Brawn: Lethal Darkness MC (16 page)

Paris

I was on my knees, working away at a stain on the bottom edge of the oven that refused to yield an inch to my furious scrubbing. I heard the door squawk open and slam shut, followed by heavy, booted footsteps thumping into the room. Only men walked like that, as if they needed the whole world to hear them before they were seen. Men like Micah—full of enough testosterone and bravado to make a whole high school’s worth of teenage boys swoon in jealousy—were the worst offenders.

I was so close to peeling away the stubborn top layer of whatever vile substance had managed to cake itself on the stainless steel when I heard the footsteps come to a stop behind me. I set the sponge down with a sigh, rocked back onto my heels, and blew away the hair that had fallen over my face. Turning around, I saw that Micah was standing and staring at me with his mouth agape.

“If you don’t close your mouth, something’s gonna fly in there,” I remarked.

He blinked hard and came to his senses. “What are you doing?” he asked dumbly.

“Well, what does it look like, Einstein?” I teased. “It’s not like I’m composing a symphony or doing brain surgery over here.”

“You’re cleaning.”

“I thought it was my job to state the obvious around here.”

He closed his mouth, opened it again as if he were going to say something, then stopped and frowned.

“You look way more confused than I would have expected,” I said.

“It’s just…I don’t even know. I never clean.”

“You didn’t have to tell me that. This apartment is a pigsty. How long did you say you’ve had this place?”

“Two weeks.”

“
Two weeks?
” I exclaimed. “Good God, do men just secrete disgusting messes and empty boxes of takeout Chinese, or did you buy all that pre-fab?” He looked even more confused and upset. I laughed. Who would have thought that it’d be so easy to get the infamously cool under pressure Micah Youngblood to fluster? “Never mind,” I said, rescuing him from the need to come up with any kind of reasonable response to such a commonplace domestic activity. “I’m almost done anyway.”

“Okay.” He turned to walk away, but paused. “What’s that smell?” he asked, sniffing the air.

“That would be dinner,” I deadpanned. “Zeke took me to a cooking supplies store today, so I bought a crock pot. I’m not that great of a cook, but those things make it easy for anyone. I bet even you could make something halfway decent.”

He was slowly coming back down to earth after the surprise and confusion I’d apparently inflicted upon him in droves. “That would be a losing bet, I’m afraid. My best dish is cereal.”

“Cereal? That’s it?”

“Well, I make a mean piece of toast, too.”

“Very impressive, Chef Youngblood.”

“That’s
Mister
Chef Youngblood to you.”

“Is that how those titles go?”

“My kitchen, my titles.” He smirked.

I giggled. “Yes, sir. Anything in particular I should know about your highness’s palate?”

“Yes,” he said with utmost seriousness, suppressing a playful grin beneath his scowl. “All meats must be hunted and killed by hand. Vegetables are to be home grown and skinned with a straight razor, none of this
vegetable peeler
nonsense.”

“Do you even know what a vegetable peeler looks like?”

“I wouldn’t be able to point one out if you stabbed me in the face with it.”

I laughed again. “I didn’t think so.” My knees were starting to ache from being pressed against the tile floor of the kitchen. I reached up and planted a hand on the counter to steady myself as I started to rise to my feet, groaning. I’d been crouched over for so long that my right leg was completely numb, and the second I tried to put weight on it, it nearly gave out under me.

Micah saw me beginning to tumble and rushed over immediately, catching me by the crook of my elbow and keeping me upright. “Easy, tiger,” he said. “That first step’s a doozy.”

I blushed. It was fun bantering with him, but I didn’t like to look like such a weakling in his presence, as if I couldn’t even stand up without his assistance. I needed to prove to him that I was perfectly capable of handling my own business, that I wasn’t some whimpering little girl who required doors to be opened and seats to be pulled out for me. My daddy may have been a bastard, but he hadn’t raised a weak daughter, and I was determined to show that to Micah.

Still, it was hard to complain about the gentle pressure of his hand on the bare skin of my arm. He’d hardly touched me since the wedding, but the simplest flesh-on-flesh contact sent a weird mix of heat and shivers racing through me. I smiled uneasily. “I’m okay,” I said. “Besides, none of this would have happened if you didn’t seem so determined to spill what looks like duck sauce all over the front of your oven.”

“It’s soy, I think, but point taken.” He let his hand drop away. I bit my lip and tried not to miss it too much.

I pulled off my gloves one at a time, flexing the cramps out of my hands as they emerged from the sweaty rubber. Stacking them one on top of the other, I slapped both across his chest. “Now, go wash up,” I demanded. “You’re all sweaty and gross.”

“That’s man scent, baby.”

I wrinkled my nose. “Definitely gross.”

He chuckled as he turned and headed for the bedroom. Just before he crossed the threshold, he paused once more and craned his neck back into the living room to look at me incredulously. “Is that a
plant
I see
?
”

“Yes, and you’re going to be in charge of watering it.”

“That’s an awful lot of responsibility.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be the president or something?” I retorted.

“Yeah, but that was an accident,” he called jokingly over his shoulder as he peeled off his shirt and walked through the door into the bedroom. “The reason I got the job was because I was the only bastard dumb enough to take it.”

