Chapter Seventeen
Cox came awake into a dark room. As usual, he needed no time to gather his bearings; he was in his dorm room, and he was with Autumn. They were both naked, the covers kicked away. She slept in a sprawl across his chest. One of his hands was full of a firm little globe of her ass.
He felt raw and rocked to his core. Something new had happened; he didn’t understand it, and he didn’t think he wanted to understand. Each time he tried to think about it, a steel door slammed shut in his head.
So, okay. Think about something else. What had happened between him and Autumn here ultimately did not matter. Right? For one thing, at the most basic level, she lived in Indianapolis—something like 350 miles away. He’d never been interested in a relationship when the woman was local; certainly he wasn’t interested in anything long distance. The idea of making the kind of chitchat that must be required to sustain a relationship like that made him shudder.
Hold up, though—why was he thinking about Autumn in terms of a relationship?
The steel door slammed shut again. Nope, not digging into that.
Fuck. Okay. That didn’t matter. A relationship was impossible, whether or not either of them wanted one—which he very much did not. Nope. So last night ultimately meant nothing. Just an epically good fuck. End of story. They’d get up, get dressed, go back to their lives. Not only was that the right choice, it was the easy one. Nothing had to change.
So why didn’t it feel easy? In fact, it made his chest hurt, like heartburn. But it was right. The fact that it hurt made him more sure that it was the right call—nothing in his life that felt good ever stayed. Better to stop it now, on his own terms, before hurt could sink in.
Anyway, what could he offer a woman like Autumn Rooney? Nothing in his life would do more for her than muddy her stilettos.
She stirred then, moaning softly and shifting to snuggle more tightly under his arm, tucking her head under his jaw. Her hair bunched up against his cheek, and he couldn’t resist turning into that silk, letting her sweet scent encircle him again as he pressed his lips to her head. There was some sex-musk mixed in with the flowers and honey now, and it made him hard again.
What was it about her that made him feel like this—feel good, feel calm? And how did he go back to being a miserable lump?
The groundbreaking on her big project was this afternoon. She was probably going back to her big city tomorrow, and then she probably wouldn’t have any reason to come back until after the build was finished. Maybe not even then. Maybe this was the last time she’d ever be in Signal Bend.
That thought kicked up the heartburn sensation about fifty degrees, but it also gave him a feeling he finally identified as a desiccated twist of hope. If she was about to disappear for good, then maybe he didn’t need to give up the good feelings just yet. If she was feeling it too, maybe they could hold onto it for a minute. They could play in this fantasy world for another day, another night, and then go back to their lives, when she left town. The stakes didn’t change if they played one day longer.
The word ‘play’ reminded him of their unfinished pool game and the bet they’d made: a ‘small favor.’ She’d been about to win when her boss had put on his floor show. Cox decided to look for a way to make good on the bet. What favor could he do her? He meant to figure that out before this weekend was over.
A light knock on the door pulled him from his musing. “Cox, you awake?” Double A asked softly on the other side.
“Yeah,” he answered, trying to project his voice without disturbing Autumn. He succeeded enough that she only stirred again, shifting all the way off his chest to curl up like a cinnamon roll against his side, but didn’t wake.
“Badge is in the Keep,” Dub said. “Callin’ us in.”
Cox checked his watch—just past five a.m. That meant trouble.
Moving carefully, he eased himself from the bed, grabbing his kutte from where it was still wedged between the mattress and the wall.
He pulled the cover over Autumn’s sleeping form. She snugged up more tightly and remained asleep. Like the last time he’d left her sleeping, he felt the powerful urge to leave her with a kiss.
This time, he acted on it. He bent low, brushed her hair from her forehead, and set his lips there.
As blue tendrils of waking dawn began to lighten the room, he hurried into his clothes and left, pulling the door to a silent close.
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~oOo~
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The seats at the Keep table were only about half full. Cox scanned the empty chairs: Isaac, Showdown, Len, Bart, Nolan, Zaxx, Saxon, Darwin, and Mel. All but Darwin and Mel were family men, or at least had old ladies, and half of them were over fifty. They didn’t hang around the clubhouse into the wee hours. Darwin wasn’t a huge partier, either; he usually bugged out before midnight. Mel could party with the best of them, but lately he’d been away during his downtime more than usual.
Under normal circumstances, Cox, also no longer much of a partier, would have been home as well. But last night had not been normal.
Though it hadn’t yet been dark when Cox had opted out of the partying last night, he assumed that everybody in the Keep this early morning had all been at the clubhouse overnight. Badger had apparently decided that whatever they needed to talk about before six in the morning was relevant only to the patches on the premises.
