Free Sweeter Than Sin by Shiloh Walker Page B

but Tommy didn’t need to worry about her. She’d gotten what she wanted and now he’d have a few things to show whatever sweet little Amish girl he married.
    Laya would figure out what button to push with Caine. Sooner or later. Just like she had with Adam. Catch Adam on a day when he was so tired, he could barely see straight. Get him mad. Talk dirty. Anger could flip to lust damn fast, especially once she had her hand on his cock.
    Nobody could make a man burn hot like she could. All she had to do was find Caine’s switch. But right now he was guiding Rita down the street to her pretty little white house with the neat little picket fence.
    He wasn’t into Rita, too, was he? Layla’s gut burned, even thinking about. It was bad enough seeing the way Adam and Rita were in the back room at Shakers, but now, as Layla saw Caine tip his head down to talk to the other woman, something cold and small ripped through her.
    It might have been a stab of rejection, but she wouldn’t let herself acknowledge it as she continued to watch them. Rita leaned, drunkenly, against Caine, and while her voice was loud and raucous, Caine’s was low and steady, too quiet for Layla to follow.
    A few moments later, they were inside the house.
    She ought to just go home. Dig up one of her stashes. She still had a few left. That or find one of the bottles she’d bought when she managed to sneak some money off the guy she’d been with a few days ago. What was his name? She couldn’t even remember, but he’d had a fat wad of cash in his pocket and he wasn’t going to miss what she’d taken.
    If it was a problem, then maybe he shouldn’t carry so much and maybe he shouldn’t go to sleep with a strange woman in his bed.
    But instead of doing that, she crossed the street and ducked between the houses, her spiked heels digging into the wet soil. She eyed the windows, all lit up and bright, beckoning to her.
    Rita had one of the older homes, but it was down on the river and with fall coming, she did what a lot of the other people down here did, left the windows open to the breeze. Layla crouched in the shadows, listening to the voices drifting out of the house. Rita’s was thick and slurred, and she wasn’t a happy drunk.
    “I had to tell the cops,” Rita said.
    Layla arched her brows and eased in closer, staring up at the window, but she couldn’t see a damn thing, just that square of light and shadows moving back and forth.
    “It will be okay.” Caine, that voice of his low and steady and soothing.
    “Okay?” Rita, half-shouting. “How can it be okay? You know what he was doing all my life? Raping boys! My father is a monster. I’m going to have to talk to the cops again. I’m going to have to tell them what he said about that club and he’ll call me a liar or say I’m confused … that I’m depressed … and it won’t even be a lie.” She hiccupped and started to sob. “I am confused. I am depressed. Caine … how can I tell them? How can I do this?”
    Their voices went lower, softer.
    And outside the window, Layla muttered, “Son of a bitch.”
    Inside the house, they went quiet.
    Her heart jumped up into her throat and she couldn’t breathe. There was a shift, the floorboards squeaking. “What was—?” Rita’s voice went quiet.
    Instinct kicked in and Layla took off, pausing only long enough to remove her shoes and carry them as she pounded down the street, using the heavy shadows to hide herself as the front door of Rita’s house opened.
    Layla reached her own place, but instead of going inside, she waited.
    Her heart lodged in her throat as Caine moved out onto the porch and looked around.
    Long seconds passed before he went inside.
    Layla could swear she felt his eyes continue to watch.
    So instead of using the front door, she crept, silent as a mouse, along the porch and eased off the side, heading around to the back.
    She didn’t turn on a single light.
    And the entire time, she smirked to