“I’m not going to kiss him this morning.” Felicia heard the aghast quality in her own voice.
“Why not? You didn’t want to text him last week either.”
No, she hadn’t. Felicia wondered if she’d ever do what she needed to do without the proper push from Pearl.
Kiss him.
In less than an hour.
It sounded absurd.
But so had texting him, and she’d done that. Not only had she done it, but she and Jordan were dating now because of it.
“Don’t be nervous,” Pearl said, pouring the cinnamon into a huge vat of softened butter. “You’ve kissed this guy before. It’s like riding a bike.”
“I don’t like riding a bike,” Felicia said automatically.
Pearl laughed. “Okay, bad analogy then. What do you like?”
Felicia didn’t need to answer, because she had kissed Jordan before, and each time she’d given him a little piece of her heart. That way, every time she was with him, it was like going home with someone she trusted explicitly.
All she had to do was now was decide if she was ready to part with that first piece of her heart.
Chapter Thirteen
Vice sat on his motorcycle in the garage, the temptation to ride it growing by the moment.
“Felicia won’t like it,” he said to himself. He’d gotten away from talking to himself for a few days there, mostly because he was hardly ever alone. Between Felicia, House, Mav, and Electron, he’d only spent nights alone in his house.
And he hadn’t hated it.
His core felt strong enough to ride a motorcycle, but he knew there was a massive difference between sitting on a bike and actually riding one. Taking it around a corner and steadying it at a stoplight.
He knew this, and yet he wanted to go for a quick ride.
“Just around the neighborhood,” he told himself. With that, he twisted the key in the ignition, the roar of the engine completing some part of his soul that had been empty these past nine days.
Nine days since he’d picked up the dents and dings around town. House and Bomber had been doing it, but Bomber had a family he needed to be with at night. Vice missed his time with House too, as the two of them had originally lived together for a while too, sharing a home before they decided they were grown up enough to manage a mortgage by themselves and live alone.
Vice had gotten Smoky then, and House had been dating a woman at the time who was allergic to dogs. They’d broken up, but he hadn’t gotten his own pet. He just came and got Smoky whenever he wanted some canine bonding time.
The engine settled into its steady rumble, and Vice smiled. If the grumble of a really big engine wasn’t playing in heaven when he arrived, he’d know he hadn’t made it there. Because this was heaven to him.
He walked the bike backward out of the garage, something he’d done countless times before. His ribs didn’t protest at a level that he needed to listen to them. He managed to turn the bike and point it toward the street, and then he lifted his feet and put them on the pegs, letting the bike go as he headed for the road.
He could turn, and he did, keeping the speed low in the neighborhood. He knew most of his neighbors, and they had an unwritten respect for each other. He didn’t ride his motorcycle at full throttle in the mornings or late evenings, and they got along just fine.
It had snowed overnight, but the plows in Michigan were fierce, and Vice made it the main road without any trouble. The asphalt was bare here. Glossy and wet, but bare. He turned the throttle loose once he was on the highway, and the adrenaline coursed through him in a way it hadn’t for a long time.
“Thank you,” he breathed into the icy air as he rode, not even caring that his nose and lips were freezing at an astronomical rate.
Ten minutes later, he turned onto his street again, his heart beating the way it had before he’d shown up at Market Fresh and found three people huddled in the back, scared out of their minds.
Okay, almost the same. It had had an odd thump without Felicia in his life, and she’d smoothed that out. Riding his motorcycle had fixed his pulse completely.
Until he saw her dark blue sedan parked in his driveway.
“Oh, crap,” he muttered, noting she was at least twenty minutes early. He pulled in beside her, his eyes glued to the driver’s seat. But she wasn’t sitting there.
The roar of his bike echoed around the garage as he navigated into the single-car space. Felicia sat on the steps leading to the garage entrance of the house, and Vice saw the displeasure in her eyes though he looked away quickly.
He killed the engine and pulled the helmet from his head. “Hey, sweetheart,” he said easily, as if he wouldn’t be in trouble for joyriding when he’d promised he wouldn’t. “You’re early.”
Her eyebrows went up. “And you obviously don’t need a ride to work.” She stood up and dusted her hands on the front of her pants.
“I was just testing it out,” he said, darting in front of her as she made to leave the garage. He hadn’t moved that fast in a while, and only a slight protest came from his ribs. His heart, however, thrashed against his ribcage, and dang if it might knock one of them out of alignment again.
“How did it go?” she asked, those brown eyes devouring him. He wondered if she knew the power she held over him.
Obviously not enough to keep you off the motorcycle, he thought. But a lot. He knew he didn’t want her to leave upset. He knew he still wanted her to drive him to work. If she didn’t do that, when would he see her? They worked opposite schedules, and he’d enjoyed seeing her in the mornings and the few days they’d had where she drove him to and from the office.
He couldn’t help smiling. “It went great. I rode for about fifteen minutes, and I’m okay.”
“Great,” she said, an air of falseness to her tone. “I have some errands to run, so—”
“Don’t go,” he said, putting his hand on her forearm.
