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"All?" I heard called from behind me. Well, no. Not called. Growled.
I half-turned to him, shrugging. I didn't plan to say it.
But it came out anyway.
"My mom, me, and my little sister."
"Little sister," Adler picked up on right away, voice teasing again.
"No," I snapped, voice a bit too forceful, because I could feel a lot of unspoken communication going on among the men around me.
"Got it," Adler agreed, this time his voice held none of the teasing, just responding seriously to the demand I shot at him. "More interested in learning about ya anyway, duchess. What pays your bills?"
"Cigarette and cheap beer slinging."
His lips quirked back up at that. "But you do it for the love of the work, right? All that ass-grabbing and tit-grazing from sleazebags with bad comb-overs."
"So you've been to my place!" I said with a teasing smile as Pagan handed me my refill, this time with some ice, thankfully.
"With all the traveling, what the fuck would make you settle down in Navesink Bank?"
"Family," I hedged, not wanting to go into detail about that.
"How long you been here?" Cyrus asked, keeping conversation going.
"Since I was about eighteen."
"And we've never crossed paths?" Cyrus went on, looking confused at the prospect.
"You strike me as the social type," I observed. "Do I seem like that?"
His smirk wasn't unkind. "No. Not at all."
"So unless you were slumming it with the crackwhores down in my hood at Meryl's, then we weren't likely to run into each other."
"So how did Cy get you to come hang with us then?" Pagan asked, clearly wanting to make things even more uncomfortable.
Luckily, it was right that moment that some older, bearded, man seemed to appear out of nowhere. "Pizza is here," he answered the question in his brother's eyes.
So then everyone hopped up to get pizza. Someone flicked on the TV to some gory as fuck horror movie. Drinks were refilled.
I was making my way back over to the arm of Sugar's chair when I felt my belt loop snagged and yanked, making me turn to find Edison watching me, finger digging in even harder.
Almost, well, possessive.
He said nothing.
But in his eyes, I saw it.
The challenge.
Daring me to say something, to pull away.
When I didn't, he yanked a little harder until my ass hit the arm of his chair instead.
Not wanting to make a scene, to make it any more glaringly obvious what was going on in the room, I stayed there as I ate, as Pagan handed me another drink that started to make my head swim. As a woman almost reached freedom before being dragged back and into the killer's lair where she was suffocated to death. As the credits rolled and the movie switched to a less gruesome psychological thriller.
It was then that the coiled, uncertain knot in my belly at being so close to him, yet so completely far and removed, was relieved.
His arm went behind my hips, curling, then pulling me downward until I had no choice but to slide onto his lap.
Though, if I were being honest, I didn't want the choice.
All I had truly wanted to do since he walked in was to go to him, to feel his hands on me again.
And maybe for the first time in my life, it wasn't just the sexual frustration, the need to get off.
There was that.
But I just wanted to be close to him.
As bizarre as that was.
So when I settled onto his lap, and the arm around my hip slid upward until it was near my waist, urging my upper body to lean into him, to rest on his shoulder, there was a strong sensation of relief inside, of comfort.
And in that moment, up against his warm chest, his arm firmly around me, I was choosing not to think about it, not to analyze it, not to ruin it.
It had been so damn long since I felt a thing even akin to relief or comfort. My battered soul needed the reprieve.
So I was just going to let it happen.
I was going to give myself the break I clearly needed.
Slowly but surely, the guys started heading out to do 'rounds' or in Roan's case, go 'on the roof.'
It left me, Edison, Cash, and Adler in the space, watching the credits roll.
"Well, can't say I ain't disappointed," Adler announced and when I turned my head, he was looking at me.
"Right," Cash said, shaking his head. "Because you stood such a chance with your chained hands and dubious past."
"Want to talk about dubious pasts..."
"No," Cash cut him off, and it was the first bit of tension I had seen in him. "I think you've had enough of a chance to run your mouth today. Back into the cage with you," he demanded, standing, and waiting for Adler to do so as well.
He did, shrugging a shoulder. "Have a good night, duchess. Hope to see ya around again."
