Chapter 3
THREE
HALF-SMILE
I woke.
I didn’t open my eyes, I just woke, feeling warm and good, if not refreshed.
Oh, and weirdness, it also felt like someone was playing with a tendril of my hair (that was a big part of the “good” I was feeling).
But…
That couldn’t be.
Right?
I wasn’t sure what was going on.
The only thing I was sure of was that I was in the pitch black of my bedroom, curled into myself—like I normally slept—and that was it.
Then, as was my everyday occurrence, all I needed to get done flooded my head.
Get up, go make cookies, muffins, cupcakes and other bits and bobs to fill SC’s coffee cubby case. Then wait tables.
After work, come home and decorate the sheet cake and fill and decorate the two dozen cupcakes I baked yesterday that were right now in my fridge. Then deliver them for the retirement party that was happening tonight.
Tomorrow, another kid’s birthday (panda themed with cute cherry blossoms and bamboo trimming the sides of the cake) and a bridal shower (fortunately, a naked cake, but with an elaborate flower arrangement at the top).
Sunday, no orders, thank God.
My energy levels were appreciative of a day of rest on the horizon; my bank account was not.
On this thought, my bed moved, and that tendril of hair was released only for a big, warm hand to smooth down the nape of my neck and my spine, this obviously taking my attention from my hectic schedule, and for some reason, automatically, instead of fleeing immediately, my body moved too (and not to flee).
That was, it uncurled, and as the heat of hard, silken muscle fitted to my front, with zero hesitation, I fitted myself in return as that hand pressed at the small of my back.
At that point, I was in no doubt there was a man in bed with me, because he had no trouble introducing his blatant morning condition to the juncture between my hips.
And I knew that man was Gabe, because I knew his smell: a clean aroma with hints of spice.
Hell, regardless that we’d never been in this position (alas), I even knew his feel.
Okay.
Um…
What was happening?
I didn’t know, but what happened next was he kissed my forehead. After delivering that, I felt the tip of his nose skate along the bridge of mine, then he brushed his mouth against mine.
What I should do was hark back to figure out what got me into this situation.
Alternatively, I should jump out of bed and demand to know what was going on.
I didn’t do either of those.
No, I couldn’t, because all that was me was about all that was him, and from what I could feel, there was a lot of him…everywhere.
“You sleep like a cat,” he murmured, his lips moving against my lips, causing an internal shiver and a full-on private-place quiver. “All curled up and tucked to my side,” he kept murmuring. “Fuckin’ cute.”
Okay.
Ummmmmmmmmmmmmm!
What was happening?!
Before I could ask, he did that delectable lip brush thing again, so I could do nothing but concentrate on controlling myself and not, say, jumping his bones.
Then, his lips still to mine, he said, “Know you gotta hit it and I gotta go home and get my workout bag to hit the gym. Talk soon.”
He then pressed those lips to mine, light, sweet, promising, before he was gone.
Just like that (with a little blip when he tucked the covers around me).
He was there one second. Just his presence was there the next. It was gone the second after that. And about five seconds after that, I heard the front door close. And, if my hearing didn’t deceive me, I also heard the lock turning.
Of course, the Nightingale Men had easy access to the Avenging Angels. This was due to historical issues that happened up in Denver a little over a decade ago when the OG Hot Bunch were claiming their women (known as the Rock Chicks).
And, obviously, there was the not-small matter of the AAs getting involved in human trafficking, homeless people abductions and murder.
Let’s just say they were taking no chances.
So Gabe having a key to my place didn’t surprise me since he had one when he was my bodyguard, I’d never asked about it then (because, obviously, he’d need one), and I’d never asked for it back (Freudian?).
But it was a point to ponder.
All of this was points to ponder.
Just…
Later.
I rolled to my back, stared through the pitch dark toward my ceiling, and forced myself into total recall of last night.
I remembered Gabe and I arriving back at the Oasis to find the common occurrence of a mini shindig developing in the courtyard.
Since this included Linda, Bill, Zach, Sally, and Mouthy Martha, all of whom I adored (yes, even Mouthy Martha, I might adore her most of all because you gotta love a woman who has no issue with using her voice) and my (and Gabe’s, not incidentally) close friends Joey, Gemma, Raye and Cap, Harlow and Javi, along with chips and dip, not to mention the universal call to gather… tacos, Gabe and I joined.
I also remembered everyone looking at us with no small amount of interest.
This was not only due to the fact we arrived together. It was also that Gabe made absolutely no bones about the fact he was so very done avoiding me.
