Chapter Eleven
Alexandra
I reluctantly roll out of bed, the late afternoon sun streaming through my window and probing deep into my eyes to remind me of just how many drinks I had earlier. My head hurts like it’s been cracked with a sledgehammer, and my tongue feels less like my tongue and more like some dry snake in my mouth. Yawning and groaning, I stand and stretch.
Memories of earlier in the day surface in the late afternoon haze: sharing beers with Dixon, ending with a tequila nightcap — or, to use the more correct term, morning cap — and then directing him at gunpoint to handcuff himself back to the radiator and leaving him a bottle of Gatorade. It’s not abnormal for me to wake up around this time of day. I am a bartender, after all, but it is abnormal for me to wake up feeling this much like crap.
I’m not at my best right now.
But not my worst, either. Things got real dark for a real long time after Lucas died.
I stumble my way to the bathroom and revive myself in a steaming hot shower. Clean, dressed in fresh clothes, I go to the kitchen to make some coffee.
“About fucking time.” Dixon’s voice comes from the direction of the radiator. It’s sharp enough to make me wince.
“The time is the time. So what?”
“Been here for fucking hours, that’s what. Haven’t I fucking proved myself enough that you can dispense with the handcuffing bullshit?”
I snort and turn my attention to the coffeemaker, which is a way better use of my time. “Didn’t realize Marines were such big babies that a few hours stuck to a radiator is enough to make them cry. Did they really send you to a war zone, or was it actually a daycare?” The coffeemaker burbles and the divine scent of fresh coffee wafts through the kitchen, bringing a smile to my face despite the crying coming from my living room. “Coffee will be ready soon. You want a sippy cup?”
“So kind of you. Yes. A cup and my freedom would be nice.”
“Keep up the attitude and you won’t get either of those things.”
With the coffee ready, I pour him some. But as I hand over the cup, something unusual at his feet makes me pause just before the cup changes hands.
“What happened to your Gatorade? I gave you a red one. Why is it yellow?”
“You filled me full of beer and Gatorade and kept me cuffed here for hours, so I had to make do.”
“Make do?” I want to be wrong. So desperately want to be. Please.
“It isn’t Gatorade in here. Let that be enough for you.”
“Gross.”
“What did you expect me to do?”
“Not be gross. Why are you so gross?”
He shrugs. “Years of trauma, neglect, genuinely not giving a shit. Oh, and maybe being cuffed to the radiator in a psychopath’s apartment, without the opportunity to shower or even fucking wash myself in the sink, despite the fact that I fucking worked a shift at the fire department the other night and I saved that psychopath’s life.”
I roll my eyes at his dramatics. “First of all, I’m not a psychopath. I’m what you would call a survivalist with trust issues and a genuine need for revenge.”
He glares at me, and I can’t decide if I want to slap him or kiss the aggravation right off his face. After he showers. “Listen, can you just uncuff me so I can drink that coffee and clean myself up?”
“And if I do, then what? You going to play nice, Dixon Green?”
“Define ‘play nice,’” he says, his eyes scanning mine as if he’s looking for something more than just freedom from his metal constraints.
“Emptying your own pee bottle, taking a shower, and leaving your clothes outside the bathroom door so that I can throw them in the wash real quick. You smell like you need a long shower and I refuse to smell your body odor the whole damn day. I may have grown up around a motorcycle club, and I may be a bartender, but to deal with your stink, I’d have to be a garbageman.”
His lips twitch at that. It’s the barest hint of a smile, and it”s like being sucker-punched, for the way it twists my stomach.
“Alright. I’ll play nice.”
I kneel to unlock the cuffs, my hand hovering over his wrist. For a moment, our eyes meet and the world tilts slightly. The weight of his gaze threatens to shatter the barrier I’ve built between us. But I reinforce it with thoughts of the why I’m here, the pain I’ve endured, and the fucking nightmare we buried in the desert.
Click.
The cuffs come loose and he rubs his wrists, the reddened skin proof of his bondage.
Standing up, I point toward the bathroom sternly. “Move it.”
He snatches the coffee from my hands and takes a long drink, then another, before handing the empty cup back to me. “Fuck, that was good. You’re a terrible host, but you make a damn fine cup of coffee. Time for that shower.”
He raises an eyebrow at me, prompting me.
“It’s the second door on your left down the hallway. Fresh towels are under the sink.”
Nodding, he turns and heads to the bathroom.
“Suppose you’ll need my clothes to wash them,” he says, still a teasing note in his voice. He’s enjoying his freedom too much. I never should’ve let him out of the handcuffs. Now that he has a shred of my trust and a purpose, it’s like he’s free to show just how much of an asshole he really is. “I’ll just leave them out here.”
