Tainted Desire Read online

She let out a small noise. “Fine, but this doesn’t mean I owe you or anything.”

  “Of course not,” I growled, slinging my leg over the side of the bike. “Get on. We have to get our shit and get out of here.”

  Luckily, Siren did as I asked and I peeled out of the parking lot, heading toward her hotel. I didn’t need this kind of setback in my search for Polanco, but I couldn’t very well have left Siren in that jail cell knowing that they would throw the book at her.

  Besides, something told me I needed her help, even as much as I hated to admit it.

  The ride to the hotel was short and I maneuvered us through the rowdy night crowd gathered before parking the bike in an open spot and shutting off the engine. “Get your stuff,” I said as she climbed off.

  “Wait,” she stated as I started to walk away to get my own stuff. “What’s this about being an agent?”

  I turned to look at her, ignoring the pull on my cock as I took in her classic features. Damn, she was gorgeous. “Yeah, you’re a CIA agent in the eyes of the chief of police, so we need to get the hell out before he realizes I’ve lied to him.”

  “Where are we going?” Siren continued, clearly not worried about the chief.

  I raked a hand through my hair. “Are we really going to do this right here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Fine,” I ground out. “We, you and me, are going back to Castillo.”

  Her eyes widened. “You can’t go back there. They will kill you.”

  I grinned. “Worried about me, Siren? I’m touched.”

  Her gaze narrowed immediately. “You’re an asshole.”

  “The best,” I responded, knowing my grin was pissing her off. “We don’t have anywhere else to go, unless you want to give up on finding this girl.”

  Her expression changed and Siren kicked at the gravel of the parking lot. “You’re right. I don’t want to give up on her but she’s probably halfway to Mexico by now.”

  “Which is why we need the club’s help,” I added, though my stomach churned at the thought. She wasn’t lying. They would likely kill me on the spot, but they had fingers that could reach out far better than the CIA. Plus my superior would brush this off and tell me to focus on the bigger shit that was going on.

  No, the best option was the club.

  “You’re willing to take that chance?” she asked after a moment. “I mean I could go on without you.”

  “I want in on this,” I said firmly, not wanting her to think I was just going to turn my back and walk away. “This is my best lead to finding Polanco.” He had to be behind this or at least some part of it. Besides, I was coming up dry as a bone with my other leads.

  I wasn’t about to let this one slip away.

  “Polanco,” she breathed. “That’s who you have been looking for? But why?”

  Shit. “Get your things and meet me back here in ten or I will leave without you, got it?”

  Siren’s mouth drew into a firm line, but she gave me a nod before walking toward the hotel. At least she was willing to follow my lead on this. I doubted she did that often.

  Letting out an exasperated breath, I walked toward the small place I had been renting, glad that I didn’t have a lot of shit to pack. I didn’t like the idea of going back to Castillo, but it was my only option. In undercover work, I could pull some strings for equipment and shit, but I couldn’t for men. My superior had done a good bit of that before I nearly got Machine Gun killed and I knew anything I asked for now would be scrutinized too closely. My two attempts at snuffing out the cartel had ended in disaster and the government was still cleaning up my mess.

  Hell, I was lucky that they hadn’t pulled me off the job and made me disappear by now. Some days I wondered if they were hoping I would just get my ass killed so they wouldn’t have to deal with me.

  Now that I was going to step back into Castillo, that was likely to happen.

  I opened the door to my place and grabbed the backpack I always kept ready in case I had to make a quick exit, giving the room one last look before shutting the door. My entire livelihood was in the bag and I imagined that Siren had the same.

  Though she probably wouldn’t admit it in a million years, we were a lot alike.

  Sure enough, as I approached my bike, Siren was waiting for me, her own backpack slung over her shoulder. “Glad to see you don’t waste any time.”

  “Same could be said of you,” she responded, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “Do you really want to do this?”

  “I don’t want to do it,” I reiterated. “But I don’t have much of a choice in this.”

  “Why not call for backup or something?”

  I chuckled, taking my bag and shoving it into the saddlebag. “Darling, there’s no backup in my line of work.”

  “Don’t call me darling,” Siren shot back.

  I stretched out my hand to her, motioning for her backpack as well. “What should I call you then?”

  She handed me her bag. “Siren is just fine, but I will be calling you a dead man if you don’t let me handle the club.”

  I stuffed her bag in as well, cinching the strap. That she was right about. I couldn’t just waltz into the Jesters’ clubhouse as I had in the past and expect them to not retaliate. I needed her. “You’re right. I need your help.”

  Siren smiled. “Now that we have that settled, when we get to Castillo, you need to lie low and do what I say.”

  “So, you like to be in charge in the bedroom?” I teased, wanting to rile her. “I can handle that.”

