He dropped his hands to the sides of her hips, feeling her soft skin. He began to rub gently. “Has Bannister moved all the way into the apartment over the bar?” he asked everyone and anyone in the room.
Transporter nodded. “Yeah. We fixed up the apartment as fast as we could. He’s tough. That son of his tried pushing him around, even hitting him. Bannister took a few punches, hoping that would satisfy the kid, but when it was obvious it didn’t, he knocked the boy out.”
“That boy is our age,” Mechanic said. “He’s gambled his life away. He owes everyone and has been trying for some time to get Bannister to sell his bike.”
“That’s some bullshit right there,” Transporter said. “He thinks he can use the money to gamble to make back what he lost.”
“That’s always what addicts think,” Maestro said.
“Who is Bannister?” Soleil asked, leaning back into Ice.
“He comes to the bar. Looks to be a nomad. He’s been in the life with a club at some time, but he doesn’t wear colors. He’s in his sixties. Good man. Solid. Wish he had a woman,” Ice answered.
“He’s good friends with Anya,” Reaper said from the shadows. “When there was trouble in the bar a time or two, he stood with us. He looked after her.”
If Reaper endorsed him, Bannister had to be a good man to have at their backs. “We still have someone stealing?” Ice asked. He filled in Soleil. “It was small stuff gone missing over time. Tools. A bottle of vodka. Food from the small kitchen behind the bar. We changed the locks, but it kept happening. We have cameras but so far no one has been caught on any of them. There were glitches occasionally, the screen going white for a moment, but even Code couldn’t see that the recording was tampered with.” He shrugged. “We were hoping Bannister might catch whoever is stealing from us.”
Czar smirked a little. “The great Torpedo Ink. We can’t stop a thief. Anya kept finding an occasional bottle of liquor missing. It showed up on the inventory. We thought the distributor was shorting us. Turns out, they weren’t.”
“You don’t seem too upset that someone’s stealing from you,” Soleil said.
“Small shit,” Ice explained. “Whoever is taking things, other than the liquor, they probably need it to live.”
“We’ll catch them eventually,” Steele added. “In the meantime, we’ve left items out to entice them. When I say items, things that cost a lot of money. They never took the bait.”
“Yeah, they’re either clever or they really aren’t after money, just things for survival,” Maestro said.
“At first when you were talking about it, I was upset that there was a thief around,” Soleil said. “Now I feel bad for them.”
Ice rubbed along her bottom under her sundress, feeling the soft skin on the pads of his fingers. He loved the feminine lines there, the two indentations just above the curves of her cheeks. It soothed him just to feel her skin. Just to have her close to him. She kept his demons at bay. After meeting her, it was the longest he’d gone without the nightmare of his past crowding in.
He held her forward so he could press his face against her back. She was a shield of some sort for him. She thought she needed him. He’d let her think that. He’d encouraged that need, as if it were the truth. She thought he was saving her. Sooner or later, he’d have to come clean, but not yet. Not until she was really in love with him. He’d hooked her. He had to find a way to keep her.
Storm, Player and Keys came in with three of the trays and laid them out on the very long curve of blond wood that was the bar. Ink and Alena followed. Lana helped Storm take the plates and silverware off the trays and put them to the left of the food.
Ice nudged Soleil and shared laughter with her that his twin and the other three were already getting their plates. Lana rolled her eyes as she took her plate and waited while the four men mounded food onto their dishes.
“See what I mean, princess? They had their own best interests at heart the entire time.” He helped her off his lap, making certain her hem was down as she stood. “We need to get to the front of the line, or there’ll be nothing left.”
Soleil went with him to grab a plate. She stared at the various dishes. “Ice, there’s tons of food here. They can’t possibly eat it all.”
“Alena made it. Wait until you sample it before you decide it won’t be eaten. No one cooks like she does.” He raised his voice. “What’s your secret, Alena, to making all these dishes taste the way they do?” He put his lips next to Soleil’s ear. “I know what it is. Let’s see if she does.”