Maggie

 

While I pretended to watch TV to avoid any other questions from Blade, the unthinkable happened. The burner phone in my pocket started buzzing. I debated whether or not to answer it, hoping Blade couldn’t hear it over the TV and the noise he made in the kitchen.

 

I fished it out of my pocket and saw I had a call from OWNER. I rolled my eyes, assuming it meant Axel was calling me. That lowlife had always thought of himself as my owner, and I guess he really was the owner of the phone.

 

“Hello,” I answered quietly.

 

“Maggie,” he said jovially. “From the sound of your tone, I guess it’s safe to say Blade is there with you.” Then, he laughed harshly. “Who am I kidding? I know he’s there with you. We saw him enter the safehouse, and he hasn’t left yet.”

 

I glanced over at Blade, cleaning still in the sink. “Now’s really not the best time,” I whispered.

 

“That’s fine. All you have to do is answer my questions. Yes or no will work just fine,” he said slowly, taking time to enjoy every word like a piece of food.

 

“Okay,” I said. “I think I can do that.”

 

“Does he know you’re on the phone with me?” Axel asked.

 

“No.” I eyed him in the kitchen, working to make sure everything was clean. He bent down and pulled a dish rack out from underneath the sink, placed it on the counter.

 

“Good. Make sure he doesn’t find out, okay?”

 

“Okay.”

 

While Axel continued talking, my attention kept drifting back over to Blade. My gut twisted with guilt at the thought of stabbing him in the back with Axel while he was in there trying to take care of me. He’d gone beyond just pulling me off the auction block and making sure I had a warm, safe place to sleep for the night. He’d come by to check on me and bring me food. Now he was cleaning up after our meal.

 

During our meal, something had been bothering him. It seemed like he suspected something, the way he kept asking odd questions about Axel and what happened that day.

 

“Hey, Maggie. Earth to Maggie,” Axel said, bringing me back to the phone.

 

“What?” I asked, shocked back from my memories to the present.

 

“I asked you a question, dammit,” he growled, with the same threatening anger I’d heard in his voice day after day while we were together.

 

I flinched, even though we were only on the phone. “What did you say? I didn’t hear you.” My voice trembled. My excuse sounded weak, even to me.

 

“Does he suspect that you’ve seen me?” Axel asked slowly.

 

“No, I don’t think so,” I said, keeping an eye on Blade to make sure he wasn’t trying to listen in.

 

“You don’t think so, or you know he hasn’t?” he probed for clarification.

 

“I’m sure he doesn’t,” I lied. I was pretty sure he did suspect something.

 

Blade didn’t talk to me like he owned me or like I was a piece of property. He talked to me like I was a person. Even when he’d been a little more forceful in our conversations, he spoke to me like I was someone and not just something.

 

But there I was, betraying him with the man I had run from. Luckily, I hadn’t come across any information Axel didn’t seem to already have, so there was nothing for me to tell him. Unfortunately, I felt like that was putting me in an even worse position with both men.

 

“Make sure he doesn’t get any ideas,” Axel said. His voice sounded distant, like it was coming from somewhere in the back of my mind instead of coming from the phone held up to my ear.

 

“I’m working on that part,” I assured him.

 

“Listen to me, Maggie,” Axel said seriously. “I need your attention. Stop staring at your lover.”

 

My veins froze, and I stopped breathing. I snapped my head back around to the TV screen, attempting to listen intently. He knew too much for me to ignore him.

 

“Do you have any information for me?” he asked.

 

“It’s only been a couple of hours. No, I don’t have anything,” I whispered urgently into the phone, trying to keep my voice low enough that Blade wouldn’t hear me. He had his hands in the sink with the dishes and silverware. The hot water was running. There wasn’t much to wash, so I knew I didn’t have long to really talk before he was finished.

 

“I didn’t think you would, but I wanted to check anyway.”

