“You’ve had my cooking.”
“So tell me, Axl Pantera, why we’re eating nuked cheese on tortilla chips when you can make Mexican street corn deviled eggs?”
He grinned at her.
“I’ve gotta spread out the goodness to keep you hooked. I don’t want to burn through it too soon, so you take off and find a guy who has new tricks up his sleeve.”
When he said that, it was Hattie who was laughing.
He didn’t want to, but seeing all that pretty in his bed, his eyes strayed to the flag on his dresser.
Jordan was a connoisseur of a nice ass, and he always could appreciate a great set of tits.
But he’d be all about Axl finding a woman who wanted to spend their Sundays in bed, eating, fucking and laughing.
More.
A woman who didn’t want him to give up hope about his irredeemable dad, wishing for Axl that his father would find his way to be redeemed so one day Axl’d have a dad.
When his attention went back to her, she was studiously chewing on a triangle of cheese-coated chip.
She’d seen where his eyes had gone.
“You can ask about him, you know,” he said.
“I know,” she replied.
And then she didn’t ask about him.
“Hattie, I fucked up being a dick about him to you. And the first person who would tell me I did is Jordan. You can ask about him,” he reiterated.
She gave him her gaze. “You need to be in that space, and you’ve had a bad couple of days.”
“I need to get to a place where he can be with me in memory and it not hurt.”
She gave him a look that he read.
It said that was impossible and he shouldn’t expect that.
So he added, “As much. So I need to quit burying him under the pain of losing him and talk about how good it was to have him while I had him.”
That got him another look.
Agreement.
“Do you have pictures of him?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he answered.
“Someday, I’d like to see.”
“Someday … soon …I’ll find ’em and pull ’em out.”
“Cool,” she said, carefully nonchalant, going for another chip.
After she was done, he did too, telling her, “Something you said in your studio made me think.”
She munched and tipped her head to the side. “About what?”
“About art being pain. I got that piece in the living room, and from the minute I bought it, I wondered what I was thinking. Since it’s been sitting there, every time I see it, I wonder if having it isn’t a little off. Even disrespectful, that a depiction of what took Jordan out was what I have sitting in my living room.”
“And?” she prompted quietly when he stopped talking.
“And then you offered me ‘After,’ and I already knew I was gonna buy it in your show. I didn’t care how much it cost. I wanted it from the minute I saw it. Because it was you. And I wanted you. I didn’t have any of you back then, so even little pieces would work, I wanted you that bad. But in the end, I knew, I wanted all of you.”
She had nothing to say to that.
But now he was getting another look.
Lots of warmth.
Axl kept talking.
“Then, after I was a dick to you about Jordan, I talked with Mo. He has issues. We all do. We look out for each other, but we can’t be there twenty-four seven. So, he told me, when he has his moments, Lottie looks after him and I knew that gutted him, because you don’t want to lay that kind of heavy on someone you love. Which was what I was trying to protect you from. I didn’t want you to shoulder that heavy. But then Mo told me Lottie doesn’t mind. She’s all over it. Because she loves him and that’s a part of him and she wants it all.”
Now Hattie was looking at him with an expression he couldn’t quite read.
But it looked like surprise.
So he kept explaining.
“Now I get that’s why I have that piece in the living room. To remind me of the pain of losing Jordan. Which is something I didn’t want, but it’s the last thing I got from him. Even as much as that sucks, it’s still precious because it means I had him in the first place. I loved the guy, and I was at his back when he died. And when that happened to him, there was no other place I’d want to be. And ‘After’ is the girl you were, folded in on herself. But you had the nerve and mental toughness to unfold and fly high. That was my girl then, and that’s my girl now. But I didn’t have you then. Though, when ‘After’ is here, I’ll have you. Then and now. I’ll have all of you, even your pain, which is what I need.”
This time, when he stopped talking, she started.
“Someone you love?” she whispered.
“Sorry?” he asked.
“You said you don’t want to lay the heavy on someone you love.”
Well, fuck.
He had said that.
He stared in her eyes.
She stared in his.
They did this a long time.
He broke it.
“I would have wanted to do that with more fanfare, maybe some roses, definitely Mexican street corn deviled eggs.”
She didn’t laugh.
Didn’t even smile.
Tears started shimmering in her eyes.
He thought it was a little freaky, but he couldn’t deny it. He loved to see his girl cry, though only when it was tears like that.
She was pretty all the time.
Even a pretty crier.
But at its core, it was the emotion behind it that he loved.
“You’re pretty when you cry,” he said quietly.
“Dad hated it when I cried.”
“Of course he did, he loves you. No parent wants to see their kid cry. I don’t mind because you’re crying because I love you. And, bears repeating, it’s pretty.”
“I didn’t get it,” she said.
Okay, not only didn’t he understand that, it wasn’t what he expected after he told her he loved her.
Her jumping him, yes.
Her getting tears in her eyes, yes.
Her telling him she felt the same, he fucking hoped so.
That, no.
