Duke

by Candace Blevins

  His shirt smelled like her, and he was comforted by it.

  He took it away almost as soon as he gave it to her, and she stopped working the sock onto her foot to say, “Thank you. I had no idea.”

  Brain looked from one to the other and said, “I’ll be damned. Crossover with smell?”

  “Keep it to yourself,” Duke growled, and Brain nodded.

  “Got it. Have you told her why no one can know?”

  He shook his head and Brain said, “Gen, you should keep this from everyone, even Isaac, though I know you trust him completely.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s complicated, but the short story is, if you and Duke work out, then over the years you’ll develop more than just smell. As your brain gets used to the connection, it’ll open up in different ways. Some supernaturals don’t trust the connection, think all humans with one should be put down. What Isaac knows, Abbott knows, and you don’t want the vampires in on this. Trust me.”

  Gen looked at Duke for confirmation, and he said, “I told you Isaac is safe to talk to about anything supernatural as long as it isn’t club business. I’d rather he not know about this, but I’m not going to forbid you telling him.”

  When her boots were laced, Gen stood, unsure of whether to go to him or keep her distance. Duke looked to Brain and asked, “You heading back or staying?”

  Brain tilted his head towards the brunt of the crowed, forty yards away. “Lots of drunk pussy, I’ve scoped a few who should be ripe for the pickin’ in another twenty or thirty minutes.”

  Duke didn’t touch Gen as they walked the sixty yards back to the parking lot. He let her put her helmet on by herself, and didn’t hold her arm for her to swing on behind him. She sat, stiff, behind him, her arms reaching for the seat behind her, but he turned and said, “You’ll have to hold on, Gen. No way around it.”

  “If you don’t want to touch me, why come get me? I could’ve just ridden back with Brain.”

  In answer, he cranked the bike and took off.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Duke followed a GPS to get out, and she hoped Brain had one so he could find his way home, too. Instead of going back the way she took Brain, Duke headed towards Cleveland and parked in a Denny’s.

  “What made you take him there?” he asked as they got off the bike.

  “I don’t know. The river soothes me, and they have great burgers, and he was hungry, and I figured he’d be up for the ride. I was hurting, needed something to take my mind off… things.”

  He nodded. “I ended up on the Ocoee river, changed, ran through the woods on the south side of the river where there are rarely people. So, when I came back to human and got on my bike, looked to see where you were, imagine my surprise when you weren’t too far away as the crow flies.”

  Gen sighed, looked down, and discovered she couldn’t take the helmet off with her chin down. She turned away from him, lifted her chin to take it off, and said, “Mike said some really mean things and he messed with my head, and then I let them mess with us. I should’ve talked to you, but my brother’s right that I try to be strong. I hate admitting to a weakness, so I didn’t. I’m sorry, Duke.”

  The helmet came off and she reached back to let the ponytail loose, her face aimed at the interstate traffic and not Duke.

  “Look at me.” It was an order, not a request, but she did it anyway.

  “The part of me that’s man accepts your apology and is ready to talk it out and work through it. The part of me that’s a wild animal doesn’t, and it’ll take some work to get there.”

  “Do you want to get there?”

  He nodded, and she felt a huge weight lift off her chest. “Okay then. If we both want to, we’ll figure it out.”

  “Yeah, but right now I’m starving. I changed twice, probably ran fifteen miles on four legs, and haven’t eaten.”

  Gen watched as Duke put away as much food as Brain had earlier.

  There were no people at tables close to them, and when he didn’t talk, she said, “Brain told me you walked out without an explanation because your wolf wanted to spank me, and you needed to get away from me before the wolf won out.”

  His eyebrows rose as he chewed and swallowed. “You seem awfully calm about that.”

  “I screwed up, Duke. I’m not saying it’s okay for you to, you know, hit me, but I guess I can kind of get why part of you would want to. I don’t understand how you can be two different beings in one body, but I hope you can find a way to explain it to me.”

