What makes it worse, is I did the same thing. I bugged out. I had to, to protect them. I got caught up in a bad fucking deal with my former club, Satan’s Seminoles out of Philly. They were dirty and I’m no saint, but they got into some shit that didn’t sit right with me.
I tried to keep my distance, but when the President gives you an order, you either carry it out or suffer the consequences, which with my former club included threats to everything that mattered to you.
So, one night, I was supposed to be heading to a hit on some rival members that had disrespected the President’s old lady. It was just dumb ass shit to me, but Lukas, the President, was a rage case and took no shit.
He planned to take down the three dudes that set her up for embarrassment. They didn’t hurt her, but he wasn’t going to stop at that. He sent me and two other guys for their old ladies, and what he wanted us to do was not just embarrassing.
I knew if I bailed on the deal, as wrong as it was, I was out. And if I stuck around, went back home to Pittsburg to my family, he could well bring them in and fuck them up, so I just took off. It was the only solution I could think of that would keep my family safe and save my ass at the same time.
I sent notes and postcards to Mom and Dad, and I call them now and then to check in. They don’t ask a lot of questions and I don’t know how I’m so lucky, because they always say they love me and as long as I’m safe and happy, that’s what matters.
Fuck. What is happy?
I settle into my reading, lost in that world, when I hear the bells jingle on the front door of Luann’s Laundra-Palace, and my heart rate doubles as I put my book down, peering around the corner of the washing machine and already reaching for the five-inch blade I keep in a special sheath inside my boot.
Without standing up, I can’t see anyone, but I hear steps and what sounds like the slap-slap of flip flops—which calms me a bit, because no one that would come looking for me would be wearing rubber sandals.
Then I hear it.
Humming.
Fuck, I know that sound.
It’s Robin.
I’m on my feet and scanning the bright room, and as soon as she sees me her eyes snap wide and a gasp releases from her lips as fear crosses her face.
Then fury.
“Seriously?” She shakes her head on a sneer. “Enough is enough! If I was interested in you, you’d know, okay? This following me everywhere and turning up all over is done, you understand?”
She shoves her robin’s-egg-blue laundry basket on top of one of the stainless steel tables, and starts grabbing things and sorting them with her brows drawn tight and her jaw clenched. When she looks pissed, my cock gets hard instantly. I love that she’s a take no shit kinda girl, and her pushing back on me only makes me more insane for her.
“I was here first.” I raise my eyebrows on a shrug and she shakes her head and keeps sorting. She’s wearing the same tank top as earlier but now has on a pair of tight jeans which show off her ass a little too well. Her red hair hangs down over one shoulder in waves, parted down the middle like she just fucking wakes up looking this way which she probably does.
“True.” She keeps her eyes down, taking her laundry out in already color-separated bunches, setting them next to each other on the tabletop. “But still. It’s getting creepy, you just sort of ‘showing up’ all the time.”
“Yeah, you sort of said that earlier today.”
I want to chastise her. I mean, fuck, it’s the middle of the night. Anyone could be in her or come in here and the thought of someone hurting her, especially after that shit earlier today, makes me more than on edge.
“Exactly.” She squints one eye at me, pointing a cute as fuck finger my way. “Earlier today. See? Creeper.”
I see her fight the smile as she calls me the name, and I sniff, fighting off my own inner conflict about making a hard move on this creature that’s invaded my heart.
The problem is, I’ve never felt this sort of tug towards anyone before. Like she is something I’ve been wishing for, but never believed would happen. Except, I’ve never wished for whatever this is. Romance and love were never on my radar, and since running from back east, they aren’t now for sure.
“You want me to change my name?”
“What?” She screws up her face, then gathers a pile of white clothes and shoves them into a washing machine, then tosses in her soap pod thing and shoves four quarters into the slot. A moment later, the hum of her machine joins mine.
“My name. From Hammer to Creeper.”
She releases this pseudo-exasperated huff but I see the sparkle in her golden brown eyes, and for fuck sake there’s this feeling in my gut like flickery or flippy, and I have to grit my teeth to distract myself. I’ve clearly been reading too much Jane Austen.
“I find both names a tad sophomoric.” She licks her bottom lip and the sight of her tongue swiping along the plump pink flesh only hardens me more.
Her eyes drift to where my hand is still holding onto my open book, and something changes in her face. There’s a recognition, then something pleasant happens.
She smiles, then says, “And I expect more from you.”
I pull my lips to my teeth then fight back my own smile, swiping my index finger under my eye on a nod. I could tell her my real name, which has its own irony. No one here in Seneca knows it but it’s too risky, so I deflect with an answer I hope will end the query on names. “I like that.”
I run my hand down my face and step in her direction, setting the book down on her table, then hop up and sit on the next sorting table, watching as she fills up four more machines, each with a pile of neatly separated color-specific piles of clothes.
After she gets all the machines running, she turns my way, meeting my eyes, then lets them run down my chest to my boots and back up.
“I like to come this time of night. I use a lot of washing machines and I don’t like waiting. I like to start them all at the same time, then put them in dryers at the same time and finish at the same time. There’s not enough machines in my building and I always have to wait for one. I like efficiency.”
I nod. “Lemme guess…Choleric?”
I watch her swallow as she tips her head and studies me for a moment.
“You study philosophy?”
“I just read. A lot.”
“I see.” She juts a hip out and crosses her arms, making her tits push upward and creasing her cleavage in the scoop neck of her white tank top. “You are a study in contradictions.”
“Don’t judge a book and all that.”
She rubs her lips together, then pushes the backs of her fingers to her mouth, but I see her cheeks rise and know she’s trying once again to hide her smile.
My stomach does that fucking thing again and I decide to quit dicking around. I know deep down it’s dangerous, but something is overriding my usual pragmatism and I hop off the table, close the space between us, lean down to her ear and hear her draw in a sharp breath.
Her hair smells like fucking sunshine or something and my head is spinning. My fingers twitch, along with my dick, and I want to drag her by the hair back to my place and never let her go.
Instead, I settle for another plan. I take one more deep breath, her scent making me half crazed before I stand and turn toward the door making my way outside.