Chapter Four
Whitening Strips
Mo
The next morning, Mo sat on the couch he’d slept on
while Lottie was in the bathroom doing whatever she did first thing in the
morning.
He was on his phone with Hawk.
It was eight thirty and he was surprised she was up that
early.
He’d been up since six.
“No on the prints. Got a sample to the DNA lab to see if we
can catch something on that, but if he’s not in the system for his prints, even
if they can pull some, he won’t be in the system for DNA,” Hawk briefed him.
“FBI is still running the language. That might take some time.”
“And?” Mo asked.
“And, customers Smithie, Jorge, Joaquim and me tagged as
possibles got tails home last night. We’re goin’ into
their places today to take a closer look.”
“I’ll take odds that he didn’t send that letter and knows
Smithie’s gonna get it around about yesterday and
he’s gonna show at the club. He’s gotta
know Smithie is gonna call someone in.”
“He’s also probably expecting cops.”
“You and Jorge don’t look like titty bar regulars, Hawk.”
“You want us to work this situation or sit on our hands for
a coupla days?” Hawk asked.
Mo shut his mouth.
His boss was older than him, not by much, so it wasn’t like
he was a father figure.
Mo had given up on a father figure a long time ago.
It was that he was his commanding officer, as such, and Mo
had been trained not to disappoint his commanding officer.
And right then, Hawk didn’t exactly sound like he was
thrilled with Mo.
“It hasn’t been twenty-four hours, Mo,” Hawk noted. “Is she
already getting under your skin?”
She was definitely a challenge.
But she wasn’t under his skin. That couldn’t happen. And he
knew it the minute she opened the door to him and took a step back like she was
getting ready to flee.
This was not an unusual reaction people had to him.
It just kinda sucked Lottie had
had it.
“I’m good,” Mo muttered.
“Stay good, stay sharp and ask her out after we know she’s
safe,” Hawk ordered. After that, he gave Mo an, “Out,” and he hung up.
But Mo was staring at the couch across from him.
Ask her out after we know she’s safe?
He knew Hawk had seen his mug frequently over years. He also
knew the man had 20/20 vision.
So why was he saying shit like that?
“Yo.”
He turned his head and got smacked in the face with the view
of Lottie in nothing but that nightie, her hair up at the back of her crown,
but it was slapdash, so some of it was tickling her jaw, cheeks and neck.
All of those last, and including the rest of her face,
looked like it was covered in shaving cream.
“Jesus,” he mumbled.
“Firming mousse,” she explained the shit on her face. “You
want breakfast?”
He was starved.
She was in a nightie.
Was she intending to cook in that nightie?
“No,” he answered.
“I do and you’re covering my ass so if you don’t eat, you
get to watch me cook…” she tipped her head and smiled at him through foamy goo
that was slowly melting into just goo, “then eat.”
He realized, with the smile, and the way he was noticing her
words sounded funny, that she had something on her teeth.
“What’s wrong with your mouth?” he asked.
“Whitening strips.” She bobbed out a hip, a move that felt
like a sharp tug on his balls, and sassed, “Honey, all this,” she swept an arm
down her length, “doesn’t come for free by any definition of that
word.”
With that she turned and bounced out of the room, the satin
hugging her ass, the cream edge waving like an invitation.
Fuck him, fuck him, fuck him.
He had to get up and follow her.
Fuck him, fuck him, fuck…him.
Mo got up and followed her.
His legs longer, he caught up with her on the stairs.
She headed direct to the kitchen.
“Nespresso?” she asked, but she had a sort of lisp so it
came out, “Nethpretho?”
Christ.
He wanted to laugh.
Laugh while walking across the kitchen to her, dropping to
his knees and shoving his face under that lace.
“I’ll make mine after you have yours,” he replied.
“Coffee after whitening strips,” Coffee after whitening thtripth. “Least twenty more minutes. I’ll make yours
now. Cream?”
“Yeah,” he grunted, leaning a hip against the counter
opposite where she was and watching her move around her kitchen.
He hoped dressing came after whitening strips too.
“Sugar?”
“No.”
“Good boy,” she murmured, opening a cover and grabbing a big
clear bowl filled with pods.
He didn’t want to be her good boy.
He wanted to be her good boy.
She turned to him. “I do natural cream. I try not to fill my
body with too many chemicals.”
Just strap them on your teeth and slather them on your
face.
He did not say that.
He dipped his chin.
She got the coffee brewing, turned and leaned her back
against the counter.
“Egg white omelet with herbs, mushrooms and manchego. Turkey sausages. Hash browns. You wanna change your mind about breakfast?”
Abso-fucking-lutely.
His stomach nearly growled.
He just nodded once.
She gave him a foggy-toothed smile and set about moving
around the kitchen again, getting out skillets, bowls, a whisk.
Apparently, she was going to cook in that nightie.
Thank Christ for the goo on her face.
Before she really got down to business, she handed him his
coffee and announced she was taking away the only defense he had by declaring,
“I gotta wash this off my face. I’ll get on it when I
come back.”
And then she was strutting out of the room.
The goo was going.
Terrific.
Mo pulled air into his nose and assessed the situation.
He’d locked up last night.
She had a security system.
It was on for doors and windows.
Before she got up, he’d done a walkthrough. Doors locked.
Windows closed and locked. Blinds down. Security system functioning. Backyard
empty. Cars parked at the front empty or folks getting in them, going about
their normal business.
He could let her out of his sight for long enough for her to
wash her face.
But after taking a sip of his coffee, he set it aside and
walked to the foot of the stairs.
It took maybe five minutes, the last thirty seconds of those
he considered jogging up to check on her, before she showed. Face clean and
gleaming. Tits jiggling as she danced down the steps.
She stopped four from the bottom.
