Slow Burn

by Roxie Noir

  “It’s been six months,” he says. “And I don’t mean to be rude, but you’re already twenty-six.”

  Ruby’s eyes flash, and her smile falters for a moment.

  “For right now, my place is in my father’s house, with my family,” she says, her voice syrupy-sweet. “I’ve prayed this over quite a bit, and the Lord is clear that he wants me to wait.”

  Kyle nods, stiffly.

  “I see,” he says. “Well, I hope the Lord hasn’t laid it on your heart to wait too long! Ha!”

  Ruby pulls her hands away like she can’t do it quickly enough, and something relaxes in my chest, just a little. Kyle frowns, then looks around.

  “The service here has gotten terrible,” he says. “Maybe I should talk to the owners about this…”

  Ruby looks at me, almost like she’s laughing. Like we share some dark joke, just between the two of us. Maybe we do.

  “Ugh,” Kyle says, and stands, flinging his napkin back into the booth. He rises and stomps away, looking for our waitress, and I take a deep Kyle-free breath.

  “You should have said yes,” Pearl says with the air of a teenager who knows everything.

  “I don’t need this from you,” Ruby says without changing her tone.

  “Look how angry he is. He might not ask again,” Pearl points out.

  I bet Ruby would be heartbroken, I think, and there’s the almost-smile from her again. Pearl turns to me imperiously.

  “You wouldn’t ask again, right?” she says. “If a girl rejected you like that?”

  That’s not how I’d propose a date, let alone a goddamn marriage, I think, but I don’t want to get into it with Ruby’s little sister.

  “It depends,” I say, trying to sound as neutral as possible.

  “That means no,” Pearl proclaims.

  That means I’d do it right and fuck yes I’d ask again if I thought it would work.

  “It means it depends,” I tell her.

  She turns back to Ruby.

  “You’re not going to get to pick and choose,” she says, and for a moment she sounds exactly like their mother.

  “You’re here to chaperone, not give me life advice,” Ruby says, sounding bored and irritated.

  “You’ll remember this when you’re an old maid,” Pearl says smugly. “Let me out, I need to use the ladies’ room.”

  Ruby lets her out of the booth and then slides back in until she’s almost across from me. There’s still no sign of Kyle.

  “For your sake, I hope this is the worst date you’ve ever been on,” she says.

  I want to take her hands, lean over the table, and kiss her. For fucking once I want Ruby to know that someone’s excited about her, that someone wants her like fire in his veins, that someone jerks off twice a day thinking about her.

  “If I go now I could take that little motherfucker to the alleyway out back and fucking teach him how to talk to women on dates,” I offer, my voice low and quiet. “I won’t even leave a mark.”

  Ruby turns bright pink.

  “Please don’t,” she whispers.

  I just shake my head. I’m not an idiot, and I know that beating up Kyle right now would only land Ruby herself in trouble or worse. Doesn’t change how badly I want to, though.

  Something else occurs to me.

  “Ruby, have you ever been on a real date?” I ask.

  “You mean alone with someone? No chaperones?”

  “Right.”

  “Sure,” she says. “Plenty of times with Lucas after we got married, and last week when you found me at the pub. Though I guess that wasn’t really a date, that was…”

  “I bought you a drink and took you home,” I point out.

  “You’re my bodyguard and it’s your job to know where I am.”

  “It’s my job to keep you safe, it’s not my job to enjoy your company.”

  We look at each other. Her eyes flick to my lips for a split second, and I swear it takes every drop of self-control I have not to lean across the table and crush her mouth against mine, right then and there.

  “Is it your job to offer to beat up my suitors?”

  “Suitors, plural? Are there more of these assholese somewhere?”

  Ruby looks at me, looks down at the table, looks back at me like she’s trying not to smile.

  “There’s only the one official suitor,” she says. “And I think you just heard him bring his romance A-game.”

  “Sounds like you need an unofficial suitor.”

