“You’re gonna have to get it past D and Maddox too,” he warned. “There’s still danger and they’re not gonna like that.”
“They dig you. You won them over with pancakes and not shouting down their middle-of-the-night fucking. If they know I’m on Chaos, and when I’m not I’m with you, they’ll be totally cool.”
“We’ll see.”
She smiled at him, came in for a lip touch, pulled away and dropped back to her ass on the floor, reclaiming her slice of pizza.
“This is fantastic,” she declared as she munched. “We can have Amy over for dinner and check her pulse. I can teach you how to meditate. I can finally cook for you. Wind-down-after-a-day-of-trying-to-find-bad-guy blowjobs whenever you need them. Awesome.”
The only one of those he was down for was the blowjobs.
And depending on her skill level, the cooking.
Rush didn’t say that.
He reached for a slice.
“Rush,” she said before he sat back in his seat.
He turned his head and caught the look on her face.
And suddenly he was down for everything she said.
She liked him. They were starting something.
And it was wired in her to take care of the people who meant something to her.
It’d kill her to be in Phoenix when he was up here not getting enough sleep and coming home to an empty house and an empty bed.
She needed to be right there, by his side.
And having that from her did not suck.
“Thank you, baby,” she whispered.
He grinned at her, sat back, and tore off a bite of pizza with his teeth, hoping he wouldn’t regret this.
But his father thought they were in the home stretch and that Chew had retreated to prepare for his final attack.
Tack was rarely wrong.
And whatever it would be, they knew it was coming.
So maybe he wouldn’t regret this.
Regardless, he’d just made Rebel really fucking happy.
And he knew already he’d never regret that.
Proper Procedure
Rush
Seven forty, Monday morning . . .
“Jesus, sis, chill.”
Diesel’s voice rumbling through the wall, Rush opened his eyes.
He was in Rebel’s bed, which was essentially a cave tucked under an arch in a room painted yellow and the same lime green that was in the bookshelves in the living room.
Like everything else Rebel, her bedroom coincided with her name.
There were no normal pillows, just a stupid amount of toss pillows of varying sizes in patterns of pinks, blues and purples. No comforter, but fluffy blankets and embroidered quilts. The mattress was shoved in, butting against three walls, windows at the head, foot and side. And the arch was decorated in a leafy, flowery garland with some wavy stars and what looked like pink and purple Christmas balls hanging down.
He didn’t even want to get into the garnet-colored chandelier hanging so low in the tiny open area of the room, he ran into it when he’d first entered.
Antique chests set at slants, closing the arch in even further.
Flowered chairs stuffed in.
He had no idea how she made that bed seeing as she could only get to one side of it. But when they’d hit it last night, it had been made.
All this bizarre, he still had to admit that warm, dark cocoon, filtered with moonlight coming in from all around with its comfortable bouncy mattress was a great place to fuck.
And obviously sleep.
He felt like he’d slept for a year. Refreshed, his brain settled.
He heard some murmuring coming through the wall, female, Rebel, and then from Diesel . . .
“Just make them for him tomorrow. We brought donuts. We didn’t commit murder.”
Rush grinned and swung out of the bed.
Avoiding the chandelier, he yanked on his clothes, including his boots.
He left the tiny room to go into the tiny bathroom, which looked like it was paneled in barn wood that had been painted cream a hundred years ago. A short claw footed tub with a distressed gray side. Pedestal sink. Big window at the foot of the tub he thanked fuck was obscured by Essence’s jungle because it looked right into the bath. Shelf under it on which she had an antique oval standing mirror and a bunch of bottles with some conch shells. Tall wicker basket beside it stuffed with an enormous amount of dried wildflowers.
There was a wall partitioning the toilet, which weirdly was at the front of the room. That wall, as well as the walls in the bath area, had some stenciling in the upper corners.
He would have thought the room was a total wash. That small room that gave a feel of a funky outhouse with that little tub you couldn’t even stretch out in (even if he took baths, which he didn’t) if there wasn’t a shower room tucked off to the other side of the toilet. It had obviously been added on because it made the shape of the room wonky and it explained a weird wall in the living room.
