Page 11 of Texas Hold Em’ (The Devil’s Luck MC #3)

JAMESON

“ J ameson! Open the fucking door!”

Carrie sat bolt upright in bed beside me. “What’s happening?”

I groaned and rubbed at my eyes. Sunlight streamed in through the warehouse windows over our heads and cast patches of amber light on the cinderblock walls. “Fuck me.”

“Is that Jackson?” she asked, pulling the blankets up over her breasts like Jackson was there in the room seeing her naked body.

I swung my legs over the side of the bed. “Sounds like it.”

Jackson continued pounding on my front door.

“My neighbors are going to love this,” I grumbled.

“Should I stay here?”

I paused in the doorway of the bedroom, wearing nothing but my boxers, and turned back to Carrie, whose blonde hair was a mess falling about her shoulders. Her nose was pink, her eyes heavy with fatigue, and she clung to the blankets like she wanted to disappear inside them.

“Up to you,” I said.

She grimaced, and I made for the front door.

Jackson was still pounding on it when I unlocked it and swung it open. The President stood on the other side, out of breath, glaring at me while Mason, standing just behind him, looked pleased to see me.

“Tex,” Mason said. “Glad to see you’re alive.”

“Of course I’m alive,” I said.

Jackson brushed past me with a grumpy grunt, and Mason followed with an apologetic nod. I closed and locked the front door behind them.

Jackson stopped and looked around at the bloody gauze on my coffee table. “What the fuck happened?”

I folded my arms over my chest. “I cut myself shaving.”

“Stop fucking around,” Jackson said.

I sighed. “We had a bit of a run in with some of Bates’s boys on our ride home from your place last night.”

“Where’s Carrie?” Mason asked.

“Here.” Carrie stood in the doorway to the bedroom. She’d put on one of my shirts, and I desperately wished Mason and Jackson weren’t there. She looked hotter than sin in the T-shirt that reached to the middle of her thighs. The sleeves nearly reached her elbows. “We took care of it.”

“Took care of it?” Jackson hissed. “We’re supposed to be avoiding heat from the cops, and now we have three more bodies on our heads. Are you fucking kidding me, Tex? What were you thinking?”

I opened my mouth to respond, but Carrie beat me to the punch.

“It wasn’t his fault. I shot them.”

Jackson looked incredulously from me to her and back to me. “Oh, great. That’s fucking great. Consider me relieved. The hero cop saved our asses by killing more bastards. Thank you, Carrie.” He bowed dramatically. “What would we do without you?”

“Without her, I’d be dead, asshole.” I moved to the door off my kitchen, shoved it open with one shoulder, and stood in the fresh air while I lit a smoke.

“We didn’t have any other choice. Those guys were on us and they weren’t fucking around.

If we didn’t put them down, it would have been our blood on the pavement. Carrie only did what she had to.”

Carrie nodded at me. “Thank you. ”

“You,” Jackson hissed, pointing a finger at her. “No more talking.”

Mason sighed. “Jackson, give it a rest.”

But Jackson wasn’t listening. “Give it a rest? Give it a fucking rest? Listen, you can think I’m overreacting all you want, but we busted our asses to get the cops off our tail.

Hell, Mason, you almost died two weeks ago!

And now we have three more bodies. Do you think Bates won’t know who did it?

If he sent out a hit on one of us, which I assume was exactly what happened last night, then he’s going to know it was a Devil who killed his men. ”

“Only it wasn’t a Devil,” Carrie muttered under her breath.

Jackson’s eyes narrowed on her. “What the fuck did I just tell you to do?”

Carrie planted her hands on her hips. “Listen, Jack, I know you’re the big cheese around here and your boys have to listen to you, but I’m not one of your fucking boys.”

Mason whistled. I looked back and forth between Jackson and Carrie. If she wanted him to trust her, this wasn’t the right way to do it.

“Last night got out of hand,” she continued. “Killing anyone wasn’t my first, second, or even third choice. But our backs were up against the wall. Like Tex said, it was us or them. Personally, I didn’t want to die on a backroad in Reno. But that’s just me.”

“Bates is getting bolder,” I said as I blew smoke. “If not for Carrie, I’d be a busted pile of bones on the side of the road. One of these times, Bates is going to succeed, Black Jack. He almost did last night. And like you said, he almost killed Mason, too.”

Jackson never took his eyes off Carrie. “And our little Ranger happened to be there both times to save the day.”

“Yeah, you’re welcome.” Carrie rolled her eyes and marched out of the bedroom doorway to the bathroom. “Shit talk me all you want. I’m going to take a shower.”

She slammed the bathroom door behind her. Seconds later, we heard the water turn on.

Jackson glared hotly at me. “I don’t like it.”

“Really? I hadn’t noticed,” I said dryly .

Mason leaned up against my kitchen cupboards. “We thought you were dead, Tex. The news didn’t report whose bodies they found, only that there were three of them, and two were motorcyclists. You weren’t answering your phone.”

Oops. My phone must have died in the middle of the night. I’d been too tired to think about plugging it in. Too tired and too distracted by Carrie’s body.

I rubbed the back of my neck. “My bad, boys. But I’m all right. See? No harm done.”

“No harm done.” Jackson sighed, shaking his head and closing his eyes. He looked like he’d aged a decade in the last couple of months. “We have no idea what the ramifications of this will be.”

