Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Stevie
As Saturday went on, my nerves became more and more…well, nervy.
For one thing, Garrak was hosting what he insisted wasn’t a party, but he spent the afternoon cooking dips and mini-sandwiches and these yummy little rolls of bread and mozzarella and pepperoni. I had to admit this was a very different kind of party prep than I was used to.
For another, I kept catching him staring at me, and I just knew he was thinking about the conversation we’d had this morning. He was judging me for helping my father cheat, I knew it. He already thought “Hendricks” was a bad guy, and now Garrak knew I’d helped him.
And finally, my stomach was full of knots because tomorrow…
Well, tomorrow.
The last few days, since Garrak had declared he was keeping me, I’d felt safe and warm and relaxed in a way I couldn’t ever recall feeling.
But today…
When my phone buzzed, I didn’t think anything of it. I pulled it out, swiped up…and froze.
What the fuck’s going on, Stephanie? Did you do the monster yet? Is my debt clear? After your flight, come see me.
Dad.
My fingers curled around the phone, my breaths coming too quickly. What an asshole. Did you do the monster yet. As if that’s all Garrak was. As if that’s all I was to my father—the way to scrub his debt.
Holy crap, he was a grade-A asshole, wasn’t he? He sprung that surprise on me—that I was supposed to whore for him—then texted like everything was fine. He didn’t even to offer to pick me up from the airport?
I think I growled a little as I shoved my phone back into my pocket. My initial response had been fear, but now I was angry. How dare he think he could just drop me a message like that, all cool and nonchalant, as if he hadn’t bruised me and sent me to do horrible things…?
But as the day progressed, his demand in the back of my mind, the dread slowly crept back in.
Tomorrow I had to go home. I had to face my father. I would have to explain to him why I’d failed, and try to talk him out of his threat to tell the LeClair brothers about my part in the cheating.
You didn’t fail.
No. No, I didn’t fail.
I’d done the right thing. When I’d heard what Dad wanted me to do, and seen how hot Garrak was, I had been willing to go through with it. But he’d turned me down, and in the days since then, I’d come to understand why: Garrak was a good male, and he wouldn’t have accepted that bargain for anything.
Dad might have sold me to cover his debt, but Garrak hadn’t accepted.
So yeah, I was anxious. Confused. If I’d been home, I would have poured myself a stiff drink or maybe lit up a joint, but here? Here, I threw myself into cleaning Garrak’s home so the place fucking sparkled.
And with each baseboard I polished, I grew more and more nervous. I realized I was focused on the immediate future, of Garrak’s friends coming over tonight, of being surrounded by males I didn’t know. I’d met two of them at the building site, but I didn’t know them.
Didn’t know if they were the kind of guys who would get too friendly when the beer started, or would pressure me into doing stuff I didn’t want to do, even if I had been drinking…
“Stevie.”
I realized I’d been staring out the window at the dreary Eastshore afternoon, and now I jerked my attention to him.
Garrak was watching me, brows drawn in, as he stalked across the living room. “You’ve been upset all afternoon.”
“I’m not upset,” I immediately countered.
“Nervous, then.” He stopped in front of me. “Are you okay with the guys coming over for poker?”
“Sure,” I lied, faking a smile. “It’ll be fun.”
Instead of accepting the polite fiction I’d handed him, Garrak reached up to hold my chin in that way of his, with the pad of his thumb pressed against my lower lip. My lips parted as I exhaled over his thumbprint, and he brushed gently across my skin.
He didn’t hold tightly, the way Dad and other men in my life had. Garrak didn’t hold me like I was his property… He held me like I was his responsibility; like he was keeping me safe.
With a hard gaze, Garrak held me in place and leaned down. “Don’t lie to me, pretty little human.”
Pierced by his eyes, I stared up unblinkingly and didn’t even consider admitting anything but the truth. With his thumb still over my lips, I whispered, “I’m a little nervous about being around so many guys.”
Garrak studied me for a moment, as if making sure I was telling the truth. Then he nodded once. “Good girl.” He bent down and dropped a kiss on my forehead, a benediction. As always, his approval made my insides flutter and my breath go short.
“I’ll cancel—” he began, but I reached for his forearm without thinking to interrupt him.
“No! No,” I repeated, softer, as he clearly debated with himself. “Garrak, I-I can do this. It’s just a poker game.”
“You’re sure?”
