Hard Justice Read online

  “It’s not about trust.”

  “You mean if you were partnered with Logan on this assignment, you’d be questioning his decisions right now too?” At his silence, she snorted, rolling her eyes. “Yeah. I didn’t bloody think so.”

  “He can sometimes be annoying as hell, but Logan isn’t in the habit of flying off in all directions. If we come up with a plan, I need to trust you’ll follow it.”

  Charlie settled her hands on her hips and shot him a daring look. “And what if following the plan puts innocent people—or us—in danger? You expect me to go by the rulebook? Sometimes going in a different direction is what you need to do to get the job done.”

  He glared. “There’s a time and place for going off-script. You don’t do it because you’re bored and looking for a little action.”

  “I’m glad you think so little of my judgment.”

  “I told you before, it’s not about—”

  “Me. Yeah, I got the memo but I’m not buying it.” Charlie lifted her chin and ground her teeth. One step closer and she’d be near enough to drop his ass to the ground. “Maybe we should put a hold on this conversation before pretending to be infatuated with one another becomes a lost cause. As it stands right now, we’re going to need a miracle if we’re going to convince anyone we’re headed down a wedding aisle and not death row.”

  Vince stepped closer, keeping his face blank. Charlie’s, however, wasn’t. A hint of something flickered in her eyes as she watched him stalk toward her. By the time he stopped, inches shy of her fuck-me heels, it had vanished.

  He traced one calloused hand provocatively over her silk-covered hip, and cupped her lower back, tugging her flush against him. Her palm braced for impact, colliding with his chest.

  “What are you doing?” Charlie’s voice sounded low and breathless, something he’d only heard after she’d attacked the sparring bag for an hour or more.

  “Why? Am I making you nervous?”

  “No.” The twitch of her left eye said otherwise. “I’m disturbed. There’s a difference.”

  “I’m about to propose to my fiancée.” Vince reached into his pocket and pulled out the ring. It had been a last-minute, spur-of-the-moment grab before he’d left his apartment in Pennsylvania, one he still wasn’t sure was a good idea.

  Charlie stared at his hand, her body gone still. “What’s that?”

  “For such a smart woman, I’d think you’d recognize a ring when you saw one.”

  “But why do you have it?”

  “Can’t have anyone, especially your uncle, questioning my loyalty to you, now can I?” He slowly slid the simple princess-cut ruby onto her finger. When it was in place, he kept hold of her hand. “It’s not a traditional ring, but you’re not a regular diamond kind of woman, so I thought it was fitting.”

  For once in the year he’d known her, Charlie was speechless. Her eyes locked on the platinum setting and the small baguettes nestled on each side of the rich red stone. “It’s…gorgeous. Who did Stone let do the shopping? Penny or Elle?”

  “No one. It belonged to my grandmother.”

  She startled out of her awe, shaking her head emphatically as she tried tugging the ring off her finger. “Nope. No way in bloody hell are we using family heirlooms when there’s perfectly presentable cubic zirconia out there in the world.”

  Vince trapped her fingers beneath his. “Yes, we are. Don’t you think your uncle would be able to tell the difference between the real thing and a knockoff? Or, more importantly, wouldn’t he expect you to know the difference and deal with anyone who tried pulling the wool over your eyes?”

  “We are not using family jewelry for an assignment,” Charlie hissed.

  “You can either accept the ring, or we’ll swing by a tattoo shop and get my name tattooed on your ass. Your choice.”

  “Like hell will I ever let a man brand me.” Charlie scowled.

  “Then the ring it is…” Vince’s large thumb stroked over her knuckles. “What’s wrong, English? Not thrilled about being the future Mrs. Franklin?”

  Goddamn, those words sounded foreign even to his own ears. As a Navy grunt, he’d been too young to think about tying himself down, but now? Now he was too damn jaded. He couldn’t expect someone else to haul around his baggage, much less a no-nonsense woman like Charlie.