“If I can rinse my face without you in the next room, why
can’t you shower with me somewhere else in the house?”
“I’m vulnerable when I shower. And unarmed. I’m not when you
rinse your face.”
Another big, blurred smile and an, “Ah.”
Then more jiggling and dancing down the steps.
He’d lived a good life.
Clean.
Taken care of his mom and sisters.
Put up with them even after the taking care of them part was
no longer needed (and they were a lot, every one of them).
Enlisted and was honorably discharged.
He did right by Hawk, never wheedled out of a mission
(something that would get his ass canned, but that wasn’t why he didn’t do it),
always followed orders, never fucked up.
The two long-term girlfriends he’d had, he’d treated them
like gold. Living with five women, you learned a lot of shit. And he’d given it
all and then some to the women he’d claimed. It had been them who’d scraped him
off for something better.
So no cheating. No excessive gambling or drinking.
Absolutely no drugs. No nights out carousing with his boys and not checking in.
No getting up in their shit about how expensive their handbags were or why they
couldn’t rinse a damned plate and put it in the dishwasher rather than leaving
it in the sink.
How he’d earned this punishment with Lottie, he did not
know.
Maybe it was beating the shit out of his sonuvabitch
dad.
Yeah, that had to be it.
He followed her back into the kitchen and she did her thing,
in her nightie, while he watched, and it was while she was sautéing the
mushrooms, and he was taking a sip of coffee, when she asked, “What do you
think about my tits?”
He nearly did a spit take.
To avoid that, he swallowed hard, not like he was swallowing
coffee, like he was swallowing a boulder, and he stared at her.
She was at the stove, wooden spoon in her hand, but twisted
to look at him. “I’m going natural. Next month.”
He tried not to look at her tits.
Swear to God he did.
He couldn’t not look at her tits.
He then forced his eyes to her face.
He knew her tits had to be fake.
Still, they were fucking awesome.
“Your body, your choice.”
“Do you think I’ll lose customers?” Do you think I’ll
loth cuthtomerth?
Christ, she was too much.
He really should not have beaten the shit out of his dad.
“No.”
“That’s what I think.” She turned back to the stove and
fussed with the mushrooms.
“You want me to make you coffee?” he offered to have
something to do that was not looking at her ass, her legs, her hair, her neck,
her tits or her at all.
“Yeah. By the time it’s done, strips will be about ready to
come off. Splash of cream.”
He moved to where he’d seen she kept all the stuff for
coffee.
It was done brewing and he was sliding her mug on the
counter by the stove next to her when he made mistake number five in his job
protecting Charlotte McAlister.
“You don’t need the strips, the goo or the tits, Lottie,” he
told her.
There was more to that message, he just didn’t verbalize it.
She was beautiful and would be beautiful without all that
shit.
She got the rest of his message and he knew it when her head
slowly turned, tipped back (and then back some more) and she stared into his
eyes looking shocked AF.
“You gotta know that,” he
continued.
And she did. For shit’s sake, her living was her looks and
her body.
“Maybe,” she said in a sweet voice that played all kinds of
havoc with his crotch. “But it’s nice to hear it.”
“Just sayin’,” he muttered, moving
away from her again.
She turned to face him. “You want toast?”
If she was going to ask him to make it, and it meant getting
close to her again, the answer to that was a big, fat no.
“No.”
“Good. Bread is bad,” she declared and shifted her attention
back to the stove.
If she thought that, did she even have any?
He’d learned therefore he didn’t open his mouth to ask.
Mushrooms done, she got rid of her whitening strips right
there in the kitchen before she started on the omelets, all this while the
fresh potato hash browns from a bag were sizzling in olive oil next to turkey
sausage.
Mo was a doer so he couldn’t stand still for long.
This meant he got out the plates and cutlery, opening and
closing doors and drawers to find it, and brought them to her.
She served up and he took his plate and fork all the way
(which wasn’t a long way, and that sucked) across to the opposite counter from
her.
Lottie put the sole of her foot against the ankle of her
other leg and tucked in at the counter.
Mo did the same, without the foot action.
“So which branch of the military were you in?”
“Army,” he muttered, shoving omelet in his mouth.
Well, hell.
It tasted good.
That took chops, making an egg white omelet taste good.
“How long?”
“Full term.”
“Did you, uh…see some action?”
Mo turned his head to her, got a load of legs, nightie,
tits, hair and a pretty face with a hesitant and earnest expression on it.
And he’d had enough.
More than enough.
He wasn’t playing this game and it was seriously fucked up
she was trying to make him do that.
He was done.
“We’re not doin’ this,” he
announced.
“Mo—”
“No,” he clipped. “And rules. You put some goddamn clothes
on while I’m with you. I know this is an inconvenience and you know I’m gettin’ paid to do this job. But have some respect and cut
a man some slack. You know precisely how fuckable you are. Every night, you
dance, and you got a huge room full of men gagging for it. Do you honestly need
that in your kitchen?”
The look on her face made him wish he could net the words
that just came out of his mouth and set them on fire.
She blanked it right before she retorted, “I think I prefer
Quiet Mo.”
“Great. I prefer that too. So let’s do that.”
“Fine,” she spat.
He dipped his chin.
She picked up her plate and took it to the apron-front sink
which was two feet in front of him. She then dumped the whole thing in it,
hardly eaten omelet and the rest sliding off onto the white enamel.
“I’m gonna take a shower,” she
declared. “I suppose, cutting you some slack, you don’t need to be around for
that?”
“No,” he ground out.
“Awesome,” she snapped.
And then she marched out of the room, every muscle in her
body screaming she was pissed off.
Or hurt.
Fantastic.
Mo drew in another breath through his nose.
Then he finished his breakfast and cleaned the kitchen.