Many hours later, we walked out of the club. Well, I walked and my inebriated brother and my tipsy BFF stumbled and laughed. Since I couldn’t get drunk unless I fed off a human who had been drinking, I was the DD–designated driver. There was something to be said for being the sober one in the group, but this wasn’t it. Pouring my brother into the car while steadying Kendra was my own fault because I shooed Nash and Grim away when they tried to help. Kendra, Luke and I had survived many a night without the help of any superpowered vampire enforcers-slash-babysitters, and I wasn’t about to surrender to one now. Especially since I was a vampire.
After Luke was secured in the back, I put Kendra in the front passenger seat and then walked around to the driver side and fell into the seat. I breathed like I’d run a marathon and fatigue was settling in. Sunrise was close, and it always made me a bit more tired than nightfall had made me when I was human. It was okay. In a few minutes, I would be with Jax, safe and sound and asleep in his arms.
The missing him hadn’t stopped throughout our night, and now I was anxious to see him. It felt like we’d been apart for days, not hours.
Yes, I admit that. The attraction to him had always been there. That was no secret or surprise.
“Luke, you’re sleeping at my house since it’s so close to sunrise.”
He mumbled a reply that I didn’t understand, nor did I care if he didn’t want to. We made it home fine, and I let Kendra let herself in. She wasn’t so far gone she couldn’t get herself to bed. Luke, on the other hand, I practically carried to the guest bedroom, then brought him a trash can, glass of water, and three ibuprofen. He’d be needing it.
After making sure both of them were safely inside the houses, I crossed the street to Jax’s. Why? No idea. I could’ve just stayed at my own place, but that felt uncomfy. Like I’dve been snubbing Jax. And I wanted to see him.
Not bothering to knock, I opened the door and smiled when I found my unbonded mate in the kitchen reading the newspaper. He wasn’t waiting up, since he did this routinely. Obviously his schedule didn’t follow anything resembling normal.
I shut the door and leaned against it, waiting for him to look up. When a few seconds slipped by without him so much as raising an eyebrow, I surrendered, walked to the fridge, and pulled out a bottle of O neg.
When I poured it into a mug and slipped it into the microwave, he murmured, “You lose nutrients that way.” He still hadn’t looked up.
I waited for the beep. “I’ll be fine.”
“Did you have fun?” And still he had his face buried in news he’d probably already watched on the TV.
“I did. Danced a lot.” He still didn’t look up. I fanned myself. “Phew. I am exhausted.” Not nearly as bad as I was acting though. I slumped against the refrigerator door and slipped off my heels. “Oh, that is so much better.” He still didn’t look up and it rankled. “What the hell, Jaxon? Why won’t you look at me?” More than that, I needed to know why it mattered so much to me.
I ignored that nagging voice in my head because now he did glance—no, it was a gaze—up from his paper at me. “Because when I look at you, I want to touch you. I want to be near you. I want to be close to you.” He paused and let out a short breath. And a little part of me sighed because I wanted to believe he was breathing because he had to, because his body’s response to me was visceral and emotional and defied his vampire ability to not breathe. “And you want your space.”
“Oh.” He had to have some kind of cheat sheet for things to say to make me melt.
“And I know you aren’t ready yet for the mating bond.”
I nodded, a little more ready with every minute that ticked off the clock. “Jax?” He tilted his head and looked at me, his face as beautiful in honesty as I’d ever seen it. At least, I hoped he was being honest. “I’m not ready for the mating bond, but I like being here with you and sleeping beside you.” It was the best I could do for now.
He nodded and held out his hand, smiling now. “Good. The sun is about to come up and in no way do I want you to go home.” When I slid my hand over his, he gave me a little squeeze, then brought it to his mouth for a kiss against my knuckles, and all the while his gaze stayed locked onto mine. It was a swoon-worthy moment. And when coupled with, “Let’s get ready for bed,” a girl could get ideas.
Stirrings.
By the time I showered and settled in beside him, the ideas had taken on the shape of a fantasy. He was gorgeous. Built like a statue of…a really well-built guy. His body had more angles and planes, ripples and valleys than a topographic map, and I imagined myself touching every single one. Tasting every single one.
But even if I wanted to, right now, I really was tired. Exhausted. And being held while I drifted off to sleep wasn’t a hardship.
He pressed a soft kiss against my shoulder. “Goodnight, Hailey.”
“Goodnight, Jax.” I laced our fingers together, then was just about asleep when my phone vibrated on the other side of the bedside table. Groaning, I stretched out and snagged my phone to find a text from an unknown number.
Unknown to the phone anyway, but I knew the number. I’d very much known it for years and had simply deleted it from my contacts.
My ex. Howard Jefferies.
Hey, babe. It’s been a while, but I heard you’re in the biz now. I’m coming your way on a big $ skip.
