Under Locke

by Mariana Zapata

All he did was stare at me for the longest moment in history in response. When I snickered, he blinked, one side of his mouth tipping up just barely.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever let anybody gimme as much grief as you do.”

  “Thank you?”

  He grunted.

  “Okay, no gay prostituting for you. What else then? Were you shanking freshman in school?” I really had no idea. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear about him getting into fistfights with a teacher.

  The other side of his mouth tipped up high right before he snorted, the sound was so close to my ear I could feel the heat of his lips and skin. "Graffiti."

  "Oh." The teenage graffiti artist who turned into a tattoo artist? Perfect. As I did the math in my head, I realized that his dad's crap must have been almost immediately after he'd gotten in trouble. "And then?"

  He shrugged. "Nothin’ much. I was still a shit when I got out."

  Like that wasn't still the case. Ha.

  "I got in trouble again almost right after I got out. That's why I got stuck with the whole five year sentence at county."

  And at some point between that period of time, the tiger had changed his stripes but it'd been a little too late. From graffiti to assault. I couldn't have been attracted to a man that had gone to jail for unpaid traffic fines—and once I thought about it, that seemed really lame. Who would want to have feelings for a guy like that?

  "The good thing is your big behemoth butt hasn't gotten in trouble again, and now you aren't defacing public buildings." At that, I lifted both of my eyebrows quickly.

  I could tell his was in a good mood considering the conversation. "I found a better canvas, you know." He touched the back of the hand I had loose at my side with his index finger. "A permanent one."

  Oh boy. I suddenly felt like I couldn't breathe deeply. I had to settle for a shaky smile at the small physical contact. "And it all started because of your comics."

  His hand moved away as he reached up to put a hand on the side of the frame, caging me in on one side. "If it wasn't for all this shit, I wouldn't have a damn thing."

  Which was true. What else would he have done if he hadn't gotten seduced into art by his comic books? It'd brought his gift to life, I figured.

  "I wish I was half as talented at anything as you are at art," I sighed. "But I'm not good at anything."

  Two hands planted themselves on my shoulders. "I'm sure you're good at somethin', babe."

  I snorted. "Nothing useful."

  "Babe." He said the nickname in a slithering tone, part admonishing, part sigh.

  “It’s fine. It’s not too late to learn to be good at something, right?”

  The heat on my back intensified as he took a step closer to me, his long fingers dug into my tissues. “I was your age when I got out of jail, Ritz. You got time to figure shit out.” He didn't say anything else after that little pep talk. He just stood there, massaging my shoulders for long moments until he squeezed them tightly once and stepped back. "Lemme show you somethin’."

  I shook off the dreamy haze his hands put me under and tried to focus on something other than his out-of-the-blue affection. Dex opened a creaky closet door while I looked over one of the big bookshelves that had collectible action figures on it still in their packaging.

  "Here we go," he murmured, throwing a cardboard lid onto the floor. He smiled up at me as he held out a comic book I didn't recognize. Tightly restrained excitement vibrated through his bones. "Look, this is the first one Ma ever bought me."

  I took his offering with the widest smile I could muster when he grinned at me like he'd won the lottery.

  And it was that smile that had me plastered on the ground next to him for an hour, going through an impressive selection of comic books that Dex explained he’d collected through his early teen years. He was so painstakingly careful with each item he showed me, so serious explaining the editions and their value, that I ate it all up like a starved woman on the floor with him.

  He’d tell me something special about each comic, and then he’d ask me something about myself like it was a second thought. What my favorite superhero movie was. If I’d liked Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as a kid. Who my favorite X-Men was.

  Never in a million years would I have ever expected Dex to even have a favorite X-Men or Ninja Turtle, much less care about which one was mine.

  "What do your friends think of all this?" I asked him.

  He looked me dead in the eye. "I don't give a shit what anyone else thinks." Then he'd paused and quirked a cheek up, like he regretted the word choice he'd used. "But nobody else except Shane's seen 'em. I think Sonny and Trip remember I was into 'em when we were kids but...it's my one thing I don't gotta share with anybody."

  God. Where was Dex The Dick when I needed him to keep me far away from this charming monster?

  I sucked up how tired I was and looked through another couple boxes he had in his closet.

  When I started yawning every couple of minutes, he sat back with his hands propped behind his butt. “You want the bed?”

  I shook my head. “I’ll be fine on the couch.

  “I’m not gonna ask you twice,” he warned me, smiling wearily.

  “Thanks, but I’ll survive.” What I probably wouldn't survive was another night spent in the same bed with him after our day together. Specifically, after I'd become personal with the hot, heavy touch he was capable of. "I need to get used to sleeping on the couch again if I'm ever going to try and get my own place in the future."

