Chapter 29
Lucas
The candlelight flickers across her face and mussed hair as I hold her in my arms. I don’t know how much rest we got—the little moans she makes in her sleep stirring me as much as the ones she makes when she’s awake.
Her lips part, she searches my eyes, and I know she wants to say something. But then she kisses me. Her mouth leaves a trail so soft and hot, I feel the goosebumps break out down my arms.
The bedroom is cool and dark, no windows in the hideout except in the great room, making it impossible to feel like it’s anything but night. It feels like the world is still asleep. Or like we’re the only ones on the planet.
I brush her hair, tucking it behind her ear. “I love you,” I tell her.
Her naked chest presses against mine, and she trembles, her mouth opening and then closing. And for a moment, fear makes me pause.
When I was a kid, I used to carry her around as she clung to my leg. Now, she’s a woman. Am I good for her?
She breaks into a smile. “Finally.”
I chuckle. Yeah, whatever. So I’m a slow mover. In everything, I guess.
I close my eyes and tip my head back as she trails kisses across my neck, over my collarbone, and down my chest.
Her tongue darts out and teases my nipple, tugging it with her teeth.
Nerves fire, and I suck in air, laughing.
I pull her up, but as soon as I open my eyes, I spot black writing on her back. Just over her shoulder.
I tilt my head up. “What’s this?”
She tries to look over but her eyes don’t reach that far.
The writing is jagged and appears to be in marker. “Two-eight-eight-four,” I read.
“Huh?” She sits up and tries to look over her shoulder. “What is that? Where did it come from?”
Her worried eyes jerk to me, and I launch up and examine it again.
Black numbers, the little lines looking like quick swipes as if done in a hurry. The four and last eight are slightly smeared.
There’s nothing else. No other writing.
Her gaze wanders, the wheels in her head turning. “I thought…” She starts breathing harder. “I thought that was you,” she tells me. “I felt fingers on my skin in the middle of the night. Or I thought they were fingers. I thought you were caressing me or something.”
The sounds she was making… I thought she was asleep, but she was being touched. Fuck.
She chokes back a sob, the realization that someone was here—in this room, while we slept—frightening both of us. They got close enough to touch her. They could’ve done anything to us.
Instinctively, my fingers close around her arms, squeezing too hard. I immediately release her.
It could’ve been Dylan or one of the boys.
And I no sooner think it than the bedroom door flies open. Quinn snaps the covers up, and I jerk my head right, putting my arms around her.
Light pours in, Hunter standing right in the doorway.
His eyes widen. “Whoa.”
“Out!” I growl.
But he looks to his side, down the hall, tensing.
Ah, shit.
Kade and Hawke rush up to his side. “What the hell?” Hawke bursts out at him.
But then he sees us.
The three of them stand there, taking in the scene, Quinn and I clearly done with whatever we were doing. Bed, a mess. Hair, a mess.
“Get out!” she cries, reaching for her clothes on the chair.
But Kade only advances on us. “You son of a bitch!”
That was directed at me. He glares, and if I weren’t naked, I’m pretty sure he would’ve charged me. I haven’t been in these guys’s lives hardly at all, but I already know he’s the one who’s a pain in the ass.
“Kade!” Hawke barks.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed, pulling on my black pants. “Easy,” I chide.
Quinn and I pull on clothes, shielded by the sheet, while Kade’s the only one too angry to have the consideration to look away.
I rise, sliding my arms into my shirt. “How did you get in here?”
“You forgot to lock the mirror, I guess,” Hawke tells us. He looks to Quinn and back to me. “How long has this been going on?”
“Less than two weeks, obviously,” Quinn grumbles.
I almost pause to ask them if this is the first time they’ve been in this room in the past several hours, remembering the writing on Quinn’s back.
But judging from their reactions, this is the first time any of them are seeing us in bed together.
“Are you okay?” Hawke asks her, throwing me a suspicious glance.
“I was until you all barged in!” she yelled. “Out!”
“Can’t find an adult, huh?” Kade spits out at me. “You have to pick on someone half your age?”
“She’s not half my age.” I pull the T-shirt over my head. “And I remember seeing you flip off a twelve-year-old girl the other day?”
“She was fifteen.” He scowls. “And she’s not a girl. She’s a little shit hellbent on pissing me off every time I turn around! You’ve been gone, or you would’ve known that.”
Either way, I still don’t think Madoc knows his son is treating an underage girl like a prison rival because I don’t think he would like it.
“Quinn, get over here!” Kade barks.
I move, ready to stop him from talking to her like that.
“Enough,” Hawke chimes in.
But Kade is a bullet. “Did he buy you that house?” he asks Quinn. “Some place to keep his dirty little secret?”
