by D. K. Combs
“Yeah, I have. We should be all set.”
“Perfect. We’ll get this old guy to the station immediately for booking.” The officer nodded his head as a parting, then ducked out of the room while speaking into his walkie.
He followed him out. Now that that was said and done, he had one more thing to do.
Noah strode out of the police station, knowing what he’d done was for the best. He had, of course, talked Bristol into being okay with it. Her father had a problem. He needed to go to a rehab, and with the recent attack and the talk with the judge, he was going to be on his way there, no questions asked except one—how he’d found her.
And the answer to that was waiting outside.
Parked next to his car was the gray Chevy truck. As he came up to the driver’s side, the door popped open and Chase stepped out.
“What are we doing here?” Chase asked, glancing at the police station.
“I just had some business to handle before heading back to the house. Bristol is waiting for me so we can head over to the shop together, but I wanted to talk to you first.” Noah went quiet, watching Chase’s reaction to hearing her name. It had taken him a month to figure out what to do about this, and now that he was face-to-face with him, he was strung for words.
“Why couldn’t we just do it at your place?” Chase asked, laughing. The sound was almost nervous.
Noah’s arms crossed over his chest. “There’s three reasons. The first being that you attacked Bristol. Drunk.”
Every single ounce of color dropped to his neck, leaving his face white and wide-eyed.
“She’s forgiven you, but I don’t know that I can. Chase, what the hell made you think it would be a smart idea to contact her dad? To tell him where she was?”
Chase’s jaw clenched. “I wasn’t…thinking. I was pissed. She seemed so perfect and I wanted to—I don’t know. I was…jealous.”
“You could have cost her her life,” Noah hissed, slashing his hand through the air. “You know her dad would have choked her out if I hadn’t gone to her? Do you ever stop to think before you screw with people?”
“No,” he whispered, horrified. “No, I didn’t know that would happen. I wasn’t thinking—” He stopped mid-sentence, then looked at the ground, pale cheeks filling with a harsh red flush.
Noah’s jaws clenched, and then he continued.
“And then there’s another thing, if the first two weren’t good enough. You’ve been lying to me for years.”
“I don’t think I know what you mean,” Chase said, shaking his head. Going by the nervous tone of his voice and the way Chase refused to meet his eyes, that was a god damn lie.
“Yeah you do, fucker. How many years has it been? That you’ve been hiding it from me?”
Chase shoved a hand through his hair.
“Since we were in high school,” he finally said after a moment.
“Why didn’t you say something sooner? Why keep that on your shoulders for so long, man? I mean, shit—”
“What would it have done?” Chase interrupted bitterly. “You never would have felt the same way. We’re just friends, Noah. That’s all we are. That’s all you want. What I want… you’re not like that. You’re not like me.”
“That doesn’t mean you had to hide it—”
“Yeah it did, Noah,” he snapped, dragging a hand over his face. “You don’t know what this is like. You aren’t gay.”
There it was.
“No,” Noah said, agreeing with him. “No, I’m not gay. But that doesn’t mean I wanted it to be kept a secret.”
“Look, I—I’m going to go,” Chase said quickly, quietly. “I’m glad you have Bristol now. I shouldn’t have went after her, or leaked the bet, or found her dad. I shouldn’t have been drinking. I’m getting help for it. I... I knew this was going to happen, and I’m just...dealing with it. Okay? I’m dealing with this. I’m sorry for what I did, for screwing with you guys, and I’m done with all that. Okay? I’m done.”
Noah watched him climb into the truck, not sure what to say until the door truck door slammed close.
“This was why you were so bitter about the bet with her, isn’t it,” he asked before Chase started the truck.
“Who cares if it is?” He strapped himself into the seat quickly, avoiding Noah’s gaze completely.
“Why would you put yourself through that? Betting me not to do anything, knowing I wouldn’t be able to stop myself, knowing you were going to end up hurt—”
“Noah,” he said sharply, finally looking at him. “It’s over, okay? It’s all over. I don’t want to talk about it anymore. Not with you, not with anyone. Just because you know now, doesn’t mean anything is going to change—and that includes how we work. I’m still going to be an asshole, and you’re still going to be the perfect guy, with the perfect girl, the perfect life. All right?”
“Chase—”
“Bye, Noah. I’m sorry for the shit I pulled.”
He started the truck, and it roared to life, drowning out whatever Noah was going to say. He watched his friend pull out of the parking lot as is phone rang in his hand.
He answered without checking who it was, already knowing.
“Hey, Bri,” he said quietly.
“Hey. So. How did it go?” He couldn’t help but smile at how brisk she was, at how businesslike she was handling this.
“It could have gone better,” he said, sighing tiredly. He would worry about Chase later. For now, there was nothing he could do, and Bristol was waiting for him. “Will you be ready to go when I’m home?”
“Yes, my love—oh, and I have a surprise for you when you get here.”
“Do you now?” He grinned. He loved when she had a surprise for him. Most times, it involved the two of them being naked, wrapped up in sheets, and moaning each other’s names.
“Mmhmm. I’ll see you soon!”