“Would you rather I let them kill me?” I asked. “To save you the headache?”

“Of course not,” Jackson said. “But it’s still a fucking mess, and I have no idea how to clean it up.”

Nobody said anything for a few minutes. We looked everywhere but at each other, and I could practically hear the thoughts of my friends raging in their heads.

Who’s next?

Bates hadn’t been playing coy with us. He’d boldly placed hits on Jackson, Mason, and me. We’d be idiots to think he wasn’t already planning a fourth attack. For all we knew, it was already under way.

For all we knew, he had all our pictures in a drawer somewhere and a giant red marker close by to draw X’s over our faces once he’d taken us out.

I heard the shower turn off.

“We don’t have a choice,” I said finally.

“We need to find a way to get close to Bates so we can finish him before he has a chance to finish us. He’s showed his hand multiple times over.

He has no intention of letting any of us walk away in one piece, Black Jack.

It’s time we stop affording him the luxury of air. ”

Jackson rubbed his jaw. “And Caroline?”

“What about her?” I asked .

“Once we cut the head off the snake, she’ll take his place,” Jackson said.

“So we kill her, too,” Mason said matter-of-factly.

Jackson grimaced. As a rule, we didn’t hurt or kill women. Sometimes it didn’t seem like there was much that separated us from the riffraff, but there was that. Women were off limits.

Mason saw Jackson’s hesitation. “She’s worth making an exception for. As you said, she’ll step into Bates’s shoes. She’s as cruel and ruthless as he is. Hell, she might even be smarter than him. What if he’s the one keeping her in line?”

“I don’t like it either, Jack,” I said. “But we can’t leave her on the board. She’s too dangerous.”

The bathroom door opened. Carrie came out wrapped in one of my towels.

She had her hair up in another one. She didn’t look in Jackson’s direction as she walked past, but she shot me a glance, and I cleared my throat and tried to look unbothered by her long bare legs glistening with drops of shower water.

She disappeared into my bedroom and closed the door. Seconds later, we heard a blow dryer turn on.

“She going somewhere?” Jackson asked.

“Not that I’m aware of,” I said.

Mason chuckled. “Just getting dolled up for you, then?”

“Piss off,” I said.

Mason held up his hands in a display of innocence. “Just saying, man. She’s a beautiful girl. I wouldn’t blame you if you, you know, wanted to take her for a test drive.”

“She’s a viper,” Jackson grated. “No test drives.”

Mason shrugged one shoulder. “In my experience a well-fucked woman is a hell of a lot less trouble.”

Jackson’s eyes narrowed.

I grinned, glad the heat was off me finally. “Does that apply to Suzie?”

Mason gaped like a fish out of water. “That’s not what I meant.”

Jackson moved toward the Vice President. “What did you mean?”

“I was talking out of my ass,” Mason said hurriedly. “Tex, you know what I’m saying, right? It was a joke, Jack. Honestly. I don’t fuck—I don’t—Suzie isn’t—shit.” He ran his hand over his head and his shoulders slumped.

I laughed. “Just don’t let Suzie hear you talk like that, Mason. She’d tie you to the back of her bike by your balls and open the throttle.”

Mason winced and tugged at the front of his jeans. “Shit, man.”

Jackson grumbled. “Not a half-bad idea.”

The blow dryer stopped humming in the bedroom. What was that girl up to in there?

I lit another cigarette and puffed on it while Jackson backed off Mason and cast irritated glances at the bedroom door. “We should send her back to Austin. For all we know they wanted her dead last night, not you Tex.”

“Like I said, she can handle herself,” I said.

“She’s bad news,” Jackson said. “I can feel it in my bones. We’re better off without her.”

“You were the one who told me to keep her close,” I said.

“That was before she started walking around like a smart ass. If we keep her around, best case scenario she’ll be collateral damage. And worst case? She’s not on our side. She’s playing the long game. She could be our undoing.”

The bedroom door opened and Carrie stepped out.

My jaw nearly hit the floor.

Mason cleared his throat and didn’t take his eyes off her as she moved across the apartment and grabbed the keys to my Chevelle hanging by the front door.

She wore a pair of skintight leather leggings and a cropped red shirt the color of wine.

Her lips were painted the same deep shade, and her long blonde hair was shiny and lightly tousled.

If the boys hadn’t been here, I’d have pinned her against the wall and ruined her lipstick, among other things.

“Where the hell are you going?” Jackson asked.

Carrie lifted her chin. “I have a plan of my own worked out.”

Jackson let out barking laughter. “Give me a break. What sort of plan requires the whore getup? ”

Carrie smiled not-so-sweetly. “For your information, these are your girl’s clothes.”

Jackson held his tongue, and I held in my laughter. Carrie wasn’t afraid of him. Not even a little bit. Hell, I wondered if she was afraid of anyone or anything.

She twirled the keys around her finger. “I just need you boys to trust me, okay?”

Jackson rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “Give me a fucking break.”

“I trust you,” I said.

“Likewise,” Mason added.

Jackson glared at us, his eyes burning with betrayal. His fiery stare slid to Carrie. “What does this plan entail?”

Carrie opened the front door. “If I tell you, you’ll never let me go through with it. Have a little faith, Black Jack.”

With that, she stepped out into the hall and let the door fall closed behind her.

If Jackson were a cartoon character, he’d have been blowing smoke out of his ears.