What the…?
But Hunter clamps a hand over his twin’s mouth and pulls Kade back into his body.
“I’m really sorry.” Hunter laughs nervously.
“The, uh, ‘little shit’ put full cans of beer inside the firewood logs he uses when he takes girls to Chimney Lock Island,” he explains to us.
“His blowjob turned a little painful last night.”
Kade struggles under his brother’s hold, fire rising in his cheeks. I drop my head so he can’t see my grin.
Okay, so maybe this ‘prison rival’ of his can take care of herself.
But Quinn walks up. “Oh my God,” she tells Kade. “Are you okay?”
He yanks Hunter’s hand off his mouth. “No, I’m not okay!”
Hunter clamps his mouth shut again, his chest shaking with laughter. “He’s, uh…out of commission for the rest of the summer.”
I try to shake the scene out of my head, but I can’t get rid of it. Firelight, the summer woods, owls hooting, and then pop! An explosion in the campfire, scaring his date, who instinctively clenches her teeth around him in fright…
I snort as I move around the bed to fan the sheets and tidy up.
“I could’ve died!” he screams.
But Hawke interjects, “There’s no proof she was the one who did that.”
Kade shoves away from Hunter, completely distracted with his rekindled anger. “I’m gonna catch her and bust her so hard, her only option to avoid prison is to join the Army!” he growls. “Either way, she leaves. Not even Green Street can protect her.”
I straighten up. Green Street?
“That kid works for Green Street?” I ask.
The boys look at me, I glance at Quinn, and Hawke nods. “She’s one of their most active little earners now.”
My stomach sinks.
But Hunter clarifies, “Theft.”
I clear my throat, thankful it’s not dealing, or something worse.
But then an idea forms. Theft.
And I start to smile.
She doesn’t know me, but she might enjoy Kade needing her help.
I glance to Hawke. “Call her.”
“Why should I help you?” she asks me an hour later.
Thomasin Dietrich is her name, I’d learned. Tommy for short. She’s the daughter of one of Jared’s old high school rivals, Nate Dietrich.
The firehouse sits lit up behind her, across the street with Farrow’s bike parked in front, and despite the heat of the night, she’s dressed in black jeans, a long-sleeved black turtleneck, and gloves.
I hate that I’m here again. A bad influence to youths. If they find out she helped us…
But for a kid, she’s not easy to intimidate. Arms folded over her chest, eyes stern, and not even the slightest fidget. The red tips in her long, white hair dance softly in the breeze.
“What do you want?” I broach instead.
She’s a thief. Good ones don’t do anything for free.
Lifting her chin, a smile sparks in her eyes. “The hat.”
She looks to Quinn, holding out her hand.
My hat?
I gape at Quinn next to me.
Quinn hesitates a moment, but it comes off her head with no discussion. I watch as it floats from Quinn’s hands to Tommy’s, and I almost say something. It was fine when something I loved belonged to someone I loved, but I might never see it again now.
But I let it go and step toward her. “Okay, just—”
“I’m not done,” she interjects as she stuffs the hat into her backpack. “Payment from everyone.”
Hawke, Dylan, Hunter, and Aro loom behind me, the air suddenly thickening.
“The compass,” Tommy demands without looking at me.
I lock my jaw.
“How the hell did you know about that?” Quinn asks her.
Tommy just fixes us with a bored look until I shove my hand into my pocket and stuff the compass into her palm.
She moves around the group, looking at each and every person.
To Dylan, “The jacket.”
“I don’t have it anymore.”
“Go get it,” she retorts. “We both know where it is.”
Dylan barely hides her annoyance before finally jogging off down the block, and disappearing around the corner.
The jacket must be here in Weston.
Tommy continues, “Your T-shirt,” she commands from Hawke before ordering from Hunter, “and your watch.”
They both remove their items, Hunter sacrificing without a problem, but Hawke looks like a father who’s disappointed in his kid’s behavior or something as he removes his Sigma Tau T-shirt.
She fits everything into her pack, finally turning her eyes on Kade. “Your St. Thomas medal. Now.”
I drop my gaze to his neck, seeing a silver piece of chain peeking out of his T-shirt. His smile is almost a snarl, and it’s not reaching his eyes.
But to my surprise, he pulls it off over his head and lets it dangle in front of her. “It’ll be fun getting this back,” he bites out.
The corner of her mouth quirks in amusement, and she takes the medal, holding it up and making a show of admiring her new necklace.
Without moving to Aro, she zips up the backpack and puts it on.
“What do you want me to take?” she asks me.
“Nothing.” I shake my head. “Just show me the best way in without getting caught.”