Page 22 of Dangerous Love

“They aren’t going to hear shit. They’re out there fucking their brains out!”

“Shut up. Don’t say that!”

“Well, they are,” he huffed, settling his back against the wall.

“I know, but you don’t have to remind me. We are so dead if we get caught,” she moaned, curling her knees to her chest. “Can you take him?”

“What do you mean can I take him?”

“I mean, I don’t want to die!” she whispered plaintively. “Can you take him if he goes over the rails and finds out we watched.”

“You’re being ridiculous. He won’t kill us.”

That Ice didn’t seem as sure as he sounded didn’t inspire confidence in his abilities.

She whimpered. “We’re going to die.”

“We’re not going to die.”

At least Ice sounded more sure of that.

“He’ll beat the fuck out of me, but you should be good.”

“It’s all your fault we’re in this situation! You should have let me open the door!”

Ice rolled his eyes. “Yeah, that would have been so much better.”

“I could have run. Now, if Lily comes to the bathroom, we’re trapped.” She was appalled at the thought of Lily entering the bathroom. “What if she comes in here naked?”

“God, I can only hope,” Ice muttered.

Grace punched him on his arm.

“Fuck, I was only joking. Quit fucking hitting me!”

“You weren’t joking. Don’t think I didn’t see you looking at her boobs.”

“Are you fucking serious? If I hadn’t looked, that should be a trigger for you. There is no red-blooded man that wouldn’t get turned on by her.”

Hurt, she dropped her eyes from his.

“Don’t give me that hurt look! I wasn’t the one twisting on my chair when you got a good look at Shade’s body. For a second I thought you were going to knock Lily off the bar and hurl yourself up there.”

She looked at him in confusion. Had she?

She gave a haughty sniff out loud. She couldn’t remember.

“Please.” Ice snorted. “You were looking at him like he was a snow cone and you were in a heat wave.”

“Don’t be crass.”

“I’m not being crass. I’m horny as fuck!”

“Well, you’re not getting any in here,” she snapped.

“What’s new?” he snapped back.

“Are you trying to act like you don’t get any?”

“I’m not acting. I’m saying it like it is.”

Grace cupped her palms over her knees. “We have sex all the time.”

“When’s the last time you let me fuck you then?”

“Uh… the other day.”

“More like three weeks ago.”

“That’s not true. It’s just been a couple of days.”

“It’s been three weeks, Grace.”

“Really?” Surely, he couldn’t be right. She racked her mind, trying to remember.

“Really.”

CHAPTER 6

“You haven’t let me touch you since the day we received the letter that Winston’s hearing was rescheduled.”

Numbly, she stared at the sink, focusing on a drop of water at the edge of the faucet, like it was hanging on for dear life. The way she had when she was kidnapped, her life hanging on the balance every time Leon walked down those wooden steps.

“I didn’t think it had been so long.”

“Well, it has.”

Feeling like a complete failure as a wife, she continued to look at the stupid droplet of water, waiting for it to fall. “I keep hearing him coming down those steps. During the day, when I’m at work. At night, even when I know you’re there and Winston’s in the psychiatric hospital. How am I supposed to make myself stop hearing them when he really gets out?”

Ice laid a comforting arm around her shoulders, shifting closer to her. “He can’t walk anymore. Maybe you should go back to therapy.”

“I did two months ago. It’s not helping, I still hear those footsteps.” She brought her hand to her hair, her forehead resting on her knees. “I’m never going to stop hearing them.”

“You will. He’ll never get near you again.”

“I know you think that you can protect me against him, but you can’t. Sooner or later, he will get out. His doctors keep writing those letters for him that he’s not a physical threat. His body might not be able to move, but there’s nothing wrong with his mind. He’s skilled at finding people’s weaknesses and takes advantage any way he can.”

“They won’t let him out. They’ll move him to a prison cell.”

“Somehow, someway, he’ll get out. His doctors like him. They’re underestimating him. He’s pretending he’s sorry. He will eventually get out, and when he does, he’ll manipulate someone into finding me. He said he would never let me go, and he meant it.”

“The sick fucker will not get within breathing distance of you. I swear, Grace, I swear on my grave that he won’t get near you.”

Grace raised her head to stare at him. “I’m afraid of that, too. When he finds out we’re together, he’ll kill you. How can you protect me if you’re not here?”

“Fuck. Is that why you’ve been on my case about working for Desmond?”

She hadn’t seen the correlation before, but Ice could be right.

“I think so. I don’t like you working for him. But yes, part of it is because I need you alive, Ice. I don’t need you buried six feet under because of a shady deal that Desmond needs you there for. What if something goes wrong?”

“Something could go wrong anytime I ride my bike or step out in traffic.”

“That’s true. But you don’t have to be a target for anyone wanting to take Desmond out either.”

He held her tighter to his side. “Even if I quit, stayed home, and lived in a bubble to make you happy, I could drop dead of a heart attack from boredom. I can’t live my life afraid of shit that could happen, any more than you can live in fear that Winston will have hurt or kill someone to get back at you.”

“I know. What are we going to do?”

“I’ll tell you what we’re going to do. We’re going to live our lives like Winston doesn’t exist, that none of the deals will go down wrong, and I won’t crash and burn on my bike. You don’t think I’m just as afraid for you? Your mother was dying of heart failure when they found the breast cancer. You think that shit doesn’t ride on my shoulders for you? You think I want to raise a kid on my own if something happens to you? Fuck no! But we’re not going to live in fear that one of your checkups will come back anything but negative.”

She nodded. “I’m trying.”

“Fuck trying. You’ve been trying to forget Winston since he was arrested. Maybe that’s the problem. You’ve gone to those hearings and talked about what he did to you and your friends. Fucking tell him everything you’ve been holding back, get it off your chest, and let it go when you walk out, because my dick’s not getting any younger. I don’t know if I can get it up anymore.”

She jabbed him in the ribs with her elbow, knowing he was ready to change the subject from Winston. “You didn’t have a problem getting a hard-on when you saw Lily dancing.” She gave him a reproachful glance, letting him know she was aware of the bulge under his jeans when he tugged her into the restroom. It wasn’t like she could have missed that huge bulge pressed against her ass as she sidled inside the bathroom.

He gave her a rueful smile in acknowledgment. “She would have gotten a rise from a dead man with the way she went up and down that pole. You should ask her where she took lessons.”

She jabbed him again. “Shut up while you’re ahead.”

“No need to be jealous. She can’t hold a candle to you. I prefer my women blonde….”

She arched a brow at him. “Women?”

“I prefer my woman to be blonde,” he corrected himself. “She has too much junk in her trunk for my taste….”

; “You’re lying to make me feel better.”

“Is it working?”

“Yes.”

“Then it’s all good. But seriously, you need to learn how to do that pole dancing. It’s sexy as fuck.”

“You go in a strip club almost every day in Queen City; it’s not like pole dancing is a foreign concept to you.”

“Those strippers are tired of twitching tails. Henry needs to hire some new ones. Besides, it’s different seeing a good girl being bad. Gets my libido stirring, you know?”

“I can’t say I do. I wonder if it works the same with men? Several very sweet men are clients of Zoey’s. Maybe one of them has a bad boy side. I’ll have to ask for her opinion.”

Ice looked like he didn’t appreciate the comparison.

She laid a hand on his thigh, and he laid one on top of hers.

“You trying to play nice after trying to get me jealous?”

She started to argue with him, then stopped herself, realizing the pattern she’d let fester.

“I guess I was just seeing if I could still make you jealous.”

He gave her a crooked smile as if he was thinking about a joke only he could understand.