Nine
JENNA
His heat is a beacon at my back, constantly drawing my focus from the staircase beneath my feet to the man who silently guides me to my own room for the night.
Or morning. I caught sight of the girls asleep in the parlor as we passed the large archway.
It stirred something in me. Placed a weight in the center of my gut.
Something that feels a lot like sentiment.
I haven’t known many of them long. Eleanor and Mary-Beth were with me the longest, both being kept in the warehouse with me before they carted us to a new location and threw Kathy and Darla in the door on the second day.
Mila came last, crying and kicking at the men before we were whisked through the streets with enough speed to throw us against the sides of the van.
Then they added the final touch—The Kid.
Mila stopped crying, drying vacant tears on the back of her tattooed hand while we all strained to see the child through our cloth hoods. Details may have been hard to come by, but there was no denying the small stature of our last passenger.
No one said a thing the whole ride to the farmhouse.
Still, it was there in every measured breath, in the gentle touches some of the women would offer the girl when we were yet again knocked off balance, and loud in the subdued compliance as we allowed the men to lead us to that basement room where they already held Nandi.
A kid has no place in this business. Carting desperate and foolish women is one thing, but adding the innocence of juvenile trust into the fray? Sick.
“Whose room is Kathy in?” I ask as we reach the head of the stairs.
“The spare.” He breezes past me to open a door slightly to the left of the landing, leading into the corner bedroom. “The one you were all supposed to be in.”
I do not find his ass cute. I shouldn’t even stare at his butt like I am as he walks inside, but it’s not my fault the man knows how to pick a pair of jeans.
Fang turns and waits for me to follow him in.
Holding his eye, I step inside the narrow room. It smells musky. Lived in. I drag my gaze to the mess of sheets on the bed and the tacky mirror slung overhead. “Let me guess,” I drawl, noting the empty leather holster on the dresser. “This is your room.”
“Be rude to take anyone else’s.”
It’s sleep, Jenna. Sleep and time to figure out my next step. Loki thinks I patiently wait to go home like some of the other women. I have no intention of returning to that hellhole.
Besides, he wouldn’t want me to. Not until the job is done.
“Make yourself comfortable in the bed,” Fang says, lazily slinging an arm to indicate the oversized sex-pit. “It’s yours.”
“With all due respect.” I fold my arms, still scouring the covers for signs of an impending health crisis. “I don’t know how many extra-curricular activities you’ve completed in that tangle since the sheets were last changed.”
“It’s clean,” he snaps. “Apart from me sleeping in it.”
“Are you sure?” I lean closer to inspect a suspiciously darker patch on the base sheet.
His sigh bulldozes past me to echo off the headboard. “Fuck’s sake.”
The man’s out of the room before I can say another word, heavy heels stomping down the landing.
I wander to the dresser and inspect the holster.
Made for wearing over the shoulders. Home for two guns, not one.
My gaze drifts to the picture of a man who’s considerably older yet has the same debonair flair as Fang.
Father maybe? Also patched. Notably, there are no pictures of women. Or siblings. Feels familiar.
“Ever heard the saying ‘don’t look a gift horse in the mouth’?” he gripes, sweeping back into the room to dump an armful of clean linen on the floor.
“Sure.” I’m not sure whether I should help him undress the bed. But judging by the way he positively tears the sheets from beneath the corners of the deep mattress, I’m thinking it’s safer to stay on my side of the room.
Fang paces around the bed for what feels like an eternity thanks to the stifling tension, stripping it of the old linens and making it crisp with the new set. He sweeps an inked hand over the comforter to remove most of the wrinkles and then gestures to his creation with both arms wide. “My lady.”
I lift an eyebrow, then shuck my shoes before sliding beneath the clean covers. “Much appreciated, my fine fellow.”
He huffs, bundling the dirty laundry and then tossing it anew onto the floor to make a nest for himself.
The linen flies with each brash stroke of his foot until he has it in a somewhat rectangular formation.
“You’re too scared to sleep in a bed I’ve used, yet you get in a clean one with dirty clothes on,” he grumbles, assaulting an innocent pillow and positioning it at the head of his makeshift bed. “Make it make sense.”
Typical male. “Guess you’d rather I was naked, huh?”
“That’s your first assumption?” He huffs, incredulous.
I thrust a hand toward the ceiling. “There are signs that I may be right.”
“Fuckin’ headache.” Fang paces to the dresser, rips open the second drawer, and promptly throws an enormous T-shirt at me. “All you had to do is ask.”
I catch it before it slaps me in the face. “Have I done something to upset you?”
He stares at me as though I just asked if fire really burns. “Are you for real?”
“As real as you’ll ever get.” In a world where fake gets you far, I’ve never been one to conform. I’d rather retain the pieces of my soul that I still control. I eye the makeshift bed on the floor. “Let me guess: you’re sleeping in here, too.”
He stalls in his fidgeting. “You think I’d leave you unsupervised after the shit you pulled when we let you out?”
Fair. “It’s just, I got the impression you had somewhere private for me to sleep.” Somewhere I don’t feel as though I have to keep one eye open for shadows over the bed.
He lies down, arranging the sheet over his legs. “This is private.” Then sits abruptly to tear the knitted sweater off before settling down once more. “Go to sleep, Freckles.”
Freckles. I nestle into his bed, back turned toward the man to conceal the smirk I have no hope to hide.
I’m under his skin.
Which feels only fair considering he’s already under mine.