Mystery Man

Chapter Twenty-One Queen of Crash and Burn

“Ohmigod! This place is so cool!” This was Tracy, who was sashaying into the warehouse looking around like she just hit the candy garden with chocolate stream at Willy Wonka’s. Her eyes caught site of Elvira who was in the kitchen. “Hey girl! What’s up?”

“Job satisfaction, beanpole, what’s up with you,” Elvira replied on a huge smile thus taking the sting out of her nickname for Tracy (I hoped).

If Cam was yin to Tracy’s yang, Elvira was yang to all of our yins. She had to be no more than five foot four. She was round. Her skin was smooth, perfect mocha. Her hair was cropped at the back and sides but there was a thick, heavy bang at the front with blonde streaks in it. And she was so far from wearing commando gear it wasn’t funny. If Hawk’s dress code allowed Elvira’s outfit, I wanted a job there. Short, mustard yellow sweater dress, off the shoulder neckline and thigh-high, spike-heeled, fire engine red suede boots.

Elvira was in the kitchen creating what she declared were “boards” except she was creating them on Hawk’s big, square, midnight blue plates. She was doing this because she came into the warehouse laden with bags from Crate and Barrel and Fresh and Wild, places, she informed me, she took off work early so she could pay a visit. These bags contained brand new martini glasses (a set of four, long stemmed, ultra sleek), a martini shaker, a mammoth wedge of brie, a French baton, grapes, apples, assorted olives, gherkins, red onion marmalade, assorted crackers, assorted chocolates and an enormous chunk of pâté.

Oh, and she brought the ingredients for cosmopolitans.

She had me at the martini glasses. The rest of it made me declare my undying love for her and I told her she’d officially been accepted into my girl posse.

No joke.

When I did this, Elvira just laughed and I figured she just laughed because she already thought she was in my girl posse or intended to be.

“Good God, this is where he lives?” Cam asked, wandering in behind Tracy, also looking around with surprise and a small but unguarded hint of wonder.

“He likes space,” I answered.

“He’d have to,” Cam replied.

“Who’re you?” Elvira demanded to know, eyeing up Cam and Cam looked at her.

“Gwen’s best friend,” Cam answered.

Tracy had made it to the bar and she leaned both forearms into it, saying to Elvira, “We share that title.”

Elvira looked over her shoulder at me where I was positioning myself at the back counter.

“If that’s true, girl, you better make up your mind ‘cause you can’t have two maids of honor. I got a friend, she tried that shit, did her head in. Those two competed for everything. Sure, first it seems all good, two bridal showers, two bachelorette parties, two women bent on givin’ you your every whim. But that shit turns nasty. They all ended up fightin’ and by the big day, no one was talkin’ to anyone else. It was a disaster. I had to step in and the dress didn’t fit. They had to lace the fucker together with a shoestring at the back. You can’t walk down an aisle and hide a shoestring. So I scooted in from the side. Looked funny. I don’t like lookin’ funny. Now I don’t talk to her either but it ain’t because of the shoestring. It’s because she works my last nerve. She always did but I guess I’m just too nice, that is, until I don’t feel like bein’ nice no more.”

I was stuck back on “you can’t have two maids of honor” and therefore fighting back hyperventilation at the same time flashing pictures filled my head of a commando-style wedding; Hawk in black cargos, me in a white flak jacket festooned with lace. The picture of me carrying a bouquet of flowers and Hawk carrying an automatic weapon. The picture of me admiring Hawk’s huge-ass hunting knife. The picture of Hawk carrying me out of the reception in a fireman’s hold while bullets flew and flames caused by Molotov cocktails danced on the dance floor.

Tracy was stuck on it too, her flashing pictures way, way different than mine, and therefore she clapped and shrieked, “There it is! Elvira’s the insider and she says this is going somewhere!”

“Oh God, I don’t even have my ass on a stool and I already seriously need a cosmo,” Cam muttered.

