“Pretty girl, you know I have to.”
Yeah, I did. I moved away from Deck who was silent and still looking from me to Tyler. “But, you said you wouldn’t mention the security thing.”
“And you really remember our chat that night?” Tyler said, brows rising.
I did, but of course, he wouldn’t think that. I had been slurring my words and stumbling. “Rylie said—”
He huffed. “Rylie was drunk off her ass, too.” Yeah, she was the perfect partner, and she didn’t even know it. Tyler got to his feet and before I saw what was coming, he hauled off and shot Deck one in the jaw. Except Deck didn’t go down, just staggered back a step. “I know the fuckin’ rules.”
A Deck rule—no messing with his dead best friend’s sister. I’d overheard him telling his men this when he first came back when I was eighteen … well, just turned nineteen.
He’d been in the back of my coffee shop with Josh, Tyler and Vic after installing all the security cameras. I was bringing them coffees when I heard him say, “Connor’s sister is off-limits.”
Tyler had laughed. “Damn, are you claiming her, Boss?”
“Fuck no,” Deck replied. “She’s off-limits to all of us.”
The coffees ended up on the floor as the churning mix of emotions threw me in a dark, closed cistern while his words echoed in my head.
At that time, I’d still had hope for Deck and me, even though it was a dangerous thought because I knew better for a number of reasons. But just hearing him say that, the reality of Deck and me never becoming anything more than what we were—and I wasn’t even sure what that was—came crashing to the ground and disappeared beneath the rubble of cement.
It broke me. And here I thought I had already been broken.
I remember the second our eyes met, locked, and then his cool mask of unemotional glare seeped into me.
I must have looked a sight with coffee spilled down the front of me. It had burned my skin, yet I didn’t feel the pain; only emotional pain was filtering through me. Then came the pissed off, and I kicked one of the empty coffee cups next to my foot.
“Why the fuck not?” I’d yelled.
Deck, in his usual calm manner, merely said because he said so—period. Well, the period became an abrupt dash when I freaked. My control on my emotions was still a work in progress at the time. I walked straight up to Josh who’d been standing beside the stock shelf and kissed him.
Josh’s hands came to my hips and I felt the slight push, but then his mouth eased under mine and I heard him groan. It only lasted a few seconds before we both pulled back at the same time.
I had no interest in Josh or any of Deck’s men. It was the point. It was then my anger turned to disgust with myself for being so weak when I’d been trying hard for the last two years to get past these feelings I had for Deck.
The guys had made themselves scarce as Deck and I stared at one another and then he said, “My men are off-limits to you because every mission we go on, there is a good chance one of us might not come back. Your brother never wanted that for you.” Then he left and we never discussed it again.
Deck ran his hand over the top of his head, then down his face. The flicker of uneasiness in his eyes was unusual for him. Steady as a rock, but something was different in him. I noticed it over the last few months. He was gone most of the time and when he was here, he was distant. Well, he was always distant, but something wasn’t sitting right and I had yet to figure it out. What worried me was if it had anything to do with me, and I wasn’t talking about the drinking.
Deck shook his head. “Jesus, this shit is fucking with me.”
“What shit?” I looked between both men, but they remained quiet. Fear skidded like little skipping pebbles across my skin. I hated this. I hated that Deck could be taken away from me just as quickly and suddenly as my brother. It fucked with my head … the only thing that still did. “What’s wrong?”
Tyler put his hand out as if to pat Deck’s shoulder and backed off, lowering it again. “We’ll get it done.” What would they get done? He nodded to a camera up in the corner of the stock room. “Oh, and the security feed … nine pm last Monday. We can watch it on the plane later. I’ll bring popcorn.”
Shit. My dance. Tyler winked at me then grabbed his empty cup and walked back out to the front of the coffee shop where I heard him asking Rylie for a refill.