Hot-Blooded Read Online Free Page B

his eyes with unyielding demand. “You’ll do it now.”
    This alpha-dog game they played usually ended badly for Scott, but a twinge of guilt stopped Blake from tossing out a witty verbal smackdown. The one-year anniversary of Lori’s death was coming up, and the stress of life without her had clearly eroded Scott’s motivation. Again. Lethargy had set in. Blake had to cover Scott’s careless mistakes—forgetting important appointments, leaving home without protection, wandering around the beach alone. In this business, those kinds of foibles could get a guy like Scott killed.
    “I got a trip planned for this weekend.”
    “With your girlfriend ?” Scott sneered. “Come on, Blake, the women you fuck aren’t even a dime a dozen. They’re buy one, get twelve free. Why do you bother giving them your number? The second you leave a girl’s house, you’re bombarded by the waiting line in the driveway.”
    Blake held his tongue. Scott can’t move on, he reminded himself. He acts like a jealous bitch because he forgot how to be a man a year ago and hasn’t refueled his balls enough to kick-start the bike yet.
    “Candy’s loaded,” he said instead. “With cash, awesome drugs, and the best tits money can buy. Exactly the qualities a guy like me looks for in a future ex-wife. You’re not the only one around here who enjoys living in luxury. Float me a break, brah.”
    Scott’s eyes snapped to his. “Candy’s a whore. And you’re my whore. Ditch her.”
    Blake bristled. He straightened and shook out his arms, then leveled his friend with a cut-the-shit scowl. “Just because you pay me doesn’t mean you own me.” Scott knew as well as he that they kind of owned each other. Scott might have been the brains behind their operation, but he’d be nothing without Blake’s muscle and charm. Their arrangement was mutually beneficial, and at times like these when Scott’s pussy meter got stuck in the red zone, he needed Blake more than the other way around.
    Scott pursed his lips and glanced at his feet. “Okay, then, I’m demoting you. You can’t take care of business for me, then I can’t take care of you.”
    He was trying to get a rise out of Blake. “Demoting me to what, asshole? I thought ‘assistant’ was as low as I could go. You banishing me to the mailroom? Janitor’s closet? I could teach lei making to the keiki in the little hut by the hotel pool. I’m told I have good hands for that shit.” He held them up and wiggled his battered, scarred fingers. “And look, no fucking nail polish.”
    That earned a crack of a smile from Scott, and the tension between them eased by a hair. “I was thinking of sending you to man the babysitting room. That ought to be a strong enough punishment. Might keep the little shits from destroying hotel property and raising hell in the public areas.”
    Blake almost laughed, but then an image of Jonathan lying on the pavement, blood oozing from the bullet hole, surprise-attacked his fun. He shook his head. He and Scott were a pair of pussies for the same reasons. Thank God no one else knew why.
    “What difference does it make if I hit Maui now or next week? Give a hustler a break. You got time-sensitive shit to deal with? Who are these pricks, anyway?”
    The humor left Scott’s face, and a barren expression swept any glimmers of mirth aside. “I have no idea who they are, but they’re encroaching on my business. My biggest distributor in Honolulu tried to cut me loose. Said he had a line on a cheaper, new strain of high-powered weed out of Maui and wasn’t sure he’d require my services anymore.”
    “Why don’t you let me have that job instead? It’s closer to home. I can take care of it tomorrow, and I’ll have plenty of time to make my wedding,” he half-joked.
    “Oh, I convinced him to stay on with us. Then he turned up dead this morning.”
    Huh. Well, that was a problem. “Who did it?”
    Scott shrugged. “You tell me.”
    “Give me whatever info