They settled, drank.
Then Jenny said, “What will you tell Candy when he asks you?”
Startled, Michelle searched the other woman’s face, finding a calm curiosity. “He isn’t…”
“He is,” Jenny said, and the transformation was incredible, from shaking, nervous lover to the wise queen of this club chapter. A mantle she’d donned with ease and elegance. “You’re it for him. You have to know that by now, Michelle. He’s never loved anyone like this.”
A hand ghosted to her sternum, pressing there, like she could contain the sudden flutter of her heart.
“Scary, isn’t it?” Jenny asked.
“No. Heavy.”
~*~
They were working on their third glass, and talking about the meeting they wanted to have with the waitresses (who’d done an amazing job tonight) after closing, when a wraith slid into their booth.
Michelle recognized the feel, the shape, the smell of him before she could get nervous about it, and turned to see Fox reaching for their wine bottle and taking a long swig straight from its mouth.
“Excuse you,” she said, knocking her shoulder into his. “Maybe we didn’t want to swap spit with you.”
He kept drinking, glugging down an obscene amount before he set it down and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Shut up. You love me.”
“Yes, but that doesn’t mean we like you,” Michelle said.
Jenny snorted.
“What’s going on?” Michelle asked him.
He gave her a sidelong glance, smirking. “Last I checked, you needed three things to be a member of this club, and you don’t have any of them.”
“Oh yeah? And what are they?”
He listed them off on his fingers. “Cock. Balls. Patches.”
“Pig.”
“Factually correct, though.”
“Ugh,” Michelle said. “You could just say, ‘Thank you for helping our plan along, Chelle. That was really sweet of you.’”
He pretended to consider. “Nah.”
“How angry is Candy?”
“Angry enough to spank you.” He waggled his eyebrows.
“You are the most disgusting uncle ever.”
“Really? Have you seen Miles’s neck tattoo?”
She shoved his shoulder with both hands. “Go. We’re having a girls’ moment.”
“Hate to interrupt those.” He got to his feet, then gave her a serious look. “Really, though. I’m leaving. Which means you’ve got to behave.”
“You did not just say that.”
“Hm.” He leaned in, hand braced on the table, and kissed the top of her head. Whispered, “I’d let you work for me any day, just so the record’s straight.”
She felt warm all over. “Where’s Candy?”
“Coming to find you, I’m sure.” He gave her a wink and was gone.
~*~
At four in the morning, she flopped down onto the bed in Candy’s room and declared the night a success in her mind.
He stood above her, unbuttoning his shirt. “Happy?”
“Aren’t you?” she returned. “That was a roaring success.”
He sat down and the mattress bucked under her. “It kinda was, wasn’t it?”
“Candy, we had a packed house,” she said, propping up on an elbow, unable to contain her grin. “When was the last time Odell’s pulled that kind of business?”
“Twenty years ago. And it isn’t Odell’s, is it?”
“Nope.” Her grin widened, made her face hurt. “It’s TLC now, baby.”
His smile wasn’t as wide as it should have been as he reached to unlace his boots. “Yeah.”
“You like the new name alright?”
He nodded. “It’s fine.”
Uh oh. “’Fine’ isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement.” She worked her way closer, still up on her elbow, head resting in her hand. Close enough to trace her socked toes down the ridge of his spine as he bent forward to tug his boots off.
The long muscles in his back flexed in reaction, and her palms tingled with the memory of those movements, feeling him stretch and strain as his hips thrust.
Warmth bloomed deep in the pit of her stomach, a sudden sharp tug of want.
“Candy.” She sat up and put her hand on his shoulder, felt him go perfectly still beneath her touch, braced forward with his elbows on his thighs, his chin in his hands. “What’s the matter, love?”
He breathed a sound that might have been a laugh. “Do you know you could have gotten shot tonight?”
Inwardly, she groaned. But she said, quietly, “Back to this again?” and massaged at the hard knot beneath his shoulder blade with her thumb.
