“That’s because I was a dick. You’re beautiful. You were always beautiful. I think I was trying to convince myself not to like you because you weren’t what I was supposed to want, looks-wise, and because you were my sister’s best friend. My life back then revolved around being thought of as one of the kings of the school. I thought that was the best thing I had going for me.”
She was silent, so he glanced over his shoulder at her. She was tracing a finger along the carvings in the screen.
“Sometimes, I see you working in a garage at the northeast edge of the apartment complex,” she said.
“That’s my workshop. I was probably making this screen. Why haven’t you come over to see me?”
“I don’t know.” She pressed her lips together, then added, “Actually, I do know. I wasn’t certain you’d welcome the invasion. Every time I see you through the open workshop door, you look like you’re trying to concentrate, and since I’m not sure what we are to each other, commitment-wise, I’m not sure if me dropping in on you unannounced is part of our rules.”
She was both right and wrong in her assessment. He loathed being interrupted when he was working, especially in the privacy of his workshop, but it didn’t sit right with him to think of Marlena standing a wall or parking lot away, denying him the pleasure of her company because he’d made her feel insecure about their relationship—an insecurity that probably went back to high school, and that had been solidified with that stupid-ass comment he’d made about them not needing to be sustainable.
“I drop in on you unannounced,” he said.
“I know. I was just being self-conscious.”
“Well, stop it.”
She screwed her lips up, her gaze going distant as though she was debating the merits of saying something more, then she took a deep breath. “You left Locks last night without telling me you were leaving. It embarrassed me, and it made me feel cheap because I’d just given you that blow job and then you wouldn’t hold my hand or let me touch you. And then you left without a word, as though”—she shook her head—“as though I didn’t matter to you at all.”
Shit. She was right. He’d gone to such a dark place after they’d left his truck that he hadn’t been able to think past himself and his own needs. As if she didn’t matter at all, which couldn’t be further from the truth.
“And then tonight,” she gestured to the screen, “you show up with this, and it’s wonderful and you put a lot of time and care into it. I don’t know where you and I stand, relationship-wise, and I thought I was okay with just being along for the ride and seeing where it takes me, but now I don’t think I am. I need to know if you and I are in sync or if we want different things from each other.”
In any situation where his back was up against the wall, it was Liam’s natural instinct to retreat into himself instead of opening up, but that wasn’t going to fly with Marlena, not if he wanted to keep her in his life. Which he very much did, enough so that he knew there was no way around a major guts spilling.
“The blow job threw me off in a big way. Don’t get me wrong, it was great. I mean, damn, you’ve got some skills, but after I came, this brick of guilt hit me from out of left field.”
Her wary expression relaxed a shade. “Guilt?”
“Yeah. Like, how could I be so heartless as to get my rocks off after the kid had suffered so much? It felt sick and twisted to listen to the P.E.T. recording, then right afterward let myself feel that extreme pleasure instead of paying the memory the reverence it deserved. Now, I know that it was my PTSD poisoning my thoughts, but last night, I didn’t have the clarity to separate the truth from the guilt.
“Because of that, I was on edge before we’d even walked into Locks. I tried to tough it out because of you—not just because you’d blown me, but because I can’t get enough of you—but it was so noisy inside Locks, and there was this group of loudmouth Ultimate Nachos fans by the bar and I just had to get out of there. It didn’t even occur to me to clue you in. I’m not used to being accountable to anyone except Duke and the team. For what it’s worth, I did swing by your place after I left the bar to make sure your brother wasn’t hanging around. But that was all I could handle.”
He took a breath. Though his instinct was to walk away and put some actual, physical distance between himself and Marlena, he forced himself to stay in place and accept her response like a man.
There was no pity in her expression; no anger, either. She stepped into him with a hug and nuzzled his chest, her face turned away so all he saw was a headful of her beautiful red curls. Then her hand slid from his wrist up his arm, over his elbow. She pushed his shirtsleeve up to his shoulder, then pressed her lips to his medic tattoo.
