Shayla Black - [Wicked Lovers 02]

by Decadent

  Locking the vehicle behind him, Deke jogged to her door and knocked. And waited in the still night barely broken by crickets chirping.

  Nothing.

  He frowned. Maybe she was fast asleep. Or maybe she wasn’t here. Ever think about that, asshole?

  He’d heard on the radio today that she’d been spotted at a cozy little deli having lunch with the prick with the falsetto pipes. Was Kimber having feelings for Jesse again? Deke could hardly blame her after the way he’d treated her, but God, the thought made him want to throw up.

  He whipped out his cell phone and called her. No answer. She had caller ID, so she was avoiding him. Had to be.

  Deke wanted to beat the fucking phone against her door. Frustration boiled inside him, shooting upward like some science experiment coiling up a test tube and about to blow. But he wasn’t giving up. It was hotter than hell tonight, looked like it might rain. But that meant shit. He’d camp on her front door step all night—days, if necessary—until she came home.

  Deke’s shoulders sagged. He couldn’t pretend that knowing she didn’t want to talk to him didn’t hurt. And if he didn’t stop walking this mental territory again, he’d start bawling like a baby. Again. He wanted to be a man when he faced her, so he could look her in the eye and promise he’d do everything he could to be the man for her.

  But could he be the man she needed? Self-doubt lashed him like a vicious whip.

  Pressing his forehead to her door, Deke resisted wrestling with his inner demons, but the fuckers just kept coming after his hope. Fisting his hands against the door, he wished she was here, that he could hold her. He loved her so much . . . Her no-nonsense approach. Her quick wit. That surprising naughty streak. The way she rolled with the punches and handled life with aplomb. Her ease with her emotions, the times she’d shared them so totally when he’d been with her . . . inside her. God, let her come back to him.

  A sound—a grunt?—ripped through his thoughts. Faint, but . . . out of place. A man’s grunt coming from Kimber’s place.

  He frowned and drifted over to the window. Another sound he couldn’t place. A crash, like something hitting the wall.

  What the fuck? Anxiety clawed at his gut. Was she . . . spread out under some other man, maybe Jesse, in her bed? No. He would not believe—No, not Kimber. She wasn’t Heather.

  But Deke still didn’t know what the noises were. He only knew they were out of place.

  Crawling inside the window, Deke withdrew his SIG SAUER from his shoulder holster, just in case. He crept around the sofa, past the galley kitchen, then down the hall, gun in the lead. He fought the urge to charge like a bull. Slowly, carefully, until he knew what the fuck was going on.

  A high-pitched scream ripped through the night, stabbing up his spine. Kimber! Fuck, careful.

  Charging down the hall to the source of the sound, he reached her bedroom. Dark, empty. Bed mussed. Shit.

  The sounds of a struggle through the bathroom made him whip his head around. It was coming from behind the closed door inside the bathroom. The closet?

  If the son of a bitch had harmed a hair on Kimber’s head, he’d be eating for the rest of his life through a straw—after just the first punch. If Deke got in a second one . . . the fucker would have no need for a straw— or food—period.

  Creeping toward the closed door, Deke tried to listen. He didn’t want to endanger Kimber by jumping in like an idiot.

  “Put the baseball bat down,” growled the man. “I don’t want to cause you pain.”

  Whoosh. Thud. Grunt.

  “Bitch! That hurt.”

  Kimber had nailed him. Good. The bastard wasn’t at his best, and she was still alive. All good news. Deke knew he might not ultimately win her, but he could goddamn save her.

  Suddenly, Kimber cried out.

  “Damn you, die like a good girl.”

  “No!” Her terror dripped down the walls and slashed at Deke’s gut.

  Deke uncorked the bottle of his emotions—the fear, guilt, frustration, rage—and let them fly as he blasted the door to the closet aside and rocketed into the room. It was damn dark in the little closet, but he saw the outline of Kimber’s body going down, the sick thud of her head striking the wall. Blood gushed down her front.

  Oh, no. Hell no! God . . .

