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“It won't trace back to me or Cash or you,” he assured me, then added, “I don't collect bodies.”
Meaning, he was going to shoot him and leave him. He didn't do the hands-on work. “That works for me.”
“Okay,” he said, the professional persona slipping away immediately as he clapped then rubbed his hands together, a devilish smile playing with his lips. “So where are the rest of these femme-fatales hiding?” he asked, slipping an arm through mine and leading me back out of the dead end.
“Don't do it, gorgeous,” Cash warned, falling behind us. “'Less you're stocked up on tissues and ice cream and whatever the fuck you ladies need when a guy hits and quits.”
Shooter craned his head over his shoulder, smirk still intact. “Oh, come on, Cash. You know me better than that. I always leave the ladies with a smile.”
Somehow, I did not doubt that in the least.
Cash snorted, shaking his head as we stopped in the front yard again. “Can't wait to see how you're smirking when some chick gets you by the balls, man.”
I felt my lips quirking up at that. Suddenly, I wanted to see that too.
Shooter let go of my arm as he stepped in the gateway, turning to face us, smile wide. “That's never gonna happen,” he said, booped my nose again, and was on his way.
“What's so funny?” I asked, watching Cash chuckle at his friend driving away.
“Babe, I used to say the same thing,” he said, smiling down at me.
“You're saying I have you by the balls?” I asked, grinning big.
“Baby...” he said, as if that was answer enough.
“Well,” I demanded, brows going up expectantly. I wanted to hear him say it.
He exhaled his breath through his nose, shaking his head up at the sky. “Fuck me,” he said to no one in particular before letting his eyes land on mine. “Balls, dick, heart, brain, baby, you got it all.”
Heart.
He said heart.
He'd kinda snuck it in there. But it was in there.
He said I had him by the heart.
At that, I felt my own trip over itself frantically.
It wasn't those words, but it was.
I opened my mouth to respond, to tell him that I felt the same, that he was the only person I had ever felt safe around, the only man I could let myself care about, the most surprising, wonderful person I had ever met.
But the front door burst open and Malcolm was running out, phone pressed to his ear. At the silent question in my eyes, he called, “It's Janie.” At that, my heart, already pounding, went into a near attack. Janie. Janie was calling Hailstorm. Maybe she was coming back. Maybe... “She needs to talk to Cash.”
Oh.
I tried to hide the disappointment in my eyes. At this, I failed judging by the small shrug Cash gave me as he took the phone.
“Hey kid, what's up?” he asked, his sweet smile in place and I liked that. I liked that he got on with Janie, that he got on with Malcolm and Mike and everyone else in my life. But then his head snapped up and his eyes pinned me. “Calm down.” Okay. It wasn't weird for Janie to be, well, not calm. She was mercurial. She went from calm and focused to off the handle in two-point-five seconds. Then she went from off the handle to laughing in two-point-fifteen. So it wasn't unusual for her to be worked up. What was unusual was the fact that Cash went from calm and happy to stern and worried.
“What's going on?”
He shook his head at me, a plea for silence.
“When? Fuck. Shit god damn it,” he said, the words savage. “Be there as soon as possible.” He paused, looking at me. “I'm bringing Lo to sit with you.” With that, he hung up. But he didn't talk to me. Instead, he turned his attention back to the phone and dialed fast. His eyes found mine as the phone rang. “Reign. Get Repo and get your fucking asses on your bikes. Wolf went AWOL. No... he's hunting. Yeah, the human kind. I know. Yeah. His place. Thirty minutes.”
Not many people knew Wolf's background. I, on the other hand, did. So if he was AWOL and he was hunting the human kind of prey, it absolutely warranted the stony, resigned worry taking over Cash's normally carefree face.
“You need to sit with and calm down your girl,” he told me, already making his way over to the cars.
“Okay.” I could do that. “Do you need me to bring Hailstorm in to back up you and your guys?”
“Only the three of us on this. Anyone else would be potential collateral damage.”
I understood that too. So I silently got my ass into the passenger seat and let him have the silence he needed to get himself together. We parked at the bottom of Wolf's hill and I grabbed his hand before he could swing out and talk to Reign and Repo, already parked with their bikes, looking every bit as anxious as Cash did.
“Yeah?” he asked, the sound a little clipped, but I understood too well what he was feeling to be offended.
“You'll be careful.” It wasn't a question or a plea. It was practically a demand.
“'Course,” he said, reaching out to touch my face. We turned and got out of the car. “I need to walk her up and then I'll be down,” he said to Reign and Repo who both looked at me with angry eyes, taking in my busted face.
“No. Get going. I'm fine.”
“Lo...”
“It's not that far.”
“You got stitches all up your...”
“I said I'm fine. Go get your boy. I need to go calm down my girl.”
He nodded reluctantly, grabbing the back of my neck to pull me slightly to him and kissed the side of my head. “I'll call.”
“You better,” I shot back then pulled away. “You guys be careful too,” I said to Reign and Repo as I turned and slowly made my way up the hill with gritted teeth. I told him I was fine and I was determined to make it look that way, no matter how much it hurt. I was right, it wasn't that far... for a normal person. For someone with stitches tracing their back, well, it felt like fifteen football fields.