  “Not thrilled with the idea of being Mrs. Anybody. I fought too hard to convince Stone to give me a chance in the field. I’m not about to let some random Neanderthal muck it up.” She glanced back to the ring, and cringed. “Seriously, Navy. There’s some pretty real-looking costume jewelry out there. It’s not like I’m going to let Arturo put it under a microscope.”

  “Ring or ink, English. Besides, it’s not like I slid it off someone’s finger to use it, or that it’s going to be put into use anytime in the near future. This is the most action it’ll ever receive.”

  Vince knew he’d latched onto her common sense when she blew out a long sigh. He kept her hands trapped in his a beat longer before letting her pull away.

  “Fine. Consider us engaged,” Charlie announced. She threw their rental keys at him a little harder—and higher—than necessary, but he caught them easily. “But I swear to God, if I hear one crack about practicing for the goddamned honeymoon, this ring’s going to be introduced to your colon—previously owned by a grandmother or not.”

  An hour later, Vince pulled his truck into the valet line at Miami Heat. People strutted up and down the sidewalk, already blitzed out of their minds. “Looks like we’re late to the party.”

  Charlie peered out of the window and chuckled. “These guys haven’t even started. Give them another hour or two to hit their peak.”

  That’s what Vince was afraid of. Give him something to shoot, punch, or blow up and he was in his element. Expect him to socialize with a horde of twenty-somethings at a trendy Miami nightclub and “awkward” didn’t begin to explain how he felt. “Old” came close—really fucking old. At thirty-six, he didn’t fit into this kind of crowd. Charlie, on the other hand, meshed like she fucking belonged.

  Vince slipped out of the truck just as she swung open her door. A group of college-aged boys turned the corner, one of whom immediately latched his lurid gaze onto Charlie’s toned legs.

  “Hot damn, baby.” The kid whistled. His gaze flickered to Vince. “Why don’t you ditch the geriatric and come party with us?”

  “Unless you want this geriatric to rip those lips off your face, keep walking,” Vince growled.

  The kid and his friends laughed but kept going. At some point during the exchange, the pimply faced valet attendant extended his hand to Charlie.

  “I got her. You get these.” Vince’s bark made the teen jump.

  “Yes, sir.” The valet caught the keys Vince tossed his way and hustled over to the driver’s side.

  Every inch of Charlie’s body brushed along Vince’s as he plucked her off her seat and set her back on her feet. The hair on his arms lifted as if he’d touched pure electricity, and in a way, he had. Charlie. A live wire. Jolting. Heat-inducing.

  Her teeth trapped her bottom lip in a sexy nibble. Vince couldn’t help but glance down to her mouth, seeing that he wasn’t the only one overtaken by a sudden burst of awareness.

  “If I’d been the one to offer my hand to you, you would’ve taken a hunk of flesh out of it with your teeth,” Vince half-joked.

  She smoothed the front of his shirt, a coy smile dancing on her lips. “Not a hunk. Maybe just a little nibble.”

  Sucking in a groan, Vince wrapped an arm around her waist and guided her away from the truck as another large group of college-aged kids stumbled past.

  Charlie let out a strangled noise.

  “What?” Vince looked at her, confused.

  She bit the corner of her mouth, obviously trying to withhold laughter. “You and the look of excruciating pain plastered all over your face. You can’t tell me you’ve never prowled the bars looking for a good time.”

 
Vince steered them toward the entrance of the club’s outdoor patio. “Yeah, a million fucking years ago. And I didn’t have to prowl for anything. Good times always came to me.”

  This time Charlie snorted with her chuckle, and the sound of it made his lips twitch. It was goddamned cute, though he would never admit it aloud and risk a punch to his kidneys.

  “It’s a wonder headquarters hasn’t blown up from testosterone toxicity,” Charlie murmured as they stepped to the end of the club’s red-roped line.

  The bouncer manning the entrance took a lazy-eyed stroll over Charlie’s body. “You two together?”

  Vince cocked a glance to his arm, still wrapped snugly around her waist. “What do you think?”

  “I think it’s too damn bad. But you both can go on in. And if your lady’s interested, there’s a bar-dancing competition sometime within the hour.” He eyed Charlie’s legs. “You’re a shoe-in for first fucking prize, sweetheart.”

