THIRTY FOUR
“I hope you’re not thinking of cradling me all the way to my apartment on your bike?” Poison asked as Scorpion walked them out of the hospital after greeting Nick.
“Firstly,” he said, his breath brushing against her ear in a sensual tease. “I drove my car here.”
“You have a car?” she asked, her brows raising, causing him to laugh.
“Yes, I have a car. The weather doesn’t always permit a bike. As you would know.” He winked at her.
“I just usually take a Cruze,” she shrugged. “But secondly?”
“Secondly, we won’t be going to your apartment,” he stated, and her heartbeat faltered. “I’ll be able to take better care of you at my place, plus the doctor told me to keep you bound in bed, Little Viper.”
Her insides knotted, and she hid her face under his chin. The imagery that one sentence had created was enough to make her toes curl.
“And thirdly,” he whispered above her head, and she could hear the smile in his voice. “I can make sure you’re safe at my place.”
“That really won’t be necessary, I…” she began, but he cut her short.
“It is not open for discussion,” he said, his voice not leaving any room for negotiation as he came to a stop in the parking lot.
The sun painted the horizon gold as he allowed her to slide to her feet. Time slowed as he supported her, taking in his dark eyes and stern command, she considered the fact that she had never taken to being told what to do, but here and now with him, she would let him be that exception.
“So, which car is yours?” she asked, trying to change the subject to allow the threatening blush to subside. This man did things to her that her heart couldn’t catch up to.
He produced a set of keys from his pocket and pressed a button. She stared in awe as the indicators on a black Dodge Demon flickered bright orange.
“That’s yours?” she exclaimed, tracing the lines of
the car with her eyes.
“She is,” he said, his chest puffing slightly, and he opened the passenger door for her.
He helped her into the passenger seat before leaning over her to buckle her seatbelt, and she felt a weird sense of Deja vu. Gavin had done the same thing, and she made a mental note to check in on him. She hadn’t heard from him since her territory was on fire and she told him who she were.
With a smile, Scorpion closed her door, and she watched him walk around the front of the Demon. Movement behind him sent a surge of panic through her.
“Scorpion!” she screamed, the sound defining in the confined space as her eyes stayed glued to Reaper stalking Scorpion.
He followed the direction of her gaze and hesitated for a moment as if he was considering charging at Reaper.
Fear gripped her throat.
“Scorpion, please!” she begged as Reaper drew closer.
To her relief, he looked back at her and jumped into the driver’s seat. With screeching tires, he sped into the early morning light, leaving Reaper lurking in the shadows.
For what felt like hours to her, Scorpion just kept his foot on the gas pedal without a word or even a sidelong glance in her direction. Finally, he blew out a slow breath.
“That was the guy from the Lotus Lounge, wasn’t it?” he asked, his voice dangerously close to a growl.
“Yes,” she admitted, lowering her head.
“What is he to you?” Scorpion kept his eyes on the road, his face void of any emotion.
“A hit list,” she sneered, staring out the window at the buildings flashing by.
Scorpion’s foot eased on the accelerator, and from the corner of her eye, she saw him glancing her way.
“Why?” he asked, his voice low.
“He killed Jonathan,” she hissed, venom returning to her voice.
She was such a hypocrite. The realization sent acid down her throat, and she had to swallow hard against it. Here she was, still craving the blood of her brother’s murderer, when Scorpion was sitting next to the one that had killed his. If only Reaper had stayed away. She would have been content to let her anger simmer for the rest of her life.
Then he came back to the city, and it seemed like no matter where she turned, he was always there.
“He was in my room this morning,” she admitted, deciding to play open cards with Scorpion, but the Dodge came to a screeching stop, the wheels dragging the vehicle sideways in the road.
The force ripped the seatbelt into her stitches, and pain shot through her whole body as her head began to spin.
“He. Was. What?” Scorpion growled, and it excited
and frightened her at the same time.
“He didn’t hurt me,” she promised, trying to keep him calm, pain snaking through her abdomen. “I don’t think he wants to hurt me in his own twisted way.”
“I should go back. I should go back and pour gasoline down his fucking throat and set his sorry ass on fucking fire.”
Poison reached for him and placed her uninjured hand over his on the gearshift.
“He’s not worth it,” she whispered.
Taking a deep breath, Scorpion pulled the car back into his lane and seemed to try to focus on his breathing. Once it was even again, she sat back, releasing the pressure of the safety belt from her abdomen.
“Tell me everything,” he asked, and she could hear the battle of emotions in his voice.
So she told him everything. She told him about how they had grown up together, how he had killed Jonathan. How he had stayed away for more than a decade and how he had been showing up everywhere she had been since coming back to the city.
“He’s been stalking you?” Worry seeped through his stone-cold armor.
“He told me the night outside of the Lotus Lounge that he has been keeping tabs on me,” That night’s events played off in her mind like an old, distant movie scene and she just wanted to change the channel. “He knew things I had done while he wasn’t in the city.”
“Any chance of one of your crew members selling you out?”
“No!” she exclaimed, horror evident in her voice. The thought alone of one of her crew betraying her was too far-fetched. “My crew would never. Would you believe such a thing from any of your members?” she countered, and he considered her words before shaking his head.
“I’m sorry for questioning their loyalty.” It was his turn to dip his chin. “Things just aren’t adding up.”
