Wild Like the Wind (Chaos #5)(37)

“He’s pretty desperate to work with the brother called Joker. He says his builds are sick.”

Hound quit chewing his stew, swallowed and said, “Joker is a genius and it’s been noticed. Did you see that magazine spread?”

She nodded. “Bev showed me. That chopper you all were pictured around was freaking inspired. And his designs … I don’t know anything about that and it made me want one. Street safe but hotrod cool.”

He grinned at her. “Joker’d set you up. Not sure he’d paint any car pink though.”

She assumed an expression of fake ticked.

“Pink?” she asked with disgust.

“Okay, purple.”

She lifted her chin and her spoon filled with stew, “Purple is cool. Case in point, Prince, may he rest in peace,” she declared and shoved stew in her mouth.

“I’ll get Joke on that. Girlie car with purple cool.”

She rolled her eyes.

Hound memorized that.

And the feel of her legs over his thighs.

And the taste of her stew.

And the warmth in his gut that he had this shot to play at this, Keely his on his couch talking Chaos shit like she belonged to him. Like she was his old lady.

Maybe he’d been wrong.

Maybe he shouldn’t have fucked up his own head with those boundaries.

Maybe he should take what he was getting, having wanted it so bad for so long, and relish it while he had it.

“Want your beer, babe?” she asked.

“Yeah, Keekee,” he muttered, not thinking about it, giving her a name that was his, he’d heard no one call her, so it was theirs, and also focusing on his stew so he didn’t see the look on her face when he said it.

But he did feel her reach for his beer on the coffee table and was chewing when he took it from her and decided this was it.

For as long as it lasted, even if it was play, make believe in his head for a man who was far from a boy, he’d take it and get off on it.

It’d end soon enough.

But even after it did, he’d always have it.

And he knew all too well, that was a whole lot better than not having it at all.





You Deserve Better “Did you get my texts today?”

Hound was ass to his couch.

Keely was in his kitchen cooking.

It had been near on three weeks since she gave him a version of her virginity then the next night her version of Irish stew. In that three weeks she’d cooked dinner for him every night, at first bringing it over like the chicken and the stew, and then he was lugging up her fancy-ass grocery bags because she cooked it in his shit kitchen.

Since he didn’t allow her to show until after eight, this meant they ate late.

But Keely was a great cook and Hound usually ate fast food, so he was good with waiting.

Keely wasn’t, she bitched about it all the time.

But she had him, all of him, no boundaries, and since he still gave that to Jean, she had to wait her turn.

“Babe,” was all he said about the fifty texts she’d sent him that day.

This was because they were pictures of furniture. Couches. Armchairs. Recliners. Dressers. Beds. Barstools.

In other words, his thought was they didn’t need a reply.

Or a discussion.

His furniture was such crap he didn’t even remember where he got it. He just remembered he’d got none of it new.

But it had been established he lived in a shithole, so as much as he hated having Keely with him where she had to use it, it worked.

“Babe?” she queried.

“I’m not buying furniture,” he told the TV.

“Why not?” she asked the side of his head.

He looked to her at his stove. “Because anyone sees that shit delivered, the first time I took off, it’d be in this crib for about five minutes before someone lifted it.”

“You have three locks, Shep, and you’re you. Do you honestly think anyone is gonna break in here, ever?”

She got his Keekee, he’d earned her Shep.

His girlfriend in high school had called him Shep and that was the only person in his life he’d allowed to call him that shit.

Except Keely.

He didn’t tell her about his high school girlfriend though.

And he had to admit, that part of town, as rundown as his building was, it was a constant effort to kick tenants’ asses in line, but he never tired of giving it that effort, not because he gave a shit but because Jean lived there.

So he had a reputation and Keely was probably right.

He didn’t tell her that either.

“Not real hip on droppin’ a load on new furniture and finding out.”

“So get rental insurance,” she returned, looking back to the taco meat she was stirring on the stove, his apartment filled with that aroma, and he had to admit something else. That goodness in the air, a woman as beautiful as her cooking in his kitchen, his furniture didn’t fit the scene.

And it had rattled around in his head for the last couple of years that he needed to get quit of his mattresses. They sucked. He’d just never done anything about them.

“Keely, first, I don’t pay bullshit scam artists like insurance agents money to fuck me up the ass and second, even if they’re bullshit scam artists, not a one of ’em would ever give me a policy for a place in this ’hood. And if they did, it’d cost through the nose.”