  Vince would’ve loved nothing more than to swipe the smirk off the bastard’s face, but Charlie intervened, threading her fingers through his, and thanked the man for the invite. The people in line grumbled their protests as the bouncer opened the gate and let them onto the club’s patio.

  Miami Heat lured in a who’s who of the rich, famous, and privileged. Whereas the indoor section of the club catered to the couples dancing to the loud, theatrical pound of the music, the outdoor patio was a pool party on ’roids.

  White Christmas lights wrapped every palm tree and, and as if Miami wasn’t hot enough, bamboo torches lit up the patio’s perimeter. Humidity didn’t seem to be keeping people away, because the line wrapped around the circular bar was three people deep, and growing.

  “Don’t people have anything better to do than spend their money on overpriced booze?” Vince asked, inspecting the sea of drunk people.

  Charlie lifted her brow. “In Miami? No. It’s all about twenty-dollar drinks and lots and lots of skin. You’re such a people person, Navy. It’s a wonder you don’t have an entire entourage surrounding you all hours of the day.”

  “And you’re such the sparkling social gem, huh?” Vince said dryly. A pair of overly bronzed women skirted past, outrageously wearing less than Charlie. “I wasn’t the one who nearly made the pizza delivery boy cry because he mistakenly left behind my order of fried mushrooms.”

  “No, but now I’m sure that Christopher will never forget them again. That’s the difference between us. I don’t see any point in hiding my displeasure, where you take the whole brooding in silence thing and turn it into an art form.”

  “Some things can’t be changed by making a scene.”

  Charlie turned toward him, the side of her breast brushing against his chest. “No, but sometimes it can make you feel a lot bloody better. Unleash the beast, Navy. Or at the very least, loosen the reins. You may be surprised at what happens.”

  When he’d been with the SEAL teams, Vince wouldn’t have hesitated to let off a little steam—and without prompting. But both time and experience had taught him the error of his ways. He’d learned it at the end of his Navy career, had it drilled into his head working for bail enforcement, and now with Alpha, it had become almost second nature—except when Charlie was in close proximity. Then all those lessons flew out of his fucking head.

  “You want to make ourselves visible?” Vince slipped his hand over her hip and veered her toward the dance floor. “Hope you can dance in those stilts.”

  Chapter Five

  As if diving into the club scene wasn’t bad enough, Vince played Charlie’s bluff like a concert cellist. She’d known before accepting the assignment that being back in town would test her in every way imaginable—and probably a few which he hadn’t yet drummed up. But she’d underestimated her own level of paranoia—paranoia she couldn’t afford to let Vince see, because the second she did, she’d be back on the Alpha jet and headed to headquarters.

  No way in bloody hell was she abandoning those missing girls to the circus DHS had been running for the last few months.

  Vince’s large hands settled on the bare patch of skin above the curve of her arse—and he began to move. Charlie forgot all about the paranoia. Heat eased through her body as her breasts brushed against his chest with each magical sway.

  A body his size wasn’t meant to move this smoothly. Her heart skipped, pounding beneath her breastbone, nearly double-time compared to the slow beat of the music. Vince looked…unaffected. Beneath her sweaty palms, which rested on his chest, his heart thudded, nice and even…and slow.

  “Where did you learn to dance?” she asked. At the sight of Vince’s lips sliding into a naughty smirk, her knees went wonky.

  “I’m a SEAL.”

  Charlie blinked, waiting for more. “Which means what? They teach you how to waltz during Hell Week? Or that you know how to do it all?”

  “Not all, but most. And if Hell Week involved waltzing, more soldiers would’ve rung that damn bell and walked the hell home,” Vince joked. “But once a SEAL cares enough about something to put it on our to-do list, we make sure we master it. Life. Job. Hobbies. We don’t do any of this half-ass shit. Once upon a time, I had a wedding to go to, and I didn’t feel like making an ass out of myself.”