Badger and Double A were family men as well, also not hardcore partiers, but they’d been dealing with Autumn’s boss. Likely most of the men at the table now had been involved in that in some way. Cox assumed that was the reason they’d been called in.
Everyone was groggy and slouched in their seats, but Badger and Dub both looked like they hadn’t gotten a single wink of sleep. Badger didn’t bother to gavel the meeting open; another sign that this wasn’t an official meeting.
When everybody was settled, what Badger said shocked everybody straight up in their seats. “About an hour ago, Tommy had a stroke.”
“What?” Thumper asked, cutting off Badger as he was about to say more.
Badge gave him a look and continued, “He’s alive. He’s back in the ICU, in a coma. They don’t know how bad it is yet, but it doesn’t sound great.”
Cox thought about that day at the Prentiss place, how Tommy was on the ground before Cox had a chance to get all the way out of the truck. Gary had shot the second he’d seen the Horde. They’d been stupid not to realize he’d feel threatened the moment he saw them.
“How’d it happen?” Kellen asked.
“The doc hedged his answer, I guess they’re not totally sure yet, but I got him to say he thinks Tom threw a clot from his lung. Went into his brain.”
“We need a watch up there round the clock again, until he’s out the woods,” Double A said.
Thumper volunteered at once. “I’m in for first shift.”
Cox was about to raise his hand and volunteer as well, but he remembered Autumn, still sleeping in his room, unaware of all this, so he left his hand on the table. Saxon volunteered instead.
“Thanks, brothers,” Badger said. “We’ll do four-hour shifts. We still got the groundbreaking thing this afternoon, too. Shitty time for a party, but I guess there’s nothing to do about it but get it done.”
“What about her boss?” Cox asked, not realizing until the question was out that the couple of sentences in his head that had connected the dots from the groundbreaking to the asshole whose face he’d rearranged last night had happened only in his head.
Kellen barked an obnoxious laugh. “Cox is extra interested now. Got himself a taste of hot corporate bitch last night.”
Cox leveled a look. He didn’t say a word; Kellen’s bullshit wasn’t worth the effort. He simply stared at that weaselly fuck until Kellen’s head dipped and he looked away.
The Keep was quiet for another second or two, until everybody was sure that interaction was over.
Then Dom asked Badger, “Should we talk about Chase, too?”
Badger waved at the table, granting Dom permission. “Might s’well.”
Turning to Cox, Dom said, “He’s still zonked. Izzy left him around two, and she was a rock star while she was with him. We got some prime leverage on that rich fuck.”
Dom, Saxon, Thumper, and Double A all chuckled. Even Badger smiled.
“What kind of leverage?” Cox asking, feeling like he’d missed a memo.
Dom took out a tablet—he was the only one allowed to have tech in the Keep, not that Cox cared one way or another—and tapped and swiped for a few seconds. Then he propped the tablet in the middle of the table and started a video.
It looked like security-camera footage, grey and at a remove; the cameras in the back room were discreetly placed. Dom had started it somewhere in the middle of the recording; the part he played showed Izzy and Autumn’s boss, both in the bed, both naked, obviously messing around. It looked like Izzy was in charge, but Autumn’s boss—Cox preferred not to think of that ass by name—was an active participant. Despite his injured face and the great quantity of booze they’d poured down his throat, he was all in on playing with Izzy.
He was still all in when Izzy got off the bed, went to a drawer in the chest, and pulled out a very large strap-on. The Keep was quiet as they watched Autumn’s boss get quite literally fucked. The guy didn’t hesitate at all, not even with lack of experience.
“Oh, shit!” Kellen burst out with a laugh. “Mr. Millionaire likes monster cock up the ass! I didn’t even know we had that thing!” He looked around the table. “Is one of you into that shit? Who’s the fag?”
“Shut the fuck up, Kell,” Double A snapped. “Jesus, my dude. How the fuck old are you? A grown man, still acting like a shithead eighth-grader.”
Kellen slapped his hand to his chest in mock horror. “Holy shit—it’s yours, ain’t it? Candy know you like dick? Does she give it to you like that?”
Double A jackknifed out of his chair. Badger stood as well, putting a hand on his veep’s shoulder. “Kell, get the fuck out of the Keep now,” their president ordered.
Kellen stared wide-eyed. “You throwin’ me out of the Keep? I’m a voting member! I’m a fuckin’ officer!”
Double A shrugged Badger’s hand off and stalked to Kellen. Kellen stood, ready to fight. Cox and Saxon both stood at the same time. Cox was ready to back Dub up; he assumed—hoped—Saxon meant to do the same.
