by Rie Warren
Grace? I wasn’t so sure about.
Saint went off when Revenge shouted for him to double-up on darts. Revenge had a thing about doubles. Mostly in bed. He’d realized all his dreams a couple months ago when he’d fucked a pair of identical twins.
He and Saint had a tiny bit of history with the law—as in, on the wrong side of The Law. But shit, who didn’t?
We didn’t judge, unless we were being complete assholes to one another. In a brotherly way of course.
The bar crowd grew thicker. The music played louder.
The costumes became much more fucking flimsier as the night went on.
A lot of skin was on show.
Tips were frigging great though.
And the lumbersexuals and their trendy hangers-on kept piling in.
Angel ambled up, an arm around Mercy’s shoulders.
Engaged. Those two.
That was pretty frigging amazing, considering all the tragic shit they’d survived.
I poured bourbon for them both. We didn’t need to worry about Mercy anymore either.
She’d done her detox. She’d never wanted to become a smack head anyway. She hadn’t taken drugs willingly.
She’d been pimped out and drugged up by her own family after her memaw passed away.
That was done now.
“Down the hatch.” Angel clinked his glass against Mercy’s and mine.
Mercy sipped and closed her eyes to savor the taste.
The tats Saint had inked on her skin to cover the Nazi brand were finally complete. An incredible constellation that blended with the stars shooting from her shoulders to her wrists.
“Ah think this is my favorite Halloween since Ah left Tennessee.” The engagement ring on her finger twinkled as she linked her hand with Angel’s.
They deserved their happiness.
I wasn’t sure I deserved anything but my lonely room and my single bed.
“How are you liking the new rooms?” Angel asked.
Another goddamn mind reader. Sol was bad enough with his juju bag of predictions and gritty-voiced words of Creole wisdom. Which were usually one hundred percent correct.
“I had to fumigate.”
“That is not nice, Killian!” Mercy’s bright brown eyes simmered devilishly. “You take that back right now.”
How could I argue with her?
Impossible.
“The room is fucking grand. I did have to fight Lennox for it though,” I admitted.
“You expect handouts in this place?” Angel laughed.
“Not unless they’re from Solomon, and they come with a dose of dem ghosts.”
“Fantômes.” Pressing a kiss to Mercy’s cheek, Angel peered at me. “That was what he said Mercy was. When she first came here. But not anymore.”
“Never again.” Mercy turned in his embrace, and their kiss could’ve melted the sun.
I pivoted to give them privacy, pretending to clean more glasses.
Angel cleared his throat, done with devouring his fiancée for the moment.
When he knocked on my shoulder, I spun back to the couple.
“You follow that lead from the douchebag at Tit for Tat?” Angel’s blond brows dented in.
“I did. It was bullshit. Sorry,” I said the bare minimum of words.
I could hardly look at Mercy, knowing I was lying through my teeth.
Her downcast eyes said it all.
Sadness.
Hopelessness.
Final acceptance.
I didn’t want to break her heart this way.
Angel wrapped his arms around her, his bleak blue gaze meeting mine. “Maybe next time.”
“Yeah. Maybe,” I murmured.
The Man Bun who tipped the best—Marcus, I thought his name was—elbowed up to the bar. “Can I get a mojito?”
Fucking fuck. When would these posers ever learn?
Saint, lingering close by, yelled out, “Pussy Drink for the twat-hole here!”
As he rapped his big knuckles with his big rings on the bar—and heckles rose up around us—I set about mixing the off-shelve shit we stowed beneath the counter. A little of this, a lot of that, combined in a couple glasses doing the top-bottom switch-pitch thing. I stirred it all with a straw into a noxious froth then threw in some twiggy herb Mercy had harvested from her garden in the courtyard.
A mojito was supposed to have mint, right?
I thought the herbage was really a weed she’d meant for the compost pile.
Well, what didn’t kill you and all that . . .
“I still can’t handle your knife though, right?” Man Bun Number One asked.
“We’ve been through this.” I finished the last of my bourbon while he sipped the disgusting drink I’d mixed. “She’s a KA-BAR. She’s called Veronica. If you try to touch my blade you’re probably gonna end up in your grave.”
“So that’s a no.”
I winked instead of slicing off his fingers.
He smiled then dropped a hundie into the tip jar.
Excellent.
I’d be putting the Benjamin into my Save Grace fund, because Mistress Bunny sure as fuck charged a high price, and I didn’t even think she was the head honcho of the bordello business.
Saint had barely moved from the bar, only shifting sideways—reluctantly—when the costumed pricks placed orders.
Everyone full-up on drinks for the moment, he slid closer to me again. “Why the hell are you killing yourself over this Grace?”
I remembered the exact moment Angel had stopped us outside the White Lair. When I’d asked him the same goddamn thing about Mercy, and he’d come at me with teeth bared, his arm barring my throat.
Angel’s snarled answer:
Because she’s worth something.
Because he’d do whatever it took to get her back.
Because she was being beaten and bruised and all used up.
Because.
Heat spiked beneath my skin, and I had the urge to run out of the bar, to race to Grace on my Harley.
To fight for her . . . to make her fight for herself.
