All the Sky (Signal Bend Series)

by Fanetti, Susan

  She liked it.

  ~oOo~

  When Isaac came back, only Havoc was with him, and neither man looked happy. But Isaac still smiled when he came into the booth.

  “How’d it go, sweetheart?”

  “Good. Really good.”

  He scanned the tables. “Looks like you cleared some stock for us both—and a chess set, too. What you get for that?”

  “Tag price. They didn’t even try to dicker, and they paid cash. I was relieved.”

  “Nice.”

  She opened her cash box and handed Isaac the stack of bills that was his. As he took it from her hand, his eyebrow raised, she said, “There was a woman here looking for you. Cin? Or, I guess, Lucinda?”

  He looked up, his eyebrow even higher. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. I don’t know if she means to cause you trouble.”

  He laughed, but Cory could see something darker than humor in his eyes. “No worries, sweetheart. No trouble she can cause. Thanks for lettin’ me know.”

  Havoc came up to her and put his hand on her back. That was better. “You need me to handle anything, boss?”

  “Nah, brother. It’s nothing. You take care of your business. I’ll see if I can’t do Cory as nice as she did me. You want to fill out your stock before you go?”

  “That’s all I’ve got left. Mostly higher-priced stuff. And the green beaded pieces. I should stop making green. Nobody seems to like it but me.”

  “That’s all? You’re havin’ a good show, then.”

  “Yeah, I am. Thanks, Isaac. Really.”

  “Anytime, sweetheart. I’ll see ya later.”

  Isaac turned to his main display, and Havoc took Cory’s hand and led her away.

  ~oOo~

  “Fuck me. I hate this shit.”

  They were standing in the airy main room of a winery on a hill overlooking the town. The town was small, and most everything was walking distance—which was good, because there was no seat for Cory on Havoc’s bike.

  The winery was fairly crowded with fairgoers who’d made the trek up the hill, but they were waiting for a private tasting, and Havoc was glowering darkly. He’d been in a mood since he’d picked her up at Isaac’s booth.

  “What’s wrong?” She took his hand, and he twitched, as if she’d surprised him. He looked down at their hands.

  “Fuckin’ wine bar. Do I look like a guy who should be running a fuckin’ wine bar? Goin’ to a damn tasting?”

  He was standing there in his kutte, denim, and boots, his head shaved and his beard thick. Wearing long sleeves, he had no visible ink, but no, he did not look like the kind of man one might expect to find at a winery. And the nervous looks the people working the main tasting counter were giving him attested to that fact.

  “Do you want to go?”

  He shook his head. “Can’t. Let’s just get it done. Two more after this.” With a nod of his head, he indicated something behind her, and she turned to see somebody coming efficiently toward them, in business casual dress, his shirt embroidered over the left breast with the insignia of the winery. After a greeting in which he was obviously trying not to notice Havoc’s attire, the man led them back to a private tasting room.

  Havoc looked like a man walking to his doom. Cory bit down on her lip to keep from laughing aloud.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Wine made Havoc horny. Good to know.

  He knew he was supposed to spit, and the previous two times he’d gone through torture like this, he had. Rotten grape juice was not his thing. But he was agitated today, and, frankly, he wanted to get drunk, and it didn’t matter how. Might as well be on free wine. So he hadn’t spit. Cory had, for the first two wineries, at least. But he’d tossed it all back from the get-go.

  He’d leaned hard on Cory to make the choices, because he didn’t care, and because it was quickly apparent that she was being thoughtful and smart about her opinions, listening to the fucking endless spiels about each wine and asking questions that impressed him. She’d said she’d study up when he’d given her the job; she obviously had. So he hadn’t had to care much. Just enough to place the actual orders.

  Maybe he could make her manager. He couldn’t see a downside anywhere in that picture.

  He wasn’t really seeing a downside today in the picture of Cory, period. In fact, he needed to get her alone pretty soon. He’d caught himself staring at her, watching her drink, listening to her ask her questions and then turn to him for support, which he gave her, even when he hadn’t heard the conversation. She was wearing a stupid pink scarf around her neck, and he hated it. He liked the bruising. He wanted to see it. Seeing it made him hard.