“Well get yo’ ass back here and man the shaker, girl,” Elvira said to Cam and then looked at Tracy. “As for goin’ somewhere, I don’t know if Hawk’s the marryin’ kind and, you asked me a week ago, I would have said, ‘hell no’ but a week ago he also wasn’t the shoe-buyin’ kind so right now, my guess is, anything goes.”

“Cam, hurry, cosmo,” I whispered.

“I gotcha covered, babe,” Cam muttered.

“Well, I see good things but I always saw good things,” Tracy declared, hitching her ass up on a stool and leaning forward to grab an olive off Elvira’s board.

The breadknife Elvira was using clattered to the counter and Tracy bought her hand a quick, sharp slap.

“I’m not done,” Elvira declared when Tracy snatched her hand back and held it with her other one, staring at Elvira in shock. “It’s about presentation. Don’t mess with my presentation.”

“Okay,” Tracy whispered, her eyes sliding to me, I pressed my lips together and Elvira went back to work and, scarily, she also went back to talking.

“Boys at the base, not big on gossip, it’s frowned on, doin’ anything too girlie or sissy, and I say frowned on in the sense that, you do that shit, you court bein’ water boarded.”

Holy crap!

Elvira went on. “They might share whose ass they’ve tagged but that’s pretty much it. Worst part of the job. Who ever heard of a job where there’s no gossip? But I can tell you this,” she turned to me and jabbed the breadknife in my direction, “you been an object of fascination for a good long while.”

Oh shit.

Elvira went back to her bread. “No talk. No whispers. Hawk would freakin’ go psycho badass on their ass and Hawk’s badass enough, goin’ psycho, no one wants to go there. But that don’t mean looks weren’t exchanged and a look sometimes says it all.”

In order to steady my breathing, I looked to Cam who was the steadiest person I knew. Cam was coming back to the counter with a shaker full of ice and she was biting her lip.

Oh shit.

“Cam?” I called.

She stopped biting her lip but kept her eyes to the martini shaker when she replied, “Yeah, babe?”

“Do you have something to say?” I asked.

“Sho’ she does,” Elvira put in. “I heard the reports. I know the names of your girls. Camille. She works dispatch. Dispatch is at the Station. Cops, they don’t mind gossipin’ so she knows the shit went down today.”

I was leaning against the back counter but at this, I moved to the horseshoe, positioning myself beside Elvira to get a closer look at Cam.

“What shit went down today?” I asked.

“You didn’t tell me about any shit in the car,” Tracy put in, her eyes on Cam.

Camille poured vodka but Camille did not speak.

“Cam,” I prompted.

Cam put down the bottle of vodka and looked at me.

Then she declared, “I don’t want to like him.”

I felt a flutter in my belly.

Elvira reared back, her eyebrows shooting up. “Why not?”

“He’s…” she trailed off and reached for the cranberry juice.

“Cam,” I repeated.

She put down the cranberry juice and looked at me. “Okay, well, Leo called, told me what happened. He told me what happened right after it happened because he was there. In fact, he couldn’t wait to call.”

“What happened?” Tracy asked.

“Hawk Delgado went psycho badass, that’s what happened,” Elvira answered.

“He what?” I whispered.

Cam nodded. “On Jerry Travers.”

“Who’s Jerry Travers?” Tracy asked.

Cam looked at her. “As far as Cabe Delgado could trace it, he’s the guy who started the shit about Gwen being filler.”

Oh boy, I said in my head but in my belly there was another flutter.

“Oh boy,” Tracy whispered out loud.

“Oh boy is right,” Elvira confirmed.

“What happened?” I asked Camille.

“Well, Leo says Delgado isn’t stupid enough to walk into a police station and assault a police officer. That doesn’t mean he couldn’t make his displeasure clear and he did, crystal, and he did this public.”

“I love this,” Tracy breathed. “How did it go down?”

“Leo says he got in his space, got in his face and tore him a new one right in front of everyone,” Cam answered and my belly graduated from flutter and started getting squishy. “And that new one he tore him is wide and gaping. Everyone’s talking about it.”

