Say It's Forever, page 9
Thing was a pile.
Unsafe and unreliable.
What she needed was a new one. But I doubted much that was an option considering she was standing there begging me to let her work to pay off the repairs.
“Are you asking me for an interview, Salem?”
Her brows spiked. “You want me to interview?”
“You wanna work here…temporarily…?” I let the question hang.
“Ugh.” She pressed the heel of her hand to her forehead, peeking at me around it. “Fine.”
A low chuckle flooded the air, and I shifted so I could open the lobby door. “Come on in, darlin’.”
Salem blew out the strain, and she straightened her shoulders and waltzed that fine ass past me and through the door.
It wasn’t like I was going to turn her away. Hell, I didn’t need her to repay me at all, but since she was insisting, figured I at least needed to know what she could do. Truth be told, I needed the help.
It didn’t hurt that I kind of relished the idea of her strutting around here in those heels all day long, either.
I stepped in behind her, and she stood there in the foyer of my lobby.
A storm.
Sweet, sweet ferocity.
There was something about her that was so compelling.
The girl was a fucking cocktail of toasted coconut and sultry sin.
Wanted to take a long, satisfying drink.
A smirk kept tugging at the corner of my mouth as I edged by her and rounded the counter. I started shuffling through paperwork again.
“So, tell me, gorgeous,” I mumbled as I foraged around, “why do you want to work here?”
From where she stood five feet away, she sighed out in defiance. “To repay a debt, Mr. Lawson. Obviously. And I’m pretty sure you should probably stop calling me gorgeous if I’m going to work here.”
I tossed a glance at her from over the high counter. “Impossible. Not when it’s true.”
Thunderbolt eyes struck.
A lash of lust.
A stroke of greed.
I slowed, pressed my hands to the counter as I looked her up and down.
I should lock it up.
Stop this fall before I hit rock bottom.
But there I went, tossing my ass right over the side. “You didn’t text me back.”
Her cheeks flamed.
Yup.
The girl was affected.
Could feel it thicken the atmosphere.
Tighten the cord.
The connection keened in the space between us.
Air suddenly shot from her nose, a burst of reservation and determination. “Because that would be inappropriate.”
“If you think that’s inappropriate, I think we should rethink our boundaries.”
Her head shook. “This can’t happen.”
“What’s that?”
She frantically gestured between us. “This.”
Her rebuttal didn’t even feel like an obstacle to hold us back. Not when it was clear she wanted it every bit as much as me.
I let the feigned confusion climb into the twist of my brow, unable to stop from teasing her. Not when she was so damned hot when she got all feisty. “This?”
“This,” she hissed in frustration.
A roll of low laughter tumbled out, and I was leaning closer. “You’re going to have to be clearer, darlin’.”
Frustration shot from her mouth, and the girl sauntered the rest of the way over to me.
The ripple of her hitched the air in my throat.
“Don’t toy with me, Jud. You know exactly what I’m talking about. I get it. I’m sure you’re more than accustomed to getting what you want, and I’m sure women jump into your bed whenever you flash them that smile. You’re charming and handsome and—” She bit down on the word she was about to let go. “But I’m here because I want to do what’s right, not because I find you attractive. When I saw the listing, it felt like a sign…a way to repay a debt. So please, if I can help, let me help.”
Damn.
This woman.
This fierce little wildcat who didn’t hesitate to put me in my place.
“Not tryin’ to disrespect you, Salem. I’m only making it clear how you make me feel.”
For a minute, she stared, two of us tied, before she shook herself out of it. “I don’t think it would be a good idea for either of us to explore that.”
She was right. The problem was how fuckin’ bad I was aching for her to be wrong.
She dropped her gaze, inhaling before she peered over at me. She tied me up all over again with the way that striking face deepened with loss and hope. “But I think we could try that friend thing.”
Something fluttered through my chest. Something hard and soft squeezing at my heart. “Okay, then, darlin’, but I’m not going to pretend like I haven’t been imagining more.”
Heat flamed, a rush of red to her skin, and it was clear she’d been imagining it, too.
I blew out the strain and went for a little of that pretending I’d just promised her I couldn’t do, while I searched around for the form I was looking for. “So, have you ever worked as a receptionist before?”
“I worked at the front desk of a dental office for a while.”
“Perfect. Honestly, if you can just answer the phone, that would take a huge burden off my shoulders.”
I felt her frown. “I’m pretty sure I’m capable of handling more.”
“Well, this office is a fuckin’ mess. Not gonna lie. My last office manager left five months ago for maternity leave and never came back. Not that I can blame her.”
Salem popped onto her toes and peered over the counter at the disaster hidden on the other side.
Horror filled her gasp.
“Having second thoughts?” I asked, quirking a brow.
So yeah, there were five months of incomplete contracts and receipts and shit piled everywhere.