Saint continued to question my sanity. “You don’t even know her, man.”
“Because I made a promise to Mercy.” I made a promise to Mercy, but that isn’t everything.
There were other darker reasons clawing away inside of me.
Chapter Four
GRACE
THREE DAYS HAD PASSED before Killian Slade showed up again.
I thought I’d be rid of him after the first time.
Then he kept coming back.
Roark fucked me on the regular as usual.
I had a new john who thought it was hot to gag me on his cock—he obviously wanted to feel bigger. He paid big bucks, but thankfully was out of town more often than not.
My belly got rounder by the day. At least it seemed that way to me. I became connected to the baby in a way I hadn’t imagined, as if my pregnancy shook loose a maternal tendency laying fallow since my time trying to take care of Mercy back at the White Lair.
I sometimes let myself daydream about what this pregnancy would be like if the father of the baby loved me and I him. If I had a husband who cared for me instead of a glorified pimp who looked at me as a receptacle in which to empty his load first and as a commodity to grow his portfolio of whores second.
What it would be like if the mere act of my impregnation had been consensual.
As if I could shed Roark’s involvement in the whole thing like a snakeskin.
I read to the baby.
I sang to my baby.
Roark may have inseminated me, but I grew this new life, and the baby was mine.
During Killian’s visits, which I could never predict, we sat across from one another. He perched on the windowsill with his hand-rolled cigarettes, and I perched on the settee with my hands folded across my newly burgeoning belly.
I hid the gestation from him as best I could.
My subterfuge wasn’t difficult.<
br />
Killian never once touched me.
Against all odds, I wanted him to though. He invariably came to me in a battered leather jacket and well-worn jeans. He always smelled faintly of tobacco, the black leather that seemed to be part of his biker uniform, and shaving soap. Before coming to see me, he must’ve tightened up the coal blackness of his thick beard, leaving crisp clean edges along his strong cheeks and the thick cords of his neck.
Sometimes shadows smudged beneath the vividness of his blue eyes like he hadn’t slept for days on end.
But once or twice I caught him very close to smiling, and I’d never wanted to see anything more in my life.
He paid, and each time he attempted nothing. He was undeniably attractive, but a brooding sort of man.
After the second visit, I had words with Mistress Bunny.
“If he comes back again, tell him I don’t take clients on Tuesday, Thursday, or Saturday. Ever.”
“Why not?” Bunny tapped a long glitter-tipped nail against the fake mole she wore at the corner of her mouth. “Roark doesn’t care as long as Killian’s time doesn’t overlap with his.”
“Do you really need to know everything?”
“Let me see.” Tilting her head—shimmering in a dark plum wig that evening—she puckered up. “Do I need to know if Betty Boobs has another yeast infection? Yes, ma’am. Does Mistress Bunny have to be made aware of Daisy Dix’s breast implants doing a bad double bubble thing?” She shuddered. “Of course. And do I really need to know if Melonie’s been rifling through her johns’ wallets the second they blow their loads and loose all motor function?”
I sighed.
“Mmmm.” She snaked her head in one direction. “Hmmm.” Then in the other. “So if I ask you a question, Queen Grace, I needs to know the answer. Because I’m lookin’ after all y’all’s welfare here.”
“I don’t want Roark running into Killian Slade because I’m not one hundred percent sure Killian wouldn’t pull his blade on Roark just for nodding hello.”
“And that would be a bad thing because?” Bunny pressed her fingernail against the center of her pouty lip.
“Because Roark’s retaliation would come back on me.” I cupped my hands over my stomach. “And I’m not the only one to consider here.”
“Well, Mistress Bunny can see how that might be a little bit of a kink in the works.” Winking, she linked an arm through mine. “I will advise your ardent suitor that certain nights are off limits. He is a fine catch. Can I ask how big he is?” She popped a comical face.
“I don’t even know.”
“He keeps coming back, and you’re not even doing the dirty with him?” Bunny looked aghast.
“That’s the problem. I don’t know what he wants.”
“Well”—she bumped her hip against mine—“if he turns out to be some freaky fetishist . . . just send him to Mistress Bunny.”
But Killian Slade wasn’t a freaky fetishist as far as I could tell. In fact, for a man visiting a whore all the time, he acted like a damn monk.
His persistence was unflagging. I tried telling myself I didn’t want to see him. That it would be best if he stayed far away from me. I didn’t want him to find out about the baby. And I stubbornly clung to my refusal to admit I was the Grace he’d been searching for all along.
Really, as long as Mercy was safe, that was all I needed to know.
But he kept showing up. I couldn’t even imagine how much he spent to see me. The sum must’ve been astronomical unless Bunny was giving him a discount just because she liked him.
I blamed Killian for planting the fanciful thoughts of true love and possible happiness and potential hope in my head although he’d never intimated any interest in me one way or the other whatsoever.
And despite everything, I looked forward to his visits.
I’d just read another chapter of my pregnancy book when a knock sounded on my door.
“Yes?” I quickly dog-eared the page then shoved the book under a cushion.
Mistress Bunny popped her head inside, iridescent hair done up in perfect gleaming waves. “It’s your regular.”
