All of a sudden I was in serious danger of getting insanely pissed at a man who had not too long before shared he was “not sweet” and I knew the form this could take since I was in the room when he ordered one of his henchmen to point a gun at Pepper’s head.

Still, I couldn’t quite keep the ticked-off tremble out of my, “Place keeper?”

“Baby, guys are dicks. They don’t mean to be. It comes naturally. Though, when they find the one for them, that’s all done.”

With all that had just gone on, I only had it in me to repeat an even more trembling, “Place keeper?”

“I’d apologize for the brotherhood if I didn’t know for a fact that there are women out there who need validation or can’t be alone or just want some guy around to take her car to have the oil changed, and she knows he has no staying power. Because she wants one who’s better looking or has a healthier bank account, and even though she’s got one, she’s still looking for what’s next. It goes both ways, Hattie.”

Sadly, I couldn’t argue that.

“You think Axl’s like that?”

“I don’t think a man who’s like that has it in him to kiss a woman like he was kissing you.”

My breath left me.

Whoosh.

Gone.

So when I spoke again, I had to force it out on a wheeze.

“Really?”

His face got soft, he came to me, and then he tucked me in a brotherly headlock to his side.

“Really,” he said quietly. “And as such, I’ll be checking the veracity of your earlier statement. Now, it sucks huge, but I gotta bring us back to why I felt the need to interrupt that kiss.” He shook the photos again. “Hattie, this is next level. And I got resources, but I can’t lift then run DNA on a postage stamp. Not unless I find a new resource that’s reliable and add it to my arsenal. Which will take time. Too much of it. I need to give this to Hawk.”

I had to admit, there was very little doubt my caller had sent those pictures.

So he knew where I lived.

And very likely where I worked.

And in the porn industry, it seemed they catered to their clientele thinking that a woman needed to look in pain even when she was having a non-BDSM orgasm.