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Sugar

“W here the hell you goin’, woman? I’m fuckin’ hungry, and this is what you bring me?

Left over shit from the diner?” Jimmy—my lazy, son-of-a-bitch boyfriend—yells from our couch as I push out of the shotgun house into the balmy night.

The screen door rattles as it slams back on its hinges, and I stalk down the steps and lean against the peeling front porch banister.

I don’t even know how it stays upright. I don’t know how this whole double shotgun is still standing.

The slightest breeze and it looks like it might topple.

Thank god we’re in New Orleans, where there’s never a fucking breeze anyway .

Cicadas sing in the quiet night, a shrill symphony echoing my frayed nerves. “Fucking asshole,” I mutter. “Go eat a dick.”

“Whoa. Now is that anyway to talk to your landlord?” The husky voice sends a shiver down my spine.

I should have known he’d be out here, sitting in the dark on the porch, always tinkering with an engine or scribbling in that notebook.

Maybe some part of me knew he’d be here, and that for just five minutes, my day might not seem all that bad.

Keep dreaming, Sugar .

I turn and face him and then—because I’m a fool who likes to tempt the devil—I climb the bottom two stairs and park my butt on his porch. “Sorry. I didn’t know you were here.”

“Now we both know that ain’t true.”

I chuckle and stare out at the river in the distance and the lightning tearing up the sky over in the marshlands. There’s no thunder, at least none that can be heard from here. Though, there will be if Jimmy finds me talking to our gorgeous landlord .

Jimmy and I have lived in the one-bedroom house next to Zeus for just on a month, and so far, I’ve had only a handful of interactions with the gravelly voiced biker, usually when I’m coming home from work late at night, and one or two meetings where I had to get away from Jimmy’s bullshit.

“You want a beer?” Zeus asks.

“I shouldn’t.”

“Because of him?”

“Because it’s late, and you’re my landlord.”

“I could be a friend too.” He shrugs and takes another sip. “Just sayin’.”

I can’t see his eyes in the dark, I can barely even make out his grin, but I tilt my head and stare at him in disbelief, because I know he can see my face in the streetlight. “You wanna be my friend, Zeus?”

“Sure. Why not?”

I laugh halfheartedly. “I don’t have a lot of those. At least not anymore.”

“Then it sounds like you could use another.”

“Woman!” Jimmy shouts from inside.

I shoot up from my perch and give Zeus an apologetic smile. “I should ...”

“Yeah. See ya ’round, bestie.”

I shake my head and chuckle, but as I round the banister and glance up at Jimmy’s livid expression, the smile disappears from my face. Stupid . I shouldn’t be here talking to him like this.

“Who the fuck you been talking to?”

He obviously hasn’t seen Zeus and I’m not about to tell him our landlord is just a few feet away. “No one.”

“Don’t bullshit me.” He descends the porch steps and grabs my upper arm.

I try to yank free of his grasp, but I can’t wrestle my arm loose, and instead, I’m dragged closer as he searches my clothing for my phone. “Ow! You’re hurting me. Jimmy. Let me go.”

“Where the fuck is it, bitch?”

Jimmy releases me with a shove and I fall to the hard cement. He inhales sharply through his nose and takes a step back. “You make me fucking crazy. You know that?”

Zeus looms up behind him. Jimmy grabs a fistful of his hair and takes several steps back, barreling right into our landlord. Zeus doesn’t budge. He’s a wall of steel and seriously pissed off alpha male with his big arms folded across his broad chest. “There a problem here, Jimmy?”

Jimmy freezes and then clears his throat. “Uh. Hey, Zeus. I er ... what are you doin’ out here?”

“Talking to Sugar.” His gaze zeros in on me. “You okay, darlin’?”

I rise and dust myself off. Little pebbles have embedded themselves in my knees, and my legs sting where I’ve grazed them. I’m sure I’ll have bruises I’ll have to tend to later. “I’m fine.”

“Sure don’t look fine. You look hurt. You look pissed off. You look like a fuckin’ battered housewife.”

“She said she’s fine,” Jimmy snaps.

“I wasn’t fucking talkin’ to you.” Zeus levels him with a dark look and Jimmy holds up his hands in a warding gesture. I glare at Zeus, because though Jimmy is afraid of him, afraid of losing our rental, he’s just going to take this little incident out on me when we’re alone.

“I’m fine.”

“Don’t look fine, Sugar.”

“Well, I am.” I wet my lips and say something I’m sure I’ll regret. “I like it a little rough.”

“Hell, yeah she does.” Jimmy cozies up to me. He wraps an arm around my waist and playfully bites my neck.

Zeus’s eyes flare with heat and anger. Chills break out on my body, not because of the erogenous zone Jimmy is sinking his teeth into, but because of the way Zeus’s eyes roam possessively over every inch of me, everywhere that Jimmy touches me, and he looks like he wants to murder my boyfriend.

“I have an early start,” I tell them both. Ready to just get this over with so I can begin covering up tomorrow’s bruises already.

“Yeah, and you’re gonna be ridin’ my fat cock all night, baby.”

I close my eyes and try to hide my disgust, my shame at Zeus hearing those words, as Jimmy wraps his arms around me and openly plays with my breasts.

But when I open my eyes, Zeus is no longer looking at me.

His gaze is on Jimmy, and its promising murder.

A muscle pops in his jaw and his own lids fall closed, as if he’s cautioning himself about doing something stupid.

Do the stupid thing. Please .

But my landlord is not a mind reader. He turns and walks away, and takes my hopes of avoiding a sound beating with him. “Y’all have a good night then.”

“Oh, we will.” Jimmy manhandles me up the porch stairs and whispers only loud enough for me to hear, “Just fucking wait ’til we get inside, cunt.”