“Didn’t get what?”
“I knew I was happy, and I’d never really felt that before you.”
There it was, and now the warmth he was getting from her he felt burn in his gut.
She kept going.
“I was happy because I had you, and Dad was turning around, and I love my job. But I was really relieved to get back into the studio. And I was surprised how relieved I was. I thought my art was just an outlet. Something I was messing around with. I’d always been creative. I didn’t realize, until recently, that I just did what I did. But one of the things I didn’t do was allow myself to dream. I was just going through the motions of life. I never let anyone know I did that. My work in the studio. I never gave it any importance. Not because I feared no one would think it was good. Because I was so stuck in a life that was going nowhere, I didn’t think there was anywhere to go. I just never thought to dream.”
Axl said nothing.
Hattie did.
“And you came into my life. And suddenly, I’m not at Dad’s every night. And clearing a drawer for you is the highlight of my day. And every little thing I learn about you is like discovered treasure. Cleo. And the Jacuzzi. And how much you like creamer. The sound of your purr. That you can cook. That I can make you laugh. You made me happy. And being happy, I began to see my life clearer. Or, more to the point, take time to look at it at all. And I began to understand who I was when I wasn’t just existing. I love to dance. And I love my art. And I’m going to have a show. And now, I can dare to dream. Because I have what I need. I know who I am. And the thing that makes it safe is that I’m in love with a really great guy who also loves me.”
When she quit talking then, the nacho plate hit his nightstand half a second before he hit Hattie.
After a lot of kissing and the same amount of groping, he was tugging at her panties when she said breathily, “You need to save some stamina. I want to try the you-do-yours, I-do-mine porn thing tonight.”
Fuck, just that and he felt himself beading.
Christ, his girl.
“Quiet.”
He got her panties down over her feet, surged up, Hattie opening her legs as he did.
Yeah.
His girl.
“And maybe explore that light bondage thing you were mentioning,” she went on.
Fortunately, it was only Hattie who got dressed in her panties and his tee when she got up to nuke cheese on chips.
So once he positioned, he was all set to slide in.
Which he did.
And fuck.
Connecting with her, he realized he did purr.
She huffed out a breath, her pussy closing tight around him, and caught his ass in one hand, claiming the back of his neck with the other.
Gazing down at her, her hair all over his pillow, those gorgeous brown eyes hot and bothered, he started moving.
“Love you, baby,” he whispered.
She cocked a leg high, pressed it to his side, planted her other foot in the bed and reared up to meet his strokes.
“Love you too, Axl,” she whispered back.
He kissed her.
He fucked her.
They both came.
And after cleanup, he saw the chips and cheese no longer looked so hot.
So Axl put on some sweats and went to the kitchen to assess things.
He didn’t have fresh cilantro, but he had everything else.
He went back to her while the eggs were boiling, but he left her again.
And didn’t go back until he brought her his Mexican street corn deviled eggs.
They devoured them.
He left the bed again a couple of hours later.
To get their laptops.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The Women
AXL
I can’t believe this is finally happening,” Boone said.
“It hasn’t happened yet,” Hawk warned.
Axl sat in the backseat of the Hummer, Hawk driving, Boone in the passenger seat, and he watched the Colorado terrain slide by.
Cisco had a place in the foothills.
And this was where, in a team effort, Cisco, Mamá Nana and Ally Zano had convinced Lynn Crowley and Heidi Mueller that it would be safe to meet to discuss what they knew about what was happening in the Denver Police Department.
He took his eyes from the landscape to catch Hawk glancing at him in the mirror.
It was not a secret from the crew that his mother and father had split.
It also wasn’t a secret that Sylas’s first response had been tactical.
Instead of proceeding with a divorce, he demanded a six-month separation that included intensive marriage counseling.
Axl worried his mother would cave on that.
She did not.
Onward from that, in the three weeks since his mother moved out, unsurprisingly, his father had dicked with her at every turn. He’d canceled the joint cards, blocked access to the joint accounts, and attempted every legal maneuver in the book to drive up her attorney’s billable hours in order to break her, at least financially.
Again, Axl worried she’d suffer, and as such, last Friday, he took her to lunch to share he’d cover her if she got buried.
“Oh, Axl, darling. Thank you so much. But I prepared for this,” was her response. “I didn’t touch any of my earnings from my business since I started. Not to mention, I deposited half of the household and discretionary stipend your father gave me for the last year in my sole account. I have money coming in and a good nest egg. I can outlast him.” She’d patted his hand. “But it’s good to know I can turn to you for a loan if that occasion arises.”
Axl had to get over the fact his father gave his mother a “stipend,” something, until then, he did not know, rather than her being free to do whatever she wished with their money.
But he didn’t mention that.
Instead, on his way back to work from their lunch, he called his father.
Sylas picked up immediately.
“This is your final warning,” was all he said before he hung up.
To his surprise, that worked. His mom had shared with him that morning that her attorney had told her that Sylas had been in touch and he was ready to proceed.