I sighed and went ahead and replied with Jax reading over my shoulder. Skip tracers are like teenage girls with their gossip.
I didn’t know why Howard was bothering to tell me he was coming my way. I didn’t care, not really. We hadn’t been friends when we parted. It got a bit better after he’d remarried, but we hadn’t talked much since. At best I could say it was now an amicable unfriendship
Well, if it helps, they say you’re kicking ass and taking names. LOL. A few seconds went by while I decided what to say back. Another text came in while I deliberated.
Anyway, offering you a chance to join forces on this skip. The $ is huge. Would split it. What do you say?
I would’ve liked to have said a lot of things that would’ve taken way too much energy to type into the screen. Instead I went with simple. Meet me at my place tonight at 8.
I sent the address and let the phone slip to the floor as blessed sleep fell over me.
Kendra, out of friendship and probably morbid curiosity, dropped in a few minutes before Howard was due to arrive. As did Jax. Nash and Grim were across the street, on Jax’s porch like a couple of dads polishing their shotguns while waiting to meet their daughter’s date. Although, polishing their fangs would be more like it.
Howard arrived right on time, and I had to race Jax to the door. “Go sit. He’s my ex for a reason, there’s nothing to worry about.”
Jax stared at me for a long few seconds before taking a seat on my sofa with a stiff neck and ramrod straight spine. Kendra sat in the armchair and pretended to read. It would have been believable if she wasn’t holding a freaking dictionary.
Jax was overprotective, but Kendra was just a plain old Nosey Rosey.
I opened the door and smiled a genuine smile when I saw my ex. Howard looked exactly the same. Like an accountant: cardigan and pocket protector a part of his daily uniform. He was older, but still the same, if that made any sense.
Jax, on the other hand, was alpha and wanted everyone to know it. He stood and somehow made himself seem taller as I stepped back for Howard to walk in.
I could’ve sworn Jax growled when Howard hugged me.
“Long time, no see, Hails.”
I pulled back as soon as was polite and looked him up and down. “Yeah, it is. You look…” To lie or not lie? “Great.” I went with the truth because he did look good. Jax needed to man up and accept that I had a past. Howard was a part of that past.
He blushed just a bit, then raised his eyebrows at me. “You too. A little pale though. You getting enough sleep?”
Howard’s answer to all of life’s ails had always been more sleep.
“Oh, you know….” It was all the answer I was prepared to give. “I do most of my hunting at night when the criminals are criminalling.”
“Not a word, Hails.” It took Howard three seconds to correct me. He was slipping. He used to do it before my made up words hit the air around my lips.
“Anyway, I sleep fine.” Jax moved closer, coming around the back of the couch to slide his arm around my waist. I didn’t move away, but neither did I return the gesture. The move was some serious chest-beating, and I wasn’t going to be part of it.
I did, however, make the introductions. “Howard, this is Jax. He’s my…” They both looked at me. “My very good friend.”
Jax smiled, predatory and way too damn sexy for him to get away with this level of possessiveness.
Howard smiled, too, the smile of the oblivious.
Kendra chuckled and stepped forward, holding out her hand to Howard. She was sparkling. Like… sparkles. “I’m Kendra. Best friend. Oh, but you know that.”
Howard smiled at her and she smiled back. So many teeth.
This wasn’t awkward at all.
“How have you been, Howie?” I’d never called him Howie before, but we were on a different playing field now. More social. Less married. It made a difference.
He didn’t miss a beat. “I’m right as rain, Hails. Right as rain.” But he was still smiling at Kendra. Interesting.
“How about a drink?” I offered. Not that I would have one, but there was no need to let him know everything that was going on in my life.
I went to the kitchen and came back with a couple of glasses of wine I’d started keeping because O-neg and B-positive weren’t on my big brother Ollie’s approved beverage list. After our original meeting, I’d started keeping a few other things in the cabinet.
Howard took his and Kendra hers while Jax sat in a chair with his arms crossed over his massive chest. It only made his chest look broader. I couldn’t stop looking.
Not that it mattered. Howard was speaking to Kendra. More accurately, giggling with her like they were sharing some secret joke. This was quite the intriguing development.
Kendra sat in one chair, Howard in the other while I sat beside Jax on the sofa. “So, Howard. How’s the wife?”
He’d married at some point—I couldn’t remember exactly how long ago—and that he wasn’t mentioning it to Kendra didn’t sit right in my stomach. Howard hadn’t been a great husband, but he hadn’t been a cheater.
He looked up at me and smiled, more teeth, but it wasn’t as bright as it had been earlier. “The divorce was final three month ago.”
I said, “Oh,” but Kendra’s eyes lit up.
“Ooh.” Then she glanced at me. “Er, sorry.”
I shrugged and went back to listening to Howard speak.