Once she hung up, he jogged over to his car, quickly backing out of the parking lot and driving toward his house.
In minutes, he was pulling into his driveway and walking through the back door. He shrugged off his jacket. He loved when Bristol got into these moods. Spontaneous sex was his favori—
He frowned.
Normally, when she had a surprise for him, she was laying on the couch, naked and waiting.
She wasn’t on the couch.
“Bristol?” he called out, starting to walk to the stairs. Maybe she was in the bedroom. Sometimes, he would find her there as well—
He felt a touch on his shoulder and turned around.
“Come with me,” she said, covering his eyes with her hand.
“I thought we were going to do it on the kitchen table today,” he said, disappointed.
“Oh, don’t worry. That will come later.” She guided him out of the house and into the garage. Though she tried to keep his eyes covered, he could still peek through the cracks enough to know where they were going and when to step up.
“Now, close your eyes.” She leaned up to whisper into his ear, and when she was sure he had, she kissed his temple, removing her hand.
He couldn’t begin to guess at what the surprise was. The two of them had already moved in together, and her house had sold last week. They were as permanent as mountains as far as he was concerned, and with all of their things together, there was no room for surprises. They had agreed on no dogs or children for the first two years as they adjusted to each other, so whatever this was, he couldn’t imagine it being a good thing.
“Okay, now open!”
At her excited laugh, he opened them—and almost fell back on his ass.
“No,” he breathed, looking at her. She squealed, clapping her hands when she noticed how shocked he was.
“Yes! Yes, yes, yes! I know how badly you wanted it, so I just had to.”
“Bristol, no,” he said, even though he was so happy he could have kissed her. Screw that, he did. He dragged her against his body and kissed her smiling lips, then faced the center of the ga
rage again, staring at the beast in front of him.
The Ducati Superleggera leaned on its stand, black paint gleaming in the fluorescent light, a shiny, red bow on top.
“Bristol, you didn’t have to,” he said, turning back to her. He took her face in his hands. It took everything in him not to push her into the wall and ravish her right then and there.
“I did,” she murmured, wrapping her arms around his neck. “I wanted to celebrate. Remember the blue prints I told you about? For the new cargo design?”
He nodded. There’d been countless nights where he’d had to physically drag her away from her laptop as she went over the schematics. Sometimes he was almost jealous of how much time she spent talking to the engineer, but he knew how hard she was working and didn’t give her shit for it.
He never would have thought this a year ago, but dammnit, having a CEO as his woman was hot.
“And you know how I presented them to the board last week?”
He started to grin when he noticed her practically jumping in her spot. “They took it, didn’t they?”
“Yes!” she squealed, launching herself at him. Her willowy body wrapped around him in an ecstatic hug. “Production starts next month!”
When her face buried against his neck, he wrapped his arms around her, holding her flush against him.
“You have no idea how proud of you I am, Bristol,” he breathed, resting his jaw on the top of her head. She really didn’t. In the past month of them officially being together, a lot had changed. Despite the nightmares from that night with her dad throughout the week, during the day, she made leaps and bounds in her progress.
Bristol pulled back from the hug slightly to look up at him, and he gladly returned it. He loved looking at her, loved seeing the brightness in her eyes. It had always been there, just barely veiled under the hard exterior she presented, and he’d been the one to bring it out.
She kept her hair down. She proudly held his hand in public and curled up to him every night. She laughed and smiled way more than before, and she wasn’t afraid to be honest with her emotions. She no longer hid things, and being vague was a thing of the past. Now, when something bothered her, she had no reserves in letting him know—and he had no problem fixing it for her. Anything she wanted, she got—and that was the least he could do for her.
If not for her forgiving him, he wouldn’t be as happy as he was now.
He touched the hollow of her neck, then slid his hand up to cradle her jaw. Her eyes bore into his, indecision warring within the bright green depths.
She seemed to hesitate, and then said the three words he had been waiting to hear for the past month.
“Noah, I love you. I know it’s soon, and I know we have a long way to go before we’re perfect, but I just...I love you.”
“We’re perfect as we are, Bristol. I love you too.” He knelt down to kiss her, softly, gently, pounding in every ounce of love he had for her into that one kiss. He had been waiting to say those words since the night she had come home from the hospital, since the night she had forgiven him for the bet.
He pulled back with a small, cocky grin as a thought came to him.
“You know,” he said, sliding his hands under her ass to hoist her up. She laughed, wrapping herself around him. The shop could wait, the Ducati could wait. Everything could wait.
As he carried her out of the garage, her delicate fingers threading into his hair, his sole focus was on the woman who hadn’t left his thoughts since the night he’d met her.
“Every bet comes with a price, but I hit the jackpot.”
The End
About the Author
D.K. Combs is an author of erotica, historical, paranormal, and contemporary romance. She's surrounded by the Great Lakes with her supportive husband, son, and of course, her German Shepherd. Combs began writing long before the exposition of her most famous title to date, The Highlander's Touch. Writing has always been her passion and creating creatures with no true name and the women that fall for them is what she considers a great way to live. When not writing, Combs is reading. Her idea of heaven is a whole day of nothing and well... maybe a good cup of Joe.
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