Page 50 of Hero: Claimed

“What’s that?”

I bring the straw to her lips. “Taste.” She sips, smiling with her eyes even if it’s harder to do with her mouth, and she sighs.

“That’s delicious.”

She seems to enjoy her drink, but eyes my bowl of goodness like a jewel thief eyes the Hope Diamond.

“I want you so bad right now, bird. Look at this.” I point her gaze to the outline in my sweats. “You do this to me—my dick is rock hard. But since you’re injured, I’m gonna just hold you.”

She presses her hand to my cheek. “You had to tease me with that, didn’t you? Well…” Brinley stops as if to consider her next words. “Having you hold me will be a great consolation.” She means those words, I have no doubt, but she has expressive eyes and I know her well enough to read them. Something else is swirling in that brain of hers.

“What is it, Brin?”

“It’s just—what happened to Crush? Do I need to worry about him?”

Not the kind of shit I want to be dealing with while my woman is injured in bed, but I’m not hiding anything from her. She’s my old lady, my partner, and this is the life. “You won’t ever have to worry about Crush again, baby.”

“The police—”

I, gently as possible, hold her chin and turn her head to face me. “Bird, listen to me. You were raised in the life, so you know, we handle our business.”

“Crush is dead?” she asks.

“Are you okay with knowing?”

Brinley nods.

“Right. That bastard will never hurt you or any woman ever again. But baby, we still have to keep vigilant. Blood’s been checking things out. Blaze contacted Crush. He was planning on handing Lords territory over to the Riot for drugs. Turning on us, selling us out.”

A lone tear rolls down over her cheek. Seeing Brinley cry even a solitary tear breaks my damn heart.

“No more, it’s too much for you.”

“I’m fine,” she argues. “Sad for you and Blue, especially, but fine. I need to know.”

This is the hard part. “When we hunted that Advocate, he wasn’t alone. The Advocate’s aren’t only in bed with the Pythons, but the Riot, too. And they’ve been busy brokering deals with the Anguino Cartel.”

She sucks in a sharp breath. “A cartel? Babe, that’s nasty business. What are we going to do?”

“Wearen’t doing anything. It doesn’t touch you. It doesn’t touch any old lady.”

“Levi, I know what these guys are capable of.”

“We’re done talking about this. I needed you to know, but now we’re gonna cuddle and watch TV. Be right back.” I take the tray with my empty bowl and coffee mug back out to the kitchen, then unplug the television from the wall across from the sofa to carry it back into our bedroom. I set it on the dresser at the foot of our bed and plug it in. I shed my sweats and help Brin down to her bra and boy shorts because I might not be able to fuck her, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want maximum contact.

Finally, I climb in next to the woman I love, pull her close, and use the remote to flick on the TV. We spend the day binge-watching reruns ofThe Office.

It’s a really good day.

21.

Levi

Two weeks later…

“How manylights do you want?” Blood asks, like he thinks I’m crazy, but he doesn’t understand. There was one thing Brinley wanted.One, and by god, I was making it happen.

“You don’t have near enough. More white outdoor, yeah?”

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