This time, my smile was a little shy, but not false. “I’m sure.” My hand slid along his arm as he released my chin and twined his fingers with mine. “I’ll be fine.”
“I won’t leave your side,” he promised, bending forward to press a kiss on my temple, and the warmth that filled me was as much from his touch as his words.
Even if it was only for a short while, Garrak was my protector.
At six-thirty, the doorbell rang, and Korrad—the safety inspector I’d met at the building site with Mr. Kowalski—let himself in. “I brought the beer,” he called out, heading to the kitchen. “I’ll have to pop back around nine to check on Jay.”
Garrak murmured to me, “Korrad’s son is eleven. They live just down the hall with Korrad’s twin.”
“Brakkor?” I remembered.
Korrad joined us. “He’s going to be thrilled you remembered him.”
“No, he won’t,” Garrak grunted, focused on setting up the poker chips. “That male isn’t thrilled about anything ever.”
“True.” Korrad shrugged with an unrepentant grin. “But he might grunt a little less grumpily than usual.”
“Is he coming tonight?”
Surprisingly, Korrad’s gaze flashed to me before he answered Garrak’s question. “He might. They were making curry for dinner, then he was going to put in a movie for Jay. He might come over then.”
Garrak hummed, as if not surprised, and shrugged. When the doorbell rang again, Korrad went to open it, clearly at ease in Garrak’s home. That made me relax a little. Garrak was a good male, and his friends would be too.
The two newcomers were introduced. Dravik was covered in tattoos, and his brows were drawn in, making him look as if he were scowling even though his mouth was expressionless.
Varron was more clean-cut, with an easy smile as he introduced himself as Eastshore’s on-call EMT.
He was easy to like, and I found myself exhaling with relief.
Yeah, I could hang out with these guys without worrying. Besides, Garrak was watching me. Watching over me.
And I watched him handing Dravik another beer without asking, or scooping a second spoonful of the artichoke dip onto Korrad’s plate, and I realized he was watching over them as well. He’d done it seven years ago, and he was doing it now.
It made me smile.
We settled down to play poker, with me sitting at Garrak’s side, and I realized I was going to have to play for real.
Oh well. Garrak was going to have to learn my secret eventually.
See, for the last few days, as he’d been “teaching” me to play poker, I hadn’t really been paying attention; I’d been watching him.
I learned how to play poker on my grandmother’s knee—and a half-dozen other games, besides.
I’d learned how to manipulate, how to bet, and yeah, how to cheat.
I knew how to watch for sleight of hand or little signs that told me I was being cheated, and I most definitely knew how to watch for tells.
What was interesting was that Garrak didn’t have any. Any.
I’d never played against anyone who didn’t have any tells, but after our first afternoon playing, I’d decided that he did have tells, but since I was human, I couldn’t identify them.
That would explain why he was so damn successful at the big games in Vegas and New York; the men he’d played against couldn’t read him.
But I could.
Yeah, I know I just got done explaining that I couldn’t identify any of his tells, but…but I didn’t need to, not to know when he was bluffing or pleased. I still hadn’t figured out why or how that worked…but it did. For days now, I’d been watching him and his hands, and I realized I could read him.
Guess it was time to put that knowledge to work.
There was general chaos as we found our seats. Brakkor came in, announced Jay was watching a movie, and went to the kitchen to heap food on a plate. When the betting began, he settled against the wall to watch.
As the game progressed, I won slightly more than I lost. Not a lot, but enough for me to stay in the game.
Mainly, I was distracted watching Garrak.
It seemed that when he played against other orcs, they could recognize his tells better than humans could.
Or maybe they could just read him the way I did.
Either way, Garrak wasn’t kicking complete ass like he did in the human games.
“Think we should invite her to all the games,” grunted Dravik, staring down at his cards.
I started. “Me?”
Varron grinned across the table. “Garrak’s playing like shit tonight because he can’t take his eyes off you.”
Feeling my cheeks pinking—and heat pooling low in my stomach, and between my legs—I turned to Garrak. To find him watching me.
The green was back in his eyes, brighter this time.
He folded without betting, and you know what? Somehow I’d guessed he would do that.
Korrad was the dealer for the next round. “This is my last,” he announced, reaching for the cards. “Gotta go check on Jay. Brakkor can have my seat.”
“No, he can’t,” his twin grunted, heading toward the kitchen. “I’ve had too many beers to keep track of the cards.”
“Excellent,” crowed Varron. “He should definitely take your seat.”