Page 24 of Coach (Shady Valley Henchmen #8)

Este

One thing about a budding relationship with someone new is that you can always use your body to distract them from pressing you for information.

And it was a mutually enjoyable distraction.

I needed it, to be honest.

I’d been up most of the night, staring at the door, paranoid it might fly open when my bosses decided they couldn’t let me live after all.

It was the one night I didn’t mind all the damn renovating. At least someone would hear me if I screamed.

As if sensing my anxiety, Trix had lain across me all night and had even let me sleep in past her breakfast time when I did finally catch an hour or two in the early morning.

I’d gone through the motions of the day on autopilot, almost feeling like the events of the night before couldn’t have possibly happened.

But then it was time to go to work.

I took my car, as instructed, parking in a spot near the front. My paranoia needed an easy escape route.

Before I was even fully outside, Konstantin was moving out and telling me to pop my trunk.

My finger slid to the button automatically, then I watched as he loaded a big box into the back before casually walking back into the building like nothing at all had happened.

My curiosity forced me to look. Sure enough, buried under several layers of newspapers was an inconceivable amount of money.

I folded the box closed, then tossed some stuff over it in the trunk out of pure paranoia.

I made my way inside, confused for a moment when I wasn’t greeted by the usual click-clack of heels and a disapproving face.

Of course, Irina wasn’t there.

I’d told the brothers that she’d stolen from them.

My heart lurched, imagining her in that bunker, chained and ball-gagged, but with no hope of walking away.

The guy too, whoever he was.

I’d done that.

I’d turned them in.

Sold their lives for my own.

A strangled cry bubbled up and burst out of me as my head whipped around to look at the brothers.

“You killed them,” I said, spotting the split lip, the bruised jaw.

“Killed whom?” Ice Cold Konstantin asked with a sort of bored look in his eye.

“The guy and… and Irina.”

“Don’t be silly,” another voice, feminine this time, said.

I turned, finding a woman moving out from the back room.

She was tall, slim, but slightly curvy, wearing tight black pants, a black tank, and black combat boots.

Her hair and eyes were also inky.

And she had the most striking face I think I’d ever seen. Her bone structure was very feminine, but a little sharp in the jaw and cheekbones.

Lethally beautiful was the term that crossed my mind upon seeing her.

It was the same kind of gorgeousness that had become very familiar to me.

The family resemblance was uncanny.

This was a Novikoff.

A sister, I would bet, by her age.

“Konstantin and Mikhail are far too moral to murder a woman,” she said. Her accent wasn’t as thick as her siblings’. But I would guess she was five to eight years younger than them, so maybe the family immigrated when she was still young. “I, however, have no such hangups.”

“Stas,” Konstantin said, the name holding a warning.

“But you were going to…” I started, looking at the brothers.

“Hold onto you while I drove into town?” Stas asked. “Yes, they were.”

“Anastasia,” Konstantin barked.

“What? She’s been bought, hasn’t she?”

Wow.

I wasn’t sure I’d ever met anyone as cold as Konstantin before. But his little sister took the ice cream cake.

Konstantin barked something in Russian.

Stas answered back with a little curve to her lips.

“Yes, big, bad bikers. Very scary. Anyway,” she said, looking back at me. “Irina will no longer be working here. It looks like I need to keep an eye on things from now on.”

Oh joy.

“Saul, hm?” she asked, her gaze moving over me.

“Yes.” I lifted my chin, refusing to feel intimidated. I had a feeling that Stas was the kind of person who looked for any small chink in your armor, then launched a ruthless attack through it.

“Nice pull,” she said, nodding. “Anyway. I can’t find a single decent cup of coffee in this damn town. I will be back later.”

With that, she was gone.

Feeling oddly a little safer with the brothers, I exhaled hard.

Konstantin gave me what might be called a soft look. At least for as hard a man as he was.

“Certainly, you didn’t think they would get away with it.”

“Certainly, I wasn’t thinking past wanting to get home to my dog.”

“If it eases any of your guilt,” Mikhail said, shrugging, “we would have found out who it was eventually.”

It didn’t.

But that was just something I was going to need to live with.

So I just… threw myself back into work, solely because I knew the guilt would eat me alive at home.

Then there was Saul.

And his eyes that saw too much, and his brain that shouldn’t have been able to put things together so effortlessly.

