Page 56 of At Her Pleasure
All of that might be true, but he saw the potential in her eyes. It destroyed him to know he couldn’t reach for it, convince her of the possibilities. He really needed to get out of New Orleans soon.
But not tonight.
She had her hand on his chest, was pushing him back so he leaned against his vehicle. He put his hands on her hips, sliding his fingers into the jeans pockets. Cyn’s ass was made for snug denim.
“I’m betting they’re watching us,” she said.
“Why?”
“Because I haven’t ever brought a boy home to the family,” she confirmed. But she was done teasing. “You going to explain why someone beat you up?”
“No,” he said. “It’s something separate from the Progeny event, and it doesn’t have anything to do with you. It’s not something I want anywhere near you.”
Her mouth went straight lined. “I don’t need someone to protect me.”
“You also don’t need to be dragged into trouble that’s not yours. You’d do anything for your family. I know you don’t back down from a fight. I know you’ll start one if it has to do with protecting one of them.”
Though the pang the thought created was unexpected, he turned it into words. “I’m not family. When I leave, it's not likely we’ll see one another again. This is closure, fulfilling the potential of what we felt that night, when we were too fucked in the head to know what to do with it.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I was too fucked in the head. You were busy playing cop hero.”
Yeah, he’d pissed her off. He moved his hands to her upper arms. “I’m calling it closure, not meaningless. I’m pretty sure these past couple days and whatever time you give me before I leave will be the most meaningful hours of my life for some time to come.” Maybe for always.
“Even if it ends with you telling me to fuck myself and hit the road,” he added. “But it doesn’t change it. You may not need me to protect you from anything, but I’m going to, because I need to know you’re in the world, and that you have this, instead of the future you would have had if you’d stayed in that cesspool of a town.”
He'd hoped for a good night kiss, even a knee in the balls, if she put a sadist’s true affection behind it, but he could read the room. He’d pretty much scuttled any of that by not telling her what she wanted to know.
Honesty could be a bitch. Literally.
She stepped back, out of his reach. “Good night, Mick.”
When she marched toward the house, she had an iron rod in her back, but her hips still had that fuck-me swivel that could draw his eyes. He was just glad she was too mad to tell him he wasn’t allowed to look.
Since his time looking at the real thing was short, he would take every second he could get.
CHAPTER TEN
No problem on the CNC session. We’ll put something else in that time slot. Still hope to see you there.
It was the first text she’d received from him, the day after the get-together. She expected he’d waited her out, to see if she’d get past her anger. If she’d reach out first and at least let things go back to status quo.
Sure. Why should she care that he was beat like a piñata—by someone who wasn’t her—before he came to dinner? Then tells her he wasn’t going to reveal who did it, and that he wasn’t her family.
With disgust, she decided to leave work an hour early and head for Roughnecks. She and Ros usually came to the boxing and MMA gym together, so Ros could spar with her as part of their workout. Cyn had improved the fighting skills of all four women, and Ros was a better-than-decent partner, sometimes taking the upper hand through patience and calculation. Cyn also sparred with more advanced members to maintain and improve her own level.
Recognizing her mood, she started with the punching bag. Controlled physical violence, focusing on her technique, usually helped calm her down if she was agitated. By the time Ros arrived, she should have burned off enough of it to make what was in her head more manageable.
The strategy would have worked, too. Except she wasn’t good at overlooking an opportunity that seemed thrown in her path specifically to deal with her mood.
Roughnecks had a second level, which provided a running track, workout ropes, and bigger equipment. It was accessible via metal steps that clanged as people went up and down, entering and exiting the gray painted door at the top. It had a square window so no one slammed the door into someone else coming and going.
Even while working out with the bag, Cyn stayed cognizant of that foot traffic, because it was close to her. Surviving the first twenty years of her life had depended upon awareness of her surroundings. Just like her fight skills, she never let that radar get rusty.
So she knew when a familiar person emerged from the second level. One that gave her a target far more appealing than the punching bag.
Matt Kensington.
Ros’s friend, TRA’s client, and the man who had bullshit outdated beliefs about fighting women, so he always declined Cyn’s invitation to spar.