CHAPTER FIVE
Hailey
I run my fingers along the soft bristles of my paintbrushes and stare out over the canyon. Is Mick out there somewhere waiting for me? My heart lifts just thinking about him. About his giant, sturdy frame and his bristly beard. About the way he can’t help looking at me. Even last night while he called me names and spoke to me in such a mean way, he probably didn’t realize his eyes never got on board with the lie. They never stopped looking at me like I was a princess.
The clock on the wall says eleven fifty-five. My backpack sits by the door, packed with only the essential supplies. A week’s worth of panties, my toothbrush, two changes of clothing and my oil paints. Mick might not think my paints are worth packing, but he will soon. He’ll know I can’t go a day without putting brushstrokes on a canvas. Or that my talent has been abused by my father.
I have to tell him everything.
Panic slinks down my spine. What will Mick say when he finds out I’m not just an innocent bystander of my father’s crimes. I’m a…participant.
This is a huge leap of faith I’m taking, sharing the weight of my baggage with Mick. I’ve spent years and years listening to my father curse the feds, sneering and calling them dogged and ruthless. Once I tell Mick I’m the one who paints the counterfeit artwork for my father to fence, will he want to use me to bring down my father? Will I go to prison, too? Or will Mick be true to his word and protect me?
Can anyone protect me from my father?
Needing comfort, I pick up one of my paintbrushes, twisting the bristles along the crease of my lips. But my actions pause when an official-looking vehicle rolls to a stop in the driveway. My heartbeat raps in my ears. The cops? This is what Mick meant when he promised to get my father out of the house?
A man in a polo shirt and slacks climbs out of the car, ringing the doorbell downstairs a moment later. I run to my bedroom door and inch it open, listening to the conversation that is already in progress.
“An irrigation disruption,” my father says flatly. “What the fuck is that?”
“One of the pipes burst higher in the hills,” the uniformed man responds, though I have to strain to hear him. “There’s a threat of mudslides and flooding until we get it fixed. We’re evacuating your home, along with several others. It’s just a safety precaution, sir.”
There’s a long pause wherein I can almost sense my father’s suspicion. “Let me see some credentials, please.”
“Sure thing,” the man says brightly. “Should only be a couple hours and we’ll have the problem repaired. You’ll be able to return home.”
“This is a huge inconvenience.”
“I know, sir. I apologize. Is there anyone else at home?”
A large part of me wants him to say no. If he says no and leaves, I’ll be free to escape the house and go to Mick. But inside me, there’s some remnant of the child I used to be, because I’m also holding my breath, wondering if just this once, my father will care enough about me to wish me safe, too.
“Nyet,” he says finally. “Just me.”
Between what he did last night and disregarding my life so easily—I’m done. I’m not going to let my father hurt me anymore. And I’m not going to be a pawn in one of his many money-making schemes, either.
I shoulder my backpack and wait at the tinted window for my father to get in his car and leave. Absently, I wonder if the uniformed man was also a fed. Or if the FBI and Mick have pull with city organizations. He must. Otherwise, he went up into the hills and busted the irrigation pipe himself.
The image of Mick swinging an axe makes me laugh and in no time, I’ve picked the lock with my makeshift key and I’m jogging down the stairs of my father’s house, already tasting freedom. Twice in just over a week! And maybe forever. Mick coming through on his word and getting my father out of the house has me feeling confident. Maybe this could really work. I can be free. I can be with Mick.
I take a hard right out of the front door, descending the steps that lead into the canyon. There are about nine thousand trees between me and Mick’s house, but with all the excitement and energy bubbling in my system, I weave in and out of them with ease—
Something…no, someone snags my elbow.
I scream.
A hand clamps over my mouth to cut off the sound. I’m caught. My father caught me. I’m dead. I’m dead.
“Goldie,” Mick breathes in my ear. “It’s just me.”
My body deflates and I sag, making it necessary for Mick to hold me up like a sack of potatoes. “Would you still want me if I’d peed my pants?”
“Hell yes.” Our mouths meet over my shoulder in a kiss full of relief and hunger. “I want you any way I can get you, baby.”
“Okay good, because my legs still won’t work. It might be permanent.”
With a smirk, Mick swings me up into his arms, carrying me—backpack and all—like a baby in the direction of his house. There’s one advantage to having the stuffing scared out of me, though, and that’s the angle I have to study Mick’s nose. I slide a finger down the slope of it now, encountering a bump. “How many times have you broken it?”
“Three times.” He steps over a log. “What is your fascination with noses?”
“I’m a painter,” I whisper. “Your nose is the reason we met.”
Mick stops walking. “How is that?”
I rub a hand on his chest. “You can put me down now. I…there are things I should tell you.”
He seems reluctant to let me go, but after a moment, he eases my feet to the soft canyon ground, such a contrast to the hard man he pretended to be last night. “There are a lot of things I plan to ask you, Hailey. After I get you somewhere safe, we’ll have time.”
Cold creeps over me. “By then, you might not want me anymore. You might not even think I’m worth keeping safe.”
