Chapter Six
BETHANY
I wake up alone in Striker’s bed for the second morning in a row.
After that mindblowing kiss last night, it’s ten shades of wrong to me.
The sheets are warm, but it’s the smell that keeps me there a second longer than I should be.
Clean soap, cedar, and his own scent. It’s everywhere.
On the pillow, in the cotton of his t-shirt twisted around my hips, in the air itself, as if this room is holding onto him even when he isn’t in it.
The kettle hums low in the kitchen. Striker’s up already. I lie still, staring at the ceiling, replaying last night in careful, dangerous detail.
His mouth on mine and the way his hand spread across my back like he’d been holding himself back for hours. The rough sound he made when I kissed him back and the huge, hard lines of his body against mine.
Last night the springs of the couch creaked as he shifted around, like was unable to get to sleep. Silence for a few minutes, then more movement. Meanwhile, I was in his bed with my face buried in his pillow, breathing him in like I was gasping for air.
Eventually, I sit up and shove my hair back, pushing the thoughts away with more determination than success. He’s left me one of his clean shirts and I put it on, leaving my legs bare. The shirt slips off one shoulder when I stand, and I don’t fix it.
The kitchen is warmer than the bedroom, sunlight cutting in across the counter in a pale stripe.
Striker stands at the stove with his back to me, broad shoulders stretching the dark fabric of his shirt, damp hair curling at the nape of his neck.
He’s making toast with the intense focus I’ve only ever seen in people doing something far more dangerous than breakfast. Juggling knives, maybe.
Striker glances over his shoulder and his gaze lands on me. It drags, slow and deliberate, from my bare legs to the loose fall of his shirt over my shoulder, and then finally up to my face. Heat follows its path, settling low and heavy in my core.
“Morning, princess.” His voice is rough.
Leaning against the doorway, I smile up at him. “Morning.”
For a second neither of us moves. The toaster pops loudly between us and Striker turns away.
“Coffee?” he asks, already reaching for a mug.
“Yes, please.”
I climb onto one of the stools while he pours. When he slides the mug toward me, his fingers brush mine and that fleeting contact still sends a sharp line of heat up my arm.
Curling my fingers around the mug, I take a sip of coffee to give myself something to do with my hands. “Are we going to talk about what happened last night?”
He doesn’t answer right away. When I look up, he’s watching me again, slower this time, like he’s taking inventory.
“Not right now,” he says at last.
“Why not?”
His gaze drops briefly to where his shirt slips off my shoulder before he looks back up. “Because, princess, you’re standing there in my shirt looking like you belong here, and I’m trying real hard to behave.”
I nearly choke on my coffee.
He hides a grin behind his mug. It’s quick, but I catch it, and I like his smile more than I should.
He sets the mug down, and his voice is more controlled. “Today you stay here for a few hours,” he says. “We think the bar’s being watched. Apartment isn’t.”
“Until lunch?”
“Yes. I’m making some calls, and one of the guys is coming by later to check the locks downstairs. Then I’m taking you to see Viv.”
“Viv?”
“Vivienne Lambert. Runs a boutique in town. She’ll fix…” His eyes flick over me again. “…this.”
I glance down at the borrowed shirt. “You don’t like your clothes on me?”
Striker shakes his head. “I like them on you too damn much.”
He works at the kitchen table for most of the morning, laptop open, voice low when he’s on the phone.
Names I don’t know drift through the apartment.
His tone shifts depending on who he’s speaking to, but it’s always controlled.
Occasionally, he swears in a low tone, a line appearing between his eyebrows as he scowls at something on the screen.
I try to read on the couch. The book stays open in my hands, except every few minutes I find myself tracking the movement of his hands across the keyboard and the way his gaze flicks toward me like he’s checking I’m still exactly where he left me.
It makes my pulse speed up every time.
Around twelve, Striker closes his laptop and looks over at me properly for the first time in a while. His gaze lingers just long enough to make it clear he’s noticed everything I haven’t been doing.
“You’re climbing the goddamn walls,” he says.
“I’m not.”
“Princess.” He gestures toward the book. “You’ve been on the same page since ten.”
I glance down. He’s not wrong. “Maybe I’m a slow reader?”
A quiet snort escapes him, and I feel absurdly pleased with myself for causing it.
He leans forward, elbows braced on his knees. “Come here for a second.”
I set the book aside and walk over to stand by him at the table.
