by Lexy Timms
His cock throbbed in his hand and Saks found himself reaching the precipice. The woman was gorgeous, and with his eyes closed he could nearly see her looking over her shoulder as he took her from behind and—
Saks’ phone rang.
“Fuck!”
He should have turned the damned thing off. The phone stopped, and he relaxed. Then it started up again.
Saks tried a few more strokes, but his enthusiasm had waned. If he’d come to the point of no return it would have been a different story.
He reached for the phone on his nightstand as he cursed.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Saks,” Oakie greeted, “I need you to do me a favor.”
“What?” he said. His voice was as rough as a scrubbing pad. His erection withered, but Oakie’s voice was a far cry from Chrissy’s.
“Holy good night. Who forgot to put the whiskey in your coffee?” Oakie rumbled.
“I was sleeping.”
“Must be nice. Sorry. I need you to go to the hospital and pick up Hawk. I’m busy, and no one else is available.”
“Isn’t it kinda late in the day to release him?” Saks asked.
“Yeah. Like I said, I’ve been busy. He’s been waiting a few hours.”
Damn. If Oakie had called earlier he’d have been able to pick him up instead of going to the Red Bull.
Beer spilled on the floor, Saks, he told himself. “Sure. Not a problem.”
“Great. He’ll be waiting for you.”
He damn well better be. “Later.” He clicked off the call, thoroughly exasperated with the interruption. But, then again, it just was unhealthy to ruminate over Chrissy. He had to get the woman out of his mind, once and for all.
He cleaned up, climbed into his beater car, and headed toward Hartford to pick up Hawk. Perhaps he could score a pizza while there. There were great places on Franklin Street, and he hadn’t been in some time.
Yeah, he’d been eating healthy.
Beer, burgers, wings, and pizza had been his staples living at the clubhouse, since he couldn’t cook and otherwise had no one to look after him. It sucked, and was far from what he expected for his life right now. For a guy used to living hard and fast, he had turned into a late-bloomer.
“Fuck,” he snapped as he drove the car past the reservoir where he’d picked up his speeding ticket nearly two months before. Defending against that, plus the co-pay on his hospital bills, set him back in the savings department. That bend reminded him of how annoying his life had become.
Was it the ache in his shoulder, or the restlessness of his cock that bothered him? Or was it the hole in his heart left by one golden-haired goddess who didn’t have to use a firearm to shoot?
He pulled into the parking lot and found a space close to the entrance.
Saks asked at the desk where Hawk’s room was. Given he’d been in the hospital for a month, it had been unfortunate that Saks didn’t know which room to go to, but he’d just done what he’d been told. He’d stayed away.
Finding the elevator, he got on and tucked his hands into his pockets as the doors began to close.
“Hold the elevator!”
Saks risked his good hand by sticking in between the doors, half-expecting them to continue and crush his hand. It would’ve been par for the course. Instead, they slid open, along with the drop of his jaw.
Chrissy stared back at him with wide eyes.
“Saks?” she said.
The doors started to close again, and Saks intervened one more time. “Are you coming in, or do you want the next one?”
“No, no. Don’t be silly. Of course.” She stepped forward. He stepped back. Saks felt as if they were doing some sort of dance.
“Is everything okay?” he said.
“Yeah, fine. My dad had heart surgery today. I’m going to the ICCU to see him.”
“When did you get in?” he asked. Chrissy’s perfume filled the tiny space, and he tried to ignore the pounding of his heart against his chest.
“This morning. I just got here. Hassle at the car rental place.”
“Oh? What happened to your Cadillac?”
“In storage in New York. I didn’t expect to be back here so soon.”
“How’s the job going?”
“Good. Good. I need, um, floor four, please.”
In a hurry, Saks tapped the button. “Yeah. Sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
Saks stared at Chrissy, and his cock stirred in his jeans. Damn, he just didn’t need this right now.
But he sure needed her. His wayward dick was telling him that right now. Especially since Chrissy seemed to edge closer to him. Her brown eyes were dark, irises widened, and nostrils flared. Maybe she tried to act aloof, but there was no denying her body was telling her something different from what her head was.
“How long are you going to be here?”
“About a week.”
“Can we get together? You know, catch up?”
“I, I,” she stammered.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she said too strongly.
“Well, there is something wrong with me,” he said.
“What?”
“I can’t stop thinking about you.”
Her head turned, but he could see from the halted rise and fall of her shoulders that her breath had hitched.
“Chrissy,” he said gently.
The elevator stopped, and the door opened.
“I’ve got to go.” She stepped out.
Impulsively, Saks followed her. In the back of his mind the thought rumbled that he’d always follow her.
“What are you doing?” she demanded. Her voice rose almost, it seemed, in panic.
“Nothing—yet,” he said. He stepped closer, and she didn’t move away. “But I would like to.”