  Duke didn’t say another word, just methodically ate through the massive amount of food on the table.

  When he finished, he paid the bill, tipped the waitress about fifty percent, and walked to his bike. Gen followed him, feeling much like she had as they left the Marina, though at least this time he double-checked her helmet to be sure it was on right.

  Duke pulled into a gas station when he exited the interstate, put his vest on, and then drove to the compound with no further stops. He didn’t slow down to say hi to anyone in the clubhouse, but walked straight to his room and pointed to a drawer. “I went shopping. Yoga pants and tees are in there, along with some underwear. I’m going out on patrol. MacGyver’s in the control room, let him know if you need a laptop, but stay in here. Don’t go out in the clubhouse. Go to bed when you get sleepy, probably be at least three before I come back.”

  Gen opened her mouth to argue, but he was out the door before she had a chance.

  She looked through the drawer, realized he’d gone to Target for the clothes, which wasn’t really shopping, but she supposed it was the thought that counted. He’d bought the right sizes in everything, and the right style of underwear, if a crappy brand.

  She gathered it all together and went into his tiny bathroom, and smiled as she saw her soap, shampoo, and conditioner. For this, he’d had to go to a specialty store, and it made her heart ache that she’d hurt him.

  Duke didn’t appear to own a blow dryer, so she’d be stuck with wet hair, but she needed a shower because she needed to cry.

  Her tears battled with her willpower as she stripped out of her clothes, but she waited until she was under the water to let the sobs burst forth, and when they did, there was no stopping them. She leaned into the wall as the water beat down on her, and cried until there were no more tears.

  She put her hair up in a towel, wrapped her belly band around her waist, and put her Sig on her right hip. She donned the new panties and yoga pants, pulled the tee over her head, and cleaned up behind herself before gathering all of her things and heading to bed. Her extra mag went on the small table beside the bed, and she used her cellphone to read a little before setting it beside the mag and going to sleep.

  Duke wasn’t in bed when she awoke the next morning. The towel had come off during the night and her hair was a horrid mess. She scrounged in her purse and found a clip, put it in a French twist, and used her emergency make-up supplies in her purse to fix her face. She wore the jeans from the night before and used another of the tee’s, slid her magazine into the belly band’s holder on her left hip, and went out into the clubhouse.

  It was only eight-thirty so she hadn’t really expected anyone to be up and about, and she was right, it was empty. She went back to Duke’s room and used her cellphone to call a cab, waited five minutes, and went back out, intending to meet the cab in the bar’s parking lot across the street.

  She made it out of the clubhouse and was halfway across the lot when she heard the door open and close behind her, heard rapid footsteps, and Duke was suddenly standing in front of her.

  Gen came to a stop and looked up. “You never came to bed.”

  “So you’re leaving?” His face looked incredulous, though she could tell he was pissed.

  “I have things to do today, Duke, and if I’m not here to spend time with you, why the freak am I here? If I’m going to be alone I’d rather do it at home.”

  The cry last night had been good for something because it let h
er speak to him reasonably, without bursting into tears.

  He eyed the clubhouse, brought his gaze back to her. “Cancel the cab, I’ll take you home. We need to talk and there’s no privacy here.”

  Gen shook her head. “You look exhausted. I’ll be fine. We’ll talk later.”

  “Yeah, I’m exhausted. I’ve been up all night. I also have half the officers ticked at me for making you cry last night, but if three of our men hadn’t reported hearing you cry in the shower, looking at you right now I wouldn’t believe it. I don’t want you cryin’ again. My wolf doesn’t, either. We need to talk, but shit hit the fan last night and I had to handle it.”

  Gen crossed her arms and looked at her feet. She thought she’d been safe to cry in the shower. She should’ve known better. She took a few breaths, found her center, and reminded herself the control room was probably listening.

  “Yeah, okay. I needed an emotional release. A lot happened and I thought I could let off a little steam in private. I’ll remember in the future that isn’t an option. Now, if you’ll kindly get out of my way, my cab should be here by now.”

