Chapter 12

CHAPTERTWELVE

Vaguely I heard the ringing of a phone. Which meant Davis unfortunately broke the second-best kiss I’d ever received in my life. The kiss before that now ranked third but only because there could only be one best kiss. The kiss I was currently mourning the loss of slid into second place because the way Davis had stalked across the porch with his eyes pinning me in place was hot.

The best kiss was still the one he gave me after he promised to love, honor, and cherish me for the rest of his life. The vows were lies, the kiss was sublime.

“Jane?”

“Huh?”

“Baby, you have to let go.”

Damn.

Right.

I slid my hands out of his wet hair trying to remember how they’d gotten there when I heard him chuckle.

“Not sure what I like more—the taste of you on my tongue, the way you hold on when I kiss you, or the way you look when I’m done.”

Without thinking I asked, “How do I look?”

“The way a beautiful woman should look after she’s been kissed.”

That wasn’t the first time he’d called me beautiful, but this time when he said it I believed him.

With that, he straightened and went into the house to answer his phone.

I head the screen door slam after him.

I looked out at the ocean.

I didn’t get to study it for long because I heard footfalls, then the screen door open. I glanced over at the door and watched Davis come back out holding my purse, though I wasn’t paying attention to my handbag. His chest had my attention—all of my attention. His very bare, very muscular chest. I followed the light dusting of hair that narrowed as it reached his abdominals and became a trail leading to what I knew. Not that I had first-hand knowledge, though I’d felt the evidence of the promise of all the goodness that trail led to pressed against my belly.

Davis had gone into the house wearing a mostly dry, but still-damp shirt.

Now he was not.

And my first thought was I really wished I hadn’t slept in so late because I wanted to know if he slept with a shirt on. And if he didn’t, how early I’d need to wake up so I could study all those ridges and valleys before he woke.

“Babe?” he called, his voice laced with what sounded like humor.

“Huh?”

“Jane?”

“Yeah?”

I knew it was humor I’d heard when his body started shaking with it.

“You need CPR?”

I wasn’t sure, but I was thinking the evidence suggested I might.

“You’re… you have a…” I snapped my trap shut and fought against the need to cover my own damn mouth with my hand to keep from blurting out what a great chest he had.

“I’m what?”

“Nothing.”

His phone started ringing again. No, my purse started ringing.

Oh shit.

“Jane?” This time my name was laced with concern. “Your phone.”

There was only one person who had that number.

My brother.

“That’s Trevor,” I told him.

“Okay.”

Okay?

“No, not okay. That’s Trevor.”

My phone continued to ring.

Davis continued to hold my purse out in front of him.

“Are you going to…”

Too late, it stopped ringing.

I watched my purse land on the chair with a thud so I missed Davis walking the few feet he needed to stand in front of me. I didn’t miss him crouch.

Oh boy.

He was way too close. From a distance, albeit a scant one, but still…his naked chest nearly stole my breath. Up, close, and in my space the ‘nearly’ part got erased and I sucked in a breath.

This was dangerous.

“It fucks me to say this, but you need to answer your phone.”

I blew out my breath and asked, “What?”

“Put the man’s mind at ease and tell him you’re all right.”

I couldn’t believe my ears.

Davis loathed my brother. Despised him. Not only that, but he and the men he worked with were actively trying to put him behind bars, and he wanted me to put my brother’s mind at ease?

“I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I,” he mumbled under his breath. “Again, it fucks me, baby, but he’s your brother and he’s worried. If shit was not extreme and you didn’t have your father’s asshole brother trying to snatch you, no way would I advise you to take a call from Zeus. But from what you’ve said, how he was with you, what he protected you from, that man is worried. You should let him know you’re safe.”

I was not going to think about how that made me feel. Not that he was the sort of man who could logically separate situations but that he’d heard me when I explained my feelings about my brother. Not only had he listened and heard, he understood. He wasn’t judging my love for my brother.

But that was not why he wanted me to answer.

“Hasn’t Wilson told him I’m safe?”

“He has. But it’s not the same.” Davis paused, something flashed over his face, something that looked unpleasant. “Shit’s complicated between the two of you. From what I can tell, you have boundaries when it comes to him. Can’t say I didn’t wish those boundaries were such he didn’t touch your life ever, but again, this is extreme. Saying that to say this; it’s okay for you to answer.”

And, yes, I was correct.

