The front door chimed, welcoming in a few more customers. I would have to get to the bottom of that mystery later. I went to the sink to wash my hands and he joined me without needing to be prompted.
More sparks stole across my skin when our hands brushed beneath the hot water, but I pushed them aside. Business now. Whatever this was afterwards.
I returned to the counter to start taking orders, not thinking too hard about how easily my smile came compared to yesterday.
Tone shadowed me for the first few, observing how the point of sale worked. He was definitely a quick learner. Within ten minutes, he had opened the second register and started pushing people through, allowing me to get started on the drinks already queued up.
I washed my hands again and then fell into the routine I knew so, so well.
Every now and then, Tone would ask me something else, but soon enough we were working in relative silence.
Relative because it was constantly broken by the chatter of customers, the sound of the door opening and closing, the smooth rumble of his voice as he thanked tons of people by name hour after hour.
Was there anyone in this town he didn’t know?
And no disrespect to Lynn—not just because she would fight me for saying so—but it was easier by leaps and bounds to work with Tone.
Lynn and I both tended to turn somewhat frantic under pressure. Obviously, considering how the crowd had put me on the ropes earlier. Together, that wild energy fed in an endless loop that led to my bestie and I making the giant mess we had made.
By comparison, Tone’s temperament was even and tranquil. A lake in the middle of the forest, undisturbed by man or beast or nature.
Each time I caught sight of him, he was moving with the same measured purpose he did everything else.
Even when sweat bloomed along his lower back.
Even when overly friendly women flirted.
Even when the line started to go out the door.
He never deviated from his pace. Never lost any of the enthusiasm he helped people with. Never moaned or groaned or complained about a single thing.
It was addictive, and I moved more smoothly, influenced by his presence.
While my body went on autopilot, my brain played back the things he told me yesterday, comparing those revelations to the jigsaw puzzle that made up the man himself.
The adventures he went on with his grandfather varied from wild to borderline reckless, and Tone spoke about each of them with fondness. I wondered what occurred to shift him from the reckless boy who raised himself and evaded the police to the serene man he was now.
That same wildness was still there, buried deep. I’d felt it three times now, hidden in each of our kisses. He kept it on a tight leash, and I wondered how. Why?
My intuition wasn’t always trustworthy, but something certainly stood out.
The best friend. Katherine. He had only mentioned her that one time, but once was enough.
After Mom, I was no stranger to grief and all the shapes and sizes and colors it came in. The hard sound of his voice when he said her name? Anger, clear as day. And not the hot kind. No, that wouldn’t be cruel enough.
The anger that came along with grief was a cold, grasping thing that kept itself alive and burning by infecting the mind itself. Slithering into memories of the person you had lost and torturing you with what might’ve been if they were still around.
Who is she to him? I wondered while I handed out drinks and smiles.
What happened between them?
Where is she now?
My mind spun with possibilities and I let it. The pain in my feet and arms was background noise, much less interesting than the roads spread before me. I wanted to know more.
I wanted to know if they were still-
My fingers pinched empty air where a sticker was supposed to be and I blinked, glancing down at the machine. Am I out of paper? I just changed it when I got here.
“That’s a wrap for now, Smoothie Girl.”
I glanced over my shoulder.
Tone leaned against the counter, feet crossed at the ankles, watching me. “You can stop looking so perplexed.”
“I’m going to put glue in the next thing I make for you. Only because I don’t have a sock big enough for your mouth.”
His eyes sparked, darkness burning. “I’ve got better ideas for what you can put in my mouth.”
Hello Lust, my old friend.
A flash fire cropped up beneath my skin, and it felt like someone was holding a torch to my cheeks. Desire had my thighs tensing and I pulled my bottom lip between my teeth.
“Lock the door and sit back,” is what I wanted to say. I’d never been on a horse before, but I was so, so open to riding his face like a cowgirl.
That beard scrubbing between my thighs.
Those giant hands anchored around my hips and ass.
That tongue doing dirty, perfect things to my swollen flesh.
Mmmf.
But what I said was, “I’m pretty sure that’s workplace harassment. As soon as I get around to establishing an HR department, you’re going to be in big trouble.”
“Is that gonna be before or after you explain hiring me without so much as a background check?” He flashed a quick grin. “After all, I could be some kind of criminal.”
My cheeks twitched. “I hate you,” I said, keeping my voice carefully neutral.
He wasn’t charming me.
Nope.
Not even one bit.
Liar.
“Already?” He closed in on me, bringing the scent of pine and leather with him. “I haven’t even asked to get paid yet.”
My arms folded, hackles rising. I knew he was too good to get true. Now he had something to hold over my head and I was already dreading the imbalance between us. How he might use that leverage.
Law used my health like a bat, beating me over the head with it whenever he could. Dad used my similarities to Mom to escape from any difficult conversation he didn’t want to have.
“What’s your price?” I bit out.
Tone furrowed his brows, eyes narrowing. “You’re fucking pissed all of a sudden. Why?”
