Jacinda was alone in the office Thursday morning; her father was on a job, and he insisted that she take the rest of the week easy. She had billing and filing to catch up on anyway, so she hadn’t fought him. They’d had plenty of things to fight about already.

Truth be told, she was glad not to be out on a job. The past few days seemed entirely surreal. Physically, she felt better, and the bruise on her face had already faded significantly, but now that she was home and safe, the reality that she’d faced death on Monday afternoon had landed in her lap and grinned up at her, demanding her attention.

Around ten o’clock, the door from her mother’s office opened, and Jacinda looked up from her laptop. She closed the lid and watched, her mouth shut tight, as her mother came into the room and sat in one of the client chairs at the front of the desk.

“The silent treatment still? Jaci, come on. Don’t you think that’s a touch immature?” She settled back into the chair and crossed one leg over the other. She wore sheer pantyhose, which meant she was going to court later. Unless she was scheduled to stand before a judge, she went bare-legged in the summer—and she had the legs to pull it off.

“Not the silent treatment. I just don’t have anything more to say.” They’d argued about Apollo for hours the day before, circling the same few details and getting nowhere closer to each other, until Jacinda had finally just stomped out and gone back to her apartment.

She had it coming from two directions—new-guy jitters she hadn’t felt in years, wondering if Apollo would call, or if she should call him, replaying and rethinking every word between them; and stress from her parents digging up old shit she’d buried deep.

“Jaci.”

“Mom. What do you want me to say?”

“I don’t care what you say. I want you to be smart.”

“I am being smart. I know who he is.”

“Do you? You knew Blake, too.”

“Mother, don’t. I warned you yesterday, don’t bring it up. You don’t have to say that name. Ever.”

Her mother uncrossed her legs and leaned forward, putting on her cross-examination face. “I do need to say his name. Your father and I were the ones who picked you up and took care of you after what Blake did. We stood with you while you healed. I watched my only baby go through all that, and I don’t want it to happen again. I won’t let it happen again.”

Jacinda set her hands in her lap and clenched them together, tightening them until they ached and then easing the pressure, again and again, until she’d shouldered the memories away. “Neither will I, Mom.”

“Then why this man? Of all men, why him?”

She could only shrug. There was no obvious reason, no logic. Just intuition and attraction.

A shrug wasn’t enough for her mother. “Clearly, you’re not ready yet.”

“It’s been a decade. I’m ready. The fact that I want this means I’m ready.”

“No. The fact that you can’t even say Blake’s name tells me that you aren’t ready to be serious with another man yet. No other man, but especially not one you know is dangerous. Jaci, you know he is. The Brazen Bulls are violent criminals. The ones that Blake—”

Jacinda slammed her hands on the blotter before her mother could finish that horrible sentence. “NO! Mom, shut up.” Her voice shook, so she stopped and swallowed down the twisted tension in her throat. “I know what he did. I was there. I don’t need the words to remind me.”

Like a fucking terrier on a rat, her mother wouldn’t let it go. “They were violent criminals, too. Maybe this ‘Apollo’ even knew them. Did you think about that?”

No, she hadn’t, and no, she wouldn’t. “Why are you trying to ruin this, Mom?”

The determined litigator receded, and she became just her mom. “Because I love you, honey. So much. I don’t ever want you hurt again.”

“I know, and I love you. I don’t want to be hurt. You think I would risk that again?”

“Before a few days ago, I would have said no. Now, I’m not sure.”

“I am telling you that I would not. Please hear me. I won’t get serious with Apollo unless I’m sure I understand everything that means. I’ll know the people he associates with. Before I let my guard down, I’ll be sure he would never hurt me.”

“Okay. Okay. Say he would never hurt you. Say you get serious, and fall in love, and he loves you as much as you love him. What happens when one of his enemies decides to hurt him by hurting you? He doesn’t have to be a bastard himself to put you in danger. He just has to be a Bull.”

“I am a PI, mom. I carry a gun, and it’s not for show. It’s because this work can be dangerous. I almost got killed on Monday, and it had nothing to do with Apollo.”