“Really?” Tracy whispered.

Cam nodded then looked at me and her expression was embattled. She didn’t know what to make of this. “Leo was overjoyed. He even used that word, overjoyed. That man has never used the word overjoyed. Firstly, he’s not a big fan of Jerry Travers because Jerry Travers talks trash about you and because he’s an ass. I know Jerry. This is true. He is an ass and he didn’t say that shit to me because he knows we’re tight. I just know he’s an ass. Secondly, Leo thinks you’re the shit, you know that, girl, and Delgado walkin’ in there to lay down the law about trash-talkin’ you, well, he thought that was a little bit of all right.”

I thought it was a little bit of all right too.

I looked down at the boards.

“Hurry, Elvira, if you don’t, I’m breaking out the cookie dough,” I told her.

“Cookie dough is for heartbreak and sister trouble, why would you break out the cookie dough?” Tracy asked.

“Cookie dough has many functions. It isn’t just for heartbreak and sister trouble. It’s also for when you’re freaking out about your love life,” I replied.

“I’ll tell you this,” Elvira announced, fanning out little slices of French baton on the plate next to fanned out little slices of apple all surrounding a gleaming, clean bunch of succulent grapes in the middle, “Hawk put me on radar, watched my every move for a year and a half and activated the troops when I caught trouble, there’d be no cookie dough in sight. I’d be on my knees next to the bed prayin’ to the good Lord, thankin’ him ‘cause he heard my words. Then I’d put on my little teddy, the purple one, looks good against my skin, and I’d get in bed and count down the minutes until he got home.”

“I wear nightshirts to bed,” I informed her. “Though, I do have a sexy caftan.”

Elvira twisted her neck to look at me. “Saw that caftan, hon, in your laundry. It was pretty nice. But Hawk strikes me as a satin and lace man.”

Hmm. It appeared Elvira was thorough when she went through my stuff to pack my bags.

“Is he a satin and lace man?” Tracy asked.

“No, he’s a take it as it comes man,” I answered. Or, more accurately, take it off because it’s in the way man.

Elvira grinned huge. “Mm hmm.”

I looked at Cam. “Camille. Cosmo.”

Cam lifted the stainless steel pitcher and started shaking.

“All right, I’m just gonna say things might have started out a bit slow,” Trace began with a screaming understatement, “but sometimes it takes men a little while, you know, to understand they want commitment.”

“Tell me about it,” Camille muttered, yanked off the top of the martini shaker and started pouring.

I bit the side of my lip and slid my eyes to Tracy.

Then I said, “Leo’s committed to you.”

“Unh-hunh,” Cam kept pouring.

“He totally loves you,” Tracy put in.

“Mm,” Cam mumbled, putting down the shaker and starting to hand glasses around.

“You got a man with commitment troubles, girl?” Elvira asked, plopping the wedge of pâté in the middle of some fanned out crackers.

“Five years together, four in the same house,” Camille answered.

“Oh boy,” Elvira muttered, using the breadknife to attack the wrap on the brie.

“I see good things, I see them soon, I feel it in my bones,” I quickly announced, taking my cosmo. “He’s close, Cam, I know it.”

“I know it too!” Trace added but Elvira was looking at me.

Then she looked at Cam. “I read people,” she stated, lifting the breadknife to her face and circling the blade an inch away from her skin as I held my breath. “Faces. They tell no lies. Like that TV show. I got the gift. And your girl here, she tells no lies. I ain’t one to blow sunshine, seein’ as I’ve known my share of commitment-phobes, so many I could write the Denver Directory of Commitment-Phobes, but she sees good things, she feels it in her bones, she’s your girl, she’s tellin’ no lies which means,” she stuck the breadknife in Cam’s face, “you give this boy some time.”

After Elvira laid down the law and Cam was staring at the knifepoint two inches from her face, I reached out, wrapped my hand around Elvira’s wrist and pulled her hand and the knife down. When I did, her eyes swung to me.