“You’re an IT grad? Anything around here you know how to fix?” he asks.
I narrow my eyes. “Is that a serious question?”
“Define serious.”
There’s a hint of flirtation in his voice that makes my core flip.
“Well,” I say, “I could take a look at something small. If you trust me not to break it further.”
“Damn thing keeps crashing.” He pulls out a chair for me and I sit next to him, acutely aware of how close we are.
“Let me take a look.”
He studies my face as I talk, not the laptop. It makes it harder than it should be to focus, but I push through it. Once I’ve identified the issue, I make the fix and when I look up, he’s staring at me.
“What?” I ask.
“You’re full of surprises.” His voice has gone quieter.
“You should hire me,” I say lightly, even though my face is warming again. “I’m looking for a job, now I’ve been scared off modeling forever.”
“I’m starting to think I should.”
The corner of his mouth lifts, but his eyes stay on mine, steady and intent in a way that makes it hard to look away.
“My phone’s gone,” I say, softer now. “I need to let my brother know I’m okay… I can do it safely.”
The shift in tone is immediate. “They may have access to your phone. Walk me through what you’re suggesting.”
I talk him through setting up a temporary email, how I’ll avoid tying it to anything traceable. He listens carefully, in the same way he did while I fixed the laptop, as if every detail matters.
When I finish, he nods once. “Show me the message before you send it.”
I type carefully and show him.
“Add something personal,” he says. “Something only your brother would know and ask for a reply. So we know it’s really him.”
I think for a second, then add a line.
Striker holds my gaze for a second longer than necessary, then gestures toward the screen. “Send it.”
I do.
Closing everything down takes less than a minute, but the relief that follows hits me hard. I let out a breath.
Striker notices immediately.
“Come here,” he says, softer this time.
I move without thinking. He pulls me gently between his knees, one arm settling around my waist, not pulling me in so much as holding me there. It’s a simple thing, almost casual, but the warmth of him seeps through the thin cotton of his shirt and into my skin.
“You did good,” he says.
My fingers drift into his hair before I can stop them, brushing the damp strands at the back of his neck.
His hand tightens slightly on my hip. I swallow a couple of times, angling my body closer to his.
“Bethany,” he growls, low, almost a warning.
“Sorry,” I murmur, even though I don’t move my hand.
We stay locked in place, both of us breathing hard. Then the phone rings and the moment breaks.
I laugh, the sound spilling out of me before I can stop it. Striker exhales like he’s just been given a reprieve.
After he makes lunch, he brings around an old truck from behind his building. He drives one-handed, easy and controlled. I try not to stare at his heavily inked forearm as it flexes and fail completely.
“You keep looking at me like that,” he says without taking his eyes off the road, “I’m going to start thinking it’s intentional.”
“I was looking out the window.”
“Princess.”
“Fine. Your forearms are distracting.”
The boutique sits next to a bakery, warm light spilling through the windows. Striker drives around to the back lot, scanning the street before he kills the engine.
“You coming up?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “Viv’s the boss here; I’m due back at the bar.”
The passenger door opens before I can ask anything else. The woman waiting outside is extraordinary. She’s in her sixties, dressed in an emerald silk blouse and leather pants, silver hair pinned back, her bangles chiming softly as she moves.
“You must be Bethany,” she says. “I’m Vivienne Lambert. You can call me Viv.”
She glances at Striker and waves.
“Back around six,” she tells him. “Not before.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
An hour later I’m standing in front of a mirror in jeans that actually fit my body and a blue silk shirt that makes my skin glow. Viv moves around me with quiet efficiency, adjusting, swapping, refining.
Viv is a mix of efficient, practical and kind.
She tells me how the colors suit me and how beautiful I look.
She makes tea in a polished silver teapot, telling me about the history of High Vale.
Her parents moved here from France and she grew up here, then left to work in Paris.
She came back to look after them, then stayed on in the family house after they died.
“I’m sorry, I don’t have any money right now. But I can pay you back as soon as I do.”
“De rien. And Striker has already settled the bill. I have a few bags here with socks, bras, underwear, shoes… you choose what fits you the best. He asked me to go shopping.”
By the third outfit, her kindness makes tears spring to my eyes. I blink hard, and she hands me a handkerchief without looking at my face.
“Cherie,” she says, pinning a hem, “has Striker kissed you properly yet?”
Heat floods my face.