“Then why was he there?”

Jacinda clamped her mouth shut. She was too emotional, too fired up, and she’d say more than she could.

When she didn’t answer, her mother sighed and stood up. “You’re a grown woman, Jaci. I can’t stop you. But God, I hope you know what you’re doing.”

––––––––

~oOo~

––––––––

Jacinda spent the rest of the day alone in the office. With a holiday weekend coming up, even the phone was quiet. She got all the filing done and all the billing, and then she cleaned up the office. She spent about an hour paying around in Photoshop, designing a new mailer for the agency.

The question her mother had asked, if Apollo might know the men who’d—it had gotten stuck in a crack of her mind and fluttered there every time she finished a task and sought something new to do.

Finally, she just fucking faced it. She went to the file cabinet, back to 1989, and dug out a worn manila folder, its edges foxed and its tab creased. The initials ‘JLD’ and a case number were written in blue ink on the tab, in her father’s heavy, blocky handwriting.

While she stared at two suspect records, mug shots attached, the phone rang for the first time in more than an hour. Jacinda jumped and squeaked like a little weenie. She was glad no one was around the see.

“Durham & Associates Detection Services, how may I help you?”

“You have a sexy voice, you know that?”

The question of who would call whom first was solved. She flipped the file closed. “Hey. So do you.”

“How’re you doing today? Feeling okay? You work things out with your folks?”

“Yeah, I’m feeling pretty good. Things are fine with my folks. They’re just overprotective. They’ll get over it. How are you?”

“You got plans tonight?”

“Big plans. Chinese take-out and Must See TV.”

“You want company?”

She smiled as happy flutters filled her limbs. “Sure. I’d like that. My address is—”

“I know it.”

The flutters died. “What?”

“I know my way around a computer, too. I looked you up. This is me telling you I did it instead of pretending I didn’t.”

“Is that a thing you did for the Bulls? Are you keeping me under surveillance?”

“No, we’re not. Yeah, the club wanted to know who you are, but straight up, I looked you up on Sunday. I wanted to know for me.” He chuckled. “You made an impression, Catwoman.”

She’d done exactly the same thing, so outrage would be hypocritical, and he’d fessed up right away. Mostly right away. Close enough. “Okay then, War Games, you bring dinner.”

––––––––

~oOo~

––––––––

Apollo arrived just past seven, with two sacks of way too much Chinese—egg rolls, fried rice, chow mein, fried wontons, General Tso’s chicken, and sweet and sour pork. After a quick kiss of greeting, Jacinda led him into the kitchen, where he set the sacks down and kissed her properly, snaking his arms all the way around her, bending her back, sliding his tongue into her mouth—gentle and demanding in equal measure.

Oh, please be the good guy you seem to be, she thought. Please oh please.

He left her reeling and turned to unpack the sacks. Once she could see clearly again, she opened a couple of bottles of imported ale, and they laid out the spread on her coffee table and ate in front of the television.

Jacinda used chopsticks, as always. So did he, which surprised and impressed her. She’d apparently expected a biker would prefer a fork. Little bit of bias of her own there.

As the meal wound down, Apollo took a long drink of his second ale and gestured with the bottle toward the corner of the room, near the front window, where the cat condo was. “I see the signs of a cat, but I don’t see a cat.”

“Zoë doesn’t like strangers. You probably won’t see her at all.”

“Just the one?”

“Just the one. She doesn’t like cats, either.”

He laughed. “Okay, then.”

He leaned back on her sofa and stretched his arm across the back, behind her. He still wore his Sinclair uniform, the shirt unbuttoned to show the beater under it, tight as a second skin. God, he was gorgeous, with his chest all spread wide like that, and his strong, tanned arm so long. What she wanted to do right now was tear all his clothes off, to spend the night wrapped up with him, feeling good. Feeling safe.

But that question her mother had asked was still stuck in her head, and she couldn’t let herself feel safe with him until she knew the answer.

She made a decision and prepared herself to face the myriad possible consequences. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure. What’s up?”

