Not Letting Go

by R B Hilliard

  He paused for a second and then released his hold just enough to tilt his head down and look me in the eyes. “Because my job required it.”

  “Your job required it?” Regret flashed in his eyes and I pressed my forehead to the middle of his chest. “I’m not sure I like the sound of that.”

  “Can we go somewhere to talk?” He must have seen my hesitation as he added a quick, “Please?” His blue eyes sucked me in and I would be lying if I said I didn’t want to hear what he had to say. I wanted Gage to be the guy I thought he was. No, I needed him to be that guy. What I felt for him after one night was more than I had ever felt for any man. I wanted to see where it could go.

  Tipping my head back, I said, “My apartment is a few miles away. We could go there.”

  “Will Reyn be there? If so, we could go back to my place,” he suggested.

  “Reyn is at work and the last time I was at your place it didn’t end so well. No offense, but I’d rather talk on my terms and in my territory.”

  He gave me a quick peck on the lips and released me. “Then by all means, your place it is. Hop on, Princess.”

  “I really wish you’d stop calling me that.”

  “It’ll grow on you,” he said and then laughed at the clear exasperation on my face.

  When we got back to my place I excused myself and quickly threw on a fresh tee before grabbing a couple of waters from the fridge. I made sure to sit in one of the bucket chairs and not on the sofa next to him. One touch and I would lose all rational thought. Not gonna happen. I gave him my best get-on-with-it-cause-I-got-places-to-be look. His mouth turned up into a half smile in response. He leaned forward, grabbed the bottle of water, opened it and took a deep swallow. I couldn’t take my eyes off of his lips as they settled around the mouth of the bottle. I so wanted to be that bottle. Only Gage could make the simple act of drinking water a turn on.

  I need help.

  He placed the water back on the coffee table and relaxed back into the sofa. “I really like my job,” he began. “A couple of years ago, I was in a bad place financially. I had made a bad business investment and it wasn’t working out. My cousin Skeeter had just been hired to work at a new garage here in Austin called MMG. His boss, Jack, bought the place from a guy named Dooley Shane.”

  “The guy you introduced me to at The Oasis the other night?” I interrupted. With cruel beady eyes.

  “That’s him,” he confirmed. “Anyway, according to Skeeter, Dooley had cut Jack a great deal on the garage and had a lot of money to invest in…side projects, like the one I was involved in. So, I met with Jack and he introduced me to Dooley.”

  “And, let me guess, Dooley bailed you out.”

  “Not exactly. Dooley said that he would look into it. If it was a sound investment, he would consider partnering with me. He could invest sufficient funds and help me get the operation out of the red. However, this also meant that I would have a third partner and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to take that on.”

  “I’m confused. What is it you were doing and how did you get into trouble?” This was starting to sound dodgy.

  “Zippo and I have been friends since grade school. He knew that my dad was a bike mechanic and taught me pretty much everything there is to know about motorcycles. When he died, I was at loose ends and had some money to burn. Zippo knew a guy who owned a motorcycle shop and needed a partner. I checked it out, decided it was a good investment, sunk a bunch of money into it and lost it all in the first year.”

  “That’s awful. What happened?”

  “Unbeknownst to me, the guy I partnered with was fleecing customers by stealing perfectly good parts off of their bikes and replacing them with aftermarket, inferior parts. He made them look like the real deal. Then he took the original parts and sold them to the highest bidder. He made a ton of money in the beginning, but people started to suspect him and he started losing business. This is when I came in. Apparently he owed money to some bad people and instead of using my money to boost the business he used it to pay his personal debts. I knew we weren’t getting the business that we should be getting and it made no sense. Anyway, when Dooley investigated making an investment, he figured out that Gary had been scamming me from the get go. He presented all of the evidence his guys had gathered and made a deal with me.”

  “Gary?”

  “My partner or, ex-partner I should say.”

  My stomach dropped. “What kind of deal?”

  “Dooley would buy out Gary, sell the garage, and get me back my buy in if I would work for him.”

