Keys To My Cuffs (The Heroes of The Dixie Wardens MC Book 4) (8 page)

“Yes, I know it is. That’s why I had that foundation guy come out. My back door stopped closing over five months ago. Now I just have one of those hook and eye locks that you lock from the inside.

He growled low in his throat. “Why didn’t you get the foundation fixed, then?”

My back straightened and I glared at him. “Because I don’t have the money,” I snapped.

His head tilted. “Well, what the hell is your brother doing? Can’t he help?”

My eyes narrowed on him, and I stalked towards him with purposeful steps. With one pointy finger, I started to poke him in the chest. “First of all, my brother no longer lives here. Which you would know if you’d bothered coming around in the past
long
months. Secondly, I’m doing the best that I can. The foundation will come once I can afford to pay more than my bills. Thirdly, did I give you permission to walk through my house and snoop?”

I could almost hear his teeth grinding together. “No, but I had to let Lucy out. What’d you want me to do, let him out the window when he needed to go?”

My eyes narrowed on him. “You had some chick in my house?”

I hadn’t meant it to come out quite so screechy, but there it was.

His mouth turned up in the corner, and I swung my elbow around, knocking him in the chest.

He didn’t move. Not even a single millimeter, and that pissed me off even more.

“Get out of my house if you’re going to make fun of me,” I snarled.

I saw his hands come up in the darkness in a placating gesture.

“Calm down. Lucy’s my dog. Lucifer. Lucy for short,” he told me.

You know those times when someone tells you to calm down, and you calm down? Yeah, me neither.

“You know what, fuck you. I’m not un-calm!” I yelled.

His little lip tilt turned into a full-blown smile, and he started walking towards me. I, of course, started retreating. That is, until my back met the wall of the back hallway, and I could go no further.

He didn’t stop, however. No, he kept coming until he’d pinned me to the wall in the same exact position that we’d ended up in months ago when I’d been drinking.

His arms went on either side of my head, fists planted on the wall.

He leaned down until he was nose to nose with me. “Then would you like to explain why you’re all in my face and screaming like a batshit crazy little harpy?”

Yes, he said batshit crazy little harpy.

Who did this man think he was? He didn’t know me. He didn’t know what I’d gone through.

“You know what? You can take me as I am,” I snarled into his face.

“Or what?” He retorted.

“Or you can kiss my ass, eat shit, and step on a Lego,” I snapped, trying to push through him.

He didn’t budge, though. The man was a rock. Jesus Christ.

He laughed in my face, and I saw red.

“Get off me, asshole.” I pushed again.

This time he relented, but only enough to rip the t-shirt over his head before he was back, pressing his feverish skin against mine.

My hands involuntarily went to his chest, one over his pounding heart, and the other under his right pectoral.

His skin was very hot against my cold hands. They had to be like ice, but he didn’t even flinch.

My thumb swiped up on its own volition, sweeping over the pebbled areola of his nipple, and eliciting a gasp from him.

“Do you understand how fucking hard it’s been to keep away from you? Do you know what it feels like to know you’re sleeping ten feet away from me, but I can’t have you? What it feels like to follow you when you run, but not approach?”
He whispered fiercely.

“Yes, I under-fucking-stand! You wanna know why I do? Because I’ve been doing all those things too! I lay awake at night thinking about you. I know you’re behind me when I run. I also know it’s been hard to stay away from you, because I’ve been doing the same exact thing! I know the exact day you left town without a fucking word to me. Every single night I lie awake for hours watching your window. You’ve fucking ruined me!” I screamed.

“Fucking perfect, because you’ve ruined me, too,” he bellowed back before crushing his mouth to mine.

Clothes dropped where we stood. Hair was pulled. Skin was bitten.

The sex we had next was sweaty, hot, and hard.

Loki only slowed enough to rip his pants down his legs, roll on a condom, and slam inside of me.

He plunged so deep inside of my tight sheath that he hit the back of me. My head slammed back into the wall. My hands clawed at his back as he took me hard, plunging inside
of me over and over again.

