Hunting season

Chapter Seven

Neecy picked up her crumpled jeans from off the floor and dug her cell phone out of the back pocket. She flipped it open. “Yeah.” She cringed at the croak she wanted to pass off as a voice.

“Am I interrupting anything?”

“What is it, Didi?”

“Get your ass back to the House. But feel free to stop at your place and shower first. It’s not that big a rush.” Didi hung up.

Flipping the phone closed, Neecy slid it back into her jeans. She shook her head, trying to clear her brain. She couldn’t remember the last time she was this exhausted. Her entire body sore and sticky.

A big hand gripped her jeans and pulled them away, dropping them back to the floor.

“Yager, I gotta go.”

“I’ve got an hour left.” He kissed her neck, his lips sliding down to her breasts.

“Didi wants me back at the House and I need to go home and get some clothes, catch a shower…ah!” He sucked her nipple hard into his mouth and Neecy couldn’t help but squirm in response. How did the man keep doing this to her?

Damn him! She needed to get out of here or she may never leave.

“Shower here. I’ll give you one of my sweaters.”

“Sweaters? What happened to my…”

“It got dirty on the butcher’s block.”

“Yeah, but…”

“No buts. My time. Didi can fuckin’ wait unless she said it was an emergency.”

True, she could lie to him. But Neecy didn’t lie. Didi didn’t tell her it was an emergency. Otherwise, she would have ordered her back to the house immediately.

“I’ll take your silence to mean it’s not an emergency.” Yager pulled himself up until he hovered over her, his arms braced on either side of her shoulders. “I still have an hour. Which means this sweet body still belongs to me.”

Her body may belong to him at this moment, but once she walked out of his apartment that would be it. She’d allowed herself this indulgence, but never again. At least not with Yager. It would be way too easy to lose herself to this man. Way too easy.

But, hell, what was one time? And it was just one time. She and Yager had an agreement.

Neecy looked up into his gorgeous face and smiled. “Tick-‐tock, Raven.”

Yager pushed her up against the wall, his mouth fastened to hers. Her hand reached out, fumbling for the door handle. He grabbed it and her other hand and pinned them both above her head.

She pulled her mouth away from his. “I’ve gotta go,” she gasped.

Leaning his body into hers, “Stay.”

“I can’t…no, no, no! Not the neck! Not the neck!” He gripped the flesh of her throat between his teeth. Once he found out how much nipping her neck turned her on, he did it all night long. Of course, he didn’t bother telling her he’d riddled her poor neck with hickies and he kept her away from mirrors as he got her showered and put her in his turtleneck sweater.

“Off! Off! Off!” She pulled her wrists out of his grasp and pushed against his chest. “We agreed to twenty-‐four hours. We are now past that.” Way past…he’d kept her busy for another two hours after Didi called.

“When will I see you again?”

“You won’t…unless we’re at one of those hideous Valkyrie parties or I’m kicking your ass.” She pulled away from him and snatched his front door open, stumbling out into the hallway.

Neecy turned around and glared at him. “And remember our agreement, Yager.”

“Right. Twenty-‐four hours and you go. That was our agreement.”

“And we never discuss this again, we never meet again, and you stop looking at me that way you have…which you’re doing right now!”

“I didn’t agree to that.”

Neecy stared at him. “Yes you did.”

“No. I didn’t. We shook on the twenty-‐four hours. You mentioned these bullshit rules after we shook hands. All I did was shrug. I didn’t agree to anything. It’s not my fault you didn’t confirm the terms of our agreement.”

He wasn’t sure, but it looked like Neecy’s head just might blow off her body at any moment. Man, he’d pissed her off good, now didn’t he? A woman who didn’t get angry was suddenly seething. And dammit if she wasn’t cute even pissed.

“You lying sack of motherfuckin’ shit!” she bit out between clenched teeth. Of course, he could do without the name calling.

Yager glanced over his shoulder when his phone rang. “That must be Molinski. I gotta go.” He looked down into Neecy’s pretty face. “I’ll call you tonight, baby.”

“No! You will not call me tonight!”

Yager closed his front door. He couldn’t stop smiling. Because the woman had absolutely no idea what she’d gotten herself into.

Neecy stared at the closed door. That tricky, Odin-loving bastard! If he thought he could walk all over her, he was insane.

Neecy banged her fist against the door. “Open up, you lying prick!”

This wasn’t over.

Mike Molinski heard the yelling before the elevator doors opened. Although he would be eternally surprised to see who was behind it.

“Open this door, you lying sack of shit!”

Nice mouth on this one . Mike shook his head as he ambled down the hallway.

He’d known girls like the Crows in his old neighborhood. Girls he learned never to turn his back on.

Although Neecy Lawrence seemed much more dangerous than that. The quiet ones always were. While other neighborhood girls screamed and announced their plans, giving a person time to make a run for it, Neecy was all about the silent attack. Like one of those drug dealer–owned pit bulls with their vocal chords cut.

As he got closer, she finally kicked the door, turned, and stormed past him. He watched her walk by, fascinated by a grown woman muttering to herself like a psychiatric patient.

He wasn’t even sure she actually saw him, until she got right next to him. Then those black eyes nailed him with one look. “What the fuck you lookin’ at?”

Mike learned a long time ago never to answer that question.

Instead he went to Yager’s door and stuck the key in the lock. As he opened it, he saw Neecy Lawrence step in the elevator. As the doors slid closed, he could see her kicking the elevator walls.

Stepping into Yager’s apartment, “Hey, Yager. You here?”

“Bathroom.”

Mike walked into Yager’s master bathroom to find his mentor soaking in a steaming hot tub of water. “Feelin’ better?”

“Much.”

The man did look better. Calmer. Kind of happy. Yager never really looked happy. Polite. Friendly. When motivated, charming. But never happy. Until now.

And he definitely looked satisfied.

“I see you pissed Neecy Lawrence off.”

Yager, his head back against the rim of the enormous tub, shrugged those massive shoulders. “Probably.”

“That’s a major coup, pissing that cold female off.” Mike scratched his neck, walking back toward the door. “Of course, that’s what I was thinking before I noticed she was wearing the sweater I gave you two Christmases ago. You’ve been fucking her since yesterday, haven’t you?”

Not bothering to wait for an answer, he headed toward the kitchen and a glass of orange juice as Yager angrily questioned Mr. and Mrs. Molinski’s marriage status when Mike was born.