Controlled Burn- To Publish

by Lani Lynn Vale

  Dean caught my arm before I could make it even a foot in the direction of the door, shaking his head no.

  I froze, wondering if he’d noticed something I hadn’t, but he only dropped back down to his knee, and slipped my feet into my shoes.

  First one foot, followed by the other.

  He also had no trouble whatsoever with the latch, the big showoff.

  Once both shoes were securely on my feet, he stood, making sure to run his large, rough hands from the bottoms of my ankles, up past my ass, over my hips, stopping at my ribs.

  “Ready?” He lifted a brow.

  I nodded.

  “I think we have plenty enough to go on today. You want to leave?” He sounded almost hopeful.

  I nodded my head vigorously.

  “Yes, I most certainly want to leave!” I agreed a little bit too excitedly.

  A grin tilted up the corner of his mouth.

  “We’ll stop by your brother’s on the way home, okay?” He grimaced.

  A nod in my direction had him walking to the stall door and sliding the lock to the side.

  The door eased open, and Dean dragged me directly out the bathroom door and out into the shadowed hallway.

  We were all the way outside, completely ignoring what sounded like Laney’s voice talking about the most popular blah-blah-blah of 2006.

  The sound of N’Sync played in the background while she spoke, and despite my best efforts, by the time we were back in Dean’s truck, I was singing the damn song.

  He gave me a look that clearly said only one thing, and I laughed at him.

  “I can’t help it if they were my favorite band of my high school years,” I explained to him. “You’ll just have to deal with it.”

  He grinned and flipped the station in his truck, and I gasped.

  The 90s on Channel 9 was the one he’d chosen, and none other than N’Sync was playing.

  “I think I love you,” I teased, reaching forward to turn the radio up.

  Meaning I missed the look of utter pleasure that washed over his features at hearing those words fall from my lips.

  What had come out as a joke on my part had clearly been something real to him.

  “Do you think that Joseph has anything to do with those two?” I asked him.

  Dean’s brow furrowed in concentration.

  “I don’t know,” he admitted. “At first, yes, but the more I dissect what we heard of the encounter, the more I’m leaning in the direction of no.”

  “Why?” I pushed.

  “You can’t fake the happiness he felt when he saw you,” he said. “And his wife was also solid. People that solid don’t do stupid stuff that’ll threaten their business. What I think is that Joe has no idea what those other two are involved in, and that whatever’s going on between him and Barrett, as far as Joe knows, is on the up and up.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief.

  “How do you know where my brother’s office is?” I asked him almost as an afterthought as we pulled into a parking spot beside my brother’s bike.

  Some emotion I couldn’t identify came and went across his face, but before I could call him on it, he yanked the handle of the door, using his shoulder to push it open quickly and bailed out before slamming the door shut.

  My mouth had dropped open at his sudden departure, and almost as an afterthought, I followed him.

  Well, following wasn’t a very good word for what I did.

  I ran after him.

  The second I was close enough, I launched myself at his back.

  “Dean!” I yelled at him. “Tell me what you’re keeping from me.”

  “Or what?” he challenged, looking over his shoulder at me with a smile on his face.

  “Or I’ll break up with you,” I declared.

  He opened the door to my brother’s office, and I was hit with a blast of cold air so chilly I shivered.

  “Let go of my sister,” Wolf growled the moment we passed through the door.

  I blinked, turning to survey my brother over Dean’s head.

  “Shut up,” I wagged a pointed finger in my brother’s direction “We’re busy.”

  Dean, tired of having me on his back, swung me off and set me gently on my feet.

  The cut on my back gave me the first twinge of pain I’d felt all day, and I glared at Dean.

  “Tell me,” I ordered harshly.

  Well, as harshly as I could make it.

  Which wasn’t nearly as harsh as I’d have liked it to be.

  “He came over here a week ago to tell me his intentions,” Wolf said from in front of me. “And I let him know in no uncertain terms that if he hurt you, he’d die.”

  I blinked in surprise, turning to face my brother fully.

  “You’re…you…what?” I gasped. “What the fuck, Wolf! You can’t go around threatening people. It’s not right!”

  Wolf’s eyes showed no remorse as he shrugged and pulled a cheese stick off his desk.

  Peeling it open, he leaned against the desk and crossed his legs out in front of him.

  “What’d you learn?” he demanded, changing the subject.

  I sighed and walked towards him, waving at Griffin who was on the phone across the room.

  He held up two fingers, giving me a little salute, causing a smile to appear on my face in response.

  I took a seat at Wolf’s desk, but not before I stole a bite of his cheese stick.

  “What are you wearing?” Wolf asked, looking at his cheese stick in disgust.

  Wolf had a particular way to eat a cheese stick. First you had to peel off a small string of the cheese, from the top all the way down to the bottom. Then he followed it around counterclockwise until he hit the place where he started, then he went clockwise around the other way until he finished it.

  Wolf was OCD. Literally.

  He had to have everything a particular way.

  When I was younger, it’d drive me absolutely bat shit crazy.

  Now, being an adult and totally accustomed to his idiosyncrasies, it only drove me partially crazy.

