“You been gone from Dallas awhile but that’s what Pe?a says is on the street. Shift has already mentioned my name to a cop. I do not need his dead body found. What I need is for that motherfucker to be incapacitated. And I figure, as payback for his efforts, Pe?a should get whatever cops get when they take down a drug dealing pimp who’d order a hit on his brother. You got connections in Dallas; you rally them not to make Shift stop breathin’ but to make him stop breathin’ free.”
Julius’s eyes were wide and he replied, “You tellin’ me you want me to get word to my boys to ask them to work with pigs?”
Ty leaned toward him. “He killed his brother and he moved to pimp my fuckin’ wife. I already kicked his ass and that didn’t make me feel any better. If I got a choice to dispense punishment, I do not choose for him to buy a bullet. I choose for him to keep breathin’ while… he… rots.”
Julius held his eyes and Ty knew that his now were burning because Julius replied quietly, “I get you.”
“He goes down; they give Pe?a enough to make him stay down. He manages to live a long life without gettin’ shanked, he lives it never fuckin’ breathin’ free. They do this, they do it for me, they do it for Lexie, they do it for Rodriguez and if that isn’t enough, they can have every bill left in my safe and they can do it for that.”
“Keep your cash, Walk, I’ll state your case.”
Ty held his friend’s eyes.
Then he whispered, “All you’re doin’, all you’ve done and all you’re gonna do, no way I can pay you.”
“I ask for compensation?”
He hadn’t. He wouldn’t.
And knowing that in that moment, Ty Walker was overwhelmed.
“No way I can pay you,” he repeated on a whisper.
“You’re my brother and family don’t pay shit.”
Ty didn’t respond.
Julius kept talking. “Though, just so you know, you just dropped a shitload of cash on a car for your wife I coulda boosted for you and had delivered in a week.”
At that, Ty burst out laughing. When he quit, he felt eyes, looked to the deck and saw his woman grinning at him. He smiled back. Then he looked at Julius.
“Heat is on in Carnal, Champ, not sure I should have a hot ride in my garage and definitely unsure I want my wife’s sweet ass in that hot ride.”
“Probably a good decision,” Julius muttered through a grin.
Ty grinned back.
Then his grin faded and words he’d said earlier that day came back to him.
And he was not about to make the same mistake twice.
Therefore he asked quietly, “Remember I told you about Tuku?” Julius nodded. Ty went on, “Got good friends, a lot of them, feel deep for them all. Only three people in my life got more from me, one of ‘em’s in the ground, one of ‘em’s sittin’ on the deck and the last is standin’ right in front of me.”
Julius said not a word but held his eyes.
Then Ty whispered, “Gratitude, brother.”
Julius kept his eyes locked with Ty’s and whispered back, “Debt paid.”
*
Lexie’s lips brushed his neck as her hips moved up and he lost the hot, wet silk of her * as she pulled off his cock. Then she moved down and her lips brushed the inside of his left pectoral over his heart. Then she moved down and they brushed across his abs. Then she fell to a hip in the bed, swung her leg from around him and rolled off the bed.
Ty watched her move to the bathroom. Then he rolled to turn off his light then shifted to pull the covers from under him to over him. Then he flipped Lexie’s side of the covers back. Then his eyes went back toward the door to the bathroom as the light went out and she wandered out. She stopped and tagged her panties from the floor. An indication she was done and she would be. He’d made her sit on his face until she came then he’d fingered her cunt and clit until she came again then he let her suck him until he almost came then she rode him until they both came.
It was a long and energetic night.
Time to sleep.
She turned out the light and put a knee to the bed, shifted to him and then curled into him.
He wrapped an arm around her and trailed his fingertips over the panties covering the cheek of her ass.
“Love our bed,” she mumbled into his chest, voice sleepy.
He did too, now that she was back in it but he didn’t articulate this.
She didn’t mind and he knew that when she whispered, “’Night, honey,” giving his gut a squeeze with her arm.
“’Night, mama.”
He felt a slight smile as her mouth moved her cheek.
Then she was out.
Five minutes later, she rolled.
Then he went to jack up the AC and rejoined his wife, his eyes passing the shadow of the picture frame that was back in its place on the dresser.
She’d carried it with her.
Seeing that frame, knowing he’d always been with her, that wound closed tight.
He joined his wife in bed and curved into her body. She snuggled closer.
And it was not lost on Ty Walker that for over six weeks, sleep did not come easy. Memories invaded, not good ones. Demons. Demons of prison and demons of living a dream he never thought he’d have then losing that dream.
Only last night, did they retreat.
And that was because, his wife being there, she was there to beat them back.
So he let her do it again and fell asleep thinking of nothing but her warmth, her softness, the scent of her hair and fucking her in the shower the next morning.
Chapter Seventeen
The Home Stretch