No fuckin' angel. That's exactly what she wasn't – pure white, clean feather light.
She was all sinewy sleek muscle and uneven anger and maybe the Devil's hand had been the tiptoe touching that had made her eyes that damning color. That tweaking mix of too many warms and cools washed up into a mingling mess unending. And he'd always thought it a little quaint when older men had tossed about the term 'spitfire' but, hell, she did so at times. Razed it over him like a certain seductive destruction.
About a breath before she soothed on each singe like cool, cool aloe.
All of Lyla's estimations of him had been too spot on for comfort. Too close.
And he'd been chewing on the accusations and intimations since, regardless of how sweetly humored they had been.
It had made him think too much on her.
As though he didn't let his brain wander the long length of her often enough.
He liked that she was neither extreme point on the good to bad spectrum. She couldn't balance too many moralistic judgments on his shoulders when she was too busy conniving and contriving plans to meet both their ends up whole. She had a brain in her head that could very well be just as chilled to calculating as Tig had implied. And sure, maybe that did sway him a little closer to the way she curled him up against her best and worst intentions. Neither of them were justice or judgment incarnate – except that in ways they both were in reference to the other. They just locked it up between them and caged it in intemperate frustration. Then pretended such judgment didn't exist.
Neither of them were perfectly saccharin sweet and neither of them were unchipped ice.
But if he searched the bent-worn corners of the bigger picture, she was the goodness to his seemingly inevitable wrongings.
"Ya'll good, boss?" the younger man was still seated to his bike, leaning forward in a way that said he was too relaxed and not enough aware.
"Aye." He wiped along his bottom lip slowly, letting himself chew against the way he thought maybe he could still try to taste her past coffee and cigarettes and too much talking.
He realized in a stilted surprise that tasting her was a memory he'd banked often enough that it was an uninhibited recall, something he could remember if he closed his eyes and let his jaw loosen.
"You look tired." Rat's face was paler and stark as they waited outside Diosa, the slack and long lean of his face hollowed into cheeks that seemed too old for his young age.
Chibs banked a glance down the leaning of the boy, because in their combined years of experience he was still greened new, "You payin' attention?"
"Of course."
"Of course," Chibs murmured a lolled agreement, "so y'know there's an Irishman at your back, then?"
"No need to embarrass the boy, Filip." Gaige's voice was a soft tripping that seemed more redeemably patient than usual as he stepped toward them on hushed dress shoes, the taunting curbed a bit. "He'll soon learn."
Rat's face dropped a shade paler into the ducking of his jaw, forcing himself up off the bike slowly so that he could turn into Telford's side. "Sorry."
"None of yesterday's shite." Chibs lifted up toward the Irishman, cocking a high brow glance between them. "Y'damn near lost profit with that stunt."
"My profit is secure, Filip," Gaige murmured into a wired smile. "so long as there are angry men in the world. You only brought the one?"
"The others are meetin' us with Tyler." Chibs murmured quietly. "Figured you'd want an escort that doesn't wear stilettos."
"Appreciate the thought." The other man lifted him a broad grin, "How attentive."
Chibs tipped an angling glance over the other man and waved a hand toward the emptied van, aiming Rat toward it with a nodding, "You're damn annoying sometimes, ya know that?"
"How was Althea this morning?" Gaige tipped him a smiling into the question, "Well?"
He rolled the other man a look slicked blackened with disdain, "Somewhat irritable."
"Y'make a pair, then." The blonde was already leading easy steps toward the van, "Like to see that woman really shine up. Bet it's devastating."
Rat intentionally lined his steps up between the two of them, stepping backwards with lifted hands to calm Telford's glaring, proving maybe he'd been paying attention after all.
She'd watched the interested and suddenly victoriously widened glance that the other woman had tipped over the paperwork, swallowing the smile and breathing evenly through the conversation that ensued. There was a line drawn up of enough information and too much of enough and she'd balanced it with a softness, accepting the questions with a willing of patience and nominal answers. And she'd left the Federal file on Gaige in the District Attorney's office, feeling at once like she'd won something and lost a little grace within the balance of that line and each step to her car.
She'd seen the darkness in the window from across the garage, shaking her head slowly in a sort of saddened acceptance that a day too long had the ability to last twice its actual potential. The Glock was pulled and palmed before she'd really considered drawing the weapon, her shoulders tightened into each step toward the SUV until she stalled a few steps from it. Something familiar, feminine, innocuous. A sleek black dress bag hanging in the empty space of the driver's seat.