  “Then get on my bike and we’ll stop across the street and give him some money for his trouble, and I can take you home. We can have this talk here, in the parking lot, but this is one of the handful of places I can’t order them to shut the feed off, so you have to know it’ll be public knowledge, if we do.”

  “Those are my choices? Talk here, or let you take me home?”

  He nodded and Gen said, “We’ve had this talk before. You’re being a bully, taking advantage of the fact you’re bigger, stronger, and faster than me.”

  Duke smiled. “I am.”

  Gen didn’t smile back, but looked back to the ground to center herself again. Without looking up, she said, “I don’t like you very much right now.”

  He touched her chin and she looked up. “I know, and I’m sorry. We need to talk. You’re doing a good job of holding it together, but I can smell your grief. Your pain.”

  Gen had spent a lifetime learning how to appear strong when she felt weak, but she’d never had to worry about what pheromones she was releasing. There had to be a way to keep from letting those out, she’d just never had to think about it.

  “Yeah, I’ve never had to figure out how to hide that before. Give me time and I’ll figure that out, too. Meanwhile, here’s my offer to you. Take me home and force me to have this conversation now and you aren’t going to like how it goes. Let me go home, chill out, handle my client, and then talk to me tonight? Maybe the conversation will have a different outcome.”

  Duke looked at her a handful of seconds and turned his head to the wall beside them. “Anyone want to volunteer to bodyguard her until time for her appointment, so I can get some sleep?”

  He looked back at her and said, “I’ll walk across the street, give the cabbie some money for his time. You can ride back to your place with whoever walks out the door, set them up downstairs with the TV remote, and ignore them until time to go. He’ll follow you to the hotel you’re picking her up at, hang around across the street to watch the two of you drive off together, and then you’ll be on your own until you drop her off. You’ll be close, so I’d appreciate it if you come here when you finish.”

  Tiny walked out and lifted his chin at them, and Gen looked at Duke. “Sheila’s okay with me riding on the back of his bike?”

  Duke nodded. “For this, yeah. For a joyride? Never.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Gen met Pebbles and Jiminy Davidson in the restaurant attached to The Chattanoogan Hotel, where they discussed the fact Chattanooga probably made the most sense for them to relocate, since Jiminy’s business interests had him travelling all over the southeast. They were considering both Chattanooga and Atlanta, as well as a few places in between, but Pebbles liked Chattanooga best.

  Gen liked Pebbles from the start, even if she did look like a well-dressed prostitute. She had boobs out to her elbows, a teeny-tiny waist, and a beautiful bubble butt. She wore a two-thousand dollar dress, and fifteen hundred dollar shoes.

  It wasn’t often a client’s clothes cost more than Gen’s, but today she wore a sixteen hundred dollar suit, and nine hundred dollar shoes.

  In spite of the fact Pebbles oozed sexuality, her smile was genuine, her laughter was happy, and Gen had a feeling her husband only smiled when he was around his wife.

  When they finished lunch, Jiminy walked them to the parking garage, saw them into the vehicle, and told his wife to be safe and come back to him in one piece.

  Gen thought it an odd way to say goodbye, and Pebbles gave a little bit of an explanation as they pulled away. “He usually makes me go out with a bodyguard when I’m not with him, but I convinced him no one knows us here and I’ll be safe looking at houses with a Realtor.”

  “Does he have a dangerous job? Why would you need a bodyguard?”

  Pebbles shook her head and changed the subject. “Sorry to make changes to what you’d planned to show me today, but Jiminy was right about the locations that won’t work. Also, I’m glad he changed his mind about only wanting something on the mountain. I really liked the pictures of the house you showed me on the Tennessee River.”

  “Good, hopefully my assistant will be able to work it out so we can view it today, but if not, I have a few hours early tomorrow morning, if you’ll still be in town. I have an eleven o’clock appointment, but I’m free until then.”

