25. Bay
TWENTY-FIVE
bay
I’m irked out and mentally in shambles.
I don’t have a phone number for Levi, but I did call Hot Rod to tell him what happened in Emilio’s office less than an hour ago. He said he’d pass it on, but it did nothing to bring down my anxiety level.
I don’t know what Torin did, if he truly took out the man who helped bring me into this world, but in retrospect, I didn’t hang out and wait in the driveway.
Pretty Boy told me to leave, and when I found Ozzy in the foyer, he only had to jerk his head to prompt my departure.
There was no room for argument. Not even a little.
Surprised me too, honestly.
Something about Ozzy demands my submission, but it didn’t stop the fact I wanted to ask him how he was and if there was anything I could do.
However, that fell flat the moment my makeshift husband began forward for Emilio’s office without giving me that chance, and I heard gunshots from outside.
A headlight proceeds toward me, the only thing on the street on a Tuesday night when folks are turning in for the night for work the next day. It pulls up behind Torin’s SUV, and I know it’s Cairo.
Opening the door, I slide out and find him yanking his black helmet off, perched on a crotch rocket as his jet-black hair goes in disarray.
He extends his arm and encourages me to take it. “Hop on, Little T.”
My face lifts. “For what?”
“We’re going for a ride.”
No, we’re not.
The last thing I want to do is ride on a bike.
“No time,” I retort simply. “We need to talk about?—”
“Hop on ,” he orders tersely, leveling me with those dark brown eyes. “We’ll talk later.”
The fuck does a bike ride have to do with being able to have a damn conversation?
Nonetheless, I’m fucking tired. I’m jittery and spent, so I pluck the heavy helmet from his grasp and shove it over my head.
Climbing on the back of the bike, I wrap my arms firmly around his waist, causing Cairo to glance over his shoulder at me.
“Ever been on a bike?”
“No.”
His head rears back in surprise.
“I like being in a metal casing, so if someone crashes into me, I’m not a pancake.”
“The fuck are you talking about?”
My eyebrows clench. “Bikes are dangerous.”
“So is racing.”
“Yeah, but at least I have a fighting chance to climb out. You’d get thrown eighty feet onto the concrete. Crawl out of that.”
Cairo’s lips lift into a smirk. “Never thought you’d be scared of something.”
“I’m not scared,” I retort haughtily. “But I don’t know how good you are at driving this thing and managing it if something goes awry.”
“I’m good.”
I lift my shoulders. “Did you need me to give you a push in order for you to take off or…?”
Cairo starts the bike back up, and I immediately feel the machine vibrate underneath me. The seat in the back is higher than where Cairo is sitting and, okay, maybe I’m afraid of bikes.
“Hold on,” he orders, then puts the bike into gear and starts to pull away from the curb.
Cairo steers and maneuvers the bike with ease. However, it doesn’t stop my death grip around his waist as we go. I’m not entirely sure how long we drive around, but the breeze feels good against my heated skin, and I find myself slowly relaxing. Cairo doesn’t do anything crazy, and we finally pull up to his coffee shop.
Getting off the bike, Cairo’s hand holds my hip as he throws down the kickstand and helps me off. Without asking, he gently pulls the helmet off my head and towers over me with those dark features and unreadable eyes.
“You alright?”
What is alright? I’m starting to forget the meaning of the word.
Everything seems to be happening around me constantly, and I’m losing my edge. The no-shits-given girl who let things slide off her back and took care of business.
I don’t know how to navigate what’s happening, and the two men in my life I relied on, they’re not here.
Dad’s not here.
Levi is underground.
If you want to tack on the additional people who have disappeared: Reeve is MIA, and Torin and I aren’t shit but a bunch of problems and unresolved trauma.
Don’t get me started on Ozzy.
So, while Cairo probably would’ve been my last choice, I can’t deny he’s been at my every beck and call.
“I’m starting to lose it,” I mutter honestly, feeling the heaviness on my chest begin to press harder against my lungs. “I don’t—” I’m pulled into Cairo’s body in the next second before both of his arms wrap around me.
One around my waist.
The other firmly tightened around my spine.
He looks at me as though he’s studying every thought processing through my mind. He’d be here a while. Even I’m having a hard time processing everything.
“You’re not alone,” he tells me, a bit of steel laced in his tone. “You have me. You have Oz. You have Tor?—”
“No,” I cut in tersely. “He’s off his shit again.”
Cairo doesn’t flinch or show any signs of surprise. He’s cool, collected, and calm. “We both know it would’ve ended like this. It doesn’t matter what you and Wallace planned; Torin was always going to get to Emilio first.”
