Free Shades of Love (Mad Jackals Brotherhood MC Book 3) by Evelyn Glass

She’d seen what bad guys looked like and Ray was definitely not one of them.
     
    “You know that’s kind of creepy, right?” She frowns at him.
     
    “You’re Mia’s best friend and I’ve made it my business to keep her safe these past few years. Did you really think I hadn’t kept tabs on you, counselor?” Ray lifts an eyebrow at her, heading towards the door again.
     
    Dammit, she hates it when men always want to have the last word. “You know Mia’s going to kill me when she figures out what I’ve done, right?” Cassie chews the inside of her cheek, a little afraid of her five-foot-four-inch hellion of a best friend. The woman was tiny but Cassie was under no misapprehensions that Mia could totally take her.
     
    “If you’re having second thoughts, just say the word, Cassie. I don’t want to cause any problems between the two of you. You guys have an amazing friendship and I don’t want to jeopardize that.” Ray looks at her with a challenge in his eyes and dammit if he didn’t look all noble and sincere. It isn’t hard to figure out why Mia had fallen hard for this guy.
     
    She sighs theatrically to cover the fact that he’s won her over. “Just do me a favor, Ray. Don’t screw it up.”
     
    He breaks out in a grin and gives her a mock salute before grabbing hold of the handle on the glass door to her office.
     
    “And don’t have sex in my bed!” She says the words so loudly she gets a few curious looks from the bank of assistants outside her door.
     
    Ray doesn’t even break his stride, heading purposefully for the elevators as all the women turn their heads to completely unsubtly check him out. Cassie sinks back down into her chair as she watches him go, praying that Mia isn’t going to hate her for what she’s just done. “They’re so going to have sex in my bed,” she mumbles to herself before she picks up the phone to call in the first of her favors.
     

 
    Chapter Eight
     
    As Mia pulls up outside Cassie’s house, she still has Amanda on her mind. She’d waited until the cop car had arrived and settled Amanda in her old room again. The girl is safe, but she can’t seem to get the conversation they’d had off her mind. It’s not just that it’s made her wonder if she had been wrong about Ray. It’s made her feel like she’s beaten herself around the head with a stupid stick.
     
    How could she have let herself forget everything she knows about him? He’d proven himself again and again to be someone who cares about her, someone who wants the best for her. Yes he’d avoided the truth; she can’t deny that, but she also can’t deny that, perhaps, in his shoes she would have done the same. Ray had been afraid that her opinion of him would change after she found out the truth of his past. And she’d proven him right.
 
    She slams the door of the car behind her, trying to get into a better headspace before she walks into Cassie’s house. But she stops as she gets to the porch steps feeling that familiar sense of there being eyes on her. She looks behind her, her hand in her bag grasping the can of mace her dad had insisted she carry around with her. That’s when she notices that Cassie’s house is pitch dark and her car isn’t parked in its usual spot. She wasn’t home, but if she wasn’t there, who the hell was watching her?
     
    She hears the sound of a heavy-booted footstep behind her and starts to run back towards her car, scrabbling around in her bag for her keys. Suddenly there’s a heavy hand on her shoulder and it’s turning her around. She pulls out the can of mace and sprays it in front of her, not even looking where she’s aiming it.
     
    “Goddammit, Mia. Knock if off; it’s just me!” Ray’s voice reaches her through the haze of her fear and she drops the can of mace to the floor.
     
    She opens her eyes, slowly, as if she’s afraid her ears might be deceiving her. But they’re not. It really is him, standing in front of her, his hands