“Forget I ever said shit.”
She cringes. “That’s not really possible. Not with me. Good memory and all.”
Right. “Fine, then pretend like I didn’t say anything.”
She twists her lips in thought and then flashes me a smile. A smile so unexpected and undeserved that I feel it both in my cock and in my chest. “That, I can work with.”
I take another drag as the cats finish their food. When they’re done they descend on Mickey who's crouching on the ground accepting their grateful gifts of affection with pure joy on her face.
She is a living, breathing crazy cat lady.
She’s also going to pretend like I didn’t say anything, and I’m going to pretend like this entire scene isn’t fucking adorable and that her ass doesn’t make me want to rip down her jeans and shove my tongue in her…I shake off the thought to make my dick calm down. The last thing I need is Mickey thinking that a bunch of cats makes me hard.
Over the past few days, I’ve met with leaders of several organizations with ties to Logan’s Beach. Gutter tagged along, and after each meeting, he’d shake his head and say. “It ain’t him, kid.”
To top it all off, there’s a fucking hurricane coming.
After a few days, I’m surprised that no one has come for Mickey. I haven’t left her alone, but I’ve done as I said I would do and have dangled her like bait, giving her just enough freedom to be seen, but not converse, with dozens of customers and suppliers, even some of the ones who come through the backdoor. Not one person has recognized her and nobody’s storming my shop with guns-a-blazing ready to take her back.
Maybe, I’m not the only one using her as bait. Maybe, she was meant to be left behind.
Why? I don’t fucking know, but conspiracies are all I’ve got right now and the only explanation as to why someone would leave a soldier behind.
Music and laughter floats through the alley from Hanson’s, the bar next door. Which gives me an idea. “Come on,” I say, grabbing Mickey’s hand and dragging her away from the cats.
“Where are we going?” she asks, reluctantly setting the runt down on the pavement. It mews as we head toward the back door of the bar. I almost feel bad for the little fucker.
“The bar?” she asks, wrinkling her nose. “Rage said it’s dirty.”
“Rage thinks everything is dirty. The storm’s coming, and we’ll be holed up for a few days. I don’t know about you, but I could use a drink before that happens.”
She eyes me suspiciously. “You mean not enough people have seen me dangling, and you want to make sure the gators are circling your bait?”
I open the door and wave my hand. “Smart ass,” I mutter as she laughs and steps inside.
The bar is full and smells like beer-battered everything and sweat, but as we make our way to a table, the raucous laughter dies down as the head of every biker and degenerate in the place whips around in Mickey’s direction. She doesn’t seem to notice as she perches herself on a stool and rests her elbows on the sticky high-top table, but I know she does. She’s too intuitive not to notice the whispers and appreciative glances.
Another thing I learn as I stare down every fucking biker in the place is that I’m protective of my little captive, and that the next man who eye-fucks Mic is going to get a face full of my fucking fist.
Two women I recognize and possibly have had in my bed at the same time wave at me from the bar.
“Friends of yours?” Mickey asks, rolling her eyes.
I lean in close. “Maybe. Why? Jealous?”
She doesn’t hesitate. “Yes.”
I blink away my surprise. Mickey is jealous. If that jealousy means she wants me as much as I want her, I’m more fucked than I initially thought. I run my hand down my face. “Of all the things you could’ve chosen to be honest about, that’s what you fucking go with,” I mutter, irritated at the throbbing in my jeans. A waitress sets two beers down on the table and leaves. I tap on the glass with my nail. “I think that’s the first time you’ve told me the fucking truth.”
She writes her name in the condensation on the outside of her beer. Her face remains expressionless yet contemplative. “In my experience, it’s not lies that get you killed. It’s the truth.”
She’s right. Irritatingly so.
I’m fixated as she trails her finger around on the bottle, drawing circles around her name. I adjust my position on the stool and avert my gaze to clear my imagination of her doing the very same thing to my cock.