That was all of Rebel’s cottage. A decent-sized living room, big kitchen, small foyer, tiny bedroom, diminutive bathroom. All of it surrounded by greenery, stuffed full of personality and mystifying style.
And Rush had to admit he liked it. He’d felt last night like they were alone in more ways than simply being alone. They had privacy. They were on their own little island, tucked in a forest away from people and traffic and the shit of life.
It was what he wanted in his mountain house when he got to that point.
It was another thing Rebel offered him now.
And having it, he decided, with Valenzuela out of the picture and half the threat gone, this was where they’d hang until it was all over.
He used the toilet, washed his hands, splashed water on his face and found some mouthwash to rinse.
Then he walked out, going into her headache of a kitchen she’d told him last night Essence had decided the paint job.
At least there was that.
The minute he walked in, he saw Rebel wearing a strapless cream, what looked like a bikini, top that had a tie in the middle of her tits that was cinched to show even more skin, low-slung, wide-leg pajama pants in a muted pastel paisley and a see-through cream—he didn’t know what the fuck it was—but it was a robe-like thing with little balls on the ends.
She turned to him and snapped accusingly, “D and Mad brought donuts.”
And they did.
There was a big LaMar’s box open on the kitchen table. D was biting into a chocolate-covered Bavarian cream, the cream oozing out the side, and Maddox was taking a swallow from a coffee mug, a half-eaten cinnamon twist in his other hand.
Rush knew his girl wanted to cook for him and was not pleased her shot was thwarted again, but he was glad for the quick breakfast.
He had to get home, shower, put on clean clothes and meet his dad and brothers at the Compound to roll out for the sit down with Valenzuela. A sit down he was looking forward to, seeing that asshole cowed and listening to him share he was slinking away.
That said, he’d prefer it if they were alone so he could explore that top and the stretch of flesh from the valley of her tits to lower belly it exposed. At least for a few minutes.
He figured fifteen of them would do it.
His mind went off all of this when he took in the look on Rebel’s face.
“Baby, I’ll eat your biscuit sandwiches tomorrow,” he assured.
“Yes,” she spat, turning her glare to her brother and his man, “you will.”
“Yo, bro,” Maddox greeted, completely unaffected by Rebel’s snit.
“Hey, man,” D said with his mouth full, also obviously unaffected.
He tipped his chin up at them and went to Rebel.
Sliding his arm inside the robe-like thing, he stopped with his hand at the small of her back and pulled her to him.
“I gotta go anyway, babe. Slept in. Need to get home, shower, get to the meeting.”
She glared up at him a second, then lost the glare and nodded.
After she did that, she rolled up on the toes of her bare feet and touched her lips to his.
When she rolled back, she muttered, “I’ll make you a travel mug of coffee.”
She went off and did that.
He went to the box of donuts and selected a cinnamon roll.
He ate it while she made his coffee. Rebel then wrapped up a chocolate-covered in a napkin for his second course and followed him to the front door where they made out too briefly before he lifted his head.
“Talk to them,” he ordered.
“I will. Be careful,” she ordered.
“I will.”
She smiled up at him, pressed close a second then pulled away.
He took the donut, he already had the coffee, and he walked the much shorter path to Essence’s back drive to get to his truck.
He ate his second donut and drank Rebel’s kickass coffee as he drove home.
Rush wasn’t thinking good thoughts as he rode his bike into the forecourt of Ride, heading toward the Compound and seeing Mitch Lawson and Slim Lucas standing with his dad, Hop, Shy, Snap and Hound.
He parked and swung off his bike, getting stiff chin jerks from a pissed-off-looking Mitch and a grim-looking Slim before they got in their unmarked cop car, started it up and pulled out.
He made his way to their huddle and stopped at his brothers, seeing their faces looked grim too as they watched Mitch and Slim pull away while High rode in.