Dair (The Wild Side #3)(19)

Fuck.

I looked for her until the morning hours, running into a furious Heath several times while we both searched the area.

Neither of us found her.  I figured she’d bolted the second she caught wind of him.

I went home as the sun rose in the sky, still covered in body paint.

Shirtless, Irisless, I walked into my house, hoping she’d be there to greet me.

She wasn’t.  I’d lost her, yet again.

CHAPTER TEN

It was three days later, and I was calling the number on the card Heath had given me, yet again.

I didn’t have much else to go on.

Heath answered with his usual hostility.  “You better have f**king found her this time, or so help me God,” he snarled.

I cleared my throat.  He really was a scary motherf*cker.  “No, just checking in to see if you have.”

“Fuck off,” he snapped and hung up.

I sighed and set my phone on my desk.  I’d try again, regardless of what he said, in a few hours.  That number was the only tie I had to her, sad as that was.

It wasn’t ten minutes later when I got a call from Turner.

“Hey,” I answered.

“Um, hey man.  Listen, uh . . . wanna come over and hang out?”

He sounded weird, though I couldn’t put my finger on why.

“Maybe tomorrow,” I told him, feeling in no mood for company.  I was still in the punchy, antisocial stage of my post-Iris-high.

I heard him sigh into the phone, pause for a long time, then, “You should come over today.  Trust me on this.”

That was too random and strange not to investigate, but no matter what I asked him, he wouldn’t clarify.

About an hour later, I found myself driving to his house, still clueless about what was going on.

He met me at the door, acting as weird as he’d sounded, and glancing over my head, behind me, looking paranoid in the extreme.

That paranoia reminded me of something familiar.  Or rather, someone.

“What the hell is going on?” I asked him, amused.

“Come on in,” he said, projecting his voice, sounding unnatural.

I stepped in, and he shut it behind me, giving me a very inscrutable look.

“This way,” he said quietly, leading me upstairs, instead of to the usual hangout.

I was about to question him again when he stopped at a closed door, the second one at the top of the steps.

He opened it, and I looked inside.  It was dark, shudders shut tight.

A body came hurdling out of that darkness, launching itself into my chest.

A luscious little body, topped by bright pink hair.

Without thought, my arms caught Iris tight against me.

I took her in with a few deep breaths like that before I started in on her.

“You lied to me,” I accused.  “You said you were done with lying, but you did it again.  No more than five minutes you swore, three days ago.”

She took a deep, shuddering breath before answering.  “I know.  I had to make a quick decision.  If it’s any consolation, I did it so I could be with you.  If I hadn’t run, it likely would have been months before I got to see you again, instead of days.”

I could never stay mad at her for long, even when I needed that anger just for the sake of clarity.

I was too addicted to the peace of her to keep fighting for long.

I kissed the top of her head, then pulled back slightly to look at her hair, fingering a few bright strands.

“Your hair is still pink.  You used permanent dye?”

“Yeah, but it still probably won’t last more than a few weeks.  Don’t worry.  I’ve been dying my hair since I was a kid, and I know how to get my color back to normal.”

I was relieved.  The pink was sort of hot, but I loved her blonde hair best by far.

“I have a plan, a way for us to get a few weeks together,” she told me, tilting her head to look up at me.

The word plan coming out of her mouth had a notable effect on my cock, as again, her plans always seemed to end the same way.

That effect had me remembering that we weren’t alone.

I glanced at Turner, who gave me a toothy grin.  He was enjoying the hell out of the show we were giving him.

“Mind if we borrow this room for a bit?” I asked him, shuffling Iris inside.  “We need to talk.”

He laughed.  “Go for it.  You and your Chloroform Queen may talk as many times as you like in there.  Talk yourselves silly.”

I ignored that, shutting the door in his face.

Iris started explaining her plan the instant I turned my attention back to her.

“I’m house-sitting for these really nice women that I met at Turner’s pool party.  We’ve kept in touch, and it worked out just perfect, because they just left on a month long vacation to celebrate their anniversary.”

“What women?”

“Frankie and Estella.  Remember them?  Frankie is the tattoo artist with her own reality show that I’m going to make you watch sometime.”

“Oh, the hot lesbians.”

“Yes, them.  Anyway, it’s the perfect situation, all things considered.  We’ll have a bit of privacy for a few days, weeks, if we do it right, where no one can find us, because they won’t know where to look.”