He watched her face with her beautiful eyes, and her pink mouth, and the cheekbones that didn’t quit, and she seemed frozen between the thought to flee and to give in.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Chrissy stood rooted to the spot as if headlights flashed in her eyes on a dark country road. Every bit of resolve she’d built up seemed forgotten as she stood there, frozen entirely in thought and in motion. Saks was more gorgeous than she remembered. She nearly forgot to breathe as he stood staring at her with eyes filled with desire. His chest had barely moved, and his lips made not as a sound as his mere presence alone commanded her not to leave. The manly scent of him, his leather jacket, and a faint odor of motor oil rolled off of him, leaving her entirely entranced. Here was the man she told herself was inappropriate, all wrong for her in every way. But the tug in her belly and the butterflies in her stomach all disagreed.
He took one more step and she didn’t move. Move. She knew if she didn’t put space between them, she’d never escape. What she needed to do was walk down that hall and not look back.
She didn’t.
One more step and he was face to face, inside her personal space, too close for comfort. Too close not to react.
She didn’t.
Instead, she stood as if rooted to the earth as he lowered his head. She wanted to resist him, but the moment their lips touched it was over. She melted into his arms against sense, against reason, needing the touch of his body against hers, wanting his strong arms around her.
“Hold me, Saks,” she whispered.
Tears formed in her eyes as he wrapped his arms around her. Why was it him she wanted more than any other man? She sank into his comforting body, and she felt safe for the first time in a month. It didn't occur to her until then that she’d lived on the edge of danger the entire time she was apart from him. And she realized that if she’d allow it, he’d never let her go.
“Chrissy,” he said, lifting her chin, “what’s wrong?” He spoke with such gentleness, such concern, it broke her once more and her tears flowed more freely. She couldn’t speak.
“You’re worried about your father, aren’t you?”
Damn hi
m for giving her an excuse so she didn’t have to express her heart's yearning.
She nodded her head. Liar, her heart scolded.
Yes. Her father's condition worried her, but that wasn’t what shook her to the core. It was because, in one stunning moment, she realized what she’d denied the day she walked away from him.
She loved Anthony Parks.
What she had with Saks wasn’t some infatuation or childish crush. She loved him to the ends of the earth, and had denied herself ever realizing it.
She had thought of herself as grown up. But even with all her accomplishments and her fierce independence, she saw the lie of that now. A girl fumbles for love. A woman knows how to gather it into her life.
“Chrissy?” Another voice, a feminine and familiar one, jolted her and she pulled away from Saks. Her sister stood in the hall, her brown eyes wide as she stared at Saks.
“Hi, Saks,” she said.
“Hey, Gloria.”
“Dad’s down here, Chrissy.” She pointed down the hall. “Mom wondered what’s been keeping you.” She spoke these last words with a smirk.
“Sorry.” Chrissy swiped at her tears and raised her head to meet Saks’ gaze.
“I’ve got to go.”
“Can we get together later?” he asked in a near whisper, sending shivers through her.
“I’ll have to check on my dad. It depends on how things are with... him.”
“Of course. I understand. If you can, I’ll be at the Hades Spawn clubhouse. You know where that is?”
“No.”
“Behind Luke’s shop, Central Valley Bike Repair.”
“Okay,” she whispered, afraid of agreeing to anything more. Up on her toes, she softly kissed his cheek before forcing herself to leave him behind. Again. Steady as a metronome were the clicks of her heels on the floor, the sound giving her something to focus on that wasn’t the heat that clung to her lips. Just ahead, Gloria grinned widely.
“’Bye, Saks,” Gloria said, waving.
“Stop that,” Chrissy hissed.
“I'll catch you later, Chrissy” Saks said. The elevator opened and then he left. But Gloria’s smirk didn’t.
“So, you hooked up with tall, dark, and forbidden,” Gloria said, a mischievous glint in her eye.
“Stop. Just stop. He was on the elevator, is all.”
“Really? Why is he here?”
“I don’t know,” Chrissy replied in annoyance. “Probably visiting a sick friend.”
“And how is he doing?”
“What?”
“Chrissy, you mean to tell me you didn’t ask the man who took a bullet in the shoulder for you how he’s doing?”
“Gloria,” Chrissy scoffed. “You’re ridiculous. He didn’t take a bullet for me. We arrived after that happened.”
“No. It’s only because our grandfather and his uncle made a move that made someone nervous enough to send those two goons.”
Chrissy had to admit that Gloria had a point. The idea of the Roccos and the Serafini joining forces with a marriage between Saks and her upset some criminal. But who? That was the big question.
“Does Grandfather know any more about that?”
“No. There are a lot of theories, the most prominent one being the Rojos.”
“The Rojos? That biker gang?”
“Yeah.”
“But why would they do that? That doesn’t make sense.”
“You’re right. It doesn’t. That’s why no one knows for sure. But someone wants the Roccos and Serafini at war, and they almost accomplished it.”
Chrissy grumbled as she followed her sister.
“We’re here,” Gloria said. She knocked on a half-shut door.
“Come in,” their mother called.
“Mom,” Chrissy greeted. Her eyes swept the spare hospital room and studied her father still on his bed. Tubes and wires snaked to him. Her mother, Rose, jumped up from a visitor’s chair and Chrissy reached out and hugged her. “How are you doing?”
“I’m just fine.”
Her mother pulled away and Chrissy glanced at her father, who lay still with his eyes closed. Chrissy pursed her lips and crossed her arms. In her mind her father was an invisible force, and witnessing his frailty made her uneasy.