He didn’t want me to answer to put my brother’s mind at ease. He wanted me to answer because he thought I needed to or wanted to and I wasn’t doing it because I was with him.

“In the last few months, I’ve spoken to Trevor more than I have in the last ten years combined,” I told him. “That’s to say there’s been five phone calls made to him from that phone and as you know, one visit to the compound before I left. So what I’m saying is, he doesn’t enter my life. He knows better. He steers clear. I know that’s for me but also for him. He doesn’t want me in his business, but more—he doesn’t want me to see who he’s become. Both of which I appreciate. But you’re right, I need to call him back and tell him I’m alright or he’ll call Wilson and that’s not cool.”

“You’ve spoken to him less than five times in ten years?”

Okay, so perhaps Davis hadn’t paid attention and heard me when I told him my thoughts on my brother.

“When he heard I’d moved back up to Coeur d’Alene after I graduated college he called. I stupidly thought that me being close meant I could help guide him back to being who I remembered him being when I was growing up. Within the first thirty minutes he disabused me of this notion. Still, I was home, he was close, so I persevered. An hour later I realized my big brother was truly gone. A few years later he called and wanted to know how much I owed in student loans. I refused to tell him, he told me I was stupid. He could pay them off and I’d be debt free. I asked him if he was ready to give up the Horsemen and be my brother again. He hung up on me. The last call I got was maybe three years ago to tell me our Dad’s MC was going to a rally in Washington and word was they’d be driving through CDA to get there. He gave me the possible dates. I hung up on him. I’ve seen him out and about but we do not acknowledge each other. You were right to call them boundaries. Trevor knows mine and it’s very rare he enters my life.”

When I was done, Davis was staring at me.

“What?” I snapped. “Did you think I had weekly chats with my felonious brother so we could plan his—”

“Don’t,” Davis growled. “Don’t go back there, thinking me asking a question means I’m being a dick. I’m not sure if I’m happy as fuck to know he’s done his best to keep you safe from his bullshit by keeping his distance or I now think he’s a bigger dumbfuck than I did before. And that’s saying something because the man rents ass by the hour, runs drugs and guns, and doesn’t shy away from blackmail.”

My heart hurt knowing Davis told it true. My brother did do those things.

“Why would you think he’s a bigger dumbfuck now?”

“Babe.”

That was all he said.

“Is that an answer?”

Davis’s elbows came off his knees, his hands went to the armrest of the chair, and he leaned in.

“He’s got his sister close. The sister he put a lot of care and effort into keeping safe before he took off so he knows how precious she is. And what does he do? Gets deeper and deeper into shit instead of pulling himself out so he could give you something good and clean and healthy. That’s what makes him a dumbfuck.”

I didn’t get a chance to respond to that. Not that I was sure how to respond to that before his phone rang in the cabana.

“Fuck. Be back.”

Davis straightened and when he did I had a new point of fascination—his thighs. Big, strong tree trunk legs. I wanted to reach out and trace the muscles. Thankfully he turned, thus saving me from doing just that.

He knows how precious she is.

I’d never been precious to anyone.

Ever.

“Babe,” Davis called from inside.

I assumed that “babe” meant come inside so I got to my feet, grabbed my fresh mug of coffee I’d only managed to drink half of (something I’d have to rectify, and quickly), snatched my purse off the chair, and headed inside.

Davis was leaning against the kitchen counter with his ankles crossed, sneakers and socks gone, chest still bare.

This was getting worse.

Last night, I’d slept in yesterday’s clothes and fell asleep on the couch and he’d carried me to bed. I didn’t know what Davis had slept in since he’d woken up before me and was out the door for coffee. Call me strange, that didn’t feel intimate.

This?

Him standing bare-chested and barefoot seemed intimate. Like the veil had lifted. Like we’d gone from polite company to something different.

“Wilson,” he mouthed.

I nodded and waited for him to say more.

“Yeah, busy morning,” he said, then to me. “Baby, call your brother back. He’s called Wilson twice.”

Busy morning?

Was that what he called an ocean rescue, a busy morning? I called it something else—scary. Thankfully the situation had ended well, but only because Davis had kept his cool. If it had just been me out there I would’ve been freaking out. But Davis’s calm demeanor gave me something I hadn’t known I’d been missing my whole life. And it wasn’t just with Noah and how he’d reacted in that situation, it was all of it.