  Not because he’d hurt her—and he didn’t think he had, despite the pink and purple of her neck and onto her shoulder. But because he’d marked her. He saw the marks that he’d made, even what little he could see spreading beyond what the scarf covered, and his cock stood up, remembering the night before. That was probably weird, but he didn’t care. He wanted that fucking pink scarf off her. Her sweater, too. All of it.

  Fucking her had been—he wasn’t good enough with words even to think the right one. Astounding. A mindfuck, definitely. They’d fucked until they’d passed out, and then he’d woken early, in bed with a woman and glad of it. Though they’d been wound together when they’d finally collapsed for good, she wasn’t a clingy sleeper, and she’d been on the other side of the bed when he woke.

  He’d watched her sleep, lying on her stomach. He’d pulled the covers down to expose her back. She had a tattoo on her lower back—a tramp stamp, but not like the usual tribal wings or whatever. Two birds on a branch, one much smaller than the other. Havoc took it to mean her and Nolan. It fascinated him. That and the little blue flower on her wrist made up all her ink. So far.

  Something changed in him last night, and he hadn’t figured out exactly what it was, but he knew why. Her. Like she’d reached into him and pulled up a shade or something, illuminating more in him than he’d known was there. He was still confused, but he felt like he understood part of what had happened to Isaac, and Show, and Bart.

  He also felt like he understood what they were doing wrong. They brought their women in, told them too much. That was wrong. Women had no business in Horde business. They couldn’t be a part of it, and they screwed shit up when they tried. He was going to keep Cory out of it. All of it. For all she knew, the Horde owned a bar and ran the town. Period. And he was going to keep it that way. Period.

  That was mostly it, anyway. Though things were looking like they’d be getting interesting again real soon.

  They’d voted in the weed run. As he had suspected, nobody balked at making it two days so Isaac could ride. But Havoc had looked around the table and thought that a change of leadership wasn’t all that far down the road. A few years, maybe. Not that he wanted Isaac out—he didn’t; he thought Isaac was great with the gavel—but his injuries had aged him hard. He was only forty-three or so, but he’d lost ten years’ more endurance, minimum. And Show, too—he had a trick shoulder, and he was the oldest Horde, almost ten years old than Isaac. That left Len and Havoc—and a bunch of kids, none of whom were yet thirty but, just recently, Mikey, who’d just gotten his fucking patch. Havoc wasn’t a long range thinker. He’d rather act than plan. But he saw change coming, and he wasn’t happy about it. He had no interest in moving up the hierarchy. He’d done his bit as SAA while Isaac was out, and he didn’t want that again.

  But he was glad for this new gig—money coming in, work with some adrenaline to it, all good in his book. They’d gotten some bad news, or at least troublesome news, earlier in the day, when they’d met with Sheriff Tyler, but Havoc didn’t mind the trouble as much as Isaac and Show had.

  They’d met Tyler here, in a county north of his jurisdiction, because he hadn’t wanted to risk being seen meeting with the Horde. That boded vaguely ill—the Horde had been riding a tide of goodwill for a few years now. But Tyler was running for reelection, and he was losing.
The election was in just a few weeks, and to hear Tyler tell it, he’d all but lost the thing already.

  And the frontrunner did not look to be a man who would play nice for a price, the way Tyler always had. This coming just as the Horde would be crossing the law in an organized way for the first time since Ellis. They’d already voted in the weed run, and Isaac had told Becker. Wheels were in motion. They’d be doing their first run the week of the election. It made things harder, and it was news they hadn’t been expecting.

  Dom was going to get his ass reamed when they got back. He should have been tracking the election. Bart would have been. But Dom, good as he was getting at the technical stuff, was not an initiative-taker. He did what he was told. And no one had told him to track the county election.

