Chapter Nineteen
Ice pulled his truck over, glanced over at Vix. He knew that the neck brace was so tight that any movement on her part was impossible, but he’d still driven to the mountains like there was a brand-new robin’s egg sitting on the seat next to him.
“OK?” he said. “I didn’t throw you around too much?”
She turned her whole upper body to meet his eyes, with a teasing pout on her face. “You didn ’ t throw me around at all , handsome. And you won’t for a while, more’s the shame.”
Ice laughed, musing how much he actually did laugh around her, then opened the door. “Sit tight, Vix, I’ll come and get you.”
He opened her door, extended his hand to her and she took it like a queen, then hesitated.
“You worried about jarring your neck when you step down?” Ice asked. “It is a bit of a drop for a woman who needs to stand on a book to look over a counter.”
“Hey!” she said, giving him a teasing tap on his wrist. “I’m not that short.”
“Baby,” he said, wrapping his arms around her waist and lifting her, setting her carefully on the uneven ground. “Keira will tower over you in two years.”
She laughed, clung to him as they stood looking at each other, holding each other. She blinked, and suddenly all Vixen could see was this amazing man standing in the wild, rugged mountains, under a night sky blazing with stars – and he was looking at her like she was the most beautiful thing for miles and miles around. Maybe anywhere.
Those blue eyes were as warm and gentle as they ever got, and Vixen was still astonished that she was probably one of the only people – if not the only person – who saw Ice this open. In moments like this, she thought she saw some of that innocence and faith that Ice surely had, before his whole world exploded in a trailer, in the dead of winter.
All she wanted to do when he looked at her like this was kiss him. Kiss away his hurt and pain, to be sure, but also kiss his humanity and goodness. He had those things in him, she knew now, and although she understood why he pushed them down, she was nothing but grateful that he brought them to the surface for her.
“Vix,” Ice said quietly. “Don’t look at me like that, baby.”
She smiled at his rough tone, knowing what that meant. “Why not?”
“Because.”
“Because what?” She ran her hands up his forearms, over his chest, totally aware that she was poking the bear, but what the hell. She liked teasing Ice, as it turned out. “Hmmm?”
“Because when you do, all I want is to rip those clothes off your hot little body, put my mouth everywhere that I can.” His fingers in her hair were gentle, his voice was a rasp. “Just take you until you scream and beg, take you again until you pass out from coming so hard in my arms. Then kiss you awake, move down your body until you’re twisting and turning under my lips and tongue – and begging me to do it all over again.” He grinned. “ That’s why not.”
Vixen gasped, her whole body responding to just his words. She mentally cursed herself for poking and prodding him now, because all she wanted was to get naked with Ice – like right fucking this second – and she couldn’t. She couldn’t do a single goddamn thing about it, except stand here in the circle of those strong, amazing arms, under a perfect night sky in the mountains, and be totally and completely and helplessly turned on.
“I wish that I could kiss you at least,” he said. “It’s not one one-hundredth of what I really want to do to you, but I’d take it right now.”
“Why can’t you kiss me?” she said, genuinely perplexed. “Do you think you’ll hurt me?”
“I mean – won’t I?”
“How would you?”
“Like – by putting pressure on your neck?”
“Ahhhh,” Vixen said, understanding what he was getting at. “Well, I guess surely we can figure out a way to do this without moving my neck?”
“Like – kissing you?”
“Yes, babe.” She got up on her tiptoes, and even that barely got her mouth near his. “Get creative and kiss me. ”
Ice stared down at her perfect face, her perfect lips. He knew that she couldn’t tip her head back at all – it was like her neck was encased in concrete, and there was no wiggle room – and bending over from the waist to reach her mouth was awkward and not-sexy in the slightest. He glanced around the clearing, and then he lifted her onto a tree stump, his hands resting lightly on her hips. They now stood almost eye to eye.
“There we go,” she whispered, looping her arms around his neck. “I knew we’d get there in the end.”
“Vix…”
“Yes?”
He paused. “I really don’t want to hurt you.”
“You won’t.” She moved a bit closer, felt his fingers slide down the backs of her jeaned thighs, touched at how damn careful this tough, hard man was being with her. “Remember what you said to me in the hospital, and then again when you were getting me into bed last night?”
He cocked his head at her. “No. What?”
“You said ‘slow and easy’.” She leaned against him, letting him take her full weight on his body. “So… slow and easy it is.”