She looked down at it and then back into his eyes. So much emotion lived there, and Vice wanted to dive in and unravel it all.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I just thought I’d try. I was in control the whole time.”
She nodded, her shiny hair swaying with the movement.
“Come in for coffee,” he said. “It’s cold out here.” He lifted his eyebrows, a silent plea for her to please, please stay.
“All right.” She sighed and turned back to the steps. Vice followed her up them and into the house, his mind racing for something to say that would get her to understand. She’d said she didn’t have rules for their relationship this time, other than to be open and honest with each other.
And he’d told her he’d wait for clearance from the doctor before he rode his motorcycle. “I felt really great this morning,” he said, taking the empty coffee pot and stepping to the sink to rinse it out.
“Jordan,” Felicia said, and he faced her, the coffee forgotten. He really liked it when she said his name, though a touch of frustration sat in the two syllables. “You can do what you want. I’m not your mother.”
“Thank goodness for that.” He put the pot down and stepped toward her. She slipped into his arms, and Vice had the distinct feeling that he was the luckiest man in the world.
“I just want you to be healthy,” she said.
“I’m feeling good,” he said. “I know what this healing is like. Honestly, I’m okay.”
She stepped back, made of all nerves now. “Okay.”
He returned to the coffee. “What errands do you have this morning? I can just drive myself.” But he didn’t really want to. He wanted to sit in her car and let her take care of him. With a jolt that had the coffee pot banging into the side of the sink, he realized he liked being taken care of.
He’d fought for so long against the idea of needing anyone else, but the truth was, he did. And he wanted to.
“I don’t have any errands,” Felicia said. “I just said that because I wanted to go.”
Vice chuckled a
s he poured the water into the coffee machine and set the pot beneath the dripping mechanism. “How long have you been here?”
“Maybe five minutes.” She ran her hands down the front of her jeans again, and Vice cocked his eyebrows at her.
“Why are you nervous?” he asked, turning his back on her to fill the machine with coffee grounds. She sometimes spoke freer if she didn’t have to look him in the eye.
“Uh, I was going to tell you something, but….”
Vice turned back to her, his curiosity pricked now. “What is it?”
Felicia opened her mouth and said, “I really like you, Jordan.”
Surprise hit him right in the vocal cords. A healthy amount of heat spread through him, because wow. He liked being told he was liked too.
He ducked his head as the flush worked its way into his face. “Is that so?”
“Oh, you’re such a tease,” she said, giving him a light laugh.
He looked up without lifting his head, and their eyes met. “I really like you too, Leesh,” he said, the words grating through his throat in what he hoped was a sexy, gruff way.
She took a couple of steps toward him, and he received her into his arms. Before he knew it, she’d pressed her lips to his and was kissing him.
Everything testosterone-filled inside him ignited instantly, and he growled in the back of his throat as he kissed her back. He took control of the kiss quickly, and she relinquished it to him eagerly.
He ran his hands up her arms and into her hair, holding her right where he wanted her as he kissed her, and kissed her, and kissed her.
Only when he realized the entire room, house, and town was spinning out of control did he pull away. He sucked at the air, having forgotten to breathe through that incredible kiss.
His grip on her lessened slightly, but she didn’t move away. Vice held her as close as he could while the oxygen infiltrated his brain enough for him to think.
“Maybe I don’t need a ride anymore,” he said. “So can I bring you dinner tonight?” He pressed his cheek to hers and dropped his lips to her neck. “I want to see you.”
“Yes,” she said, tipping her head back at the precise angle that Vice could kiss her again. Which he did.
That evening, it felt like the middle of the night when Vice pulled up to the back of the grocery store. He hadn’t been there since the night of the robbery, and he actually looked in both directions before reaching for the doorknob. He hadn’t realized he wasn’t breathing properly until he stepped into the back room of the store and took a deep breath.
Everything seemed back to normal, right down to the huge cardboard container in the middle of the wide aisle where all the dented cans would wait for him to pick them up. Lucas had taken over the program since Vice’s injury, and no one would be doing it that night.
He recognized a couple of the people working in the room, and they either nodded at him or ignored him as he made his way to Felicia’s desk. She wasn’t there, but the mess she worked in was, and Vice smiled at it. How she kept track of everything she needed to order for the store, or the schedule for the people who worked in her department, her couldn’t fathom.
He set down the paper bag of food he’d brought, his own stomach wanting to eat all of the sweet potato fries he’d picked up. He sat down in her chair, something he’d done before when he’d brought dinner for her.
“Jordan,” she said from behind him, and he leapt to his feet.
“I brought dinner,” he said.
Felicia smiled at him and stepped right into his personal space. He embraced her, taking a deep breath of her skin, her hair, her perfume. “Oh, I missed you today,” he whispered against the silky skin on her neck. “So much.”
“I’m at work,” she said with a giggle. “And I’m starving.”
“I brought burgers and fries from Best’s,” he said.
“The avocado one?”
“What else?” Vice grinned at her as she practically tore into the bag of food. He retrieved a chair from a ways down the wall, and he sat at her desk while they ate. She told him about some things going on around the store, and the dinner hour passed much too quickly.
“Text you later,” he said. “And remember, we’re not getting the dents and dings tonight.”