  Havoc thought it was less of a deal than everybody else did. Signal Bend was too far off the interstate and still way too small for law to give a cold fuck about what was going on. Hell, they could barely get an ambulance in time to help anybody out. Sure, they’d be on the interstate when they were working the run, but if everybody played it cool, they’d be out of the county quick and just taking a nice ride, and nobody would be the wiser.

  He was more concerned about the fact that it turned out this was a Scorpions job they were running. Havoc hated those fuckers for what they’d done to the Horde. He knew that, since the reality show about the Scorpions had gone belly-up, Bart was into deeper shit with them than he could make right in his head, and he had a sick certainty that all the glitz and flashing bulbs Riley Chase brought wouldn’t be cover enough to keep Bart out of trouble. He was not cut out for hardcore work. Few were.

  And now the Horde were back in bed with the Scorps. The Horde’s big cut of the take was supposedly Sam’s peace pipe. Whatever. First Horde who trusted a Scorpion again deserved the knife in his back.

  Cory put her hand on his arm. “Hav? Do you?”

  “What?” He had no idea how long it had been since he’d heard a word anyone had said.

  She gave him an angry look. “Braeden is wondering if we’d like to taste their brandy. This year is their first vintage.”

  Jesus Christ. Wine wasn’t bad enough, now it was brandy? And what kind of name was Braeden for a guy with any kind of sack, anyway? “No. Just the wine. Which did you like?”

  She showed him, he signed, and then he grabbed her hand and pulled her out of there. He didn’t even bother to shake Braeden’s hand.

  When they were finally free of the pretensions of that place, outside where he could breathe, Cory pulled her hand free of his. She was pissed; he knew it. He wasn’t sure why, but he was sure she was pissed. So here came the part where the chick was a pain in his ass. But he was fucking horny and didn’t want to fight with her.

  Or maybe he did. She looked pretty damn hot, her hands on her hips and her eyes flashing in the setting sun. He wouldn’t mind it if she fought him. He remembered the first time he’d kissed her, in Bonnie’s RV, when she’d been trying to push him out. That had been hot. He thought it’d be okay to get her to fight him, now that they were…whatever they were. She wouldn’t accuse him of what she had before, if he got a little rough.

  “What is wrong with you? You left me to do everything all fucking day, and I’m just a fucking bartender. Why was I making all the decisions? And you sitting there like you were stoned or something, staring out into space. Do you know what that was like? God, you’re such an asshole. God!”

  “Yep. I think we’re clear on the asshole thing.” He reached out and grabbed the tail of that stupid scarf around her neck. He yanked, trying to be careful not to hurt her, but she yanked back.

  “What are you doing?”

  “C’mere. Get that ugly thing off. I want to see.” He loosened the knot and pulled the pink silk from her neck. He tossed it away, but she ducked to catch it.

  “That’s Shannon’s. What the hell?”

  Yeah, he liked her pissed. It was definitely hot. Club bitches didn’t talk back. They didn’t fight. He grabbed her and brought her close, pressing his face into her marked shoulder. He bit, just a little.

  “Ow. Hav—we’re standing on a sidewalk in broad daylight!”

  She was pushing on his shoulders, but nowhere near as hard as she had last night. He could feel her pulse quickening against his mouth, and he chuckled. “Never fucked anybody outside?”

  “Havoc, no. You can’t be serious.”

  Oh, he was serious. Keeping a firm grip on her, he looked around—there was a second building off to the side; he thought maybe the guy had said what they did in it, but he hadn’t cared. It was styled like an old Italian villa or whatever, and it had nooks all along the side. He tightened his grip on her arm and pulled her over.

  She resisted him the whole way, but she was quiet. He knew she was trying not to make a scene. That was fine with him—a scene would get in his way. When he got her into a nice, dark corner, he pushed her into it and leaned in.

  She put her hands between them. “Don’t, Hav. Not here.”

  “Yeah, here.” He slid his hand into her jeans.

  “I don’t want it.” Instead of fighting the way he’d hoped, she went still. She was looking out, trying to see who could see them. His hand eased between her legs. He grinned.

