by KD Robichaux
Wes stands by as Z lifts himself out of the dwarfed dining chair, reaching out to steady Z when he wobbles slightly. Concern fills my chest, but I force myself to continue on to my bedroom.
2
Z
“Open up!” Wes shouts, banging on July’s door.
“Bro, chill. You’re gonna scare the poor thing,” I tell him, my uninjured arm around Wes’s shoulders, since the blood loss is definitely getting to me.
“What’s going on?” July asks sleepily when she opens the door.
“He got shot,” Wes tells her, and July’s eyes come to me then go round as saucers when she sees blood soaking through Kayan’s kitchen towels strapped there.
“You need to go to the hospital,” she squeaks.
“Can’t,” he says shortly.
“Wes, I’m a vet, not a doctor.”
“Jesus,” I grumble, my head swimming, and Wes gently moves July out of the way as he walks us into the house and helps me get seated in one of her white kitchen chairs that creaks under my weight.
“Baby.” Wes turns and stands in front of her, his palms gently going to her cheeks to make her eyes focus on his and not me. “I need you to help him. The wound is clean through, so all you need to do is sew it up.”
“Wes,” I hear her whisper, and she peers around him to peek at me.
“Look at me.” His voice raises, and I see him lower his face toward hers. “I need your help, baby.”
She seems to search his face before she finally whispers, “Okay,” then she clears her throat. “I need to go to the clinic and get supplies. I don’t have anything here.”
“I’ll take you,” Wes tells her.
“No, you stay with him. I’ll go and be back quickly.” She goes to what I assume is her bedroom, because when she returns, she’s wearing a pair of jeans, a sweatshirt, and tennis shoes. She walks past us and heads out to what I see is her garage when she opens the door, immediately noticing she’s blocked in by Wes’s SUV.
“I’m driving you,” Wes says, stepping out into the garage. He gives me a chin lift before closing the door behind them.
The house is too quiet after they leave, so I stand, holding onto the table and then the countertops as I open her refrigerator, looking for something to drink. Nothing, not even beer. So I rummage through her cabinets, sighing a “Thank fuck” when I discover a dusty bottle of Jack.
I ease myself back onto the chair, swiping the dust off the bottle before unscrewing the cap and lifting it to my lips for a swig, breathing out as I think about the past half hour. I can’t help the smile that tugs at my mouth, thinking about the tiny woman who shot me.
You couldn’t have paid me to believe that Kayan not only knew how to shoot, but owned her own gun to protect herself with. And not some pussy-ass gun neither, like a .22 or some shit. A .38 revolver she held straight and steady. Before I could move out of the way, stunned into freezing my position in her living room at the sight of her naked form pointing a gun at me, I saw the split-second decision she made to move her aim from my head to my shoulder. I have no doubt I would be dead right now without her last-minute change of heart, because her aim was true. I’d have to have a talk with her about that. If it were anyone else, she’d either need to shoot them dead or choose somewhere more debilitating than a shoulder, so the intruder wouldn’t be able to come after her like I easily could have.
Thinking of her perfect naked body, my cock swells inside my jeans, and I reach down to adjust it, the movement making the dining chair creak once again. I can’t remember the last time a woman affected me the way Kayan does, if ever. It was an instant attraction. No, not just an attraction. A connection. As soon as I looked into her gorgeous eyes, everything inside me growled, “Mine.”
Just then, July and Wes arrive, and seeing the bag of tools in her hand, I shake my head. “You better not neuter me, girl.” I smile, trying to ease some of the anxiety I see written over her face.
“You probably need to be neutered,” she replies, and I grin before eying the stuff she sets out on the table. “Can I ask how this happened?” she asks softly, pulling the belt loose and the towels away from my shoulder and looking at the wound.
“No,” Wes inserts before I can, pulling out a chair and taking a seat across the table from me.
