Hard Up: A Military Mafia Romance (5 page)

C
allum stood
outside a crumbling beach cottage on the outskirts of Savannah, glaring off into the distance. Inside, several of the Cúram’s foot soldiers were setting up a new drop house, a place where cash and drugs could be stored while under constant armed guard.

He glowered at a fresh-faced young soldier named Ned when the kid came out to grab the last unmarked moving box from the white transport van. Ned nearly tripped over his own feet as he redoubled his pace, trying to get out of Callum’s line of sight.

Yeah, Callum was in a bad fucking mood. And yeah, he was taking it out on everyone who worked for him.

Really, it wasn’t Ned’s fault, or any of the other soldiers who were stuck putting up with Callum’s ire and furious temper today.

No, it was
her
fault.

The nosy little blonde had caught him sleepwalking last night. What the hell she was doing wandering at all hours, he had no idea. All he knew was that he found a switchblade lying on his living room floor this morning.

Oh, and he’d spent the whole fucking night tossing and turning, suffering from a mad case of blue balls.

Fuck. It didn’t make sense. As far as he knew, in his sleepwalking state he’d thought her an intruder, then pinned her up against the French doors.

Didn’t explain why he was already hard when he opened his eyes, looking down to find Viola trapped in his arms. Or the look on her face, sort of… expectant.

Just thinking about the feel of her against his body made his pulse pick up, even standing here in the yard of the drop house.

He couldn’t stop thinking about her, wondering what she was doing while he was gone. He’d locked his bedroom door and locked her in the apartment. There was nothing incriminating for her to find…

It still made him anxious, though. For a second, he thought about installing a couple cameras, see what she was up to all day.

Then he gave himself a shake. What was he going to do, sit and watch her from his cell phone all day? At any rate, she wasn’t going to be in his house much longer. Once he figured out what the hell to do with her, she was gone.

It was better that way. Simple, easy, uncomplicated.

Besides, he’d already fucked her once. And yeah, it was goddamned amazing, but…

He didn’t sleep with women twice. He didn’t shack up with them, protect them, find himself curious about where they were and what they were doing.

It wasn’t Callum’s thing. There was no magic pussy in the world that could tame him, and that was that. He was only thinking about Viola because she’d risked herself to save him, that was all. Now he needed to put her out of his thoughts and concentrate on the task at hand.

His job today was to switch over half the drop houses from their old locations to new ones, lock down the number of associates who knew the locations, and report back to Fallon.

There was no time or energy to be wasted on blue-eyed temptresses, not today.

Mind over matter
, he told himself.

Ned and the other boys trotted out, all looking like whipped dogs, waiting for the lash.

“Done?” he asked.

Ned nodded, glancing at the other two for confirmation. His dark-haired comrades just nodded silently.

“Who’s staying tonight?” Callum asked.

“Me and Connor,” Ned said.

Callum could actually see Ned straightening his spine as he spoke up, despite his nerves. Maybe he’d been a little hard on the kid today, but Ned was proving to be the leader of his little group.

Would’ve made a good SEAL
, Callum thought absently.

“All right,” Callum said. “The rest of you, keep your fucking phones on. We can’t afford to lose another drop house, so I want you checking in with each other all the time. Day and night, today and tomorrow, and every goddamned day from here on out. Is that clear?”

All three nodded, the dark-haired one on the right looking like he was about to shit his pants. Callum hoped to hell that that kid wasn’t in charge of anything that would affect the safety of the drop houses, because he looked like someone could knock him over with a fucking feather.

“Don’t fuck this up,” Callum warned them as he turned to head to his car.

He got in and pulled away from the curb, thinking. He looked at his watch, knowing it was time to get home to check on Viola, but he had one quick stop to make first.

He drove to Mel’s Diner, one of the most touristy places on the harbor front. A place where you went to get your crab legs and a little tiki umbrella in every drink…

And the best word on what was going around.

He walked in and scouted out the staff. “Bingo.”

