Page 41 of A Favor Owed

I pull the sheets up around us and try not to be too thrilled by the idea of sleeping with her again all night. Girls can get all kinds of wrong ideas about staying over.

“I don’t need to sleep over,” she says, once again like she’s stealing around inside my head. “I don’t want you getting the wrong idea and all.”

“And what would that be?” Leave it to her to turn my sexist shit around on me.

“That I like you.”

“’Cause you don’t?” I challenge, calling her on her bullshit.

“I tolerate you. There’s a big difference.”

Whatever you say, Ange.“Go to sleep, Pines. You’re staying right here tonight.”

She makes a muffledhmmphsound before extracting herself from my arms, snatching my pillow from under my head, and settling into it with a smirky little smile. I roll my eyes and retrieve the pillow I tossed on the floor. This one smells like her, anyway.

Well, now I know how to get Angela to talk, and it’s not alcohol. That realization should be gratifying. I should feel like a puffed-up peacock or some shit. Instead, I feel ridiculously protective and territorial.

I know I have a text to send. Angela is doing human trafficking work. That’s potentially huge. I don’t know how Lou plans to use that information, or if it would hurt Angela. I know I need to tell him, but I don’t know how I’m going to bring myself to do it. Basically, what I know is shit, and what I don’t know makes me feel like shit.

Fortunately, it’s late enough back east and I’m tired enough tonight that I’m not going to deal with any of it right now. I’m just going to be happy that Angie Pines is here in my bed, that she gave me the mother of all blow jobs, and that I satisfied her into oblivion. I can see her breathing slow down as I run my fingers through her long, soft hair.

“I want to tell you everything, Brady,” she murmurs, making me pause. “It scares the hell out of me.”

I kiss her shoulder and go back to stroking her hair.Me too, princess. Me fucking too.

Chapter Seventeen

Angela

I’m stuck in the same dream I’ve had before, the one with no clear images, only a feeling of terror and dread. It’s worse this time, more intense. I’m trying to wake up from it, to do anything to get away from it, but I can’t. It has a grip on me that tightens more and more as I try to scream and gasp for air.

“Angie.”

Help me.I try to say it, but in the dream, my words sound like grotesque moans.

“Ange, wake up.”

A big, warm hand on my face makes me startle awake, jerking violently.

“Whoa. You okay, princess?”

Brady is lying next to me, propped up on an elbow, his copper waves tousled, his chest bare except for the medal that hangs around his neck. His other hand, the one that must have woken me, is still stretched toward me, resting on the bed.

I’m sitting up, my hands rigidly holding the sheet against my chest, my heart pounding, a feeling inside like I’ve been crying. I tentatively touch my face and am relieved to find it dry. I sink back onto the pillow, slowly releasing my grip on the sheet.

“Sorry, yeah,” I mutter, turning away from him and taking deep breaths. God, I hate that dream. It stays with me for hours sometimes. But as I feel Brady’s fingers in my hair, down my back, all the way to my waist, slow and gentle, over and over, I already feel the terror starting to recede.

“That was a hell of a nightmare,” he says. “I couldn’t wake you up at first.”

“Sorry about that,” I say, mortified. “What time is it?”

“About seven.”

I groan. “I have to go.”

“What for? We don’t have class today.”

“I work at Legal Aid every Wednesday.”

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