  “Why didn’t Dooley just buy out Gary and run the place with you?”

  Gage laughed and shook his head. “Babe, Dooley Shane is strictly a deal guy. He does not get his hands dirty. He would have partnered with me alright but not so we could work side by side. He would have sent business my way, let me do all the work and taken a large cut of the profits. In the end he decided that the business had too much bad publicity and would be a poor investment. That’s when he offered me the deal.”

  I held up my hand. “So Dooley bought out Gary, sold the garage, gave you back what you lost and in return, you agreed to work for him?” He nodded. I thought about this for a second and asked, “For how long?”

  “I’ve been with him three years now.”

  “Are you working with motorcycles?”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  “What is it you do for him?”

  “Whatever he needs.”

  I was beginning to get the picture. “Whenever he needs it?”

  He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Something like that.”

  Swallowing thickly, I said, “Gage? Is Dooley in the mafia or something?”

  He blinked and then let out a roar of laughter. “No, Princess, Dooley is not mafia.”

  “You can’t blame me for asking. It just all seems so…odd. From what you’ve said, I assume that Dooley is the reason you left me in the middle of the night and didn’t come back? That’s odd, Cowboy.”

  His body tensed and all traces of laughter evaporated. “I would never have left you if I didn’t feel I had to,” he stated. “Dooley is a wealthy man with a lot of balls in the air and sometimes he expects us to take one for the team.”

  I was developing a strong dislike for Dooley Shane and, as for being a part of his team? No thanks. “So when is your servitude over?” I didn’t even try to keep my disgust from showing in my voice.

  He sighed and patted the spot next to him on the sofa. I slipped in beside him and he wrapped his arms around me. “I’m sorry I left you. I thought I’d be back by the time you woke up. As for Dooley, it’s not like that. He really saved my ass. The business was bleeding money and he got me out. Not only that, he gave me back every penny I put in. I owe him big time.”

  “Sounds a bit like Stockholm Syndrome if you ask me,” I muttered and he laughed. “So, what did you do with the money?” I asked. Please don’t say that you invested it with Dooley.

  “I bought my house with part of it and the rest is in the bank, just waiting for the right opportunity to come along.” Thank goodness. I don’t know what it was about Dooley Shane, but I didn’t trust him…at all.

  Two months later…

  Please tell me he’s here and not still off doing something dangerously stupid for Dooley, I thought as I inserted my key in the lock. Last week Gage gave me a key to his house. Well, actually, he asked me to live with him but I told him I felt that things were moving too fast. We settled for me moving some of my things in and having my own key. Then Dooley sent him on some covert errand that he couldn’t tell me about. I hadn’t seen him in four days. Four long days.

  I was completely in love with Gage Blackwell. We hadn’t discussed our feelings in depth, but I was pretty sure that he felt the same way. Susannah and Zippo were also regularly seeing each other. She had pretty much moved into my apartment with Reyn, which was fine with me as I was rarely there. Reyn and Zeke had also been hanging out. Unlik
e Susannah and I who talked loud and proud about our men, Reyn kept her private life very private. This left a lot of guesswork where she and Zeke were concerned. The only reason I knew that they were hanging out was because I busted them kissing outside our front door one night when I came home from work.

  I quietly slipped through the door and made sure to lock it behind me. The Oasis was crazy busy tonight and I was extra late getting home. Hopefully I would find Gage asleep because all I could think about the whole night was the various ways in which I could wake him up.

  Dropping my keys and purse on the desk, I headed back to the bedroom. Gage had been called away four times since our first night together; however, none of them had been for this length of time. I wish Gage had never set eyes on Dooley Shane. I wanted to broach the subject of Dooley with him, but hadn’t felt that the time was right. After this week apart with only one phone call and two texts, I would make the time. I made my way down the hall and peeked into the bedroom.

  He’s home!

