Wild Aces

by Marni Mann

  He hung up and crossed his arms over his desk. “You’ve got some heavy shit happening right now. Things at the compound are swinging faster than you can keep up with; you’re booked solid with tournaments. Now, there’s Brea and whatever that turns into and this business with your brother.”

  “Nothing I can’t handle.” I wasn’t sure if I was lying just to him or to both of us.

  “Just be careful, kid. One thing I’ve learned is that some truths are better left buried.”

  Buried, like my brother. I could leave things that way, never learn how it all went down, never know why he was put in a good house and I wasn’t. Maybe the digging wouldn’t turn up anything. Or maybe it would, and the answers would hurt worse than not knowing. Either way, I had to know. And I had to know how it would all affect Brea and me.

  Brea

  I swiped some beige gloss over my lips and tossed the tube back into my makeup drawer. Then I moved over to the full-length mirror and turned to see all the angles of my outfit. Jeans, sweater, boots. It wasn’t a date, so my outfit would do just fine. It wasn’t a meet-up either. Net hadn’t dug up anything so far. This meeting was for Trapper and me to talk about what was happening between us. Or what wasn’t happening but maybe would. Or what could be happening and should.

  It was pretty confusing, whatever it was.

  I walked into the kitchen and slipped on my jacket, tossed my purse over my shoulder, and grabbed my phone. Then I scrolled through my texts until I found the one with Trapper’s address. I pulled it up on my Map app, trying to decide whether to walk or take a taxi.

  622 Dartmouth Street. Why is that address so familiar?

  I dealt with addresses and locations all day, every day with my job. Surely, it was just another place on another street that I’d heard about at some point.

  Then it hit me.

  I rushed into the guest bedroom that I had converted into an office and opened the closet, reaching for the box that I kept in the back. It was a nondescript plain cardboard box with no label. It didn’t need one. It was Cody’s box. Everything I had left of him fit in this three-feet-by-three-feet cube. A month after he died, I took all of his things from my apartment, packed it inside the box, and sealed the lid.

  I hadn’t opened it since.

  “Mom,” I said, wiping the tears from my eyes. They wouldn’t stop pouring down my cheeks. They wouldn’t stop falling over my lips. Nothing would stop…except my breathing. I didn’t think I was doing any of that. “I can’t look at his stuff anymore. It’s everywhere, and he’s not here. If I can’t have him back, then I don’t want it here.”

  “Baby girl, come here.” She pulled me against her, and I felt my body start to relax. There was warmth on my forehead from her lips and friction on my back from where she rubbed. “I’ll help you box it all up. We’ll do it together, so it won’t take as long.”

  “Okay.”

  I could do this. With her help, I could box up his things even though I wanted them here, even though they reminded me of him, even though they reminded me that he would never be coming back. I could do this because I really didn’t want his things here. I wanted him here, and if he couldn’t be, then…his things were just things.

  “Do you have a box that’ll fit?”

  “There’s one in the hall closet,” I said. “In the back under my jackets.”

  She walked me down the hall, placed me before the door, and turned the handle. “You can do this, Brea.”

  “Okay.”

  “No, baby, you need to say those words. You need to remind yourself that you’re strong enough to do this.” She picked up the box and held it out for me to take.

  Even if I didn’t mean it or didn’t believe it, I opened my mouth and spoke the words, “I can do this.” My hands didn’t move.

  “Now…take it from me.”

  She released the box when my hands were around it, and I almost dropped it. It felt like it was filled with iron, bearing down on my shaking palms.

  Mom clasped her hands around my arms to steady them. “We’re just going to stand here for a few minutes until you’re ready to walk.”

  “It’s so heavy,” I whispered.

  “Oh, honey,” she said, her voice small and sympathetic. “The box is empty.”

  I lifted the lid. She was right. There was nothing in it.

  It was as empty as I was.

  I pulled the box out of the closet and stood in front of it. I took long, steady deep breaths, just as I had when I stood in the hallway with my mom that day. The box wasn’t empty now; there were memories inside there, a reminder of a reality that I wasn’t sure I was ready to unlock.

  But I had to know the truth, for Trapper as much as for me.

  I lifted the lid and dug inside. I remembered placing the scrap of paper in the flap of Cody’s wallet, and I’d pushed it to the bottom of the box. I’d found it on my coffee table when I returned home from the morgue. He must have written it sometime that morning, as I had just cleaned the table, but I was so used to him leaving notes all over the place—clues he needed to process, answers he thought of at random times—that I didn’t think anything of it.

  But now, I held the piece of paper between my fingers and read the address that was written in the center.

  622 DARTMOUTH STREET

  Just like Trapper’s text.

  A chill ran through my entire body.

  Holy fuck, Cody.

  He knew his brother’s address.

  “Hey,” Trapper said as he opened the door.

  “I have…to…show you…something,” I huffed. I walked into the entryway and turned around, waiting for him to catch up. I had practically sprinted the eight blocks to his place and had no breath left.

  When we got to the living room, I grabbed his hand, flipped it over, and laid the piece of paper on his palm.

  “This is my address.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “So, why are you showing it to me?”