 

“Why did you call?” I asked. It wasn’t the only question I had for him. I also wanted to know when he’d gone from being a lowlife junkie drug dealer to a legit gangster with a tailored suit and an entourage. It seemed to me he’d been promoted somehow. There was no way a loser like Axel was the head of anything, but it wouldn’t have surprised me if other lowlifes looked up to him.

 

“You mean besides to make you squirm?” he asked, and I could hear the charming smile that was on his face.

 

“Yeah, what’s the real reason?”

 

“I need you to meet me,” he said plainly.

 

“Okay. Where? When?” I asked.

 

“There’s a café down the street from the safehouse. Meet me there in an hour.” His stern tone told me his plans weren’t up for negotiation.

 

“In an hour? How am I supposed to do that?” I protested. “He’s here.”

 

“I know he is, and if you keep raising your voice, he’s going to hear you and wonder what your conversation is about. I’m not worried about how you do it. You’ll figure something out. You always do, Maggie. That’s why I know I can count on you. One hour.” He hung up.

 

I looked down and noted the time on my phone. I had an hour to distract Blade or get him out of my room. Then, I had to meet Axel at the café right down the street. Everything was right down the street. They couldn’t have picked a better location for a safehouse.

 

I looked at Blade again, standing in my kitchen, putting away the clean dishes and getting started on the trash. I didn’t know how I was going to get him out of the room. Anything I did wouldn’t give me the time I needed to go meet with Axel, and most of it wouldn’t have been believable anyway.

 

I considered telling him I wasn’t feeling well, but I could hear him telling me, “Don’t worry, I’ll stay with you and make sure you’re okay. Do you need anything?” They probably had all the medicine I might have needed downstairs somewhere, defeating any chance for a trip to the store to pick something up for me.

 

My heart pounded in my chest, and my breath came in short bursts. I could feel the minutes ticking away while I sat and stared at him, helplessly trying to figure out a way I could get him out or distract him so I could go meet my ex and get further details in his plan to take down the Marauders MC.

 

It even occurred to me to just tell him flat out what was going on, but Axel was watching. He was probably even listening. If I tried to warn Blade, it was all over. Someone would have taken us out as soon as either one of us tried to do anything about it.

 

The only other option I had was to distract him so he wouldn’t notice I’d left. And there was only way I knew how to do that. But I was on my period. Damn period was always messing up my plans. It never came at a convenient time.

 

But my mouth wasn’t on a period. I even had the perfect excuse for wanting to give my hero, my protector, head. It was going to be his reward for being so good to me, for helping me, and for saving me from those awful men down at the auction – those men who grabbed me and fondled my body without my permission, whose hands had been rough, demanding.

 

As I thought about the things I was going to say to coax him into the bedroom, I could feel my own desire growing wet for him. There was no doubt about it: I wanted Blade. Even as I was thinking about ways to trick him, it excited me. My insides quivered with desire as I thought about taking him over to the bed and throwing him down so I could handle him myself.

 

Was it possible I wanted more than just sex with this man? Was it possible I cared about him? Was that why I was having such a hard time getting up and going through with the plan to screw him over? I didn’t know for sure. I had never been great at analyzing my own feelings. I had only ever been great at acting and moving forward.

 

Blade was the first man who’d ever given me the opportunity to sit back and analyze what I felt and what I was doing. Usually, it was just go, go, go! But not with him.

 

My phone buzzed, and I looked down. It was a text, from Axel.

 

Tick-tock, tick-tock, Maggie.

 

He was threatening me. I had to figure something out, right away. I had to go, or else he was liable to send someone in to handle us.

 

“Fuck it,” I said, getting up from the bed. If I played ball with Axel, everyone was safe. Or, I was safe, at least.

 

I left the TV on to generate background noise as I crept into the kitchen. I stood at the entrance to the room and watched him as he dried the dishes and went to put them up. After he put up the leftovers and moved the trash out of the way, he grabbed a couple of disinfectant wipes and wiped down the counter.

 

“You didn’t have to do all this,” I said.

 

“Why not? It’s the least I could do to help,” he said back.

 

If he’d only known he wasn’t helping at all. If anything, he was making what I had to do that much harder.