He pulls out his phone and barks out a few commands.
As we walk through his house, as people dressed in fatigues start moving and calling him sir, it doesn’t feel like a home but a compound or a military base.
At the door, Joe comes up to us with a folded pile of clothing and hands it to me.
“Take those with you,” Cain orders.
With me? What the hell?
He looks up at Lanky—er, Joe. “Have Claude track my location and copy everything we say and do. No one follows us. I do not want backup until I call for it, is that clear?”
“Yessir.”
He clicks a key fob, and bright lights and a beep light up a truck a few yards away from us.
Oh my God.
When I was a teen, I had a few friends who got their licenses, and everyone wanted a car. Some just wanted a set of wheels to get from point A to point B, some freedom and independence. Some wanted a nicer car that would take them to job interviews or on road trips.
I wanted a truck. Specifically, a Toyota Tundra 4WD with a crew cab and thirty-eight-inch mud terrain tires with eighteen-inch Rockstar rims.
Cain Master drives my dream truck.
His truck’s like him, sturdy and fearless, a veritable force of nature. The wheels alone come up to my chest. Good God. Two-tone black rawhide leather seats with red inlay matches the candy blood-red paint job, and if it wasn’t for Massachusetts’ insanely strict gun laws, this baby would house a gun rack in the back perfect for a twelve-gauge shotgun or semi.
And is that… no. Behind this truck, in the back, there’s an even bigger truck.
“You do not drive a Ford 650!”
He gives me a curious look. “I do, but it’s too big to take tonight.”
“Will you let me touch it? Please? I just want to touch it, just once.”
Cain’s lips twitch, and he mutters, “That may be crossing a line, Miss Price.”
I don’t dignify his response with a reply, and don’t speak because I don’t trust my voice.
“Not now.” He’s right, I know he is. We have to get moving. Still, one day I just want to sit in that beautiful truck.
I hoist myself up on the metal platform of the Toyota. I want to get into the cab before he notes how small I am compared to this thing and decides to do something drastic and chauvinistic like touch me and help me in.
He’s your boss, I remind myself. Your ridiculously hot, very scary, very dominant alpha male boss who just joked about…
No, wait. Not boss. Not boss.
Business associate or…something.
Whatever.
I hop in so quickly I manage to smash my shins on the unyielding metal step. Fuck, that’ll bruise. I don’t wince or say a word but silently slide onto the passenger seat. He, naturally, swings himself in with one smooth motion like this truck was custom-built to accommodate him.
I take a quick look at the clothes in my hands. Some kinda faded khaki pants that could be men’s or women’s, but there’s an adjustable waistband and elastic to help them fit. A small black tank top, pair of socks, pair of boots.
He stares down at the boots. “Those are the smallest size we had, but something tells me you’ll still have to stuff them.”
“I’m not that small.”
It’s a stupid thing to say when I’m sitting next to a man so big he could double in Green Giant ads. His hands are three times the size of mine, his arms bigger than my thighs, and those aren’t even the most intimidating things about him. Normal humans are composed of skin and tissue and strung together with muscle. Cain defies normal human body structure, because every inch of him seems to be nothing but raw, corded muscle. If we broke down, I feel as if he could hitch this truck to his shoulders and haul us home without breaking a sweat.
“I’d guess you’re five feet tall, just over a hundred pounds.”
“Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s rude to ask a woman her weight?”
I sigh. Exactly one-ten the last time I checked.
“I’m not asking. My point is, you’re small. Pointless trying to argue.”
He revs the engine, and heat pulses low between my legs. If this truck proposed to me, I’d accept. Gah.
“It can come in handy, you know,” I say in protest.
“What can?”
“Being small.”
He shifts in his seat and mutters to himself, “Could be a fuckin’ issue, too.”
“Not like I can help it.”
He doesn’t respond but launches straight into giving me more details about his sister. “Things to know. Skylar has the shittiest taste in boyfriends and won’t ever bring them to meet me for dinner or anything before she dates them.”
“Does that surprise you?”
He pauses, flicking on his directionals before he takes a turn, then cruises back up to a breakneck speed. I guess not only does he not have a use for the police, but he obviously seems to think they can’t touch him.