That sentence is all the warning I get before he strips. All of it. His cut, his shirt — revealing a back marked with tattoos and with muscles that ripple and shift in hypnotic ways — and, just before I manage turn my eyes away, I see his firm, underwear-covered butt as he bends to pull off his jeans.
“You don’t have to fucking strip in my living room,” I say.
“Do you expect me to take a shower without stripping? Besides, this ain’t nothing you haven’t seen before, unless you’ve been living under a rock since you were born. Now, I’m going to leave my clothes here and take a shower so long that it will use up all the hot water in the building.”
I wait until I hear the door close before I take my eyes off the ceiling.
Then I grab his clothes and go to the closet where my washer and dryer are stacked. My hands linger on his jeans, gripping them, feeling the essence of him. I feel him on my fingertips, smell him, and something decidedly un-hateful swirls in my chest in a way that makes my breath short and my heart beat fast. I toss his clothes into the wash, then I pick up his cut. The patch, a black-and-white grim reaper, the road name — Smokey — and the road-worn texture of the leather. I take it all in. I imagine it on his shoulders as he tears down the highway astride his bike, as he bursts into combat, as he sits at a table with his brothers in the clubhouse, laughing, smiling… I like his twisted smile.
What the hell am I doing?
That thought strikes me like lightning and I let his cut drop. It hits the ground, and I turn the washer on and hurry to the kitchen, on the lookout for something, anything, to take my mind off Dixon Green.
I settle on making breakfast. For dinner. Because it’s damn late, I’m hungover, and there’s few things on earth as good for a hangover as breakfast food. Bacon, eggs, toast, even pancakes drenched in butter and syrup. I make it all. I’m a decent cook, not just because I grew up in a household with two hungry men and often had to help my mom in the kitchen — that is, until she passed away, then I took over entirely — but because, in my bar-tending journey, there have been nights where I’ve worked at bars where I was the entire back of the house staff, cook included.
By the time the washer buzzes that it’s ready and I throw Dixon’s clothes in the dryer, I have a feast for two set out on the kitchen table and a second pot of coffee brewing. My head still hurts, I’m still hung over and guzzling coffee, but I know that, when I’m done cooking and can sit down and enjoy the fruits — well, pancakes and bacon — of my hard work, I’ll feel better.
I get to work mixing dough for some biscuits. I set several large dollops of batter out onto the baking tray and throw them into the oven.
It’s then I hear the shower stop, and I frown — the dryer isn’t done. I’d hoped that the clothes would be ready before Dixon finished his shower, and I’d even hinted that much to him by telling him he should take a long time, but now, I face the unnerving prospect that he’s going to have to stand around naked in my bathroom until his clothes are ready.
Just then, the bathroom door opens, and he steps out, wrapped in a towel that is barely larger than a dishrag. I have bigger towels, but he intentionally chose the smallest one.
“Smells good,” he says, cocky, heart-stopping grin on his face as he strides toward the kitchen, giving only a passing glance toward the clothes dryer, which is still chugging away. Damn machine, why can’t it work faster? Why couldn’t it save me from having to watch as that wet, muscular mountain of a man strides toward me?
His eyes lock onto mine, that same smirk playing on his lips, and it feels like he”s reading every thought that”s racing through my mind. My cheeks burn even hotter, if that”s possible, but I refuse to look away. I won”t give him the satisfaction.
Sure, that’s the reason.
”Looks like you might have to entertain me while I wait on my clothes,” Dixon says, leaning against the door frame.
I cross my arms over my chest, anchoring myself amidst the storm of emotions he”s stirring up. ”You can entertain yourself. Go watch some fucking TV if you’re bored. Or you can help me set the table.” I”m hoping he”ll pick the former; I don”t trust my composure if he gets any closer in his current state of undress.
”I”m all about being useful. Where do you want me?”
In the bedroom, with those handcuffs. I mean — fuck; I want you out of my life.
I point to the silverware drawer without meeting his gaze. ”Plates, forks, knives…”
”I know how to set a table, princess. What kind of savage do you take me for?” He moves into the kitchen with an effortless grace that belies his size, and a tone that tells me he knows exactly what kind of savage I take him for.
“The worst kind.”
A chuckle is his answer, followed by the tinkling of silverware on the table — a pair of spoons, forks, knives. Then he grabs another cup of coffee and a seat, while I take the biscuits out of the oven and set them on the counter beside the rest of the food. There’s so much food, it’s then I realize just how rattled I am. Who cooks this much food? Especially for a man who’s wearing nothing more than a washcloth.
