He got it now. Sweet and malleable was easy, yeah. But he’d never been remotely tempted by the hundreds of hot, sweet, biddable women he’d banged over the years—a few of them, he’d banged frequently over the course of months, even years, and still he’d never had even a flutter of real interest in anything but the sex.
Sweet and malleable was boring as fuck. Siena, on the other hand, excited him endlessly. Angry, horny, happy, stressed, calm, whatever, she always had a challenge to throw in his way. And getting through that challenge? Getting hold of her, finding the sweet, soft, vulnerable, beautiful woman beneath all that armor? Nothing hotter in the world than that. He felt like a knight. Like a king. Like a god.
Like a man. A complete human being.
Yeah. He fucking loved her.
“It scares me, Coop,” Siena said, pulling him back to this moment. “I’m gonna be terrified the whole time you’re gone, and after last night ...”
“I hear you.” He did. It didn’t change what he had to do, but he understood her worry. Taking her face in his hands, he added, “This is the life, Siena. I know you’re scared and tired, and when I get back, I am going to pamper you like you’ve never been pampered in your life, but I have got to go tonight. Waiting is weakness, and we can’t be weak.”
When she nodded reluctantly, he kissed her.
Then he leaned back and met her exhausted, red-rimmed eyes again. “This is taking care of you, too. The men who hurt you are going to pay for that hurt. Anyone who even threatens to hurt you will always pay. As long as I live, I’m standing between you and harm. Geneva, too. I will protect my family. So I’m gonna go. Lyra and the girls are staying here with you.” He smiled, “She’ll be extra worried aboutthreeof us, so you can pace the room together.”
“Fun.” The weary irony in her tone gave the period its own syllable.
“We got this, babe. Trust me.”
“I do,” she said. “Always.”
Well goddamn, that felt great. Cooper stopped talking and kissed his woman properly.
––––––––
~oOo~
––––––––
The excellent thingabout ambushing Cooney and Scott at a stakeout: they were already trying not to be seen. The Bulls found the Chevy truck in question tucked off on a quiet side street, away from any streetlight. If they hadn’t been looking for that truck in that location, under those circumstances, they probably wouldn’t have noticed it at all.
The two men inside the truck took no particular notice of the plain cargo van as it drove by. They were entirely focused on the motel, both using binoculars, Scott focused on the motel office and Cooney focused on a room on the second floor.
The motel, pragmatically named the Sleep-n-Go, was located in the northwestern reaches of Las Vegas, north of the Air Force base, west of the speedway, and down the road from a notorious dive bar called The Watering Hole. According to all the Bulls who were native to the area, most of the dirty dealings in Vegas had some kind of connection to The Watering Hole—and to the Sleep-n-Go, for that matter. This was a shitty little niche of Vegas, right before it faded into the desert. Which meant that nobody paid much attention to what went down here, and typical civilians tended to steer clear.
Pretty much an ideal ambush situation—but also a situation where everybody was on their guard.
Four Bulls were in the van: Cooper, Zach, Kai, and Geno. They meant to snatch these assholes out of their truck and take them and the truck to the desert, where Ben, Reed, and Lonnie were setting up for the main event.
They’d planned everything out in church this afternoon, and they’d taken the time to work through some things that could go wrong, and develop alternative scenarios in case those things happened.
So far, they were still on the best-case plan.
“Scott’s the problem,” Zach said from the passenger seat. “Cooney’s window’s down, so we can get over on him, but Scott’s window’s up. We gotta time this just right so we don’t give one or the other a chance to make trouble.”
“You take Scott,” Cooper said. “Kai, back him up. I’ll take Cooney. Geno, you get behind the wheel and be ready to hit it and pull up when we’ve got these assholes out of their truck.”
“I don’t like having the truck between you and me, Coop,” Zach said.
“It’ll be good. I’m not being a hero. You said Scott’s the problem, I gave you the problem.”
Zach nodded. Cooper was ready to swat back a suggestion that Kai back him up instead of Zach, but the suggestion didn’t come. Zach understood that you put your strong side where trouble was most likely.
“Alright,” Cooper said. “Let’s roll before one of theses assholes needs to take a piss or something. Suppressors on, masks up, hoods low, stay in shadow. And come in low, below their sightlines. Questions?”
Nobody had any questions.
“Let’s fuck these white boys up,” Geno growled.