That hard, gorgeous face was level with hers, so he just took a tiny step forward, and then he took her mouth. The kiss was the softest, sweetest thing that she’d ever known: his lips moved cautiously over hers, almost slow-danced, and she felt her whole body go pliant and boneless in his tender embrace. She just fell into him, and she trusted him to catch her.
It was an odd kiss, in many ways, at least compared to all their other ones. From the beginning, Ice and Vixen had been about blazing desire and sheer lust, and there was nothing gentle about any of that . They’d called out the most primal and passionate sides in each other, and neither was ashamed of those sides of themselves, so it had been clothes off and unapologetic feral fucking from the word go: hard kisses, hard fucking, hard orgasms.
In so many ways, this felt like their first kiss, ever. It wasn’t about going full-speed into full-on sex, it wasn’t even about escalating things beyond the kiss.
The kiss was it ; the kiss was everything .
Too soon, Ice pulled back, smiled at the look on her stunning face. He touched her uninjured cheek, watched as those dark eyes fluttered open again.
“OK, baby?” he said.
“Better than OK. Absolutely perfect.”
“Yeah, I thought so too.” Gently, he lifted her off the stump and carried her over to the fire pit. “Now, speaking of perfect: are you sure you don’t want to keep these beautiful slippers?”
“Ha!” She rolled her eyes. “Gimme the matches, handsome.”
“I’ll grab everything out of the truck.” He deposited her on the bench next to the pit. “Now, you just sit here and think very hard if maybe you shouldn’t give the slippers to me.”
“To you ?” Vixen was aghast, watched him amble over to the storage space behind the seats. “Why on earth do you want to wear the grandpa slippers?”
“You don’t think I can pull them off?” Ice grabbed the bag with the marshmallows, a package of marshmallow toasting forks, a bottle of wine, some plates, and matches. “You saying that I’m not sexy enough?”
“Babe,” Vixen said, watching the sexiest man alive walk over to her, just crossing the clearing like it was totally normal for them to hang out around a campfire together. “You are the hottest man alive, in my personal opinion… but if those things ever make their way onto your feet, not even you can make them look good. Or even OK. Or even just mildly terrible.”
“No?”
“No.”
He sighed, pulled the odious slippers out of the bag. “Well, sorry fellas. I tried to save you.”
She giggled. Ice smiled back at her, opened the wine and poured some into a plastic cup. She looked at him seriously, and he paused.
“What’s up, Vix?”
“Does it bother you to be around alcohol? If it does, I don’t have to drink. It’s no problem for me, I’m not a big fan of it.”
“Aw, c’mon, baby.” Ice handed her the cup. “I’m around booze every time I’m at Satan’s, and I throw drunks out of the bar on the regular. I’m surrounded by the stuff, and I’m never tempted.”
“No?”
“No.”
“OK, if you’re sure.” She took a sip. “You know, I think the last time that I drank wine out of a plastic cup was back in high school.”
“It’s pretty fancy, huh? Only the best for my girl.”
She choked. “Your – your girl?”
“Isn’t that what you are?”
“I – I –”
Vixen stared at him, standing there so calmly, like he hadn’t just lobbed an emotional grenade at her, and exploded yet another one of her ideas about this man. Ice was thawing at roughly the speed of light, at least with her, and it seemed that he was determined to surprise her several times an hour. She wondered what else she was going to find out about him over toasted marshmallows.
“So?” He narrowed his eyes at her. “ Are you?”
“I am.” The words fell from her mouth without any thought whatsoever. “Yes.”
“I thought so. I mean, I did promise to tell you if Scars sends me anywhere, and I kinda thought that was because we were together.”
“We – we –”
He sighed theatrically. “Mind blown, baby?”
“It sure is.”
“In a good way?”
“In the best way.” She watched him gathering some sticks and she sighed a bit at his ease of movement, thinking how weird it was to just miss nodding or turning her head. “I wish I could help. I’m not used to everyone else doing everything – especially when it comes to food and drink prep.”
“Relax, Vix. I got this. If anyone deserves to sit on her cute little ass and drink some wine, it’s the woman who faced down a speeding van.”
“Fair point, sexy.”
“Sexy unless I put on the slippers.”
“That is correct.”
She snuggled down in her big coat, watched as he started to set up the wood into a teepee shape around the kindling, then light a match. The kindling caught immediately, and as they waited for the sticks to catch too, he put two marshmallows on each fork. The whole time, she just watched how he moved, marvelling at yet another new side of this man.
