7. Dax
DAX
I woke late the next morning to a cryptic message from Corbin summoning me to Beau’s shop. What the hell did he want?
I was way too hungover to deal with my little cousin and his scheming ways. He probably wanted me to do something for Beau that I wasn’t going to like but would inevitably do anyway. I sat up and ran a hand through my hair. Why the hell did I drink so much last night?
I knew the answer, but I wanted to pretend I didn’t.
I couldn’t get Travis out of my head. I’d forced myself to stay away from him since I’d helped move his stuff to his apartment.
The men I had watching him had checked in with reports on how he was doing.
I knew he’d hate me spying on him, but it was for a good cause.
Someone needed to make sure he was safe at night.
I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him, about what it would’ve been like if I kissed him, about what it would be like if I was actually his full-time protector, what it would be like if he were truly mine.
I’d wrapped my hand around my cock in the shower, in bed, wherever and whenever I jerked off, imagining him under me as I held him down and thrust into him.
I imagined him straddling me, riding me faster and faster as I urged him on.
I imagined him on his knees, swallowing my cock.
I kept thinking I needed to bury myself in someone else to put Travis out of my mind, but every time I’d gone out, I’d turned down all the propositions I’d received.
I wanted Travis, not someone else. How the hell had this all come on so fast?
I’d never believed in fate bringing two people together.
Hell, I’d never really believed in love until I’d seen my cousins fall for their men.
Now I was questioning everything because my mind was screaming that Travis was the one .
He was mine, and I needed to go claim him, but I held back.
There would be so many consequences if I did.
Now I was finally going to see Travis again… unless I ignored Corbin’s message. Maybe seeing him would actually be a good thing. Maybe I’d realize I was blowing my attraction to him out of proportion, misremembering the intensity of the feelings he inspired in me.
Or maybe it would make everything worse. What did Corbin mean he had someone I needed to talk to? He was being vague, and that was never a good sign. I texted him for clarification, but even after I’d showered and eaten breakfast, I’d gotten no reply, not that I was surprised by that.
My AC was working overtime to combat the midsummer heat, so I’d eaten in my boxers, then reluctantly pulled on a pair of cargo pants and a t-shirt.
I would’ve had to leave the house eventually.
Remy would be fussing at me soon to get on with some of the tasks he’d assigned me.
As much as I dreaded going out into the swampy heat, if I stayed home, I’d just spend every second thinking about Travis.
It was possible I wouldn’t even see him. He might be working under a car the whole time. For all I knew, it was his day off, though the fact that my man reported he’d left his apartment at the usual time and gone to the body shop told me I wasn’t going to be that lucky.
When I pulled to a stop in the lot in front of Beau’s shop, I took a deep breath of the cool air blasting from my car vents before cutting the engine. I headed for the main office, assuming Corbin would be lurking somewhere near there since he rarely did any of the dirtier work.
Leland, the youngest of the mechanics, was at the front desk sorting through some work orders. “Is Corbin around?”
“Um… yeah… but I think he’s in Beau’s office.” Leland’s nervous frown told me everything I needed to know.
“He’s in there with Beau? And the door’s shut?”
Leland blushed as he nodded.
Dammit. Those two would fuck anywhere. They didn’t care who heard it.
“I guess it’s time to piss them off.” I headed down the hall. I heard a muffled laugh from Leland as I pounded on Beau’s office door. “Get decent. It’s Dax. I’m coming in.”
“The door is fucking locked,” Beau shouted.
“You think I can’t pick it?”
“Give us a few minutes,” Corbin yelled.
“You shouldn’t have called me if you didn’t want me showing up unannounced.”
I heard scrambling as I fiddled with the doorknob. I could pick the lock, but I decided to be slightly more patient.
A moment later, Corbin open the door. His hair stood up straight. His t-shirt was on backward, and Beau’s coveralls were partly unzipped and hanging at his waist.
“I’ll get you back for this,” Beau said.
“Blame Corbin, not me. He’s the one who called me at an indecent hour and didn’t even tell me what the hell he needed.”
“What did you want?” Beau glared at his man.
“Don’t worry about it. Go back to whatever it was I distracted you from.”
Beau slapped Corbin’s ass and walked out the door, pulling his coveralls back up as he went.
“You might want to do something about that.” I gestured to Corbin’s t-shirt. He rolled his eyes and turned it around. “Why the hell did you call me here? Who wants to talk to me?”
“Last night, I took Travis to dinner, then dropped him off. Apparently, you failed to tell him you had someone watching his place, and when I waved to our guy?—”
“Fuck. Travis knows?” I should never have kept it from him. “How mad is he?”
“Pretty damn mad. I told him he had to take it up with you.”
“Travis is the person you called me here to see?”
“What did you want me to do? You’re the one who gave the order. I told Travis I couldn’t do anything about it. That only you or Remy could.”
I squeezed my hands into fists. “You little shit.”
He shrugged. “I might be, but I’m also an excellent matchmaker.”
“Oh, fuck no, Corbin.” I could not have him trying to push me and Travis together.
“He talked about you a lot at dinner, and anytime I even tried to criticize you, he jumped to your defense.”
I tried to ignore the way that made my pulse accelerate. “What’s there to criticize?”
Corbin just smiled.
“Do you have any idea what a fucking mess that would be?”
“Look at me and Beau.”
I snorted. “That has got to be some kind of miracle.”
There wasn’t going to be any easy way to get out of this. “Where is he?”
“In the back garage.”
Of course he was. “Alone?”
“If not, I can arrange it.”