He did. Then Thumper stood, and Dom. All the patches in the Keep on this strange morning faced Kellen, their treasurer. Allied against him.
“Get the fuck out, Kell,” Badger said. “This isn’t an official meeting, there’s no vote, and you’re not needed.”
Kellen looked around once more, like he couldn’t believe this was happening. Then he kicked his chair out of his way and stomped from the room, slamming the double doors behind him. Just like a shithead eighth-grader.
The others stood around the table for several more seconds, again letting a Kellen-centered moment fade out on its own.
“Hate that fucker,” Double A mumbled. “And I’m not fuckin’ gay. That thing ain’t mine.”
“I don’t care whose it is or who likes what,” Thumper said. “Nobody’s business what goes on in somebody else’s private time. Anyway, you’re not gay unless you’re fuckin’ dudes. Izzy’s no dude.”
Saxon grinned. “Is it yours, Thump? Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”
“It’s Izzy’s,” Badger said, clearly annoyed. “It was her idea. And this particular private time is our business. This is the leverage.” He tapped the top of the tablet, which Dom must have paused during Kellen’s outburst. The still image showed Autumn’s boss being thoroughly serviced by Izzy and her impressively sized strap-on.
Cox hated that motherfucker, the guy had imprints of Cox’s ring all over his face he hated him so much, but the idea of this kind of leverage didn’t sit right. Obviously something like this had been the plan from the start, that was why they’d enlisted Izzy’s help, but it still seemed ... well, cheap.
However, it was done, and surely the slick fucker would be horrified for footage like that to make the rounds of his boardrooms, country clubs, penthouses, wherever the rich and famous played. If they needed leverage, they had it.
Something new occurred to Cox: Autumn could use that footage. She could get that grabby son of a bitch to sit on his hands and seal his mouth shut. She could maybe even get more at MWGP—more control, more money, more power, more of whatever she wanted.
“He’s gonna be a problem,” Dom said.
It took Cox a beat to understand Dom meant Kellen, not Autumn’s boss.
“I’ll talk to him,” Badger said.
“I hate that fucker,” Double A repeated. “Can’t believe he’s got a seat at this table.”
“He’s had it years, Dub,” Badger replied with a tone that suggested they’d had this conversation before and he was tired of it. “He can be an ass, but we gave him a patch, and being hard to get along with isn’t grounds for excommunication. Most of us are assholes at least half the time. Kell’s just a full-timer.”
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~oOo~
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Certain Autumn would still be asleep, Cox opened the door to his room slowly, lifting it over the squeaky spot in a hinge. As he eased in, he noted that the light was still low; only the thin light of the trailing edge of dawn peeking through the window blinds.
But Autumn was not asleep. She was awake, and she was mostly dressed.
As he came into the room, she whipped around to face him, and Cox was shocked to see that she’d been crying.
She wasn’t now, now she seemed angry, but her eyes had the unmistakably misty, ruddy cast of recent tears.
“Y’okay?” he asked, wondering what could have happened in the hour he’d been gone. Fuck, had her boss found her? “What happened?”
He took a step toward her, reaching out—but she took a step back.
It was him? What the fuck had he done?
Oh shit. Had he misread last night? Had he done something to hurt or upset her? Obviously he had.
A replay of the night sped through his mind; he scanned it, trying to think where he’d done something shitty without realizing. But all he remembered was wildly intense sex, both of them giving their all the whole time. She’d been into it. Or faking it with the skill of a porn star.
“What happened?” he asked again, because she hadn’t yet answered.
She squared her shoulders and drew herself up as tall as her little spine could go. A tell that she felt the need to muster her strength. She drew one hand through her hair, pulling it all to one side, flipping over the top of her head. A tell that she’d made up her mind about something.
“I’m fine. Just getting dressed. Nothing happened, the night’s just over.”
That was a lie. Though it was also demonstrably true, something in there was false.
“You don’t want to talk?”
She laughed, and the sound was sharp and bitter. “You do?”
He did, actually. He’d expected to slip back into bed with her, lie with her until she woke, maybe suggest breakfast at Marie’s, feel out her appetite for playing some more while she was here. He’d also planned to work how and when—and if—to tell her about what they had on her boss. Probably he should run that by Badger first, but at the moment he wasn’t inclined to take that precaution.
But now he didn’t understand what the fuck—and she was fucking lying right now, so ... what? Was there some kind of dance he was supposed to do, to get her to tell him the truth? Did he need a password? What?
“I want to know what’s wrong with you, and I want—”
“There’s nothing ‘wrong with me,’” she said, cutting him off and making stupid air quotes while she did it.
