Sean left the Pub with even more questions than he had going in. The only real knowledge he had gained was that Nick wasn’t telling him everything, and the parts he was omitting smacked of something dark. The kid was good at keeping secrets, but Sean’s training made him an expert at detecting when someone was withholding information. It was in the defensive body posture, and the deliberate swagger injected into Nick’s voice. Mostly it was in the eyes, and Nick’s were nothing less than haunted.
Sean had seen that look enough in his tours. It was the kind of look a man had when he was forced to watch something awful play out and was unable to do anything about it.
A sudden chill crept down his spine. What the hell was going on? And why were his protective instincts flaring to life with such ferocity? Nick was an employee. Sean cared about the kid, wanted him to do well, maybe even felt a personal stake. But that didn’t explain the intensity he was feeling, the strong sense of warning, or the clawing need to get involved.
That left... the sister? Hadn’t his sense of unease peeked right before he encountered her? The possibility hit him like a brick to the temple. Oh, hell, no, he thought, shaking that thought free before it had a chance to take root. He wasn’t even going to go there. She was smoking hot, sure, but this was no time to be thinking with his dick, no matter how strong the ache in his balls was.
No, he told himself, he needed to get a grip, stop acting like some horny adolescent, and figure out what the hell was going on in his town.
He decided to start with Nicki’s reason for being in Pine Ridge. What was this “family stuff” that brought Nick’s sister into town? Nick had spoken the word “family” like it left a bad taste in his mouth. Was there more to their little unit than brother and sister? And why the uncertainty over how long Nicki would be in town? What kind of situation was open-ended like that?
Nick’s reaction to Nicki’s temp job also raised a few warning bells. Sure, any brother would have issues with his sister working in a place like that and they’d be well-founded ones, too. But Nick’s concern was a bit too intense to be explained away by simple brotherly concern over his sister’s rep, especially one whose nine-to-five (p.m. to a.m., that was) was a showgirl in Vegas. Angels could be hardcore, but Sean knew the owner and Jason took very good care of his employees – men and women - and even Nick should be able to pick up on that. No, there was a decided undercurrent there, one that had nothing to do with false modesty or suggestions of a little OT between the sheets.
Sean firmly refused to consider the biggest question of all: why did he care so much?
Angels was dark and smoky, just as he remembered. The music was so loud he felt the bass reverberating through his bones. And there were pole dancers. Sexy, lovely strippers on the semi-circular stage, doing their thing. He shouldered his way through the standing room only crowd, made his way toward the front, and sat his big frame down beside the table that had just conveniently opened up in the VIP seating area. There were definite bennies to having the boss owe you a few favors.
He accepted a drink from the pretty young server. It was on the house, but that didn’t stop Sean from giving her a generous tip. The smile she gave him was genuine, probably as much for the size of the tip as the fact that he didn’t attempt to grope her. Sean sat down and waited, steeling himself against the nearly unbearable ache that had settled in his balls since some crazy-ass female crawled out of his pit and cupped him there. Shit, he still felt her hand on him, like a fucking brand. That made about as much sense as the fact that he was even here.
Eyes and ears open, Sean tried to relax. It was simple recon. Sure as hell beat the rainforest he’d found himself face down in a month ago, covered in mud and crawling with bugs. Weird, how he almost felt cleaner there than he did here in what his Irish grandmother would have called a “den of iniquity”.
He smiled at the thought, but that smile quickly faded when he realized that something inside him was changing. Some fundamental shift he couldn’t quite identify. Since when had alcohol and beautiful, sexy women started to lose their appeal for him?