He closed his eyes and dropped his face to her hair. He got it now, what it meant to be her lover. He got it about the stillness, about the higher plane she operated on. She was a goddess and he just some poor, screwed-up fucker lucky enough to be in her orbit. With her, he was calmer and more centered than he could ever remember being, even before the army. She didn’t waste words; she didn’t waste breaths. She didn’t indulge in any of the petty civilian complaints and time-wastes that enraged him. She just was. She lived every day to get at the heart of spiritual clarity and teach other people to find peace inside themselves, to heal. Boy, she’d worked a number on him, too.
“I can’t get enough of you, either,” she said, her lips brushing the skin of his arm as she spoke and sending chill bumps racing over his skin. “If we’re going to do this, then I get to touch you whenever I want, even in public.”
“Okay,” he murmured into her hair. “If that’s what you need.”
“Yes, it is. And I get to drop by your workshop or your apartment unannounced whenever I want.”
“Of course you can. Hell, I’ll even give you a set of keys.” His throat tightened. Did he really just say that?
“I want us to start seeing each other exclusively.”
He lifted his head and frowned down at her. “I thought we already were.”
The shine in her eyes when she raised her head to look at him told him he’d given the right answer.
“And I think the best way for you to make it up to me about last night is to reciprocate the excellent service I gave you as soon as possible,” she said.
A bark of surprised laughter escaped from him at her request. “Don’t worry. I’d already planned to get my face on your pussy at the first opportunity.” Damn, just saying the words made him want to throw her over that piece-of-shit fake-wood desk and have his way with her.
“Right after class. Right here.”
Guess she was feeling impatient, too. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”
He angled his lips to hers and gave her a kiss full of promise, darting his tongue into her mouth just enough to let her know he was dead serious in his commitment to take care of her pleasure that night whenever and wherever she wanted it, even though he was holding back now because, any minute, a team’s worth of rowdy hockey players would be pouring through the door.
“How about we get the new screen set up before class starts?”
The two of them made short work of removing the old screen and replacing it with the one Liam had made. The darkly stained wood was heavy and out of place amid the pale blues and beiges of the rest of the studio’s color palette, yet he liked the way it made the room more eclectic. When the desk was installed, the pair would look absolutely perfect.
He grabbed the old screen and headed out the back door, smiling the whole way. And wasn’t that the damnedest thing of all? He didn’t think he’d smiled so much in his life as when he was with Marlena.
When he returned, Will and Duke were there, chatting Marlena up.
“I can’t stay,” Duke said. “My wife made plans, and I can’t get out of them.” He pointed at Marlena. “You don’t take shit from any of them. I can tell the yoga’s working, even if they can’t see it yet.”
“Yes, sir, Coach,” Marlena said, her vo
ice full of affection.
Will wasn’t wearing a prosthetic on his right hand, probably in preparation for the class. He crossed his arms over his chest and looked genuinely pissed off at the idea of anyone messing with Marlena. “If any of them give her trouble, they’ll have to deal with me.”
Liam suppressed another smile. Without a doubt, Will was the most loyal and had biggest heart out of all of them. If anybody gave Marlena trouble, he and Liam would have to arm wrestle to see who’d get to do the ass kicking, but Liam had a feeling that nobody was going to hassle her anymore. The whole Bomb Squad team was on board with the yoga and pregame massages. This was the team’s third class together, and after the second one, the jokes had stopped in the locker room. Last night before the game, a few of them even voiced that they were looking forward to class tonight.
Liam and Will walked Duke to his car, then returned to the studio along with Brandon and Gabe.
Liam set up his mat right in front of Marlena so that when she demonstrated sphinx or pigeon or any forward-looking seated or standing pose, she’d be staring right at him. While they’d been doing yoga together in his apartment on Monday morning, he discovered that was one of the parts he liked best: when he opened his eyes, she was there, breathing and being, right along with him, as though he was looking in a magic mirror that only showed a person what he wanted to see.