She didn't need to move any closer to the note that was pinned to it to assume she already knew where it had come from.
And she only debated opening the formerly locked door until impatience and curiosity and a flickering of complete annoyance turned her hand onto the handle.
The jittered echo of too many uncontrollably blaring emotions – but the stillness of him, the stretch of his goddamn boots on her furniture – something in the sweet calmness of his length stalled them quieted. Because he looked like nothing but an attractively aged but tired man lanked along her couch with his palm over his face and his hips at a slant angle in the center of her couch cushions. She realized suddenly how long he really was in the way he was stretched as though he was someplace he belonged. So innocently open to the surroundings that maybe he owned them more than she had lately.
And that startled her frustration, bent it still and turned it round to a sort of affection.
She let herself study the broad stretch of his shoulders, realizing that the cut had to be dropped elsewhere in the house and maybe the removal of that leather had helped the illusion of normalcy. The button down dark of his shirt rose and fell with an unprecedented evenness of breathing, something that made him so suddenly approachably comforting as she finished the steps into her living room. Her glanced followed the stretch of denim, the slagged hang of his wallet chain, the turned boot heels that she didn't doubt were intentionally resting on her couch.
"Late, love." There was a warmth in his sleep tremored murmuring that felt more like a welcoming than an admonition, too much like something she wanted than something she was allowed.
"I was with Patterson. Gave her what we discussed." Her fingers dipped the bag along the back of the chair, feeling the dark of his eyes on her as his head turned, long fingers rubbing his forehead. "You weren't asleep, Scotty."
"Nor neither awake." She thought maybe he dwelled deeper in his burr when they were alone just because he knew it made her throat flush and her shoulders dip into unavoidable acceptance, "Not completely."
"You knew it was me?" Her fingers wiped off the bag and she watched him watch the stretch of them in an interested squinting, his jaw riding higher on the arm of the couch as she stepped toward him.
"Got a belt loose." The offering lift of his upturned palm seemed too perfectly normal a motion to fit between the two of them, something that shouldn't live so warmly into the way she reached her fingers back and let him draw her leaning. "Squealin' a bit."
"You can hear that from the couch?" Ally murmured mild surprise as she straddled over his waist, letting him re-adjust the slant of his hips and legs as she reached back to slap the side of one boot in silent reprimand.
"Toldja," He grinned completely devilishly as he slowly shucked the boots into thunking onto the floor, eyes dipped closed as she settled, "I'm just a mechanic."
"Right, just a mechanic." She mused over him, her palm pressing his stomach as the other hand twisted his fingers into hers, riding lower into his lap so that she could lean into the way he finally perked his eyes back open at her disbelief.
"Just mind my own, Lieutenant." The smile perking his lips was made of pure amusement, "What's in the bag?"
Ally arched a dry glance over his response, "Mind your own."
"That I am." His fingers closed tighter on hers and tugged as the other hand caught against her waist, leaning her farther forward, "What's in the bag?"
"A dress." She murmured as she pried their hands apart, leaning her palms to his chest and her kiss onto the comforting smile on his lips that she knew was about to be unreachable.
"Sure, I know that." The shined up and mischievous brightness wakened his eyes a little more as he rolled an obviously lusted glance down the front of her, fingertips crawling up under the hem of her tank to trace warm skin, "What sorta dress?
She exhaled slowly, leaning forward as she intentionally linked a palm as far round the tensed stretch of his wrist as possible, the words obviously pried from her lips in a whispered way, "The sort that was left in my locked car."
The stacked riveting of sudden anger under the way she straddled over him did more for making her shiver than the way he'd stopped his teasing touches to her stomach. He was ultimately both legitimately startling and oddly deliciously strong in the bending of unavoidable fury. If she had to admit to anything in regards to the Reaper – it had made in him something capable of being devoid of weakness – she loved and hated at once what it created in him. And the sudden blackened heartlessness in his eyes was near on harrowing, tautening her skin even as she leaned closer into the warmth of his lap.
There was a slinking patience in the tip of his head that spoke more to his under-the-skin fury than it did actual calm, "Excuse me?"
"You heard me." Ally murmured, shifting tightly into the way he sharply broke his wrist down off the turn of her thumb, already lifting his broad shoulders as his hands spanned her hips, "Ah. Stay."