“Yes, again,” he said, and his voice wasn’t angry so much as hollow and pained. “Turns out I’m not some kinda modern man or something. This is never going to sit well with me. I’m never not going to worry about you.” He pulled his hands away from his face and rubbed them together as if he was cold; they were shaking, she saw, little tremors in his fingers.
Michelle kept kneading at the knot in his back and rested her cheek against the point of his shoulder. He felt warm, and smelled like the night beyond their curtained window. “I’m sorry.”
“When I send one of my guys to do something, you know what I think? I think ‘oh good, he’s got it covered.’ Or ‘that was helpful.’ Something. Whatever. But when it’s you?” He took a ragged breath. “All I can think about is how small you are, and how easy it would be for someone to snap your neck, and how jumpy an agent might get in a den full of bikers, and fire off a shot without thinking.”
He turned his head toward her, so she could see the long shadows his lashes cast across his cheek. “I’m not saying you aren’t smart, or quick, or able to take care of yourself. I’m not saying you aren’t one terrifying little…demon cat.”
She smiled. “Demon cat?”
“Kitten.” He mimed claws with one hand and she laughed quietly against his sleeve. “A demon kitten.”
“Hmm.”
“But I’m sorry, baby doll. I’m not okay with Secret Agent Chelle. I’m never going to be. I’ll always be a nervous wreck about it, and I’ll always be panicking that you’re seconds away from death every time you go out to do something like that.”
It was no different than anything he’d said before. But for some reason, maybe the wine earlier, or the successful opening, or the simple magic of his warm body against hers, the words hit her differently. In a way that didn’t make her tense and angry and stubborn. She thought about what Jenny had told her – about the fact that she was “it” for Candy.
“It” was big. “It” wasn’t to be taken lightly.
A new awareness dawned, one that froze the breath in her lungs and pricked tears in her eyes. “Do you…” She had to clear her throat. “Do you know my dad has never said anything like that to me?”
He stiffened, neck twisting so he could meet her gaze. It was an awkward angle, for both of them, but it pressed their faces close together, overlapping. She loved the sudden, unexpected intimacy of it. “He hasn’t?” He sounded appalled.
“No. He…oh, God. I have daddy issues, don’t I?”
“If that’s true, what kind of creepy issues do I have?”
She glanced away from him, fingers of her right hand plucking at his shirt unconsciously. “This is terrible,” she whispered. “Because mostly, I’ve always been glad that Dad values me, and doesn’t treat me like I’m useless or silly. But…” She bit at her lip, the tears stinging her eyes now. “But I’m realizing, lately, that there’s this part of me that loves that you get so worried. I tried to tell myself it was because you have archaic sensibilities…” Oh shit, she was really going to cry. “But you don’t, do you?”
“No, sweetheart.” His voice was gentle. “I really don’t.”
Had it ever been about the work? she wondered. Or had it only ever been a desire to please?
It probably wasn’t true, and it didn’t ma
ke all that much sense, but she couldn’t shake the knowledge that no matter how much her family loved her…Candy loved her just a little more. And she’d tried to discount it, and pretend he was a pig, and that he was immature and possessive. That it was about something cheap. About control. About any number of stupid things that didn’t matter because they weren’t the truth at all.
“I’m sorry,” she said, and the tears started to fall. A sob caught in her throat. “I’m so sorry I let you think I would leave you. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…”
His arms went around her and he kissed her hair.
~*~
Jenny
She pressed the backs of her fingers to Jack’s warm, flushed, tear-streaked cheek. He’d been sleeping under Darla’s watchful care when she first arrived back from the bar, but had since awakened, colicky and screaming, and she’d paced around with him in the cool night air until he’d exhausted himself a few minutes ago.
“Baby,” she whispered. “Why are you always so unhappy, huh? Where’s my happy boy?”
“Maybe he’s taking after his mama,” Colin said behind her, startling her.
