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Chapter Three

Sutton

T here was a moment when I swore I was never getting out of the tub. The hot water. The luxurious soap that seemed to take years off my skin. I could’ve stayed for hours—days—soaking in the small pool of heaven if Tynan’s dinner hadn’t smelled so damn good.

I held out for as long as I could, soaking, ordering myself not to think about those last couple of moments in the kitchen, and hoping he’d eat and leave and not witness me prove myself a liar by eating his food. Unfortunately, my stomach reached a point where it threatened to eat me if I didn’t feed it some of what I’d been smelling.

I opened the drain and grabbed my towel, drying myself as the water gurgled lower. Pretty soon, the only thing gurgling was me. Damn, I was hungry. I slipped on the emerald green robe I’d found in one of the bathroom cabinets. The cool silk felt incredible on my skin. Softer than anything I currently owned. And cleaner.

As soon as Tynan left, I was going to wash all my clothes—all ten pieces. Black dress. Black jeans. Black tank. Black tee. A pair of black socks and four pairs of black underwear. I never bothered with bras.

I didn’t need more, but I’d considered borrowing a few things from Mara’s closet in her apartment. Thankfully, I didn’t get that far or the police who’d shown up would’ve accused me of theft as well as breaking and entering. Honestly, I was lucky they didn’t take me straight back to jail. Not that any moment spent in the company of Daws was pleasant, but for all of his horrible personality, he did want things to be better for me; he was just pretty confident I’d self-sabotage before that ever happened.

I wasn’t exactly proving him wrong, but that wasn’t my fault. Mara was missing, and no one would listen. No one cared. Except me.

My stomach grumbled again painfully.

Traitor.

I padded barefoot out of the bedroom, expecting to find Tynan sitting on the couch, done, and waiting to make sure I came out and ate. But no,he was perched at the kitchen counter, intently typing on his phone. Probably explaining where he was to someone else.

Something twisted uncomfortably in my chest. A man like him…he was probably supposed to be cooking dinner for a wife or girlfriend tonight. Instead, he was with me.

I stopped and selfishly gave myself a moment to drink down the sight of him. Fully. Uninhibitedly. The buzzed shadow of dark hair, the ragged bridge of his nose, the hard corner of his jaw, and the prominence of his chin. His thick arms rested on the counter, tattooed with a patchwork of veins and scars, and his shoulders seemed broad enough to bear the entire weight of the world along their stretch and still have room for more.

He let out a groan, one that rivaled even the deepest rumble of his massive Harley, and rubbed the back of his neck. The weight of the world was pretty heavy, even for a man like him.

This time, I noticed the patch stitched to the sleeve of his leather jacket draped behind him. At first, it was because the corner of the patch had come loose, frazzled threads stretching out like fingertips trying to grab back ahold of the emblem and pull it tight. I squinted, itching to put it back to rights, and then saw the word Vigilantes in script above the arrow-pierced shield. Interesting. Even if it was my business to ask about it, before I could, Tynan lowered his phone and his arm, and my attention dropped to the plates on the counter—his plate and the one in front of the empty stool beside him—both covered with foil.

He’d waited for me to eat.

My jaw went slack.

Tynan Bates did nothing as I expected because I never expected small gestures. Why would I expect something I’d never experienced? And how did I stop them? Did I protest someone carrying my bag or cooking me dinner or waiting for me to eat? Being the target of his small gestures was like death by a thousand cuts, each little one not enough of anything, but together…

Air whooshed from my lungs, and Tynan’s head snapped in my direction, his gaze like a hot knife wedged right against my throat.

I snapped my mouth shut and swallowed hard. “You waited.” It wasn’t so much an observation as it was an accusation.

“Figured if you decided to eat, I wasn’t going to let you eat alone.” He reached over and grabbed the other stool with one hand and pulled it out for me. An invitation.

Even my mind’s last-ditch pitch for defiance was betrayed by another loud rumble of my stomach. No point in denying it now.

