by Cole McCade
Leigh looked down and picked at the strap of her backpack. “Something like that.”
“You do what you gotta to take care of him.” Maxi nodded decisively, and settled in her chair behind the counter. “End of story.”
Leigh folded her arms on the cool glass counter, leaning on them. “Do you have kids?”
“Nah.” Maxi grinned, baring one gleaming gold incisor, her smile crooked and fierce. “Nieces and nephews coming out the ass. Or crawling up my ass, most of the time. But me?” Her round mountainous shoulders rolled; she swiveled the chair away and punched in the code on the safe behind her, her body masking her motions but soft beeps rising to punctuate her words. “Eh. I’m bad at relationships. Boyfriends tell me I’m too bossy.”
“No such thing,” Leigh murmured. “Nothing wrong with standing up for what you want.”
“That’s how I’ve always seen it.” The safe clicked open. Maxi retrieved a small plastic baggie with the ring inside, unsealed it, and spilled it gingerly out into her broad pink palm. “So this ring of yours? Appraised at sixteen-point-two million. You can probably get at least half that from the right seller.” She clucked her tongue against her teeth. “I can’t give you more than two-fifty large. You sure you want to sell it?”
“I wouldn’t even know what to do with eight million dollars. I don’t even know what to do with two hundred and fifty thousand.” She knew she sounded insane, but she smiled anyway—especially when Maxi gave her that look, that crazy-ass white girl look, again. “I’d be happy with just enough for a bus ticket.”
“Yeah, well…you never know when you’ll need it.” Maxi set the ring down and pulled a sheaf of paper from under the counter, forms with pink and yellow carbon-transfer copies underneath. She slid the forms and a pen across the counter to Leigh. “Read everything, sign at the bottom of each page. I’ll ring up the sale. You know the usual rules about buybacks?”
Leigh flipped through the pages, scanning the contract terms quickly. She’d never pawned anything before, had zero experience with this, but at least she’d finally get to use those two semesters of law and administration from college. She skimmed enough to make sure she understood the conditions, terms, and potential fees.
“Getting the general idea.” She started scribbling her signature on page after page. “I don’t think it’ll be a problem.”
While Leigh sorted through the paperwork, Maxi dug out a velvet ring box, tucked the ring away, and slipped it back into the safe. Leigh didn’t blame her; if anyone guessed the value of the ring, they’d break into her shop and ransack it. She hoped the woman wasn’t just going to end up sitting on it forever. She seemed smart—savvy. Savvy enough to find an auction marketplace where she could put the ring up as a featured item, and get far more than she’d paid for it. Maybe even the eight million she’d suggested. Leigh liked that thought, and smiled to herself. She liked the thought of this woman with her cat-eyes and beautiful tattoos having all the money anyone could ever need, because Leigh had thrown away something useless for anything else.
By the time the paperwork was done and the ring put away, Maxi had laid out several thick stacks of hundred dollar bills bound in paper, crisp and neat. Leigh just stared at them. To some people this wasn’t much money. To her parents, her husband, the people who mattered to him. But after a lifetime of having to ask for permission to buy anything followed by years of choosing to have nothing…to see that stack of money and know it was hers left her with a strange thrill of weightlessness. With this much, she could go anywhere.
Start over, and figure out just what—and who—she wanted to be.
She slung her backpack onto the counter and stuffed the money into the hidden pouch at the bottom without bothering to count it. It barely fit, big bricks pushing against the canvas, but she managed to zip it closed and pile her possessions back on top. Hefting it to her back, its weight noticeably heavier, she offered Maxi a grateful smile.
“Thank you.”
Maxi just let out an amused snort and shooed her off with a wave. Leigh grinned and headed for the door, but Maxi called after her.
“Hey,” the woman said. “You in some kind of trouble?”
Leigh paused with her hand on the door. “Why would you think that?”
“People don’t come in here selling expensive personal possessions at a fraction of market value unless they done got themselves in a lick of trouble.”
“No trouble. Not really.” Leigh laughed. “Just looking to kind of…reboot my life.”