When he still couldn’t get the depth he was looking for, he dropped us down until I was on my back in the hallway, back to the cold unforgiving floor.

He wasted no time giving his hard cock to me. He drilled inside of me like a man possessed.

Our sweat-slicked bodies slid against one another’s, and only added to the thorough fucking he was giving me.

He didn’t say anything, just like last time, but his touch did.

It revealed everything he was not saying and more.

Warmth, affection, need, want.

It was enough that I stopped fighting him, and let him have all of me. Every single wall I’d started to rebuild in the last
few months was annihilated.

We were breathing in each other’s air, our mouths touching. There was no kissing going on because his rough thrusts wouldn’t allow for that, but that didn’t matter. He was giving me enough sensation in my aching core for fifty thousand kisses.

“Jesus, yes,” I breathed against his lips.

I felt him smile against my lips before he leaned up off my body and grabbed my hips in his large hands, lifting them from the ground and pounding even harder inside of me.

The angle was one that allowed his cock to work that secret spot inside, setting me off like a bottle rocket.

I screamed, wrapping my legs around him tightly, pulling him in close.

He followed me not even a second after, grinding his hips hard into my own as he released himself.

The darkness kept me from seeing his face as he came, but I ran my hands up over his chest and neck, feeling his muscles strain as he jerked inside of me.

Finally, his body unlocked, and he dropped my hips back to the ground.

His sweaty chest met mine, and his head buried in my neck.

Nearly all of his weight was balanced on his forearms as we both caught our breath.

“You make me stupid,” he groaned.

My wandering hands went up his ribs to his back, exploring the bulging muscles. “You make me mad.”

Pushing himself up, he slowly pulled away, letting his dick slip from my body, and making me feel empty in the process.

“You make
me
mad,” he said with no heat whatsoever in his voice.

I laid there with my back against the cold floor, and my legs flopped open, unable to move as he walked into the bathroom and threw his condom away.

I heard the toilet flush, and still I didn’t move.

The light in the hallway flicked on, and I saw him stare down at me with an unreadable expression.

“Are you going to get up?”
He asked with a touch of humor.

“My legs aren’t cooperating at the moment. Check back in ten,” I said, closing my eyes.

He chuckled, and then the next thing I knew, I was standing up.

My eyes snapped open and I glared at him.

“I was in my happy place. Now that I’m not in my happy place, you can get the hell out. I’m still mad at you,” I said, poking him in the chest for emphasis.

He rolled his eyes and tugged my hand until we were both in my bedroom.

“Let’s lay down in bed. I’m fucking beat, and as soon as we get this talk over with, I wanna catch about six hours of sleep. I have to be at work at ten in the morning,” he told me.

I followed him warily, and watched as he went straight to the bed, threw the covers back, and flopped down right in the middle.

Then he patted the bed, and closed his eyes.

Picking up the t-shirt he’d worn over, I pulled it on over my head.

Then I glared at him for all of two seconds before I took a running jump and bounced on to the bed beside him, then rolled.

I hit his body with a thump, and he let out a whoosh of breath before opening his eyes and glaring at me. “Thanks,” he said dryly.

“Anytime,” I said as I snuggled deep into his embrace and fell blissfully to sleep.

I woke to the smell of bacon, and it made my stomach turn.

Lurching out of bed, my feet became tangled in the blankets and I fell face first onto the floor.

“Fuck,” I gasped as I struggled free of the blankets and dashed to the bathroom.

The door was partially closed, and in my peripheral vision I saw Loki, but I headed straight for the toilet, retching up what was left of my meatloaf dinner from over twelve hours ago.

“Is that all you ever do?” Loki asked from somewhere behind me.

Gasping for breath, I picked my head up, swiped the top of my forearm across my lips, and nearly fell over when I saw the huge red slash across Loki’s lower abdomen. It went from his left hip to the bottom of his ribs.

“Is that a knife wound?” I screeched.

He looked over at me, but kept running his fingers down the gash, making me follow his movements with my eyes.