  She gave me a tight smile. “You couldn’t handle me if you tried, Voodoo.”

  I laughed, only because she looked confident in her words. Another time, I would have showed her exactly how I could handle her. “Get on. We got a long ride back.”

  Somewhere between the state line and Texas, I felt Siren’s arms slip around my waist, her head resting on my back. It felt damn good, making me shift on the seat as my cock rose to attention, straining against my jeans.

  I didn’t lie. It was going to be a long ride to Castillo but for completely different reasons now.

  But that wasn’t my concern. All I could think about was what I would say to Machine Gun or to Chains if we ended being face-to-face. I wanted to apologize, but I didn’t think that an apology was going to be enough, not for nearly killing a man. I had attempted to make my peace when he was in the hospital, but the club had rallied around him and I had been pushed out, threatened, and forced to retreat.

  Now that some time had passed, I wanted to make my amends.

  Maybe now I would get that chance.

  Chapter 5

  Siren

  The closer we got to Castillo, the more my stomach churned. With the exception of a few short stops to relieve our bladders and grab something to drink, Voodoo pushed through the night and into the bright sunshine of the morning, reaching Texas in record time.

  I had to admit, I felt kind of bad that he pushed so hard, knowing he had to be exhausted. I didn’t want to feel bad, mind you, but he was taking a huge risk by coming back to Castillo.

  Why, I wasn’t sure. I didn’t buy the whole wanting-to-help bit, nor did I think that he truly believed that this would help lead him to Polanco.

  Voodoo was a puzzle that I didn’t know how to put together.

  I couldn’t lie to the effect that I had felt the shift of his abdomen with my arms wrapped about his waist, afraid that I might fall off the bike if I fell asleep. His back was warm to my cheek, the steady beat of his heart in tune with the vibration of the bike.

  It was almost nice.

  Okay, maybe it was nice. I didn’t want to think of Voodoo in any sense other than the club’s enemy, but I was finding it harder by the minute to continue to think along those lines.

  Ugh, I should have stolen his bike and fled to Castillo myself.

  In the back of my mind, I was scared that he wouldn’t heed my warning and would try to make good with the clubs himself. The moment he set foo
t in either club, he would be a dead man and that didn’t sit well with me.

  As annoying as he was, he had put his career on the line to bail me out, labeling me as an agent and lying to a public official. If he was found out, well, it would be like me losing my club position. I still didn’t know why he had done it or his motivation behind dragging me along, but I intended to find out.

  Because I hoped that it was some sort of double-cross and not actually showing the side we didn’t know about Voodoo. Heck, I didn’t even know his true name and I wanted to keep it that way.

  Didn’t I? The moment I didn’t, he became real and I would start to like him. That was how I had kept my eye on the prize this long, by thinking of him as a mark and nothing else.

  But he wasn’t making it that easy to do so anymore. No, he was making himself out to be an actual person, someone with feelings and a personality.

  Which meant I couldn’t ignore him any longer. Even now I could detect a faint smell of his cologne in his T-shirt, the way my arms felt against his abdomen. I was acutely aware of every shift he made on the seat, every breath he took in, and even the occasional sigh he released when he thought I wasn’t paying attention.

  Who was Voodoo?

  What made him tick?

  How had he become an agent, then an undercover agent?

  No, I didn’t care! He was still my mark and could very well be dead by the end of the day. As soon as I told Chains and Widow Maker that he was back in town, they could give me the go ahead and I would be forced to put a bullet in his brain.

  The thought made me slightly ill. I wanted to force him to turn around and go away from the danger, to not have him step into the fray where I would be instructed to end his life.

  A part of me, though, knew that he knew what he was getting into.

  So, when Castillo started to crest in the distance, I removed my arms from his waist, slipping back into the road-captain mode that I had found helpful over the years. This was all business.

  Just as we had discussed, he pulled over about a mile from the Jesters’ clubhouse, killing the engine. I slid off the back of the bike, smoothing down my hair from the windy ride. I was exhausted, hungry, and torn between what I wanted to tell them and what I needed to tell them.

  “I’ll be right here.”

  I looked at Voodoo, seeing the faint circles under his eyes, the way he slumped over the handlebars as if he couldn’t hold his body upright. “Are you going to be okay?”

  The corners of his mouth lifted. “You worried about me again, Siren?”

  This time, I didn’t snap back. “We are both exhausted.”

  “Yeah, but we can’t do anything else until you talk to them. There’s a young girl’s life at stake.”

  He was right. I at least needed to let them know so that some sort of action could be mobilized. If we were right about the trafficking route, we had a matter of a day or so before she reached Mexico. “I’ll be back,” I said, wiping my hands on my jeans. “For God’s sake, don’t come near the club.”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t,” he said, straightening. “I’m gonna sit right here, baking in this Texas sun, until you start back down the road. We are partners, Agent Siren, remember?”

