Page 71 of The Fixer

The grimace on Zee’s face could have been answer enough. “His spine and neck are okay.”

“That bad?” Mateo asked, flattening the last of the balls of dough.

“Broken ribs, collarbone, a good number of bones in his left arm and hand. His shoulder was fractured on impact. Looks like he braced himself for the hit, and the jolt was too much for his bones.”

Jet’s arms squeezed around me. I tilted my head back, peeking up at him, and he dropped a kiss on my cheek. “Don’t worry,” he told me, as if it was my friend who had gotten hurt, not his. “Santini is tough. He won’t let this keep him down.”

“So,” Mateo said, drawing it out, drawing our attention to him. His gaze darted between the sweet potato he was slicing into thin strips and us. “Anyone wanna tell me what happened last night?”

While Jet filled Mateo in on our race through the streets of New York, the man sliced and sautéed the sweet potato, heated carnitas and black beans, and fried the little dough patties on the stove. The smells were so enticing, drool pooled at the corners of my mouth, and my stomach growled so loudly it was a wonder the men didn’t hear.

I felt out of place among them. Mateo mastering the four separate pans on the stove while Jet gave a detailed rundown on everything that I hadn’t seen while stuffed into the footwell of Santini’s car. Then there was Zee, dark and brooding, listening without saying a word, but acting as if this wasn’t the most spectacular thing he’d ever seen. I’d been on the receiving end of Jet’s home-cooked meals for over a week, had been subjected to his dark moods and his hard demeanor. Now, I was surrounded by it and feeling more inadequate than I’d ever felt before.

Jet paused in his pacing, and I felt the weight of his gaze as I sat in awed silence, watching Mateo pull the patties of dough from the oil. “I demanded he let us out, and when he took off again, they found him. He smashed into one car, flipped, and landed on his side.”

Visions flashed. Nightmares, really. Of what could have happened had we not left the back of that car. Jet’s hand slipped between mine in my lap, wrapping me up as he tugged at my hands, a finger snagging my jaw and dragging my face toward his. He leaned in, pressing a gentle kiss to my lips that turned into something slightly more obscene. His tongue breaching my mouth, his scent invading my senses; the man building a fire in my bloodstream with every long stroke of his tongue against my own.

“Come here, sweet girl,” he whispered when he pulled away. He tugged me out of my chair, towing me along behind him as he rounded the counter to the space next to the sink. Hands on my shoulders, he positioned me at the counter, then snagged the plate of fried dough from next to Mateo and returned to me.

With the plate in front of me, Jet snagged a knife from the drawer at my side and stood behind me, my back to his front. His arms wrapped around me, grabbing my hands and guiding me to pick up one of the fried patties.

“What are these?” I asked as his warm hands guided me through cutting one open just so.

“Arepas,” Mateo tossed back over his shoulder as he scooped the potatoes into a glass bowl. “It’s a family recipe, and quite honestly, one of the best things in the world. My mother taught me to cook when I was a kid, and this is easily one of our favorite recipes.”

“It smells amazing,” I told him, keeping my focus on the knife and the patties and Jet’s hands holding my own.

“You smell amazing,” Jet murmured, a tiny whisper in my ear. He pressed against me, my body sandwiched between the counter and his big body. I could feel him, the way his muscles flexed against me, the way his erection prodded at my butt.

Mateo had gone off on a tangent, talking food and recipes and his mama. All things I would have loved to hear, if it weren’t for Jet whispering in my ear.

“Do you see what you did to my window, sweet girl? Where your body left its mark on the glass?” He reached for another arepa, guiding me through cutting it as if I couldn’t handle it all on my own.

And truthfully, I wasn’t sure I could. Not with him prodding and teasing, tempting me with things my body craved while his friends looked on, unaware.

“Can’t stop thinking about being in you again. Can’t stop thinking about where we left off. My dick aching to squeeze into your tight little pussy. Listening to all the sounds you make as I fuck you over and over again. Do you want that, sweet girl? Do you want me to fuck you again?”

“Jet,” I whimpered, looking over my shoulder, catching a flash of his silver-gray eyes before his lips crashed down on mine.

“You know,” Mateo said, voice knocking some sense into me a split second before Jet whipped his head back. The man stood at the other side of the counter, laptop open before him, elbows on the granite and chin in his hands. “Much as Zee and I would love to watch you two make out all day, I’m pretty sure we’ve got some work to do.”

“Oh, my goodness,” I muttered, cheeks flaming red hot. I twisted in Jet’s grip, pressing my face into his chest as he sucked in a sharp breath, then wrapped his arms around my back.

“What are you proposing?” Jet asked, as if he hadn’t just been whispering naughty, naughty things in my ear.

But it wasn’t Mateo who answered. Zee’s voice grumbled through the air, “I think we’ve got a motorbike gang to track down.”

* * *

“Are you sure about this?” I asked as Jet pulled to a stop in front of a wrought iron gate. The man cast me a glance as the gate swung open, then pulled his car through and up the long drive to the back of the massive brick house.

“It’s the safest place for you right now,” he said when he’d put the car in park. His hand reached for mine, and he pulled it to his lips. “I can’t leave you on your own. I can’t…”

“Jet.” Squeezing his hand, I reached across the console and pressed a kiss to his lips. “It’s okay.”

“No,” he said, giving his head a quick shake. “It’s not. Kosta, he… He was protecting Yanny’s girl when he was shot. It was just him there. They barged into the apartment we thought was safe, and they killed him.”

Those gray eyes searched mine, and though the look dancing across those silver moons told me not to, I had to ask anyway. “What happened to her?”