“No thanks. If we need privacy, we’ll step outside. I don’t need Beau pissed off at me about slowing work down as well as interrupting his morning fun. Didn’t you two just get out of bed a few hours ago?”
“Beau gets up at five.”
“Okay, four hours ago.”
Corbin smirked. “He likes me. What can I say?”
“I don’t.”
“That’s what families are for.”
I flipped him off and left to find Travis. I wasn’t a man who usually got nervous, or I wouldn’t have succeeded in my line of work. But I was nervous now. Every step I took, my heart pounded harder. Despite the heat, I felt cold sweat on the back of my neck. I didn’t want to argue with Travis.
I’d faced down men who carved their enemies into tiny bits. I’d faced down drug lords, gunrunners, and all manner of mobsters without being scared. But I didn’t know if I could deal with my friend’s little brother who I’d known since I was a kid? That wouldn’t do. I was no fucking coward.
When I stepped into the garage, I saw Travis immediately. It was as if my gaze was pulled to him and nothing else existed for me. If any of my family knew I was having thoughts like this, they wouldn’t stop making fun of me for years, maybe ever.
I watched Travis for a moment. He was concentrating on returning tools to their location on the wall hooks. When he turned and saw me, he froze.
“Dax? What are you doing here?” As soon as he said the words, he shook his head. “That was a dumb question. I mean, Corbin’s your cousin, but…”
Travis’s nervousness eased mine. I smiled as I walked closer. He tracked every step I took, and the look on his face did nothing to calm my desire for him. “Corbin said you wanted to talk to me.”
“Oh.”
“So what’s up?”
“I… um… You can’t keep spying on me. I want you to call your men off.”
“Cher, I’m not going to do that. You know better.” I took another step toward him, and he leaned back and gripped the counter.
He swallowed hard. His eyes were huge as he watched me. “Are you always this fucking difficult?”
I laughed, squeezing my hand into a fist to keep from cupping his cheek. “Yes.”
“I don’t—” His phone rang.
I tilted my head toward it. “Go ahead and answer it. I’ll wait.”
Travis answered the call. Within seconds, the color drained from his face. He didn’t say anything, but a few moments later his frightened expression turn to anger. “Leave me alone.”
He ended the call and shoved his phone back into his pocket.
“Who was that?”
Travis shook his head. “Wrong number.”
“Travis, do you really think I’m that stupid?”
“It’s nothing, Dax. You don’t need to worry about it.”
“I worry about everything that concerns you.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re… Because I promised to protect you. You were scared by whatever the person said.”
“When Beau was in jail, I was scared every day. I’m used to it.”
“Let me help you. Let all of us help you.”
“What’s going on?” Beau called. I turned to see Corbin right behind him. He’d probably been trying to stop Beau from coming out to the garage.
“Travis just got a call that shook him up,” I said, knowing Beau would want details as much as I did.
“Who was it?” Beau demanded.
Travis rolled his eyes. “Does anyone around here understand privacy?”
“Nope,” Corbin said. “There are a lot of good things about my family, but that is one of the downsides.”
“It was some guy claiming to work for LePlatt, telling me they wanted to see me.”
This was not good. “They’ve probably traced the phone by now.”
Corbin’s expression hardened. “How long did the call last?”
I held out my hand. “Let me see your phone.”
Travis glared at me. “I can look it up myself.”
There was no point in arguing. He was right. “I’m calling Remington. I want to be sure we’re fully prepared.”
“You don’t need to do that. It was just a threat. It’s not like this is the first time they’ve called me.”
Anger burned through me. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me they’d contacted you before? How long has it been since you’ve heard from them?”
Travis shrugged. “I don’t know. A month or so.”
“Jesus.” Beau ran a hand over his hair. “I can’t believe you kept this from me.”
“I didn’t. I told you they wanted revenge.”
“You didn’t say they’d already tried to come for you.”
“They haven’t. They just make threats. Nothing has come of it.”
Beau’s face was red. He looked ready to explode, and I was fighting just as hard to stay calm. I’d known Travis was in danger, but now I was ready to tear everyone in LePlatt’s organization apart.
“That will change now that they know you’re here,” I said. “Once they realize you’re in a position to spill information to the Theriots, they aren’t going to leave you alone.”
“I told you I should just leave. I didn’t want to involve any of you in this.”
“Too bad,” Beau snarled. “We’re involved, and that’s exactly where we want to be.”
No one came after Travis or any of us that day or during the next few weeks.
I spent a lot of time at Beau’s shop. I often caught Travis watching me.
More than once, he dropped tools or forgot what he was saying midsentence whenever I was close by.
I hoped I wasn’t as obvious, but Travis was distracting as fuck.
I was thrilled when Beau and Corbin moved to a new house and offered Travis the apartment over the shop.
I had much better control over the security there than I did at his other apartment.
When Sam, Beau’s manager, needed to take some time off for a family emergency, I said I would fill in for her.
Beau was skeptical because Sam was a fucking genius mechanic, and I was barely adequate, but he agreed to it, knowing I would probably hang around anyway, and my presence would help keep his brother safe.
After several full days at Beau’s shop and long nights doing other family business, I was exhausted.
Keeping hold of my self-control around Travis grew more and more difficult.
To make things even worse, my cousin Lancelot had jumped on the fall-in-love-with-someone-completely-unsuited-for-you bandwagon like his brothers.
Every day I considered whether I could get away with pulling Travis into the bathroom or the supply closet or if the only way I could pin him against a wall to take what I wanted was if I waited until he was heading up to his apartment for the night.
How much longer would I last before I either made a wrong fucking move or spontaneously combusted?