Class got underway a few minutes after seven, with every Bomb Squad team member in attendance. Unlike the first two classes, tonight everyone seemed relaxed and less self-conscious. Helping matters was that those who needed special modifications were getting more efficient at using them. Brandon figured out he preferred doing downward facing dog on one leg rather than using an exercise ball to help his stump leg balance, and Gabe had his foam bricks ready for cat/cow pose before Marlena could get to him with assistance.
Marlena was on her A-game, challenging the team beyond basic yoga and tapping into their athleticism with difficult, core-strength-based poses. The guys ate it up. It seemed that the harder she pushed them, the better they did and the more they got into it.
Then again, while he held a boat pose, which required them to form a V with their bodies while balancing on their butts, the theory occurred to Liam that perhaps the team’s relaxed focus had nothing to do with their experiences in the previous classes or Marlena’s excellent teaching and more to do with the fact that Duke wasn’t there. Every guy on the team would give his left nut for Duke, but the loyalty they felt for him wasn’t getting it done on the ice. In fact, sometimes Liam felt Duke’s hovering was too heavy, too intense. Every time they lost, they were disappointing him. Maybe they were trying too hard instead of letting the game flow.
Regardless of the reason, they certainly had flow tonight. Marlena modified some poses in tiers, allowing Liam and Gabe and a couple others who’d done yoga before to push themselves even further. Liam wasn’t much into showing off, but when he was standing in a forward bend and Marlena challenged him to shift into the firefly pose she’d taught him earlier that week—squatting, palms on the mat, then resting his knees on his elbows and shifting his feet off the ground, then gradually straightening his legs out and up toward his shoulders—he had to admit that the hushed cheers and praise from his teammates felt good.
The class ended after ninety minutes of hard-core, sweaty athleticism. There were satisfied smiles and chest thumping all around as they rolled up their mats and put away their foam bricks, exercise balls, and other modification equipment.
“Anyone else up for Pancho Pete’s right now?” Brandon said.
Gabe slid on his right arm prosthesis. “Hell, yeah,” he and Will said at the same time. They bumped forearms, dissolving into laughter.
Liam glanced at Marlena, who stood near the shrine in the corner snuffing out candles. The two of them had a deal about what their night would entail, but there was something in the air with the team, a camaraderie they hadn’t had in a while, and his gut was telling him they needed to foster that by going with the guys to Pancho Pete’s first. Given his royal screwup the night before, however, he decided to follow her lead.
“Marlena, we’re headed to Pancho Pete’s. Are you in?” Brandon called.
She made a show of setting her hands on her hips and tossing her hair, and Liam loved that he knew what every bit of her body language meant. “Isn’t that, like, sleeping with the enemy? They’re your rival’s sponsor.”
“Yeah, but their wet burrito grandes are the best in town,” Liam said.
She wrinkled her nose. “That’s terrible post-yoga food.”
Theo sauntered up, his arms crossed over his chest and a playful gleam in his eye. “Are you trying to tell us you never eat there?”
Liam had no idea if she did or not, but given her addiction to spicy food, he had a hunch.
“Do I look like someone who eats at Pancho Pete’s?” she said.
“No way,” Will said. “But come with us anyway. I’m sure they’ll have something healthy on the menu.”
She glanced past Will to Liam. “What’s the plan, Liam?”
“I don’t know. You tell me.”
Will, clearly oblivious to the unspoken message in their exchange, spun to face Liam. “You’re in, right? Come on. This is not the night to be your usual asshole loner self.”
Ouch. Then again, that was a pretty accurate description.
Marlena’s eyes went plate-round and their shine returned in full force. “Yeah, Liam. Listen to the man. There’s no need to be an asshole,” she deadpanned.
He sucked his cheeks in, trying not to grin like a fool at her teasing. “Pancho Pete’s it is.”