She snatched her hand back and whirled, heart fluttering.
Colin stood braced in the doorway, still in his cut, hands in his jeans pockets, tall, dark, and rumpled. His face was lined with fatigue, but his eyes were sharp, black, as unhappy as the baby’s had been.
Jenny took a deep breath and realized she was much too tired for another argument. She braced a hand on the rail of the crib. “Is that how you see me?” She kept her voice low, not to wake Jack. “Unhappy?”
“What would you call it?” His accent got thicker when he was upset, all dark swamp water and Bourbon Street jazz. It did things to her insides, that accent. A sensation almost as acute as when he spoke French to her.
“Cautious,” she returned.
“Cautious?” His brows shot up. “Because I’m dangerous, right?” A sneering smile cut across his face.
“You’re six-four and built like a brick shithouse. You are dangerous, Colin, and I think you love it. At least, you seem to when you manhandle me like a rag doll.”
“And when was the last time I got to do that, huh?” His eyes drilled straight through her skull, sharp with anger, resentment, hurt.
“So do it, then. Throw me down on the bed. Insist.”
His jaw clenched.
“If you’re so starved, why haven’t you demanded?” she asked.
He took an aggressive step toward her. “Because I’m not the kind of asshole who rapes his girlfriend.”
She gasped.
He turned away from her.
“Colin–”
“I need a drink.” He left her standing by the crib, footfalls retreating out to the living room. A moment later, she heard the clink of a bottle against a glass.
She’d had too much to drink before, and she felt drained, stretched then, her thoughts muddied.
How long had it been since they’d had any romantic couple time? She thought, with an inward cringe, that it must have been sometime before Jack was born.
And yet Colin hadn’t pushed her, or forced her, or…
Oh, what an idiot she was.
She glanced around the room – their room – eyes landing on the crib. Jack was six months old, and she’d kept his crib in here with them, where any shifting of a bed spring could wake him.
Such an idiot.
Still in her dress from tonight, barefoot, she walked out into the living room to find Colin drinking standing up, head tilted back as he drained the glass, other hand on the bottle still, ready to pour a refill.
Jenny marched up to him, wrenched the bottle from his hand.
“What the–”
She caught his face in her hands, dragged his head down, and kissed him.
It was a hasty, uncoordinated smashing-together of lips. Their teeth clicked.
But then Colin’s hands found her waist and he kissed her back, nudging her lips apart, sliding his tongue between her teeth.
What a fucking idiot, Jenny thought again, as her entire body came alive with crackling electricity.
They finally broke apart to catch their breath. Colin’s hands were fisted tight in her dress. His cock stood at full attention behind his fly, pressing insistently into her belly.
She couldn’t breathe. “Tear my dress off. Fuck me unconscious. And tomorrow we’ll go house-hunting for a place where Jack can have his own room.”
If she hadn’t been so turned on, she would have laughed at his expression. “House?”
“I don’t want that ring, baby. It’s beautiful, but I’d rather have a place of our own. And a courthouse wedding.”
He didn’t say so, but he seemed very on board with that plan.
~*~
Michelle
She was setting out butter and strawberry preserves on the small sanctuary kitchen table the next morning when Jenny came shuffling in. She had her honey hair up in a loose knot, dressed in sweats and a baggy tank top that might have been Colin’s. Her face reminded Michelle’s of her own, when she’d looked in the mirror a few minutes ago: dark smudges of exhaustion under the eyes, but an overall glow of contentment.
The faces of the freshly fucked.
“Late night?” Michelle asked, innocently.
Jenny snorted and pulled out a chair. She eased down into it with obvious slowness and care. “I can’t sit down. What do you think?”
“I think maybe you had an important conversation.”
“Hmm. And you?” She reached for the carafe and poured herself orange juice. “Shit, I need coffee instead. Juice is never gonna cut it.”
“I’ll grab some. Don’t get up…even if you can,” Michelle teased.
