Chapter 9
Nash
A week at the clubhouse and Ruby has learned exactly what "make me" does to me.
Monday morning she demanded to go home. I told her Tuesday.
Tuesday I told her Wednesday. Wednesday she stopped asking and started retaliating.
She said "make me" when I told her to stay inside while I checked the perimeter.
Thursday she said it when I told her to eat something before her noon appointment.
This morning she said it while looking me dead in the eyes and taking my coffee out of my hand.
She wrapped her fingers around the mug, lifted it to her red lips, took a slow sip, and held it against her chest without breaking eye contact. "Sorry. Was that yours?"
My jaw locked so hard I heard it click.
"Get your own coffee, Ruby."
"Make me."
She grinned. I didn't move. The silence between us stretched while she waited to see what I'd do, her chin tilted, her eyes bright, her whole body leaning into the dare.
I stepped forward, wrapped my hand around the mug with hers still on it, and pulled it toward me. Her fingers tightened. I held the mug steady, my hand over hers, and leaned down until my mouth was level with her ear.
"Ask nicely."
Her breath caught. Her fingers loosened on the mug. I could feel her pulse through her knuckles.
"Can I have a sip of your coffee?" Quieter than her usual register.
"Try again."
"May I have a sip of your coffee? Please."
I let go of the mug. She took a sip with shaking hands and walked away with it; I let her because the flush on the back of her neck was worth more than the coffee.
Candace watched the whole thing from the kitchen doorway, eating a piece of toast. She caught my eye as Ruby passed her. Her eyebrows lifted so high they disappeared under her bangs.
The ride to Amaranth is three blocks of Ruby pressed against my back with her chin on my shoulder blade, humming along to a song only she can hear.
Her fingers trace patterns on my stomach through my shirt.
Circles. Lines. Letters, maybe, though I can't tell what she's writing, and the effort of not asking is costing me more than I'd admit.
The shop is open by noon. Frankie is at her station with a client. Ruby ties on her apron, sets up her inks, and begins the day's campaign of testing every boundary I've set since I started this detail.
She bends over to reach the bottom drawer of her station, and the shorts she's wearing today are shorter than yesterday's. The hem rides up the backs of her thighs. She stays bent over for three seconds longer than the drawer requires.
I look at the window. The window is clear. I look back. She's still bent over.
"Ruby."
"I'm looking for my liner set. It's in the back of the drawer."
"It's on your station."
She straightens, looks at the liner set sitting exactly where I said it was, and turns to me with a grin that doesn't even pretend to be innocent.
"Oh. Would you look at that."
I hold her gaze. She holds mine. The shop hums around us. Frankie's tattoo machine buzzes. The record player turns.
"You're at a seven," I say.
"A seven what?"
"You started the week at a four. You're escalating."
Her grin widens. "Is there a ten?"
"You don't want to find out."
"I absolutely want to find out."
"Ruby."
"That's not a number, Sergeant-at-Arms. That's just my name in a threatening voice."
Frankie looks up from her client. "It's not threatening. It's flirting. You're both flirting. I just want that stated for the record."
"Nobody asked you, Frankie," Ruby says.
"Nobody had to." Frankie goes back to her client.
Ruby's two o'clock cancels. She uses the downtime to sketch at her station, and the shop goes quiet for a while. I watch the street. I watch the door.
I watch the way her pencil moves across the paper, quick and sure, her lower lip caught between her teeth when she's concentrating.
The way her tank top pulls tight across her tits when she leans forward.
The way she pushes her hair behind her ear, and the movement exposes her neck from jaw to shoulder.
My body tightens. Every day this week has been the same.
Watching her work, watching her move, watching her mouth, and going home hard with nothing to do about it.
The discipline that used to hold isn't holding.
She pushes. I engage. She pushes harder.
I lean in. The cycle is winding tighter, and I'm the one feeding it.
Her phone rings. She picks it up, glances at the screen, and the corners of her mouth tighten.
"Hi, Dad."
She takes the call to the back room. Her voice carries through the wall.
"Dad. Stop. I'm fine. There's a security detail. Malachi assigned it, and Nash is handling it." A pause. "No, I'm not coming home. Dad. Dad. I said no." Her voice rises. "Because I have a job and a life. I'm not hiding in my childhood bedroom because some creep took pictures of me."
There's a long pause.
"Put Mom on."
The conversation with Raine is quieter. Softer. I hear Ruby laugh once, the kind that comes with wet eyes. "Tell Dad I love him and that he needs to stop googling security systems. He sent me fourteen links last night. Fourteen."
She hangs up. Stays in the back room for a minute. When she comes out, her eyes are dry, her grin is in place, but her knuckles are white around the coffee mug she's gripping with both hands.
She resettles at her station, picks up the pencil, and waits for her hands to steady.
I'm not hiding in my childhood bedroom.
The words sit in my gut. She said them to Lawrence.
She could just as easily say them to me.
A week I've kept her in the spare room at the clubhouse because I decided it was safer.
Three days of her fighting me on it every night while I told her it was for her own protection.
