“It was a reminder.”
I heard him chuckle behind his back, and just when he was about to say something, his phone rang, interrupting his thoughts.
“Hello?” Wolf answered gruffly. “You’re kidding me, right? At the fucking Dairy Queen on Fourth?”
I strapped my bra closed and pulled my t-shirt back to rights before turning around and surveying the man behind me.
His hair was mussed from sleep, and his beard was poofier than usual, making me reach forward almost on autopilot to smooth it down.
He grinned at the feel of my hand on his beard, and I couldn’t help the shiver of anticipation that poured through me at feeling something so intimate on Wolf’s body.
If I could make his beard into my lucky rabbit’s foot and hang it from my keychain, you wouldn’t find my hand empty with all the good luck rubbing I’d be doing.
Alas, that wasn’t possible, and he pulled away from me only to pull me snugly into his body.
“I have to go,” he informed me like I hadn’t just heard his phone call that I’d garnered just as much from. “A man I’ve been looking for is eating breakfast at the Dairy Queen two towns over. Be safe, and don’t leave without…”
I held up my hand.
“You don’t have to repeat yourself that many times. I heard you the first time,” I crossed my arms over my chest.
Wolf’s eyes followed my movement, and his gaze lingered on my chest for a long moment before he nodded once, then proceeded to walk out of the door.
I could do nothing but shake my head at his abrupt departure.
With nothing else left to do, and an itching need to get the hell out of my apartment that still smelled like Wolf, I grabbed my boots, shoved my feet into them without socks, and called Marky Mark to me.
“You’ll have to go to work with me today, buddy. I’m sure that’s okay with you, right?” I asked my best buddy.
Marky Mark looked up at me with dark gray eyes, and I smiled.
“Yeah, I thought so.”
Chapter 8
Every man has a bad boy in him. It all depends on whether or not there’s been a reason for the bad boy to be awakened in him.
-Fact of life
Wolf
“Get. The. Fuck. Off. Me,” I growled, pushing at the two fuckers that were trying to beat me senseless. “Get off me!”
With a final burst of strength, I rolled my hips to the left, and then swung my entire body to the left, dislodging the one on my feet, as well as the one on my upper body.
They both lost their grip.
They didn’t get far before they were trying to subdue me once again, but the momentary reprieve I’d been given was enough, and I fought like a rabid animal to get loose completely.
The moment my feet hit solid ground again, I pulled my gun out of my holster underneath my armpit, aimed at the first guy, and shot him in the chest.
The right side of his chest, not the left.
I was considerate, and don’t let anyone ever tell you different.
“Don’t fucking move!” I yelled at the other guy who’d rolled over and started to reach for his holster at his side.
The man froze and moved his hands up in the air, his eyes wide and alarmed.
“Yeah, you stupid fucker,” I growled in anger. “You should be scared.”
Reaching carefully down for my discarded phone on the concrete next to the bleeding man, I pulled it up, unlocked it with my thumbprint, and immediately dialed Ridley.
Except the moment Ridley answered, he growled, “Your fucking woman you asked me to keep an eye on is fucking crazy as shit!”
“I’m not crazy and I’m not stressed! And I’m not being overly dramatic!” Raven yelled. “Fuck you! I was just shot at! Again!”
My heart started to lurch at hearing the fear in Raven’s voice.
“Let me talk to him! God! Leave me alone!” Raven bellowed.
The sound of the phone being transferred from Ridley to someone else had my brows raising.
The girl had a way about her, that was for sure.
“Sir, we’re going to have to ask you to come down here and take her somewhere,” the new holder of the phone, and one of Ridley’s fellow officers, said.
I heard a deep male voice that sounded like Ridley’s over the line, and then Raven yelling again.
“No! You want to know what’s dramatic?” I guessed she was waiting for some sort of reply, because the moment I heard Ridley’s rumble of ‘no, what?’ Raven said, “When an octopus gets overly-stressed, it eats itself. Now that is dramatic. I think me screaming and crying isn’t anywhere near as bad as it could get.”
I grinned, which seemed to set the man off that I was holding the gun on.
He moved, throwing his body toward mine, and in an instant, I’d discharged my service weapon for the second time in less than a minute.
“Sir,” the officer yelled.
All yelling from the opposite end of the line halted, and I stared with detached fascination as the man’s lifeless body crumpled to the floor at my feet, nearly on top of the other fallen man’s body.
“I’ll need a Justice of the Peace as well as a few cars at my location,” I informed him. “I’m two blocks south of…”
***
“What the fuck, man?” Ridley asked. “You told me I only had to watch her. You didn’t say a goddamn thing about her getting shot at. They shot my new cruiser! Do you know how long it took the county to fucking get me this one back?”
I looked at him like he’d lost his mind.
“I’m not being a bitch!” Ridley yelled, waving his arms for emphasis.
“Could’ve fooled me,” Raven muttered darkly.