“Hawk has a rule about proper usage of knives in his house,” I muttered.

“I bet he does,” Elvira replied. “He got a rule about the proper usage of ninja stars?”

“Probably,” I muttered because this was actually probably true.

“Can I have a cosmo?” Trace asked and Cam finished handing them out.

“Boards’re done,” Elvira announced, plonking the brie next to the grapes. “Let’s retire to the sittin’ room.”

The girls grabbed the big plates of food and I went to the shelves to get little plates and we all moseyed over to the seating area. Cam and Tracy took recliners. Elvira and I sat at opposite ends of the couch. The food sat on the coffee table in front of us and we all stared at it partially because no one wanted to touch anything without Elvira’s consent and partially because she was right, it was about presentation and she definitely had flair. The food looked great. Good enough to be photographed for a magazine.

“Well?” Elvira asked. “What you all waitin’ for? Dig in.”

We all fell on the food like vultures.

I was shoving a slice of French baton smothered in red onion marmalade, pâté and topped with gherkin slices into my mouth when Elvira observed, “I shoulda bought some of those little spreaders. With the fancy handles. Crate and Barrel had some good ones. You got brie and pâté and kickass stoneware, you need fancy-handled spreaders.”

Hawk’s cement, iron and brick warehouse lair could handle slim-stemmed, sleek martini glasses but I figured it would expel fancy-handled spreaders.

I didn’t tell Elvira this.

Instead, I asked the room (which meant Tracy and Camille since Elvira didn’t really know me), “Do you think I live in my head?”

Tracy and Cam instantly looked across the coffee table at each other.

“That means yes,” Elvira translated through a mouth full of brie and apple wedge.

I looked at Trace then I looked at Cam. “You do?”

“Girl –” Cam started.

“It’s okay,” Tracy said quickly. “We all do what we need to do to protect ourselves and you need to live in your dream world.”

“I don’t live in a dream world,” I said but this wasn’t true. A lot of the time I did. It just wasn’t all of the time. “I live my life. I go out. I have fun. I put myself out there.”

“Leo calls you Queen Crash and Burn,” Cam announced and my eyes went to her.

“What?”

“Queen Crash and Burn. You get all dressed up, go out, smile, chat, flirt… then it’s all, ‘Hey! Great talking to you! Later!’ No number. No nothin’. They think you’re into them and they’re gonna get them some and off you trot and you don’t look back. Queen Crash and Burn.”

Uh… wow.

“I do that?” I asked but I knew I did. I didn’t know I did until just then, having it pointed out to me, but when it was, I knew I did it.

“Totally,” Tracy confirmed on a whisper.

“Did Delgado say you lived in your head?” Cam asked and I nodded. “Why?”

“We were having a… discussion. I told him I needed to think about what he’d said and then he said I didn’t need to think, I live in my head, I shut things out. He says I haven’t given him me. He says I have a hand held up, fending him off,” I answered.

Tracy and Camille’s eyes went back to each other.

“See you do that too,” Elvira noted.

“I’m open and friendly!” I declared.

Cam sighed, sat back and took a sip of cosmo.

Preparing me.

Oh shit.

Then she stated, “Babe, I know you’ve had a lot goin’ on the last week but have you had a chance to think about what’s gone down with you and Delgado?”

“Yes,” I replied instantly. “I think about it all the time.”

“And what you come up with, hon?” Elvira asked.

“I don’t know, I have to think about it more,” I answered, Elvira rolled her big eyes and she did this at Tracy. Tracy giggled.

Crap! I was living in my head again.

“Okay,” I asked Cam, knowing I was living dangerously, “tell me what you think about it.”

“I will,” Cam replied.

Great.

Welp! I’d asked for it and in pure Cam style, she was going to give it to me.

“Has it occurred to you that, after all that time doin’ nothin’ but the nasty, you spoke to this guy once, once, and he was all up in your business?” Cam asked.