I clear my throat, and Mickey looks up. She doesn’t seem to notice my discomfort. She’s looking elsewhere. I follow her attentions to front window where, outside, a couple who are obviously tourists with their hats and cameras are walking on the sidewalk, hand in hand with three little girls of varying heights.
I watch her expression turn from longing to something much deeper and sadder as her eyes glass over.
“This. This wasn’t a good idea.” She says suddenly, pushing back her stool. It drops to the floor. She jumps over it and races out the back door.
“Mic,” I yell, but she doesn’t stop. I follow her only to be cut off by Gregory, one of the biggest and most annoying bikers I know. “You got a way with the ladies, eh, Pike?” He slaps my shoulder, and my entire body tenses. I flex my fingers, itching to break his fucking nose. “She’s a pretty one. You tell her that I’ll do right by her if she’s done with you, and I promise she won’t be running from—”
I see nothing but red as my fist connects with Gregory’s face, knocking him into a table. The legs break, and the people sitting around it scatter as he falls along with the tabletop to the floor.
Stepping around the mess, I head for the back door.
“Usual cost for the table, Pike,” Sally calls out from behind the bar.
“I’ll send Thorne over,” I reply. In the alley the door to the pawn shop slams and this time when I’m stopped it’s not by Gregory, but by a sea of dirty mewing cats I have to step through like a furry obstacle course. “She’s been here for a hot minute, and you guys take her fucking side,” I mutter.
A fat black one hisses at me from the top of an overturned crate.
“Fuck you, too, asshole,” I respond, giving it a middle finger.
It turns and lifts its tail, making a big production of showing me it’s actual asshole. Traitors. This is my fucking alley. Not hers.
“Pike!” Thorne shouts, stepping out into the alley.
“Call an exterminator,” I tell her, pointing to the cats who are now all seated and watching us quietly like we’re preforming some sort of play for an army of eerie fucking cats all being puppeteered by the same master. “Why does anyone like these motherfuckers?”
“An exterminator?” She scrunches her nose. “For cats?”
“Or the humane society or that sketchy restaurant by the gas station. Anyone whose interested in getting rid of the fuckers.”
“Harsh,” she replies, closing the door as I push past her and head for the stairs. “I need to talk to you. And not about your odd if not emasculating issue with innocent alley cats.”
“Not now, Thorne.” I push past her and head for the stairs to find Mickey. “Got shit to take care of. Sally’s got a bill for you. Take care of it. Four chairs and a table.”
“Another one?” she huffs. “I’ll take care of it, but you have to listen to me right now.”
I ignore her, almost to the top of the stairs.
“Mickey’s fine. She’s up in the apartment. I’ll check on her in a minute, but I have to talk to you. Whatever caveman reason you have to follow her up there can wait. This is more important.” There’s an unease in her voice, a nervousness I’m not used to hearing, at least not from her.” She stomps her foot on the ground. “Pike! Stop and fucking listen to me, you big stubborn son of a bitch!”
I pause on the landing. Thorne doesn’t raise her voice to me. Ever. Irritation along with concern over her sudden outburst has me turning around. I growl and thud my way
down, the sound of my heavy steps echoing in the narrow stairwell.
She doesn’t wait for me to reach the bottom before launching into the reason behind her outburst, besides me being an asshole as usual. “It’s the hurricane,” she starts. She chews on the side of her thumbnail, the other forearm wrapped around her waist, clutching at the fabric of her shirt. “It’s coming to Logan’s Beach. They’re talking about a direct hit on the news.”
I shrug. “We’ve been through hurricanes before. We’ll handle it.”
She shakes her head. “Not like this one. It’s bigger and faster than they thought. It’ll be here…”
The lights flicker like an ominous kick to the balls. “Soon,” she finishes, as the lights buzz back to life.
It figures that the shit storm of my life now includes an actual fucking storm.