  I laughed, unable to help it. “That sounds ridiculous.”

  “Well, I don’t know your real name.”

  I shook my head though there was a smile on my face. “Maybe if you stick around long enough, you will find out.”

  His laughter followed me down the road and I snapped out of it, my expression sobering. I had to keep my head and my thoughts on the plan that I had been given two months ago.

  It wasn’t to flirt with Voodoo.

  The clubhouse was relatively empty when I entered, only a few Jesters milling around, looking bored. “Chains or Widow Maker here?” I asked the nearest one, who pointed me to the back, where Chains’ office was located.

  I kept my head high as I headed down the hall, my heart pounding in my chest. What would they say? What would they do to me personally? Sure, I knew where my mark was. I had just spent half the night and most of the morning on the back of his bike, wrapped against him like he was, like we were, involved.

  That, neither Chains nor Widow Maker needed to know. Even now as I thought about it, my cheeks burned with not embarrassment but desire.

  Full-fledged, white-hot desire.

  I didn’t know if it was because it had been quite some time since I had a man in my bed or if it was because he was just so close, but whatever it was, it wasn’t good.

  Wrong guy, wrong time, wrong feelings.

  I walked into the office, finding the married presidents poring over some documents, Chains seated at his desk while Widow Maker sat in one of the chairs in front of the desk, her legs dangling over the arm. “Siren,” Chains said, clear surprise on his face. “What are you doing here?”

  Widow Maker lowered her paper, giving me a once-over. “Did you kill him?”

  I shook my head, leaning against the wall. “I didn’t. There’s been a kink in the plans.”

  Chains arched his brow as he laid his paper down on the desk. “Do tell.”

  Quickly I explained the missing girl angle, leaving out the part about me going to jail or Voodoo rescuing me. “Voodoo wants to help.”

  Chains pushed back his chair, rising to his full height. “Is he in this club?”

  “No,” I answered, lifting my chin. “He’s not, but he is in Castillo.”

  “Smart man,” Chains grumbled, bracing his hands on the desk before him. “He doesn’t want to be a dead man yet.”

  “I think we should find this girl,” Widow Maker answered, her eyes on me. “And if Voodoo can make that happen, we should use him to do so.”

  I didn’t like the way she was saying those words, but I kept my mouth shut.

  “If he comes near this club, I will personally shoot him,” Chains growled. “He nearly ruined us. It’s important that we all remember that.”

  I knew that his words were directed at me. I would be the one that would be in his presence, not them. They knew that Voodoo was a master manipulator and clearly were worried that I might be susceptible to his ways.

  It pissed me off. I had held the same position for two months, waiting for their word to end Voodoo’s life and come back. I had done everything they wanted me to do, yet they thought I couldn’t handle him up close and personal. “I can handle him.”

  “You better,” Chains grumbled. “And keep him the hell away from me.”

  Widow Maker climbed out of the chair, standing. “Make sure that your focus is on finding this girl and getting her home. Once that’s done, it would be sad to know that Voodoo met an untimely demise in Mexico.”

  I swallowed. I could read between the lines. She was giving me the words that I had wanted to hear for two months, the two words that would bring me back to the club and back to my normal position.

  The rock in my stomach told me I didn’t feel as elated about the thought as I had in the past.

  “You got me?”

  I forced those tender feelings away. “Yeah, I got you.”

  “Good,” she stated, giving me a smile. “Don’t forget what he tried to do to both clubs.”

  I nodded and walked out, my heart in my throat. Why did I care about what happened to Voodoo? It wasn’t like I felt anything for him.

  Right?

  “Siren! You’re back.”

  I turned to see Elisa walking toward me, a big smile on her face. The nurse was a permanent fixture in the Jesters’ clubhouse now, having become engaged to the moody Machine Gun. There were rumors that they had a past, but both were pretty private with their lives.

  Either way, I had never in my life seen two people so unbelievably happy. “Elisa, hey.”

  “You look exhausted,” she stated, giving me a once-over. “When’s the last time you slept?”

  I managed a smile. “Soon. I’m heading home for a few winks now.”

  Her
eyes widened. “So, it’s done? You killed Voodoo?”

  I hesitated, knowing that she had strong feelings about my role in tracking Voodoo. Machine Gun wouldn’t have suffered through intense therapy, nearly dying on the operating table if it hadn’t been for Voodoo’s mischief in the club business. “No, something else came up.”

  “So, he’s still alive?”

  “For now,” I forced out. “It’s not over yet.”

  She blew out a breath. “I hope not. That man, he nearly destroyed my life by taking the man I love and putting him in that kind of danger.” Elisa’s eyes filled with tears and she blinked them away. “Retribution has to be paid. It’s the only way.”