Ice was normally like a jungle cat: patient, dangerous, predatory. His every movement felt cold and calculated, like it had a specific purpose, and that purpose was undoubtedly about catching someone unaware, then utterly fucking that someone up. She’d seen him move like that for years now, even in the back rooms when he’d advanced on her before hauling up her skirt to palm her pussy, her arousal pooling into his hand as she gasped and moaned, or when he’d effortlessly picked her up, thrust inside her quivering body, and fucked her standing.
He moved like a force of nature, and there had been quite a few times when the combination of cat-like stalking and ice-cold eyes had taken her breath as he’d walked towards her. She’d known that she was safe with Ice – despite him not being a safe man – but there was always that edge. That chance that this time, he might fully embrace his primal side and sink his teeth into her throat. She’d loved that edge, it had been a huge turn-on, and she knew it was still there; it was a part of him that ran so deep, it was forever.
But now here he was, pottering around the fire and pouring wine and moving the bench closer to the fire so she could reach it with the fork without straining. The way that he switched gears with her was nothing but a miracle, and Vix wasn’t sure what she’d done right in her life to have received it. Received him.
“OK, so,” he said, topping up her plastic cup. “Can I ask you something?”
“Uh, yeah. Of course. You can ask me anything.”
“Where’d you learn to shoot? And baby, I know that gun is legal and registered, but why’d you buy it?”
“Ah. Yes. I figured we’d have to talk about this at some point.”
“No shit. You were carrying that thing in your purse, and you pulled it and used it like a fucking pro.”
“Well,” she said lightly. “I’m certainly not a pro…. though Scars assures me that if I took up contract killing, I’d make better money than waitressing.”
“What?”
“Nothing, babe, sorry. Just a stupid joke.”
“OK, so…” He inspected the marshmallows, slid one off the fork and onto a paper plate. “The gun?”
“Well, I grew up in Iowa, in a small farming town called Weldon. Nothing much there except wheat, and shooting ranges, and churches. So many damn churches.”
“Oh, boy.” Ice grinned at her. “Guns and Bibles, huh?”
“You know it. My parents were pro-gun like you wouldn’t believe, so I learned to shoot cans off the fence in our backyard before I even had breasts. They were also super religious, like beyond any kind of logic or reason. I guess it won’t surprise you to hear that I rebelled against all of that when I was in high school – and I rebelled hard . Discovered boys and sex and wine in plastic cups, found out that I really liked those things, found out that my body wasn’t anything to be ashamed of, and being a woman wasn’t the equivalent of being a walking, talking original sin. My body was mine , my soul was mine , and I got to decide what to do with both. That was the beginning of the end of any contact with my family.”
“The beginning?”
“Yeah. I mean, they threw me out for being a Jezebel and a harlot and a whore, and I moved in with an older guy that I was kind of seeing – but then my younger sister Angela got thrown out too.”
“She discovered that she really liked boys, too?”
“No.” Vixen gave Ice a twisted smile. “She discovered that she really liked girls.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Right?” Vixen sighed, took a nibble of her marshmallow. “If what I was doing was akin to being a fallen woman, what my sister was doing was a full-on, ‘go straight to Hell and do not pass go’ kind of sin. I could maybe have been forgiven, if I’d repented and crawled and begged to be brought back into the fold, married a nice farmer and had a bunch of corn-fed, healthy little babies. But Angela was way beyond saving, according to my parents anyway, so she definitely had to go and stay gone.”
“So you and the older guy took her in?”
“No. My family told Angela that if stayed in town, they’d kill her, or close to it, at least.”
“But,” Ice said, startled. “Surely they wouldn’t do it, really?”
“They did do it,” she said heavily. “She was walking to a job interview and she got jumped by a truckload of my redneck, yahoo cousins. They beat her to within an inch of her life, Ice, and she was too scared to say anything to the cops. So as soon as she recovered, she and I got on a bus and came to Denver.”
“Why here?”
“No single reason, or at least none that I can remember. We were at the bus station and we were looking to get a lot of distance between Iowa and wherever we ended up, plus we wanted a city. We figured that a bigger place would be more accepting of her, so Denver just seemed to tick the boxes.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Well, I’m thirty-two years old,” she mused. “So that’s – wow. I’ve been in Denver for thirteen years now. Hard to believe.”
“And you’ve been waitressing that whole time?”
