Broken Wings (A Romantic Suspense) (77 page)

I can't look anymore. I close my eyes and shudder, my hips rolling in slow, involuntarily motions, riding him. Hawk keeps his eyes on me, staring back at me every time I look down at him. I rub my hand over his head. He cut his hair. He always had such beautiful hair, a lovely sandy blond. Everybody used to joke that he had a girl's hair. They must have made him cut it, that's what they do. I have to cover my mouth again as the movement of his finger inside me sends a spiraling twist of pleasure riding up through my body as cold shocks fall down my legs and curl my toes in my sneakers. I buck against him.

He could fuck me right now. Spin me around, pin me against the wall and just hammer me. I want it so bad, and he knows I want it. I can't take much more. I want him, I want him, I want him. I've wanted this for so long I can't remember a time when I didn't.

"S-s-somebody might see us," I choke out, struggling as every word wants to become a moan.

"I don't care," he growls, and a second finger slips inside me.

At first it's almost too much. I can't tell him that…

What, you're still a virgin? You waited for him, you dumb girl?

I don't even know if it counts anymore. His fingers drive me insane and his mouth on my clit is too much to take. I squeal through my teeth and my legs shake as a climax uncoils through my body, floods in a white-hot wave until it soaks through my skin, like there's a fire inside me and I'm glowing from within. It gets more and more intense, ebbs and grows again as I groan and my legs buckle. Finally Hawk stands up and slips his fingers out of me and kisses me hard again, and I can taste myself in his mouth, feel the heat on my chin.

There's nothing between me and him but his jeans. My hands slide up his legs and he shudders when I touch his balls, and gaps when I run my hand up the underside of his shaft, hard under his clothes.

"We can't do this," I whisper.

"Why not?"

I wriggle out from under him, stumble, and yank my pants up, frantically buckling them.

Hawk moves closer and I think he's going to grab me but instead he helps me tuck my shirt back in and smooths the sides, turns me around and pulls me against him.

"Come with me, right now."

"What? Where?"

"Anywhere but here."

"I can't. I can't leave my sister."

"We'll take her. Go get her."

"I can't, Hawk."

"Why?"

I push back and slip out of his arms. "Your father."

His eyes flash and rage twists his face. A quiver of fear bolts through me. He's
scary
. Then he softens.

"What about my father?" he says, his voice low like a suppressed growl.

"It's complicated. I can't… I can't leave."

"Because you're working for him?"

"Because no matter where I go, I can't get away from him. I shouldn't even be here talking to you. You don't know what you've done. He'll know you came up to me at the hot dog cart. He knows everything. If I try to run, he'll use May against me. She's a minor. He'll have the police hunt us down and drag us back here and put me back in…"

I trail off.

No, no I can't tell him that. I can't. I can't. I can't.

"Put you back in where?"

"It doesn't matter."

"Alex-"

"No, Hawk. I needed you and you weren't there. We had a chance and the chance passed. This was all you're going to get."

"I'm not going to abandon you again."

"Again," I say, bitterly. "Don't follow me."

"What happens if I do?"

I've already started to leave, but I round on him.

"What do you think you can do, Hawk? Fight the whole town? Your dad’s going to be the mayor of this shithole. The cops already do everything he says. He owns half the town. I don't care how big you are, you can't do anything about him. If you pull some bullshit, you have no idea what’ll happen."

"Yes, I do. I left because he threatened you."

I freeze. "What?"

"He-"

"He threatened me and your answer was to
leave me here?"

"I thought you'd be gone, the scholarship-"

"He married my mother a
month
after you left. I lasted until fall break and then they…" I trail off, unable to finish.

No, no, no, no, never talk about that never ever.

"They what?"

"It doesn't matter," I spit at him. "I don't need you anymore. When I needed you, you
weren't there."

"Alex, let me explain. You don't know what happened-"

"I don't care what happened, Hawk. It was nice when we were younger. I wish it was more than it was, but it's not. It's over and it needs to be over. Go back where you came from before you make my life worse."