The same words, the same logic, the same decision made by a man who thinks controlling the perimeter means controlling the outcome.
I'm doing exactly what Lawrence is doing. The only difference is I don't have twenty-two years of fatherhood to justify it.
"Ruby."
She looks up from her station.
"I'll take you to your apartment tonight. You can stay there."
Her pencil stops. "What?"
"Your apartment. Tonight. You're going home."
"Are you serious?"
"I'll be staying with you. When I'm at Vesper, Rider or Kyle will be at your door."
She sets the pencil down. Studies my face. She's looking for the catch, the condition, the part where I take it back.
"What changed your mind?"
"Your phone call."
Her mouth opens. Closes. The grin starts to assemble and stalls. What I just said is too honest for a joke, and she knows it.
"You were listening."
"I'm always listening."
"That's either very sweet or deeply invasive, and I haven't decided which." She picks up the pencil, taps it against the desk, and puts it down again. "You're really staying at my apartment."
"Yes."
"Every night."
"Every night I'm not at Vesper."
"In my apartment. Where I live. Where my stuff is."
"That's how apartments work."
Her grin cracks through. "Did you just make a joke?"
"I made a statement of fact."
"That was a joke. Frankie, that was a joke."
"I heard it," Frankie says without looking up. "Mark the calendar."
Ruby stands up from her station, crosses the shop, and stops in front of me. She's close enough that vanilla and coconut fill the air between us, close enough that I can see every freckle the concealer doesn't cover.
"Thank you," she murmurs.
I nod.
She holds my gaze for a beat. Then her chin lifts and the grin sharpens. "So. Does this mean I get to make you breakfast?"
"You don't cook."
"I make excellent cereal. World-class. I've been told my pour is flawless."
"Ruby."
"I'm just trying to be a good hostess. Since you'll be a guest in my home. My home, which I am returning to, because I am a grown woman who makes her own decisions."
"You done?"
"I'm never done." She turns back to her station. Over her shoulder, she adds, "I'm going to make you cereal, Nash. You're going to eat it. And you're going to like it."
My mouth twitches. I kill it. She catches it anyway.
"Five," she says, pointing at me. "That's five for the week. I win."
Frankie looks up. "What does she win?"
"She hasn't decided yet," I say.
Ruby stops walking. Turns. Her eyes lock on mine, wide, and I realize what I just gave away. I remembered the game, the score, and the prize she never named. The grin that spreads across her face is slow, devastating, and aimed directly at me.
"Oh," she says. "Oh, this is going to be fun."
She goes back to her station. I put my eyes on the window.
They don't stay there.
Ruby is packing up her station when my phone buzzes. Raine. Ruby gave her my number months ago.
How bad is it?
I type back.
Threat is active. She's protected. Detail is 24/7.
Three dots.
Can Lawrence and I come Sunday? For the cookout?
Yes ma'am.
Nash. Stop calling me ma'am. I've told you four times.
Yes, Mrs. Leighton.
You're as bad as my daughter.
I pocket the phone. Ruby is bent over her station, wiping down the surface, and the angle gives me a clear view down the front of her tank top.
The curve of her tits. The lace edge of her bra against her skin.
Her ponytail hangs over one shoulder, copper hair swinging with the motion, and the image of wrapping that ponytail around my fist before guiding her head back hits so hard my vision narrows.
"See something you like, Sergeant-at-Arms?"
My eyes snap up. She's straightened, smirking at me, her cloth still in one hand. She caught me. Ruby knows exactly where I was looking.
She slings her bag over one shoulder and lets her eyes travel over me. Starting at my boots, up my legs, my chest, my shoulders, my mouth. She takes her time the way I took mine, and the payback burns.
"It's hard to keep my eyes off you too," she says. "In case you were wondering."
Frankie chuckles from her station without looking up. My mouth opens. Nothing comes out.
Ruby's smirk widens into a full grin. "Oh my god. Did I just render you speechless? Frankie, did you see that? I broke him."
"I saw it," Frankie says, still not looking up. "Historic moment."
Fuck.
She's still grinning, still talking, something about framing the moment and putting a plaque on the wall.
The urge to cross the room, put my hand over her mouth, and watch her eyes go wide is so strong my fingers twitch against my thigh.
I let her run. I let the grin sit on her face and the victory lap play out because she earned it.
Because the follow-through I'm picturing would end with her back against the wall, my mouth on her neck, and that's a door I'm not opening in Frankie's shop.
"Let's go," I say.
The grin falters. She clocks the shift. My voice is back where it lives, low and even. The two words land the way I need them to.
"To my apartment. Where I live. Where my stuff is."
"Ruby."
"Just making sure we're on the same page, Sergeant-at-Arms."
She waves goodnight to Frankie and follows me out the front door. The bell jingles behind us. The Harley is at the curb. She takes the helmet, clips it on, and swings on behind me. Ruby's arms wrap around my waist. Her chin settles against my shoulder blade. Her thumb traces a circle on my stomach.
I start the engine and take her home.