Page 65 of Good Girls Beg

"Hel," he started.

"Not now," I said softly. "We need to deal with this. Then we can…"

He hesitated. “Yeah."

He dropped his hand to his side with a slap.

"This isn't about you." I stepped out of the elevator and turned to face him.

"I know, this is about protecting what's ours." He averted his gaze.

"I always protect what's mine. Including you," I told him.

"But I'm not the priority right now. I get it." He stalked towards his bike, shrugging into the leather jacket that he left lying across the seat.

I watched his back for a while before turning away and getting into my car. He'd already gunned the engine on his bike and ridden up the ramp and out of the garage before I started the car’s engine. With any luck, he wouldn't kill himself or anyone else on the ride home. Him and that bike were a recipe for recklessness when he wasn't angry. When he was?

I pulled out of the parking spot and up the ramp, watching the garage door close behind me before I pulled onto the street. I caught a glimpse of Fade taking the corner, but then he was gone, leaving the smell of bike exhaust fumes in his wake. Oak would yell at him for that, leaving toxic fumes for someone else to breathe in.

I inhaled them before putting my foot down.

I pulled into the driveway as Fade slid off his bike and pulled his helmet off his head. His hair was messed like he just got out of bed. Him standing in front of his bike was an image I wanted implanted in my mind forever. He pissed me off, often, but he was hotter than fuck like this. I wanted to bend him over the seat of his bike and fuck him harder than he'd ever been fucked before.

That would have to wait.

I climbed out of my car and strode past him, heading for the back door of the house.

"Now who's rushing in half-cocked?” Fade said, following me.

"I'm not rushing in," I said. "Oak isn't home yet either." I nodded to where his car would have been parked if he was.

"You still look like you're in a hurry." Fade followed me inside.

I glanced into the kitchen. Shannon was pulling what looked like a pie base out of the oven. It was covered in those little white baking rocks she used to stop the pastry from rising. She tipped them into another dish before putting the base back into the oven. Why, I had no idea. I was no cook. I had her for that.

I glanced down the corridor, frowning.

"What is it?" Fade asked peering in the same direction I was.

"I don't know." Something was off. I couldn't put my finger on what.

A door opened and footsteps sounded from deeper in the house.

Teddie appeared from the powder room. She saw us and stopped, eyes wide. "Oh hi, you're, um…” She cleared her throat. “Home already."

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

TEDDIE

Of all the things I expected to find in the basement, I did not expect to find nothing. Just a stark, empty room with a concrete floor, a wide concrete sink off to one side and stained, yellowing paint on the walls.

As I suspected when I saw it from the outside, the window was boarded up with long, wide planks of rough wood. Whoever nailed them in place meant for them to stay there. The job wasn't neat but I gave it a poke and nothing moved.

The strange smell I detected when I opened the door was stale air and a hint of bleach. Whoever was down here last left the place squeaky clean. If the cops dusted for fingerprints, I suspected the only ones they'd find were mine on the doorknob and the rail leading down.

What did I honestly think I'd find here? A semi-decomposed corpse? Skeletons chained to the walls? Maybe someone with hair down to their ass, grown so long from being locked down here for a hundred years?

Your imagination got the better of you, I told myself as I headed back up the stairs. I won't lie though, I was happy to have found none of those things. What would I have done if I had?