I strode toward him, feeling the air hit along the exposed center of my chest. I climbed into the chair, one edge of my robe sliding off my leg and exposing my thigh.

Nudity wasn’t a thing for me. I understood the puritanical stronghold on society that viewed a woman’s body as a beautiful burden and that baring it revealed a kind of moral weakness. Well, fuck the puritans. Fuck the patriarchy. My body wasn’t a weakness, it was a weapon.

I sucked in a breath when the stool moved under me. With that same single hand, Tynan grabbed one of the chair’s legs and effortlessly hauled it close to the counter like it weighed no more now than when it had been empty. Another cut.

Heat buzzed along my skin, turned on by both the pleasure and the pain of one more small gesture.

He plucked the foil off our plates, and I tried not to focus on the veins on the back of his hand as he balled it up to be thrown away.

Salmon over rice with avocado, and— was that mango? Whatever it was, it smelled too good, and I was too hungry for a good meal to do anything but grab my fork and dig in like I hadn’t eaten in days. I had eaten, but it was all shit. Fast food and ramen. Whatever I could afford from what I made as a seamstress.

Graduating high school from a juvenile detention center wasn’t even all it wasn’t cracked up to be. Legal but with no money, no family, no place to stay, and pretty much no skills that wouldn’t end me back in prison, I’d gone to a hostel in the city and begged the owner, Miss Mai, if I could work for her instead of rent. The first two weeks, I cleaned the hostel. The third week, I asked Miss Mai if she had a needle and thread I could use to fix the rip in the lining of my jacket, and her response had been to ask what else I could fix.

Lala had taught me to sew when I was little. I would sit and watch her cross-stitch for hours, more entertained by that than Lolo and his western reruns on TV. Finally, she broke down and let me do it with her, and gave me a wheel of my own. Eventually, we moved our sewing time to her old Singer machine on the desk in the corner of her bedroom. She’d make me costumes, and I watched how she fixed up our clothes from a pile that always seemed endless.

It was a hobby until she died, then it was a necessity because I became her replacement. Mom never wanted to spend money on new things, so I always had to either fix what we already had or alter clothes she’d begrudgingly get from Goodwill.

When I explained the general gist of that to Miss Mai, she was elated. Apparently, she had a side business in clothing alteration and repair, and it was busy enough that she needed help. Meanwhile, I needed money too badly to say anything but yes.

Shit. I let out a heavy sigh. I needed to message Miss Mai. She was going to be so upset I was gone so suddenly.

“What is it?” Tynan’s voice broke the silence.

My fork paused mid-path to my mouth. I didn’t really want to answer, mostly because he made it far too easy to trust him—a man who was practically a stranger to me. A man who should feel like more of a stranger than he did.

But what I’d been saying wasn’t working. I needed Tynan to trust me. To believe that Daws was being heavy-handed in his warning and that there was no reason for him to feel like he had to keep an eye on me day and night. And getting to that point meant I had to stop being ungrateful and guarded and acerbic, and instead try to be…nice.

I shuddered.

“Just remembered I need to message my boss and let her know I won’t be at work tomorrow,” I said and shoved the bite of salmon in my mouth.

“Where do you work?” He tried to sound casual, but there was nothing casual about the tension radiating off him.

I chewed slowly and swallowed. “At a hostel.”

His chair groaned. “You work at a hostel?”

You’d think I’d said whorehouse.

“And live there,” I said, adding smartly, “Having a degree from juvenile detention isn’t exactly in high demand in the job market, so I kind of have to take what I can get.”

“Sutton…” He growled at me like it was an order to behave.

I hated orders, but for some reason, my body liked the rough and tumble tone of his.

“The woman who owns it also has a seamstress business, and when I told her I knew how to sew, she gave me a job.” I shoved another bite of food in my mouth, noting the dwindling amount left on my plate.

“How long have you been there?”

The question was vague, but somehow I knew exactly what he was asking.

“I got out four and a half months ago. Just in time to turn twenty-one.”