“Don’t we all wish we could.” Maxi offered her a smile that made her vivid tawny eyes glow with warmth. “Good luck, girl.”
“Thanks,” Leigh said again, and slipped out of the store.
* * *
She took the long way to the park, following the more heavily-trafficked main streets, feeling like everyone who looked at her could see the weight of the money in her backpack. But if she was honest with herself, she was dragging her feet. She could only be happy about what was ahead of her if she didn’t think about what she was leaving behind, but the need to see Elijah was a compulsion that she couldn’t deny.
He was there with the nanny again, wearing shoes with mismatched colored shoelaces and sitting on a blanket beneath a tree. The little redhead had a book open in her lap, but it was Elijah who was reading it, tracing his fingertip over the page and moving his lips in a way that made it clear he was sounding out the words one syllable at a time. Leigh smiled, curling her fingers in the chain-link fence. She’d known he would grow up smart. Her beautiful little boy. He’d be okay without her, she told herself. He’d be okay.
She nearly lost track of time just watching him, while he finished the book and then shared a juice box with the nanny. But she made herself pull away, unable to help smiling again; she’d see him again. One more time. She still had that much, but if she stayed any longer right now the nanny would notice. She knew the girl had seen her a few times before, and if she got suspicious Leigh might not even have that last chance.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, baby,” she whispered, then snapped one more photo and walked away, back toward the Jackdaws.
Gary was awake and setting up to open by the time she made it back to the bar. When she stepped in, he blinked at her, tilting his head.
“Ain’t seen you look that happy in…well, fuck. Ever. Something happen?”
Leigh grinned. “I’m in a good mood. Don’t ruin it.” She jerked her chin toward the stairs. “He gone?”
“About an hour ago.”
“Walking?”
“Even got in his car and drove.” Gary smirked. “Took his cat.”
“Guess I’d better go make sure he didn’t wrap himself around a telephone pole.”
She grinned and clattered up the stairs. The apartment almost felt wrong without Gabriel taking up so much space with his vibrant, heated presence, the animalistic shadow of him hovering everywhere. She stowed her bag under the bed, took a quick shower, then changed into her sundress, the soft layers of muslin floating around her until it felt like wearing sunlight. With her little jelly sandals and pale, shimmer-pink lipstick, she felt pretty for the first time in a long time, instead of just tawdrily sexy. Slutty sex appeal had its own pleasure, but today…today, she just wanted to feel pretty.
Pretty, and happy.
She took the time to brush her hair into soft, shining waves, and paint her nails a fresh coat of pale rose tipped in a crust of silver glitter, then rattled down the stairs and breezed toward the door, past Gary’s wide eyes.
“Where the hell you going dressed like that?”
“Out,” she answered with a laugh, as she pushed out the door. “Don’t wait up.”
She nearly skipped to the city and toward the Ravens, passing under that archway with a sweet thrill running down her spine. God, she was an idiot, acting like a schoolgirl with a crush. Something she’d never been, not really. Her first crush had been an illicit thing that had always made her feel deliciously dark, but
had never really given her the chance to just be a girl. She’d been a woman from the moment he had first laid eyes on her—but for just one night, maybe she could be something else with Gabriel Hart, and carry that with her when she left.
Less than a block from the shop, she heard the music: slow, deep, throbbing, sensuous, winding through lazy bass notes and lilting melodies that created a haunting rhythm of hypnotic sound. A trembling, high female voice whispered, Eat me, in the space… Within my heart… Leigh slowed, drifting toward the garage. The door had been rolled up, and the music rolled out from within the shadowed interior. Its beat slipped under her skin and pulsed soft inside her, until it radiated all the way down to the tips of her fingers.
Gabriel lay on the hood of his car, sprawled on his back with one foot propped on the front fender and his hands laced together over his stomach. Tattered, well-worn jeans hung sinfully low on his hips, slouching loose in contrast to the skin-tight fit of a dark gray shirt splashed in graffiti patterns. He cleaned up nice, Leigh thought with a touch of amusement, her face flushing warm as she stepped closer, crossing the threshold into a space filled with the scents of hot metal and engine oil and masculinity, watching how he lay with his eyes closed and those darkly angelic features relaxed.
