faces cherry-red from booze and heat.

  But she didn’t stop. She was either blind or suicidal, or maybe she could sense me idling across the street with my window down, watching over her like a worried Daddy.

  I knew what this was. She’d been sent by God to knock me off my pedestal and back into the chaos I’d barely climbed out of. This was how successful men were brought low, wasn’t it? By a woman too pretty to look like trouble?

  One of the bikers leaned over to spit chew and caught sight of her. “Look at this, boys,” he bellowed. It was obvious from the way their broad heads swiveled and the whistles broke out that they’d never seen her before. Hadn’t laid eyes on a woman that fine their entire lives.

  “Shit,” I muttered. “Here we go.”

  Grinning with gapped teeth, another biker laughed like he couldn’t believe she was real. All three-hundred squat, ugly pounds of him lurched in her direction.

  “What’s this?” he shouted in a beer-garbled voice. “Am I havin’ a vision?”

  Another one approached her, and then another, until they formed a menacing semi-circle of ratty beards and leather. Six against one – or two, if I decided to get involved. Which I wouldn’t. I had too much on the line, too much going right in my life. Elijah was the only glitch and with luck, that could be managed.

  What couldn’t be managed was a bunch of loaded hooligans and a half-naked beauty queen without the sense to turn tail and get out of town.

  She stuck her fists on her curvy hips, planted her flip-flops, and stared the gap-toothed biker in the eye. I winced. I’d picked a really bad time to get hard for her, but confidence like that killed me. All I wanted was to whisk her into the nearest shadowy doorway and rip her to shreds, standing up, lying stark-naked on the concrete, however she’d have me.

  It was nothing but a hot fantasy, and I allowed myself only five seconds of it before forcing my attention back to the disaster at hand.

  I pulled my ear forward and strained to listen. I couldn’t hear what Blue Eyes was saying, but I knew it was a question. She was actually talking to these guys. Not running away, not bursting into tears, but engaging in a little chitchat. How sweet. And how truly unfortunate for me.

  “Fuck.” I parked illegally, turned off my truck, and got out.

  It had been a long time – four years, at least – since I’d had to turn a really shitty circumstance to my advantage. I did it in business every day, but this was the old-fashioned kind of danger, the “going to jail or the morgue” kind.

  Something told me my older brother had never been in a situation like this. He was too good for it. English boarding schools, Stanford, an obscene fortune from one little investment – guys like that shouldn’t exist. I’d never met him but I didn’t need to. The man was a legend, at least to my father, who never let me forget how different I was.

  My success had come from cutting corners and taking what I wante
d. I’d never live up to the son he’d abandoned thirty ago, and now worshipped from afar.

  Though it was only the fourth of May, the sun blazed down on my head and the pavement felt soft under my boots. As I crossed the street, I wished to Christ I’d taken off my watch and lizard-skin belt. I’d rather be going into this bare-chested than wearing a custom-made Italian shirt with platinum eight-ball cufflinks, but what the hell. You went to war with the army you had.

  I knew what I looked like – pure CEO, one-percenter through and through. Clean-shaven, four-hundred dollar haircut, body created in a private gym in Houston. My truck was new and shiny, and in my pocket was a thick roll of cash just begging to fly away on a hot gust of wind. Still, I had at least an inch on the tallest guy and a history of squeaking through in situations like this.

  Not that I’d been in a situation exactly like this, but close enough to know I had a chance. A painfully slim one.

  I stepped onto the curb. I could feel the cool, dank air of the bar, and for a second I thought about walking inside and ordering a drink. I remembered everything about the place – the ruined pool tables, the illegal games after closing, how it felt to crack some ex-con’s head over the men’s room sink. The bad old days. With one slightly flat draft beer, I could drown my impulse to rescue Blue Eyes and forget I ever saw her. Without a doubt, it’d be the smartest thing I’d done all day.