  I also made sure to drive him insane any time I got a chance.

  Like now.

  He handed the cheese stick off to me, and I happily turned it over and started to eat it from the opposite end of my bite, knowing that it would drive him nuts, too.

  You couldn’t, of course, bite out of different areas of food you were eating. You started at one side and worked to the opposite side until it was finished.

  Eating random bites out of your food was a no-no in Wolf’s crazy as hell world.

  As well as mismatching socks.

  “I’m dressed like a girl,” I told him, flushing slightly when I remembered the look Dean had given me as I’d walked out of his bathroom earlier in the day.

  “Your dress is showing too much!” he grumped.

  My mouth dropped open, food and all, and I stared at him, flabbergasted that he’d say such a thing about my perfectly respectable and acceptable sundress.

  “This was your idea!” I informed him. “Not mine. If I’d had my choice, I wouldn’t have even gone to the damn thing!”

  Wolf’s mouth twitched, and I threw what remained of my cheese stick at him, hitting him squarely in the chest.

  “You’re such a shit,” he said, knocking off spare bits of cheese onto the floor.

  I followed the path and laughed when I saw it all land on Wolf’s foot.

  “You’re gross,” he said when he caught my laugh.

  I shrugged and turned to Dean, liking the small smile I saw sitting there.

  “What did you learn?” Wolf restated.

  “Lots of stuff,” I said to him. “Did you know that Barrett wanted to have sex with me in high school, but Jensen had warned him off of me?”

  Wolf winced.

  “You did know!” I accused. “You’re so going to hell.”

  Wolf’s dark brown eyes looke
d from the ceiling to me, and he glared.

  “I’m not going to hell. If anyone’s going to hell, it’s you. You’re a heathen who doesn’t go to church,” he informed me.

  I snorted.

  “Right. ‘Church’ to you is a meeting with the boys from your club. Church to normal people means actually going into a house of God and worshipping him in a sanctuary, amongst other like-minded believers. You haven’t been to church in well over a decade, if not more,” I turned to Dean. “Do you go to church?”

  Dean’s amusement was apparent as I turned my gaze to him.

  “No,” he shook his head. “Don’t have time. But even if I did, I wouldn’t go.”

  “Why not?” I asked curiously.

  “Because I don’t have to go to church to know I’m going to hell,” he drawled.

  I started laughing.

  Wolf did, too.

  “But really,” Wolf questioned once he caught his breath. “What did you find out.”

  Dean spoke, saving me the grief of having to tell my brother about those two assholes and exactly what they wished to do with my body, now and when I was sixteen.

  “Jensen’s a fucking piece of work,” Wolf growled.

  A loud slam had me turning in my chair to stare at Griffin who’d just knocked his phone off his desk in anger.

  “What the fuck?” Wolf asked, standing.

  “Fucking motherfucker!” Griffin bellowed. “I’m going to kill her.”

  “What are you bitching about?” Wolf’s brows lowered. “You’re not making sense.”

  “That woman makes me not make sense!” he yelled. “Do you want to know what she did this time?”

  “Are we talking about your wife, Lenore?” I wondered.

  Griffin’s eyes cut to mine.

  “You’d never do anything stupid like her, would you?” he pushed.

  I blinked, then shook my head.

  “Of course not,” I lied.

  His eyes narrowed.

  “She cut. All. Her. Hair. Off,” he enunciated each word perfectly, and I nearly lost my battle with my smile.

  “She cut her hair?” Wolf clarified.

  Griffin nodded.

  “Did you ask her why?” I suggested.

  Griffin’s glare was obvious, even from behind his hands as he rubbed his face in anger.

  “Of course I asked her why. And she said because it was too hot, and her hair got frizzy when it rained,” he explained, abruptly standing. “But I don’t agree with it.”

  Then, without another word, he left. Heading straight for his motorcycle, which he started with a roar and drove off so fast that I lost sight of him within a few seconds of leaving.

  Wolf rolled his eyes heavenward, and I turned back around in my chair to, once again, face my brother, my arms crossed over my chest.

  The chill that’d swept over me when Dean started explaining about our day had thawed with Griffin’s irrational reaction to his wife cutting her hair, and a small grin had settled over my lips.

  “What’s this Joseph’s last name?” Wolf asked Dean, walking around his desk to take a seat behind it.

  Dean’s head turned toward me, and I said, “Joseph Perry.”

  Wolf nodded and wrote it down, then wrote the name of Joseph’s wife.

  “Alright,” he said, tossing the pen down. “I’ll get the name searched, and let you know what I find out about Joseph.”

  “And Jensen and Barrett?”

  Wolf raised his brows at me. “What about them?”

  “You’re not going to tell me anything more, are you?” I knew he wouldn’t be.

  He shook his head. “Negative.”

  I lifted my lip in contempt. “How did I know that would be your answer?”

  “Because you’re not stupid,” he said. “And your involvement in this is over. No more is needed from you, got it?”

  I stuck my tongue out at him.

  “Let’s go home,” I ordered Dean. “This place smells.”

  Wolf snorted then stood, following us out to Dean’s car.

  After a quick kiss goodbye, Wolf walked back inside, and I got into the truck with Dean, closing my door.

