Chapter 9

I’m not the girl that everyone loves, but at least I’m not the girl that everyone has had.

-Raven’s secret thoughts

Raven

I woke to the smell of him on my sheets, and the imprint of his head on my pillow.

At some point during the night he must have returned, and now, at seven fifty in the morning, he was gone again.

And so was my fucking hamburger. Although I didn’t realize that until much later as I was dreaming about it.

My day started like any other.

I got up. Washed my face. Brushed my hair and then threw it up into a sloppy bun on the top of my head.

Then, for the hell of it, I put a load of laundry into the washer and pulled the cold ones from the dryer.

After folding them and putting them in my suitcase, I started to gather my belongings.

The bedroom was where I started, and since the entirety of the apartment was furnished when I moved in, the only thing I had to grab from in here were my sheets, my clothes, and my shoes.

The bathroom was just as easy. Since nothing beside the shower curtain (which you bet your ass I grabbed) and the hair care products, makeup, and toilet cleaners were mine, it was easy to shove them into another bag I’d previously used for the gym.

Then I moved to the living room that really didn’t have much other than a few magazines.

Magazines that could stay.

While I was contemplating what to do with said magazines, toss them or hang every single page up on the wall that had anything suggestive to it at all, I heard a knock at my door.

I glared at it, knowing in my heart it was Travis, and growled.

Checking the peephole to confirm my suspicion, I yanked it open and glared at the man who looked like he hadn’t ripped my life apart the day before.

“I’m sorry,” he said the moment he saw my face.

I shrugged.

“I’m getting out of here by tonight,” I said. “What do you want?”

Travis brows furrowed.

“Have you given anymore thought to the rental house? The occupants just left yesterday; likely it’ll need to be cleaned first,” he explained.

I shook my head.

“I’m not staying at your rental house if I’m not working for you,” I refused stubbornly.

I wasn’t a person that accepted handouts. Handouts came with expectations that I’ll owe the person that gave me the handout someday.

I wasn’t that kind of person. If I wasn’t earning it beforehand, I wouldn’t take the handout, simple as that.

And if I wasn’t working for Travis and Dante, I wasn’t living in their house.

No excuses.

“Why not?” he asked.

I glared at the man.

He was sexy, that was for sure.

His head of brown hair and ice blue eyes didn’t hold a candle to Wolf, though, and that rankled.

“Because I don’t want to be beholden to you for a handout that I can’t begin to pay back,” I replied.

“So where will you go?” he asked, confusion that I wasn’t taking what he had to offer.

“I’m going back home, I guess,” I responded, despondency leaching into my voice even though I didn’t want it to.

My money that I’d saved during the trial was gone.

I’d gotten complacent here.

Bought new clothes.

Paid off my debts and put a down payment on my piece of shit car.

And it was a piece of shit. My piece of shit, but still a piece of shit, nonetheless.

“You can’t go home,” he replied. “You don’t have a home to go home to.”

I did have a home to go home to. In fact, I had two. Although both places were in separate towns.

The first one was the same place I’d been staying in while I was in Kilgore awaiting Jensen’s trial. It was the same place that July owned that was across the street from the place where July and PD had made their home.

I’d been the only one to live in it, and I got the invitation from July on a weekly basis to come back and stay in it. For some reason, she was holding it vacant for me in case I wanted to come back, and even now, after four months of me being gone, she still had it at the ready and waiting for me.

The other place I could go was back home to Karnack.

I had a home there.

I paid for it. It wasn’t much, just a two-bedroom shotgun house that was the size of a Cracker Jack box.

There was a couple renting it from me on a monthly basis, and they were on a month-to-month lease, I just had to give them ten days’ notice to vacate if I needed it back.

They were fine with those terms, and it worked for me.

I gave them the rent for a song on the condition that they would move out of the house if I ever needed it. They also did the upkeep and any repairs that were needed on the house if any were to ever arise.

See, I had options!

“I have places I can go,” I replied without giving him any information to go on.

His eyes narrowed.

“You can’t stay with Wolf. He’ll ruin your life,” Travis said so viciously that I took a step back.

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

His eyes narrowed.

“That’s who you’re going to stay with, isn’t it?” he asked. “I’m serious. Wolf likes to ruin lives, one broken heart at a time.”

I smiled a tad bit evilly at him.

“You’re not my brother, Travis. You’re my employer, or ex-employer. I can stay with whomever I want, and if that includes a man that went out of his way to make sure that I survived, then I’ll sure as hell do it. Because I’m an adult, and I can make my own informed decisions if I have to,” I growled.

Travis’ eyebrows lifted. “Don’t come crawling back here when he ruins you.”

I laughed.

“Fuck off,” I said. “And go away so I can finish packing.”

Travis sighed.

“This wasn’t what I intended for today. I was going to offer you the option of working from home, but Wolf makes me pissed off on the best of days and I can’t think clearly when it comes to him.” Travis crossed his arms and looked toward the living room window, his eyes scanning the yard. “When I saw him leave your place yesterday morning, I was just so pissed off that he took another good woman and ruined her life.”

“I ruined my own life by hooking up with a guy that was a piece of shit,” I told him honestly. “I wish that was different, but it’s not. It was my own stupidity that got me into that position, and I can’t change the fact. Wolf, however, did nothing wrong. He’s given me every opportunity to get my life back, and I owe him more than you’ll ever know.”

Travis’ face contorted.

“He killed my sister.”

I smiled at him sympathetically.

“I read the newspaper article,” I said. “I also got it firsthand from his sister, as well as quite a few other individuals. He didn’t kill anyone. If anything, it was he who suffered the most with this. You lost your sister. He, however, lost his wife, his unborn child, his best friend, and his best friend’s wife.” I looked at him as I opened the door and gestured for him to leave.

