Midnight Sommelier - Anne Malcom Page 0,54

a gang called the Devil’s Kings, Luna was kidnapped, and his wife was murdered.

Sure, that was a lot of background, but I didn’t know his favorite TV show, whether he watched TV at all. If his parents were alive. What his favorite food was. What he did with his days.

“I suppose you don’t spend a lot of your time at garages, so you wouldn’t notice a new one just opened,” he said.

“A new one just opened?” I repeated, adjusting the ice on my throbbing hand.

He grinned now. Flat-out grinned. I’d never seen that before, him showing teeth. I’d caught a tight-lipped smile at Luna. But this? No, I hadn’t seen this.

It was beautiful.

He was beautiful.

“It’s not exactly new,” he explained, stepping forward to lift the ice from my hand. He cradled my bruised knuckles with a gentleness I didn’t know he possessed. “When I bought it, it had been sitting empty for years. It was in bad shape. Had my work cut out for me these past months. It’s been good, doing something. Creating something clean.” He looked at our intertwined hands. His were nice. Large. Strong. Well maintained. Clean.

“Got some capital saved up for the house, for Luna’s school. Blood money,” he said. “It bought the garage too. Though that was much cheaper than the house and the school. Bought us an escape. But I’ll earn us a different life.”

My stomach dipped in delicious and dark ways at his words. The pain and passion within them mixing into one of those potently arousing cocktails.

“You’re amazing,” I whispered, leaning forward to press my lips to his.

I hadn’t meant to kiss him. It was just a light touch of my lips. Just some contact, just a taste. I needed that. It wasn’t under my control.

Neither was the way the kiss progressed. There was no such thing as a simple touch with Zeke. So it turned into something else. Tongues. Teeth. Our bodies crashing together. He pushed me against the counter, my hip banging against the marble. I didn’t feel it, though it must’ve hurt. Everything was pain and pleasure with Zeke.

But then I moved my hand to tear through his hair, yank at the strands, hurt him like he was hurting me too. Then a sharp and blinding pain radiated through me. A pain that had nothing to do with his hands on my body and everything to do with the fact he’d found his way into my heart.

My body stiffened. I pulled back and sucked in a rough breath.

Zeke stopped immediately, eyes dark with desire but sharp with concern. “Fuck, baby,” he hissed.

“I’m okay,” I whispered, voice thick with desire. My heart was splintering my ribs. “It’s nothing.”

He frowned, desire retreating in his eyes.

“Mom?”

We both flinched, Zeke moving across the kitchen, as if the distance between us made a difference now.

Jax stood in the doorway. He was wearing a crisp white dress shirt, untucked, and black slacks. Black Chuck Taylors. This was not him emulating some character from an old movie. This was him. His style. His uniform. I loved it.

What I did not love was the fact he’d just walked in on me in the arms of a man who wasn’t his father, after he’d had to come home from the big game because I punched another woman. Yeah, his emotional scars were going to be deep and expensive to treat.

“Hey, sweetie,” I said, my voice rough. It sounded like sex. I fucking hated it.

“I got us some champagne, even though I’m not one to celebrate violence—”

Alexis rounded the corner with a bottle in her hand. Her eyes went between me and Zeke, then got big. She smiled wide.

“Zeke was just helping me with my hand,” I said lamely, my eyes going to Jax, looking for signs of trauma. Hatred. Disappointment.

There was nothing.

Nothing to show he felt betrayed by his mother. And no ignorance either. He was young, my boy. But not stupid. He’d been fed old movies since before he could string sentences together; he knew what a quickly broken-up makeout session looked like.

“Hey Mr. Carson,” he said with a grin. “I really like your motorcycle. Do you think I could ride it?”

“No!” I said quickly. “You get on that motorcycle, I stop buying you designer suits.”

He scowled up at me. “But clothes make the man! Naked people have little or no influence on society. Mark Twain said that, Mom. Mark Twain.”

Zeke made a sound that resembled a chuckle. Alexis hid her giggle behind her hand.

I kept a