“And Dad?”
“He’s good, they tell me. They removed a blockage and put in stents. He’ll be asleep most of the night. Tomorrow they’ll have him sit up and walk around.”
“Wow, that seems quick.”
“They tell me that the faster he gets up the faster he’ll heal.” She shrugged her shoulders before turning into full-mom mode. “You must be exhausted from that long trip.”
“Not as tired as you must be. Can I do anything for you?”
“I’ll be fine. I’ve slept on and off in that chair, and I’m not really hungry.”
Chrissy glanced at her mother, who looked like she’d lost ten pounds in a month. She was a skinny woman, and her frailty worried Chrissy. Rose Serafini must have worried too much about her husband.
“I’ll get you something from the cafeteria.” Hungry or not, Chrissy would get her mother to eat something. “Come on, Gloria—I’ll get you something, too.”
“Go on,” their mother said, shooing them away. “I could use a few minutes alone.”
Chrissy looked at their father again. Except for the rising and falling of his chest, he was still. He looked terrible but, then again, he’d had major surgery. Guilt weighed down her shoulders. She should have been here for her family instead of gallivanting around the world with James Pearson.
Gloria took her arm as they walked the hall toward the elevators.
“Give me the scoop. How did you end up in the hunky biker’s arms?”
“Stop,” Chrissy admonished. “I told you he rode the elevator with me.”
“It seemed to me he was looking for another kind of ride.” Gloria’s eyes sparkled with mischief.
“What? You aren’t on the ‘all Roccos are bad’ train? And tell me, where is that ring that Mario promised you?”
“Don’t deflect,” Gloria snapped, though she blushed.
They got into the elevator, and Gloria punched the button for the main floor.
“What’s the story?” Chrissy queried. Her sister looked away. Chrissy was now sure there was more to her sister’s non-engagement than Gloria wanted to spill.
“Come on,” Chrissy said. “You know I’ll get it out of you one way or another.”
“Fine,” Gloria allowed, pouting. “Grandpa nixed the engagement.”
“What? When? Why?”
“After you left. Mario did propose, but Grandpa told him that there would no marriages. Just that. And good little soldier Mario won’t go against him.”
“But why would Grandpa do that? He told me not to worry about marrying a Rocco.”
“He’s shaken up, Chrissy, and I think it was because of the attack on Saks. The New Jersey family those goombahs came from won’t talk about them. In fact, they won’t talk to Grandfather at all.”
That was bad. Wise guy crime families may have had uneasy relationships with each other, but they kept the lines of communication open. Unless something bad was about to go down.
The elevator opened, and they walked quickly to the cafeteria. But it was a busy corridor with doctors, nurses, and other people coming and going. It wasn’t a place to keep their conversation going, and the pair fell into silence. They got their mother food, but Chrissy found her appetite had fled. The idea that her grandfather worried for the welfare of the family worried her, too.
“I should go see Grandfather.”
“He’s not here. He went fishing.”
“Fishing? With Dad in the hospital?”
“Yeah, it’s strange, isn’t it?” Chrissy’s brow furrowed as she looked to her sister, just as a nearby elevator dinged.
The doors slid open; Saks stood inside with another man wearing a Hades Spawn jacket. Her eyes strayed to the patch on the right that
announced him as Hawk.
Hawk? Yes. She remembered now. He was the guy who got shot outside the pharmacy.
“Hey,” Saks said with a sexy grin.
“Hi.”
“Just picking up my friend, here.”
“I see that.”
“You coming by tonight?” he asked.
She almost said no, then remembered her grandfather. Maybe Saks had information about what was going on. It was a clubhouse. She couldn’t get in trouble there, could she?
“Yeah.”
Saks’ face lit up, like someone had handed him a puppy.
“Great. See you later.”
Saks gave her one more smile as he pushed his wheel chaired friend out of the elevator and they entered.
Gloria’s eyes glowed brightly with mischief once more.
“You going to see him?”
“Yes.”
“Great!”
“Why?”
Gloria chuckled. “Because if you go see Saks, that’s way worse than me seeing Mario.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Saks swept the floor of the bar for the third time as the antsy feeling that jittered through his body hijacked his concentration. Chrissy showing up unexpectedly had been a jolt to his system. The kiss he’d given her, innocent as the light brush was, had put his body on high alert. He hadn’t been able to do a damn thing about keeping his cock from stirring with the scent of her now clinging to his shirt. His rebellious dick went from half-hard to hard at the thought of her blonde hair hanging on her shoulders. Or her svelte body in that dress that hugged every curve as if it made love to her.
He only hoped she would show tonight, though it was getting late and he needed to turn on the security system. Saks held out, hoping she’d still show.
“Hey,” Hawk said, interrupting his reverie. “Hand me a beer, will you?”
“Just because you live here doesn’t give you free access to Luke’s brew.”
“Jeez, chill, bro. I just need something to take the edge off my thirst. Fuck. Just put it on my tab.”
“Luke lets you run a tab?” Saks eyed Hawk with skepticism. Probies, probational members, like Hawk weren’t given tabs.
