On The Rocks by Sable Jordan Read Free Book Online

to his knees once more,
listing to the side before his head kissed the ground.
    Exhausted and energized, Kizzie flipped off
the safety and trained the weapon on him, waiting for him to move.
When he didn’t, she toed at his shoulder, then his side. Cautiously
kicked him onto his back, pissed at the fresh scuffmarks on her
brand new Timbs.
    She pushed his head over with the muzzle and
studied his face. Long, raven black hair pulled back into a
ponytail. Thick beard and mustache. His eyes were closed, though
the balls shifted subtly beneath the thin skin of his lids.
    He wouldn’t be out long.
    She searched him quickly, finding the type
of lint she’d expect from a shadow: burner cell phone, cheap wallet
with a few bills but no ID, box of matches, crushed cigar, a
wicked-looking KA-BAR —Huh... Something familiar about that combo…—
and a snubnose Ruger tucked into the holster under his right
arm.
    That made him a lefty.
    Oh, wait, nope, there was a matching pistol
in the left holster.
    That made him a wild card.
    Further investigation turned up a little .22
in an ankle holster.
    Damn, and she thought she came
prepared…
    Kizzie divested him of his first gun,
tucking it into her left jacket pocket. But as she reached for the
second, something caught her attention.
    Beneath his motorcycle jacket, a thin
t-shirt clung to a well-defined torso. Nice as that part of his
anatomy looked, Kizzie homed in on the area under his collarbone.
The dark curve of a tattoo arced up toward his shoulder, the rest
hidden beneath the stretch of grey fabric over his chest. Frowning,
she curled her fingers over the lip of his shirt and pulled down,
exposing more heavy black ink punched into his golden skin. Had she
seen this before?
    A low moan sounded from his throat.
    Kizzie yanked her hand back and steadied her
crouch. His eyelids fluttered, the thicket of dark lashes cracked
slightly.
    “Christ…” he whispered. “I have a
headache.”
    “Better a headache than no head.” She
touched the barrel to the spot between his brows. “But if you want,
I can take the pain away.”
    Cringing, he turned his head slowly toward
the main street they’d come in on. They weren’t too deep in the
alley, but the late morning sun hadn’t penetrated this far, keeping
them fairly well hidden to anyone going by. Still, this
interrogation needed to end pronto. She had a meeting to get to,
and the longer she gave this guy to get his brain unscrambled, the
greater the risk to her own person.
    “I ask, you answer. Then I shoot you. Deal?”
Gun steady, Kizzie shoved her free hand into her pocket. “Who are
you, who sent you, why are you following me? Go.”
    He blinked a few times, and then the bunched
skin between his eyes softened. “Didn’t think it was possible for
you to be even more beautiful.”
    Unease prickled over her skin. Something
about this man was familiar, but she couldn’t put her finger on
it.
    Until she did, she’d keep that finger on the
trigger.
    “Bad move, doing this in an alley,
y’know.”
    “I’m still the one holding the gun.”
    “I could have you on your back in a minute
if I wanted to.”
    “Worked out great for you the first time,
huh? But give it a go. You might move faster than the bullet…” She
shrugged off the nagging feeling she should know him and got back
to business. “So. Last time. Who are you?”
    He chuckled.
    Kizzie cocked the hammer back and all the
hardy-har came to an end.
    “Some things never change.”
    “Ay!” a voice called from the ether behind
her. “Ay, ma!”
    Kizzie didn’t shift her focus. “Friend of
yours?”
    “Maybe.”
    A squeal sounded, like the gate had swung
open. Then slow, cautious footfalls approached and she angled her
body a bit to not be taken completely off guard.
    “Ay, ma, you good?”
    “Yeah, ma,” her captive echoed, overdoing
the New York accent. “You good?”
    “Peachy,” she called.
    “You sure?”
    “Yeah, you sure?” the man beneath