Wild Like the Wind (Chaos #5)(32)

He grinned at her and shared, “Not sure it works that way.”

That was when she said, “Bill Withers.”

Hound took her in hoping like fuck she wasn’t losing it. Her body was letting her down. Her heart was weak, the doctors worried about it (and Hound worried about it more). Her lungs weren’t great either. Her strength was in the shitter, seemed she slowed down more and more every time he came to her. But her brain was as sharp now as it had been the day he met her nine years ago.

“Jean, darlin’, think you need to explain,” he prompted.

“You young people, I know, can get hold of music real easy these days. So get one of your gadgets and listen to the song ‘Use Me.’ And I think … I think,” she bit her lip before she finished, her voice getting quiet, “I think you might like it like that, and okay if you do. But don’t let her use you up.”

Hound felt the warmth hit his gut that she cared about him so much to worry about him that much and knew it was in the small smile he gave her.

“Don’t worry about me, Jean bug,” he whispered.

“Impossible, Shepherd. But I’ll try.”

He leaned in and kissed her forehead.

When he pulled back, she turned to face the TV and dropped her head to his shoulder again.

He dropped his head to hers when she did.

They watched some TV.

She was snoozing when he left her.

And he wasn’t in his pad for five minutes before he got the text from Keely that she was downstairs in her car with chicken.



“Today has just been insane,” Keely declared, walking to the bar of his kitchen, dumping some fancy-ass grocery bags that Hound reckoned rich women who gave a shit about global warming took to LeLane’s gourmet store when they bought groceries, but they still kicked ass because they were Keely’s.

She shrugged off her suede jacket, unwound the long scarf from her throat, sent them and her purse flying toward his beat-up armchair, and suddenly Hound felt a need he’d never felt in his life.

To go furniture shopping.

She started digging in the bags, stating, “I’ve got this kid, who’s just a little shit. Now, I volunteered at King’s Shelter for three years, did an internship there when I was in school, had two boys of my own and it isn’t like I started my job a month ago, so I know kids can be shits. But most of them are just finding their way or have some reason that’s making them be total pains in everyone’s ass or seriously, hormones make you do whacky things. But this kid … no. His parents are rich. They’re still together. They spoil his punk ass rotten but neither of them are pushovers. They’re always at school events. All over coming in to chat with me when he skips. They care. And he’s still a punk ass. Skips school at least once a week. I’ve had so many meetings with his parents this year, I’m about to put them in my will.”

Hound wanted to laugh.

He didn’t laugh.

Because she was unearthing shit from those bags that was not grocery-store-bought chicken.

It was Tupperware and stuff folded up in foil.

“Babe, what’s that shit?” he asked.

She turned to him with one hand holding what looked like a glass container filled with brownies.

“What?”

“What did you bring to eat?”

“Keely’s Buttermilk Goodness Chicken Tenders, my potato salad, homemade biscuits, I brought butter, honey and apple butter because I’m guessing you have none of that, but I’m hoping you have water and a pot because I need to blanch the green beans. And we’re having my brookies for dessert.”

“Brookies?”

“Brownies with cookie dough cooked in them.”

Her potato salad was enough.

The rest …

“You said you’d bring chicken,” he reminded her.

“Well, I should have said I’m bringing my Keely’s Buttermilk Goodness Chicken Tenders but it’s a mouthful and bottom line, it’s still chicken.”

“In other words, babe, you cooked.”

“Uh … yeah,” she drew all that out, staring at him like she thought it best to check his temperature.

At this juncture, Hound was seeing the error of his ways.

She wanted his cock up her ass, he should have brought the lube from the Compound, refused the chicken and given her his cum whatever way she wanted to take it.

What he should not have done was opened himself up to Keely’s Buttermilk Goodness Chicken Tenders (something he’d say out loud only if a gun was pointed to his head), the return of her potato salad, the goodness of whatever the fuck brookies were—but with what was in them they couldn’t be anything but great—and her bitching about her work, which he wanted to hear so bad he might need to do something he would never in his life admit he needed to do.

Find a shrink.

“Pan, Hound,” she ordered, back to organizing food. “Water, on the stove. The rest is still hot. It won’t take long to deal with the green beans and then we can eat.”

He needed to draw this line. They didn’t have this. They fucked. They might cuddle and chat between fucks, but that’s what they had.

Not this.

Hound drew no line.

He went and filled a pot with water, and not only did he do that shit, he got out two plates and some cutlery.