The Kingpin's Weakness - Jessa Kane Page 0,6

her big eyes and bigger glasses. How she would watch Jeopardy in the bar and the regulars would take bets on how many answers she would get correct.

After a while, the customers drift back to their usual spots, leaving me with an oddly optimistic feeling—and face to face with the girl who caused it. I pull her into the space between my thighs, appreciating the ripple of black fabric over her braless tits. “You’re actually drinking a Shirley Temple, aren’t you?”

She hums, a flush creeping up her neck. “Alcohol knocks me out. And they taste better.”

“And you’re not of legal age.”

Her wince is adorable. “I didn’t want to remind you.”

“I don’t need reminding.” I slide a palm up her spine, along her shoulders and up into her hair, combing my fingers through the thick wealth of it. “Tell me why you brought me here.”

“Because it’s real. You seem so…isolated.” Her expression is actually concerned. For me. It makes my jugular tie in a knot. “If you come down from your private box more often, you’ll see, Easton. That you’re not just a bad man, like you told me. You’re more. You can’t always stand above and look down at life happening. Sometimes you have to join it.”

“That’s not possible for me,” I say thickly. “Or anyone who gets too close to me.”

“Why do you believe that?”

Do I tell her? Do I ruin this positive impression she somehow has painted of me? Or do I let her think I’m redeemable when I know I’m not? I don’t know what I should do. Only that I can’t seem to hold anything back from this girl. How sweetly and gently she unwinds me. “This wasn’t always a one-man operation, Scout. My brother and best friend were my partners, before the life swallowed them up. They warned me…they warned me our dealings were growing too dangerous, but I was ambitious. I thought if I reached the top, I would finally…”

“What?”

“Feel something.”

“And did you?”

“No.” God, my lungs don’t seem to be working right. “But I feel something…now.”

Her eyes are serious, but her lips are teasing. Flirtatious. I want to devour them. I want to devour her. Trap her inside me so she can never leave. “Maybe you should have been ambitious with romance, instead of crime.”

I shake my head. “No. There wouldn’t have been a point until now.” I wrap an arm around her lower back and pull her closer, both of us starting to breathe faster. To say nothing of my heart, which is close to beating out of my chest. “Jesus, Scout. Until…you.”

She just kind of sighs and melts against me and I realize she was right. I could have fucked her on the couch in my private box, but she wouldn’t have been pliant. Trusting. Comfortable. She would have been hesitant. Nervous. Now she knows me. I’ve already let her in more than anyone and she isn’t repulsed or scared. She accepts me.

Thank Christ I did this right.

And then she says, “Take me home, Easton.”

And I realize I was never really at the top at all.

This girl. Scout. She is the top.

4

Scout

Oh dear.

I’m falling in love with a gangster.

I feel as if I’ve unlocked a treasure that has been sitting, cold and unopened, at the bottom of the ocean. Every time he looks at me, more coins and jewels spill out in the forms of secrets and I just want to gather them up, greedily holding them to my chest.

I’m in his lap once again in the back of the SUV, driving toward his home.

No one knows where exactly Easton Brawn lives. And I get the sense that he is trying to distract me now. Every time I try to look out the window, he captures my chin and holds eye contact, slowly leaning in to coax my mouth into a surface level kiss, as if he doesn’t trust himself to take more yet. His fingertips trace up and down my inner thigh, inching the hem of my dress higher until my panties are showing, but he never touches me there. In that place I am practically buzzing, growing more damp by the second.

“I’d like to move you somewhere safer, Scout,” he rasps, massaging my knee and easing it wider in his lap. “Somewhere with security cameras, a doorman…”

“No, Easton.” I battle through the drugging sensation of his kisses, so I can tell him this important thing. Which is…? Oh yes. Right. “No. Whitney has taken care of me for so long.