  “I’m not sure I need a suitor at all,” she says. “I think I just need someone whose company I enjoy and who walks me home. I’ve had it with suitors, Gabriel.”

  “We could just leave this restaurant right now,” I murmur. “We’ll go somewhere else for an hour. I don’t care where, and I’ll tell your father that I thought there was a threat and I needed to get you out and keep you safe.”

  “Please don’t get fired,” she whispers.

  I nearly reach across the table and take her hand in mine, but instead there’s an annoyed sigh off to the side, and Pearl appears. Ruby lets her sister back into the booth, my heart still hammering.

  The moment’s over, my heart pounding at Pearl’s sudden arrival because Ruby makes me a little crazy, a little reckless. I know better than to flirt with my charge while she’s on a date with someone else, but here I am.

  I can’t stop thinking about it: Ruby, the barn, the space behind the hedge, backstage at that first rally. I’m thinking of the flash of belly I saw the other day as she hid the letters, how nearly impossible it was not to grab her and kiss it, or of her in my arms.

  Kyle’s hot on Pearl’s heels, looking smug, and he sits next to me, across from Ruby.

  “I had to speak with the manager again, but I think he understands my concerns about the level of service here,” he says. “Simply put, to keep up in today’s society, a restaurant needs to be…”

  Something bumps against my ankle. I move my foot away out of habit, but a split second later, Ruby catches my eye.

  Slowly, I move my foot back. A shoe bumps my ankle again, then nuzzles along my foot, and I have to force myself not to smile as I nuzzle back.

  Kyle drones on, waiting for the waitress. Ruby watches him intently, her green eyes practically boring holes through him, as she plays footsie with me and I play back.

  It’s probably the stupidest possible way to get caught with her, but I’m not about to stop.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Ruby

  When the date is finally over, Kyle walks me from his car to my front door. Pearl and Gabriel follow, twenty feet behind, both looking on.

  Kyle’s goodbye is mercifully brief. He tells me, more or less, that I was a very suitable, respectable date, and that he found my company very proper and Godly.

  Or something. I’m not listening, I’m smiling and trying to pretend that Gabriel’s not standing next to my sister, where I can feel his eyes on me like fingers down my spine.

  “Thank you for a nice time,” Kyle finally says.

  For one second, I think he’s about to shake my hand, but he just nods.

  “Thank you,” I say, because I can’t think of another response.

  He walks away. Pearl and Gabriel approach, and Pearl’s through the front door first while Gabriel holds it, gesturing us through.

  As I pass him, his fingers brush my lower back again, like he’s teasing me: here’s what dates could be like.

  My mother bustles into the entrance hall, beaming. I try to arrange my face to look more excited, and I have no idea whether I succeed.

  “Well?” she asks, all smiles. “How did your date go?”

  I got proposed to by someone I don’t like, and the best part was the two minutes I spent alone with my bodyguard, I think.

  “It was nice,” I say.

  “He proposed and she turned him down,” Pearl says, walking past my mother and toward the kitchen.

  Her face freezes.

  “Oh?” she ask
s.

  I clear my throat, straightening my spine and girding myself because I don’t have a lot of experience standing up to my parents. This is all kind of... new.

  “I told him it’s too soon,” I say, twisting my hands together in front of me. “I’ve only been divorced from Lucas for six months, officially, and I don’t want to rush into something else right away.”

  She keeps smiling and turns to Gabriel.

  “You’re welcome to head to your own quarters,” she says, and even though she sounds friendly, it’s clearly a dismissal. “Thank you so much for chaperoning.”

  “Yes ma’am,” Gabriel says, nodding his head at her. “Any time you need me.”

  And he walks away, leaving me with my mother, whose smile fades with Gabriel’s footsteps.

  “Let’s talk,” she says, and pulls me away.

  My mother’s talk is more of a lecture, and it’s the same thing I’ve been hearing for almost a month now: my options are Kyle or spinsterhood; I’m not going to get a better offer; a woman’s place is married and raising children; it’s unseemly for me to be even in this position, living at home at such an advanced age.