Ridley’s eyes narrowed, and he took a threatening step towards her.
“What did I tell you about talking?” Ridley snapped.
“That I have an annoying voice, and you want me to shut up so you can think?” Raven offered.
My mouth dropped open.
“What? Are you PMSing or something?” I asked him. “What’s your malfunction?”
“My malfunction is that I missed an important meeting with the fucking mayor of three cities because I was busy being shot at!”
I blinked.
“That’s it?” I asked.
Ridley sneered at me.
“This is about your wife, isn’t it?” I tried.
Ridley’s body became wired.
“What’d you do to her?” I teased him. “Forget to mow the lawn? Got home late?”
Ridley sighed.
“Forgot to pick up my dry cleaning, and now I have to wear these shitty pants that are too small,” he grumbled.
I would not laugh. I would not laugh.
“Are those stretchy?” Raven asked, leaning down to inspect Ridley’s pants.
Ridley stepped back, but the damage was already done.
“Take her somewhere. Bring her back tomorrow to get her statement taken,” he ordered.
Grimacing to myself, I nodded my confirmation, then watched as Ridley left.
My eyes were drawn to his pants, though, and I couldn’t help but wonder if they were indeed stretchy.
The two men’s blood decorating the concrete was being washed away as I walked Raven to my truck.
My breath, however, stalled in my chest the moment we got to the passenger side door.
My mood, already not in the best of places, deteriorated when I got my first good look at my truck and saw the bullet holes in the door.
“Mother Fucker,” I growled.
Then I turned to say something to Raven, and got my first good look at what she was wearing, and every single man in a five-mile radius checking out her assets.
***
Raven
“That’s inconvenient,” I replied at seeing the previously pristine paint.
Now it had two large holes in the door panel with chipped paint peeling a
n inch past the holes.
“It looks like an actual bullet hole does on the TV,” I said, not able to stop my mouth.
It was a character flaw. I babbled incessantly when I was nervous.
I also babbled when I wasn’t, just a bit less though.
This time was one of those times when I really should’ve shut up.
“God, I’m hungry,” I said as I climbed into his truck. “Where are you taking me?”
Wolf followed me inside and started the truck.
Without a second thought, I parted my legs and kept chatting as Wolf started the truck up.
He backed out of the parking spot as I prattled on about how surprising it was that we’d both had shots fired at us at the same time.
“It wasn’t a coincidence,” Wolf muttered as he dropped the truck into second and pulled out of the parking lot. “Where do you want to eat?”
I pursed my lips.
“Fast food will be fine. Just nothing that has to do with Italian. I don’t think I could handle the red sauce at this point in time,” I said honestly.
Honesty was obviously not the way to go, because he growled under his breath.
“Would you please stop talking,” he muttered darkly.
I zipped my lips and started to count to one hundred in my head.
I’d gotten to fifteen when he dropped the shifter into my crotch…I mean fourth.
I jumped and parted my legs wider in hopes that the ball of the shifter didn’t touch my clit like that, but the skirt I was wearing wasn’t conducive with spreading my legs as wide as I would need to get his hand out of my pussy.
So I sat there, with his hand on the shifter on my crotch, until we arrived in the parking lot of the diner that was on the outskirts of Uncertain.
I’d always liked Uncertain.
It was an absolutely beautiful place, even though the area had been ravaged from the storms and flooding a few weeks prior, it looked just as beautiful as ever, despite the water still being up as high as it was.
Wolf got out and held his hand out for me, grabbing mine so I could climb out without flashing him completely.
I didn’t need to bother hiding anything, though, because his eyes were on the parking lot and not me.
I’d just stood up and started to push my skirt down my legs when he tugged my hand, slammed the door to the truck, and started walking all in five seconds flat.
“Slow down, you long-legged monster,” I growled, tugging on my hand.
He slowed his pace, but didn’t say a word of apology as we made our way to the door.
He pulled the door open for me and I preceded him inside, my eyes on the diner around me.
It was one of those old timey feeling diners that was just one long room. Although this one was unique in a sense due to the train that was running around the top of the ceiling around the entire room.
The bottom half of the walls were black and white subway tiles while the floor sported the same checkered patterns, only in linoleum.
The top half of the walls were painted a bright red that was nearly headache inducing, and the tables and chairs all matched the black, white, and red theme they had going on.
“Two?” an older lady asked.
“Yes,” Wolf clipped.
I rolled my eyes and followed behind Wolf, wondering just what in the hell I was doing.
The moment we sat down I knew I should’ve asked him to take me home and not to a public restaurant where every single person in the entire establishment was watching us and every move we made.
“What’s everyone’s deal?” I asked Wolf.
He looked up, and his eyes were full of anger.
“Fucking people like seeing spectacles, and that’s exactly what you are right now,” he growled.
My mouth dropped open.
“What?” I asked, surprise and astonishment clear in my voice.
“That fucking skirt you’re wearing is so short I can see the yellow happy face underwear you’re wearing,” he grumbled.