“Just tell me what you want for helping out.”
He stepped closer until his chest filled my vision. Except he didn’t say anything. He just stood there, invading my space. Making me have to try really hard to hold onto my anger in the face of his placidness.
Why couldn’t he be a hotheaded jerk, ready to jump at the slightest provocation?
Seeing that I wasn’t going to bend—because I wasn’t, I would stand here the rest of the day—he sighed. His hand lifted, knuckles brushing across my jaw. I still didn’t look up at him, even though my body reacted helplessly to his touch.
“This isn’t a transaction, Naomi.” The use of my name had my eyes going to his mouth. That full bottom lip capable of capturing mine perfectly. “I’m here because Axle told me how busy it was, and I wanted to see if you needed help. There’s no debt to be paid.”
“So you came across town just to see if I might need help. And now you’re claiming not to want anything in return?” I didn’t scoff, although it was a near thing. “Get real, no one is that selfless.”
His jaw tightened, the first sign he had ever given that I might be getting to him with my attitude. But it didn’t feel like the victory I was expecting.
“I never claimed I was,” he said roughly, pulling his hat down with frustrated movements. “But it’ll be a cold day in hell before I play manipulation games, especially with you. That’s not my style. That’s not who I am.”
I glanced up, meeting dark, endless eyes. “Then who are you?”
Tone grabbed my hand. Joined our fingers. He never looked away from me. “Someone who takes care of the people he cares about.”
My heart skipped and went into overdrive. I whispered, “How did I end up on that list?”
His eyes flicked between mine, searching for something. “At first? Cu
riosity. Now? We’re alike in ways I’ve only scratched the surface of.”
I swallowed a sudden lump. “What happens when you figure it out?”
Will you toss me aside, unsatisfied with the answer?
And why did that possibility hurt like a door being slammed in my face?
I should want him to lose interest. To find another focus for his calm intensity.
This thing between us was painfully new, and my heart was already too involved. If he walked out the door right now and never looked back, I knew I would miss him.
I squeezed his hand and waited for the lie.
For the, we’ll still be friends.
For the, I’ll still stick around.
But Tone didn’t make things easy.
He lifted my hand, pressing a soft kiss to the back of my palm that I felt against my soul when I shouldn’t have. “Then I’ll finally know how to keep my promise.”
Yeah.
Didn’t make sense to me either.
But there was a weight in his stare that said those words meant everything to him. I didn’t have to understand them to believe in their importance. I knew a thing or two about promises.
I was living my own life.
Making my own decisions.
Risking my own mistakes.
This might very well be one of them. And if it was, then so be it. I’d lived a life of suffocating shelter. Already, this new one was offering freedom and passion and hope, for the low, low price of putting my heart on the line.
I would only be betraying myself by not risking it.
“You’re trouble,” I told him.
His smile flared to life, brighter than a star. “I’m starting to think the same thing about you, Smoothie Girl.” He let me go and stepped back, taking his heat with him. “Guess we’ve got our own little troublemakers club going.”
“Does that mean we need a secret handshake? Wait, do you guys have a one of those already?”
His lips curled, eyes laughing. “We’re outlaws, not boy scouts.” He lifted the partition in the counter and went out. “You need anything else while I’m here?”
Another kiss from you. “No.” I glanced around. “It was more controlled chaos today. I can manage.”
“Then I’ll see you tonight. For our date.” Tone started walking away, long legs eating up the distance. The sight was distracting enough I almost missed what he said.
“No one said anything about a-“
“Wear something warm,” he called over his shoulder. “Can’t have you freezing your ass off on my bike.”
“I can drive-“
“Wasting your breath, Smoothie Girl.” He pushed the door open and gave me a wink. “See you soon.”
Then he was gone. Thankfully. Finally.
I could do a little happy shimmy without him knowing he was the source of my giddiness.
Chapter Thirteen
Tone
There was a shirt with a collar in my hands. I stared at it like the foreign entity it was, and for a moment I wanted to rip the red threads into tiny pieces and scatter them like drops of blood across my bedroom.
A painful memory went along with the last time I’d worn anything fitted around my neck.
Katherine’s dad, eyes glassy and swollen, pressing trembling fingers to my shoulder while her casket lay open at the center of the church. Her mom on my other side, shooting daggers at the side of my face. Hating me more than she already did for robbing her of her last moments with the girl we both loved. The endless wave of faces, offering their condolences as if their words meant more than dust. They wouldn’t bring her back. Nothing would.
I’d pulled at the collar of my ill-fitting suit until the skin around my neck was red and raw. What I’d really wanted to do was jump out of my skin. Head back into the woods that separated Oakdale and the even smaller town of Deacon. Lay down in the spot Kat had taken her last breath and wait for death to find me.
But she knew me.
Sometimes better than I knew myself.
That was why she made me promise to not give up.
That was why I found myself pulling the shirt in my hands over my head. Stepping into black jeans. Sliding on tall boots that weren’t covered in scratches. Grooming my beard for the second time in one day, and rubbing in the pine scented oil that kept it soft and smooth.