A brash and argumentative huff came off his lips as he shifted her back a little, fighting the leaning of her length to push back at her forcefully, "I don't think so, darlin'."
Maybe she'd made a mistake in lifting her hand toward the bitten down lean of his jaw.
Because his reflexes were far faster than she'd expected in his muddled weariness and the catching of his tightly grasped fingers on her wrist bent an ache into the muscle that she didn't expect.
"Stay right here." She couldn't help the wince into the way he stayed her hand but she bit the words out hard over him, shaking her head into pressing into his upper body, "Ignore it, Filip. He's baiting you."
"Yeah?" The snap of his tone made her blink and the realization of her reaction was maybe the first thing to bring light back to his eyes, "It's fuckin' working, Althea."
"There's nothing you can do. Not legally." She laid the weight of her chest into the rigid line and lift of him, forcing her balance into the way he'd pressed up. "Ignore it."
"I can't." His voice dug into her and hooked her lungs still.
"Okay, you're hurting me, Scotty." She murmured after a moment, blinking down as she tried a twisting of her wrist and frowning into how widely he flared his fingers off her in surprised and embarrassed response, "And there is nothing you can do. Your daughter. And your club. And me."
The same hand wiped raggedly over his obviously exhausted features, "He's not - "
"Stay here." She made pleadings on him sometimes, sure, but they always seemed so innocent of manipulation, always seemed oddly vulnerable in the face of her usual emotional instability, "Don't make it worse."
And he felt undeniably walled up between her pressing and another man's leaning, his face panning blank as he studied how concern looked on her usually strong features, "Ally."
There was a scatter of worry in the color of her eyes and the pale of her as she leaned over him, pressing him farther still, "Just stay, Filip."
He'd blatantly ignored her argument to leave things completely untouched even while accepting her pleading to bend into a sort of lulling and waiting. Because he couldn't save from sliding his fingers against the bag he'd opened, touching onto white silk only momentarily before unconsciously lifting his fingers arched off it for fear of smudging even if his hands were clean.
"Right size?" he asked into the way she stepped out of the bathroom and toward the bed, her hand wiping her hair off her face as she stalled up, studying the way he was balanced steady before the dress that hung on the back of the bedroom door.
"Didn't look." She shrugged, her hair tipping off her shoulders as she shook her head and crossed her arms over the white of her tank top.
Chibs bit down onto a resurgence of aggravation, "Don't lie to me."
"Probably." She leaned away from him and he could hear the shift of bedclothes and the dip of the too soft mattress. "Yes."
He kept from any answer at all. Because he didn't have one that would keep balance between them.
"Hey." He could hear the casual lift in her tone and knew it wasn't as true as she was trying to force it to be, "It's not really my color. Come warm me up."
His eyes trapped over the white of the tank and the equally enticing light tone of her panties against toned and creamy skin, the dark of her hair and eyes making the contrast warm and welcoming to the gray between of them both, "You're wrong about that, darlin'."
"I'm cold." She smiled and played a pout on him that seemed too lightheartedly innocent and giddily adorable for how lividly hot his skin still was. "Get over here."
Just the lean of her length made it impossible for him not to want to do as she asked.
"It's not that cold." Chibs groused back as he wiped against silk, forcing himself to look away from the warmth in her light brown eyes.
Ally made a quick noise of disagreeing derision from behind him as she rested her hip heavier into the bed, holding herself up by a hand as she looked over the still tightened up line of his spine and the flared dip from his shoulders to his lower back, "Well, I didn't grow up on an island that's wet and dark and dreary eighty percent of the time so get your pale ass over here and - "
"This mornin', he said - "
"I don't care what he said." Her interruption was drawn tight and clattered through the room on a deadened echo that leaned almost sad. "I don't want to know. Please?"
He glanced her back a quirked look over his shoulder, "Don't know why this doesn't have you railin' at me."
"Because I'm not stupid. There's nothing you can do that doesn't put someone in danger." Her eyes followed the lagged movement of his steps as he finally gave in to the way she was pressed up by one palm to the mattress, her legs curled up tightly to show how chilled she probably actually was, "And because you're gonna come over here and make sure he doesn't actually come anywhere near me tonight."
And that made him a little weaker than he wanted it to, admittedly so.
Because there was more honesty in her cautious murmuring than he'd expected, "This from the woman who keeps tellin' me she doesn't need my protection."
"Doesn't mean I don't enjoy having it pressed up against me, President."