My face skews. “You let it happen?” He doesn’t say a damn thing to the contrary, but I don’t give him time to. “Ramsey is going to?—”
“Not your problem,” he advises simply. “Yours is De Leon, remember?”
I’d never forget that.
Regardless, Muncy just arrested me, and Emilio got me out. Now, we have the task of keeping the sheriff off our ass.
“Is he dead?”
Cairo bows his head, and I don’t know what comes over me, but tears swell up in my eyes over the confirmation.
I don’t like Emilio.
I never did.
However, death has been close by lately, and it leaves me with nothing but dread.
“Tell me what you need,” he coaxes softly, reaching up to cup the side of my face. “What does the Queen of South Shore need?”
My head immediately rocks back and forth. “I’m not?—”
“What do you need?” Cairo asks me again, running his index finger underneath my chin. “Anything you want, Little T. It’s yours.”
I blink, bringing this man into reality because he’s never so generous as to offer me something as great as all this. “Why are you being so nice to me?”
“I’ve always been fuckin’ nice to you,” he replies simply. “You just haven’t been paying attention.”
He’s never hurt me.
He’s bossy as fuck, but Cairo has never pummeled me with the full power of his Forsaken fucks.
“I want a race night,” I confide. “A big one. I want all the stops. All the cars. I want everything.”
“When?”
“Friday night.”
“In three days.” I heave my shoulders dismissively because he asked me what I wanted, and I told him. “I’ll get the word out.”
My lips pull back into a small smile. “That’s all it took?”
“That’s all it took.”
“You should’ve told me that sooner,” he says. “I would have done anything to see that glint in your eyes again.” Then he suddenly frowns. “You’re pregnant.”
“Oh, geezus Christ.” I pull out of his hold and put some distance between us. “I just got off your death contraption. Now, you want to suddenly be cautious?”
“I was driving.”
My jaw sets, and a tinge of anger starts to creep up my veins. “And you’re saying I can’t?”
Cairo regards me for a brief second—a second too long—before saying, “No.”
“Then we’re good?”
Another second.
I swear to God, he’s in the running with Pretty Boy on how much I want to throttle him every time we’re within arm’s length.
“We’re good,” he deadpans, but the thought is still there. His hesitation is he doesn’t want me to race.
But he doesn’t stop me.
That should appease me, right? I’m getting what I want, after all.
Yet he’s in my head. My condition is in my head. Haven’t even begun to figure out what the fuck I’m going to do about it. It’s another secret. I don’t want to hold anymore, but here we are.
“You don’t want me to race,” I convey evenly. “Go ahead and say it.”
“I’m not going to say that.”
“Why?” I challenge. “We both know?—”
“I just said I’m not going to say that,” he grinds out. “Fuck off.”
My expression goes sky high because look who’s getting defensive now. “I’d respect you more if you were straight up with me.”
“You’d respect me more if I smacked your ass a few dozen times. Don’t push my kindness, Little Terror. I just said it was fine.”
A heavy silence falls between us before he lets out a heavy sigh and steps forward, looking over my head at whatever’s behind me, and pulls me back into his chest.
Then nothing.
“I won’t do anything reckless.”
“Mhm.”
“I won’t,” I assure him. “I promise.”
“I heard you.”
“But you don’t believe me.”
His gaze descends to me. “What else do you want from me, Little T? I said you could race. I’ll help make it happen. What more do you want?”
I can’t help the frown drawn on my face, but I don’t wash it away either. “I want you to believe me.”
“I do.” He leans forward, and I anticipate the smell of patchouli to infiltrate my nose, but I smell the faint fragrance of weed and…roses?
Heavy, floral, seventy-year-old perfume that smells like he’s been doused in it.
My nose immediately wrinkles. “Why do you smell like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like…” My mind races at why the hell he’d smell cheap when it hurls into my gut like a baseball bat. “Where were you?”
I crane my head higher to look into his dark brown eyes and find shit-all.
That pisses me off.
“Handling some?—”
“Business,” I fill in for him. “You said that already. Give me more.”
He cocks his head to the side. “You’re on this shit now?”
“Evading is the first sign of being sus.”
“I didn’t say I wasn’t going to tell you.”
“Great. Make sure you don’t leave out who .”
Cairo rolls his eyes at me, and my palms slam into his chest. Too bad he was already expecting it because his arm wraps around my hips to keep me grounded to him.
“You’ve got me fucked up ? — ”
“Is that jealousy I’m hearin’ in your tone, Little T?” Cairo hedges like a piece of shit asshole who’s loving every single moment of this. “I’m confused.”