Before she could second-guess herself, Jacinda got up and went to her bag. She pulled a new manila folder out and brought it to the sofa. He took it and opened it, his eyebrow cocked in curiosity.

In that manila folder were the two mug shots she’d taken from the old file before she’d left work.

“Do you know those guys?” She crossed her arms tightly so he wouldn’t see her shaking.

He turned that cocked eyebrow on her. “This a work thing? Because I’m not sure we’re at the exchanging-intel stage. We could be, but we need to set some rules up first.”

She shook her head. “It’s not work. It’s a closed case. Do you know them?”

Her first relief came when he really did look at the photos. “No. Not familiar at all to me.” He started to close the folder and then stopped. “But I know this guy’s ink.”

That guy had initials inked across his throat: LHDQ. Jacinda’s heart sagged into her belly. “You know him?”

“No. I know his affiliation. ‘LHDQ’ stands for ‘Live Hard Die Quick.’ It’s the motto of Alamo One Five, a gang out of Dallas. They tried to expand and stake a claim here about ten-twelve years ago, but they got knocked back. I don’t know these guys, but I know they’re bad news.” He closed the folder and frowned at her. “Why do you have these? What’d they do?”

“How’d they get...” Her voice failed. She cleared her throat and tried again. “How’d they get knocked back?”

He considered her for a long time before he answered, and when he did, he chose his words carefully. “Certain local Tulsa organizations worked together to convince them that there was no need for their services here.”

She understood him to mean that the Brazen Bulls MC was one of those organizations.

“Jacinda, your turn. Why are you asking me this? Who are these guys to you?”

She took the folder from his hands and set it on the coffee table, sliding it under the half-empty carton of fried rice. She stared at the folder as she spoke, and let the whole world become only that and her memories. “Their names are Arlo Cartwright and Toby Tyrell. They’re members of Alamo One Five, a gang out of Dallas that makes its money trafficking in drugs, specifically crack, pure cocaine, and heroin. From 1987 to 1989, they were doing a lot of business in and around OU. They used students to move their product through the dorms and fraternities.

“My high school boyfriend and I went to OU. We thought the Greeks were all assholes, so we stayed away from that scene. But I guess Blake managed to find some assholes anyway. I didn’t know until later, but he was selling for these guys. He started acting weird, but Blake was a straight-A student. He was on the chess club and debate team. I just thought he was getting tired of me.

“Anyway, I didn’t know any of this until later, but Blake lost a collection bag. He’d left it in his room, thinking he’d hidden it well, but his roommate left the door open when he went to take a shower, and somebody found the money. Thousands of dollars. When they found out, they told him what he needed to do to make it right.”

She picked up her ale and drained it. Apollo sat silently beside her, listening, and she hazarded a glance his way. She could see in the tension of his features that he was working out the rest of her story—or the broad strokes of it, at least.

“My roommate went home for the weekend, and Blake came to spend the night. He told me he wanted to try something fun. He wasn’t even acting weird at all that night. He seemed perfectly normal. We’d done some little sex games before, just kid stuff, blindfolds and food, shit like that. That night he blindfolded me and tied me to the bedframe. And then he left.”

“Jesus, Jacinda. No.”

“Yeah.” She laughed, but not because there was any humor anywhere. “Arlo and Toby had seen Blake and me around campus. I was the payment they told Blake would square things. And he let them do it. The first one—I don’t know which was which—gagged me. Stuffed my panties down my throat.”

Apollo sat forward and set his hand on her thigh. The touch was full of gentle concern, and it calmed her a little.

“I was awake for most of it. I remember smells and sounds, I remember the way it felt. I don’t know how long it lasted. It seemed like my whole life. Eventually, they left, and I lay there alone for I don’t know how long. My roommate found me when she got back the next afternoon. Blake was dead. After they were done with me, they took him out to a field and necklaced him.” She met Apollo’s eyes. “You know what that is?”

“Yeah, I do. He deserved worse.”