“Yep. Mostly bars, though I had a short-lived career at a hotel chain working in the restaurant there. I hated it… I prefer working nights, and I like the whole bar vibe and environment, and I’m not a uniform and name-tag kind of girl. So when I landed the job at Satan’s a few years ago, it was a good fit.”
“And Angela?” Ice inspected the second round of marshmallows, decided to have one himself. “Where’s she?”
“Oh.” Vixen’s face lit up. “About five years ago, she met an amazing woman named Rachel, and they moved to Seattle and got married. They board and train dogs, and they’re deliriously happy with it all.”
“You guys still close?” Ice poured her a bit more wine, gestured at her neck. “Does she know about what happened to you?”
“Yes and yes.” Vixen stretched her legs towards the fire, loving the crackling sounds, the dancing orange flames. “She wanted to fly out right away, but I don’t want her around this mess.”
“So why do you carry the gun around all the time, then?”
“Well, partly habit, I suppose. I grew up around guns and I’m comfortable with them, and I can handle them pretty well.”
“ I’ll say, baby.”
Vixen giggled. “And also for self-protection. Satan’s attracts more than its fair share of weirdos and sketchy types, and I’m not exactly a wall-flower, so I feel safer walking alone to my car and into my home with a bit of iron muscle in my purse. Besides, as we talked about before, The Road Devils have had plenty of trouble over the past few years, and as someone in the MC vicinity and sphere – even if I wasn’t directly involved with whatever any of it was – I was worried about being collateral damage.”
“And then you were,” he said softly. “I’m really sorry about that Vix. We all are.”
“I know, babe. But I’d do it all again in a second to keep Keira safe, and I’m actually really, really OK. I know that I’ll recover fully in a few more weeks, and I don’t care as much about the scars on my face as I thought I would. When you first told me about them, back in the hospital, my first thought was that I was nothing without my looks. They’ve opened doors for me, and they’ve kept the money coming in, and they’ve supported my whole life, and they’ve brought me male attention, which I enjoy. I truly thought that without my looks, I wasn’t worth much. Worth nothing , to be honest.”
“And what do you think now?”
“Now?” She smiled. “Now I’m your girl… so as long as you think I’m beautiful, then I don’t care what anyone else thinks.”
“Vix,” Ice said, his voice a low growl. “You are the single most beautiful woman that I’ve ever laid eyes on… and I’m not just talking about that exquisite face and killer body. I’m talking about the whole package, top to toe, inside and out. What you did to protect Keira, the guts that you’re showing in your recovery, the grace that you’ve given me, that you keep giving me. Pure beauty, baby, just breath-stealing fucking beauty .”
“Thank you.” She blushed, her face rosy in the firelight; she vowed there and then to never question if Ice was attracted to her, never again. “That’s all I need to know.”
“Speaking of things that you need to know,” Ice said, switching gears on her yet again, at the speed of light. “I need to talk to you about tomorrow.”
“OK,” she said cautiously, hearing something seriously disquieting in his tone. “What’s happening tomorrow?”
“Me and some of the boys are driving out to Salt Lake City in the morning. We leave at six o’clock.”
“Oh,” she said in a small voice. “Can you – can I know what you’re doing?”
“Part of it.”
“OK.” She took a fortifying swig of wine. “What part can I know?”
“If all goes well, then we’ll have Wolf, Hannah and Joe back. There’s a trade-off arranged for midnight tomorrow.”
“Trade-off?” Vixen echoed, her heart giving a huge leap of joy and hope. “What are you trading for their return?”
“That I can’t tell you,” he said. “That’s Scars’ call, and his decision in the end. What I can tell you is that the guy bringing them to us has a strong amount of self-interest in making the trade. If he doesn’t, he’s dead, so he’s pretty fucking motivated to give us what we want, so we can give him what he needs… namely the ability to keep sucking in oxygen.”
“Right,” she said numbly, then a penny dropped. “Wait – you’re leaving at six a.m.? And the trade’s at midnight? I mean, even if you drive from Denver to Salt Lake City with your eyes closed, you’d still be there by two in the afternoon. Why do you need to be there almost ten hours early?”
“We have to do something else first.”
“Ah.” Vixen studied his face, saw that familiar prairie-distance in his eyes, saw the implacable chill settle over him again. “I don’t want to know, do I?”
“You do not,” he said. “I’ll tell you this much, though: it’s not me who’ll be doing it, but I’ll be right there, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the man who does, helping in any way that he asks. And I’ll take the whole sordid secret to my grave, with no doubts or regrets.”
“I understand.”