And, yeah, sexual distraction came into play.

But it was therapeutic for me as well.

After the sex, we fell into bed for just a few moments while he told me about Rafe and Steve leaving town for their new life, taking Raff and Syn with them for a road trip.

When he asked again about my face, I fed him the handy lie I’d thought up when I’d been up all night obsessing over this potential moment.

“I fell,” I told him as I got back into my clothes so we could walk back to my place and pick up Trix.

It helped not having to look him in the eye when I fed him the lie.

“Tripped over Trix and fell face-first into my bedroom floor. Carpet-burned the hell out of my cheek. I forgot how much that hurts,” I went on, figuring a well-layered lie was a more convincing one.

“What about your mouth?” he asked, getting up and finding his shirt too.

“Oh, completely unrelated. Can you help me with this?” I asked, deciding to distract him with clasping my bra while I gave him the slightly less believable lie about my mouth. “I had girl dinner.”

“Girl dinner?”

“When you just throw random stuff together and call it a meal. I had a cheese stick, a clementine, and a ton of chips and salsa. I cut the hell out of the corners of my mouth.”

I moved away, grabbing my shirt, giving myself a valid excuse not to make eye contact.

“You ready?” I asked, adding more cheer to my voice as I turned to look at him, a smile plastered on my face.

He didn’t believe me.

I could see it—along with no small amount of disappointment on his handsome face—but he didn’t press me.

That somehow only made it harder not to confess everything.

But, dammit, I had a lot of hush money in my trunk.

The kind of money that would ensure that I would never again sob my eyes out in the parking lot of an all-night convenience store, having no idea when I would have money for a motel room, let alone an apartment or home.

If or when I had to run again, I would have enough money to make it a hell of a lot more comfortable.

I tried to tell myself that was a good enough reason to lie.

But if I needed another one, I wasn’t entirely sure that Stas Novikoff wouldn’t kill me if I went back on my word.

We made our way out of the clubhouse and I felt my damn heart melt in my chest when Saul reached for my hand, threading his fingers between mine, and holding on for the whole walk back to town.

We picked up my car from work.

And while Saul was playing fetch with Trix, I quickly brought my money inside, tucking it away safely before gathering a change of clothes for myself and some of Trix’s food.

Then it was back to the clubhouse for the night.

Where the guys, hungry and with nowhere close by to order food from, dug into the deep freezer and made a dinner of frozen pizza, fries, mozzarella sticks, and potato skins.

It was the most unhealthy, fun, weird dinner I’d ever had with the best company I’d been around in a long time.

“Really?” Saint asked, lounging back in his seat with a glass of whiskey sitting on his thigh. “Where’d you go?” he asked after I let it slip that I’d been in college for city planning.

“West Virginia,” I told him.

“Party school,” he said as Saul’s fingers started drifting up and down my spine. I was sitting with my legs draped over his, my head occasionally resting on his shoulder.

“It was. My roommate was a big fan of the parties.”

“Not you?”

“It had its moments. I had to be careful not to get too crazy, though. I was on scholarship for soccer. I had to be on my best behavior and on point for practice.”

“Soccer, huh?” Saul asked, fingers drifting down my legs. “Explains these,” he said in my ear just for me to hear.

“Not really. It’s been a long time.”

“Did you decide not to go into city planning?” Colter asked.

“No, I dropped out of college,” I admitted, feeling my stomach tense, not wanting to go into those details.

“Eh, it’s not for everyone,” Saint said.

I couldn’t tell if Saint picked up on my tension and wanted to ease it, or if he was just being casual. Either way, I was glad when the conversation turned toward talk about the town, about the rumors the guys had heard about what was going to be getting built.

Eventually, everyone made their way to bed early for a change.

Saul and I walked Trix, then did the same, falling into bed and each other.

It was a blissful night.

When I woke up, though, I had a face full of fur instead of Saul.

Shifting onto my back, I scanned the room, finding the first golden tendrils of sunlight streaming through the windows. They all shone on the shirtless body of Saul as he leaned forward into downward dog.

I inched upward, not wanting him to notice me and stop, but desperately wanting a better view.

His body was fluid, shifting effortlessly from one position to the next, his muscles tensing and relaxing, then flexing again.

At the end, he moved from downward dog to child’s pose before settling into a cross-legged position.

