Alice gasped. “Oh, my God.”
Joelle’s nod was grim. “Exactly. He told me that he was only fourteen when some enforcer person took a hammer to a couple of his fingers. That was when he ran away. He said he did it to save himself, because he knew his father wouldn’t.”
“Holy shit,” Alice said faintly, stunned. “I never knew any of that about your hubs. I mean, I knew Gus was a street kid, tough as hell and totally self-made, but wow. I didn’t know about any of that.”
“Neither did I, at least about his dad being a gambler. Gus never wanted to talk about his past or his family, no matter how often I asked. But the moment Felix admitted that not even the Tiffany ruby and diamond set had been able to cover whatever gambling debt he has—a debt that obviously made Felix so desperate he went down to the Lower Lower in hopes of winning big—Gus finally told me all about it. Then he got on the phone. By the end of the day, we had someone patrolling our grounds. Another guy will be assigned to me whenever I leave the house, apparently. I’ve been informed that there won’t be any spontaneous shopping trips or going off whenever I feel like it. Gus learned the hard way that guys who run these sorts of rackets have a way of making people pay—even if they’ve never taken a bet in their life.”
“Holy shit,” Alice said again, flabbergasted. “Honey, promise me you’ll do whatever Gus and your bodyguard tell you to do. I know what it’s like to get splattered by Felix’s crap, but you don’t. I don’t want you hurt.”
“Just don’t cut me out of your life, and I won’t be hurt. Okay?”
“That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but okay.” Gathering up the detritus of her cleaning spree, Alice pushed to her feet and tossed out the dirty kitchen wipes. “Damn, now I have another worry on my plate. First it was being homeless, then it was the looming threat-slash-promise of having sex with Loki. Now it’s the prospect of you having a freaking target on your back. How the hell I’m supposed to start my new job when I’m distracted by all this madness is beyond me. I’ll probably get fired before lunchtime tomorrow.”
“Wait. Wait.” Joelle’s tone sharpened and somehow grew teeth. “Did you just say sex? With Loki? As in, Loki the rabid animal? Loki the barbarian?”
“Joelle, do yourself a favor and let go of all the ridiculous crap Felix fed you so he could enjoy playing the victim. We’re the victims here, not Felix, and Loki didn’t do a damn thing except what he was supposed to do down in the Lower Lower. He won.”
“Whatever,” came the impatient reply, and she could just imagine her friend frantically waving a hand. “Focus, Alice. You. Loki. Sex. Please tell me how the hell those three things could ever go together?”
Alice sucked in a breath to explain, only to let it out in a whoosh when her apartment’s buzzer went off. Her gaze flew to the intercom panel by the door, and she knew without checking who it was.
“Let’s put it this way,” she managed, grimly pleased there was only a tiny tremor to her voice. “I’m about to find out how Loki, sex and I go together. He’s here.”
Chapter Six
It was ridiculous, but Alice didn’t know how to stand while waiting for Loki to climb the two flights of stairs to her apartment.
First, she went to the stair’s railing and looked down to catch a glimpse of him. When she realized how needy she must have looked, she retreated to the open door of her apartment, but that seemed too timid. She finally wound up standing just outside her door, first with her arms crossed before lowering them when she feared she might look too unwelcoming.
Ugh.
She was so stupid.
Why did this man inspire her to explore her stupid side with so much freaking gusto?
When Loki climbed up to her landing, she slid her hands into the back pockets of her jeans and tried to smile. “Hey.” There. A nice, simple one-word sentence that didn’t sound too stupid. Maybe she was on a roll.
“Hey.” Wrapped up in his black leather jacket, his hammered-gold hair damp and carrying the clean scent of the rain falling outside, he headed straight for her, his tigerish gaze locked on her like he feared she’d vanish if he looked away. “Glad to see you’re still up. Were you waiting for me?”
“I was cleaning out the bottom of my refrigerator.” Well, damn. There went her roll of not making stupid comments. Maybe she needed to stick to one-word sentences from here on in. “Since it’s so late I figured you weren’t coming, so I decided to get a couple chores in before heading off to bed. I’ve got a big day tomorrow, so I need my sleep.”
“I got off work at midnight, so I couldn’t show up any earlier. And I think you waited up for me.”
She totally did, but looking into those laughing, tigerlike eyes of his, she wasn’t about to admit it. “You don’t know how gross the bottom of my refrigerator was.”
“So you just had to clean it?”
“That’s right.”
“At midnight?”
“That does seem to be the time.”
“Uh-huh.” His grin was so wicked it made her toes curl, before he leaned a forearm on the doorjamb beside her. “You were totally waiting for me.”
Time for a subject change. “Is there a reason why you’re here?”
“Maybe. You gonna invite me in?”
She honestly had no idea. “Are you a vampire?”
He blinked. “Uh, what?”
“Vampire lore says a vampire can’t enter someone’s house unless invited.” Oh God, why couldn’t she stop saying stupid things? Why?
His low laugh confirmed her idiocy. “Nerd.”
“Jerk,” she said, but the softness in her tone took the sting out of it. Or she assumed it did when he laughed again and bent to brush her lips with his.
“Stems, I’m no biter, and I hope you’re not, either. Teeth at my cock or any other place on my body is not my idea of a turn-on. So no, I’m no vampire.” With that amazing statement, he strolled past her and into her place, leaving her to grapple with whether she was more aghast or turned on by his audacity. Finally she gave up trying to figure it out and trailed after him, only to find him staring at the mop and Rubbermaid carry-all full of cleansers, rubber gloves, sponges, rags and brushes. He took a deep breath, clearly scenting the bleach in the air. “Holy crap, you weren’t kidding. You really were cleaning, weren’t you?”
“I take my spring cleaning very seriously.”
He glanced around and scowled at the boxes she’d already packed in the living room. “Your asshole landlord’s still evicting you even though you got a new job? Does this shitbird live onsite? I’d be more than happy to have a talk with him or her to help them understand the situation.”
“I’m not being evicted anymore,” she rushed to assure him, horrified. She could only imagine how a “talk” with Loki and her landlord would go. “After I left House Of Payne, I called my landlord to let him in on the good news, but he wouldn’t budge. If I didn’t pay the rent by the end of the week, he said he had no problem with throwing my shit into the street, so I… I went straight to a used car dealership and sold my car.”