“You don’t think I have the right to know, when you show up at my house in the early hours of the morning, asking me to stitch up a guy with a gunshot wound, while refusing to take him to the hospital?” She narrows her eyes on him, and he doesn’t even flinch.
“Nothing you need to worry about.” He looks at me, assuring me with his eyes that he’s not going to rat out my girl.
My girl. I smile to myself over the fact I’m thinking of her that way when I barely know her. Not to mention she just shot me.
Wes’s answer clearly pisses July off. She pours some alcohol onto a piece of gauze and begins wiping down the wound as she glares at Wes. “This is the last time I see you,” she tells him with a grimace.
“You already know that’s not happening, July,” my brother says as his jaw tics.
“No.” She shakes her head, getting a new piece of gauze to clean the backside of my shoulder. “I know twice you’ve called me a bitch without cause.” I wince at that, since my mom would skin me alive if she ever heard me call a woman a bitch. She shakes her head again then turns it so her gaze connects with his. “I know you made me feel like crap when you found my cousin in my house.”
“I—” Wes starts, but she cuts him off.
“No, you didn’t even ask; you just jumped to conclusions.” She finishes cleaning my wound then looks at Wes again. “Then you show up at my house and ask me to do you a favor, refusing to tell me anything. So, yes, this is the last time we see each other. I think it’s obvious we have no reason to stay in contact,” she grumbles, and then frowns when she sees me smiling.
“You are so fucked, brother,” I mumble, looking at Wes. He rolls his eyes at me as July starts to thread up the needle. It doesn’t take long to get the wound closed up, and I don’t even flinch as she works on me. Maybe it’s the Jack, or maybe I’m in shock. Hell, it could be a little of both, but by the time she’s finished putting a bandage over the stitched up wound, the sun is beginning to rise.
“Thanks, girly,” I tell her, standing up from the kitchen table, and Wes shoos her off to bed while he and I clean up the mess.
On the drive back to our compound, Wes speaks up. “Correction: I think we’re both fucked, bro.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, quirking a brow at him.
“You’ve had a dreamy-ass look on your face ever since we left Kayan’s place. You so much of a masochist that you’re falling for a girl who shot you? We all know you like it rough, man, but goddamn.” He chuckles.
I can’t hide my smile. “My little kitten has claws,” I say once more, leaning my head back against the headrest and thinking of the little woman who’s filled my every thought since I met her.
3
Kayan
It’s been days since I shot Z. Freaking days. And I can’t get that infuriating man out of my head.
Okay, so he’s really not all that infuriating. But what he turns me into certainly is. I am not some timid little creature who needs to be watched over. I am definitely not the type of woman who allows a man to make her feel small and meek, no matter how tall and gorgeous he is… or how giant his biceps are.
I catch myself sighing dreamily at just… how… giant those damn biceps are, and shake myself out of it.
I’m not that kind of woman. Have never allowed myself to be that way, not even when I was young. I had to build up walls, grow thick skin, because my parents were, and still are, emotionless assholes. All they care about is their image.
On the outside, they are the perfect couple, with their perfect two-story house in the perfect neighborhood, with their perfect daughter, and their perfect freaking pets—a giant salt water tank of exotic fish that impresses
anyone who comes over, which they pay someone else to tend to.
But on the inside, they are unforgiving, narcissistic hypocrites. It’s a miracle I didn’t turn out just like them. If it weren’t for July and her family, I’m sure I would’ve. My parents allowed me to play with her at a very young age because they saw how genuinely “perfect” her parents were and they thought it’d boost their appearance by having their daughter associated with the town’s beloved Mayson family. Uncle Asher and Aunt November weren’t fooled, of course, but they didn’t take it out on the kid—me. They welcomed me with open arms, because no matter how my parents were to their so-called friends, I was loyal to July.
