Inescapable (Men of Mercy Novel, A) (14 page)

But he wasn’t and he couldn’t be. He’d made his choices and they’d stained his soul. Being alone was the price he had to pay. It was just the way it was; he couldn’t start whining about it now.

Besides, what did he know of being a regular guy, someone who could be a lover and a friend, someone who could be part of something bigger than himself?

Fuck all.

It wasn’t like he’d had any decent role models to show him the ropes. At the time, survival had been more important.

The tips of Flick’s fingers on the inside of his wrist pulled him back to the present; to the rich smell of his coffee mingling with her light, floral perfume, to a curl that had fallen out of her ponytail, to the fine line of her jaw.

God, he’d much rather be kissing her than talking. But he had to do this—he had to put some distance between them, to smother the feelings she aroused in him. Because if he didn’t they would build and suffocate him.

It was all still a matter of survival, emotional rather than physical this time, but just as crucial.

“Talk, Kai.”

He forced his tongue to form the words. “At nearly eighteen, I was a semi-hard criminal, running scams, boosting cars, and, like I’d done all my life, trading information.”

“Where?”

“In the less salubrious parts of D.C. Places you’ve probably never heard of. I was a street rat, possibly the king of the street rats.”

“Okay.”

“It took all my cunning and street smarts to avoid being dragged into one of the gangs that ruled those areas.”

Flick rested her chin in the palm of her hand, fascinated but not shocked. “How did you do that?”

“By swearing allegiance while insisting that my sources would dry up if I was seen to be affiliated with any one gang in particular.” Kai’s smile was cold. “I was an exceptional bullshitter.”

He still was, when he wanted to be. But with Flick he wanted to, strangely, tell the truth. Or as much of the truth as he could.

“By the time I was eighteen, I’d sworn allegiance to three gangs and somehow, and thank God, they all believed that I was working for them. If they’d had even a sneaking suspicion that I was playing them, and that I was also feeding information to the gang unit at the police department—”

“God, Kai, wasn’t that dangerous?”

She had no damn idea. But the cops had paid him for the same information the gangs did. His entire existence had been one big game of dodging death or jail, which were pretty much the same thing. He’d lived with the daily knowledge that important parts of his anatomy could be scattered all over the streets at any minute. Yeah, he’d been rash, and very stupid. But life hadn’t meant as much then.

“How does Tally’s mother come into this?”

“I was eighteen, and I met Jane when I passed on some information about a police raid—that gang was paying better than the PD at that stage—and she was one of their girls, hanging on the arm of the leader of the gang. She looked strung out and had a massive shiner over her right eye and a cut on her cheek, courtesy, I’m sure, of her lover’s fist.”

Flick winced and her fingernails dug into his skin of his wrist. She still hadn’t removed her hand, Kai realized, and he liked it there. He liked the . . . shit . . . connection.

“The poor woman.”

“She was barely more than a girl,” Kai snapped. “Sixteen, seventeen maybe? Anyway, I just knew that she was on short time, that the gang was almost done with her. I was right. Six weeks I saw her lampin’—”

“What?”

“It’s street talk for standing under a street light—offering blow jobs in exchange for a finger of horse. That’s heroin.”

Kai stared out the big window to the street and watched an older gentleman walking a rat on a rope. Okay, maybe it was a dog, or something that hoped to be a dog when it grew a couple of inches.

But it made a cute picture, the tall man in his long shorts and silly hat walking a dog that could fit into a teacup. Kai took another look and noticed the pink, silky shirt pulled tightly across his broad shoulders and tipped his head when he noticed his odd, mincing walk. Kai craned his head for a better look and lifted his brows at the man’s fishnet stockings and bright pink stilettos.

Okay
, he thought,
whatever blows your hair back.

“Hey, come on back,” Flick said.

Oh, yeah, he had a story to tell. Why had he started this? Damn, there were a million things he’d rather be doing right now, starting with exploring Flick’s luscious, creamy skin.
Time to wrap up this sob story
, he thought. No good ever came from dredging up the past.

“I knew that I was taking a huge risk by helping her when she’d been tossed out of the gang but I couldn’t leave her there, strung out and shaking.” It was either help her or pay for her next score, and he couldn’t do that, not ever again. He’d bought his last finger when he was eight; he knew, better than most, how dangerous that shit was. You learned that lesson when you watched your mother’s eyes roll back in her head as she OD’ed.