His eyes were closed, his face serene.

I knew I should let him have his practice, his peace.

But I found myself climbing out of bed, grabbing a condom, then padding across the floor and moving to straddle him.

He smiled but didn’t open his eyes, didn’t seem to break his concentration.

So I got a little inventive.

My lips kissed down his jaw, his ear, his neck.

The rest of him stayed still.

But his cock was pressing hard against me as my hips started to rock against him.

“You are one hell of a distraction,” Saul said, his voice husky. His hands went to my hips, pulling me down against him, making me let out a long, deep moan.

He’d had several opportunities to explore me. It was my turn to take my time with him.

I pressed him flat and moved over him, exploring his tattoos, asking about their stories, learning which he’d gotten before prison and which ones he’d gotten inside.

I learned where all his scars came from and grew to care for the helpless little boy dealing with a violent father, and I admired the man who occasionally used his fists in defense of women.

I found a ticklish spot near his lowest rib.

I found he nearly went feral when I kissed his hipbone.

When I felt like I’d gotten to know every inch of him, I leaned down to kiss his neck as he reached between to protect us.

Then I lifted up.

I slid down.

I rode him slowly, feeling something deeper than the orgasm building.

It was this deep, solid knowing in my chest.

I knew if I let myself, I would recognize it for what it was.

But that was too risky.

So I shook it off and rode him harder, faster, until we were both wet with sweat and panting for breath, then crying out as we came.

“You okay?” Saul asked afterward as his fingers sifted through my hair. “Coulda sworn you were working through something there.”

“Just working my way toward an orgasm,” I said, wincing as I lied to him. Again.

“Este…”

“Not everything has to mean something deeper.”

My tone was too sharp.

And the look on Saul’s face said he wasn’t immune to the cut, to the sting.

“Okay,” he agreed, reaching for my hips.

But I was lifting off of him, knowing my shell was too fragile. Even the slightest bit of pressure would make me crack. And some secrets had to be kept. Whether I liked that or not.

“Honey…”

“I’m just going to take a shower,” I said, grabbing my change of clothes.

There was silence for a beat. Then, “Okay. I’ll take Trix out then.”

I squeezed my eyes shut at the distance in his voice, the guards he was putting in place to protect himself from my suddenly sharp edges.

I would make it up to him.

I just needed a couple of minutes to myself to pull it together, to remind myself that just because I was keeping a few secrets didn’t mean I wasn’t giving him mostly the truth.

Try as hard as I could, though, there was a lingering tension between us all through breakfast and while taking Trix for a walk.

Saul didn’t reach for my hand.

I was too sad about that fact to just reach for his instead.

That afternoon, when he helped Trix into my backseat, our goodbye felt strange, awkward, like we were strangers again.

As I drove away, my heart felt like it was cracking right down the center.

And I had this bone-deep fear that I was never going to see Saul again.

I dropped Trix at home and dragged myself to work, wanting something to do to distract myself from the sensation of something slipping between my fingers.

Something that felt a hell of a lot like love.

I blamed that distraction.

For not realizing my house was too dark when I made it home later that night, that the lights I left on for Trix (and my own sanity) were out.

For not immediately having my panic alarms going off when Trix didn’t come bounding toward me the second she heard the door unlock.

“Trix?” I called, reaching to flick on a light, but no illumination came.

My stomach twisted as I felt around for the lamp on the table, pressing the button.

Again, nothing.

Was the power out?

Was that why Trix was upset?

“Trixie, girl,” I tried, pitching my voice sweeter even as the familiar panic started to course through my veins, making my chest feel tight and my heart punch against my ribs. “Come here, baby.”

I’d just moved into the doorway to the kitchen when I saw her.

Lying on her side.

A prone figure in the dark.

“Trix!” I yelped, rushing forward to drop down beside her, my hands going to her chest.

It was rising and falling.

But no matter how much I shook her, she wasn’t waking up.

Had she eaten something she shouldn’t have? Did I need to get her to the emergency vet? Have her stomach pumped?

“Trix, wake up, baby. Don’t do this to me,” I cried, fumbling for my phone.

But it was right then I saw something move out of the corner of my eye.

A scream gathered in my chest.

Then died in my throat.

The shadow that had haunted me for years was back.

And it was coming right for me.