No. No, that hadn’t occurred to me.

“No,” I whispered.

“So, say you opened your mouth for more than just to do a little somethin’-somethin’ when he visited you at night, where do you think you’d be right about now?” Cam continued.

Oh my God.

I didn’t reply but Camille answered for me. “I’d say right where you are, babe.”

Oh. My. God.

“I –” I started.

“You’ve had that hand held up for a year and a half, Gwennie,” Trace said quietly.

“Mm hmm,” Elvira mumbled into her cosmo.

God! I hated it when Hawk was right!

“Do you… do you…,” I stammered, “think I should take down that hand?”

“Yes,” Tracy said instantly.

“Absolutely,” Elvira added her vote.

“Jury’s still out on that one,” Cam replied, got up and declared the discussion was over, it was time for me to sort myself out and she did this by announcing, “I’m making more cosmos.” Then she glided into the kitchen on her four inch heels.

I leaned forward and grabbed a bunch of grapes and a bigger bunch of assorted chocolates. I needed to think about all this.

Or maybe, I didn’t.

Shit.

Cam made cosmos, we drank, we ate and I really wanted to bring up some of the other stuff that Hawk said, mostly because Elvira was there, she said she’d worked for him for seven years and she might provide insight. However, Elvira also needed to keep herself in killer sweater dresses and fire engine red suede boots so I didn’t want to get her into trouble, or alternately water boarded should she gossip about her boss. Therefore I kept my questions to myself.

I also did this because, bottom line, I should ask Hawk.

I heard the earsplitting creak of the garage door going up and the room went wired. This was coming from Tracy because she was excited for me that Hawk was home. This was also coming from Elvira because she was excited to see me interact with Hawk. This was further coming from Cam because she wanted to dissect him with her awesome mental powers and decide how she would cast judgment. And last, this was coming from me because I was like Tracy; I was excited Hawk was home.

Another creak came meaning the garage door was going down then the inner door opened and in he prowled under four sets of female eyes. I was looking over my shoulder at him and noting he was not self-conscious with four sets of female eyes watching him. He was Hawk, confident, assured, graceful, powerful, all of it exactly the reason he first caught my eye.

Oh boy.

He walked right to the back of the couch behind me and I tipped my head back to watch him do it.

“Hey,” I said quietly.

He bent at the same time his hand swept my hair off my shoulder, across my neck to my other shoulder, his head dipped in and I felt his lips at the skin behind my ear.

Lips still there he whispered, “Hey babe.”

“Mm hmm,” I heard Elvira mumble and I processed this but only minutely mainly because I was processing my belly flutter coupled with a quiver in a private place.

He straightened, his hand curled around my neck and he took in the girl posse with his black eyes.

“Ladies,” he muttered.

“Hey,” Tracy breathed.

“Yo, Hawk,” Elvira greeted.

Camille just looked at him.

He let go of my neck, rounded the couch and I scrambled to scoot away as he sat between me and the armrest. One of his arms moved to wrap around my shoulders, pulling me to him as his other hand came out and nabbed my cosmo. I turned my head and watched him sip from the martini glass. As I did my mind warred, one faction making my belly feel squishy that he was drinking from my glass, the other faction wanting to reclaim my cosmo before he drank any more.

It was no surprise which one won out.

“Do you want your own?” I asked pointedly.

“Yours’ll do,” he ignored my point, handed the glass back to me and then leaned forward to grab some leftover apple slices. Then he leaned back, casually tossing one in his mouth.

I turned to the girl posse and explained, “Hawk’s body is his temple. In about a minute, he’ll go into anaphylactic shock when the vodka processes through his system. No need for alarm, I have the adrenalin injection handy.”

Tracy giggled again. Elvira laughed right out. Hawk did his manly, deep, amused chuckle and even Cam grinned.

“Mo says you left at three thirty,” Hawk remarked when the laughter died and I looked at him to see his eyes were on Elvira.

I looked at Elvira and she was nodding. “Sho’ did.”

