“I didn’t get details,” he said.
She searched his face, noting all expression had left his face. He’d closed down as if she’d kicked him in the guts. Good.
The road formed a curve, and he stopped.
“Why are you stopping? I can’t see anything,” she asked.
He opened his truck door and jumped out. She followed him and watched him pick up a brutal-looking black leather boot with three leather straps that attached to a buckle.
“Daddy,” she mouthed, her throat dry. She ran ahead of him to a grassy area where a lot of fauna had been churned up, possibly from bike activity.
“Over here, Alice,” Hugo called.
He was turning a body over.
“Oh God. Oh God.” It was her daddy, left like detritus on a shoreline. The way the arm flopped, she knew he was unconscious or dead.
By the time she reached them, Hugo had picked her daddy up like he weighed nothing and strode toward his truck. “I felt a pulse. Open the back door. You can tend your daddy while I drive.”
In that moment, she knew she could forgive him anything.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Hugo stood at the end of Glass’s bed in the emergency section of Tulane Private Hospital, as Alice sat with her father. She only had minutes as Glass was about to be prepped for surgery. She was so tender with him.
Hugo yearned for tenderness, too. Her fingers stroking Glass lightly, the concern, the interest, the care. He didn’t get it. It wasn’t as if he’d ever needed it from a woman before, but she was different.
Glass reached out for his daughter, his hand swollen, his fingers at odd angles. “I need to tell you something.”
“Daddy, don’t try to talk. You have a punctured lung, broken ribs, and God knows what’s happened to your hands. The Slayers took you down bad.” She blinked back tears.
The patient care assistant came in and took his place at the top of Glass’s transportable bed. “I’m ready to take your father in now.”
She stood and clasped her hands in a prayer position. “Stay strong, Daddy. Stay strong for Momma. She’s awake now, and the doctor called me to say there’s no brain damage. She needs you. We both need you. You’re all I’ve got.”
Hugo tensed. That fucking hurt. It shouldn’t. He had no right to Alice.
“Wait,” Glass said to the assistant.
Hugo moved from the end of Glass’s bed and stood close to Alice. For the first time in his life, he wondered what it’d feel like to have a child who loved her father so much. Alice’s love was unconditional. She was so full of heart.
She bent low. “What is it, Daddy?”
“It wasn’t the Slayers who did this. It was Cain.”
Hugo raised his eyebrows at Alice.
She flicked a worried glance at Hugo before focusing back on her father.
Glass nodded. “Turned on me.”
“That man is bad news,” she said. “Never could take to him.”
“The Slayers intercepted the drop and left. Sure they beat us. But this.” Glass’s broken fingers hovered above his body. “Cain did this. Kicked me in the ribs, stomped on my hands, my feet. I couldn’t walk no more.”
“I never trusted him,” she said.
“You were right. He said I was bringing the club down,” Glass said, his voice raspy and spent. “That the Slayers would destroy us.”
Hugo shifted his weight from foot to foot. Cain was right about that. Glass had been a fool to take on the Slayers. Hugo knew what a determined bastard Troy could be. Whether Troy planned to save or destroy, he kept at it until the job was done.
Hugo was no different. He couldn’t stop until he’d achieve his goal.
He wanted Alice. How the hell was he going to convince her to take him back?
“But where are the brothers?” she asked her father.
“They’re at a meet out of town. It was just me and Cain who went. I wanted the brothers out of the way when I hit the Slayers with the rocket launcher, or the cops would arrest the lot of us.” Glass held out his broken hand to Hugo. It trembled as his strength waned. “Promise me. Look after my daughter. I don’t know who’s with me or against me.”
She shot him a hard-hearted glare. “No, Daddy. Don’t ask that of Hugo. He’s done enough,” she snapped. “He has his own life. Besides, if Cain wanted to hurt me, he had his chance when I went to the club.”
“Unless he was too injured,” Glass said. “I gave back everything I could.”
Damn she was stubborn. Hugo ignored her and touched his palm lightly to Glass’s. He was a dangerous old bastard, but Alice loved him. “I promise. No harm will come to your daughter, and I’ll work to get Cain in jail, otherwise you, your wife, and daughter won’t be safe. You’re in no fit state to protect your family.”
Glass sagged with relief.
She looked from her father to him, a sheen of tears over her eyes. “No, Hugo.”
“You’d have me refuse your father?”
She took a deep breath, glanced over at her father, and shook her head.
“I need to take him now,” the assistant said.
“Go,” Alice said, standing back, so that the assistant could wheel the bed into surgery.
“So you’re still mine to protect.” He put his arm around her and squeezed her to him. She felt so vulnerable, but he’d seen her tough side.
She twisted away from him, scowled, and folded her arms. “I don’t want to burden Daddy with the truth,” she said as they watched the assistant wheel him away. “If he survives surgery, he’ll be too sick to deal with his decision of putting a viper in the nest.”
He stiffened as if she’d slapped him. “If he survives, I’ll tell him the truth. That make you happy?”
Her cheeks flushed, and she narrowed her eyes. “You had no right to promise Daddy that. You won’t be around to tell him. You’ll be long gone.”
