Adler (The Henchmen MC 14)

"Then what was he in for?"

"Drug shit. I need your ass down here in twenty minutes."

"I'm hungover as fuck. You'll see me when you see me. A file that has more than four pages would be appreciated. And by appreciated, I mean they will allow me not to take my bad mood out on you."

With that, I hung up, turning to find Adler watching me.

"We got a case?"

"I have a case," I specified.

"And yet I think I am going with ya."

"I need you to watch Linny."

"We'll road trip. One big, happy family."

My only response to that was an eye-roll.

"Ya go ahead and get yer scrub on. I'll pick out an outfit for..."

Outfit.

That meant...

"No!" I shrieked, flying across the floor faster than my head and stomach wanted me to, getting there just before he reached for the knob on my bedroom door, crushing myself between it and him, desperation making me do something I didn't want to do.

Adler's brows knitted for a moment before he seemed to shake off the curiosity. "What? Ya got someone tied up in there? Human punchin' bag? Personal sex slave? Are ya taking new applications for that?"

Damn him.

He was possibly the only man on the surface of the earth who could make an incredibly awkward, out of character moment seem light and fun and normal.

"What's up, Lou?" he asked, ducking his head a bit, eyes holding mine.

"Look," I said, taking a breath, breaking eye-contact for a moment while I pulled it together, stifled the panic rising inside, a sensation mostly foreign to me. "I don't want to discuss this. I don't want it to be a thing. But I need you to promise me something."

"Aye. Can do that," he agreed, tone serious, something it so often wasn't.

"I need you to promise me you will never go in my bedroom without permission."

His brows furrowed further, watching me with unsettlingly intense eyes, making me need to fight the urge to squirm.

"Ya got it, duchess. I promise. But ya need clothes. So go get 'em. I'll run yer shower."

With that, he ran my shower. I got clothes, washed, dressed, and found him waiting for me with a power bar he fished out of my cabinet. "Feelin' more human yet?" he asked, latching the leash onto Linny's collar.

"No," I growled, snatching the bar, wishing it was chocolate, not granola and honey. Because as if a hangover wasn't bad enough, I had gotten a little visitor in the shower. I should have been pleased. It would delay the seemingly inevitable intimacy. But all I knew was it was giving me cramps and a backache from hell, and my button to my jeans was piercing into my skin from bloat. I was going to enjoy the hell out of taking this out on a pregnant-girlfriend-beating junkie shithead.

"Let's go," I growled, grabbing my purse, hoping what clothes I had stashed in my car would get me by, noting that Adler must have slipped over to his apartment because along with a plastic bag full of food for Linny, he also had a small backpack slung over his shoulder.

"Let's go get a shitehead off the streets, shall we?" he asked as we moved out into the hall, seemingly already forgetting about my bizarre behavior and unusual promise, something I didn't know if I should be comforted by, or wary of.

But it was a thought forgotten as we climbed into the car, and his hand slammed down on my thigh, giving it a squeeze, like it was the most normal thing, like he did it all the time, like we were some comfortable, loving couple.

And I started thinking things I had no business thinking.

Like how nice it felt when he gave it a squeeze every so often.

Like how I could get used to this.

Like how refreshing it was not to be so damn alone all the time.

Like maybe, just maybe I could open up, tell him all the things I never told anyone.

Like maybe I could let him in.

But that was ridiculous.

That was something that could never happen.SEVENAdlerI thought about her.

A lot.

Almost incessantly.

All during those weeks while I was away.

Never before had I been plagued with feelings of guilt. Guilt was one of those touchy-feely words. It went with things like hearts and consciences. Things I'd swear I didn't have. Maybe I'd been born with 'em, but life had seemed to rip them from me pretty thoroughly by the time I hit my teens.

It wasn't until I was running down leads, or sitting on my fucking hands at the compound that I realized I had both.

A heart because it cracked for Ferryn.

I knew kidnapping. I knew it the way I knew the map of scars on my hands, the way I knew which bones ached when it rained, which ones creaked in the morning. I knew all the barred windows and locked doors that came with being thrown in a room with no exits.