You couldn’t see the desk with the stacks of files and papers covering it, so many that I’d taken to piling them on the floor.
“You can’t run a business like this.” Her tone filled with disbelief.
I snorted an incredulous sound. “Obviously.”
I finally found the folder I was looking for, and I lifted it victoriously. “Ah. Here it is.”
I pulled out an application and passed it across the counter in her direction.
If she wanted a job, figured I’d give her one. Clearly, the woman needed some cash, and I needed the help. Seemed like a win-win.
She fingered the paper, her breaths coming short, dread swelling and coming off her in waves.
“What is it, darlin’?”
She dropped her head, but not far enough that I couldn’t see that she was chewing on her lip in worried contemplation. Finally, she lifted her gaze, that chin lifted high, but there was no missing the tremble in her voice. “This can’t be on the books.”
I thought her dread must have burst and jumped directly into my veins.
All while she remained there, fierce and hard and determined. A challenge on her face.
I’d lived a seedy enough life to know people did things under the table for one of two reasons—they were either crooked or they were hiding.
I would bet my ass it was the latter.
There was nothing I could do. My rationale was smashed to dust. Particles that no longer existed.
Every wall she kept trying to toss between us obliterated in that single confession.
Or maybe it was just that my conscience had decided to scale right over the top of them.
Because protectiveness swelled.
Brutal.
Severe.
Violent.
Somehow, I managed to keep my hand steady when I reached out and set my palm on her cheek. My thumb went to stroking the scar on her jaw.
Just fuckin’ knowing.
Seeing the trauma written there.
Her body rocked like an earthquake, and her hands came out to support herself on the counter, her breath gone and her eyes squeezing tight.
I wanted to demand a thousand things, but a name and an address would do. That demon screamed, thrashed and wailed from the darkest place where I kept him chained.
But I reined it.
I knew that wasn’t what this girl needed right then, and I gave her what I was sure she’d been missing.
This time, when I uttered the words, they were a promise. “I have you, Salem.”
She remained there for the longest time, her breaths shallow, barely contained panic vibrating through her body, though she leaned deeper into my touch.
“I have you,” I reiterated, words coarse and raw.
Finally, she opened those eyes, their depths a tormented sea that I recognized too clearly.
Understanding burned between us.
She’d just offered me something she didn’t offer many.
A tiny spec of her trust.
Stepping back, she broke the bubble that’d held us, adjusting her shirt and her breaths and the beat of her heart.
She gestured to the door. “I should get Darius’ truck back to him before he notices I’m gone.”
A surprised bolt of laughter ripped from me. “Sweet Enchantress, you are somethin’, aren’t you?”
She almost smiled as she backed away. “I’ll be back with him, and I’ll start getting this place in order.”
I rested back on the filing cabinet behind me, arms over my chest as I gazed at the girl who got lit in the streak of sunlight blazing through the window.
Black hair and gorgeous body and this spirit that was hard to ignore. “Thank you for saving me.”
A grin spread to her mouth. “I’m pretty sure it’s the other way around.”
She opened the door, then hesitated before she looked back. “Darius is going to be pissed.”
Anger curled in my chest. Apparently, he hadn’t just had words with me.
I hiked an indifferent shoulder. “I can handle it if you can.”
“I can.”
“Good.”
Her expression softened. This fierce, unrelenting girl going sweet.
“I’ll see you in a bit,” I told her.
“Thank you, Jud.”
Every part of me turned tender. “It’s my pleasure, darlin’.”
My fuckin’ pleasure.
NINE
JUD
“You will always be my sweet boy. Never let anyone convince you of anything different.” His mommy whispered the words before she swept her lips over the top of his head. Her eyes were so green, like emeralds in the night. She looked at him like it was the truth when she tucked him into his bed.
He was safe.
Safe.
But the world canted as the years passed. The ground disappeared below him and he was gobbled by the abyss.
He fell and tumbled as darkness rained.
Bullets fired.
Blood.
So much blood.
His mom was gone.
“You belong to me.” His father hissed it into his ear as he wept. As the man forced him from his knees and onto his feet. He pressed the gun into his hands. “You or them.”
Shots rang.
Echoed in his ears for eternity.
His soul shattered as the demon raged.
Nothing mattered.
No right or wrong.
But the wrong glared too bright.
He rocked in the corner. Tore at his hair. Begged to be different. Screamed for peace. For forgiveness. For it to go away.
He crawled from the rubble.
Built walls. A solid ground.
Hope.
“Dada.” He held the child. Loved her to the moon.
He wanted to be good. Everything for her.
But the flames leapt, climbing the walls and licking at the ceiling.
Smoke billowed. A heavy darkness that filled the air and choked out hope.
Consuming.
Disorienting.
A black plague that annihilated everything in its path.
