25. Dragon
Chapter Twenty-Five
DRAGON
Iwas standing there, all ready to die when helicopters came out of nowhere, silent mode flipped to a roar that lifted my hair and had me looking up to see Horse perched in the open doorway of the black bug, an enormous gun in his arms.
I’d never seen anything so sexy in my life, even counting the kitchen. Was he wearing a suit? Why was he wearing a suit in the copter with that gun? Semi-automatic? No. Fully automatic with big bullets. Was he planning to take out an armored assault vehicle with that thing?
And why was he wearing a suit? He was always attractive in his t-shirts and jeans, but the suit sharpened him into something else.
So incredibly hot, only also serious. Like he was on his way to a wedding.
Or a shake-down. He should get married to a nice girl.
But would a nice girl like a picture of him getting punched in the dining room?
It might make it hard for some people to eat.
Not me. I could eat him all day. Seeing him made me positively ravenous.
I could eat a Horse. Also in real life, I was starting to get the nausea that came before hunger.
I should have brought some crackers and cheese.
There was Horse when I expected Jezebel or Daniela coming in with the cavalry.
Oh. I stole his bike, so he probably tracked the GPS.
Didn’t I say that I wasn’t going to steal his bike again?
He’d said that he wouldn’t steal any kisses.
Hopefully, he’d break his promise since I broke mine.
Not that it was a promise, exactly. Also, I couldn’t start kissing Horse when we were going to come clean about him not being the father of my child.
A roar made me flinch as Horse laid a line of bullets at Boney Hue’s feet.
Yep. Fully automatic. Boney dropped his weapon and raised his hands.
His men followed suit, probably motivated by the armored and armed drones that surrounded each of them.
Dagger must be there. They got along better than Nix and Horse, but I wouldn’t think they were friends. Then again, we were on the same team.
“You were saying this wasn’t my town,” I said, frowning at Boney Hue.
What were we supposed to do with him and his crew now?
Did I want to explain my family to Horse?
No. You couldn’t explain insanity. My mother really would kill him if she thought he was my baby’s daddy unless we got married.
That wasn’t going to happen. Except that Jackson said that Horse might fall for me.
But what did he know? It was one thing to be caught up in a rampage with the Dragon, another to build a life together on all the boring days, stressful days, times when you were sick of even engines because you hadn’t moved for two weeks.
I’d figure it out. In the meantime, I didn’t want to deal with police, and I wasn’t going to kill these people.
“Honey, do you want me to shoot him?” Horse asked, voice a low growl that sent goosebumps down my spine.
I loved his voice. It changed so much depending on his mood.
This was angry man in a suit mood. Mob. He looked like cousin Ni?o’s most attractive relative with that gun.
I wasn’t attracted to mobsters, was I? Apparently, yes.
Good thing I left home before I got sucked into that vortex.
“No. I don’t want to deal with police, either. I think we should let them go.”
“Let them go?” He sounded so horrified and betrayed. “Without even fighting him?”
I eyed Boney Hue and then Horse. So good in that suit. So many layers to take off. And the tie. I would drag him to bed in that tie. Or on top of a bar. Or wherever. “I don’t want you to damage your suit. You look good.” Absolutely mouth-watering.
He looked down at his clothes and then jerked, startled that he was wearing that. Had he been about to go to a funeral?
“Business meeting,” he said, then leapt out of the machine, letting the drones contain Boney’s crew. “You know, the one I needed signatures for. Soda sponsors. Someone said the suit would help, but it didn’t seem to do much. You sure you don’t want to do something with these guys?”
I eyed Boney Hue. He was big, mean, and had been brawling most of his life. Still, Horse could easily take him. “I mean, you could beat him up a little. Just don’t damage the suit.”
Horse smiled and walked into the center of the space, gesturing Boney Hue to come forward.
The fight was short and sweet, almost like Horse was in a hurry.
Also, he fought mean. I’d never seen him take someone apart so methodically.
In that suit. It was so pretty. I wanted it to last forever, but Boney was a slumped pile of flesh at Horse’s feet, and he turned and held out his hand to me, like I was his princess on a tower, not the dragon who would devour.
I took his hand and let him help me down from the truck. When he tried to lead me to the helicopter, I held back. “Pansy.”
“Later.”
“Richard.”
“Should die.”
I rolled my eyes and pulled my hand out of his, and headed for the car.
The engine was gutted. Not even a steering wheel, so I wasn’t driving him home.
I yanked open the door and leaned in to haul him out.
Then Horse was there, picking me up and putting me to the side before he slashed the seat belts and dragged out Ritchie, tossing him over his shoulder like a sack of meat.