At once, I learned when Gabriel Stark was making a statement, it included a lot of closeness and touching.
A whole lot.
This, of course, drove me straight to tacos, beer and denial.
I further remember Patsy joining, and then Jess (sans Eric, who was working), also Shanti, who’d been over to her folks’ house for dinner.
And I remembered I eventually was in a lounger by the pool with a beer in my grip and Shanti and Harlow flanking me, both unable to ask about Gabe since he was close, but even so, forming those questions with their eyes.
Since he was close, I couldn’t answer, and there was so much to say, I certainly couldn’t do it only using my eyes.
Last, I remembered I must have fallen asleep in that lounger because the next thing that came to me was waking up when Gabe was carrying me into my bedroom.
As all these memories bloomed in my head, I realized I could not get pissed at him for one thing. That being the fact I could tell I was wearing my nightgown.
You see, I was so out of it, when he put me to my feet in my bedroom, I’d simply lifted a hand to point at the hooks on the back of my door where my baby-pink, deep-V front, short-short, racerback nightie was hanging.
He’d brought it to me, and right then, lying in bed in the dark, I could feel the heat in my cheeks, because I’d actually changed right in front of him.
I’d then collapsed into bed.
Though, I did not recall inviting him to join me there.
And I might have been kinda out of it a few minutes ago, but I was not so out of it I didn’t feel the man was only wearing his underwear. I’d felt the roughness of his hairy legs against mine, his also hairy chest catching at my nightie, and lots of skin.
Later, I would marvel at the fact the man could dress and leave an apartment in ten seconds flat (marvel at it and wonder at it because that seemed a pretty practiced exit and might not say good things).
Now, I simply had to contain the freakout all this caused, because, on a turn of my head, I could see my alarm was two minutes from sounding and I had to get my ass out of bed and face the day.
One thing I knew, I was going to have to have a pretty stern convo with Gabriel Stark.
And soon.
Because that was not happening again.
Ever.
Boo! Dreamer protested.
Good Girl, Logic approved.
Ugh.
With no choice, I set all of that aside and got out of bed.
* * *
At five ’til five, all gussied up and ready to make some muffins, and later, some tips, but still dragging (I could seriously not wait until Sunday), I parked my little blue Mitsubishi Mirage in the parking lot behind The Surf Club.
I got out of my car, closed the door, locked it, started toward the back door to SC, and instantly understood I’d learned a life lesson that I was both grateful for, and wished I’d never endured.
Apparently, a girl’s instincts ramped up after she’d been kidnapped (thanks, Trev!).
This was why I pulled my always-charged Taser out of my bag, whipped around and aimed it at the man who was loitering in the parking lot.
I kept it aimed even as I saw illuminated by Tito’s solar-powered lot lights that I knew the guy.
It was Mr. Shithead, one of our informants who was not a friend. He was skeevy and crotchety, and he liked us about as much as we liked him.
That was to say, not at all.
Though he did like my cupcakes, and so far, that was his only positive.
I was a newer Angel in the group, not as new as Joey and Gemma, but not one of the OGs, like Raye, Luna, Harlow and Jess. I hadn’t had as much experience as they did with this guy.
But I’d been around him and the girls talked.
As far as I knew, they’d never seen him away from his post as the nighttime clerk in reception at a skanky hotel in a not-so-awesome part of town.
And this begged the question, what was he doing here?
He put his hands up in front of him. “Listen, don’t shoot. I just want to talk to you.”
“Great. Awesome. How about doing that not in a deserted parking lot at five in the morning? Say, come back during visiting hours,” I suggested, keeping my Taser at the ready.
“I don’t have a lot of choices,” he told me. “They can’t see me coming to you women.”
Uh-oh.
“Who can’t see you?” I asked.
He took a step toward me.
I lifted the Taser a smidge and warned, “Stay where you are.”
He stopped.
My bag vibrated with a call.
I ignored it.
“Okay, I need you guys’ help,” he stated.
Really?
“Why?” I asked.
“There’s like, one person who’s, like, decent to me,” he said.
And that was it.
My phone stopped vibrating.
“That’s not giving me much info,” I pointed out.
“One person in my whole life.”
I didn’t want to feel sorry for the guy, but one person?
That sucked.
My phone started vibrating again.
Shit!
Who was calling me this early?
“And they’ve got her,” he finished.
Uh-oh!
Obviously, I ignored the phone again.
“Who’s got her?” I asked.