  Pushing panic away for fury, Deke whirled, grabbed the intruder by the neck, and pushed him against the wall. The glint of metal arcing in his direction caught his attention. He swerved his torso out of the way and tightened his fingers around the man’s throat. With the other hand, he pointed his gun right in the asshole’s forehead.

  “Toss the knife to my feet.”

  The intruder hesitated. Deke could hear his harsh gasps, smell his fear, feel his trembling. It wasn’t enough. He wanted to see the bastard bleed, writhe in pain, twist under his fingers as he begged for mercy.

  Welcome to your inner caveman.

  Shoving the thought away, Deke sent the man a lethal glare. “I don’t need much of a reason to blow your head open, motherfucker. Drop the knife.”

  Hesitation, indecision. Deke inched the gun forward, pressed his palm into the asshole’s windpipe. Still, he didn’t cooperate.

  And Deke had no idea if Kimber’s life was bleeding out onto the closet floor at this very moment.

  “I’m done jacking with you.” Deke’s finger tightened on the trigger.

  The intruder finally sensed that Deke meant business and tossed the knife down. It landed at the toe of Deke’s left boot.

  Stepping on it so it couldn’t come back into play, Deke tried to come down off his aggression high. Kimber needed him now.

  Deke pointed to the farthest corner of the closet. “Sit here on your hands. Don’t move. If you even twitch, you and my friend SIG SAUER are going to get to know each other real well, you got me?”

  Under Deke’s palm, the man swallowed. Then nodded.

  Resisting the urge to crush his windpipe for the hell of it, Deke backed away, aimed his gun at the assailant, and watched as his shadow went to the wall and sank to the floor. Without looking away, Deke tucked the knife away and flipped on a light.

  Mr. Intruder was wearing a ski mask. How TV show of him.

  But that was the only thought he could spare as he sank to his knees in front of Kimber, searching for the source of her blood with one hand, training the gun on the asshole with the other.

  Oh, damn. Oh, God . . . Let her live.

  The panic rose in him again. He slammed the lid on it brutally. Logic. Think. Suck it up and be smart.

  Deke looked her over quickly. Kimber was out cold, but her heart was beating at a steady pace. She breathed. There was a cut in her forearm. Deep. Would need stitches ASAP. He pulled a shirt off a nearby hanger and applied pressure to the wound. It had likely come from the intruder’s knife. Probably from putting her arm in front of her to defend herself. And he could only imagine the terror she must have been feeling watching that knife come at her . . .

  He speared the intruder with a stare of cold fury. “If she dies, you die. You got me?”

  The head under the ski mask gave a shaky bob.

  He couldn’t find any other stab wounds on her. But panic rose. Why the hell was she unconscious? She’d hit her head on the way down. How badly?

  Deke flipped open his phone and called 911. He gave them Kimber’s address.

  “Police units are already in progress to that location, sir. About two minutes away.”

  Kimber had called. Smart girl, his kitten. Hang on, baby.

  “I need an ambulance, too. She’s unconscious.” Then he hung up.

  “Did you drug her?”

  “No,” the voice cracked.

  “Rape her?”

  “No.”

  “But you wanted to kill her, you sick fuck,” he growled. “Take off the mask.”

  The guy hesitated, and Deke raised the SIG. “Now!”

  Off it came . . . and Deke could only stare. “What the . . . ? You’re at leas
t fifty-five.” Wasn’t he a little old for the thrill of home intrusions?

  He cleared his throat. “Sixty-two.”

  “You get off on hurting women, Gramps?” The thought made him want to retch, then strangle the vile son of a bitch.

  “No. Nothing personal. I didn’t want to cause her pain. I just wanted her out of the way.”

  His hand on the gun tightened. “Out of the way of what?”

  Silence.

  “You better fucking answer!” Deke shouted. “I’m at the end of my patience—”

  “Of Jesse McCall’s career. She’d tried to end it a few times, and he wasn’t taking no for an answer. He’s been all over the press . . . He’s self-destructing. Imploding. He’s going to destroy his career and everyone who’s invested in him for this woman.”