  As they pulled into the driveway for the fourth house of the day, Gen’s assistant let her know they could view the house on the river in two hours.

  “How are you holding up?” Gen asked her client. “If you need to stop for something to eat to get some rest, just let me know.”

  “Oh I’m just fine. My personal trainer works my ass off, so I can go all day if I need to. This one’s probably the most hidden of any so far. How much land belongs to the house?”

  “It sits in the middle of twenty-three acres, and there’s supposed to be a waterfall on the property. There are also horse trails and stables, as the previous occupants owned horses and regularly rode the property.”

  Gen unlocked the door and followed Pebbles in, then followed her through the house.

  As they reached the bedroom she saw Pebbles launch forward and hit the floor a second before someone grabbed her wrist with one hand and elbow with the other arm, and a half-second later Gen’s arms were zip-tied behind her back and she was pushed to the floor. Her ankles were brought up behind her, attached to her wrists with more plastic strips, and then she was forced to watch Mike put Pebbles into the same uncomfortable hog-tie.

  Pebbles spoke plain and calm, telling Mike, “You have to know if I’m hurt my husband will take you apart. He’ll pay to get me back, and if you play it safe and leave the country you’ll probably be able to spend what you get if I’m unhurt. But if you hurt me, Jiminy will track you to the ends of the earth.”

  “Not here for you, bitch,” he snarled, and turned back to Gen.

  Gen closed her eyes, concentrated on how things smelled, and thought of Duke. Then she thought of him smelling what she did. She didn’t know if it worked, but she did it every way she could think of, hoping he’d realize she was trying to contact him.

  Her phone rang and Mike grabbed it from her purse, ripped the back off, and tossed the battery. At that point, Gen knew even if she hadn’t been able to get through to him, when her phone dropped off then whoever was in the control room might notice it, and tell him where her wallet and car were located.

  Now she just had to stall Mike.

  “This isn’t how you go about winning me back, Mike.”

  “You cost me my job, my reputation, my friends, fucking everything. And you went from my bed into Duke’s! What the fuck, Gen! You saying that lowlife is better than me?”

  “I’m sorry about you getting suspended, but how is that my fault? You were spying on me!”

  “You knew we were being recorded. You knew the RTMC as wel
l as the officers in the room could hear every word we said.”

  “Yeah, okay, that wasn’t cool. Tell you what — I’ll pay you three years of your salary. Will that help make things okay? That should be around two hundred thousand dollars, right? With a little extra for you to pay for your own health insurance and stuff? Give you time to figure out what you want to do next?”

  He paused, considering her offer, and she thought she might be in the clear, but then he suddenly looked even more ticked off as he barked, “You can just write a check for two hundred grand, just like that? Pay me off like I’m fucking lint on your fucking suit jacket? No, Gen. You ended my life, so I’m going to end yours. If I can’t have you, neither can he. We’ll be together for eternity, you and me.”

  Panicked, Gen closed her eyes and tried to send what she could smell to Duke, though she had no idea if it worked.

  Suddenly, she smelled exhaust and felt Duke’s presence — he was letting her know he was on his way. Her shoulders tried to slump in relief, but the hog tie wouldn’t let them.

  Gen thought of other ways to stall, and said, “You have to untie Pebbles before you do it, maybe just before the end, at least one hand, with a cellphone nearby so she can call for help? This house is empty and it’s only been shown once in the past six weeks. She could die of dehydration and starvation before anyone finds her.”

  Mike shook his head. “Your assistant knows all the places you were coming.” He nodded to Pebbles and said, “Her husband’ll send out a rescue team five minutes after he realizes he can’t reach her.” He looked towards the other woman and snarled, “Not that she deserves to live, but the justice system will take care of her and her husband before much longer.” He looked back to Gen. “You did a good job of protecting your computers, and your assistant’s, but I still have access to the feeds coming from the surveillance of her and her husband, so I knew every property you planned to take her to.”