“Thanks. I?—”
I gasped as he grabbed me with his other arm, scooping me close while his eyes bore into mine.
“You are still on bed rest. For at least one more day. You need the doctor to check you before you can exert yourself in junkyards.” He tsked and shook his head. “And you stole my bike. Again.” His eyes were tempests, dark blue and filled with rage. Boney Hue hadn’t given him enough of a challenge.
It wasn’t the moment, but I grabbed his tie and kissed him. When I pulled away, his eyes were even darker.
“You want me to walk off a cliff. Don’t distract me when I’m carrying four hundred pounds, woman.”
I gasped and thumped his chest while he walked us all towards the helicopter. “I’m not two hundred pounds!”
“No, he’s all four hundred pounds of regret and bad choices. Metaphorical weight. You’re a mama bird. Mama birds weigh nothing.”
I tugged on his tie. “I really like your tie.”
“Thanks. I really like you liking my tie. But maybe like it when I’m not carrying four hundred pounds of metaphorical weight.
” He hefted Carmichael into the helicopter, so he was sprawled on the floor, and then Horse carefully ducked in, still holding me, like both my legs were broken.
My mother would do worse than that to him.
I flinched at the thought. I couldn’t drag him into my family disaster. Absolutely not.
He sat down on a seat and strapped us in together.
I protested. “What are you doing? These straps can’t hold both of our weight. Also, we take up too much space and it’s designed to?—”
“Fine,” he said, all grumpy as he put me into my own seat and proceeded to buckle me in, like I wasn’t more than capable of buckling myself in as well as replacing the buckle mechanism and every other piece of the machine. It was a good machine. Horse always had the best equipment.
There was Jackson Dewitt in the pilot’s seat. He gave me a lazy nod as he ate jerky. Pixel was beside him, wearing glasses and holding flight handles like Dirk used. Huh. I guess it wasn’t Dirk after all.
I nodded at them. “I guess you didn’t fly back to your real life yet.”
Jackson grinned at me. “No, ma’am.”
Horse buckled Carmichael into a seat, and then he sat to my left, buckled in and nodded to his buddy. “A smoother ride this time, if you’d be so kind.”
“I could let you fly it. Or let’s be honest. The Dragon could outfly you any day.”
Horse crossed his arms and glowered at the back of Jackson’s head while he started the rotors and lifted up. He wasn’t bad, but Horse was much better.
“Have you considered putting a helipad into part of your garden?” I asked Horse. I meant to tell him that he couldn’t be the fake daddy of my baby, but that came out instead. I needed to try harder. To do better. I wasn’t going to get Horse killed for trying to help me.
I rubbed my face. “I didn’t mean that.”
“Why? It’s a good question.”
“It’s a distraction. Horse, you can’t be the father of my baby.”
His eyes were hooded as he stared at me, arms locked across his chest. I wanted to reach out and squeeze his hand, but we didn’t hold hands.
I wanted to hold his hand even more than I wanted to grab his tie.
He didn’t say anything, just kept staring at me like I was rough terrain he was trying to parse.
I licked my lips as I felt an unfamiliar flutter of nerves.
I’d sound like a lunatic if I said that I suddenly didn’t need a fake baby daddy, but Carmichael wasn’t a threat anymore, so why continue the ruse?
Because I really, really liked living with Horse, having him this person instead of the one I fought with in the lobby who had multiple women hanging on him all the time.
“I appreciate everything you’ve done. I didn’t mean to drag you into this mess,” I said, gesturing out the window at the junkyard as it receded from sight. “And it’s going to get messier.”
“I don’t mind messes,” he said, voice relaxed, calm, but his hands were still rocks against his chest like he wanted to crush something. I knew the feeling.
I took a deep breath and forced the word out like jagged glass from my throat.
“Marriage. Do you not mind that either? I need to set up a permanent, stable life for this child, and it can’t be with someone who’s terrified of commitment.
I need something long-term.” That’s the only thing that would keep Horse alive.
Otherwise, she would kill anyone she thought got me pregnant. Literally.
Horse nodded. “Okay.”
I frowned at him. He made it sound like it wasn’t a big deal to call off the baby-daddy thing. Of course not. It was just one of his whims, like star parties and crenelated towers. “Okay. Thanks so much for all you’ve done for me. I’ll still put together Pixel’s set. Don’t worry about that.”
His dark blue eyes narrowed as he leaned towards me as far as the straps would allow. “Okay, I’ll marry you. Not the most romantic proposal I’ve ever had, but I’ll live with it.”