I have a date.
Now that the hour had arrived, it was really hitting me.
I didn’t go on dates. There was too much room for confusion and false hope. Besides, there was no point.
How could any random woman I came across compare to the girl who had held my hand and kept me in check the first time someone said some racist shit to my face?
How could they compare to the girl who would sneak across the street in the middle of the night with cup noodles for me to eat when my parents stopped caring if there was food in the house?
How could they compare to the girl who—while staring her own mortality in the face—had plotted and schemed and devised a plan behind my back to get me in with the Sinners and away from the men I’d stolen from?
And she had done all of that before she knew I was stealing to help pay for her treatments and surgeries.
The answer was a simple one.
They couldn’t compare as long as I continued putting them up against insurmountable odds.
But I couldn’t stop doing it either.
Until Naomi.
Until eyes that were brown and gold and green all at once became a permanent fixture in my mind.
It didn’t make sense. If there was ever someone to compare to Katherine, Naomi would’ve been the one. Their tendency to match my will pound for pound, hardly ever giving an inch, was almost an exact match.
Except other than that, they didn’t feel similar to me in the least. I suspected it was scars that made the difference.
Not physical ones. Nah, these went deeper than scratches and burns that might mar the surface of the skin. I was talking about scars of the heart. Of the soul.
I had one somewhere inside me from losing the only girl I thought I would ever care about.
Naomi had one too. Although I didn’t know the source of hers, I could see it clear as day when the razor-sharp edges of her attitude came out to play. To someone who knew that kind of pain, it was basically a neon sign.
Yet that was where things got tricky. Where she accomplished something I didn’t know was possible.
Somehow.
Someway.
Naomi was able to live and laugh and feel without the pain robbing her of those things.
How?
I wanted to know.
I had to know. For my own sake as well as the promise I’d made.
And I repeated those reasons in my head when I grabbed my jacket and walked out.
When I took a few dozen strides to the house next door.
When I knocked rhythmically against the wood and waited, breath fogging in the cold, night air.
I kept repeating them, over and over again.
Then the door opened to a heavenly sight, and those thoughts disappeared so quickly I had to wonder whether any of them had been accurate. Or if they were just a carefully crafted excuse for the excitement that bubbled inside me at the sight of her.
“Hey there, Smoothie Girl,” I said, voice soft.
Each time the two of us were alone, it felt like a bubble surrounded us, blocking out the rest of the world. The more it happened, the less I wanted it to stop. Assuming I ever had in the first place.
And as if she could recognize my effort to avoid popping this moment meant only for us, she responded with a quiet, “Hey,” before flashing a slightly nervous smile.
She was standing there looking like a fucking Fae Queen straight from a fantasy and she was nervous?
God damn, I thought, raking my eyes up and down her body. This woman will be the death of me.
Naomi wore faded blue jeans that fit her like a second skin, tucked into brown boots
climbing up her calves. Those curves were distracting enough before I got to the cream sweater wrapped around her chest like a present meant for me to open.
A glint of light caught my eye, and only then did I notice the pendant perched on the shelf of her breasts. There was a square-cut, sky-blue stone in the center, tied around her neck with a long loop of black cord. I reached for it without thinking, and she held still while my fingers brushed against her chest and lifted the small stone.
Something about it was familiar, but tugging at the memory was like trying to reel in smoke. I wouldn’t be against standing here and staring at her the rest of the night, but we had somewhere to be.
My hand fell, and she released an indecipherable sigh.
“You know where we’re going?” She tucked dark curls back beneath the brown toboggan she wore. “Never mind, almost forgot who I was talking to. You’ve probably tried every place in town.”
I mean...I had, but I was curious how she’d come to that conclusion. “What makes you say that?”
Naomi shrugged and stepped back in the house for a minute to grab a bigger coat. The thing was huge, and hid the most outrageous of her curves. She looked cute as fuck all wrapped up in it.
“Just seems like something you would do,” she said. “You have a very thorough way of doing things. Like, when I cashed out your register, you’d turned the bills so they faced the same way. Most people don’t think about that kind of thing.”
I glanced away, feeling more exposed than I wanted to be. An explanation for my behavior wanted to spill from my tongue and I held it in check. What in the hell was she doing to me?
“What can I say?” My flash of a grin was tight around the edges. “I don’t do things in half measures.” I extended my hand towards her. “Let’s get out of here, your nose is turning red.”
It wasn’t, but the way she briefly crossed her eyes to try and see for herself forced a rough laugh from me.
“Jerk,” she muttered, linking her tiny hand in mine.
My laughter died, sparks of pleasure traveling up my arm to my chest. When she stepped closer, the smell of peaches drifted to me, and I was helpless to avoid pressing my nose against her temple and breathing her in. Leaving a soft kiss there when I pulled away again.
Tempted by a Sinner (Seven Sinners Book 4) Page 13