His words hung in the air as they pulled up to his factory, and the reality of her current predicament set in with full force. Staring up at the red brick building, the realization that she would stay with Scorpion knocked the wind from her lungs.
“We needed to stop at my apartment to get my things,” she murmured, a mix of emotions making her heart race.
Scorpion pressed a remote button on his keychain as they rounded the back of the building, and a set of roll-up doors moved skyward.
“I already got some of your things,” he said with a smile that made it impossible for her to look away.
“How?”
“Your doorman let me in,” He smiled. “Hope you don’t mind? I didn’t break in this time.” Something like sorrow flickered across his face. “I got some things I thought you might need.”
A faint blush tinted his cheeks, and she stared mesmerized, her pain and worries about Reaper completely forgotten.
“Oh,” She didn’t know how to respond. “Thank you?”
They waited for the doors to lift, and Poison couldn’t believe her eyes as they moved to reveal the inside. As run down and abandoned as the factory’s first floor was, the back was the complete opposite.
The enormous garage was modern and filled with tools and machinery to one side, and the vast majority of the floor space was covered in bikes. In the middle of the floor, on a pedestal, surrounded by about five other bikes, stood her Ducati.
“I had it brought over from the Temple,” he said, nodding toward her bike.
“When Gunnar said you’ve never allowed him to ride one of your bikes, I thought he meant previously owned,” she exclaimed, staring at the bikes ranging from vintage to the Kawasaki H2R. “Not that you hoarded them like a dragon.”
“I like fixing and customizing them,” he answered with a shrug. “The duffle you had with you at the Temple is upstairs already, but unfortunately, the ring leader didn’t want to hand over a suitcase you apparently used to hit one of the guards through the face with.”
He gave her an incredulous look, and she tried smiling back at him and shrugged.
“What can I say? I know how to make an entrance.”
Scorpion parked inside the garage and got out as the door closed behind them. Walking over to her side, he opened the door and scooped her into his arms, and then it dawned on her.
“Scorpion, there’s no way you can carry me up six stories!” she exclaimed and tried to wriggle out of his grip, but the movement sent a surge of pain coursing through her body.
The grimace on her face earned her a stern look from him.
“Of course I can,” he answered with a challenging gleam in his eyes. “Watch me.”
As if her curves weighed no more than a feather, he carried her all the way to his loft and slid the door open with a foot.
She tried to focus on her breathing the whole way up and not on the fact that she could feel every rippling muscle of his against her body.
Inside the loft, Scorpion walked to his bed below the ceiling-height windows and gingerly laid her down between a larger number of pillows than she remembered.
“Are you comfortable?” he asked, fluffing a pillow behind her back.
“You really don’t have to worry about me,” she said, staring up at him, touched by his compassion but he dropped his gaze and busied himself with the pillows “And you don’t have anything to feel guilty about,” she added when she saw the guilt flash across his face.
“I’ve got something for you,” he said, the smile returning to his eyes.
She watched as he walked over to the shelves on the wall across the room, and her eyes caught a pile in the corner.
“Did you pack up my whole apartment?” she asked in shock as she saw every suitcase and bag she owned neatly stacked against the wall.
Scorpion rubbed the back of his neck as another flash of blush crept over his cheeks.
“I wasn’t sure what you might need,” he explained, quickly returning to the bookshelf.
A moment later, he returned with a box in his hands and placed it on her lap.
“You didn’t have to get me anything,” she whispered, overwhelmed by emotions.
“Just open it,” he said, sitting down on the edge of the mattress.
Fumbling one-handed with the lid, he saw her struggle and leaned forward to open it for her.
Her breath caught in her throat as she stared at the contents and removed the items one by one. Inside the box was Scorpion’s white t-shirt he had stolen back from her apartment, the note he had left her before everything went to shit, and the drawing she did of his eyes. With tears threatening to spill, she looked at him.
“You kept them?” she murmured.
“I did,” He nodded. “Tried getting rid of them, but I couldn’t.” He gave her a small smile. “There’s more.”
She checked the box again and found a shot glass she hadn’t seen initially. Picking it up, she looked to him with furrowed brows and he took it from her, examining the sticky glass.
“This,” He held it to the light. “This is from the night we met. You downed the content and stuffed the glass into my hand in a very spectacular exit.”
He chuckled, and it was her time to blush.
“This is from the pre-launch?” she asked, wide-eyed, and he nodded.
“It is from when I knew my life would never be the same again after meeting you.”
“You kept it?” she whispered, a million emotions flooding to the surface, threatening to spill from her eyes.
“Of course I did. The moment I laid eyes on you at that event, I knew you were a comet on a collision course with my heart. Your whole presence drew me in like a magnet. And when you grabbed my hand to shove that glass into it, I was done for.”
All she could do was stare up at him. She had no words, no rational part of her brain to form coherent thoughts.
Scorpion leaned in, and their lips met in the softest, most passionate kiss she had ever experienced. Every ounce of pain, of regret, of anything negative in this world disappeared the moment their lips melted together, and she got lost in his warmth.
Pulling back, he broke the kiss, leaving her feeling cold, empty, and longing for more. No, not longing but needing more.
“Let me fix you something to eat,” he said as he stood, but she tugged him gently back to her.
“I’m sorry for everything,” she whispered, staring into those endless galaxy-eyes of his.