The dryer buzzes, and I heave a sigh of relief. “Your clothes are ready.”
“And?”
“And there’s already bacon here, and I have no fucking desire for sausage, too. Go put your clothes on.”
Dixon takes his time standing, a motion which becomes a slow, bending rise that’s equaled by the slow rise of his eyebrow and a sarcastic twist of his lips. That smile disappears when I take a tight grip of my knife and viciously slice through a piece of bacon; I’m not sure if he gets the phallic implication, or if he’s just unnerved by the sight of me attacking a piece of meat like a velociraptor, but, either way, that smile disappears.
He stops in front of the dryer, throwing a look down the hall toward me.
“Should I just get dressed right here, then?”
My answer — Hell no, stop, grab your clothes and get dressed in the other room — is just on my lips as he drops his towel and I have to throw my eyes to the ceiling to avoid seeing something I definitely don’t want to see.
Dixon”s chuckle fills the space again, a low rumble that seems to bounce off the walls, and I can hear the rustle of fabric as he finally clothes himself. It takes a little too long for my peace of mind, but at least my kitchen remains a sausage-free zone.
”Can”t say I didn”t offer you a show in exchange for your hospitality,” he says with that infuriating cockiness as he saunters back in, fully dressed now.
“I’ve seen bigger.”
“What?”
“Yeah, when I helped my cousin take care of her newborn. I had diaper duty a few times.”
His jaw drops, and I can”t help the laughter that escapes me. The tension breaks like a popped balloon. We sit down to eat, and I”m hyper-aware of his presence across from me. He devours the food with a hunger that”s more than physical — like he’s coming back to life, after so long adrift, he finally has a purpose, a mission that could change the way he sees himself and the crime he holds himself accountable for.
Not that I don’t attack my plate myself. I eat with the hunger that only comes after too much beer and too much tequila; the amount of bacon and eggs I devour would wipe out a small farm.
Plate cleaned, twice, I set aside my fork and look at him. He’s still eating, but he’s slowed, and his eyes meet mine. Dixon is a murderer, but there’s a reason that it was remarkably easy to flirt with him back in the bar.
“We need to talk about this thing between us,” he says.
I swallow. “What thing?”
A raised eyebrow is his reply.
Did I miss something?
Is he fucking with me? Or is he flirting with me?
“The dead body, our mission.”
I breathe a sigh of relief. Just that. Not how, despite the fact that I kept him chained to my radiator and planned on killing him, I couldn’t keep my eyes to myself while he was changing and he damn well is aware of that fact.
“Right. That. I think we should start asking around about him. Show his picture, the tattoo, see what turns up.”
“That’s a great idea. If you want to get killed.”
“Really? What do you propose, genius?”
“Well, princess —”
“Stop calling me that.”
“It’s literally accurate.”
“Just shut up and tell me what your bright idea is.”
“Do you want me to shut up, or do you want me to talk? Figure it out, princess.”
“Talk, asshole.”
He grins at me. It’s a grin I want to punch off his cocky face.
“This guy’s probably a hired killer. Makes the most sense, considering everything we know about him. Just showing his picture around town is a surefire way to tip off whoever hired him we’re onto them, which we sure as fuck don’t want, because then you’ll get more hired killers knocking on your door. We need help, and we need to be discrete about our investigation.”
“Help? What, you want to call in one of your brothers from the MC? No way.”
I object to the idea for many reasons — like the fact that, if it this story turns out to be a dead end, and Dixon is still the one who killed my brother, it won’t be as easy to kill him if he’s got one of his club brothers around.
“Where we’re going to have to go to look into this guy, it’s going to be dangerous, and I really doubt you’re going to let me have a gun. So we need backup.”
“No, you’re not getting a gun. And you’re not getting backup from your MC, either. That’s non-negotiable.”
“You’re a real fucking treat, princess. We’re supposed to go hunting for killers, without backup, without me having a gun, with no other information other than a photo and a description of a roadrunner tattoo? This isn’t Mission Impossible and I sure as fuck ain’t Tom Cruise.”
“Thank fuck, he’s strange.”
“He is. Listen, I got an idea. Let me call someone—”
“No.”
He continues, completely ignoring me and making me want to punch his smug smile off his stupid face. “I’ll call someone unrelated to the club. If there’s a man who knows their way around the underworld and how to get into all the dirty crannies, it’s this guy.”
“How the hell do you expect me to trust you?”
Dixon pauses, gives me a smile that, if it could speak, would say ‘Bless your heart’ in the most Southern of Southern accents and leave me speechless for days.
“I don’t. But you’ll take one look at this guy, and you’ll know he’s no biker. His name is Moose, and he’s just the man we need.”