One of the first times we played at her house and I got to hang out with her dog Beast, we decided right then and there we would be friends forever. I always joked it was because I always wanted an excuse to play with the huge Great Dane, but really it was the whole package. And when we got a little older and our noble pal passed away, it was then we made the pact to open up our own animal clinic. I was always super squeamish around blood though, so the actual doctoring part would be up to July. With my growing love of organization and natural technologic abilities, it would be up to me to take care of the business side of things. We were the perfect team. And still are.
Thinking of my aversion to blood, it dawns on me that I never even hesitated to help Z after I shot him. I put on the tourniquet and cleaned up his bloody arm without a moment’s pause—well, except to throw him a little sass. My only thought had been to help the giant, beautiful man… even though he had just broken into my place.
Ugh! I need to get him out of my head. I’ve heard his motorcycle pass by my place a few times in the past couple days, but he hasn’t actually approached me. It’s just enough of a reminder of him that it pops him back into my damn mind.
Not that he ever left it.
No, I need a distraction. I need to go out.
Grabbing my phone off the side table next to my couch, I pull up Eric’s messaging thread. He’s an old flame I’ve known since high school. We’re nothing serious; we decided a long, long time ago that we made much better friends than anything more. Every once in a while, when neither of us is in any type of relationship, we go grab dinner or catch a movie.
Me: What’s up, E? Doing anything tonight? I’m starving and bored.
Eric: Hey, darlin’. Where’s your conjoined twin? Not attached at the hip tonight?
Me: Nah, she’s with her hot new biker guy.
The words immediately form images of another hot biker guy in my brain, and I shake away the thought.
Eric: What you feel like eating?
Me: Hmmm… surprise me.
Eric: Okay, come snatch you up in 10.
Me: Sounds good.
I don’t put a lot of effort into getting ready. After all, it’s just Eric. But I do pull my long, black hair down from its messy bun, brush it out, and put it back up in a slightly neater messy bun on top of my head. I trade out my fuzzy purple slippers for some Converse, and then plop down on my couch to wait for Eric.
I’m doing a little FBI work, going through Wes’s friends list on Facebook to see if Z’s image pops up—because obviously, “Z” wasn’t exactly good for search results—when Eric sends me a text.
Eric: Here!
Me: Coming down now.
I close out all my apps, shaking my head in disgust at myself for obsessing over a man whose real name I don’t even know. I put LeFou in his crate and lock my door behind me, hurrying to Eric’s car. When I slam the car door behind me, I poke him in his soft belly like I always do, making him chuckle.
“Ready to feed that cat dad bod?” I tease. It’s what he calls it, now that he’s turned into some kind of cat lady. Cat dude. Whatever. He basically keeps July and me in business he has so many beloved pets, and he’d much rather hang out at home with his furbabies than go to the gym. I mean, who wouldn’t?
“Always.” He grins, and he pulls out on the main road.
A while later, we pull into our favorite burger joint, and my stomach shows its immediate approval with a growl. After ordering our meals at the counter, we pick the booth we always end up sitting in and chat while we wait for our food.
“So what’s been going on? I haven’t seen you in a couple weeks,” he prompts, taking a drink from his Dr. Pepper.
“Nothing really exci— wait. That’s a lie. July and I went on a real stakeout the other night!” I whisper-hiss the last part.
“A… stakeout?” He laughs. “What, like, with sweet catsuits and snacks and stuff?”
“God, you know me way too well.” I roll my eyes.
“Over a decade of friendship, Crazy One,” he reminds me. He calls July “Crazy Two” when I’m telling him about our epic adventures. There have been quite a few over the years. She’s my partner in crime.
“Fair enough. So. Someone has been leaving these poor injured… no, not even just injured. These dogs are basically taking their last breaths when this person leaves them at the door of our clinic for us to find the next morning,” I confide quietly.
“Wait… like, it’s happened more than once?” His eyes go wide.
“Several times now. It’s obvious they’re being fought, ya know, like for money. Anyway, so we had a stakeout and caught the dude dropping off a dog. We followed him, and—”
“Two American burgers all the way with fries?” We’re interrupted by the waitress.