Cox liked this woman, but he hated liars. She was manifestly upset, he could literally see it on her face, hear it in her voice, but she stood before him acting like he was an idiot for asking what was wrong.
This whole thing was a mistake. He’d been a fool last night. Nothing about Autumn was special, and he didn’t really feel any kind of way about her. He’d been too much in his thoughts lately, that was it. It was making him feel like he wanted things he’d never wanted, and wondering if there might be a way his shit life could get better, when he knew damn well there was not.
Was thirty-eight too early for a midlife crisis?
Yeah, it was. He needed to pull himself together. Remember who he was and what his life was. What he could have, and what he couldn’t.
“Okay,” he said, and stepped aside, clearing her way to the door. “There’s coffee on the bar.”
She stared at him. “That’s it? Just ‘see ya, grab a coffee on your way out’?”
Tired, confused, and becoming angry himself, Cox sucked in a long breath, dug deep for patience, and asked, “What is it you want from me right now, Autumn? And be fuckin’ straight about it. You’re pissed, and I ain’t stupid. You say you’re fine, but I see you’re not.”
Again, she stared. Stood there, crossed her arms, and stared. Cox stared right back. He was done talking until she said the truth and made sense.
Finally her posture relaxed slightly—no more than a softening around her shoulders—and she said, “You’re not playing games. You seriously don’t know.” Wonder wrapped around her words.
“I don’t play games. I didn’t think you did, either.”
“I don’t. Well ...” She sighed and relaxed more, dropping her arms from their angry twist across her chest. “I guess I’ve been known to play when I think somebody’s trying to play me.”
He didn’t bother to untangle that verbal snarl. He held her gaze and waited for the explanation.
Autumn cleared her throat and explained: “I woke up alone, no sign you’d even been here but the empty condom wrappers, and you were gone a while. I figured you were done with me, and ... yeah, it hurt.”
Ah. He should have thought of that himself. Maybe he was stupid after all.
That probably deserved an apology, but he couldn’t get the word out. Instead he told her, “I got called into the Keep.”
“Oh. Okay. You have meetings in the middle of the night?”
“Tommy had a stroke last night.”
He’d said it because it was true, and it was the thing he could readily say about that meeting without possibly breaking the seal. He hadn’t said it to have any particular effect on her, and he hadn’t considered what effect it might have.
Her whole aspect changed dramatically. All the defensive rigidity in her stance flowed away, and her expression became worry. She took a step toward him and almost reached out, but changed her mind before her arm could do more than twitch in his direction.
“Oh no! Is he okay? No, obviously not. Will he be?”
“Don’t know yet. He’s in a coma. We’re doing shifts with him again until he’s out of this trouble.”
“Well, I feel dumb and dramatic. I was just ... anyway. Last night was good, for me, and I’m sorry about Tommy. I hope he’s okay.”
Cox didn’t know what to say that would ease her discomfort, much less reopen a path toward discussing whether they drew last night out until she left, or they called it good and moved on now. If Autumn was into it, he’d could work out doing his hospital duty after she left. If she wasn’t, he’d spend the day at the hospital and keep himself out of trouble.
His word well was all dried up, though, so he didn’t say a single one. Instead, he did what had worked last night: he stepped up to her, took her face in his hands, and kissed the shit out of her.
This time, after a few seconds of full participation that had him turning them both toward the bed, she set her hands on his chest and pushed back.
“I am very confused.”
He chuckled. “Same.”
“What do you want, Cox?”
The truest answer wasn’t an answer at all, because he didn’t know. At the moment, he wanted things he couldn’t have. But that had to be a momentary impulse. He couldn’t honestly want anything that had anything to do with romance or relationships. Also, even if he did, he couldn’t have anything like that with this woman.
So what the fuck did he want, then?
“I don’t know. Just ... this not to be done yet. When do you leave?”
“We’re booked through tomorrow night.”
That was a day longer than he’d thought. They might have two days together rather than one. But her use of the word ‘we’ reminded him of her boss. Should he tell her anything about their plans with him? Could he?
Obviously also reminded, Autumn said, “I really need to check on Chase. I can’t begin to imagine what he’ll be like this morning.”
Humbled, once Badge gets a minute with him, Cox thought. If he were going to tell her anything, what would he say?
Before he could figure that out, Autumn slipped her arms around his waist and pulled in snugly again. “But I, too, would like not to be done yet.”
Finally. Truth and clarity. She wanted what he wanted. Everything else could wait its fucking turn.
Cox kissed her again. She flung her arms over his neck and climbed up.
This time he got her back to the bed.