Chapter Twenty-One
Pike
After I finish preparations for the hurricane––installing the shutters and making sure we have enough water, flashlights, and batteries to get us through the storm––I finally go in search of Mickey. Needing to know why she ran off in the bar.
And wanting to explore the jealousy thing.
The door to my apartment is open. Thorne is standing in the doorway, with arms crossed in amusement, watching as Mickey dances around the living room singing to a pop song on the radio, hiccupping between each line.
“This your doing?” I ask, pointing to the bottle of vodka in Mickey’s hand.
Thorne raises her hands in self-defense and shakes her head. “Noooo. She was like this when I found her. Although, she is pretty amusing. I should have gotten her drunk earlier. She’s much more tolerable when she’s shit-faced.”
I glare at Thorne who rolls her eyes and leaves with a middle finger salute over her head.
I close the door and lean back on it, watching the scene before me. Mickey is dancing with her eyes closed, bumping into furniture that sends her dancing back to the other side of the room. When she bumps against the wall, she starts all over again like a game of human ping-pong.
Drunken human ping-pong.
Her eyes snap open, and her smile falls as well as the lyrics on her lips. “You get those tattoos in the prison?” she asks, pointing at my neck with the hand still holding the bottle.
“Some of them. The others in juvie. Some of them King did.”
“I hate them.”
Nice to know.
She shakes her head, her hair swaying into her eyes. She pushes it away, and when that doesn’t work, she blows at it. “I hate them because you still look beautifuls, and I nevers thought anyones was so beautifuls before, but I thinks you is. I mean. Good looking, for your sort. If you like that kind of thing and stuff. I most certainly dooooos not. Nopers. You are not sexy. I do not want to make sex with you. Not at all. Yes I do.”
She’s staggering, and I can’t help but smile at the little drunken thief.
“You think I’m sexy?” I ask, wrapping my hand around hers, the one clutching the neck of the bottle.
She wrinkles her nose. “I thinks I just told you that I most certainly do not. Yes.”
I move my hand up her arm and she doesn’t try to hide her reaction. Thanks to the booze. Her lips part and her skin breaks out in thousands of little bumps. I whisper in her ear. “You want me to fuck you, Mic?”
Her face reddens, matching her already red nose. Her eyes spring open. She places a palm against my chest. Then begins to move it around cautiously at first and then a full exploration of the ridges of muscles that run down my stomach. She stills her hand than snatches it back. “I thought I was broken,” she says. “I mean. I am broken. Never before. Never anyone but you. But now, I know I’m broken because I think you are sexaaaay when I’ve never found anyone sexaaay before. I mean,” she laughs and stumbles. I reach out to catch her. “Why you? Why you and all of your angry hard muscles and chiseled angry jaw line and beautiful angry eyes and kissable angry lips? Why do I want you?”
I stare at her for a few seconds because I can’t find the words to reply to her admission because I have the same fucking question. “I can ask you the same thing,” I finally manage to say. It helps that she’s drunk and probably won’t remember, so I take the opportunity to be honest and add, “Because I want you more than I’ve ever wanted someone in my entire fucking life.”
She stares at me like she’s waiting for me to say more, but there’s nothing else to say. I’m confused and very aroused by the way her shirt rides up, exposing her flat toned stomach and the bottom roundness of her braless tits. I’m not going to take advantage of a drunk girl. I’m a fucking degenerate for sure, but I’m not a fucking monster.
“I don’t know why you,” she says and I’m not sure if it’s even a question. Her eyes are wild with drunken thought and I’m pretty sure she doesn’t even know if it’s a question.
She shrugs casually and takes another swig, as if ignoring whatever pressing thought was running through her mind. “And I know a lot, you knows. I know everything. I don’t know that. Don’t know why I want you”
“I think I should get you to bed.”
Her blush deepens. She wags her index finger at me. “Nah uh. No no. Just because you’re handsome, and I like the way your abs do the muscle thing they do. It doesn’t mean I’ll go to bed with you. And you can’t force me because hashtag me too and twenty-twenty and all that.”