“You’ll never forgive me, will you?”
She sucked in a deep breath as if determined to get a grip on herself. “You promised you’d try and make it up to me, and you did by helping solve who hurt Momma. You got Daddy to hospital when I would have been much slower if I tried to do it by myself. You were even right about the Slayers not injuring Daddy.”
“Then forgive me.” He went to take her in his arms, but she stepped back.
“I have lived with a dangerous man my whole life, never knowing how and when my life would change for the worse. You’re dangerous, too,” she said, a pained expression on her face. She placed her hands over her heart. “Have you any idea of the agony I’m in, how much you hurt me? I thought you were honest, that I’d found stable ground with you, but you shifted it like an earthquake. Do you think I want to continue to live my life with a man like you?”
“There were good times, too.” He reached out and stroked her cheek.
“Yes,” she said softly. “It wasn’t all bad. You’ve made me feel beautiful and sexy when I never have before, but the fact remains, you have the capacity to look me right in the face and lie and manipulate me to get what you want.”
“The circumstances were different before,” he said, his voice low.
She stopped and took in a deep breath. “But your character’s the same. You did it again this morning to get me into your truck. You’re utterly ruthless. You’ll do anything to get your way. You’ll go outside the law to get what you want. I can’t live like that.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Later that evening after the surgeons had stabilized Glass, Hugo drove Alice home. He waited while she unlocked her front door and walked right in after her. There was a tension palpating between them, just below the civilized surface, waiting to erupt.
He didn’t want to leave with her hating him. That didn’t sit well in his gut. “You’re right about me,” he said, wanting her to understand. “I’m ruthless. I’m trained to be. It’s all I’ve ever known.”
She strode into her bedroom and flung open her closet, flipping t
he coat hangers from side to side until she located a dress.
He followed her into the bedroom and sat on her bed, watching her.
“Hugo, you’re not sleeping here.” She pulled off her dirty pink dress and slipped into a little white one.
Just the sight of her curves made his throat dry. He couldn’t bear not to have her again. “Now don’t be like that. You know I like a comfortable bed.” He raised his eyebrows and grinned. She looked sweet in the dress, better without in the sexy G-sting. There was no way he was leaving her. Not yet.
“Didn’t you listen to a word I said at the hospital?” She picked up his duffel bag, and heavy objects shifted inside.
“Are you referring to the bit where you said I’m dangerous or the bit about how I’ll do anything to get my way?” he asked.
“So you did hear me.”
“Yeah, but it seems you need to get your hearing checked, because you missed the bit where I promised your father I’d protect you, so I suggest you put my bag down before you hurt your back.”
She dropped his bag with a clunk. “But the threat’s gone. You said the police are going after Cain.”
“What if the other brothers were in on it?”
She paused, considering it. “Cain was the driver who hurt Momma. If Daddy’s right, the brothers are away.”
“You don’t want vengeance? Cain left your father to die.”
She sagged as a haunted look crossed her face. “Let the police sort it out. I need peace and quiet. I can’t stand this violence. It’s tearing me apart.”
“Don’t get upset.” He couldn’t bear her tears, especially seeing he was the cause of the last ones. He climbed off the bed, unzipped his bag, and pulled out a large cooler bag. “Here, take this and heat it up.”
“What is that?” She eyed it suspiciously.
“Relax, it’s not a bomb. It’s Cajun chicken, packed with freezer blocks so it doesn’t spoil. You need to eat. I didn’t eat much at lunch with the cop, and I’m starving.” Starving and horny. The sweet little virginal-style dress had to come off soon.
She squatted and looked in the duffel bag and pulled out another freezer pack. She fluffed his clothes aside, clearly bewildered at finding nothing else. “Your weapons?”
“Locked up safely in the truck. I’m still packing. Just in case we get an unexpected visitor.” He patted his hip. “Slipped my gun back in its holster after we left the hospital. You see? I do listen.”
She took the cooler pack from him, opened it, and inspected inside the plastic container. “This homemade?”
“They all are.”
She walked to the kitchen. “Gosh, this is a surprise. Since when have you become so domestic? I didn’t know you could cook, aside from breakfast basics.”
He picked up another cooler bag and followed her into the kitchen. He separated the plastic containers from the icepacks that surrounded them and put them in her freezer. “I don’t. You’ll be doing the cooking.”
“And just what will you be doing while I’m cooking?”
“I need to talk to Troy. It’s time we tied up the loose ends. I made a promise, honey. I mean to keep it. You want a life of peace? This is the way to get it.”
She put the containers she was carrying down on the bench with a thump. “This is not your issue.”
“Your safety is my issue.”
“No. Not anymore. I don’t care what you promised Daddy. I make my own decisions. I know you would enjoy chasing up these ‘loose ends’ with Troy, beating up the remaining brothers, but I don’t want you to. I told you, let the police deal with it. I need this to stop. I can’t live like this.”
He sucked in a deep breath. “You are so damned rock stubborn.”
“Get used to it. You’ve done quite enough managing of my life.” She opened a cupboard, took out a saucepan, put in the frozen dinner, and started to reheat it.