His utter disbelief gives me some comfort. He takes a step away and returns, dragging a hand through his hair. “I fucked you like a monster while your father watched last night, Hailey. While you screamed. If anyone is worried, it should be me. I haven’t slept, I’ve been so sure you wouldn’t come.”
“You looked at me like I was a princess,” I murmur, shaking my head. “Every time I got nervous, you’d find a way to touch me, so only we could see or feel it. You consumed me until I forgot anyone else was in the room. And I…think I like it when you lose control and hold me down. Is that normal?”
“Yes, Hailey. Everything about you is good and pure and healthy.” His hands close around my arms, shaking me a little. “Listen to me. I’m out of my mind over you. You ripped my beating heart out on sight and it’s still there, right in the palm of your hand. I’m your man from now on. Period. There is nothing you could say to change that.”
I blink back tears, barely managing to restrain myself from jumping into his arms and clinging. But the truth has to come first. “I’ve been watching you. From my bedroom window, I’ve watched you swim and pace on your balcony. There was something that drew me to you. You were different somehow and I wanted to know more…so I started to paint you. The night we met, my father was out of town, so I snuck over to your house, hoping to get a closer look at your face—your nose, especially—because I couldn’t get the angle perfect.” I wet my lips. “I was in your driveway when you walked out of the house. I was in your backseat on the way to the bar.”
A few beats pass. I don’t expect him to laugh, but he does. The hearty, booming kind. “I guess I shouldn’t be so grateful an amateur got the drop on me. But hell, I am. Whatever brought you to me.” A line forms between his brows. “No more risks, though, baby. It was dangerous walking into that bar.”
“I knew you were in there.”
“You didn’t know what kind of man I was.”
“Yes, I did,” I whisper, running my flattened hands up and over his pecs. “I could feel you from my bedroom, even though you couldn’t see me.”
There’s a thoughtful expression on Mick’s face as he slides both hands under my skirt and over my bottom, drawing me closer. “I’ve been restless in that house since moving in. Now I know why. You were so close and I couldn’t see you. Get to you.”
I’m not expecting him to lift me off the ground. And he does it so fast, I gasp, wrapping my legs around his waist, leaving my feet dangling several feet off the ground. “Mick,” I moan, my head falling back as he attacks my neck. “There’s more.”
“Later, Goldie.” His mouth slants over mine, that heavy, relentless part of him growing firm and thick between my legs. “Couldn’t even make it a hundred yards without stopping to touch you. Any idea how sweet you looked running through the trees to meet me?” He massages my backside roughly. “This little skirt was flapping all over the place, showing off your panties. It doesn’t hide shit.”
“Oh,” I manage through a shiver. “Sorry?”
“Don’t be sorry. Never be sorry around me.” I can see his concern when he presses our foreheads together. “Your pussy hurting too bad, Hailey?”
“No. Only a little.”
His attention falls to my mouth, his breath starting to emerge in a rasp. “I should wait. I can’t be a selfish bastard with you.”
There’s something undeniably exciting about having this large, powerful man desperate to relieve himself with my body. Now that I know what Mick’s relief entails, I’m counting the seconds until it happens again. I want him to mark me, claim me, fill me, growl at me, shake on top of me. The truth first, Hailey. Yes, the next time our bodies are joined together, I don’t want to be holding on to secrets. “M-Mick. I’m the one. I-I’m the one who paints the counterfeits.” I gulp in a breath and close my eyes, so I don’t have to see the potential disgust on his face. “That’s the real reason my father keeps me around. Otherwise, I think he would have killed me a long time ago for reminding him of my m-mother.” I breathe deeply through my nose. “I’m good. But I’m only one of the things that makes him money—and he makes so much—that he wouldn’t hesitate to kill me if he f-found me—”
“Hailey.” Mick stops my rambling with a finger over my mouth. “First of all, he’s not going to lay a fucking finger on you. I’ve got you now. Okay?”
Relief sweeps through me like a cool breeze. I nod.
“Second of all, I’m going to set you up with a place to paint, soon as I can. It’s important to you. I can see that. And you’re only going to do it for you from now on.” He winks at me. “Noses and shit. Whatever makes you happy.”
“I think I could fall in love with you, Mick,” I murmur, my heart elevating into my throat. “Very fast.”
“Baby, I’m already there.” If I wasn’t watching him closely, I might have missed the wrinkle of worry that he tries to hide. But I see it. And I know he might be reassuring me now, but we’re not out of the woods yet. Not by a long shot. “Soon as we get you to a safe place, I’ll make some phone calls to the Bureau. I’m going to handle everything.”
“Okay.” I accept a kiss from him that immediately turns much deeper, more insistent, his tongue using mine as a plaything. “Where are you bringing me to keep me safe?”
“There’s an unmarked car waiting at the edge of the canyon. It’s going to take us to a hotel, baby, while we figure out the next move.” Again I see the worry in his ink-blue eyes, but his mouth on my neck distracts me. Somehow he manages to turn me into a moaning, sex-starved post-virgin creature while walking through the canyon at the same time. I have no choice but to hold on and let him. “All you have to think about right now, Hailey, is how many times you’ll come when we get to the hotel and I get my tongue in your tight, pink pussy.”