Soul Possession - Maya Banks Page 0,1

her, but I damn sure don’t want her in someone else’s bed.”

Rick frowned as he finally located her. “She looks upset about something. Motion her over here like we want another beer. I want to make sure everything’s okay and then we’ll find out what time she gets off.”

Truitt followed Rick’s gaze and his eyes narrowed. He lifted his hand when he caught her eye and crooked a finger at her.

Jessie stalked out of Merriam’s office, her lips tight and fury ripping through her. She’d have liked to have ripped Merriam’s hair out by the roots. The bitch had the nerve to accuse of her of skimming money from the register and then fire her.

She very generously told Jessie she could finish out the night, and if Jessie didn’t need the money so desperately, she would have told Merriam to shove it.

Jessie didn’t even go near the register. How the hell was she supposed to be stealing from it? Denise, the bartender, guarded the register like a jealous lover and looked accusingly at anyone who got within ten feet of it.

And yet Jessie was going to take the fall for a few hundred dollars that Merriam said had mysteriously disappeared?

She was so pissed she wanted to throw a chair across the room. She wasn’t normally a vindictive type of person but right now she wished Karma would bite Merriam on the ass, and she’d told her as much.

Merriam was a hard-ass, uptight bitch who was an absolute monster to work for. But Merriam paid good wages and Jessie made good tips at the popular pub. Her regulars always took good care of her. The money had made the crap that Jessie had to put up with worth it.

Her shoulders sagged and her hands still shook from her confrontation with Merriam. They were already shorthanded and Jessie really, really wanted to say to hell with all of them and walk out, because then Merriam would have to come out and help tend bar and she hated to be dragged out of her office for any reason.

It only made Jessie feel marginally better that she’d told Merriam exactly what she thought of her. She’d left by telling Merriam that she hoped she was run over by a bus. Okay, so maybe that wasn’t the classiest exit, but really, how was being Miss Manners going to help? It wasn’t like by being polite she’d suddenly get her job back.

“Problem, Jessie?” Denise barked from behind the counter. “You’ve got customers waiting. Get your ass in gear.”

“Fuck off,” Jessie snapped. Oh God, did that feel good. She almost laughed at Denise’s look of shock.

She turned to see Truitt Cavanaugh motion for another round of beers. Her mouth drooped as she realized that this would be the last night she’d get to serve her two sexy detectives. She’d miss flirting with them, and those smoldering stares they sent her way when they thought she wasn’t looking. Or, hell, maybe they did know.

They’d been angling to get her into bed for weeks and she’d always put them off. The idea of having a threesome was shocking but titillating in an exciting oh-my-God kind of way, but she’d never mustered the nerve to go for it.

She wasn’t a virgin, but she was woefully behind in the sex education department, and somehow she knew they were so far out of her league that she hadn’t a prayer of satisfying either.

They were bad boys and she was a wholesome, sweet good girl, and if that wasn’t enough to disgust her, she didn’t know what was.

Still, she wouldn’t mind signing up for Sex Ed if they were teaching.

Rick was all dark and brooding. Quieter than Truitt. His hair hung to his shoulders, sleek and black, just made for a woman’s fingers. She was fascinated by a man who’d have the words Courage, Honor, and Heart tattooed around his wrist like a bracelet. It made her wonder all manner of things about his hidden depths and how much she’d like to plumb them.

Truitt was no less of a badass, and in some ways he was fiercer-looking than Rick. He was big and broad-shouldered, a few inches taller than Rick with a body builder’s physique. He wore an earring in one ear but she’d been close enough to know that both ears were pierced.

Spiraling bands with sharp points and flowing edges circled both arms and disappeared into his sleeves. She always wondered how far up his body his tats went, and what other