  Charlie couldn’t wrap her mind around Vince taking dance lessons, maybe surrounded by little girls wearing tights and pink tutus. A coming smart-arse comment died on her lips the moment someone bumped into her from behind.

  She gasped, taken by surprise. A couple danced around them without so much as a glance in their direction. Charlie tried reining in her shock, but Vince saw the startle.

  His body went on alert despite the fact that he never once broke their rhythmic movement. “What’s up? You see something?”

  Yeah, she saw her paranoia roaring back.

  “Nope. All good here,” Charlie lied.

  Miami Heat might not have been the club she’d visited on her last night in Miami, but it possessed the same meat market feel: a sardine-packed dance floor and nearly palpable sexual haze that had people flocking to it in droves. One difference, other than not needing her expertly made fake I.D. to get through the doors, was that instead of a gang of “friends” watching her back, she had six and a half feet of obnoxious Alpha operative.

  It isn’t like last time, Charlie told herself.

  And she wasn’t as naively helpless as she’d been at sixteen. If someone came up behind her nowadays, she’d neutralize them first and ask questions later—or not at all, depending on how badly they ticked her off.

  “All right, all right, all right, my little club hoppers,” the overexcited DJ’s voice bellowed over the club PA system. He stood on a small corner stage, waving his arms to get the crowd’s attention. “It’s time to turn the heat up in this joint with some sexy tabletop moves. Any and all lovely ladies who’d like to strut their stuff for a chance to win the Golden Fucking Ticket—a year of free admittance into some of Ocean Drive’s hottest clubs—come down to the bar. I’m sure we have a few gentlemen in the crowd who wouldn’t mind giving you a boost.”

  Stay or leave. Charlie didn’t like either option, but Vince’s questioning gaze didn’t go away, making the decision for her.

  “Looks like that’s my cue,” she murmured, stepping away.

  Vince caught her arm, spinning her back. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “You were right. There’s too much happening here to get noticed by playing the part of the wallflower. I need to put myself in the limelight.” With a somewhat gentle thumb twist, she effectively loosened his grip and smiled. Rising to her toes, she sandwiched his whiskered cheeks between her palms and tugged him into a hard kiss. “Enjoy the show, love.”

  Charlie regretted volunteering for the dance-off before she even made it over to the bar. Two men waited by the counter, easing every contestant onto the high surface. She waited her turn and thanked them for the lift.

  Get noticed. She should’ve factored in her penchant for looking lik
e a clumsy clown in anything higher than the heel of her combat boots. It was times she found herself in these kinds of situations that she regretted her big mouth, and judging by Vince’s scowl, he was none too happy about it either.

  Lips clamped tight, jaw flexing, he looked like he wanted to throttle someone. Probably her. Maybe the drunken frat boy flashing a wad of ones at her feet. Navy was not a happy camper.

  “All right, ladies, it’s time to show us what you’re made of,” the DJ’s voice echoed through the club. “Just remember, we’re a family establishment, so let’s keep it clean.” He chuckled. “Oh wait, we’re not. Which means you can get as dirty as you want! I’m sure our judges won’t have any problems with it, right?”

  The DJ gestured to the right, where five men and one woman sat, all decked out with nearly similar matching smirks. People whistled and cheered, getting louder when a sultry, steady beat rumbled from the speakers.

  “Move or get off.” The young woman next to Charlie dug a pointy elbow into her side.

  Barely of legal drinking age, the brunette swayed her hips, nearly knocking into Charlie a second time. The coed’s grin stoked Charlie’s temper. Since she couldn’t shove the girl off the bar and get away with it, there was only one thing she could do.

  Win.

  Charlie planted her feet into position and moved. It took a minute, but she eventually got into the music, swaying her hips to the beat. That’s when Brunette Barbie upped the ante with an arse-in-the-air bend Charlie had once seen done in a strip club.

  The crowd ate it up. They cheered for more, which the brunette gave without a second thought. Determined not to get shown up by a sorority girl, Charlie slid her hands up her body, and while sifting her hair off her neck, arched her back. Male cheers erupted around her. Charlie gifted a small smirk to the woman next to her and got a scowl in return.