When she returned to the table, Jenny said, “That’s a fantastic hickey, by the way.”
“Thank you.”
“I think the boys are going to sleep in.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
They sat down to a breakfast of frozen American biscuits – how the word “biscuit” got so convoluted in the States, Michelle would never know – and were surprised when someone knocked once at the sanctuary’s main door and then waltzed in.
They weren’t surprised to discover it was Fox, though.
“Hungry?” Jenny asked.
He poured himself coffee and joined them.
“You smell like three-day-old laundry that’s been left in the sun,” Michelle observed.
He glanced down at his black sweatshirt and fatigue pants. “Part of the disguise.”
“Disguise as…?”
“Did you know,” he said conversationally, “that if you’re very careful, you can take a fingerprint from one source and leave it on another? Same with DNA.”
Michelle smiled into her coffee. “I thought that was only on television.”
He shrugged. “Did you also know that two heavily-accented Latino men broke into Agent Fleming’s hotel room last night and attempted to assault her?”
Jenny’s eyes flared. “I didn’t know that, no.”
“One was average size, one seemed a bit bigger, but you never know, in the dark, with ski masks. It would be impossible to pick them out of a lineup. So the DNA and prints are the real evidence, there.”
“The wallets,” Michelle said, smile widening, as understanding dawned.
Fox shrugged and reached for his coffee. “Remind me to give Felix voice-coaching lessons. He does a terrible Spanish accent.”
Thirty-Five
It was two weeks later that their breakfast-and-morning-news routine was enlivened by a story of particular interest.
“We take you now to Amanda Leslie in the field,” the desk anchor said, and the camera feed cut to an on-location shot of the barn Michelle and her uncles had infiltrated weeks before. Behind the stern-looking reporter in her blue blazer, men in ATF windbreakers moved back and forth between the barn and a fleet of black vans, wheeled dollies loaded with confiscated cartel
property.
“…Agents stormed the barn last night,” the reporter was saying.
Candy fist-pumped into the air. “And that,” he said, “is how you do that.”
~*~
Albie
Albie was the sort of person who always gave credit where it was due. And he would give his oldest brother credit for finding them all, uniting them beneath their running black dog banner, giving them the sort of big, boisterous family they’d lacked growing up as bastard children. Bastards, all of them. Nine children without fathers, all a little lost and groundless before their light-eyed oldest brother had come into their lives. And Phil had raised Tommy.
Albie could still remember sitting on the sofa, watching Chelle, holding her tiny body in the crook of his arm, when Phillip and Abigail came in dripping rain onto the rug, a cherub-faced three-year-old boy held safely on Phil’s hip.
He could remember years later, Tommy as a teenager, comb in hand as he inspected his hair in the hallway mirror, discovering he was handsome for the first time.
So many things to remember: Fox’s busted lip, blood staining his teeth as she grinned and said, “Bet I can do it next time.”
King pouring over secondhand college textbooks, learning his sums and more complicated equations through relentless self-directed study, without a prayer of going to university. His rein-callused hands flipping the pages, legs drawn up unconsciously on his stool as if he’d forgotten he was no longer a jockey.
He remembered the first time Raven hugged him willingly. The twist in his gut when he saw that Cassandra was just a baby, and yet another victim of Devin Green’s curse.
Michelle’s first tooth. Miles’s first tattoo. Shane’s first bike.
He supposed his siblings had similar memories of him, but he wouldn’t swear by it – he was an unremarkable sort by nature, and that had always suited him fine. It enabled him, with a hoodie and sunglasses and busted-up Docs, to blend into a coffee shop, nurse a mug of tea, and watch the kids at the next table while he pretended to read the editorial pages.
There were three of them, ordinary-looking kids with laptops, canvas jackets, skinny jeans. One wore black, plastic-rimmed glasses, the kind that might have been prescription, but might have been just for effect.
Tastes Like Candy (Lean Dogs Legacy Book 2) Page 34