Callum headed to the bar, sitting down for a drink. He watched the sweet little redhead as she flirted with a customer, knowing he would be next.

She laughed, turning her head, and caught sight of him. Her eyes widened slightly. She excused herself and came down Callum’s way.

“Lisa,” he said.

“Callum. You aren’t supposed to be… out and about.” She said it like he was some bedridden hospital patient, when all he had were some bandaged flesh wounds.

Thanks to Viola…
echoed through the back of his head. He shook it off.

“I need a drink. And some information.” He gave her his most winning smile.

“You can’t be here,” she said quietly, licking her lips nervously as she looked around. “Everyone is real upset about what happened yesterday.
Real
upset.”

“Anything specific?” he said, glancing around when the couple to his right got up and left.

“Y’all have a good one!” Lisa called to her guests. “Listen. They’re looking for you. You and another person, a female.”

Her lips thinned as she said that bit, and he cursed internally.

Externally, he said, “Yeah?”

“Look, if they even see me talking to you…” she said, shaking her head.

“Thanks, Lisa. See you later,” he said, rising and placing a hundred dollar bill where he’d sat.

She looked around, reached for the bill, and nodded as she moved down the bar.

Heading out, he couldn’t stop thinking of Lisa’s announcement.

Someone had seen them together, and they were playing fast and loose with the truth.

He hopped in his SUV and got the fuck out of there, driving toward his loft. His stomach rumbled, turning his thoughts toward lunch. He had absolutely nothing in the house, which made him feel a twinge of guilt.

He’d left Viola there with nothing to eat. Some protector he was.

He stopped at the grocery store and got a sackful of basics, though he had no idea what Viola liked. Then he hit the Vietnamese place next door, ordering a bunch of dumplings and rice noodle soup.

By the time he returned to his apartment, he was loaded down with food. He walked in and dropped everything on the counter, looking around.

No Viola to be found.

He took a moment to put away the groceries, then headed to his room for a quick shower and change. Instead of relaxing him like it normally did, the shower only made him more tense.

He really, really needed to get laid. It was Friday, the couple of clubs that Savannah offered would be jumping tonight. Maybe he’d go out later, scoop up some hot girl. Fuck her at her place.

Or better yet, in the coat check at the club. Quick and dirty, just how he liked it.

Leaning against the glass wall of the shower, he let the water pour over his body as he thought of taking some sexy blonde up against the wall, putting a hand over her mouth to keep her quiet as he fucked her brains out.

He slid his hand down and fisted his cock. He was already hard, all the aching hunger of the day snowballing as he slowly pumped his hand up and down his length, sucking in deep breaths.

He imagined the blonde again, her shouts of pleasure muffled as she took him deep, imagined how she’d tighten around his cock with each thrust. He thought of how he’d look down at her face, how he’d fill her again and again, so hard and deep.

She’d love it, love how good his cock felt, nipping at his fingers and moaning. Then her eyes would open, the most brilliant shade of blue…

Callum’s own eyes snapped open, his hand slowing. Fuck, he wasn’t picturing a mystery blonde at all. He was thinking about Viola, who was probably less than a hundred goddamned feet away from him right now.

Pathetic
.

Disgusted with himself, he reached out and turned the water from hot to ice cold. The rest of the shower was as fast as he could make it. To his shock, the icy water didn’t completely kill his will to fuck, which he found impressive in a strange way.

He got the hell out of the shower, shaved, wrapped himself in a towel, and headed to his bedroom to change. He’d forgotten that he was hungry, until just this moment.

Except when he stepped out of the bathroom, he literally ran into Viola, both of them going so fast that he almost knocked her down.

“Shit,” he said, grabbing her arms to steady her.

When he did that, his towel loosened at his hips, threatening to fall. Which wouldn’t be a big deal, as he was former military and used to being naked in a lot worse conditions than this.

Except, his hard-on was back with full force, only getting more obvious with each inch closer he got to Viola. He stood there, staring down at her surprised face.