Fun fact: California’s maximum age for juvenile incarceration is twenty-five, so there was no graduation out of juvie when I turned eighteen. Thankfully, my sentence was only three and a half years with this final six months to be spent on parole.

I scooped the last bite of food from my plate, ignoring the warmth I felt because he was looking at me. No matter how many times he asked, I drew a hard line on answers the day I got out.

“You done?” His eyes flicked to my plate.

“Yeah.” I wiped the corners of my mouth, but before I could reach for my plate, it was in his hands.

I let my gaze slide to him as he stood, his big body moving with a kind of effortlessness that reminded me of a dragon. A massive, powerful, and deadly creature, but one that was still always depicted as moving gracefully.

And now, a dragon who looked just as effortless doing dishes.

“Thank you,” I mumbled, watching him scrub our plates. “That was really good.”

He made some sound in reply, but I was in a daze watching him.

From the time I met him as a child, Tynan Bates had always been a man in my eyes. I’d just never been able to see him the way I do now. A man of extremes. Extreme ruggedness and extreme tenderness. And for me, extreme safety and devastating risk. I knew I couldn’t have him, but for a few moments, I pretended like he was mine to admire. To want.

And I pretended like it was okay to ask, “Who were you texting before?”

He looked up, green eyes lasering into mine as his brow lifted.

“You were angry typing. Thought maybe you were missing out on a hot date because of me and were in trouble.” I tipped back, threading my hands through my hair, feeling my robe gape a little wider on my chest, exposing the delicate tattoos that began on my sternum.

For a fraction of a second, his gaze dropped. But a fraction was enough to catch it. A fraction was enough to feel the heat of it. A fraction was enough to want more.

He looked back up at me, answering, “I was texting my boss, letting him know why I disappeared from the garage earlier.”

I slid my tongue over my bottom lip. “So, no hot date?”

His jaw fired so hard I was surprised I didn’t hear a crack. “No dates.”

My lips parted, that same crackle entering the air that had earlier. Like something was popping all the little bubbles on the bubble wrap buffering the tension between us.

“What’s the wasp for?” he asked then, and I stiffened, glancing up to my right hand that was absentmindedly combing my damp hair. The delicate etch of the wasp was inked into the vulnerable skin of my wrist. Mara.

I lowered my arms a little too quickly and then answered, “My best friend and I got matching tattoos when we were sixteen. Right after Dad died.”

Of course, Mom signed off on it. I liked to think it was the artist in her that wanted to encourage any kind of expression, especially when it came to processing complex emotions like grief, but the reality was she was too distraught, angry, and drugged up to care about giving her parental consent.

She might’ve cared about the scorpion tattoo I got a year later, but by then I had a fake ID, and she was too preoccupied with Randy.

“Didn’t ask when, Sutton,” he said low and then repeated, “Why the wasp?”

The story tangled in my mouth. It wasn’t that the origin of the tattoo was anything particularly revealing—especially considering how colorful the last few years of my life had been, but maybe that was why I hesitated. Because it was the origin. The seed that had grown into a full-fledged oak tree. The spark that ignited the wildfire. It was nothing but the beginning…and that was everything.

But I didn’t have a choice.

Success in warfare is gained by carefully accommodating ourselves to the enemy’s purpose.

I had to give Tynan something to make him feel like it was okay to leave.

“It was Mara’s idea,” I began, running my thumb over the drawing.

“Mara’s your best friend?”

I nodded slowly, wading carefully into this topic. “She was the first person to talk to me when I started my last new school. My fifth at that point.”

Tynan’s jaw pulsed. I didn’t need to explain to him what being the daughter of a service member meant. Lots of moves. Lots of new schools. Lots of new people. At some point, you just get tired of starting over.

“We were inseparable from that first day of middle school.” I let out a long breath. “We’d read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo earlier that year , and we were obsessed with the main character, Lisbeth Salander. She had a wasp tattoo on her neck. After Dad died, Mara suggested getting matching wasp tattoos. I guess they’re a sign that everything happens for a reason.”

And a symbol of taking control over your life.