  Gage was asleep on his stomach with his head cradled sideways in the crook of his arm. The moon shining through the open blinds cast a magical glow across his naked back. I tiptoed past him and into the bathroom where I stripped off my clothes and brushed my teeth. Then I quietly made my way back to the bed. The covers barely concealed his muscular ass and I could see that his legs were spread wide enough for my knees to fit between. Making sure not to wake him, I crawled up between his legs and sat back on my haunches to assess how best to go about my seduction. Leaning over him, I placed my hands on either side of his torso and dropped down to where my nose almost touched his lower back. Not able to control myself I inhaled deeply and closed my eyes as I sucked in his rich masculine scent. He smells like home. Is it normal to miss someone this much, to want to spend every second of every day with them? I lazily ran my tongue up the center of his back, felt him shiver, and jerked back to see if he was awake.

  Nope. Try again.

  Oh so slowly, I slipped the sheet down over his amazing ass. Then I ran my hands up the insides of his thighs and barely brushed my fingers over his very important parts before returning to his back. He moaned, but still did not wake. I repeated this again. Only, this time I lingered a little longer on the important parts. Still asleep, he lifted his hips just far enough to slide his hand down between his legs.

  Oh no you don’t.

  Before his hand could reach its target, I slid mine in and beat him to it. I couldn’t help but smile when I heard him suck in a sharp breath.

  “I sure as shit hope that’s you, Princess,” his sexy, sleepy voice grumbled.

  “Mmmmhmmm,” I replied and continued to languidly stroke my hand up and down.

  I had been on the pill for a few years, but never had unprotected sex…until Gage. Gage and I had visited a clinic the month before and both received a clean bill of health. Sex with him, without a condom, was out of this world. All I had thought about for four long days was how good he felt inside me and how I couldn’t wait to get him there again.

  One second he was pumping into my hand and the next I was on my back and looking up into his crystal blue eyes. “I missed you,” he said and gently touched his lips to mine. I whimpered into his mouth and he pulled back and smiled down at me.

  “Missed you, too, Cowboy,” I whispered and his eyes lit up.

  He lined up our bodies and, right before plunging in, paused and stared down at me. “You are so fucking beautiful,” he rasped. As always with Gage, it was out of this world hot. We fit together like two pieces of a puzzle. Together we formed a whole. Apart, we were just incomplete pieces. There would be no other for me in this world and I knew it.

  I arched up to meet his thrust. “Don’t leave me that long again, Cowboy,” I panted.

  He answered by pulling my leg up to his waist, forcefully thrusting back in and nailing my trigger spot dead on. I knew women who would give anything to feel this way just one time in their lives. Gage Blackwell delivered every single time. I shouted his name as the power of my orgasm hit. A few strokes later he gave a full body shudder and a low groan as he released inside me.

  After we were cleaned up and snuggled in, I decided to express my reservations about Dooley and his job. “I don’t like when you disappear for days.”

  He kissed my head. “I know, babe. This one was long but necessary.”

  “Can you tell me where you went?”

  “Sure. Dooley had to deliver a shipment to a guy in Tennessee. It took us two days to get there. We had to unload and make sure everything went as planned before heading back.”

  I shifted onto my side, lifted his hand from his chest and laced our fingers together. “A shipment of what?”

  “Truck parts.”

  “Did Dooley tell you not to talk on the phone or text?”

  “No.” He gave me a knowing smirk. When I shot him a contemptuous look, he laughed. “I hate the phone, Princess. I always have. My mother used to use that shit against me.”

  I perked up at the mention of his mother. “You never talk about your mom. Why is that?”

  “Because there’s not much to say. She and my dad were married for thirty two years and not even three months after his death she started dating this complete douchebag.”

  I rubbed my hand over his beard. “It probably won’t last.”

  “That’s what I thought and then she upped and married the fucker two months after that. She’s now playing house and raising his three kids.”

  “Do you ever talk to her?”

  “Not if I can help it. She pretends that my dad never existed. The only shit she wants to talk to me is about her new husband and children.”