  “Yeah, you do.”

  “No, I don’t. I’m asking you to stop.”

  He stopped and looked at her, his hand still between her legs, his fingers slick against her. He was confused. “But you’re so wet.”

  “I’m asking you to stop.” Her eyes were steady on his, but the pulse in her throat was going like crazy. He’d thought it was arousal. Maybe he’d been wrong. But she was so wet—how did that make sense?

  Well, he wasn’t horny anymore. Not as much, anyway. He took his hand out of her jeans.

  This was not what he’d expected at all. He felt pissed and derailed. He also felt guilty. He didn’t know how to handle any of that. In a fit of pique, he slammed his hands to the rough wall on either side of her head. “Fuck!”

  She blinked but didn’t flinch. When she pushed again on his shoulders, he backed off.

  “I’m going to go back to the motel.”

  She straightened her sweater and scooted out from between him and the wall. He let her, but then that felt wrong.

  “Cory, wait.”

  She turned back. “Just tell everybody I’m sick or something, please.” And then she walked down the hill.

  He let her go. He didn’t know if that was the right thing. Was he supposed to stop her? But he leaned back against the wall he’d meant to fuck her on, and he let her go.

  ~oOo~

  He met everybody for supper, and he told them that Cory was feeling bad. When the women fussed and asked if she needed anything, he didn’t know what to say or do, so he just said no, she didn’t need anything.

  He wasn’t in the mood. He sat back and listened to the conversation, speaking when somebody addressed him directly, but otherwise, he supposed what he was doing was sulking. He had no way of working out what had happened. How had he fucked up? She was wet and panting for it, and still she’d said she didn’t want it. It didn’t make any kind of sense.

  Chicks.

  He should’ve gone to get whiskey last night, and stayed away from Cory’s room. It wasn’t too late to turn back. One night. No big deal. Go back to Signal Bend and pretend it hadn’t happened. Sure, she’d probably be pissed, but she’d get over it. Not too late.

  Except yeah, it was. He could tell. For him it was too late. It sucked.

  He watched some flouncy blonde—pretty old, but hot, with good tits—come to the table, and he realized she must have been the Lucinda Cory had spoken of earlier. And then he saw Lilli hand Bo over to Shannon and stand up. Isaac and Show stood, too. Then Badger. Oh. Havoc guessed he was supposed to as well, so he did. Over a chick, though? What the fuck?

  Then Lilli stepped up and got right in the blonde broad’s face. When Havoc realized that he didn’t give a fuck that
a chick fight was about to start, he knew his night was over. And he knew where he was going.

  Not to the liquor store.

  Isaac and Show diffused the situation between Lilli and the blonde, and then Isaac dragged said blonde off. Everybody else sat, but Show stayed on his feet, watching. Havoc waited until Isaac got back, and then he said good night and walked back to the motel.

  He went straight to her door. It was early yet—fuck, even the kids had still been at the restaurant—and she wasn’t really sick. He knocked.

  She opened the door, and this time the slider was engaged. That hurt his feelings—which surprised him.

  “What, Hav? And don’t tell me I know.”

  “Need to talk.”

  “I don’t.” She leaned back, preparing to shut the door, and he put his hand on it, holding it open.

  “I’m…I’m”—he couldn’t apologize. The word just wouldn’t come out of his mouth. “You gotta cut me some slack here, honey. I don’t know what I did wrong.”

  “That’s fucked up, Hav.”

  “Yeah, I’m gettin’ that. You gonna let me in?”

  “Get your hand off the door.”

  “You gonna let me in?”

  “I can’t if you don’t let me close the fucking door.”

  Oh, right. The slider. He stepped back, and she closed the door. There was a pause of quite a few seconds, and he thought she’d just hoodwinked him, but then the door opened. Dressed in nothing but a long t-shirt that went almost down to her knees, like a nightgown or something, she walked backwards all the way to the other side of the room, putting the bed between them, as she had last night. He thought that was pretty unfair.

  “Not gonna hurt you, Cory.”