He grabbed a towel and began to dry the plates.“Didn’t Lisbeth have the wasp tattoo removed?”

I stilled. “You read it?” I couldn’t hide my surprise…along with the other, more insidious emotion that knotted like a warm coil in my stomach.

“Listened to it, actually. I like audiobooks while I’m working on a bike,” he said, drying the plates. “But it was a couple of years ago, so I might not remember…”

“No, you’re right.” I licked my bottom lip again, and this time, his eyes looked like he’d rip my tongue out if I did it again. Interesting. “She said it made her too conspicuous.” I pulled my lip between my teeth and smiled. “I rather like being conspicuous.”

Tynan lifted a brow, and I noticed the small scar running through it. He was covered in violence but as controlled as a machine; I was pretty sure it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

“So, you liked it earlier today when the police caught you breaking and entering?”

Anger surged, and I flexed my fist, willing it to heel. “I wasn’t breaking and entering. I left my phone in Mara’s apartment and went back to get it, but I didn’t have a key.”

Tynan made a low noise that sounded like he was both agreeing with me but at the same time not believing me. Well, I was used to not being believed even when I was telling the truth. It was the reason I’d gone back to Mara’s apartment in the first place; she was missing, and no one would believe me. Not her building manager, who did, though, offer to look into it if I let him grope me. No fucking wonder he called the police on me that day. And not the police. No matter what I felt his character might be, I doubted Tynan would respond any differently. Like the police, he’d just see her as one more troubled young woman, transient and unpredictable, who couldn’t hold down a job, was involved with drugs, and hadn’t had a stable address for the last three years.

Of course, I took responsibility for that. I’d gone from parentified daughter to parentified friend. We were each other’s lifelines from our abusive home lives, clinging to tales of female retribution and justice like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Sailor Moon. The only real example of love we’d ever had was the kind we had for each other, but when I went to juvie, Mara was…alone. I’d left her alone. And now she was gone.

I knew something had happened to her, and I would do whatever it took to find out what. And I would do it alone.

“I’m…sorry about all the trouble,” I started and slid off the stool. Apologies were an unfamiliar taste on my tongue. I knew how to make amends when I was wrong, but I just had so few people that I was close to…no, I had one person. Mara. And now she was gone.

“No trouble at all.” Tynan reached out and gripped the edge of the counter, the ripple of tension through his muscles hinting it was more trouble than he was letting on. “I owe Jon…” He trailed off, a shadow darkening his brow. “I owe him,” was all he said in conclusion.

“Well, you don’t owe me.” I bristled, wanting to be clear. I wasn’t some debt to be paid to my father, that was for sure. “Thank you for letting me stay here. I’ll be out of your hair in six weeks.”I grabbed my cell from the counter and shook my head. “All this trouble for this stupid thing.”

Tynan’s gaze pinned to mine for a long second, and I shivered. It was like he could see right through me. Right to the very depths. But what was most unsettling wasn’t that he could…it was that he actually looked.

“I left my phone number.” He nodded to a piece of paper on the counter.

“I’m sure I won’t need it,” I said and then quickly tempered it with, “But thank you.”

He came around the counter, and I had to fight to stay still, half of me wanting to run away, the other half desperate to move closer. When he reached me, he towered over my five-foot-two frame.

“I don’t know what happened, but if you need something…anything, Sutton, I’m here.”

Hearing him offer his support like a knight offering his fealty…I quashed the temptation before its hold could strangle me. I wasn’t a princess anymore.

“I’m really fine. Thanks,” I said and headed for the bedroom, the sizzle of his gaze making me wonder if he could see the giant scorpion on my back, hiding under the robe. It made me wonder if he could see all the dark secrets I was hiding.

“I’ll check in tomorrow,” he said just as I reached the door.

Thanks for the warning, I thought and looked over my shoulder at him, fighting to keep my expression impassive. He could check in all he wanted; it wouldn’t stop me from figuring out what happened to my best friend.

“Goodnight, Tynan.”

His jaw flexed. “Goodnight.”