  “I found this in my apartment the night Cody died. It wasn’t there the day before. I think he wrote it that morning. I just put it away with all his things. But then I got your text, and I remembered I had it.”

  I stared at his face as it registered. The shock wasn’t nearly as intense as it had been two nights ago when he took off his mask. Now, I immediately saw the differences between him and Cody, and they were so obvious. Most people wouldn’t notice them, but it was all I could focus on. It helped keep them separate in my mind even if it did nothing to settle the feeling in my stomach.

  “There’s more.” I pulled up my Map app and typed in a different address, watching it generate a walking route between where I was currently standing to the address I had typed. I turned the phone toward him. “That’s the spot where Cody was killed.”

  He took the phone out of my hand, so he could study it. “That’s only two blocks from here.”

  “And his car was heading west.”

  “This street is one-way.”

  We were coming to the same conclusion.

  “Unless he planned to turn at the cross street,” I said, “I think he was on his way here—”

  “When he was killed,” Trapper said, finishing our shared thought.

  He carried my phone to the couch and sank into it as I looked around his place. Trapper’s taste and style were so different from Cody’s. Even though I’d never been here before, I could tell Derek had done the remodel. His touches were everywhere—lots of wood, sharp lines, an open floor plan. All of it was done in black and grays; the only pop of color was silver. It was so clean, so modern.

  So cold.

  Like Trapper.

  “He was coming here,” he said again, as though the idea was really starting to resonate.

  I sat on the couch, leaving a whole cushion of space between us. “I think so.”

  He finally glanced up, our eyes connecting. “How do you think he found out about me?”

  “I have no idea.” I stared aroun
d the room, trying to look anywhere but at him. “Are your poker games ever on TV?”

  “The tournaments have been, yeah.”

  “Cody didn’t watch poker, but one of his friends or colleagues might have. All they’d have to do was see you on the screen and tell Cody about you. He had access to lots of information, so he easily could have looked you up.” Another thought surfaced, one that hadn’t hit me at first. “He didn’t tell me about you.”

  Trapper twirled the leather around his wrist. “Was anyone else in the car with him when he died?”

  I shook my head. “He was off duty, so he wasn’t with his partner. I was at work.”

  I’d spoken to his partner the day after the accident. He had no idea why Cody had been in that neighborhood or where he was going, and I believed him then. I still did.

  “So, there’s no way to find out if he knew about me?” He ran his hands through his hair, pushing it back. “Shit.”

  “I’m going to see Cody’s parents next weekend and find out what they know, and when my hacker friend gets back to me, he should have something for us. If it exists online, I promise you, he’ll find it.”

  He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “If he hadn’t died, I would have met you.” He finally looked up and held my eyes. “And you would have been my brother’s girl.”

  Trapper

  Brea clasped her fingers together and twisted them, like she was trying to release some tension. I could have used some of that myself, only I would have lifted her off the couch, wrapped her legs around my waist, and plunged my dick so hard inside her that we’d forget about everything but us.

  But I couldn’t forget that she had been with my brother. Even though I hadn’t known him, I knew how wrong these thoughts were. I didn’t fuck my friends’ girls. I didn’t fuck married women. And I didn’t fuck anyone who mattered to the people in my inner circle. Those were the rules I had about sex. Cody’s position in that circle was complicated. My feelings for him were unclear, and that made everything else unclear, too. No matter how badly I wanted to be with her, I wasn’t sure it could ever happen now.

  “Why did you come here, Brea? To show me a piece of paper that linked me to my brother before I knew he existed?”

  She didn’t move. I knew she was trying to get control of her feelings. It showed all over her face—the lust, the need, the want…the fear. I felt the same. Maybe deeper.

  “No. It wasn’t that,” she said. “I wanted to see you.”

  “Why?” I stayed on my side of the couch. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to keep my hands off her if there was less space between us. “Did you want to see me, or did you want to see Cody?” It was a bold question but a necessary one.

  Even though our faces looked alike, she had to keep us separate.

  “You.” She didn’t hesitate.

  “Now, you’ve seen me. And I’ve seen you.” Reading her body made it even harder to hold back. “What are we going to do about this?”

  She shook her head, but I saw the answer in her eyes.

  “I know what I should do, but it’s not what I want to do. This is wrong.” She sighed and turned her gaze away from me. When she looked back, I could see she’d changed her mind. “I don’t think I care that it’s wrong. I know if I don’t give in to my feelings, I’ll be making a huge mistake. I don’t know if it will work, Trapper, or what it would look like. What we would look like. I only know how I feel.”

  “And that is?”

  “Come here.” She turned toward me, tucking one leg against the back of the couch, the other spread across the bottom cushion with her heel on the floor. “Let me show you…”

  She had used my own line on me. It was fucking perfect.

  The decision was made. I could go back and forth, fighting with myself over what was right and wrong, but there were no rules when it came to Brea. I couldn’t change who she was and who she’d been with. I didn’t want to. I wanted her just as she was.

  I pushed myself closer and kept my hands in my lap. She reached up and touched my face. It wasn’t the same as when she’d touched me in the alley, trying to learn my features. She was touching me to feel the differences between Cody and me, the differences she saw when she closed her eyes.