He skittered past me without looking back, but when his foot was on the last step that led down to the forecourt of Hail Auto Recovery I called to him.

“Travis.”

He looked at me over his shoulder.

“He misses you.”

Travis’ head dropped.

“He hasn’t said as much, but it took a lot of courage for him to come here and ask you for your help. The least you could do is give him that help when it obviously doesn’t cost you a damn thing to do it.” I licked my lips. “You’re a good man, Travis. Don’t get sucked in by Dante’s bad attitude and stoop down to his level.”

And it was Dante.

Something more had happened between Dante and Wolf.

Something that Wolf had yet to expound on, and Dante refused to share.

I’d figure it out, though, and when I did, I’d fix them all.

It was obvious that there was lost love between them.

That much hate didn’t come about without there having been a little bit of love there first.

When I could no longer see Travis, I closed the door and went to the kitchen, freezing the moment my eyes lit on the counter.

The first sign that something was wrong with my hamburger was the to-go box on the counter, and the crumbs on the counter where he must’ve stood while he ate it.

“Oh no he didn’t.”

Raven (10:03 AM): Open your door. I have a bone to pick with you.

Raven (10:04 AM): Where are you? I seriously am about to have a fucking conniption fit. I cannot believe you did this to me!

Raven (10:05 AM): You either open your door or I’m going to steal your wreath.

Wolf (1:03 PM): Oh, no! Not my wreath!

Raven (1:03 PM): Your wreath is gone. I put it on someone’s grave on the way home.

Wolf (2:14 PM): My sister put that wreath there.

Raven (2:14 PM): I also took something else. I hope you trip and fall on your face.

Wolf (4:14 PM): Shaking in my boots.

Raven (4:14 PM): You will be. Bitch.

Wolf (7:14 PM): I don’t know what you did with it, but you will bring it back. It better be in the same condition I left it in, or you will pay. I will find you. Then I will kill you.

Raven (3:14 AM): Fuck you.

Raven (4:14 AM): You suck.

Raven (4:17 AM): I can’t sleep. What are you doing?

Raven (4:22 AM): Seriously, are you sleeping?

Raven (4:33 AM): I left your bike by the supermarket with a for sale sign on it. I hope it’s still there when I go look for it in the morning.

Wolf (4:33 AM): It damn well better be or I’ll take it out on your ass.

Raven (4:34 AM): So you are awake.

Grinning, I shut my phone off, and then walked to the bed where I fell face first into it.

Groaning as the bed seemed to swallow me whole, I closed my eyes and buried my head into the thousand thread count sheets, the very thing that the hotel I’d decided to stay at boasted of.

After spending the last seven hours job searching since a certain someone let me go from my job claiming that it was no longer safe for his other employees for me to be there, I went a little mad.

Then I’d splurged on an expensive hotel room, paying in cash, thinking it would keep the vultures at bay.

Clearly, I hadn’t been giving Wolf the credit he deserved.

I didn’t find that out until much later in the night, though.

Once I’d laid there for over an hour contemplating my life, I got up and showered– which, might I add, was still hard after dozens of showers. Putting a trash bag over my arm was for the birds. I hope I never break my arm again, because it blows.

Then I’d rented a movie on Pay-Per-View, a dirty one, and promptly fell asleep before I got to the good part.

It was the breeze on my bare back that woke me.

It wasn’t much, just a small whisper of air, but it was enough to make me crack my eyes open and see what was going on around me.

The screen across the room from me was just getting to the good part, which meant I hadn’t been asleep for long.

The man had the woman on her back, his hips between hers, and he was rubbing the length of his dick against the lips of her sex.

His mouth was busy devouring her breasts, and the cowboy hat he was wearing declaring him a rogue Texas Ranger, which happened to be the only thing he was wearing, really did it for me.

Why?

Because the man I happened to have the hots for was also a Texas Ranger, although he didn’t wear his cowboy hat unless he was going to a court appearance or doing something official like serving an arrest warrant.

Wolf didn’t like wearing hats.

According to his sister who I’d asked about his choice in uniforms, Wolf didn’t like wearing anything that impeded his eyesight.

Personally, I didn’t care if he had any problems seeing in his hat.

Wolf in his cowboy hat was devastating.

Not just to my panties, though, but to my heart as well.

Nipples tingling at the sight of the man on the screen penetrating the woman, I shifted my legs and froze when my foot encountered something hard at my back.

Then a hand found my hip, and I gasped, turning over so fast that I hit my head on my unknown bed mate’s chin.

The man cursed low and succulently, then rolled and pinned me to the bed, the sheet I was using as a cover pinned so tightly against me that it was nearly impossible to move.

“Oh, my God!” I yelled at Wolf. “What are you doing in my bed?”

He grinned at me.

“An even better question is why are you watching porn alone?” he countered.

My mouth dropped open, and my eyes floated to the left, enabling me to see the TV where cowboy hat dude was drilling his sex partner.

He was fucking her so hard that the office desk they were using was skidding across the floor with each thrust of the man’s hips.

The man’s gun belt was on the floor around his feet, and his shiny golden badge was winking each time the light hit it as he thrust forward.

“This wasn’t on when I went to bed,” I lied.

He grinned at me.

“Is that right?” he asked. “You might want to call and contest this with the front desk, then. They’ll charge you for it.”

He held the phone out to me from the bedside table, and I growled.

“How do you expect me to get it if you’re pinning me down?” I asked him.

He moved until I could move my arms, and it was then I realized I was naked.

I certainly hadn’t gone to bed naked.

I’d gone to bed with leggings and a t-shirt on.

I’d definitely remember going to bed naked that was for sure.

Wolf’s eyes immediately honed in on my bare breast, and he licked his lips.

“What are you doing?” I asked again.

“Something incredibly stupid, apparently.”