Chapter 24 The Knight #2
I smiled at Minx. “Or I just like women hanging on me. I don’t like that you took her to meet another man after you set her up to be jealous about me.
If you’d like to set her up with a man, he should look the opposite of me.
He should also be short. If he smelled like garlic and socks, that would help.
The more she actually wants someone, the less likely she is to take him. You should know that.”
She stared at me for a second before she gave me a sweet smile. “Wow. You really don’t know Trixie if you think garlic is a turn-off. Her apartment always smells like garlic. She cooks this amazing…”
I raised my hand, cutting her off. “No. You can’t tell me any details about Trixie’s personal life.
Particularly her cooking.” It was too late.
I had a whole set in my head, Trixie in that blue dress with an apron over it, barefoot in her kitchen, smiling at me the way she smiled at her trucks. Soft. Open. Inviting.
I put my hand on the driver’s shoulder, making him scream and gurgle before he got it together.
“I’ll get out here,” I told him before refocusing on Minx while he found a place to pull over. My voice was hard. “Don’t use me to set her off. If you have to set her up with men in hospitals, don’t involve me.”
She raised her brows, eyes large and wounded before narrowing. “You said that like a threat.”
“It’s a promise. The next time you put her in a dress and she lands in my arms, I’m going to keep her there. My self-control isn’t perfect. And you are playing a game with someone who trusts you.”
The car came to a stop and I got out, leaving Minx staring after me like that last bit had landed too hard.
Minx did have delicate feelings, but they weren’t any of my business.
If she didn’t want to feel like she was betraying her friend, then she shouldn’t betray her.
Setting Trixie up to date would feel like a betrayal to Trixie, but she’d swallow it down until it came out in a bender.
With the reptile from my circle who was too rich for her blood.
I walked down the street and let the rage swallow me.
She’d stolen my bike. And my heart. I couldn’t just ignore the theft, because I was playing a person who didn’t have unlimited resources.
And I liked that bike. I’d put a lot of customizations into it so it fit my frame.
It was customized for me, and she’d stolen it.
That at face value felt like flirtation, but taking someone else on my bike, particularly that blonde money bag felt more like an insult. The kind that actually hurt.
I ducked into a back alley that service people used. It wasn’t the bright, glimmering scene Las Vegas showed the public. Which suited me just fine.
“Hey, Horse,” a man crouching in the shadows said, sounding rough and drunk.
I squinted until I made out his features. “Paulo? What happened to you?”
Paulo worked as a lights guy on some of our shows.
He laughed as I pulled him upright, and got to see his bruises, torn clothing, and split lip.
“It’s a good night to die,” he said merrily, with an underlying tone of desperation.
He’d gotten addicted to gambling and lost his family to it.
Looks like some of his creditors caught up to him.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked, letting him slump against the brick wall and following suit.
“You don’t think it’s a good day to die?”
“First of all, it’s not day. Second of all, it’s not about what I think. If we’re talking about me, I’d say it’s a good day to kill.”
That broke through his glaze of drunken desolation. “Who you gonna kill? Nix? Bulldog?”
I took a deep breath and let the anger settle in my bones. “We’re going to kill your demons. Drag them out into the night so we can vanquish them. You look pretty rock-bottomed out. That’s a great place to build.”
***
The next morning, after coaching Paulo through his feelings all night, I was in the elevator, going through the business section on my phone when the doors opened, and there was Trix in her blue dress that had been impossibly appealing before it was partly ripped and burned off her.
Her makeup was mostly under her eyes, and she looked a little bit like an exorcist. No, like the demon-possessed girl, but that didn’t lessen her appeal.
I just wanted to pick her up and put her in bed, tuck her in, and then take off her makeup properly. We could do skin care together.
She stumbled in, her eyes not entirely open, or she would have waited for a different elevator.
She was hung-over. Should I pretend not to notice her?
She didn’t smell like garlic, more like vodka and charred silk.
Her curls were crazier than I’d ever seen them, pointing out in every direction like she’d fallen into a lake and had them dry badly afterwards.
“What are you looking at?” The sound of her raspy voice sent chills over my skin. She carried her boots, one of which was charred. She really had gone on one of her rampages with that pale little amoeba. On my bike.
Anger mixed with desire in a most unbalancing way.
I should ignore her until I was more balanced, but Horse wouldn’t just let the bike theft go.
Maybe I wouldn’t, either. I cleared my throat.
“You stole my bike. I’m wondering if I should report you for other stuff too.
You cause any fires I should know about? ”
She scowled at me, still squinting. The light in the elevator was too bright for her hangover. “Pansy is in the garage in the exact center of your parking spot. You knew I’d take care of her.”
I smiled, but it wasn’t my usual. “Pansy? That’s not what I named her.
Seeing you like this makes me wonder what kind of condition you left her in.
” I nodded at her body, letting my eyes linger on her delicious curves that spilled so temptingly from the insufficient confines of her strapless bra.
My pulse pounded more rapidly the longer I studied her.
I pretended to objectify her, but she was so distracting, so some of my real obsession bled through.
“I’ll give her a tune-up tomorrow, just stop talking.” She put her head in her hands in classic hangover posture. Her position camouflaged her more obvious charms, but left her vulnerable to me. I should show mercy, but she’d stolen my bike and taken it joyriding with someone else. That hurt.
I spoke normally, but my voice was naturally loud with good, clear tone. “Did you make blondie cry?”
She came up snarling. She shoved me against the side of the elevator, my back hitting the metal with a thud while her body pressed against mine. “I’m going to make you cry.”
I’d cry from how good she felt against me.
It didn’t matter that she was a mess. She was still fifty times more phenomenally glorious than the most legendary beauties, and she felt like absolute heaven.
Like home. Like bed after you’d been on a race for three days without sleep.
I studied her face, so close to mine, the way her pupils dilated the longer she had me against the wall.
She’d been in my arms and now she was pinning me, looking at me like she wanted me. My brain shut off as I leaned closer and growled in my lowest registers. “I’m sure you’ll do your best, but I’m the kind of man who reciprocates. You stole my bike. Seems like I have to steal something from you.”
I kissed her. She tasted real and authentic, like her warmth beneath the thin fabric of her dress. I kissed her too hard, too hungry, but I felt like I hadn’t touched a woman in centuries. I couldn’t count the times I’d looked at her mouth and wanted to take it.
She must have been in shock or why would she let me taste her tongue and kiss her and kiss her?
Her lips softened against mine, parting for my tongue as I pressed against her, my hands sliding into that unruly hair.
I kissed her with the pent up aggression I should have spent in the ring, but the surprising softness of her exploded the blood in my veins, spreading fire until the elevator dinged.
I ripped myself away from her, struggling to regain control over some part of my body.
I gestured her out onto her floor. For a second she stayed leaning against my chest, eyes unfocused and lips soft and wet, chest rising and falling, arched up towards me.
It was almost like she’d been waiting for me to take her.
No one took Trixie, but her looking at me like that, so soft, she hadn’t hated me kissing her.
I took that as an invitation and moved back to her.
I had my hands on her waist when she kneed me.
I grunted and inhaled sharply while she grabbed my shirt in her fists. Her voice was breathless. “I should have crashed Pansy. Forget the tune up. You touch me again and I’ll put you in traction.”
Then she kissed me. Her lips seared mine, her tongue hot and sweet as she shoved against me, a hard kiss that made my teeth ache in the sweetest way.
It was all her, rough, wild and terrifyingly uncalculated.
She let go of me suddenly, and staggered out of the elevator, leaving me staring after her, aching in a bewildering number of ways.