I couldn’t say Davis being in charge gave me peace but it did smooth the edges of my fear. No. Knowing that I had someone who would stand next to me and would do something as crazy as marry me to get me safe did more than smooth the edges—it gave me hope.

As it turned out I didn’t have to call Trevor back. He called me. I couldn’t fight the eyeroll so I didn’t, and when my gaze came back to Davis he was smiling.

Shirtless, barefoot, and smiling.

Yes, this felt intimate and dangerous. Because of that, I sat my coffee down on the small dinette table and turned around while digging through my purse to find the pay-by-minute phone I’d picked up at Dollar General before leaving Idaho. I didn’t answer until I was back out on the porch.

“I’m fine,” I said by way of greeting.

“So I’ve heard.” My brother’s angry voice came at me through the phone.

This time I was able to control the eye roll but not my attitude.

“If you’ve heard then why are you calling?”

“Why am I calling?”

Now he sounded angry and annoyed.

I tried to remember a time when Trevor didn’t sound angry or annoyed. Certainly it wasn’t any time in the last ten years.

The sad truth was, I couldn’t.

He’d been an angry child, an angry teenager, and became even angrier the older he got.

“That’s what I asked, Trevor.”

“Satan’s got plans—”

“I believe my marriage vows swashed his plans,” I cut in. “Wasn’t that the whole point of me marrying Davis, so Dad wouldn’t want me?”

My question was met with utter silence. This silence went on so long I pulled the phone away from my ear to make sure I hadn’t lost service, or the battery hadn’t died.

“Trevor?”

“Do you not like the asshole?”

I felt my spine stiffen and now I was getting angry.

“Don’t call my husband an asshole,” I snapped.

“Sis—”

“And do not call me sister, Trevor. I stopped being that a long time ago,” I reminded him. “I’m fine. I’m safe. I’m good. So if that’s all you wanted I’m hanging up.”

“I don’t like this,” he growled.

The nerve.

“I’d ask you what it is you don’t like if I cared. But I don’t. And just to point out you lost the right to not like things I got going on in my life when you decided to turn into our father. Now, Zeus, I’m going—”

“You don’t call me that,” he snarled. “And that’s what I don’t like. This attitude you’re throwing at me now that you think you got some dick at your back.”

Anger was history.

I was enraged.

“Are you seriously threatening me?” I whispered.

I didn’t get to hear Trevor’s response. Not because my battery died or because I lost service. Nope, there was enough battery left when Davis appeared on the porch, stomped his way over to me, and snatched the phone out of my hand.

There was also enough power left when Davis matched my brother’s angry tone and clipped, “You’re done and I mean more than this conversation, motherfucker. I asked your sister to call you back so you would know we’ve got her and you could hear that directly from her. And what do I get…no, what does she get for the effort? You being a motherfucker. Now my woman’s sitting with her back straight like she’s been electrocuted while simultaneously looking like she’s been sucker-punched.”

There was a moment of silence before, “No, Zeus, you hear this. As of yesterday afternoon Jane Wright ceased to exist for you and your piece-of-shit father. She’s gone to both of you in a way that she was not before. You do not ever enter her life. Your father doesn’t enter her life.”

Another pause. This one longer. Five seconds. I knew because I was counting. Counting the seconds trying to get my heart rate under control.

“You try that and the problems you already had with Takeback escalate. You’re not the only one who doesn’t have an issue breaking the law. But the difference between me and you is, I protect what’s mine. Though I figure we’re alike in the sense I won’t lose a wink of sleep when I put you to ground.”

With that Davis pulled the phone away from his ear, stabbed at the screen, then found the power button and turned it off.

“Your brother’s an asshole.”

“Um…”

What the hell just happened?

Davis pocketed my phone then like nothing unusual had happened—as in, oh, say him just calling me his woman and telling Trevor he protected what was his while at the same time inferring he’d lose no sleep after he killed my brother.

He casually noted, “You haven’t had breakfast.”

I blinked—rapidly.

Then my back relaxed and I bent forward to hold my stomach while I busted out laughing.

When I was done, Davis was staring at me.

Not like I was crazy, which I was beginning to think I was. Not like I was the sister of the man he hated and he’d just made that overly clear. Not like I was his fake wife whom he only married to keep safe.

Nope.

Davis Wright was staring at me like I was precious.

Okay, now, what in the world was that about?