Calm down. “Tell you what, I’ll hand it over to Troy and the police. But if the police don’t lock Cain away, I’m stepping in.”
“Why do you care? You’ve done your job. You’ve paid me back. Why are you still here?” she asked, exasperated.
Hell, this wasn’t going well. “I need to explain something. I went to see my folks. It was my mother who forced the food on me. Her freezer was full. I think she’s been stocking my favorite foods for years.” The chicken began to sizzle, and the aromatic scent of home reached his nostrils. It was somehow comforting.
Her sky-blue eyes widened with interest. “You went to see your parents? I thought you hadn’t seen them for ten years.”
“I hadn’t.” He saw questions in her eyes. He didn’t want to talk, but he knew he had to take a chance. “I left home because my father was beating my mother. I intervened. He beat the crap out of me, too. I went back to settle the score.”
She moved forward and gripped his forearms. “What happened?”
He saw concern in her eyes. For him. His heart beat fast. The battlefield didn’t scare him, but this did. Confiding in her. “My father apologized to me. He never touched my mother again after that incident. Hell, Alice, I wanted to hurt him. Beat him. Punish him. But he begged my forgiveness.” He pulled her close so that she couldn’t look him in the eyes.
But she was having none of it. She pushed back, her hands on his chest, so she could. “And you? How do you feel about that?”
The food bubbled and popped with the heat. He broke from her, grabbed a spoon, and began to stir the food. “I wasn’t expecting it. I went to fight.” He blinked, not really seeing what he was doing. “He said ‘sorry.’”
She put her hand on his arm. “Hugo? Look at me.”
He turned. “It made a difference. I think I can settle back home.”
She raised her hand and placed her palm on his cheek, her eyebrows raised in question. “You. Settle? Really?”
“I want you to forgive me. It would mean everything to me. I can’t move on until you do.”
“So if I tell you I forgive you, you’ll move on?”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“I can forgive you,” she said, “because today you took on my problems as if they were your own. You deserve peace. God knows it’s something I’ve craved my whole life. I’m so happy you’ve found yours.” She put her arms around the back of his neck, breathing him in. Why was his scent so enticing?
She could feel his erection through his jeans, and tingles of pleasure shot up her spine. He seemed so genuinely sorry for his role in spying for the Slayers.
He pushed the saucepan off the heat, picked her up, and carried her to the bedroom, holding her tenderly as if she were a fragile piece of china. It didn’t take him long to strip off her dress and underwear, quickly following it with his own. “I thought we’d never do this again.”
“Me, too.” The raw ache for him she’d tried to keep tamped down pulsed inside her.
“Alice, I love you,” he said, gently pushing her onto the bed and holding her close. “I didn’t want to. That’s not why I came here.”
She reached up and pinched his nipple.
“Ouch!”
“You were saying you loved me. Don’t add dumb things.” She liked him vulnerable and open.
“Time to show you then.” He kissed her, not the kiss of savage hunger, but a slow, tender kiss, more lips than tongue, as he slid his thigh between hers.
His hand cupped her breast, squeezing it, kneading the nipple into a tight bud, and she groaned. “I want you to love me, too.”
“Trust you to demand it. I need to think.” Let him stew a bit. This contemplative Hugo was new to her, and she didn’t want it to stop.
“You think too much.” He swirled his hot tongue around her nipple.
She moaned. “I have to know I can trust you.”
He kissed each breast before moving down her body, stopping to kiss in sensitive places like her belly button, licking along the line that ran from her navel to her sex. She rocked her hips, desperate for his touch.
She lay breathing heavily, thinking he was an addiction. Yes, she’d let him between her legs, but did she dare let him into her heart?
He rolled on a condom, covered her, and supported his weight by his elbows.
She opened her legs to receive him, wanting him with a desperation that she knew would haunt her all her life if she let him go.
He slid into her, and she thought the bliss would send her up to a cloud as she moved to meet his rhythm. He smelled divine. He moved deeper, harder, and soon she was meeting him thrust for thrust, squeezing and milking him, until she came again. He joined her arching and thrusting in deep, groaning as he emptied into her.
When he was finished he took her in his arms, just holding her, staring into her eyes. There was something gentle about his expression. Maybe he had found peace.
“That was wonderful,” she said. More like he was making love than fucking.
He pulled off the condom and tied a knot in it, throwing it on the floor. “I realized I love sex any way I have it with you. Rough sex and war went together somehow, but I can do without it.”
She shifted and looked into his eyes, saw him gazing back at her, his expression wary as if he was venturing into new territory. “Don’t change what you like in bed for me. I love what you do for me. I enjoy our games. You brought happiness and adventure into my life when everything around me was going to hell. I do love you, Hugo, even though sometimes you worry me.”
“You mean that? I thought I’d lost you forever.” A smile lit up his face.
She hugged him close, and he wrapped his great bear-like arms around her so that she was warm and relaxed. “You’ve gone places for me that no one else has ever gone. You don’t judge me. You make me feel loved and cared for. I’d be a fool to let you go.”
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