  “This is one of the strangest yet most intense feelings I’ve ever had,” she said.

  “I’m sure it is.”

  “You even feel different than him.” Her thumb skimmed my mouth. “And you smell different.”

  My fingers ached to be on her skin, to show her the differences in our touch. But I didn’t want to push her. She had to take this slow to know she was doing the right thing. There was something I could show her.

  I pointed at the left side of my chest. “Put your hand right here.” I waited for her fingers to fall flat. “Do you feel that?”

  She stared at her hand, eventually meeting my eyes again. “Yes.”

  “Do you know what that is?”

  She broke eye contact again. “Tell me.”

  “It’s how I feel when I’m around you. My heart pounds out of my goddamn chest. I have to use every bit of strength I have to keep my hands off you. I want to touch you. I want to feel you. I want to be inside you.” I paused while I let her think about that. “How do you feel about me, Brea?”

  “I have a hard time breathing.”

  “Why?”

  “That feeling I get when I’m around you, it wraps around my lungs and presses against my heart and tingles in my chest. It happens every time I take a breath.”

  Her eyes turned glossy, the rawness of her words starting to come through. She reached out with her other hand, but I caught it in the air before she could touch me with it.

  “Do you want me?” I asked her.

  “Yes…”

  I squeezed tighter. “Really think about my question, Brea. I see the answer inside you, but I need to know it’s really what you want. Because I’m warning you right now, if you touch me again, I’m going to fuck you.”

  She flushed. “Before I’d even seen your face, I’d started developing feelings for you. No one has ever made me forget where I am or what I’m supposed to be doing. But that’s what you did at the party. It didn’t feel like your mouth was kissing mine; it felt like you were showing me a piece of yourself. I want more of that. At first, I wasn’t sure I could be with you without thinking of him.”

  “And now?”

  She chewed the corner of her lip. “I know I can.”

  She needed a second warning.

  “You haven’t seen all of me, Brea. It gets much darker than this.”

  “I like dark. And I like cold.”

  “Is that what I am to you? Cold?”

  She moved a little closer and lifted my shirt, so she could grip my belt buckle. “You’re ice.” She moved higher until she was touching my stomach. “You’re a shadowy frosty night. You’re freezing rain.” She continued up until she touched the spot on my chest where her fingers had rested before. “You’re nothing like him. Not even a little…not even your eyes.”

  “And how does that make you feel?”

  She turned her hand around and fisted the inside of my shirt, pulling me toward her, until our lips were almost touching. “Trapper…I want you. YOU. I want…you.”

  There was too much space between us. I gripped her hips and pulled her onto my lap until she was straddling me. Then I rested against the back cushions of the couch as she cupped my cheeks in her hands.

  “Show me how much,” I said.

  Brea

  I held his face, the bristles of his scruff rubbing against my skin. His deep charcoal eyes penetrated me, his lips urging me forward. The last time they had touched mine was in the alley. I hungered for them now more than I had then.

  He didn’t move closer. He wasn’t touching me. He was allowing me to take things at a pace I was comfortable with, leaving it all on me. I respected him for that. We each had our own struggles when it came to this decision. He was look
ing at his brother’s ex-girlfriend, and I was practically looking at my ex-boyfriend.

  It was unbelievable how all this had worked out.

  And now that I had moved so close to him and he was tempting me with those delicious lips, I couldn’t wait a second more. I closed my eyes and the distance between us, pressing my mouth gently against his. He surrounded my lips, slowly, our tastes mixing.

  “No mask,” he said.

  I opened my eyes and took my hands off his face, so I could wrap my arms around his neck. “No. No mask.”

  He leaned in and kissed my neck, staring at me the whole time while I watched him in return. He then grazed my chin, moved across my cheek, and then went down to the middle of my chest. With each kiss, his eyes dilated a bit more. His mouth turned hungrier. He was testing me, and I was going to call him out on it.

  “You said, if I touched you again, you’d fuck me.”

  His hands clenched my waist. The power in his fingers made my clit tingle. “I did…and I intend to. But I’m giving you one last chance to make sure this is what you want.”

  I looked at the scar above his eyebrow, the one under his chin, and the long hair gelled back over the top of his head. I inhaled his citrus-and-sandalwood cologne. I felt the icy glare of his eyes.

  “It’s what I want, Trapper.”

  He leaned into my neck, his lips pressing to the side of my throat. “The way you say my name is so fucking sexy.”

  “Trapper…” I moaned, finding myself suddenly in the air, wrapped so effortlessly around his waist.

  His tongue slid into my mouth as he walked, and he lifted my top over my head. Once the sweater dropped to the floor, he pulled me closer to his chest. I gave him my tongue. At some point, we stopped moving, and I felt something hard under my ass. When I opened my eyes again, I was on the island in his kitchen, surrounded by his arms. He deepened our kiss before he pulled away.

  “Mmm…” he breathed, pushing his forehead against mine.

  The stone underneath me was freezing, but it did nothing to cool me down. I reached for his collar and held him close. “Do you want to hear something else that’s sexy?”