Kaci

 

When I awoke the next morning, I found myself glancing up to check the top of Micah's dresser for the cash he must have left. I reminded myself that I wasn't in that line of work anymore. Instead, I closed my eyes and snuggled into his broad, warm chest, just listening to his deep, soothing breaths and the thumping of his heart.

 

I still felt amazing and so wonderfully sore from the night before. The way Micah had filled me, and held me afterward instead of just paying. It felt like it was close to, I don't know, acceptance. Like I had a shot at a somewhat normal life, had a chance at a healthy relationship that wasn't just with some James or some pimp.

 

I nuzzled into him and kissed his warm, tan skin. I may have even sighed.

 

I could get used to this, I realized. I could see myself living a life like this, with a man like Micah. So what if the sex was rough? I liked it that way. And maybe he was egotistical and a little possessive of me. But, what girl didn't want her man to be confident, or to really want her?

 

My eyes slowly closed again as I relaxed into him and his nice, warm, comfy bed. It occurred to me how infrequently I'd slept in a bed with a man. I mean, not a hotel bed or anything.

 

I could find happiness with Micah, I realized as I began to drift off. I could give up this stupid vengeance dream I had about Efraim, just throw in the towel and call it quits.

 

But, then I'd be giving up on the memory of Romeo, wouldn't I? He'd be just some poor dead kid in the big city, murdered in the bathroom of a nice hotel somewhere downtown. I couldn't do that, not to him. He was my baby brother, my only family left. Now he was gone, and someone needed to pay.

 

Besides, what I was feeling wasn't love. I knew that. It was just lust, the product of a thousand different chemicals in my body swilling together into some heady brew that was sending me off into La La Land about a man.

 

True, I still needed Micah to get to Petrov, especially after my last plan hadn't worked. But, maybe, just maybe, I could come up with something else.

 

I couldn't get too comfortable with this broad-chested biker boy, though. After I got Efraim, what I had with Micah would be over. He'd never want to touch me again, no matter how intoxicating our bodies felt when we put them together.

 

# # #

Micah

 

Kaci stirred beside me, but I kept my eyes closed, just enjoying the feel of her warm body coiled up against mine. My body ached from the night before, every fiber of my being calling out for me to stay in bed. Who knew leaping from a moving bike onto a semi-truck speeding down the highway would take so damned much out of a man? But, still, the feel of her tiny form pressed into mine was the best excuse I'd ever come up with to stay in bed.

 

I'd fucked more women than I could count, even with my boots off. Gov once joked that I should just get a revolving door put on my bedroom or, better yet, one of those subway style turnstyles that kept count for you. I didn't even remember most of their names, to be honest. They'd always been a flash of blonde hair, or brown, a soft body pressed beneath mine that I could do with as I pleased. I'd pump 'em till I couldn't anymore, then I'd toss them by the wayside.

 

It was what I did.

 

Far as I was concerned, they couldn't leave my bedroom fast enough.

 

Which was what made it so damnably weird that I was thinking of what Kaci and I were going to eat for breakfast.

 

A woman had never gotten under my skin like this before, I realized as Kaci started to move beside me. I reflexively pulled her back down to my chest. I could feel her eyes fluttering against my skin, her eyelashes feeling like butterflies on my pecs.

 

Like fucking butterflies. Never thought I'd say that.

 

I just wished I'd met her a week earlier, before her brother Romeo had died, before she'd set off on this stupid ass vengeance jag. Then, I could still have her.

 

But, no, she just had to try and double-cross me. She just had to lie to my face over and over.

 

In a game like the one I was playing — one where people ended up in the bayou with their heads and hands gone — Trust was spelled with a capital T. It was the most important thing you could have between two people.

 

In a relationship, too, it was just as important. You had to have it there to keep something strong and unbreakable.

 

But we didn't have it, did we? What little I had for her had been left on the side of that swamp highway, splattered with blood in the cab of that semi-truck.