  “Love you, brother,” I called to him.

  Wolf tossed me a smile over his shoulder.

  “Love you, too, you pain in the ass.”

  Dean’s soft laugh had me turning to him.

  “Shut up.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  ***

  Four hours later

  Turns out Joseph was really just a businessman, a legitimate one, who just wanted to be paid for whatever business he had with Barrett.

  The relief I felt after hearing those very words come out of my brother’s mouth was torrential.

  Though, a niggling feeling hit me the moment Wolf hung up the phone after telling me he had to get to work.

  It also wasn’t the one I got when he was in danger. No, this one was worse

  A bad omen or something.

  A sense of foreboding.

  Bad ju-ju.

  Whatever the hell it was, I didn’t like it.

  Taking a surreptitious look around as Dean pulled out into traffic, I gritted my teeth and closed my eyes to shake off the mental images of shit going bad.

  Positive vibes, July. Positive vibes.

  Chapter 16

  Never do the same mistake twice. Unless she’s hot…then you can do her as much as you want.

  -Words of wisdom

  Dean

  I walked through the door bone tired, but in a surprisingly good mood considering my day.

  A lot of that likely had to do with the woman I could see cooking me dinner in my kitchen.

  “Honey, I’m home!” I called teasingly.

  Instead of being greeted by the woman who I’d hoped would come running, it was the fat, hairless cat who lumbered over to greet me.

  The ugly thing’s head rubbed up against my pants leg, and I had to squelch the urge not to cringe away from it.

  The cat was so ugly, and it really freaked me out.

  “Come into the kitchen!” she called loudly. “I’m making gravy, and it has to be stirred constantly or it’ll burn.”

  Dropping my keys on the entry way table as I shut the door—a table that appeared suspiciously cleaner than when I’d left that morning—I walked past my overstuffed brown leather couch and into the kitchen.

  My eyes found her instantly.

  I watched for long moments as she made the gravy, just like I’d shown her a year ago. She didn’t miss a single damn thing.

  Then, more pride filled me as I watched her pull out the chicken cordon bleu I’d taught her how to make the first time we cooked together. It was perfect.

  I sidestepped the cat and turned towards July, my breath halting in my chest as I caught my first sight of her in a whole twenty-four hours.

  We’d only been back together for a little over a week, but in that week it was like the last year hadn’t happened.

  Everything was the same. It was like only a day had gone by since we’d last seen each other. We picked up right where we left off, and it felt…right.

  I hadn’t realized just how unhappy I’d been since I’d spent so much time trying to avoid feeling anything altogether. But with her here and seeing the change in not just my home life, but my work life as well, I realized that I wasn’t simply unhappy when we were broken up.

  I’d been depressed.

  I felt like the sun had come out for the first time in a year, that’s how dramatic the change in me and my disposition truly was.

  Where there used to be only rain and cloudy skies, now there was nothing but blue during the day and the moon and stars at night.

  “Well, don’t just stand there,” July muttered distractedly. “Go get the plates down, and put the chicken on a plate. Everything’s done but this gravy.”

  I did as she instructed, but made
sure to brush up against her backside as I reached over her head to grab the dishes.

  “We’re going to have to talk about the placement of your dishes,” she murmured. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  “What are you talking about?” I questioned as I placed the plates on the counter next to where the chicken was resting on a hot pad next to the sink.

  “I’m saying that it makes no freakin’ sense for me to have the unload the dishwasher all the way over there,” she pointed to the dishwasher that was behind me on the opposite side of the island. “Then walk around this island and reach up about eight feet to put the plates on that shelf. It’s all wasted movement that could take you about fifteen less minutes to unload the dishwasher if you moved the plates in that cabinet beside the dishwasher.”

  My kitchen was shaped in a U, with an island in between. There were three walls of cabinets, upper and lower, and I hadn’t given it a single thought about where I’d put my plates before, until she’d just said something.

  My lip quirked up in a grin.

  “You can rearrange my kitchen if you want,” I offered. “Just don’t expect me to help you.”

  “Who does your dishes now?” She looked at me curiously.

  I smiled at her obvious anger that I could tell was boiling right under the surface of her skin.

  She held control of her tongue, and admiration filled my chest when she didn’t just blurt out what she really wanted to.

  “I have a cleaning service that comes out and does it for me,” I told her. “They clean my dishes, change my sheets, make sure I have groceries.”

  Her mouth dropped open.

  “You don’t have to go grocery shopping?” she exclaimed.

  I shook my head, liking the way that smile of hers lit up her beautiful face.

  My eyes traveled down her body.

  She was wearing a black t-shirt that declared her a member of the NRA, and a pair of khaki shorts that fell to just a bit below her crotch. If there were three inches separating her vagina from the outside world, I’d be impressed.

  Her feet were bare, showing off her pink toenails decorated with black and yellow flowers on her big toes.

  My eyes caught on a fresh cut on her knee, and I zeroed in on it.

  “I need the number of this person,” July declared. “What are you doing?”

  I dropped down to one knee beside her leg and cupped her calf in my hand, bringing her leg forward so I could examine it.