Chapter 19
Dixie
There were some people in life you just fell into step with. Lovelyn was one of them. A total sweetie pie who welcomed me back with an open heart.
Begging her for the story of how she’d come to be in a relationship with the Big Bad was working for my aching head. After so many weeks of being alone, I was finding it hard to arrange my thoughts. Squirrel brain had taken over.
Lovelyn finished her tale of falling in love with Kane, including how he’d thrown grown men aside to reach her in the game.
What a mental image that made. She navigated carefully around the fact she’d been seeking me, focusing instead on the romance of it.
How they’d fallen in love while travelling together.
“He’s so lovely. He’s scared of scaring you, though.”
That made two of us. “Do you think he’ll mind waiting until tomorrow? Promise I won’t disappear again.” There was only so much a girl could handle in one visit.
Mila goggled at her. “It’s hard to imagine my brother being scared of anything.” She blinked and turned to me. “Our brother. I’ll get used to saying that.”
I pressed down on the little rush of fear at the connection. The whole Marchant lineage. “Tell me about it. I knew his name but nothing else. Glad he’s on our side. He’s freakin’ huge.”
Lovelyn’s cheeks pinkened. She was the cutest.
Seated on the floor with her arms wrapped around her knees, Cassie took everything in. Of everyone, she’d said the least. Something about her scrutiny made me want to hide. I touched my fingers to my forehead.
Mila noticed. “I don’t know about you, but my brain is fit to burst. If you’re up for it, I’d love to talk more tomorrow, too? Maybe we can take a walk around the building, seeing as I can’t leave it.”
I smiled. “I love that idea.”
“Then it’s a date.”
Mila gave me her number. They readied to leave, and at the door, Cassie gave me another hug.
“We’re here however ye need us to be.”
If she wanted to say more, she held her tongue. I was glad for the kid-gloves treatment.
Tyler returned to me when the women left. In the quiet apartment, he held up the wall, a strange vibe of reserve coming from the man who looked at me like I’d hung the moon. “I told the management team that you’re mine.”
The happiest shimmer slid over my skin. “I know, hun. Cassie said.”
He tipped his head to the boxes. “After all this, I’d understand if ye want me to leave. The place can be yours. I won’t keep a key.”
I got up and walked over. He stopped talking.
Tension strung tight between us.
“I do want you to leave.” I pushed up on my toes and kissed his cheek, that tiny piece of contact sinking deep into me. The warmth of him a need. “I want us both to go. Take me home?”
Tyler’s eyes shuttered closed, and he fisted his hands at his sides. “Thank fuck for that.”
At the exit to the warehouse, after Tyler tucked his coat around me once again, Shade found us.
“It’s not safe for ye to be without a guard.”
Tyler paused then gave him a curt nod. “When I flash my hazards, peel away.”
The enforcer snorted. “Like I don’t know where ye live.”
Tyler scowled. “Seriously?”
Shade shrugged. “It’s my job. I enforce for the crew. I take care of business. Hard to do that if I can’t find anyone.”
Still, he left us at the bottom of the road that scaled Deadwater Ridge, his headlights shrinking to dots in the pitch-black night.
We parked, and I practically ran inside the cabin. Tyler followed, his phone ringing.
“Shade,” he said to me.
He answered. Listened. Rolled his eyes. “My security system would tell me if anyone stepped onto the property, let alone tried to get inside. We’re good.”
We were. So very good.
Besides, the last person hunting me had been him. I felt safer now than ever. I pushed the door closed, and he killed the call.
In the entryway, neither of us moved, just watched each other in the low light.
Then I hugged him. Not just a polite squeeze, but a full-body mapping of mine to his.
Warmth and need rushed, the smell of him and the feel of his solid form so good under my touch.
He was safety, and protection, and a steel wall between me and the world.
For all we’d been out in the wild tonight, I hadn’t panicked.
Not like when I was solo fleeing around the country and seeing threats in every man who looked my way.
If he was near, no one could touch me.
Except him, and only as I allowed it.
Same as with the kiss, Tyler froze. Then slowly, one big arm came around me, his hand splaying across my back, his head sinking down beside mine. The way he held me closer nearly broke my brain.
“Don’t thank me,” he asked low.
So I didn’t.