  I'd been thinking about my financial situation a lot recently, when I wasn’t thinking about all this crap with my dad. Though I liked living with Sonny, I didn’t want to take advantage of him. He would never kick me out but I didn’t want to mooch. I was too old for that. Most importantly, I didn’t want him to think that I would ever use him. He’d done more than enough for me.

  So I needed to move out at some point in the sort-of distant future. I’d saved pretty much all of my paychecks except for gas, my Florida medical bills, and other little things, but it still wouldn’t be enough to pay a first month and deposit on even the cheapest apartment, and have money left over to buy some furniture. Which meant that I'd probably invest in a couch whenever I got my own place and sleep on that until I could afford a bed.

  Then there was the opportunity to go back to school, too. But that was money I didn't have either, dang it. Why exactly couldn't it grow on trees?

  Dex’s face scrunched up. “Why?"

  "I can't live with Son forever." I blinked at him.

  His face screwed up even more. "You can't live by yourself."

  "Yes I can."

  "No, you can't," he snapped back.

  Heaven help me. "I can live by myself."

  There was no hesitation in his voice when he ground out, "The hell you are."

  "Dex." I glared at him. "You already know it was just me and my brother for a while, and then I lived with a roommate for a year. I'm not a little kid, and I'm not an idiot. I can live alone."

  He opened his mouth and my poor eyes went straight to those pink lips. Then he shut it so quickly that if I wouldn't have been looking, I would have missed him opening it, period. That gaze swept over my face, boring straight into my eyes in what I couldn't miss as being an act of domination.

  And obviously when he refused to break our eye contact, I had to accept that this wasn't a battle I was going to win. Regardless, he didn't have a say with what I did and it wasn't like I was going to be moving anywhere in the near future.

  I reached out and poked him with my index finger in the shoulder. "Chill out. I don't have enough money yet anyway. And if I go back to school, it'll take me even longer."

  The smug jerk smiled slowly.

  I should have known by then that his slow smile wasn't a positive sign.

  ~ * ~ *

  Two days later, in the middle of my lunch break, I found out why Dex had been such a sly jerk in his spare bedroom.

  The thick pa
cket slid across the counter slowly, pushed by two tattooed fingers I recognized from the length alone.

  Austin Community College: Fall Credit Catalog

  “There’s info in there about certificates and degrees and shit you can get from 'em,” Dex’s gruff voice explained. “Classes start next month. I’ll help you pay for ‘em if you want, you know. You could go early before we open.”

  I didn't know whether to look at the catalog that sat right next to the bean salad I'd brought from Dex's house, or look at the man himself.

  Dex's face won.

  But I couldn't find my vocabulary anywhere, and it must have made him feel awkward because he kept going.

  "I know you said you think you aren't good at anythin' but I'm sure you can figure somethin' out, babe. You're smart."

  My mouth opened and closed at least twice before my throat decided to work. "You went and got this for me?"

  He shrugged uneasily. Uneasily! Dex! "I got a prospect from the Club to go get it."

  He could have asked Santa Claus to go get it and it wouldn't have mattered. What mattered, because in life there are so few things that really do, was that he'd listened to me. That he hadn't just heard the words "I'm not good at anything," but that he'd heard everything else I'd said afterward.

  “Why you frownin’?”

  “I’m not frowning.” Pouting, maybe.

  “Looks like you’re frownin’.”

  “I swear I’m not.” My eyes were stinging. “I’m happy right now.”

  He narrowed those impossible blue eyes. “You got somethin’ in your eye?”

  I sniffed. “Allergies.” Like I was going to tell him he was going to make me cry.

  Out of all of the things Dex could have given me, that was the last thing I could have ever expected: a course catalog for the local community college and an offer to help me with my classes. Not that I would ask him to help me pay for them—I wouldn't. But it was the thought. The friggin' thought that was worth ten times its weight in gold.

  How could I not like this man? This asshole, bossy man that listened to me?

  “Dex.” His name came out of my mouth in the form of a sigh.

  “What the hell, Ritz? Are you cryin’? I thought you’d be happy,” he said, quickly dropping to kneel right next to my chair. He pulled it out and toward him by the legs, making a horrible grating sound on the tile.

  Without thinking twice, because I was so wrapped in his gesture, I threw my arms around his neck and pressed my nose to his throat. “Why aren’t you this nice all the time?” I asked, but it was so muffled I’m not sure he understood the question.

  Two arms wrapped around me, pulling me flat against him. It's a testament to how unfocused I felt that I couldn't find it in me to appreciate the contact he was giving me. To let me even think about what a gesture like this coming from a man like Dex meant.

  “Sounds borin’ to me.” That large palm cupped the back of my neck. “And nobody else gives me hugs like this but you.”

  The urge to fall to the ground, rip my heart out of my chest and hold it out like a sacred offering was overwhelming. Take it! Take it all! I’d cry.