“Hi,” she murmured.
He didn’t even jump. He’d probably known she was there; he always knew, in a way that she was starting to understand when her skin prickled with awareness of his presence any time he was near. His eyes slipped open to glimmering slits, focusing on her, drifting over her from head to toe and warming with appreciation.
“Hi.”
A slow smile crept over her lips. She drew closer, then slid up onto the hood of the Firebird and lay next to him, shoulder to shoulder, just closing her eyes and listening. The car was hot underneath her, as if the engine had just shut off a few minutes ago, but hotter still was Gabriel’s arm pressed against hers, and she gave in to the urge to lean into him—just a little.
“So have you made up your mind?” he asked softly.
“Maybe.” Leigh turned her head, watching him—the way the light reflected off the angle of his jaw; the way his chest rose and fell. “If I spend tonight with you, where would we go?”
“On the river. I know a place I’d like to take you, once the sun goes down.” His hand drifted down—then caught hers, enveloping it in warmth, lacing their fingers together. “Will you come?”
“Let me think about it a bit.” She smiled slightly and looked away again. “This place doesn’t really do much business, does it?”
“Not really,” he rumbled. “It was a run-down wreck when I bought it from the previous owner. I’ve spent more time restoring the shop than restoring cars. I doubt anyone really knows it’s here. I haven’t needed them to.” His thumb stroked over her knuckles. “I just…needed something to do. Something to keep me busy. Something to take my anger out on.”
“Why were you so angry?”
“I don’t…I don’t even know. Or maybe I had so many reasons that I can’t pick just one.” He exhaled heavily. “I was angry with the people who killed my unit. Angry with the people who tortured me. Angry with my unit, my friends, for dying. My sister, too. For leaving me. For checking out when I wasn’t even here to say goodbye. I was angry with my last surviving friend for leaving.” He closed his eyes, voice quieting. “More than anything…I was angry with myself for fucking up. I needed something to channel that anger into, and something to distract myself from the pain.”
Leigh leaned against him, squeezing his hand. “So you got yourself a muscle car, rebuilt a garage, and named it after your sister’s favorite book.”
“It kept my hands busy.” He chuckled. “I thought about drag racing. There’s something about that quarter-mile that lets you forget everything. But…” He lightly thumped his thigh. “Hard to stay in the game when you never know if your leg will fail at a hundred and eighty miles per hour.”
“That’s why I came to check on you. To make sure you hadn’t wrapped yourself around a tree.”
He turned his head to look at her—so close their noses almost brushed. “Is that the only reason?”
She caught her lower lip between her teeth, searching his eyes. There was so much more past those mirrors than she’d ever thought possible. This quiet man who loved deeply, who felt everything so fully that it stayed with him always. She wanted to lean closer, to kiss that question from his lips, but instead she laughed, looking away.
“You have to stop asking me things like that.”
“Never,” he promised.
“Gabriel?”
“Yes?”
“You’re always asking me what I want.” The question fell too loud in the silence between one track and the next. “What is it you really want?”
He remained silent for so long that she thought he wouldn’t answer, while the low susurrations of the next song began, soft teasing drumbeats, intimate in the dark. Then he lifted their clasped hands, and pressed his mouth to her knuckles.
“To be able to forget everything,” he said. “Even if only for one day.”
Leigh closed her eyes, trembling as he traced his mouth to the tip of one finger and filled her with a sweetness she didn’t know she could feel.
“Okay,” she said. “Okay. I’ll…I’ll go out on your boat with you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
THEY LAY TOGETHER IN THE dark until the sky turned pink and orange about the edges, and the sun melted into a heat-shimmer blur in the sky. Leigh closed her eyes and let herself drift with her hand laced in Gabriel’s and the music washing over them, timeless and still and letting herself just be. But when Gabriel’s hand tightened on hers, she turned her head to look at him. He watched her in silence, his dark hair splaying in a fan that mingled with hers like sunrise and night together.
A shy smile tugged at her lips. “What?”
“Does there need to be a what?”
“You’re staring at me. There needs to be a what.”
