Monster (19 page)

It reeked of a bigger
plan.

And that filled me with
something that had never been very familiar to me: dread.

At least Alex had the
presence of mind to give him a knife. Fuck. Some little nobody hacker
was more on her game than I was. The fuck was going on with me?

“I don't know,”
I finally answered.

“Between the two
of us,” she went on, picking at her potatoes, but not eating
any, “we seem to know Lex pretty well. None of this fits his
usual M.O.” She was silent for a minute, then said so quietly
it was mostly to herself, “What the hell does he want with me?”

I sighed, turning
slightly in my chair and putting a hand on her thigh. “Dunno.
But he ain't gonna get you. You and me... we'll feel this out. See if
we can find out anything else. We can't, we get you the fuck outta
here before he can come lookin' for you.”

“What about you
and Shoot?” she asked, looking anxious.

“Let me worry
about me and Shoot.”

“You're in this
because of me,” she pressed.

“No,” I
said, lowering my head and holding her eyes. “I am in this
because Lex is an asshole who took the only person who is important
to me so he could use me like a puppet. This ain't on you.”

“He took Shoot
because he wanted you to take me,” she persisted.

“Doll, this is
the job,” I said, shrugging. “You deal with fuckheads
like Lex Keith... you get used to them doing dirty shit and getting
you involved. That's why I get paid what I get paid. To put up with
their shit. I've always accepted this. Shoot has always accepted it.
The only fuck up we have is having such a close relationship and
living in the same town. That shit catches up to you. We should have
been more careful. This ain't on you. This is on me. This is the life
I have chosen. Don't go taking my blame on your shoulders.”

She looked down at her
plate. “I like Shooter. I mean... I know I only met him for a
minute, but I liked him. He seems like good people.”

“The best,”
I agreed. “Better by far than me. But he's smart, Alex. He's
well trained. He has good instincts. I know it doesn't seem like it
because of that smart mouth he's got, but it's true. In fact, those
stupid ass comments he makes... it makes people underestimate him.
Which works to his advantage. As far as survival goes, he has just as
good a chance as we do even though he's in the belly of Lex's
operation.”

To this, she made a
short, humorless laugh. “That doesn't exactly bode well for any
of us then.”

“Look,” I
said, not liking her tone going back to empty, “it's late.
We've had a fuckuva hard day. We need to get some shut eye and talk
on this when we're rested.”

Alex took a breath,
shrugging a shoulder. “Alright.”

“Alright,”
I agreed, standing.

“Just throw me a
blanket and a pillow and I'll be all set,” she said, getting up
to take the dishes.

“Leave the
dishes. And what the fuck you talking about?”

Her brows drew
together. “A blanket and a pillow,” she repeated, waving
a hand out toward the living room, “for the couch. So I can
sleep. I mean, I can do without the pillow if you don't have any
extras. But I'm like... practically naked here,” she waved down
at her bare legs.

I felt a smile tugging
at my lips. Did she seriously think I was going to let her sleep on
the couch?

“You're in bed
with me,” I said, moving toward the hallway.

“No, really. The
couch is fine. I don't want to be... in the way.”

I stopped by the
bathroom, turning to her, expecting to see her smiling like she was
teasing me or something. But all I saw was seriousness.

“Doll, you're
sleeping in bed with me. And I
want
you to be all up in my
way. Oh and,” I said, giving her a slow up-and-down, “there
will be no 'practically' about it. You're in my bed, you're naked.”

With that, I let myself
into the bathroom, the image of her wide-eyed surprise burned in my
brain as I stripped and jumped in the shower.

When I dried off and
made my way back to the bedroom, towel slung low on my hips, I found
her on the bed. Still in the tee. Legs hidden underneath the covers.

My lips quirked up when
her gaze went to me. And, as if she couldn't help it, her eyes went
down my chest and stomach, stopping at the towel. As soon as her gaze
held there, I pulled the tuck and let it fall to the floor. She
looked for a long second before her gaze went to the comforter around
her waist.

“Thought I made
the no clothes rule pretty clear,” I said, moving toward my
side of the bed and pulling back the sheets.

“You can sleep
however you want to. I like to have clothes on.”

“Fuck what you
like,” I said, reaching over and hauling the shirt over her
head and tossing it into the hallway.

“Seriously?”
she asked, eyes burning into me as her arm went across her chest,
covering her breasts.

“Yup.”

“You take your
bed way too seriously,” she grumbled, sliding under the covers.

I laid back for a
minute before reaching out and hauling her into my side. She let out
a yelp and her hand settled on my stomach, trying to push back.
“Relax.”

“I will if you
let me go,” she said, still pushing.

I shook my head,
dragging her half onto my chest, one arm locked around her shoulders,
the other around her hips, one of her legs trapped between mine. I
traced my fingers across her hip and she stopped struggling, rubbing
her face against my chest and making a quiet whimpering sound in her
throat that went right to my cock.

“Glad to know
you're up for a fuck anytime my hands touch you, doll, but I'm beat
so you're gonna have to suffer through till morning.” I smiled
when I felt her try to raise herself up. “Go to sleep, Alex.”