“It just didn’t work out. We were essentially two very different people.”
I knew that song and dance. That was essentially why Howard and I hadn’t worked out. He needed to find his person.
Jax slid an arm around my shoulders, pulling me closer while Kendra leaned toward Howard with her chin on her hand, her face a mask of sympathy. “That’s terrible.”
Howard shook his head. “No. Not really. We parted most amicably.”
Howard did everything most. Most amicably wasn’t unexpected. I stared at him as he stared at Kendra. Most interesting.
“So where are you from, Howard?” Jax squeezed my shoulder, and when I glanced from Howard to him, he was more relaxed. Looser. Laid back. The smile was real, and I was torn between watching him and watching Kendra and Howard. Kendra and Howard won.
Whatever he’d just said made her giggle again. Kendra hadn’t giggled since we were in high school. She wasn’t a giggler. “Tell me all about it.” And now she sounded like Mae West.
I suddenly found myself most fascinated by the mating habits of North American witches and their prey.
Howard adjusted his cardigan, smoothed his eyebrow with the tip of his pinkies, and then turned his most charming smile her way. “Maybe another time.” His smile, teeth and all, said he meant that sincerely. “Ivan Markovich is the skip I’m here to capture. He’s not quite international—that’s mostly what I do now.” He lifted one eyebrow at Kendra and half-puckered then winked.
She chuffed out a short, shallow breath and glanced at me. “Sorry.”
“And who is Ivan Markovich?” I glanced at Howard, hoping he wouldn’t pucker again. That was just disturbing.
“He’s accused of theft. Jewel theft that totals into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Bail is three million.” He shrugs. “Ivan”—he said it like EEE-von—“is an escape artist as well. Slippery as a wet peapod.”
I had no first-hand knowledge of wet peapods, but I knew Howard. He was either off his meds, or he was trying to impress someone in this room. And it wasn’t me. Or, I strongly suspected, Jax. The eye contact between Howard and Kendra was almost obscene.
“And from me…?” I prompted.
“From us,” Kendra corrected and smiled at Howard in her best Miss Scarlett impersonation until suddenly we were center stage at Basic Instinct’s famous interrogation scene. “What’s our cut?”
“Fifty-fifty. Right down the middle.” He stared at her. “Us?”
Kendra blinked slowly. “Hailey and I are two-thirds of The Bond Girls. We catch skips together. When do we start?”
“Wait!” I held up my hand. I liked Howard. We’d become sort of-kind of friends since our divorce, which seemed like eons ago.
He ignored me and looked at her. Probably trying to show his version of the smoldering seduction gaze.
Bless him, it looked more like he was constipated, but since I’d seen both looks—mostly the second from him—I wasn’t judging. He definitely was pulling out the stops, playing his A game. “Tomorrow night?”
“Howard!” I needed a minute to look over EEE-von’s file jacket. I needed the details. The information.
Kendra did not. “Absolutely.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” I held up my hands to two people totally ignoring me.
“He frequents a nightclub in downtown Portsmith,” Howard said. A couple towns over, not bad. “I can pick you up at eight?”
“I’ll be ready.” She took his wine glass. “I’ll just get you another. Hailey, would you mind helping me?”
It really wasn’t a question. I stood. When we were alone in the kitchen she whirled and handed me the glasses. “Is this weird for you?” Surprisingly, it wasn’t. Not at all.
I shook my head, but she’d already turned and pulled the wine bottle from the fridge. “I hope it isn’t. Please, say it isn’t. I’ve never been so instantly and wholly attracted to anyone in my life.”
“Howard is…something.” I didn’t want to rain on her parade. Different strokes for different folks but I wasn’t sure I’d really been fully attracted to Howard even when we were married. He was just so blah.
“Yes, yes, he is.” She poured the wine. “He’s amazing.” She took one of the glasses, handed me the empty bottle, then threw back the drink like it was a tequila shooter. When she reached for the other, I pulled it away.
She clasped her hands together. “I want to ask him to dinner. Is that okay? Please let it be okay.”
I’d known Kendra for years, since her kids were small. I’d seen her in lust. Seen her through break ups. I’d even helped her create a dating profile, though why she needed one was beyond me. She was one of those women who made men stop and stare.
But I’d never seen her like this, with stars in her eyes. Over Howard. Howard!
With a hand on her shoulder, I look deep into her eyes and smile. “Kendra, nothing would make me happier than you and Howard each finding happiness in each other. I wouldn’t have guessed it, but I like it.” At least I knew he was trustworthy. And he’d never hurt her. He might bore her, but not betray.
She reached out and pulled me into a hug. I was happy for them. “I’ll keep you posted,” she whispered.
When I nodded, she laughed and pulled back. “But not too posted.”
I didn’t need any more detail than that she was happy. Ew.