Wild Like the Wind (Chaos #5)(87)

He made no move, no sound, not even a facial tick.

Um.

Okay.

What on earth did that mean?

“Hound?” I called, beginning to get freaked.

All of a sudden, he was a blur of movement. Then my hair was flying, a drifting cloud all around me, and my arms were forced up as he tore his tee from me.

After that, I was back in the bed with Hound kicking my legs apart with his knee.

“You got the twenty-four-hour flu,” he growled, his body coming down on mine.

Not frozen, not giving me nothing.

His blue eyes were burning straight through me.

“It’s going around,” I breathed.

“Yeah,” he grunted, then, even though I didn’t even notice him getting hard again, he’d done it because he entered me.

Filled me.

Became a part of me.

Physically.

He was that already.

He had been for a long time.

And would be.

For always.

“Wow,” I whispered, rounding him with arms and legs.

“Yeah,” he groaned, thrusting.

“I take it, you, uh … absorbed what I just said.”

He drove in, stayed in and ground in (another wow), gritting, “Yeah.”

I put both hands to his stubbly cheeks. “Love you, baby.”

He stopped grinding and closed his eyes.

“Love you,” I repeated.

He opened his eyes and he didn’t say it back.

He didn’t have to.

Those expressive eyes he’d kept closed down on me for so long to hide the way he felt for me were open and sharing, no … shouting just what he felt, and how deep it ran … for me.

Then he kissed me and started up again fucking me.

That twenty-four-hour flu was a killer.

I stayed in bed all day.



It was the next evening and I was just about to turn down Bev’s street.

“Make sure she gets the message it stays between her, the boys, you and me,” Hound voice sounded throughout my car.

“I think I got that,” I replied, hitting my blinker.

“When you leave, text you’re on the way,” he ordered.

“Affirmative, cowboy, but where will I be on my way to?” I asked.

“Where else?” he asked back.

“Well, you’ve got a pad and I’ve got a pad so whose pad are we crashing at tonight?”

“Fucking then crashing,” he amended.

I made the turn, grinning.

I hadn’t had the longest, driest spell in history, but I was sure it was up there.

Still, it was clear Hound was dedicated to eradicating it in a way I might someday (soon) wonder if it even happened.

“Fucking and crashing,” I agreed.

“Your car sits under threat of being stripped or disappearing altogether and being dismantled at some chop shop every night you park it outside my place. So yours.”

“You leave your truck and bike there,” I reminded him.

“My truck has a Chaos badge in the back window and my bike is known to be my bike so if any motherfucker even looks at either funny, especially my bike, they know they better take a selfie so they’ll remember what they looked like before I rearranged their face.”

“God, it turns me on when you’re badass,” I moaned, semi-teasing, semi-totally-serious, driving down Bev’s street.

“Smartass.”

“No, really.”

“Text me when you’re on your way, Keekee,” he demanded.

“You got it, honey. See you later.”

“Her. The boys. You. And me,” he stated.

I rolled my eyes and turned into Bev’s drive.

“Later,” he finished.

“Later, Shep.”

I heard my radio come on just in time for me to shut the car down.

I turned to grab my purse, the bottle and the bag of stuff I’d gone out to get after work that day, threw open my car door, folded out and moved up Bev’s walk.

She lived in a one-story, two-bedroom in Englewood close to the brilliance of El Tejado and Twin Dragon, some of the best of south of the border and Chinese cuisine you could get in Denver.

It was also very close to Ride.

It was the area I’d always thought of Hound living in, one of those simple, not too old, definitely not new, on-a-big-lot, tidy houses close to good food … and Ride.

Bev and Boz had bought that house together and eventually they’d fought bitterly over it when she’d realized he wasn’t going to reconcile with her, even though he’d been in the wrong and she’d forgiven him. He wanted a pad close to Chaos. She’d probably partially wanted the same thing but mostly she wanted their life to start up as it was when Boz came back.

It was just that he never came back.

I wondered if she’d ask her insurance salesman to move in with her. I didn’t remember but I thought he lived in a bungalow in Platte Park. Or maybe it was Washington Park. His kids were both mid-teens and lived part-time with him. He’d probably want to stay put.

I just couldn’t imagine Bev moving.

She had the door open before I got to it and I smiled big.

I held up the bottle and announced, “Sofia sparkling rosé, because Coppola is a freak of nature, the man has the chops to make a damn fine film and a damn fine wine and we’re using that second talent to celebrate impending happiness.” I dropped the bottle and lifted the bag. “And spoiling the surprise, the sexiest damn teddy in the Denver metro area, edible body glitter, paint and massage cream, because if the man can’t find it with his fingers, we’ll get him there with his mouth.”