Worse than being bound inside a stack of tires and set on fire? Yeah, he did. “Anyway,” she sighed, “it took me a long time to come back from that. I haven’t had a boyfriend since Blake. Just one-night stands. There’s no trust involved with a one-night stand.”

Finished with her story, she cleared her throat again and sat up straight. Making her voice brighter and trying on a smile, she ended with, “And that’s why my folks aren’t happy that I’m hooking up with a Brazen Bull.”

He took her hand in his. “I swear to you, Jacinda. The Bulls would never do anything like that. We don’t hurt innocent people.”

“You do, though.” She faced him straight on. “Keeping secrets is one thing, but don’t lie to me. Don’t ever do that.”

His eyes dropped from hers, and he stared at their hands. “We do everything we can to avoid it. We go out of our way to protect innocents. I swear.”

That reconciled with what she knew about him. The Bulls altogether? The jury was still out. They had debated whether to kill her just a couple of days ago, after all. Their definition of ‘innocents’ seemed awfully specific. “Okay. What about drugs? Do you sell drugs?”

His eyes flashed back to hers. “Absolutely not. Never have, never will. But don’t ask what we do. I can’t tell you that.” He let go of her hand and cupped the sore side of her head. “God, baby. I’m so sorry that happened to you.”

She rested her head in his hand and closed her eyes. She felt better. Telling him, the first non-parental, non-professional person she’d ever told, had blunted the blade of the memory. She’d said Blake’s name several times, and each time it had hurt less.

“Can I ask a question?” Apollo asked.

Jacinda opened her eyes and nodded.

“How did you find out it was them?”

She lifted her head from his hand. “DNA. They didn’t use condoms.” Apollo barked a disgusted God, but Jacinda pushed on. “They were convicted of first degree rape, first degree murder, and a bunch of other charges. They pled the death penalty off the table, and they’re both doing life without parole at McAlester.”

“They’re still breathing?”

“As far as I know, yes.”

“That’s bullshit.”

She shrugged. She knew the statistics. One woman in four experienced sexual assault in her lifetime. Fewer than five percent of assaults were reported to police. Fewer than ten percent of reported assaults resulted in a conviction. She was one of the fraction of rape survivors whose attackers had been brought to justice. They were off the streets and always would be, and that would have to be enough. It wasn’t their deaths she needed. If someone handed her a butcher knife and gave her five minutes with them, she wouldn’t use that knife to kill them. She’d cut their dicks off.

It was Blake who’d done her the greatest violence. Blake, whom she’d loved for nearly five years, whom she’d trusted unreservedly. It was what he’d done that had broken her. He’d died horribly, and that would have to be enough, too.

“Jacinda...” Apollo ducked his head and trapped her eyes with his. “Tell me what you need right now. Do you need me to go?”

No, she didn’t need that, or want it. “I need you to be worth my trust.”

“I won’t ever hurt you. I swear it on my patch.”

He’d already put himself between her and his club; she could trust that vow. “Then I want you to stay.” She let herself fall forward, and he caught her. He pulled her into his arms and tucked her close, simply holding her. Warm, strong arms, a broad, sturdy chest, his hot breath against her cheek. He encompassed her like an armored shell.

––––––––

~oOo~

––––––––

“It still hasn’t been a week. We’re supposed to wait a week.” Apollo’s breath floated over her cheek, his beard brushed her lips. His voice rolled by her ear. She had him in her bed, stretched out with her, nearly naked, and he wanted to sleep.

What she wanted was to wash the taint of memory from her mind and body. She wanted to feel this man take care of her, treat her gently, fill her body and mind with pleasure.

She dragged her hands down and over the mounds of his muscular back and pushed into his boxer briefs, grabbing hold of the sinfully tight globes of his ass. She wanted to get to the gym with this guy and see what all these muscles could really do.

He groaned and flexed in her hold, pressing his hard cock against her thigh. “We need to wait.”

It was difficult to remember that he was a big bad Brazen Bull when he treated her like spun glass. “I feel okay. I don’t want a workout. I just want slow and gentle. To wash away what we talked about. Can you do that?”