  An old guy focused on Jesse. Given everything Kimber had told him and Luc about Jesse’s situation, this had to be the manager. What was his name . . . Cal?

  “I’m too old to start over again.” The man’s voice trembled.

  The old guy was whacked. Stupid to think that killing Kimber was going to solve his problems. If Deke didn’t get the cops over here soon, he didn’t know if he could hold his fury and itch for vengeance long enough for the police to need anything but a body bag for the scum. Even if he managed, the old guy would be starting life over inside a cell.

  “Keep talking,” he told the old man. “Cal, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” the old man said cautiously.

  “What do you mean, start over again?”

  He hesitated. “I’d better not say anymore without my lawyers.”

  WITHIN three minutes, pandemonium erupted in the apartment. Police units stormed the place. Deke led the suspect out by his nape and prodded him forward with the barrel of his gun. After the police verified Deke’s credentials, they were cool. And he turned all his attention to the EMTs working on Kimber.

  He detailed the cut on her arm calmly. “Why the hell is she still unconscious?”

  “You family?”

  Oh, this shit. “I’m her . . .” Boyfriend? Fiancé? Father of her child? “She’s mine.”

  “Your wife?”

  “Not . . . yet.”

  “Sorry. No information given out to nonfamily members,” said one as they carried her out on a stretcher.

  Deke couldn’t resist touching her face, her shoulder, as they passed. He followed them out to the ambulance. “Let me ride with her.”

  “I’m sorry, sir. Family only.”

  Fuck family only! “Where are you taking her? And don’t tell me family only. I can get her family there.”

  The EMT rattled off the name of a hospital. Deke didn’t know where it was, but he’d find it.

  “I’m following you.”

  “If you can keep up.”

  Deke resisted the urge to snort. He’d crawl naked across broken glass to make sure Kimber was okay. Driving fast was nothing.

  He watched as they shut Kimber away in the ambulance. Through the small windows in the back doors, he could see they were working on her, stabilizing her. She’d lost a lot of blood. She still hadn’t come to.

  Someone fired up the engine on the ambulance, and Deke scrambled to the Hummer, leaping into the driver’s seat and hauling ass across the parking lot to track with the ambulance down the lonely street, to the hospital . . . and an uncertain prognosis for Kimber.

  She hadn’t pulled her own trigger the way Heather had, but if Kimber was lost to him, too . . .

  Gripping the steering wheel, Deke willed the thought away. No. Fuck no! He loved Kimber. Wanted her. Always. Even with the baby. Lots of them if she wanted them. He’d try his best. Anything. Everything.

  Just as long as she lived . . .

  Chapter Twenty-one

  DEKE slung his Hummer into a parking space at the hospital and hauled ass across the parking lot to the emergency room. Damn, his palms were sweating. When would Kimber wake up? How extensive were her injuries? Having no answers balled a roaring frustration in his chest. And fear. Couldn’t forget that.

  Even at this distance, he could see the EMTs unloading Kimber out of the back of the ambulance . . . and her brothers standing there watching.

  He’d called them on the way to advise. Logan lived just a few blocks away, so they’d beat him to the hospital. Hunter’s grim eyes tracked Kimber’s progress out of the vehicle, through the automatic double doors, and into the hospital’s cool interior. Logan looked ready to crawl out of his skin as they followed the gurney.

  Deke caught up to the guys, and they nodded absently in greeting.

  “Are you the family?” a fiftyish nurse asked them.

  Hunter pointed to Logan and himself. “We’re her brothers.”

  She cast a pointed glance at Deke. Oh shit. The whole family thing again. Hunter had the power to cut him off at the balls on this one . . .

  “He saved her life. He stays.”

  Deke breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Anything I should know about her medical history?”

  “No.”

  “She allergic to anything?”

  “Sulfa-based antibiotics.”

  The nurse jotted that down, then regarded Hunter again with kind blue eyes. “Is she taking any other medications right now?”

  Hunter shrugged stiffly, seemingly annoyed with himself. “I don’t know.”