A few minutes later, after Marlena had snuffed all the candles and buttoned up her studio for the night, the team walked along the row of now-closed shops to Pancho Pete’s on the far end of the shopping center.
Marlena walked in the back of the pack, quiet and looking content to listen to the guys’ stories and jokes. Liam pressed a hand to her lower back and dipped his face close to her ear. “After this, you’re mine for the rest of the night. Don’t think I forgot.”
She shot him a flirty, sidelong look. “As if I’d let you off the hook.”
At the door of Pancho Pete’s, the team parted like the Red Sea, letting Marlena enter first while Brandon held the door. Liam liked that. He liked that they all worked together as a unit, with the same soldier values and manners.
An older man at the counter in Pancho Pete’s waved when they entered. “Buenas noches, Marlena. I see you brought your entourage tonight. Want me to have Jorge get started on your usual?”
The guys burst out with oooohs and laughter, razzing her about what a liar she was. Gabe fell all over himself, he was laughing so hard.
Brandon hooked an arm around her shoulders. “So you never eat here? You’re sticking to that story?”
Marlena raised her hands in surrender and sashayed to the counter. “You got me. I’m guilty. Yes, thank you, Orlando. I’ll take the usual. And can you add in two of each of your three hottest salsas and six fresh jalapeños?”
“Dang, Marlena, your stomach will burst into flames with all that spicy stuff,” Will said.
She pivoted to face them. “Oh, it’s not all for me. Since my secret Pancho Pete’s love is out in the open, I thought it’d be the perfect time to challenge someone to a friendly little wager. A hot-sauce-eating duel.”
Gabe swaggered forward. “A hot-sauce-eating duel? Querida, you’d better be careful what you wish for.”
She rolled her tongue across her lower lip, her eyes squinted, as though giving great consideration to his warning.
Liam wasn’t sure he’d ever seen her so luminescent, standing there all preening and sly as she hustled Gabe. “What do you want if you win? Name your price,” she said.
“You have to bring me lunch at my job site every day next week from the places of my choice.”
“That’s too easy. Pick something bigger. Harder.”
A f
ew of the guys, including Gabe, snickered at that, but Liam wasn’t sure she hadn’t dropped the innuendo on purpose to throw Gabe off. He had a feeling he was watching a master hustler at work.
“Okay.” Gabe rubbed his chin. “Two months of weekly massages.”
“Deal. If you win, then I’ll schedule weekly massage appointments for you at my studio.”
“Oh, you heard me wrong. What I meant was I get to give you the massages.”
The room lit up with hoots and hollers, as well as some X-rated speculation on how Gabe planned to administer the massages considering he had no hands and only part of one arm. Liam would’ve been more annoyed by Gabe hitting on her except that Liam had done a piss-poor job of informing the team that Marlena was with him and, therefore, off-limits. He’d fix that tonight—right after Marlena won her bet.
“That’s fine with me, and, as for my end of the bargain, if I beat you, then the whole team has to help me move tomorrow from my old apartment to my new, then help me clean my old apartment good enough to make sure I get my deposit back.”
The titillated ooohs and aaahs turned into groans.
Her wager surprised Liam. He supposed that was one way to make sure she had enough moving day help, though Liam was fairly certain that he, Theo, and Brandon would be able to handle all that damn wicker. She probably knew that, too, but he got the feeling she was getting off on the rush of the hustle more than anything else, which was a side of her hadn’t known about. He definitely approved.
She wiggled fingers toward the cash register. “Order your food and we can have our little contest while we wait for it.”
When she reached for her purse to pay, Liam brought out his wallet and stepped forward, but Will, Brandon, and Gabe had all beaten him to it. Gabe muscled the rest of the guys and Marlena away from the cash register. “My treat, since all you’ll be eating is crow when I thump you in the contest.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure. I’m pretty tough.” As though to demonstrate that point, she brought her fists together and flexed her biceps in a self-deprecating way that actually made her look the complete opposite of tough.
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