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Disgusted with himself, he tossed the bloody paper towel in the trash. He didn’t blame Skye for not answering him. He’d just bailed on her with no real explanation.
He was three cigarettes and two beers into more bullshit wallowing in his office when his screen lit up, and he saw her answering text.
K. I can find another biker with a tight ass to show me how to do a tune-up.
No emoji giving him a hint, nolol, which suggested she was serious. Not about looking for another biker, but serious as in pissed. She also didn’t ask why he was cancelling.
When a hand came to rest on his shoulder, he started. It had entered his field of vision a few seconds before it landed, and it was a female hand, so he didn’t take a swing.
He'd had the hallway door to the outside propped open and the fan on the TV table had been blowing toward him, easing thebalmy air of the shop. As a result, he hadn’t caught her scent, and he’d been too deep in his head to catch the vibration when she was in the hallway.
Since he’d concluded he wasn’t a practical target for the Fallen Angels’ shitstorm, he’d become less vigilant about a physical attack. He supposed in this instance that was a good thing, because it meant he was keeping the gun in the drawer instead of on the desk.
It didn’t matter. He erupted from the chair and turned on her. “Of all the goddamn people who should know not to sneak up on someone who can’t hear. What the fuck?”
An unfortunate déjà vu to the first time she’d come here. He was being large, looming and angry again, something a person his size shouldn’t ever be in a small space, particularly with a woman.
“Jesus.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “Damn it. I’m sorry. Just…now’s not a good time, okay?”
Her eyes had gone wide like that day, but this time, in a blink, that look disappeared and she was up in his grille. Not something many dared to do when his temper was riled. She took two handfuls of his shirt and gave him a little shake. Not hard to interpret. Then she let him go to make some gestures she combined with mouthing the words.
Stop it. Take a breath.She pantomimed that deep breath. When her hand dropped to one of his, he realized they were fists, his body battle ready, as if her presence was a threat. She was looking at him in her quiet way, helping him realign things, no matter how much the rest of him wanted to act like a raging asshole.
He started to speak, to blurt out some lame ass explanation, to say he was sorry again, to say something probably even more idiotic to piss her off, but she put her fingers to her lips and imitated the breathing thing again.
She was handling him. Not something he allowed anyone to do. Yet with her first touch, firm and calm, and that direct look, he knew he’d trust her to handle him, an important difference.
He did notice her pulse beating high in her throat. She covered it well, but it was the sign of someone not sure of the safety of the situation, enough to mark exit options.
Shame swept him. She knew him well enough to be mostly sure he wouldn’t hurt her. But that he was behaving badly enough to have her evaluating it, introducing the “mostly” into the thought, put a cap on the total bad of this day.
Well, that was somethinghecould handle. He showed her that he was listening, by doing the breathing. He took her hand and put it on his chest to help, dropping his head, letting himself settle before he spoke.
“I’m okay.” He met her eyes. “I’d never hurt you. No matter how pissed I get. I’m in the world’s shittiest, self-pitying mood and I’m not fit company for anyone, let alone the person I’m the gladdest to see, when I’m not being this complete prick.”
A flicker went through her dark eyes, but she lifted her phone. “Sit down and tell me what happened.”
As it played through his head, he realized how stupid it was going to sound. But her expression said he wasn’t going to be able to weasel out of telling her, especially after he’d been a big enough jerk that he owed her an explanation. Unless he wanted to be a bigger jerk.
He considered it to save male pride, but he hadn’t earned that right, either. He sat back down in his chair. Rather than taking the guest chair, she slid onto the desk, pushing his half-drunk beer and ash tray out of the way with a distasteful wrinkle of her pert nose. She did her familiar Mistress attention-getting move, propping her feet, clad in her work heels, against the seat of his chair between his spread legs.
She leaned forward with a forthright stare. The set of her arms pushed her breasts together and up, doing interesting things with the V-neckline of her blue shirt. If he was in the mood to have his eyes scooped out with a melon baller, he should just keep staring.
He lifted his gaze to hers. “It’s bullshit stuff,” he told her wearily. “I get ready to go to the grocery store this morning, and I can’t find my keys. I’d left them on the counter last night. I remembered doing it. But I still looked everywhere, until I could have sworn someone was fucking with me. Instead, I found them stuck in the heat register under the kitchen cabinets. They’d fallen while I was making dinner last night. I’d pushed the placemat to the side, and it took them over the edge.”
She said nothing, waiting for all of it. She’d know when he was done. She was good that way. When she and Abby took turns, Skye had always preferred to be the second Mistress, the one that took over. More than any of them, she knew when he’d reached the finish line.
“I couldn’t hear them,” he told her the obvious conclusion. “That’s why I looked everywhere else, not thinking they would have fallen off the counter. Because, hell I would have heard that, right? Like a damn phantom limb. Am I talking too loud?”
She made the measuring gesture—a little. But she also followed it with one he recognized as “Keep going.”
He adjusted his tone. “So I get past that and head for the store. In the checkout, this woman comes up with her cart, and she’s glaring at me. She starts spouting off. Her teen daughter’s with her, looking real nervous about her mom being mad. I didn’t know if I’d cut in front of her in line or what, so I just gestured to her to go ahead of me, what the fuck. I didn’t say anything because I didn’t know what to say, then it just comes out. ‘Sorry, whatever I did. I’m deaf.’”
He took a breath. “First time I’ve said it aloud like that, instead of saying ‘I can’t hear.’ Kind of startled me.”
Also kind of crushed him, like the aluminum beer can he picked up, finished the last tepid swallows and tossed into his recycling bin.
“I see her say ‘you’re deaf?’ and I nod. Her daughter has started typing on the phone, just as crazy fast as you.” He paused, trying for a smile. “She holds the phone up to tell me what her mom’s deal was. She’d asked me if I could pull something off a top shelf for her. I remembered then that I’d been looking in her general direction, but I wasn’t paying any attention to her. She thought I’d looked at her and just walked away. That I was a rude asshole.”