I bit my lip and looked at Tracy.

“Is this gonna be a creatively concealed line item?” Hawk asked as he leaned forward and grabbed some stranded grapes, his head tipping to the decimated food boards.

“I’ve set up Gwen as her own cost center,” Elvira replied, unruffled.

My eyes got big.

“Probably a good idea,” Hawk muttered, leaning back.

I gulped but Tracy put her drink aside so she could sit on her hands in order not to clap them in glee.

I looked at Hawk. “Would you like a proper meal?”

“Will you display symptoms of post-traumatic stress after you’re forced to steam vegetables and spoon out cottage cheese?” he asked back.

I felt my eyebrows go up. “Is that what you want for dinner?”

“Yeah,” he answered.

“Then yeah, probably. Will my cost center include visits to the psychologist?”

He grinned just as his arm curved fast and tight, pulling me into him. My cosmo arm shot out to avoid collision as my chest hit his chest, his hand slid up into my hair to cup my head, he tilted it and my mouth hit his.

The kiss was short but any kiss from Hawk was sweet.

Though some were sweeter.

When he let me back an inch, he said, “Babe,” through a smile.

“I thought you told me you were going to kiss me if I made you laugh.”

“I did.”

“I didn’t make you laugh,” I pointed out.

“No, but I’m gonna kiss you when you make me wanna laugh too.”

“So, I don’t even get any verbal warning?”

His hand slid down to my neck. “Those are the breaks, Sweet Pea.”

“Sweet Pea,” Tracy breathed and suddenly I remembered I had an audience.

I pulled away and sat back, scanning the posse. Tracy was smiling flat out, in twilight, la-la land of happiness, firm in the knowledge she’d always been right. Elvira was grinning into her martini glass but still likely lamenting the fact that the commandos wouldn’t be receptive to the hot gossip she had to share. Cam was swirling the dregs of her cosmo in the bottom of her glass, eyes openly assessing on Hawk, not wanting to let go of a year and a half of thinking Hawk was a motherfucking asshole but, I could tell, she was getting swayed.

“I need to steam vegetables,” I declared. “Does anyone want steamed vegetables?”

“Not for me,” Tracy answered.

“I gotta be gettin’ home,” Elvira said, sucking back the last of her cosmo.

“Me too, early shift,” Cam put in.

Hawk reached out and confiscated my glass again when Tracy added, “If Cam’s going, I’m going. She’s my ride.”

Hawk took a sip then aimed his eyes at Tracy. “You wanna hang with Gwen, I’ll take you home.”

“You will?” Tracy asked, eyes big, an offer of a ride home further endorsement that she was right never to give up hope.

“Sure,” Hawk answered.

Her eyes darted back and forth between Hawk and me before she said, “I’d like to stay.”

“Then stay,” Hawk returned, handed me my drink and leaned forward again to nab the last of the apple slices.

The girl posse mobilized. Tracy and I said good-bye to Cam and Elvira at the door, me assuring them I had clean up covered. When they called their adieus, Hawk’s farewell was a jerk of the chin from his position standing in the opened fridge. After they left, Tracy and I went to the kitchen, Hawk went to his desk, flipped up his laptop and I saw the screen illuminate his face before he turned on the desk lamp. Tracy tidied while I steamed veggies and spooned out cottage cheese. Hawk approached when I was dumping veggies on the plate and Tracy was shaking another batch of cosmos. We retired to the seating area, Tracy back to her recliner, Hawk in his corner, me pressed to his side while he ate.

With Tracy, Hawk wasn’t like he was with me during our date. He conversed. He was at ease, sometimes funny, not exactly open but not deliberately closed and, if it could believed, often charming.

Hmm.

By the time Hawk excused himself to put his plate in the dishwasher and go back to his laptop, Tracy was practically shimmering with joy and this only had a little to do with the fact she’d drunk three cosmos.