  Deke cleared his throat. “No.”

  The brothers turned to look at him. They’d always given him a wide berth before but now . . . they looked downright grateful.

  Yeah, they were thankful he’d saved their sister from Cal the killer right now, but he doubted their appreciation was going to last.

  “Thanks,” Hunter murmured.

  “History of head trauma or concussions? Seizures? Passing out?”

  “No.”

  “Anything else?”

  Deke swallowed, waiting. Both brothers shook their heads.

  They didn’t know. Oh, shit . . . Mother humping son of a bitch.

  The nurse started to turn away. Deke reached out to grab her arm. “One other thing.” He drew in a deep breath. “She’s pregnant.”

  “You lowlife snake!” Logan lunged at him. “I’m going to rip your eyes out of your skull and force-feed them to you, you bas—”

  “Not here. Not now.” Hunter grabbed his brother and restrained him—barely.

  “No fighting in the hospital. You take that outside,” said the salty nurse. Apparently, she’d seen it all in her time.

  After another efficient notation on the chart, the reed-thin woman in blue scrubs turned away.

  With a huff, Logan backed off. But he still had broiling murder in his eyes. Green and alive with fury, they promised pain. Hunter’s, on the other hand, were a glacial blue and vowed revenge—in his time, in his way, to his satisfaction.

  Great.

  “Is the baby yours or your cousin’s?” Hunter asked quietly.

  “Or do you even know?” Logan sneered.

  “Mine. I’m not going to apologize. I love your sister. I went to her apartment tonight to talk to her. What happens next is up to her, and between us. But you dare upset her while she’s recovering . . .” If she recovered. Deke turned to address Logan. “I’ll cut off your balls and force-feed them to you. You got that?”

  The younger brother bristled and looked ready to keep the verbal war going. A grudging respect entered Hunter’s icy stare as he interceded again.

  “Thanks to you, she’s more likely to live long enough to have that conversation. The rest we’ll sort out later, once Kimber is up to it and Dad is out of the hospital.”

  With a terse nod, Deke turned away and sat in a slightly padded, circa-1977 orange chair with chrome arms. The brothers sat two chairs away. No one spoke for hours.

  Logan paced. Hunter sat stock-still, looking eerily placid, but the way his gaze cased the room and lingered on the clock hinted at his inner turmoil. Deke related. Maybe he and Kimber’s brothers
would never have any sort of lovefest, but he respected them. In their shoes, he’d be pissed about a pregnant sister who’d been in the middle of a ménage. Hunter in particular . . . one cool customer. Faring much better than Deke himself was, in fact.

  Deke glanced at his cell phone again, checking the time. Over three damn hours. Why hadn’t the doctor come out to report? What the hell was going on?

  Enough time had passed for Luc to scrounge up a car and haul ass to Dallas from Tyler, he noted as his cousin swept into the waiting room, looking stiff and anxious. And still no word. What the fuck is taking so long?

  AT five minutes until nine the next morning, Deke felt ready to climb walls, bash heads in—anything to make all the folks in white let him in to see Kimber.

  Near five that morning, the doctors had come out to report that she had awakened. They’d stitched her arm, run a few tests, and were awaiting results. So far, all functions looked normal, and it appeared as if she’d suffered a concussion, bruising, and a mild case of shock.

  Logan and Hunter had gone in to visit her about two hours ago, then left to retrieve their father, who was due to be discharged after recovering from his injuries following the bombing. Vaguely, he wondered what the Edgington boys had said to their sister about the fact they were going to be uncles. If they were smart . . . nothing.

  Nonfamily members weren’t allowed in until nine. Shitty-ass rule. He glared at the clock. Had the fucking thing moved in hours?

  “Take a deep breath,” Luc murmured. “Calm down.”

  “What?” Deke shrugged, annoyed. He’d hardly moved. He knew because he’d been using all his self-control to sit still.

  “I can feel waves of worry and impatience coming off you. She’s fine. Hunter said so on his way out. They’re going to release her today.”