  The second I can get away, I retreat to my bedroom and flop dramatically on my bed, still clothed, and try not to cry.

  I’ve had six months to figure something out. Six months since my divorce was final and I came back home, and all I’ve done is open a checking account that’s got fifty bucks in it. I could have been coming up with a plan, some third option that wasn’t Kyle and wasn’t living with my parents forever, but instead I moped around and didn’t do crap.

  Not that I know what to do. I’ve got an idea of what the end goal is — a place to live and a job that pays for it — but I don’t know how to get there. I have a GED and was homeschooled by my mom, who prefers sewing to math, so I’m not even exactly sure what trigonometry is.

  And I can’t get a job without my family figuring it out, so I need a place to live, but a place to live requires money, which people tend to get from jobs. That’s not even the worst part.

  The worst part is, if I leave on my own, I’m leaving my family. That’s all there is to it. If I do this, I’m out of the church, out of my family unit, out of nearly everything I’ve ever known. I’d escape my parents, sure, but no more Grace, no more Isaac who thinks he’s a helicopter and Emma with her toothless smile, no more throwing rocks into the river with Joy or smart-ass comments from Zeke.

  But then I think again of Kyle’s cold, clammy hands clutching my fingertips, and my stomach turns. I think of him saying, basically, we don’t like each other but we’re desperate.

  I remember sex with Lucas, which is all the sex I’ve ever had: under the covers, in the dark, totally silent while he pumped away, eyes closed against the fact that I was never what he really wanted. After the first few times it didn’t hurt any more, but it was about as erotic as brushing my teeth.

  And of course, from there my mind goes to the barn, again, which feels like the only thing I think about sometimes, and I close my eyes and take a deep breath, trying to stop the white heat that’s slithering though my body already.

  Kyle. Barn. Kyle. Barn. I’m still lying on my bed where I flopped, arms over my head, as the rest of my family comes upstairs one by one. I listen as they all get ready for bed and then, after a little while longer, it’s quiet.

  I sit up. The light underneath my door is gone, so I stand up and turn off my light too, and suddenly I can only see by the sliver of moonlight coming in through the window.

  And the very faint lights in the carriage house.

  All at once, my mind’s made up. Screw horrible dates with Kyle, screw Pearl telling me I’m going to be a old maid, screw being damaged goods.

  I know what I want, and for once, I’m going to go after it.

  I still stand there, by the window, for a few more minutes, pretending like maybe I’ll talk myself into behaving. I don’t.

  I close the curtains and turn away, open a drawer, reach in, and grab the vodka. I take one big swallow for courage, but it feels like my insides are doused with gasoline and I just held a match to them and now my body’s enveloped in this sinuous, writhing heat.

  This is stupid. It’s easy to get caught, and in the best case scenario, my parents throw me out of their house with nothing.

  But for the first time since I asked Lucas for a divorce, I’m doing something. I’m not smiling and nodding and going along, I’m acting like an adult and taking charge.

  I’m opening my bedroom door, tiptoeing down the stairs, sneaking to the pantry with the window, every muscle and nerve on high alert, the vodka snaking through my veins and whispering go on, go on in my ear.

  And I open the window and drop through into the cool night air, leaving my father’s house.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Gabriel

  I’ve just poured my nightly iced tea when there’s a soft knock at my door, and I’m so surprised I nearly drop it. Instantly, my hand goes to where my holster should be, but I’m not wearing it because I’m at home.

  Bad guys don’t knock, Kane, I tell myself.

  But I know who would. The knowledge makes my pulse race as I cross the kitchen and the living room, iced tea in hand, to the back door.

  For a split second I imagine who else it could be: the Senator, here for yet another chat. Kyle, in some sort of misguided attempt to prove himself.

  Or one of the other Burgess women, lonely and after the only non-related man in the house. The thought makes me wrinkle my nose.