Before he could leave, Felicia stepped in front of him and laced her fingers through his. “Can I drive you to work tomorrow?”
Vice blinked at her. “I guess?”
“Then you can tell me about your meeting tonight.” She wore the worry openly on her face, and Vice knew she needed different things this time. She needed to know what he did in the club, and she needed to know he’d be okay.
“Sure,” he said. “Same time as usual.” He didn’t want to leave without kissing her, so he glanced over his shoulder. The desk was in plain sight of anyone who came into the back room, and Vice took her toward an aisle that held a lot of boxes of Cap’n Crunch and Chex cereals.
He chuckled as he pressed her into the shelving unit, and then he took his time kissing her good-bye.
Hours later, Vice was ready to go home and get to bed. He’d learned to survive on very little sleep, but the past week and a half of extra rest had spoiled him. The Breathers hadn’t even arrived yet, and Vice was frozen all the way to his bone marrow.
They were not meeting at Ruby’s, as Mav didn’t want anyone near his wife and family, his club, or the motorcycle shop. The Breathers knew where it was, of course, but that didn’t mean the Sentinels needed to invite them through the front door.
The meeting had been set up on the edge of Forbidden Lake, just beyond the city limits, in a dirt parking lot that led to a popular trailhead. They’d been standing out in the cold for at least thirty minutes, and not a single motorcycle had approached from the east.
Vice hadn’t said a word of complaint, because there were plenty of others grumbling under their breath. Mav had said nothing either, and he’d barely moved from a patch of dirt beside his bike. He simply glared at the highway as if it were to blame that the Breathers hadn’t shown up yet.
Vice could admit his nerves had been rioting since he’d shown up at Ruby’s right after leaving Felicia at the supermarket. He’d eaten dinner with his brothers, but there would be no ice cream tonight.
Finally, the rumble of a motorcycle engine filled the air, and Mav said, “High alert,” before taking a step away from his bike. Vice lined up right beside him, as did Lucas, Electron, Bomber, and Gramps. Mav had brought his whole leadership team, along with a couple of their biggest members—Knight and Lumberjack.
The fact that the two of them had also served in the military also added to their charms. Knight had been a sharpshooter with the Army Rangers, and Lumberjack had trained with the Navy SEALs. They were twins who’d grown up in Forbidden Lake and returned to the quieter shores of Northern Michigan after their stressful years in high-stress situations.
In all, the eight of them should’ve made an impressive wall of men the Breathers would have to go through to get to Forbidden Lake.
Five Breathers pulled up on their motorcycles, two of them not even wearing helmets. How they could ride in these sub-zero temperatures without protection was a mystery to Vice, as he’d put hand warmers in his pockets and had kept his hands there the entire time.
The same two men that had come to Ruby’s over the weekend led the group forward, the other three following them. Mav had learned the names of the two who’d come earlier, and Vice knew them as Fire and Aces. The other three were unfamiliar, and Mav couldn’t have prepared a dossier on every member of the Devil’s Breath.
“This is Feast,” Fire said, indicating one of the men behind him. “Horse, Caldwell, and Aces.”
“And you’re Fire,” Mav said.
Without confirming, Fire handed Mav a manila folder that didn’t seem to have anything in it. Mav held his gaze for a couple of moments before he took it, and then a couple more. Vice didn’t look away from the man at all.
Not a
single noise sounded in the air around them. No one moved except for Maverick, who flipped open the folder and started to read it. The tension in the night sky rose with every passing second. Even the trees lining both sides of the street seemed to vibrate with nerves.
Vice kept looking at all of the men, memorizing their faces and mentally reciting their names.
“This is a no,” Mav said, extending the folder to Fire.
He didn’t take it. “That’s your copy,” he said.
“We don’t want anything illegal moving through Forbidden Lake,” Mav said. “This says ‘products’ and we know what that means.”
“Do you?”
“Drugs,” Mav said. “People.”
“Marijuana is not illegal in the state of Michigan. Or Canada. We’re moving legal amounts, across legal borders, with a legal organization.” Fire delivered the words with preciseness, his eyes never leaving Mav’s.
Mav handed the folder to Vice, who took it and opened it. The document inside listed Canopy as the distributor they were selling their cannabis to in Ontario. They wanted to use the ports on Lake Michigan in Forbidden Lake to get the product across the border, and they said they wouldn’t be moving more than the legal limit. Vice scoffed at such a blatant lie.
“Marijuana is not legal on a federal level,” he said. “Transporting it across state borders is not legal.”
“They don’t prosecute that,” Fire said.
“And you’re talking about moving it across a country border,” Vice continued, his knowledge of the law coming into play. “And that’s definitely illegal. You need a business license to move more than two and a half ounces at all.” He flipped over the paper in the folder, but there was nothing there. “Do you have a business license?”
“And human trafficking is illegal everywhere,” House said, folding his arms.
“Sorry, boys,” Mav said. “I don’t see how we can just look the other way on this. It’s our turf, and we want to keep it safe and drug-free.”
Vice tried to hand the folder back to Fire, but he wouldn’t take it. “This is a mistake.”
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