She and I chatted and giggled (mostly giggled) and finally Hawk took her home. When they were gone, I finished up tidying, got ready for bed, climbed in and was about to nod off when I heard the garage door open. It wasn’t long after when the lights went out one by one through Hawk’s lair, I heard him moving around the bed platform, I felt his warm hand on the small of my back then his weight hit the bed.

I rolled into him before he could curl into my back.

His arm wrapped around me. “So, what’s the verdict?” he asked into the dark, totally knowing why the girls were there that night.

“Apparently, I’m Queen Crash and Burn,” I answered.

“Come again?”

“Leo calls me Queen Crash and Burn. I flirt then I leave them hanging.”

“Babe,” was his reply.

“It didn’t occur to me but I guess I do this.”

“My boys call you Mistress Blueballs.”

My body got tight and his hand slid into my nightshirt, pushing it up.

“They do?” I asked.

“Yep,” he answered, the nightshirt still going up.

“Elvira said they don’t gossip.”

The nightshirt went way up, my arms were forced to go up with it then it was gone.

Totally a take it off because it gets in the way man.

His hand slid down my back and right into my panties to cup my ass.

Mm. Nice.

“They don’t talk around Elvira,” he went on. “They learned. She’s pathologically friendly, in your business and adopts every woman who drifts in and out of their lives. Hard to scrape someone off when you’re workin’ with their new best friend.”

Hmm. This said a lot, since she’d done this with me and Hawk apparently didn’t give a shit.

I decided maybe for now I should let that one go.

“Mistress Blueballs?” I prompted.

“You know I’ve watched you. They saw it happen. You give all the right signals, the promise of you so hot they’d sell an organ to get in there then you close down.”

Hmm.

His hand at my ass pulled me deeper into his body as his knee forced its way between my legs so I had no choice but to hitch my leg around his hip and his head came up before his face disappeared in my neck.

“What else was decided tonight?” he whispered against my skin, I shivered and my arms slid around him, the one at the bottom forcing its way under his weight so I could get to the sleek skin and muscled contours of his back.

“They gave me food for thought,” I replied also in a whisper and felt his smile against my neck.

“Right,” he returned quietly then I felt his tongue.

Mm.

My hands started moving on his back as I pressed my hips into his and his thigh moved higher.

Mm.

“Troy says you’re gonna walk all over me,” I announced for reasons unknown even to me and I said it. “In combat boots,” I finished.

His head went back to the pillows. “You talked with Troy?”

I nodded against the pillows, wishing I hadn’t said anything because saying something lost me his mouth. “After Ginger.”

“Babe, he doesn’t know me enough to say shit like that.”

“He said the same thing. You didn’t know him enough to say what you said to him.”

“I see he didn’t take that opportunity to man up,” Hawk muttered.

“It was harsh, Hawk,” I whispered.

“It was real, Gwen,” he returned. “I pissed around with you for a year and a half without makin’ any real moves and any time in that time you could have moved on. How long’s he been doin’ it and what’s the chance that, he doesn’t wake the fuck up, he’ll do it again with another woman?”

Well, he had a point there.

“He told me he’s in love with me,” I shared again on a whisper.

Hawk’s body went still then his hand slid from my ass, up my ribs to cup my breast.

Then he did a nipple swipe.

Yowza.

“Then he’ll appreciate it when you tell him, no matter what happens, I promised you I’d handle you with care,” he whispered back

Um… yowza!

“Hawk,” I breathed but he lifted my breast, bent his head and pulled my nipple into his mouth.

Yowzayowzayowza!

I moaned.

His mouth released my breast, it came to mine as his thumb circled my hard nipple and he ordered, “Touch yourself, baby, while I work your tits.”

“’Kay,” I agreed on a breath and did as ordered.

The instant my finger touched the golden spot, his head slanted, his mouth took mine in a kiss, his finger met his thumb for a nipple roll and that’s when I forgot about Troy, cosmos with the girl posse and living in my head. I dropped my imaginary hand, stopped fending Hawk off and lived in the now.