me when, I’ll be there.
Thanks, Ma.
You bet. Love you.
Love you.
Jag then changed into workout gear.
But before he headed out, and again, before he made excuses not to do it, he sent another text.
He got the reply before he hit the park.
You call it, I’m there, Tack replied.
Jag drew breath into his nose.
Then he sent a day, time and place to Tack.
He started his workout and he really went at it, ending it in a five-mile run and a thorough full-body stretch session in order to sort himself out so he’d be chill and loose.
And maybe, that night, he wouldn’t dream of going out to pick up a pizza and heading back to his truck.
Only to get jumped and have his throat slit.
And leave his mom, Hound, Dutch, Wilder and Archie without him forever.
* * * *
“I knew you were the shit since, like, the instant I looked at you,” Archie declared. “But Bastien’s? This is next level, boyfriend.”
After saying that, she pressed into his side where she sat next to him in a booth at Bastien’s, her face in his neck, and she didn’t kiss him or touch his skin with her tongue.
She purred.
His dick stirred.
“Stop it,” he ordered. “I got less than a day to wait.”
She pulled her face out of his neck.
“You mean we have less than a day to wait.”
“I got you off this morning and I’ll get you off tonight.”
“It’s not the same,” she muttered, turning to her cocktail that had some kind of spicy, tabasco salt on the rim.
“Are you complaining?” he asked.
She took a sip of her cocktail then returned her attention to him.
“You got long, strong fingers, baby, but a girl needs some dick.”
Jagger roared with laughter.
When he was done, she wasn’t laughing.
She wasn’t smiling.
She was pressed, her front to his arm, and reaching a hand to his face.
She ran a finger along his jaw to the corner of his mouth and along his lower lip.
Her eyes watched these movements.
When her hand fell to rest on his chest and her gaze lifted to catch his, he felt it bore deep.
All amusement fled.
“Archie,” he whispered.
She retreated from her visual invasion, pushed in, touched her mouth to his, and after she pulled away an inch, she said, “Thanks for supporting the ’hood with your steak place choice.”
“It’s about that. It’s about the retro here, which is fucking cool. It’s about arguably the best steaks in Denver. It’s about making you happy, since I knew you’d dig this. But, just sayin’, even if your crib is blocks away, we’re still spending the night at my place.”
“Your turn,” she noted.
“Yeah,” he replied.
She gave him an eye twinkle and her focus shifted to the table because their Devils Riding Bareback were being served.
And Jagger released his breath.
Because she didn’t push, she didn’t demand, she didn’t make him talk about what he knew she saw in his eyes, but he wasn’t ready to explore. Definitely not share.
She let it go.
So yeah.
There was relief.
But underlying it was something else.
Because he knew it was only a reprieve.
* * * *
Jag came back to the bed after going to the bathroom to splash his face and rinse off.
He had Archie all over him since he’d finished her off going down on her.
She was on her side in his bed, cradling his sheet between her legs, bare hip and leg exposed, she still had on her black bra.
He slid in behind her and touched the strap of the bra.
“Want this off?” he murmured.
“Mm,” she hummed, shifting enough he knew to reach in front of her and unhook the clasp between her tits.
He did that, slid the bra off and tossed it aside, seeing another one of Archie’s tats.
He bent in to look closer at the small writing that went across her side, where the band of her bra had covered the skin.
It said, The Girl Across the Way.
He palmed it and growled, “Baby.”
“Bet you wish you didn’t just make me come hard, boyfriend, and bought me too many cocktails,” she whispered, gazing smugly and sleepily at him.
He dropped his head and kissed the tat.
Then he pushed up and kissed her.
She near to Christ fell asleep on him while he was doing it.
“Too good with your mouth,” she mumbled when he broke the kiss.
Which meant he was grinning when he turned out the lights.
He settled in behind her in a spoon, top arm wrapped around her chest.
The arm he shoved under her was wrapped around her ribs.
And his hand was on The Girl Across