  The pain in his voice made me wish I hadn’t brought it up. “I’m sorry. That really sucks, Gage. You are the best man I know. Give her time and hopefully she will come around.” He gave a half-hearted shrug and I quickly changed the subject. “Why do you always have to go on Dooley’s trips and not Zippo?”

  He squeezed my fingers. “Zippo hasn’t earned the trust that Zeke and I have. That’s why he gets less important jobs.” I opened my mouth to tell him I wasn’t entirely comfortable with what he was doing, but he beat me to it. “I know you aren’t sure about things and part of that is my fault. I’ve had plenty of opportunities to get you comfortable with the gang, but haven’t taken them.” My brow furrowed in confusion and he continued. “Dooley has bonfire parties at his place almost every week. He has been asking me to bring you, but selfishly I haven’t because I wanted to keep you all to myself. I realize in doing this I have made you skeptical about the guys I work with and that’s not what I meant to do. I just wanted us to have time to be us before the rest of the world interfered.” He leaned in and kissed me.

  I circled my fingers around his tattoo and searched his troubled face. “What are you worried about, Cowboy?”

  His eyes shifted away and my gut clinched. “Before you, I wasn’t exactly a saint,” he quietly said. The sound of my laughter brought his eyes back to me.

  “Is there something I should know or are you referring to your past in general terms?”

  “I just wanted to firmly establish an “us” before anything in my past was thrown up in your face.”

  “Am I the only woman in your life?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you have an evil ex-wife and five kids hidden away somewhere?”

  He smiled. “No.”

  “Then your past is just that,” I said, giving him a firm smack on the lips. I wasn’t about to give him all of the details of my past, so why should I expect it from him?

  His eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Just like that?”

  I smiled. “Just like that.”

  Chapter Seven

  One week later…

  Why I agreed to this I will never know.

  The day after Gage told me about why he owed so much to Dooley, he asked if I could take off work to go with him to Dooley’s weekly bonfire party. I started to say no
but changed my mind. Maybe I had it all wrong. Gage obviously felt a strong connection to this man. I felt I owed it to him to try and get to know Dooley. I discussed my reservations with Susannah and she told me that I was being ridiculous. She and Zippo regularly attended the bonfire parties and she informed me that she and Dooley were tight. Whatever the hell that meant.

  By Friday night I was a bundle of nerves. These were Gage’s friends and people he worked with. I wanted to make a good impression. Susannah and Zip were supposed to be there. That would make three people I knew. She told me to dress casual so I had on a form fitting purple lace tank top and a white tiered skirt that fell above my knees. I finished it off with a wide brown leather belt that had tiny stitched pink and purple flowers and brown leather wedge sandals. I left my hair down and wore my make-up in what I considered my “less is more” look.

  “Hurry up Princess or we’re going to be late!” Gage bellowed from the other side of the house.

  I applied lip gloss and shook my hair out one more time before making my way down the hall. Here goes nothing.

  Gage’s eyes darkened when he saw me. He had on dark jeans, a short sleeved light green button down shirt and his cowboy boots. He held out his hand. “You look amazing.”

  “You don’t look so bad yourself, Cowboy.” I placed my hand in his and gave him a big smile. Then I thought about our means of transportation. “If we’re taking the Harley, maybe I should change into jeans?”

  “I planned on taking the Harley, but after seeing you…in that skirt…we’ll take the Mustang.”

  He lifted his hand and I did a little twirl for him. “You like?”

  He shot me a wicked grin. “So much that I’m having second thoughts about going.”

  I started pulling him back towards the bedroom. “That works for me.”

  Yanking me back to his side, he gave me a quick kiss. “I’m going to enjoy stripping this off of you later. Right now we need to go.”

  So much for that idea.

  We pulled out of the driveway, turned right and drove away from town into the dusk of the Texas Hill Country. Fifteen minutes later we pulled into what could only be described as a compound. Guards stood at a large front gate and waved us through when they spotted Gage. Three beautiful fieldstone buildings with matching peaked metal roofs stood in front of us. We drove past the smaller two and pulled in beside several large trucks and various high end sports cars.