  But then she turned to look at me, and smart was no longer an option. Her gaze was dilated and laser-sharp, and my face was the target. She squinted, as if I looked familiar but my name escaped her. I felt a hard magnetic pull in my chest, a warning sign. This was a woman to steer clear of, five-feet-six inches of really bad news.

  But she was no fifty-footer, that was for sure. She was even prettier close-up. And it wasn’t just her features that sucked me in. It was the vulnerability in her eyes. Under all that sexy swagger was a scared girl with an amazing ability to dive head-first into a life or death fiasco, and she needed me to get her out of it.

  “Who are you?” she asked, arms folded under her breasts.

  We’d have to skip the friendly introductions. “She bothering you, fellas?” I asked.

  I got a round of confused stares. “Hell no, she’s not,” one guy slurred. “Quite the goddamn opposite.”

  “What if I am bothering them?” she demanded, glaring at me. “What do you care?”

  Maybe it was my imagination or the waves of heat rising off the sidewalk, but I thought I saw something carnal flash in her eyes. Her pupils flared and turned dark blue, an involuntary response that made my blood surge.

  She wasn’t on drugs or anything else. I could tell in a second she was dead sober, and might actually like what she saw. This girl had all of her wits about her – if you didn’t count the missing bra and pants.

  “Help you, son?” the closest biker asked in a deceptively friendly voice. His teeth looked like he’d filed them into points. A leather shoulder holster peeked out from under his jacket.

  “As a matter of fact, you can,” I said.

  “Oh, yeah? How?” another one asked. He had bright, carrot-orange hair that must have made seventh grade a living hell. I almost felt sorry for him.

  “What’s she been saying to you boys?”

  “That your business?” the guy with the gun asked.

  “You bet it is. This girl’s mine.” I didn’t dare look at her. She was probably shooting swords at me with those electric blues.

  The holster guy rocked back on his heels. “She’s yours and you let her go out like that?”

  Lucky for me, the orange-haired one was a chatterbox. “She asked if we seen her on television in the last three days,” he piped up. “Not just television, the news.”

  “Is that so,” I said. “And did you?”

  “Nope, but she sure looks like a celebrity. No doubt.”

  I had to agree. Celebrity, goddess, and scrappy little tough girl all rolled into one.

  “You from around here, friend?” the gap-toothed biker asked. Friend. Yeah, right.

  “Maybe.” I immediately wanted to kick myself for telling anything close to the truth. Clearly my criminal instincts weren’t what they used to be.

  His bushy eyebrows pulled together. “I thought you looked familiar. We met before?”

  Most of the faces from my past had dissolved into one ugly, pockmarked blur, so this particular moron didn’t really stand out. But if he recognized me, that would be a crying shame. It was exactly why I avoided this town, and why I wanted to pummel Elijah for dragging me back here.

  “Back to the part about how you can help me,” I said. “I need to ask a favor.”

  For some reason, that got their attention. The bikers crowded closer, and I could smell the tobacco, cheap beer, and sweat. Just like years ago, when my whole life smelled that way.

  “What kind of favor?” the shortest one drawled.

  “Well, you can all take a step back and let me take my woman home.”

  I glanced at Blue Eyes just long enough to see her tilt her head quizzically. She could blow this thing in two seconds. And if she did, I was cooked. Or at least standing in some very hot water.

  “How do we know she belongs to you?”

  “She’s not saying she doesn’t,” I said. “Is she?”

  We all looked at her. She frowned, her frosty gaze locking with mine. I widened my eyes slightly, hoping she’d get the message. Please, please let her be able to read minds. Her virtue and my intact face depended on it.

  Slowly, she shook her head. A curtain of tawny hair spilled over her shoulder and she gave me a slight smile that felt like a ray of fucking sunshine. Get it together, Drex. This is not the time.

  “So if she’s your woman, what’s she doing walking around like that?”

  Hell of a good question, and now I had to answer it. I kicked the toe of my boot against a sidewalk crack and stalled. Cleared my throat, crossed my arms, squinted at the horizon. Think, think.