She staggers back over to me and I grab her finger, and she gasps. I understand her reaction at the simple touch because I feel it, too. Like a bolt of current shooting straight through my chest and much further south. My cock pulses beneath my jeans, and my entire body warms in a way I’ve never felt and do not understand.
Maybe, I’m secondhand drunk.
I take the bottle from her hands and take a swig. She whines like I’ve stolen her puppy. “That’s miiiiyyyne.”
I hold her gaze. “If it’s in my apartment, it’s mine.”
Her eyes widen in both fear and desire, and I find myself tracing the outline of her jaw with my thumb. “Finders keepers does not apply here,” she mutters. She closes her eyes and leans into my touch. “That’s nice. It makes me feel tingly.” Her eyes open. “All over.”
“I think you need to lay down,” I say, clearing my throat.
She nods and stumbles over to the couch where she falls face down onto the cushions.
I laugh. “That was graceful. Did you learn that move while you were getting your doctorate?”
The only answer I get is a soft snore, because Mickey has passed the fuck out.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Mickey
I’m having the dream again.
The one where I’m drowning in murky dark water.
Only this time, it feels more real. I can taste the salty water, feel the gritty texture of the thick mud on my tongue. It runs down my throat as I will my burning lungs not breathe it in. My eyes still as I open them, but it’s no use, I can’t see anything but blackness before me. As if I’m floating in the vast emptiness of space.
I’m scared. More scared than I’ve ever been before. My pulse races and terror sweeps through my body like an invasion of hornets stinging me into action. I’m swimming, forcing my arms and legs to move even though I’m not sure which way is up because I have to do something, and that something right now is to fight for my life, even though it seems like the outcome has already been written and the fates are laughing at me for even bothering my survival attempt.
When my hand touches the soft mud and seagrass of the river floor, I realize that hope is lost. I can’t make it back the other direction. My burning lungs force my mouth open, and I inhale the thick salty water. I’m panicking when I’m suddenly ripped from the river. Not by someone coming to my rescue, but by a sound. A loud bang.
I wake up with a start, clutching my throat and gasping for air as if I’ve finally broken through the surface. It’s still dark, and I can’t see anything in front of my face, but reality calms me
as I realize that I’m not in the water at all. It was just a dream. I’m in bed.
After a few seconds, I’m able to calm my breathing. I run my hands over the mattress around me, and the ebbing fear roars back to life.
I’m in a bed, but it isn’t mine.
A large masculine body stirs beside me, rinsing away the grogginess of sleep and reminding me of where I am and who I’m with.
Pike.
A large bang against the window makes me jump. My head pounds with a reminder of how much I drank last night. Or this morning. I don’t know what time it is because there’s no light shining through the windows, now covered with what looks like corrugated metal hurricane shutters.
The shutters rattle on the window as the sound of the apocalypse rages outside. I begin to shiver. I’ve never been scared of storms before. Logically, there’s no reason to be scared of wind and rain if you’re inside, but this is a massive hurricane, and although Thorne explained that we’re safe and prepared, I can’t help but feel the opposite.
I raise my knees to my chest and try to calm my breathing.
“It’s about time you woke up,” a voice says. “The hurricane is almost over. You slept through most of it. We’ll be fine. I had the trusses reinforced when I moved in. The structure is sound, and we aren’t in a flood zone.”
His words are supposed to be reassuring, but storm or not, I’m not safe.
Especially from Pike. My fear only grows as he turns to face me, the blanket dropping from his muscular bare chest. His ab muscles flex with his every movement. I shiver again, but this time for an entirely different reason.
Pike raises the blanket over my body, mistaking my shivering for chills, but I can’t tolerate the confusion anymore. His comfort. I’d rather just have him punch me or stab me because him being kind to me somehow hurts worse than anything he can do to me physically.
Pike: The Pawn Duet, Book One Page 15