Axl had no idea if it worked because his father was rethinking things now that his family had imploded and it was coming clear he’d irrevocably lost his wife, and he had to make maneuvers to save his relationship with his son. Or if his father had indeed investigated Hawk’s operations, and since he had a sense of what Axl did for a living, it was an attempt at self-preservation.
He figured it was the latter.
But in the end, it didn’t matter.
The divorce was proceeding, and until it was final, his father had also agreed to a monthly allowance that covered his mother’s mortgage and HOA fees with some beyond that besides, so she could breathe easy financially.
But Hawk and his own father were tight. Axl had met Hawk’s dad and the man was hilarious. He also thought the world of his son. So Hawk didn’t understand that Axl might worry about his mother, but the loss of his father didn’t factor.
So Hawk had been keeping a close eye on his man.
Axl didn’t tell him there was no cause for concern.
He just went to work and did his job.
Eventually, Hawk would get it.
“Proof,” Boone said. “Crime does pay.”
When Boone said that, Axl focused on the property they were approaching.
L-shaped. Made mostly of stone, some wood. A nod to rustic and its surroundings.
But the wide, curving drive made of attractive pavers, the stone balustrades along the way topped with lanterns that would light the way in the dark, the two double-doored garages as well as the double-door front entry, and the fact that the compact front exterior didn’t quite hide that what was beyond was downright rambling stated this wasn’t a rustic mountain cabin at all.
Not to mention Sly, in his suit, with his earpiece, standing outside the front door.
Ally’s Mustang was parked outside. As was Mamá Nana’s GMC Denali.
Cisco’s town car was likely tucked in a garage.
Hawk parked, they got out, and Axl did this with eyes on Sly.
He was talking into his hand.
Their arrival was being announced.
They moved inside and Cisco met them at the front door.
“Nervous,” he informed them unnecessarily.
Nearly two month’s delay in this meet, they already knew the women would be nervous.
None of them replied, there were varying chin movements, juts or dips, and Cisco led them into his great room.
He’d gone with the nod to rustic here too. Wood, stone, hefty ceiling beams, plaid upholstery on the furniture, leather as well, wool throws.
But the view from three tiers of windows put the price tag on that room.
And it was substantial.
Axl took it in as a matter of course, what he’d do in any situation.
He also noted Mamá had two people with her, likely not simply for her protection, but she’d assured the women they were there for theirs as well.
Ally, as usual, was alone.
Cisco, wisely, had none of his men taking up space which, considering the look of his men, might give bad vibes.
And then there was Lynn Crowley and Heidi Mueller.
In her early thirties, Lynn had straight brown hair, an angular face, a messy outfit with not-very-well-cleaned-off baby spit-up on her shoulder. Even sitting, you could tell she was tall. She was also too thin. In photos he’d seen of her, she’d not been this before her husband died and not simply because she was pregnant.
A mix of fear, worry and grief was wasting her away.
&nbs
p; And she exuded all of that.
If what Heidi was giving off didn’t edge it out, the room would be filled with Lynn’s panic, dread and sadness.
Heidi, on the other hand, was the exact opposite.
In her late forties, blonde, fit, well-dressed, very attractive.
And pissed.
There was grief there. It pinched the sides of her eyes and permeated the look in them.
But the prevailing emotion coming from her was rage.
Interesting, though not surprising.
She hadn’t only lost her husband, she’d, personally, been dragged through the media like it was she who committed multiple felonies.
But one of the felonies her husband was allegedly in some way involved with was the murder of Lynn’s husband.
A curious duo.
And that was an understatement.
“I believe we all wish this to be done so we can move on,” Cisco started it, indicating the room with a movement of his head to share Hawk, Boone and Axl should find their places. Cisco himself sat in a leather armchair, his attention on the women. “So, quickly, I’d like to introduce you to Hawk Delgado and his men, Boone Sadler and Axl Pantera. As has been explained, they’ve a number of reasons to be involved in this, not the least of which, Boone and Axl’s women were targeted by whoever is behind it.”
Lynn barely looked at them.
Heidi glared between them like they personally shot her husband.
Hawk took a seat in the only vacant armchair left of the four. Ally was in one, Mamá in the other, Cisco in the third. Lynn and Heidi were sitting on the couch that faced the massive fireplace.
Boone and Axl assumed positions on the periphery, standing.
“And I’m afraid you’ll have to begin,” Cisco went on, his attention on Heidi. “As we sadly have not much of note to say.”
“You know my husband didn’t fuck those sex workers like that fake suicide note said he did,” Heidi spat at Hawk.
Interesting opener.
“We know,” Hawk confirmed.
Regardless that he did, she pressed on that same theme.
“I didn’t know what he was up to with the rest of it, but I know he didn’t do that.”
“Yes, we know that too,” Hawk repeated.
She pushed out breath from her nostrils like an angry bull.
She then declared, “They’ve been messing with Lynn since they took Tony out.”
Dream Spinner (Dream Team Book 3) Page 36