Moving the hell on. “I took her to a shelter for abused woman across town, where I knew that she had a chance of getting clean.” He didn’t tell Flick that shortly afterward he’d seen a recruitment office for the military and walked straight on in.

“So, you kind of like . . . mmm . . . what’s the expression? Saved her life?”

She didn’t get it and Kai couldn’t explain . . . Jane had saved him. His helping her had somehow helped him. He had no doubt now, and he’d even kind of suspected then, that if he’d stayed on the streets he might have lasted another six months, maybe a year before someone took him out.

Joining the military had seriously upped the chances of him seeing his twenty-first birthday. And, yeah, it was slightly ironic that he’d gone from one dangerous situation to another, from one type of gang to another. In his eyes, the military was just a bigger, legal gang with government funding and more powerful weapons.

“You saved her,” Flick insisted, emotion casting a sheen over her eyes.

Kai hadn’t expected her to get emotional about this, all starry-eyed. He’d helped a junkie across town and had checked on her a couple of times. It wasn’t anything worth writing home about. Being naïve and stupid and so young, he’d also thought that helping Jane, checking up on her and bullying her into getting better, was a way for him to redeem himself for all the shitty things he’d done up to that point. He’d wanted to enter the Navy, to start a new life, with his head up a little higher, and without dragging along all his past sins with him.

As a child and as a teenager, he hadn’t been a fool—he knew that the information he traded sometimes resulted in loss of life, and definitely in loss of property. His information had helped drugs move through the city, aided girls being sucked into prostitution, and contributed to young men and women dying in drive-by shootings and from drug overdoses. He now understood that helping Jane had been his first, subconscious act to balance out the scales, but he was still a long way from feeling like he’d done enough. He doubted that he ever would feel he had. The crap he’d seen in while he was in the military, the crap he’d
done
, had moved him back into the negative column again. Helping Tally was just him placing another weight in his ongoing effort to balance those scales.

So why wasn’t Flick running? Why wasn’t she standing up and showing him the door? Hadn’t anything he’d said resonated with her? Where was the disgust, the distance he’d expected?

“So what are you going to do about Tally?” Flick asked.

Kai spread his hands. “I’ve suggested she stay here in Mercy for a while. I’m going to try and find her a place to stay, a job. The kid needs some time to find her feet.”

“You are so much better than you think you are.” Flick lifted her hand to touch his jaw and the tips of her fingers rubbed his stubble. “You’re a complication I didn’t expect and don’t know how to deal with.”

Emotion, lust, need arced between them, as tangible as the cooling coffee in the mug in front of him, as audible as the low purr of the display fridge. He was about to lean forward to kiss those upturned lips when a shadow passed by the window. Turning his head, he saw a long tongue lick the windowpane and bright doggy eyes laughing at him through the wet smear.

Kai lifted a finger. “Hold that thought.”

“I’d rather kiss you.” Flick pouted and he nearly relented, really wanting to taste those sulky lips.

“Yeah but if we kiss then we’re going to end up in bed, and that’s complicated, remember?” Kai pushed himself up and tipped his head toward the door. “Besides, we have company.”

Flick frowned. “Who?”

“Your damn mutt.”

Flick muttered an obscenity. “I left him in the backyard . . . Dammit, he must’ve dug a hole under the fence and escaped.”

“He was lucky he didn’t get hit by a car. This is a pretty busy road.”

Kai shook his head at Rufus, who was sitting on his haunches, his interest caught by something down the street. Kai followed the direction of his gaze and saw the old man and the rat and. . . .

Shit!

With a howl, Rufus bounded across the road, ears flapping and tongue lolling, and Kai sprinted to the front door, chasing the woman-he-wasn’t-going-to-sleep-with-again’s dog.

There was something very wrong with this picture, he thought, sprinting down the main street, his eyes on the crazy dog and the squealing gent. He was shouting at Rufus, who was having a fine time trying to hump the miniature dachshund’s head.

Kai ignored the outraged and slightly girly squawks coming from Mr. Pink Stilettos—God, this town!—as he lunged toward Rufus, grabbing his collar and managing, just, to pull him away from what looked like an overcooked hot dog on legs. Rufus howled his distress and looked up at Kai.