“I don’t think there does.” He sat up, body slinking powerfully, and shifted onto his side, resting on one elbow and looking down at her. “You’re here. So I’m taking that in while I can.”
Chills prickled on her skin; she lowered her eyes. She couldn’t see herself in those reflective mirrors and say still manage to say this. “You know…you’re not the reason I’m leaving, don’t you?”
“I’m part of it.” He brushed his fingertips to her cheek. “You don’t want to believe in anyone, little mouse. And you’re starting to. First Gary, now me. It’s easier to leave than to stay, and wait for us to break our promises like Jacob did.”
She laughed bitterly. “I’m that fucking transparent?”
“You’re that frightened.”
“I’m not supposed to be. I’m supposed to be wild and cruel and uncaring. A crazed girl, heroically lost, heroically found.”
“You can be all those things and still be afraid. We all have things we’re afraid of.”
She turned her head to look at him again. “Even you?”
He smiled slightly. “If I told you what I was afraid of, you’d call me a liar.”
“So don’t tell me.” She pushed herself up and pressed her lips to his. His mouth was stern and beautiful, and she plied his lips until they softened for her, until he let her in to taste. She sighed, flicking her tongue against his, then drew back. “I don’t want to doubt you tonight. I just want to stop being angry and hateful and bitter, just for this moment.”
“I rather like you angry.” Hart slid closer to her—then pressed hard against her, his bulk pushing her onto her back against the slick hood of the Firebird, his broad hand spanning the breadth of her shoulders. A dark smile flitted across his lips. “When you’re angry, you fight back.”
“What are y—”
She didn’t get a chance to finish. Not when Gabriel slid down her body, his tightly toned physique dragging against her in a harshly scintillating caress; not when he
twisted his hips to part her thighs and settled himself between, while rough hands dragged her dress up and her panties down, stretching them until they cut into her legs and leaving her trapped with the cloth binding her and his fingers stroking along her thighs. He curled his hands beneath her knees, lifting her, spreading her open wider—then dipped his head to taste.
Leigh cried out, tension rippling up through her in spreading waves as raw sensitivity cut through her. The roughness of his tongue traced over her torn, swollen folds, licking at that delicious soreness that she’d held on to so tight. It hurt, just the lightest touch stabbing into her and making her flinch back from a pleasure that trod the line between sweetness and sheer agonizing torment.
“G-Gabriel,” she gasped, digging her fingers into his hair. She tried to close her legs, but he had her too tight, his body immovable, and there was no hiding when he left her so deeply exposed and refused to let her escape. “Gabriel, it—it hurts!”
For just a moment that torture eased. For just a moment he lifted his head, wicked eyes watching her from beneath his brows with dark and hungry intent.
“I know,” he growled—then flicked his tongue-tip against the swollen heat of her clit, and smirked when she dissolved into shuddering, ragged cries as jagged claws of need raked through her.
He assaulted her. He punished her. He ravaged her, tracing every slick line of her folds and exploring her with stroking lips and a maddeningly devilish tongue, seeking every fluttering place that locked her up in spirals of mounting, insane pleasure-pain. The tip of his tongue teased and worked over her clit until she sobbed and struggled against him, jerking her hips into every sharp bolt that rocked through her, fighting his grip and pulling at his hair. She couldn’t stand this, her body too overwrought from last night, but he wouldn’t let her escape.
“Stop,” she cried. “Stop!”
Yet what she really meant was more.
His tongue delved inside her, stroking wet and slick and rough against her abused, clenching inner walls, and she arched her back against the car hood and lost all control. He plunged deep: twisting, licking, taunting her with relentless caresses that teased her from within, wrung out every drop of her aching soreness and turned it into bursting flashes of needling pleasure. No man’s tongue should be able to do the things he did to her: scandalous, deviant, wonderfully cruel, shredding her senses with every twist and every delicate tracery that explored within her depths. She thrashed, fighting his grip and the stretching bonds of her panties, but he held her prisoner to pleasure. Prisoner to pain. Prisoner to an overstimulation that pushed her to the point of crazed insensibility, building her up to a fragile, trembling edge, holding on by the thinnest thread.
