Page 38 of Puck

He clapped me on the shoulder, and we shook hands. “I am Ivar. You are Puck.” He glanced at the women. “The rest of the introductions shall have to wait. I do not have an interest in dealing with the local authorities.”

“Me neither.”

He glanced past me at the man we’d taken hostage, sitting with his back against the tree, knees drawn up, looking green around the gills. “Who is he?”

I shrugged. “He surrendered. I couldn’t just—”

Ivar reached into his suit coat, withdrew a compact 9mm, fired once, and replaced it, the whole thing done as casually as anyone else might swat a fly. “Loose ends kill you.” He gestured at the Rover. “Shall we?”

I blinked at the now-dead guy, a neat round hole directly between his eyebrows, and nodded. “Let’s get this shitshow on the road.”

6: No Foolin’

I’d seensome crazy stuff in my life. As a homeless person, especially in New York, you saw some crazy-ass shit go down. People wearing all sorts of goofy nonsense, fights, murders—I saw a group of guys trying to steal a grand piano; I saw a guy in full clown costume running from three policemen, cackling; I saw drunk people fucking in alleys on a regular basis; I watched a guy get caught cheating and then get chased mostly naked down the street by both women. Point was, I’d seen death, and I’d known violence.

What Puck was capable of . . . was different. He was frighteningly good at it, made it look easy, effortless. Yet he was articulate, and surprisingly open with me, and seemed in touch with his emotions. He was an enigma. Like, if I’d met him on the street or at the bar, I probably wouldn’t have thought about him twice. I mean, he just wasn’t my type. I wasn’t sure I had a type, but if I did, Puck wasn’t it. The guys I’d dated mostly fit into a mold: a few inches taller than me, clean-cut, well dressed, well educated. And I hadn’t dated any one of them for more than a couple months, because they were all fucking boring. Nice, easy to talk to, decent in bed—and boring.

Or at least, if I compared them to Puck, that was how they seemed now. I mean, he was anything but boring. He was a natural storyteller, and he was educated, obviously, but he cursed like a sailor, and the clothes he wore were . . . um, interesting. That shirt? I used to panhandle outside a bar that hosted a lot of heavy metal bands, and I got to know a few of the regular patrons, most of whom wore shirts like Puck’s, which was the only reason I knew what all that angry red lettering was supposed to say. And his build? He was the exact opposite of the guys I usually dated. They were tall, sleek, elegant, and Puck was . . . not. Decidedly not. He called those kinds of men pussies, I surmised. They never took me anywhere that could have even possibly led to physical violence, but if we’d ended up in some kind of situation, looking back . . . I’d have been the one to jump into a fight before most of those guys. I could walk down the darkest, scariest street anywhere in the world, and if Puck was with me, I’d feel perfectly safe.

With those guys, conversation never went anywhere deep. We talked about movies, or books, or social issues, or mutual friends, or business, and we never really got to anything deep or personal. I mean, we talked about important political issues, but it never got personal. I never told any of them about my parents or what Craig did, and I sure as hell never discussed my heroin addiction. I had the feeling none of them would understand, and I knew several of them would have cut all association with me had they known.

Puck was just . . . different. I didn’t know.

And the more I talked to him, the more I found out about him, the more interested I was. He talked a good game, that was for damn sure. Dirty talk had never really been a thing for me. One guy tried, and I just laughed, because it sounded so stupid and corny, like he tried to sound like a porno. When Puck talked dirty . . . it was fucking hot. Why, I wasn’t sure, but it was. The timbre of his voice, the way it rumbled in my ear . . . the heat of him, the way my skin tingled when he touched me . . . I don’t know. And that beard, god. The whole time we were on the park bench talking, I wanted to bury my fingers in that beard and pull him closer, jerk him in for a kiss. And he would’ve liked that, I could tell. When I touched his beard, when I tugged on it, his nostrils flared and he sucked in a breath, and I could just tell he’d like it if I used his beard to make him do what I wanted.

The other thing about Puck that had me hot and bothered was the forcefulness of his personality, how intense and dominant he was. He’d let me have my way when it suited him, but he’d be in control. And . . . I liked that. Most of the guys I’d dated or slept with weren’t like that. I was always in control. I was a pushy, in-control sort of girl. I was in charge of myself. I didn’t allow anyone to push me around or manipulate me. But deep down, I wanted to give in, a little. It’d have to be the right circumstances, which was why I’d never let anyone see that part of me. But with Puck, I saw it.

He’d take care of me. I’d be safe letting him push me around a little, letting him have control.

What that would look like, where it would go, I didn’t know—and that was what scared me.

He sat in the front passenger seat, talking to Ivar. I tuned into the conversation, but it was mostly about guns, which I’m not super interested in. I was behind Ivar, and Layla was beside me with Temple on the other side of her; Lola and Kyrie were stretched out in the trunk.

Layla nudged me, keeping her voice low. “So, you and Puck?”

“So me and Puck, what?”

“You like him?”

I snorted a laugh. “A little soon to tell.”

“Oh, bullshit. You like him.” She teased my kneecap with her fingertips. “He had his fingers under your skirt.”

I blushed. “He’s . . . different.”

“That’s one word for him.” She indicated the road behind us with a nod of her head. “All this, what are you thinking?”

I lifted a shoulder. “It’s scary. But Puck seems to be able to handle whatever comes at us.”

“I don’t trust many people, but I trust him.”

I eyed her, hesitating. “You trust him in terms of all the shooting, and I get why, watching him do what he does. But on a personal level?”

Layla gave my question thought, which I appreciated. “Honestly, I don’t know. If you can handle his personality, I think there’s a lot more to Puck than most people would give him credit for. I don’t think he’s ever been serious about anyone, but I don’t know for sure. We don’t get into a lot of deep, personal discussions. Either we’re working, or it’s poker night with the guys at the compound, and we’re drinking and bullshitting. Not exactly share-circle moments, you know?”

As close as Puck and Layla seemed to be, it didn’t sound like he’d told her anything about his past, which made everything he’d told me seem pretty important. I had the feeling he didn’t talk about his past any more than I did. Which meant our conversations . . .meantsomething. But what?

Hell if I knew.