by Jc Emery
“How in the hell did you get a key to my place?” My mom is the only person who has a key to my apartment, and I like it that way. I wouldn’t even let her have one, but she made an excellent point about dying alone and stinking the place up. Seeing Diesel welcoming himself into my modest apartment is uncomfortable at best and embarrassing at worst.
“Lona’s a nice lady. You should stop by and see her sometime,” he says.
My eyes widen and I have to work to keep my jaw from the floor. “My mom gave it to you? Are you serious?” Diesel smirks despite my obvious displeasure. Mom and I are going to have a serious freaking talk the next time I see her.
“She thinks I’m cute.” He shrugs his shoulders and flashes me a smile that makes my face heat. I don’t want to like him or think he’s cute, but I can’t help it, and I’m starting to worry that the asshole knows it.
“Of course she does.” I move through the room, picking up my mess. I make it halfway to the kitchen with the empty ice cream tub when I hear the front door shut behind me. I haven’t collected enough good karma for the closing door to mean Diesel’s left.
“This is how we spend our days off?”
I try to ignore the comment, but it does little good. God only knows what he’s referring to. It could be my pajamas or the state of my apartment. Not that it ever looks that good, but even I can admit that I’ve slipped on my cleaning skills the last several weeks.
“Thanks for the judgment, D,” I say and look down at myself. Okay, I’m kind of ripe. I admit it. My face scrunches up in disgust. I just hope this doesn’t make it back to his brothers, or I might never live it down. Nobody ever sees me like this—so off my game and careless with my appearance. Even in all the years Grady and I were hooking up, he never saw this side of me. He didn’t want me like this.
“What are you doing here, anyway?” I fail miserably at keeping the bitterness that seeps through me out of my voice.
“Please, calm yourself, woman.” He’s teasing me. I can even hear the smile in his voice. “I know you love me, but damn.”
I don’t turn around so he won’t see the stupid smile on my face.
“Figured something’s wrong with your bike since I don’t see it out there and you’re not at Izzy’s party.”
“Nothing wrong with the bike. I’ve got a job that I need Louis’s truck for. My bike’s at Mom’s place, but you’ve been by there, so I’m sure you already know that. I can’t be riding a couple hours in the wrong direction when I have to be ready to work.”
I’m standing at the kitchen sink and filling it up with hot soapy water when I feel him behind me. He cages me in and turns the water off, then places his hands on the edge of the sink on the outside of mine. We’re not touching, but I feel him. It’s a kind of torture to be this close. We’ve been doing this for over a month now—dancing around one another, coming close to something more—but it never goes beyond this. It gives me belly flips and shortened breaths and ideas that make me feel like a stupid teenage girl who’s falling in love for the first time.
“I need you to trust me, so I’m going to pretend I believe your bullshit excuse,” he whispers.
It’s not bullshit, but my brain and mouth have left me so I can’t even plead my case. His voice is low and quiet in my ear. His breath ghosts along my skin, sending a shiver up my spine. He smells like whiskey and cigarettes and motor oil. It’s a combination that shouldn’t smell good, but it does. I try to keep focus on his smell and not what he’s saying because I’m not ready for this conversation. He’s been leading up to it the last few times he came by to help me on a job, but I guess he’s all about truth today. He couldn’t have picked a worse time to hop on the honest train.
“You want to trust me, but you’re not there yet, and that’s cool, because I’ve got you thinking about shit you don’t like and I like way too much. If you weren’t thinking about it, then you’d have said something by now, but you didn’t, so I’m just gonna throw this out and see where it lands. You and me, babe—we’re gonna happen. Not today, because you’ve got a heart full of hurt, but soon.”
His hands disappear from my sight, disappointing me for the briefest moment before I feel them, which is the better of the two. He skims his fingers up my side and presses his torso into my back. Stupid, old insecurities surface, making it hard for me to enjoy the moment. I wonder if he’d like it better if I weren’t so tall or if my shoulders weren’t so broad. Maybe he likes sassy little white girls, or maybe he wants a woman he has to save. Maybe I’m just convenient and he’s waiting for his very own Holly to come along. Lucky for him, I’m self-destructive enough to go with it regardless of how bad he’ll tear me up when he moves on to a woman more suited to his liking.
