Page 5 of London’s Calling, Part 1 (London’s Calling)

Chapter Five

Mickey

Roni holds my gaze as she slowly lays her cards down on the table. Priest and Fletch curse telling me all I need to know. I just lost to Roni Hart. I just lost my fucking home to Roni Hart.

Fuck!

She claps her hands and leans back in her seat, crossing her legs. “Straight flush. Now if you don’t mind…” she says, waving a finger in the direction of my boxers.

I push to my feet as Priest and Fletch whoop and holler. “No fucking way!” I grit out, my jaw clenched so tight the muscles spasm in protest. “You cheating bitch.”

Priest grabs me as I move to get to her. “Whoa, whoa,” he says, holding me back.

Fletch moves toward Roni as she climbs to her feet. “I think it’s time for you to go,” he tells her, picking up her discarded top and shoes and grabbing her arm to guide her out.

Her smug smile is like a fucking red rag to a bull, and I snort, pointing a finger in her direction. “Fucking cheat. Like father, like daughter. You’ll pay for this, Veronica! I’ll make you fucking pay.”

She yanks out of Fletch’s hold and pulls her top on, then snatches her shoes from him.

“I know where the door is.” Pausing at the front door, she turns.

“Oh, don’t worry about the boxers. Once you’ve seen one cock…

well, you know the rest. You’ve got forty-eight hours to vacate my apartment.

Enjoy the rest of your night, gentlemen. ”

I shove out of Priest’s hold and grab the nearest bottle from the table, then throw it in the direction of the front door. It hits as the door closes, shattering into a thousand pieces.

“Fucking hell!” I roar, gripping my hair and pacing up and down.

My father is going to fucking kill me. With that thought, lights from the drive spill through the window.

I spin, seeking out my clothes. Snatching up my jeans, I tug them on hopping from foot to foot, then shove my feet in my shoes and snatch a set of keys from the table before heading for the door.

“Hey, they’re my fucking keys! Mickey, where the fuck you going, man?”

“To get my fucking apartment back!”

I storm out the house just as break lights fade into the distance. Running over to Priest’s car, I unlock it and jump inside. Spraying gravel and dust as I reverse and peel off after Roni.

If she thinks I’m giving up my house after she fucking cheated, she obviously doesn’t know us Rawlinses well.

I hit the accelerator hard, shifting through the gears as I race after her.

Priest might just beat my father to end my life if I damage his precious Beemer.

But right now, my focus is solely on the infuriating woman ahead of me.

I slap a hand on the horn, holding it down, as she comes into view. She speeds up, and I flick my full beam on and off, blinding her in her rear-view mirror.

I’ve no damn idea what I’m going to do once I get her to stop, if she even does.

Showing no sign of stopping, Roni rounds the bend up ahead, and I push the car harder to catch up, rounding the bend a minute behind her.

I toot the horn again, flashing my lights several times before leaving my full beam on and hampering my own view in the process.

There’s a screech of brakes and the skidding of tyres on the road as Roni’s car spins out. I slam my brakes on, stopping less than a foot from the passenger side of her car, which is now at a standstill horizontally across the middle of the road.

Flinging the car door open, I’m greeted with a high-pitched yell as I climb out.

“What the actual fuck, Mickey! Have you lost your fucking mind?” Roni shouts as she marches toward me.

“No, just my fucking home!” Goosebumps break out on the very naked upper half of my body a second before two palms slam into my chest, shoving me back against the car.

“You could have killed me. I knew you were psychotic, but this…Jesus Christ!” She continues to slap at me.

As she hits out at me again, I snatch her wrists, pushing her arms up, then use my hold and momentum to spin her so she’s pinned against the car.

“I could fucking kill you right fucking here, right now. You cheated,” I say, my face an inch from hers.

She smiles smugly. “Counting cards isn’t illegal, Mickey.”

I laugh in her face. “It’s unethical.”

“Oh, please,” she says with a laugh of her own. “Unethical is in your blood. It runs through your veins, even has its own fucking DNA code.”

“The bet is off.”

“The fuck it is. I won, the end. Or are you wanting to add sore loser and reneger of bets to the list of undesirable traits the Rawlins name stands for?” She quirks a brow, and I watch as her eyes spark with challenge.

She shifts her body as she tries to loosen my hold on her, but all it does is force our bodies closer together.

I’m furious and I want to hurt her, but none of that stops my cock hardening beneath my jeans.

And when her lips part, my eyes drop to them, a puff of breath expels from her mouth, and I know she can feel me.

She stills, watching my face, trying to read my thoughts and figure out what’s next.

My father is going to go fucking nuts already, but if I renege on our bet, I’ll not only face his wrath but tarnish our name. That can’t happen. I’m meant to be proving to him I have what it takes to step into his shoes one day.

I can’t deny my attraction to her. The fact she irritates the fuck out of me just makes my dick harder. There’s no logic there. And while I’ll never get in bed with her, a guy can have a little fun, right?

In the blink of an eye, I’ve released her wrists, swapping it for her face, and slammed my lips down on hers.

She squirms against me—not fucking helping the situation at all—and tries to shove me off her.

But I’m almost twice her size and could bench press her.

She’s not shifting me if I don’t want to be moved.

When she opens her mouth to protest, to curse me out, I drive my tongue into her mouth.

My grip on her face tightens as our tongues go into battle, and a couple of seconds later, she’s kissing me back, raising her leg and grinding against me.

I slide one hand along the side of her neck and grip her auburn hair, angling her head so I can deepen the kiss and eliciting a moan from her.

Trailing a hand down her body, I pause to cup a breast, stroking my thumb over her nipple beneath her thin top and bra as she arches into the touch.

But before I can go any further, a bright light illuminates the road as the rumble of a car engine grows louder, breaking the spell we’ve both fallen under.

I release her instantly like she’s burnt me and step back. The shutters come down over her face, and the only indication of anything being amiss is her kiss-swollen lips and the hard-on painfully constrained inside my jeans.

A car door slams shut, but neither of us break our stare off, choosing to ignore whoever it is and revert to sending daggers at each other again. Only now they aren’t so sharp, dulled beneath a dusting of lust and desire.

Roni breaks the silence just as I sense someone step up beside me.

“I’ll see you Sunday morning, Mickey, and you better be ready.” She nods to whoever is standing next to me, Fletch, I think, then walks back to her car, gets in and drives away.

“Jeez, what the fuck did I just interrupt? Sure as shit wasn’t the murder scene I was expecting. The sexual tension right here”—he lifts a finger and twirls it around in a circle—“is insane!”

“Whatever,” I mumble and head back to the car.

“Priest is pissed with you, man,” Fletch calls to me.

But I don’t hear him. I’m too busy wondering what the fuck just happened and how I ended up kissing the enemy.