Page 22 of Drilled

Throat Tattoo cackled and the two men disappeared out of the iron yard.

I didn’t like the sound of that. Come to think of it, I hated everything about the encounter we just had. It was clear to me that those men weren’t strangers after all, not to Dax.

I turned to him, putting a hand on his arm. “What was all that about?”

My heart sank as I watched the little crack of vulnerability seal up in real time. His face hardened, his soft smile now tucked away and his jaw set. That beautiful openness I’d barely witnessed was gone, like a mirage in the middle of a desert.

“Back on the bike, Lane. Field trip’s over,” he grunted, handing me back my helmet.

I knew when to file a rebuttal for a later time, so I wordlessly obeyed. The ride back was different. I could feel the tension in Dax’s body, and there was no playing around with any of the stunts he tried to pull before.

We arrived back at the house in what felt like significantly less time than it had taken to get to the iron yard. We climbed the steps in continued silence, something that now felt painful.

Right as Dax reached out to open the door, I slammed my hand against it, keeping it shut. He didn’t let go of the handle but didn’t try to wrest the door open either. Instead he just looked at me, as though he’d expected this.

“What happened?” I asked again, my voice soft this time. Softer than I think I’ve heard myself sound in a long time.

He seemed conflicted. Then, once he settled on his decision, he let go of the handle. “You thought giving you my jacket would ruin my street cred, huh.”

“It was by far the most romantic part of the trip,” I replied, my words now barely more than a whisper. My eyes dropped to his lips then flickered back up to his eyes.

Reckless Lane.

Foolish Lane.

Horny Lane.

I was suddenly past the point of caring. His hands went around my waist, pulling me against his body and it shouldn’t have been possible, but the heat between us seemed to sear my skin. He dropped his forehead until it rested against mine, the tip of his nose teasing my own.

“This will probably also come off as a romantic gesture. You’re better off focusing on this,” he said.

My breath stole from my lungs as he leaned even closer but before we could fully close the distance between our lips, the door was flung open. Dax jumped back as though he really had been burnt and I stumbled a step too, my heart now in my throat.

Bear was standing in the doorway, arms folded. And judging by the look on his face, he wasn’t impressed at all. His eyes slipped from me to Dax, then sharpened.

“Where the hell have you been, Miller?”

8

Silas

“The sky's about to open up. We don't touch the drywall until we see if the foundation sandbags hold.”

The rest of us all looked at Bear where he stood squarely near the living room’s front bay windows, looking out at the heaving gray sky, posture stiff as a board.

I noticed that every time he shifted his weight, his hand would discreetly drop into his pocket. Most likely to press the heel of his hand against his hip the way he always did when he thought no one was looking. The weather was clearly not doing his old injury any favors.

I wasn’t the only one who noticed, though. Lane had a knowing frown on her face, her eyes just barely scanning over his leg before they slid back to mine.

“Are you trying to tell us we’re stuck here?” Dax demanded from his seat on the edge of her leather armchair. He’d been aggressively wiping down his helmet with a towel, his wet leather jacket slung over the backrest and dripping all over the damn floor.

“You say that like it’s a punishment,” I said, shaking my head. “Though I do think we should probably be asking our hostess if she’s okay with it in the first place.”

Our attention now turned to the lawyer curled up on the bottom step of the grand oak staircase. She was wearing another one of those adorable little onesie-jumpsuit things, her red hair in a messy ponytail and looking decidedly very un-lawyer like.

She looked from Bear to Dax to me and then back again. “This sounds like a technical necessity.”

“Oh, it is,” Bear answered. He turned around to face her, looking solemn and just barely flinching at the pain in his leg. “It’s gonna be a massive downpour, which will probably overwhelm the old clay city sewers. I don’t think you’d enjoy raw sewage backing up into your newly renovated pipes.”