I should tell him this just to save myself the agony, but I don’t for the same reason people pinch the webbing between their thumb and index finger when they have a headache—because sometimes the best you can do is to redirect the pain.
“Go take a shower. I’ll clean this shit up.” He lifts my long black hair from the nape of my neck and lifts it over my shoulder. His hands find a way to my hips and he takes a step back, then turns me toward my bedroom door.
I try to take a step forward, but his grip on my hips is too strong for me to get anywhere. In an instant, his torso is back, pressed into me, and his lips fall against the back of my neck where he places a soft kiss. My throat goes dry instantly and my stomach bottoms out, but I refuse to let it show. The second his hands are gone from my hips, I’m racing toward my bedroom and escaping behind the closed door. I eye the open bathroom door on the other end of my bedroom, knowing I really do need to get cleaned up, but I’m unable to move just yet.
My eyes fall closed and I strain to take a deep breath. I can’t be falling for him. I can’t let myself get hurt like I did the last time. Not that the protesting matters.
It’s already happened.
Chapter 2
I shower quickly and don’t bother with shaving. I don’t take Diesel for the snooping kind, but then I don’t think anyone would take me for the snooping kind either, and I’m definitely a snooper. My one bedroom apartment is not only small, but it’s also sparsely decorated with few personal effects and even fewer things worth snooping through.
As I’m brushing out the knots in my hair, I admire its thickness. My dad may have been an unfaithful asshole, but he always had great hair. He got the shine and thickness from his mother, and I got it from him. I won’t ever dye it because the chemical damage would sadden me. It’s just hair, and maybe it’s dumb, but our hair has always been one of the many physical markers that show our genetic link. And he’s gone now. He can’t tell me not to get my feathers mussed up anymore, which was his way of making sure I didn’t get my hair too knotted.
You have beautiful feathers, Little Bird. Treat them well.
A smile finds its way to my face as I work on braiding my wet hair. I only got to meet my grandparents once, about twenty years ago now. I loved every minute of my time with them—mostly because my father’s mother told me stories about the man who was destined to be chief of the Southern Cheyenne but never would be. She made my dad sound so honorable and important. He could have been, I guess, had he not stolen my mother from the man she’d been betrothed to and run away with her, never to return. I still don’t know how I feel about the man he became.
And that’s where I always get stuck. All these feelings swirl inside me, confusing everything I think I know about my father. When he was alive, it was easy to hate him, but now that he’s gone, I don’t know how I feel. I deal with uncertainty on the job every day. I’m prepared for it. But in my personal life I need more stability. And my emotions are anything but stable lately.
I don’t like thinking on this stuff too much, so instead of focusing on it, I hurry and get dressed. I slide on a pair of comfortable jeans and a T-shirt, pairing them with my old-as-hell Chucks. When I’m convinced that I’m presentable enough to pretend to be happy, I walk
out of my bedroom and stop dead in my tracks.
The mess I’d scattered about from my ice-cream binge is gone. The lid to the carton isn’t on the arm of the couch, and the dirty dishes aren’t in the sink anymore. Everything is clean. Like, the kind of clean that mysteriously happens about once a month when my mother sneaks by while I’m out on a long-term job to clean the place up. Only, Diesel’s put everything back how I like it, not how he likes it. My mother does that. She helps out in her own obnoxious way. And judging by the look on his face and the way he’s leaning back against the kitchen sink, he knows I’m way too pleased with his effort.
“Something you’re gonna get about me eventually is this—I tell you I’m gonna do something, I fucking do it. I say you’re gonna trust me, you’re going to because I’m showing you that you can trust me. I say we’re gonna happen, it’s because I’m gonna make us happen.”
My mouth forms an O shape, and it’s a long moment before I can process everything he’s said. His speech is perfect, but that’s not reality, so there’s something missing here I can’t see right now. Something is going to unsettle this bullshit perfect-man vibe he’s got going on.