“Stop being so
fucking bossy,” she countered, but settled back down.

“Not gonna
happen,” I said, squeezing her once before settling back.

Thirteen

Alex

I woke up cold.

That was how I knew
that I was alone. Breaker's huge body had been like a furnace all
night. A warm, snuggly furnace. If someone would had told me that
Bryan Breaker: six feet-something of ruthless contract muscle and
very rough sex-haver was a full-contact sleeper, I would have said
they were crazy.

But that was before he
ripped off his towel (hot), then ripped off my tee (even hotter) and
hauled me against his body, completely trapping me with both his arms
and one of his legs, and not letting me so much as twitch all night.

I thought I would feel
claustrophobic. I had never slept in the same bed with someone else.
And even though I had always slept on a tiny twin size, I always had
plenty of room to roll and move around when I got restless. Which was
frequently.

And I was never a deep,
deep sleeper either. Every yell on the streets below my apartment and
every beeping of a locking car woke me up. As did my usual nightly
bad dreams.

But I slept through.

For the first time in I
can't remember how long.

Part of it was likely
due to the utter silence of Breaker's secluded house.

But that didn't explain
why there weren't bad dreams.

I was trying really
hard to not focus on that little fact.

How I slept through
Breaker sneaking out from underneath me? Yeah, that was a complete
mystery.

I pushed myself up in
bed, wiping the sleep out of my eyes. I made my way over to his
dresser and grabbed a new tee, slipped into it, and scurried to the
bathroom.

After some rummaging, I
found an extra toothbrush and went to work on brushing them as well
as frantically trying to finger-comb some semblance of order to my
hair. Given the only option being hand soap, I forewent washing my
face and made my way out to the living area.

Only
to stop dead at seeing Breaker with his strong back to me, a pair of
gray sweatpants low on his hips, standing at the
sink... washing dishes.

Washing. Dishes.

The site was so
unexpected and strange that I felt a strange laugh escape my lips.

At the sound, Breaker's
head turned over his shoulder. “What's funny?”

“You wash
dishes?” I asked, stepping into the living room.

“How else they
gonna get clean?”

“I don't know. I
figured badasses didn't have to do stuff like that. That the dishes
came alive and washed themselves out of fear of retribution or
something.”

At this, he snorted,
his eyes getting warm. “There's coffee.”

Okay. This was weird.

Not weird in a bad way.

Weird in a weird way.

Because it was so
normal. It was the way countless people probably started their
mornings. Doing banal chores. Sharing a smile. Offering each other
coffee. It was positively... domestic.

At that, I laughed
again.

Because men like
Breaker should never be described as domestic.

I walked over to the
coffee machine, pouring myself a cup and topping off his. Like a
ritual.

Meanwhile, I had never
topped off someone else's coffee ever before.

“You hungry?”
I asked, feeling uncomfortable with the silence.

“You cook?”

“I can burn some
toast,” I offered, going to grab the bread and putting two
slices for myself into the toaster.

“Sure,” he
said, drying off the potato skillet from the night before.

I stood watching the
little crinkled metal coils heat up, feeling the urge to fill the
silence. Which, in the past, was weird for me. But since I met
Breaker, I couldn't seem to keep my mouth shut. “Where did you
learn to cook?”

I felt rather than saw
Breaker pause. “What?”

“Where did you
learn to cook?”

“My mom.”

At this, I felt my head
turn. “Really?”

Breaker picked up his
coffee cup, leaning his hips against the counter, watching me. “Yeah.
Really. She would let me pitch in when I was little. Before she
died.”

Another dead mother. We
were a sad pair.

“How old were
you?” I asked, skipping over the condolences. No one wanted to
hear that shit.

“Ten.”

Damn. Ten. That sucked.
I got six extra years with mine.

“Was your dad in
the picture?” I asked, knowing I was prying, expecting him to
shut me out. That's what people did. That's what I did.

“If by 'in the
picture' you mean around to beat the ever loving shit out of me
everyday, then yeah.”

I felt myself wince at
that.

I had been slapped by a
foster parent or two. I knew how humiliating and powerless that felt.
I couldn't imagine how it felt when it was an actual parent hitting
you. When it was their blood in your veins. When there was no hope of
ever getting transferred out.

Besides, I was now
familiar with how it felt to have a grown man's fist hit you. And it
wasn't fun. My jaw hurt when I opened it. Just a twinge from the
pretty blue bruise I had marring my skin, but still, it hurt. And
that was just one punch.

“Was he a drunk
like Shoot's dad?” I asked, hoping that was it. Otherwise, what
excuse could there be?

“No, doll. He was
just a dick. Before it was me, it was my mom.”

“He beat your
mom?” I asked, my voice sounding weird. Weak.

“Yeah.”

That's why. That was
why he freaked out about not hitting me. Not because he was just a
noble guy. A decent person. Because he had watched his father wail on
his defenseless mother growing up. And when she was gone, he was the
stand in.