  But I open the door and it’s her. Of course it’s her, blonde hair floating gently in the breeze and eyes bright green, even in the dark, piercing right through me like always.

  Then she tilts her head to one side, and I think she’s nervous but she smiles anyway and it’s not her regular, sweet smile. It’s mischievous and coy and devious and I swear to God that smile is promising me things I’ve only ever dreamed of.

  “Invite me in?” she says, keeping her voice quiet.

  I hesitate for a split second. If she gets caught in here, even if we don’t do so much as kiss, my old life is gone. My career in the Secret Service is officially over, the end mired in scandal, my name blacklisted in Washington, D.C. forever. I’ll be lucky to play rent-a-cop to state assemblymen after this.

  And in this moment, I couldn't fucking care less.

  “Welcome to the carriage house,” I say, stepping back from the door.

  Ruby steps in quickly and I shut the door behind her, already nervous that she’s been seen. She glances around my apartment, taking it all in, suddenly seeming a little uncertain, like maybe she hadn’t planned this far.

  It’s all right. I’ve got some ideas, so I lean back against the kitchen counter, just watching her, every nerve in my body singing.

  “How can I be of service?” I ask, my voice low and slow.

  Ruby lifts her shirt, and for a moment I think she’s just going to take it off right then, right there, no preamble. My dick practically leaps out of my pants, but instead she lifts it an inch above her waist and pulls three letters out of her pantyhose.

  “I came to give these back to you,” she says, holding them out.

  I just grin, and Ruby frowns.

  “What?” she asks, still holding them.

  “Those were in your bedroom, down the hall from your father’s office, and you brought them all the way out to my apartment to give them to me to put back?” I ask, taking a step toward her. “Sure, Ruby.”

  I swear she turns three different shades of pink, but she cocks her head at me defiantly, and after a moment, a smile starts gathering around her eyes. A real one.

  “I don’t know what you’re saying,” she says, teasing me.

  “I’m saying you’re a whole fucking lot craftier than bringing the letters to me when it’s miles easier to put them back yourself,” I say, moving toward her.

  Now there’s only a foot between us, and it feels like the air it
self is charged with electricity.

  “Then I must really be here for some other reason,” she murmurs.

  I grab the letters, toss them onto the kitchen table, and take her hand, lacing our fingers together as I walk her backward. Ruby stumbles a little but I steady her with my other hand on her back.

  “Is it this it?” I growl once she’s against the wall. “Any chance you’re here to finish what we already started?”

  Her hand is still in mine and I press it against the wall, over her head, our faces almost touching. I feel like I could almost jump out of my skin right now, and I can practically feel Ruby’s pulse beating through the air.

  She doesn’t say anything, her eyes wide, and I dig my fingers into her spine, through her ugly t-shirt.

  “If you’re here for something else, Ruby, say the word now because this is all I’ve been fucking thinking about for three days straight,” I say, my voice low and rough with desire.

  “This was it,” she whispers.

  I squeeze her hand, push it harder against the wall, and kiss her. I can barely force myself to hold back but I do, make myself kiss her slowly and carefully this first time, swiping my tongue along her lip until she opens her mouth under mine, gently curling our tongues together as I try not to growl.

  The sheer effort of holding back has me trembling, and I pull away from her by millimeters until our lips are barely touching, my hand gripping hers so tightly my knuckles are white.

  Go slow, I command myself. Ruby’s not like the other women. Slow down.

  But as I’m admonishing myself, her hand closes around the back of my neck and pulls me in toward her with surprising force. My mouth practically crushes hers, our tongues tangling together instantly and I groan because I can’t help it, pressing her hips against the wall with mine, our bodies flush together.

  Ruby arches her back and rolls her hips and I growl at the friction against my cock, the fucking delicious heat of it all. Now my hand’s moving down, from her spine to her ass, perfect and round and squeezable as fuck through her ugly denim skirt.