“You lay into all the girls like this?” I ask and scoff as I move to grab my purse off the small dining table that sits in the open space between the narrow living room and even narrower kitchen. I have my back to him by the time I see him moving. Not fast, not scary. Just slow, and predatory, and all man. And I thought I wanted him because of the words he spoke before I showered. I thought I wanted him more just a moment ago when he laid it out for me, but seeing him close in on me, slow and unyielding, makes me want him in a way I can barely express.
Men don’t know how to handle me. They either let me walk all over them—which I can’t respect—or they want nothing to do with me. The few who do think they can handle me have wanted to do it with an iron fist, and not as theoretically as I’d like. Diesel’s different, though. I keep trying to see through him, figure out what his angle is, but so far I haven’t found one. When he says he’s gonna show up, he shows up. When he acts like he cares, he seems to genuinely care. And fuck my life, I don’t know what to do with an honest man who isn’t exactly verbose with his feelings but lets them be known and isn’t shy about it. And I especially don’t know what to do with a Forsaken man who has feelings for me and doesn’t seem to be full of shit. Because they’re all full of shit, and most of them are good at hiding that fact, and some of them don’t even know they’re full of shit.
So basically, I’m fucked.
“Not even gonna respond to that,” he says with a slight shake of his head.
“You just did.” My lips quirk up slightly, betraying the badass exterior I thought we agreed to have, and I’m smiling. Yep, fucked. Because even though I know he’s full of shit—even if he doesn’t realize it himself—I’m eating it up. I guess when you either feel everything to a painful extent or nothing at all, you’ll take anything that doesn’t make you hurt or hate yourself.
We’re just getting into town—me wrapped around Diesel on his bike, and I’m not even going to let myself fantasize about this later when I’m alone in my bed—when I realize that I left Izzy’s present at home. I’m a shit big sister. I wish it weren’t so, but I’m too self-involved to be an adequate role model or loving feature in a kid’s life. Stephen, my half brother and Izzy’s full brother, is two years older than her, and he’s finally wised up to the fact that I have certain limitations. Izzy, though, still acts like I can move mountains for her. I don’t deserve the way she looks at me, and I don’t like how much responsibility she gives me to be in her life.
I’m not an unfeeling monster. I like the kid. She’s sweet. I love her even, but I’m just missing some kind of gene that makes women caring and thoughtful or something. I used to feel awful about it, and now I kind of just own it and hope other people don’t count on me for squishy feelings and shit. At least Amber’s kids don’t expect squishy from me. I’m just the aunt they see once a year or so who shows up with cool gifts—something I can’t even seem to do for Izzy.
Kids have to learn about the harsh realities of life sometime, so I guess this is Izzy’s time. She’s such a sweet kid that even if she’s disappointed that I’m showing up empty-handed, she’ll never say it. I don’t feel good about disappointing her, but it’s too late to go back and get it. We’d miss the entire party if we did that.
I’ve barely scratched the surface of how awful I am when Diesel slows the bike and we pull off the road and into the Coffee Hut parking lot. He cuts off the bike, so I climb off, more than a little confused about why we’ve stopped for coffee even though we’re so late to the party that we’ll be lucky to make it in time for cake, and since I’m out of ice cream at home, I really, really want some cake.
But we don’t move to get coffee.
Diesel crooks a finger in my direction. It’s sexy and tempting as all hell, but the expression on his face is serious. I close the distance between us without even questioning it and don’t fight him when he places his hands on my hips and pulls me into him. He’s leaning on the bike, his tall frame bent so I have to look down to catch his eyes. His large hands keep a firm grip on my hips, his fingers kneading my pliant flesh beneath my clothes.
“Look at me.” His words are firm but not bossy, and his dark brown eyes are wide, thoughtful.
“I am looking at you.” My brows furrow in confusion as I search his face for a clue to what he’s talking about. But I can’t find anything. He’s so good at being here and doing shit like this without really giving anything away. I never know what it means—what he means—or if I should even trust him.