He lifted his head and gazed down at her. “I can do that.”

Ducking his head, he kissed her neck, his beard soft on her skin. She felt his tongue against her pulse point, easing along the vein, and she let her head fall to the side, clearing his path. His hand made long, light sweeps down her arm, then back up until his fingertips grazed her jaw, then swept down again along the path between her breasts, over her belly, across to her hip, and back up.

Each touch of his rough-skinned hand was like a feather dipped in diamonds, light as air and sharp as glass. Swathes of gooseflesh rose up on her skin in its wake.

On the next sweeping pass down her body, his hand slid over her breast. Her nipple was already tight with aroused anticipation and greedy for his touch, and Jacinda cried out when his fingers swirled around that hard knot and then plucked, so lightly.

A sultry chuckle left his lips as he scooted his body downward a few inches, and his mouth followed, trailing a damp line from her throat, down the center of her chest, over to that same nipple. His hand cupped her breast, plumping it, and he laid his open mouth on her. Inside that circle of blazing wet heat, she felt his tongue, following the same path of his fingers, swirling and swirling until her nipple was swollen and distended and aching with need.

She clamped her hands around his head and held him in place, pressing her breast deeper into his mouth, arching her back until she found the remaining soreness in her ribs. In the air around them, a strange sound rose up. It was her, begging. Please, please, please. Fuck, please!

He obliged, finally sucking her breast, and his hand slid around her hips and gripped her ass. His hips flexed, driving his erection against her thigh, but not with demand, not like a dog mounting her leg. Simply in time with the rhythm of his mouth, as if he were carried away in his attentions to her.

When he released her nipple, she whimpered and tried to hold him in place, but he shifted and offered the same devotion to her other breast. But the time he lifted away and smiled down at her, Jacinda was nearly mad with need.

He’d been nothing but gentle, nothing but slow. Her breaths came in great heaves that strained her chest, but he’d not hurt her at all. Not even his weight pressed on her; the whole time, he’d been propped on one elbow, hovering over her.

He watched her, smiling, and breathed slowly and deeply, and she finally realized that he was calming her down, getting her breaths to follow his. When he was satisfied, just as she opened her mouth to beg for more of his touch, he scooted away.

This time, he moved farther down, spreading her legs apart and settling between them. She felt his fingers first, spreading her folds, drawing sleek patterns over that most tender skin. Then she felt his lips, pressing feathery kisses all around her pussy.

She drew her legs up, wide and high, offering everything to him, and was rewarded with the barest touch of his tongue on her clit.

And that was how he got her off, slowly and gently: with tiny, soft, steadfast kisses, and gossamer licks over her clit, over and over, slow and steady, until her legs trembled, and then her arms, and then her whole body, until the orgasm rose up and over her, pulling her body into slow, cadenced spasms, and her mind went utterly, encompassingly blank. There was nothing but them and this pleasure. This trust.

Tears leaked from her eyes and trickled down her temples, and she let them soak into her hair. Apollo stayed on her, lavishing that languorous devotion on her until she fell all the way back to earth; then he scooted up her body, keeping his weight on his arms. When he kissed her, she tasted herself, soaked into his beard.

“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,” she murmured, barely aware of her words, as she rubbed her cheek over his beard, loving the mingled scent of them. “Oh my God, I love you.”

They both froze at the same time, and Jacinda’s eyes flew open in a panic and found Apollo’s eyes wide and still, studying her.

“I mean—I didn’t—that’s not—”

He brushed his thumb over her incomprehensible mouth. “It’s okay. I’m not freaking out.”

“I didn’t mean it like that. Not that I couldn’t...shit.”

“It’s okay, J. I get it. You love what I did.”

It was more than that, but it wasn’t what she’d said, either. She nodded. “Yeah. It’s too soon for the other.”

“Yeah. We need to take it slow. Figure things out.”

“Yeah.”

“For right now, I want to be inside you. How would you feel about that?”

She grinned and wrapped her arms around his neck. “I would love that.”