We lean back, realizing we were practically in each other’s face in the middle of the table as I told him the exciting but heartbreaking tale.
“That’s us,” Eric replies, rubbing his hands together.
I wiggle in my seat, a happy dance as I reach for the ketchup to soak my fries. Eric’s chuckle makes me look up at him. “What?”
“I want a girl who reacts to me the way you react when someone brings you food,” he tells me, and my face softens.
“Same, homie. Same.” And that’s when Z’s face appears in my mind’s eye for the first time in the last twenty minutes. But it’s not just Z’s face. It’s the expression he wears whenever he looks at me. He looks at me like he wants to devour me, like I’m his prey. Probably exactly how I’m looking at this burger in front of me.
“So what happened after you followed him?” Eric asks a few minutes later, after we’ve inhaled half our meals without a single word between us.
I wipe my mouth with a napkin and swallow my bite of food with a sip of sweet tea. “We followed him to this biker bar. Super sketchy.”
“In your catsuits, no less,” he inserts with a chuckle.
“In our sweet-ass catsuits.” I nod. “But our plan was thwarted!” I raise my fist in the air dramatically.
“Thwarted?” He raises a brow.
“Freaking. Thwarted.” I sigh. “July’s stupid hot biker was there and made us leave. So we never got to question the guy who’s been dropping off the pups.”
“Damn. Stupid hot bikers. They ruin everything,” Eric says, shaking his head.
“Right?” I agree, thinking of Z and how he’s ruined my brain, making me unable to think of hardly anything but him.
We’re so full by the time we’re done eating that we decide going to see a movie would be a waste of money and would end up being an expensive nap. He takes me home instead, promising to send me pics of the new kitty obstacle course he’s been building the last several weeks. I don’t care what anyone says. I have the coolest friends ever.
I have a smile on my face as I unlock my door, my belly nice a full, and my Jacuzzi tub is calling my name. I can hear LeFou barking inside, so as I enter my house, I coo a “It’s just me, little guy” as I close the door behind me.
As I reach for the switch on my couch-side lamp, I’m suddenly grabbed from behind. I don’t even have time to scream before I’m slammed against the door, right next to the window Z came through nights ago. It knocks the breath out of me, and fear consumes me, knowing my gun is in the other room.
I didn’t know where else to go. My eyes fill up with tears and she helps me over to the couch, barely registering Wes is on his phone behind July.
“Talk to me,” she urges, and I lower my head, trying to find the courage to relive the most terrifying experience of my life.
“Wait ‘til Z and a couple of the guys get here,” Wes interrupts, getting down on his haunches next to July and handing me some tissue.
“Why do we need to wait for them?” she asks him, looking into my watery eyes. I know I must have a black eye and a cut lip. It stings when my tears run across them.
“I only want her to tell us once, and then you’re going to go clean her up,” he explains gently.
She nods then moves to sit down next to me, wrapping her arm around my shoulders. I lean into her, her familiar presence comforting as we wait.
I don’t know how much time passes, but the loud sound of motorcycle pipes pulls me out of my haze. I’m unsure how many guys are coming, but judging from the sound, it’s way more than the couple Wes spoke of before.
“Be right back,” he mutters, heading out the door and coming back a few minutes later with Z.
My heart skips a beat when my eyes land on him. And for some reason, all I want to do is run into his arms to let him protect me, to keep the monsters at bay. I don’t even have it in me to scold myself for such weak thoughts.
“Fuck no,” Z growls as soon as he sees me, and it makes me a little self-conscious, wondering just how bad I look right now.
I lift my hand to my hair, feeling to see what it must look like. Yep, just as I thought. Hot mess express. His jaw starts ticking, and his arms, which were at his sides, lift to cross over his chest like he’s trying to control himself. I wish I had the courage to tell him not to. I wish he’d rush over to me, pick me up, and cradle me to that wide, muscular chest, those hulking arms enfolding me and never letting me go.