Page 37 of Whiskey Shivers

Corliss…

I woke that first morning, snug against Hex’s hard body and it felt so…natural. Like the pieces had fallen into place, like I had finally found thepeaceI’d always searched for but hadn’t quite been able to find… and it transcended anything I had ever experienced with any other person that had come before him.

We haven’t even kissedwas the first thought that’d crossed my mind and I wriggled a bit, worrying that maybe he was just helping, that he wasn’t all that into me like I was him. His firm hand gripping my hip stopped me.

“Keep doing that,” he said, his voice rough with sleep. “We’re gonna have a problem, baby girl.”

I froze and very carefully looked up at him over my shoulder. It didn’t feel good, but it was worth it to see the heat in his gaze and the naked desire on his face.

“Sorry,” I murmured, and he gave me a slow and almost predatory smile that quickened my heartbeat and made my blood rush just a little bit faster, raising a blush to my cheeks.

“Nothing to be sorry about,” he said. “Just get comfortable. My neck hurts just lookin’ at ‘cha right now.”

I giggled a bit and turned back into a much more natural position that didn’t hurt and cuddled back against him. He gasped and slid his arm around me more securely, nuzzling behind my ear and breathing me in.

“Mmm, gimme just two more seconds of this, and I’ll go get some coffee on and some breakfast going so you can take your pills.”

That day I got the tour. He was pretty much in the midst of renovations. The kitchen was done, as was his bedroom and bathroom, and the guest bath out in the rest of the house… and now, he had turned to making an honest-to-goodnessbarin his living room.

He told me his plans for the place which included vaulting the ceiling and making a nook space above the front bedroom, which he intended to make into an office. The back bedroom he intended to make into a guest room. Right now, that back room was piled with construction equipment.

“How long have you lived here?” I’d asked when a knock fell at the back door.

“Hang back here,” he’d ordered, and he’d gone out into the sort of little mud room vestibule in front of the laundry nook and opened the back door.

“Well, hi,” he said and sounded a little surprised.

“Cavalry has arrived,” a male voice called out, and I drifted to the doorway to see what was going on.

“Hello,” a redheaded woman said as two more of Hex’s biker friends slipped in the back door.

“Hi,” I said quietly.

“I’m Alina. I’m La Croix’s ol’ lady,” she said, coming forward and holding out her hand. She kindly switched when she realized my left was done up in its sling brace thing and my right was the only one free.

We laughed a bit nervously as we shared an awkward right-handed handshake and she smiled at me.

“What’re you boys doin’ ‘round here?” Hex asked, but he was smiling.

“Come to help you get this place fixed up for you and your lady,” one of the men rumbled. I’d seen him yesterday. He was terrifying – bald and covered in tattoos, his arms thick and built like a proverbial brick shithouse. He wore these contacts that made his eyes wall to wall midnight and the look was disconcerting to say the least.

“Y’all helped me summer before last,” the pretty redheaded woman said. “It’s my turn.”

“Y’all hungry?” Hex questioned.

“You’re offering, I’m eating,” one of the men said, pulling his long, curly brown hair into a ponytail at the back of his head, a hair elastic stretching over his thick fingers.

“How you doing?” he asked me directly as he pulled his hair through the loop.

“Better than yesterday,” I said with an attempt at a smile.

He sniffed and nodded. “I’m Saint. Sorry nobody thought to introduce themselves, situation was kinda all fucked up.”

“Hi, I’m Corliss,” I said, and I nodded. “It was very fucked up. This whole thing has been kind of a confusing nightmare but hey, it isn’t the first time I’ve moved around via trash bags.”

I lifted my good shoulder in a slight shrug and attempted to make light of it.

“Yeah, but it’s the last,” Hex declared and winked at me.

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