“Answer the fuckin’ question. Why do you smell like a cheap whore?”
“Because I was at Muncy’s house, and Vivian was there.”
My defenses immediately go down. I know Cairo well enough to know she’s not his top fan. I’d also bet confidently nothing happened either.
I think.
No, I know.
Cairo isn’t a cheater, but he’d only be able to be called that if we were together, and I’m not entirely sure where we are yet. We’re still back and forth, up and down, and all around.
I’m getting dizzy.
“Anything else?” Cairo presses with a quirked eyebrow, alluding that he’s ready for any sort of freakout or ball-bashing I’d want to give him.
“No,” I quip easily. “Though I know you weren’t selling Girl Scout cookies, so what gives?”
“Someone had to delete that marvelous photo you took of?—”
I lift my palm to shut him up. There’s only one picture my dumbass took. A petty and equally stupid moment that could get me in more trouble than the boys could get me out of.
“I got it.” I exhale defeatedly. “Not one of my smartest moments, I know.”
“One of your most creative ones, though.”
I don’t understand what’s going on with him, but I fully expected to have my ass handed to me here. Cairo is practical and collected. I don’t know what to make of casual Cairo.
“How are you not mad at me right now?”
He lifts his shoulders dismissively. “Where has that ever gotten me with you?”
“Nowhere,” I answer out loud. “Yet it’s unsettling.”
“Do you want me to bitch at you?”
I mock his actions with my own shoulders. “I mean, I’m used to it.”
“Then it means you like it. And it doesn’t serve its purpose.”
“That’s a pity. I thought it was our thing.”
Cairo doesn’t appear pleased by my comment, nor the conversation, but he brushes it off anyway. “You got me here. What did you want to talk about?”
My lips part, but he already told me not to worry about Emilio. He’s going to handle that portion of things. So, really, all it leaves is the fact I wanted him here.
I needed him here.
Cairo eats up the space between us again, forcing my ass against the seat of his crotch rocket. His body barely brushes mine, and he doesn’t touch me this time. “You’d look awful good on this bike with your naked ass up in the air while I fuck you from behind. Let me know when you’d be interested in making that happen if you didn’t need anything else.”
My pussy clenches from the run my imagination just took.
In fact, I’m bold enough to make that happen right now since he mentioned it.
“I’m ready to go when you are, Sinatra.”
“Yeah?” His body gently sandwiches mine against his and the machine. “You think you can manage?”
I bob my head like a needy doll.
“Where’s my fucking kiss, then?”
Thoughtlessly, I rise onto my toes, wrapping one arm around his neck as I pull him closer. Cairo comes without complaint before our mouths meet and immediately devour each other’s.
His tongue delves between my lips without permission, not that I’d deny him. Large palms grip my ass needily before I’m lifted in the air, and my legs wrap instantly around his waist.
Cairo walks somewhere, taking me with him as I continue my own assault on his mouth. He growls, deep and alluring, in his chest, hinting at his own lust and the simple realization I’m turning him on by just this alone.
My back hits jagged brick in the next couple of breaths, and I break the kiss just to see where the hell we are.
“I need to get you somewhere else,” he divulges heavily. “But I’m too distracted to drive when I have you here like this.”
I pull the innocent act and slowly arch my back as though trying to get comfortable. “Maybe you shouldn’t worry about it.”
“Maybe I should when you’ve been in the middle of a street before and got fake raped. The last thing I need is to be outnumbered and have some fuckers thinking they can have you.”
Well…shit, that’s thoughtful, isn’t it?
Still, it doesn’t match up to the scene he just made up in his head and the fact I want to star in it.
“Are you strapped?”
“You wanna add some more murders to our list?”
“I mean…” I lift my shoulders. “It’s self-defense.”
“Sounds like you’re beginning to get too comfortable with the idea.”
“I just wanna get fucked on your bike.” I hold those elusive dark irises of his, falling into the security he offers me. “That’s what I need. ”
Cairo stares at me for a moment. His hard cock presses into my inner thigh as he contemplates his next move.
His next reckless action.
It’s foreign to him, not me. If I’m the queen of anything; it’s my impulsive decision-making and the zero-fucks I hand out to everybody. Cairo is practically wrapped in tanned muscle, dark stubble, and a lot of layers I want to keep peeling back.
I’d love to get underneath every shred of his DNA.
“If that’s what you need,” he mutters, prying my spine off the wall of the coffee shop. “I’m only happy to give it to you, Little T.”