“Do you?” Ice gazed at her searchingly, really trying to read her thoughts and feelings on her face. “Can you truly be with me like this?”
“What do you mean? Like what?”
“I mean, with getting half-truths and partial information,” he said, then took a deep breath, determined to lay it all out to her, even if it meant the end of something that had barely begun, something that already meant a hell of a lot to him. “I mean, watching me just leave to go do some bad shit that you can’t know about, and maybe not coming back from it. You know that me and the boys have had to fight a lot lately, Vix, and you sure as fuck know how we fight – you know that we take lives. You know that about me, right? About all of us?”
“I do.”
“Then you should also know that things go sideways all the time, and when they do, they go fast . I’ve been pretty fucking lucky so far, and I’ve always come out on top, but luck always runs out. Can you – will you be able to be with me, with things like this? The fact that we’re attracted to each other, and we like each other is great – but is it enough? Enough for you to stay, knowing how I have to fight sometimes?”
Vixen looked at him seriously, seriously contemplated what he was saying, because Ice was right. They’d gone from just fucking in a bar back room, to telling each other some pretty intense home truths, to sitting here at this campfire with marshmallows and wine, under an achingly romantic sky of stars.
This was, she realized with a start, their actual first date. It was also the night after they’d first slept in the same bed together, and they hadn’t even had sex beforehand; it was the night before Ice headed to another state on a rescue mission from which he might not return.
She’d known this man sexually for years, first as a casual fuck buddy, then as an exclusive fuck buddy. She’d barely known him as a person , though, not really. So did she now know enough to promise him that she’d be here, when he came back from whatever wild and murderous adventure he was embarking on the next day?
He was standing there, those ridiculous slippers in one hand, the bottle of wine in the other, and he looked so nervous, she could scarcely believe that this was the fierce and fearsome Ice Johansson, the man who struck terror into the hearts of terrifying men with a single cool, menacing look. But this was him too, this was part of who he was – and nobody saw it but her. He trusted it with nobody but her.
So she had to trust him too.
“Yes, babe,” she said now. “It’s enough for me stay. You’re more than enough to be with when things are like this, and when things are better, and when they’re worse, too.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“Then I need to ask you to do something else for me, Vix.”
“What is it?”
“I want you to let one of King’s guys take you to stay with Zoe and Keira. You know that he’s got them in one of his safe houses, being guarded by two of his people, and I’d feel a whole hell of a lot better if you weren’t on your own while I was away, and not just to protect you. Zee said that she can help you with getting around, getting dressed, all the physical stuff… and Keira wants to see you desperately.”
“Yes.”
He paused. “Just – just ‘yes’?”
“Yes. Just yes.”
“Holy shit.” He looked stunned, like he’d just been whacked over the head. “Thank you. I was worried that there might be a bit of push-back about it.”
Vixen smiled at him, looking to break the tension a bit. “Hey, you know what I just thought about?”
“Tell me.”
“This is our first date.”
“Huh.” He blinked at her, as if seeing her for the first time. “Actually – that’s right.”
“So shall we end it with a bang?”
“What kind of bang are you talking about, baby? Seeing as our banging options are limited.”
“Now, now, no need for that kind of dirty talk.” She gestured at the slippers. “Isn’t it time to send them to meet their maker? Who I’m assuming resides in hell?”
“You wanna do the honors, then? Seeing as you hate these things with the blazing heat of a thousand suns.”
“Oh, God, yes.”
She took his hand and he carefully pulled her to her feet, handed over the slippers. Without a word, she threw them into the fire. The horrible brown, orange, and mustard material flared and flamed, the soles started to split apart, and she wrinkled her nose at the acrid stench.
“ How is it that they smell worse than they look?” she asked Ice. “These things are truly, truly diabolical. We might need an exorcist if they start to reform and rise out of the fire.”
Ice moved behind her now, gently wrapped his arms around her waist. Vixen leaned against him, felt his muscular chest rising and falling against her back. Standing there, in the circle and safety of Ice's arms, already looking forward to another shower with him, and sleeping with him next to her, she found it hard to believe that anything bad or hurtful or harmful could ever happen again, to anyone, anywhere at all. Vixen knew that was naive and stupid – especially with where Ice was going tomorrow – but in this moment, it felt possible .
She had no way of knowing just how wrong she was. She didn’t know that a woman and her daughter – who had been living a peaceful, hidden existence nine states away and for almost ten years – had just come to the attention of Viper Grant and Preacher Hughes.