I stared longingly at the taut muscles of his back before he disappeared. The way the ink roiled with every little motion he made, the confident slope of his shoulders…I shivered again. I could still see the tiny imprints of his fingertips on my arm. I didn’t want to admit it, but Micah Youngblood was chipping away at my defenses. I gulped.
Stay strong, Paris,
I ordered myself.
You’re here, but you’re not his.

Not yet, at least.

I felt myself blushing again. I need to do something, move something. “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop” was one of the things I remembered people in church saying all the time. I hadn’t realized how true that was until right this second. Every tick of the clock that passed while I stood in the kitchen and focused on the lingering smell of leather and musk that Micah had left behind was another nail in the coffin of my ability to resist doing what I wanted to do, which was namely to grab a fistful of Micah’s hair in each hand and devour those perfect lips of his.

Shaking my head to jolt myself into motion, I slid around the kitchen, putting the finishing touches on dinner. I poked around at the pot roast stewing in the crock pot and pulled a tray of sliced potatoes from the oven where they’d been roasting. They were sizzling and golden brown. Their salty smell filled the kitchen, wiping away Micah’s scent, for which I was both grateful and a little disappointed. I set them on top of the stove to cool while I tossed all the cleaning supplies I’d been using into a bucket and scurried over to the storage closet to put them away.

I dropped the bucket and gloves inside, stripped off the apron I’d bought today, and hung that on a hook on the back of the door. Then I closed it behind me and looked around the living room to survey the day’s handiwork.

I had to admit, I’d made a pretty good dent in the monstrous pile of work that had been facing me when I’d first arrived here. A few framed pictures hung on the wall, vases of flowers were dotted along new end tables, and the coffee table, which was once barren, now had an attractive spread of glossy photography books and a cute little Zen garden I’d found tucked away in the back of a knick-knacks shop at the mall. Between the new decorations and the filth I’d scrubbed away, it didn’t feel so much like a cross between a landfill and a monastery. Now, it almost felt like a home. My home. Or rather,
our
home.

That was a bizarre thought. I pushed it away immediately and got to work setting the table.

When the plates and silverware were arranged and the food was plated and ready to be served, I walked over to the bedroom to tell Micah it was time to eat. He was stepping out of the bathroom as I stuck my head in. His hair was sopping wet, droplets flying everywhere as he toweled it vigorously. The motion made his biceps bulge. My eyes traced the path of one thick vein as it wandered from his elbow up to the edge of his chest. Before I could stop myself, my gaze fell, tracking down his mountainous abdomen and coming to rest for the briefest pause between his legs.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry,” I said. I turned beet red as I ducked back into the living room to shield my eyes. “I didn’t mean to walk in on you.” I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or die of embarrassment. It looked like it was my turn to be on the opposite end of the walking-in-on-someone-naked encounter, just like Zeke had done to me earlier. I was positive that astronauts could see how hard I was blushing from space.

I couldn’t quite explain why I felt so mortified. After all, I’d seen him naked before, hadn’t I? That was the cause of this whole mess—the thing growing inside me, the baby he’d put there. But it felt different now. That was a lifetime ago, it seemed like, back when I was a different person with a different path. So much had changed since then. I wasn’t ready to cross that particular bridge for a second time, and I didn’t know if I would ever be ready.

Micah chuckled. “It’s okay. You can come in; I’ve got a towel on.”

I pivoted slowly back into the doorway, not daring to cross the threshold and unwilling to raise my eyes above knee level. “I was just coming to tell you that dinner is ready,” I said in a strangled voice.
 

“Thanks, Paris. I’ll be there in one sec. I just gotta get dressed.”

“Okay,” I whispered. I spun back and walked over to the table to take my seat.

The flush in my face had barely started to die down when Micah came sauntering into the room wearing a fresh white t-shirt and jeans. The shirt was straining to cover his glistening skin, and little beads of water were still embedded in his beard and hair. He opened his eyes wide as he took in the spread of food I’d laid out across the table.

“Holy shit,” he said, “this looks unreal. I don’t even know where to start. I think I’ll have…everything.”

I giggled despite how awkward I felt as he started to grab one serving bowl at a time and dole out massive scoops of green beans, pot roast, and potatoes onto his plate. I watched him, hands in my lap. He picked up his fork, took an alarmingly large swipe through the whole mess, and shoveled into his mouth.

Halfway through chewing, he paused and looked at me. He forced the food down with a big gulp and said in a deadly serious voice, “This is hands down the best food I’ve ever had.”

“You’re just being nice,” I demurred.

“Paris. Look at me.” I raised my eyes to his cautiously. “I don’t screw around with stuff like that. When I say something, I mean it. This is incredible. You didn’t have to do all this. Although,” he added, “I’m sure as hell glad you did.”

“Thanks,” I said shyly. “It wasn’t a big deal.”

Satisfied that I’d begrudgingly accepted his compliment, he turned back to eating. “Where’d you learned to cook like this?” he asked between bites.

“I used to cook with my mom every now and then. She was way better than me. She could make anything taste delicious. I swear, even cereal was better when she made it.”