I turn and storm out of the alley, blinking away tears in the hot sun. Every atom of my body is screaming at me to turn around and rush back to him and just run and run until we both drop, until there's half a planet between us and this hell. He came back, he came
back
.

The other part of me clings to the truth: It's too late, and I have work to do.

There's only one person who's going to stop Tom Richardson.

Me.

Hawk

Now

So here I am standing in the alley between an empty pharmacy and an empty furniture store, shirtless, smelling vaguely of mustard, Alexis' juices on my fingers. I'm not completely sure what just happened. One moment she was clenched up around me, her body pulsing with pleasure as she clamped down my fingers, the words
fuck me
wordlessly on her lips, and then she shoves me away and storms off, and tells me to go back where I came from.

Let me think.

No.

I scrub my hands clean in my fouled t-shirt and toss it into an old trash can someone abandoned in the alley and stride back out into the open. I get more stares now; the tats are on full display. The screaming hawk on my chest, chains and vines on my arms, and the biggest one on my back, a lovely angel wielding a reaper's scythe. She spreads her wings across my back and stares defiantly and, to be honest, looks a lot like Alex. I'm not the only person walking around shirtless, it's fucking hot, but every eye in the place is on me anyway.

Alexis is sitting on an upturned bucket, chugging a bottle of water and wiping at her forehead with a napkin as I stride up the sidewalk towards the hot dog carts. She looks up and scrubs her hand over her face, shakes the sweat off, and strides back to the cart.

"Go away, Hawk."

"Nope. We need to talk."

"We can't," she says calmly, looking away from me. She settles in place behind the cart.

Her legs are still shaking. She's trying to look calm.

A guy in a Hawaiian shirt and straw hat walks up to the hot dog stand and I shoulder in front of him.

"We're closed," I say, curtly.
 

"I’m open," May sighs. "Here, sir."

May slathers mustard on the guy's hot dog while I stare down Alexis, arms folded over my chest.

"We can’t do this here," she says, softly.

That's a step up over
we can't
, I guess.

"Hawk, I can't be seen with you," she says, lowering her voice further. "Please. You don't understand what you're doing."

"I'll deal with my father."

She looks up. "Will you?"

That one cuts me. I even flinch a little. There's a quiet venom in her voice I've never heard before. God she looks just the same, like I stepped into a dream and stepped back out with no time in between. It's not like she's never been mad at me before but she was never truly
angry
with me. We used to fight as often as not, and there was once a week when she didn't talk to me and left me with a deep emptiness that at the time I didn't recognize for what it was.

"What do you want?"

"I want to talk."

"We can't talk here. We shouldn't talk at all. It's best for both of us if you leave me alone. Go. Please."

"Alex-"

"Hawk, please." Her voice cracks a little. "If you don't leave your father is going to… show… up…" she trails off.

Alexis freezes like a deer in the headlights and looks over my shoulder. I turn, and there he is.

Tall, an inch taller than me, he's wearing a polo shirt, slacks and boat shoes, and sweating. My father could pass for my brother, age-wise, even if he's a little older than you'd expect for a man with an eldest son my age. The only sign of his years is a flaring wing of gray in his hair on either side of his head, and faint lines around his eyes that only show when he grimaces. He's smiling now, but if you covered the bottom half of his face it would show his smile false, as it doesn't touch his eyes. It never does and never did.

There isn't even a moment of confusion. He recognizes me immediately.

He pretends he doesn't.

"Alexis, is this man bothering you?"

"No, dad, he just-"

Dad. She called him
dad
. What the fuck?"

"This man?" I say, smirking. "Dad. Really."

"Hawk?" he says, feigning confusion, then surprise.

Sometimes I think I might be crazy. It's like I'm the only one who sees it. His expressions look natural unless you pay a little too much attention. His eyes are dead, lifeless, like a shark's eyes. Two green buttons without an ounce of empathy or feeling, seeing through you.

"Why aren't you wearing a shirt?"

"Because it's ninety-five fucking degrees outside."