  “Well, I told her if she was going to walk out, she could damn well leave what I bought her. And I bought every stitch of clothing she’s got.” I shrugged. It wasn’t great, but it would have to do.

  The red-haired biker looked at Blue Eyes and back at me. “Low blow,” he said. “But you had to do it.”

  “What can I say? She hurt my feelings pretty bad.”

  He shook his head in sympathy. “Girl like that? I bet she worked you over.”

  She scowled at him. “How would you know?”

  This girl and her fucking temper. “Now, come on, baby,” I said, reaching for her hand. “Can’t we just go home?”

  “Home?” Her face radiated disdain. “Where’s home?”

  “You – you know where home is, right?” I stammered.

  “Actually, I don’t have the first clue.”

  Thanks to Blue Eyes and her attitude, this thing was about to go off the rails. The only thing I could think of was to reach out and grab her, good and tight. With a gasp, she snapped her head up to look at me. Her lips were trembling, her slim bare arms hot under my hands. Holy hell.

  If her skin was this overheated, what was it like between her legs? Inside her mouth?

  I was about to find out – about her mouth, anyway. Not that I was usually this forward, but desperate times called for being a total aggressive asshole.

  I yanked her against me. She whimpered, a pretty, feminine sound that jolted me to the core. I felt the soft roundness of her breasts as they crushed against my chest, making my stomach muscles convulse sharply. Her pelvis ground into mine, giving me the fastest and hardest erection I’d ever had.

  She dug ragged nails into my shoulders and fixed me with a cold stare. “Get off me,” she said through clenched white teeth.

  I rolled my eyes and tried sending her a telepathic message. Think it’ll be better with the bikers, lady? You may not know me from a hole in the ground, but at least I shower.

  The tip of her pink tongue quivered over the corner o
f her mouth. Now I got it. She wasn’t resisting because she wanted to. She just thought she should. That’s what polite ladies did when they found themselves enjoying something sexy and sinful.

  I lowered my head and took her lips in a rough, bruising kiss. It had been too long – my whole life – since I’d wanted a woman like this. Pure, I-don’t-care-who’s-watching lust. Damn the bikers and the heat. I pushed my hungry tongue against hers, devouring her luscious mouth until she responded with a moan that drove a stake through my self-control.

  She wrapped her arms around my neck and clung to me, squirming her curvy hips – those hips again -- in a little circle that seemed designed to make me lose my mind.

  “Whoa, boy,” the red-haired biker said. “That’s one hell of a way to make up.”

  “Get a room,” another guy said. “And invite me.”

  Blue Eyes pulled back and blinked, licking her swollen lips with that sweet, candy-apple tongue. Who needed a room? I was ready to tear off what was left of her clothes and fuck her senseless over the nearest newspaper rack.

  Five years ago I would have done it.

  As if I’d pinched her ass, she swung out and slapped me across the cheek. With all her might. Ouch.

  “Son-of-a-bitch,” she spat out. “How dare you.”

  The bikers watched in stunned silence before bursting into laughter. “Glad you think it’s funny,” I muttered. What a bratty, clueless little nightmare she was. I should leave her here just to teach her a lesson.

  Instead I grabbed her by the wrist, gave the bikers a nod, and said, “Have a good afternoon, gentlemen.”

  Mouth pressed in a hard line, I hauled her across the street. “Let go of me,” she hissed, trying to wrench her arm free.

  “No.”

  She pulled as hard as she could. “I mean it.”

  “Yeah? So do I.”

  I unlocked the truck and tossed her into the passenger’s side. “Don’t even think about getting out,” I said, and slammed the door.

  I got in the other side, started the engine, and turned on the A/C full blast. Only then did I look at her, my chest heaving with fury and a fierce arousal I couldn’t shake. Obviously I’d been working too much and not getting blown enough. Otherwise, what was this ungrateful, rabidly pissed-off bitch doing in my truck?