  Instead, I just sat there with my arms around him, breathing in that smoky Dex scent. I squeezed him tighter to me, knowing that I should move.

  But I couldn’t. Not right then when I had my face buried in the nicest smelling place ever. Not when I was confused by the man who defended me, slept with me, and brought me class catalogs. The same man who was the most good-looking male in both hemispheres.

  “Is this our secret then?”

  His chest puffed against mine. “Yeah, babe, it is.”

  “Okay.” I leaned back and smiled at him. “I won’t tell anyone.”

  “Better not.”

  I snorted right as this incredibly tender emotion flooded my chest. And it caused this urge… I had to close my eyes as I leaned forward and pecked a kiss on Dex’s stubbled cheek. “Fine.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  There were times when I wondered whether I'd lost most of my common sense the moment I got within the Austin city limits. Several times, in fact.

  And one of those moments was right then.

  Who in their right mind would turn down a date from a gorgeous guy that also happened to be really nice? The guy was one of Blake’s repeat customers. A computer programmer gradually getting a full-sleeve done. I’d met him my first week at the shop. But I mean, really, who would do that if they were sane?

  Me, I hoped.

  “Just one,” Trey, who was tall—almost as tall as Dex, the tallest person in my life— had the nicest shade of close cropped light brown hair. Did I mention he was super cute? One date, just to try it out, he’d said a minute before.

  My answer was a blush and a goofy grin. When was the last time someone had asked me out and been serious about it? Four years ago?

  “We’ll do whatever you want,” he kept going.

  “I don’t think I’m allowed to go on dates with customers,” I told him honestly. While I hadn’t seen it written anywhere, it just seemed like normal etiquette in an employee handbook.

  Someone from behind me, Blake, snickered loudly. All of these guys were unbelievably nosey. They had superhuman listening skills when they were busy, but when they weren’t busy and a walk-in came in asking for a generic type of tattoo—like a girl who had come in asking for the name of her current boyfriend to be crafted onto the back of her neck for the rest of her existence—they were all deaf. It was a miracle, I swear, that their hearing came back on an hourly basis.

  “I think all of us but Blue have done it, Iris,” Blake called out from his station.

  Trey smiled that nearly perfect like smile. “See? Tomorrow night then?” he asked me expectantly.

  I wasn’t planning on saying yes no matter how cute and tall he was. I had no business dragging someone into the same stagnant pit I had VIP passes to. I didn't have my own place, I'd barely caught up on all of my bills, and I had no clue what I was doing with my life. Realistically what did I have to offer anyone?

  Plus, I'd be lying if I said that the first thing that popped into my mind when he first asked wasn't Dex's face. Not that I knew or understood what the heck that meant but I'd leave that thought alone for another day. Or year, whatever.

  I’d just been about to tell Trey I wasn't interested but in much simpler terms when two large hands slipped over my shoulders. Two sets of strong fingers spanned down my chest, the tips dangerously close to my nipples, er, boobs.

  “Sorry, Trey. It’s against policy unless little Miss Iris wants to quit,” Dex's cool voice announced, his grip squeezing the tops of my breasts. “And that ain’t happenin’.”

  What. The. Hell?

  Trey's eyes darted from Dex to me, and then back again, before he smiled pleasantly and nodded. Why the hell he nodded, I have no clue. “I got’cha, man.”

  What did he have exactly?

  I tipped my head up to look at The Dick standing over me. His face was tight, his hold even tighter.

  "Yeah," was the last thing that came out of his mouth.

  Trey looked back at me and winked. "Maybe another time."

  I had to be the only one who heard Dex mutter, "Over my dead body," under his breath.

  What the heck was all that about? That standard annoyance I'd come to associate with being in Dex's company kissed the nape of my neck. Now it was me who was stiffening while The Dick relaxed.

  The first chance I got after Trey was out of eavesdropping distance, I looked back up at my hot boss. "What are you doing?" I hissed at him. Well, maybe that wasn't the question I'd been preparing myself to ask, but it had just come out.

  Those longer fingers dipped gently into the soft flesh underneath my shirt. "Nothin'."

  Nothing? Threatening to fire me if I accepted a date was nothing? I started to shake my shoulders under his hold. "Why are you being like that?" It wasn't like I was planning on accepting the offer but still. I didn't w
ant anyone else making my decisions for me. Especially not when it was something within my control. Something that only affected me. This wasn't a matter for either of my brothers or anybody else to get involved in, dang it.

  Dark cobalt blue eyes gazed down at me. His expression switching from distant to pissed by the way he started grinding his teeth.

  “Don't be dense," he snapped.

  My jaw dropped. “You have no right—”

  He snapped his fingers together. "You wanna talk about this? My office, right now."