“No, babe. You’re looking through me. Your body’s here, and what a body it is.” He finishes on a whistle and gives me a playful smile. As quickly his smile appears, it’s gone, and his mouth forms a thin line. “But what I want is your head right now.”
Diesel’s sexy whether he’s smiling or brooding or just plain quiet, but I think this mood might be my favorite. I’ve never been one of those women whose belly does flips every time she’s around her man—not that I can really call him my man—at least not since I was in high school and I wised up to the fact that Sterling Grady was more to me than just my father’s best friend. My head doesn’t get foggy, and I don’t forget how to breathe. Not anymore. I’m twenty-eight freaking years old and way too mature for suddenly feeling like a teenager all over again.
“Don’t.” My voice is all breathy, and the word is barely a whisper on my tongue, but he hears it. My broad shoulders fall, and I give up trying to be tough enough to grow up Forsaken. In this moment, I’m just a woman who needs a little comfort from a man she really, really wants to trust. I slump my body into his, my hands landing softly on his shoulders and my forehead pressing against his. His thick, kinky, black hair is starting to grow in again, which means in the coming days he’s going to shave it down. I’ve never seen him with more than a quarter inch of hair.
“Don’t what?” He waits for an answer that I don’t yet feel like giving before he says, “Talk to me.”
My dad’s voice rings in my ears. Everything he’s ever said to me ricochets off my gut and pierces me right in the heart. All the lessons he taught me—when he was around—about strength and power and survival.
You’re strong, Little Bird—strong enough to scare grown men.
I didn’t raise you to be loser, Elysia. Cheyenne women are not weak.
You’ll always be my little girl.
“You know, Izzy’s room has three dollhouses in it. Three. She loves her dolls. My dad used to sit in her room with her and let her paint his nails and put makeup on him while he got sauced on a bottle of whiskey. If he drank enough, he’d grab a doll and start playing with her. Izzy loved it. She says she misses that time with him the most.”
“You’re missing Chief,” Diesel says in observation.
“Fuck that asshole.” I try to pull back, but his grip is too tight. I lift
my head and look into his eyes—and I mean I really look into his eyes—and I tell him the awful way I really feel. “I never got that side of him. Izzy got the dad who, even though he was drunk, would play with her. I got the dad who tried to make me be just like him. I wanted a dollhouse once, and he told me it was a waste of my brain power to play with such silly things. I was meant for more than playing with dollies and having tea parties with imaginary friends. Izzy takes ballet classes. I spent my time learning how to fix up Harleys in the shop.”
“Glad you’re talking, sharing, trusting me. ’Bout time for it, too, but I gotta say it, babe. Your head is fucked right now.”
My eyes bug out, and now I’m not just looking at him. I’m sizing him up and deciding whether or not I can take him and, if I can, how I can get his too-honest-for-his-own-good ass into the dumpster behind the Coffee Hut without being noticed by anyone.
“You’re jealous of a nine-year-old,” he says slowly. I don’t miss the way the corner of his mouth quirks.
“So?” I’m being ridiculous, but I’m way too indignant to care.
“You want me to enroll you in ballet with Izzy?”
I shrug my shoulders before muttering, “No. It seems boring as hell.” He made his point and all, but I have the urge to make him see my point of view. “And this isn’t about ballet. It’s about—I don’t know what it’s about.”
Even though I feel like sharing, I can’t bring myself to share everything. I want to tell him that I resent my father for not letting me be a normal kid, for not letting me be a little girl who pretended she was a princess—for wanting me to be a warrior and not a child. And I hate what that training has made me—rigid and cold and so lacking in femininity that even after sleeping with a man for ten years, I still wasn’t woman enough for him to want by his side.
“This is why I stopped. There’s been a war raging inside you since we got off the highway.”
Again with the gentle from him. Fuck. If he keeps this up, he’s going to see a side of me that even I rarely ever get to see. I bet Holly fucking Mercer doesn’t hate feeling vulnerable. I bet she melts into Grady and looks at him like he’s some kind of demigod who can solve all her problems.