We stayed in that hold for longer than reasonable, then kept close when we made dinner together. Watched a movie on a projector he had hidden in a wall. But half the time, Tyler stared at me. And I didn’t stop myself stealing glimpses back.
Sex moans wailed through an open doorway, and I smiled, comfort settling over me at how homely it felt.
Tyler and I had returned to the warehouse this afternoon, as promised, and Mila and I hit the cam girls’ floor, trying the walk-and-talk method of communicating.
I liked this better than the feeling of being interviewed.
Tyler had been concerned over where we could wander safely and had scoped the floor before letting me loose on it. A lot of people worked in the massive red-brick building, and he worried about keeping my identity under wraps for as long as possible.
“The minute that changes, people will want a piece of ye,” he’d said.
The cops, reporters, I knew it. Mila and I were taking care over the words we used, and at the end of the corridor, Tyler waited, arms folded, and in the position of guard.
It was hard to keep my gaze off him.
Louder, orgasmic groans stole my attention.
In a room to the left, a girl I didn’t know was on all fours on an ornate bed, ass to a camera on a tripod.
Shelves of toys and equipment lined one wall, out of sight to her client, and a screen showed what he could see.
The sex toy shaped like an alien tentacle she was fucking herself with.
It lit up in a burst of lights shooting into her when she faked her climax.
The timer in the corner of the screen showed only four minutes had passed. She should’ve drawn out the alien porn for longer.
Mila’s cheeks flamed red. “When I first got together with Convict, we slept on this floor a few times. That took some getting used to.”
My smile returned. “I always wanted to work these rooms but rarely did. There was easier money downstairs with walk-ins and regulars. Selling livestreams and videos means you have to be techy and know how to run ads. I’m allergic to technology.”
My sister laughed.
We moved on, taking in two women in the next room, posing on their knees together in their opening chat with their client.
Both were dolled up so pretty, and my heart swelled for how much I’d missed this.
Sex in the air. Women in their power, holding men in the palms of their hands. I loved the warehouse so much.
But I was here for another reason. Mila wanted to know me, and specifically about the relationship we’d shared without knowing.
“How about I start with the first part. How I met our grandparents.”
With Mila hanging on my every word, I began with when I was thirteen and the day Austin and Primrose Marchant turned up on our doorstep when I was about to leave for school.
My mother had told me to stay home, and her glee any time they mentioned treating me right and making sure that she wasn’t inconvenienced was barely hidden.
They whisked me away to their mansion house the same morning.
A smash-and-grab, done friendly.
Cash had definitely changed hands.
Our grandmother had doted on me. “She splurged on clothes, shoes, on beautician appointments. She’s the reason I have a manicure fetish.
” I flexed my fingers, still badly in need of nail work.
“She used to say how she’d only ever had sons so loved having a girl to spoil.
Austin would joke about the money she’d spend on me but then happily sit through my fashion show.
I grew up dirt-poor, so it was like winning the lottery. I was so happy there.”
Mila added her thoughts. “I always found Primrose cold. Or not so warm as our grandfather. I think I understand why now.”
Because they’d lost me.
By the end of me describing how I’d had tutors and homeschooling, and how I was never far from their side, we’d stopped at the room I’d previously used as a bedroom.
It had been emptied of the few things I’d left, probably by Tyler, though I still hadn’t opened my boxes in his apartment.
Now, the space was set up for work. A camera, a four-poster bed, a screen so the cam girl could check her angles.
Though no one was in here, the work on the floor hadn’t slowed, the girls getting countless calls from men across the city and around the world, needing a cute ass to get themselves off.
If it was an odd place for the heavy conversation, I didn’t feel it. With the sex noises competing with music, the women couldn’t hear us, and if anything, the familiarity helped.
“Tell me about Grandpa,” she asked.
“He was the sweetest man. Exactly what I’d always wanted in a father figure.”
Mila smiled, but it was tinged with sadness. “Same, though I had a stepdad. Did you?”
“No. Mum had a number of boyfriends, but none stuck around for long. She was shit at choosing well. A proper freak magnet, bringing home men who made points with their fists or party animals who offered me drugs. I craved normality. So when Austin Marchant rocked up, all warm hugs and big heart, I was in love.”