Did she mean the cock-choker or Killian?
I rearranged my dress to hide the slight bump of my belly, but opened the neckline a little more to highlight my cleavage. Then I wished I’d dabbed some perfume along my neck.
I hope it’s Killian.
I was being foolish, and I knew it, and the thought made me fight my feminine impulses.
Opening the door wider, Bunny ushered Killian inside. Tiny butterflies swooped and swirled inside my tummy at the sight of him.
Bunny clicked her tongue, clocking my reaction effortlessly. “So I’ll just leave you two lovebirds alone now. Unless you want me to watch. But that would cost extra extra.”
With a snort, Killian prodded her back outside. “Thanks, but no thanks.”
With the door closed, he crossed the room. He immediately cracked the window, and crisp November air filtered inside.
I kept my appreciative gaze surreptitious while he openly scoped me out.
“I like your dress tonight.” Killian then thinned his lips like he shouldn’t have admitted ogling me.
He busied himself with the makings of a cigarette he quickly lit while I adjusted the berry red dress that swooped low in the bodice.
Tiny slits in the material appeared along my thighs and my arms whenever I moved, and the dress was the least whorish in my wardrobe—a tease and nothing more.
“Did you not like my dresses the other nights? Is that why you haven’t touched me?”
I was flirting.
I didn’t care.
I wanted a goddamn reaction from the man who made me burn from a single glance alone.
He chuckled in a low husky tone I hadn’t heard before.
Then he confessed with a slow shake of his head, “Grace, you have no idea.”
“Then tell me.”
He blew out a long thin billow of smoke. “I’m just here to look after your wellbeing. For Mercy’s sake.”
I drew to my feet immediately, anger surging. “If that’s all you’re here for, I want you to leave right now and never come back. I don’t want or need your pity, Mr. Slade. You can shove that shit right up your tight ass!”
“Well”—he stubbed out his smoke, tossed it out the window, then stood too—“hold on now.”
“No! Out!”
On silent feet, he stalked toward me.
I didn’t move.
His gaze unwavering, he came ever closer.
Breath battled from my chest.
Killian halted a step away. So close heat radiated from him and coursed all through my limbs.
“What do you want?” I whispered, and those damn hormonal tears spiked to my eyelashes. “What do you want with me? If you know I’m Grace . . . you know I lost my way a long time ago.”
Something close to hurt flattened his features, but he only spoke three words before he stopped himself. “I’d like to—”
He rubbed his fingers across his beard.
His shoulders dropped, and he shook his head.
“I don’t want to lose you too.” His voice finally came out, hollow as a ghost’s husk.
Surprise winged through me. “You don’t have me yet.”
A somewhat predatory grin molded across his lips. “Is that an invitation?”
“You don’t need one when you’ve already bought me.”
His expression closed in as tight as an unfurled leaf. “And there’s that.”
“I’m a whore. You know that.”
“You’re not a whore!” he bellowed. “Don’t you ever fucking say that to me again. I know this isn’t your choice. That’s why I can’t understand why you won’t take my help!”
His fury flipped a switch inside me, and I sat back down. “I already said I don’t need your pity.” Faking a yawn, I pressed my hand over my mouth. “This whole thing between us is getting boring.”
“Well”�
�relaxing his shoulders, Killian sat on the edge of my bed—“that’s too bad. Since I already paid for your time.”
He immediately winced after saying the harsh words.
I didn’t know why. It was all true.
He dug out a flask from the inside of his jacket he shrugged off. “I brought some whisky.”
“I don’t drink.”
He lifted an eyebrow and uncapped the silver flagon, the tats emblazoned on his biceps and forearms flexing beneath striations of strong muscles. “More for me.”
“You don’t look like a drunk.”
“Lady, you don’t know the first fuckin’ thing about me.”
But he was wrong.
I knew Killian was as dangerous as his name implied. I knew he was hard all over from the scar on his face to the black ink covering his arms, wrists, and hands. And I knew I wanted him to kiss me.
I wanted to make him laugh.
I wanted to see him smile.
And this whole thing was a giant mistake.
One I wanted to make over and over again.
“You’re military, aren’t you?” I asked.
He nodded. “Former. Marines. Special Forces.”
“For how long?”
Striking blue eyes slid to mine as he drank. “It felt like several lifetimes at least. And I’d do them all over again if I could save . . . if I could save the men I lost.”
He clammed up again, as if admitting a loss was the biggest weakness of his life.
“How many of them?” I knew all about loss.
Loss of freedom.
The inability to come and go.
No ownership over my body. My body I wanted to give—for the first time of my own free will—to Killian Slade.
Moving to perch beside him on the bed, I took the flask from him.
With a twist, I screwed the cap back on, saying, “You don’t need any more of that.”
“I don’t, huh?” He clenched his hands into big fists then relaxed them against his knees.
“You want me.” I knew with such suddenness that a flash of desire fired inside me.
Desire, like I’d never felt before.
“Yes.” Killian’s eyes shaded into dark blue territory, and he was the first man who didn’t force himself, who didn’t scare me.
And perhaps he should’ve been the scariest of all because nothing could ever come of this except more death, more pain, more loss.