“Yep. Happened last night,” he confirmed. “Been in less than twenty four hours and he’s already had someone ready to hit me when I least suspected. Fucking Dortea has her goddamned head in the clouds half the time. She needs to get with the program.”

“Holy fucking shit! How did you, ah,” I blushed. “Have sex with that.”

“Nothing wrong with my dick, sweetheart. It’s on my belly,” he said dryly.

“But,” I shuttered. “I was running my hands all along your chest and belly last night. I hurt you!”

He gave me a level look. “I would’ve told you if you hurt me, and trust me, you didn’t hurt me.”

I looked at the angry looking gash skeptically. “Whatever you say.”

“I made breakfast,” he told me before placing the tube of antibiotic cream back in my medicine cabinet.

“I could tell,” I said sarcastically as I went to the sink and brushed my teeth.

As the bristles met the back of my tongue, I started to gag again.

“You sick or something?” He eyed me warily.

“Bacon is disgusting,” I hedged as toothpaste ran out of my mouth and down my chin.

“Why? Who doesn’t love bacon? And if you don’t like it, why is it in your fridge?” he asked.

Spitting the last of the toothpaste into the sink, I held my mouth under the tap, swished, and spit before using the towel next to my head to dry my face off.

Turning to him, I crossed my arms across my chest and glared at him.

His eyes went to my chest, and I looked down to notice what he’d noticed.

My nipples were hard and straining the well-worn fabric of his black t-shirt.

Dropping my arms from across my chest with barely concealed annoyance, I stomped past him to the kitchen where he had a feast set out.

Ignoring the bacon, I filled a
large bowl with scrambled eggs and ripped up pieces of toast, placing it on the table. Then I went to the fridge, grabbed the ketchup, and smothered my eggs with it.

Stirring it up, I sat down and ate it all like normal people ate cereal.

“That’s just...disgusting,” Loki said with supreme distaste.

I laughed. “My dad taught my brother and
me to eat it this way,” I said, as I took another bite.

“Did you answer me yet on why you even had bacon?” He asked as he filled his plate up with bacon and eggs.

“It was my brothers. He didn’t take it with him when he moved out.”

Partially true, at least.

“Where did your brother go?” He asked, startled.

“Oh, he left after he found out he didn’t like living with a bat shit crazy little harpy.”

Just kidding. What I really said was, “He didn’t like having to pay rent. Which made him have to work. He’s staying on a friend’s couch for the time being.”

Another partial truth. See, I wasn’t lying!

He grimaced as he crunched into the bacon, making me swallow thickly again as he chewed the fatty piece of meat.

“Well, I can’t say I’m upset that he’s gone, but I am upset that he left you with a door that didn’t close,” he rumbled. “I’ll have someone come fix the foundation this week. You can...pay me back.”

I rolled my eyes. “I have the money. I was just saving it for something...else.”

Like medical bills. They’d start piling up soon, and if I had to pay for the foundation, I’d not be able to pay for my next doctor visit.

“Regardless, I need to know you’re safe. Which is why I have someone coming over to install your alarm later. The foundation people will be coming out within the next twenty-four hours, they said. If I’m going to be over here, we have to be cautious. You have to stay away from me during the day. I’ll come to you during the night. Make sure the place is
armed when you’re here, okay?” He said as he put his plate into the sink and turned back to me.

“You’re leaving already?” I asked in dismay.

He nodded. “Yes. I have to be seen around town. Let fuckin’ Strong know he’s not intimidating me. I have a
Toys for Tots
run later today. We’re riding down to Natchitoches and back. Once I’m done with that, I’ll be back.”

This was going to be one hell of a lonely month.

Christmas was in less two weeks. New Year’s after that. And he couldn’t be seen with me.

Fun, fun.

Gun safety rules: Do not piss off the woman holding the gun.

-T-shirt

Loki

“You look different,” Adeline said.

I looked over at her in surprise. How would she notice something different about me when I’d only been here less than two minutes and hadn’t said a word?

“Why do you say that?” I asked.

“Because you have an ‘I’m going to fuck anyone who bothers me’ look on your face.” Kettle said dryly.