For the briefest moment, he considered letting the towel fall, just to see what she thought. If he remembered correctly, she hadn’t exactly been shy about how much she’d enjoyed his cock before…

He snapped his thoughts back before they could stray any further. He had better things to think about, like the hit  that had to be coming.

He needed to focus on that, instead of on her. Anywhere but on her.

With a growl, he held his towel in place, making for the bedroom. Safe inside, he angrily got dressed. Things could not go on like this all day, he needed to concentrate.

He stormed out of the apartment, only stopping to set a special bolt, one that had been put in place by the Cúram. Set from the outside, it made it impossible to leave the apartment, no matter what.

A security feature that should have set his mind at ease, but didn’t.

Unfortunately, the rest of the day didn’t improve with time. Between two of his workers not showing up on time, and getting reamed out by Cor as part of his daily penance…

The day did not go in Callum’s favor. It did not even remotely resemble anything like that. Mostly he spent the day alternating between worrying about what Viola was doing and forcing his mind back to his work.

By the time he got home, he just wanted to crash, and do it without interruption. He picked up more takeout on his way home — Thai this time, ordering way too much because he still had no idea what kind of food she liked.

The second he opened his door though he saw her sitting at the kitchen counter, looking furious. She was angry all right.

Viola was immediately in his face, blonde hair flying.

“What were you thinking?” she accused. “Locking me in? What if there been a fire?”

Callum carefully blanked his face as he pushed inside.

“You would’ve been fine.”

“The hell I would have!”

He refused to answer, gritting his teeth.If she wanted to be ridiculous, that was fine by him.

He elbowed her out of the way, ready to relax. Hell, more than ready. Dropping the Thai on the counter, he fixed her with a look, all his feelings about the day in it.

It worked, because she fell silent, just looking at him with an icy stare.

He headed to his room to change, glad for a moment’s reprieve. Having her at his place was a hell of a lot safer, but damn was it annoying.

When he left his room, he found Viola with two of the Thai containers open before her. She watched him as he entered the kitchen, mouth thankfully too full of food to complain.

He slid her a glance as he opened the fridge to grab a beer. She looked away, devouring a container of curry and an order of spring rolls in remarkably short time. He had barely cracked open his container of curried noodles when she finished.

She closed the container and gave him a look, like their earlier argument wasn’t over, it was just percolating. He noticed a worn textbook sitting out on the counter, open to a medical diagram.

“You can read that while you eat?” he asked.

Her eyes narrowed.

“What?” he asked.

Her lips thinned, and she glanced away. When she looked at him again, her eyes were full of fury.

“You can’t lock me in the house like that. I could have died!”

He stared at her for a moment, his anger swirling around, fermenting.

“I’m not your boyfriend,” he said, maintaining his cool facade. “And I don’t follow your orders. You don’t need to go getting ideas.”

Her stony stare didn’t surprise him much, but what she did next ruffled his feathers.

She laughed.

Thick, low, and full-bodied, her laugh was surprisingly seductive. It gave him a little chill, raised goosebumps on his arms — even as he scowled at her.

“I’m so glad you find this funny,” he said.

She sobered a little, interlaced her hands on the table.

“I need to go out. Just to the drugstore.”

She dropped the words almost casually, as if she hardly meant them.

“No,” he said.

She pulled a face, then tried again.

“There are things I need.”

He set down his fork; clearly he wasn’t finishing his dinner.

“I need to save your damned life. You see that, don’t you?”

“And if you get killed while you’re out? What then?” she said, her words heated.

“That won’t happen.”

She looked at him for a second, then slowly shook her head.

“It could. Your job is a lot more dangerous than mine.”

He felt jaw tense, felt himself tighten. He didn’t like to think of himself dying in some back alley, but then again it was the most likely scenario. As long as he did this job, the possibility lurked around every corner.

And that was before Miss Annie Oakley had decided to kill a member of a rival gang.

“There is a contingency in place. For if I die…out there,” he muttered.