Reaper's Property(52)

“Good timing,” I said. “Food’s ready. You hungry?”
“Yep,” he said, but he didn’t sit at the table. He came over and wrapped a hand around my neck, pulling me in for a long, slow kiss that tasted like coffee and sex. Every time he touched me I melted. It wasn’t fair. I wrapped my arms around him and Horse reached down, lifting my butt and setting me on the counter. I opened my legs and he nestled up between them.
Unfortunately, he stopped kissing me, pulling away to cradle my face between his hands, examining my face.
“You okay?” he asked.
I nodded. He closed his eyes and then shook his head before opening them again.
“This sucks. Last night was crazy and I scared you, and now I have to tell you something bad,” he said. I stopped breathing. What more could be wrong? I was overloaded already.
“Your brother’s stupider than we thought. He’s got other shit in play, shit we didn’t know about until this morning. You call him, it’s really not gonna help. If he’s smart he’s already ditched his phone and gone off the grid, but I don’t have a lot of faith in his intellect at the moment.”
I opened my mouth to protest, to say something. Horse pressed his finger against my lips, silencing me.
“Not done yet, babe. Believe me when I say talking to him isn’t a good idea for either of you. These guys he’s pissed off, they aren’t gonna give him a second chance if they catch him, and he’s sure as f*ck used up his second chance with us. Whole damn cartel’s after him. You want to keep him safe, you don’t reach out to him.”
“Bad shit?” I whispered. He nodded, face sober. “Like, a drug cartel?”
“Very bad shit with an exceptionally nasty drug cartel. Shit that’s gonna get him dead very soon. Shit worse than anything he’s got with us, which comes as a huge f*ckin’ surprise to me, considering how f*cked he was already. These guys…” He shook his head slowly, swallowing hard before continuing. “These guys are not the good guys. You aren’t safe if you’re anywhere near him, and you aren’t safe if they think they can use you to find him. You use that phone to call him, they track it… Let’s just say they won’t be offering him a chance to make things right.”
“If I can’t call Jeff, why did you give it to me?”
“Because believe it or not, keeping you hostage and completely out of communication with the rest of the world isn’t exactly a long-term plan,” he replied, smoothing my hair behind my ears. “Might work for a while, but sooner or later it’ll blow up in my face. I know it’s hard to believe because I’m such a giant *, but I don’t want you to be unhappy. So it’s up to you to protect him by not drawing him out. It’s up to me to protect you, which includes educating you on just how bad things are for him. And I gotta tell you, he pulls shit that comes down on you, time’s up. He’ll be in the ground up there in those mountains and nobody will ever find his body. You got me?”
“Do I get a vote in how we handle this?”
“Nope.”
“You just expect me to do what you say?”
“Yep.”
I wanted to argue with him some more, but I couldn’t think of a damn thing to say. I didn’t like him being in charge, but that was the nature of our arrangement. And I didn’t know whether to believe him about Jeff or not. If he was lying, I didn’t get to talk to my brother and that sucked.
But if he told the truth and I called, Jeff might die.
“I won’t contact Jeff,” I said. “But at some point I really want to go see my mom. It’s important.”
“You write your mom that letter, I’ll see that she gets it. Just don’t write anything about your brother. You with me?”
”Yeah.” He looked down at my mouth like he wanted to kiss me, but I turned my head away.
“Breakfast is ready,” I said, pushing at him. He stepped back and I hopped down, grabbing plates. We sat and ate together and I didn’t say anything. I was too busy rolling the situation over in my head and trying to make sense of it. Things had looked simple when Picnic held a gun to Jeff’s head.
Go with Horse, save Jeff.
Now Jeff was in even bigger trouble—assuming Horse wasn’t lying to me. I was his collateral, except sometimes he treated me like a hostage and sometimes he gave me fantastic orgasms. We had our own separate rooms but we’d slept downstairs together. Oh, and he almost killed a guy who almost shot me after definitely having public sex with me at a party. Sex I enjoyed.
Nope, nothing weird going on here at all.
“How would you feel about me going to town for a while, by myself, today?” I asked, tracing the grain in the wooden block with my finger. Might as well test this arrangement a little, see if I actually had the choices he said I did. If I could really leave.
“I guess that depends on what your plans are,” he replied slowly. “I have to go by the armory today. You can ride in with me if you’d like.”
“I’d rather go on my own,” I said, stealing a quick glance at him. He sat back, relaxed, thoughtful. The silence stretched between us and I couldn’t take it any longer. Too much quiet, too much weirdness. “I want to start looking for a job as soon as possible.”
“What do you need a job for?”
“To earn money?” I said. He stared at me. “You know, green stuff to exchange for goods and services?”
“All this shit going down around you and the thing you’re gonna focus on is finding a job?” he asked, raising his brows.