Still, he rushed, searched, fumbled through the disorder from one room to the next.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Fear crushed, as suffocating as the smoke that filled his lungs. He pulled his shirt over his face, his eyes wide and unseeing, the world a blur of fire and white-hot pain.
It didn’t matter.
He pressed on.
Pushed.
Forever passed.
A second.
A moment.
Misery the time that ticked on the clock.
A roar rose from the depths of him. “Where are you? Please. Fuck. Can you hear me?”
The whooshing of the flames screamed back.
He was on his knees. Blind as he searched.
Torment wailed.
As loud as the sirens he heard coming in the distance.
Tears blurred, burning against his charred flesh.
No. Please. No.
I jolted to upright on a choked gasp.
A rasp of pain.
Fevered, my eyes darted around to take in my surroundings. My senses were shocked to find I was no longer tumbling through the years that tormented me, but rather my ass was in the comfort of my own fucking bed.
Pale ribbons of pink streamed in through my bedroom window, a slow dance of warmth, while I felt like I was being burned alive.
Sweat soaked my flesh and my sheets while my heart raged with grief.
The scars on my back screamed like they were still red and raw.
Those? I could handle.
It was the ones written on my conscience, on my heart, embedded in my blackened soul that made me feel like I was getting torn apart.
I sucked for air. To draw oxygen into my lungs when they felt like they’d been charred and singed and scorched all over again. Like I was back in that day that had turned to the darkest night.
It was the moment my mind always returned to. Where the dreams lured me into a nightmare that’d been real.
It was when I’d lost my soul. My purpose. My right.
My head dropped forward, and I focused on trying to slow the rampage in my heart, the chaos that raged.
I deserved it, though, so what the hell did I expect?
Yet, still, I tried. Tried to be better. To pay a penance for the sins that could never be made right.
I’d wait—wait for the day when maybe it would be enough.
Lumbering to standing, I started for the shower. I knew I was fucked when in an instant a face infiltrated my mind.
The face of a girl who had spun me into a thousand mangled knots.
The one who’d be downstairs in the office when I got there.
The one I couldn’t seem to scrape from my thoughts.
There was something about this Salem. Something dangerous. Something I should avoid. And I was the masochist who wanted to find out.
TEN
SALEM
I’d been working at Iron Ride for the last three days.
I’d been right.
Darius had been pissed.
But even though he’d been all surly and grumbly and annoyed, there was enough work to make him forget why he was upset at me in the first place.
Hell, there was enough work to keep us all distracted for the next five years.
After the interaction with Jud on Monday morning that had left me completely rattled? That was precisely what I’d done. I’d thrown myself into getting the office whipped into shape and tried to pay as little attention to the man who rocked my whole world every time he got into my space.
Stoically trying to pretend like each smile wasn’t driving me mad.
Like each smirk wasn’t making me contemplate things I had no business contemplating.
So, I dove into the stacks of receipts and contracts and unpaid invoices, doing my best to organize them, to make sense of them, inputting them into the accounting software and trying to get it to balance since there had been no less than fifteen unanswered emails asking for that information from Jud’s accountant.
Not to mention the number of late notices I’d sent out on Iron Ride’s behalf to customer accounts that had never been paid.
My spirit had both lifted and sank with the amount it was adding up to, and I’d barely made a dent.
It only made the man who owned these floors like a hunter more mysterious. His life beat clearly found in the pulse of the motorcycles and cars he restored. I peered through the glass door that separated the lobby from the shop to where he was at the far, opposite side.
He was knelt over, his big body this force as he worked the metal.
My stomach tightened.
I guessed I recognized it, why it would be so easy for this part of his business to slide.
He was an artist.
A sculptor.
A crafter.
His care wrapped up in the rugged, fierce beauty he had to offer.
He shifted, and his shirt stretched over the wide, wide expanse of his muscled back.
My mouth went dry.
Before I stared so long drool would drip onto the desk, I forced myself to return my attention to the computer where I was inputting his positives.
None of this mess appeared to be hurting him, anyway.
His accounts were plentiful. Enough that it’d taken me a moment to process the balances.
It was weird, he’d just given me access to it all, his trust so easy.
That was something I didn’t come close to understanding.
How to just…give.
Because giving was dangerous.
I forced myself to focus on the task at hand. Slowly but surely, I made my way through a box of receipts that had been stuffed in the corner. Lost in the work. In using my hands. In being a part of something that felt like it mattered. As if I were making a difference for someone else.
Someone who was making a difference for me.
Only I stilled when a sense whispered across my flesh.
An aura.
An innuendo.
It was close to chills lifting on my skin, though not quite as intense.
It was just this disquiet that gusted through the muted intensity of my focus.
Slowly, I pushed from the stool where I’d been sitting at the desk that ran off to the side of the main high counter. I eased closer so I could peer over the top and out through the windows that I knew were a shimmery pitch from the outside.
