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I felt a small smile tug at my lips, charmed despite myself. "I just... I need to talk to him about something."
Paine inspected my face for a minute and I swear it felt like he saw through me. "Fuck," he said, his voice getting rougher. "He knock you up?"
"What? No!" I said, almost a little hysterically and Cash's arm squeezed me a little.
"Try not to freak out the already freaked out chick, huh, Paine?" Cash asked and Paine's face softened again.
"I just... have a situation and I want some advice. That's all."
Oddly, Cash threw his head back and laughed. It wasn't just a small chuckle either, it was the kind of laugh that lit up his whole face and moved through his whole body. Finished, he shook his head at Paine. "Fuckin' seriously with these women..."
Paine smiled back, knowingly, and they obviously weren't going to let me in on the inside joke, because Paine just turned to me and started talking, "Just let me grab my keys, babygirl, and we will head over to Shoot's place."
Alone, Cash's arm fell from my shoulders. "See you're freaked out, honey," he said, running his finger between my brows where I knew I had tension lines formed. "But you're safe with Paine."
"Says the scary biker dude." I heard the words. I heard my voice saying them. But there was no way I could have said that out loud to said scary biker dude. What was wrong with me?
"Scary biker dude, huh?" he asked, gesturing toward himself. "I always thought I was more of a hot biker dude myself."
Okay. Apparently they were all good looking and had some kind of superhuman charm too. The poor, poor women who lived in this town. They didn't stand a chance. "Alright," I said, giving him a small smile. "Hot biker dude."
"That's better," he said, flashing me another smile as Paine walked back out. "I'll leave you to it. Amelia, honey, I'm sure I'll see you around," he said, holding the door open for us and we all stepped outside, Paine pausing to lock the door. "Do us all around here a favor," he said, turning to face us, walking backward. "Stay away from skin traders, crazy exes, and bombs, 'kay?"
"Um... okay," I agreed, my brows furrowing.
"Trust me, we get a pretty girl 'round these parts, crazy shit starts happening," he said with a smile then turned and walked away.
Well. That was kind of eerie. I was, in my own way, involved with some 'crazy shit'. He also called me a pretty girl which, despite said 'crazy shit' going on, penetrated and felt kinda nice.
"Just about a block this way," Paine said, touching my hip until I turned and fell into step with him. His hand fell and he gave me my space. "So you the reason he's been in a mood since he got back?"
"Um. I don't think so. Maybe Millie decided she doesn't like him so much after all."
"Millie?"
"His cat."
Paine stopped dead, making me turn and look at him, his brows scrunched together. "His cat?"
"Ah... yeah. He kind of... inherited her. She's the devil in a fur coat."
"Interesting," Paine said, moving again.
We stopped a few minutes later out front of an abandoned store front, the windows blacked out. "Johnnie lives here?"
That earned me another penetrating look from Paine and I did my best not to squirm under the inspection. "Johnnie?"
Oh, shoot. That wasn't smart. What if these people didn't know about his past? Was he going to be ticked that I let that slip? True, Paine was supposed to be a friend, but maybe in the criminal underbelly, you weren't as honest as you were in normal relationships. If that was the case, I definitely just screwed things up for him. As if sensing my discomfort, he let it drop. "Don't judge it from the outside. That bastard spent a mint fixing the place up." Then he turned and hit the buzzer for the second floor.
"Yeah?" That was Johnnie's voice. I totally didn't feel a shiver run up my spine at the sound either. Nope. Not me.
"Paine. Buzz me up." With that, the door unlocked and we went into a room with a staircase and made our way up into a hall with two doors, one to the left and one to the right. We went to the one at the right and Paine just reached for the handle and opened it, leading us in.
Paine was right; I shouldn't have judged the place from the outside. Johnnie had, indeed, spent a mint fixing up the inside. Firstly, it was huge, as in massive. A U-shaped kitchen full of expensive-looking stainless steel appliances and what looked like real marble red and sand swirl counter tops opened up into the L-shaped living space with a dark wood dining set set apart from a giant sectional that looked like if you sank into it, it might swallow you whole. The sectional was facing a television the likes of I had only seen on those television shows about celebrity houses. The walls were painted a deep blue, all the trim (including the thick crown molding) was a crisp white. The floors were wide-planked and stained dark. There was a hall to the right of the door we came in that had three doors off of it. Nice. The whole place was very, very nice.
I took all of this in, however, in about two-point-three seconds because after that, my eyes landed on Johnnie who was standing shirtless in his kitchen, basketball shorts slung low on his hips, giving me a delicious view of his body which made everything else around him fade into background noise.
"Look what showed up on my doorstep," Paine said from behind my shoulder.
Johnnie's eyes were on me, looking a mix of surprised and something else that I didn't know him well enough to decipher, but it was making goosebumps rise up on my skin. It was a full minute at least before he shook his head slightly as if to clear it and he finally spoke. "Angel, the fuck are you doing here?"