Kai looked down to check if the dog was, actually, a she. Luckily for Rufus’s credibility, she was.

Maybe Flick
should
get you fixed
, he thought, placing his hand on Rufus’s rump to get him to sit.

Hell, he was having a silent conversation with a dog. Kai shook his head, tightened his grip on Rufus’s collar to keep him at his side and looked at the older man, who had the hotdog/rat/pseudo dog tucked into his neck. Oh, God, the man was wearing a jeweled collar and a pink shirt with ruffles.

Mercy. Kai closed his eyes, trying hard not to laugh. Cute.

And also completely crazy.

***

Fl
ick was still laughing when she walked into her house. In the hallway, she made Rufus sit and she tried to look stern, but she really couldn’t. She could still see the tableau: hot, sexy, confused Kai; a pissed-off Rufus; and Mr. Greystone frantically petting Candy and alternatively chewing his lip-gloss off and sending Kai you’re-smokin’-hot vibes.

Another laugh erupted and she gave up trying to discipline Rufus. Instead, she pointed him in the direction of the kitchen and his basket and scooped up the calico kitten weaving between her legs.

Cuddling the kitten, she walked into the living room, where Pippa was tucked up in the corner of the couch. The TV was on low and she was flipping through a magazine.

“Oh, Pips, you should’ve seen it. Rufus tried to attack Candy and Kai ran after him and then he saw that it was Mr. Greystone’s day to dress up and he was wearing this sparkly collar and Mrs. G’s pink ruffled blouse and Kai was all ‘
What the fuck?
’”

Mr. Greystone was a high school art teacher, now retired, and Mercy’s favorite cross-dresser. After years of trying to hide her husband’s peccadilloes, Mrs. G finally threw in the towel and compromised: One night a month Mr. G could raid her closet and wear what he liked. Mercy residents looked forward to his eclectic outfits and they were avidly discussed the next morning over coffee. Or now, no doubt, on the online forum. Flick hoped that the anonymous comments would be, at the very least, kind.

Flick waited for Pippa to laugh, but when she didn’t, Flick frowned and walked into the room. Pippa just continued to stare at her magazine, her mouth pulled into a tight line.

“What’s wrong?”

Pippa tossed the magazine onto the floor and jumped to her feet. Her brown eyes were bright with anger and unshed tears and Flick felt her stomach plummet to the floor. “Where do I start?”

Oh, crap, the volume to Pippa’s voice was climbing. Flick could tell that that the storm was about to break. Pippa rarely lost her self-control, but when she did, small animals and big people ran for cover. Flick put the kitten on the back of the chair and sat on the arm of the couch. When Pippa was this upset, the trick was to keep her cool, to keep calm. If she didn’t, the house might not survive.

“I called Mom tonight, as I always do.”

Oh. Crap. This wasn’t good. “How was she?”

“You should know, you spoke to her earlier. When I called she was a bit doped up and she was confused. She thought I was you.”

Of course—because this was her crappy life—she did. Flick, deciding to err on the side of caution, kept quiet.

“She kept begging me, you, not to tell.”

Oh, Gina. Flick stared at the floor, desperately hoping for a distraction. A lightning strike, an epileptic fit, a tornado. She wasn’t picky.

“Care to explain that, Felicity?”

Pippa was using her full name, which meant that she was beyond pissed and well on her way to volcanically furious. “I can’t.” Flick whispered the words.

“What does that mean?”

Flick, thoroughly miserable, thought that her sentence was largely self-explanatory. “She told me something and made me promise to keep it a secret.”

“But we don’t keep secrets from each other,” Pippa said in a low, hard tone. “We don’t, Flick! Ever!”

Flick placed her fist underneath her ribs, trying to rub the burn away. “I know, Pips. But I don’t have a choice.”

“Tell me!” Pippa shouted and Flick closed her eyes.

She shook her head. “I can’t—not yet.”

Pippa walked up to her and gripped her shoulders, her fingernails digging into Flick’s shoulder blades. Flick, understanding how hurt and how angry Pippa was, didn’t resist. She just prayed that this argument wouldn’t rip their friendship apart.