I looked down to check, and sure enough I could see the yellow underwear.
“Okay,” I said. “But that was because you watched me get out of the car. Not because I’m giving you some kind of peep show.”
His mouth tightened, and his eyes slithered to the side as the waiter showed asking for our drink orders.
Forty-five minutes later, I was ready to kill him.
“You don’t need the burger. Let’s go,” Wolf growled in annoyance.
I froze in the process of taking the to-go container from the server.
“I don’t need the burger?” I asked carefully.
Wolf, oblivious to the dangerous territory he’d just entered into, continued to run his stupid mouth.
“No,” he said. “There’s no point for you to take a little itty bitty hamburger home. That’s not even a proper meal. That’s more like a snack or something to that effect. It’s just enough to remind you that you want more, and you can’t have it.”
I carefully opened the Styrofoam box as the server, a young woman around my age, looked at me sympathetically, shook her head, and left.
Placing my burger into the large partition in the box, which I admit was on the small side since I’d eaten most of it, I glared at Wolf.
“Ready,” I said carefully, trying not to betray my anger.
Wolf stood up with barely contained impatience.
“If you didn’t want to go to dinner with me, you should’ve just said,” I growled at Wolf’s retreating back.
Wolf didn’t slow until he came to the front entrance. Holding the door open to the little diner he’d stopped to take me to, he glared at me.
“I wanted to eat just as much as you did,” he muttered.
I chose to be silent the rest of the way. There was no way in hell I was going to bug him when he was acting like he was.
I didn’t know what the deal with him was, and to be honest, I didn’t really care.
I’d had a bad damn day. Again.
I’d been fired. I was now practically homeless.
Thankfully, though, Travis had offered to help me move into his rental house across town from where I was staying, but I didn’t want any fucking handouts.
If I wasn’t working there anymore, then there was no fucking point in getting the discounted rate that Travis was trying to still offer me.
Which now meant I was job searching and house hunting.
During my house hunting/job search, I’d had a call from the sheriff, a man I’d never met before, asking me where the hell I was.
Apparently, I was supposed to be somewhere with him, and I hadn’t showed.
Thinking something was wrong and I hadn’t been informed, I’d rushed to the sheriff’s office only to be shot at in the parking lot on my walk inside.
The moment the shots rang out I’d been taken down from behind by that bear, the sheriff, now known to me as Ridley.
Needless to say, I was not in a good mood.
I’d had a very shitty, no good, God awful, very bad day.
And now he was handing me shit that I didn’t need to deal with.
“I want to go home,” I murmured angrily.
Wolf gave me a look that clearly said what he thought about me going home.
“Like I’d take you back to your place after how well Travis looked out for you today. No. You’re going to my place.”
I decided not to argue with him.
Maybe after he cooled off, I could reason with him.
But halfway during his drive home he got a call that clearly took precedence over what he was doing.
“Fuck me,” he growled, swinging his truck around to head in the opposite direction.
I told myself not to ask, but my curiosity got the better of me.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“One of the men I’ve been using as an informant was shot tonight and is at the county
hospital,” he murmured darkly.
When we arrived at my apartment and got out of the car, I hurried up the steps, but even as fast as my legs were moving Wolf still beat me.
He opened the door with the key out of my hand, and made a quick but thorough sweep through the house.
While he was doing that. I put my hamburger in the fridge and watched him move.
Once he was appeased, he stopped in front of me, and then yanked me to him.
“I’m going to tell Travis to pull his head out of his ass and watch over you. Don’t leave the apartment. I’ll be back.”
Without giving me a chance to argue, he was gone, leaving me shivering as his body heat dissipated from my side.
“Goddammit,” I breathed. “What are you doing to me, Wolf?”
Of course nobody answered, and I had no answers for that burning question.
Chapter 9
I’m not the girl that everyone loves, but at least I’m not the girl that everyone has had.
-Raven’s secret thoughts
Raven
I woke to the smell of him on my sheets, and the imprint of his head on my pillow.
At some point during the night he must have returned, and now, at seven fifty in the morning, he was gone again.
And so was my fucking hamburger. Although I didn’t realize that until much later as I was dreaming about it.
My day started like any other.
I got up. Washed my face. Brushed my hair and then threw it up into a sloppy bun on the top of my head.
Then, for the hell of it, I put a load of laundry into the washer and pulled the cold ones from the dryer.
After folding them and putting them in my suitcase, I started to gather my belongings.
The bedroom was where I started, and since the entirety of the apartment was furnished when I moved in, the only thing I had to grab from in here were my sheets, my clothes, and my shoes.
The bathroom was just as easy. Since nothing beside the shower curtain (which you bet your ass I grabbed) and the hair care products, makeup, and toilet cleaners were mine, it was easy to shove them into another bag I’d previously used for the gym.
Then I moved to the living room that really didn’t have much other than a few magazines.
Magazines that could stay.
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