No reaction. He just stares at me with that same fraudulent smile, but his head cocks to the side a little, like he's studying a prey animal.

"What are you doing here?"

My smile broadens, but there's no joy in it. I'm baring my teeth at him. "I live here."

"Not anymore."

"Well, that's the thing about joining the military, Dad. Eventually they let you out. Maybe if you'd tried it sometime you'd know that."

Nothing. He just stares. I make a broad gesture behind me.

"Mayor, huh? Moving up in the world, I see."

"You should leave," he says, finally.

"Why? Is there a dress code?"

He glances over to his side and nods.

"Yes," a new voice says, "As a matter of fact there is."

I snap around quickly and find myself staring down a Paradise Falls cop. It takes me a second, because of the uniform and the mirrored aviator shades, and then it hits me.

"Lance?"

"'Officer' he corrects."

I read his name tag. Yeah, it's him. He doesn't look all that different than when I left- he's still lanky and skinny like he was when he was sixteen, except now somebody went and made a cop out of my younger brother. He rests his hands on his duty belt, hooking his thumbs under the leather, and one is a little close to the Glock on his hip. He probably does that a lot.

I give him a smile that says, in nonverbal form, if he pulls that piece I'm going to have it up his ass before he can get his finger on the trigger.

"Been a long time, brother."

"Go get a shirt," he says, his voice trembling just a touch.

I smirk, and he frowns. I noticed and he knows I noticed.

"So you're a cop."

"Yeah."

"Makes me wonder what asshole would trust you with a gun."

HIs hand jerks to his sidearm and closes around the grip.

"Lance," my father says, in a warning tone. "Escort Hawk off the street. He's not to come back."

I look up at the signs over my head. "Are you mayor already? Who the fuck died and put you in charge?"

Alex lets out a little squeak.

The area around the hot dog carts has cleared. It's just us, now. Alexis takes May by the arm and leads her off, looking at me the whole time, worry etched on her features. May looks a little shell-shocked.

"Go," my father says, "Now."

"All right," I say.

Honestly I'd rather not jam a gun up my brother's ass right now. It could turn ugly.

Or I could just turn around and snap the fucker's neck before they stop me. Lance would still be standing there with his head up his ass while my father flops around on the ground. I could just do it
now
.

For what he did, he deserves worse than that. More than that.

Then there's Alexis.

Not in front of her. Not in front of May. I won't burden them with that.

I turn and walk and, of course, Lance follows. He's not holding his piece anymore but he's got his hand right there, awkwardly stiff as he walks behind me swinging the other arm.

"Tattoos," he says.

"Yeah."

"They must have hurt."

"Yeah."

"Where you been, anyway?"

"Navy."

I have to remind myself that Lance doesn't know. I don't
like
him, I never did, but he doesn't know what my father did. I imagine if I told him now he'd laugh it off or call me nuts.

"You picked a hell of a time to come back. Dad's going to be mayor."

"I though they had to have an election first."

Lance snorts. "Nobody else is running. They know what's good for them."

I glance back at him and slow my pace. It hits me as I stare into those big aviators of his, see my own eyes squinting back at me.

He wants me to respect his aww-thor-iii-tai.

"Do they, now? Doesn't sound very democratic."

Lance says nothing.

"Funny, when I left it looked like you'd have to blow the Katzenbergs out of here with dynamite. Why'd they decide to let dad run?"

"They didn't. They all got arrested."

"All of them?"

"Guess you didn't hear about the shakeup, did you, soldier boy?"

"Sailor."

He snorts. "Whatever. I bet you weren't even on a ship."

"Recruiter promised me nuclear submarines. I ended up a corpsman. Attached to the Marines."

"Oh," Lance says. "Okay then."

I stride past a sawhorse and I'm officially off of Commerce Street. Lance stops at the edge of the sidewalk and stares me down.

"You don't want to be seen around here again."

"I thought I just had to get a shirt."

"I don't mean the festival, Hawk. I mean town. Get the fuck out of here before we do something we have to regret."

I turn around and face him. "Are you threatening me?"